Crime Weekly - Bart & Krista Halderson | Killed to Keep a Lie Alive (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

By the Summer of 2021, Bart and Krista Halderson were living the quintessential Midwestern life. They owned a beautiful home in Windsor, Wisconsin, and a rustic family cabin up north in White Lake, where they loved spending time together. They were also preparing to cross the finish line of parenting. Their oldest son Mitchell was a successful tech professional, engaged and in the process of buying a house. Their youngest son Chandler was days away from moving to Florida to work for SpaceX. But on July 7th, 2021, the dream shattered. Chandler went to the police station to report his parents missing. Bart and Krista had gone up north to the family cabin for the Fourth of July weekend with an unknown couple. They never came back. Try our coffee! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: https://www.Chime.com/CrimeWeekly - Join millions who are banking FEE FREE today! https://www.veracityhealth.co - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to get up to 65% off your order! https://www.Quince.com/CrimeWeekly - Get FREE shipping and 365-Day Returns! https://www.OneSkin.co/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

By the summer of 2021, Bart and Krista Halterson were living the quintessential Midwestern life. They owned a beautiful home in Windsor, Wisconsin, and a rustic family cabin up north in White Lake, where they loved spending time together. They were also preparing to cross the finish line of parenting. Their oldest son Mitchell was a successful tech professional, engaged and in the process of buying a house. Their youngest son, Chandler, was days away from moving to. Florida to work for SpaceX. But on July 7th, 2021, the dream shattered. Chandler went to the police station to report his parents missing. He said Bart and Krista had gone up north to the family cabin for the 4th of July weekend with an unknown couple. They never came back. For the next 24 hours,

the community rallied around Bart and Krista's two sons. Chandler sat in police interrogation rooms wearing a medical neck brace from a recent injury, softly trying to trying to help detectives piece together his parents' final hours. Police launched a massive multi-county search, scouring the dense Wisconsin woods for any sign of the missing couple. But as detectives tracked the couple's final movements, the timeline began to fracture, and a sudden dark discovery on a rural farm miles away

would turn a desperate search into something deeply unsettling. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasar. And Stephanie, I have to ask, I am a SpaceX nerd. And I'm also, I was alive in 2021. And yet, I have never heard of this case. Why? So to be honest, I didn't either. It came across my desk in a weird way. And I said the same thing. I was like, it's pretty recent. This case is crazy. How have I never heard about it? I think maybe because it kind of went down during like the COVID time where the world was just crazy. at that point. Yeah, where we had a timeline jump. Yeah. So lots of people have heard about it, obviously, because now I was researching it and I was watching. Still, I don't think it's as known as it could be or should be. So when you said 2021,

I'm like, what? How have I not heard of this one? Especially it seems like a prominent family, successful family. You know, they're doing the right thing. And yeah, SpaceX ain't no joke. Or are they? I love space. I just got my starship blowtorch in the mail. Basically, it's a little model, like 100th scale model, and it actually, you fill it and it actually has like the flame come out the bottom. You can like roaster marshmallows with it. It's pretty cool. I mean, pay way more than I'm willing to admit. I'm not a big fan of like space government contractors and what they're doing to the lower space orbit, making it like, I don't know if you know, but they're making it like a whole economy.

Like they're taking the government out and the government government's going to rent space from these. contractors like SpaceX and Boeing and all of these contractors. So we're going to be paying our tax dollars to rent space in the lower. Why do you have to rain out my parade? It's just really twisted and dystopian and I hate it. I'm not saying anything negative because I'm still hoping that in my shallow brain here that somehow some way with some of the crazy things that have happened in my life, we get a call or an email where they're like, hey, we want you and Stephanie do.

be the first true crime creators to go on Blue Origin or SpaceX to like do a trip out. Nope. Not going to do that. Oh, I'll convince you. Not going to do that. We're doing it. You're getting on. If I have to sedate you, you're coming.

I have my morals. You won't even get on a plane barely. So you are right. Like you have to be sedate. It's not that I wouldn't want to go into space. It's I have my moral red line. And that prevents me from ever working with anybody like. Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg.

Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos. I'm going. Guys, I'm going. Jeff Bezos is the worst. This is me if you're watching on video. Good. Jeff Bezos is Lex Luther, but anyway.

I know. I don't want to get off track. But just so you know, SpaceX Blue Origin, what's Richard Branson? He's Virgin, right? Yeah. Hit up Derek. Don't even lose my number. Hit me up.

I am there. I will be your shill. I'm going. I'm going. I want that ticket. Wow, he's cheap. He's a cheap date. Cheap date. Put me on a rocket ship. I'm going. If it blows up, it is what it is. I mean, didn't we learn anything? Didn't we learn anything from the submarine, but.

No, that's a different ballgame. I mean, you're talking. That's a tight end submersible? Yeah, no, that's a different ballgame. I mean, he wanted to be Elon Musk. Elon Musk wants to be Elon Musk. But. Fair. So, all right, we've got the Haltersons here. Great family, great couple. It's one of those situations. where you're like, this couldn't have happened to better people, kind of like, why them, you know? Yeah.

So 50-year-old Bart Halterson was a CPA who worked as a tax manager at a major Wisconsin firm. He was known to have a great sense of humor, kind of dry. He was an avid golfer. He loved woodworking and doing home improvement jobs around the house and cabin. In fact, he was actively always working on some renovation or home improvement project at his house that his friends kind of laughed because they were like, this is maybe definitely something he should. should have paid people to do for him. But he took pride in like figuring it out and doing it himself and, you know, spending a lot of time on the weekends and whenever he had free time doing these projects, these renovation projects on his home. So the house was kind of always in a

state of like, you know, it's a work in progress kind of thing. Krista, his wife, worked as a customer service representative for a local auto body shop. She was described as being really warm, bubbly, very, very nurturing. Okay, so where Bart was probably like the more dry humor, no nonsense guy, Krista was just the complete opposite, just very warm, open, friendly. And you often see a lot of couples like that. It's kind of the yin-yang. They balance each other out. Yeah. So Bart and Krista truly enjoyed life and they enjoyed living life with each other. They attended music and sporting events. They grilled out. They played with their two dogs, Izzy and Rizzo. They spent time at their cabin and every summer they participated in a horseshoe league. They had many extremely

close friends, some that they had known for decades. So it's interesting the kinds of friendships they had because I could, I just, I don't know, it's crazy. I don't have a lot of like close, close friends. And a lot of these people, the Haltersons knew, they had met separately, like when they were younger and then when they got married, they all sort of just like blended into this one big friend group and they had known each other since they were like kids, which is awesome. So most of all, though, for Bart and Krista, they were devoted to and loved their two sons, Mitchell and Chandler, who were only 18 months apart in age and who were both making their parents proud as young men. In 2021, the older son Mitchell had a good job in IT. He was engaged

to a woman he loved deeply and they were in the process of buying a home together. Chandler, the younger son, he had recently completed his degree at Madison Area Technical College, where he'd been enrolled in an IT and solar energy program. He was in a long-term relationship with a beautiful girl named Catherine Melander, and the two were getting ready to move to Titusville, Florida, because Chandler had secured a great job working for SpaceX, where he would be making $80,000 a year. So Bart and Krista were so proud of Chandler's achievement, that they held celebratory dinners for him. Krista messaged many of her friends to express her happiness that both of her boys were on the right path and making lives for themselves.

And honestly, Mitchell and Chandler had every advantage in life to be successful and happy. They'd grown up with extreme privilege, specifically the extreme privilege of having two parents who were happily married and who loved and supported them through every stage in life. And in those growing up days, the father, Bart, worked a lot to provide for the family so that Chris, Krista could be a stay-at-home mother and focus on raising their two sons. But Bart was still available to act as a den leader for Boy Scouts, which both Mitchell and Chandler participated in. Chandler played soccer as a kid, but he'd always been an extremely, extremely good swimmer.

And in high school, he became a star on the swim team where both of his parents cheered him on from the sidelines at every single swim meet. So I want to very much like stay, you know, Bart is busy, because he's working a lot to provide. Chris is a stay-at-home mom, so she's got her own to-do list every single day. Both of them made sure that they were still actively involved in their kids' lives at every single swim meet. Barts being the den leader for Boy Scouts, they very much were focused on making sure that their sons had every opportunity to be successful and have a good life.

From the outside looking in, just the perfect family, right? Like they had everything going, two-parent home, supporting, loving, all doing well, school. extra recreational activities. Like this is what you hope for. This is what you want. Yes, exactly. This is what you want to build. And so many people, they struggle to do that because of this or that, but the

Haltersons were doing it. How many times have we heard this story, though? And then things aren't always how they look. From what I could tell, Bart Halterson was the more sensible, logical parent. But everyone knew that Krista, for her being a mother, was her entire world. She was known to be very focused on it with her son Mitchell even describing her as a helicopter parent, but he said not in a bad way. She was just very focused on them, very concerned. If he was injured, she would be really kind of like anxious about it and always be texting him and wondering if he was okay and how he was doing.

He said she was a helicopter parent in a way that showed how deeply she cared. And Krista was the perfect homemaker and doting mother. She loved doing art projects and cooking for her family. she was incredibly empathetic and protective of the people she loved, specifically her younger son, her youngest son Chandler, who she called her baby boy, even when he was an adult man. By all accounts, from everyone who knew Bart and Krista, they were amazing people and the gold standard for what parents looked like.

What kind of parents were Bart and Krista? Amazing. What do you mean by that? They never really got angry, like, I'll throw myself under the bus because when I get mad at my girls, I used to yell. They weren't yellers. They didn't like, you know, do any of that stuff. I mean, I don't think they had probably ever even spank their kids.

They just, they always gave them options and choices. So I've always believed that one of the clearest signs that someone was a good parent is when their children grow up and still choose to be close to them, right? Because once children become adults, the relationship does change. They're no longer dependent in the same way. They're no longer required to spend time with their parents or share their lives or answer the phone or come for holidays, ask for advice or seek comfort from their parents. So when adult children still want that closeness, when they still choose to call, visit, laugh with their parents, confide in them and make space for them in their lives, that does say something powerful. It says those

parents did the work when it mattered the most. They built something during the childhood years that lasted beyond obligation. They created a foundation of trust, safety, love, support, respect. They made their children feel seen and valued and protected. Enough that even after growing up and gaining the freedom to walk away, those children still chose to stay connected. And that dynamic that I just described was exactly what the Halterson family had. Even when Mitchell and Chandler were grown, they still remained close to their parents. In fact, Mitchell continued living with Bart and Krista as he went through college, and he was living with them in July of 2021 when they went off for a fun holiday weekend and never came home.

So I think you would agree with that, like, when you have a strained relationship with their parents in childhood, you know, once you become an adult, you're like, okay, I get to choose now, how much I want this person to be involved with my life. I have autonomy. me. And if it's a sign, you know, that you're still, and that's what we both want with our kids, right? We want our kids that even when they're 18 plus and they don't have to come home anymore and they don't have to call and they don't have to be a part of our lives, they still choose to because we gave them good childhood and we loved them and they know that. That's the hope.

Yeah, I hope my kids stay with me forever, but we'll see. So when you, I wouldn't necessarily say I want them to stay with me forever. I'm even trying to, I'm trying to manipulate them all ready to just go to a state school and live with me. Oh, I want them to be close forever. I don't want them to be like living in my house forever. Oh, I want to be, I want to be. Maybe like a compound kind of thing. Yeah, I want them like right next to me.

That doesn't sound very healthy. No, I'm obsessed. Yeah. I'm definitely obsessed. So I wanted to really to put an importance on that because when Chandler in 2021, he's 23 and his older brother Mitchell is 24, they're still actively seeing their parents. They're coming home for Father's Day. Things were good.

Things were good. Chandler lives there with them, okay? And his girlfriend, Kat, was like, yeah, him and his parents would cook together. They'd play the wee together. You know, if you're playing the weed with your parents, it's awesome. You've got a great relationship. They chose to spend time together. This wasn't Chandler just doing his own thing and then coming home and sleeping there and then going

off. He seemed to have a great relationship with them. So then we get to July of 2021. And at 1125 a.m. on July 7, 2021, Chandler went to the northeast precinct of the Dane County Sheriff's Office. And he reported that his parents had left for their cabin on the morning of Friday, July 2nd, around 6 a.m. Chandler believed that his parents, Bart and Krista, were going to the cabin to work on a water pump and a fire pit that had been possibly damaged during a recent storm. So Chandler said he thought that his parents were supposed to have been back by the following Sunday night or Monday. day, but they weren't home, and when he called their cell phones, his calls were going straight

to voicemail. So Chandler said he hadn't actually seen his parents leave on the morning of July 2nd, but he had helped them gather and pack up some items they were planning to bring with them to the cabin, including a pipe wrench and a hatchet and gas cans for the chainsaw. He'd also helped his mother, Krista, pack up her medications, and he did this the night before they left. So he said when he woke up at 6.15 a.m. on Friday morning to, like, let the dogs out, his parents were gone along with those items. And the last communication he'd received from his parents was a text from his mother, Krista, that she'd sent him around 11 a.m. on July 4th, in which she stated that they were going to the parade in White Lake, and they'd be home either Monday or Tuesday. So Chandler said it wasn't uncommon to not be in constant contact with his parents when they were out at the cabin because there wasn't great service. there and his parents were busy, et cetera, et cetera. So it wasn't actually Chandler's idea to go to the police and report his parents missing. And we're going to take a quick break and talk about that when we get back. This episode is brought to you by Chime. And honestly, Summer has a way of

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go to chime.com slash disclosures. So the alarm had actually been raised by coworkers of Krista's when she hadn't shown up for work on Friday. So the day allegedly that Krista and Bart left for the cabin, Krista didn't show up for work, which means she hadn't informed anybody that she was going away for the weekend and she wouldn't be there. Yeah. And just to confirm that. That was July 2nd? Yes. Okay, July 2nd, she didn't show up for work.

Mm-hmm, which was a Friday. And this was very unlike her, obviously. We always hear this whenever the coworkers are calling and being like, hey, this person didn't come in. It's usually because it's like, this is very unlike them, not just like, oh, yeah, Krista, she does this sometimes. She just doesn't show up for work. Takes a long weekend, so we weren't concerned. No, they were concerned. It wasn't like her.

And at that time, a man named Michael Hilgendorf received a call from Krista's office, asking if he talked to her or he knew where she was. And, you know, Michael and his wife Jane had known Krista since middle school. They'd been friends for 38 years and they considered each other family. So Michael and Jane had twin daughters, Haley and Hannah, who were close in age to Chandler and Mitchell, so their kids had grown up playing together and then also becoming friends. And Michael actually worked for the same company as Krista. He worked in kind of a different area, but for the same company and when she'd been ready to stop being a stay-at-home mother when her kids got older and she wanted to enter the workplace again, he'd actually helped her get the job there because he'd known

her for so long and he knew her so well. So Kristen not showing up at work and not calling anyone was alarming. And then another coworker and friend of Krista's was also getting calls from Krista's office asking if he'd seen or talk to her. Daniel Kroninger had the day off from work on July 2 because he was closing on a house and he also felt right away that something was wrong. Okay, so Michael, Krista's friend, works in like kind of a different area of the same company. It's like a car place and he works in like the auto body area. A different department. She's, yeah, she's in kind of a different building, but they're in the same area. So he gets a call from her building like, where's Krista, you know, we know you've known her since middle school. This isn't like her. Have you talked to her?

He was like, no. Daniel Kroninger also works in the same place as Chris. He's got the day off. So people from her office are calling him because he knows, because they know that he and Krista are close. And they're like, have you heard from her? And Daniel's like, no. Now, this is a red flag for sure. I mean, the fact that she didn't show up, you could chalk it up to, oh, she had let

somebody know. The message wasn't delivered to the right person, but she did let someone know. That's why I think they're calling. But to not call anybody and just not show up, especially considering why we're here, you know that this is a sign that something more is going on. than what it looks like on the surface as far as just a, oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to call. Yeah, so it's a holiday weekend. So people in the office might be like, well, maybe she went up to the cabin, right?

She might have told someone just not the right person. She might have told someone. They didn't put it in the computer or something like that. You know, maybe there's, I'm sure there wasn't alarms at first, but they're trying to call around. They're doing their own investigation, talking to people she knew to see if someone knew where she was. And maybe it was just a simple misunderstanding. They're calling people she works with who are also friends with her in real life. So the thinking is if something's going on in Krista's personal life, like she took a trip to the cabin, they'll know even if we don't.

But they didn't, right? So Daniel Kroninger had actually worked with Krista since September of 2019. He knew her family. He'd been to her house and he knew how reliable and responsible Krista was. And since Daniel only lived a few miles away from the Haltersons, he and his girlfriend decided, you know, let's just hop into the car and drive over to Krista's house and they did this around 4.30 p.m. So when he got there, he knocked on the door, but no one answered. So he peeked in through the front window, but he didn't see anyone. So he went to the garage door and looked in.

And he saw in the garage parked both Krista and Bart's vehicles. So both of their cars are there. That's a problem. So, and this is July 2nd, the day that Chandler says they left at 6 a.m. To go to the cabin. They're already gone. And as far as Chandler's statements concerned, they're at the cabin. Or on their way there at least.

On their way there at least. Yeah. So at that point, then... What would you need to get there, Stephanie? A car, right? You need a vehicle. Bingo. But remember, Chandler's going to claim, well, they got picked up by some friends. Oh, convenient. Okay. So at that point, Daniel and his girlfriend, they're kind of looking around. They're like, what's going on?

Both their cars are here. What's going on? And then Chandler Holderson, he came outside and he talked to Daniel. And he explained that his parents had gone to their cabin up north and they'd be home in a few days. Then at this point, Daniel's like, well, their cars are here. And Chandler's like, yeah, they got picked up by like a friend. Somebody picked them up. I wasn't awake when it happened. So I don't know who it was. Now, this was the same thing he told Michael Hilendorf, the other friend, when Michael texted him on that same Friday concerned about why Krista wasn't at work. So Michael's wife, Jane, really tight, close friends with Krista. Jane had already tried to call both Barr and Krista, but her calls were going to voicemail. So she called their son Mitchie. the older son, and he said he didn't even know anything about his parents going to the cabin that weekend. And so then Jane called Chandler. The Chandler seemed to have any more details other than they were with another couple and they went to the cabin. He said that they loaded up a bunch of booze and took a whole bunch of money. And maybe that they went gambling and they were going to have a really good time.

I'm going to pause there for one second. Okay. We're Bart and Krista people who loaded up a bunch of money. a booze into their car usually? No. You answered somewhat emphatically. What do you mean by that? We had been to their house many occasions. My husband and Bart would have like a beer. That's all Bart would ever drink is a beer or he likes scotch. That was, you know, or a little small glass of scotch, whatever, just as we were winding down. Christy usually didn't drink. She would have maybe a beer on one of my occasions when I went up to her house. I'm like, do you want me to pick up a

bottle of wine for us tonight? And she's like, no, I don't want to drink in front of the kids. And I was like, you're an adult. You can. You don't share that concern yourself. No, I don't. Okay. The money, did that make any sense to you that Bart and Crystal would load up cash, a bunch of cash and go up to the cabin? No. Bart's a CPA. He was very tight with his money. They both were. They kind of had a budget. and they didn't spend outside that budget. All right. So first thing we can we can confirm is Jane likes to have a couple drinks.

Yeah, Jane's like, I do not share that I don't want to drink in front of my kids. But overall, she knows, she knows Bart. She knows Krista. She knows for the most part how they conduct themselves. She's known Krista since middle school, yeah. And known Bart ever since Krista and Bart were married. And she's animated here because obviously she knows more than I know and the audience knows at this point. in the story. But she's obviously passionate about this because it sounds like even initially

when he said this, it raised some flags for her where she was like, they loaded up a bunch of booze and money. These are people who are very frugal and don't drink a lot. Two things I wouldn't expect you to say Chandler. So in hindsight, she's probably even more pissed now knowing more about the story than we do. Yeah. And, you know, she's also saying like I think it also says something about Krista where it's like even when she's an adult and her kids are adults, she's still like, no, I don't want to set the wrong example. Very cognizant of a thing. Very wholesome, you know.

Which is fine. To eat their own. I'm not going to drink in front of my kids, which I respect that. Like I like Jane. I'm like, no, if my kids are adults, I'm going to have a few drinks in front of them. I don't care. But I wish I could be more like Krista and have this, you know, standard. Overall, the story is just not adding up because they're going up to a cabin for a weekend.

I'm sure you've gone away to cabins or vacation homes on the weekend as a lot of our audience. has, it's usually a little bit more involved as far as the packing. Even if you own the place, you got to bring up, you know, paper plates and food or groceries, whatever. Usually you pack it up before you go up there. You might need certain toiletries and medications, whatever it is. And it's at least... Well, remember, Chandler said he helped his mother pack her medications the night before.

Right. But it sounds like they packed very light for an entire weekend when you're going up to the cabin. I would think that you'd have to bring a luggage, you know, you need clothes. And so you're going to hop into someone else's car. And I don't know how big their vehicle is, but you're going to load up your personal belongings. Then you have you two and then them two. It's not a lot of room.

So logistically, without knowing details, it doesn't make a lot of sense. And then on top of that, which I'm sure going to get to, we haven't heard the name of these friends that they were picked up by allegedly. And so that's going to become a big crossroad in this whole story because that's where I would imagine some of this is going to fall apart. Yeah, because Chandleroy doesn't know who picked them up because he wasn't awake. Right. Right. And all of Krista's friends are like, well, we're her friends, you know, so who would she?

Yeah, what other friend is picking her up that we weren't aware of that would be going into the cabin with her? It's not some random person she just met. Exactly. Who would they be a close friend? Who would they be with? Yeah. Right. They have to be someone who are, they're local, right? They're from the area. It's convenient for them to stop by and pick them up. So who are we talking about here. And we've known Bart and Christopher for decades. Yeah. And we can't for the life of us imagine who they would. be with. Yeah, it sounds like Bart and Krista, and this is an assumption of my part, probably had a smaller circle of friends that they were tight with. They had a small, I wouldn't say it was small because it was very extended, right? Like, but that they were very close with, especially Krista, who was talking to her friends every single day, right? She's always telling them what she's doing, what's going on in life. She's keeping them constantly updated. So for her to have a whole different set of friends that nobody knew about, and for her to be going to the cabin and not have

told Jane or anyone that we're going to the cabin this weekend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was very concerning. And so at this point, people were very unsettled by the sudden disappearance of Bart and Krista. Yes, they were adults. Yes, they could pick up and leave whenever they wanted to, but a lot of things were happening that were so out of character for them that those people who knew them well were genuinely alarmed. Krista never missed work. She was always in touch. She always told her friends and her children where she was going and what she was doing. And yeah, Chandler knew. but their other son Mitchell didn't know. So the Haltersons were also not the type of people to load the car with alcohol and money before a trip to their cabin.

And gambling was something that neither of them ever took part in. So Jane said she did feel a little bit better on the fourth because at that point, Chandler communicated with her and told her that he'd gotten a text from his mother. But the following Wednesday, which was July 7th, Jane got a call from Chandler telling her that Bart and Krista they hadn't come home yet and he still hadn't heard from them. So at that time, Jane and her husband, Michael, were at their own cabin. So they left on July 4th for a two-week vacation at their own cabin. And their cabin was 88 miles away from the Halterson cabin. But Jane was so concerned when she got that call from Chandler on the 7th.

And she was like, something's not right. Something's not right. So her husband Michael was like, you know what, screw it, you're right. Let's just to make you feel better, to make me feel better, let's get in the car. like to drive 88 miles. 90 miles. Yeah, we're going to check on bar. I'm a Rhode Islander.

So that's like, that's like, that's a true friend. Yeah. That's a real, that's a real close friend. So it's like, they're like, oh, we're at our cabin. They're at their cabin. It's just a, you know, a 15 minute drive. No, 90 miles away. They were, they were 90 miles apart.

So they're like, let's get in our car. We'll drive it. We'll check on Bart and Krista for ourselves. What do you find? There is two like big old, like, spoke. wheels, like people use them in their outdoor motif all the time. And then there's a birch log across that. And I'm like, I take a picture and I'm like, is this the cottage? And he's like, yeah. And then he's like, haven't you ever been there? And I'm like, no. At this point, I called

him on my cell. And I said, Chandler, no one's been here. The grass is like two feet tall, 16 inches, two feet tall. And when you drive over grass, like when we haven't been up to the cottage, it gets pushed over. So you know that somebody's been there. It didn't, it wasn't pushed over. It was pretty tall. So you called Chandler? I called him back.

Get back in your car, I would imagine, and you're talking to him? My husband didn't let me go out of the car. He said, you stay in. I'm going to go look. So I called Chandler back, so I have him on the phone. and I'm like, nobody's been here. And he's like, are the doors unlocked? And I said, no, they're locked from the outside, which I thought was weird because ours has a normal key lock.

And he's like, no, that's how it is. I'm like, okay. And he's like, did you check everywhere behind, like the boathouse? And I'm like, Uncle Mike's doing that right now. He's like, okay. He's like, did you find anything? And I said, like, what? And I was shocked that he said,

any bullet shells or any blood or anything. And I went, what? And he's like, did you find anything? And I'm like, no, no one's been here. And he's like, okay, what do you think I should do? I'm like, you need to report them as missing. Obviously, they didn't make it here. I don't know how they could go to a parade if they didn't make it here.

But whatever, maybe they stayed somewhere else. I didn't know. Yeah, Jane's not playing around. Jane doesn't take any bullshit for sure. I mean, and also what she said there, you know, Uncle Mike is looking like that just tells you how close they were. Exactly. Because they weren't blood related and yet that's how close they were. But you could tell and maybe I'm giving her a little too much credit here, but she's something smelt off to her from the beginning.

She's a detective. She's like, there's no grass push down, man. She hadn't even gotten out of the car yet. And she's like, yeah, they haven't been here. This is some, this is not adding up. Someone's not telling us the truth. And then come to find Jane and Michael, her husband, they also do a little like kind of looking into things. They find out there never was a parade in White Lake on July 4th.

Because remember, Krista had allegedly texted Chandler on the 4th and said, oh, we're here, everything's fine. We're going to a parade tonight. And you think, yes, July 4th, places have parades. Maybe there was a parade. There never was. And you can see the people who know Krista and Bar, they're going through this stuff in their head. And they're like, well, maybe they went to like a neighbor. And they went to a parade there.

But why did they say it was in White Lake? And maybe they found there was no parade in White Lake. So then they went and found a parade. Or maybe they found there was no parade in White Lake. So they didn't go to a parade. But they were not at this cabin. So like what's going on here. And by the way, I don't want to skip over the fact that what Jane said there was extremely

important. I mean, it's been minutes since she showed up at the cabin with Mike. And already Chandler's asking if there's any shell casing or anything like, did you find anything like bullets or anybody in the comments section, listening, watching right now, if there's ever been a time where you were looking for someone, within a matter of minutes, did you think to yourself to ask the person who was doing the searching for you? Well, they must have been executed outside the cabin.

Did you see any ballistics evidence around there that I should be aware of? Like, never crossed my mind as a former cop. Yeah, Jane's like, what the hell? What? Yeah. At this point, everybody should be thinking, oh, maybe it's just something. There's a miscommunication. Maybe they were going to the friend's cabin.

Yeah. Something that we're unaware of where it's just a chain of events that resulted in a lack of communication, not, hey, any signs of a murder up there that I should be aware of? Any shell casings, do you see? Yeah. Yeah. Nope, not good. So, yeah, there's a lot going on here.

It's suspicious. Like, did Bart and Krista leave with somebody unknown who hurt them? What's going on? Did they lie to Chandler? I don't know, but stuff's going on here. So let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Veracity Self-Care and their met.

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Okay, so Chandler goes and reports his parents missing on July 7th because you could hear he's talking to Jane. She's like, nobody's here at the cabin. Nobody's been here. He's like, what should I do? She's like, report them missing. So he goes and he reports them missing. Yeah. So on the evening of July 7th, Detective Sabrina Sims and Detective Brian Schunk went to the Halterson home to talk to Chandler.

And the detectives noticed that both Bart Subaru and Chris. as Volkswagen were parked in the garage, just like Daniel Kroninger noticed. And Chandler mentioned to them that he had driven both vehicles during the time his parents were gone, but he said not a lot. He said he'd driven to his girlfriend's house on the east side of Madison, and he took a trip to the Sun Prairie area. Other than that, Chandler said he hadn't driven a lot because he had gotten a concussion before his parents left for the cabin, and it limited how much he could drive. So this concussion in question had happened on June 17th when Chandler had fallen down the stairs. Remember, I said Bart and Krista had been doing a lot of renovations on their home and Chandler had been helping as

much as he could. And during some work on the upstairs bathroom, Chandler had been carrying an old porcelain toilet down the stairs by himself when he lost his footing and fell. And after going to the hospital, Chandler came home and informed his family and his girlfriend that his injuries were pretty extreme. It was bad. He said the doctors had found blood on his brain and that he was at risk for a fatal aneurysm. The fall had left him with extensive nerve damage across his upper body and temporary leg paralysis. So he actually was sleeping downstairs on the first floor because he was closer to the bathroom because he would routinely lose feeling in his legs, which would cause him to need assistance with standing or walking. He also told his girlfriend, Cat, that spinal fluid was leaking

from his head and spine, and the injuries may lead for him to need to wear a colostomy bag eventually, although at that point he was wearing a neck brace that was given to him by the doctors. So Mitchell Halterson, Chandler's older brother, he also felt a growing anxiety as the days passed and he didn't hear from his parents. And the fact that his brother Chandler was concerned enough to report them missing, it signaled to Mitchell that this might in fact be serious. So he decided to drive with his fiancé three hours to the cabin on July 8th. So you go up north and you meet a deputy up there. Correct.

What do you do once you're out there? Before the deputies arrived, I took a lap around the cabin myself just because I didn't want to wait outside any longer. Eventually, Langley County, I guess the deputies, I believe they were sheriffs and deputies met us there. And eventually I took another walk around the property with them, just pointing out things that I noticed. and also they busted into the doors because they were all locked and the keys that I had were not working.

At any point, obviously you did not find your parents up there. No. Did you find any signs at all that they had been there? Nothing looked like it had been used. There was a couple pieces of trash around, but I believe that's just because sometimes people will walk through the property on the way, either between properties or just in the way, either way, I do not believe it had been used anytime recently. Hi there. Hi there. I'm Detective Surgeon Girls with Laneway County. Are you guys...

The Hoddersson. You are, okay, you are affiliated with them? Yes. Okay, what's your relation? I'm their son. You're their son, okay, all right. Yeah, it's my understanding someone from the Dane County Sheriff's Office is going to be up here soon. I don't know if you...

They unfortunately were just called them being informed, they were just called back, actually. So they will not be here. Really? Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's okay. This is actually someone from the sheriff's office if you want to talk to them. Oh, sure. Yeah, I think he was monitoring the radio, but...

We probably could get in if you wanted us to. Obviously there'd be some damage. We'd try to minimize it as best we could. No, I think that honestly at least makes sense at this point. Yeah, to be safe rather than sorry. Yeah, we're not going to drive a truck through a wall, but no, unfortunately, if it's locked, we would have to do something. I wouldn't expect the locks to be crazy strong anymore at this point.

a padlock on the front door? Yeah, it's just a padlock on the floor. Okay, and I have a pry bar and we might have some other options to, yeah, a lock is a lot cheaper to replace the wall. But do you, based on, I guess, your experience with the property, do like, a lot of people walk the shoreline or I know there's, there's campground and stuff. Is that, like, common for people to, to kind of wander? I guess it's hard to say, because I don't, not when we're here at least, but it's possible, I guess they do when we're not here. Yeah. Sheriff's office, anybody inside?

Now it's your presence to make yourselves known. So we were able to just basically just pop the latch off the front door, so it shouldn't, that really should be the only thing that would need to be fixed is just the latch. It should still lock and everything. Nobody inside and nothing looks like it's disturbed. But if you want to take a look with us, because you might know better if anything looks out of the ordinary, just trying to think of any other possibility. Like, you know, when you were a kid, when you came up here years past, I mean, is there anywhere else you guys would go, like up to Monaco or? Rhinelander or anywhere like that.

I think if you were up here, like, take a day trip somewhere. I'm not going to have a name of that, but we would go to a candy store just for fun, but that would be about it. Okay. Maybe my parents would go there since they like the taffy there, if they were up here. Okay. It was a pretty big place, but I don't know. The name of it.

Sure. To my knowledge, nothing was a report, like, we didn't have any accidents or anything like that. You know, sometimes we have, like, car accidents, Fourth of July weekend, but nothing where, like, we didn't have somebody who wasn't identified or anything like that, so. The other thing we've been wondering about is, like, hospitals, I'm sure they're looking into that from date cavity. And, like, your brother had been saying that your mom was having some health diagnoses or something. Yeah, we're supposed to have an appointment for, like, skin cans or something. Okay.

And so we didn't know, like, they had gone. Someone would do that. Sure. Yeah. do that instead and just don't tell anyone. Yeah. I'm not sure if Dane County would have called our hospitals up here. I know like if we ever have like a missing person's case, we usually call if, you know,

there's a different area they're believed to be in. But I can certainly call, you know, Aspirus and Anigo and Wausau are kind of the two closest, most common ones. All right. So from that video, I guess there's, there's a lot we can talk about. But for the sake of just staying on course with the story, the big thing to me is that even know this is kind of a secluded area, there was in the beginning of the clip another house right next door. And I have to imagine, just based on my own personal experience with beach houses and,

log cabins, like, if you own something in that area, it's probably been owned by the same families for a reasonable amount of time. And you're pretty close with the people around you. And you would think that if at any point Bart and Krista had come up to that cabin, the people next door would have said, yeah, yeah, we saw the car here the other day. You're familiar with what's going on around you. So although that wasn't on camera, I'm sure that's something that was done that was asked. And then as far as the actual property, it's kind of like Jane said, right? Like it looks like it's been almost deserted for a while. And you would think that if they were up there, there would have been some landscaping or something done to make the place a little bit easier. You're not at your

cabin for months. Probably one of the first things you do when you get there is mow the grass. Yep, take care of it. Yeah. The only other thing that I'd be asking at this point, if I was the first guy on scene was did they own a boat, right? Is it possible that, again, you would still expect to see activity in the home. That doesn't rule that out and that as far as it doesn't appear anybody had been there in a while. But I would ask if they had a boat and if, you know, they could have taken the boat out and something happened there, which again, still wouldn't make a lot of sense because it wouldn't be like they got out of their car. And the first thing they did was hop on their boat and go for a ride. But you got to doubt all your eyes, cross all your T's. What did you

take from the video? I mean, it kind of. breaks my heart because first of all, you hear they're asking Mitchell, like, is there a place you like to go when you were kids? And he's like, yeah, there's this candy shop. My parents like the taffy there may be there. But other than that, I don't know. And then the police are like, well, you know, we don't have any accidents that have been reported where the victims are unknown. So they're thinking about everything. And then Mitchell's girlfriend slash fiancee, she says, well, your brother did say your mother was having some medical issues. So we were wondering, maybe did Krista and Bart go to get some test done? And they just. didn't want to worry us. So they told us they were coming to the cabin, but that's not where they went. And that's when they start talking about, like, yeah, we can check the hospitals and things. But something that's very important to note that happened pretty much in the first, I don't know, 30 seconds of that clip, you heard that this is, this is in Great Lakes. So it's a different county than where they live in Windsor, right? Yeah. It's like a three-hour drive. And you heard that the local law enforcement who were reporting to the cabin, you heard them say,

that the officers from the Dane County Sheriff's Office had been on their way to the cabin in White Lake to basically meet with local law enforcement and to talk to Mitchell, but then they'd been called back. And this is what Mitchell says. And the local law enforcement, they're like, oh, really? Like, that's weird. And they call. I didn't put that part in there, but they call Dane County. And Dane County is kind of like very vague about what's happening. Well, the reason that Dane County had been on their way to the cabin and then they turned around was because they were investigating a tip they'd received that morning that led police to a property in Cottage Grove, which was about 20 minutes southeast of the Halterson home in Windsor. And that property, it was huge. It spanned roughly 80 rural, heavily wooded acres along Norah Road. The property owner had called the police to report that on Monday, July 5th, they'd witnessed some strange activity there. So on the afternoon of July 8th, Dane County search teams and K-9 units swarmed the property. And one of the first things Detective Baverstock would testify he saw when he arrived was vultures circling over an area of woods at the end of the property line.

Yeah. So I'm going to try to, it's a very complicated sort of setup, but the main house was large. There's an expansive area of manicured grass and then further away from the house there's a swimming pool. and it's kind of so far away from the house that they had a golf cart where they would get in the golf cart from the house and drive the golf cart to the swimming pool. So it's a big property. And then police, they get out on July 8th, they get out of their cars, they walked towards a large wood-sided utility shed standing at the edge of the property line, really far back away from the main house. And this is when they spotted distinct fresh tire tracks leading into the tall grass and weeds at the wooded property line. property line. So there's like the house that they're living in, their property, which is kept

mowed and stuff. And then they have like this area that's not mowed, tall grass leading into woods. A lot harder to get to. Yeah. A little bit more secluded. So the police, they continue on into the trees. They go through the thick brush, the low hanging branches, and about 20 to 30 yards into the dense forest. They spotted something out of place just beyond a large mossy log on the forest floor. So there's the mode section of the grass, which is just south of the barn. There's a, you know, the stack of old logs sitting there. But to the right is where we could see what appeared to be two tire marks going into the deeper grass. Did you follow those tire marks? Yes, I did. Where the tire marks end, there's another area of depressed grass in all different

directions at the end of it. So you're standing near where all that grass was patted down at the end of the tire marks in the grass, you look over and you can see more of the grass is like pressed down heading towards the woods. And was that, you know, we're seeing it on a photograph, but I'll ask you, because you were out there, was it apparent to you that this was an area that had been walked through or trampled in some way by someone or something? Yes. And did you follow it?

Yes, I did. Okay. And so you entered the woods right there? Correct. It's hard to tell from this picture, but there's actually a downward slope here. You know, if the trees weren't here, it would be a good little sledding hill for little kids, but there's like a downward slope that goes down into, you can see like a little brush pile down there. More of the trampled grass that goes to this log that goes across,

and then you can see to get the green moss on the log, but there's areas where the green moss had been scraped off as if something had scraped it off. Did you notice anything ultimately beyond that log at this point? Yeah, the pile of sticks on the other side of the log, and there was just something that wasn't natural under the sticks. Did you go check it out? Yeah, I got as close as I had to. Couldn't quite tell what it was right away,

so I stepped over the log and got a little bit of a closer look. And what did you find? I didn't know what it was at first. What do you mean by that? It just, it took me a while to process what I was seeing. You know, then it became obvious that I was looking at a human torso. We're starting to maybe be able to see that, what you saw that day? Yes.

Under those sticks. Yeah, and this is about the view that I had. You could see, the flesh-colored skin on the right and the belt and pants and a black rope attached to it and it knows you can see the rope coming out

from the bottom of the stick pile what are we looking at there that's the rope that was attached to the body was it a considerable pile of debris on top of the torso if you could describe it any way you could you know it wasn't natural to it looked like it had been accumulated and placed on top.

There wasn't another pile of sticks nearby. Similarly, it's mostly a collection of dead wood that was placed on top. I feel for that officer right there. It's something we've talked about before. I remember early on in my career and other officers and detectives have described it similarly. It almost looks like a mannequin. And it takes a moment for your brain to process. catch up with what you're seeing like your eye see it but even though you're a police officer and

you should be you know aware of this and understand it could happen those moments leading up to it when you're just walking down this grassy path and you see these tire tracks you're not expecting to find a dead body it just it's never something you can you think about it but until it actually happens you don't understand that feeling and and when you're looking at it now and like he said obviously now it looks like a body but in that moment you're like wait a second What is that? No, it can't be, it can't be that. And then it's like, oh, that's exactly what it is.

You know, and you could tell he struggled with it. Yeah, that was Detective Beaverton. And like I said, you could definitely tell that even trying to recall it. It's like, I just, I don't even want to go back there. You know, I have to for court, but I don't really want to. I don't know how long he's been on or what he's been in. I don't know that area. But not just because you're a detective, it doesn't mean that you've seen hundreds of dead bodies.

That you're always encountering these things. Right. So this could be something for that area, which there is not normal. And so he might have been on 15, 20 years on the job. Maybe he had one or two cases like this. So he's going out there, doing his due diligence, not expecting to find this. I mean, they all kind of said all the police on this. They were like, we've never really seen anything like this.

This was horrific. This was nightmare inducing. Yeah. So we are going to talk about. what they did find. But let's take a quick break first. This episode is brought to you by Quince, and every summer I have the same realization, which is that I want to look effortlessly put together, but I don't want to put in a heroic amount of effort. That seems fair. Effortless should not require a full strategy meaning. I think

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Okay, we're back. So what they found, and you could hear him, he said it was past a mossy log, and the moss on the log had been disturbed. Like, it was scraped off by something, right? So what they found on the other side of that mossy log was the shirtless torso of Bart, Halterson, lying face down with a rope tied around his waist, no arms, no legs, no head. So like I said, there was this large moat area where the barn was located, and then that moat area abruptly ended with the land beyond leading to the tree line with the unmowed long grass.

Right at the edge of that long grass area, the police saw what looked like a large oil drum. On the north side of the oil drum, there was an odd-shaped cut, and inside the oil drum, police would recover several items, a pair of red household scissors, long-handled pruning shears, a broken hand hacksaw, and a broken bone saw. So three tarps were also found at the crime scene. One was found on top of Bart's torso, located underneath the foliage that had been placed on top of his torso to conceal it. A piece of that same tarp was discovered bound in yellow duct tape in a black rolling garbage can, a short walk away from the torso outside the utility shed. A separate tarp was found in the main barn about 50 yards away from the utility shed.

All three tarps had red staining on them that would test positive for blood. So as it turns out, the tip that had led the police to the Cottage Grove property had come in from a woman named Dulcee Melander. And this is the mother of Chandler's girlfriend, Catherine. So on the night of— Right? So on the night of July 7th, Catherine had told her mother that Chandler had just reported his parents missing. And so this caused Dolce and her partner, Crescent Lassai, to discuss together how they had seen Chandler on Monday, July 5th and how weird it had been. So Chandler had just been at their home on July 4th because they had a pool.

They had a nice property. So Dolce and Crescent, their families came over and there was kids and, you know, they were all swimming and eating some food and hanging out. And even on that day, Chandler had been acting abnormally. He just seemed kind of off, like, kind of weird, actually. I mean, I remember asking him how he felt, you know, because I just, you just kind of seemed. Okay, you asked him how he felt. What did you remember how he responded? Yeah, he just said, oh, you know, I'm doing okay or I'm doing the best that I can.

Because he had an accident, he fell down the stairs or something. So I thought maybe it was because of the accident. that he was acting off. Sure. Was he displaying any physical symptoms on July 4th? Not that I saw, no. Okay. Was he wearing a neck brace at all on July 4th when you saw him?

No. Well, shortly after he was done eating, the kids were sitting at the table in my family room, and they had gotten up, and I was kind of walking towards the kitchen, and he approached me and asked me if he could have my phone number, my personal phone number, because he wanted to know if he could come and use the pool.

Okay. Did you give him your number? Yeah, I gave him my cell number, and I also gave him my landline. Okay, so Crescent said that before that weekend, Chandler had never been to the house alone before, and he had never really talked about his parents all that much, that Crescent didn't even know their names to that point. Like, he really didn't discuss his parents. So the following day, which would have been July 5th, Crescent saw Chandler again. Did you have any interactions with Chandler on Monday, July 5th? Yes.

The first interaction was I opened up in my window. I live in a two-story, and I saw a car. In my driveway, I came in from outside to get a drink of water, and I saw a car, and it didn't recognize the car, and someone was standing in my driveway, and it was Chandler. So I opened the window, because he was kind of standing, holding his phone, and looking around. and so I opened the window and I said, I asked him if he was okay.

And he said, yeah. And I said, oh, I said, are you here to use the pool? And he said, yeah, would that be all right? And I said, yeah, sure. Were you expecting Chandler that day? No. Okay. Like I said, I was just a little startled because I'm like, who's here, you know?

Sure. Your property's pretty remote. Yeah, it is. So what happened after you told Chandler he could use the pool? Well, he drove up, you know, because if you come, I live on a hill, and when you come to the driveway, it's kind of in the middle of the hill, and so you have to drive further up the hill to where the pool is. So he drove up there. So do you guys have any further discussion before he goes to use the pool? He did come down to where I was working on my project, which was putting on a ramp on my deck.

I was putting a ramp so that my father and my brother could get up and down the deck in their, on the scooter and the wheelchairs. Okay. And so when I was working on that, he'd come down. He'd come, there's a hill that leads down to my house, and he'd come walking down that hill. And then we had a conversation. He was telling me about his accident.

He said he was at a doctor's appointment. And so he was talking to me about what the doctor had said and what was going on. Well, he told me that he had, like, damage, and I asked him where, and he said in this area of his head, in the back of his head. Well, he said it wasn't good that they might have to do some surgery or something, and that he said he was having trouble, like, with numbers, and he said he got lost. He had to use a GPS. He's just, like, said, his mind was kind of messed up and wasn't. and thinking so well, asked him, you know, basically how he was, you know, overall doing and about his job because he said he was getting a new job in Florida, and I'd asked him

about that. Like, was... What did he say? Well, he said that he probably wasn't going to get the job that some manager had told him that it wasn't going to work out because of his injury, that he wasn't able to work. So he seemed concerned about, you know, maybe not having a job and what was he going to kind of do. and I asked him, you know, what, he talked to his parents, you know, maybe could he talk to them or, you know, things like that just to try to reassure him because he just seemed upset about this news that he had gotten from the doctor. Sure, and what did he respond to that, to the idea of talking to his parents about his job and health?

And he said, no, they're still up north. And I just says, well, you know, maybe it would help you to talk to him. And his response is he says, no, they'll just be mad. which seemed odd to me, why his parents would be upset with him, that he was hurt and couldn't work. You know, it just seemed odd to me. Yeah, and this video says so much more than just about this case. We just covered earlier this week, Kevin Verville,

and we talked about the people in the lives of the person we're looking for. And as detectives, you're always trying to develop a baseline on someone you just met, which is extremely difficult. But the people in their lives, they had that built-in baseline. They know what their normal being. behaviors and what's different. So it's not only about what the person is saying, it's their behaviors and how they're saying. And someone like Crescent in this video, she was able to pick out something being off almost immediately because she knows Chandler personally. And so it's so valuable

to have someone like that come forward and say, no, no, not only was his specific behaviors different, but his actual conduct, him coming over here to use the pool completely out of character. This is information that is extremely valuable. Yeah, and he had kind of asked her the day before, you know, can I have your number? Because I might want to do that. And she's like, yeah, whatever. You know, they seem both, both Crescent and Dolce seem to be very welcoming people, pretty chill. And she says he pulls in. She sees him in the driveway. And then there's this kind of a moment of she's like, what's going on here? She calls him up. Instead of going right down to the pool, he comes to the main house. where Crescent's working on a project putting in this ramp and they're talking. They're having this conversation. And Chandler tells her, I'm not doing well. You know, my health isn't doing well because this injury I have from falling down the stairs. Now because of that, this very valued prized job that I was supposed to get with SpaceX, that's falling through. And I can't talk to my

parents about it because they're just going to be mad at me. And the conversation at this point is happening while Crescent and Chandler are sitting on the deck. And it lasted roughly about 20 minutes. And during that conversation, Chandler's girlfriend's mother, Dolce, arrived home. She walks up. She's like, what's going on? Chandler told her the same thing about losing the SpaceX job in Florida. And then he went to go swim in the swimming pool where Crescent and Dolce kind of stay at the main house. Now later, Crescent and Dolce decided to also go use the pool because it was hot that day, really hot. It's July. It's humid. They wanted to swim, but they also wanted to see kind of what Chandler was doing because he was acting weird, right? And when they're in the pool, they get in the pool, Chandler's not in there, okay? The Cottage Grove properties very large. The pool area is located up a hill away from the main house. They had to drive a golf cart to the pool. When they got there, they immediately noticed that the solar cover was still entirely covering the swimming pool. Chandler was nowhere in sight. So they get in the pool, they're talking. And, And I think it was Crescent who testified.

They were like, what the hell is going on with Chandler? And Dolce was like, I wonder if he's on drugs or something because he's acting weird. Now, while they were in the pool, they did see the car that Chandler was driving, a Subaru. It was parked all the way back on the property at the woodline and the hatchback part was wide open. So like I said, Dolce and Crescent, they get into the pool, they start swimming. They're talking about what's going on with Chandler. He's acting weird. Is he using drugs?

What's going on? Now, this is where I got a bit awkward because, Crescent usually swam in the pool, topless. And at some point, while they were swimming, Chandler walked up to the pool edge, also without a shirt on, and asked if he could get in. And it was weird because when they got to the pool, Dolce was like, I know that Crescent's going to swim in the pool, topless. This is her home, her property. Chandler's nowhere to be found. But hopefully when he does approach the pool, he'll see what's happening. and he'll, you know, give some discretion and he won't walk right up to the pool and be standing there and staring at us, but that's not what happened. He asks, is he can get in the pool with us.

And what did you say? I was like, no. No? But I say it myself, no. Why? Because Chris did have clothes on the top. She didn't have a tap-up. Okay.

What happened next? Did Chandler go away? Did he get in the pool? What happened? He got in the pool. What did Chandler do once he got in the pool? He was just, he was looking to the horizon. How was he, what was he doing in the water physically?

Was he moving around? Was he swimming? He was like going on the water and, you know, put it on water on his body and, you know. So you're making those motions on your arm. This is one of those weird things because we have to type down everything that's happening. How would you describe what he was doing when you put your hands on your arms? Like he was, you know, put it on water. You know, when you put water and...

Did Chandler tell you where he had been? No, I thought he was... He went for a walk. He wasn't in the car. He was walking. That is what I thought. That is what I thought. That's what I say to Chris.

Did he tell you anything at all about what he was going to do next or what his plans were that day? Yes. He was going to my place because Catherine was making his favorite. And we asked what was his favorite. And he says McDonald's. He's going to go get McDonald's. And I said Catherine is a lazy. She should not make McDonald's. You thought your daughter would cook something better? Yeah. I mean, then always cook good food and the house. McDonald's. I can't judge him for that. I mean, I think we all, I mean, love McDonald's. But clearly he's washing himself off, right? He didn't care about. So they're trying to get her to say that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the picture they're painting. He didn't care whether they said yes or no to the pool. He was going to pretend he didn't hear it and get in anyways because he had to, he had to wash himself off. He was probably covered in dirt and grass and potentially blood. His father's DNA. Yeah. Yeah. So he was chlorine in a pool. That's a perfect place to go after doing something like that. And you got Crescent in the pool, topless, and maybe normal Chandler, under different circumstances, would have, would have exercise discretion. I'd been like, oh, probably. But because he was like, I need to get in that pool. Yeah, I need, I need that pool.

Maybe he didn't think they were going to be there or whatever. Yeah, he probably didn't. Yeah. And also, not only in that moment, him being aggressive and going in the pool, even when he probably realized this was an awkward moment, as they said, he had never gone in that pool before. Well, not just of his, when he was there with Kat or they had the Fourth of July party. Yeah, but not just like, I'm by myself. Hey, can I come over and hang out with you ladies? Yeah.

And when they're in the pool, they keep talking, dude, right? Like, he's still talking. And it was that point, I think Dolce was like, are you on drugs, dude? Like, what's going on? And he's like, no, no. And she's like, I don't care what you do, but like, don't bring that shit around my daughter and don't ever bring that stuff here to Cresden's property. And he was like, no, no, I would never. I would never do that. It's like, okay. So after being in the pool for about 15 minutes, Chandler got out.

He went to get his car that was still parked at the tree line. And then he drove away, leaving the property. He drove by the pool. He waved at them. That was it. So Dolce and Crescent decided to contact the police as soon as they heard that Chandler's parents were unaccounted for because it triggered their memory of his odd behavior that day, July 5th, at the Cottage Grove Farm. They estimated that between the time Chandler said he was going to go swimming and the time that he actually got into the pool was about 45 minutes to an hour. And Chandler seemed different when he got into the pool as opposed to how he had been behaving before getting into the pool. It was odd because he just seemed really different when he got in the pool from when he was talking to us before. Different how?

Well, he seemed more lucid, like he just seemed more present. So feeling that Chandler may have used the property for some unknown suspicious purpose, right when his parents vanished, Crescent and Dolce contacted the police and gave them permission to search the property. So going to that same area of the woodline where Dolce and Crescent had seen the Super Route parked, investigators discovered the remains of Chandler's father, Bart Haltersson. And after this, the dominoes started to fall down, painting a picture of what had happened in the early days of July 2021. before Bart and Krista uncharacteristically left their home and went on an unannounced trip to their cabin with some unknown person.

All right, so on the evening of July 1st, this would have been the night before Bart and Krista allegedly left to go to the cabin. Stephen Greiber, a man who not only lived across the street from the Haldersons, but was a retired detective, he was outside when he started to smell a strong odor of burning wood. What would call my attention was while I was there doing that for a period of time, all of a sudden I had could detect a strong order just of burning wood. And so I thought someone maybe had a fireplace or I should say a fire pit or something outside going. They're just burning some firewood. But about five minutes or so later, all of a sudden that odor of burning wood became a distinct.

odor that was more like in the line of what I thought someone was like barbecuing a large pork like in one of these large barbecue barbecue pits or whatever that can hold a whole pork and how long did that smell persist in your neighborhood well for the remainder of the time I was outside it was present kind of became real strong kind of like a pungent smell to the point that I actually walked down my driveway half the distance that kind of looked up and down the street to see if anybody was doing anything like grilling or something else was going on and I didn't see anything at that point.

If you had to guess or if you had to estimate distance-wise from the location you are to the Halterson home about how far away is it? About maybe 100 to 130 feet. And you have that observation that day. You're not here to say exactly what that smell was. other than it smelled to me like, yeah, something burning of a meat or fats or something. Yeah, so Stephen Greiber, he's a retired detective and he doesn't really say it during his testimony, but later he's like, yeah, you know, I have smelled things similar before.

So another neighbor, Colin Lynch, would later provide police with security camera footage from a camera that was pointed towards the Holderson home. And the video showed that later on in the evening of July 1st, and into the early morning hours of July 2nd, there was a flickering light inside the Halderson home, a flickering light that started around 12, 18 a.m., and continued on until about 4.30 a.m. When I initially got briefed on this case upon my return to Madison, I made contact with Deputy Sheriff Mike Wilk. He had been assigned to look at the video from 7022 Bridgman Road, Mr. Lynch's DVR video, and to catalog the series of events chronologically that he observed in the video.

I've trained Mike Wilk in the past at Madison College, so I'm familiar with him and his work. And I said, Mike, let's meet. I just want you to show me what you see, what you don't see, and what your observations are. And he indicated to me that on the video, there was a flickering light that he believed was coming from the Hallderson residence on the early morning hours of July 2nd, 2021. And I said, what do you believe that light to be? He said, I think it's a fire in that family room at the house. And I asked him why he believed that. and he said things that made sense to me.

It's a flickering light. He had knowledge. He told me that there was a fireplace in that room. And I had not yet at that point been in the house. And I said, well, how do you know it's coming from that window? He said, well, I've looked at daytime video, and I think that's where it is. So I looked at that video and not being familiar at that point with the residents, I thought he's probably right, but really it's a perception thing.

We perceived it probably was that window. So the question I posed to him and to Detective Shunk and Sims is, I think we have an opportunity here with this video to not only perceive what we think was the source of that light, but to prove it. And so the question really was, where was that light coming from? Not what the source of the light was, but where in the Halterson residence was that coming from? Yeah, this is great. I smell a recreation coming up here, going in there and redoing it. Because initially when I heard flickering, I was thinking like a light bulb. And my first thought was, oh, sign of struggle, maybe a lamp got knocked over and it was flickering because it had been damaged or the electrical cord had been damaged.

But not knowing that there was a fireplace in the house, now I have a different visual of more of a not a flickering like a on off type flickering, but more of just like an inconsistency with the lights that you would see more similarly with a fireplace, not a blinking light. Well, yeah. And now we have, you know, Colin Lynch's video showing the flickering light for like four hours. And then we have it combined with Stephen Greber's testimony that he's smelling something burning. And now you have the police saying like, well, we think it was the fireplace, but we have to prove it. So to prove that the flickering light was a fire coming from the family room of the Halterson home, investigators performed a real world test using the neighbor's security camera. So they went back to the neighborhood at night. They looked through the exact same camera feed.

and they had an officer go inside the Halterson house to shine lights in front of different windows. So by comparing the live test to the original video, digital experts mapped out the exact layout of the house on the screen and proved the flickering light wasn't from a TV or a bedroom lamp. It was coming directly from the family room window where the fireplace was located and burning most intensely around 3 a.m. So we have a couple areas now here where we're focusing on. First, we have Jane at the cabin in White Lake, and Chandler's like, do you see shells or bullets there?

So it's kind of making you think did something happen at the cabin? And then we have Crescentless size property, about 20 miles from Chandler's home. And then you have the Halterson home itself. And you have Bart's body or partial body discovered, but where's Krista? So we got a lot going on. Now, remember Krista's co-worker and friend, Daniel Kron. who had gone to the Halterson home on July 2nd, which was that Friday, to check on Krista because she hadn't shown up for work. And we know that while he was there, he encountered Chandler.

And Chandler was like, yeah, my parents left for the cabin. Oh, why are their cars here? They went with a friend. I don't know who that friend was. I wasn't awake. Now, Daniel would testify about some things that stood out while he was talking to Chandler that day. When we arrived at a period, he had just gotten out of the shower. I confirmed with him that his parents were not there.

And other than Chandler, just getting out of the shower, was there anything else unusual about his appearance? He had a bandage on his large toe. Not sure which side it was, but he had a bandage on one of his toes. Did he say anything about his foot? He said that he had broken the glass around the fireplace while playing with the dogs. Did he describe his injury at all?

He just said there was blood everywhere. So now we have Daniel Kroninger talking to, to Chandler on July 2nd and Chandler says, oh, it broke the glass around the fireplace. So now we got a fireplace involved in Chandler's story. Okay. So when the detectives went to talk to Chandler at the house on July 7th, Chandler showed them around the house, which they reported was well kept, even though there was some remodeling going on. And Detective Schunk noticed that there was a piece of glass missing from the fireplace.

And Chandler explained that he'd been playing with the dogs when the dogs broke the fireplace and he got a piece of glass stuck in his left big toe. So Detective Schunk actually inspected Chandler's injury and reported that it looked more like a blood blister and it didn't appear to be recent. Chandler also had warned the detectives that there would be a lot of blood in the house as a result of his injury, like he had told Daniel Kroninger, but they didn't see any blood in the house. So on that day, one of the detective spoke to a neighbor who mentioned that she had also noticed

the small windows in the Halterson's garage were open, and she said she had never seen the small garage door windows open before. And you got to thank God for nosy neighbors, because I would never notice that about like my neighbor's windows. Like the small windows of the garage are open, and that's never the case. I would never notice that. I'm not paying that much attention to my neighbor's garages, but there are some neighbors. I guess she also did say, like, hey, there'd been maybe some like weird things happening in the neighborhood, so she was being a bit more vigilant. But yeah.

I think a lot of neighborhoods have that. I have it too, where there's just people who are bored. But it's a good thing sometimes because they can catch things that others would miss. So you hate the Karen's and Kens of your neighborhood at the time, but for something like this,

we're very appreciative of their nosiness. Thank you. Thank you all for your nosiness. Yes. So there's some stuff happening at the Holderson home that's not usual. The Holdersons are missing. Chandler's starting to look very suspicious.

No, it's all starting to make sense because you found Bart's body, but you didn't find Christas. And now you're starting to get the light and also the smell. And I think everybody out there are part-time detectives are starting to put two and two together. Yes. So if something happened on July 2nd, then Chandler goes to his girlfriend's mom's partner's home on July 4th. He's acting weird. He shows up there again on July 5th. He's doing something by the tree line, which is exactly where Bart's body is found, et cetera, et cetera.

we're starting to put it together. And by the way, too, the fire at 3 o'clock in the morning being the most active. That is a red flag as well where, again, normal behaviors. Is that something that the neighborhood seen in the past? Probably not. And who's really starting a fire and keeping it going at 3 in the morning? And July. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there's some things here that behaviorally just for anybody at that time of night and, or I should say time of morning and during that time of year. suspicious. So we are going to take our last break. We'll be right back. Before we jump back into today's case, this episode is brought to by One Skin. And you guys know, I love skincare. The way you've described it, there are a lot of steps. We'll just put it that way. There are so many steps. Cleansers, serum, moisturizer, SPF, vitamin C, more serums,

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especially going into the summer, check out One Skin, born from over a decade of longevity research. One Skin is helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age. For a limited time, try One Skin with 15% off using code Crime Weekly at OneSkin, dot co slash crime weekly. That's 15% off one skin.com with code crime weekly. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. Okay, so on July 8th, 2021, and if you'll remember, this is the day that they're finding Bart's torso on crescentless size property. So on this day, Chandler Halterson sat down with Detective Schunk and Detective Hendrickson for an interview. Wearing a hoodie and baseball cap, Chandler often appeared tired, slow moving. He would

frequently complain about having a headache or a memory lapse that he claimed was due to a breakdown he had suffered from because of the stress of his parents going missing and losing his job and all of these things. Now, he specifically showed confusion right from the start as he was being read his Miranda rights. Do you understand the rights that is read? I do. Okay. Realizing that you have these rights or you're not willing to answer questions or make a statement? Just a yes. Yes. So the second one, I'll just read it again.

Realizing that you have these rights, are you now willing to answer questions or make a statement? Oh, I will make a statement. Okay. So you understand them. Can I have the cards? I could read it. I missed some.

I'm sorry. I can read it. I'm still having a little bit of problems. The third one? I'll just read it. Let's start all over. Yeah. It'll just read it.

So you have the rights remain silent. Reading is hard. Listening is hard. Yeah. I want to make a statement that like as I started looking into this case and everything, a lot of people were like, oh, Chandler's so good looking and that's why he wasn't suspect. I don't see it, man.

I'm not going to judge. I mean, like I've always said, like, you know, whatever, to each their own. I think that it's funny too because you can see Chandler's doing this whole like, I don't, I can't remember. He's acting kind of out of it. Like, yeah, not lucid at all, just completely confused by this, this very brief statement. Yeah, like he's, you know, you could. And this is how he was acting apparently kind of on July 4th and July 5th when he's talking to Crescent and Dolce.

And that's why they're like, yeah, he's kind of acting weird. That's why maybe they thought he was in drugs. I could see why you would think that because it does kind of seem like, this guy's high, man. You know, like how much did he smoke before sitting down for this police interview? Like aloof? Aloof. Is that a good word? No. Distant, kind of like detached from everything.

Yeah, like a disassociated maybe. Like he's just, it's kind of how, yeah, when you're when you're high and you're kind of just like spaced out and you're not totally like connected and locked in. He's going to do this and he's going to keep saying, well, it's because of this concussion and because of this injury. And this is why he couldn't get his job with SpaceX and all of this stuff. And he's going to really play it up. So they then start talking to Chandler about Wednesday. Now, this would have been June 30th. The last day of June, the day before.

July 1st. Let's just go back to last Wednesday. Uh, Wednesday. I was with my dad. We, what time Wednesday I remember it. It was kind of a bad day. Okay. Why was it a bad day? Um, well, my mom had work, so she was gone. Um, my dad and I were watching something over lunch.

It was The Wheel of Fortune. And we normally have the couch, like with our back facing her. The table we sat at at the end of you coming. Downstairs or upstairs? Downstairs. Okay. And that room with the TV. I tossed the ball.

And I smashed the glass. Okay. With the dog. The dog. So that, yeah, set my dad off. We tried to clean it up. I don't know about him, but I got injured. But he was mad.

He didn't really talk to me too much that day. And my mom got home at 5, I believe. All right, so he was tossing that around, broke the fireplace glass. You said you were injured. What type of injury did you? I got a pretty deep hole in my foot. Last night, Mary looked at it, and she said the reason it keeps bleeding is because there's glass in it. Oh, that's the, you showed us your toll.

Yeah, I showed the detective lead. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so. That one. It could be infected, is what she's thinking, but neosporan has been helping. Okay, good. Keeping it clean and stuff.

The best you can. I know how, I guess. Yeah. Okay. Once I, oh, Wednesday, back to Wednesday. Once I got all the glass out of the dog's hair. She didn't sustain any injuries. Good.

That was roughly around two. And then the rest, he didn't really talk to me. I went back to doing like a job search, kind of just shitting my day away. He's getting games, YouTube maybe. that's when I came across one of the jobs I liked then 5 o'clock rolled by and we mom came home dinner by the way I detected that my house said something's happened and while we're leaving people

were going inside is there a warrant for my house should there be no I'm just wondering if okay as far as I know they were at your house and they were going to be there talking to you to ask if you would come up here and talk to us. Yeah, but Officer Haley just, like, walked pretty much in to the gate, you know, the gate on the outside. She's kind of walked in.

I was wondering. Was that when you were getting your wallet? No, we were, I was in the car waiting to leave. I was just wondering if everything's okay, because she said something's happened. Okay. And we need to go down. I'll find out what that's about.

What is that you bad happened? I got to tell you, man, I could just watch interrogation videos all day. We got to just start another podcast where it's just reacting to interrogation videos. That's a great idea. But just like the subtleties here, like, he's so concerned that someone's inside, but he's like trying to be passive about it. Yeah, he's like, did something happen? But he's also like, oh, you're kind of infringing on my Fourth Amendment rights.

You guys have a born? You know, she walked through the gate. But you're trying to also present yourself as someone who is completely oblivious to what's going on because you're looking for your parents. You don't want to seem too concerned about it because you'd want them to be investigating. You want them in there, right? But you're just casual. Like something, does something, they said something happened. Something I should be aware of.

Do I need an attorney? But it's like I'm trying to present myself as the son who just kind of has no clue what's going on and I'm as concerned about where they are as you are. And yet I'm also concerned that you could be. looking at something that I don't want you to look at. So even though he thinks in his mind, he's probably doing a good job, everybody listening or watching it right now is like, they're like, is there a warrant? Should there be? Yeah, should there be?

It's great. It's great. And he's like, no, no, no. I'm just wondering because you kind of just walked through the gate with like, you know, without my consent. Making conversation. Yeah, crazy, crazy. But in his mind, he's like, I'm crushing this right now.

They have no idea. But did you also see? how he kind of is like posing this like, oh, it wasn't a good day. You know, my dad got mad at me because I broke the fireplace, you know, playing with the dog. So he was mad. He didn't talk to me. So he's trying to make his dad seem like, you know, this kind of mean guy, hard to be around. It's like it was a bad day because mom was at work and she left me alone with dad.

And he was mad because I broke the fireplace. And then he says something that I thought was interesting. I don't know about him, but I got injured. So that was interesting. Like, I don't know if he's going to have any injuries on him when you find him. Chandler, Chandler, accident prone. Like Chandler's yeah Chandler's got some bad luck

Yeah yeah yeah He's going through And he's kind of making it seem like yeah My mom's at work Me and my dad are home While she's at work And it's just really awkward You know

We were watching something on TV But he wasn't really talking to me After I broke the glass And I was kind of shing my day away On YouTube and job search So now we're also getting this idea That he's lost this job So he's looking for a job

And we have an idea If you're the detectives And you don't suspect him of anything that maybe his dad isn't like the best guy to be around. Maybe he's kind of angry, kind of holds things against his son. They don't have a great relationship, right? So they did not have a warrant to enter and search the Holderson home that day yet, but they didn't need one at the time because Chandler had reported his parents missing. So police had implied consent to check the promises for clues regarding their whereabouts. That is a slippery slope, if I'm being honest, but I get it. Exitant

circumstances, implied consent, they're just basically looking in the main areas for a human being. That would be, that would be the exception here where it's like, well, we weren't looking in drawers. We weren't doing any of that. We weren't looking for evidence relating to a crime. We were there for the safety of two adults. Which is what they are. And they're making observations along the way. They're not opening anything.

They're not collecting anything. Right. But they are making some observations. I'm going to play a little inside baseball with you guys, though, right now. They're definitely looking in stuff. I don't know. They shouldn't be. But I'm telling you they are.

I, it's, they, they're already looking at him as the guy. And, you know, they're not going to, they're not going to touch anything. But do I think they might be peaking in some areas where a human being wouldn't fit? Well, I almost wonder if they wanted him. Like, did they do this in a timely manner where as he's leaving to go to the police station, the police are like, hey, we want to talk to you again. As he's leaving, the police walk by him and they're like, yeah, something happened. And we're going in your house.

And now they want him to be stressed going into this interview. You could tell by that interview and by the tone, they're already on to him. Oh, yeah, because they're already on to him. They're way past. Because the body of his father's been found where he was seen. Yeah, of course. Yep, they're onto him, for sure. To the detectives, obviously, it's a major red flag that Chandler was even asking, like, what's going on?

Does something happen? And he seemed to be probing for details about the investigation. Chandler, once again, he told the detectives that he'd been sleeping downstairs because it was closer to the bathroom. And due to his injury, he wasn't able to handle the stairs all that well. He said he always slept with his door closed, but he had a feeling his parents were arguing that Wednesday night. What were they arguing about? Probably would set my dad off that day of the glass. Okay.

Us not having food ready and stuff like that. I mean, we just microwave whatever was in the fridge, I suppose. Yeah. Who was upset about that? Dad was? He usually doesn't like that. He likes the when we cook. Okay.

Okay. Does he ever cook? I haven't seen him cook. Oh, he grills. He likes to grill. He grilled on Thursday. So Chandler's over here like, yeah, my dad's just this like chauvinistic, massacistic male. And he's like, oh, my, Chris has been working all day.

You were just going to microwave something? That's unacceptable. And then they're like, well, does he cook? And he's like, oh, I mean, I never do. Oh, no, he grills actually. And then Chandler proceeds to tell a whole story about his dad, like, grilling on Thursday. And he made them lunch. So it's like, yeah, he doesn't cook.

He just gets mad when my mom doesn't cook or when me and my mom don't cook. But then he comes to find out he, like, made this elaborate, like, delicious meat that he, you know, heated up the grill early to make sure it was all done and ready for lunch for them on Thursday. So it's just absolutely ridiculous. But he's trying to make it sound, I think. like maybe my dad killed my mom because he already knows something's happening. And he knows more than what I've even showed you that he knows, we're going to talk about it, but he knows that the police know stuff. So. Yep, they're on them. I personally think he's setting up a

potential defense down the road. Or like he had to protect his mother. Like his mom was killed and then he killed his dad. Well, yeah, we'll see. I think he knows that this could go bad. And if it does, he needs a plan B. Yeah. And this is what I think he's thinking. That's possible. So Chandler then discussed what happened on Thursday morning. He helped his mother get ready to leave for work. He said he always did that. He helped her. He helped her. He's the best son ever. She left for work. His dad started getting the grill ready. They ate lunch around noon. They watched their TV shows in the living room while they ate and then went off to do their own things. Chandler was searching for his job. His mother got home. They ate dinner. And that's when they told him they were going to the cabin the next morning. And then he helped them gather everything to get ready to. to leave for the following day. So Chandler proceeded to lock himself into a highly specific timeline from June 30th to July 7th. July 1st, the last day he saw his parents. July 2nd, the day his parents left early in the morning before he woke up. July 3rd, Chandler spent the entire day alone at the

house doing chores, cleaning up and resting his injured foot. July 4th, he last heard from his mother via text message when she said they were at the cabin planning to go to a 4th of July parade and then he went to Crescent's house for the party. July 5th, Chandler said he was starting to feel a little bit isolated and he wanted to go for a swim. So he went over to Crescent's. And when he talked about July 5th and going to Crescent's farm, he said that he wasn't in the pool when he said he was supposed to be because he'd gone off to the shed to have a breakdown. I'm there talking to their mom and Chris. Then I go up to have...

you know, break down by their shed and they go swimming. Right by the swimming pool is the shed. So they wanted to watch me, like, you know, breakdown and all that. So after I noticed they're just watching, I just walk over to him. Describe a breakdown to me? I actually cried. started kicking grass, just doing the toddler tantrum shift. Then I hopped in the water with them.

It was too late, I was in the water, and you realized Crest didn't have a top. And that was uncomfortable. But I talked to them more, and that's when she brought up, the housing situation, how she doesn't like, how my parents, like, are, I guess. I don't know if she doesn't know them that well. She's never met them.

Okay. Cress was saying that? Cat's mom. Oh, okay. Speaks, is her first thought right away. Yeah. So they're offering me to get a job, live with them, work for them while I'm working, and pay rent. And that's kind of their deal.

I would have like a month for your rent, or a month or two, maybe, if they're thinking. I could be able to borrow a car from Crest, maybe, if she's nice, or not using it, I'd be able to go to work. What were you having a breakdown about? You ever have your legs? No, I haven't. Just, I don't even know if they're done eating, like, as bad as they can be yet, so that's a, that's not fun. And I think you were telling me last night it was, it's a symptom of a concussion, right?

So that's not it. It's a symptom of nerve damage from the hit my spine. So it's permanent. Okay. I understand that. It's better. Yeah. So it's just like it's,

probably the feeling is probably colossomy bag down the road and all of that. But we are Sunday. Yeah. So, yeah, if you notice, it's like always everybody else with. It's everybody else is the problem. And he's like, oh, they went swimming in the pool because I was having a mental breakdown and crying. And they wanted to watch me do that.

Like, okay. I feel bad for him. And then I got in the pool and I didn't even realize she didn't have a top on until I got in the pool. And not that I was standing there, like getting ready to. I didn't notice then. I was just standing in the corner of the pool crying. And then he's like, and then, you know, Kat's mom, Dolce, she's like talking about my

parents, even though she's never met them. She doesn't even know that. but she just says whatever's in her head. And then they were offering me a job, you know, because they were worried that I wasn't going to have a job. And even offering me at a place to live for a month's free rent and, you know, a car even if Crescent's nice. And but still, they're bad.

They wanted to watch me have a mental breakdown even though they're trying to help me. Everybody tries to help me. And then the police like, what were you having a mental breakdown about? And he's like, have you ever not been able to use your legs? Spoiler alert. Chandler's not injured. But we'll talk about that soon. I mean, you walked down that big hill allegedly to put bar.

body, but we're moving on. There are no concussions. There's no muscles not working in the legs. He's like, yeah, spinal fluid. It's a permanent nerve damage. None of that. But also, I want you to understand this whole concussion thing happened in June. So was this premeditated?

Or does he just like to be a victim? Or does he have a grander plan? That's the question. So, yeah, understand. Chandler's now telling the police that all of his nerve damage is permanent. he may not ever be able to use his likes normally again. He's very much affected by this and losing his dream job. So on July 6, Chandler said he met up with his girlfriend, Catherine, Cat.

They went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. And July 7th, he was starting to get worried because his parents were long overdue in their return. So he said he spent the afternoon walking around his neighborhood, knocking on doors to see if any of his neighbors ring doorbell cameras had captured anything about his parents before he went to the sheriff's office to report them missing. Okay? July 7th, he said he did this before he went to the sheriff's office. Yeah. Okay. We all know why he was.

Well, it is true. It is true. The Chandler walked around the neighborhood asking about ring. I have no doubt about it. But it was not on July 7th. It was on July 8th. Hi. Hi.

My name is Chandler Haltersson. I live just down the road. Oh, yeah. You're the one of the police. Yeah. I was told you with the fancy. security system. I was wondering if you were able to capture the road or my house. The police actually came and downloaded everything they have. But it's actually my sister's house.

Oh, okay. Yeah, so they were here, think till like 9 o'clock last night and downloaded all the video she's got. So we're hoping that... Yeah, did it capture anything on... We don't know. We don't know. They just took a copy of everything and so we're hoping... Winding the lens. Yeah, and it's all HD. And then I think there's one. Especially in the dark. It looks like it has a little bit of night vision. Yeah, and there's one on the corner of the garage, too.

I don't know if that one quite goes that direction, but. Maybe see this road. Yeah, so hopefully, I mean, they could give them everything that we had. We're hoping you find something on there. Yeah, excuse my language. This is a visual representation of I'm fpped. Yeah. Yeah.

She's like, yeah, we already gave it the police everything. He goes, really? Really? Oh, it looks like you got a little night vision on there too, huh? Yeah. He really didn't spare any expense for this camera. Right here. He's like, I heard you have a fancy security camera.

What are you guys? NASA? Is this the CIA home? Jesus. He's like, and there's another one of the garage? Oh, that's great. That's great news. with his hand, he's like, it probably captures this angle, huh, right here?

Yeah, and he's thinking he's real. Yeah, it's not. It's hilarious. You can clearly see a freeze happening in Chandler when he's informed that the footage from the HD cameras with night vision had already been handed over to the Dane County Sheriff's Office, right? So it's funny because he said, I did this on July 7th. No, he went to the police to report the missing on July 7th.

Then the police started investigating. Part of the investigation was obviously going to neighbors and seeing if they had ring footage to see who the Halder's. since had left with, right? And then they got all the stuff and they left. And now he's finding out on July 8th because he said, oh, I heard you're the one that called the police, right? So somehow he found out a neighbor had called the police and said, we have a really fancy camera with all the bells and whistles, HD, night vision, everything. He's like, that was you. So like, did it capture anything? And she's like, I don't know. They just downloaded it. Like, we didn't

watch it. They didn't, you know, they took it. They didn't sit here and watch it with us and narrate what was happening. They just took it. And he's like, oh, he's. shit, the police know something. And now they want me to come in and talk to them today. And then he's going to leave. And the police are there at his house. And they're like, something happened. And we're going into your house.

And he's like, oh, this is not looking good. He knows. So after Chandler finished laying out his timeline, the detectives informed him that they knew more than he thought they knew. We got out of the background, I think, right? Yeah. So I think it's time to start talking about what happened to your parents. Like the truthful version. Okay. Okay.

So we have like 20 pages of writing. We're going to start with a clean white piece of paper if you just start telling the truth. Why? Because listen, listen to me, this is the only chance you're going to have to tell us the truth. Okay. Okay. What we, listen, I can't tell you what we know, but we know you're not telling us the truth. We know your parents are no longer with us. Okay, and we know the reason why. Okay, you need to tell the truth. Listen, listen, you need to tell the truth about what happened and just tell us why it happened. Okay, if something happened, if you were defending yourself or if you just fed up with stuff, you need to tell us the truth, okay?

This is your chance to tell us why. Okay, I'm not BS in you. Okay, so can we do that? Okay, okay. What happened? Okay. You know what happened. We're not going to tell you what happened.

You know what happened. You were there when it happened. We're not BS and yes, okay? I guess we're going to happen. We know more than you think we know. I understand. There's people that have pulled us things. We have evidence.

We have proof. We have more that's happening. So your parents never made it to the cabin, and I think you know that. No reaction to your, we know your parents are no longer with us because that's just an acknowledgement. no reaction from him, body language or verbally, because he's already aware of this. I think the body language looks like he's like, he's stressed because he knows the jockey.

Yeah, he's done. But if there's someone who was innocent, when he said, we know your parents are no longer with us, it would have been what? Wait, what did you just say? My parents are dead? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's already thinking, oh, I got to go to plan B now. So obviously, they're like, tell us the truth.

And he's like, I want a lawyer, right? Yeah, so he does not. It's funny because the police are like, we have 20 pages of bullshit. Yeah, so we're going to throw that out. We're going to crumple that up. We're going to start with a fresh white piece of paper. And you are going to write the truth on that now. Thanks for the story, Mother Goose.

Now let's go to the real one. We had fun. Yep, that was great. Cute. But now it's time to tell the truth. And he's, he lawyered up. He obviously was not like, let me confess everything to you. Because the fact of the matter is there was so much to confess at this point.

And it went so deep. Like, the detectives told Chandler that they knew what happened and they knew why it had happened. But at that point, I don't think. The detectives understood just how deep Chandler's deception had gone, how much effort he put into covering up all of his lies, how long it had been going on, and how hard it was all going to come crashing down around him, which is where we will pick up in part two. Yeah, I can't wait for part two. This case reminds me a lot. And I'm going back into memory here, but I'm sure you wrote it.

So you'll know, Lisa and Joel Guy. Yeah, Joel Guy. Yeah. Not the same. That was crazy. that was with the acid and all that stuff. This gets just as crazy. Don't get twisted.

Well, I'm looking forward to diving into part two. This is one of those cases where you could see some good investigative work. Yeah, people dot in their eyes crossing their T's. Chandler did not do a good job with any of this. He really just thought everyone around him was going to be completely ignorant to his behavior. And it unfolded for him a lot more rapidly than we see in other cases where sometimes they can put up a farce for at least a couple weeks, but within a matter of hours of reporting his parents missing,

he was already doomed. I think he was underestimating how well other people knew his parents, how well they knew their habits, how close they were to them. Yeah. Because you'll find out that Chandler is, there's nothing authentic or honest about him. So I don't think he can comprehend.

His brain can't comprehend the kinds of relationships and connections and honest, authentic, genuine person has. Like he doesn't get that because he lies to everybody all the time about everything. I'm looking forward to seeing how the investigation unfolded, what they did to tie everything together to ensure that. And where's his mother? Where's his mother? I think we have an idea. I think we have an idea.

But I want to see how that goes. I also want to see. The motive? Well, his motive, we may never know a true motive. Maybe we will. You know more than me. But what I want to know is what's the plan of action here? Because Chandler thinks he's the smartest guy in the room.

And they're always the best people to deal with because you prove. them wrong. And so I'm wondering what plan B is because I think we hit it on it earlier. He's going to paint his dad as a bad guy. And he's going to go that route. And he was a hero in all of this. But we will see. I'm looking forward to it. Guys, let us know your comments below if you're watching on YouTube. If you're listening on audio, please leave, leave a review. Leave five stars. That would be greatly appreciated. It helps more people see what we're doing, especially when we're covering cases like we did earlier in the week where we're trying to get word out there about cold cases that haven't been talked about in 45 years.

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