Crime Weekly - Bart & Krista Halderson | The Deadly Cost of Discovering the Truth (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 31, 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.Talkiatry.com/CrimeWeekly - Get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in minutes! https://www.MintMobile.com/CrimeWeekly - Get premium wireless for just $15 a month! https://www.Revolve.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for 15% off! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasser. So today we are diving into part two of the Bart and Krista Holderson case. And we kind of left off in part one where Bart and Krista Holderson went to their cottage apparently with some unknown friends. Their son reported them missing. And then within just a few days of them being reported missing, things began unraveling, which ended up with Chandler. sitting in a police interrogation room being told, listen, we know more than you think we know. It's time to tell us the truth about what really happened. And Chandler lawyered up. So I kind of want to go back and talk about who Chandler was for a second because from all reported areas, Chandler Halterson was an ordinary teenager who sat squarely in the center of the bell curve in every measurable way. utterly average, unremarkable, but zero red flags. During his time at DeForest Area High School, he maintained passing grades, he had no major disciplinary issues or suspensions, and his teachers

viewed him as quiet, cooperative, and unforgettable. His peers saw him as someone who was a nice guy, on assuming he avoided drama. So after graduating in 2016, Chandler continued living with his parents, Bart and Krista, and he began taking classes at Madison Area Technical College until the summer of 2019 when he began living in an apartment with a few roommates, one of which was his childhood friend, Alex Gravett. Now, Alex, who called Chandler Chaz, described Chandler as relaxed. He said they got along well, and they were quite close. They'd grown up together.

They'd been in Boy Scouts or Cub Scouts together. They played soccer together. He said Chandler could be a playful guy who liked to pull pranks on people, and Chandler cared a lot about and put a good amount of focus into his appearance. Alex claimed that Chandler was an attractive guy who seemed to do well with the opposite sex, but he also struggled with being faithful to the women that he was with. So after describing Chandler in all of these seemingly positive or benign ways, Alex went on to tell the police, quote,

Alexander stated that he would also describe Chandler as a pathological liar. He was described as cold-hearted and emotionally distanced when asked why he would describe Chandler in that manner. He stated that he was dating multiple people at the same time and lying about it. Alexander stated that when he shared an apartment with Chandler, he was promiscuous. He stated that he had a lot of partners, end quote. So Alex is like, Chandler's a great guy. We get along great. Also, he's a pathological liar. So it seemed that at any given time, Chandler was juggling at least two girlfriends, and he was desperate to keep them from knowing about each other. Additionally, each girlfriend seemed to have a similar experience with Chandler.

One ex-girlfriend, let's call her Jane, dated Chandler during the summer of 2018 while he was attending classes at Madison Area Tech, and she was living in the dorms at the University of Wisconsin. Now, she claimed that Chandler told her that his parents were not happy about him going to the dorms to see her, and one time he spent the night with her, they fooled around, and she sent him home the next day with a hickey. Chandler later informed Jane that his wife. mother Krista had been freaked out when she saw the hickie, she had called him a whore, and his parents had taken away his car keys and grounded him for the rest of the summer,

which meant that he couldn't go and see Jane in the dorms anymore. So in late 2018 or early 2019, Chandler and Jane had made plans for him to drive up and see her. And right before he left, Chandler called and told Jane that his mother, Krista, was having a stroke. So he couldn't leave because he was concerned about her. Later, Chandler told Jane that he believed his mother had faked the stroke so that he wouldn't leave the house. And this is interesting because what I've discovered is Chandler kind of uses his parents as scapegoats.

So he's not grounded from going and seeing Jane at the dorms. He is seeing another girl at this time and he can't go and see Jane at the dorms. So he makes up a story about how his parents are so controlling and horrible. and his mother's calling him a whore because he has a hickey and taking away his car keys. So that's why he can't see Jane. It's not because he's with another girl at that time. But it is a pattern to look at here, right? Because he uses his parents as a scapegoat.

And we kind of saw that last episode, or at least the start of it with the interrogation. I felt like there were just subtle hints at his father being a bad guy. Exactly. Right now I had said that that was probably more toward the, angle of, oh, this is my plan B, a case my main plan here doesn't work. But it just seems like a pattern where this, with this idiot tried to paint a picture of his parents and make them the villains when in reality was him. Yeah. And it depends on who he's making the villain. It doesn't really matter to him, right? Right. As long as it's, no accountability is the number one thing to take

from this. Yeah. So Jane told the police that she didn't believe Chandler had any issues with his father, Bart, but she felt that Chandler may have resented his father because Bart, didn't step in for Chandler whenever Krista would become overbearing or over-controlling. Jane said that she was led to believe that Krista wore the pants in the relationship, and Chandler might have been angry because Bart never really did anything to help him with his mother. Now, another ex, let's call her Mary. She said that she was dating Chandler in 2018 and 2019, and while they were together, Chandler was a manipulative and pathological liar from the start

who convinced her that his mother, Krista, was a narcissist and a whole. horrible mother, even though that was not Mary's experience with Krista. Mary said that Krista always seemed happy to see her and would even bring her gifts during the holidays. Now, when Mary and Chandler broke up, Chandler happened to see a picture of Mary's best friend, Catherine Melander, on her phone, and he asked Mary to introduce him to Kat, at which point Chandler and Kat began secretly dating. Now, Mary attempted to warn her best friend Kat about Chandler being a manipulative and pathological liar. And it ended up destroying their friendship because Kat stopped talking to Mary.

Now here's Kat, Chandler's girlfriend in 2021, who she's being driven to the police station for an interview on July 8th, 2021. And she's talking about her ex-friend who she said was a problem because, you know, Chandler was a great guy. What did you guys meet? Um, it's a long story. We tell people through school. But, um, long story short, one of my close friends used to be his ex. She's not a good person, not going to lie, but yeah, she was very manipulative. And like, whenever he would try to break up with her because he wasn't happy, she would threaten to take her own life.

Yeah, and like we all thought he was this awful, horrible person. And then, like, I finally met him in Funnickson. And I was like, oh, we don't really like Star Wars. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, we had Star Wars action figures. I'm not going to lie. But, yeah, his entire family loves Star Wars so much. His mom loves to talk about, like, how she went with her mom when she was, like, a kid to see it in, like, theaters. So it seems like Chandler isn't just using his parents or villainizing his parents to just affect other people's opinions of others.

He's also telling Kat that her friend Mary is a bad person and manipulative and kind of using those things to drive a wedge between Kat and Mary because he obviously doesn't want Kat and Mary talking about him, which is why he and Kat dated secretly for a while until everyone found out. Don't want anybody comparing notes. Yes, exactly. He doesn't want anybody comparing notes. He doesn't want anybody coming in and saying, you know, this is what Chandler said to me. Here's all the proof. So he's going to, before Mary even goes to Kat, Chandler's going to tell Kat like, oh, Mary's terrible when I was in a relationship with her. So by the time Mary talks to Kat, Kat's already been poisoned against her friend. Then we have another ex-girlfriend, Dakota, who was with Chandler for approximately a year starting in fall of 2019. Dakota described Chandler as a constant liar stating that she could never believe anything he told her. She said that one time Chandler had told her that his father Bart would hit and beat himself and his brother when they were little, but from what she saw, the relationship between Chandler and Bart was normal and calm. They weren't super close, but they weren't super distant either, and she'd seen Bart pick Chandler up from his apartment once or twice to take him to lunch. Now Chandler's relationship, Dakota said, with his mother,

Krista was much closer. Krista would talk to Chandler every day and send him messages often, but Chandler would tell her that his mother was overbearing. Dakota also mentioned that Chandler was weird with emotions. He never cried in front of her and he never seemed sad, but he also never seemed happy and he rarely smiled. In fact, Dakota mentioned to the police how she noticed that Chandler really didn't know how to smile. Like, he would smile and she'd be like, what are you doing with your face? What is that thing that you're doing?

And he'd be like, I'm smiling. And she'd be like, no. And he told her he was rarely happy, so he didn't really know how to smile. Like, he had a hard time smiling. Talk about foreshadowing. Right. Like, he's like, well, I don't actually know how to do that thing that just normal humans know how to do since their babies. His interrogation footage is fascinating when you're really now understanding, allegedly, what he's capable of, you know, at this point in this story, allegedly, to kind of break down his behavior.

year patterns. I always find that interesting to see, I guess what I'm trying to say, like the lack of emotion, right? It's pretty, pretty blank stare as he's going through the motions and discussing his parents' whereabouts, you know, knowing that he knows where they are. It's interesting to watch him respond to the questioning and the lack of anything you see behind his eyes, even though the video is a little dark and kind of on a profile angle, it's still, there's still a lot to learn there. Yeah, and I think he used like, I had this concussion. So maybe that's why I'm kind of flat.

And that's why I kind of have weird, you know, reactions to things that maybe don't seem normal to you humans. Yeah. But that's not the case at all. So Dakota ended things with Chandler in September of 2020 when she found out that he was also having a relationship with Catherine Melender, who ironically, he actually started dating at around or exactly the same time he started dating Dakota in September of 2019, which also corresponded. with the same time he moved out of his parents' house and then into an apartment with Alex Gravett. So Alex said that while they were living together, Chandler often bragged about hooking up with different women behind Kat's back. And Kat would suspect something was going on, but when she would ask questions to Chandler about it, he would just deny it. Now, in August of 2020, Dakota saw that Chandler had been tagged in a photo on Kat's Instagram page and the audacity, but this was a photo not only with Chandler,

not only with Kat, but with Dakota's dog. So Chandler has Dakota's dog. Not the dog. The betrayal, the ultimate betrayal. Chandler has his girlfriend, Dakota's dog, goes to hang out with his other girlfriend, Cat. They take a picture with Dakota's dog. Cat posts it on Instagram tags Chandler.

Okay? So now Dakota sees this. Obviously, Dakota confronted Chandler. And he said, no, you've got this wrong. Cat's just a friend, a lesbian. friend. And Dakota didn't really buy it. She told Chandler, listen, I don't love photos of my dog with you and some other girl on some other girl's Instagram. I didn't give her permission to post my dog. And Chandler was like, don't worry about it. I know how to hack into Katz's Instagram,

and I can delete those photos remotely. Now, according to the police report, quote, a short time later, he presented a picture of a screenshot of Kat's Instagram page showing he had removed the pictures of himself from her account. Dakota noticed the screenshot was actually Photoshopped to remove the pictures of him and other photos moved around to give the appearance the photos had been removed from Kat's account, but they hadn't, end quote, which Dakota could obviously see just going on Instagram. So the lengths that Chandler will go to to cover things up, like he's photoshopping, a picture, a screenshot of Kat's Instagram showing it to Dakota and being like, see, all fixed, Dakota's like, I'm just going to go on Instagram real quick and see that that's absolutely not the case.

And then on August 24th, 2020, Chandler texted a friend, quote, So I accidentally cheated on my girlfriend while I was really drunk, and she wants me to call her tonight to have me end it with this girl and ask her how many times it happened, twice while I was hammered. I actually didn't remember until she found out and my friend had to tell me. But unfortunately, the girl I did it with really likes me still, and I know what she is going to ask. so she's going to fuck it up by lying to her and all, end quote. So basically Chandler is saying whether it's Dakota who wants him to call cat or whether it's cat who wants him to call Dakota. He's like, I only had, you know, hooked up with this girl two times, but the girl's not

going to say that the girl's going to say we've had some long drawn out relationship, which was true because he's having a relationship with both of these girls at the same time and they both think that he's their boyfriend and that he's being exclusive with them. So Chandler asked his friend, hey, can you use a very? voice changer to sound like a girl so that me and my girlfriend can call you and then you can pretend to be the other girl? I don't know. Once again. I mean, A for effort. I guess. Photoshop asking his friend to get a voice changer. Yeah. Yeah. And his friend was like, dude, can you just like stop being a dick? Like, can you stop being a bad person? How about that? Let's try that out. Yeah. And we're talking about

a love triangle here. But I do think this is telling when we think about the lengths he went to to just cover this lie up, you have to imagine that if he was involved in a murder or a double homicide, what would he do in that situation? How far would he go to try to make it look like it was something it wasn't? So I do think the context here matters. And it gives you a little bit of an indication as to the lengths Chandler will go to cover something up. Well, that's what I'm saying. He goes to great lengths. It's not just like come clean, take accountability. And, you know, okay, one of the girls will break up with you. Maybe they'll both break up with you. But apparently you're young and you have no problem getting girlfriends.

So there's more fish in the sea. You'll move on. It's not that. It's like, how can I figure out a way to keep this all going and keep my lives intact and keep the image of myself that I want other people to believe about me intact? Which sounds kind of like a narcissist. But maybe it goes even deeper than that. So either way, whether it was Kat or Dakota who he was trying to convince that his friend, using a voice changer was the other girl. I don't know. Cat forgave Chandler. Dakota did not.

She broke up with him. And in the last week of September 2020, after their breakup, Chandler told Dakota that he'd gone to the doctor and he'd been diagnosed as a psychopath saying, quote, makes sense now, doesn't it? End quote. If that's actually the case. But for Alex Grevet, his old roommate and his childhood friend, it wasn't just the cheating and lying that came to disturb him about Chandler. He told the police that in the summer of 20, He was saving up to buy a car and he'd been keeping a large amount of cash in a tin box in his room. And then there was a party at the apartment after which the cash disappeared. And Alex had mentioned to Chandler that he was going to bring the tin box to the police to have it fingerprinted.

And the police report says, quote, Alexander stated that he thought it was weird. Chandler had disclosed that he believed his fingerprints might be on the tin box. He admitted to Alexander that he may have touched the tin box but denied taking any money from it. Chandler also told him that he would give him the combination to his safe that was located in his bedroom and he could look around in his room to verify that he had not taken any of the money. Alexander stated that he thought it was really weird because Chandler had told him that if he looks inside the safe, don't judge me for what you find. I asked Alexander about this. He stated that he never looked inside the safe and he didn't know what the contents were. Alexander stated looking back on it, he believes that Chandler was the one who had stolen the money from him. end quote. So I wish Alex had looked inside that safe, to be honest. Like, what the hell was in that safe?

I would pay money to know, yeah. So Alex also said that one night he and Chandler had been out drinking in downtown Madison when Chandler started talking about life. Quote, he stated that he believed the idea of love was never getting tired of someone. Alexander stated, that's when Chandler disclosed that he thought he might be a sociopath. Alexander stated that he was worried by this statement. and tried approaching it at a later time when both of them were sober. He stated that Chandler refused to discuss this statement any further. End quote. So Chandler's telling his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend, I've been diagnosed as a psychopath. He's telling his childhood friend and roommate, Alex, I'm worried I might be a sociopath. And there's clearly some sort of thing that's not right about Chandler because he doesn't even know how to smile.

Yeah, the smile thing I'm sure will get some people go, hey, listen, I was never. That's just, it's a combination of things here. We're not just saying a combination of things. Exactly. Because you didn't, you don't smile a lot. You're a killer. But you combine that with some of the other behaviors. And it starts to paint a picture of a person that's maybe a little concerning. Maybe something we should look into. A combination. Not everybody's photogenic. Not everybody feels comfortable smiling in photos, but just in general life to be like, I don't really know how to smile because I don't feel things. That's concerning. Yeah, something that we should make note of. So during the time Chandler was living with Alex, he claimed he'd been hired by the Madison, police department to perform high-risk search-and-rescue scuba diving missions. In fact, Chandler's girlfriend, Catherine, remembered when he worked this job, and she said she remembered it because there had been whole days that he couldn't see her because he was either diving or on call.

Was it your understanding that Mr. Halterson knew how to scuba dive? Yes. What did you know about his scuba diving? Well, I knew in high school he was a diver, but then he loved to swim and, and, you know, From my understanding, he joined the Madison Police diving team for search and rescue missions. I know he'd gone a few times with them, to my knowledge, but I never went with him or dropped him off or saw anything too much like that. Did he ever tell you about any of his search and rescue missions? Yes.

He told me a couple of times about getting caught in rip tides. and one time he said that he saw a body while doing it while scuba diving and that he was a little weirded out by that. Did he ever bring home any momentos or anything he found while scuba diving? Yes. I know there was one time he brought home a large pink sex toy that he found. And then there was one time I believe he brought home like an old rusty looking knife. Dakota Brown, D-A-K-O-T-A-H. How do you know Mr. Holberson?

I was in a relationship with him for one year. What, if anything, do you know about Chandler's scuba diving career? I don't know anything other than he told me that he has gone diving, that he was certified, and that he had a job diving. And did he say what department he did he? dived with for the Madison Police Department page valenta P-A-I-G-E-V-A-L-E-N-T-A and how are you employed with the City of Madison Police Department in what role I'm the assistant chief of operations in the realm of ranks of police officers you're at

near the very top I report directly to the chief I ask you a couple of questions in this case which is why you're testifying but does the Madison police have a scuba diving rescue team no Is someone named Chandler-Halderson ever been employed by the Madison police, to your knowledge? No. No further questions. Okay. Another red flag here, right?

It's just creating a lot of narratives that aren't true. And then when you go back to the first witness where allegedly he had brought home mementos from his career, it makes you wonder where they came from. Now, I will say this. I don't think that's the case here with Chandler, but there are volunteer units that may not be recognized by police departments. There's multiple dive organizations that work in. conjunction with law enforcement when law enforcement agencies do not have their own dive team. And it appears that's the case here. So is there any truth to what Chandler's saying? I don't believe so. But if there are people out there in your own life who are saying, yeah, I'm working with the police department as part of their dive team, they may be embellishing slightly trying to make themselves seem as if they're part of the department.

But there are private organizations that work directly with law enforcement on certain investigations. So these, all these same people, and you heard from Dakota, who was the girl he was dating at the same time, he was dating Cat. And she just seems like, I can't believe I'm up here testifying about this. Yeah, you can't tell. She's deer in the headlights. Yeah, she's like, I can't believe I ever, like, affiliated with this person. I'm so sickened. Yeah. They asked her, they asked Cat. They asked Alex, did you ever see dive a scuba scooving equipment? Like, did you ever go with him anywhere? They said, yeah, we went swimming with him certain places. But no, we never saw scuba diving equipment. We never saw him actually do it. There was never. any indication that he did it from what the police could tell. He never did any scuba diving missions and never even had scuba equipment. So he's a weird person, right? And he's lying. And he's telling Cat. Pathological. Pathological at this point. We're getting there. Yeah. He's telling these people, especially Kat and Dakota, oh, I have to go on a scuba diving mission. I won't be available for a few days because he's with the other girl. Yeah. But he's even telling it to his guy friends as well. Yeah. Well, I think probably to deepen the narrative.

to support, yeah, that if Kat ever talked to Alex, it would be like, yeah, Chandler went scuba diving, you know, and he said that. So he brought stuff back from his missions. He saw a dead body once, which is a weird story to make up. Even if you're making up this whole job, it's weird to be like, I came home and saw a dead body. It kind of shows you where Chandler's head is at. We're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Talkiety. And I think a lot of people have had that moment where they realize that what they're dealing with is more than just a rough patch.

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to get matched in minutes. Okay, we're back. So I'm not saying that Chandler Holderson isn't a psychopath or he isn't a sociopath. Who knows? There's definitely something going on with him. But he for sure is a compulsive liar. And the fact that he used... Agreed.

That's established. Yeah. And he used these two terms, psychopath and sociopath interchangeably. When speaking to his friend Alex and his girlfriend, Dakota, it lets me know that, yeah, he probably thinks there's something wrong with him. But he doesn't know exactly what it is. And he doesn't really care.

He's not like, oh, no, what if I'm a sociopath? It's more like, I know there's something wrong with me. And I know other people pick up on it. So it's the perfect lie to use. to, you know, excuse and explain my behavior that other people are picking up on. He lies to come up with some reason for why he's a horrible person that doesn't put him directly at fault. It's always something that's happening to him. Now, both psychopaths and sociopaths lack empathy, but if you ask me, Chandler falls more in the realm of being a psychopath.

But we'll get there as we find out more about him. Now, according to Chandler's devoted girlfriend, Catherine Melander, Chandler just expressed his emotions in a different way. I would work today for only 30 minutes. Why only 30? I was crying. I'm an emotional person. Cass what you're crying about?

My boyfriend's parents are missing. I think it's more concerning if I wasn't concerned. I'm a very emotional person. Like, I cry enough for both of us is like what I like to say. Sure. Like, it's like I hang out with the, the family often, you know. There's parents, they're important. Like, I hang out with them. We play Mario Kart. His mom makes the Toad sound every time she selects Toad. No, Yoshi, the Yoshi's

sound. That's exactly how she does it. Um, loose every time, but like, I just don't understand how you couldn't, like, be worried or emotional. I know. I mean, if it's what we're here, a little worried. Yeah. you're worried is how's Chandler been like I said he's not really he expresses it in a different way

it's not like the biggest emotional person but like I guess like when I look at him it's different when other people look at him like I can tell it's really hard on him and like he just sits there and associates

and like paces and like you know, just sits there, like, where are my parents, like, a shell? And, like, when his brother was over, like... What was that? They left around, like... Today?

Yeah. Like, before they went to cabin, they left around, like, two-ish. They were, like, 20 minutes at most, but, like, he's following his big brother around. Like, subtle things, like, most people have noticed, but, like, dating him for a while. But he was following his brother around the house today to his pacing, upset.

in his own way, you know, like just showing his brother like, hey, like, maybe like in their dressers, I didn't find anything, but like, do you know what this male could mean pretty much? I stayed on the couch and I didn't want to, like, intrude in a way. Like, I've only been dating him for almost two years. So Catherine's talking about when Mitchell came over before he and his fiancé drove to the cabin to check on their parents. And she's like, yeah, you know, Chandler doesn't seem like outwardly upset, but he was following his brother around the house like a little puppy. He wasn't following him around the house because he was worried about his parents. He was following him around the house so he could like control the narrative. Yeah, in control the environment.

Yeah, in case he saw anything out of place or if he wanted to direct him somewhere else other than the area that could be something that would raise a question. Or plant something in his head. Like remember when we saw the body cam footage. Mitchell's fiancee was like, well, your brother's been saying your mom's really sick and, you know, she's got like a bad illness. And so maybe they went to a doctor. I believe that was an idea. Chandler planted in their heads before they even left for the cottage. Yeah, he's definitely got to be careful with his brother because his brother would know the house as well as him.

And if there were to be anything that that stood out, it would stand out to someone who lived there. I mean, maybe in the fireplace area is something that wouldn't normally be there. The brother may ask questions. And so he can kind of direct him through the house to say, yeah, I already checked that area or already did these things because he knows the areas of concern. And I do think it's a bigger thing. It's like you said, manipulation, trying to control the narrative, maybe programming something into someone's head so that when they see something, they think, oh, wait, that's what I already heard. Chandler already told me about this. Yeah, yeah.

That actually lines up with what I've been told. And Mitchell's going to defer to Chandler for a lot of things when it comes to their parents because Mitchell doesn't live at the house and Chandler does. So Chandler's technically the last person who saw Barr and Krista. I also thought it was funny because Kat's like, I've only been dating him for only two years, which is like, that's not a short time to be dating somebody. Now, according to Kat, Chandler seemed to have a really good relationship with his parents, but she had noted some methods of punishment from Bart and Krista that had been enacted on Chandler, at least according to Chandler. He's really concerned by his parents. Yeah. You know, every son's like, oh, my parents know I mean, but like, there's parents.

Like, they do dinners all the time together. Like every holiday they're doing a dinner. Father's Day, Mother's Day, they're all together. Like Easter, they don't really even celebrate Easter that much, but his parents make sure they have Easter baskets for everyone. Like. So he has a good relationship with mom and dad? Like, he's introverted.

doesn't want to hang out with parents. He read a video game on his computer. Sure. When we play board games, he's, like, more reserved, you know? Like, not, like, shouting out jokes, but, like, he, you know, has one-liners in there, as they call them. He fishes in his backyard with his dad.

That's why one of the reasons is why he bought the house so they can fish in the backyard? Squid relationship, nothing, no problems that you know of. between the three of them? I mean, he owed the money, but he paid them back. I told you that already. And that's why I was a lot over during the weekend. But other than that, that's like the only time I've really seen a big problem with them, I guess. So what did Chandler, so Chandler said he, you said he called you Thursday to let you know like me, my parents are going to the cabin, I'm going to be home alone with the dogs. I think he snapped me that and then like we've

Face-timed later. He snapped you that? You know, like Snapchat? Yep. No, no, I get it. I just don't. I'm not a snapper. I don't know. So before you said that the dogs, the dogs are more comfortable with you than Mitch's fiancé, Caitlin, just because you're around more? Yeah, I'm like, I'm there almost all the time. Like, I hang out with him and his parents, like, like, like, like, like. Like, I told you how, like, I wasn't over for, like, two weeks pretty much, but, like, I was still there having repair flows with them that one time. Like, I cooked them Mexican traditional food before, because my mom's an immigrant. Like, I'm just there often. If I'm not there, he's hanging out with me. And, like, maybe we won't hang out, like, two, three days a week.

It's very variant. It depends on, like, if we're doing stuff with our families or if we have other plans. but like, like I said, I played Mario Kart with his mom and dad. Hang out with them sometimes, just had dinner with them. So what was the whole two-week thing? Why weren't you allowed? The owing money thing. So did he, how did that come about?

Why was that a big deal? Because I thought yesterday you said that he's owed for, like, rent and Christmas presents and stuff like that. So why was it? Those two weeks. Yeah. Because, like, he was working for American family at the time. And, like, they just, there was, like, problems with HR and how they weren't, like, paying him. And, like, it was, like, they sent it in the mail, sent it to, like, not his address.

So he was, like, please cancel that check. Then he, like, tried getting them to, like, deposit it. And then at that point, they owed him, like, a couple thousand dollars because they were so far behind. And then, I guess the company that they sent money through was, like, this doesn't seem legit. They thought it was a scam. And so his parents were, like, you gotta give us that money because we know you have money.

But, and so, yeah, then he paid them. You know, it's just those two weeks that were like, you have, like, strict. Okay. Which is weird because, like, his mom's, like, don't be spending money because you owe us money, but they're not ever, like, really.

He said it wasn't really his mom and more of his dad, like, on him, but his dad's also an accountant, so, like, and just, didn't she, to be real, feel. So for the two weeks, was that when he hurt his back when he fell? Yeah, pretty much started, like, right after he fell because, like, they can just say a cat can't come over.

It was a part of, like, the recovery and, like, hey, pay us back. Like, because he had to, he fell down the stairs. They just had twice bruised his ribs. Had to wear, like, a neck brace. They're obviously concerned and didn't want him doing a lot. All right. So we have a couple of things to pull from that. First of all, Kat says that Chandler O'Don.

his parents' money, so they told him that Cat couldn't come over for two weeks. Now, in fact, there's no evidence that Bart and Krista told Chandler this. So there was another reason that it seemed Chandler wanted to keep Cat away from his parents during those two weeks. And in that two-week period, it's very important. We're going to talk about it in a minute because you heard her say, yeah, it seemed to correlate with like his injury that he had. And also he owed money. Air quotes. Air quotes injury. Yeah. And then secondly, Cat talks about how Chandler was having issues getting paid through his job, which at that time, he was working remotely for a company called American Family Insurance, allegedly. So I said that at some point, Chandler stopped living with Alex, his roommate Alex in Madison.

He moved back in with his parents in Windsor. Now, at that time, Chandler wasn't working, but he told his parents that he was still a college student, although he said 100% of his classes were being held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, Bart Halterson had a strict household rule for his adult children. They either had to be working full-time or enrolled in school full-time. And as long as they met one of those two conditions, they'd be allowed to live at home without paying rent. And their meals and basic living expenses would be covered by their parents. So Chandler didn't really owe his parents rent either. It wasn't one of those things. Now, Chandler eventually, he's going to school, but his parents eventually are like, okay, you're going to school, but all your classes are remote. you should get a job too, you know, you can do both. You're a 20-something-year-old man. You should be able to juggle both of those things. So for the Holdersons, if Chandler was unable to be a full-time student and also work, they would have to move out and they would have to figure out a way to support themselves. Now remember, Bart was an accountant and he was very careful with money. He was meticulous when handling the household finances. Chandler was also on his parents' health insurance and on their car insurance. And Bart and Krista had been giving Chandler money for tuition as well. So they wanted to make sure that their investment was paying off and he was doing everything he was supposed to be doing. Now, in June of 2021, Chandler was not only a full-time student, but he was working for American family insurance. And according to his brother Mitchell,

he and his parents were incredibly proud of Chandler for being able to juggle all of it, locking himself in his room with his computer all day long to complete his coursework and his job duties. Now, it's interesting because according to Chandler's brother, Chandler was doing remote work for the company, like answering questions, doing basic customer service or IT stuff with his computer. But Chandler told his girlfriend Kat that he was helping the company plan for installing solar panels on buildings. In fact, he showed her a whiteboard with drawn up plans about how the solar panels could be a safety hazard due to the fact that they'd be pointing towards the highway and could cause a glare and blind drivers. so he was trying to work that problem out for the company. Now, you also heard Kat say that, you know, he had a good relationship with his parents. He'd hang out with them, but he really preferred to kind of be by himself gaming.

Chandler had always been a gamer. He loved to play video games since he was a kid, but it seems after he graduated from high school, he fell into the gaming life hard. And he was deeply embedded in highly realistic tactical military combat simulators, his favorite games were called Arma and Escape from Tarkov. Growing up and moving into recently, what sorts of things did you and your brother Chandler do? Since we didn't live in the same house, we would do things online, like play video games and just talk that way. Okay. What sort of video games did you play?

Wide array, but generally first-person shooter games. And did your brother have a favorite weapon or gun in these games? Usually those of Russian descent. Okay. Like the SKS? That's correct. Now, in direct testimony, you indicated that your brother was very interested in Russian guns, particularly the SKS, correct? Yes.

And that interest goes back several years at least, right? Yes. How many years do you think that goes back? I wouldn't be able to tell you that. A long time. Is that true? And in fact, when you would play, he'd always pick that one. weapon if possible, correct?

Variety is something that's always nice, but yeah, that's definitely it would definitely be an option. That would be one of his first picked, yes. Gaming. He does this thing where like he screens his video game with me while I go to sleep

so I can go to sleep easier and he just like explains the game and talks it out and like just to help me fall asleep. What game? Turkoff. Escape from Turkoff. Yeah, that's a very popular game. I've never played it. Really? Yeah. I'd never heard of it. Yeah, yeah. I see a lot of streamers,

even to right now, 20, 26. They play that heavily. All right. So I had never heard of that. Yeah. It's a big game. I looked it up. It was his favorite from what I could tell. And I found out something interesting about it, actually. So Escape from Tarkov is known for its extreme realism. But it also has a reputation for fostering intense obsession among players. And it's led to behavior that the gaming community often jokingly and sometimes seriously refers to as Tarkov-S Stockholm Syndrome. So the core structure of escape from Tarkov is uniquely designed to hook the human brain and the game also demands an enormous amount of real-time dedication to keep up with a player base. It's a time demand that many people describe as being like having a

second job. So Chandler's life in the summer of 2021 was work, school, and playing video games. And that doesn't sound too off balance. You know, in fact, it sounds like the lives of many 20-somethings. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. It wasn't as if Chandler was missing work, getting fired or failing his classes. In fact, he'd been doing so well with his job at American Family Insurance that he announced to his family and girlfriend in early June that he'd been noticed by a much bigger company, SpaceX. You don't think he had anything to do with his mom and dad being unheard from? No. I just, no. all my friends I've talked to, they're like, no, not Chandler, no.

Like, that'd be crazy. Sorry, he sounds very monotone right now, but, like, just no. He, no. Mm-mm. No? Not a mean bone in his body? Well, everyone has mean bone. They even said Mother Teresa was a dick sometimes, like.

But I just don't see him killing Mr. and Mrs. Holderson. like he had SpaceX. Like, why would he jeopardize something he, like, would dream of? You know? Sure. Like, there's parents. For Christmas, they got him and his brother matching tool sets. Like, come on.

He cooks dinner for them. They have roopier floats together. They play Mario Kart whenever his parents want to. Like... And his brother Mitchell, you think? Mitchell? Yeah, he's... A leaf in the wind.

And even if he tried, they could just like push him over and he'd like break. No. Mitch out, no. Damn, shots fired him, Mitchell. Right. Mitchell's watching that interview going, damn. She's like, they're like, do you think Chandler could do this? She's like, no, he had SpaceX.

He cooked for his family. They're like, what about Mitchell? She's like, Mitchell? They could just push him over if he'd try. Yeah, leaf in the wind. Damn, that was rough. You know, and this is how it goes sometimes. Like, I believe what she is saying here, that she believes what she's saying.

And I do want to talk about it more. Let's take a break and then we'll break down that video. This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile and there are some things in life that should absolutely not be transparent. Okay, like. A swimsuit. Okay. That's a strong start. Your search history?

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And yeah, I believe that she believes what she's saying. and on the surface, I see where she's coming from. It seems like from the outside looking in, close-knit family, like she said, making root bear floats together, playing video games, pretty normal stuff, but not unfortunately normal for everybody. Not everyone has that tight-knit of a family. And she did say something that I think is important moving forward, which is why would he do that?

He had SpaceX. Like, that was the dream. And you've kind of alluded to it throughout this series so far that maybe the things that people felt like he was most focused on that he had to look forward to, well, if those things were non-existent, would you still feel the same way? Is the question I would pose. If those things that you thought he had were a figment of his imagination, would you feel differently about the possibility that maybe he did have something to do with it? And then finally, or if you felt like he was capable of lying so extensively about those things and creating this like second fake life,

would you believe that he wasn't capable of doing something else that you previously had thought was not possible for him? And I wish the investigators would have, you know, maybe driven in a little bit more there. Maybe they did later in this interview. This is only clips. But when she says, well, I mean, everyone's got a mean bone. And she starts to kind of go, you know, kind of divert the attention to Mother Teresa. I would have liked to see him say, oh, well, what do you mean? Like, what do you mean by that mean bone?

Yeah, everyone does have a mean bone. What's the meanest that you've ever seen Chandler? Well, I also want to mention at the time that Kat was sitting down with the police for this interview, she did not know that Bart Halterson's remains have been located on her mother partner's property. Oh, so the fact that she said they were killed or that's interesting. Yeah, like that's, yeah. So I- She didn't know they were dead at that point. Yeah, she apparently did not know that Krista and Bart were no longer alive.

Maybe there were rumors at that point where people were starting to believe that they were dead. Or maybe Chandler was saying something like, I'm really worried. Maybe they're no longer alive, kind of that thing. But according to everyone who knew him, Chandler began working remotely for SpaceX. But he was planning to move to Florida in mid-June. And then Kat was going to follow him to Florida at the end of August. Talk about Florida. So that's where SpaceX was.

That's where he was supposed to go. What was the plan? Go down there. You too? Okay. So what did that mean? Because obviously you have a job here, so did you have a job lined up? I'm just going to transfer to, not trying to say FU, but like FU, Florida University,

because they also have a pharmacy school down there. So I'm getting Facebook notification. Yeah. Oh, they're just going to go down there. Did you guys have, like, everything lined up? Like, when were you supposed to? Um, he was supposed to leave the Saturday. of the fall. So happened on Thursday, Friday,

supposed to be a Saturday morning. And then I was going to leave at the end or middle of August because I want to be here for my birthday. August 3rd. 2000, yeah. Gonna get crank. Okay, so did you guys have like a place that you were going to, like did you have everything kind of figured out? Where were you going to stay? Just like apartment building inside his film. Okay.

Did he, like, already signed the lease and stuff? I think so. You say Titusville? Did you know where the school is? SpaceSax, I mean. The school's in Orlando, but it's like an hour drive from Orlando and hour driving. It's excited. Like, who wants to save up for a boat because he loves fishing?

Want to get a year pass at Disney? Got a Universal. Is he being interviewed, too, or is he done? I'm with you, so I don't know. You have my attention. So there you go. I love the top chance. There you go.

First off, I don't want to judge her too hard. She's young. I know. It's that whole, like, that generation, the way they talk and kind of like the way they. Not really reading the room, you know, but young. She's young. But you know what you're there for. At minimum, you have your boyfriend's parents who are missing.

Would I be saying, going to get crunk? At that point, during an interview. Probably not. But I did want to point out for everybody who's watching on video, because I've talked about this type of interview multiple times and the settings that they occur in. That room that you're seeing on this video is specifically designed for victims of crime, family members, friends, who they don't believe have any involvement. And it's to reduce the stress and the residual effects that being interrogated or interviewed by law enforcement can have. So it's a comfy couch. Yeah, there's a lot of stuffed animals in there. That's for younger kids as well. Yeah. So it could be like a facility like a day one where the other investigators in the room, they're also sitting on a couch. I think it's intentional that they had a female officer present as well. All of these things are indicative of them not believing that she's directly involved. They're trying to make this as easy and as least stressful as possible on her. And so this type of room, when you hear me describe it in the future, because I don't recall an episode where I've seen it before on video, maybe once or twice. over the past five years we've had it, but that is the type of room I'm describing. Yeah, so I don't think that she was involved.

Like, I do think initially they thought she could have been. Yeah. Because as you'll come to find out, she was with him for a good portion of this weekend. Right. But. So it would be understandable why they might think she at least knows something. My issue with Kat is like you said.

She knows why she's there. At the very least, his parents are missing to the point where there's police involvement, where you, You know because you were at his house. Yeah, it's a serious matter. You were at his house. The police were there. They picked Chandler up to bring him to the police station. They drove you to the police station. Something's going on. They might even consider him to be involved because they're asking your questions along that line. And she's like, yeah, I'm going to get crunk. I love attention. I think it is that generation. I think it's a nervousness where that comes out. You're trying to act normal and be normal. At the very least also, though, she is still blindly defending him. And I think that has to do with being brainwashed by him, with being lied to her by him so much, just like his parents were and everybody around him was, where she doesn't even really know, like, what's the truth and what's not. And it seems like he's such a compulsive liar and he lies about everything where you get to the point as the victim of that where, yeah, we see women defend their abusers. He didn't mean to do that.

He could never do that. I know who he is. He loves me. So you start to discount like their poor behavior or red flags because they turn into a victim with you. Everybody's out to get me and you know who I really am and you're the only one who knows who I really am. Everybody else misunderstands me kind of thing. So I think that's what's happening with Kat. Now the job with SpaceX would sadly fall through.

We're going to get to that for now. But I want you to see the police are asking her. Like, where are you going to stay when you go to Titusville? Like, do you have a job lined up there? What's the plan? Like, is there an apartment? Has he signed a lease? And Kat's like, yeah, it's all taken care of. She has no idea. That it's not. That it's not. There's been no plans made to move to Florida because Chandler never intended to move to Florida. He's painting her this picture. We're going to go to Disney World. We're going to go to Universal. We're going to get a boat because I love to fish. We're going to have this beautiful future faking life gaslighting the shit out of her. Oh, yeah, don't worry. The apartment's all handled. We'll get you signed up for college when we get there. You don't even have to worry about a job because I'm going to be making so much money. can take care of you until you get settled. None of that was true. Yeah. And looking at this interview, I always try to look at him as if I were in the room asking the questions. And at this point, you can go one of two ways. I would describe her behavior as flippant. And you could look at it as,

oh, she really is just clueless about what's going on. On the other hand, you could also be entertaining the possibility that she's overselling the fact that she doesn't know anything. Right. Like this is just bad acting where she's trying to play it up like the crunk comment and, you know, the hand gestures that this isn't just a generational thing and that she's trying to oversell the fact to you that she has no clue why she's there or what she's being questioned about when in reality she knows exactly the truth. But yeah, I think you could go both ways with it. Or maybe she feels like something's off, but she kind of ignored it. And now she's being questioned like, do you know about the apartment? Do you know what you're going to do? And she's kind of like, no, I don't actually.

Yeah, yeah. And does that look weird? Does that seem weird, you know? Well, those detectives, if they are detectives, are sitting across from her right now. I think, you know, during this interview, you're trying to figure out who you're dealing with, develop a baseline, develop a profile. Is this someone who's trying to get one over on us or has one been getting over on her the entire relationship? So that's what you're trying to figure out. And you can see she's curious what's happening with Chandler, you know, or is he done?

Yeah. what's going on. She's getting texts. She's getting Facebook notifications throughout that. She often picks up her phone and she's kind of scrolling through it. Her mom's texting her. And we will know from her mom's testimony, she kind of was like telling her daughter like, you know, something's not right with this Chandler guy. So it's not as if there's no external influences telling Kat. Something's off here. Like, hey, actually, we're the ones who called the police because he was on our property. Like, there has to be a part of Kat in her brain where she's like, maybe it's, It isn't what I've thought it was.

Now, let's go to the summer of 2020. When Chandler and his father, Bart, were trying to get someone at Chandler's college to send Chandler's transcripts and a copy of a certificate that showed Chandler had completed the school's solar energy program. Now, at that time, Chandler had already gone through the solar energy program, and he was enrolled in an IT program, and he was just about a year away from graduating. So on August 5, 2020, someone named Daniel Speeth sent Bart Haltersson and E.E. email about setting up a Zoom meeting to settle all of this because they weren't getting

Chandler's transcripts, which it shouldn't be that hard, right? So Daniel told Bart that he'd spoken to Chandler on the phone earlier that day, and he knew that Chandler and his father wanted to meet with him, but unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to hold a meeting until Tuesday, August 11th. Daniel told Bart, you know, if there's any conflicts with that date, let me know as soon as possible so we can reschedule. Bart emailed back promptly within a few minutes. He told Daniel Speeth, no, there's no issue. This date will work for me. Send the details for the

Zoom meeting to my work email. Now on August 10th, Daniel Speeth emailed Bart again. He apologized profusely because one of his family members had been diagnosed with COVID and he would have to reschedule their meeting that was supposed to happen the next day. So Daniel ended the email telling Chandler, who was C-Ced in to call him the following day for more details. On August 26th, Daniel Speeth emailed Bart again, saying that Chandler had recently, been informed that his counselor was not going to be able to make her meetings that day, and that Daniel would be conducting the meeting himself remotely instead. Daniel wrote, quote, he also sent me a list of topics to have ready. I have full access to the servers,

so I have the information. He gave me your contact info. Does 930 or 10 work for you to answer a call? End quote. Another email from Daniel to Bart arrived minutes later, saying, quote, I have approved his renewable energy certificate is the address on file correct. End quote. And then he gives BART and Chandler's home address. Bart replied to the email saying that he could make either time work for a phone call. He just had to make sure he was finished by 1115. Bart then wrote, quote, I believe Chandler is in a meeting with a potential employer until 10 a.m.

Did he say it was okay to have the call without him? End quote. Apparently, Chandler was fine with Daniel and his father having the call without him because Bart, it appears, did receive a call from Daniel Spieth the following day. and whatever Daniel had said must have made Bart feel like everything was on track because he didn't contact Daniel again until September 9th, 2020. Bart asked Daniel for an update on Chandler's accounts. He said he needed to know the following items. Has this account been set up so that I can request transcripts? Has the national database been updated so that student aid can see that, you know, Chandler's registered as a full-time student. When is he going to be receiving his certificate for completing the solar energy program?

Now, the reason that Bart was so involved in what was going on with Chandler and Madison Area Technical College was because Bart was very to the penny when it came to money, and Chandler was on his car insurance. Now, it seemed that their car insurance company offered a 25% good student discount to young drivers, and this required that Chandler be enrolled full time in high school or college, maintain good academic standing, usually a 3.0 GPA and higher. and to verify this, the insurance company would need to see a college transcript. By October 23rd, the issue with the transcript and certificate had still not been resolved, so Bart emailed Daniel again asking for an update. On November 2nd, Chandler emailed Daniel Spieth, asking Daniel if he could send the transcripts to his home address because there was a program with his insurance that would help him save money with a good GPA. On November 30th, Daniel Spieth emailed Chandler and said he believed he had gotten through,

to his federal loans, and he was also drafting a letter for his insurance company, and Daniel wanted to know if a PDF would work for Chandler. Also, in August of 2020, Bart and Chandler were emailing with someone named Alyssa Brandt, another employee of Madison Area Technical College. On August 18th, 2020, Chandler emailed Alyssa reminding her that they had spoken on the phone the previous day and asking if she had emailed his father Bart yet. Alyssa replied, she apologized because she'd had the incorrect email address for Bart. She said she was waiting on two advisors to send times that they had open for meetings, and she would send those times to Bart by the end of the day.

On August 19th, Bart emailed Alyssa Brandt and said he had not received the dates from her when they could talk to someone about Chandler's account and student status, and this was causing financial aid and insurance issues, but also, quote, giving me other concerns. End quote. Bart told Alyssa that they'd been dealing with the same issue for, countless months, and he thanked her in advance for her prompt attention to the matter. Alyssa emailed Bart back and said that the college had a shortage of advisors at that time,

and that August 26th was the soon as they could make time for Chandler. Bart replied back, telling Alyssa that he'd blocked off the 26th to his calendar, but it was his desire to get this all taken care of sooner, and he said both me and my wife had the day off the following Friday, at which point we can go into the college in person and settle everything then. Alyssa didn't respond. Then on August 25th, Bart emailed Alyssa again, and he said, hey, listen, we're supposed to have a meeting tomorrow, but I have no details about this meeting. If it's a virtual call, I need a Zoom link.

If it's an in-person meeting, I need to know where the meeting is happening and who I'm meeting with. Now, it appears that on August 26th, Bart received a call from someone at Madison Area Technical College. And the next communication with Alyssa Brandt didn't happen again until May 24th of 2021. when Chandler emailed her to say that he'd gotten the COVID vaccine and he was feeling really sick from it so he would need to reschedule his meeting with his advisor or his counselor Aaron Hoover that day at 10 a.m. Chandler asked for another day that following week to reschedule and Alyssa emailed back telling Chandler, she was sorry he wasn't feeling well. She said, I didn't have a great reaction from the COVID vaccine either. And she told him that she was moving his appointment with Aaron Hoover to the following Monday at 10 a.m.

She also said that they had an opening before that on Friday, and Chandler could take that slot if he wanted. Chandler wrote back and he was like, no, I can't take the Friday appointment. I've already missed two days of work because I'm sick, but I'll keep the Monday appointment. He then emailed again shortly after, and he was like, hey, actually, Alyssa, is there any way I can keep my appointment for that day, May 24th? Or can I actually take the Friday appointment? I'll find a way to push through and feel better. Now, I have a strong hunch that when Bart Halterson found out Chandler had canceled a meeting that they'd been working for over a year to get, he laid into Chandler. There's no doubt.

Why wouldn't he? Yeah. I mean, we're both parents. Yeah. A year, Stephanie? Yeah, to get transcripts. And then you're going to, yeah. I had a vaccine.

I'm not feeling good. I have to cancel my appointment. Yeah. And as a father, I mean, that's your job. And as a mother as well. Like, I mean, you're trying to allow your kids to grow as they become young adults and make. and make their own decisions. But when they make a really stupid one,

it is also your responsibility to hold them accountable. If that is what happened, if your assumption is correct, which, by the way, I believe it is, well within his right to do that. Yeah, because he's like trying to cancel. He's trying to cancel. She's pushing it out a week.

And then he's like, actually, can I keep my meeting today or can I get, you know, another meeting like sooner than then a week from now? Or, or he canceled the appointment and then he wrote back saying, oh, I need another appointment. so he could show his father like, oh, actually, I changed my mind. I was feeling better.

Or I decided I could soldier through. But by the time I said I wanted that appointment, they said it had already been filled because Alyssa wrote back. And she was like, no, your time slot for today. It's already been filled. But you can come in on Friday at 1 p.m. And that happened to be May 28th. But then on May 28th, Alyssa Brandt set out an email that was addressed to students in general, not just Chandler. and this email informed the students that they were having a staff shortage. So there would likely be changes in the dates and times of their meeting. That same day, Chandler sent an email to Alyssa Brand. And he's like, hey, is there a problem with my meeting? Because I've been waiting for a long time and no one's here. And then Alyssa wrote back and she was like, yeah, we're having a shortage of counselors.

Like I sent an email out informing you. We're trying to find someone who's free to call you. You'll be getting a call shortly. Chandler also received an email from Aaron Hoover that day, who was apparently his like counselor and advisor at Madison Area Technical College. And this is the first email he's ever gotten from Aaron Hoover. And the email basically said, I'm a member of the Madison College's advisement team. That day we're short, three advisors.

I'm going to take meetings from absent coworkers on a first come for a serve basis. But Aaron was like, hey, if you have a meeting with me that's 1230 or after that day, you're now not going to be meeting with me until Tuesday morning. So remember Chandler had taken the 1 p.m. on Friday with Aaron. And now Aaron's emailing and saying, hey, if you have an appointment after 1230, I can't meet you till Tuesday, which pushes out even further than that week. And now instead of being a week after his initial appointment, it's a week and a day after his initial appointment. So now Chandler wrote back to Aaron Hoover. And he's like, listen, I need this meeting to happen today. I've been trying to get a meeting for a very long time because I need proof that I've completed my degree and my solar energy program and I could lose my job over this. Aaron wrote back and he was like, sorry, during these difficult times, we must follow policy. So Chandler and Aaron go back and forth a bit. Chandler's very upset. He was like, I can't tell you how many times I've heard this. I need someone in charge to call me within the next 30 minutes or else. I've been a very good student for over three

years and by God, I will be treated fairly. And then on June 1st, Chandler's urgency is suddenly gone and He says he has to cancel the meeting that they had scheduled for that day due to a work conflict. And Chandler asked if Aaron Hoover could get him his transcripts. And Aaron said, sure, I can do that when they are available. Who should I send them to? And Chandler gave Aaron his father Bart's email address. On June 1st, Chandler emailed Alyssa Brandt and asked if there was any progress on the documents he requested. Alyssa replied and said, yeah, it's been a hectic day.

I'm trying to gather all these documents that you need myself. I won't be able to access them until the key. he to the records room arrives. And I'll let you know when that happens. This is in 2021. This is the digital age. Are we supposed to believe that Chandler's transcripts and all the documents that he and his father need are locked away in some dusty records room that no one can access? I think it's an important distinction that you're making here because some may say, oh, that makes sense, but it's 2021. Everything's digitized at that point. We're talking. This is right around COVID. Especially a recent, a recent transcript, right? Because you,

just graduated. Yeah. Everything, but I mean, everything was digitized when we were in college. I mean, I don't recall. And that was a long time ago. That was a long time ago. I don't recall getting hard copies in 2004, maybe a little bit more than I do now, but I remember our grades and our transcripts and our whatever it was. It was all digitized. We would get it in the email like everybody else. Yeah, or a student portal. Exactly, like a portal. Exactly. Where you can go on and access it. These people are like, what address should I send them to? Not email address. Like, is this your correct home address?

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with Aaron Hoover for the following week? And she's like, sure. Yeah, perfect. I can do that. Easy. How does Thursday at 1130 work? And Chandler was like, perfect, put me in there. So then on Thursday, June 10th, Aaron Hoover sent an email to the students telling them that he had to take the rest of the week off due to a family emergency. And if anyone had any questions, they should email or call Alyssa Brandt. Because Chandler has bad luck. He happened to have an appointment scheduled with Aaron Hoover for that very day. So he did what Aaron told him to do.

He emailed Alyssa Brand and he was like, hey, my advisor, Aaron took off today and tomorrow, but I have a meeting scheduled. So who should I meet with? And Alyssa was like, wait, you have a meeting scheduled? When? And Chandler was like, today at 1130, remember, you scheduled it for me. And Alyssa was like, oh no, you misunderstood. I never gave you a date.

I just said Thursday. But it's not this Thursday. You're actually scheduled for next Thursday, June 17th. And by the way, I strongly advise that you keep that meeting because there are 50 students on the wait list. So that same day, Bart Halterson, he emailed Alyssa Branden. He popped off in the email. He tells her, quote, this is unacceptable. We have been dealing with this issue for well over a year now.

It has been costing us money the longer the delays have continued. I'm not sure of the professionalism of the advisors, but it seems like they will take off at the drop of a hat and it messes with the whole schedule. Chandler and I have both rearranged our schedules to meet with an advisor today, and I expect you find a way to make that happen. End quote. So at this point, Bart clearly believes that Chandler has been making every effort to make a meeting and keep it. And it is the school, the college, that's messing up. If I was from the outside looking in, I would think the same thing.

Yes. Now, at the same time in early June of 2021, Bart and Chandler are also emailing with someone named Tom Selsnick, who was the Northeast Remote HR manager for American Family Insurance. Remember, Chandler works there. Apparently, Chandler had been working there for several months, but he had yet to receive a paycheck. On June 11, 2021, Bart emailed Chandler saying, quote, did you email HR to inquire about your paycheck? Unless there is something that you are not telling us, they have had ample time to pay you. End quote. That same day, Chandler emailed Tom Selsnik asking for an explanation of why he hadn't been paid. And Tom Selsnick emailed back saying,

quote, Hi, Chandler, I was given your case on Tuesday. However, I have contacted your payroll company and have determined a few issues. One, you are registered as salary. However, you are making an hourly wage, too. For two months, the payroll company saw your name and dues as a clerical error. Unfortunately, you have been making $25 an hour when your salary states that you should be making $61,000 annually. When I get in contact with payroll, I will show them exactly when you were switched and find out why there was a delay on your dues. Have a great rest of your Friday. End quote. Later that same day, Tom told Chandler he'd updated the log and changed his dues. He would let payroll know about the change and Chandler should keep an eye on his bank account

and if he didn't get paid by next Friday, June 18th, he should let Tom know. Now, if you see in the timeline here, we're mid June of 2021, which is getting pretty close to the date that Bart and Krista Holderson vanish. Right. Then something happened on June 17th, something that would derail Chandler's attempts to get paid and get his transcripts, something that, according to Chandler, would derail his entire life and all the well-laid plans he had made, all the hard work he'd been putting into creating his future. He fell down the stairs and had to go to the emergency room. Do you know when he fell? Yes, June 17, after, before 142, because that's wrong time's picture was taken. He was just going on the stairs and fell?

He was on the phone with his boss who was telling him to hurry up to his computer, so he was wearing down the wooden stairs with socks. Yeah. Yeah. Classic. Yeah. Okay. And so, he isn't all his glory.

So I'm asking a weird question with him falling. He probably was going to the computer, but any kind of bounce in the house? No. No. His dad was downstairs at his computer. He was telling me about hearing Chandler fall. He was like, that's not my computer. It didn't sound bad. And then, like, I got up to, like, check after a while. And, like, he was on the floor.

And I was like, okay, Mr. Alderson. Sure. Yeah. No. Chandler's clumsy. Okay. It is not the first time he has fallen. He needs, like, a life alert with button things.

Yeah. I've seen one of his many falls. Just with... He really likes his socks. Okay. It's actually my mom sleeps. Yeah. It's really pretty.

It's good take away to time. It's hard. It's hard, man. I'm trying. Listen, I get it. I get it. You know, she's a unique character. Yeah, because earlier they were like, oh, hey, it's July 4th. You showed us a picture of Chandler on July 4th at your mom's partner's house at like a pool party and he's wearing long sleeves. Like, why is he wearing long sleeves? It was like 90 degrees that day. She's like, he always wears long sleeves, even when it's hot out. And so now they're like, oh, he falls. And she's like, he likes his socks. His socks. His socks and long sleeves. He's weird, but in a good way. And you heard she's like, he fell down the stairs. This cracked me up when I was listening. She's like, his father was sitting on his computer. And he heard something, but he said it didn't sound that bad. And then after a while he got up and Chandler was just laying on the floor because you know Chandler faked this fall down the stairs. And he laid there forever wondering like, who's going to come check on me? Because he had to have somebody find him. I need someone to witness this. Yeah. Yeah. And it makes more sense now because when you've told us about this. this particular fall in episode one.

And you kind of alluded to the fact that it maybe wasn't what it appeared to be. I was wondering why. And now with this context as far as the job. The job, the transcripts, yeah. And the transcripts at school. And then also, and I don't want to like, I don't want to skate over this. There was a part in that email with Bart that you had said where he said, unless you're not telling us something. Unless there's something you're not telling us.

So Bart wasn't oblivious. By mid June of 2021. And Bart's starting to be like, what the hell's going on here? More importantly, Chandler knows that Bart is starting to know what's going on here. So he's got to raise the ante because what he had been doing up to this point, just from his father's comments, he knows it's coming to a head soon. And that although Bart is still trying to back him, something isn't adding up. And now he's even throwing out there, are you lying to us? Indirectly.

Are you, what's, what's really going on here because this doesn't make sense. And that, that statement, I've done it with my, with my daughters. And I'm sure you have as well where you know the answer to the question, but you're asking it anyways. And I feel like at this point, Bart is suspecting that Chandler's not being completely truthful with him. And I think Chandler knows that he knows. And here we are. Now we, now we have this, this quote unquote, accident occurring at the, at the, at the perfect time, which would give Chandler an excuse for everything that's going to transpire in his life

after that point, which he already knows is going to happen. Yeah. So I think what's happening is Bart feels something in his gut. He's a smart guy. Oh, no doubt. Parent intuition. But he doesn't want to believe it. He doesn't want to believe it. Also true. Something's screaming at him, but he still doesn't want to believe it. Like he's yelling at Alyssa Brandt and he's like, what's going on? Your college is so, so you have no professionalism. But then the whole thing with the paycheck is happening too. So it's like we can't get his college transcripts. We can't get him paid. Is this kid the just most unlucky person?

Like he's just absolutely targeted by every single, you know, institution that he encounters. And then he falls down the stairs. And it's like, oh, my God, this kid, he's a victim. Like, poor Chandler, he's trying so hard to make everything work. And, you know, it just doesn't seem to be working out for him because of everyone else around him that's causing these issues. So according to Chandler, right, the fall had been pretty bad. Pretty bad. He had to wait for his dad to find him so that he could see. Yeah, Chandler can't move, you know, even though Bart told a cat, like, I don't think he didn't sound like he felt that hard, but, you know, apparently, he did. Chandler said he had an aneurysm, a severe spinal fracture. After the fall, he suffered from constant headaches, confusion, memory loss, and numbness in his legs, which led to medical restrictions that prevented him from being able to move around freely, and he couldn't drive either. So his mother, Krista, was very worried about Chandler after this, just like she'd been worried about his

brother Mitchell when he, too, had had a health scare earlier that month. In June of this last year, 2021, you had a significant health episode. Is that a fair statement? Yeah, I'd say so. Okay. What occurred? I went to the doctor for a regular scheduled appointment since I hadn't gone during COVID and wanted to get blood work done, and I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. And in fact, you were hospitalized for a period of time? Yes, that is true. Was your mom or dad, did they seem concerned to you at all? Yes. You kind of laughed there. Why'd you laugh? My mom was overly concerned. How did she express that? Not as much to me, trying to not show me that, but I have heard later on that she called her best friend many times crying.

Okay. And in fact, during your illness, your brother gave you a gift. Is that fair to say? Yes. What did he give you? A unknown type of bullet with the words get well soon on it. So Mitchell has, you know, he's diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. His brother gives him a gift, a bullet with the words get well soon right on it. The choice. What the hell is that? When I heard that, because it was in like some kind of unrelated testimony when I was initially

listening to Mitchell's testimony before I understood the implication of what that unknown type of ammunition was, by the way, because it's going to come back. what the hell is that? Like if this was like a big gun family and they were around firearms all the time, hunters, whatever it was, it could be a way of making a tough situation a little bit lighter, having fun with it. But what we've been talking about with this particular family, it doesn't seem like they were gun nuts. And so this ammunition thing doesn't play well. In fact, they almost interpret it as like, hey. A threat.

Yeah, yeah. Or even the other way, like, hey, just put a bullet in your mouth. Like, just end it all. Or just like, just so you know. Because it was one singular bullet, right? Yeah, one bullet. Get well soon. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. I would love to ask Chandler what he thought about it. What was the intention behind that one? So to me, it feels like a veiled threat. Kind of like, just so you know, I have real bullets. Like, I know we play gun games online together, but like I have real bullets. Really?

So you're thinking there's something more there like, hey, that's great that you have diabetes, but also. be careful. Yeah. Also, your diabetes, type 1 diabetes is not like a disease to mess around with, by the way. You could potentially die from it if you don't manage it correctly, if you don't take the proper medications, manage your blood sugar. So it's kind of like, hey, this is going to be hanging over your head. Like, it's not a, oh, you fell down the stairs and you are going to get well soon.

You don't really get well soon. It's a lifelong thing you have to manage. I think that Chandler really resented his. brother Mitchell, because Mitchell was actually successful, did actually have a good job, had a healthy relationship, was buying a house, had moved out of his parents' house. He kind of felt like I think Mitchell was the favored child, like, oh, he actually went and did something with his life. And Chandler, like, he can't even get paid from his job, you know? Yeah. While Mitchell's illness was real, as it turns out, Chandler's was not. So on June 17th of

2021, did you in fact see a patient named Chandler Halterson? Yes, ma'am, I did. I believe it was around noon. That day I was working out at the emergency department at the UW Hospital at the American Center, also known as TAC. What symptoms did he present with? I believe he was complaining of some pain to his head and his right ribs after a reported fall down some stairs. At that time, my physician assistant went and evaluated the patient first. He came up with a treatment plan.

We discussed it. I evaluated the patient afterwards and agreed on the plan and then got some imaging. Okay. What imaging did you get? We got a CT scan, a cat scan of his head and his C-spine, a cervical spine. And what, if anything, did that imaging reveal? Those images were reported as being negative without abnormality. The PA and I both did an abbreviated physical exam, looking for any signs of injury. we did discuss with the patient a potential x-ray of his ribs because he was having some right-sided chest tenderness. At that time, the patient declined the additional imaging. And I think about that time, we closed the encounter.

I believe for this case, the patient had some residual neck pain. So he was given a caller to go home with for support with instruction to follow up with his primary care physician and with the spine team that was on call. Is it unusual for you to hand out a neck brace or neck collar with somebody who says, hey, my neck is hurting? No, ma'am. It is not unusual at all. Okay. At any point in time during your visit with Mr. Halderson, did you tell him he was going to experience paralysis? No, ma'am. At any point during your time with Mr. Halderson, did you tell him that he had a brain bleed? No, ma'am.

At any point during your appointment with Mr. Halterson, did you at any point tell him that he had a brain aneurysm? No, ma'am. At any point did you tell him that he had nerve damage? I don't believe so, no ma'am. At any point did you tell him he had a spinal injury? No, I don't believe so. At any point, did you advise him that he should not fly in an airplane? No, ma'am.

At any point did you tell him that he should not drive? I don't believe so, no. At any point did you ever say that he shouldn't drive long distances? No, ma'am. At any point did you tell him that he had a hematoma in his brain? No, ma'am, I did not. At any point did you tell him that he would have an inability to use his legs in a normal manner? No, ma'am.

At any point did you tell him because of his mild concussion that he was going to have to have a colostomy bag? No, ma'am. And just to be clear, that's a bag for poop. That's correct. At any point in time, did you have to drill a hole into his head? No, ma'am. At any point in time, did you tell him that he was going to have to have surgery

where a hole would be drilled in his head? No, ma'am. No for their questions. Well, the good news is, Chandler, you're going to be okay, buddy. He's going to be okay, but he's even telling the... police, right? He's like, have you ever not been able to use your legs? It's like, did he not think they were going to follow up with the doctor? Yeah. I, I, it's this delusional optimism this kid has. There was some people in our comment section talking about it and it's, I don't know if it's just

stupidity or just a lack of self-awareness. I don't know how as a, and Chandler seems to be an intelligent person. I don't know. I think it's just a web of lies. where you get so deep that you just keep creating more, hoping that that's what gets you out of the rut you're in, when in reality you're only making it worse. I don't think he thinks that everyone around him is that dumb. I just think he's impulsive and he's just saying the first thing he can think of and there's really no thought that goes into it.

So he's thinking more in like short term. Like how do I get out of this right now today? This immediate moment. Yeah. Right? Because for whatever we want to say about Chandler, he's an intelligent person, right? Like he's not some.

I suppose, yeah. But he's not a career criminal. And there is a distinction there, right? Like he's, as far as we know, never committed a crime like this before. And so when you see that camera footage that we were laughing about last episode, that is an inexperience, right? That is someone who doesn't have a background in this type of behavior and didn't know what they should do prior to committing the act. It doesn't mean they're dumb. But yeah, I think it's an impulsive kind of in the moment situation where,

he just wants to get out of that room. Yeah. And he's saying whatever he needs to say. Very childlike. Like they think you're not going to follow up or at least like I can get out of the discomfort of this moment. I can buy myself another day or two. I was literally just going to say buy time. Just trying to buy time until they can come up with a better excuse for everything that's going on.

But as you're doing that, you're reveling that ball of yarn tighter around yourself. Yeah. And also just creating a loud. of credibility for anybody who is having a conversation with you. But once again, it feels like the people around him want to believe him, right? So these people aren't consistently like Chandler, you're a liar. They are believing him. They're giving him the benefit of the doubt.

You're talking about the family. The family, his girlfriend, everybody. As far as the interviews and interrogations, I think it's. Oh, yeah, yeah. They don't believe anything he said. I don't think they believe anything he was saying. No. All right, we're going to take our last break.

We'll be right back. Okay, we're back. So obviously, because of this injury, this fake injury, of course Chandler could not make his meeting with the Madison area technical college counselor Aaron Hoover on June 17th. So he had to email Alyssa Brandt and tell her that he was on his way to the hospital and he knew there was a waiting list, but he needed to reschedule as soon as possible. Because remember, Alyssa told him, like, I highly suggest you keep that meeting because there's 50 students. So now Chandler has a reason of why he can't get a meeting again very soon because 50. students. It's going to be weeks, maybe months before he can schedule another meeting. So on June 17th, Chandler also emailed Tom Selsnick from American Family Insurance to let him know that he needed his paycheck as soon as possible because he recently had to go to the ER and he was going to need that money for medical expenses. Now, I don't know if you've put it all together yet, but Tom Selsnick never worked for American Family Insurance because he isn't a real person. And Daniel Spia, Alyssa Brandt, and Aaron Hoffman, never worked for Madison Area Technical College because they aren't real people. The email address, spia the Daniel at gmail.com, was created on August 5th, 2020. And the same day, the first email was sent from that account. And this was an email sent to Bart Halderson, an email address that was created using the IP address of the Halderson home with Chandler-Halderson's date of birth and Chandler-Halderson's

cell number as the recovery number. So when we say like, oh, he seems like a smart person, I don't think he really was. Maybe book smart? I don't know. Maybe. We'll see. The same went for the rest of the email addresses. Elisa Brand, Daniel Spieth, Aaron Hoover created the same day that the first emails went out, created using the IP address of the Halterson.

And they never interacted with anyone other than Chandler and Bart Haltersson. Chandler was Daniel Spieth. Chandler was Alyssa Brand. Chandler was Aaron Hoffman. Chandler was Tom Selsnick. And for some reason, he was putting all of this elaborate work into convincing his father that all of these people did exist and that they were working behind the scenes to get Barts issues with the transcripts and the payroll and everything addressed. As it turns out, Tom Selsnick was not the only person who didn't work for American Family Insurance. Chandler Halderson had never worked there. He had never applied for a job there. And there was no evidence that he had ever communicated with anyone from SpaceX or been offered. offered a job there or held any employment status there. And, you know, this sounds crazy, but at the same time, it's not hard to believe. Why? Well, you've set it up for us.

You described a situation earlier involving multiple relationships where instead of just telling the truth, Chandler was going to great lengths to hide the truth, including asking his friend to use a voice changer just to keep this narrative, this false narrative going. So if he was willing to do that, when the stakes, let's be honest, they weren't that high. If one of them finds out or both of them find out, you're single, you move on. So to think that he would do all of this when this is a lot more serious, not a, not a stretch, not a stretch. He's not still not good at it, but he's trying. And I mean, none of these emails or these email addresses were from legitimate things.

So right, you normally see a school email address like Madison County Technical College.edu. These are g-mails. Okay? So even though Bart Holderson is a smart person and an intelligent person, even though he probably saw the email addresses these were coming from, he still gave Chandler the benefit of the doubt. I'm glad you brought that up because that was the other thing I wanted to mention. I don't know how far Bart had gotten into his own investigation, how much he had kind of put together already, because a lot of what you're going over is the tangible evidence that we have, i.e. emails. But I do wonder about the conversations that were. happening in person that Bart and Krista are no longer here to talk about because they're dead. I would imagine that there were in-person conversations that happened between Chandler and Bart where he may have questioned the email, right? He may have said, this is a weird, this is a weird web address that it's coming from. We don't know.

Chandler was probably like, it's because of COVID, man. Right. Well, I'm just there might be even more to this story than just the passive comments, like, unless you're not telling us, You know, unless you're not being honest with us, there might have been more in person. They lived in the same house where they were having conversations. Maybe even this is what led to what happened. Maybe that was the exact conversation when that was happening in that moment. We don't know. But it does start to paint a picture of motive, right?

That big word. We kind of do know what conversations led up to what happened because you have to look at it and you have to say, okay, if Chandler-Halderson isn't locking himself in his room for 10 hours a day, working his job, well, then he must have been spending a lot of extra time focusing on his classes at Madison Area Technical College. And then we find out that on June 29th, 2021, Bart Haltersson made a call that lasted for 19 minutes and 46 seconds. He then sent a text message to his son, Chandler, that said simply, quote, I spoke to Omar Job, end quote. Now here is a portion of Bart Alderson's call with Omar Job, who happened to be the enrollment coordinator at Madison Area Technical College.

Hi. I'm trying to get an appointment scheduled to meet with somebody to mainly just get a copy of a transcript and also a printed copy of a certificate that was earned and other degree verification. How do we get that done? Okay, for the degree, you have to download the duplicate diploma form and send it in or a check or money or $4 for the diploma. We mailed back to you. For the term script, you have to go online and request it. Yeah, I tried to request them online and we never got them. And I've spent on how many times doing that at $8 a piece, so I'm not willing to do that again.

Why is not letting you request your transcript? What is it? It's not my system, it's your system, so don't ask me questions like that. Okay, but I need to establish the problem first before I can know how to walk you through to get it. Are you by a computer so I can walk you through and how to get it? I'm going through the process before I worked with, you know, I had, I had, I had, I had, I had, and try to work with Daniel Spite to see if he can get through the information. I don't believe, I don't know if he's with you guys anymore, but it just seems like the ball keeps getting dropped.

Okay. I mean, that's pretty easy to request a transcript. That's what I thought too, and you just get to the other? It hasn't come through. Okay, what's your first name? Chandler, C-H-A-N-D-L-E-R. last name is H-A-L-D- and David C-R-S-O-N. Okay, so it looks like you owe a balance.

You owe it balance of 203-39. So that's what is, that's why you can't request it. Yeah. Can I schedule a time to actually come in there and pay all that and resolve everything at one time? Yeah, the payment today is open, yes. You can come in? How long can they do an unofficial transcript? If you've earned a certificate, say, in that solar program, where does I get requested through?

If you earned a certificate? I don't see that you earned a certificate. You were taking IT classes, right? I don't see that you were in the program. You said the IT degrees in there, right? No, those are just classes. Do you know, do you have an Alyssa? a brand that works in that area or anywhere in the campus?

No. Does that check non-teachers and everything? It would be anybody on campus or church? There will be anybody on campus. The directory will have anybody on campus. How about does Daniel Spice still work there? No. Okay.

That should do it then. Okay. Thank you for your help. All right. Welcome. Yeah. So we just had this long conversation about how much. which Bart knew leading up to it.

And it's pretty clear now. He was still kind of in the dark. Yeah, exactly. Because when this conversation started, he was very defensive. And there was a belief there that he and his son were being stonewalled and they weren't able to get the documents they needed. And you could see he's aggressive there because he's frustrated. He's frustrated because this should be a simple process, right?

His son has a certificate. Why can't I get it? It's nothing to do with money. And so I understand the frustration initially. and then during that conversation, you can feel the moment when he realizes he's being duped. It's all been a lie, yeah.

When he, I think I don't know, I was a little muffled, but his last words were like, that should do it. Yep. And then he knew. And the conversation ended abruptly because he realized

that everything that he was being told, all of these, maybe this was a thought in the back of his head up to this moment, but that was what confirmed it. Exactly. And then after he says to Chandler, texts him, I spoke to Omar Job, right? And Chandler's probably like, who the hell is that? I don't even go to the school. I don't even know who that is. Now, here's the interesting thing. We can piece together what happened because Chandler Halterson had been enrolled at that college and he had taken classes there, sort of, but he had never completed a degree. And the last time he'd even been enrolled had been in the fall of 2020. He hadn't earned a credit since the fall of 2018.

Chandler had been enrolled during the spring of 2018. He took four classes, which resulted in two C's, one B, and a withdrawal from one class. Here, nine credits that semester, and he ended the semester with a GPA of 2.33. In the summer of 2018, Chandler was enrolled in three classes. He withdrew from one. He got an A and another and a C in the third. Now, this pattern continued into the fall of 2018, where he withdrew from one of his three courses and got an F in another. The spring of 2019, he withdrew from three of his classes and got a six.

see in the fourth, the fall of 2019, where he withdrew from half of his classes and failed the other half, including Psychology of Human Relations, ironically enough. And then in the fall of 2020, he attempted psychology of human relations again, and he failed again. And the only other class he didn't withdraw from that semester, he failed as well. So at the end of the day, Chandler completed 19 credit hours in three years of college. He withdrew from 14 classes, and his cumulative GPA was 1.44. Chandler hadn't been locked in his room all day and night cracking the books or building his bank account. He had been firmly planted in front of his computer playing video games. And then on June 29, 2021, Bart Halterson realized that his son had been lying to him about everything.

For years, by the way. So after getting off the phone with Omar Job, Bart then spent some time on the internet, specifically the Madison Area Technical College website where he, perused their employee directory and realized that what Omar Job had said was true. Every single person who he had been communicating with since the summer of 2020, who he thought was working for the college, had never worked for the college. And I think it was then he realized that Chandler was probably impersonating all of them. So Bart's Outlook calendar had an entry for 3 p.m. That was scheduled for July 1st. And it said, Chaz, M-A-T-C, Madison Area Technical College. college. And at 2.10 p.m. on July 1st, Bart sent his son a text message, quote, I'm ready whenever

you are. End quote. It was the last text message that Bart Halterson would ever send, and there was no activity on his phone after 3 p.m. that day. At 3.19 p.m. Chandler sent a text message to his mother Krista, who was at work. And he said, quote, dad's phone died, text or call me. End quote. He followed that up with another text, quote, and get soda on your way home, I have an extra hour of work. End quote. Krista Haltersson replied back to her son, quote, K, I can, with a happy face emoji at 3.22 p.m. Her phone arrived home at 5.22 p.m. and she was never seen again. The following weekend would be a strange one for Chandler, a weekend full of unusual behavior,

alarming internet searches, and a few sleepovers at his home with his girlfriend, Kat, who thought, they had the house to themselves that weekend and apparently had no idea that for at least one of those evenings, she was slumbering in the same house where the man she had labeled as hubby in her phone had brutally murdered and dismembered the bodies of his parents. Yeah, so there it is, right? It seems like what really was the tipping point here is Chandler was going on with this whole farce and Bart figured it out. And from what it sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, because you know more about the story than I do, it sounds like, There may have been some conversations that weren't via text. I have to imagine that the exact words were, where were they just to quote it here.

I'm, what do you say exactly? I'm ready whenever you are. It sounds to me like there was maybe a phone call or something of that nature where, or maybe an in-person discussion where he said, this is what I figured out. We have to talk. Maybe Chandler said not right now. And he like scheduled it in his calendar.

Yeah. He scheduled in his calendar. And then that's when Bart sends that text message, I'm ready whenever you are. Because he had a meeting scheduled for him where they were going to talk about. Everything. Everything. And then I don't know.

It's hard for me to ask you because you know. But my questions right now is, is Bart already dead before Krista gets home? I believe so, yeah. Yeah, right? And so it's just this kid being a psychopath where he's asking her to get sodas now. Right. Right. That's what I'm saying.

he killed his father, I believe, because there's no activity on Bart's phone. And then he texts his mother knowing that when she gets home, he's going to kill her. But on the way home, he still would like her to pick up some soda to quench his thirst from killing his parents. It's not necessary to lower her suspicion either. But maybe, okay, I'm putting it together as we're talking here. So then maybe him saying dad's phone's dead went right to voicemail. That's him basically covering for when she tries to contact her husband. Yeah, exactly.

He's not going to pick up. So that would indicate he is already gone. He's no longer capable of answering his phone. So he sets that up by saying, hey, dad's not answering his phone for me, aka, don't be alarmed if he doesn't answer for you. No, he's, they're in the same house. So he's saying, dad's phone died. If you need to contact anyone in this house, call me.

My phone is still charged. And then to try to throw it off a little bit and make it seem like it's just, you know, an innocent conversation, he throws in the soda comic. No, there's no reason to throw in the soda comic. There's no reason, but in his mind, we're talking. Think about who we're talking about here. Why wouldn't Krista think it was a normal conversation? Like, she has no suspicions of anything, right?

I think he just wanted freaking soda. Really? Yes. Me. Oh, Jesus, man. I think he knew he was going to kill her. And he was like, well, I might not be able to get out to the store to get some soda anytime soon.

So I'll just have her bring me. Like, that is like a psychopath, like using other people that you, like, just using people, using people. I'm going to kill you, but please bring me some soda. Yeah. No, well, I think we can kind of wrap this episode up by making a clear distinction between a psychopath and a sociopath. And I think most of you guys know at this point, and there's a lot of things we can talk about when it comes to the two different profiles. But one of the things is a psychopath is biological a lot of the times in nature. It's something that's inherent in them. And then sociopaths can be due to the environments around them, something that is developed over time. And based on what

you've described about Chandler's childhood, I think this may be more something that is an indication that he is a, that he's a psychopath. Because there's no reason. He had a good childhood. He had loving support of parents. This is someone where this is more than likely biological in nature, some markers that have been there all along, someone who doesn't display a lot of emotion, someone who lacks a conscience, right, empathy, the ability to emotionally regulate. Like you said, sociopath can be an environment. So trauma induced, things like that. But a sociopath can feel limited empathy or guilt towards certain people where a psychopath

does not feel anything. And a psychopath's more controlled. So like where a sociopath will act recklessly, lose control, things like that, like they don't really have control. A psychopath can imitate somebody who is like socially conventional where a sociopath has less ability to do that because they are like, they get angry and they will have outbursts and things like that. A psychopath will spend a long time deliberately manipulating people and remain calm, confronted and lie and just completely not have empathy or guilt or feel any loyalty towards anybody. Right. And a lot of the times you'll see with psychopaths, they almost display a behavior of being withdrawn. And it's not a clear marker either way, because we've seen both. But that is

something to look for. And when you start to think about Chandler in that light, there are a lot of indicators that would suggest he's more in line with that. And the soda comment, I bring that up because of it, right? The ability to say that when you know what you're about to do, it just shows a lack of any emotion. You're about to kill your own mother. Yeah. It's, you know, that's not that anybody who's watching or listening to this has ever been in that position. But for Chandler, he's concerned about soda in that moment.

And he's also concerned about getting caught for lying. So it's like, is this a real reason to kill your parents? Well, yeah, you're living at their house for free. You're able to have this lifestyle where you play video games nonstop all day every day and you don't have to get a job and you don't have to be an adult and you don't have to take responsibility. But if your parents find out all that comes crashing down and you might get kicked out. You might have to actually get a job. So you're going to have to, you know, pay your own rent and do all those things.

And that's not the life that Chandler wants. So instead of being like, yeah, I'll take it. Take my, you know, take my accountability. I'll get a job. I'll be a real boy. He's like, no, I'll just kill my parents. I don't know. The soda thing, even though I basically said he's a psychopath at this point,

the soda thing could just be him just being horrible at carrying this whole thing out. But who knows? I'm looking forward to part three. I want to know more about this case. A lot of you guys in the comments. And I wasn't familiar with this case. You weren't familiar with it. But apparently it's been covered by a lot of people.

But I did see comments where they were saying, we're covering some. some angles that people haven't really thought about or heard anywhere else. And that's the point. So I think there's a bigger purpose to covering this story, not only for the people who have never heard of it before, like myself, but also again, it gives us another book on the bookshelf where we can talk about this case from an educational perspective and apply it to future cases that we cover. Because unfortunately, this won't be the last time we meet someone like Chandler. And now we start to identify those profile traits that we can apply to future cases. cases, maybe cases that aren't adjudicated yet. So I find it fascinating. You'd compare to Joel Guy,

but with Joel Guy, not that he had any better motive, because I don't think there's any good motive to kill your parents, but with Joel Guy, it was like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to be receiving money from my family's life insurance, and I'm going to have this and I'm going to have that, and the house is being left to me and things like that. Whereas with Chandler, it really seemed less about that and more about, I just have to make sure nobody finds out about my life. That's really what it ended up seeming like. So it's not really, it's the same, but not really. Such a deep hole that he's in right now.

Yeah. Yeah. He's in a deep hole. That's for sure. And it doesn't look like he's going to be able to get out of it. Positive note, a lot of you guys have been asking about merch. We had a small order come in. Those have been shipped out.

If you've ordered it already, it's been shipped out. If you're looking to get it, we have another order coming in. You can just go to Crime Weekly Podcast.com. Find everything there. Shout out to our patrons. Shout out to the YouTube members. You guys, if you're on YouTube, you're seeing that we highlight you guys on there as well. So any opportunity to be more involved with our community, whether it's our discussion boards on Patreon or bonus episodes or shoutouts or monthly giveaways or if you're just someone who wants ad free content on one of the audio platforms like Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you can go over to Apple.

You can sign up for that. So we're trying to give options for everyone, although I've. will always say this, it's not necessary. It's, I guess I would call it a luxury, but you're going to still get the same content. You're going to still get the same coverage. But if you want to get more involved after we end each episode, those are the places to do it. And you can find it in the description box below if you're on YouTube. And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever platform you use. Any final word, Stephanie? No, that's it. We'll see you next week for the next part. And it gets, uh, you know, you think it can't get any worse. It does. Ah, man. Well,

Looking forward to that. Always a pleasure. Guys, we appreciate you being here. Everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you next week. See you next week.