Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Breast Cancer Warrior Discovers Hubby's Affair during Chemo, GOES "MISSING"

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

The search for Nikki Wilhoite begins after a friend calls police when Wilhoite didn't show up for work.  A Boone County deputy conducts a welfare check at the Lebanon farm owned by Wilhoite and her husband. Andrew Wilhoite says he last saw his wife around 11pm the night before, sleeping on their couch. He says the couple had a fight. Wilhoite says that sometimes his wife leaves the house when the couple argues, but she usually returns the next morning. As police search the farm, they find Nikki’s purse inside a car parked in the garage. What happened to Nikki Wilhoite?Joining Nancy Grace Today: Dale Carson - High Profile Attorney (Jacksonville), Former FBI Agent, Former Police Officer, Author: "Arrest-Proof Yourself, DaleCarsonLaw.com Dr. Jorey Krawczyn - Psychologist, Faculty Saint Leo University; Consultant Blue Wall Institute, Author: Operation S.O.S.  Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan" Nicole Partin - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Twitter: @nicolepartin (Naples, FL)  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A beautiful young mom just completes her treatments for breast cancer. She just completes them when she mysteriously goes missing. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Listen to this. We start with breaking news this morning out of Boone County. The sheriff's office there is searching for this missing woman. Elizabeth Nikki Wilhoite is 5'3 with very short brown hair and blue eyes. She was last seen at her home Thursday night just northeast of Lebanon. The sheriff's office says she could be in danger. If you know where

she is, you are asked to call the Boone County Sheriff's Office. Let me introduce to you an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together based on what we know right now. First of all, high-profile lawyer joining us out of Jacksonville, former fed with the FBI, former federal agent Dale Carson, author of Arrest Proof Yourself. Dr. Jory Croson, psychologist, faculty, St. Leo University, consultant with the Blue Wall Institute, and author of Operation SOS. Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and star of a new hit series, Body Bags, with Joe Scott Morgan on iHeart. But first, to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, Nicole Parton.

Nicole, thank you for being with us. Nicole, I'm hearing she had just finished her chemo or radiation treatment, and that's why her hair is so short. She had lost all her hair and it was just growing back right and then she disappears right just one week prior to her disappearance she had completed her very last chemo treatment she was fighting for her life a survivor of breast cancer she had just overcame that. One week later, she's missing. Tell me about Lebanon, Indiana. Lebanon is a small rural area, a lot of farmers. Nikki and her husband, her family, they too were farmers. They grew livestock active in the 4-H, a small town, neighborly, country feeling kind of area. You're trying to get to me by throwing in 4-H?

Because you know, my mom was a state champion in 4-H. My sister, let's see, my mother's expertise was salad. Have you ever seen those salads where they make flowers out of like carrots?

That cabbage? That. She can do that. Make her own dressings. I mean, that was a big deal for a little girl off Hartley Bridge Road exit in South Bibb County. Because if you win the state championship, you go on to nationals, which traditionally is held in Chicago. And my sister won in 4-H in forestry. She was into forestry. She won. I settled with being a 4-H camp counselor. I did not make it to Chicago at that time. However, I see you're trying to get to me by throwing in the 4-H angle. But, you know, I'm glad that you did, Nicole,

because when you hear about 4-H, most people mistakenly think of a rural setting, a bucolic background, farms. And in this case, all that is true. So, Missing Elizabeth Louette worked the farm with her family. They were cattle breeders. And the significance to that, as it relates to her going missing, is that it's a very, very low crime area. And, you know, fighting breast cancer is not easy at all, Joe Scott. It is brutal. The chemo, the radiation. I mean, the chemo itself can kill you. But you're a real survivor, a real warrior to get through that.

Right, Joe Scott? Yeah, you know, Nancy, it is. It's tough. You know, some days these patients that are undergoing chemo can't even get their head up off the pillow. They're so weakened. You know, they're like little lambs, you know, newborn lambs. It's very, very difficult. You know, their immune system's compromised. They feel bad all of the time because of this kind of chemical stew that's going on in their body. And for those that make it to the other end, sometimes, you know, you actually hear them say that the treatment was worse than the disease.

So, yeah, it's very difficult circumstances to be under. And she was at the end, Nancy. At the end, she just finished her last treatment and then, bam, she disappears. Or does she? Take a listen to our friend, K friend Kayla Melander at WRTV. Friends say Will Hoyt's smile could light up a room. She was just fun. Could always count on her to have a funny story or just to make you laugh in some way.

She went by Nikki even when Mary Smith knew her in high school. She could be friends with anybody. She was just fun. She was fun to be around. Just really devoted mom. Will Hoyt is a mother of two, stepmother to a third. She lived on a farm in rural Lebanon. When she didn't show up to work on Friday, her colleagues called the Boone County Sheriff. They looked for her at home, but she was nowhere to be found. The sheriff opened an investigation and a search ensued. Lived on a farm in rural Lebanon, Lebanon, mother of two, just suddenly out of the blue goes missing.

Straight out to Dale Carson joining us now, high profile lawyer in Jacksonville, former Fed with the FBI. I'm just thinking about what Joe Scott said about how weak she would have been. Well, she would have been weak, obviously. And the likelihood of her leaving and going somewhere is to be highly unusual under those circumstances. And you add to that the fact that not only are they under cancer treatment, you're looking death square in the eye when you're receiving those treatments to kill the cancer. I mean, you know that your exit strategy is already planned and it's a frightening experience. Very frightening. You're right, Dale Carson. Troy Cross. Can I add something too? Yeah, jump in. I've treated patients when I was in private practice with that. You know,

you try to get them a futuristic perspective and that could be just to the very next day. Just like Dale was saying, you know, they're facing death and, you know, we can discuss that. You're kind of processing that. Now, for the ones that, you know, go into remission, you know, they,ission, you see this mind shift that they've got like a reprieve and there's positives in their life that they start to put together. And that helps build the future perspective.

And that could be a lot of like, I'm discarding a bunch of this luggage I've been carrying for the last couple of years and stuff. So they get a new perspective when they go into remission. You know what I was about to say to you before you broke in with that very valuable insight, Dr. Jory? Something along those lines. But I remember when my father, I was just either 15 or 16, when he had his first major coronary thrombosis. He was in his late 30s. And the doctors warned my mother and all of us that after a near-death experience like he had,

that you could have a severe depression. I remember as a teen girl thinking, wow, why would you have a depression? I would think you'd be happy that you lived through this ordeal, this horrible, painful ordeal. I mean, I can remember waking up early, early in the morning, like five o'clock in the morning and running down the hall because I could hear my mom yelling. I never heard her and my father yell at each other ever. And she was screaming, Mac, Mac, Mac. And I ran in there and daddy was on the floor.

She was beating him in the chest. And we were waiting, you know, for 911 to get there. And I would think, wow, why would he be depressed? He lived through that. But, you know, fighting breast cancer the way Elizabeth had been and living through near death like my dad did. Some reason it makes you depressed. Why? Well, you're putting a lot of energy and that's very stressful into the daily living.

OK, so you're at a an up level, you know, and at some point you're going to crash and that crash is going to bring you normally into depression. I mean, that's just physiologically and psychologically. See, I thought it was because they face their mortality. They look at, they're looking down the wrong end of a barrel. Nancy Dale. Yeah. I can speak. I had a deep sea diving accident overseas and I was. I was just thinking about that. I did, too. Go ahead. Well, I was in a coma for a while when I got back to the States.

And the result was that I was I felt like I was losing ground where everything that I was trying to accomplish. Well, I couldn't. And so it took years to overcome that depression, that anxiety. You know, when I had a dive accident overseas, when I lived through it and came to, I was so happy. It had the other effect on me. I was just so happy.

Well, you had children, right? No, no. You know I gave up diving when I had the twins? I'm not going to leave them and meet at the bottom of the ocean with my husband and remarry some tramp to raise my children. That's not happening. No, uh-uh.

No, I have not dived. That was after the dive accident was long before I had children. He'd never find anyone equal to you, Nancy, that's for sure. Well, equal maybe, but he might disagree with you on that. But I'm just trying to get the frame of mind, everything this woman had been through, and then she suddenly just, boom, vanishes, disappears off the face of the earth. It just doesn't seem right.

And as Joe Scott Morgan was telling us, she's in such a weakened condition. How could she just walk away from the life that she knew? How could this happen? Listen to this. Friends say Nikki filed for divorce last week. She had her last chemotherapy treatment the next day and everything was looking up.

But after spending the last few months fighting for her life, she's gone suddenly and a community is left to process its loss. She's fighting to stay alive, to, you know, see her kids grow up and to, you know, continue on with her life. And then to have it end like this, it's just a tragedy that no one should have to, no one should have to go through. Wilhoy touched many lives in Boone County and beyond. It was clear to learn that through talking with her friends today. So, okay, just learned something brand new. Not only had she gone through this horrible ordeal, very extensive and arduous fight against cancer, she suddenly decided she was going to file for divorce. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Okay, big question.

Back to you, Dr. Jory Crawson, psychologist. Dr. Jory, you know, don't they tell you not to make life-changing decisions after a major illness? Like, don't sell your house or decide you're going to move or you're going to go be an expat in France or buy a sports car, a divorce, that's a big decision. Yes, that's true. You don't make decisions, major decisions, after coming out of that. But if she had been building and gathering information to make that decision over the last period of time while she's fighting for her life and undergoing chemo. And then when she gets the reprieve and goes into remission, that's just the normal course.

That would be, you know, as a counselor, that'd be the first thing I'd tell her to do. So long story short, it sounds like Elizabeth Nikki Willowette wanted a completely fresh start. She was shedding her battle with breast cancer, getting a divorce, and starting all over. Take a listen to our friends at Daily Beast. Elizabeth Nikki Wilhoyt just wanted a fresh start. After being diagnosed with breast cancer last fall, the 42-year-old had just completed her last round of chemotherapy, an achievement the mother of two documented on social media. She was such a strong woman. Mary Smith, one of Elizabeth's childhood friends, told the Daily Beast on Monday. She had just finished up chemo last week.

But authorities say the milestone was almost immediately eclipsed when Elizabeth learned that Andrew, her husband with whom she raised livestock in rural Indiana, had been having an affair. Elizabeth hired a lawyer and submitted a petition for legal separation in Boone County Circuit Court on March 18th. On the same day, her husband took note of her health progress online. Very proud of you, Andrew Wilhoyt wrote alongside a photo of his smiling wife of 12 years. So he's's writing publicly so proud of you that she's completing her chemo and radiation yet he's sleeping around now those are our friends at the daily beast you earlier heard our friends at wrtv sleeping around having an affair on his wife who's fighting breast cancer no wonder she took off no wonder she left dr jory crawson what kind of guy is going to have an affair while his wife

is fighting breast cancer again looking at the behavior uh i see where she's coming from and as she learned about that she's probably putting in perspective a lot of other incidents that, you know, she's known about or maybe even was suspicious about involving him and maybe other women. OK, so she's finding out. Let's just break it down. OK, I don't want to hear some educational treatise. He is screwing around on his wife while she's fighting breast cancer. And I will tell all of you a disclaimer. I had a very dear friend fighting breast cancer that came and told me her husband was cheating, cheating, even though she was in the middle of breast cancer. I say you may want to think about it and wait till you finish your battle.

But I would leave him in a New York minute. I would drop him like a hot potato because this is the time you need your husband with you more than ever. You don't need him running across the street for a cigarette while you're in the middle of chemo, much less screwing the neighbor lady or whoever else this guy has found. Heck yes, you should divorce him, but is that too much at once? You know what? No, I would divorce him right then, Dale Carson. Now, you're the high-profile lawyer out of Jacksonville. What is it? Why did men just leave the wife emotionally during her breast cancer battle?

This is not the first time we've seen it. Well, I guess it's about whether or not men... Well, she's not pretty anymore? Well, no, no. It's about men and women not having a serious view of their marriage vows, which are until we're parted by death. And I see that more and more increasingly. The divorce rates in the United States are skyrocketing. Hey, don't try to throw me a bunch of statistics.

I'm talking about men having sex with other women while their wife is fighting breast cancer. What a P.O.S. That's a technical legal term. I don't know if you learned that in law school. But let me ask you, Dr. Jory, when you're in that situation, as Elizabeth found herself, should you wait to make a divorce decision? Or she's trying to finish up chemo? She had to know about it during chemo.

Should you go? I would want to get rid of him as fast as I could. I would think that would deter my getting well. It would. And I would work it into the treatment program. I mean, that's just the simple way as a counselor I would view it. You know, start getting your ducks in a row. Get with a lawyer.

Start talking about options and stuff. But move forward with a positive manner. And, again, you want to direct her to the future. You know, here's what can be happening down the road. You've got to look down the road because now you're in remission. You found out about this. Because all that stress is not needed. She needs a good, healthy, fresh start. How does that really affect you, Joe Scott Morgan? How does stress affect your

cancer recovery? Well, I mean, it's proven that even for fully healthy people, Nancy, that stress can impact your immune system. So you're more subject to, you know, catching a cold or some kind of virus that's out there. How much more so if you're already immunocompromised relative to this treatment that you're undergoing? You know, and I would think also there's this, you know, this moment in time where you realize and first, look, the bottom line is I don't need this. You know, I just don't need this. You know, after all I've been through, I look at how precious life is now at this point in time. And this guy's going to have the nerve to go around and run around on me and make a fool of me while I'm suffering.

Well, I don't know that she's the fool. I think he's the fool. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Cheating on a woman that's been by him 12 years, had two children. Now she's been a warrior woman and fought cancer, and she seemingly has won. Now this presents a problem, Nicole Parton, because police find all this out, and they think, hey, maybe she just took off. She'd had it.

She's divorcing him. She's got through her chemo. She's not bound to this area or this hospital, this treatment facility. She's gone. Sure, that could be speculation, but when she didn't show up for work and her co-workers knew, this is not like her. Okay, yeah, you're right. You're right. I don't think that she would leave her job and just not show up, but for some... Well, and her children, she wouldn't leave the children. How old were the children? How old are the children, Nicole?

We know that they are adolescent. Their exact ages have not been disclosed, but they're still in school and they're still living at home with them. Yeah, you're right. She wouldn't take off and leave them behind. But, of course, cops are plagued with the thought, did she just file for divorce and hightail it out of here? And then a development.

Take a listen to Max Lewis, Fox 59. She was initially reported missing on Friday morning when she didn't show up for work. And when sheriff's deputies did a welfare check at the family home, they realized something wasn't right. The Boone County Sheriff's Office says deputies found evidence at the couple's rural home that led them to believe this missing person's case may be a homicide investigation. The sheriff asked the Indiana State Police to take over because Andrew Wilhoite's mother is on the county council. There are some things that just didn't seem to be adding up. Things not adding up. There's something that they found in the home that makes them question the idea that Elizabeth is missing. Elizabeth, also known as Nikki. Take a listen to our friends at the Daily Beast. the willoyda's home about 30 minutes outside of indianapolis they were greeted by three of andrew wilhoyt's children one of whom was from a previous marriage two of the children indicated that elizabeth was not home and that they had been trying to contact her themselves the stepdaughter

the affidavit states added that elizabeth might be with her sister and that elizabeth leaves when she gets upset as authorities were starting to leave the family farm the affidavit states andrew wilhoyt pulled into the driveway in a blue tractor, and indicated that his wife was missing. Andrew stated that they had a pretty good fight last night, and she was drunk, the affidavit states. Wilhoyt then allegedly began to tell authorities that his wife had slept on the couch the night of March 24 after a fight and that he did not see her the next morning when he left early to haul corn.

Andrew stated that he was laying in the bed and Elizabeth was flipping out. The affidavit states Andrew advised that it is not the first time that an incident like this has occurred. Nicole Parton, let me follow up on what I'm just hearing. Three children answer the door and approach the cops. Two of them are saying they've been trying to call their mom. I take it those are the two young ones, the so-called adolescents. They're trying to find mommy. The third one is older and she is Nikki's stepdaughter. She, the stepdaughter, immediately launches into a discussion that Nikki might be with her sister, that she leaves the home when she gets upset. Then we hear the husband, Andrew Willowette, piling on, stating that they had an argument and that his wife got drunk and slept on the sofa.

Wow. None of this is ringing true to me. None of it. We have no indication she had ever left her two bio children, the little children alone before. We have no indication that she would leave and go to her sister's house. In fact, we have no indication she ever did that before in the past. Now we're hearing that she was drunk on the sofa and went berserk on him, that it was not the first time an incident like this had occurred. That makes me wonder how many affairs had he had. But the information is coming from the husband's bio daughter, Nikki's stepdaughter, right? Right. That's correct. So authorities went out to do a well check because Nikki didn't show up for work. So it was actually a co-worker

that alerted authorities that they had not been able to reach her by phone. She didn't show up for work. This was unlike her, completely out of character. So authorities went out to do the well check and that's when they were greeted by the three children. The two younger, the two biological children saying, we've been trying to call mommy. We don't know where she is. The older stepchild saying she could be at her sister's. She leaves when she gets upset. And then the husband saying, oh, she's a drunk. Yes. And then the husband saying, she's a drunk. Yes. And then the husband saying she had drank,

in his words, she drank a bottle of rum. She was drunk. We had what he called a pretty good fight last night. I went to bed. She slept on the couch. He said he got up the next morning early to go haul corn on the family farm and that she was missing.

Nicole Parton, crimeOnline.com. I'm glad you brought up the fact that it was not the family that calls about her being missing. It's a co-worker. Take a listen to our friends at Crime Online. The search for Nikki Wilhoyt began after a friend called police when Wilhoyt didn't show up for work. A Boone County deputy conducts a welfare check at the Lebanon farm owned by Wilhoyt and her husband. Andrew Wilhoyt says he last saw his wife around 11 p.m. the night before, sleeping on their couch. Wilhoyt says that sometimes his wife leaves the house when the couple argue, but she usually returns the next morning. As police search the farm, they find Nikki's purse inside a car parked in the garage.

The case is upgraded from a missing person to an endangered missing person. Dale Carson joining us, former fed with the FBI, now lawyer in Jacksonville. That doesn't make sense that she took off on her own or even went to her sister's. Her car with a purse in it is at the home. And it was snowing, was it not? Wasn't there snow on the ground at the time? I mean, what do you walk in the snow after you've had chemotherapy and you can hardly move around? I mean, that's just ridiculous.

You need to start a search right there, right now, to try to find her. So what was the temp? Nicole Parton joining us. It's Lebanon, Indiana. Was it snowing? There was snow, and the temps were freezing, temperatures below freezing that night in the mid-30s during the day, but there was snow on the ground, and it was still snowing the next day when authorities went out. Okay, to you, Dr. Jory Croson, psychologist and faculty at St. Leo University, that just defies logic. It reminds me of two cases. Number one, Drew Peterson's wife, Stacey. Remember her? His fourth wife. Fourth wife, not judging. Because, you know, when Elizabeth Taylor does it, it's glamorous when you have a

lot of marriages. When somebody else does it, somehow it's always the woman's fault. So here's my question. In that case, according to Drew Peterson, the former cop, he and Stacey had this big fight, and she just left. How? All of her clothes were still there. All of her stuff is still there. Her car is still there. What?

She walked to Timbuktu? I mean, that doesn't make sense. And in this case, it's actually snowing outside. Yeah, I wouldn't buy that at all because, you know, you could confront the husband. You're telling me that she just walked out into the snow and disappeared. I mean, even after a fight, she would maybe take some personal belongings if she was going to go to her sister's. Or she definitely would take the car. I mean, in the cold weather, that just defies

logic. Okay. To you, Jessica Morgan, what do you make of the car locked there on the premises with the purse inside? Yeah. The fact that it is locked, when you begin to consider this, where are the keys that operate the vehicle? And why would somebody do this? You got the purse in the car. I don't know. Maybe she leaves her purse in the car in a rural area just so that it's there and she doesn't miss it. I know that my wife wouldn't do that. I know most people wouldn't do that because you're afraid somebody's going to come in and knock out the window and steal the purse. Was it to give the idea perhaps that she had maybe considered leaving in the car and then just kind of wandered off. And this is another thing. They live up there in this rural area. These are hardworking people,

Nancy. There's no fascination with her with the snow and the cold weather. Matter of fact, they probably view it as an inconvenience that she's not going out for a little joyful little walk or to catch her thoughts in this environment. It's harsh. It's harsh. And not to mention you pile on this idea, she's just coming off of chemo, Nancy. She's weak as a kitten. And she's going to wander around out there in this environment.

And I'm not buying this whole thing about her being drunk either. I think that that's just to put people off the scent here. You know, I'm curious about that detail because Dr. Joy Cross, a psychologist, is joining us. I feel that that's a way to make her look bad, to smear her reputation, to suggest she would just get drunk and then leave her children. I'm not buying that. No, and that adds to her judgment capability to make decisions.

If she's intoxicated, then it would assume that she's going to be doing, you know, something irrational or just following her emotions. But the other thing with chemotherapy, I can't recall having a patient that drank. I mean, that's one of the things because your immune system is compromised. There's other things. And, you know, to be drinking, like he said, I had a bottle of rum or something. That's just that's not logical at all, either. It doesn't make sense to me. So how would alcohol affect her chemotherapy or radiation, Joe Scott? It's going to greatly impact her because, you know, we have to think that, you know, with chemotherapy, many times people will actually lose weight and body mass. And so

as a result of that, alcohol can impact you even at a greater level because you don't have the ability to absorb the alcohol that's in your system. And so it's going to impact you even greater. And not to mention, you're compromised anyway physically. So anything that you kind of put into your body is going to, let's say prior to you having gone through chemotherapy, let's say that you did like to have a drink or two, maybe a couple of glasses of wine prior to this diagnosis, it's not going to impact you the same way. After you've gone through this, this horrible treatment, it's going to compromise your ability to make decisions. It's going to, and it would make you feel not better, you know, to relax.

It's probably going to make you feel worse. crime stories with nancy grace to you nicole parton joining us from crime online uh nicole what can you tell me about three thousand dollars missing from the family's joint account? We do know that she had taken a withdrawal of this $3,000, but we also know that she had used that to contact this attorney where she was filing for divorce. So the money was not taken out of the account so that she could run away or go on an unannounced vacation, but she took that money out to go file for divorce. Okay, wait a minute.

I misstated something. The $3,000 was withdrawn, but it was from her retirement account, not their mutual account. Is that correct? That's correct. But she specifically withdrew that for the attorney fee. As police are there feeling just a hunch that this story is not adding up, they notice something very significant, something small, something minute,

but critical in the search for Nikki. Take a listen to our friends at Crime Online. Police say things just do not add up. Andrew Wilholt tells investigators his wife discovered he was having an affair. Nikki Wilholt withdrew $3,000 from her retirement account and hires an attorney to file for divorce. Investigators show Andrew Wilholt photographs of blood found in their bedroom. Wilholt says he had a nosebleed, pointing out that the blood is on his side of the mattress. Wilhoyt then ends the police interview asking for a lawyer.

Okay, right there. The day she goes missing, he gets a nosebleed, and now he wants a lawyer? I mean, that is a bad look. We all have a right to a lawyer, but Dale Carson. I mean, that is a bad look. We all have a right to a lawyer. But Dale Carson, I mean, just think about it. It reminds me a little bit of Brian Laundrie and his family. When Gabby Petito goes missing, they suddenly hire a high profile defense attorney and clam up. That's not helping find Gabby.

At all. And a husband who was afraid his wife might be injured in the snow would behave entirely differently than he has. We never hear any report of him saying, let's go search. We've got to find her now. And there's probably a reason for that. You know, that's curious, Nicole Parton. Was there ever any evidence that the husband goes out and searches for her? None at all. None whatsoever. He simply told the authorities when they came to him at the farm, he said, yeah, she's missing. We had a fight last night, but there's no report whatsoever that he ever looked for her.

He got up the next morning, went out to haul corn to the pig, went about his normal daily activities. And you got to remember about pigs now. What do you want me to remember about pigs? It's a way being used historically to dispose of human remains. Thank you, Dale Carson, for putting that in my head. So now police have noticed something minute, something small, but critical. Blood in the bedroom. He says he had a nosebleed. Well, that's quite the coincidence, isn't it? She disappears while he has a nosebleed. But what does her father say? Take a listen to our friends at Daily Beast. Andrew Wilhoite just found out from his accountant that approximately $3,000 had been taken out of their bank account and that he had been advised that Elizabeth had a lawyer and was filing for divorce,

the affidavit says. Wilhoyt then allegedly went as far to say that he believed, maybe something drug-related, occurred, with his wife. But authorities say Andrew Wilhoyt's story began to unravel once authorities spoke to Elizabeth's father, who clarified that his daughter took out money from their bank account on March 18 because she was going to have to divorce Andrew. Her father, Thomas Richards, added he believed maybe Wilhoyt did something to Elizabeth, the affidavit says. During a search of the property, authorities discovered blood on the bedsheets and pillow of the Wilhoyta's master bedroom, along with small droplets on and around the door and inside the master bathroom on the sink. Circling back to Joe Scott Morgan joining us, Professor of Forensics,

you know, the type of blood evidence is very important because now you have blood on the bed, blood on the pillow, blood in the bathroom sink, and blood on the door. Yeah, you're absolutely right, Nancy. You know, what's the status of it? You're talking about blood spatter, you know, that kind of dynamic movement of blood. Is it a passive thing? You know, like nosebleed has been mentioned. Anybody's ever had a nosebleed and you're standing there?

Is it, you know, just kind of freely dripping and it just lands in a very focal area? We've got blood drops. But, you know, you have to understand, is there any kind of energy behind this? You know, we classify blood stain velocity by low, medium, and high. And if you're talking about, say, a blood droplet that's just passing through the air, that's kind of low, the velocity. But if someone has been struck, for instance, it's going to have a different appearance. You mean if blood, you drip blood. Yeah, yeah.

You have a nosebleed and you're standing at the bathroom counter and you're looking in the mirror. Oh, I've got my nose is bleeding and one drop falls into the sink. That looks a lot different from if someone is hit in the head and blood is cast off. Yeah, you will. And it'll be, it'll kind of splatter out or spatter out rather. And you'll have it contact on different surfaces. I've worked cases where individuals have literally been beaten to death in their bed and they had like a dark hardwood headboard on their bed and you couldn't see it with the unaided eye, but you can see it on the sheets. And the thing about it is if someone is

in the middle of one of these dynamic things, they don't think about where the blood is going. And that's generally how we catch them or how we can kind of put together what actually happened. You know, there's that old saying that says blood will tell. And it certainly does. And then you go back and you type that blood. You know, that's the old way that we used to do it before DNA. You decide what's the ABO grouping on this, APOS, you know, so forth and so on. And then when you get down into the weeds with it, what DNA signature comes back on this blood? Who does it actually belong?

Another thing about the blood spatter or drop or transfer, for instance, my hand is bleeding and I pick up this paper, I transfer a blood mark. And that's very different from a drop or spatter. And then there's the issue of throwback. If you were beating someone, and it just brings to mind Ted Bundy in the Chi Omega house, when he bludgeoned a victim and then swung back, the blood then went all the way up on the ceiling. I remember the first time I had a bludgeoning case, and I stupid stupidly or just really innocently, I was uneducated in that. So how did the blood get all the way to the back of the room?

And it was the violence of the beating. When he came back with the weapon, it shot blood all the way to the through blood all the way to the back of the room. So you would look for that as well. You can have blood up on the ceiling. Yeah. And the individual can have blood on them too. I've had cases where the perpetrator, when, after they were actually arrested, you begin to look at them.

And then all of a sudden, famously, I had a really good friend that did this. They're questioning this guy and they don't know he's a suspect. And they look at him and he's got this diagonal line that's running from his right shoulder blade all the way over to the area just above his left kidney on a white t-shirt. You can faintly see it in this just kind of cast off that's happened on his back. And he was actually drawing up a mallet as he did over shoulder. And I teach my kids at Jacksonville State when we're talking about blood evidence is if you just think about dipping a paintbrush into a paint can and then kind of flipping that over your shoulder, that's an example of cast-off. And there's no

predictability to it. No, there's no predictability whatsoever. Then a sudden turn in the case. Take a listen to our cut 10, our friends at WTHR 13. We have an update this morning. The Boone County coroner now confirms the death of a Lebanon wife and mother this weekend was a homicide. The exact cause of death of 41-year-old Elizabeth Nikki Wilhite will be released once that autopsy is complete. But on Saturday, police found her body in a pond less than a day after co-workers reported her missing. I can't even imagine the overwhelming grief that the family is going through, also their friends and the community as a whole. And Nikki filed for separation from her husband just over a week ago. Posts on social media indicate that she'd also just completed chemotherapy.

To Nicole Parton joining us from Crime Online, what do police believe happened? After interviewed by authorities, her husband Andrew, after asking for that attorney, said that he wanted to make a statement. And in that statement, he detailed the gruesome death. He said he physically picked Nikki up and threw her out of the front door. She somehow made it back to her feet and began to come toward him. At that point, he picked up a cement gallon-sized flower pot that was packed with dirt and hit her in the face with that. And at that point, she hit the ground.

He disposed of the body. He then puts her, instead of trying to revive her, in his pickup truck and throws her into a nearby pond. We also know that there were traces of blood in the couple's bedroom, obviously from scratches that were seen on the husband's neck. I would guess defensive attacks on her part, trying to fight for her life. He is now behind bars in a waiting trial. And let me point out that the single most dangerous time in a domestic violence or abusive relationship is when the woman tries to leave. She filed for divorce one week prior to her murder.

If you or anyone you know needs help, please call toll-free 800-799-SAFE, S-A-F-E, 800-799-7233. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye friend. You're listening to an I heart podcast.