Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Did 'surprised' husband kill wife, mistress & teen, then flee?

Episode Date: June 30, 2017

Michael Bullinger is missing from the Idaho farmhouse that his wife believed would be their retirement paradise. The wife's body was found in a shed, next to the corpse of her husband's mistress and her teen daughter, all killed by gunshots to the head. In this episode, Nancy Grace talks to a friend of the dead girlfriend along with investigator Sheryl McCollum. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an i with Nancy Grace. They say the 60-year-old is married, but he also has a girlfriend. Friends and family believe the three women shot in that shed were Bollinger's girlfriend, her daughter, and Bollinger's wife. One month ago, we're told, Bollinger helped Nadja and Peyton move out of this Weber County home. He called Peyton his daughter. Peyton called him dad. But while Nadja and Peyton were settling in in Caldwell, Bollinger, we're told, unbeknownst to his fiance, was inside his Ogden home preparing

to help someone else move. Cheryl Baker, his wife. This whole thing, it just sounds like something you see on investigation discovery. All three ended up shot to death, left in a shed. You know, when I get aboard a plane and I see the pilot, of course I always go up and try to sniff his breath secretly. I think they know, though. But every time I get on a plane, I see that pilot, and they look so confident and reassuring, be it man or woman. They've got on their pilot's uniform, and they're standing there

ready to fly the plane, I think, okay, I'm in good hands, and I take my twins and go sit down and trust the pilot. There's something about the pilot, the captain, you trust him, right? Well, right now there's a manhunt. There is a manhunt for a pilot accused of brutally, brutally killing his wife, his mistress, and her 14-year-old little girl at their Idaho farmhouse. Wow. This is a story as old as time. A love triangle. I'm Nancy Grace. This is a story as old as time. I love Triangle. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us. I'm talking about Gerald Michael Bullinger, a person of interest in not one, not two, but three murders, brutal murders. Police found three bodies dragged to a shed in rural Caldwell, Idaho. Now, looking at records, we learn this property was purchased by Bullinger about a month earlier, May 3. There have been multiple media posts from Nadja Medley, who friends said had been dating Bullinger for two years and her post revealed she was thrilled that she was moving to Caldwell Idaho around the same time now friends of the 14 year old little girl Peyton say and this is the part that really breaks my heart, that, you know,

the parents, they can stew in their own pot, but a little girl didn't ask to be dragged into this. Reports of friends say the little girl, Peyton, actually called Bullinger dad after he and her mother got engaged. What? One little problem there. His wife, Cheryl Baker, was moving to Idaho this month after leaving her teaching job. The brother, Byron, said the family got worried when they did not hear from her. The last reported sighting of Bullinger was near Ogden, Utah. And then everything began to unfold. With me, special guests this morning, Lee Eakin from CrimeOnline.com.

Of course, Alan the Duke joining me from LA. Our producer Jackie and special guest, a dear friend close to the, let me just say the vortex of this love triangle turned to triple homicide. We'll call her Corinne. Corinne, thank you for being with us. Thank you. I just want to hear how you found out your friend who was Miss Medley. I hate to just call her a mistress.

I really do. Although, that's what she was. She was his mistress. But I don't believe she knew he was married. I just don't believe she would have let her daughter get that close to him, call him dad, post it on Facebook, including this beautiful video of a bucolic farm setting where her new home was going to be. I don't know. I just don't see it.

How did this whole thing unfold, Corinne? I think everybody's still trying to figure that out. I first found out about it um day it happened well the day um i guess they were found and it kind of it went around facebook really quick we have a lot of mutual friends as well and they started posting i was like you know they were posting basically about was like, you know, they were posting basically about one of our friends, and I couldn't figure out who because I hadn't heard anything, and then I found out it was Nadja.

So, you know, it was like, then I had to look into it and see what in the world happened because she wasn't on every day because she was in the process of moving. And, you know, she hadn't actually got all of her animals there yet. And so, you know, it just commenced a shock to everybody. What kind of person was she? And I'm talking about, and I'll use the term again because that's how everyone identifies her.

I'm talking about Nadjaaja medley and that was the mistress of this pilot who by the way is still on the run and with the pilot's license i mean alan he could be anywhere right uh yes do we know if he owned an airplane that uh was that was uh near at a nearby airport what do you know corin do you know that? I think he was, if I'm not mistaken, he was retired from actually being a pilot, but he started a new job freelancing, basically. Well, it could even be, are there any planes missing from airports in the area?

He doesn't necessarily have to own one, or he could charter one. Yeah, you're right. And here's the other thing, Alan. Remember this. He had, I believe, several days advance lead time. So he could have gone, you know, even amateur pilots, you know, if they can show their pilot's license,

they can go up to any private airport. I mean, they're all over they can just be a little dirt runway for pete's sake and check out a plane say hey i'm taking my family fishing in the bahamas let me check this thing out for so and so for you know three days and for three days nobody would think anything was a mess He could say two weeks and they still wouldn't think it was amiss. He could have driven eight hours away, used his pilot's license, taken off, and nobody knows right now, even right now, that anything is amiss with that plane being gone unless they've been listening to this podcast or watching crime news.

So he had a big lead. And then once he's in the air, if he follows, of course, you know, they know if you're following, you know, your flight pattern, your flight plan, you're supposed to follow. But let's just say he followed that flight plan and then landed and then took off again. Let's just say he lands in the Bahamas and then waits 10 hours, takes off again. He could be anywhere. Now, the truth is, Alan, I've dealt with so many bad guys on the run. The first thing I say is go to his mama's house, look under the bed. That's where he'll be.

All right. So, I mean, it could be just that simple or maybe not. Maybe not. Go ahead, Alan. He could have pulled like a Tad Cummins, if you will, the teacher who ran away and went to Northern California thinking he could disappear there. The great northwest part of the U.S., the area he's already in the area of, he could have gotten in a small Cessna, landed on a small private landing strip someplace,

or even in a field. They won't find that for a long time, and he could be camping someplace, sort of off the grid. Frankly, I think that would be what I would be doing. Not that I would kill anybody. Don't say too much, Alan, because I will use it against you. And you know I will. Guys, we're talking about, as it unfolds, an incredible story and a heartbreaking story.

You know, when I say the word story, it doesn't really do it justice. This is not a story. This is real. These are real people, a real wife, loving, trusting her husband. Corinne, it's my understanding that he had told his wife he was getting this new home. They were going to retire. They're going to move to this home. He was getting ready for her, and he was living in like a mobile home on the property. Uh-uh. He and his mistress, his lover, and her daughter were living in the house happily,

playing house in there. She had no idea. And then she got a wild hair one day and decided, hey, I'm going to surprise him. Whoa. And she got a surprise all right, looking down the wrong end of a double ought. So how do you believe he managed to keep his wife secret from his mistress? That's another thing that has everybody pretty much stumped because they were all from the same town. Well, okay, so I didn't know that.

Yeah. Ogden know that. Yeah. Ogden, Utah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you believe that she did not know he was married? Well, I don't. I've not seen anything that said she would have, you know, known. No.

But you always have to think in the back of your head, you know. Sometimes there's always, you know, alternate relationships going on. So maybe she knew, or maybe she thought they were in the middle of a divorce. Maybe she, you know, men, no offense, Alan, they'll tell you anything for Pete's sake. Anything!

But here's the thing, Lee, I'm surprised too now that I'm realizing, I guess I knew it, but I hadn't thought it through, what Corinne is saying. They live in the same small town. I come from a small town. It's hard to keep a secret. What do you know, Lee? From what I know of this guy, I spoke to his first wife.

Now, they haven't been together since 1988, I believe. But she said even back then he had a problem telling the truth she said that he's you know was an easygoing guy fun at times which made it hard for people to believe how deceiving he really is and he cheated on her um he married someone else before his current wife and she thinks that he cheated on that wife as well so he's got a problem with infidelity he's got a problem with telling the truth so in my opinion i don't think even in the small town i don't think those two knew of each other but that's just an opinion there's there's no hold on you're gonna make me crack open my yeti here

i'm gonna have to have another that's just too much for me. Let's go to the expert, Alan Duke. You're the expert on this, Alan. What's wrong with men? What is wrong with men? No offense. I mean, I married one. I have to just go ahead and confess that. I married one.

I'm an evolved man. You're married. Hello. Let me remind you that little ceremony you had out on the beach yeah okay remember that i'm i'm after a few tries involved alan you're married and i tell people that i actually wear my ring all the time i just made you involve my foot um okay let me understand this tell me that one more time lee at the risk of redundancy what now the first we think the first wife said what she said that he's pretty much lies and he cheats and

if he did have a girlfriend on the side that his current wife didn't know about that it would not surprise her whatsoever and there's a lot of reports coming out that friends are saying oh i can't believe this doesn't sound like him and the first wife is saying well that's kind of the general opinion of a lot of people that knew him because he was very fun loving outgoing you know good guy to be around they didn't see that side of him dang okay let me understand this okay when you have one marriage and it goes bad you know it could be nobody's fault then the second marriage okay maybe that first one was just a starter marriage okay let's just ignore the first one free pass but then when you're getting on your third marriage maybe I'm wrong I'm certainly no shrink okay I've never been accused of being good at relationships.

But when you get into your third and your fourth and every one you've cheated in, it's starting to sound like it might be you. You might be the problem. You know what? Another thing, another clue in this case is the bodies. God rest their souls, I'm still hung up on a little 14-year-old girl. I mean, Lee, you have a little girl.

Mm-hmm. Alan, I still think of your daughter as a little girl. Me too. Cute. Jackie has a little boy. Corinne, I don't know if you have children or not, but this little girl did not ask to be dragged into this hellhole. The clue is their bodies were already badly decomposed when they were found. Now, that tells me he had been on the run at least two days when they found the bodies.

At least. So, he could be anywhere. Lee, what do we know about the, let's start with what we know, the facts, the nuts and bolts of the case. What do we know about when it happened, how it happened? I think it was unplanned. I don't think he planned, like, for days for this to happen. That does not mean it's not murder. But what do we know?

Give me the nuts and bolts. Well, what we know is each victim had a single gunshot wound to the head. All three were laid inside a shed inside. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Each victim. You know, this is what I used to love about prosecuting, taking each fact and breaking it down to figure out how many points I could prove off one fact. For instance, was an earring torn out of the victim's ear? Was it torn or did it fall?

Where did it land? Was it close to the scene of the murder? Was it close to the body? Did she still have on the other earring? You can learn so much from one fact. For instance, in that scenario, was it a primary, secondary, or tertiary crime scene? It shows possibly a struggle. I mean, you can learn so much from each individual fact. So each victim was shot one time in the head. I'm curious if it was in the front or the back or the side, but that says to me, he may have subdued them in order to shoot them uniformly. How did he do that? I wonder if they were bound.

I wonder if it is, there had to be some kind of a confrontation, Lee, when the wife shows up out of the blue to their, quote, retirement home. And then everything goes sideways. So each victim, including the little girl, was shot one time in the head. Interesting. OK, what more do we know? And then, yeah, like you said before uh the bodies were badly decomposed so it was at least at least a few days before somebody decided well that's being conservative frankly yeah go ahead go ahead yeah and then uh i'm not sure who it was some somebody said it was a brother another person said it was a friend. But somebody got concerned when they didn't hear from Cheryl, the wife.

And they called in and asked when the police came in. And that was like a five-hour drive. Is that right, Corinne? It's like a five-hour drive from where they live to the new home? Yes. That's from when I'm getting it. So about a five-hour drive, you say. Now, see, I would normally have thought, Lee, that the wife would have.

I'm just going to use terms wife, mistress, little girl, so nobody gets confused with the names. All right. You would have thought the wife would have called him on the way so he would have been prepared. But remember, she was going to surprise him. So she didn't call him so she didn't call him she didn't call him he didn't know although you know after five hours I probably would have wondered I don't know if everybody's like this but I would wonder I would

never let my children go five hours without knowing where they are so I'm surprised if he didn't try to call her anyway okay so okay, so she arrives as a surprise. Go ahead, Lou. She arrives as a surprise, and this is why I don't think they knew of each other, because obviously we know what happened after that. And we don't know too much about anything else. We just know that they were found there. In a shed.

In a shed. In a shed. On a Monday. On a Monday. On a Monday. Yeah. Which means, I wonder if they had been apart the whole weekend. Think about it. He had probably been there the whole weekend.

And, okay, of course, he's a suspect. And he's charged with failing to report the death. That's his current charge. They were found covered by plastic. So he tried to cover them up. If I had a shrink with me right now, I've always been kind of intrigued by this. Guys, I've been so many murders I've prosecuted and covered that when you kill someone, you know, you cover their face. I don't understand understand it it must be something instinctual like a dog circling three times before he sits down because now this is anecdotal Alan okay I don't have a

statistic in front of me but I have covered so many cases I was just what case was this where the daughter killed the mom just recently and tried to claim it was a burglary and had taken the a waste basket a trash can out of the bathroom like one of those little baskets like a kind of a decorative trash can and put it over the mom's head sounds like a question for Cheryl McCollum good lord in heaven heaven. Cheryl, I'm so sorry. What in the hey, I'm so excited about hearing these facts, and you're sitting there so sweetly. I lost my darn mind.

Cheryl, I'm sorry. With me is the director of the Cold Case Institute, Cheryl McCollum. Cheryl, oh, man, I bet you've got a lot to say. I just got so carried away unraveling this. In fact, in my head once I thought, gee, I wish Cheryl was with me. Okay, I don't know what that means. Nothing good. Nothing good. I was captivated. Lord have mercy. Okay, I'm sorry. Jump in. The one reason they cover the face is because they don't want the person they care about looking at them because they've done something so terribly wrong. So it's a guilt mechanism. So they cover the face.

That takes care of that. One thing that I am extraordinarily interested in is he had survival training, Nancy. Now, the good news for law enforcement is he's 240 pounds and he's 60 years old. So that training is only going to get him so far. He's going to get hungry. He's going to get exhausted. He may even be injured. There's a great possibility he's already taken his own life.

Cheryl, Cheryl. Uh-uh. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. A man with all these women living the good life, eating all that good food, kicking back, having all these women loving on him. Man, he's not going to kill himself. Mm-mm. No. back having all these women loving on him man he's not gonna kill himself no my bet would be

he'd try to start over in another town and get a new woman that would be my guess wait wait Cheryl I gotta apologize again guys Cheryl is like the consummate sleuth hence the title director of the Cold Case Institute. Cheryl, this guy is very charming. He's like everybody's buddy. I mean, think back. Think back. Do you remember Sam Lingen at the courthouse that I prosecuted? He was everybody's good friend. He was. He is. He's still alive. He prosecuted a case, not afraid to take a case to trial. Everybody loved him. Everybody wanted to go out and have a drink. Not me, of course, since I don't drink, according to me. Everybody wanted to go out and have a drink with him at manuals after work. Everybody wanted to hang out with him. Everybody wanted to be his buddy. Just a laid back dude, right?

Fun guy, charming. That's just who came to mind first. And this is a guy like that, like Corin said. Lee, repeat again. What did the first wife say about him? and we're talking about a pilot gerald michael mike bullinger 60 year old pilot now under suspicion after the decomposed bodies of his wife mistress and her little girl were found about the part the the first wife that we know we think it's the first wife said about him being so charming yep charming fun loving everything you said laid back friends loved him they had a hard time believing that he was so deceitful according to her in which she hasn't spoke to him in a while but she said his you know his new friends now she could understand them feeling the same way and that but you know she knew him more personally and she knows

that he cheated on her and lied to her all the time. So there's kind of two different personalities going on here. I mean, you know, one of my favorite sayings, Cheryl McCollum, is when you don't know a horse, look at his track record. He's going to do. If you don't know what somebody's going to do, look at what they have done. Look at what they have done. Right, but Nancy.

What? This is what's imperative about this case. This was not on his terms. He cheated on his terms. He bought the house and moved the mistress in on his terms. When that wife showed up, all hell came to the surface. He never in his life thought he was going to murder a 14-year-old girl. He's now done that. He's now killed two women that on some level he cared about. This happened quickly, and he fled in a forward focus with no pre-planning. That was not his plan. His plan went way south very quickly.

You know what? I just love it when you talk like that. I just do. I mean, Cheryl, you're right. You're right? I just love it when you talk like that. I just do. I mean, Cheryl, you're right. You're right about every single thing you said. Forward focus, no plan. You know, a cheater has to have in the back of their mind, what's going to happen when so-and-so shows up? Will so-and-so show up? What will I say? What say what will i do how i get out of it he had to have that in the back of his mind right now i'm looking at the picture of this little girl peyton just

beautiful and one of those people that naturally have a peaches and cream complexion just beautiful little girl here they are at some event did he Lee, did he have children with his wife? His first wife. They have, as far as I know, two sons. There may be three sons, but there's definitely more than one. And she said as far as she knows, those are his only children. So he does not have children with Cheryl. Now, she was a schoolteacher, correct?

Is that right? Correct. Now, social media accounts belonging to Medley, who is the mistress, show she was absolutely thrilled discussing moving from Utah to Idaho last month after she was asked by Mike to move in with him. They were not hiding this at all. The mistress writes online, we're moving in all caps. That's right. A new home has been found and Mike, Peyton, Medley and I are moving in together. Boise, here we come. I mean, this was not a secret. Everybody know, I wonder if the wife wanted to surprise him because she suspected something was going on? I mean, it'd have to take a lot for me to do a five-hour trip in a car to surprise somebody, you know?

Just send him a balloon bouquet for Pete's sake. Why do you have to drive five hours? Cheryl, what about that? Well, I don't think there's any question, but she might have even suspected something. You know, what you write online and what's really the truth sometimes is not the same thing. So maybe she said, I'm going to go surprising. No, no, no.

That was the girlfriend writing all that online about how excited she was. Okay, so I wonder if the wife somehow, I mean, don't you tag these pictures? Couldn't she just put in her husband's name and then that would come up? Yes, no, maybe people? Yes, that would blow the whistle. It doesn't appear anybody's trying to hide the affair to me. But maybe her actually living there was the pinnacle. I bet he did want to move her out of town.

All right, let's talk about where is he now. Where is he now? Look at the map. Where could he be? What's the closest area he could get lost in, Alan? Well, it's the great Northwest. It could be a lot of places. I'm thinking Washington State.

You know what, D.W. Cooper, the guy who jumped out of the airplane, maybe he did that. Maybe he parachuted into the wilderness out there and let the plane fly into the ocean. All kinds of places. I don't see him just parachuting into the middle of the ocean. That's not a good idea. Well, no, no, no, no, no. What you do is you set it on autopilot, you jump out of the plane, and you pull one of those, and you let it slide. We've seen that. Let's rein him back in for a moment. Cheryl, what's the most likely scenario?

Back in the middle of the road. Cheryl, what's the most likely scenario? He's pulled that Ford Focus into some wooded area and covered it a little bit, and he has walked away. And he is either using his survival skills and he's at campsites clandestine and he is either going to be found with a single gunshot wound to his head or he's going to be in hiding until they find him but they will find him okay the wife said it'll be a nice surprise to show up at their new home to celebrate her leaving her teaching job with her husband,

only to find him snugged up with a mistress and be gunned down in a triple murder. Cheryl Baker found dead in a wooden shed outside the new farmhouse she bought. Oh, that kills me even more. There she is working, giving him the money to buy this house so he can jump upstairs and have sex with that woman, the poor mistress who didn't know a darn thing, and the little girl in the same house. Uh-uh. You know, teachers don't make anything. I know. I taught school, okay, while I was waiting to get in law school. I certainly did, Cheryl. Little known fact. They don't make anything, and she's working like a dog and giving him the money to support his love nest. All right. We have learned Baker had driven from their hometown Ogden, Utah to Caldwell, Idaho to surprise her husband. Bullinger told his wife he

was there working on the property for her to move in, but actually living a second life with his mistress and her daughter. Their bodies found alongside each other in that shed. Friends of the school teachers say she spoke glowingly about moving to Idaho and giving up teaching and going to the countryside. Her plan was to turn the shed into her own art studio. You know what? This man needs a death penalty. There's no two ways about it.

Nancy? Yes, what? I think you'll get the death penalty because what you were saying before, I know you remember the all-day murders. He shot them one by one by one. So whoever was in the middle was shot second, knew it was coming. Whoever was on the outside was shot last. That means a mama had to possibly

watch her daughter being killed. That means a daughter possibly watched her mother being killed. That's a needle in his arm all day long. Man, you read me like a book, Cheryl. That's exactly what I was thinking about when I was asking those questions. The methodical shooting of each victim. I said dragged to the shed. I don't know they were dragged. I don't know if he didn't make them walk out there and lay down and shoot them in the head. I don't know what he did. But I know this. You execute a 14-year-old little girl in my book, you're getting the death penalty.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then the wife and the mistress, and I am so not judging the mistress. If it ain't a felony, I don't care. I don't know that she knew. I don't know that she knew anything was wrong. Both of these women thought they got, they grabbed the gold ring. They got the lottery ticket with this

dude. And now they're funerals. I'm on the hunt for Mike Bullinger. I want that guy dead or alive. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.