Crime Weekly - S3 Ep366: Chad Entzel | The Interrogation That Broke Nikki Entzel (Part 2)

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

On the evening of December 30, 2019, 42-year-old Chad Entzel headed out to his weekly bowling league in Bismarck, North Dakota. Friends said he was in good spirits, laughing and joking like always, before heading home for what should have been an ordinary night. But over the next several days, Chad stopped answering calls, didn’t show up for work, and seemed to vanish inside his own home - until a 911 call on January 2 reported a fire at the property. When firefighters arrived, they found more than just smoke and flames. Inside the primary bedroom was Chad’s body, a propane heater, and a shotgun. At first glance, it looked like a suicide and accidental fire. But as investigators began examining the scene, a very different story emerged involving missing surveillance footage, a sudden insurance policy, and a secret relationship Chad knew nothing about. 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: 1. https://www.WildGrain.com/CrimeWeekly30 - Get $30 off your first box and FREE croissants! 2. https://www.SimpliSafe.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 50% off any new SimpliSafe System! 3. https://www.PDSDebt.com/CrimeWeekly - Get your FREE debt assessment TODAY! 4. https://www.EatIQBAR.com - Text WEEKLY to 64000 for 20% off ALL IQBAR products and FREE shipping! 5. https://www.Quince.com/CrimeWeekly - Get FREE shipping and 365-day returns with Quince! 

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasser. All right. Today we're diving into the second and final part of the Chad Ensel case. And as always, I'm going to give you a quick recap about what we've already talked about because it's been a week. So on January 2nd, 2020, Nikki Ensel called 911 to report a fire at the Bismarck home she shared with her husband, Chad. When firefighters went inside, they found Chad dead on the bedroom floor with two gunshot wounds. Detectives quickly determined he had been murdered and that two separate fires had intentionally been set in an attempt to cover up the crime.

So as detectives began piecing together what had happened using security system data, phone records, surveillance footage, and more, the focus. turned to Nikki Ansel. They learned she was having an affair with a Canadian man named Earl Howard. On December 27th, 2019, Nikki and Earl met up in person, and by December 29th, they were staying together at a hotel in Bismarck. So Chad, who was completely unaware of this relationship, continued following his routines, still trusting his wife that she was on a business trip, and still believing his marriage was intact. On December 30th, Chad left his regular Monday night bowling league, and surveillance footage showed that while he was gone, Nikki and her boyfriend Earl went to the Ansel home and began removing belongings before returning to the hotel where they

were staying. Around two hours later, Chad came home from bowling and he went to bed, having no idea what Nikki had been doing. After midnight on what was now Tuesday, December 31st, Nikki's login was used to access the Encel security system. Privacy mode was enabled, camera settings were changed, and video recording was shut off. Though, unknown to Nikki, motion sensors continued logging activity. Shortly after, Nikki and Earl left the hotel and drove back to the Encel home where Chad was now inside in bed. And what happened next would lead to Chad's tragic murder.

That is where we are as of now. Derek, do you want to talk about anything before we get into the rest of the case? No, I'm looking forward to tonight because I didn't look ahead and it seems pretty obvious what happened here, but I'm looking to see if there's any wrinkles in the story that I'm unaware of as far as anything else. This is our last episode before the Christmas holiday. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas to anybody who celebrates. You're like, um, um, happy holidays. Yeah, I mean, you know, I will say, I do apologize. The mugs. Well, I should say thank you, I guess. The mugs for criminal coffee sold out immediately. My favorite mugs, the red ones.

Yeah, they sold out immediately. I ordered more. I also ordered them in green. Oh, yes. I know, I know. So they'll be here in a few weeks. They take a little bit longer, because they have to, you know, manufacture them or whatever. But we appreciate all the love and support. We're excited for the holidays. I know I am because we just did Crime Weekly News this week. It's crazy out there right now. It seems like every time around the holidays, it always gets worse.

And even when I was a police officer, it felt like that domestic violence was always up around the holidays because, one, it was cold out, so everybody was trapped inside. And I think also there's like an audit of your life for a lot of people, and they see everyone and so happy, and it really brings out the worst in people, some of them, at least, where they're sitting in their house disgruntled and they take it out on the people who are around them. So I'm just thinking about everybody, whether you celebrate or not, we're extremely grateful for the position that we're in. We wouldn't be here without you guys.

And we're looking forward to wrapping up this year strong. And then we have some major plans for 2026. We don't know if we're going to be able to do it all, but we've been talking. We're going to try to get out to see you guys more often. We're actually going to lock it in right now. we're going to hold ourselves accountable next week, even though there will be no episode, we're going to do a YouTube live. So if you don't follow us on YouTube, make sure that you do.

We're going to do a YouTube live. It's going to be a lot lighter. We'll talk about some of the BTS for Crime Weekly and just have a good conversation with you guys, no case specifically that we're going to talk about. And maybe we'll have a couple drinks. We haven't done that in a long time years where you and I got a couple cups of, you know, the good stuff. And we get on here and make fools of ourselves.

Yeah, I could use a festive cup of wine right now. Y'all always be able to tell where I am because my cheeks get redder. Yeah, so thinking about everybody and happy to be in the position we're in, although I wish our society would just stop being so crazy. Yeah, it feels very tough. And I think we've had, you know, it's been hard to get into like the holiday spirit because it does feel like a lot's been happening lately. It really does.

And so when your job is to come in and kind of look at all the horrible things that are happening around the world every day, it's hard to. to put yourself into that, like, you know, festive mindset and everybody has reasons of why they can't get into the holiday spirit this year or they want to when they're trying. But hopefully everybody can lock in this coming week and really just try to enjoy your time with your family and the season and be grateful. And we're going to try to do that as well. But we will be back for a crime weekly. We will. YouTube live next week. If we can make it work, we usually struggle to get that YouTube live.

I was just thinking when you said we're going to go live, I started laughing because I was like, I'm going to have to figure out all the trials and tribulations of on YouTube lives. And you're not the technical difficulties. When Stephanie's in charge of the technical side of things, that's when my hair goes gray. I mean, you can be in charge of the technical side of things. I would try to, but I think it's under, well, I guess I could be now because it's under Crime Weekly, not Stephanie Harlow. We'll see what happens.

You have the account we, the program that we use. I can send you the program. I'll gladly do it. All right. I'll gladly do it. Okay. We'll get into it. We'll talk about this week's case and then we'll figure that one out.

All right. So as detectives continued piecing together a timeline of Nikki and Earle's movements, motion sensor data from the Ensel's security system showed that just after 1.10 a.m. on December 31st, the garage door at the home opened. About an hour and 45 minutes later, the garage door closed again. So obviously, whoever was in that house was in there for about an hour and 45 minutes. Now, based on the timing and everything they knew, detectives believed that Chad was killed during this wind. Nikki and Earl then worked together to stage the scene to look like a suicide. One of the spent shotgun shells was removed while the other was left behind because they wanted to make it look like Chad had done this to himself and usually people can't

shoot themselves twice. So the shotgun was placed on the bed along with a bottle of whiskey to make it appear Chad had been drinking. A propane heater was positioned near the bed in an attempt to start a fire and an accelerant was added to help the fire spread with particular focus on the head side of the bed where the shotgun pellets had struck the wall. So a torch kit Earl recently purchased was also set up in the garage with the oxygen and acetylene tanks left on open. Okay, so my question is, because you would probably know this better than I do. Maybe. Maybe, but I definitely don't know

the answer to this, but I think I suspect what it could be. If the torch kit was set up in the garage and the tanks, the oxygen and acetylene tanks are left on open, were they hoping that whatever fire started in the house would sort of be accelerated by that torch kit in the garage and maybe like spread it, yeah? Yeah, I think all of it, I think the, what was it called last week, the sunflower heater? The sunflower heater, yeah.

Right, I think all of it was, the intention was to make it look like there was a faulty mechanism within the furnace. Faulty furnace, yeah. Right, and that fire unfortunately spread to the, sunflower heater, which was this massive propane tank, and then the acetylene and oxygen tanks in the garage, which would have been a pretty big explosion. So that house would have been a pile of rubble if everything had went the way to plan. Yeah, that didn't happen for some reason. That would avoid the possibility of seeing the outline of the shotgun, the proper 12 whiskey bottle, which I didn't

know the name of it. I obviously know proper 12. I couldn't make it out in that photo, but there were a lot of people in our comments who knew exactly what it was, and that tells me a lot about you guys. you definitely know your whiskey, but the proper 12 bottle, the injuries to Chad's body, right? Like, if you think about those explosions going off, not to be, not to be crass here, but there wouldn't be much left of Chad. And so you wouldn't be able to determine cause of death because he would be in pieces. And so the fact that that didn't happen is the only reason we're sitting here today talking about this case the way we are.

I also wonder, though, like even if everything had gone off as, Nikki and her boyfriend had planned, because she turned the cameras off, but the motion sensors were still going, that would have still shown the police that somebody came into the house after Chad had gotten there and gone to bed, correct? Or would that have been destroyed when the security system was destroyed? If the system's cloud-based, which I'm assuming it is, then no, it would have still showed it because all of that stuff is uploaded to the cloud. It's not on a actual internal hard drive that's located in that building. So, yeah, I think it would still show the activity on the car, but that just shows how stupid they are. Yeah, well, they didn't

know. So, I mean, I think it would have been still like, hey, the police suspect something happened here. Yeah. But it maybe would have been harder to prove based on the lack of physical evidence because of the fire and the explosion. And just a side note here, that that is something that everyone should take from security systems. I know, me included, I used to always have like a hard drive, like a two terabyte hard drive in my house. And I wanted it there for protection. because obviously it was a physical drive that I could go to. Just in case there was a glitch or something happened. Yeah, please switch over to cloud base.

It's so much better. You can access it from everywhere. It's saved up to the cloud on a server that's stationed somewhere by one of these big companies. Like Simply Safe? Yes, like Simply Safe. And it also allows you to avoid any possibilities of a fire or water damage. So if you haven't already and you have the means of doing so, definitely switch over to a cloud base system. It's much more safe.

Yeah, I think even probably some systems have the ability to do both. You can't. You absolutely can do both. You can have a hard line and you can have a cloud-based system. And there's some redundancy there, which is amazing. Not everyone can afford that. But at minimum, if you have to choose one or the other, cloud-based it is. Yes.

So Nikki and Earl left the Ansel home at around 3 a.m. And then they returned to the hotel. At 6.27 a.m., the two left the hotel again. And then they went back to the Ansel home staying for six minutes. This is weird to me, but I, I would be like, why if you would you put all of this stuff in there to, like, start a fire and explosion and then go back? But for this time frame, the detectives believed that Nikki and Earl realized the fire had not started the way it was supposed to. Because if the house had caught fire, it likely would have appeared in the news or, you know, Nikki would have heard from like a neighbor or something.

And it hadn't. It hadn't been on the news. Nobody knew anything about it. So they went back to reposition the propane heater in hopes it would catch fire for real this time. So detectives continued building the timeline and learned that just before 8 a.m., Nikki called Chad's workplace, and that's when she reported him sick, which they thought was meant to buy more time, right? The house is on fire yet. They don't want the police to go there yet because nothing's happened. And every way that they've set the scene up could be seen. So Nikki then went to work and stayed there until 5 p.m. afterwards, she returned to the hotel where Earl was already staying. Just after 10.45 p.m., Earl left the hotel alone and based on motion sensor data, at the Ensel home, he went back there for about 15 minutes. So detectives believed Earl returned to check on the fire once more. When he saw the propane heater still hadn't ignited anything,

he started a separate fire on top of the furnace, then left, getting back to the hotel before 11.30 p.m. Okay, so they've gone there multiple times at this point. They've returned to the scene of the crime multiple times. Now, by the next morning, January 1st, 2020, the fire still had not fully ignited. It was a holiday, so Chad wasn't scheduled to work, and Nikki didn't have to call him in. She didn't have to work either. So instead, she and Earl spent the day running errands together.

One of those stops was Riddle's jewelry. While there, they asked for receipts documenting the jewelry Nikki owned, saying the information was needed for a renter's insurance claim. Now, detectives questioned why Nikki would be preparing for an insurance claim if, as she said, she didn't know the house was on fire until January 2nd when she called the police. I know. No comment. I got nothing. We need more Nickies in the world. From a detective's perspective, we would take these all day. Yeah. It's like, do you not know that they're going to look into this stuff? Nope. Do you not know that? And then you're there with your boyfriend of all things, you know, so. While your husband is apparently still alive. Yeah, but he's not. According to the outside story. Yeah, exactly. He's not. So the following morning, which is January 2nd, Earl needed to leave to get back home to his family in Canada. Priorities. Yeah, of course. I mean, he's, he's a good husband. At the end of the day, he's going to take care of his responsibilities. Take care of his family. So there were multiple problems, though, right? The house fire still hadn't made the news, and Chad was expected to be at work that day. It's not a holiday anymore. But for reasons that remain unclear, Nikki didn't call him in again to buy more time. Instead, Earl started driving back home while she went to work. I think Nikki didn't call him in again to buy more time because, then it would look suspicious because then she would have to explain to the police how she even knew she was, that he was sick, that her husband was sick when she hadn't talked to him, right? Because phone records are going to show they have not talked. And she's allegedly been staying out of the house because that's her whole alibi for how she, you know, wouldn't have detected this fire.

Yeah, and wouldn't have been there because she's staying out of the house because it's so cold and she has medical issues. Yeah. I also think, too, and some people wait in in the comment section about it and they agreed. The wife calls you in sick one time. I think that's a little suspicious. But then she calls you in again after a weekend. We need to know what's going on with our employees. You okay? Is there something more significant going on here that we're unaware of?

I think it would have raised even more red flags. Like, Kathy Bases that dude in misery? Like, what's happening? He's still not well enough to even get on a phone. Yeah, we can't hear his voice. No proof of life. Okay. Yes, yes.

And that's when, you know, probably people would start calling the police and asking for a welfare check. And even at this point, because Chad hasn't called in, a lot of people, because Chad was well liked. And he had a routine, and he was known to be who he was, reliable, consistent, friendly, would not just not show up to work. So the fact that even though he was allegedly sick before the holiday, when the holiday's over and he's still not there, and they haven't heard from him, they're going to call and do a welfare check. But a lot of him, a lot of coworkers would have just been like, well, he's probably still sick. You know, whatever. He was sick before the holiday, and he's probably still sick. Who cares? But these coworkers,

know Chad, they know who he is and what he does and how responsible he is. And they're like, no, this isn't right. Something's weird. And we haven't even heard from him because all we heard was was from Nikki's dumbass. So at this point, the fire's not going. It's not going to plan. Earl's got to go home to Canada because he's got a whole ass family there. And so Earl started driving back home while Nikki went to work that day. And then beginning at around 9 a.m., Nikki received multiple phone calls from Chad's co-workers who were concerned because he hadn't shown up. But Nikki didn't answer any of them. She's avoiding it. So after about 15 minutes of missed calls, Nikki tried calling her boyfriend Earl, but it went to voicemail. So as soon as that call

ended, Chad's coworkers continued trying to reach her for another eight minutes. She still didn't answer. So at this point, Nikki had to be freaking out because she left work. She went to her car and she called Earl again. And this time she did speak with him briefly. More calls from Chad's coworkers followed, and in 9.43 a.m., Nikki finally answered one. But by then, they'd been trying to reach her for nearly 45 minutes, and they told Nikki they were worried because Chad hadn't shown up to work, but Nikki said she was too busy at work to go check on him. So after that call, what is strange, from Nikki's perspective, if she's completely innocent, she did not try to contact Chad to see if he was okay. Normally, people are calling from his work, like, we can't get a hold of him.

He didn't pick up. And she's like, I'm at work. I'm too busy to call. call my husband and see if he's okay, although I've called my boyfriend twice already, but I'm too busy. She does not call him after getting off the phone with his coworkers to even pretend to be checking on him. So she's not very calculating at least. She also did not return to work. Instead, Nikki started searching online for a funeral home.

Can't make it up. She really plans ahead. She plans ahead. I mean, if you didn't know better, you'd think she'd want to be caught. Like, that's the whole reason she was doing it. Like maybe she was hoping she would be caught by police. What are your responses when the police are like, why did you file an insurance claim? If you had no idea there was going to be a fire at your house, why'd you call a funeral home?

If you had no idea your husband was dead. I just think she, I don't think she thought this went through. I don't know her. Never spoke to her. Hope I never will. But she's not the sharpest tool in the shed. Clearly. Yeah.

Or she's like, really, she's just really trying to plan ahead. She's like, a lot's going to happen once that house catches on fire. And once it's found out that Chad's dead, and I'm going to be busy, you know, with whatever and my grief. And so I need to make sure I'm planning these things ahead of time so I can be ready. And what's illegal about that? I just think her lack of knowledge about digital forensics is really what did her in from the security system to the Internet searches, cameras. I just think she really underestimated the ability of law enforcement to go back and gather this information. paint a picture.

Which is weird because we're talking 2019. Yeah. It's not a long time ago where like computers and Google and stuff, like I would rather as Nikki have the police be like, hey, we have a Google searches from you here asking like are the police going to track my phone calls? Are the police going to be able to see insurance claims? I would rather have that that the police are asking me about than the actual evidence of the fact that I did file an insurance claim and I did call a funeral home.

Yeah. Because at least there's plausible deniability in the other one, you know, but here it's hard evidence that you cannot dispute. So, yeah. So the police obviously were like, hey, why would you do something like this if you claimed that you didn't know anything had happened to Chad yet? A very valid question. So we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. This episode of Crime Weekly is brought to you by Wild Grain.

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Okay, we're back. So Nikki, she's getting calls from Chad's coworkers all morning. She doesn't answer them. Finally, she does. And she's like, I'm too busy at work to call and check on my husband, who nobody's heard from in days. Have fun, you guys. I'm okay. And then she doesn't call Chad, but then she does call a funeral home, which, you know, we don't know why. And she doesn't go back to work.

And then it's unclear what Nikki did over the next several hours because she didn't go to work. However, we know that at 222 p.m., she finally did call her husband, Chad. And he, of course, didn't answer. And that call went to voicemail. So an hour later, Nikki briefly returned to work, then left again at 5 p.m. p.m. 20 minutes after that, she arrived at the Ensel home, and that's when she called 9-1-1, stating that she had just discovered the house on fire. So like we discussed in part one, Nikki told dispatchers she hadn't spoken to Chad since December 30th when they last talked on the phone. She then told an officer she'd been staying at a hotel since the 30th because the furnace at the house wasn't working and because Chad was abusive. So detectives quickly found not only that her story was hard to believe, but that it just didn't make sense. It didn't add up. And all the evidence was pointing against her. They started

investigating her. However, they did not tell Nikki that Chad's death was being treated as a homicide or that she was a suspect. Instead, they allowed her to believe that they believed the fire was an accident. So as detectives continued building their timeline, they learned that in the days following Chad's death, Nikki remained in frequent contact with her boyfriend Earl. She emailed him listings for houses for sale and spoke with him on the phone multiple times. She also made a claim on Chad's $600,000 life insurance policy for which she was the sole beneficiary, as well as a claim on the renter's insurance. So Nikki said all of her belongings had been destroyed in the fire.

And when asked whether she needed an advance to buy clothes for herself and her children, she said, yes. So, yeah. Yeah. And there's your motive, by the way, right? like she could have easily just ended the relationship with Chad and if Earl wanted to end his relationship as well they could be together and go on with their lives and live happily ever after here's the problem as long as Chad's still alive she doesn't get access to that $600,000

for her and Earl to go out and buy their next home so Chad's got to be dead in order for her to get that money and that's that's the wrinkle here that's the the barrier to entry for her in Earl's relationship to go forward and start their new life they need income and they're going to get it from Chad's insurance money. Yeah. So it definitely seems as if Earl has given Nikki some indication that he's going to leave his wife and his family. They just need the money, Stephanie. They just need the money to start that new life.

What's the easiest way to get it? You kill Chad. And if you get away with it, 600 grand coming your way. I mean, I just don't know if I'm Nikki, if I'm going to be doing all of this. Because now it's not just murder, right? It's insurance fraud because we know she went and stole. Yeah, she took all those belongings out of the house. And then she's telling the insurance company, oh, all my belongings went up in flames.

The house wasn't even like that bad. The house wasn't even that bad. So the intent was for it to be dust. That was the intent. The intent was it for it to be non-existent at that point, for sure. So she's lying to the insurance company, even though she knows and the police know that she went in that night and took out all her stuff. Yeah, took all the stuff she cared about. All the stuff that shit was hers.

So I just don't know if I'm Nikki, if I'm doing all of this and putting myself in this position and actually going forward and killing someone, if he still hasn't left his wife and he's got to leave our caper halfway through to go back to Canada and check on his wife and kids. Well, whatever Earl was saying to her, not trying to clear her of any wrongdoing, but he's like, listen, you know, we don't have the money. But if Chad's no longer here, we could, I could do it. We would have the money to start over. I could leave everything in Canada. but we have that one little, you know, nuisance in our lives that's keeping us from getting that money. What do you think about taking them out? I mean, are you going to tell us who was the main driver of this plan or do we still not know to this day?

I mean, even so, okay, Chad's dead now. You still got to go back to Canada and see your wife and kids? We got to at least put on the front first to let the insurance claim clear and all that stuff, you know. The front while she's emailing him listing for houses for sale. I didn't say it was well thought. out, Stephanie. All right? I didn't say that they knew what they were doing. I said by him going back, it's like, oh, there's my alibi. I was in Canada the whole time. No, I'm not on video moving things. I'm not staying at a hotel under my name. Yeah. Like I said, I didn't say they were going to win any

awards anytime soon for solving the problems of the world. But, you know, listen, they tried. They did. I think they tried. But I think maybe Nikki was a little bit more invested in this than than her man, Earl, because he's like, I know we just killed someone. I mean towards her being the driving force. Yeah, I know we just killed someone together. I know we set up this elaborate crime scene. I know we've been all over the place doing things to prepare for this elaborate crime scene. But just I got to go back home for a few days, man.

All right. I'll be back. It's really, really very strange that Nikki is so dead set on doing this. And this guy hasn't even left his wife yet. Yeah. And one more thing, too, just so we're clear here, Nikki is definitely one of the main forces in this because there's no way Earl knows about the insurance policy unless she tells him. So there had to have been some type of conversation there where she said, hey, you know what, I actually would have access to this amount of money if something unfortunately happened to Chad.

So can't get past that. There's no way Earl knows about the money unless she tells him. Also, just a little, I don't know, like a little advice for anybody. If your boyfriend will only leave his wife because you have money to start a new life with him and it's not because he loves you and wants to be with you, it's probably not a real relationship. And I mean, if you have a boyfriend who already has a wife and family, it's probably not a real relationship. Nope. No.

Okay. So on January 6th, as detectives were still building their timeline, Nikki asked to return to the house with one of the detectives. And during that visit, she now offered new information saying she had been at the house on December 30th with a family friend named Earl. Of course, the detectives already knew this, but it stood out that Nikki was now offering the information herself. Why? Why was she offering it? Well, she went on to explain that they were just picking up a few items so she could stay at the hotel. Nikki said Chad wasn't there at the time when they were there.

And she heard from him later that night when he sent a message asking her to call him in sick on December 31st. once again, does Nikki not know that they're going to have access to her phone and her phone records? This is just bananas. So according to Nikki, the reason was because they were going to be playing drinking games, which she described as code for abuse. This was a code term for abuse. Remember, this is what Nikki was telling people, that Chad would play these drinking games or he would get really drunk and then just like abuse her all nights. So when the detective asked to see those messages, Nikki couldn't provide them. What is a surprise? because they don't exist. Once again, Nikki had been caught in a lie. Even so,

detective still didn't have enough evidence to arrest her or Earl. So they asked her to come to the station the following day for a follow-up interview, and they framed it as a chance to clear up a few loose ends, and they told her it would likely be her final interview. But none of that was true. If Nikki can lie, so can the police. So their plan was to let Nikki repeat her story one more time and then confront her with what they already knew and how they knew it. So on January 7th, Nikki returned to the police station for a follow-up interview. She's sitting down. She's like, I'm in the clear, man. All right, I'm about to get $600,000. I got my new man with me. This is my last interview. I got away with this. I don't know what about

her, made her feel that way, but she did. So she initially sat down with a single detective who did not mention that Chad's death was being treated as a homicide. Instead, he told Nikki, he didn't want to put her through much more, and that once she finished talking, she could move on, focus on her family, focus on moving forward. He asked a few housekeeping questions. Then had Nikki walk him through her side of the story. She repeated the same version of events she had already shared about her alleged abusive relationship with Chad, the furnace not working, staying at a hotel, stopping by the house with her friend Earl on the evening of December 30th to grab a few things while Chad was at bowling. The detective let Nikki talk for nearly an hour and a half before

stepping out briefly to get water. When he returned, it was over. The tone of the interview shifted. and he asked Nikki what she thought had happened to Chad. She said she didn't know. The detective then told her he had left no stone unturned in the investigation. He had phone records, surveillance footage, and other evidence, and he knew Chad's death was not an accident, it was not a suicide. Chad had been murdered. So he asked Nikki whether she knew anyone who could have been involved, and Nikki said no.

He asked whether she or Earl had noticed anything unusual when they were at the house on the evening of December 30th. And again, she said no. So the detective then shifted his approach, asking directly whether she and Earl were dating. Nikki said no. She insisted she was a married woman. The detective told her he knew that she and Earl had gone back to the hotel together and were staying in the same room. Nikki continued denying any romantic relationship but did acknowledge they had shared a room.

She claimed Earl already had the room and offered to let her stay when the furnace stopped working. According to Nikki, she accepted the offer and she slept in the living room area of the hotel room. The detective knew Nikki was lying. And at this point, why is she still lying? Because he just told you. He wasn't just telling you like, hey, we know you're with Earl and he's your boyfriend. He was saying, we have surveillance. We got phone records.

We got it all. And she's still lying. So he kept pressing her, telling her he believed she was a good person and that they just needed to understand what really happened here, what really happened to Chad. And she kept saying she had no idea. He then switched things up again, asking whether Nikki and Earl left the hotel after midnight on December 31st. Now, Nikki knows, he already said, we got surveillance, we got cell phone records. She doesn't really know what he's got because she's not too bright. She doesn't know what all that means. But Nikki then gave a vague answer, right? She doesn't want to answer directly

no anymore. She said, you know, Earl's a smoker and they would leave the room so he could smoke. They didn't ask you if you left the hotel room. They asked you, did you leave the hotel after midnight. She's like, we'll leave the room sometimes so that Earl can smoke. The detective pushed back and he was like, listen, I need you to be honest right now. I already know you left the hotel promises that night. You got to tell me the truth. Nicky then changed her story and said they went to look at Christmas lights. Yeah. How romantic. With just a friend that you're sharing a hotel room and now, you know, you're having, he's helping you get your stuff out of the home you share with your husband who's apparently abusive and you're not sleeping together,

but you're going to go look at Christmas lights together like friends do when they have whole last families back in Canada. So I'm going to play you a clip of that interaction right now. Do you guys ever leave the room that night? I don't remember. My family is so full of anything right now. So you don't remember if you left the room Monday night? I don't remember.

There's smokes. I mean, if we left me, went outside, he smoked. I mean, he does smoke and he can't smoke in rooms. Nikki, I looked at the video. I know you left that night. I want you to be as a host with me. I know, we did. We went to Canadian Lane.

Where's that? Yes, somebody. Um. and you look the vibe because all those um um how says that the whole lane is full of christmas lights so real quickly i actually struggled to hear what she was saying exactly i heard the christmas lights at the end there one little technique here if we pull up a screenshot of this interview if you're watching on youtube one thing the detective is doing here and they actually teach us this is called mirroring where you're trying to emulate the body language of the person you're speaking

with to make them more comfortable so you can see she's kind of hunched out forward she's got her hands together she's holding him he's doing the same thing maybe that's organic maybe that's a strategic move but I like what he's doing here the only thing I don't like if we want to circle it is if you can notice they're in the bottom right hand corner he's got his firearm on him that's a big no-no not supposed to do that surprised maybe he got in trouble for that but whenever you interview a potential suspect you are not supposed to have the firearm in the room because they could grab it and use it right I'm going to tell you a quick story and I don't want to get off tracks here. If you get a second, everyone needs to search, Jimmy Allen, Providence Police

Department. Same exact thing. Brought his firearm in the room and the, I'm not even to say the scumbags name, but this is while I was on the job, took his gun from him and killed him with it. So this is a big no-no. This is a big no-no. But other than that, I'm not making it about the detective here. This technique is something where you get them to be more comfortable with you. You don't present yourself as an authoritative figure. You present yourself as a friend. Yeah. I kind of felt like he's leaning into her kind of like, you know, this is an intimate conversation. It's just between you and me. Yeah, exactly. Their voices are low. It's like, yeah, what happened? Did you leave Monday? You know, very like, this is intimate, like just between you and me. If you didn't know better, if you didn't see the gun, you would think they were friends. Yeah. I mean, she's, at the beginning, she's just kind of saying like, I don't, I don't remember. I'm talking like a little girl. I am so sad, officer. What did I do? What did you pull me over for? I have no idea. And then when, And he's like, did you leave? You know?

And she's like, well, he smokes. I don't remember he smokes. And then he's like, we have surveillance footage. And before he's even done with his sentence, she's like, we went to Candy Cain Lane. Oh, my God. He just pops out with that, which I'm going to give her some credit here. Like, we have seen she's not super good at foresight, but you kind of did come up. She had that one in the hopper.

Where did it come from? It's like Candy Cain Lane, man. We went there. Where did it come from? She kind of did pull that out of nowhere. I don't know if she had planned to tell them that if push came to shove or if she just sort of pulled it out of thin air. But yeah, that's kind of hard to check up on. If she doesn't know that they have the motion sensor data and everything at the home yet,

and she just knows that they've seen her on surveillance leaving the hotel, coming up with the Candy Cane Lane Christmas lights thing, not the worst excuse. So we're going to take a quick break and we will be right back. If you could stop somebody from breaking in before they ever, got inside your house, honestly, why wouldn't you? Most old school security systems only go off after someone's already in your home. And at that point, sadly, it's sometimes way too late. Yeah, and that's what makes simply safe different, right? It's proactive, right? There's a double layer of defense that's designed to stop crimes before they even start. Absolutely. And first,

their AI powered cameras can spot potential threats outside your home. Then live monitoring agents can actually step in. They're going to talk directly to the person through the camera, let them know they're on video and warn that the police will be dispatched if they don't leave. Yeah, and what I like about Simply Safe too that a lot of other companies do not do is it can even trigger a loud siren or a spotlight. And that combination alone, just in my experience, is more than likely enough to send someone running because now they know that they've been spotted and they potentially being recorded and that's going to deter them. Exactly. And plus, I love that there's no long term contracts or hidden fees. You can cancel any time, which honestly matters a lot if you've ever been stuck in a contract. with one of these predatory security companies.

Plus, Simply Safe has been named Best Home Security System by U.S. News and World Report for five years in a row. They have cameras like we talked about. They have a ton of other stuff. Go on their website and check it out. CO2 detectors, glass break detectors. They have it all. And there's a 60-day money-back guarantee, right?

So if you can try the product out, if you don't see a difference, you can return it so there's zero risk. I genuinely love how easy it was to set up. I'm not good at technology. Derek knows you all know. I get peace of mind when I'm away. I can check everything right from the app. The app works really well. And it feels really good knowing my home is protected without being locked into a long-term contract.

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to lock in your discount right now, there's no safe like SimplySafe. Okay, we're back. So after Nikki finished telling her really clutch Christmas light story, a second detective entered the room. Now, by this point, Nikki had been there for more than an hour and a half, lying the entire time. The new detective told her that she needed to be honest about everything. He said he had reviewed the entire case, and he knew the she should. she was not telling the truth. So I know you've been talking to him and told him some things.

Some of that I can tell you right now is not true. I know we, you know, we have video like he said. We have when you're coming and going from that room. But I think that some of it you just need to explain a little bit better maybe. Like for me, I missed out on some. What's your relationship with Earl? know each other. I said he first bought cookies and from there we've, you know, he's came into the area. We had went and catered or cooked for him before and we've more so

developed a joking relationship. He's with my kids. I've, you know, I've met his daughter. I've, you know. Have you met his wife? You said he was married, right? Okay. No, I've not met his wife. No. Okay. So what was the girl doing in North Dakota? He's coming here to, He's got a couple of project manager jobs that he's coming to scout and all that. Okay. All right. And Chad knows Earl? Mm-hmm.

Okay. Are they friends? They've met. They hung out. They, you know, said he came over and. Okay. So first of all, it's super funny. So she says, I've known Earl because I've catered for him.

I've cooked for him. Remember, Nikki owns a catering company, allegedly. Right. And then she's like, I met him. I met his daughter. And the detective's so shady for this. He's like, have you met his wife? Yeah, that was nice. It was nice. She's like, uh, did you even know he had a wife? She's like, no, no, no, I knew. No, I never met her. Yeah, that's funny. And then she goes on to say that, that chat, her husband has also met Earl a few times. I don't know if that's true. But I just thought it was, it was really kind of awesome on behalf of the detective to be like, did you meet his wife? You know, pop in there with that. This two-person approach in interrogations, I personally never liked it. So when he's leaving the room to go to the bathroom or to get a water or I'll be right back. I'll just go check something. He's consulting with this guy on the right.

He's talking to him. He's taking notes. You can see he's got a binder on his lap there. Yeah. Do you think the other guy's even been watching maybe through like the camera or something? That's what I'm saying. That guy's been sitting there watching the interview from the other room and he's taking notes in that binder. Right.

So he's cross-referencing what she's saying, making notes. And then this guy, the guy to the left is coming out there saying, hey, anything I miss. And he's like, well, she said this, you know, go at that, go at this. And she's contradicting herself here. And we have something that proves that. So there's kind of a teamwork going on there. And in some cases, if the person's not opening up to the first detective, you'll have a second one come in, kind of like that whole good cop, bad cop approach. I always felt like I lost people because I was building rapport with them.

And then someone else would come in and kind of basically break up. up our relationship. Now there's a third person in the, in the, in the relationship. And you, you feel betrayed. You, you are looking at the, at the suspect and you're like, this guy, right? What the hell is he here for? Right. It also, it just, to me, it just like distracts the suspect. Like, you have someone there now instead of her being closed toward the one detective where they're leaning in at each other and they're talking and it's more intimate. Now she's kind of bouncing back and forth between the two. You can see she's kind of facing in between them. And now she feels like she's outnumbered right now they're against me it's two against one so i

personally never liked this approach maybe it's gonna work here it's worked many times before that so just something that i see and i get you can almost see the body language of the guy in the maroon shirt doesn't he look defeated if you just screenshot it and look at it it's like he was all into it now he's just kind of sitting back like man slump slumped like stole my thunder he's like the coach put me in and it didn't work and also they step on each other a lot too when you do that you're always, because everyone wants to get in there and ask their question and you have the ability to step on each other. So just something. So you said, you said, hey, this sometimes happens when the person's not opening up and isn't cooperating, which, you know, Nikki's been there for

almost two hours at this point. And she has lied. So they probably, and also I almost wonder if like the first cop who's supposed to be like the good cop, now if he's been talking to her for two hours and not telling her, I know you're lying about everything. We know everything. I just wanted to see if you were going to lie, if he's the one now to kind of pose that and be like, ha ha, gotcha, the last two hours of us talking was just me lying to you, just like, you're lying to me and actually you know more than I'm saying, maybe that would disrupt the trust that she already had for him. Yeah, I guess.

It depends on the person. Depends on the person. I don't know. This guy more than likely the guy in the gray is senior, senior detective, and when he says things like, oh, I wasn't listening. I wasn't here for the first part. What's your relationship with her? He 100% knows what it is.

Oh, of course. He's been listening the whole time. He's just playing dumb. And more than likely, anybody with half a brain knows they're lying. So for me, I always wanted to just be straight up with them. And like, here's a deal. Here's what it is. But, you know, listen, it's worked a lot of the times like this where you have two people in there.

I've even had success with it with two people, even though I didn't want it. It was just because my lieutenant said I had to. But, you know, that's a little story from the chronicles of Derek as a detective. I mean, at this point, I'm sure Nikki's on the defense because she was told like, hey, just come in, tie up some loose ends. Yeah, she knows she's in trouble. It's your last interview. but now she's been there for over an hour and a half. They're like, hey, we have more than we told you we had.

We know you're lying. And so she's already on the defense. And I don't think either of these people is going to get an ounce of truth from her at any point. Yeah. So then the detective asked Nikki, why was she staying in a hotel with Earl? He was already, they had already had room there. And I told him, I was upset Monday. And I said, you know, I just made some time.

The furnace isn't working. It's forever anything. I said, I can I talk to? I said, I can't. keep doing dinner from this working. I don't want to be here. I said it's been out pretty much since we've been living here. I said, you know, I don't want to be here. I said, you know, we didn't turn around what I was drinking, you know, and at that point I said I just laughed. I, you know, I did to work. It worked Monday, you know, obviously, and then, oh, you know, it just helps with me.

We got some stuff and that. So the detective asked Nikki what Chad thought about her sharing a hotel room with another man. So in this version of the events, Nikki is making it seem as if she's staying in this hotel room with Earl. And her husband, Chad, is well aware of it, even though from her text messages, which by now she should realize that the cops have. And if they don't even have her text messages of the details of what she's saying, they will now because they're probably going to take her phone before she leaves this interview room. and she knows that they're going to take her phone, and she probably knows if they ask her for her phone, she's not going to be able to say no, really.

She's going to have to cooperate with that. And we know that she was telling Chad, she was way on a business trip, not even in the same location, not even in the same area. She's on a business trip. So she's saying, he knows I'm with this other man in a hotel room, and they're saying, what does your husband think about that?

And Nikki said, he'd be okay with it, right? Because she and Earl had taken a trip to Texas before, and they stayed in the same hotel room then. So in her mind, this was no different. And it really isn't. Like if you're going to stay in a hotel room with a man that's not your husband, whether you're in Texas or Oklahoma or whatever, it is no different. So the detective continued pressing her about the true nature of her relationship with Earl, but she continued to maintain that it was not romantic. The detectives then laid out more of their cards, and they revealed that Nikki had not fully shut down the home security system like she thought she had.

The motion sensors were still recording activity, which meant they knew she had returned to the house after midnight on December 3rd. And so the detective asked, why'd you go there? You went to Candy Cane Lane and then you went to your house. Why did you go there? I went out. You went out where? We're out in the house. I went to get my men's.

But you said that you keep your men's in your purse. Okay. Okay. Okay, so tell me what happened when you guys were out there. Because it was you and Earl. It's on video. I couldn't find it. I had my extra patches in that.

Patches? Just medication? Yeah. Okay. I couldn't find my patches, so then it's gone. It's called not. I'm not going to go in the house and think around. I usually have them out.

So. So you couldn't find them? So you left? Okay. Because I have them. I always didn't mind on a stand. There's a stand when you first come back where there was to crack pot. And so I left, I said, I can't put it in mind.

Mm-hmm, right? So what happened when you guys were in the house? Because Chad was there at that point. Chad was up in time. Mm-hmm. I don't find him and stay hiding how much in my hand. So you didn't look to stuff in a lot. Mm-hmm.

Well, here's the only problem with that, Mickey, is you guys were there for an hour and 40 minutes. You didn't look for your patches for an hour and 40 minutes while Chad sat there drinking. Look at me, Nikki. You did not look for your patches or your medicine for an hour and 40 minutes while Chad sat there drinking. Did you? I couldn't find my package. I understand that. I believe that.

De-carved in the kitchen and... Doing what? All right. So, I don't know. Did you get the same thing from this, that Nikki claims. the idea go back to the house? Well,

now, yeah, now she's, they're already breaking her story, right? It's not, you're not trying to get all of it

at once. You're trying to chip away at the original alibi. You just want to open them up and make them susceptible to the fact

that they're lying. And by doing this, she's, she's acknowledging that her original story wasn't true. If you remember, first it was,

we went back to the, to the hotel or motel. Then it was, oh, we went out to Candy Cane Lane. You know, we went out to see some Christmas lights,

right? Yeah. And now it's, okay, maybe we did go to the house. Maybe we didn't just go to look at Christmas lights. Maybe we did stop by the house. But it was only quick. So they don't need her to give up everything at once. They just got to slowly chip away until they get to some version of the truth.

It was quick. I had to get my medication. Right. And then they're like, but why were you there for an hour and 45 minutes? And she's like, well, I couldn't find my medication. Well, the win is getting her to admit that she was there. Now they got her. That she was there.

In the time period that the detectives have already decided is when Chad died. Yes. They got her at this point. Inside, they're jumping for joy. Yeah, I mean, they pretty much already had her, but she could have just kept going with the Christmas light story. No, but as a detective, you want the confession. You want to hear them say it. I mean, it's a confession of placing her at the scene of the crime at what the detectives believed to be is the time of the crime. Yeah. That's the confession. She has not confessed to doing anything to Chad. So the detective kept trying to get Nikki to tell him what really happened. Nikki claimed she and Chad, who apparently was sitting there drinking the whole time while she was trying to find her medication. They were

arguing about the furnace and she decided to leave with Earl to go back to the hotel. She went to the garage. She went back to Earl's vehicle without ever finding her medication. Earl put on his boots and the two of them left together. Why does Earl not have his boots on? If he's in the car? So the detective did not believe her explanation, obviously, but moved on asking why Nikki returned to the house again around 6.30 a.m., but only for a few minutes. I need my patches, so I stuck into the house. Mm-hmm. I'm going to run in and grab my patches.

Mm-hmm. And run right back out. Mm-hmm. I left. So you ran in and grabbed your patches. And so now you can run back out there at 632 and be back out of the house in about five minutes. And you knew where your patches were, but that hour and 40 minutes that you guys were out

there earlier. They went in the bathroom. I ran into the bathroom. I didn't have, I can't find him. I finally got something from that's office. Okay, but that has nothing to do with that. You're telling me that you spent an hour and 40 minutes out at the house, or a couple hours earlier, looking for your patches and couldn't find them,

and then at 632, you go out there and just running and grab me, you know where there. Maybe I haven't in a bathroom. We'll check the background. So for an hour and 40 minutes, you didn't check the bathroom. No, because we are doing it. Mm-hmm. You know, I think that you feel bad about what happened. Hey, look at me though.

You feel bad about what happened, don't you? What's happened in the chat at this point? That's nothing to do with what happened to chat. Here's the deal on this. the longer time goes on what you do know it's not going to get any easier it's going to keep building up

and building up on you you're not going to later on feel better about this the only way you're going to have any closure to this at all is for you to be honest with us and since I've been in here you haven't been honest to me at all I don't know what time I know

I don't. That's what I asked you guys. I don't know. But then why do you keep whining to me? All I was going to do is run out and grab my taxes. All right, I'm just going to say it, and I had not seen this interview beforehand. This is why I hate this style interview. And I know where we're going to, right?

But I want to talk about this because I do think it's fascinating. I know the dynamic. I also know the hierarchy within that police department just by the way this interview is going. That guy sitting in the corner now who was the lead interrogator. He's definitely junior to this other detective. Maybe not even a detective.

He could be a sergeant or a lieutenant. He got sick awaiting. And now he's completely taken over the interview to the point where the original investigator has been kind of set to the back corner. Yeah, it's like his chair keeps even moving further away or something. And this other guy's need and need. with her now completely cutting him off. I hate this. It might accomplish the job, but I hate it.

I feel like this is a little bit of like projection from you. Absolutely it is. I was a guy who was 20 years old as a police officer, 24 years old as a detective, had more training in interrogations than a lot of the guys in detectives. And I would always have some other guy come in and take over my interview and do a shitty job at it. Yeah, but you don't know if this guy has more training because he had an hour and a half with her and didn't get anything from her. I'm not saying this guy is good. The other guy, I'm just saying I hate this dynamic. I hate it.

And yes, I am projecting because I had been in interviews multiple times. You're triggered, man. Yes, I hate this. I have multiple videos of the same thing happening to me. And this guy in the corner here, I'm circling him. Shannon, circle him. That's me. Dying inside.

Derek, Derek just got the guy's email address and he, like, said an email. He's like, I just saw the interview. Man, I'm so sorry. Stephanie, zoom in on that guy. Tell me he's not completely defeated. He is defeated. I agree with you. You're like, don't think a body language actually.

He is like, this guy just completely came in here and hijacked my interrogation. He's like, they didn't even give you a chance, man. You could have done it. I believe in you. I was in interrogations for sometimes five or six hours. Two hours is nothing. This guy came in and just started like, oh, I'm just going to be there to be your team member. I'm going to just be there to support you and has completely hijacked this interrogation.

Look at this. from the previous video we saw what happened here i swear his chairs moved back at least like five places the next i won't be surprised i've never seen this turned his body away he's checked out i'm waiting for us to fast forward into this clip to where he's not even in the room anymore you fast forward from the clip and he's standing in the corner of the room with his face to the wall yes yes he's got a dunce cap on yep yep yeah and i don't know if this in style is going to work with her. Based on the person you're dealing with, I don't think this approach works for her. The new detective isn't doing a terrible job because he's doing exactly, like, I could have done

this, right? She's like, he's like, why were you there at 6 a.m.? You know, just a few hours after being there looking for your medication. She's like, well, I had to run in to get my medication. I knew my medication. He's like, so you took an hour and 45 minutes to find it the night before, but now you can just run in and in a few minutes, you find it and you go, she's got no response to this, right? And he's saying, like, you're lying. You're lying. Like, you done nothing but lie here and then she starts crying which listen this isn't I'm not trying to make this like a like a gender based thing but I have seen in many cases where women will do this because he simply asked her like I know you feel bad about what happened and her response is

I didn't have anything to do with what happened like a lady he's not asking you that I know that they think you had something to do with it but all you had to say was like of course I feel bad that this happened that's my husband I love him of course I feel bad but she gives the guiltiest response ever, I had nothing to do with it. And he's saying, you've been done nothing but lying to me. And then she starts crying. She starts crying, right? Because this is what, this is what some women in these situations will do where it's like, okay, turn on the waterworks. The lying hasn't worked. The denying hasn't worked. Maybe the crying will work. And spoiler alert, it doesn't. I personally would have went with the approach of Earl killed him, didn't he? You would throw Earl

under the bus? As a detective, I would throw Earl under the bus. I would give her an out because again. Oh, you're saying the detective should have said it was Earl. We're chipping away to get to the truth. So you got her in the house. That's number one. Now you want her to admit that she knows that Chad was murdered. Doesn't have to be her yet. Or at least acknowledge that it's a possibility that Earl did it. Is it possible? Yeah. You were, listen, you might have been in that bathroom. Did something happen between Chad and Earl while you were in the other room? Did something go down that you didn't expect to happen? Right?

Get her to admit to that. Then once you do that, even if she doesn't go as far as saying I knew about it and I planned it, now you bring Earl in. Earl, she's pinning it on you, Earl. She's saying you did it all. I would have went, you give her an opportunity to feel like, oh, there's a way I can still win. I got to throw Earl under the bus, but they think Earl did it. Oh, I'm going to go with that. They got us.

I'm going to go with Earl. I'm going to hop on board with this out that they're giving me. you're not giving her an out you're still charging her too but she doesn't need to know that so I just don't like this approach it probably works because of all the evidence they have but I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't outright admit in this interview that she did it if she does power to him but it could have gone a lot smoother well let's take a quick break because we're not done I'm projecting so hard I need a break I need to go take some medication Derek needs a few minutes to type out to type out a poetic email to the other detective and let him know who they are, Stephanie. I see you, detective. I see you. Nobody else does, I do. I've told you there was a detective at my job that was nickname Cold Case.

Okay? Cold Case had a lot of time on the job. Cold case would always come into someone else's interview and interrogation. To this day, I don't know if he solved the case. Talked about you, Cold Case. There's some shade for Cold Case. I don't even care. He knows.

He knows. Let's take a break. We'll be right back. There's a new year coming, and for a lot of people, it's a fresh start. But for a lot of people, it's just the same threat, right? They're dealing with the same thing, debt. Debt is a silent killer. It doesn't make noise.

It just multiplies, interest compounds, fees stack up. And before you know it, it's slowly choking the life out of your finances and your peace of mind. But the case isn't closed. Yeah, that's where a PDS debt comes in. They've already helped hundreds of thousands of people escape. debt, reduce what they owe, and take back control. And they do it by creating a plan that actually fits your specific situation. Yes. So whether you're dealing with credit cards, personal loans, medical bills, what have you, PDS debt goes beyond the numbers. They take the time to actually

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they need to go. Yes, don't wait for debt to strike again. Break free in 30 seconds. Get your free personalized assessment and the best option for you at pdsdette.com slash crime weekly. that's pdsdette.com slash crime weekly one more time pdsdette.com slash crime weekly okay we're back so at the end of that last clip you yeah a little bit we had a little therapy session I had to show her like yeah it was bad I had to show me the guy and he looks exactly exactly the way I thought he would look yeah I'm better so we heard in that last clip that Nikki's getting a phone call so our phone's ringing and she's got to take a call call. So after Nikki got off the phone call, she had just received, the detective

continued telling, the detective Derek doesn't like, continue telling her, they knew she was lying and that her story wasn't working, they needed the truth. And so finally, after nearly two hours and 15 minutes, Nikki offered something new. They didn't go in the house. Okay, you didn't, just Earl went in the house? 1054. Yeah. So Earl was the only one who went in the house that time. I didn't go in the house. Okay, that's not what I asked you. Don't answer questions that I didn't ask you. I asked you if, so Earl went in, is the only one that went in the house. You didn't go in the house with Earl. Okay. Hey, almost like I predicted this one, right? Yeah. So now they're

going with that approach. She's not doing it the best way possible, but. Yeah. He's getting frustrated with her because she's so dumb. Do you see it? Yeah. You see it. He's, he's losing the battle even though he's going to win because she's easy. He's getting frustrated because it's like talking to a child at this point. She's so dumb, right? So he keeps saying, so Earl went in the house and she's like, I don't go and she sounds drunk, by the way. The other guy's reading his lunch order. The other guys, he's reading a book now. He's got the new Stephen King behind that notebook. He's completely removed from this. He's not even there. You ever want to see someone get demoted live on camera? Here it is right here. You ever want to see somebody completely lose their will to live on

camera? This is what's happening here. He's going to go home and definitely bitch to the wife. He's going home and he's like, he did it again. It's so true. So she's like answering the questions in the most dumb way because I think she realizes like her backs of the wall. So she's just going to keep like repeating like, yeah, no one's like sounding drunk. And he's getting mad. He's like, that's not what I asked you.

He's getting frustrated. You know, like when you're talking to your kid and they know they're in trouble, but they won't like fess up to it. So now yes, she seems too. of be implicating Earl because the guy's giving her the out. And it's, he's frustrated because he's like, I keep giving you the out to pin it on Earl. And it's like, you're not bright enough to pick up on the fact that I'm giving you that out. And then finally, she seems to like pick up on the fact that that's what he's doing. And Nikki's responses after this point, they're so quiet.

They can't be heard on the recording. But according to the detectives, she said she stayed in the vehicle while Earl went inside the house to grab more of Nikki's belongings. Both detectives asked her repeatedly for more details, why they went back, what happened while they were there, why they returned again at 6.30 a.m. Nikki did not answer those questions. She kept saying she didn't know anything for the next 20 or so minutes. But as the pressure kept building, she changed her story yet again. But I know more happened at that point. I know it. I know you. I've gotten to know you. Something else happened. What happened, Mickey?

There was somebody else in the house. So many what? Something else in the house. Who else was in the house? I don't know the other person. Why haven't you told me that? Okay, go ahead. He's so young to the house.

It was a male or a female. First off, my guy's back in the game. And you know what? I got to give you credit here because it seems like he's the one. His approach is much better. His approach is much better. It really is. He didn't need this other guy.

This other guy just needs to shut up. He's patient. She seems to trust him more than this other guy that came in, hot, you know. Listen, this other guy, let me just put it out there in case this gets to them. I don't know the other guy from a hole in the wall. He may be great at his job. I just don't like his approach. That's just me personally.

But it's almost like a mechanic with his tools. Sometimes people can take the same tools and use it for different jobs. Personally, I don't like his approach. Sometimes it's warranted. But yeah, my guy's back in the game. And although he's getting more out of her, we know that what she's saying is an absolute lie. So. Yo, what if, what if the guy who was in the corner of your guy was always the senior guy.

And he had the other guy come in to act like a clown and stress, her all out so that he could then come in after a very extensive period of this other guy messing around in there and be like, listen, it's just you and me here, the kind, gentle one, just tell me, I'm here to help you. Maybe that was the idea the whole time. I would agree with you, but you know what causes me not to? One guy still has his hair and the other one doesn't. That's a lot of years on the job. The one guy still has his hair. It's just, it's running from him. It's running from him. And the other guy has a full head of hair. That's a guy who hasn't seen a lot yet that's a guy see you know i did 13 years i still got my hair

because i got out in time he got out because if you didn't you just see me just shiny and bald up here it happens to everybody stay on the job long enough it's good it goes so yeah that right there he tells me that hair that hair is looking at about maybe nine 10 years on the other guy's got he's in his 20s he's got he's got 20 25 plus years all right so nicky's now not really picking up on the fact that they want her to pin it on ear And maybe she doesn't want to pin it on Earl. She knows what they want to do. Yeah.

She knows what they want to do exactly. I don't really know. She doesn't seem smart. But maybe Earl's the love of her life. And she's like, we're Bonnie and Clyde. We're going down together. If I get away with this, it really doesn't matter if he doesn't. Yeah, exactly.

So now she's saying there's another man in the house. And I've been waiting for her to say this forever, by the way, because that's what I would have said to begin with. You know, it's like, yeah, I was there. But I don't know who else was there. Somebody else could have been there hiding in a closet while I was there. And then I left. How do you guys know?

Why are you trying to pin it on me? Find out who did that. Go, you better go out there and find out who did this, right? So she's saying, there's another man in the house. She's got no clue who the man in the house was. All she knew was that he was arguing with Chad in the bedroom. He appeared to be in his mid-40s. He smelled like crown liquor. And he repeatedly called Chad Hun.

So that's interesting. We're going to play you one more clip. And we'll be right back from that. Because he called him. What's his honey? He called Chad, huh? Hun. He was honey stop.

I don't know what that means. Hun stop? Honey, hon, stop. They called him hun. Hun stop. Okay. Like, tell someone who calls him honey, like shut. Okay.

Okay, so now Nikki's like, there's a man, he's arguing with Chad. He's calling him hun. Hun, stop. Hun stop. The detectives over here, like, hon, like honey? or like you call someone honey and she's like, hun, stop. That's all she could say. So detectives obviously asked why Nikki had never mentioned this man before.

Nikki apologized and then added another new claim that her husband, Chad, was deeply in debt due to gambling. Detectives again asked why she had never said that earlier and told Nikki to tell them the truth. She then claimed that at 1.10 a.m. on December 31st, she and Chad argued at the house and she walked out leaving Earl inside. she waited in the car for about 15 minutes. Earl then came out, and when she asked what happened, he told her, quote, he's not alive. End quote. Earl said there was an argument over a gun, the gun went off, and Chad was struck and killed. Nicky said they went back to the hotel, but within hours, Earl became scared and wanted to go back to the house to start a fire. So they returned, and Earl moved the propane tank into the bedroom, believing it would ignite the house. Later that night, Earl went back to the house alone and discovered it still hadn't burned down. So now is the man calling Chad Hun and the gambling debts just not an issue at all? And now Nikki's saying actually it was Earl because she realizes that, yeah, she probably should have told the cops about this, this Hun guy and the gambling debts before. So now she's just going to pivot again. Yeah, she knows it's not going to hold up.

She's starting to realize they have more than they're saying. So when Nikki was done sharing this new story, detectives asked why she never went inside to check on Chad after Earl told her he was dead. and Nikki said she was in complete shock and she didn't know how to react. Detectives then asked whose idea it was to call Chad in sick the next morning and Nikki replied that it was Chad's idea, claiming he had told her to call him in because they were going to be playing drinking games. So I guess in this scenario, Nikki is saying Chad and she had previously had a conversation about how they were going to be playing this game where Chad gets drunk and then abuses

her all day. And so she was supposed to call in for him because they were going to do that. that. And he had previously told her that before he died. So she was just going along with the schedule because then the detectives are like, well, why would you need to do that if you knew he was already dead? Exactly. And right. And then Nikki responded by saying something like, as a victim, I was scared. Oh my God. So it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. No. And listen, it would make more sense if you didn't go over everything we've already said, right? Like as far as her looking into insurance policies and the text messages and rental homes. Taking all her stuff out.

before setting the fire. She was well aware of what she was doing. And as I said, you know, maybe 20 minutes ago, she's the one who brought it to Earl's attention that there was a $600,000 insurance policy, not the other way around. Yeah, how would you know? So she wanted to go on in life with Earl

and she wanted the money to go with it and she knew she couldn't get it with Chad still breathing, period. Yep. Yep. So then detectives questioned why she didn't respond to repeated calls from Chad's coworkers and why when she eventually did answer, she told them that she was too busy at work to go see if Chad was okay.

And then Nikki shifted the conversation. She claimed the police had been mean to her and that they hadn't returned her calls when she wanted to come in and tell them what really happened. And detectives tried to redirect her and get her to focus on what happened that night. And eventually she agreed to write out a confession for what she had admitted that day. When she finished, Nikki grabbed the paper and tried to crumple it up and get rid of it. so so she writes out the confession of what she's already said and being recorded saying and she would have been informed by the way that this interview was filmed and recorded and so she writes down a confession and then it's like on the table and she grabs it up and crumples it up and tries to get rid of it and a detective intervened and told her quote you don't have to be like that about it end quote so we actually have a clip of the moment and I've seen this clip before which is why I'm laughing and we're going to play it for you now.

I have not seen it. So I need to see it. You don't have to be like that. Yeah, that's going to really make a difference, Nikki. Good job. Crumble up the piece of paper. It all goes away when you do that. Hey, you notice just my guys in that room.

Just wanted to point it out. Yeah. And he's like, you don't have to be like that about it. I think he's the one who got the confession. That's what I think. But this is very childlike. Okay? This is very childish of her.

She's acting like a child. she's talking really low and in a baby voice. And then she writes out a confession. She tries to crumple it up and he's got to stop. And he's like, stop, stop, man. You don't got to be like this about that. I don't go. It's over.

Enough. He's just, he's done too. But he's very, very patient. So shout out to him. Now, following that interview, detectives were more confident than ever that both Nikki and Earl were involved in Chad's murder, which I think is safe to say. Everybody's more confident now.

So while they didn't believe Nikki had told the full truth, it ultimately didn't matter at that exact moment. Based on her statements and the evidence they had already gathered, they believed they had enough to move forward with charges. So Nikki was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit arson, and conspiracy to tamper with physical evidence. Detectives also had enough to charge Earl with the same three conspiracy counts along with murder,

but because Earl lived in Canada, an arrest warrant was issued for him, which I expect his wife was very surprised about. So two days later, on January 9th, Nikki asked this, speak with detectives again and gave what would be her final interview. Once again, she claimed Chad had been abusive and said she was planning to leave him. She then told deputies, though when she and Earl went to the house in the early morning hours of December 31st, Earl already had a plan to kill Chad and that she didn't know about the plan until after it had been carried out.

According to Nikki, when they arrived at the house, they both went inside. Earl told her to go into the bedroom and make sure Chad was still sleeping. She did as she was told and confirmed Chad was asleep. Nicky claimed Earl then went down to the basement and retrieved a gun. Earl went back into the bedroom alone, and over the next five to ten minutes, Nikki said she heard two gunshots. Nikki told the detectives that she then went into the bedroom and saw Chad dead on the floor. She said there was a lot of blood, including blood on the wall.

Yeah, how did he know where the gun was? Yeah. Hmm, I wonder. Yeah. Yeah, she's, why did, why did Earl want to make sure that Chad was asleep, Nikki? Yeah. So Nikki claimed Earl then began staging the scene to make it look like Chad had killed himself. She said he placed an alcohol bottle in the bedroom to make it appear Chad had been drinking and took one of the spent shotgun shells. According to Nikki, Earl then started a fire in the bedroom.

The two of them left the house and went back to the hotel and then they saw Christmas lights. And she said Earl later returned to set additional fires. So detectives believed this version of events was closer to the truth than Nikki's previous stories. And I think it is exactly the truth just with her being a willing and knowing participant personally. So even so, the police still did not believe. then Nikki was being fully honest. So while detectives could accept that Earl may have been the one who fired the shots, they did not believe Nikki had no knowledge of what was going to happen.

The evidence did not support that claim. As a result, Nikki's conspiracy charges remained in place and she was returned to jail. That same day, Earl turned himself into Border Patrol after learning there was a warrant out for his arrest, which I got to give him credit there because he could have made it very difficult, right? He could have made it difficult and he could have made them like have to go through extradition and all that stuff. But he didn't. he turned himself in. He's got wife and kids. I mean, he knows he's done. Yeah. And he's probably like, I know this dumb idiot, Nikki is probably trying to blame me for everything. So I should

probably get in there and give my version of my friends. Yeah, he might be thinking if I turn myself in, I'm cooperative. I can put it on her. Yeah. Well, when his vehicle was searched, investigators found a black hat, sunglasses, and a trench coat, along with a brochure for real estate. They also located a journal containing bank and phone account information in Nikki's name, as well as diagrams of unspecified electrical wiring. So after Earl was extradited back to Bismarck, he agreed to speak with detectives. Full details of his confession have not been made public. However, we know that Earl claimed Nikki went into the house and shot Chad,

and that he later offered to take care of it by destroying the evidence through arson. So after hearing from Earl, detectives still could not say with certainty who had actually pulled the trigger, Nikki or Earl. So the shotgun was sent off for testing in an effort to determine who, fired the fatal shots. In the meantime, charges against both defendants remained in place. Nikki and Earl each pleaded not guilty, and Earl's defense team attempted to have his charges dismissed, arguing that the case against him relied solely on Nikki's statements, but the court denied that request. Earl then sought to have his case severed from Nicky's, but a judge

denied that motion as well. Now, this isn't going to be a quick resolution, right? It's not going to be like these people are in court and, you know, the jury finds them guilty or not guilty and we know exactly what happened. This is going to take a while. So we're going to take our last break and we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor. IQ Bar is the better for you plant protein based snack made with brain boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish, and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash. Yeah, and that's the key part here because if you've ever tried to research or record after a sugar crash, let me just tell you, it's not great and I'm sure Stephanie agrees. One of my favorite things about IQ bar is how

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20% off, text weekly to 64,000. Once again, text weekly to 64,000 message and data rates may apply, see terms for details. Cold mornings, holiday plans. This is the time of year when I need my wardrobe to just work. And that's why I'm all about quince, because I don't want to wake up and have to decide between wearing all these layers and wearing warm clothes and actually looking good and put together for work. Quince makes it easy to look sharp, feel good, and knock out your gift list without paying luxury prices. Yeah, Quince really nails the essentials every guy or girl actually needs. We're talking Mongolian cashmere sweaters for around 50 bucks, Italian wool coats that look and feel like their designer level coats, and denim and chinos that actually fit the way they're supposed to.

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Well, I'm going to say their outerwear lineup is no joke. And I have dipped into the men's outerwear lineup that Quince has for many gifts this year. They got down jackets, wool, top coats, leather styles. Everything is built to last and holds up season after season. Yeah, and that's like the jacket I just mentioned, right? It got me through the cold winter. but it also, I thought it looked really good on the traders. It was warm, structured, and honestly, it looks way more expensive than it actually was.

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That's a huge return period. Plus, it's now available in Canada as well. That's Quince, Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash crime weekly, free shipping, 365-day returns, quince.com slash crime weekly. Okay, we're back. And over the next year, the case move. slowly, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected courts and police departments across the country. We all remember the year that everything changed and time, I think we went

into a different time loop. But at the start of 2021, results from testing on the shotgun finally came back. But regrettably, the testing couldn't determine whether Earl or Nikki had fired the weapon, which I was questioning because I was like, how are you going to know who fired the weapon? You know what I mean? Based on testing that weapon. Based on DNA fingerprints. Now, if you would expect to find Nikki's DNA on there, potentially, fingerprints, that could be explainable. But if you find Earl's DNA on a shotgun that he didn't own and supposedly had never touched, well, he's got some questions to answer. Yeah, but we also know that that shotgun was on the bed in a room that was set on fire. So even if the fire didn't, like, destroy the house.

Yeah, more than like that would destroy everything. Yeah. So without that evidence, authorities could not corroborate Nikki's claim that Earl was the shooter. And because her statement was the only evidence supporting the murder charge, against him, that charge was dismissed. All other charges against both Earl and Nikki remained in place, and their joint trial was scheduled to begin in October of 2021. But just four days before the trial was set to begin, Earl entered a plea agreement, pleading guilty to arson and three conspiracy charges in exchange for a 25-year sentence. As part of that agreement, Earl was not required to

testify against Nikki at her trial, which is disappointing, right? I don't know why they would have made. I don't think they needed it. I mean, at first, I was like, I don't know why they would have made that decision. They probably needed Earl's testimony, but, yeah, like you said, this was actually a strategic decision by the prosecution. They didn't believe that Earl could be relied on to testify truthfully against Nikki anyways, and they were concerned he might still try to protect Nikki. So after Earl was sentenced and sent off to prison, the prosecution continued preparing for Nikki's trial, which was postponed for nearly another year. So in September of 2022, Nikki finally went on trial. And the prosecution told the jury that they weren't positive who killed Chad, Nikki or Earl.

All they knew for sure was that Nikki and Earl had conspired together to kill Chad and staged the scene to look like a suicide. They did this so they could collect the insurance money and then moved to Texas to start a new life together. Like we just talked about, the prosecution did not want Earl to testify. So instead of relying on his version of events to prove Nikki's guilt, they focused on the evidence, right? They focused on laying out the detailed timeline of Nikki and Earl's movements that detectives had built. So the defense argued that none of the prosecution's evidence proved Nicky was part of a conspiracy, which that's ridiculous. The insurance claim, the claiming his getting his insurance money, calling the funeral home before you allegedly knew he was dead. Come on.

So they suggested that if anything, the evidence pointed to Earl, who was conveniently not part of a trial. So the defense told jurors, it was troubling that Earl did not testify and argued that without testimony from the alleged shooter implicating Nikki. there was a reasonable doubt as to whether she could be considered a co-conspirator. So in the end, the jury sided with the prosecution, and they found Nikki guilty on all charges. Thank God. Thank God. Yeah, that would have been crazy. So after the verdict, Chad's family spoke to the media saying it was time for them to begin healing.

They said they wanted Chad to be remembered for who he truly was, a kind man who would do anything to help others. And then in February of 2023, Nikki returned to court for sentencing, and both sides presented arguments regarding what they thought the punishment should be. The prosecution asked the judge to sentence Nikki to life in prison without the possibility of parole, arguing that she had shown no remorse and had actively planned Chad's murder. The defense asked that Nikki received the same sentence Earl had received 25 years. Defense counsel argued that Nikki was, quote, easily seduced, end quote, by Earl, adding, quote, I think he had a lot to do with how things transpired. It was a manipulative relationship, and Nikki, for lack of a better word, was easily seduced by Earl.

and his fairy tale life stories, end quote. So I think what the defense lawyer was trying to say without saying it was Nikki, for lack of a better word, is not smart. She's not a smart person. She was easily seduced. But once again, I go back to all the ways she planned for this, right? Like calling into Chad's work and saying he wouldn't be there and making sure that she wasn't there and she was staying at a hotel because the furnace was broken.

But then the police now know the furnace was not broken. all of those things are really hard to ignore. So Nikki also gave a statement, once again, maintaining her innocence. She then claimed for the first time that Chad not only abused her, but abused her sons. Because remember, the children that were in the house with her and Chad were not Chad's sons. They were hers. So there's absolutely no evidence of this. Everyone said Chad loved Nikki's sons, never hurt them, whatever.

I don't believe it. So after hearing from both sides, the judge rejected the defense's arguments stating there were no facts to support the claim that Earl was a manipulator. He said the defense was, quote, just making up the facts, end quote, in hopes that the court would accept them. That's a good judge, okay, because he's calling it like it is. The judge also addressed Nikki's credibility, stating, quote, it seems to be an ever-changing story depending on what fits her circumstances and what she thinks will help her. And quote, Nikki was then sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after 36 years. She later appealed her convictions, but was unsuccessful. And you might think that this would be the end of the story, but it wasn't.

Of course not, because it's Nikki. So after Nikki's conviction, 2020 interviewed her in prison. And during that interview, Nikki continued to maintain her innocence. When asked about her relationship with Earl, she denied having an affair and claimed that Earl was not her type. When confronted with a photo of herself and Earl kissing inside a Walmart, Nikki responded, quote, I don't see no kiss given at all. End quote. Okay. Nikki then told a completely different story than she had.

ever given before. This time she claimed she had no idea if Earl killed Chad because she didn't go to the house after midnight on the 31st. She'd actually been out for a walk during that time frame, going to see more Christmas lights probably. She left the hotel sometime around 1 a.m. and she didn't return until 2.42 a.m. Now, no one believed a word that Nikki was saying, and after that 2020 interview, she largely faded from public view. No further interviews have been conducted with her, and she is currently serving her sentence in North Dakota's women's prison. Her estimated release date is the year 2100, which is way beyond her life expectancy. Earl remains incarcerated as well with a projected release date in 2040 when he will be 66 years old.

And I wonder at the time that he's released, will we get some answers to this? Like will Earl come out and give an interview and be like, this is what happened? Because he can't be, well, I suppose he was never charged with Chad's murder. so he could technically be charged with the murder if he says anything. So yeah, probably not. He probably won't say shit. He's not going to say anything. So Earl and Nikki will spend decades in prison because of what they did,

but the consequences don't end there. Chad's family and friends are left to live without him, without his support, his presence, and the role he played in their lives. Chad Ensel was more than this crime. He was a son, a brother, a friend, someone who mattered, someone who trusted people and took care of people, did right by people. And like his family said, that's how he should be remembered.

But now I want to ask you, Derek, given what we know about this case, given what we know about the people involved in the case, which, to be fair, we don't know a ton about Earl. But who do you think pulled the trigger? I think it was Earl. I do think it was Earl. I think it was a collaborative effort. So you think they both knew, both planned Earl pulled the trigger. Yeah, that's what I think.

I think that it was originally an idea that may have been broached or at least hinted at by Nikki. Listen, we want to be together. We want to start our life together. and have a problem doing so. I don't have a lot of money. You don't have a lot of money. We have family obligations. How do we get around that?

How do we circumvent that? And let's just say for the sake of this conversation that there was a little bit of truth to what Nikki was saying about Chad as far as being someone who was abusive. I have no evidence to suggest that. But let's just say for the sake of this conversation, maybe he was verbally abusive, right?

Just something. Something to, in her mind, justify doing. this where she's like, you know what, he's mean to me, I'm going to take the money, he's not going to be able to give it to me while he's alive, so I'm going to take it through any other means necessary. And if I had to guess, it was her who brought up the idea of killing him for the money or suggesting that if he was no longer around, they would have access to the money. And then maybe it was Earl who said, well, maybe we can make that happen. Maybe we can facilitate that. And you know what, I definitely think he was an aggressor in the plan. He flew all the way down from Canada

to carry out this act and then flew right back home. So he knew what he was getting himself into. And although it wasn't a well thought out plan, there was some planning done by both parties. They did attempt very unsuccessfully to hide what they had done. Well, yeah, he had to make travel arrangements and hotel reservations. But I think what Nikki has said, there's some, the truth is in there somewhere, right? Like they go into the house. I think Nikki goes in to make sure that Chad's asleep, right? If he's still awake, seeing her is not going to raise any red flags. She goes in there, he's sleeping.

She comes back out, says the gun's downstairs, grab the gun, you go in. She might even leave the room at that point. Maybe she doesn't want to see it. He kills him. They do everything else with the heaters, hoping that by the time law enforcement finds the place, it'll be just a bag of dust. But fortunately for investigators, that didn't happen. Doesn't bring Chad back.

Shouldn't have happened this way, but at least the people responsible are in prison. Yeah, and I think you're probably right. But there's not a part of me that believes that if it wasn't Earl and it was someone else and he wasn't willing to do it, that Nikki still would have found a way to take her husband's life, right? because I don't think she ever wanted to really marry him for any other reason than that to begin with. She wanted someone to take care of her, which he did. They didn't know each other long, right? And then they're getting married.

I think she was the main driver behind that. And then, of course, you're married. And now there's a life insurance policy and you're the main beneficiary, the sole beneficiary, because he doesn't have kids. And yeah, I think that this was probably in the cards for her for quite a while. I think it might have just accelerated it because I don't think she was seeing Earl because she needed someone to do it. I think that she wanted to be with Earl. So this pushed up the timeline of killing chat. But if it wasn't Earl, it would have been someone else.

Exactly. And I do think she was probably easily influenced by others, no doubt about it. And I think that Earl told her, hey, if we had this money, yeah, we could be together. And so she's like, well, there's one way to do that then. Or she said if we had this money, we could be together. Fair. That's fair. It depends on the dynamic of the relationship. Who was more into it?

Either way, they both went along with it. They both went along with it. And clearly Earl was not an innocent party in all of this, like we have already said. he came down from Canada just to carry this out. So they're right where they need to be. It's unfortunate that Earl will get out in 2040. I don't agree with that. I don't think you needed him to confess the way he did in order to get the conviction.

I think it was there. But with prosecutions, they do look for the safe bet, right? If they can get someone off the streets until 2040, they'll take that over them walking scot-free and having no repercussions for their actions. So I do understand the thought process. Yeah, I mean, at that point, like, if Earl's saying I didn't, I didn't pull the trigger and Nikki's saying I didn't pull the trigger, what do you really do? What do you really do at that point?

I mean, you're charging both and they both go down for it. But it is a risk. I will acknowledge that. You do that. You go through trial. They find a technicality in there. Both of them walk scot-free. That's a big risk to take when you can get one for at least 25 years.

And then by getting that confession, you know he didn't get into the house without Nikki's help. and you hope that the jury sees that as well. And clearly they did. It worked out. Yeah, absolutely. So let us know what you think in the comments. Yes, please.

Let us know. Do you think it was Earl? Do you think it was Nikki? Who was the primary planner here? Who set this all up? Do you agree with me? And do you agree with Stephanie that Earl was the one who pulled the trigger? We want to hear your thoughts.

Before we go, just real quickly again, I know we talked about it at the beginning. Happy holidays to everybody. We'll be off next week. We're going to take a little bit of a break to hang out with our family. but we will be on sometime during the week that we're off to have a YouTube live, probably at night, where we'll sit down and we can talk about whatever you guys want to talk about. So if you're not following us on YouTube, make sure you do. We will put something out on our Instagram or social media, also on the community page of YouTube

to let you guys know when that's going to be. I warn you now, make sure you're following because it's probably going to be spur of the moment, maybe a day before or the day of. That's just how we roll. But we will do it, we promise. Until then, everyone stay safe out there. We will see you in two weeks or on the YouTube live if you join us. If you don't, happy holidays.

We'll see you in the new year.