Snapped: Women Who Murder - BONUS: The Hunter and the Hunted (Accident, Suicide, or Murder)

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

A young immigrant mother is killed in a hunting accident while out with her fiancé.Season 04 Episode 03Originally aired: Dec 10, 2022Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WatchSnappedPodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hi Snap listeners, we are bringing you a special bonus episode today from oxygen's hit series accident suicide or murder You can also watch full episodes live or on demand on the free oxygen app or on peacock by clicking the link in our description enjoy a Young mother who came to America for a better life dies in a hunting accident while out with her fiance the shotgun blast struck her in the chest. Hunting accidents are a relatively common occurrence in South Dakota. She has a young son.

She has a family she's supporting in the Philippines. She's engaged to be married. So there's a lot of victims in this tragedy. The fiance continues to communicate with her family in the tragedy. The fiancé continues to communicate with her family in the Philippines. When my sister died, he treated us like family. It appears to be a tragic accident, but a love triangle gives police cause for concern.

There's nothing to tell me that she had another boyfriend. Someone is using the victim's phone, pretending to be her. There is a saying in South Dakota that if you want to murder someone, you take them hunting. And then a shocking encounter becomes a critical break in the case.

How was it you fell in love with your fiance's sister. 911, where's the emergency? Yes, my friend just got actually got shot in the... I'm on the way to the Gregory Hospital calling right away. Okay. About five miles out. Five miles out? Is she breathing consciously? No.

She's not breathing? No. It's an emergency. Okay, I'll let the hospital know that you're coming, okay? Alright. Approximately 1.40 p.m. The shooting victim and the caller arrive in a pickup truck. They immediately start attending to the shooting victim. The shooting victim is a young female.

The victim has a shotgun wound to the chest. Kid came in still breathing, a slight heartbeat. They were working on her at that time, doing what they could. Law enforcement is summoned to the hospital to start investigating what happened. The initial call was an accident. And since it was pheasant season we assumed maybe it was a hunting accident. Gregory County is in the heart

of farmland and during pheasant season it'll call itself the pheasant hunting capital of the world. When Deputy Dre and Gregory County Sheriff Charlie Wolfe arrived at the hospital they were immediately directed to the caller, the driver of the vehicle. That subject identified himself as Russell Burcham. Sheriff Wolfe knew him. He was a former law enforcement officer. Burcham was 52 years old, and he had been a police chief in a town near Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Mr. Burcham said that the person that was shot was his 26-year-old fiance. Her name was Lea Nyla Stickney, but everybody called her Nyla. Mr. Bertram said that he and Nyla had been out road hunting. Mr. Bertram said that he was an experienced hunter. But Leo Neela had never been road hunting before, and she was not familiar with guns. Bertram told law enforcement that prior to the shooting,

he had already shot two pheasant, and as they're going down this dirt-true track, he saw a pheasant and as they're going down this dirt true track he saw a pheasant up ahead. He got out of the vehicle with his Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun, went forward and shot the bird, collected the bird, threw the bird in the back of the pickup truck and then he opened the driver's side door. He extended the gun forward into the passenger compartment. Russell stated that was when Leonela grabbed the shotgun and pulled it towards him and

said kiss me. And that's when he said the gun accidentally discharged. And the shotgun blast struck Leonela in the chest. Immediately after the shooting occurred, Bertram called 911 to report that there had been a shooting. While doctors rushed to save Leonela Stickney's life, Deputy Dre takes Russell Bertram back to the scene of the shooting to find evidence to verify his story.

Russell Bertram told me where the accident had occurred. So we drove to the spot. It was kind of in the basin of this dirt road, very hard to see from any surrounding area. Bertram showed me where he thought he had exactly to see from any surrounding area. Bertram showed me where he thought he had exactly shot the pheasant. We searched the area several minutes for a spent shell from his shotgun.

It was very dense with weeds. We could see the tracks from the vehicle that were in the weeds. There was evidence that he had been there at that spot with the vehicle. He told me again how he had placed the shotgun back into the vehicle, and my thoughts were that's not how an experienced hunter puts a gun into a vehicle. Especially a loaded gun, an experienced hunter would put it into the vehicle, angled down so that it threw up some red flags. Back at the hospital, investigators have discovered

a clue in Russell's pickup truck. While I was away with Russell Bertram, Sheriff Wolfe found three pheasants in the back of the vehicle. Two were cold, and one appeared to be warm and freshly shot, which very much verified what Mr. Bertram had told law enforcement that he had just shot a pheasant at the scene. On the inside of the truck, we found an 870 Remington pump shotgun.

The barrel was on the hump of the transmission. There was blood in the vehicle on the passenger side, and it was all consistent with what Bertram had stated. At that point, it was very plausible that this could have been an accident. Shortly after, law enforcement is informed that the worst case scenario has happened. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the emergency room team, Neela died of her injuries. We notified Mr. Bertram that his fiance, Neela, had passed away.

Bertram was seemingly non-emotional. He was stoic. We thought that was very odd. But hunting accidents are a relatively common occurrence in South Dakota. Being a former law enforcement officer, that gives him a little more credibility. What Bertram was describing was certainly plausible.

It was an unfortunate accident that resulted in Nela's death. Nela was an immigrant with a family that she still really cared for in the Philippines. At two o'clock in the morning after Leo Nila's death, Bertram calls her older sister Melissa in the Philippines to tell her the tragic news. Russ called me. He told us that Nila died in a gunshot accident. She's far from us, so we cannot even see her

for the last time. We cannot even see her, how much we love her. We cannot even see her, how much we love her. Nila was raised in poverty in the Philippine jungle, and she wanted to improve her life. Nila is a loving sister, a loving mother. She is an independent woman, an achiever, and she loves to dance. She had only come to the United States in 2004 after meeting a gentleman from South Dakota named David Stickney.

David was 67. They wound up getting married and relocated to South Dakota, and a year later had their son. By 2008, Leo Neela was estranged from her husband, David, but still had a close relationship with her son. Prior to her breakup with David, she had met a former police officer named Russell Bertram. They wound up becoming friendly and decided to get engaged.

Bertram told law enforcement that he did in fact love Neela and they were in a loving relationship. Leo Neela worked at the nursing home and she would send much of the money that she earned back to her family in the Philippines. Nelia is a big contributor to our family. She is our source of income. Nelia has a young son. She has a family she's supporting in the Philippines. She's engaged to be married.

So there's a lot of victims in this tragedy. It's very painful for us. It's still painful for me. Two days after the shooting, Dr. Brad Randall conducted the autopsy in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was evident that there was a shotgun wound to the left chest. There was a very small diameter wound for a shotgun, so it was clear this was a very close range shot.

The pellets all entered the body and did catastrophic damage. The survivability of this type of injury is essentially zero. Leonila Stickney has no defensive wounds to suggest a struggle, but as Dr. Randall continues the autopsy, he makes a shocking discovery that adds to the tragic circumstances of Leonela's death. When I'm looking under the microscope, I was able to identify an early pregnancy in the uterus.

Leonela was actually a few weeks pregnant at the time that she was shot. Is there a motive for this death? It seems like there's another man in Nila's life, possibly a new boyfriend. You didn't know she was pregnant? No, I did not. Bertram was very non-emotional about it. That certainly raises our suspicions.

After discovering at the autopsy that the victim, Leonela Stickney, was a few weeks pregnant, detectives question whether this could be a motive for something more sinister. As a forensic pathologist, we are charged with determining two things primarily. One of them is the cause of death, which in this case was obviously the shotgun wound to the chest. And the next thing is the manner of death. But in this case, I could not distinguish whether this was an accident or a homicide. The circumstances of the shooting is not something that you can determine forensically. In fact, there was only one person at that point in time who really did know what the

circumstances were. That point of finding out that Neela was pregnant, Sheriff Wolfe went and spoke with Mr. Bertram again. Bertram told law enforcement that he didn't know Neela was pregnant when she died. Again, Bertram was very non-emotional about it. That certainly raises our suspicions at that point. Is her pregnancy a motive for her death? But it was even possible that Neela

didn't know she was pregnant. That would eliminate the pregnancy as a motive factor. Investigators hope forensics can help shed light on whether or not Russell's initial statement was true about Leah Neela grabbing the barrel of the shotgun, causing it to discharge accidentally. On October 27, three days after the shooting, Sheriff Wolfe brought the shotgun to the South Dakota Forensic Lab in Pierce, South Dakota to have the gun examined for fingerprints.

If we find Leonela's fingerprints on the barrel, then that is consistent with his story that it was just an accident. On November 9, the South Dakota Forensic Lab reported back that they had examined the barrel of the shotgun. Absolutely no fingerprints were found on that barrel. It's quite possible that they could have been wiped off,

but that doesn't really tell us anything. If her fingerprints are on the gun, boy that certainly supports what Bertram said happened. But the fact that her fingerprints are not on the gun, it doesn't support him. So we continue to investigate. Nearly four weeks after the shooting, with no forensic evidence, the local coroner rules on the manner of Leah Neelis Stickney's death. At the time that I did this autopsy, I was coroner in my local jurisdiction,

but the autopsy was done for another jurisdiction, and they had the ultimate responsibility for certifying the death. On November 30, 2009, the doctor at the hospital filed a death certificate. Neelus, attending physician, listed the manner of death as accident. But we were continuing with the investigation that this was not an accident at that time. Accident was a very plausible manner of death.

On the other hand, there is a saying in South Dakota that if you want to murder someone, you take them hunting. Nearly two months after Leah Neela Stickney's death, police are at a standstill with no evidence to corroborate Russell Bertram's story or incriminate him. But then they catch a break. In December of 2009, there was a completely unexpected revelation to the case.

Neela's estranged husband, David Stickney, he called Sheriff Wolfe and informed him that he had learned of two life insurance policies totaling almost a million dollars. On Neela, David is the father of their four-year-old child, yet he had no idea such a large insurance policy had been taken out on Leo Neela's life. According to David, the money from the life insurance policies are not going to him or their son. That made David Stickney suspicious of the circumstances surrounding his wife's death. Anytime that there's insurance policy,

it's always something that law enforcement looks into for a potential motive. We subpoena the actual applications for these insurance policies. We have to find out when were these life insurance policies applied for and who is a beneficiary. life insurance policies applied for and who is a beneficiary. On December 16, 2009, we received the results of the subpoenas. We look and lo and behold, the beneficiary is in fact the guy that shot her, Russell Bertram.

That could be a very huge motive for this not being an accident and this being an actual murder. South Dakota law enforcement continues to investigate the shooting death of Leonela Stickney. Though her fiance, Russell Bertramram claims it was an accident, the discovery of a large life insurance policy points toward a motive for murder. Sure enough, we find that the person that is going to benefit the most from her death is in fact, Russ Bertram, the guy that shot her, he claimed accidentally, who's been a law enforcement officer most of his life.

There were about $900,000 in these policies. It's certainly leaning more nefarious and less accidental. Why Russ Bertram? Why not her family in the Philippines? Why not her son? What was the reason behind Russ Bertram being the beneficiary? The next step is to interview Russ Bertram. We asked him about the reasons for him being the beneficiary. Bertram told law enforcement that Nela took out these policies because she was a bad driver. He explained to us that Nela named him the beneficiary,

so he would distribute it to her family in monthly allotments. Bertram was her fiance, so she must have thought that he was a trustworthy person. Bertram also told us that he continues to communicate with Melissa, Leo Nila's sister in the Philippines. When my sister died, Russ was taking over the responsibility of Nila. the responsibility of Nila. Raz told me that he's fighting the insurance fallacy in the court, so he needs more supporting documents.

So I've been helping him. That way he can get the money, and also to help our family, which is what he promised to my sister Nila. He's nice to us. He treats us like family. Because of his kindness that he showed to me and to my family, I grew an attachment to him.

Nila's estranged husband, David Stickney, thought the insurance money should go to their four-year-old son. And because of that, there was a civil suit over the insurance money. Until the insurance money was paid, law enforcement doesn't really know how much of a motive factor the money is. It appears that the investigation is at a second standstill. But then, only a few weeks later, yet another possible motive for murder is discovered.

During the course of our investigation, we went back to David Stickney to update him on the status of the case. David Stickney volunteered to us that he had in fact hired a private investigator to follow Leo Neela and surveil her to see where she went. During the divorce proceedings, there's questions about custody over Neela and David's son. So David hires a private investigator to learn who their son is spending time with. The private investigator revealed to David Stickney that he followed Leonila not only to Russ Bertram's residence, but then to the home of another man.

It seems that there's another man in Nila's life, possibly a new boyfriend named Nathan Meader. That adds a whole new complexity to the investigation. Now we have this new man. What is his connection to Leo Neela, and how close are they? On January 16, 2010, three months after Neela's death, we approached Nathan Meader and questioned him

about his relationship with Nila. I got a knock on my door, and it was the sheriff and another detective. They wanted to question me about Nila, and then I was informed that she'd been killed. I was so shocked. Nathan Meader didn't know that Neela had died. My heart definitely sunk.

I asked what happened, and then I was told that she was shot in a so-called hunting accident by her fiance, you know, which that to me was almost harder to believe than the fact that she had been killed. I knew she was going through a very drawn-out divorce, but there's nothing to tell me that she had another boyfriend. We learned from Nathan Meade that he had met Leo Neela in September 2009 at a bar called Borrowed Bucks in Sioux Falls. Neela, she was very witty.

We kind of hit it off right away. I'm not a big dancer, but she did get me on the dance floor, which is pretty hard to do. But when you like somebody, you're willing to do that kind of stuff. It just progressed into her talking texting daily and seeing each other whenever we could. She'd bring her four-year-old son, and we'd hang out.

And then on October 22, two days before her death, Neela told Nathan that she was pregnant and that she believes that he's the father. When she told me she was pregnant, I was at peace with it. I'm not going to just not be in that child's life. But Neela, she wanted some time. She wanted a couple weeks.

And then she just kind of disappeared off the face of the earth. Neela died two days later. That's when I was forward with the date. I was like, no, that could have been it because I've texted her with her. Nathan got out his cell phone and he showed the text messages between his phone and Leo Neela's phone.

Two weeks after the death, someone is using Neela's phone pretending to be her. A few years ago, while digging through a box in storage, I expected to find old keepsakes from the 1990s. Instead, I found VHS tapes and police reports detailing a murder that happened in Dayton, Ohio. Police arrested Jim McQuarter and Timothy Perrow for the Triangle Park murder. And as the two are brought to jail, McQuirter blames Terrell. I did do it.

Right there's the, right there. As I dug through the contents of the box, I uncovered that the murderer may have been connected to a group who called themselves the Lords of Death. I'm Thrasher Banks, host of the new Tinderfoot TV show, Lords of Death. Join me as I unpack the box and discover connections

between the Lords of Death and a slew of unsolved murders. They're just two little scrawny men, but what makes them so scary is their emptiness, their lack of conscience. People like that, you know, are capable of doing anything. Lords of Death is available now. Listen for free on Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Each morning, it's a new opportunity, a chance to start fresh. Up First from NPR makes each morning an opportunity to learn and to understand. Choose to join the world every morning with Up First, a podcast that hands you everything going on across the globe and down the street, all in 15 minutes or less. Start your day informed and anew with Up First by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts.

In January 2010, nearly three months after the shooting death of Leonila Stickney, law enforcement discovers another man in Leonila's life, Nathan Meader. Nathan provides shocking information to police. Someone posing as Leonila texted him two weeks after her death. When Leonila told me that she was pregnant, she wanted some time. She asked for like two weeks, and I gave her that time. And then after that two weeks, tried several times to get a hold of her. Unbeknownst to me, she'd been killed almost the next day.

On November 5th, he texts her, Hey, it's been two weeks. What's up? Am I going to get to see you? But still, no response. And then she did start responding to texts. Someone pretending to be Neela texts Nathan saying that she can't see him anymore. Nathan texts back,

I missed you a lot, and I really don't understand why you don't want to see me anymore. And the response he gets from Leo Neelo, it's, I'm married. I just kind of assumed that she did decide to get back together with her ex-husband, her son's father. After that, the next text that Nathan got I just kind of assumed that she did decide to get back together with her ex-husband, her son's father.

After that, the next text that Nathan got was a lewd question. I want to know if you think I was good in bed. It became quite evident that I wasn't dealing with Nila. So I asked her to call me, and at that point the text messages stopped. I assumed it was her ex-husband texting me. Nathan Meader didn't know about Russell Burcham or know that Leo Neela had died. And so he didn't think to contact the police. I miss Neela.

I would have liked the opportunity to have tried to build a life with her. That was taken away. That's one of the things that does haunt me. Obviously, the text messages were coming from the person who had Leonela's phone, which we knew was Mr. Bertram. Does Russ Bertram know about Nathan Meader? Does that give Russ Bertram more motive,

other than the insurance money, to kill Nela Stickney. Without proof, law enforcement's suspicions are not enough to acquire warrants, so they must rely on cooperation and public records to dig deeper. We obtained a public records search of Russ Bertram's background. We found that in 2008, just before his

relationship with Neela began, Russ filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. He was in debt for about $86,000. His debt payments each month equaled his monthly income. So this is a guy who's at the end of his financial rope and he has a very strong motive to try and get some money quickly. We also learned that Bertram had been married three times prior to this relationship. We were able to track each of them down

and interview them about Russ. All of them reported the same thing, that Russell Bertram was somebody who was obsessively jealous. He was unnecessarily suspicious. He took their phones from them. He accused them of having affairs with other men. So now, we're thinking, Russell looked at Leonela's phone records.

He knew about Nathan Meader. There are a number of things that were suspicious. It's not finding any fingerprints on the barrel. It's the life insurance policies. There is his history of jealous behavior. We're not thinking that it's an accident. We're thinking it's a murder. On January 21, 2011, over a year after the shooting,

Sheriff Wolfe and I interviewed Russ Bertram at the Gregory County Sheriff's Office. No, I did not. She made a comment that she was late. Meaning, hey, I could be pregnant. Yeah. This was the first time that Russ disclosed to us that he knew that she might be pregnant. She did not know when I had it, but I said, OK.

You couldn't have been the father. Correct. Russ knows that if she's pregnant, he can't be the father. That's more motive to kill Neela. She was fooling around on the side, but you didn't know it. Right. Had you ever checked her phone

to kind of feel out what she was doing before her death? No. He said he wasn't suspicious of anything that she was doing. And so then we asked him about the text messages Nathan Meader received after Leo Neela's death. We have text messages from Leonela's phone to him after she died, which I assume came from you. Yes.

Because I was trying to find out who he was. And he said he did that because he wanted to know for a fact that Neela was having sex with another man. Without a confession from Russell Bertram, investigators must wait for the civil suit over the $900,000 in life insurance money to be settled. It is not until October 17, 2011,

nearly two years after the death of Leah Neela Stickney, that an agreement is reached between the father of Leah Neela's child, David Stickney, and her fiance, the man that shot her, Russell Bertram. David Stickney knew that Bertram was the beneficiary, but he felt that

Neela's son deserved the money money and they got a settlement. Insurance companies pay out $600,000 to David Stickney and their son, and the rest goes to Bertram. According to Bertram, that insurance money was to benefit Nila's family in Philippines. If Bertram ended up paying that money to her family, that would tend to mitigate motive. But it took about a year for the money to be paid, and then we had to watch him to see what he did with the money. Two more years pass as investigators wait for the money to be paid out by the insurance companies,

and then to see what Russell Bertram does with the money. If he gives it to Leonila's family, it weakens their homicide case. But if he keeps it for himself, it is their clearest motive for murder. In September 2013, I went to Bertram's house in Sioux Falls to conduct an unexpected interview. I knew he had gotten the money, and so I wanted to know, did he in fact give the money to the family? I knock on the door. A Filipino woman who looked strikingly similar to Leonela Stickney answers the door.

She said her name was Melissa Del Valle. I immediately recognized that name. Melissa was Leonela's sister from the Philippines. Then she said she was married to Bertram. How did that transpire? In September of 2013, nearly four years after the shooting death of Leonela Stickney, investigators make a shocking discovery. The man they suspect intentionally killed her, Russell Bertram, is now married to her older sister, Melissa Del Valle.

Completely unexpected and surprising to me, we have Melissa, the victim's sister, married to my suspect. I wasn't ready to interview Melissa DelVal, so I thanked her and then I left. How did Melissa end up married to Russell Bertram? It seemed very unlikely she would move across the world to marry someone who she thought murdered her sister. Four months later, law enforcement makes another attempt to re-interview Russell Bertram. January 14, 2014, I went back to Russ' house again, hoping to catch him off guard.

And so I knocked on Russ' trailer house door. Russ answered the door. Russ said he was willing to speak to me. We stepped into my unmarked patrol vehicle and my tape recorder was going. I heard you got married. Yeah, I'm married. Congratulations.

And you're married to? Vanilla's sister. Her sister, Melissa. All right. How was it you fell in love with your fiance's sister? Well, I got in contact with them right when this happened. After Leonela's death, Bertram calls Melissa in the Philippines to tell her the tragic news that her sister's been accidentally

killed. Over time they continued talking and entered a relationship of their own. So then I went over there a year ago and I asked her if she would come to the States. He asked her, if I take you back to the United States will you marry me? And she agreed. On July 6, 2013, Melissa and Russ Burcham get married. And we're now living in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with Melissa's daughter.

So then I started to question Russ about his suspicions of Neela fooling around on him. And I questioned Bertram again about whether or not he looked at Leonela's phone records before she was shot to death. It wasn't Leonela's phone, it was your cell phone that you gave her to use. And you can see the phone bills

and you become suspicious that she's stepping out on you. I did not know that she was messing around. I'll swear to you on that. I knew she was going out supposedly with some of her friends and going dancing at Bucks. OK, well, how did you figure that out? Well, I did look at her phone record. Before, he had said he had never looked

at the phone or phone records. This time, Bertram tells me that he had, in fact, looked at the phone records. He became suspicious of these phone calls that she was making constantly to another number. Yeah, I asked her and she said it was to her friends, so I let it go. This is something completely different than what he had told us earlier. At what point, Russ, does she tell you she's late? What point in that? Oh, that was probably three, four days

before we went out hunting. Before the day you went hunting? Yeah. That's a shocking new revelation to this entire case. When I questioned Bertram before, he said that he was told that day of the shooting. Bertram learning when Neil was pregnant really impacts the case.

Now it's something he had time to plan. I think you become suspicious. I think the phone records had quite a lot to do with it, Russ. You can think what you want. The phone records were the confirmation to you what your suspicions are. Because you killed it. No I did not kill her. I'm done. Bertram knew that Leo Neela was not being loyal to him. If Leo Neela leaves

Bertram and goes on with her life with Nathan, it's quite possible that she changes the beneficiary on these life insurance policies, and so Russ is going to lose out on that money. So Bertram takes her road hunting and sets up the perfect scenario for killing her and claiming it was a hunting accident. With significant circumstantial evidence, the investigation is closing in on Russell Bertram. But law enforcement still has to prove one last piece of the puzzle. I needed to know from the family what was truly going on.

Had Bertram been sending the insurance money? had Bertram been sending the insurance money. So the next step is to interview Leo Neela's sister, Melissa, and I wanted to talk to her alone. On August 24, 2014, I saw Melissa walking down the street. I pulled up alongside of her. Agent Guy asked me if I have a minute.

He wants to talk to me about my sister. She was willing to speak with me. I immediately told her that I was suspicious about her sister's death, and I think Russ did it. So I was shocked, because all we know is that was a tragic accident. Russell Bertram told her family that Neela was handling the gun wrong and shot herself. He didn't tell them that he had any role in it. When I arrived here, the first thing I asked from him is,

did you want the insurance case for Nila? And he said that no, he did not. He lost the case. He's told the family that there was no insurance money. So at that point, I show Melissa the checks from the insurance company. Russ received hundreds of thousands of dollars. When I see it, I said, oh my gosh. I cannot believe that Russ was telling me all lies.

And then I slept with the man who killed my sister. In August of 2014, after nearly five years of building a case against Russell Bertram for the murder of Leonela Stickney, police have no hard proof, but have a mountain of circumstantial evidence. After five years of building a case against Russell Bertram for the murder of Leonela Stickney, police have no hard proof but have a mountain of circumstantial evidence. They just need one last piece to finally charge him with murder. I asked Melissa, has he given that money to your family?

I told HM guy that we really didn't receive any amount from us, except for the monthly, which is $200 a month. He had never given her family $20,000 in a lump sum like he claimed. I asked Melissa if she would testify against her husband in a murder trial. I feel like I want to go home, back to the Philippines her husband in a murder trial. justice and also for my family. So I decided to testify against him. Now the evidence exists to arrest Bertram for Leonela's murder and that's what needs to happen next.

On September 8, 2015, Russell Bertram, a former police chief, is arrested and charged with the first degree murder of Leonela Stickney. Bertram had found out from Leonela that she was possibly pregnant. Having a vasectomy knew that she was having an affair on the side. He was a very jealous man.

And if Leonela leaves Bertram and goes on with her life with Nathan, Russ is going to lose out on that money. Although David Stickney and the boy get $600,000, Russ was able to get hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of her death. In the three or four days prior to Neela's murder, when he learns that Neela was pregnant, he conceives his plan to stage her death.

We believe Russell Bertram committed a highly calculated murder. In September 2016, the case finally goes to trial. There was a pretty good case against him. It's an overwhelming mountain of, yes, circumstantial, but never know what a jury's gonna do. The text exchanges between Nathan and Nila's phone undermined Russell Bertram's story that he had not known about the pregnancy

at the time of the murder. Those texts ended up being rather critical evidence in the case. It's also, Melissa's testimony was very powerful. And it's very hard to testify against him, but even though there's fear in my mind, I love my sister and I want everyone to know the truth because I want to give her justice.

After 10 days of trial, the case was finally turned over to the jury. They deliberated for nine or 10 hours and returned a verdict. The jurors convicted Russ Burcham of first-degree murder. In South Dakota, the automatic punishment for first-degree murder is life in prison without possibility of parole. It was no doubt in my mind that that man is a predator and should not be on the streets ever again. I feel relief, victory for me and for my family. We get the justice for my sister, Nila.

We got the justice for my sister, Nila. Bertram intentionally murdered their sister, their daughter, and now they were going to see him go to prison for the rest of his life. I miss Nila. Her life was ended so soon in the relationship. It has been a long time. I definitely think about it all the time. What would have happened, what could have happened. I think about it quite often, you know.

I love my sister. She's too young. And also, her son. He's too young, Dad. I just miss her so much. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk Cafe, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about.

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