National Park After Dark - The Widower: Rocky Mountain National Park

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

When Harold and Toni Henthorn first got married, things seemed wonderful. However,  overtime, red flags begin to emerge in this not so perfect marriage. When they head into the park for their wedding anniversary and Toni mysteriously dies, Harold is the first suspect. But no one could have ever guessed the lies he had told and what his previous life entailed.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Millions of people travel to Rocky Mountain National Park every single year, for its tall peaks, dramatic alpine landscapes, the abundance of wildlife, and the solitude of the mountains. It is a place people escape to and take a break from their everyday life. People come here to bring their families and show their young children the beauties of the world. People travel here to conquer peaks and personal goals. Some people come here to propose to the loves of their lives in a place of serenity. and beauty. While this beautiful national park brings the opportunity to build beautiful memories, it also gives the opportunity for something much darker. Under the ponderosa pines, beside the wild daisies, and in between the tallest peaks of the rocky mountains, lies a landscape of complete solitude,

a place where no one could tell your secrets, and a place that you could get away with murder. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Welcome back, everyone, to National Park After Dark. My name is Danielle. And my name's Cassie. Happy Monday, everybody. It is a brand new week. We're starting the week, and Mondays can be pretty exhausting.

So we are here to bring you a brighter day with some murdery and extremely morbid content. I do have one thing to tell you that I. saved for the podcast because I thought it was so funny. Okay. Okay. So last weekend, you know how Ian and I went to the ape caves. Yes. In Mount St. Helens. For those of you who don't know what the ape caves are, it's in the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument area, and it's just a bunch of old lava tubes, and you can go hike around in them, and it's beautiful. I had never been before and I guess when you get there, there's an entrance that brings you down to the caves and you can either do the upper caves or the lower caves. And they're both about a mile and a half,

two miles in length, but one of them is easier than the other. So we took the quote unquote more difficult one, upper caves, and we got stuck behind a group of Boy Scouts and their parents. the way that the hike was going is we kind of like would go ahead of them and then we fall behind them and sometimes we're stuck with them and because the tubes are linear you know there's only one way in one way out so this group is having a difficult time so we kind of blow by them and we eventually get out of the tubes and it spit you out about two miles into the woods and you have to hike two miles back to the trailhead and where the parking lot is. We get out and we're having our sandwiches and just hanging out and all of a sudden we see five people come out. There's three adults and

two kids and the adults are our age in their 30s and they are not part of the Boy Scout group. They are just random guys. Okay. And the two and the two kids that were with them had gotten way far ahead of their group and they kind of just piggybacked along with this random group of guys. And they're like, hey, are you guys headed back to the trailhead? And we said yes. And this guy goes, do you mind taking this kid? Like, he really has to go to the bathroom. And what? We're like, um, okay. So this group of guys takes off in the other direction with the other. kid because the other kid didn't want to go back yet. And so now we're stuck with this kid. And he is so unhappy and he's sweating, profusely sweating. Ian, my boyfriend is trying to give him words of

encouragement like, oh, just keep going, bud, keep going, trying to keep his mind off things, you know, asking what he does for school in school and sports and stuff like that. And he's just sweating, sweating, sweating. And then all of a sudden he's like, I just got to go to the bathroom so bad. And Ian's like, is it number one or number two? And I turn around and the kid's like, number two. Like, oh, no, of course it's number two. So we wait for this kid to, because he's like, I'm going to, I'm going to go in my pants. Like I just have to go.

So he like, we waited for this random kid to go off the trail, take care of business. business in whatever way he did, which I feel like was not in the right way, comes back. We have to hike with him another mile and a half back to the parking lot. And then we're like, what do we do with you? Because now you just stole a Boy Scout. We abducted a Boy Scout this weekend. And if we had ill intentions, he would have been a goner. He told us everything about him, where he lived, what his family did.

He was ready to go with us wherever, wherever blindly just followed us. I was like, hey, so next time I know that we helped you out, I think. But just next time, don't just go with strangers because it could end up really bad. And he was like, okay, whatever. And then we just didn't care. Yeah, didn't care. But we pawned him off on a ranger. So whoever that is, thank you so much because I had no idea what I was about to do.

hopefully that went over well, but hopefully it was a lesson learned as well for that kid. What an interesting trip to the ape caves. I'm sure you didn't expect to be doing half of it with a 10-year-old. I know. And you know me and children. I'm just uncomfortable. I used to teach an outdoor education between ages like 10 to 12, and I actually really liked that age to hike with. And they were great. So I can imagine what your trip was like, especially when you're saying he was talking the whole time, telling you about his whole adventures. Anyway, that was my short, weird story. Like, that stuff always happens to me.

I don't understand. But enough about Washington, I hear we're going to Colorado today. We sure are. Before we go to Colorado, though, let's talk just briefly about one. We always just like to mention our Patreon because we do have four additional episodes. And we do have another episode coming out very soon on Patreon. Not an exact date is determined yet because I am reading a book for this story. So I'm getting there.

I'm almost done, but not exactly sure what day it's going to launch, but it will be before August. So it's going to be sometime in July. And if you are interested in joining our Patreon, you can go onto our website, M-PADPodcast.com and click on our Patreon link. Or you can go over to our Instagram National Park After Dark, and we have a link on there in our bio that you can click. there and then another thing is we still have merch launched it's only going to be launched until

the end of july so if you're interested go on our website now same thing go on npaddpodcast.com or go on to our instagram national park after dark and you can find it there as well and we have a lot of cool things we have hoodies we have the wine tumblers we have lots of stickers a lot of cool stuff on there but it's only going to be available for this month yeah i think that's it. You kind of summed it all up. Yeah. Well, I'm ready to go to one of my top, I'd say top three, three to five parks. Rocky Mountain National Park is beautiful. Yeah, I've been to Rocky Mountain three times. Very cool. Yeah. And I really enjoy it there. Every experience I've had there is different, and I've seen it in different seasons too, which was nice because it just changes throughout the year.

you get a little something different as the seasons change and all that. So I'm excited to go back. Yeah. Bring me back to some fond memories. I will bring you back to Rocky Mountain National Park. And as always, we are going to talk a little bit about the park before we go. So if you haven't heard of it or you haven't been there and you want to know more or if you have been there and you want to know some more that maybe you didn't know about before, we're going to talk about it. So Rocky Mountain National Park is located in north central Colorado and it is approximately 80 miles from Denver, which makes it a really accessible national park because lots of people fly into Denver and it's a pretty short drive to get to Rocky Mountain National Park from there. It was established as a park on January 26, 1915 and it is the third most visited park with around 4.6 million visitors just last year. The park is filled with mountains, alpine lakes, and an abundance of wildlife of both plants and animals.

A big attraction inside of this park is Trail Ridge Road, which was established in the 1930s and travels as high as 12,183 feet in elevation. The park itself encompasses 265,461 acres of federal land, and it also has 253,059 acres of U.S. U.S. Forest Service land. Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the highest parks in elevation in the country, with its lowest elevations being at 7,860 feet, and the highest points being long peak at 14,259 feet. The continental divide also runs directly through the center of Rocky Mountain National Park. There are three different life zones inside of the park. The first zone that is there is the Montaigne zone. This is the lowest elevation of the park. It generally ranges under 9,000 feet. This area is filled with vast meadows, juniper and ponderosa pine, and blankets the area

with blue spruce trees near the rivers. This area is filled with wildflowers in the summer, such as daisies and fairy slippers. This is generally the warmest part of the park because it's lower in elevation and also contains the most variety of wildlife. You can see elk and me, deer grazing in the meadows, lots of red squirrels feeding off the seeds of the pines, and coyotes and badgers are often seen in the area. The second zone is the subalpine zone. This lies between 9,000 and 11,500 feet, and this area encompasses areas such as Bear Lake and the Long Peak Ranger Station. It's filled with spruce trees, fir, and pine. In lower elevations of this zone, you'll find aspen trees, but this.

This area is also filled with wildflowers in the warmer months. Here is also a very good place to see deer and elk, stellar jays, but it is arguably the most likely that you will see a black bear or snowshoe hair here. The third zone that lies inside the National Park is the alpine zone. This is located above 11,500 feet, and the trees here are much shorter and stunted in growth until they disappear altogether into the Alpine Tundra. Tundra is a Russian word for land of no trees. And here in the Rocky Mountain National Park, one third of the park is alpine tundra, with rocks and many plants that are identical to the same ones that are found in the Arctic. So that being said, the Rocky Mountains, that is where we are heading today. And we're going to be talking about a very devastating haunting story of

love, deceit, and murder. And we're going to be diving deep into the lives of Harold Henthorn and his wife, Tony Henthorn. I have not heard of this. You say that, but you might have once I start telling the story because this was actually a very highly publicized case a while ago. And I actually remember when this happened. And I remember reading an article in People magazine about this case. and I remember seeing it on the news as well. It is also a story that has been featured on a few other podcasts as well, but it's such an intriguing story that I thought it was necessary to still cover it because there were so many different aspects to it.

And I just thought that it was really interesting. And we've had quite a few people message us asking us to cover it as well. So when I get further into it, you might know or have heard of some of the the things that we're going to talk about, but hopefully I can give a new perspective on this case. Oh, okay. So, yeah, the story may, the may, yeah, the story may ring some bells, but the names don't. So, yeah, I'm ready. All right. First, we'll talk a little bit about Tony. So Tony Henthorne, who was born, Tony Bertillet, was raised in Mississippi, and she was from a very loving family. She grew up as a Christian with her parents and two brothers. And growing up, she was always one of the smartest kids in her

class and she took her studies very seriously. She grew up to become an ophthalmologist and surgeon, and she was very successful in her career. She was beautiful, she was wealthy, she was kind. And Tony's first marriage didn't end up working out, and she ended up getting a divorce. She did not have any children, but she wanted them very badly. But unfortunately, her love life was not as successful as her career as her career was taking off. Her love life was taking a backseat while her career was taking off. But that all seemed to change when she met Harold Hentthorne. Harold and Tony met in 1997 and Tony was 37 at the time. They met on the website Christianmingle.com and immediately they had a strong connection. They were both religious and they both had had

previous marriages. While Tony had gotten a divorce, Harold told her, that he had lost his wife two years prior in a tragic car accident. Tony was immediately smitten with Harold, and when she brought him home to meet her family, they were as well. He was handsome, he was charming, and he really seemed to adore Tony. Harold seemed to have fallen for Tony's charm and her caring nature, and her family immediately approved of him. And although Tony was successful herself, Harold seemed to be very successful as well. He had started his own company as a fundraising consultant for non-profits. He had told Tony and her family that his business had been so successful that if Tony wanted to, she could quit her job. Although this was never something Tony or her family really cared

about, as her family was very, very wealthy themselves. As they both wanted children and wanted to start a family, they decided that they would get married fairly quickly, and just after one year of meeting, they got married. Shortly after their marriage, Harold asked if Tony would move back to Denver, Colorado, where he was from originally. Tony was pretty hesitant at first, as her whole family and her friends were all in Mississippi, and she had a life there. Originally, Harold had told her that he could do his job remotely and from anywhere. Eventually, though, she agreed, and they moved to Denver. I'm already nervous with this. Because I know where it's going.

I have a feeling. And I feel like all these, I don't know the word, like all of these small events that seem like they should be happy events. Like he adored her and he wanted her to move back with him to his hometown. And they wanted to get married really fast. Like all these things that seem in the moment good. It makes me very nervous. They're almost like red flags. Exactly.

That's exactly what they are. Because they can be viewed two ways. It's like, okay, well, why do you want to get married so fast? Are you adoring or are you possessive? Do you want to move to Denver to be, you know, for work and for whatever? Or do you want to take her away from friends and family? You know, like that's where mine. Is this an isolation tactic?

Or is this a genuine want to go back to your own home? Yeah. Good thoughts. After they moved to Denver, Colorado, she was very close to her family. so she was traveling back and forth from Mississippi to Colorado all the time, especially for any holidays. So she was going back for birthdays and she was always going back for holidays. And Harold would travel with her as well. So they were always there for Christmas, Thanksgiving, every family holiday they would go back to Mississippi for.

Her parents, though, soon noticed that Harold was becoming more and more controlling. Tony had been very close to her mother, but now they never spoke without Harold. Harold had connected his cell phone to the house phone, and whenever they would call, he would join in on the calls as well. What? You can do that? I didn't know you can do that, but I guess you can. There it is. Here's the controlling thing.

What did I just say 30 seconds ago? Right? You called it right away. So he would join in on these calls, and he would playfully talk with them, and he would brag about how well his business was doing, and he would spend lots of time talking about himself, and he would take up. all the attention and the whole conversation, and he would do this so much so, that Tony didn't talk much on these phone calls at all. And there was never a time for her to privately talk to her mom to talk about her life for anything that you normally would when your significant other isn't listening. So this was a red flag for them, but then they also noticed that they started to visit

a lot less often, and Harold was finding all these excuses for them not to go to Mississippi. Tony's family had to start visiting them in order to see them at all. Things started to look up though and after years of trying in 2005, Tony had a daughter named Haley. They had this beautiful family and all things seemed to be going pretty well. Then in 2006, Harold had a close call in which he could have died. Tony's brother was a cardiologist and one day when the couple was visiting in Mississippi, he asked Harold if he could do a CT scan on him because he just got a new machine for his practice and he wanted to practice using it. Harold agreed and during the CT scan they found that his arteries were so severely clogged that he was at risk of a heart attack at any moment.

Harold was then rushed into emergency surgery which almost certainly saved his life. What are the chances? What are the chances? Right. He's just like, can you check out this machine? Like, I'm sure everything's fine. I just want to see how the imaging works. And if I like it, whatever. He's like, yeah, sure, sounds great. Free CT scan. Why not?

And then it's like, you're about to die. Like, get into surgery now. Wow. That's nuts. Yeah. So a few years later, Tony also had her own little dance with death in 2011. The couple had a remote cabin in Colorado that they would often spend time at. And late one night,

While their daughter Haley was asleep, Harold asked Tony to help clean up some debris that was outside of the cabin. While she was standing below the raised porch, she had her back turned to Harold, and she suddenly felt something heavy hit the back of her neck and it knocked her onto the ground very hard. It was a large piece of lumber that had mysteriously fallen off the porch and hit her. Luckily for her, she had seen something on the ground she wanted to pick up and bent down for it just as the lumber had hit her. If she hadn't moved in that exact moment, it would have hit her in the head and most likely killed her. Okay, so she's standing below the porch and this piece of wood fell from the porch onto her. A piece of lumber.

So it's not even a piece of wood. It's like an entire log. Okay, yeah, mysteriously. That's... Mysteriously. That's interesting. Tony was pretty severely injured. She had numbness in her hands and she was even worried for a period of time that she might never be able to perform surgery again. What was weird about this whole incident is when she finally got a hold of her mother a few

days later to talk about what had happened. She mentioned it and her mom immediately says, what do you mean? What happened? When did this happen? And Tony says, what do you mean? Harold didn't call you, he didn't tell you that I had this accident. She says, no. No one's told me about any of this.

Add the red flag to the collection. That's really sad. Imagine being her and just having this brush with death. Obviously, it's very serious. And then going to call your mom for support and, like, she had no idea. Was she upset with Harold that he never called her? Yeah, she was upset. And actually, shortly after the incident at the cabin,

Tony finally had a chance to travel home to Mississippi to visit her family without Harold. And it was at this visit that her mom had the chance to confront her about the incident. Mother finally had a moment to speak with her and Harold wasn't there. And she said that she was concerned about the incident. And she was really concerned that it wasn't an accident. And it seemed suspicious. And she was concerned that maybe Harold was behind the accident. So something started to not add up with Harold. Harold was in charge of the finances between the couple, but one day Tony decided to look into their accounts, and she noticed that they didn't have nearly as much money as Harold had made it seem to be. Her family had even given them half of a million dollars to buy their house in Colorado and whatever they needed, like cars and new appliances, things like that. And that didn't seem to be accounted for either.

Harold had also not only become very controlling in Tony's personal life, but also in her work life as well. If there was ever to be a doctor's meeting inside of the hospital, Harold was there. Tony was also not allowed to schedule any appointments outside of her normal schedule without consulting Harold first. Her colleagues adored Tony and loved working with her. However, they had a very bad vibe from Harold, and they thought, thought that he was very creepy. The office manager at her work in particular got very bad vibes from him. But because they all loved Tony, they decided that they would accept Harold. Why was he at her staff meeting? Right. Like, why is that a thing? Why was he there? That's so odd. It's so odd.

You don't work here, dude. Like, why are you here? Are you her babysitter? It was just another thing that was showing how controlling he really was. I read another part about him in the Rolling Stones article written about this whole case. And he became really controlling over their daughter as well, where he controlled if they went on playdates, even said that Tony wasn't allowed to say goodnight to her because that was considered father-daughter time and he would read stories to her and have her go to bed. And that was the time that Tony wasn't allowed to be there. And then he planned all of her meals. Tony didn't have a say in that. So he was starting to control all these weird aspects in her life. And he was being very, very manipulative and very controlling. And it's so difficult because

like you're explaining this is years later. This isn't just all of a sudden, like within six months to a year of being together, which may be easier to say, okay, this is definitely not right and red flags and what's going on. But when you're years into a relationship with someone and little things start happening and then all of a sudden you wake up like three, four years later or more and you're like, what is going on? Like what is my life right now? How did this happen? You know, like it must be so much more difficult, especially your lives are intertwined. You're married. You have a kid. You know? Things are different. I mean, you have a family together. It's someone who you love. You have a home together. You have a career. You're far away from your regular family. You know, it's all kind of, like you said, you wake up and you're like, how did this happen? So one day, Harold reaches out to the office manager, who doesn't like him, and asked for a favor. He told her that he had a trip planned to Rocky Mountain National Park for their anniversary, and he wanted it to be a surprise. And he needed her help to.

to plan it. And at the time, even though she didn't like Harold, if he was planning something to be kind and to be a good husband for Tony, she was willing to help. So she cleared Tony's work schedule for the week they planned to leave. And one day Harold came into her work and surprised her with the announcement. So with this all planned, the two headed out to the National Park together. And they went without Haley, their daughter. This was just a getaway weekend for their anniversary. and Harold had lots planned for their romantic getaway. And the first plan was to go out into the park on some of the beautiful hiking trails. The first on the itinerary was to hike Deer Mountain Trail.

And this is a beautiful hike with mountain views and wildflowers. And it's a six-mile loop that is rated as difficult on the All-Trails app. If you don't have the All-Trails app, you should also get that because it's super helpful for when you're out on the trail and when you're looking for a trail to do. The staple. Yeah. I don't go. It's hard to navigate anything without it.

Like, I always look at it before I go anywhere. Me too. Do you know if they were, I know you said it was rated as difficult. Were they outdoorsy people at all? Like, did they routinely hike and do outdoor activities? Or do you know anything about that? They had other photos, like other family photos doing outdoor activities. I don't think either of them were avid hikers, but they said,

certainly weren't. Amateurs. Yeah. Okay. So it was September 29th, 2012 when they headed out onto this trail. And the two were having a lovely time. And they stopped to take photos with each other and pictures of the views. They took pictures of each other, not just with each other. It was a beautiful day. The Aspen leaves were turning that beautiful yellow. They'd turn in the fall. the weather was perfect, the skies were clear, it was the perfect day to be out on a hike. And then something terrible happened. What's here just emergency? Hello, my name is terrible.

I'm in the Rocky Mountain Nashville. I'll help my rescue teams immediately. My exact location is deer mountains, about one mile south of the visitor center. Okay, I'm going to transfeed to the park, so hang on the line. You'll hear some, you're going to hear some clicking. And right now, I'm pulling up your lat and you're long. on my phone here. Let me try it one more time before I transfer you. Harold Henthorne had called 911 because Tony had somehow managed to fall off of a cliff on the trail,

and she was severely injured. Now in the next few minutes, I'm going to post the 911 call, and I want you all to pay very close attention to the things that he says, because you'll notice that he focuses a lot about how he can pay for an air flight, And then he also says some interesting information about her beats per minute and her respiratory rates that just don't totally add up because he goes from one number and jumps to a next number. And right off the bat, if you really dive into this 911 call, there's suspicions there. So I want you all to pay close attention. After talking with the 911 dispatch, he sent out a text to Tony's brother. It read, Barry, urgent, Tony is injured, and Estes Park, critical, requested flight for life.

A few moments later, Harold texted him again. This time he wrote, Tony is gone. That is the word. Why would you text someone that? Right? That was my first thought. Why would you ever text your family that? And also, why are you texting in this whole scenario anyway? If I was with my spouse that just fell off of a cliff, I would be calling 911.

I wouldn't be texting the family or like texting their family and letting them know what happened. Not until they were safe. I would be doing CPR. The text thing just really rubs me the wrong way. Me too. Obviously, a lot of him and his personality rubs me the wrong way. But that really irks me. Like that, it's insensitive.

And it's not right. Well, if you don't like him texting, you're really not going to like the rest of the story. Oh, my God. This reminds me of the Zion episode with, yeah, Patricia Botterini. Yeah. Yeah. So Tony's family was absolutely devastated by this news, obviously. And they couldn't believe that this is what happened.

But they said the words that many people were thinking. And they outright said, he pushed her. And Harold started acting very strangely after her death, and her family took a very hard notice at this. First off, within 48 hours of her death, he had planned her entire funeral. He had already put together an entire slide show of photos of their life together, picked out all the songs he wanted, played at her service, and hired the singers who were going to sing them. Five days after her death, a ceremony was held for her, and Harold had already had her body cremated. Of course he did. Of course he did.

And this was extremely upsetting for Tony's family, as it was completely against their wishes. And also, they wanted her daughter to be brought back to Mississippi and buried there. He didn't consult with them at all. They did. And he deliberately went against their wishes. And this was something that struck the family particularly odd. And they thought that it was quite possible that he did this because he was trying to hide evidence. This is a smart family. I like this family.

And you're right. I'm disliking him more and more as time goes on. I will say, though, just to play devil's advocate, which I don't know if he deserves. I don't know where this is going. But some people may handle things that way and get all those done. in a row right away as far as right after a death like getting things handled as far as funeral details and things like that like I don't know maybe some people just handle it that way but it is odd that he already had all the pictures lined up and I don't know it it it's weird I see where you're

going with it like I see like some people that just might be the way that they control the situation and how they handle their grieving as to do something, but also it could be construed as very suspicious as well. But then more things started to just not sit right with the family and all of the people who knew and loved Tony. So Harold started giving very different statements as to what exactly happened that day that she fell. Harold had said originally that Tony fell

while trying to set up camera equipment to take a photo. Then he claimed that he didn't know how she fell and that she was a slower hiker than him and when he turned around to look for her she was gone. And so he looked over the cliffside and that was when he saw her. He also stated that he looked down to check a text message and when he looked up, she was gone and she had fallen. So three very separate stories. So this was very, very suspicious to them. Part of Rocky Mountain National Parks Protocol whenever someone dies in an accident such as falling off a cliff is to investigate the scene in the area. And right away, there were several red flags that the investigators found.

First was that the couple had actually walked off of the trail and they walked on top of a very steep and rocky terrain of the area. And this was particularly suspicious because Tony had bad knees. and this climb would have been exceptionally hard on her to do. Another thing that investigators found suspicious was evidence from Tony's body. When rescuers arrived at the scene, Tony had already passed away. In the 911 call, Harold had stated she fell about 30 feet, but she had actually fallen 128 feet. Harold had reported that he had been giving her mouth-to-mouth CPR to try and save her life,

but her lipstick that she had worn that day was still perfectly intact. Something else that they noted was on her left hand. Her hand had not been injured in the fall, but the diamond in her wedding ring was gone. A diamond that Harold claimed was worth $30,000. After they combed the area and scoured the entire scene, it was nowhere to be found. Yeah, because he had it. And then they found something that was chilling to the bone. Inside of Harold's car, they found a map of Rocky Mountain National Park.

And on that map was highlighted Deer Mountain Trail. And in the exact location where Tony fell to her death was a red X. What an idiot. What an idiot. This whole thing is so stupid. But not to give you tips or anything, but why would you not think this out a little more? I know. From an outside perspective, we're like, stupid.

If we were going to murder, we totally wouldn't leave a map outlining what we were doing. And the whole lipstick thing. And I mean, the ring, it's like, okay, yeah, that's suspicious. But the lipstick thing also, it's like, okay, dude. Like, that's the first thing that people are going to look at. did you try and save your wife's life by giving CPR? You say yes, yet the way that you are supposed to be breathing into her mouth, there's no indication that you even attempted to do that right off the bat. What are you doing? Yeah, it's just horrible all around. And I mean,

there's a lot of evidence here that's pointing to this is a really suspicious, quote unquote, fall. And Tony was very loved and liked in the community. She had always been incredibly smart, caring, and kind, and everyone who met her loved her. And many people were absolutely devastated by her passing. And because of all this love that people had for her, there was a lot of suspicion around Harold, and they voiced it very loudly. The police received 16 different calls and letters asking them to investigate Tony's death as a homicide and to investigate Harold as her killer.

That's amazing. to have advocates on your side that you can't speak for yourself, obviously, to have the love and support from friends and family and people who cared about you, rooting for you and wanting justice for you. Even if it wasn't the case, you know, it's suspicious. We still want it looked into and she deserved to have it investigated and not just written off as an accident. That's awesome. And I hope if, God forbid, anything ever happened to me like that and I was ever in a situation like that, that people would do that for me. And just looking into this whole entire case, it seemed like Tony had a very loving and supporting family. And she was just loved by everyone

who didn't like Harold, first off, and loved her. And this was horrible for people to hear about that happened to her. And they wanted, if Harold had done this, they wanted him to pay for it. Police were getting all of these tips in phone calls saying, please investigate this. This is suspicious. Harold did it. He pushed her. He killed her. Please look into it.

And then an anonymous tip came into an investigative journalist at CBS News and it changed everything. It was a letter and it read. Harold's previous wife died in a strange tragic accident as well. So Harold had always told the story that his previous wife died in a tragic car accident, and although a car was involved, that was not even close to the entire story. His previous wife, Lynn Henthorn, died on May 6, 1995. Lynn and Harold had been married for 12 years. Lynn was a social worker.

By family and friends that knew them, they were described as an extremely happy and loving couple. They were very close and active inside their families, always attending holidays and birthdays. Lynn was described as being a wonderful and kind person. She was said to light up a room whenever she walked in. She was beautiful, kind, and sweet. Harold told law enforcement that him and Lynn went out for dinner and a drive in Sedalia, Colorado. While they were driving, Harold thought one of his tires was low in air and decided to pull over in a very remote area. While Harold was attempting to change the tire, Lynn was helping out by holding lug nuts

for him and she accidentally dropped one under the car. When she went under the car to grab it, Harold was putting the tire in the back of the Jeep and when he did that it knocked the Jeep off the jack and the Jeep fell on top of her, crushing and killing her. Lynn's siblings all thought that the accident was odd, but they all loved and adored Harold and they couldn't imagine that he could be involved in anything suspicious. But when police investigated, Harold had conflicting stories, just as he did in Tony's case. He told one detective that they were on their way to dinner, while he told another one they had already left dinner.

One report, Harold told police that the Jeep fell on her, and Lynn called out for him. But in another statement, he said that she said, I think something is on me. He then said he pulled Lynn out from under the Jeep, but then later said people who stopped to help were the ones who pulled her out. So he had a lot of different conflicting stories, but after six days of investigating this case, they ruled this as an accident and they closed it. But Harold, even after this, continued to tell stories of that day and all of them were conflicting. And many times he started telling people that she died in a head-on collision or a car accident. Why would you say that? Just so maybe it's easier instead of explaining the whole story, it's easier to just say we got into a car accident and she died.

So when he told Tony about his ex-wife and told some other people, he had like some varying things where he said he felt guilty that she died because he was a in the car when the car crashed and things like that. So he was making up flat out lies of what happened. Okay. Yeah, that's a different story. Because I was imagining maybe down the road saying to people who ask or whatever, you know, yes, I was married before and she passed away in a car accident. It's much easier to say and less retramatizing to say then she got crushed while I was trying to change a tire and, you know, that's, that's where my mind goes as far as saying, okay, she'd just a car accident. Yeah, and I mean, that would be normal, not going into detail about your wife's death and just being kind of vague about it because you don't want to talk about it, but he's going

into these weird details that aren't even true. So, yeah, just more things that aren't adding up. So with all of this new information regarding Lynn's death, the police decided that they were going to launch a full-fledged investigation into him for the possible murder of his wife. The fact that his previous wife died in a very freak accident to have his second wife also die in a weird, tragic accident didn't seem like a coincidence to them. And during this investigation, they continued to find more and more evidence that supported their theory that Harold Henthorne killed his wife. While looking into his finances, they discovered that Harold had not actually worked at all in over 20 years. What? There were no records at all of his company existing or him ever having

any type of income. I'm sorry. How do you get by? Oh, we'll get into that. Okay. I mean, the whole working remotely thing now makes a lot of sense. You're not working at all. Yeah. As they were building their case. They had not arrested Harold for anything yet, and they decided to confront him about his finances. And he stated that Tony knew he had not been working this whole time and that it was no secret. Her family, however, shot that down very quickly. He had been known to brag about how successful he was and how much money he was making for this nonprofit organization. Her family also reported that Harold had complete control over their finances, and the few times Tony had looked at them, she had noticed that there was less money than Harold claimed they had.

So she was making all of the money? Yes. This was very important information for the police to discover, because also during their investigation, they discovered that Harold's previous wife had been worth a lot of money when she died. Lynn Henthorne had a life insurance policy where Harold was the sole beneficiary worth $625,000. So was he living off that life? He was living off of that money that entire time. I just got goosebumps. That is so disgusting. Well then they learned that in the event of Tony's death, Harold would receive $4.7 million.

So he was seeing dollar signs in his eyes. He must have been. I mean, both of his wives were worth money and they both died. So as they're investigating this case even further, they found that Harold had actually taken out a life insurance policy on his first wife's sister. He took out a $400,000 life insurance policy where he was a sole beneficiary and he forged her signature.

I have never heard of that before. Is that common? To forge your sister-in-law's signature? No, not that. To take out a life, yeah, that's weird. But to take a life insurance policy out on your spouse's sibling? I don't think it's pretty common, but if that person signs off on it, it's a legal document and he forged her signature.

What a guy. Yeah. Which makes you wonder, was she going to die next? That's such a good point. Super scary. Super creepy. Wait, wait, wait. The first wife or second wife?

First wife. Okay, the first wife. That's what I thought. Okay. So after Tony's death, there was a coroner that decided to relook at Lynn's case, and she found several discrepancies. When she was looking into how low the tire pressure was that Harold had reported the tire was, They found that there would have been no need to change the tire,

and that it actually would have been very strange for them to pull over in a remote area in the complete darkness with no lights to change this tire. When they used a model car that was similar to the same Jeep that they had and put the tire pressure down, it was something that you probably wouldn't have even noticed driving. Also, they noted, because of the shape of the lug nuts, it was very unlikely that if Lynn had dropped one on the ground that it would roll at all. So it probably would not have rolled underneath the car and would have just fallen to her feet.

With this new evidence and this new suspicions with his second wife dying, the coroner in the year 2014 changed her cause of death from accidental to undetermined. And finally, after two years of collecting evidence, on Harold, the police had enough evidence to arrest him for first-degree murder in Tony's death. In the early stages of his arrest, a judge ruled that Lynn's case could be discussed at trial for Tony's murder as well. And then in 2015, the trial began. During his trial, the prosecution brought forward even more damning evidence that Harold had to have killed his wife, Tony. Investigating his phone records and pinning his location, they found that Harold had visited the exact area

that Tony died in nine times prior to her death. There it is. The map, the X, the phone records, everything. He was scouting and planning all of this. Like, how do you explain that away? How do you explain that? You can't. I'm just in, like, awe of this guy and not in a good way.

what an idiot. And it's like the audacity to think that you could get away with something like that. It's just, it's not right. It's not right. It's not right. And also going back to when they noted her wedding ring that they found where the diamond was missing and that diamond was worth $30,000. During their initial investigation, the FBI had been pushing Harold and asking him a lot of questions

about where could it have gone, it wasn't anywhere in the area, if it had fallen, if it had popped off in the fall, it would be here, where is it? And they were putting a lot of pressure on him. And then one day when they were researching the area, lo and behold, the diamond ring was just sitting there, right where Tony had fallen. So the diamond that had been dislodged, no one can find it, multiple people scouring the area. Now all of a sudden, it's just sitting right there. Like, how would have anybody missed that? Exactly. And that was extremely suspicious for investigators, and that was something that the prosecution brought up. All of this evidence on top of the map with the X that marked the exact location Tony died in, the insurance money, and the mysterious death

of his previous wife, the jury took only 10 hours to deliberate. The jury convicted Harold on first-degree murder and he was sentenced to life in prison. And Harold has since tried to appeal his conviction stating that the death of his previous wife should have never been allowed in court and he has still not been prosecuted or tried for her death. But her case is still open and it is still possible that at some point he will be tried for her death. Good. I hope he does. And what is so sad about this entire thing other than Tony's death and Lynn's death is Haley, the daughter.

So Haley was seven years old at the time of her mom's death. And her mom's parents actually are in the process or maybe they have now of adopting her. They have taken on her family's last name and her. Her last name is not Henthorn anymore. And she is growing up with her family that loves her in Mississippi. That's at least a happy silver lining out of a terrible situation. But even still, I mean, especially as a young kid, you don't understand what's happening. In your eyes, you love your dad.

And you can't see all the wrong that has happened. And that's a really sad situation to be in as a child, as anybody, but especially as a child. Yeah. And it's unfortunate what a horrible person that Harold turned out to be. You know, Tony was just looking for love and to have this connection with someone and he saw her as a way to get more money. I was actually looking even deeper into this investigation and I found a whole article about a woman who was dating Harold at the same time he was dating Tony before they were married. before they were married, but not that long before they were married because they were only dating for a year. So I was just like, just add another layer of dirt bag onto this man.

This woman comes forward in this article and says, they met on an online dating site. She was a little bit farther distance, so they didn't see each other often, but they did see each other. They talked on the phone all the time. They were dating. and she said that she ended up ending the relationship because of the distance and them not seeing each other very often, but she thought he seemed very arrogant and very cocky. And then she also said that something about him just seemed fake. They didn't end on bad terms.

It kind of just ended on a, we're too far away. This isn't working kind of thing. And he went on to marry Tony a few months later. But he was doing all this at the very beginning of the rest. relationship. You know, I'm sure if Tony had known this from the start, maybe it wouldn't have gone that way. And I mean, what a horrible relationship and what horrible luck. I mean, this man was cheating on her, stole money from her, and then he ended up killing her for more of her money. Like, it's just overall, it's so horrible. What horrible luck of a person to get married to. And I just feel

so sorry for her. Yeah. And the one word that comes up in my mind, especially after you summarize all of that, is deceit. He deceived her, his first wife, friends, family. He tried to be deceitful to investigators. Like, he's just full of lies and trying to trick people into a false narrative. Like, you know, and it's just so upsetting and I just kind of wish that not only in this case but in others as well when it's so blatantly obvious that you are guilty it's kind of like rubbing salt in the wound when you just won't admit it just admit it you've already been convicted beyond a reasonable doubt you're why why won't you just come forward you know it's it's unfortunate that it's to just admit it you know Like, what are you doing by just continuing, like, appealing and this and that?

It's like, come on, dude. Really? The appealing process, I mean, you've been convicted, and it's pretty clear that you did it. No one believes that you didn't. You know you did it. We know you did it. The world knows you did it. Just give it up and stop putting the family through this.

You don't deserve to be out of prison. I hated Harold from the very beginning of this story, but this has actually been a story that I've been thinking about doing for a while because actually when we first started this podcast this is one of the first stories I came across and I was like oh this would be an interesting one to tell especially because I had actually heard it before because I remember it coming out in like people's magazine and it had a lot of a lot of attention to it at the time and then it kind of fell on the back burner and then recently a couple people have messaged us being like hey did you hear about this story do you know the story? It's like, I do. It's been one that I've been meaning to share on here.

It is tragic. We did get a little bit more murdery this week. We were murder last week, murder this week, and we usually switch it up where we do like a survival story and animal attack murder and kind of like go through it. But I just felt it was time to share this story. But that's all I have this week for the story. He is in prison still to this day. hopefully he'll remain that way for the rest of his life. He is, I believe he's 50, he's in the 60s now, I think, but hopefully he'll be there for the rest of his life. Well, key takeaway, I guess Harold sucks.

It's just so sad. Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that and finally getting to it. Yeah, of course. And that is everything that I have for today's episode. I hope you all enjoyed it. And if you want to check out more, you can find us on Instagram or Instagram name is National Park After Dark. We also have a Facebook page, National Park After Dark. And we also have a

Twitter that we almost never mention. So if you want to find us on Twitter and follow us there, our name is MPAD podcast. And we do post on there. So go ahead, follow us there. And otherwise, in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye everyone. Bye. What's another phrase for a red flag? It's just a fucking red flag. Suspicious. Like, it's, what is it, TikTok or Reels, I don't know, that thing. It's like, don't be suspicious, don't be suspicious. Have you heard of that? No. I see. Don't be suspicious. Don't be suspicious.

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