Dateline NBC - Far from Spider Lake

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

In the small town of Brewster, Minnesota, 40-year-old Jan Kruse is shot to death in her bed while her husband and teenage daughter are home. When investigators rule out robbery as a motive, it leaves them asking – who would want to kill Jan? Keith Morrison reports.

Tonight, on Dateline. 911 emergency. Somebody just shot my wife. Nothing had been missing from the house. This was clearly a premeditated murder. Why would anybody want to shoot Jan? Makes no sense to me. He was there in the room with Jan when this happened.

I'm trying to do this. The word divorce being thrown around. This evidence tells a story. It doesn't support what you're telling us. From the beginning, they had one suspect. It was Chris. There's another person here that could have done this, and it's Jeremy. I've got questions for you about a gal that you might be seeing.

Bailey? Yeah. My mom and dad didn't want me to date him because he was that much older. That would be a motive for murder. He was a concern. You see it on TV happening to other people. Didn't ever think that this would be something that we would go through. Two shots in the dark.

Then, a thousand and one questions in the light of day. I guess you just don't think bad things will happen in a small town to good people. And it did. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison with Far From Spider Lake. It was, this was, where happiness lived.

Happiness and memories and desire. The wishes of dreams just out of reach. Its name is Spider Lake. One of those thousands of lakes that filled up the rocky gouges the glaciers left behind. Maybe that's why they sparkle the way they do. Why, this one in Minnesota spread out every which way. And here, near the tip of its northern arm, is the Spider Lake Resort. Family cabins, by the day or week,

calls itself one of northern Minnesota's best-kept secrets. Secrets, a word that will certainly apply to what you're about to hear one way or the other. I went with them a couple times up there. Them being Chris and Jan Cruz. This is Jan's sister, Kay. They would like to go fishing, just stay at a cabin, just relax It was just quality time together And they did, they both enjoyed being there In fact, they had a fantasy, did Chris and Jan A dream, to live here all the time

To buy this resort and make it uniquely their own That was brought up a lot, yeah Jan's dad, Terry, could see how they loved being here. About every evening, Jan and Chris would take the boat in. Jan liked to take pictures of the loon and the wildlife along the lake, and the sun sets off of the lake. That was the kind of life they would have liked. And if they owned it, said Jan's mom, Mary Jean, frugal Jan could use her accounting skills to keep the place in business. And Chris?

Chris is very much an outdoors person. Jan is a people person with the people coming in and out all through the week and keeping them all content, happy, busy, all of those things. Chris's brother, Josh. It would have worked out good for Chris and Jan because Chris is a really good handyman, construction guy. He could have taken care of the resort, and Jan's pretty business smart.

It would have fit him. Would have. Until? Until the events of the summer of 2015. By the time all this happened, Chris and Jan Cruz had been married for two decades, had lived here in a tiny place called Brewster, population 473, in the rural southwest corner of Minnesota. A good, apparently happy marriage, a happy life.

What they had was what I hoped to have someday. I loved our family. Isaac, their eldest, was 20 then. His sister Bailey was 15 that summer. That was the year, spring of 2015, when Isaac's parents discovered that Spider Lake Resort was for sale, and a buzz of excitement filled the house. Did you ever fantasize about the family owning that place? Absolutely. When I found out that they were talking about buying it, I was starting to look for my line of the work up in that area, and I thought it'd be really fun to help own and help work out on the resort. That's the sort of place that becomes multi-generational, too.

I mean, you can look forward to an association with it for your whole life. Yep. So, come August, Chris and Jan drove the six hours from Brewster to Spider Lake to engage in some serious negotiating. And there were obstacles, of course there were, as Jan told her sister Kay. It was just the timing with Bailey having a couple years left in school. So it wasn't that she, yes, she did want to buy it. There was just a lot that went into that whole decision. Mostly, of course, the money. Jan, the bookkeeper, ran the numbers.

They offered as much as their bank would allow. But it wasn't enough. Was it Jan who faced it first, that they'd have to move on? Chris would never own the resort he'd set his heart on. What they said to each other on the long drive home is not recorded. Nor is what happened two nights later, middle of the night, in Jan and Chris Cruz's bedroom. 911 emergency. My mom told me Jan had been shot.

And I said, okay, I'll be there. Am I going to the hospital? And mom was quiet. I said, she's going to be okay, right? She's going to be okay. Mom said no. She was dead. And I think I just kind of collapsed on the floor and screamed. Why would anybody want to shoot Jan? It mustn't make any sense to you.

It doesn't. It makes no sense to me. No. I know what you might be thinking. But maybe it wasn't that at all. Coming up... There was a hole through the wall of the bedroom, and so it appeared one round had been fired and missed. And was this a sign of a possible intruder?

I noticed a broken window in a bedroom downstairs. What happened to Jan Cruz in the early morning hours of August 19, 2015 was dreadfully obvious at first look, as Chris Cruz told the 911 operator. 911 emergency. Somebody just shot my wife. Jan had taken the fatal shotgun blast to the chest, while in bed, beside her own husband, Chris. As Chris called 911, he checked on 15-year-old Bailey in a downstairs bedroom. She had heard the gun, of course, but she was unhurt.

Then the rush of first responders and police and terrible emotions. Chris and Bailey huddled in the garage of deputies secured the scene. And then as dawn was approaching, Chris himself spread the news to the family. He called his son, Isaac, off in South Dakota. He said that Mom had been shot, and he didn't really know how to tell me that. And I just said, okay, I'm packing my stuff, I'm on my way. Did you know that she was dead? Assumed, I guess.

And assumed it wasn't good from the sound of his voice. He called his in-laws, Terry and Mary Jean Pigman. Chris called us early morning and was extremely broken up. I couldn't understand what he was saying. I could tell he was in tears, which wasn't a usual thing for Chris. Pretty stoic. And he's telling me, she didn't make it, we lost her. I didn't protect her.

But of all the people in the world, and especially this tiny world, Brewster, Minnesota, population 473, why would Jan need protecting? Why would someone shoot her, the least likely murder victim? She was just a very, very true and very genuine person. She just enjoyed spending time with her family and her kids and her husband. And when she interacted with people, it was real. Like, she cared and you wanted to spend time with her. Isaac, a young man of few words, said a lot with a little. She was pretty amazing.

I was probably a pain in the ass growing up, but she was always really nice about it and understanding. Jan's always been outgoing, friendly. She was the one that brought soup to somebody that was sick. Jan had run a daycare in their home years earlier, but time of the murder had a front office job in a local plant. And here's the thing, said Jan's younger sister, Vonnie. She was just a regular person, uncontroversial. Nobody didn't like her. She's great. Just a good person. Loved to quilt with her neighbors. Loved her family. That was definitely very important to her.

She'd never see her children get married or welcome grandchildren into the world. Or be with Chris at Spider Lake. And so to say her family was in a state of shock would be to profoundly understate the feelings of that awful morning. Unaware of the activities of this man. I believe I received a call at about 3 a.m. Derek Woodford is a senior special agent with the State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the BCA, in southern Minnesota.

I know most of the local investigators. When they have a violent crime or homicide or death investigation and need assistance, they call me. So he got dressed and drove to Brewster. And before dawn, Agent Woodford was staring intently at the carnage in Chris and Jan's bedroom. What I found was the victim on a backboard. She was deceased. What was the nature of her injury? It was a shotgun slug

that had entered kind of the lower right shoulder and exited out her back. Was it your sense that she would have died very quickly? We want to know, obviously, was it right away or could it have been minutes? And I spoke to the medical examiner, and he had thought that she could have stayed alive for three to five minutes after the injury. It was as he approached that bedroom when Woodford found two spent shotgun shells. Right outside the door. Obviously those I don't pick up at that point. They'll stay for crime scene team to process,

but I noticed they looked to be 12 gauge shot shells that were spent. Two of them? Two of them. So two shots, two loud shots. One obviously hit Jan, but the other one? There was a hole through the wall of the bedroom, and so it appeared one round had been fired and missed. It went through the headboard along the wall where their heads would have been laying, and then it went out the wall of the house outside. Well, that was strange given where the bullet holes were. Looked like the person sleeping on the side of the bed closer to the door would probably have been hit. Would it be possible for him to have been lying in the bed beside Jan and not be hit by whatever this bullet was that went flying past? I thought that bullet could have hit him prior to going through the headboard.

Preliminary, of course, but he thought about it as he looked around the house. Nothing obviously missing. This did not appear to be a robbery. But had somebody broken in? I've noticed a broken window in a bedroom downstairs. Could somebody have gotten through the window that way? Someone could have got through the window. It was broken and opened, but it had rained pretty heavy off and on, and so the ground was wet. There was a little bit of dirt or a leaf that had blown in, but there were no money footprints

below that window. So probably no entry through the window, but somebody was in here, not to rob, not to rape, but to kill Jan Cruz in cold blood. Why would anyone want to do that? Derek Woodford got in his car, drove to the local sheriff's office. Someone he needed to talk to, right away. No idea, then, how often they'd be talking. Or how confounding their conversations might be. Coming up... What the hell is the matter with people? Why are you stood in the door way of my bedroom and shot my wife? An enraged husband with his family apparently under attack.

Their garage had burned down, and he had said that he was concerned, could have been part of now Jan being shot. When Dateline continues. This is Senior Special Agent Derek Woodford with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Reprehension. The man sitting with Agent Derek Woodford in the county sheriff's office was Chris Cruz. And this is how they began, these perplexing interviews. The investigators repeated efforts to match what they had seen to what they were hearing in here. Our task, too, in a way, as we watch and listen to Chris's many interviews and those of the others,

to try to piece together what happened to Chris's wife, Jan. Who made it happen and why? Chris, first off, you understand that you're here voluntarily. We just want to find out what happened. What happened, said Chris, was confusing. He was in bed, asleep, curled up in the way he always slept with Jan. If you're standing looking at the bed, I sleep on the left, she sleeps on the right. He described it as kind of like a spooning, like where she's laying on her side

and he's laying on his side kind of next to her i guess his the front of his body would be alongside the back of her body what do you remember happening uh in the evening then when you're in bed just the bang the hell was that you know get up and jan started sitting up and she said oh my god and but then i got the light i didn't see what happened it's like son of a you know laid her back down into bed the bang but as woodford knew there were two loud bangs two shotgun blasts you said you heard heard a bang. Did you hear just one bang? It was one bang, and it was like, what the hell, you know,

and you stood up and I could smell something, and I thought, are we on fire again? And again, on fire? What fire? That was two months earlier, said Chris, in June, just before he and Jan and the family were due to depart for their annual trip to Spider Lake. Their garage had burned down. And he had said that he was concerned,

was it the same or could have been part of now Jan being shot? At the time, said Chris, the insurance inspector said it looked like the fire may have been deliberately set. But by whom? Nobody could say. His last comment to us was, lock your door, lock your garage doors. Interesting. But it was something else about the fire story that occurred right away to Agent Woodford. It was concerning to me because a fire in a garage smells a lot different than a spent shotgun shell in a house. He would know that, would he?

He does a lot of trap shooting and hunting, and so he would know the difference between a shotgun and smoke from a house or a garage fire. Woodford made note of that and went on with his questions. What happened after Chris heard what he said was a single, loud bang and saw that his wife had been shot? And she's talking to you? She just said, well, she was just not very much, no. She said, oh, my God, what a thing, holy s***.

And I tried to lay her back down in the bed and just relaxed. I got my phone to call and came back. It was too late. Chris, this is obviously going to be hard for you to discuss, and we're trying to get this. I'm trying to get this 12-gauge shotgun shell laying at the bedroom of my door, in my bedroom. Like, what the hell is the matter with people?

Why are you stood in the doorway of my bedroom and shot my wife? What the matter? I don't understand it. Everyone reacts to disaster, grief, stress in different ways. But though Chris was clearly distraught, Woodford was listening very carefully to the words he was using. Descriptions of the incident that Woodford already knew were not accurate. You heard one bang and then do you see anything or anybody? Nothing.

You don't see anybody? No. Okay. And then you... Is she, you said, does she sit up for a minute or...? Yeah, we both got up. What the hell was that? And what did she say?

She just said, oh, my God. Chris seemed to be saying that Jan was shot as she was lying down in bed, and then she sat up. It was nothing. It was gurgling. And by the time I got the bedroom light on and looked and said, you know, did you see what had happened to her? This whole chest was full of blood.

I laid her back down on the bed and got to run and get my phone and come back. I got to check on Bailey. But if he did lay her down, thought Woodford, surely his hands would have been covered in blood. And they weren't. Did you try to help or revive her? Not really. I knew it wasn't good. Then I was worried for Bailey if it's something to shot my wife, man.

But you didn't see anybody, hear anything? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I ran downstairs, our back door was wide open. Did he have any idea who that might have been? No, not at that time, because he didn't see anybody, didn't hear anything but that one shot, and then just noticed the back door being wide open.

But the idea that a stranger had walked in, killed Jan, and just walked out again didn't make sense. In fact, that morning after, nothing about the murder of a loved local in a tiny hamlet in the middle of America made any sense at all. Coming up, teenage tensions and maybe troubles. How old is Jeremy? He'd be 19. 19? Yep. Does Jeremy get along with your mom and dad?

They don't know that he comes over, actually. My mom and dad didn't want me to date him because he was that much older. We cannot begin to imagine, nor possibly describe, the shock and grief that descended that first morning on Jan's parents Mary Jean and Terry Pigman to pick up the phone and hear from their son-in-law that their daughter was dead and he Chris had been taken to the sheriff's office for questioning we do on some clothes and went out there when we first walked in the first thing they were as concerned about was how we found out that he was there. The next thing out of their mouth was, you know, 85% of the time the spouse done it. And at that point, I felt, okay, I know where you guys are

going with this. And I felt like telling them, you're full of it. I mean, we've never felt he was the one that did it. No, they didn't. And so right after that first interview with Agent Woodford, Jan's parents invited Chris and Bailey to move in with them. That's where Chris's brother, Keith, found them later that first day. You know, we've never really been an emotional family, and we don't wear our emotions on our sleeves, I guess. But I remember looking at Chris, and I had never seen Chris as devastated as he was.

I mean, he was in complete and utter shock. How did he look that was different? Well, his eyes were welled up. He was kind of biting on his bottom lip a little bit and just kind of shaking his head back and forth. I'd never seen him so devastated, ever. Bailey was there too, of course, also a mess. Earlier at the sheriff's office,

she'd had her turn to tell the investigators what she saw and heard early that morning. Wasn't quite the same story as the one her father told. While both Chris and Bailey have hearing deficits, Bailey said she heard, loud and clear, not one, but two shots. I heard like two big bangs, so I didn't really know if I should get out of bed or just stay in bed. So I kind of stayed in bed, and I texted my mom like question marks because I didn't really know what I was supposed to do. And I could hear. You texted your mom then?

Yeah, and then I texted my dad. And then I saw him come downstairs. It was like 2.30 when I heard that. And I could hear my dad like upstairs yelling and I heard my mom like yelling or something. I don't know. So I didn't really know what was going on. So I just stayed in bed. What was your dad yelling?

What the hell? And then he stormed out of his room. Because a house, we can pretty much hear a lot in a house. You can tell that he's walking out of his room. I don't know what he was yelling then. It was all kind of just mushed together. So Bailey, who had a digital clock by her bed, had just put the murder at like 2.30. Chris called 911 at 2.39. Might be an issue.

Why the delay? Bailey, what do you think happened? I honestly have no idea. Who do you think would want to hurt your mom? No one that I know of. Do you know what happened to your mom? Did someone tell you? Dad just said that she got shot, so...

How did you find out that she died? I actually realized that she died until he was sitting in the garage and he told me. Of course, those deputies were right when they told Bailey's grandparents that a significant other is quite often the prime suspect in cases like this. So they had to ask, what did Bailey know about her parents' marriage? They get along good. I mean, everyone has their disagreements, but it's nothing huge. Disagreements about what?

Well, because my mom really wants my dad to quit smoking, and then about the cabin, they're both stressed out to get that resort, so. Uh-huh. They don't ever yell at each other, really. They get along really good, if you ask me, so. Uh-huh, okay. So, been known problems. And when did this resort start?

We've been going up there ever since I was little. Ever since my brother was little. And then my dad's dream and my mom's dream have always been to own a resort up there. So here in the sheriff's office, it was Bailey who told the investigators how she worried about the resort at Spider Lake. It was making her anxious, she said.

I've been kind of worked up because my parents want to buy a resort up north and just kind of a weird time for me to move, so. So when you say worked up, what does that mean? Like, I get stressed out about, like, moving because I don't really know what I want to do. So the plan was that me and my mom would stay and live my grandma grandpa so i could finish school and graduate here and then i'd go up in the summer and help dad at the resort so i didn't i'm just kind of worried about that to help her cope bailey said she confided in her friend an older boy named Jeremy Majerus. He'd been coming around to see Bailey quite a lot that summer.

He gets me calmed down about a lot of things. So you didn't feel like you want to move? Well, yes and no. I kind of have mixed feelings about it. I play hockey here and everything. Oh, okay. When's the last time Jeremy came over? Yesterday. How old is Jeremy? He'd be 19.

19? Yep. Are you guys dating? No. What's your relationship with Jeremy? Just friends. Just friends. Yep.

Does Jeremy get along with your mom and dad? They don't know that he comes over, actually. He came over one night, so we were going to talk to my mom and dad because they were home. And we kind of told them that we liked each other. And my mom and dad didn't want me to date him because he was that much older. And my dad's pretty protective of me. A resort they couldn't afford. An apparent arson fire in a garage. And an unapproved, maybe inappropriate, older boy in their daughter's life.

There were issues in this home, and a kid who needed talking to, Jeremy Majerus. Coming up... Have you guys kissed? No, we haven't yet. I don't want to go too far with it right now, because she's younger than me.

Nothing that sounds suspicious until Jeremy mentioned something else. She said they were in some pretty good arguments. Who was? Her parents, her mom and dad. When Dateline continues. What happened in the Cruz house here in tiny Brewster, Minnesota, was a truly terrible thing. The loss of that woman, Jan Cruz, a genuinely tragic event. Made even more so because it just seemed pointless. Why would somebody go into the house, shoot some sleeping woman? That didn't make any sense.

So, did she have any enemies who would want her dead? No, that was a question that we asked often, was who would have wanted Jan dead? And we could not find one person that didn't like Jan or that thought she wasn't a good person. There was, however, that young man, Jeremy Majerus, the not-quite-boyfriend, unapproved by Bailey's parents. Passions can run high in a situation like that. Jeremy's place, his family's farm, that is,

was a 20- or 25-minute drive away from the Cruz house. Deputies drove out to talk to him, recorded the conversation. I've got questions for you about a gal that you might be seeing. Yeah. Okay. Bailey? Yeah. You and me and her hang out a lot. We can honestly talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. So, asked the deputy, when was the last time he talked to Bailey or communicated at all. We Snapchatted this morning and she said, I'll talk to you later, something bad has happened, so I'm kind of scared for her.

Jeremy said he met Bailey while helping out with a high school marching band. He had graduated, but continued to volunteer. And somehow during those band practices, he and Bailey had grown close. It was all very innocent, he said, but they really, really liked each other. So we just kind of are just friends right now. I told her when we're older, maybe we can pursue something different, but right now we,

you know, I'm 19, she's 15, you gotta be careful with that. So, are you guys boyfriend-girlfriend? I mean, not really, because we really don't do anything boyfriend girlfriends do i mean we talk more or less well you know you don't like boyfriend girlfriends go out on dates and they go out and they do all the kissing and stuff like that we don't do that really i mean oh really what i mean you don't do that really I mean oh really what do you mean you don't do it really or you do it we don't have you guys kissed no there's no we haven't yet I don't want to go too far with it right now because she's younger than me so you gotta be careful with it you know yeah absolutely

because I mean I've talked to my pastor about it and something he's like you gotta be careful if anybody even thinks you've done anything, I can get in a lot, a lot of trouble. So they just talked, said Jeremy. And the deputy asked, what about lately? She would snap me a couple nights where she said they were in some pretty good arguments about this, because her parents, her mom and dad jeremy said the arguments according to bailey were about trying to buy the spider lake resort and she hates them yelling at each other but they had some pretty good you know i'm gonna say hey calm down they're arguing about

this it's a lot of money and their her mom was is very very very, very, very, very, very nervous about spending all this money on a resort. So Bailey was having trouble dealing with all that, said Jeremy. She avidly hates it. Like, she's made it very apparent to me that she will literally put her headphones on and turn music loud. They've been having a tough time with it because her dad really, really, really wants this to go through. This is his dream. Was it true what Jeremy was saying? Bailey hadn't said anything like that when she talked to investigators a few hours after her mother was killed.

So, the very next day, they brought Bailey in again to ask about her parents. At first, they didn't tell her they'd been talking to Jeremy. Were they having some disagreements about this? Not really that I know of, no. No disagreements? Then they told her about the Jeremy interview. And he said that you told him that your parents do argue about the resort or have been arguing. Well, I mean, every once in a while.

But I think it's more that they're just frustrated because they don't know what to do. My mom and dad, I mean, they had, like, their disagreements on it, but it wasn't, like, arguing at all. No, like, they never really yelled about it or anything. And then she painted a slightly different picture of what had been going on at home.

Things had been difficult lately. There was that upsetting garage fire. But also, Jan had a hysterectomy. Chris had his appendix out. And then on top of it all, they were trying to figure out the whole resort deal. You're talking a couple months they've had. Yeah.

They've been pretty tense. Yeah. I mean, at least more tense than normal. Yes. So once again, they asked Bailey what happened the night her mother was shot. Yeah, I mean, at least more tense than normal. Yes, very much so. So once again, they asked Bailey what happened the night her mother was shot. What she heard from her bedroom, one floor below her parents' room. We asked Bailey, did you hear anybody running out of the house or moving around?

And she said she only heard one set of steps from upstairs, and that was Chris. He was the only one that was moving around upstairs. She did not hear anybody else. Now, what did that mean? And what would it mean when paired with CSI reports now coming in about curious little particulars at the crime scene? Coming up, a fortunate missed shot, or was it a suspicious one? We do like a trajectory with our crime lab, so there's a hole, right?

If we look at the way that round travels, looks like you're going to get hit with that round. The way people say goodbye can tell you a lot about a community and about the person they gather for. The funeral for Jan Cruz. The visitation was at the Lutheran Church, and there were people lined up down the block waiting to get in because Jan was so liked and respected in the community. The whole town was probably pretty upset.

Yes. She'd lived here all of her life, so she knew a lot of people. They had good things to say about her. And so there was a respectful pause. And then, a couple of days later, Chris Cruz was once again at the sheriff's office with Senior Special Agent Woodford. I want to show you some photos. Some things had been bothering Woodford, like why Chris said he'd only heard one gunshot, when obviously

there had been two. What we got is we got two 12-gauge slugs. One of these you saw and one of these you didn't see. Is that correct? Correct. You said you heard one shot. Okay.

And then, did you say that because that's what you heard or did you just see the one shell i heard one for definite shot but that first slug the one he said he did not hear agent woodford explained to chris that one would have hit him had he been lying in bed beside Jan as he said he was. We do like a trajectory with our crime lab. So there's a hole, right? She's laying here, you're laying here on your side. If we look at the way that round travels, looks like you're going to get hit with that round.

I've been asking that question. This actually, this round actually doesn't hit anything. This is a miss. I've seen it go all the way through my house. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, the width to the mattress to that trajectory, um... I asked myself that. Was it supposed to be both of us? Do you think someone tried to shoot you and then missed and then shot her?

I don't know. Why would anybody? Then Agent Woodford told Chris that the autopsy revealed that Jan was actually sitting up when she was hit, with her right arm stretched out toward the shooter. In fact, her right hand was grazed by the shot. To me, almost like she saw it coming. Yeah. And so that was a concern based on what Chris had told me the first time, that she was shot when they were laying down.

What this shows is that she's not laying down during this shooting, okay? That she's not on her left side. After you think about it. Well, you were saying that you have your arm under her. Okay. You have your arm under her while she's shot. While we were sleeping. And here Chris seems to alter

the narrative. Says he awoke to find his wife sitting up beside him. She was up. She sat up before I did. How do you know that? Because she was,

when I was laying there, she was up. And then I got up. It was the shot. The first round, you said you didn't get up on. No. It woke me up, laying there. The first round woke you up? I'm assuming.

So was this man changing his story? I did not know she was shot until I turned the light on. You told me you said he stood in that f***ing doorway of my bedroom and shot my wife. Why do you tell me that? Did I say he? You just said you didn't see anybody. So who's he? If I said he, I meant nothing. And then doorway, why do you think it

was the doorway? There was an empty shotgun shell right in the doorway of my bedroom. Then Agent Woodford asked Chris again about what he heard Jan say that night. I'm sure she said, oh my God. Before she gets shot, you hear, oh my God. Yes. Okay. So you're awake. Yes.

Then you hear a gunshot. Yes. So if you're awake, you hear a gunshot, who shot her? No idea. Chris was not under arrest, of course, though he had to know he was under a microscope, so the answers he was giving? Was he just confused? What was going on here?

Coming up, his wife was bleeding to death. So how did Chris come away so clean? By laying her back down, do you have blood on your hands? I don't. No, I didn't have no blood on my hands. The only blood I knew I had was on my forearm. When Dateline continues. Senior agent Derek Woodford was all too familiar with the worst of human behavior.

Very aware, too, that he was talking to a grieving husband, but aware also that grieving spouses and relatives and friends are fully capable of the most determined mendacity when hiding culpability for the worst thing they've ever done. So he and his fellow investigators were certainly not finished with Chris Cruz and things that seemed to them odd. I noticed that throughout the 911 call, you never spoke to Jan. No words of encouragement, hang on, baby.

I said something when I went to get the phone. Do you remember what you said, Ben? Did you say, hang on, or... Have we played this part of this over and over? Well, the dispatcher does ask you, is she responding? You said, no, she's dead. I wasn't there. No, and I'm just asking you, how did you make that determination?

What did you see? What were you hearing? Was she making any noises at that point? Nothing. She's just laying there. And how could you tell that? When I looked back in the doorway, she was... So you did go back up after you were on 911 then? I think one time.

You guys have been married, what, 20 years? In October. You love your wife? Very much. Okay. And so you will look at her, and why do you think that she's gone? Why do you think that she died? Just laying there, moving, she was nothing. Is it possible that she died? Just laying there.

Moving, she was nothing. Is it possible that she could still have a heartbeat? What does that do? Because I didn't go back, I didn't. Chris said he was lying right beside his wife when she was shot. And as Woodford knew, Jan bled rapidly and profusely. Yet somehow, there was surprisingly little blood on Chris. It didn't make any sense to Woodford. We believe with the amount of blood at the scene, we felt there should have been blood on Cruz.

Especially because Chris said he wasn't just lying beside Jan, he actually laid her down flat on the bed after she was shot. How did you lay her down? I want to say my left hand was just kind of like up in her shoulder area on the back. By laying her back down, do you have blood on your hands? I don't. No, I didn't have no blood on my hands. The only blood I knew I had was on my forearm. No blood on his hands, but an odd mark on the front of his shirt. From how he describes being in bed with Jan, we were trying to figure out where that mark came from, because it didn't make sense from just by laying next to her in bed. More like something was imprinted on the shirt,

not like it was blood spatter or anything like that. Right, right. There's a hard object probably of some type. What we're getting at here is this is what we call a pattern stain. It's something that had blood on it that had some substance to it and it was placed up against you. Whether it was placed up or you leaned up against it, there's really nothing in that scene

that we're matching up with. It would be from Jan. What would have been on... You said you touched her very short, very light, and the only thing Jan had on was a T-shirt and shorts. So where would that have blood had come from? I don't know. I mean, I didn't realize I even had blood on my shirt

until you and I pointed it out. Despite what some people like to claim, it can be quite hard to tell if the stranger sitting in front of you is lying or telling the truth. But in this case, said the investigators, what Chris was telling them wasn't adding up. The 7-is tells a story. And what it looks like is it doesn't support what you're telling us. And it actually, it's the contrary. It would almost appear that...

I'm probably sure I did not do this. They hooked up Chris to a polygraph. The test revealed deception, they told him. And then Chris offered up a polygraph. The test revealed deception, they told him. And then Chris offered up a possible suspect. The name Lisa comes into my head. And I don't want to tell you that because Kay and I talked about it. That's part of the reason I haven't said it.

I don't want to steer anybody to believing anything, you know. Lisa? Who was Lisa? Coming up, a possible lead. We had gotten further information that she had maybe had some friction with Jan. And Jeremy says this was not a happy family. Bailey had told him they had mentioned the word divorce. People talk. And in a town like Brewster, everybody knew about the murder of Jan Cruz.

Everybody had opinions. And one the investigators heard about was that one of Jan's neighbors, a woman who lived just down the block, might have been nursing a grudge. We had gotten further information that she had maybe had some friction with Jan. This woman, Lisa, had apparently been upset about Jan shutting down the daycare center she'd been running because her son went there. She found out Jan was quitting daycare. And she said something about, I thought we were friends. You did this, you can't have the words to tell me, and blah, blah, you know, went on and on.

Kay thought it was said something about, you can't have the words to tell me and blah, blah, you know, went on and on. Kay thought it said something about, you guys have everything. And it wasn't like she and her husband didn't have access. They have a key to our house. They feed our dogs. So, of course, the investigators talked to Lisa. They found her at work. We attended her 40th birthday party last year. Okay, and that was for Janet's birthday? Janet's.

Anyway, the daycare incident was practically ancient history. Didn't make sense. She was not involved. They looked at other people, too, other possible suspects. We had interviewed over 40 people, some people multiple times. They even took a hard look at two of Chris's own brothers. But they, and all the others, were cleared. All but one.

Almost a year after the murder, investigators went back to Jeremy Majerus, the not-quite-boyfriend. Possible motive? As old as first love. Chris, Jeremy had told them, was really the one stopping him from dating Bailey. So the investigators had to consider

maybe Jeremy tried to take revenge on Chris and shot Jan by mistake. Jeremy had already admitted he sneaked in to see Bailey in her house many times that summer, unbeknownst to her parents. And he knew if they bought the Spider Lake Resort, they'd be taking Bailey hundreds of miles away from him. So where was he night of the murder? Initially, he had told investigators that he did not leave his house that night. But that was a lie. And then in further talking with Jeremy, he had admitted to us that he did leave the house to go check on Bailey and was concerned about her. His story? Bailey had texted him after she heard those two shots.

And there was indeed a text, one word, Jeremy. That alarmed him, he said. So he drove to Brewster, texting her along the way, asking her what was wrong. But when he arrived, Bailey Street was filled with emergency vehicles. So he returned home. Kind of something he should have told you right off the bat. Yes. And we had... How did he explain that? What he had indicated to us is that based on everything that had been going on at the crew's residence, his dad had told him that he thought he should stay

out of it and not get involved, thus not telling us that he left to go to Brewster that night after Bailey had texted him. Jeremy took a polygraph. He also showed deception. But not about where he was, Jeremy swore. No, the deception he told them was something else. He didn't tell them earlier, he said, because Bailey swore him to secrecy. It was about the state of her parents' marriage. Which was what? Which was that Bailey had told him they had mentioned the word divorce. Divorce? Chris never mentioned that. In fact, he said he and Jan got along well. When did the divorce word come up? Or did she say, like, a couple weeks before or months before?

Okay, so as they were talking, and they started from talking to arguing to arguing to fighting, and the divorce didn't come out until they were literally shouting at each other. And that's when Jan was crying, Chris is mad all the time. And he told them something else about Bailey. If she gets crying about her mom, she said her dad didn't do it, her dad didn't do it. Like she's trying to convince herself.

Yeah, that's the way it sounds. Because it's not like, you know, when someone says someone says no they didn't do it but she's been she says it over and over and over and over and over and over and over she'll say it like 10 times in a row crying that's because bailey had told him she was scared that he might have been involved she said jeremy i'm scared dad did something that could have got Mom killed. That's exactly what she said. Was he making all this up to protect himself? Or was this devastating evidence against Chris?

Coming up, Chris points his finger at Jeremy. Could you think of a reason why he would want to do that? Because Jan and I looked in the way for a relationship. But then, a discovery that points right at Chris. The gun that shot Jan was your 12-gauge. It was in the shop. Yeah. When Dateline continues.

The letters turned up a year and a half after the murder. It was Chris Cruz who found them, offered them up to investigators. Disturbing letters, said Chris, sent, purportedly, by Jeremy Majerus to investigators. Disturbing letters, said Chris, sent, purportedly, by Jeremy Majerus to Bailey. But Chris had an idea it might have been creepier than that. Given this phrase in one of them, love you, daughter. Chris had a concern that maybe Jeremy's dad had been writing some of these letters to Bailey. I followed up on that, and that was not the case.

They were simply Jeremy's love letters, said Woodford. Nothing more. But Chris was not satisfied. Might Jeremy be Jan's killer? He wondered. Could you think of a reason why he would want to do that? Or what his reason would be? Because Jan and I went in the way for a relationship.

And that's because of that initial conversation was, it was with Jeremy saying, you're not going to date Bailey at this point. Did Jeremy seem upset about that, or how was his reaction at that? I, no, I mean, that's the last time I really seen him. But did he himself really think Jeremy killed Jan? Could I say I think he did this? No.

No. And after four interviews with Jeremy, Agent Woodford came to the same conclusion. Lies or no, Jeremy didn't do it. That conclusion was bolstered by Jeremy's father, who said he was up watching TV with his son when Jan was shot 25 miles away. He saw that Jeremy text just after it came in. But if Jeremy was out of the picture, Chris wasn't. In fact, the day Chris turned in those Jeremy letters, Agent Woodford steered the conversation back

to a question he had not been able to resolve. I'm trying to put you, you're in bed with Jan, I'm trying to put you there because a lot of the evidence just looks like you weren't in bed. You didn't have any blood on your legs or anything on your shorts. And I'm wondering why that was the case. The implication was impossible to miss, especially after they found the murder weapon in Chris's own construction company shop a minute's drive from the house. Bailey, remember,

had said she heard gunshots, quote, at like 2.30. And Chris called 911 at 2.39. Was nine minutes enough time to stash the gun? I actually drove that at speed limit to the shop and back. And taking account it would take a minute to go into the shop it was only three minutes woodford broke the gun news to chris i'm trying to uh figure out you know why that is i mean it's the gun that the gun that shot jan was your 12-gauge. It was in the shop. Yeah. I don't know that I can believe that. Well, the reason I say that is we obviously do forensic testing on the gun and didn't remember the shells that were found. Any ideas on that?

You got my mind racing. But his mind made out of race for long. Even though they were clearly suspicious of him, they still had more investigating to do. So Chris was free to go. And nothing happened for months, for years. The whole family tried to let it go as they settled into the hard business of learning to live without Jan

and without knowing who killed her, except that they were sure it wasn't Chris. There's nothing to think that Chris had any involvement in this. Nobody could fake anything that much and not slip up. What's more, they all said they never saw Chris get violent or be mean to Jan, ever. I mean, they truly loved each other, and he never had a harsh word about Jan, ever. And the same with Jan towards Chris. So maybe they just never know who killed Jan.

Did you have an expectation that this was just going to go away and they'd never find out who did it? We were emotionally set that this, no one would be brought to justice in this world. It'd have to be by God and that they'd have to answer to. It wouldn't happen here. And then in March 2019, three and a half years after the murder, something did happen. The county attorney's office decided to take the case to a grand jury, and that grand jury indicted Chris Cruz for first-degree murder. His family's utter dismay and insult to injury. They could have simply asked him to come down to the police station and arrested him there, but they made a big scene. It was actually about a block from where I work,

you know, guns drawn, and it was just totally blown. I mean, I didn't understand that at all. Once he got arrested, I mean, we all came together as a family and figured out what we had to do to help get an attorney lined up. That would be Tom Hagen and his associate Stephen Groschen. This would be their first ever first-degree murder trial. I got a call, I believe, on a Friday night late. Chris just got arrested. He didn't know what was going on. He didn't understand how this happened. And they couldn't understand it either. They went through the evidence, looking for an answer, but couldn't find one. Painstakingly going through the videos, painstakingly going through the interviews. When he spoke to law enforcement, he seemed to be, to me, very truthful and just trying to be

extremely helpful. And his stories was fairly consistent all the way throughout. But Assistant County Attorney Braden Hoford said Chris was not only not consistent, there were serious problems with the stories he told. The thing that I remember sticking out to me the most upon watching the version of events as described by Mr. Cruz was the difficulty that I was having making sense of exactly exactly how this would have occurred without him seeing or being able to offer any description of the supposed perpetrator. So in other words, did his stories make sense? You know, as a prosecutor, you always think about how it's going to make sense to a jury. And it's not necessarily important what I think or even what the investigator thinks, but what is the average person in Nobles County going to think about this? The impression I walked

away with it was that I didn't believe it would make a lot of sense to the average person in Nobles County. Would it? A jury of those average people was impaneled in late January 2020. But what's an average person anyway? Can you ever really know what average people will do? Coming up, the prosecution's case. The word divorce being thrown around. Either he's killed by the first shotgun shotgun blast or he's covered in blood, and Mr. Cruz was neither. This was clearly a premeditated murder. They were a confident pair, the lawyers who came to defend Chris Cruz,

despite never before defending anyone charged with first-degree murder. Tom Hagen and Stephen Groschen. Their biggest objection to the state's case? Two words, they said. Tunnel vision. From the beginning, they had one suspect. It was Chris. I don't think that they looked any further. Besides, they said, Chris was not so inconsistent during his many hours of police interviews. In my opinion, the foundation of what took place remained the same. It was approximately the same story. He

was in bed. He heard a shot, he popped up. And from there, then, he went and grabbed his phone. That portion never changed. And of course, anyone's story would change a little, given... From a dead sleep, you get woken up by gunshots, and you look over and you see your wife is bleeding. I think it's reasonable to believe the fact that you're not going to remember everything clearly. I mean, the memory is a, it's an amazing thing,

but I think one thing that everybody's found out is that it doesn't remember everything the same every time you talk about it. How do you explain how he didn't hear or see or find any evidence of an intruder in the house? It's a small home, and it wouldn't take somebody, you know, more than just a second to get out of that house and to hop in the car and to take off. Even the forensics were off, they said. Like the string that was put up to calculate the path of the first bullet. If you saw the photograph that actually has a dip in the string. They didn't pull the string taut

when they were doing the measurements. Which, to the defense expert, meant this. There's room in the bed for two people in that first shot to miss. Is there a ton of room? No. Be upfront about that. But there was room for the shot to miss him.

And that's the testimony we brought out at trial. Why would he not have had more blood on him? My opinion is after he heard the shots, he got out of the bed fairly quickly. And as for Chris hearing only one shot when there were two? He thinks that first shot's the one that woke him up. He doesn't recall hearing it, you know, but he certainly recalls hearing that second shot. When he called 911, why didn't he go back and attend to his wife and see how she was and try to do CPR? She was probably alive for a few minutes. And I think that's one of his regrets, is that he didn't go back and do more.

But I think his attention turned quickly to his daughter who was downstairs and trying to figure out if anybody's in the house to make sure his daughter's fine. And I think he realized fairly quickly with all the blood that it was a fatal wound. Chris's lawyers fought the evidence that Chris's own shotgun was the murder weapon. They emphasized the state expert first thought it wasn't before concluding after more tests that it definitely was. But that seemed pretty subjective, they told the jury. Our expert, who was very credentialed, had reviewed the evidence. He concluded the answer was inconclusive, meaning you can't say this isn't the gun. You can't say this is the gun.

And the lawyers strongly challenged the prosecutor's claim that after shooting Jan, Chris quickly drove the gun to his shop before calling 911. They were critical of the investigators, saying they should have gone back to Bailey to confirm the time she said she heard the shotgun blasts. What Bailey stated was it happened around approximately 2.30. Law enforcement never cleaned up what time it took place. They never came back and said,

was it closer to 2.30, was it closer to 2.40? During the trial, four and a half years after the shooting, under cross-examination by her father's lawyer, Bailey agreed she probably heard those shots closer to 2.38 a.m. Remember, Chris's 911 call was at 2.39. So there's really not this eight to nine minute block. It was the timeline, the timeline, the timeline. I mean, it was tight. And really, was the resort at Spider Lake such a huge issue, such a motive? Why would you murder someone you were

going to start a resort with? Now he's going to start the resort by himself? It never, to me, was a sound motive of what took place, because the reality of it was, is he needed Jan to run the resort with him. Of course, they didn't have to present a possible alternate suspect, but they did. There's another person here that could have done this, and it's Jeremy Majerus. Jeremy Majerus, who by the time of the trial was still with Bailey, was her boyfriend.

And yet the defense went there, said maybe Jeremy did it. Why would Jeremy want to kill Jan? Part of the motive would have been Bailey leaving town and moving up north for the cabin, and then she would have less interaction with Jeremy. And I'll be the first to tell you, do I think it's a strong motive? No, I don't. Does it make more sense than Chris's? In some ways, it actually does. Once more, Jeremy was on the record lying to investigators.

His story changed. It was never consistent. It never made sense. And that's the part that I think was the big red flag for us. Jeremy eventually admitted he did drive to Brewster after the shooting, he said, after Bailey texted him. But what if he actually got there earlier, suggested the defense attorneys, got in through that broken basement window, ran upstairs, aimed to kill Chris, but missed and hit Jan before running out the back door. The theory, however, was problematic.

Police had looked hard at Jeremy and ruled him out. And Bailey didn't think Jeremy did it either. That's correct. That must have been extremely awkward. She was in a bad predicament either way. On one hand, she has her father up for murder. And the other hand, you have us lawyers saying, you know, there's as much evidence or more evidence

that Jeremy committed this murder than your dad did. And she was in a no-win situation. What was an attentive jury to think about that? Coming up, the verdict. It wasn't easy. One guy was not going to give up, and the judge said, there is no hung jury. You will keep at this until you're done. And Chris Cruz speaks.

I miss everything. I miss your smile and the sound of your voice. The courtroom was crowded. I sat through every day of that trial. Every available seat filled, mainly by family and friends of the victim, and all were here to support the man accused of killing her. Would it make a difference? At 3.10 p.m. on the ninth day of the trial, the jury left the courtroom.

Alex McGraw was the foreperson. Throughout the whole trial, to see the support from Jan's side of the family for Chris was very telling. And we found out that he lived with Jan's side of the family for Chris was very telling. And we found out that he lived with Jan's parents for a full year after this happened. So if that doesn't speak volumes, I don't know what does. Right away, Alex took a poll.

I think there was like five or six of us right away that were not guilty. And there was two or three undecideds and the rest were firm that he did it, that he was guilty. So then, line by line, they debated the evidence. Even performed a sort of reenactment, said juror Amber Engelkes. Minus the actual bullets, of course. We actually reenacted the scene on the tables.

We pushed them all together, and we took the pillows, and we had two people on the tables. We pushed them all together and we took the pillows and we had two people on the bed. But after hours of talk and debate, it looked like it was going to be a hung jury. One guy was not going to give up and the judge said, there is no hung jury. You will keep at this until you're done.

It went quickly after that. And finally, end of the second day, they re-entered the courtroom. And that was nerve-wracking. We prayed for the best, and we knew the truth, that it wasn't Chris. And the jury found Chris Cruz not guilty. I was actually kind of surprised at how much they were lacking in foolproof evidence. When they said not guilty? I remember Vonnie like squealing. It was absolutely wonderful because they just, I mean we were all just cheering and hugging each other.

Well the weight of the world was off my shoulders. I think I hugged everybody in that courtroom before I got out of there. Including the man from whom the clouds were suddenly lifted, Chris Cruz. You know, you can't... I don't know how to put that into words. It's hard finding words for things sometimes. Yeah. What have the last five years been like for you? It's been a real, real five years.

It's unimaginable. And now, finally, he could face his family and the world as an innocent man vindicated. Except, after the verdict, the county attorney issued a statement saying, while they respected the jury's verdict, they firmly believed after a long and thorough investigation that Chris did indeed kill his wife. As of this point, there are no other suspects and there are no other leads in the investigation of Jan's murder. Not even Bailey's boyfriend, Jeremy Majerus?

Just no, said the prosecutor. He is someone who was concerned about confessing to texting while driving. Trying to make Jeremy Majerus the perpetrator here is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Even the defense attorney who pointed the finger at Jeremy, didn't hear with us. I'm not going to insinuate or say that, you know, Jeremy did this.

I mean, I'm not going to do that. So where does it all leave Chris Cruz? Not in a very good place. I'm frustrated. These days I'm mad now. The way this was handled. It's upsetting to hear the prosecutors can say, the jury was wrong, they made the wrong decision.

Chris is the guy. I don't know how they can say that. I don't feel they put any effort into this. So now in the family, a question hangs in the air like a bad smell. I would like to talk to Jeremy, yeah. Would you ask him what would you say to him? Like, know why he said the stuff about me that he did. Yeah, I got lots of questions.

Chris recently told us that he and the family, quote, still believe Jan's murder deserves further investigation, and as of today, law enforcement still has the case closed. The family has been and will continue to seek justice for Jan. Jan, whom they all remember lovingly, even as they cannot help but be angry at the people who accused Chris of killing her. My sister loved her husband, and we should never have had to go through that trial, ever.

There was no grounds for that. And had they done their job and looked at the facts in front of them, we would have never been in that courtroom for that reason. To make matters worse. To put us all through this. How this could be. Now, there are only memories. I miss everything.

I miss watching her get ready for work in the morning. I miss my have a good day kiss and hey honey when I come home from work I miss her smile and the sound of her voice.

Jan was the best. And Spider Lake Resort that magical place they'd hoped to own someday. Did you ever go back to Spider Lake Resort, that magical place they'd hoped to own someday. Did you ever go back to Spider Lake? Yeah. I go back every year, yeah. We take our vacation in June. I go back in September.

Jan's birthday is the 24th of September. She loved her birthday. And so, in a way, he still takes her with him. Out here on Spider Lake. That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Friday at 9, 8 Central. And, of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News. Good night.