Rotten Mango - Part 2: "Smartest" Husband Pretends To Be Ex & Stalks Wife For Months Before Stabbing Her To Death

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

In the event of a break in, usually something of value is stolen from a house. But what if someone breaks into your home and steals a single, random item. Your hairbrush. Your pet’s ashes. Your family picture but leaves the frame. Your one spare house key?   Daniel Krug, patriarch, calls the police after his wife, Kristil comes home and realizes that the spare key they keep hidden in their garage is missing. They could’ve just misplaced it right?   With three young children at home though, the family doesn’t want to take any chances. Especially after Daniel, the father, remembers pulling into his driveway, before the key went missing, and saw someone jump their fence and take off running.   If someone had broken into their garage, stole their spare key, and nothing else that can really only mean one thing right? They’re planning on coming back.   Daniel reports it to the police and even gives his statement to the responding officer who visits his house. For nearly three months the family will grow increasingly paranoid after feeling like the burglar never left the house in the first place. That he came back and started doing stranger and stranger things around the house.   Until exactly 82 days after the initial report, one of the Krug family members will be found inside the family home.       Full show notes available at RottenMangoPodcast.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Bada being, bad a boo. This is part two of the Kroog family case. If you haven't listened to the audio part one, please go listen to that. We went through the entire details of the case of how Christiel Kroog was found, deceased, murdered in her garage, how she had been stalked, how the Kroog family had a break in into their house 82 days before her murder, where the only thing stolen was the spare key into their house. We went through the messages that Christel Kroog was receiving from her old ex-hy. school boyfriend that was from like 20 years ago. And we also went through how her daughter found out that something was going on in the house through the camera app that she had when she was sitting in class. She had received all of these alerts. And ultimately, the conclusion to part one was that the police

are now looking at Anthony, the ex high school boyfriend, who claimed to be the one sending these messages in the first text message. It says, it's Anthony. But also how the police are now very suspicious of Christel Krug's husband, Daniel, who claims that he is being framed. He's being set up. This is part two. A lot of people will tell you that the smartest murder is the one that you have never heard of yet, because that's the whole point. It goes undetected. But a lot of people have been calling this case the smartest, most calculated murder in recent history, the months of planning creating fake phone numbers, IP addresses, buying multiple gift cards. And it all falls a part with the acting.

It's like a B-grade movie. It's like the type of dialogue that you really only read in a book. Daniel Kroog thinks that the police are onto him. He thinks that they're just trying to look at him as the suspect. I mean, yeah, they're still trying to find Anthony the ex-boyfriend, but they've also just spent hours interviewing Daniel after Christel's body was found. All the other family members were let out early. Why is Daniel the only one staying behind?

They're asking him in-depth questions that can only pull. point to them being suspicious of him. And when they finally let him go at the end of the night, Daniel's about to leave the police station and he turns to the officers and he says, I want you to find who did this. Because I know it wasn't me. I know you don't believe me. Fine.

Just don't stop looking elsewhere. Putting all the focus on me, okay? Find the fucker who did this. Just whispering? Are you married? Do you have kids? I'm divorced. Right.

I don't care. if you capture him. I just want the fucker to pay. He took my children's mother before Christmas. And with that, he walks out of the police station. It's like straight out of a James Patterson novel. Nobody talks like that in person. Nobody whispers like that in person. It's very odd. I also think that we as people recently have given too much grace to the phrase everyone responds to grief differently. It's true. I think it's very true. But some things, if they are sending your radars off, if your gut is saying, okay, this is so bizarre. It's not even just like, oh, I probably wouldn't behave like that if I were grieving.

But like, wow, I'm so shocked and thrown off by this. I don't think that we should all just chalk it up to, well, everyone responds to grief differently. The police have a theory now. The way that Daniel has been talking, the things that family members have told them, they believe that Christiel wanted to divorce Daniel, and Daniel decides he's going to pretend to be a stalker to drive his wife straight back into his arms. This will be the catalyst that brings them closer together. This is what they need to reconnect.

Wait, these are theories from the families? The police. Gathering from all the interviews that they had with family members. December 5th, 2023, Christiel gets an email. Hey, gorgeous. I can't visit you anymore. No more Colorado time. My girlfriend doesn't want us talking without her.

She says, you're going to let cops get after me after you off him. but she doesn't know you like I do. We got a new place with lots of room on the East Coast. She said you can move in with us. We like three ways. Trash your husband and come. You know how to get me when he's dead. I mean, it's kind of a nonsensical email,

but ultimately it kind of seems like the stalker is going to lay off. He's saying, like, I'm moving to the East Coast. I don't have time to go to Colorado. I mean, this is what Christiel thought. But nine days later, Christiel is dead. And that's what the police can't wrap their heads around. If Daniel is the stalker, let's say hypothetically he is. why would he send this message saying, hey, I'm not going to come to Colorado anymore.

And then why would he kill her at the end? It doesn't make sense. Daniel? Yeah. They're saying like, because they thought maybe Daniel's sending these messages to get his wife closer to him. So if Daniel's the stalker, why would he say like, hey, I'm the stalker, I'm going to lay off? Because that would indicate the relationship is going well then. Maybe Daniel's like, oh, she's already so close to me now.

don't need to keep stalking her. We've like fixed our problems. Okay. In the FOIA request, we got a ton of videos where Daniel is sitting in front of a white cinder block wall and he's got a phone up to his ear and he's staring at the screen with his parents on there. Have you ever gotten like jailhouse calls with the families? Calls, like sometimes audios. You'll get random audios, but really they don't like to give these out. How many hours of that did you give? I think overall we had hundreds of videos because there were a lot of officers at the scene of the crime and every single thing was body cammed. I mean, there's a lot of body cam video that ultimately we would sit through and then it would be like a one minute conversation at the end between an officer and a neighbor and the officer is just like drive around.

This is taped off, drive around. But then we, I think it was like a hundred jail call videos. Dang, okay. It was a lot. And a lot of them is like just yapping. A lot of them is weird. And Daniel is sitting in jail waiting for he's about to go on trial for murdering his wife. And he's telling his family, I didn't do this.

The stalker is still out there. And they put the wrong guy in jail because they think it's like the movies and it's always the husband. And it's not me. And my kids are not safe. He's ranting. He's worried about his kids. He's adamant that someone else killed Christel. and just like how her stalker wanted to set her up for his potential murder,

he believes that the stalker set him up for her murder. And nobody's listening to him. So now Christel is gone. He's sitting in jail for something he says he didn't do, but nobody's listening and his three kids are out there and he's pleading with his elderly parents, I need them safe. I don't know where or who did this,

where he is, or who he is. I need my children out of Colorado. He's also concerned about Stockholm syndrome. The kids are staying with family members on Christel's side of the family and he says, I don't know what my eldest daughter has been told. I don't know what she believes. I don't know if my children even want me anymore, but I need them to be safe. Did he say Stockholm syndrome?

Yeah. Like in what context? Like they're going to get Stockholm syndrome with Christyel's side of the family and just believe whatever they're saying. And Chris Steele's side of the family thinks that he's the stalker. And he's like, no one believes me that I'm being set up. He's like, I'm probably sleeping like 16 hours a day because of the depression. I sleep, I read, I cry, and that's about it.

And there's obviously frustration too. He says, I just don't understand how you can put in a claim for wrongful arrest, wrongful imprisonment if you have to wait for everything to be settled. So he's like, I can't even file a claim for wrongful arrest until after the trial. And he's like, they never produced a single piece of Harvard evidence. We are in a digital and monitored age. They never produced a single photograph of me with phones. They never produced a single photograph of me buying anything.

They never produced a single piece of hard evidence. Just identity theft. That's it. And we're in a world today. That's enough. DNA exoneration doesn't mean shit because someone can do things with a cell phone. Not a single photograph, not a single drop of blood, not a single scrap of DNA, not a single recording.

Identity theft. That's all it takes to destroy somebody. So he's claiming someone stole his identity to do this. Daniel's parents are completely supporting him and they agree with him, but they're also concerned about him sitting in jail. He says about the food that he eats, he eats a lot of ramen because, quote, if you ever find yourself watching TV and you see a cat food commercial, we look at those commercials here with a sense of longing.

The collective decision here is that food commercials should be banned in jails and prisons because even horrible food. You know, I would never eat Taco Bell ever. It's disgusting. And yet I see ads for it and I'm like, that looks really good. It's clear the pressure is getting to Daniel, though. On the phone with his parents, Daniel gets emotionally charged because he's in jail and he doesn't know where his collection of valuable coins and metals are.

Apparently, Daniel's mom spoke with Christel's family about it, and they didn't know it either, where it went, and Daniel explodes. So that tells me that they are going through the house and they're not supposed to. They were supposed to give a written list. No, no, no. You call, you text, whatever. They are not to have unrestricted access to whatever the fuck they want. He's talking like that.

And his mom is like, oh, Danny, Danny, honey, I'm sorry. I didn't say they took it. No, no, no. But what that tells me is that they're sifting through everything and whatever looking, you're looking for whatever is of value because fuck you, Dan, because they don't want me in their life and it's not fair. It's not fair. They must provide a list. I provided a list. Where is their counter? It's not whatever the fuck they want. They don't get to treat me like this. That's all I do. That's all I do. I'm the one who has to accommodate everything. They want to sell the house? Fine. I have to say. I have to say. I have to say. I'm. I'm the one who has to accommodate everything. I have to sell the house. Fine. I have to sell the house. They don't want to let me speak to the kids. Fine. I'm not allowed to speak to my kids. Daniel's mom starts crying. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to upset you. It's not your fault. I just want to take you in my arms and hug you. And mom is like, I wish I could make it all go

away, Danny. Wait, this is, this is so weird. Yeah. Is this giving like a, like a movie? Does he talk like a toddler or what's... He talks so weird. There's only like one person I can think of that talks like that in a time, you know, kind of like, huh? It doesn't even make sense why you're being so theatrical. Like grief is one thing. Theatrical is kind of weird right now. So he's like angry but in the very theatrical way.

Yeah. It's, yeah. It's like, no, no, no, no. Interesting. And he takes a lot of pauses at really weird moments. Yeah, it's just kind of odd. I mean, I talk pretty dramatic, and I think that I might be even more dramatic

when my emotions are high. But the way he does it is not like a sense of dramatic franticness of like, I'm freaking out, so I'm going to freak out. It's like very like pauses and almost like there's an odd. Maybe like he's try to hold it back. But it doesn't feel like that either. Because he can't scream in there. Maybe he can't throw a tantrum in there.

So he's like holding it down to. But that's alarming too. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. How are the kids? Daniel's asking. They were fine.

They were fine. They look good. They're keeping busy. But he just keeps getting angry at the thought because he comes back to it again where he thinks Christel's family members are taking things of value from the house. and he says, I want a complete list of absolutely everything. Because if I find out they're parsing out things amongst different family members, I'm going to be pissed, okay?

I'm at the point. I want people arrested for stealing things from my wife's estate. And when I get out, they have to give everything back. His mom assures him that she took the jewelry box in his closet with his cufflings. And Daniel asks his mom, did you find Grandma's ring? No. Then they fucking stole it. All right, Danny, pleased.

It was worth my cufflinks. Someone stole it. And then I have to find out what pawn shop they're getting rid of all my shit at. That's so weird. What's going on? I feel like you have a lot more things to worry about right now. Listen, okay. Does he believe he's coming, getting out tomorrow?

Yeah, and okay, all of these, like when you FOIA requested, they just put like jail call. no, it wasn't even like jail call. It was like public release, and then it's like a bunch of numbers because that's how they, you know, log it in their format. And so every time I'd click one, I've no idea what I'm getting into. Sometimes it'd be like his mom being like,

oh yeah, so the weather today and we drove and like we made a snowman. And then the next one, he's like, they fucking stole it. And I'm like, I don't, every single one was so vastly different from the next one. Like you could have no idea what was going to happen in the next jail call.

Yeah. Okay. And then sometimes he's so composed and he's like, don't worry, guys. We have to be strong. And he's making jokes about Taco Bell. I see. Okay. All right.

His mom keeps reassuring him, they're not taking your stuff. They're not taking your stuff. I wouldn't be too surprised if the police are listening to this call. If they stole my fucking ring, just like they stole my credit card information. The police? That's what he claims. Okay. As the murder trial is nearing, it's Daniel's brother who decides to tell him the truth.

Daniel's brother is in a lot of these calls and he tells him, support is dwindling. Okay? From the families? Yeah. Mom and dad want to believe you very much. I want to believe you very much, right? There's just a lot that's come out and as imaginative as I can be with finding explanations and ways to theorize how this or.

that could have been the reality. Some of it is beyond even my creativity. Daniel doesn't really respond. And again later, on a private call just between Daniel and his brother, and now us and everyone else with a pension for a FOIA requesting cases, Daniel's brother tells him, I want to believe in you. And at the same time, I will be totally honest. I from the beginning have not really ever cared one way or another.

I do not want to see where you are. I do not want to see where you're going, regardless of the situation and how. how it arrived, I don't want you there and don't really care about guilt or culpability or anything like that. So he's basically saying like, you're my brother through and through and that's how I've been since day one. However, the situation got to where it's got to and my concern now is your support is dwindling, dwindling fast. The forensic stuff, the digital data is really tough for everyone to wrap their heads around. Like I said, even I have to go through some fancy gymnastics to counter everything. So it needs some story around where phones came from, where gift cards came from,

whatever that may be. You don't have to tell me anything here. I realize that you can't say things on this line. So that's going to be how that is. But I figured I would tell you that I'm not sure if you're going to get to talk to mom and dad again before they move you down into the purgatory spot. And then you're going to be there for a month. And my main concern right now is mom and dad are on the brink of financial ruin and bankruptcy. They took out probably about 120 to 150,000,000. thousand dollars to pay legal fees and none of that has been repaid to them. Daniel's brother keeps telling him and Daniel keeps, the brother is like,

you keep complaining and being emotional about things with the parents and the parents don't have resources and they become emotional because you're emotional so they take out loans and they're about to get bankrupt and they're about to lose their car and lose everything. And he's like, things like taking the kids out of Colorado because they're not safe, that's going to be $100,000 in legal fees that we don't have the money for and it's not going to work, so just drop it. Oh, I see.

He's like, don't even talk to mom and dad about it because they're going to want to pull out a loan. They're going to want to try and help you. But I'm telling you, it's never going to happen no matter how much money you throw at it. Okay. There's also another moment in this very jail call, which I didn't want to interpret. But the brother, he says like, see, and I don't know if I'm dense and I'm dumb or something. but he says something along the lines of like at some point we're going to have to have a conversation

where you just tell me yes or no and it was like so out of nowhere and I'm like are you going to ask him like a series of yes or no questions right like I don't know what that means and then Daniel cuts in and he goes yes and then they hang up because the 17 minutes are over every call is like 17 minutes and 15 seconds right what do you think he's asking if you did it yeah so that yes sounds like like he's telling him yes or he sounds like okay yes i agree to that that yes we can do that phone call later yeah so it's like it can be interpreted in both ways i see i mean i mean from from what it sounds like i mean the brother's like you know look yeah i think you did it yeah and but he's still sort of supporting him or he's just kind of um from the energy that i get from the

brother is he's supporting his brother but I think it's more so out of support for his parents. I don't think that makes it any better. And what's the parents? You think the parents is in denial? Yeah. The mom is totally in denial. Like my son could never? Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. But I also think that there are times in the phone calls where I'm like, ooh, ooh, like these are just like I can see. why he has these anger issues. Yeah, yeah. Because the way she's like, oh, I didn't mean to upset you. It's like, who cares about upsetting him? His whole life is about to go down like the shitter.

Like, we can talk as adults. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, you're too old. You've got to get your emotions and check. Like, we can't all tiptoe and be worried about upsetting a grown man who's in jail about to go on trial for murdering his wife.

Yeah. There's just a lot of red flags in Daniel's story. But even just the way he talks about Christy, in the stalker, it's like straight out of a movie before his arrest when he's being interviewed by officers. And these are all the things that are setting off the officers. They reference the stalker as the stalker. They're like, okay, so when did the stalking start? When did the stalker come into play? But Daniel, in the midst of his wife's murder investigation, he keeps correcting the officers. Oh, we call him kick man. And he's always whispering. You call him what?

the stalker we call him kick man okay why do you guys call him kick man because christiele is going to kick his ass yeah what it's a lot the police just want to know what they're gathering intel and some of it is just not adding up and his behavior is really weird I would imagine any spouse in their right mind in the interrogation room or the interview room would be like okay let me break it down this is the day that it started. This is what we have gathered. If you let me go into the house, or I can tell you, we have logs of the stalking. Like, we just need to find this killer instead of like, we call him kick man. But the most interesting thing is, Daniel says that he

first found out about the stocking in November. And this is when the police were like, wait, what? Hold on. Because Detective Martinez knows that the stocking started October 2nd. Yeah. Why would you not know for an entire month? The officer asks, why do you think the month gap before she told you. I'm sure that she mentioned to you that she and I were going through a rough patch, kind of on the rocks, so probably didn't seem pressing until. So he's explaining that Kristiel didn't tell him about the stocking until a picture of him was sent to her. So now she's like, okay, well, your life is kind of on the line and like maybe your safety's at risk. So let me explain what's been going on for the past month. There were mentions, obviously, that Daniel and

Christine were not in the best part of their relationship, which a lot of parents raising three kids would say they've probably seen better days. But to not know that your wife is being stocked for an entire month, you have to be probably on not even speaking terms in order for this to happen. Even if she didn't think it was that serious for a month, she would have brought it up as like a, oh my God, something so weird to happen today. How bad exactly was their relationship? Right. Christiel's parents are brought in hours after her murder to give formal interviews. They were all really close.

Christiel and her dad would fix classic cars together. So they had this hobby that even as they grew up, she was always just in his garage. They have this retro diner set up in one corner of his garage. And it just looks like a dream auto shop. She would sit down while they would take a break. And he explains that she did mention that she was being stalked by the ex-boyfriend from high school.

And both Christel's parents, they remember Anthony back from when they were dating. and they say he was always very friendly, very courteous, always had good manners. It just, I mean, yeah, like it was in high school. Okay, people who knew them say their breakup was very high school. It wasn't even petty. They both worked at JC Penny. The whole breakup was because Christia was very much into academia.

Like she had a strong vision for her outlook in life. Like she wanted to pursue engineering in college. She wanted to go that route. Meanwhile, Anthony didn't really know if. if he even wanted to go to college, he was still figuring things out. So the way that Anthony even spoke about Christel after they broke up, people said that Anthony spoke about her, like, she was his great first love. Naturally, he did reach out a few times over Facebook asking how she is.

Nothing weird, but maybe he's upset that she never made any sort of advancement towards him, never wanted to see him, or maybe something big happened in his life and now he's turning on Christel. But how can somebody go from being this kind-hearted, genuine person to a stalker? Or like maybe Christel's parents didn't really know him. Christel's mom is a bit more open with the detectives. She's distraught. She's holding it together and she's telling the investigators everything they need. Christel's life was hell.

She hadn't slept in months. The last year, her husband and her were not in good terms. He was in complete denial, Daniel. She would tell me how he was. Did she ever give you insight on what kind of led to her feeling like the marriage was over? Daniel is explosive. I've never seen him hurt her. but he would hurt the kids

some people think corporal punishment is okay but he would hurt the kids like a what physical probably yeah she was worried about that but she told me he was in denial that she told him that this marriage was over

but she would stay until redacted graduated I just this in my gut I can't shake this feeling and what is that feeling telling you I just can't shake this feeling or question Is he the one that's been doing this with Anthony?

Wait, this is like the first interview? Yeah. The mom who witnessed her daughter's death. She was comforting him at the scene. And now she's saying that maybe they're working together. Yeah. And it's just like a bunch of small things. It's not like a big, aha, we caught you.

Just like weird. Even at a recent family birthday party, Daniel is out by the window the whole time in case the stalker is surveilling them in the neighborhood. but everything, something about it just feels performative. It doesn't feel really anxious. It doesn't feel like,

okay, I'm so stressed. It just feels like, look at me being a protector. That's what the mom said? Basically. Christiel's brother, he knows that the two of them, Christiel and Daniel, had been separated,

but still living together mainly for the kids. He has a different take. He tells the authorities, Cristiel was fully convinced it was Anthony. My mom has always been suspicious. I just don't know where that comes from. Can you elaborate? Like suspicious how?

My mom? Yeah. I don't know. I guess the whole difficulty finding Anthony. Like why is it so hard to find Anthony? Why can either cell phone records or IP stuff show, you know, so my mom had that frustration and I think her mind starts to wander towards conspiracy type things, right? Of like, oh, maybe it's the husband or maybe it's Dan.

And I don't know. I don't see it there just because I don't know. Dan just seems so incapable of doing something like that. Why do you say that? I just don't know. I talked to him and I just talked to him for about two hours and he was very concerned about getting his family together and, you know, talking about being hypervigilant but not paranoid.

Other members of Christel's family were interviewed and one of them says something very interesting. He says that he never liked Dan from the first moment that he met Dan. Who is this? It's like a, I believe it's an uncle. And the officers are like, why? And he's like, there are two words I would describe. Slick politician.

I don't trust a single thing he says. Yeah. Christel's sister-in-law, Kate, is asked by the officers if there was something about the stalker, anything that she thought was notable. And she says, I just always felt like there was something weird about it. But I can't put my finger on it. I just feel like she had said that it was this like Anthony guy, but it seemed very different from past behavior in him.

she said that he was never sexual in the past and now he's saying all these hypersexual things. I think even at one point she was questioning whether it was actually him. Daniel himself has told officers during his interview, I had a partner to protect, but it didn't feel like a partner who valued me and I told her at that point, I didn't want to die for someone who didn't care about me anymore. I was hurting when I said that.

He said that he just wanted Christiel to say, I do care about you, but she didn't. and he was really hurt. Officers are finally able to locate the high school ex-boyfriend Anthony, and he's eight hours away in a different state at home on his couch drunk. The officers tell him, I'm going to ask you a couple of names and see if you recognize them, okay? Have you heard of a Crystal Kroog?

Yeah. Do you know a Daniel Kroog? No. How do you know Kirsteal? She was an ex-girlfriend? Ex-girlfriend? How long is the ex? How long ago?

1999? Oh, so like a long while ago. She's my very first girlfriend ever. And when was the last time you talked to? Is this recorded too? Yeah. What? Has it been a while, a minute? Uh, it's been a minute. It's pretty clear that Anthony is at least appearing drunk and confused. He probably is drunk and confused, but what cannot be faked or confused is the fact that Anthony has an airtight alibi. That morning he had gone to Coles. and bought a sweatshirt. And he's seen buying the sweatshirt and he has a receipt for it. And he's wearing that sweatshirt right now. And there's no way that he could have driven to kill Christiel, then driven back in time to buy the sweatshirt. There's also no way that he was on any sort of flight or Amtrak train, nothing. Which means unless he knows how to teleport, Anthony could not have killed Christiel Krug,

just as police suspected. Which leads to Daniel being in the back of a police car, handcuffed. And an officer asking him, quote, hey Dan, do you want me to tell your kids that you killed their mother? Or you want somebody else to. I want to talk to an attorney. Okay, then. All right.

Good luck. And the cop slams the door shut. That's really crazy to say. I mean, I guess they're arresting him for murder, right? Yeah. I think, okay, I don't particularly think that the cops were doing like a spectacular job. I think that they were doing their job with the taxpayers pay money for. But I will say they seem.

very fed up with Daniel. I think it's all of his acting and all of his like, I was supposed to protect her. I see, I see. Yeah. The hours leading up to Daniel's arrest are also very interesting. There's a few key moments that investigators are very suspicious about, aside from the physical and forensic evidence that they get later on.

But the first one is, when Daniel is first called into the police station, he's in the interrogation room and Detective Martinez comes in, because Detective Martinez is the one that has been helping Christia with the stalker, aka Daniel. And Daniel is like hunched over on this blue couch and he's like, we were supposed to protect her. We did it protect her?

And Detective Martinez said that he was looking at Daniel and he realized he's sobbing, he's whispering, he's doing all these things and not a single fucking tear. So he starts questioning Daniel, not even going after him, but just asking him normal questions one would expect. And Daniel constantly keeps his pitch out of whisper. It's always like everything hurts. I don't feel anything.

I have two different voices going through my head right now. I have my brother Matthew, and I've mentioned him. He's a sheriff's lieutenant, and I have a voice saying, talk to the police. And as a typical cop, that should, you know, he married a prosecutor.

So I have Lynn's voice in my head going, get a fucking lawyer. That is crazy. His brother is a cough? Not the one that he's on the phone with, I believe. That's a different brother. So his brother is a cop. His sister-in-law is a prosecutor.

And I mean, the fact that he mentions this very early on in the interrogation is definitely a very soft way of saying I might lawyer up whenever I want. So I would tread carefully. Is the vibe that he gives. Or maybe he's trying to say, hey, I'm also, you know, my brother is a cop too. Hello. Yeah. And so he just has all these. like weird moments. He also tries to hint that Christiel would be out of the house for a really

long time. So he's like trying to make it seem like Christel was suspicious. And I just want to say, and I say this every single time, if an investigator ever asks you, what do you think happened in this car? Who do you think did it? I just want you to know that investigator thinks you did it. And Daniel is asked and he responds, so in my brain, the story that I have is that someone came to the door. Maybe she went outside to get a package. And they must have come in and she's a fighter. She's strong. She would have fought.

And again, it's like the movies. It's like that's not the question right now. Like you're trying to figure out who killed your wife. Why are you saying things like, she's a fighter. She would have fought. At one point when the police are leading him out, he's like, I just need to know what to tell my kids. Did she fight?

Because she's a fighter. Again, it's just bizarre. Bizarre. Yeah, yeah. Who do you think killed her? I think it's Kickman. I think it's Anthony. What if I told you we had already spoken to Anthony

and there's no way that he was in town today? Then I have nothing. That I'm terrified to bring my children home. What are you terrified of? If it wasn't him, who was it? If you were watching these facts unfold in front of you in a movie, What would you say happened? There has to be someone.

I loved her. There has to be someone. I don't know who that is. How was his performance, I guess, when he first came to the scene or found out that the wife is killed? When he is in front of the house, that's the moment where I would say we can't really judge grief. I actually had like a whole thing about this

while I was watching the footage because I was comparing and I was like, okay, I don't know. who would have a harder time because he is much more distraught than Christel's mother. And I was thinking, okay, does that make sense for the spouse to be? I guess it would and I was having all these different thoughts in my head. I would say when he gets to the house, he's on his knees. He does keep saying things like I should have protected her. I was supposed to protect her. I think at that point, it's kind of believable. I don't know if that's how you would behave. but I think that's like when the applicable term of,

well, everyone responds to grief and shock differently would apply. Ah, I see. So you're saying that it looked like in hindsight, it was very theatrical, right? Very in hindsight. Because then I was also trying to think, right? I think I am probably the most theatrical person that I know in terms of like, I am dramatic with my words and I like, ah,

and I laugh loudly and things. But I think when shit comes down, I would be very alert of like, okay, let me process this. We got to get, we got to like, I would jump into action. So I thought it was weird that he was so on his knees and saying I should have pretend. When it seems like the rest of the family are like, okay, what are we going to do? We got to figure things out the kids.

We got to worry about the kids. It's not just us. Like obviously there's grief, but there's also three kids that we have to take care of, figure out their safety. Like there's a lot. So in contrast, you're saying that he is more in that like, oh my God, oh my God, versus other people kind of had their shit together. Yeah, I think like in that moment,

I would probably have my shit together and then fall apart later. Because it's like, okay, especially when you factor in the three kids. Yeah. But in hindsight, though, that just, now we know this is his choice of performance. Yes.

Like he thinks this is the most believable reaction to give. But it looked very off when he arrived at the station. just instantly became really off. Yeah, I think, okay, now in hindsight, obviously everything is clear in hindsight. I also think like the constant I was supposed to protect her. I didn't protect her is really weird at the scene when he gets to the house because it's not about his kids.

It's not about safety. And it's also not about like, we got to find the fucker who did this. Like there is no action. It's like very him-centric. It's like I'm the protector and I failed. I'm the biggest victim. Ooh, the guilt.

It's almost like he wants people to be like, you did everything you could. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's weird. But I will say the, okay, so there is a blonde woman next to him who's comforting him more than Christel's mother. And she is the victim advocate that was called to the scene. Her name is Heather.

She's interviewed later. And she says, at that moment, it was fine. It's actually when she gets in the car with him, driving into the police station for the interview, she thought it was weird. Really? What happened? Yeah, she said that he was like slumped over in the passenger seat, like in a fetal position. Again, kind of weird.

And I'm like, okay, I also don't see how that, again, maybe it's just me being like, couldn't be me, but it's just weird. Like he's not, she said most people ask questions. Yeah. They're like, what do you know? What happened? Like they're like a mess, but they're still trying to gather information. And maybe it's all over the place because they're a mess.

But it's not just like, I'm so sad I couldn't protect her. It's like, what's happening? Like, what happens? to tell me what happened, right? Yeah. There's none of that. He's not asking questions. And then she just feels so weird about it.

She said she has this gut feeling where at one point she was like, did you do something? Really? And then she was like, oh my God, I'm such a shitty person. She's like, what's wrong with me? Like, this is a man who just lost his wife and I'm over here. Like, what am I doing? Like, I'm watching too much dateline. Like, what's wrong with me?

And she's like, okay, I got to get it together. Like, this is not okay. I see. But she just had this, like, weird gut feeling where it's, like some things are off. And she'd probably been doing this, right? Meeting a lot of victims.

Yeah. And he keeps trying to seem like really confused all the time. Like even when the cop is like, oh, can we see your phone to see the house cameras? It's like lots of like, what did I put my? Oh yeah, here's my phone. Okay, let me try to unlock it. Like it's just like this really performative trying to seem harmless.

Yeah Yeah Also I thought it was weird That at the crime scene He never asks about the kids I'm not a parent But I think my first reaction Like God forbid anything happened

If there are children involved in anything I'd be like Where are they? Are they fine? Like who's going to get them Like we got to figure out something But he's the dad And he's not even like

Are the kids okay Like where are the kids Are they safe? How do we know they're safe? Yeah And so he doesn't appear emotional during the interview. He just looks slumped over as time progresses.

And the officers are like, help me make sense of this. I don't know. I'm not the one who does this. I don't have a narrative or a story that I can offer you. I get the narrative that you guys are putting together, but it all alleges that I would do this to my children. I love and adore my children. There's, like I said, footage of him telling his children what happened.

So all three of them are brought into the police station. They're pulled out of school. and he has asked, do you want to tell your kids or do you want us to tell your kids? And he's like, I got to tell my kids. So he sits down with them. He tells them and they are like incredibly, there's not exactly a word that I would use to describe it. I think distraught would be a very simple word. But I just don't really know.

I mean, one of them seems like she's in high school. The other two seem pretty young. And I. What did he say? He just say that you're. Again, very theatrical. Like, she's gone. She's not.

Okay. They're just, and there are like some speculations I saw in some comments of some of some of these videos circulating where some people think that maybe the eldest, because the whole thing is blurred, but you can still kind of see bodies. Maybe the eldest had an inkling because they seem the most standoffish from the dad, but he's just like comforting them and it's just. And they're just like, what, screen crying? Yeah. And how is he comforting them? Just patting them. Yeah.

Wow. And I think the reason, like I wouldn't even want to bring this up or even talk about it, but I think the whole point is the fact that he would do that to his own kids. It's like less about, oh, look at the kid's reaction. It's more so like, hear the things that he's saying to his kids after he did it. That's so sick. Now, you think about that. he chose to give that information to the kids.

And he knows that he's, you know what I mean? Like if he really cared, obviously he wouldn't commit a crime. But then also he probably would not have the guts to even see that. Yeah. But he doesn't. And the police are saying like, I think ultimately you thought this would bring you closer to your kids in your mind. Because now you're all the kids have. The officer tells Daniel exactly what they think happened.

They think that Anthony has reached out in the past to Christiel and maybe Daniel has gotten jealous, even though she has told him multiple times that she's married and he backs off. And this was, you know, back in 2016 was probably the last time that he reached out. He did ask if she wanted to have intimate relations. So maybe you had a question about infidelity, whether it's with Anthony or anybody else. Because why would Anthony randomly ask about having intimate relations if they hadn't had intimate relations? like they're trying to be on Daniel's side. And so, you know, you might create an account

to see if Christel's actually interested in Anthony. So you ask, you push, she doesn't respond. And then you're just trying to confirm your suspicions of infidelity. You don't get the response and the openness that you once did. And you think that, well, maybe if I keep doing this, she's going to come closer to me because she's so scared and she has nobody else. So you amp it up a little bit.

And then you even send a photo of yourself in the account that you created. Daniel has asked again Like if you were watching these unfold What would you say happened if this were a movie? There has to be some unknown He says I'm not the one who does this I'm analytical at work I read and write fiction at home

I don't do crime drama I don't know what any of this is He writes fiction? He's a writer Mm-hmm Huh Yeah But for a month Christiel doesn't tell Daniel what's happening

so he amps it up by sending that photo of himself. And that's when Christel tells Daniel about the stalking that's been happening. And he keeps amping it up. Christel is still over it. She's like, I don't want to be in this marriage anymore. I want to get a divorce. And the police wrote in their report, there's like a 700-page report that we come through.

But Christel told somebody in the family that she has a photo of bruising on one of the kids that she is going to use against Daniel in a custody case. And then she also told a friend that she confronted Daniel because she was starting to feel as if Daniel was the stalker. So the police believe that not only does she have some sort of evidence against him in the custody case, she's about to out him to everyone publicly, to their family members, maybe even to the police, that he is the stalker. He's going to lose everything. And so he kills her. So the forensic evidence from the top, the Krug house has four cameras on the outside of the house,

doorbell camera, one on the side of the house, one that shows the driveway and the garage. And it's crazy, like this FOIA request, we got all of the footage from that. And we also got footage from like neighbors cameras. There's a lot of footage. But multiple of the cameras were turned off for two hours that morning. And the only people that could turn it off manually are Daniel and Christiel. It's only turned back on when Daniel goes to work. and he is later the normal, his work time.

And he also seems really casual walking through his office, which is unsettling after he just murdered his wife. He then comes back to the house in extreme distress. But when he calls that welfare check, he calls the police. He calls Christiel's mom. He calls the neighbor. He's the one that called? Yeah.

And he's also the one that called Christel's mom to go check up on Christiel. For what reason? Maybe it's the ultimate revenge because it seems like he has this venomous hatred towards Christel's family. Right, right, right. But what made him decided for call a wellness call like just out of nowhere in the morning? Yeah. So he said that he hasn't been able to get in contact with his wife.

And it's weird because they had a stalker. So if they could just go check, he's at work right now. He left work earlier this morning. She was dropping off the kids. He called the neighbor, the mom, and the police. And he's like, it's probably nothing, but like just in case. I don't know. for someone who's planning doing this for so long,

there's also very dumb. Everything he does is like... There were also messages from Christel's phone that morning that she was killed. One of them was to Daniel that was sent after she was killed, right? Which, how is that possible? He's out of the house.

He gets a text message when he's at work from Christel. Those are all scheduled. There was one scheduled to be sent out to Detective Martinez, one to her dad. All of them pre-scheduled. You can schedule text messages on Christel 's phone and someone had scheduled those messages, who would it be if not Daniel? Because that needs to point to these messages were sent once he was out of the house.

If the police didn't realize that these text messages were scheduled, they could have believed that Daniel was out of the house and Christel was still alive inside the house. Then you factor in some really dumb stuff. The day before Christel's murder, he's Googling, how long, at least you spelled how correctly, but how long can you be unconscious without brain damage? How hard a hit for head trauma to go unconscious? How hard would you have to hit someone in the head to make them unconscious? Do people really go unconscious when hit in the head?

What happens when you're hit in the head? The picture of Daniel getting out of his car at work that the stalker took of him, data forensics were able to uncover that it was on selfie timer mode. I guess the metadata can show if it was like taking with the front camera, the back camera. It was like selfie mode front camera on a timer. Yeah, that was my question. So he put a little. Yeah.

He bought a burner phone. but he buys it not with a credit card, but with a gift card. That gift card is registered to himself. When he first starts messaging Christel, because she doesn't respond to that first message of like, hey, it's Anthony, right? He didn't know if the message was going through,

so he decides to text himself from the burner phone and just the word test. He responds back, yeah. All the messages being sent, the email's being sent. They're all being sent from the IP address at Daniel's workplace, the Department of Public Health in Colorado. When authorities confront Daniel about it, he just says it doesn't make any sense.

The Wi-Fi, we have public access, and everybody knows the passwords. But nobody believes him. Yeah. The trial takes place. And if you had any questions about how evil this guy is, even during the trial, the impact statements, this is when Christel's family is, they're going to come up and tell the judge about how this has impacted their lives so that the judge can be more thorough with sentencing. Daniel is telling his parents on the phone that during sentencing,

they should be able to give impact statements. So Daniel's family are allowed to give like character statements. They're not allowed to like give impact statements in that sense. Right. Because the people impacted by the crime are supposed to give impact statements. And he says under the terms of the law, you are family members of the victim. You lost a daughter-in-law. My brother lost a sister-in-law.

You should be allowed to speak if you choose. Why does you want them to talk? Probably to say nice things about him too. And also it's just like such a slap in the face to Christiel's family. Like they lost a daughter and a sister. What do you mean you lost a daughter-in-law? You lost a sister-in-law. You should be able to talk.

Yeah. And what's the parent's reaction to that? Oh, he continues though. He's like, they said you might be able to speak, whether it's on my behalf or Christel's behalf. I don't care. The point is you deserve to be recognized as the victim's family, which has been denied to me since the day she did.

died. The mom looks hesitant and she says, do you want her family to even hear us? Yes, you lost Christiel just like I did. The loss isn't theirs alone. So yes, I would like you to speak if you are willing and able. This is after he's found guilty. Yeah. I just think everyone involved just fucking hates Daniel. Even the police officers. And again, this is not like me commending police officers. I think that they're doing their job. I think that's their job, right? There's nothing to praise there. but there are moments in the body cam. The arresting officers are searching through his car, and one of them is reading through his journal briefly.

Just to quote, make sure, was he going to fucking off himself or some shit? I got to look. And he's like reading through the journal. And the other cop is like, is there a confession in there? No. And they're both disappointed.

Also, before their arrest, it's like kind of comical in the only sense because we fucking hate Daniel, but nothing else. And like, I guess the only thing that's like, okay, some relief is one of the cops is like, once he does the stop, because they're going to arrest Daniel in his car. They're like, once he does the stop, we're going to flip the bitch.

So they're like getting pumped to arrest Daniel. I don't know if they're just like... They pulled him over at a stop sign? No, so he was going to his daughter's recital, and they bombarded him in the parking lot when he was by himself, thankfully, not with the kids. So they got him, but it's like every tone of all the police officers working this case. They just hate the guy. Yeah.

They're just so ready to The jurors deliberated for a day and a half. Eight days? No, one day. One day. One day and a half. They concluded that Daniel would be found guilty of murder in the first degree, stalking an extreme emotional distress,

stalking with credible threat and criminal impersonation. He will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The whole time during the conviction and the sentencing, Anthony was there. the guy that he tried to frame. Wow. Detective Martinez states that this case has haunted me since it occurred, and the outcome of the case has haunted me for the past two years. Christel's parents have given some grace stating that it's not really Detective Martinez's fault.

They think, inevitably, I think he was going to kill her. When someone sets their mind to do something like that, and that's what the plan was, I don't think that would have stopped the murder from happening. Anthony also, he was interviewed and he said that the morning that he went to go by that sweatshirt from Coles, he now thinks that it was Christel sending him a message. Because it was just so random. Like he didn't really need a sweatshirt. It was just kind of like a, he just felt the urge to go buy a sweatshirt.

Yeah. The receipt for that would be his ultimate alibi. And so with that, that is the case of Christiel Kroog. I saw a lot of people saying this was like, the smartest, most calculated murder in history. I think there was just a lot of effort put in, but it wasn't, I think Daniel would get off on being called smart and calculated. I think he's a bozo.

I think he sucks at acting. And I think ultimately he deserves everything that's going to come to him in prison. And during all of those calls, he just, the whole time, he's saying he didn't do it. And he's mad that he thinks someone is taking his valuable coins. He thinks the police stole a ring, the credit card information, which I'm not saying I don't think police, they probably did. They could have, right? That wouldn't be the craziest thing police have done. But also, like, you deserve it. So what are your thoughts on this case? Let me know in the comments. And I will see you in the next one.