Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Plans to Kidnap/Torture Estranged Wife FAIL to Win Her Back (Best of Crime Stories)

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

A Washington doctor is charged with attempted kidnapping after police say he reached out to “hitmen” on the dark web. Investigators got a tip about a scheme to kidnap Dr. Ronald Craig Ilg’s wife. A woman who received the tip-off told investigators that Ilg wanted someone to kidnap his wife while he was away in Mexico. Ilg also allegedly wanted his wife injected with heroin for a week. Reports say Ilg wanted his wife to stop the divorce proceeding and to return to the marriage.Joining Nancy Grace today: James Daniels - Director of Investigations, BlockTrace.com, Former IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent, Expert Witness in Cryptocurrency and Dark Web Ashley Willcott - Judge and Trial Attorney, Anchor on Court TV, www.ashleywillcott.com Dr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy), www.panthermitigation.com, Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology" Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Featured on "The Piketon Massacre: Return to Pike County" on iHeartRadio Hayley Guenthner - Anchor/Investigative Reporter, KHQ-TV, khq.com, Instagram: @KHQhayley Dan Schilling - Former Lieutenant Colonel, USAF, 30-year Special Operations Veteran, Author: "The Power of Awareness", danschillingbooks.com, Instagram: @danobooks Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I've told the story many, many times about how I went into really early labor and gave birth to the twins over six weeks early. And they would have died, specifically Lucy, who was born at two pounds, had it not been for the neonatal doctors that truly saved their lives. So when I think of a neonatal doctor, I think of the women and men, the doctors, the nurses, the crew that saved my children's life, many of whom I'm still in touch with. I really don't think of a neonatal doctor being taken down by the FBI. After trying to find someone on the dark web to kidnap and drug his estranged wife.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. When I think of a neonatal doctor, I don't think of a neonatal doctor being taken down by the FBI because he's been shopping on the dark web to have his wife kidnapped. Well, apparently that's exactly what happened with me. An all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again. James Daniels, Director of Investigations, BlockTrace.com, expert in cryptocurrency and the dark web. You know, there's a lot of crazy people on the dark web. Ashley Wilcott, judge, trial lawyer, court TV anchor at ashleywilcott.com. Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist, author of Criminal Behavior, and you can find her at panthermitigation.com.

Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author, Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon and star of a hit series, Piketon Massacre on iHeartRadio. Dan Schilling, safety expert, former lieutenant USAF, 30-year special ops, now author of The Power of Awareness. The Power of Awareness. And you can find him at danshillingbooks.com. But first, let's go straight out to investigative reporter Haley Gunther. You can find her at KHQ-TV. Haley, what a story. First of all, who is this guy, Dr. Ron Ilg? Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com, our cadet. A neonatologist specializes in preterm babies and newborns. The diagnosis and treatment of conditions such as breathing disorders, infections, and birth defects. That's what Dr. Ronald Craig Ilg does and he's successful.

The 55-year-old doctor came from an Oregon town of fewer than 4,000 people, then moved to Portland for his training before settling in a small community outside Spokane. During his 17-year career, Ilg worked his way up to chief medical director of a multi-state neonatology management group. He gets married, but the couple divorces. Not long after, Ilgree marries an esthetician 15 years his junior. They have a three-year-old son. So he's got the one wife, they divorce, and he gets a second wife, much younger wife. They have a three-year-old son. But of course, why is it with men, no offense men, why is it you've got everything, you have to chase a skirt? Why?

Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. Ilg's personal life and professional life begin to falter. Ilg's bosses ask him to step down as corporate medical director. Reportedly, the medical group received two complaints, one alleging harassment against a co-worker and one about his scheduling practices an hr investigation is launched and the atmosphere in the office is tense eventually ilg is asked to resign he refuses so the company eliminates his position altogether ilg files a lawsuit. Other legal action is taking place as well. Ilg's wife files for divorce.

Oh, dear Lord in heaven. Haley Gunther, I need a shrink right now before I even get the facts hold on. Dr. Sherry Schwartz, why is it that when the marriage goes sideways, everything else seemingly falters so many times. Everything went straight down the crapper. Why would you cheat on your spouse when you have this wonderful family? You've got a great job. You've got a great wife.

You've got a three-year-old child. Why? Yeah, it didn't seem like he had absolutely everything going for him. He was a well-respected doctor. We had heard glowing reviews from, you know, some of the families he had worked with, some of these babies that he had saved. And he really let everything that he had going for him, everything in the world, just go. And, you know, to you, James Daniels, people always say, oh, Nancy Grace hates men.

That's not true. I love men. I just don't like men that commit felonies. That's my problem with men. So James Daniels, I'm just going to go to you and Joe Scott Morgan and Dan Schilling. What is wrong with men? I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with men. Well, there is something wrong with this guy. He's got the first wife. They get a divorce. Now at the beginning, I'd say, well, it was probably 50-50, But then you get the second wife, and then they get a divorce, and they've got a three-year-old son. And I'm starting to wonder, wow, what's the common connection between all this? It's him. You know what? Hold on just a moment. Jackie, play cut, see? Mrs. Ilg proceeds with the divorce, even as Ronald Ilg begs his wife to make their relationship work.

Her, him, and his girlfriend. Stop right there. Stop right there. Did you hear that, James Daniels? Now, you just said there's nothing wrong, but he wants to have his wife work out the marriage, the relationship between him, her, and his girlfriend. Yeah, there's definitely something wrong with him. I was just saying men in general. So, yeah, clearly he's got some serious issues going on.

Look, I'm not saying women don't cheat. And, of course, this is anecdotal. But Ashley Wilcott, I've got a very, very strong suspicion, a strong belief that more men cheat and break up the marriage. I will tell you, it sure does feel that way and seem that way. And I feel like when men cheat, they go big. They don't just, oh, oops, I kissed someone. They go big and they just take what they want.

Yeah. Why can't you have, not that I approve of this. I don't want you to. A fleeting affair. Keep it to yourself. Don't confess to your wife and ruin the relationship and end up in a divorce. Now see, that goes against

everything I believe about being completely honest. But I remember you know, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, this may help you in your practice as a psychologist. Do you remember Dear Abby? Yeah. Because if you read, I remember as a little girl when people still read the paper, we would get the paper and I would always read Dear Abby. And about once a week, some spouse would write in, I had a fling. I can't believe I did it. It was so stupid. I don't know what I was thinking. I want to tell my wife.

Should I? She's like, no, just work on your marriage and don't do it again. Don't drag her down, as I like to say, down the crapper with you. Work on your marriage. Make it better. Be the man she deserves, but don't burden her with what you've done. You may not ever be able to repair it. Now, you know, I don't know. I'm not a shrink. I'm just a JD, but that makes sense to me. You know, because if David jumped up and told me I had an affair, well, he'd have to go. Bye. And it would ruin the whole family, well, he'd have to go. Bye. And it would ruin the whole family, but I would have to do it. Exactly.

And the thing is with cheating, men and women, by the way, tend to cheat for different reasons. Women tend, and this is a generalization, but women tend to cheat for emotional reasons, maybe because their husband isn't there. And that doesn't make it okay. I'm not making excuses. Men tend to cheat more because it's a drive for sex, new sex with somebody different. So basically it doesn't matter if the person is prettier, smarter, more educated, funnier. It's just something strange.

It's just something different, right? Exactly. And very often the other woman isn't. Yeah, I've, funnier. It's just something strange. It's just something different, right? Exactly. And very often the other woman is. Yeah, I've long suspected that. And now I'm hearing it from an official forensic psychologist. Okay. You know what, guys? Somehow, I'm going to blame it on you, Jackie. We've gotten off the course about what is wrong with men, okay? And according to James Daniels, nothing is wrong with men. and according to James Daniels nothing is wrong with men well there's something wrong with this guy crime stories with Nancy Grace here he is a neonatal doctor at the top of his game. Didn't I just hear that he had gotten

promoted to the point he was running a multi-state neonatal management group? Good gravy! Then he jumps up and tells his wife, his second wife, he wants to work out the relationship between him, her, and his girlfriend. Okay, wait a minute. I got to hear that one more time. Could you play that again? Cut, see. Mrs. Ilg proceeds with the divorce, even as Ronald Ilg begs his wife to make their relationship work. Her, him, and his girlfriend. According to the wife, Ilg has been having an affair for more than two years. Ilg bombards his wife with hundreds of text messages offering to pay her if she would

drop the divorce. She doesn't. In fact, she files for an order of protection. She claims Ilg parks outside her workplace and threatens to show up at her house at night to find out if she's dating someone. He also placed tracking devices on her car and cell phone on at least three separate occasions. According to affidavits, he told her they were for her own protection. Okay. You know what? I've totally ignored the one person joining us today that knows all the facts around this so I could rant about the husband, the wife, and the girlfriend being in a happy relationship. Joining me right now is Haley Gunther, investigative reporter and anchor at KHQ-TV. Haley, let me understand this. So he's now on a second wife. They've got a three-year-old child and he has had a girlfriend

for two years so when the baby's one year old he launches an affair that's basically what is laid out in in court documents and you know it does appear that um you know, he was a person. Haley, do you have children? Haley, do you have children? I have two little boys, yes. Well, then you know exactly what's going on when the child is much less with twins, but the child is one year old. They're still not sleeping. You're up all night long.

I just happened to walk by Amira, and I went, oh, dear Lord, what is that? When the twins were about 16 months old. I mean, and in the middle of all this, he has an affair. Now, I'm not asking for names, but who's he having an affair with? It's unclear how exactly he met this woman that he ended up to see for um gosh at least but what is she what is she an anesthesiologist is she another doctor is she a nurse does she work at the vitamin store we don't know a whole lot about her i need to know all the details we do know strictly for a professional reason of course not because i have a prurient interest. Okay, so he's having an affair.

But I can tell you this much. When you don't know a horse, look at his track record. He dumps wife number one for a woman 15 years younger. I guarantee you the girlfriend is a newer model. Does anybody want to argue with me about that, Joe Scott Morgan? No, Nancy, I don't want to argue with you about it. I don't like your tone. Checking track records.

I like the way you say that. It seems like somebody should have checked this doctor's track record before they got involved with him, to be perfectly honest with you. I'm trying to figure out how this whole thing unfolds. So let's just leave it right there with the wife not really too happy about the scenario of a close-knit relationship with her husband and his lover. Take a listen right now to Hour Cut 1. This is Morgan Trow at KREM. The FBI describes it as a tale of jealousy, Bitcoin, and the dark web. Agents say Dr. Ronald Ilg, who is going through a messy divorce with his wife, tried to solicit someone on the dark web to kidnap her and assault her. Investigators say Ilg tried to arrange the crime to happen while he was in Mexico with his girlfriend.

But according to the FBI, his girlfriend found out about the plot. In a text exchange, she tells Ilg, You hired someone to hurt your wife from the dark web using Bitcoin. Stop now. Leave me alone forever. I'm scared of you. While in Mexico, agents say Ilg's girlfriend found his burner phone that he used to contact people on the dark web. A fight ensues, and agents say the victim was able to record audio of Ilg assaulting her as she

struggled to breathe. This is the girlfriend with Dr. Ilg in Mexico. As the husband, Dr. Ilg, tries to order a hitman to do harm to his wife. But let me understand something haley gunther didn't he wasn't he tracking her cell phone and her car and all of her devices right he had said it was for her own safety um even writing to her when she confronted him sorry for caring but she did find tracking devices in her vehicles it appears that he also put some sort of, you know, software tracking on her cell phone, key tabs on her that way. And when the girlfriend found this burner phone in Mexico, her initial thought, you know, according to records and recent reports, is that it was a phone to talk to other women. So initially she didn't suspect that it was tied to this dark web evil plot

that he perhaps once again was, at least in her mind, was trying to find someone else again. So she thought all the secretiveness and the burner phones and so forth was because he was dating yet another woman, that he had a wife, a mistress, and another girlfriend. And was starting to look for someone else. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you know, I feel that if I had to look at my husband's e-mails

and his cell phone activity and figure out where he was, I just, what a horrible way to have to live. You know, to James Daniels, director of investigations at BlockTrace.com, expert on the dark web, how do you download that type of tracker? He had a tracker on his wife's cell phone, her car, and more. How do you do that and get away with it? Yeah, I mean, in all honesty, you don't even need the dark web to do that. Those type of applications are available all over the place.

Depending upon, you know, exactly what the person wants to do, a lot of them are based around the concept of parents keeping track of their kids. So these applications are built of, hey, I want to make sure my child's safe. I want to make sure everything's okay. So you can install software on their phones that track every text message, every email, everything that happens. Again, it's a safety precaution. But how do you, how would I, not that I'm going to do it, okay? I'm not going to do it. But if I wanted to download that or track my husband's cell phone movements, how would I do it? It's just an app that you download and you have it installed on the phone. to get his phone and with his passcode and go online I guess to Google and type

in track cell phone movements or track cell phone keystrokes to see what he's looking up and then you download it and then how do you read it usually what I'll do is it'll output the information to an external source. Either it can have an email sent to a designated email on a daily basis, or they actually have dashboards that you log into that give you access to everything. And as far as going undetected, these apps or software, the user of the phone, like my husband would not be able to look at his phone and tell that there was this secret app. It's like a phantom app. You can't see it when you look at the phone.

But how does that work on a car? Would you just put a GPS tracker somewhere on the car? Is that how he was figuring out where she was, James? Yeah, I mean we we use that law enforcement all the time uh standard practice all trackers on people's cars but i mean those can be purchased again online it effectively uh uses like a cell phone to ping right and then that cell phone will just basically tell you where the person's at and depending upon the type they use a lot of them just have a magnet with a phone

and a battery, and you just stick it underneath the car, and it will ping and tell you where anybody's at at any time, as long as there's a cell phone. And again, I'm a JD, not an MD with a degree in psychiatry, but if you've got to track your spouse that way, just get a new one. Just get out, because already there's no trust. I don't know how that can ever be rebuilt. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we are talking about a very well-respected neonatal doctor who is taken down by the FBI after he allegedly hires a guy on the dark web to kidnap and drug his estranged wife. He says in a bid to get her back.

Okay, guys, take a listen to our cut to our friends at KREM2. The FBI says the girlfriend told them Ill forced her to sign a sex slave contract. In a contract that looks similar to this, a slave signs her rights away and unconditionally accepts anything her master chooses to do with her. Agents say after the fight in Mexico, Ilde pricks her finger and makes her sign the contract with her own blood. The document that was shown in court shows Ilde signed the contract in his blood as well. Included in the contract, an agreement that, quote, slaves agree to any punishment, whether it was earned or not. The FBI says one of the punishments was to put her in one of two concrete holes in his Spokane yard.

Agents described the holes as storage tanks underground and that a ladder was needed to get in and out of it. The victim told investigators he would keep her down there for hours. The defense argues that the so-called contract and the relationship were completely consensual. Okay. I'm just trying to get my head wrapped around what I just heard. A grown woman agrees to a sex slave contract that includes her getting buried in a storage tank, a cement hole in Dr. Ilg's yard and staying down in a hole for hours and hours on end.

Okay. Haley Gunther. Did I just hear that? Yeah. It really is one of those cases where you read it, you read it again, and you're still just like,

did this really happen? And she signed it. And with blood, with blood. Wow, takes me back to third grade. And the blood sister agreements I have with so many people in my class. Yeah. The last time I had a blood agreement was with Joy Jones, I think, in the third grade. We would be friends forever, which we are, by the way.

Okay, describe the cement hole. The FBI had said that you certainly would have needed a ladder to get in and out of it. So it was there. It was in his yard. His home is in a place called, known here as Otis Orchards. It's a really nice, beautiful area. He has some land. So if she did scream, it's very unlikely, you know, anybody would have heard her.

But this hole was there on his property, a cement dark hole that she truly would have had, you know, no means to get out of on her own. Okay, now I need to shrink again. Dr. Sherry Schwartz joining us, forensic psychologist. What is the point of forcing your love object into a cement hole for hours on end that they can't get out of? They can die down there. Well, it seems that for this individual, there's a sexual charge that he gets out of this.

You know, this is about power and manipulation and control. And it seems to revolve around sex and how he gets aroused. And imagine how terrifying that is to most of the rest of us that are reading this and hearing this. To Dan Schilling, personal safety expert, former special ops veteran and author of The Power of Awareness. You can find him at danschillingbooks.com. What about this girlfriend that would consent to this? Well, Nancy, you know, it's funny, this sex slave contract. Clearly, you're the JV, but it's not meant to be legally binding.

It's meant to be psychologically binding. And this is how you subordinate people and get them to do what you want. But in this case, bondage or bunkers, I mean, those are private life things. I think what really matters from a safety standpoint and what we all have to ask, especially if you're the girlfriend, to your point is, do I have a problem? Listen, getting into a bunker isn't really a sex game. That is a life-threatening giveaway power over my body to somebody else. And she had to know intuitively, and you know me, I go back to intuition all the time. It's the foundation for personal safety. She intuitively knew there were problems with him, which is why she suspected his burner phone, which is a junior

varsity sort of clandestine attempt to mask things, was meant for other women, not for contacting somebody on the dark web. And she didn't take the action early enough that she could have. But fortunately, she's coming forward to help with the case against this guy because he's Dr. Dirtbag. Oh, I like that name. Thank you, Dan Schilling. To ask you, Wilcon, I can tell you this. When we are talking about a burner phone, what that really is, it's just a disposable

phone that you can get at gas stations. You can get them all over the place. You use it until you use up the minutes that are on it. It's like plastic. Then you throw it away. It sounds so secretive and spy-like, but you can get them at the gas station, right? Absolutely. And not only that, secretive and spy-like.

Let me tell you my experience working in child welfare. You know, unfortunately, people that I know enjoy calling me with lots of questions about custody and issues they're having with their spouse. And let me just suggest that these burner phones, nine times out of ten, are one of the very first things that spouses find, whether it's the female or the male spouse, to give them a clue that something's amiss, that something's up, that something's secretive. And so, A, they're easy to be found. And I find people tend to put them somewhere that they are found by their spouse. And B, it still has the data. It still has the information about what you've been doing on that phone, whether you're taking pictures, texting or calling. You know, if I found a burner phone, I would immediately suspect wrongdoing because why would you need a burner phone? But it goes on. I want you to take a listen to our cut for this is Felicia Bolton, News Nation Now. Photos inside of this court document reveal messages from the dark web from an anonymous person called Scar215.

The post include targeting two victims. One message reads, I need a rush job for next week. I need the target kidnapped for five to seven days. While being held, she is given at least daily doses of heroin. The target should be given a significant beating that is obvious. It should injure both hands significantly or break the hands. I tried to attach a pick, but it wouldn't load. Also, the team should plant heroin and use needles with her DNA inside. After about seven days, she is returned to her home. Special agents with the FBI say the anonymous post

came from Dr. Ronald Craig Ail, a Spokane neonatal doctor. This is what is what is the dark web it's certainly not immune to the fbi no the dark web is basically just a subset of the internet itself, an area that requires specialized software to go and get to it. And it was designed to keep people anonymous. Take a listen to News Nation now. According to the FBI, two journalists were doing an investigation on the dark web when they came across a post. Then they tipped off one of the victims and law enforcement. Scott Augenbaum is a former special agent with the FBI and author of The Secret to Cybersecurity,

a simple plan to protect your family and business from cybercrime. Once you get on the dark web, it is the wild west and completely unregulated. He says the dark web. It's a dark web that is used to track people who are in the dark web, particularly family and business from cyber crime. Once you get on the dark web, it is the Wild West and completely unregulated. He says the dark web is primarily used for criminal activity and without

tips from the public post on the dark web are hard for law enforcement to trace the dark web is kind of like an open air bizarre where all the bad guys gravitate, get together, and they sell, they buy information, and also they'll sell anything. They'll sell services, they'll sell drugs, and it's a closed community. So the only way you can get in there is if you know someone who will vouch for you. Well, it certainly did not stop the FBI from finding very incriminating email solicitations by Dr. Ilg

trying to get a, quote, rust job, and he needed two hits to Haley Gunther joining us, KHQ-TV. Yeah. Two hits? Two hits. One on a former employee, a former colleague. He wanted their hands to be broken. And then his wife.

And his ultimate goal, of course did want her you know pumped full of drugs taught how to use the drugs herself um and then he wanted that all photographed so he could you know blackmail her down the road but you know his ultimate goal with everything with his wife was to get her to come back to him even offering bonuses if she would sleep with him at least three times the first couple of weeks that she returned to their marriage. So he was detailed, and the details are disturbing, to put it mildly. Well, you're right about that. Take a listen to our cut six. The FBI says Aild used Coinbase.com to transfer approximately $56,308 the He would also offer multiple bonuses, including one of up to $10,000. If his kidnappers could get one of the victims to return to your husband by asking to move back home and sleep with him at least three times within the two-week time frame.

When it comes to money, money is really easy to trace. That's why the bad guys make you pay the ransom in Bitcoins. Because Bitcoins are untraceable wallets that are making a mainstream appearance today and that's just part of it take a listen to krem2 in newly unearthed documents a user by the name of scar 215 messaged a group on the dark web to pay fifty thousand dollars in bitcoin to kidnap assault drug and extort a Spokane woman. I need the target kidnapped for five to seven days. While being held, she is given at least daily doses of heroin. She's also strongly persuaded to do a few things within two weeks. One, stop all court proceedings. Two, return to her husband in the chaos you created. Three, tell absolutely no one about this.

Federal prosecutors believe her estranged husband, Ronald Ilg, was that user and he didn't want to continue their divorce. Ilg is charged with attempted kidnapping after the FBI was tipped off about the plot by the woman. FBI Special Agent and key witness Ryan Butler testified today in the suspect's preliminary and detention hearing that the wife was informed of the plot by the crew of an unnamed international news organization investigating the dark web. Straight out to Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University. Joe Scott, he was wanting her pumped full of heroin over and over and over during which time she would be photographed using drugs high on drugs lying there passed out on drugs

hey I wonder where the three-year-old son was during all of this was supposed to be but what does that do to a person to be kidnapped for 7 to 14 days and being pumped full of heroin every day? Yeah, this makes it even more insidious, Nancy, because he is a physician. Remember, he had to take a Hippocratic oath at some point in time where he said that he would do no harm, Nancy. And this is the ultimate harm. And go back to what had earlier been stated. He had told these individuals she needed to be taught how to use this. What does that mean?

Well, he's creating an addiction in her. Heroin is highly, highly addictive. So once she's blasted with that first dose, she's going to get really sick. But then this craving sets in where she has to have this fed constantly. He's a physician, Nancy. He understands that. And this is another thing. Heroin is not something that you're just going to bebop down to the pharmacy and fill a script for it.

This is something that's synthesized off of morphine, which is naturally occurring. Heroin is something that is at a street level. It's a very, very dangerous drug. So that means that whoever these kidnappers that he was looking for would have gotten this dirty drug off of the street. He's a physician. Keep that in mind. And he wants to have this injected into this poor woman's body. I lost Joe Scott, but I'm going to follow up with James Daniels, director of investigations at BlockTrace.com, expert on the dark web and cryptocurrency. You know, hold it. Ashley, first to you, talking about what you may do one day,

oh, I'm going to kill you. That's not a crime. But when you follow it up with an overt act, I use that phraseology because that is what is required by the law, an overt act. That makes it a real conspiracy, even if your plan fails. And in this case, we've got him transferring $56,000. Absolutely, Nancy. And so a couple of things. Number one, the overt act is transferring the money. Number two, that shows intent, right? There's intent because you're committing that act to show that you are attempting to do it. And remember, even if a crime such as murder doesn't occur, but you plan it, there's still attempted murder, right? There's still attempted crimes.

Those are crimes, even if it doesn't come to fruition. So how does that happen, James Daniels with BlockTrace.com? How do you transfer nearly $60,000 on the dark web? Yeah, it's fairly easy to do. One of the clips that you had had talked about, you know, untraceable wallets. And, you know, one of the things that, you know, law enforcement and now in the private sector with BlockTrace.com, we are getting very good at doing that tracing. So criminals think that Bitcoin's anonymous. They think the other is not. And, you know, we've got the skill sets to go through and trace that stuff, which is how and why the FBI was able to find who this was. Can you trace bitcoin as easily as you can trace money transfer through banks yes

yes you can and it's you know it's more difficult to trace cash um you know back when i was working drug cases and people would conduct transactions in cash it was much more difficult to to trace that than it is to trace uh. Well, cryptocurrency does have a footprint on the Internet. And so we use that along with other techniques to follow where it came from and where it went to. Why? As if there is motivation to Haley Gunther joining us, KHQ TV. Why was he doing all of this? He wanted her back, Nancy. It seems crazy, but his whole goal here was to get her to return to him, to make their marriage work. And he made it clear he had no intentions of giving up the girlfriend, but that's what he wanted. He wanted his wife home. He wanted their

family back intact and even made comments about his wife and girlfriend going shopping together at costco so he had this fantasy world that she obviously wanted no pardon but he he didn't want her dead he didn't want her murdered he just wanted her back uh to dr sherry schwartz i have not seen it but i have seen snippets of it. Have you ever heard of the reality show called Sister Wives? I have. I've never seen it either, but I know the concept. Yes. Where all these women are married to the same guy and they're all okay with that. Yes. So this was Dr. Ilg's fantasy that the wife and the girlfriend would go shopping at Costco and I guess be his own private harem. What is he thinking? Well, I think in the context of sister wives,

there's a religious component to that. And this is what they believe religiously. And again, I'm not saying that it's okay. It would not be okay with me, but I'm not a member of that particular religious practice. In this case, it doesn't seem that this is, you know, something that God told him to do, but rather a remarkable lack of empathy for these women. He can't put himself in their shoes to sort out that that's not going to be OK with them that they are having, you know, in the wife's case, she's married to him. That implies that nobody's going outside of the relationship for sex or love or or anything, you know, romantic love or anything like that. So, you know, the behavior here is very sinister. You know, what Joe Scott was saying before about shooting her up with heroin, in my mind, as a forensic psychologist and reviewing so many of these cases, I immediately thought he's planning ahead to get evidence on her in case there's a custody battle. And so he can say to her, you can't leave me.

You won't get your son. You won't get a penny from me. You have to stay with me and do what I want because I have this evidence that you use drugs. You know, it's interesting. Haley Gunther joining us, investigative reporter, KHQ TV, that he says the point of it all was to get her to return to him. I don't know that I totally agree with that, even though that's what he is saying. Take a listen to our cut 10 KHQ. The directions Ronald Ilg allegedly provided to a dark web hitman to kidnap his estranged wife is about the only thing that is clear in this stranger than fiction story.

As outlined in court docs, Ilg tried to hire a professional criminal to kidnap his wife, writing in part, The target destroyed two families and walked away as if she did nothing. I want the target kidnapped for seven days. While being held, she will be given injections of heroin at least two times per day. Ilg's accused of also encouraging the kidnapper to, quote, use all means necessary to convince his wife to drop the divorce and come back to him. Docs state he wanted the kidnapping to occur while he and his girlfriend were in Mexico. So he wants to put the marriage back together again,

and he's plotting all this off on a vacation to Mexico with his girlfriend. Hey, Nancy. Jump in. I have to. This is Ashley. All I have to say is I don't believe he wanted her back either. He wanted to control the circumstances. He didn't like the way it was going.

What's the best way to control it? Do this, and I absolutely don't think he wanted her back. He just had the control. Yeah, because he wanted her kidnapped and tortured. I don't care what he's saying now. I don't have to prove motive in court. The state is not required to prove that. The reality is that there is a trail a mile wide between burner phones, his dark web activity, and statements he has made to the girlfriend and to police.

Haley Gunther, where does the case stand right now? You know, he's still in jail. Here we have this doctor, the successful doctor, who had a remarkable career, and he has not been able to bail out of jail. He is awaiting trial. It was supposed to be coming up this month, but it has been pushed to October. Of course, we anticipate it will likely get pushed back again. but he remains a Spokane County jail inmate and the investigation is just is continuing I do know that his um in one of the court hearings his first wife was was there to kind of vouch for him and even was willing to provide you know a place for him to go while this whole thing continues to play out in the in the court system but i it's my understanding he was believed to be too much of a flight there is no way this guy should get out on bond flight risk plus a risk to the second wife and girlfriend

the two witnesses against him we wait as justice unfolds a neonatal doctor taken down by the FBI and his foiled plot to kidnap and torture his wife. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.