Going West: True Crime - Erin Corwin // 69

Episode Date: May 13, 2020

In 2014, a young, pregnant wife went missing in the desert after leaving her California home to scout hiking trails. A full day passed before she was reported missing, but police began their search for her immediately. As they questioned the people in her circle, a rabbit hole of secrets was exposed. This is the murder of Erin Corwin. CASE SOURCES https://nypost.com/2019/04/02/the-twisted-love-triangle-that-led-to-the-killing-of-a-marines-wife/ https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/crime_courts/2014/07/22/erin-corwin-missing-marine-wife-timeline/13008419/ https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/tag/erin-corwin/ https://www.thedailytimes.com/news/erin-corwin-with-husband-jonathan-corwin/image_3b746ac8-271a-11e4-acc0-001a4bcf887a.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-ncis-search-for-missing-marine-wife-erin-corwin-like-finding-a-needle-in-a-thousand-haystacks/ http://www.hidesertstar.com/news/article_3ca45c40-9bfe-11e6-abc7-47e53d6e4baa.html https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/crime_courts/2014/07/22/erin-corwin-missing-marine-wife-timeline/13008419/ http://erincorwinmurdertrial.blogspot.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Creme fans? I'm your host Teeeth and I'm your other host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. We are live in our new house in Oregon. It's true, we've moved back to Oregon, and we're going to turn our attic into our new studio, but we're not there yet, so this is our little temporary studio we're dealing with today. Right, so if it sounds a little bit echoey, just know that we are going to get that fixed in like the next week. Today we've got a very just roller coaster ride of a story and this is probably the longest notes I've done may he be ever. Yeah she wrote a lot of pages of notes so this might be a really long episode for you guys. In the beginning of the story it's kind of like okay this sounds like it might just be a regular story and there's

so many twists and turns buckle up guys up guys. Alright guys, so Aaron Corwin, this beautiful young mother to be just disappeared from one day to the next. Right before her mother came to visit her, is there a break in the case? Corwin, who is pregnant at the time of her disappearance, left her home in 29 Palms, California on June 28th, and told her husband she was going to Joshua Tree National Park. The search continues for the missing marine wife who's also three months pregnant. And murder mystery involving a pregnant marine wife has been solved with the arrest of this man. This is a mind shaft expert preparing to

go down and get her body out of a 140 foot mind shaft. Mindshaft. Erin was born on July 15th, 1994 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and she was immediately put into the foster system. After three years with this family, they officially adopted her, and this is when she became Erin Hevelin, and her new parents were Lori and William Hevelin. She even had six older siblings in this family, so she was very much surrounded by love. Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is a small town of about 30,000 people just outside of the city of Knoxville, and it's actually known as one of the safest towns in all of Tennessee.

Since Aaron grew up being pretty quiet and bashful, but very sweet, she related a lot to animals, especially horses, those were her favorite. So she began spending her days at the East Tennessee riding club where she learned how to ride horses and that really became her home away from home. And this also really helped her kind of break out of her shell. Another place Aaron spent a lot of her upbringing was church because the Hevelins were very religious. As Aaron entered her teen years, she spent more and more time at the barn and even got two horses herself. When she was 16, she started working at the barn to make some extra money, and then the following year she got a job working at the local tractor supply store as a cashier.

Back in 5th grade, Aaron met a boy named Jonathan Corwin at the horse barn, and as they grew up they got closer and closer, and their friendship blossomed into a romantic relationship when Aaron was 16 and John was 17. So he was a full year older than her. And when Aaron was about 17 years old and was just graduating high school, John asked Aaron to marry him after putting a ring on her sprite can, which was her favorite soda, and she very enthusiastically accepted his offer. Yeah, I think that he put the straw in the sprite and then put the ring on top of it like over the straw and then handed it to her.

She liked it. Erin was head over heels in love with John, but he was headed into boot camp because he was joining the Marines. So he proposed to her the night after graduation right before he left for a two month long bootcamp. And Aaron continued to post on Facebook about her excitement every time she received a letter from John, and every time that she wrote letters back, they would always be multiple pages long.

So I read one Facebook post where she really excitedly said that she wrote him a five-page letter. And on Facebook, she also would count down the days and weeks until John was done with boot camp so they could start their lives together. And Aaron's parents were really happy with this news about their engagement, because they had known John for years, and they just thought that he was a really good kid. But they worried about her being alone and away from him all the time since he was joining the Marines.

You know, they were a bit worried about how that would affect the relationship him being gone all the time. But later that year, in November 2012, when Aaron was 18 years old, she and John attended a Marine Corps ball and just hours after it started, they fled to Las Vegas to a lope. You know, they were very young. She was 18. He was 19, but they knew that they wanted to be together, so they want for it.

So it's now late 2012, and Aaron and John are married. Soon after the two of them got married, they decided to move across the country to 29 palms, California, which is where John's marine combat base was. And Aaron was excited about this because she'd be able to be close to John and since they were living at the base, she could make friends with other wives who also had husbands in the military and knew kind of what she was going through. But John still didn't come home every day. He would sometimes have to stay out in the desert for extended periods of time, sometimes many weeks. So although they were really close by, there was a lot of absence there, which was to be expected. And 29 palms for those of you who don't know is located in San Bernardino

County and is right next to Joshua Tree, so it's out there in the desert. So it's also a very remote place to live, where there's just miles and miles of desert and national parks around you. So it's a very tight-knit community, especially on the base. Erin started making friends with the local horse rescue owner named Isabel Megley. One day, Erin went over to the White Horse Rescue,

looking for a horse that she could ride and kind of see if she could help around the rescue with anything, because she wasn't working, so, and she loved horses, so she kind of just needed something to do. And the horses really grew fond of her, and vice versa. And that's when Aaron started meeting more locals, including a man named Chris Lee, who was 25 years old, and his wife Nicole. They had moved to 29 palms from Alaska and were Aaron and John's next door neighbors in their apartment building.

Chris had also been in the Marines, so Chris and John connected on that level. And Chris and Nicole even had a five year old daughter named Liberty, who Aaron loves spending time with. Especially because Liberty also loved horses, so they would all go to Isabelle's ranch and play together, and the adults also really love to barbecue and just kinda hang out, so Jon and Erin seemed to be making some friends. All Erin really wanted at this time was to have a happy marriage with Jon and eventually raise a family.

She wanted to be a state-home mom and have that all- kind of white-pick-it-fence sort of life. So she and John started trying for a baby right away. And in late 2013, she became pregnant at the age of 19, and she and John were incredibly happy. But shortly after figuring out that she was pregnant, in early 2014, Aaron suffered a miscarriage, and this was incredibly hard on both of them, but especially Erin, of course. She wanted to be a mom so bad and she was still very young, so she didn't necessarily

have the coping skills to deal with this kind of grief, as her mother Lori explained. But a few months after the miscarriage, on June 22, 2014, Erin found out that she was pregnant again. Although she and John were very excited, a big part of them was pretty worried that Erin would miscarry again, so they sort of walked on pins and needles. They also decided to refrain from sharing the news with anyone just to be safe. Especially since Erin's mom was planning to visit 29 palms just a couple weeks later, so she wanted to save the news for her trip to California. On Saturday, June 28, 2014, so about six days later, Aaron woke up with John and started

getting ready for the day. She then told him that she was going out to scout hiking trails in Joshua Tree for when her mother was coming to visit, and she left the house at around 7am and John kind of rolled over and went back to sleep. Aaron didn't give John a time that she would be back, but he just expected that she would return by the early afternoon. But as the day turned into night, she still wasn't home. Throughout the day, John texted her over 50 times and he didn't receive an answer for any

of these texts. That night, John went to sleep, and when the next morning came and he noticed Aaron still was not home, he called Aaron's mom to see if she had heard from her daughter. Laurie immediately became incredibly worried because she hadn't heard anything from her, but she knew that Aaron didn't have a very good sense of direction. So she automatically assumed that the most likely scenario was that Aaron had gotten lost and was out there in the desert somewhere alone and scared. And when John got off the phone with Laurie, he called 911 to report Aaron missing. And this is a little suspicious off the bat.

You and your new and now pregnant wife have been living in this desert community for just around seven months, and she goes out on her own to look for hiking trails and nightfall comes and you fall asleep without knowing where your wife is. And then you wait a whole 24 hours to call the police. Especially since she said she was going out on the trails in the end of June, when you

would assume in the desert the temperatures are very high. So she could have run out of water and passed out or encountered a wild animal or a dangerous person, and you wait till the next morning to call her mom and call police, kind of sketchy. And police felt the same way. They thought it was very strange that he waited an entire day. And because of this, police also began questioning Aaron and John's marriage. So one of the first things the detective did was call Laurie Aaron's mom and ask her if their relationship was rocky and if she thought Aaron wasn't looking for hiking trails at all that day. And that maybe she just used that as an excuse to get out of town and

drive back to Tennessee. But, Lori didn't think that that was the case at all. She really felt that Aaron was just lost and just wanted the police to go out there and look for her. John got together with some of his marine friends that day and started going around the desert looking for Aaron, but they didn't find any trace of her. Which makes sense because she really could have been anywhere. It's hundreds of thousands of acres of desert, so they would not have an easy time searching

for her because of that. I mean, she virtually could have been anywhere. All she said was she was going to Joshua Tree National Park. So I mean, since Aaron had taken her car, they at least hoped to find that and trace her movements from there. So, police brought John in for questioning, because not only was he likely the last person to see Aaron, but he was the husband. John was very calm, and he's that way in interviews too, which can kind of come off as strange,

especially since the topic of discussion, was his missing pregnant wife. But he was also being very cooperative and even took a polygraph test and passed. But as we know, passing a polygraph doesn't always mean everything. So police tried to look for other ways they could rule him out, and they discovered that the location of his cell phone was on the base all day, whereas Aaron's wasn't. So this led them to believe that Aaron and John were in different places the day she went missing. Therefore, he probably wasn't involved in whatever happened to her. Unless he had left his phone at the base to throw investigators off.

Which is always possible, of course. And but I mean at the same time, at this point in the story, they're still just hoping that she simply got lost while hiking and was still alive. So not too much reason to be suspicious of John anyway, because there's really no proof of how he'll play or anything like that. Right, there's no indication that she was murdered. Exactly. Investigators also asked John why he waited 24 hours to call police and report his wife missing, and he stated that he thought that that was just the law. He supposedly didn't think he could

call before 24 hours had passed. But like we said, John was a very calm person, and this actually bothered Aaron a lot of the time. He didn't have a lot of passion in his personality. He acted kind of unbothered and indifferent in almost every situation. And Aaron was very thoughtful and kind and loving, so their personalities could sometimes clash. But Aaron mostly just wondered if John really even cared about her, or was madly in love with her, because he really just didn't show it. This shook up the marriage a bit, and it was brought up in John's interrogation with

police. They also had a lot of money troubles, since Aaron didn't work, all the money came from John, but even he didn't make very much. So they were pretty much barely scraping by, but even so, Aaron liked to buy things and she was very bored most of the time. So she racked up some high credit card bills. And John had to take the card away from her, which really upset her as well. So on the outside, this couple may look like a sweet and loving pair, but they definitely had their fair share of issues.

And this only gave police ideas of motive. On June 30, 2014, so one day after Aaron was reported missing, her blue Toyota Corolla was found outside the rear entrance of the Marine Corps combat center. Someone had reported the car to police after having seen it there two days in a row, so it struck the person as suspicious enough to call 911. There was a single set of footprints found in the dirt next to her car that were found next to some tire tracks, which indicated to police that Erin had likely gotten into someone else's car. And her car was found very far away from the Joshua Tree National Park's entrance, which was where she would have

gone to look for hiking trails. So finding her car that far off was very strange to police. Laurie was close with her daughter, Erin. But there were definitely things that Erin kept from her, which you can pretty much expect in many mother-daughter relationships. Erin had a best friend who she told absolutely everything to, and her name is Jesse. Jesse lived back in Tennessee, but they stayed very close even after John and Aaron's move, so Jesse was pretty up to date. When she found out that Aaron was missing, she told Lori that

the last she had heard from Aaron, she was going out to the desert with someone named Chris Lee. Now that police had located Aaron's car and two days had passed, they were worried about where she would be. But when Laurie told them that she was apparently with a young man named Chris Lee the day she disappeared, they knew exactly where to start looking. So we mentioned Chris Lee a bit earlier, he's the next door neighbor with the wife and daughter. Well, apparently he and Aaron were becoming more than just new friends. And this was very obvious to anyone who was around them. Even when they would hang out with John and Nicole as a group, they spent a lot of time

talking to each other. Even Isabel, who remember is the owner of the horse rescue, and she's friends with this whole group, noticed this. And she went straight to Nicole because she thought it was really strange. But Nicole truly felt like they were just friends. Uh oh. Trouble is a ruin. Apparently, Erin felt like she could confide in Chris, and that's how the relationship really took off. Since John was dismissive and stoic, she would vent to Chris about her daily troubles, and he really listened to her. And she didn't feel like she could get that from her husband.

He was about five years older than John, and maybe more emotionally mature, or seemed to be, than him, so that might have also had something to do with it. Chris supposedly felt the same way. He had a lot of trauma after fighting in Afghanistan and confided his own fears and troubles to Aaron. As the two got closer, Nicole, Chris's wife, changed her mind and became convinced that her husband was having an affair with Aaron. So she went to John and told him about all of it, and he was very upset, yet he was also forgiving. He was willing to look past the whole affair if he knew it was over, and by all accounts it was. So the four of them started hanging out again, but with a little tension in the air. And of course this affected John and Chris' relationship, but it kind of takes a lot to

say, okay, I understand that you had an affair. If it's over, let's get past this, and we can all be friends and you're still my wife. You know, the fact that he didn't say, well over or something. That's a very, very, very tough thing to do. Especially, I mean, going back to hanging out with that couple, you know, I just feel like,

I feel like that would be very, very hard to do. I agree, and I don't know just the fact that he must have really loved her, even though he didn't really show it because of his very stoic personality. You know, and if you watch interviews of him, if you Google them or watch them on YouTube, you'll see he's very, very calm. So I could definitely understand how she would have trouble getting that love and passion out of him, but apparently it was there.

And I also kind of wonder what the dynamic was as far as like the two couples beginning to hang out again after this, because I'm wondering like whose idea it was. Did John say, okay, well, he had an affair, it's cool, like we can go back to hanging out with him, or was it Aaron's idea because she still kind of had You know some sort of feelings for Chris. I just wonder how that dynamic went Well, I think since they were still so new to this area and these were really the only other friends that they had They were friends with a couple other people in the apartment building and obviously John had some marine friends But these were the people that they hung out with

the majority of the time. And even though they weren't the best of friends because they were still just getting to know each other, I think John probably just didn't want this little affair to ruin their new life in 29 palms. I've just got to say, I think John is a pretty level-headed guy. Yeah, I agree. So once the police became aware of this whole affair situation,

they wondered if John snapped and did something to Aaron since she had been unfaithful. But when he was asked about this, he simply said that they had worked it out, and there was apparently no animosity in he and Aaron's relationship, nor he and Chris's friendship. But since Aaron had plans to see Chris the day she disappeared, police then began to believe that the affair was still ongoing, but behind Nicole

and John's backs. Police then started talking to Jesse, remember who is Aaron's best friend back in Tennessee, to see what she had to say about the whole thing because if anyone was going to know, it was Jesse. So Jesse said that she spoke with Aaron pretty much every day, and that Aaron often complained about her marriage with John, and she would say that she didn't know if she wanted to be with him anymore, things like that. Especially once she started getting attention and care from Chris, she developed real feelings for him. And she even told Jesse that she planned to leave John and Mary Chris Lee.

Ugh, this is just getting even more complicated. And Chris is also married, so it's like trauma. Yeah, it's a little much, there's a little too much going on here. So obviously the affair is very much not over. Jesse told police that Aaron wasn't at all the type of person who would have an affair, so the whole thing was really confusing to Jesse. But she wanted her friend to be happy, so she supported her. Jesse also told police that Aaron believed that she was bearing Chris's child and not

Johns, so kids even more complicated here. And that Aaron had even told Chris that she thought it was his, and Chris was excited and wanted to tell everyone, or so he told Aaron. But little did Aaron know, he was planning to move back to Alaska with his wife and daughter and build their family there instead of staying in California. Please found this out when they talked to Isabel. She told them that Chris and his wife and daughter had actually just moved in with her while they were getting

ready to move back to Alaska since Chris had just been discharged from the Marine Corps. And this was just four days after Aaron went missing. And he's moving away? That kind of seems a little suspicious to me. Oh yeah, and get this. The day before she went missing, Erin texted Jesse about a secret trip Chris wanted to take her on the following day to celebrate her pregnancy. Secret trip. Secret trip the day she goes missing. One text she sent to Jesse said, quote, the location is only half the surprise. He said he's honestly not sure how I'm going to react." Then Jesse sent her a bunch of emojis including an engagement

ring and Aaron responded, maybe… Exclamation point, Exclamation point? Seriously, I don't know why he would drag me to a very special place for a big dumb surprise. It apparently takes two hours just to get there, a long, slow drive, good talking time though. Detectives went to talk to Chris about this special trip, and he told them that he hadn't seen Aaron that day at all. He even made it seem like he didn't really know her. When police were authorized search warrants to search his apartment in car, they found 10 shell casings for a 40 caliber gun in his Jeep. He told police that they were from hunting. Police also confronted John about the fact that it was believed that Aaron's baby wasn't actually his, and he had absolutely no idea.

He thought the affair was completely over, and this news devastated him. With everything that was going on, John wasn't in a good headspace, and some of his fellow marines felt suspicious about him since he was involved in the case. So he was considered mentally unstable at that time, and was put on leave. And he was obviously going through a lot. I mean his wife is missing so he's out there looking for her and worrying about her. And then he finds out their baby might not actually be his and that she was still having an affair behind his back. And now his colleagues think he's a killer or something. I mean that must have been really rough. But that's the shitty part is that instead

of people understanding that maybe he's just going through a bad time, they're more so turning this against him and being like, well, because he seems unstable, he's likely to be a killer. Like, he'd likely killed his wife. And I just think that that's kind of bullshit. A lot of his close friends that were Marines

and everybody else in his life knew that that wasn't something that he would ever do or be capable of doing. But a lot of the other Marines on the base who knew of him or kind of knew him in passing but didn't know his character were like, oh, maybe he's a killer. I think it was kind of like a gossipy thing. Maybe nothing else was going on in 29 palms at that time. Yeah, I mean, maybe that was just the biggest headline that was going on in that desert town. Especially since it was a small community, I imagine nothing of this caliber had ever happened to any of these people. When police brought Chris down to the station and did a full interrogation, Chris opened up about his relationship with Aaron. He told him that they were just friends, who had never had sex, and that he really just confided in her about his time in Afghanistan, and that was it.

They just kind of bonded over their depression. And the reason he hadn't mentioned this before is because he didn't think it was relevant. He then went to tell police that Aaron also confided in him that John was physically abusive towards her. Meanwhile, there was no evidence of that being true, at all. It appears that this was his way of pointing the finger at somebody else. Especially because of his little trail of lies that he's already given us. You know, he originally said he didn't even know Aaron and only crossed paths with her on the base and waived, you know. He made it seem really casual.

And then he comes out and says, oh, you know, we were kind of having an affair, but there's no touching. When we know there was because of the text from Aaron to Jesse. So how can we trust anything this guy's saying? Yeah, exactly. And it's not like Jesse's gonna go making this shit up, you know? Well, especially because we have the actual text proof and all of Aaron's close friends and John's close friends Would know if any kind of abuse was happening and they were all like, uh, no

And he also told police that they thought about running away together But didn't because he didn't want his daughter to have a broken home He also said that when his wife Nicole found out about the affair, he completely ended things with Aaron. And Chris says that he thinks that Aaron made up the whole special trip thing to Jesse because she wasn't over the fact that they had broken up. So now Chris is saying, oh, that text was a lie that didn't happen. So when the investigator asked him what exactly he did that day saying, oh, that text was a lie that didn't happen. So when the

investigator asked him what exactly he did that day then, then day that she disappeared, he said he had gone out to Joshua Tree National Park to shoot coyotes. He then told a story about a man who he thought was shooting at him that day. He described the whole situation about this creepy man who randomly fired four shots at him and that it scared him and he jumped back in his car and Ended up getting lost and then he didn't get home until 3.30 because he was lost because of this random guy shooting him in the desert Well, and also it makes me wonder if he was trying to say oh well There was some crazy guy out in the desert shooting his gun at people.

So maybe he's the one that killed Aaron or something. Exactly. He's trying to put together this wild little story and putting it into this interrogation so casually to make it seem like there's a gunman on the loose in the area. But even the investigator thought the story was totally bogus. He's just a really big deflector. Exactly.

So first, oh, first of all, John's abusive, and now there's a gunman in the desert. Like he's such a deflector. So Detective Hanky started to give Chris some details about what they knew, including the fact that they had found Aaron's car. And in the interrogation video, you can see his demeanor kind of change, and his reactions get kind of strange. His response to them finding her car was very suspicious. Quote, oh did you?

Okay. The detectives started noticing that Chris was tensing up, so he ran with that and told Chris casually, her tire tracks are there, and your tire tracks drove over hers, showing that you met her there, which was by the way not at all confirmed. He just wanted to see if Chris would say anything to that. So Chris then tells the investigator that, yes, he did see her car that day, but he didn't see her car that day, but he didn't see her. And this is so funny, especially in the video because he's just really grasping at straws to continue lying.

He said that he was worried that if he told them that he saw her car that day, they would have assumed he did something. So he's just backpedaling so hard. And I'm sure these investigators are just honestly probably cracking up inside watching this guy squirm. Exactly. And because this detective Henke, he obviously that's what they do. They kind of say, oh, we found this evidence against you. Even if it's a lie, just to see if the person they're interviewing will confess. And it totally worked because they didn't know that those were Chris's tire tracks at all. He was just going out on a limb.

And then Chris says, oh, well, yeah, I saw her, but I just didn't wanna say anything because I didn't wanna look suspicious. What? I also don't know if that's a real legal interrogation tactic. I'm pretty sure that you're not supposed to do that as an investigator. You're not supposed to make up some story because then that could be dismissed in court. Well, I don't even know if they were really trying to use that specifically against him.

I think they were just hoping that it would lead to a confession and lead to a voluntary confession on Chris' behalf. I guess that kind of makes sense. And another super crazy moment in this interview was what happened next. When the detective asked Chris if he had made any calls that day. And Chris said, quote, I didn't because I literally laughed the ability to because of the area we were in. The area we were in.

Let's say that one more time. The area we were in. The area we were in. Let's say that one more time. The area we were in. And Chris had previously told police numerous times that he was out alone that day, and he even told that to Detective Hanky multiple times during this interrogation. And now he's caught on video saying, we. Now the detectives felt a lot more confident that Chris was hiding something. And after a nine hour interrogation, he still wasn't cracking. So they let him go for the time being because at this point, they still didn't know where Aaron was or what happened to her. So they didn't know exactly what they were looking for in Chris.

But when the detective drove him home, he noticed Chris asked him a lot of strange questions, including, how good are you at your job, and how many bodies have you not found in the desert? And this was obviously very unsettling to Detective Hanky. And also really fucking stupid of Chris. Yeah, imagine literally asking a detective who thinks you're suspicious of something. How many bodies have you not found in the desert? Ugh, God.

The question doesn't even make sense. I don't know because I haven't found them. What do you mean how many of we not found? Since Chris was staying at Isabelle's ranch, police also got a warrant to search her property as well as a white Ford truck which also belonged to Chris. They found a 22 caliber rifle in the house after Nicole had told them that Chris had been hiding it there. It was in Isabel's closet. Which Isabel had no idea about because she had a house rule and that was no guns. So it definitely wasn't hers and it was

Chris's. And they also found a potato launcher which is basically a small cannon in his truck. And these are illegal devices so they arrested him on suspicion of possessing a destructive device. He was released on bail just two days later. And about a week after this, it was Aaron's 20th birthday, and they still had no idea where she was. And I, just a little story time here, and I've actually had a potato launcher before when I was a kid. Please, please. Right, yeah, exactly. Me and my dad made one together, but it just seems as if they're just like trying to nail him for any small thing that they can just be able to interrogate him more,

which I think is smart because honestly it's a potato launcher. It's probably not that big of a deal, but they're like, let's hollum in. Oh yeah, they just wanted to get him for something and hoping that he would confess to the other thing that they want to know. But what even does a potato launcher do? It launches potatoes. I know, but why? Um, because it's fun. Why? It's so weird that that's illegal though.

I did look it up and it said because it's technically a small cannon, so it's an explosive little machine. Oh, totally. Yeah, and me and my dad made one as kind of like a little like science project that we did together. And, you know, it's not like we're going around like shooting potatoes at cars or anything, Yeah, and me and my dad made one as kind of like a little like science project that we did together and You know, it's not like we're going around like shooting shooting potatoes at cars or anything But we would take it out into a field and shoot it off. Right right. I wonder what Chris used his for shooting potatoes at coyotes I'm assuming honestly you're probably right

So the community as well as Aaron's family who by the way were now in 29 palms, were all out there looking for Aaron. Meanwhile, Chris Lee and his family went back to Alaska, and the police couldn't stop him from doing this because he wasn't being charged with any crimes at that time. So that was kind of disappointing because they were very skeptical of him. As police continue to interview people in Aaron's close circle, Isabel, who was very accommodating and helpful with this case, told police that just before Aaron went missing, Chris had told Isabel that he found a mine in the desert that no one would be able to

find. Others also came forward stating that Chris had recently asked them how to dispose of a body. Ugh. So it's not just a matter of Chris being caught lying to police, but now other people in his circle are stepping forward and saying really sketchy shit about him. So with all this new information mixed in with the fact that Aaron was still nowhere to be found, police were starting to suspect that Chris had killed Aaron and hidden her body in a secret mine. And that would also make sense with the text regarding the secret trip and how even Aaron didn't know where she was going that day. Maybe because Chris didn't want anyone else finding out where he put her. But in this area, there are countless mine shafts. Remember

this is the desert, so there's probably a lot of mine shafts from back in the day trying to find gold and stuff like that. So this wasn't going to be an easy find, especially for the investigators who weren't really all that familiar with all the mines in that desert. So they reached out to a man named Doug, who is also known as Cave Doug, which is also a badass fucking name. He's a badass dude for sure. For his vast knowledge of the Mojave minds. He had grown up in the area and had a passion for going through the desert and discovering new territories. So he was definitely the right man for this job. At first, they began going mine by mine. for this job. At first they began going mine by mine, but this didn't prove to be very good strategy because it was just so incredibly time-consuming. Lucky for them, one of Chris's friends came

forward with some information. The week before Aaron went missing, he and Chris went out to the desert looking for mines, and the friend took a ton of photos. They were in this one specific area, so after Cave Doug got a glimpse of these photos, he knew exactly where they had gone. So this really helped narrow down the search, but since there were still a lot of mines in that general area, they had a lot of searching to do regardless. And they spent many days in a road doing so. But as we know, searches like this cost a lot of money and they take a lot of manpower. So it can't go on forever. On Saturday, August 16, 2014, so about a month and a half after Aaron disappeared, they declared that that would be their last day searching the mine shafts.

They hadn't found anything thus far and still didn't have any real evidence that she'd be there anyway, so they were kind of at a crossroads, you know, they couldn't search forever and they didn't even know if they were searching in the right place. Just because he had been to that mine didn't mean that she was there since they still had no evidence of what happened to her. But crazy enough on this final day of searching, one of the officers noticed the smell of gasoline coming from one of the mines. And it wasn't one of the mines you would walk straight into. It was a vertical shaft, so investigating it would be very difficult and dangerous. Because when they peered down the shaft, it was just complete darkness. And this shaft was actually 140 feet deep. So this wasn't going to be an easy feat at all. But next to the mine was a shell casing. So they had a feeling that this could be the shaft. That's when they called the San Bernardino Fire Department because they were skilled in working in small spaces and

doing rescue missions in the area. Sometimes even including in mine shafts. If you want to see photos of the mine shaft, head on over to our Instagram at Going West Podcast or our Twitter at Going West Pod. it's really creepy. So as one of the firemen, whose name is Brenton Baum, worked his way down the shaft with a flashlight, he explained this as being incredibly terrifying because he was essentially looking for a dead body, and because it was a vertical shaft, he was afraid that it would cave in on him at any moment and trap or kill him,

especially since every inch he descended caused rocks, like pretty much small rocks, to fall from above, but still that kind of gives you the sense that it's just going to completely crumble. And since he was being so careful, this whole descent took about 45 minutes. As the fireman continued down, he came upon the bottom of the shaft. And at the bottom, he found a large white propane tank, a bottle of Sprite soda, a homemade torch, and a piece of rope. Then, he saw what he believed was a decomposing body. And you can only imagine how intense this was. It was a very hot day, nearly 110 degrees Fahrenheit or 43 degrees Celsius, outside in the desert,

and 90 degrees Fahrenheit or 32 degrees Celsius inside the shaft itself. So this fireman goes down this very hot, very dark, small, cramped mine shaft. That he thinks is gonna cave in on him. Exactly. And he's risking his life and then he comes upon a body. And he now has to bring this body back up with him. Oh God, that gives me the chills so badly. And by the way, because of the heat and the small space, he had a respirator on. So he wasn't able to smell anything as he descended.

So when he went back up to the top and took the respirator off, he could smell the strong scent of gasoline and decomposition. And he just got super sick after that. And because of that, a different fireman, Paul Anastasia, had to go down to retrieve the body from the bottom of the shaft, and he had an equally horrifying experience. Especially since he had to, as carefully as he could, put the body inside of a bag to bring it up with him, which took 30 minutes to do. When he got back up to the top, the body was able

to be examined, and they quickly determined that it was that of Aaron Corwin. But also, later fully confirmed this via dental records. She had died from strangulation and blunt forced trauma to her head, still attached to her neck, was a homemade garot. For those of you who don't know what a garot is, neither did I. It's basically a rope with a handle on each end, which makes it easier to strangle someone because you have a grip. This specific garot was made out of cord and rebar. Rebar is just a steel bar that is usually used to reinforce concrete structures,

and then the cord was a thick braided cord. So a homemade device of two steel handlebars attached to a thick braided cord was used to strangle Aaron Corwin to death. So this device was specifically made to strangle. That's what a garot is. So this tells us that premeditation is more than likely the situation here. Police were now very confident that Chris was behind this murder. So they had him arrested in Alaska for the murder of pregnant 19-year-old Aaron Corwin.

And as they examined all the evidence at the scene, they found that both Aaron and Chris's DNA was on the lip of the sprite bottle, putting them both at the scene of the crime. There was also DNA evidence on the knob of the propane tank that was consistent of Chris's. The only DNA found on the rebar handles of the garot was Aaron's. And this made investigators feel that he likely had been wearing gloves and that Aaron's DNA had gotten on it during decomposition. There was obviously talk of either John or Nicole being involved in the murder, but on the day Aaron disappeared, Nicole used her home computer consistently between 11 a.m. and noon, which would have been either during the murder or after the murder, but still remember

Chris got home at 3.30, so it's during the whole scenario. And John used his home computer between 7am and 10am, so this pretty much kind of cleared both of them. In October 2016, so about two years later, Chris's murder trial began. One of the first people to speak in the beginning of the trial was Aaron's mom, Laurie. She explained how excited she and Aaron were about her visiting, and she even mentioned all the home-cooked meals that Aaron wanted to make with her mom. When Laurie got to California after Aaron went missing, she noticed that Aaron had already bought most of the ingredients to make all those meals together. John also spoke about his relationship with Aaron and their marriage during trial.

Also during the trial, the prosecutor laid out all the physical DNA that we just explained and a lot of other incriminating information, like a poem that was found in Aaron's jewelry box. It had Chris's DNA on it and it read, like it or not, you still hold a part of my heart. Ready or not, we were gonna get caught. Don't give up and I won't too. Hopefully like me, you'll still think I love you. Along with this, Jesse showed Oliver text between she and Aaron regarding Chris to further prove their affair. Cave Doug explained to the court how they found the mind using photos from Chris' trip

with his friend to further prove that Chris had to be behind it all. Another witness that took the stand was a young woman named Aisling. She lived in the apartment below John and Aaron with her husband and young son, and she became really good friends with Aaron. Such good friends that Asling was the one to take Aaron to the hospital when she had a miscarriage. Asling had met Chris on many occasions since they all lived in the same building and they all kind of hung out together, and she said that Chris talked about murder more times than she could even count. Yeah, and she said that it really weirded her out, obviously.

She remembers him specifically talking about snapping necks and hiding bodies with the coyotes. And you have to think that she couldn't have been the only person to notice this, which kind of makes you wonder about his wife Nicole. Because Asling also stated that after Aaron went missing, she called Nicole to tell her that police were looking for Chris. And Nicole apparently said, I don't care what happened to that little bitch. And Nicole was Aaron's really good friend. So you would assume she said this probably because of the affair, but maybe she

knew what Chris was doing. You know, it just makes you wonder. Aisling's husband Connor also took the stand and said he tried to reach Chris multiple times on the day that Aaron disappeared because Chris had invited him to go coyote hunting earlier that morning, but he couldn't go. About an hour later is when Connor started calling him to meet up, but all Chris said was to meet him outside Joshua Tree National Park. But Connor couldn't end up finding him. Connor also noticed that later that day the propane tank which Chris had borrowed from Isabel was no longer in his Jeep.

The next morning, Connor asked Chris if he knew where Aaron was and Chris said he didn't. Connor then asked him, did you do what I think you did? And this gives us a lot of insight, I think. If one of Chris's good friends suspected he did something to Aaron, and Connor also probably knew that they were having an affair, that says a lot about who Chris is. I mean, you don't just suspect anyone of murder.

Well, it kind of seems like this guy is talking about murder a whole lot to a lot of different people. Exactly. During the fifth day of trial, one of murder. Exactly. During the fifth day of trial, they also displayed all the phone records, which proved that Chris and Aaron were in the same place around 730 AM on the day she disappeared. The last activity on Aaron's phone was around 804 AM, and the last activity on Chris' phone was at 822 AM until 313 PM later that day. So his phone was out of service or off between 822 AM and 313 PM. Back to the trial, a detective took the stand to discuss the findings in Chris' truck after his arrest in Anchorage, Alaska.

Police discovered a different homemade garot, multiple knives, and climbing rope. And this is incredibly insinuating because what are the chances that Chris happens to have a garot in his car but didn't murder Aaron? I have never heard of a garot before this case and now here's two. Yeah, there's two of them and not only it's like his truck is now in Alaska, right? Well, now he's got a grot in his truck in Alaska, which leads me to believe that

maybe, maybe since this guy was obsessed with talking about murder, that it's possible he was gonna murder someone else. I wouldn't put it past him. I mean, why else do you have a grot other than to literally strangle somebody? Exactly. So on the ninth day of trial, Chris Lee took the witness stand. He admitted to having a sexual relationship with Aaron. He admitted he knew Aaron was pregnant and he was possibly the father, and he admitted he was in love with Aaron and wrote her the love letter that we discussed previously. When asked about the day Aaron disappeared, Chris Lee admitted that he picked up Aaron from where

her car was found, and he explained what supposedly happened that day. Chris stated that he had planned to build a tire fire in a remote mine that day with Aaron, and when they got to that spot, he threw down the propane tank, tire, water jug filled with gasoline, and the homemade torch, all while Aaron listened to music in his Jeep. But he forgot to light the torch when he threw it in,

which made him angry because this fire did not happen. So he went back to his Jeep and started playing Russian roulette with his gun, which is, I guess, something he did occasionally or somewhat occasionally? Why I don't know. Whook. Yeah, and this made Aaron upset, obviously, because he's kind of trying to kill himself, and so she walked off. But when the first shot didn't kill him, he called Aaron back to the car.

Who just randomly is like, let's play Russian Roulette? Yeah, I don't know. A guy that makes up stories. Anyways, then Chris pulls this wild story out of nowhere. A story he never mentioned to police during his nine-hour interrogation. A story no one in his circle has heard before. And as he started telling the story, he was acting as if he was telling his truth

and finally getting something off of his chest. He admitted to killing Aaron, but he said it was because she admitted to molesting his five-year-old daughter Liberty. He said that he had suspected this week's prior because of something Nicole said, yet neither of them called police. Instead, the way he told the story, he waited to make this surprise trip to kill someone he supposedly thought was sexually assaulting his daughter. He said he was so enraged by Aaron's confession that he strangled her and he threw her down

the mine shaft. The nerve. Chris stated that he was getting something off his chest and in the court video he doesn't look enraged or passionate. He looks calm and afraid. There's no regret, no tears. He just very matter of factly stated this wild story. Even though we know he had homemade grots in his possession, and we know he had alternative motives to want Aaron dead. And we know he talked about murder all the fucking time.

Exactly. This was something he wanted to have happened. This is something he enjoyed doing. You know, he wanted her dead, likely because she was potentially birthing his child, and it was going to destroy his family. Because remember, her murder happened six days after she found out she was pregnant. That's no coincidence. And we know Chris has lied many times.

We know he's a backpedler. I personally do not believe one bit of this sad story, and I find it absolutely horrific that he even said any of it. I mean, what a disgusting dude. And then also to use your child in a story and say that your child was being molested, there's nothing that this guy will not do to try and cover his tracks. It's so cowardly to bring your innocent child into this whole mess. So here's what we know. Before Aaron went missing, Chris had googled

how to dispose of a dead body and asked friends the same question. And to one friend who asked him why Chris winked at him. He explained the vertical mind shaft to his friend as a place that was so remote that no one would ever find it. He had the same type of murder weapon in his own car, his DNA was found on the items next to Aaron's body, he never called police or told anyone else that he suspected Aaron was molesting his daughter Liberty, and he murdered Aaron just days before his planned move back to Alaska.

So a big thing with this molestation story is that Chris continued to have a romantic relationship with Aaron, supposedly after he discovered this. When the prosecutor asked Chris, you continued having sex with a woman, you and your wife thought was molesting your daughter? Chris said, it wasn't on the forefront of my mind. Yet it was on the forefront of your mind so much that you're gonna viciously murder her? His story makes absolutely no sense. What a liar!

In all the cases we've researched, I have never experienced this many lies and this much backpedaling. This level of deceit and deception and deflection, this guy is just... he's just a piece of work. Chris was then asked to use a grot to strangle a dummy in the same way that he strangled Aaron. And when he acted out the scene, he had the dummy over the right side of his back, you know, kind of like he's Santa Claus and the dummy is his sack of gifts. And they had him do this for as long as it took to kill Aaron. Second by second, minute by minute to show the room how long it took. And to kind of explain this better, it was kind of like the took and to kind of explain this better, it was kind of like the the cord part was around her and he like I said, think of it as a Santa Claus bag and he's holding the handles

of the grot kind of on the right side of his chest. Right. So her back is to his back. Yes, exactly. His back to back and he's leaning forward. Right. And her neck is over his shoulder, basically, while he's pulling on the grotto. Exactly. And he acted this all out in front of the court, and they're all just watching exactly how he killed her. And it took over five minutes to kill

Aaron. This proved that he could have stopped at any moment over those five whole minutes. And Chris explained that he wasn't able to stop because the hate commanded him. And he also said that anger and hate, that's what moved me forward. In the prosecutor's closing statement to the jury, he stated, Chris's testimony was scripted. It was rehearsed. It was meant to con you. He also called the molestation scenario, Asinine Garbage and said, If a man who crafts lies to suit his own needs and to everyone important in his life, what do you think he's going to do to you? After 10 days on trial, Christopher Brandon Lee was found guilty of the first degree murder of Aaron Corwin. He received the sentencing of life in prison

without the possibility of parole, but no death sentence. And Nicole wasn't even there for his sentencing. So it's safe to say she probably wasn't supporting him through any of this. And for those wondering why he didn't get the death penalty, I had read something very briefly about it being thrown out before the trial started. I don't know why, but that's the only reason that he didn't get it was because it was

previously thrown out. And we never did find out if Chris was the father of Aaron's baby after all, either because they couldn't determine it in the autopsy or the information just hasn't been released. Chris went on to appeal his conviction in 2018, but that was denied. He remains in prison now at the age of 29, and will remain there for many, many, many more years. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much everybody for listening and next week we'll have an all-new case for

you guys to dive into. As usual, it's time for the shout-outs, so thank you so much to everybody who gave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts this week. Big thanks to Maria in Maryland, Molly in Maine, and Lisa in Minnesota. And then we have Jessica and Bardstown Kentucky, Rachel and Moss Bluff Louisiana, and Willow and Rolly North Carolina. Thank you so much to Josh and Minneapolis, Will in Philly, and Judd in Lone Tree, Colorado. In a big thanks to Millie and Texas Hill Country, Elizabeth in Dallasalis Texas, and Jessica in Florida.

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