Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Woman Sold Dead Body Parts to Tattoo-Covered Criminal

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Shots fired, shots fired. Police shoot and kill a man after they say they found him murdering his parents. I have the disturbing case out of Utah and where the case stands now. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. I have to warn you, what you are going to hear is very disturbing. Police in West Valley,

Starting point is 00:00:36 Utah just released body camera footage. They say shows a man attacking his parents in their home on New Year's Day with a knife. The West Valley Police Department was required under the open records laws in Utah to share the disturbing video, capturing an officer fatally shooting the suspect. Just before 5 p.m. on January 1st, police received a 911 call. 911, what is the city's address of your emergency? Stop. Stop. Stop, you asshole. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Starting point is 00:01:05 Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Starting point is 00:01:13 Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Police say the 911 call taker was unable to hear any details, but the commotion heard in the background led to the call being classified as unknown problem. Upon arrival, officers were waiting outside the Bertelsen home for several minutes before they rushed inside. Then more officers arrived and something alerted them to a basement entrance where they rushed inside. Drop your hands! Drop your hands! Get your hands off! Drop your hands! Drop it! Drop it!

Starting point is 00:02:10 Shots fired. Shots fired. Shots fired. Are we clear? Not yet. Not yet, we're not clear. Check the back. Check the back. Drop your hands! Check the bag, what I just had. Where's Alex D., please? Drop the knife! Don't use your hands!

Starting point is 00:02:29 Drop the knife! Here, Space, get back. Where's Dan? Drop the knife! He still has the knife. He's still got the knife! Okay. Easy. You missed him down.

Starting point is 00:02:41 He's down right now, right? He's moving. Drop the knife now! If you do not drop that knife, you will get shot again! Drop the knife now! Now you can hear the officer tells the man to drop the knife, and you can also hear the urgency in his voice. Drop it now!

Starting point is 00:03:04 I don't want to shoot you again, bud! Drop it! Drop that knife now! It's hitting another hand. Don't go any closer. 311 negative. We got two down, suspect down, two possibly echo. Drop the knife! Drop the knife!

Starting point is 00:03:40 Anybody else in here? Make yourself known! Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. I know. I know. Breathe. Breathe.

Starting point is 00:03:55 Where's the knife? In his left hand? He had one. Something in his right and something in his left. I don't see anything in his right. It is clear. There's nothing in his left. Drop the knife!

Starting point is 00:04:10 Don't move! Yeah, he's got something. Who has it? Dan, you good? Dan? Dan, holster. Holster. Dan, holster. Dan, holster.

Starting point is 00:04:23 Walk back. Walk back. Walk back. They're gonna be there by then. I got him. I'll stay with him. I want to tell you about Upside. It's a free app that gets you cash back on things like gas, groceries, and restaurants. This is real cash back. It's money that appears in your Upside app that you can transfer straight into your bank account. I've used Upside at Dunkin' Donuts when I needed a cup of tea or coffee. I claimed an offer for Dunkin' on the app.

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Starting point is 00:05:12 That's promo code CRIMEFIX for extra cash back. Per protocol, the officer that shot 35-year-old Eric Bertelsen twice has been placed on leave since the shooting. A spokeswoman for the West Valley Police Department addressed the media shortly after the shooting. We received a 911 call at about 512 this evening that came from inside the home at 3310 West and Toronto Avenue. Our officers arrived on scene and entered the home. Inside the home, they found the bodies of two adults, a male and a female.

Starting point is 00:05:44 They also encountered an adult male suspect. During the confrontation with that adult male suspect, an officer fired on the suspect, killing him. As is standard in an officer-involved critical incident, a critical incident protocol team is conducting the investigation. The protocol team that's led by Salt Lake City Police Department will investigate this incident. And as is outlined in the Salt Lake County Officer Involved Critical Incident Protocol, the involved agency, which is West Valley City, will handle all communications to the media about this matter. The Salt Lake City Police Department is investigating the use of force incident by analyzing forensic evidence and interviewing witnesses. Then the district attorney's office will review

Starting point is 00:06:25 the findings to determine whether the officer's use of force was justified. It was later confirmed that both victims, 63-year-old Terry Bertelsen and 67-year-old Carrie Bertelsen, died from stab wounds inflicted by their own son. As for the motive, it's unclear why Eric wanted to kill his parents, but court documents indicate he's been in and out of prison for parole violations for almost a decade. His most recent arrest was on December 22nd. The same agency was dispatched to the Bertelsen home after Eric was spotted running outside of his house and on the road in front of his house wearing only boxers. According to the police affidavit,

Starting point is 00:07:05 when police inquired about his behavior, he said that he used a lot of meth. Records indicate that the arrest was just five days after he was granted parole from the Utah State Prison. According to their obituaries, Kerry had just retired from his 50-year career as a mechanical engineer for Blanchard Metals. He was a man of his word and would sacrifice many hours of his life to provide for his family. Terry had applied her creative skills, hard work, and sense of adventure into being a wedding and event planner for the past 10 years. Her friends said she'll be remembered for her love of camping in the desert, being a devoted NFL fan, her enthusiasm

Starting point is 00:07:45 for Halloween, her wonderful sense of humor, and above all else, her unconditional acceptance of others. I want to bring in Chad Ayers. He is the founder of the Proactive Response Group. He's also the former assistant SWAT team leader of the Greenville County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina. So Chad, the minute I saw this case, I was really interested in getting your perspective on it. What are your first thoughts upon reviewing this body camera footage? Yeah, and Jeanette, thanks for having me on. It's heartbreaking, first and foremost. My heart goes out to the family that just happened to deal with something like this.

Starting point is 00:08:26 But I think it's important to point out what a great job law enforcement did on eliminating that threat as quickly as possible. Obviously, the outcome is not what anybody wanted, but it just shows what law enforcement faces on a day-to-day basis and how quickly a routine call can turn to a deadly force situation. Yeah, I just can't even imagine. I mean, these parents, this guy, Eric Bertelsen, gets out of prison. His parents probably take him in thinking they're doing what they can to help their son.

Starting point is 00:09:02 He's obviously got some mental health issues, it sounds like, from what I was reading about the case. And he's stabbing them. I mean, and the cops walk in, you know, they announce themselves and they walk in and he is stabbing his parents. I mean, he's it sounds like at the end of murdering them. I just can't even imagine. And I think, too, it goes back to show the training that this agency had and what a great job they did on setting up what we call like a perimeter around the building from the outside in, trying to see. Because from the 911 tapes, as you heard, there's a lot of kind of mumble jumble. You can't really piece together what was going on um from the 911 tape so obviously several you know officers arrived on scene and they started trying to see

Starting point is 00:09:50 what what can i see from outside right so they kind of moved around to the back of the residence and it was seems like at that point one of those officers observed him stabbing uh his parents you know at that moment so the decision was made, listen, in law enforcement, we have priorities of life. Innocent civilians is number one. Number two is law enforcement. So we put innocent civilians above ourselves, then we put ourselves, then we have suspects, and then we have property. So obviously their training kicked in.

Starting point is 00:10:21 They realized we have an innocent person that is potentially in the process of losing their life. They did not hesitate. And that's what I love. He turned and told the guy, we've got to go now. And they went in there, they booted the door open and took care of business. You know, there's a lot of heavy breathing. You hear the police officer. I mean, this is kind of what police officers do. I think when people watch these videos, you know, the cops, I mean, they're kind of trained in my experience in covering these types of incidents over the years to be kind of forceful. You know, you have to do some yelling and you have to kind of shout out a command and be forceful about it. And then you hear the guy kind of, you know, I don't know if excited is really the police officer is not really excited, but, you know, their adrenaline is pumping. They kind of go into this mode of responding. So explain to me all of that, the heavy breathing, that type of thing.

Starting point is 00:11:20 Right. The body does crazy things under stress as someone who unfortunately has been involved in deadly force encounters in the past. One, I think it is important, Anjanette, for your viewers to understand in law enforcement, we give verbal commands if feasible. Right. So not all situations are we going to give a verbal command. Let's just take I think a perfect example would be like an active shooter situation. A school resource officer is running down the hall and there is someone with a gun in a school shooting. And there's other situations, but I think for the viewers, this is the one that they can wrap their head around the quickest is if someone is running towards a classroom with a gun, I am not going to give verbal commands to drop the gun because by the time I finish yelling, the gun he can pull the trigger several more times so unless you have police sheriff whatever on you there are situations

Starting point is 00:12:09 where i am not going to give verbal cam commands that i'm going to go ahead and just use deadly force immediately but we as law enforcement officers as well me as a former law enforcement officers this video shows though that we are human. We are still people who react to these types of situations, just like many other humans would react. So again, the adrenaline dump that happened right after, for lack of better terms, the smoke settles, you hear the increased breathing, but that may just be one. Another officer may respond in an emotional way. Some may shut down and show no emotion whatsoever. None of these reactions to a deadly force situation are wrong, but it just shows that in critical situations, we are just like anyone else.

Starting point is 00:12:59 We react in the same type of way, whether it's heavy breathing, crying, or just a stonewall face that, you know, in disbelief, but it brings that human aspect of, you know, after, after the shots are fired, that officer realizes what's been, you know, happened. And now though, his partners did an excellent job and kudos to those guys for taking care of him. Who's, you know, unfortunately just had to use deadly force, take a life. They, on that they're telling him hey listen host your gun step outside we've got it from here and that kind of takes that burden off of him let them go do work and then resources can come in and start helping him on the video you know and it's blurred you know you're not going to show that but they tell him to drop the knife.

Starting point is 00:13:50 And it sounds like he's actively standing, you know, wherever he is. He's there with the knife and his family members, his mother and father are there, Carrie and Terry. I mean, it's just I can't even imagine this poor parents enduring what they endured being murdered like that. And he's there with a knife. And a lot of people might say, why are you shooting a guy with a knife? And I've covered cases in the past where this has been very controversial, where somebody had a knife. You know, the case I covered where somebody was shot in the past by officers where the person had a knife, they had it in their hand and were brandishing it, but they weren't. In this case, the man is murdering his parents.

Starting point is 00:14:33 But in that case that I covered in the past, they said, well, the officer shot him. It was dark outside. He has the knife. They told him to drop it, but they said the knife, if thrown, could be fatal. It could cause a fatal wound up to 21 feet or something like that if it's thrown. So what is your response to that as far as people who might say, why are you shooting a man who has a knife instead of maybe running up and trying to disarm him? Well, so you and I could go through so many situations on this for hours. We had a situation literally about 800 yards from where I'm sitting right now at a Walmart where a guy had stolen butcher knives and opened up packets of butcher knives at a Walmart right across the street from where I'm at.

Starting point is 00:15:21 Law enforcement arrives on scene. This guy is running you know around the walmart finally makes his way outside and that exact you know scenario happened where he took a butcher knife slung it at one of our deputies who got lacerated in the thigh barely missed us for more artery which would have caused him to bleed out in probably two to four three to five minutes um where deadly force was used so again knives are not you know just up close items that can be used to cause seriously bodily harm or death that can be thrown also action is always faster than reaction so plenty of studies have been shown

Starting point is 00:15:58 we used to do this in training where i can put someone in you know, I think now the reactionary gap on an edged weapon is actually more like 30 feet now. So what that's saying is in the amount of time, if someone has an edged weapon or a knife and they're standing, let's just go with 21 feet. And your gun is either in the holster or even out what we call it like a low ready. So you're not actually pointing it you know at the person that's just down the amount of time um where that person can gain the ground to stab the officer by the time the officer's brain has the opportunity to say oh my gosh threat draw your gun shoot or raise your gun and shoot nine times out of ten that officer is being stabbed you know by the person with the knife in that amount of time so again i think it's also important for viewers to you know let's just take you know

Starting point is 00:16:51 someone with kids if you were in at two o'clock got kicked open uh and you were downstairs your kids were upstairs and you saw someone with a knife walking up the stairs what would you as a parent do right what would you do and parent do, right? What would you do? And any parent's going to say, I would do whatever I have to take to protect my kids. It's the same thing in law enforcement. We're going to do whatever we can do to protect ourselves. So action is always faster than reaction. Deadly force is deadly force, whether it is with a knife, a gun, a vehicle, an explosive device, I don't want to get hurt. And I have to end that before I get hurt or more innocent lives get hurt.

Starting point is 00:17:30 And that's what the officer did. They did an excellent job. Obviously, there are some investigations underway right now. A neighboring police department is doing an investigation into the shooting. Those findings then will be turned over to the Salt Lake County DA's office. They will determine whether or not the officer's actions were indeed justified. So that's a process that could take some time. These sometimes do take some time. I mean, I covered a county where sometimes these decisions were made rather quickly. Unfortunately, we had felt like quite a few officer-involved shootings and they would make these determinations, it felt like, pretty quickly

Starting point is 00:18:10 after the investigations were in. So what is your gut telling you about this? It sounds like you're believing that the officer, from everything you know, you believe his actions were justified. Yeah, obviously there's- Not that I want to put, I don't want to put words in your mouth. No, look, there's there's likely two investigations going on right now. You have a internal investigation from the agency that is probably investigating what's policy and procedure followed in this type of situation. Right. Every agency is going to have a deadly force policy and procedure followed in this type of situation, right? Every agency is gonna have a deadly force policy and procedure, you have to meet this criteria. So they are internally looking,

Starting point is 00:18:51 was policy and procedures followed? That investigation probably won't last very long. Then you have the criminal investigation that's being taken place. And a lot of people don't think about that side. In a deadly force situation, we as law enforcement officers, if we have to use deadly force, we are treated respectfully, but we are still a suspect in a crime. We're a suspect in a homicide.

Starting point is 00:19:15 So we are read our Miranda rights, advisable rights, and we are still American citizens that are awarded that same constitutional right to counsel. And we're read our Miranda rights. It's not fun. Even if you know you did everything right, there's still that uneasiness about you. But I do, I believe that this officer is going to be cleared both internally and with the agency. And I think that in a case like this, this is a really, what I would believe is a cut and dry case. I do not see a lot in this case from what I've seen on the video and what I've read on the news that there should be any type of discrepancy or questions about why deadly force was used in this situation.

Starting point is 00:20:05 Chad Ayers, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Anjanette, always good to be here. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Woman Sold Dead Body Parts to Tattoo-Covered Criminal

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Woman Sold Dead Body Parts to Tattoo-Covered Criminal

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