Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore - Nanette Krentel: Murder Beneath the Bayou Smoke
Episode Date: April 1, 2026In July 2017, 49-year-old Nanette Krentel was found inside her burning home in Lacombe, Louisiana. At first, it appeared to be a tragic house fire. But an autopsy revealed a shocking detail: Nanette h...ad been shot in the head before the fire began and there was no soot in her lungs. She had been alive that morning, running errands and returning to her isolated 100-acre property. So who entered her home, killed her, and set the blaze? In this episode of Clues, Morgan and Kaelyn break down the evidence in the unsolved murder of Nanette Krentel, from gasoline found in the debris and a destroyed security DVR to marriage troubles, threatening letters, and lingering questions about how the investigation was handled. Head over to our Clues YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@CluesPod If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Clues to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Clues is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals including Crime House 24/7, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow us on Social YouTube: @CluesPod | @crimehousestudios Instagram: @cluespodcast | @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia Clues is hosted by Morgan Absher & Kaelyn Moore Instagram: @morgsyabsher | @itskaelynmoore TikTok: @twohottakes | @heartstartspounding Episode Sponsors:A year from today isn’t that far away. Get started now at https://www.HelloAlma.com/clues To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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I'm Dr. Khrini-Bot, host of Hidden History.
Every Monday, I go where history gets uncomfortable,
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This is Crime House.
Nanette Crentel had just retired
and was living her dream life in a beautiful home
on 100 acres of Louisiana Bayou
with her husband, a local fire chief,
when one day her house burned to the ground with Nanette inside.
At first, it looked like a tragic house fire,
but evidence quickly said otherwise.
Today, we are sifting through the ashes and all of the clues amongst them
to figure out what actually happened to Nanette Crentall.
Hi, guys, welcome to clues,
where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence
behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.
I'm Kaila Moore, and I'll be the one digging deeper into the timelines,
the backstories, and the court files released for these cases.
And I'm your internet detective, Morgan Absher.
I'm the one diving into anything I can find online to find those lesser known details and see what is or isn't adding up.
And don't forget to share your thoughts on social.
Want ad-free listening and early access?
Subscribe to Crimehouse Plus on Apple Podcasts.
And make sure to go back and listen to all of our previous episodes wherever you get your podcast.
Now, let's dive in to Nanette Crentel's case and the clues that defined it.
Hey, before we jump back into the show, let's take a quick break.
break. But not just any break. This is a refreshing break with Snapple. We all know about Snapple's
iconic, real facts, so let's take a minute to go over some of my favorites. Snapple Real Fact
964. It is illegal in the United Kingdom to handle salmon in suspicious circumstances.
Snapple Real Fact 1013. It is illegal to sing off-key in North Carolina. Snapple Real Fact
23, Americans consume 150 million hot dogs on July 4th.
Snapple Real Fact 705.
Every ton of recycled paper saves about 17 trees.
So grab a snapple, take a second, and enjoy the moment.
Because let's be honest, this might be the most refreshing part of your day.
Snapple.
Make your break more interesting.
All right, now let's get back to clues.
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Can I shout out a comment we got on our last video?
Oh, literally, I was watching.
Yes, I have one too.
I'm wondering if it's the same one.
Okay, I saw someone say something like,
oh, thank God you guys posted,
I was getting the Clues Blues.
Isn't that the cutest?
That was really cute.
I saw that.
But I also saw someone that posted on our last episode that Beerenbaum was their doctor.
Yeah.
Oh, my, I missed that.
Wait, what did they say?
I literally just got chills.
Yeah, whoa.
What did they say about him?
So I did a case on Hartzorke's Pounding where I talked about a dentist and someone said,
because it was the dentist that poisoned his wife.
It was horrible.
In Denver or Colorado somewhere.
The Colorado dentist and a listener reached out and said, he was my dentist.
He seemed super, like, typical guy, but he got really mean when he pulled out one of my teeth.
Was, like, really aggressive with it.
And she's like, I felt like something was weird about him after that.
So this is coming from Prof. Watt, you.
And they said, Dr. Beerenbaum was my doctor.
I guess he was hiding out pretty successfully during that time.
After he was in prison, he was actually released to perform surgery on a friend of mine, who was his patient,
because she needed an extremely difficult facial reconstruction after an.
accident. I remember him as a caring doctor, but really intense. His dedication saved my friend's
life, but also he is still this guy too. Wow. You know what that reminds me of real quick?
I just saw a video on TikTok that was this woman. She's getting arrested, but she's a hairdresser and
she's bleaching a woman's hair. And she tells the cops, you can't arrest me just now. I have to
go wash the bleach out of my client's hair. And the cops are like, no, no, no, we have to arrest you.
And this woman will get fried off. And she's like, give me 30 minutes to wash this woman's hair out.
And then I will come to jail.
You can take me.
Literally.
And I was like, oh, I wonder because obviously it was going to damage that one's hair.
Oh, you would over process and then it literally would fall out.
I was.
It breaks.
Amazed with this hairdresser.
That's the hairdresser you want.
But with doctors.
Maybe not because she's going to jail.
I know.
Well, listen, like if my hair looks good, commit the crimes on your off time.
But for doctors, like if you're the only doctor in the world that can perform a certain surgery and you go to prison, what happens to your patients?
I wonder if this is more comfortable.
and then we even realize where people get these exemptions to leave to perform insane surgeries.
This is going to be my rabbit hole tonight. I'm going to, this is my deep dive that I'm doing next.
And that didn't come up in any of the research I did. And I was like really getting into obscure stuff about him.
Yeah. So that to me is really crazy. So thank you so, so much for sharing. Yeah, you guys are the best.
If you guys ever have any crazy comments, relations to any of the cases or like one that you want us to put out there, put it in the comments so we can find it and get to it.
and maybe even reach out to you to be like, hey, like, want to hop on a Zoom?
Give us your first-hand experience.
So we're always down.
But let's get into today's case.
Yes.
And as a reminder, if you are watching the episode on YouTube, you're going to see some videos,
some pictures that's going to help you visualize the case.
And if you're listening, you can find all those same pictures of videos on our social media.
That's at Clues Podcast on Instagram, which you should follow anyways.
Yeah, we share a lot of fun stuff over there.
And just a warning before we begin this episode, this episode does contain disclosures.
discussions of suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis or having thoughts of suicide,
you can reach out to 988 and it's the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can call, you can text.
It's 988 for free and confidential support 24-7. This episode also contains discussions about
animal harm. So again, please listen with care. This case starts on Friday morning, July 14, 2017.
The sun rises over the small town of Lacombe, Louisiana, about 50 miles north of New Orleans.
On 100 acres of wooded property is a home belonging to 49-year-old Nanette Crontle and her 48-year-old husband, Steve.
It sits down a long driveway.
It's a pretty isolated home.
It's just how this couple likes it.
That morning was like any other day for the cruntles.
Nanette laid out Steve's clothes for him while he was in the shower.
She went and she packed him his lunch.
And at 7.40 a.m., Steve gathered his bag and his keys.
and he walked out to his work truck with Nanette who kissed him goodbye.
Now, Steve is the fire chief of the St. Tammany Parish, which is basically a county in Louisiana.
As he drives, Steve calls his widowed mother, Maureen, to check in on her.
She lives about 15 minutes away from them with Steve's younger brother, Brian.
Now, Steve's father died this past January.
The wound is still pretty fresh for his mom.
The family is definitely still healing from this.
And after talking to his mom, Steve said that he called Nanette to report how Maureen was doing.
And then he went to the fire station at around 8 in the morning.
Meanwhile, Nanette spent some time around the house with her pets like she always did now that she's retired.
She loved her cats.
They were named Baby Kitty and Smokey.
I'm obsessed with that.
She also had a little chihuahua named Harley.
But around 8.30 in the morning, her red SUV rolls down the driveway and heads towards the nearby town of Slidell, about 10 miles away.
And 15 minutes after that, her SUV turns into.
a McDonald's drive-through. The cashier takes the payment and hands her a coffee and a breakfast
bag. And then the SUV heads back in the direction of Nanette and Steve's house. Just after 9
in the morning, the garage door opens, the SUV pulls in, and the door shuts behind it.
For a couple hours, the street's pretty quiet. But shortly after 2 p.m., there's a kid from
next door who's riding her bike down Annette and Steve's street. And she sees that there's
smoke coming from the Cretel's house. So she runs home to call 911. And at 2.30 p.m., Steve gets a
separate call from his cousin who happens to live right next door to them. And when he hears his cousin
say that his house is on fire, he actually thinks that it's a joke. There's no way that that's
happening to his house. Because remember, Steve's a fire chief. So this whole thing seems ironic.
But once he realizes it's not funny, this isn't a joke, he alerts the rest of the station.
He jumps in a department vehicle and races towards his very own house.
On the way there, he tries to call Annette, but no one answers on the landline, and her cell phone goes straight to voicemail.
It's 2.43 p.m. by the time he pulls up, and he sees that his house is fully engulfed in flames.
Around the same time, the other firefighters arrive, and reports conflict on whether Steve got there first or if the other firefighters got there first.
But either way, when everyone arrives, they immediately start tackling this place.
He said that the scariest part was that he couldn't tell whether or not Nanette was home at the time of this fire.
But moments later, the garage walls start to buckle and soon they just collapse in on themselves, revealing something awful to Steve.
And that's Nanette's red SUV.
It's in the garage.
So he gets the sense that she was home.
Now, she wasn't really the kind of person who would just go for a jog or a bike ride.
So, like I said, Steve knew that she was inside when he saw that.
firefighters carefully make their way to the house and when they get to the master bathroom
that's when they find something even worse and it's nanette's burned body she's lying face up on the
floor and nearby her are the remains of her dog harley firefighters go and they share this
heartbreaking news with steve who's being consoled by other family members in the driveway and then
later that night at about 630 Steve has to share the unfortunate news with nanette's father
Dan Watson, who lives in Iowa. And on this call when he tells Dan what happened, he says that he believes
that this was a tragic accident. That once the house caught fire, Nanette tried to find and rescue her pets,
but she was probably overcome by the smoke. But what nobody knew at the time was there was a lot more to this story.
Before we return to that July day, let's talk a little bit more about who Nanette was, though.
Nanette was born on July 26, 1967, and she grew up along the bayous of New Orleans.
She came from a really big family.
She had four sisters and one brother, and she graduated high school in 1985.
People described her as witty.
She had this really infectious laugh.
People also said she was always the life of the party.
And at her very core, though, Nanette was above all an animal lover.
Her friend said, quote, her pets were her kids.
And I really love this story that I heard about Nanette because it really encapsulates who she was.
but on a hot summer day, she and her father stopped out of post office once, and a man had left his dog in a parked car with the windows rolled up.
My biggest, I hate when I see that, it's horrible.
But Nanette goes inside to speak with the guy, even though her father sort of discouraged her from getting involved.
And a few minutes later, Nanette and the guy came out of the post office and they were smiling.
The man thanked her.
He promised he would never leave his dog in a parked car again.
And it seemed like not only was Nanette willing to fight for what she believed in, but she did it with a lot of patience.
and respect. She was very respectful in the way she talked to people. She was not accusatory.
So it's no wonder that Nanette had built a lot of strong friendships over the years,
but one of these stood out among the rest. And that's in 1994, 27-year-old Nanette
walked into a picture frame store looking for a job, and she met the owner there,
26-year-old Steve Crentel. He hired her, and they immediately clicked. But at the time,
Steve was married and he also had a young son. But regardless, the friendship eventually turned into a
relationship. And by 1995, Steve had divorced his wife and he married Nanette. She became stepmother to
Steve's son, Justin, who was just two years old at the time. And while they shared custody with Steve's
ex-wife, Nanette did her best to love and support Justin like he was her own. And then in 1997,
Steve sold this store and he joined the fire department. He spent years working.
there until he eventually climbed the ladder and became the fire chief. Meanwhile, after the store closed, Nanette found work as a preschool teacher. She absolutely loved working with kids. She became one of the most sought after teachers in the area. And then in 2000, when Nanette was 33 and Steve was 32, they finally had enough money to start building their dream house. They bought 100 acres of land. And as someone who lives in a city, that seems like an outrageous amount of property. I can't even visualize 100 acres in my head.
And in this area, there was a ton of wildlife, which was great for Nanette because she loved animals.
So she had all of this in her backyard.
And then the couple settled in what they believed was their forever home.
And for years, their life followed a pretty steady routine.
Nanette filled her days with teaching, with tending to the house, with caring for her animals,
and helping to raise Justin part-time.
And then after 14 years at her job, Nanette retired from the preschool.
And now her days were spent making pies and brownies and bringing them to Steve at the fire station.
She even made ceramic plates and she would auction those off for cystic fibrosis.
Eventually, Justin did grow up and he moved out. He started a life on his own.
And Annette and Steve were looking forward to a life of retirement together.
But that was until July 14, 2017, which was just 12 days before her 50th birthday.
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Now back to the day of, around 3 p.m. on July 14th, 2017,
firefighters found Nanette Crentel dead in her burning home.
She was lying face up in the bathroom of the primary bedroom, not far from her animals.
For safety reasons, officials weren't able to remove Nanette's body from the scene until 9 p.m. that
night.
And the following morning, that's July 15, 2017, St. Tammany Parish coroner, Dr. Charles Preston confirmed her identity with DNA evidence,
and he began his autopsy on Nanette.
Trigger warning for this next section, friends, it does contain some graphic descriptions of Nanette's autopsy.
Now, Nanette had been very, very badly burned, honestly, to the point of not really being recognized, which is why they did use their in-house DNA lab to confirm her identity.
And this was obviously going to make the autopsy a lot more challenging for Dr. Preston.
Now, extreme heat can split the skin, tissue can be altered, a lot of injuries can be masked.
And while Dr. Preston may have had to work a lot harder than usual to unravel the truth,
it did not take long to find some critical discoveries, which brings us to our first and maybe the most
revealing clue of this case. As he examines Nanette, Dr. Preston finds a single gunshot wound on her right
temple. There's no exit wound, which means the bullet is still in her skull, and so he carefully
retrieves it and determines that it's from a small caliber weapon, probably a handgun,
but he's going to have to send it out for more testing before really knowing anything.
else. Here's where things get a little interesting for us, though. To the average bear, we're
probably sitting here and we're like gunshot wound to the head, a fire. Immediately our alarm bells
are kind of ringing with suspicion or what happened. Yeah. Despite the findings from that autopsy,
the crime scene ends up being released that same night, July 15th, 2017. And explain to the viewers what
you mean by released. So typically crime scenes are cordoned off. They're, you know, taped up. They're
not allowed to be accessed by anyone but investigators, not family, not homeowners, no one.
A crime scene should only, in theory, be released after investigators are absolutely certain. All
evidence has been gathered. Nothing else can be contaminated. They want to make sure they've got everything
they need. Of course, this is an investigation. This is not what happened.
So it's our first mark on this.
Hit it on the botched.
On this botched board.
There's one for us.
So they released it.
Steve ends up hiring his own private fire investigator who examines the house two days after
Annette's death on the 16th.
But this is when they actually find some of the bodies of her cats along with a shotgun,
which is actually our second clue, which just goes to show, again, why this is on the botched board.
Like, you released a scene before even gathering all the evidence.
Yeah. You're finding family and another PI is finding stuff in the rubble. Guns. Yeah.
Yeah. And as I mentioned, Nanette's family is also there. Family. Not even investigators. Family. And they're strolling through, seen, again, totally unsecured. And they also spot an assault rifle in the rubble. So there's, I mean, there's guns everywhere. Yeah. Steve and Nanette did have a pretty vast gun collection. I believe. I believe.
believe they had 30 guns. A lot of those were locked in the case. And early firefighters on the scene
could see that safe, the gun safe, in the fire. So to find all these other guns kind of scattered
around, yeah. It's very unusual. Right. And you would think that that's really important evidence that
they would want to test. Exactly. There's also something that has been missed and left behind after
recovering Nanette's body. And it wasn't until two more days after that that the fire marshal and
the sheriff's office actually re-secured the scene. It just begs the question of like, why did we
release it in the first place? Exactly. Without thoroughly investigating. Huge question lingering over
everything right now. Especially after the autopsy results. And Steve even tells investigators,
Nanette and him were very experienced with firearms. They collected them. Nanette knew how to
shoot. She practiced all the time. She was actually so comfortable.
with guns that she had five or six that she used regularly just herself. She even texted her sister
Kim at one point and said, quote, I have one in my purse, my car, on my nightstand, and in each room.
She was a gun enthusiast. Yeah, wow. She loved a gun. And her family even knew that she never
left the house without one. But again, it's not until almost a week later that investigators
really start treating this like a potential crime scene. And at this point, they do finally discover
Nineette's 40 caliber handgun. It's the same one that she carried with her everywhere.
It's the gun they're thinking that Nanette might have used. And so the lead investigators start
coming up with another theory. Could Nanette have lit the fire and then died by suicide?
It's just a hunch at this moment. Obviously, they have to start collecting all these weapons so they can
really try and test them. In the meantime, investigators turn to Nanette's friends and family to
try to understand her behavior and maybe her mindset before she died. And some of them, like her friend
Lori Randot, tell detectives that Nanette had actually been pulling away from people over the last
few months. She said that Nanette's family had seen less of her and she had actually been
cutting off contact, it seemed like. They said that she seemed a bit down and potentially depressed.
Steve provided a possible reason. He said that Nanette had always wanted kids. But despite seeking
medical help over the years, she and Steve were never able to conceive. It had gotten even harder
lately as they started to see their friends have grandchildren. But Steve, as well as other members of
her family, agree they didn't think that Nanette would die by suicide. There wasn't anything
about her that indicated that was a possibility, at least, especially not now and not over that,
if that was the reason. He insisted that Nanette had found an outlet by working at a preschool.
He said that she had a lot of things going on in her life to look forward to, and there were so many things that she took pride in.
And she would have not destroyed their home and everything in it.
And also, the big thing that he brought up was she certainly would not have taken the lives of her beloved pets.
Absolutely not.
I mean, she was a huge animal lover, and this was Baby Kitty, Smoky, and Harley.
There's no way.
He really did not think that that was even a possibility that she would do that to them.
Still, police figured that there was a way to get to the bottom of the.
suicide theory quickly, and that was by revisiting Nanette's autopsy.
So at this point, investigators need to evaluate if Nanette could have indeed started the fire
and then taken her own life. Was this a cover-up? And they knew that if Nanette was alive while the
fire was burning, there would be signs of that in her air passages. And that brings us to our third clue.
Dr. Preston examined Nanette's throat and lungs during the initial autopsy, and he found
no soot or particulate matter anywhere in her airways.
Immediate red flag.
Immediately.
I mean, huge.
I had an initial thought, though, and I was like, okay, could she have had a mask on?
Could she have started this fire and gotten further enough away from it quickly enough?
Yeah, I mean, it's wild to think.
Like, maybe she had a mask and still was able to start it and, you know, do that.
There's also another test that could have been performed where they actually,
could have checked the carbon dioxide levels in the blood. And I know a lot of you out there are like
after the fire and the way in which she was found, like, my first thought was like, would there
even be blood in her body still, given the severity of this fire? And yes, you can still have blood
in a burned body. Obviously, fire causes extreme dehydration, destroys tissues, but you can
often still find fluid blood in vessels of the heart.
even in significantly burned cases.
Wow.
Intense heat can also cause blood to boil and create heat-induced hematomas, particularly
within the skull.
So they could have potentially performed that carbon dioxide level test.
However, in all of the research I went through, like, I wasn't able to find out if that
test was performed on the net.
Yeah. Dr. Preston might have just seen, hey, no particular matter and been like, we're good
here.
Mm-hmm.
There's no signs that she was alive when this fire was started.
Right, right.
Dr. Preston did also look for signs of assault on Nanette,
thinking if this was a homicide, maybe there would be more physical evidence.
But again, her remains were too badly burned to tell.
He also sent his report off to the Louisiana office of the state fire marshal
and the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Department,
who at this point are now both working on this case.
But he doesn't release his findings publicly yet.
Even so, one thing is now super clear.
Nanette Crentel was, according to Dr. Preston, killed before the fire started.
And whoever set that blaze is likely the same person that pulled the trigger.
So on July 21st, 2017, the family hosted a memorial service for Nanette Crentel at St. Michael's Episcopal Church, which was about 20 miles from their home.
This is where Nanette taught preschool for 14 years.
It was incredibly sentimental.
It held a lot of special value to everyone.
Her body was still in the custody of the coroner,
so Steve carried an empty box into the service,
which makes me want to cry just reading about.
But then, towards the end of the memorial,
guests started receiving news alerts on their phones.
The St. Tammany-Paris Sheriff's Office
had just put out a press release containing the results of Nanette's autopsy.
And right then and there, at her service,
her friends and family learned that she did not die in the fire.
Remember, everyone at this point thought
the fire was the thing that killed her. They learned that she died from a gunshot wound to the head.
Batched. I mean, family should not ever find out crucial, sensitive information on their loved ones
from a news alert and especially not while they're at at loved ones funeral service. So that's another
mark on our botched board. We're up to two at this point. Around the same time, the results come back
on the bullet that was found in Nanette's skull,
and it did not match a single gun found at the site.
None of the guns that were found in the rubble.
It was not a match.
As mentioned, by now, both the sheriff's department
and the fire department are running their own investigations
into Nanette's death.
But when Nanette's family asked which department was in charge of the scene,
the fire department said that it was the sheriff's department,
and the sheriff's department said that it was the fire department.
The whole thing was a mess.
No one was taking ownership of this.
No.
And like even from when Steve hired his private fire investigator, they have drone footage. And it just shows the change in the scene from initial when they released it to even a couple days later. The scene was so vastly different. How much did they miss?
Right. Of course. And when you miss something at that level, too, you're not going to be able to rediscover it. No. This left Nennett's family feeling very frustrated, rightly so.
Meanwhile, a publication called the Louisiana Voice was looking into other cases that were handled by the fire department.
And they claimed that the fire department had history of mishandling investigations.
They said, quote, state fire marshal's office was slacking big time.
And they listed the botches that were committed during the first week of the investigation, which we have, I guess, too, but it really encompasses like all of the botches in that first part of the investigation.
For example, they said a perimeter was not set up to security.
the crime scene around Annette's house, botched, that the fire marshal investigators lacked
proper equipment and experience to handle such a complex scene, botched, that the lead investigator
had no experience and was not comfortable handling a death investigation botched. And they also
mentioned how Henry Rayborn, one of the state fire marshal investigators on the scene,
resigned after confronting fire chief Brandt Thompson on the issue of lack of training,
experience, et cetera, botched. I know. What does that put us up to? Five?
I don't know. At that point, that was at least three or four.
So apparently Henry Rayburn, the inspector assigned to the lead fire investigation, told the fire chief, Brandt Thompson that he was in over his head.
He had no experience with the death investigation and he wanted to bring in someone more qualified.
As you should. Yeah, that's great. Exactly. Always admit your knowledge gaps and bring in an expert.
But the fire chief Thompson objected and then the discussion got pretty heated and eventually Rayburn got so fed up that he said he was
resigning and just hung up the phone.
Honestly, good on him.
Put your foot in the sand.
And apparently at that point, the state fire marshal, Butch Browning, started to worry that
Rayburn would begin talking to the media.
So Browning called Rayburn and he asked him to reconsider his resignation, but Rayburn
refused.
And it was this series of events, at least partially, that forced the sheriff's department to
release the autopsy results earlier than they wanted, resulting in everyone learning at the
funeral what was going on.
Luckily, the bad press wasn't going to stop.
them from trying to solve this mystery. They did end up bringing in a team of dogs to try to sniff out
how and where the fire started. These dogs were actually trained to spot ignitable liquids like
gasoline, kerosene, lighter fluid, and even in very small amounts that electronic detectors can
actually miss. Again, the dogs, they are locked in. And one of those dogs found our fourth clue.
There was gasoline throughout the living room and the primary bedroom.
And again, trigger warning for mention of animals, you guys.
Like, again, please skip if you can't hear this.
But to tell you how dire this was, there was an accelerant that was even put on some of the animals.
It was everywhere.
I mean, at this point, it is so clear that this fire was very intentionally set.
Whether the accelerant came from somewhere in the house or if it was brought there by the killer,
that is a whole mystery. They have no idea.
Wow. I remember when I was in college, I took a forensics class, and we had a fire investigator,
forensics investigator, come in. And I remember them saying, too, you know, a lot of people
set fires because they think that all the evidence burns away. But fires are one of the easier
things to figure out where they started, how they started, who started it. He was like,
if you light a fire, we will find you. We will, we know exactly what you used, where you said it.
It's incredible how they're just able to figure out, like to map an entire crime scene and figure out where all the accelerant was.
And you would think it would all burned away.
It's absolutely mind-blowing.
And they did figure out a lot based on their scene.
Even, you know, when you see pictures of the home and the wreckage, like this was catastrophic.
And the dogs actually ended up leading to something even more interesting.
The dogs led to a DVR.
player in the primary bedroom, which, according to the dogs, reeked of gasoline. That DVR is our fifth
clue. The device had been hooked up to a 42-inch monitor, and it played feeds from multiple cameras
that were set up around the property. There were nine cameras, to be exact, and it basically
showed a 360-degree view around the home. No one could approach this home without being captured
on that system. Plus, it set off an alert. I mean, it was a lot of, I mean,
it was a very high-tech system. And these cameras all fed in to a digital video recorder,
aka the DVR, where the footage was then stored locally, rather than on the internet up in a cloud,
all right there in that little box. So if the DVR was ruined, it meant there was no backup,
no way to find that footage anywhere else gone. And Nanette trusted this system. She even told her father
on multiple different occasions. Quote, as long as I have my guns and the cameras and I'm at home,
I'm safe. So whoever entered the house that day, one, was likely captured on those cameras,
two, the footage probably went then to the DVR and was recorded, and three, they knew exactly
where that DVR was located to then pour accelerant all over it and make sure it was destroyed.
I will tell you another part of our botched, this DVR was left behind on the initial search.
Oh, God.
They did not grab that DVR upon initial search.
It really hurts.
Despite the damage, the sheriff's department sent the DVR off to the FBI to see if they could recover any data.
Unfortunately, the FBI didn't offer much help.
There was nothing useful that could be recovered.
Regardless, it's kind of looking like an inside job or someone with very intimate knowledge.
of this house and where things were located.
You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind.
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What if everything you learned in history class was only half of the story?
I'm Dr. Herini Bot. I started as a clinical pharmacist, and somewhere along the way, I became obsessed with the mysteries that history never fully solved.
That's exactly why I created Hidden History, a Rewind Studios original podcast powered by Pave Studios.
Every Monday, I go where history touches the unknown, vandal civilizations, doomsday prophecies, paranormal phenomena, and events that science still can't fully explain.
I'll give you historical context, I'll break down the science, I'll even interrogate the supernatural.
I treat these moments like open case files, not miss, not superstition, just incomplete explanations waiting for a closer look.
And I'll ask the question, what if this happened today?
Hidden History drops every Monday, follow now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you never miss a mystery.
So naturally, the police are always going to look at those closest to the suspect first.
And in this case, that person happened to have a lot of experience with fire.
And that was Nanette's husband, Steve.
Before he was fully investigated, detectives wanted to take a closer look into Nanette's final hours to make sure that nothing was missed.
She was a creature of habit.
She usually drove to the same McDonald's and ordered the same thing for breakfast every morning.
It seemed like she did that on the morning of her death too.
surveillance video from a property near that McDonald's in Slidell showed a red 2011 GLK Mercedes 350 SUV rolling through the drive through that morning.
The footage was grainy so they couldn't confirm for sure if it was actually Ninette behind the wheel.
But a small dog appeared to be inside the vehicle.
And this could have been her dog Harley, who she took with her everywhere.
Plus her cell phone data and credit card activity also placed her at that McDonald's at the time.
It's unclear if anyone working at the McDonald's was able to confirm.
firm that they helped her. Investigators told the family that they were planning to release the
video to the public, but they wanted to wait until they had tried to locate other people from the
drive-through line. The video has never been released to the public, though, which did astonish
some of her family. Yeah, it feels like that honestly could be a bit of a botched, too. We've seen
in so many cases how much the public can help and how much releasing a video can jog people's
memory. Well, also, too, I'm like with someone at that drive-thru and followed her home, I'm like,
we really... Why hasn't that footage? We got to look more into the McDonald's. Yeah, they should
have done more with that footage. I know. If someone went through the line behind her, why are we not
looking at other transactions? It's interesting. There was also confirmation of Nanette coming home.
One of their neighbor's security cameras recorded the SUV heading back to the Krentel house at approximately
9-11 that morning. After that, phone records show two outgoing calls.
calls from Nanette's cell phone later that day. One was at 10.03 a.m. to a local Kmart. And when
authorities contacted the Kmart, they learned that this call was a request to refill a prescription.
Future plans. Planning in the future to pick up medication and take that medication. The Kmart
employee who took that call did not know Nanette's voice, so they couldn't confirm for sure
that it was her. But there was another call placed from Nanette's phone at 1.30 p.m. to an
unknown number. And that call went unanswered. This was just an hour before a neighbor saw smoke
coming from her house. Police tracked down that number to see who it was, but the woman said that
she actually didn't know Nanette or Steve. So police just assumed that this was a misstile.
Around September 2017, the coroner's office and sheriff's office had a bit of a stalemate.
Quote, a Louisiana coroner says somebody killed a fire chief's wife before her house burned down.
The sheriff says his investigation doesn't necessarily confirm that Nanette Crentel's death was a homicide.
This is a quote from one of the local papers, and it's just showing how disconnected they are.
You have the coroner saying, this is not a suicide.
This is a homicide.
You have the police publicly saying, nope, coroner's wrong.
We still think suicide.
Wild.
As a result, Dr. Preston said Nanette's remains were sent to the forensic anthropology and computer enhancements.
Services Lab at Louisiana State University after his initial autopsy.
Its report arrived in early September, which leads us to our sixth clue, the additional autopsies.
Preston said that he asked a second pathologist to conduct an autopsy, and a pathologist hired
by Crentel's father and sisters conducted one as well. He said that the independent pathologist
didn't disclose his findings, but did agree to send his report to Preston's office.
So everyone's corroborating. He's getting all of the details. There's now three different
autopsies that have been completed. And this is a quote from Dr. Preston, quote, even before the second
and third autopsies and the Faces Lab report, there was adequate evidence to rule the death of homicide.
Because of the complexity and sensitivity of the investigation, however, we wanted to give this
case the utmost attention and thoroughness. The victim's remains have now undergone three autopsies
and a forensic reconstruction.
Based on information I have received from Faces Anthropologists,
the State Fire Marshal, and R2 pathologists,
I am entirely comfortable in declaring this death a homicide.
Wow. Wow.
Three autopsies, reconstruction.
I mean, science-backed.
And then, of course,
Sheriff Randy Smith does his own press conference and says,
quote, at this time, the sheriff's office investigation does not necessarily support the coroner's conclusion in this case.
I'm going to hit it on the botch board again. This is, it's so frustrating to hear.
To be publicly, outwardly. I mean, I just keep thinking of the family. Like, I keep thinking of her family to hear from the coroner, this was absolutely a homicide.
And then to have the sheriff come forward and say, we don't necessarily agree with that. It's just, it's emotional torture for them.
It is psychological warfare.
I mean, you're getting hope that maybe there's an answer.
Maybe there's justice to be served.
That there's someone out there who needs to be caught and brought to justice for this.
And then the sheriff is like, actually, we're not really going to investigate this anymore.
What's to investigate?
We know exactly what happened.
Yet the science is pointing you a different direction.
So at this point, I mean, it's very unclear what the sheriff's office is investigating, if anything.
But regardless, like at least they start digging a little.
And that brings us to Nanette and Steve's relationship.
As detectives looked closer into the couple, they discovered our seventh clue, marriage troubles.
It turns out, Steve had been having at least one affair, and they didn't have to dig very hard to learn about it.
I guess on Steve's first day back to work after Nanette's death, someone complained that he had been having a relationship with a subordinate and had done
other, quote, unethical things around the station, like destroying and stealing work property
and even intimidating other employees.
Yikes.
Now, Nanette knew that this affair was going on and that the person worked with Steve at the
firehouse.
In fact, she had actually seen the two of them getting a little too close for comfort
while she was visiting the station.
and maybe one of the times she brought him baked desserts, pies that she had spent all day baking
for him.
She told her best friend, Lori Randow, that she didn't know what she was going to do, but that she
was definitely planning on talking him about it.
Many of Nanette's family were aware that she was actually thinking of leaving the marriage.
Steve now did acknowledge to the police, you know, this is true, but insisted that it had
had nothing to do with Nanette's death.
He actually fessed up.
to two relationships, one 10 years ago and the other two years ago. But as this is all coming out,
it reminds Nanette's friend Lori of something strange that happened the night before Nanette died.
On July 13th, 2017, Lori says that she was chatting on Facebook with Nanette. They talked for a
couple of hours, and then at around 10.30 p.m., Nanette's Facebook messages abruptly stop. This kind of
makes police wonder if something happened to Nanette the night before she was discovered in her
burning home. Keep in mind, Nanette's time of death has not been confirmed, making them think it was
possible for her to be killed the night before and then the fire to be set the following day.
And we don't have proof that she was the one driving the car the following day. It could have been
someone else. It could have been someone else. And family in interviews and other sources I've
heard from do kind of question that. They're like, the video was so grainy. How?
do we know?
Yeah.
They haven't confirmed it was her.
Mm-hmm.
So there is some, I don't know, reasonable doubt, at least in their minds there.
Yeah.
And as they dive further, they're starting to learn even more about Steve and his past
behaviors that feel super alarming.
For example, there's actually another firefighter named Tom Williamson that had complained
about Steve a year before the murder.
Allegedly, when Tom had returned to his truck one day, there was a bullet casing left
right beside it. And to him, he felt like this was sending a message. Someone's trying to send him a message.
He admitted he couldn't prove it was Steve, but the fact that the department didn't take any of Tom's
complaints or the threats seriously kind of made him think it had to be Steve since he was senior
ranking. Now, again, hearing all of this, investigators can no longer ignore Steve as a person
of interest. Steve knew it too. So he did something surprising. He actually,
asked to take a polygraph test. Again, we've talked at length about how these can be unreliable,
so take it with a grain assault, but according to them, he passed. On top of this, we know the
timeline of Nanette's final hours, and they seemed to prove that she was alive after he left
for work. Not to mention his alibi checks out. Steve's coworkers confirmed that he was at the station
by 8 a.m. that morning, and there's cameras at the fire station that proved his alibi all day.
The St. Tammany pair of sheriff's detective told Nett's family in August 2018 during an update on the investigation,
the following, quote. His cell phone was plotted by the FBI. He goes to the fire station. He's around
the fire station. Several people at the fire station accounted for him throughout the day, went and met
some people at Outback, and was plotted back to the fire station before he got the call that his house was on fire.
end quote seemingly airtight now assuming nanette was the one who drove her car and made those calls she had to have been alive until at least one 30 p.m. when she called that mystery number so on september 14th 2017 two months after the murder police announced that steve is no longer a suspect in nanette's murder so where do they go from here well with steve having his name cleared he is more
ready than ever to get justice for his wife. But as police look closer into Nanette's own
messages, they find another clue. Clue number eight for us, a potential stalker. Roughly two and a
half weeks before her death, Nanette emailed her dad saying that she was afraid she was being
followed. Nanette then actually sent her dad a picture of an unknown man near their gate to their
like driveway. In the email, Nanette wrote, quote, this was the day I got out to get the mail and looked up and this man was walking
towards me. He just looks creepy. Nanette also told her father that she found items suggesting that someone
had been on the property. She found a knife and a cigarette butt. None of her family smokes. So very
concerning. And again, this is a hundred acre property. Like it's... And there's just a knife too. A knife?
She, according to friends and family, had mentioned these items to Steve.
He essentially told her like, hey, don't worry about it.
But Nanette wasn't so sure.
She actually kept those items on hand somewhere just in case.
But again, with the fire and not knowing where she hid them, those items were never recovered.
But it is enough for police to wonder, did someone have it out for Nanette?
Are there enemies that they didn't know of that could be potential suspects?
And there was a big one that ended up standing out to them.
Nanette's friend, Lori Randow, said she received multiple emails from Nanette over the years
about how she was afraid of her stepson, Justin, which is our ninth clue.
Steve's first marriage was rocky.
I mean, he left his wife for Nanette.
And because of that, Nanette and Justin didn't exactly get off on the best foot.
allegedly, Justin also had some behavioral problems. And while Nanette did her best to nurture him,
it wasn't something Justin really wanted. I mean, I think we all know out there, even maybe hearing a
Reddit story from two outtakes, like family relationships can be strained. And when they start on this
foot, it's going to be tumultuous likely. Yeah. And so as they're going through, they see messages from
Nanette saying how Justin was going to go join the Navy, how he had been doing some target.
practice at the shooting range. And she wrote, quote, scary to me on so many levels.
Woof. Like all caps on that end. Yeah. So many levels, all caps. In my experience, just like kind of
growing up in a small town when people are afraid of someone wanting to join the military,
that's usually a huge red flag. Like this person should not be trusted with guns.
It's a position of power. It's, you know, you, you worry. Justin also had a nine millimeter in his
possession and was able to get a concealed weapons permit. Now, while Justin did eventually grow up,
move out of the house, according to Nanette, Justin was not welcome at the home unless Steve was there.
That was a rule of hers. And Steve did admit that there was tension with his son, mainly because he
met Nanette when he was still with his ex-wife. But he says that there were no major red flags to him.
He didn't see them. He even went on to say that a lot of these.
these issues had been resolved before Nanette's death. This wasn't a recent issue. So whatever she
said to Lori, it's not really relevant now. Of course, police still had to rule Justin out as a
suspect. They did find he had a solid alibi. The now 23-year-old Justin was working in Virginia
at the time of Nanette's death. He and his wife even drove down to Louisiana after hearing about
the fire. Because of this, police no longer considered him a person of interest.
But again, they keep looking and they find another suspect.
And that is Steve's brother, Brian.
And that is our 10th and final clue.
It turns out, Brian had been to jail quite a few times.
He had been arrested at least 36 times, had 15 convictions, many of them for violent crimes,
including the assault of a police officer and multiple DWIs, among other things.
And it was no secret that there maybe was some strained relations between Brian, Stephen Nannette.
Steve had his dream wife, house, job, life.
Brian didn't really have any of that.
But despite that, whenever Brian would get in trouble,
Stephen Nannette kept helping him out and Brian kept reaching out to them.
So there was still some sort of relationship there.
But that kind of changed on November 2nd, 2015, about a year and a half before Nannette.
that night, Brian had been drinking and driving, and his car got stuck in a ditch. So he called
Steve and Annette and asked them, hey, can you come pull me out? But police arrived on the scene
before they could get there. And they found drug paraphernalia in Brian's car. Brian, at that point,
already being on probation, was charged with his fourth DWI. Brian went to jail for two years after
that. And he mostly blamed Nanette. He said that she was the one who ratted him out to police. So from
prison, Brian is sending Nanette letters. And just a trigger warning, there is a mention of
essay here. In the letter, he talked about sexually assaulting Nanette, killing her and Steve,
and burning their house down. Clearly a deranged individual.
E. Clearly. Now, Nanette and Steve did everything in their power to keep Brian behind bars after this, even going as far as begging the prison itself. But in November 2016, around nine months before Nanette's death, Brian was released on good behavior. He finished serving his sentence on house arrest at his parents' home, only 15 miles from Steve and Nanette's place. And Steve was actually so worried for his parents that he even put up cameras in and around.
their house. And Nanette's fear of Brian was actually a big reason that she carried a firearm for
protection. The reason she kept a pistol next to her bed. In an email, Nanette wrote, quote,
Brian is capable of anything. And someone that has nothing to lose is full of hate, uses drugs,
makes threats, is a loose cannon. Now, at this time, Brian did have to wear a location and alcohol
monitoring bracelet, and this bracelet actually had geo-fencing technology. So if Brian came within
a thousand feet of their property, the police would be notified. So Nanette, she at least felt better
about that. There's some peace of mind knowing that if he tried to come on site, they would get
an alert. Yes. But once she discovered that cigarette butt and that knife on her property,
she didn't really have that piece of mind anymore. And again, that's so weird to have pop up.
and that wasn't the only weird thing happening on their property.
There was actually a transformer on their property that had gone out twice in just a few weeks.
And the repair person who came out and fixed it said that it appeared to have been intentionally broken.
And then as Steve is looking into his brother's bracelet, just a few months after Nanette's death, he discovers something terrifying.
The alcohol monitor on Brian's bracelet worked, but the location tracking feature had never been activated.
Huge botched.
Never been turned on.
Huge, huge botch.
Meaning he could have easily been on their property without the police ever knowing.
Now, remember the cameras Steve installed at his parents' house before Annette's death to keep an eye on Brian.
Brian was seen on those cameras at his parents' house at the time of the fire.
However, Nanette's family has serious questions about those cameras.
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Annette's family was extremely concerned about whether the fact that that camera footage showing Brian at the house that day was ever authenticated. How do we know that the time stamp wasn't changed?
Right. How do we know it's not old? How do we know the date's not set? Right. Was it verified? Is it real? And this is what one of the detectives told the family during a meeting.
meeting in August 2018. Quote, the time displayed on the DVR corresponds with the current time.
What does that even mean? Like, it's right? I mean, it's set. I mean, again, like, we all know
in this present day how much we can hack things, how much you can manipulate things. Like, was it
authenticated? Did it get sent to the FBI? The ones with all the tools. Like, who verified this?
I know. And we already know how horribly this investigation is going and how lazy everyone involved
this being. Yeah. And they really tried to grill down and try to verify during this meeting whether
the DVR was forensically examined to see if the date was changed, if the video had been edited.
And at the time of the meeting, detective said that the FBI had not examined it. Wow.
botched. Whether they ended up submitting it for further testing is unknown. Sheriff Smith did
decline to answer the questions when they were asked. And at this point, the detective is
basically telling anyone that'll ask family journalists, you know, at this point in time,
we've decided to refrain from answering any further questions or making further comments as
this is still an open, active investigation. Both Stephen Bryan at this point have taken polygraph tests.
And there is something to note that at the time of Annette's death, at the time of this fire,
Brian didn't have a car. So a lot of people are pointing to that being like, he didn't have a car.
But despite not having a car, Brian did show up at the fire scene.
I mean, there's cars you can borrow.
His parents' car.
He has friends.
Like, that doesn't, to me, at least, say anything.
No.
Despite all of this, everything we have, Brian was cleared of suspicion.
And after this, Nanette's case really hits a wall.
But her family did everything they could over the years to get her justice.
Nanette's sister, Kim Watson, is a criminal prosecutor in Iowa.
and her boyfriend Randy was a volunteer firefighter,
so they enlisted their strong connections to keep her case alive.
They had to fight every step of the way.
It was not easy, even just to get her remains back.
They learned secondhand that her body had been released,
still with no official cause of death.
So Kim and her dad had their own private investigator and medical examiner
sent to Louisiana to examine Annette's remains
and obtain a court injunction to stop her cremation.
They were just going to cremator.
which obviously not a lawyer.
I say that quite a bit.
And I love you lawyers chiming in the comments.
I have seen you.
You're teaching me so much.
I really appreciate it.
But it does seem so wild that a county, a medical examiner,
could control or determine the potential outcome of a body.
Like it wouldn't even go to next of kin.
Right.
And maybe that's case by case, county by county.
But it's pretty baffling.
Really upsetting.
And they're dealing with.
the loss of their loved one and now have to get an injunction?
Just every single step of this whole process has been so traumatizing for her family.
I cannot help but think of them in this entire case.
It's horrible.
And I mean, the private autopsy that they had conducted confirmed what they already suspected
and what the medical examiners had been saying this entire time.
And that's that Nanette had been murdered.
But as of today, her case remains open.
Officials haven't named any other suspects or persons of interest in her case.
since Brian. And professionally, Steve's had a bit of a hard time since Nanette's passing. In May of
2018, he was demoted from his position of Fire Chief and suspended without pay for 60 days. This was
after the board met for three hours on how to discipline Steve for his inappropriate relationship
with a co-worker, amongst other things like taking department equipment. He was also ordered to
reimburse a district for two air conditioning units that he stole. A month later, Steve announced his
retirement. Yeah, he kind of resigned to kind of just put it.
all behind him. Let's move. Let's move past this. This was just two days after the St. Tammany
Sheriff's Office requested documents from the fire department on their ongoing investigation
into Ninnett's death. But there are so many loose ends and lingering questions that have
us wondering and the families and a lot of people involved in this wondering. Steve hired two
private investigators to look into NNet's death, one for the fire, another for the homicide. He
declined to share the information that they gathered saying he has shared the homicide
Investigators report with the STPSO. One interesting thing about this case is how many investigators
have gotten fired over it. Yeah. Let us explain that part. Let's get into this. So there was one federal
agent who actually reached out to the family to try and help. His name was Jerry Rogers. He also
happened to be a former STPSO detective. He emailed the family anonymously to say that some of the
investigators on the case were a little too close for comfort. Yeah. And he sent these emails to family with an
anonymous Yahoo mail address. It was like Justice for Nanette at Yahoo.com. And he, behind the scenes,
is anonymously reaching out to the family like this. Yes. And being like, hey, actually ask
detectives why they haven't looked this way. Ask them why they haven't done this test or this exam.
So he told Kim, Nanette's sister, a couple of things that she should ask the police in connection
with this case. Yes. Like he wanted her to ask, why had Steve and his brother Brian been giving lie
detector tests so early in the case before all of the evidence was obtained. And what's wild is after
this, Jerry was found out and arrested for sending emails about the investigation. Yeah, it gets
really, really messy for Detective Rogers. So from what I've read, and this is very, like, it's so
convoluted, from what I've read, Nanette's family was confused how they were getting these emails.
they shared them with Sheriff Smith, who then tracked the email address, found out it was coming from Rogers, went through all the other emails.
And so this sheriff position is an elected position.
It turns out that Rogers was emailing the competition for the upcoming sheriff reelection in this Justice Ferninet email.
Sheriff Smith is pissed.
Yeah.
And he goes after Roger.
ends up going against legal counsel, from my understanding, and arresting him against his rights, because
free speech, does a strip search, kind of just like dehumanizing him. And the case actually
went to court. Wow. They settled for an unspecified amount. Sheriff Smith's insurance paid the
settlement. Yeah, it said he was never formally prosecuted for this. They settled.
Oh my goodness. But still, like, what? And that's not even where it ends in this case, too. Nannette's sister is actually facing trespassing charges after trying to go see a memorial on the property that Steve had put up.
Yeah, this ended up in a high-speed chase. That's right. Wait, explain it to everyone who's listening.
Okay. So, Nanette's sister goes back to the property. It's now, like, locked off, gated, and she brings a friend and she just wanted to see a memorial that Steve had apparently set up for a property.
Annette. Yeah, it said here they were there for like 12 minutes. 12 minutes. There's cameras now
monitoring. So they're there, short amount of time. They leave. As they're leaving,
Steve intercepts them. So clearly saw on the camera feed that they were there, goes to intercept
them. And whether there's now such distrust between the family and Steve, they end up just
trying to get out of there. Leave. And it ends up with them basically getting
chased by Steve at a high speed down the highway.
Oh, my God.
Again, for what?
Yeah, just trying to see a little memorial for their sister.
And it's every step of this is just so upsetting.
I'm just like also like, for what?
Like, hasn't all the evidence been collected at this point?
Like, why such?
Yeah.
Well, she later called a contact at the sheriff's office to report the event because it's
very upsetting.
Obviously, she was chased.
Traumatized by this, yeah.
Not a cop, Steve.
And they told her that she had to go down to the St.
Tammany Parish station to sign a misdemeanor summons for trespassing or she would be facing a warrant for her arrest.
So they just, yeah.
For just trying to see a memorial.
And they were like, why don't you come down here and we'll arrest you for that?
Yeah.
How does that sound?
Actually, he's pressing trespassing charges on you.
Horrible.
So, yeah.
Insane to me.
And, okay, so that's essentially all that we have on the case.
That's where it stands today.
We have a little bit for our activism section.
there are resources for families who have lost loved ones to violent crime that we wanted to highlight.
So cases like this definitely don't just affect the victim.
I mean, as we've seen with Ninnett's family this entire time, it's really, really traumatized them.
One organization that provides advocacy, information, and support is the National Center for Victims of Crime.
So this is actually something that some listeners might find useful as well.
They help families navigate the criminal justice system and access trauma-informed services.
Their helpline is 1-800-FYI.
call and their website is
Victims of Crime.org. There's also
another organization called Parents of
Murdered Children. They provide
peer support, educational resources,
and community for families who have lost
someone to violent crime. You can call them
at 1-888-8-8-18-
P-O-M-C. Lastly,
for this episode, if you have any information
related to this case that could help
investigators, please consider reporting
it through the appropriate law enforcement
channels, including the St. Tammany
Parish Sheriff's Office, which
we've given such a glowing review to this entire episode, but they can be reached at
985-898-2338 or Crime Stoppers, a fantastic organization, where tips can be submitted anonymously.
Crime Stoppers still has a $10,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction in this case,
and the number that you can call is 504-822-1-1-1.
This is a tough one. I'm sure we're all kind of reeling. I'm sure you're going to put your
hunches in the comments. Yeah. And I'm curious if anyone out there is local to this case is
connected in some way. I know I went down the rabbit hole on Reddit and a lot of people that live
in the same town comment on Nanette's case on Unsolved Mysteries and other subreddits. And well,
it feels like one that has that small town element where like it's the fire chief and he's having affairs and
probably people in the town know what's going on.
And it feels like people in the community maybe know a lot more than anyone who's just casually researching this case.
Yeah.
And this is according to Reddit, allegedly, obviously we can't verify this.
But a lot of the comments from multiple people talk about how Steve, previous fire chief and the sheriff are actually very good friends.
Yeah.
According to Reddit.
Yeah.
You know, like.
No, so I'm so curious to hear from you guys.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so please comment what you think about this case and I really hope we do get justice for Nanette.
Yes. And now we want to highlight another missing person. This week we're going to highlight Daniel Lee Neuville.
Daniel's been missing since August 1st of 2002. He went missing in New London, Minnesota. He is described as being male white. He would be 41 today, born in 1984. He was 18 years old at the time of his disability. He was 18 years old at the time of his
disappearance and he was about 5-8 or 5-9 and 135 to 145 pounds.
Daniel was last seen leaving a party in New London, Minnesota in the early morning hours of
August 1st. He decided to go to another residence about a mile or two away. He was offered
a ride there but refused. He never arrived at the other address and has never been heard from
again. Although his father says he informed the police about his son's disappearance within 10
days, no missing person's report was filed for a month and a half. His parents believed that he was
met with foul play. They stated that he sometimes got into trouble but didn't instigate it. Instead,
he just hung around with the wrong people. His case remains unsolved. And we know that he was
wearing a light colored shirt and dark colored full length pants at the time of his disappearance.
That is all that we have for this episode of clues. And now we turn it over to you guys. Your
thoughts, theories, questions, comments all are what make this community so special.
Absolutely. Please comment any missing person cases you want us to highlight. Any cases local to you that you might have a connection to. At Crime House, we really value your support. Share your thoughts on social media. And remember to rate, review, follow and subscribe. Subscribe. Definitely subscribe.
To help others discover our show. That's all we got for this week. So until next time, bye.
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