Snapped: Women Who Murder - Christine Roush

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

The body of an unidentified female is found within a forested nature centre in Bloomington, Ill; investigators must scramble to piece together her fractured life and try to determine just how familiar her killer may be.Season 28 Episode 10Originally aired: November 8, 2020Watch 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.

Bosh Legacy returns, now streaming. Maddie's been taken. Oh God. Nothing can stop a father. Is he alive? From doing what the law can't. And you have to do this the very way. You have to.

I don't. Bosh Legacy watch the new season, now streaming exclusively on FreeVee. It's Mr. Ballon here, and I'm here to tell you about my brand new podcast. It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. You can expect things like bizarre unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. It was a mother-daughter reunion two decades in the making.

She had recently come over to Bloomington to reconnect with her biological daughter. She wanted answers that all adopted kids have where you came from and why they gave you off or why you were taken away. But their reconciliation is shattered by a grizzly crime. I would like to report a possible dead body sound out by the Maple Grove nature, could you? Obvious, chest and neck trauma appeared have been stabbed and possibly throat sliced. The search for answers draws detectives down a dark path.

She would disappear so she could go out drinking and drugging. We secured search warrants to go search the hotel rooms. We were able to locate a lot of personal items that appeared to have been packed quickly. She was able to tell them things about what happened in the forest that night that really only the killer would know. This whole thing, it was heartbreaking. She didn't deserve to have happened to her, what happened. MUSIC

MUSIC July 2, 2017, Bloomington, Illinois. A beautiful summer evening brings flocks of locals to Funk's Grove Nature Preserve. Funk's Grove is known as an area where families go and spend some time in nature. Also, a lot of hikers, because the nature trail has a lot of wildflowers and so forth. Just after 6 p.m., a couple hiking the nature trails spots something unusual. They observed a object lane in the weeds.

The object was red initially. They thought it was a cooler or something something as they approached, they observed a face and skin exposed and determined it to be a person. They began calling out to the body and there was no response so they continued to get closer and finally observed that there was blood on the chest and torso, the body laying in the weeds. The hikers immediately called 9-1-1. observed that there was blood on the chest and torso, the body line in the weeds. The hikers immediately call 911.

I don't want to let you hurt your feet. Yeah, I would like to report a possible dead body sound out on the maple grove nature reserve. Looks like a female with the sight blood all over her chest. Within minutes, officers from the McLean County Sheriff's Office are dispatched to the scene. It definitely came as a surprise the location to me. Funks Grove is a highly traffic, highly public, very desirable area for people to go to.

So we were incredibly concerned as to what happened. On my arrival, I observed a approximately 40, 50-year-old female had obvious chest and neck trauma. Peer to have been stabbed and possibly throat sliced. It appeared to be a victim of homicide. There was no possible way that an individual could have inflicted this much damage to themselves. There was definitely a lot of things that was running through my head. One thing authorities do feel confident about, the woman hasn't been here for long. In early July, a body will start to decompose quickly.

And it was obvious from seeing the body that it had not been there more than a day. There wasn't much blood underneath the body. The blood at this point had soaked into the dirt, so that was the concern, whether the person was murdered there, or whether the person was dumped there. There was no items in the victim's pockets. There was no purses or wallets anywhere around

that was located. So the only thing that we had to identify this individual with was a necklace that she was still wearing and a tattoo on her left forearm that read Leo's late. In order to process the scene, we conducted a grid search of the area. I noticed that the grass had been disturbed like somehow had been drug-thru it.

Led me to believe that the body had been drugged from the parking lot into that location. In the parking area, we located several cigarette butts, a lot aniliter. When the rest of the search fails to yield more evidence, investigators know this could be their only clue to a possible suspect. We were unable to locate any weapons on scene

or anything that had blood or any other type of biological evidence on it. So yeah, one of the cigarette butts we sent for DNA testing. It could take up to eight weeks to get DNA results and investigators need something to run with now. There are a lot of really big questions about who was this woman?

Why was she in the middle of the forest and, you know, who killed her? The weekend was busy at the park. Anybody could have been a suspect. There's always an urgency when you have a homicide to start collecting facts and getting victim identified. And we know that the longer we go without identifying the victim, the more chance there is

that we're losing evidence. Hoping to obtain more details, detective Fritz meets with the hikers who discovered the Jane Doe. The hikers were very distraught and fully not expectant to see the ceased body on their hike, and they were upset during their interview when speaking with me. The hikers had been there only about an hour. With a couple unable to provide additional context, detectives are perplexed as to why the killer dumped the body here.

This is one of the more commonly traveled forest-eat areas in this area. I mean, if you were going to dump a body, why would you put it next to a walking trail at a nature center that people walk through the forest all the time. This area is adjacent to the interstate, so the access to this area could be by a lot of people traveling down the interstate. With easy access to an escape route, investigators know the killer could be anywhere by now. The body had been there for probably 13 hours or so.

I thought about any possible combination of who this person was, how this person ended up there. As the Jane Doe is carted off to the county coroner, detectives attempt to identify her through their own resources. When a person is found deceased and we have no identification for them, the initial thing is to look through local databases to find out if anybody is missing. There was no missing persons reported. This person was not in our local database.

There was a sense of urgency to figure out who the person was. We began to canvas the area search for any surveillance videos that might exist at any of the local businesses, any local residences. Unfortunately, we were unable to come up with with anything. Unfortunately, we were unable to come up with anything. At this point, we needed to complete an autopsy and determine cause of death. The following morning, an autopsy is performed at the McLean County Coroner's office. The autopsy reveal dozens of stab wounds

to the chest and neck area. The victim died from not only multiple stab wounds, but also strangulation. And there was also a laceration on the back of the victim's head from a blunt object. Generally speaking, when a person has stabbed multiple times, plus strangulation, plus blunt forced trauma. This leads to a kind of passion. So at that point you start thinking that it was somebody closer that had feelings for the victim. With no time to waste, Sheriff Sandage decides it's time to call on the public for help. I sent an investigator to that autopsy to take a photograph of the tattoo.

We then pushed a picture of that tattoo and also a picture of some jewelry that the victim was wearing out. On social media and through the newspaper, hoping somebody would recognize that and would help us identify the body. Coming up, detectives get their first big break. A patrol sergeant stated they had received a call from somebody

saying that they know who this person is. When you receive that information, you realize that your suspect pool has just grown exponentially. exponentially. July 2017, after a Jane Doe was found dead at a nature preserve outside of Bloomington, Illinois, county investigators hope their limited initial clues will help identify the victim. They knew that they had a woman, a female, a slight build, only about five feet tall, roughly her age, maybe 40s. She also had a tattoo on her arm that said Leo's lady.

We did open up a tip line to the public to contact our agency if they had any information that could help with the assistance of identifying our victim. Hours after releasing a photograph of the victim's tattoo to local media outlets, detectives finally get a tip they can run with. On the evening of July 3rd, at about 7.30 pm, I received a phone call from a patrol sergeant who stated they had made contact with an individual that was indicating they were a family member of our victim.

This was really the first time that we had received a call from somebody saying that they know who this person is. Detectives ask the caller, Terry Gruber, and his wife, Sharon, to come to the station for questioning. Terry was watching the evening news, and he observed the tattoo of Leo's lady, and immediately he knew that it was his daughter. Teresa Pullman.

it was his daughter. Teresa Pullman. Teresa Ann Gruber was born to Terry and his first wife, Paulette, on November 19, 1969 in Morton, Illinois. Her dad, Terry, left her mom, went off to California to be a rough and tough biker. Teresa lived with Paulette in her sister Elizabeth. When she was 10, and I guess Elizabeth would have been 13 years old, they ended up moving with their mother down to Texas.

Theresa's childhood was chaotic to say the least. I don't believe she was showed the love someone as a child needs to feel. At the time she was 12, Paulette would take her to the bar with her, so other guys would buy him drinks. Her mom was doing cocaine with her. Not even a teenager, Teresa already knew this was no life for her and decided to leave home.

She hitchhiked to California with some kid that she was dating at the time and gentlemen she was traveling across country with parted ways and at a younger age she found herself on the street alone. Desperate for a place to belong throughout her teens Teresa threw herself into one failed relationship after the other. She eventually returned to Texas where she moved back in with her mom. At the age of 25, Teresa learned she was expecting her first child. The father was a maintenance man at one of the apartment buildings she lived at with her mother.

On February 7, 1995, Teresa gave birth to a daughter, Christine. But the joys of motherhood were overshadowed by other problems. She was diagnosed with a bipolar disorder. It took years to find that out. Her bipolar disorder and herself medicating took over her life. At first it was self-medication to cope with the bipolar. And then it spiraled into more of an addiction. her life. At first it was self-medication to cope with the bipolar and then it spiraled into more of an addiction and once it started it snowballed.

Teresa realized that something had to give. She moved to Illinois where she called on extended family for help raising Christine. Chrissy was abused as a child. I, her birth mother's boyfriend. She went in and out of her birth mother's life for the first two and a half years of her life, and that's when she was abused. When Chrissy was two and a half years old, she went and lived with her grandma. When she turned three, she was adopted by Tammy and Kim,

Rigenbach. They were extended family of Chrissy's, and so therefore they chose to adopt her. The Rigenbach's are church-going people. She had siblings, she had brothers and sisters. Chrissy just had a normal, typical, small town childhood. To reset for her part stayed out of the way. She accepted the fact that she had been taken away

and adopted out and her adopted parents didn't want her to have any contact. Teresa continued to struggle with addiction, but in 2003, a ray of light came into her life. I was introduced to Teresa through her sister, and Teresa and I hit it off pretty well. Thanks for the rest rather quickly. And to a romantic relationship between her and I,

which flourished over a two or three month period. The couple soon had a son named Ryan. I think that that was one of the major factors that made Teresa want to change as a person and be a better mom and turn her into a better mom for Ryan. She was a really good mom to Ryan. Teresa tried to make the most of her second chance in life. I think that that was some of the most

joyous occasions that I've ever seen in Teresa. It was when we were together with Ryan, it just being a family, and everything was going well. Despite her happy exterior, Teresa continued fighting her own inner demons. She would get depressed and she would lash out at others. She would get drunk and leave. And a couple days later I'd get a phone call she'd want to come back home. And that worked for a while, but it didn't want to leave. A couple of days later, I'd get a phone call. She didn't want to come back home.

And that worked for a while, but it didn't work forever. In 2008, after five years together, Teresa and Joel parted ways. Even though our relationship didn't work out to Wayne Teresa and I, I never wanted to take that relationship away from her and Ryan. Over the next few years, Teresa continued to struggle for stability in her life, and it was a whirlwind romance with Nick Palman that gave her hope she'd finally found it.

She moved in with me at the end of January in 2009. Trees and I were both living with my folks. We got our own place on August 1st of 2009. She told me that she'd feel more stable and feel more like I was serious about her if we got married. So Trees and I got married on August 21st, 2009. Unfortunately, Theresa's old habits soon caused problems in the relationship.

She kept running off, and I kept taking her back. It ripped my heart out every time she left. We were only married just a touch over a year. And we got divorced. I believe it was September 10th in 2010. Through all of the ups and downs, her daughter Christine was never far from Teresa's mind. She always said that Chrissy would never forget her

when Chrissy got older. They would get back in contact with each other. Chrissy got older, they would get back in contact with each other. Growing up in Bloomington, Illinois, Christine knew very little about her early years with Teresa. That is, until she got to high school. In high school, I believed she was a sophomore.

Chrissy was told by a family member about the abuse that had happened to her when she was a baby. At that point, there really was a difference in Chrissy. She changed. She started to have behavioral problems. She got involved in drugs and alcohol. At the age of 16, Christine dropped out of school. She came to live with me because she was doing drugs in alcohol.

She had a rocky relationship with her adoptive parents at that time, and then she found out she was pregnant. It was heartbreaking to see Chrissy make bad choices, but they were the same choices that her birth mother made. Suddenly, facing life as a young mother, Christine longed to connect with the one person she knew could relate, her birth mother Teresa. Chrissy got in touch with her mom when she turned 18. Chrissy wanted answers that all adopted kids have where you came from and who those people were and why they gave you up or why you were taken away. She wanted to know the truth from her birth mom herself.

But any hopes of trying to rebuild their relationship vanish in the summer of 2017 when Teresa is found murdered. Now, detectives are gathering information from Teresa's father, Terry, and stepmother Sharon. The family did not report Teresa missing because they had talked to her just recently, and that she told them she did plan to go to Bloomington to attempt to have a reunion with Chrissy.

I asked her, you know, if there was anything that she could recall leading up to Teresa coming over to our area that might be important to me, Sharon advised me that she had recently gotten into an argument with her boyfriend that she lives with. His name was Leo. Theresa didn't know Leo that well after she moved in with him. They had barely been dating, and she just made the comment one day

that she wasn't happy, and she was looking for another place to go. That was another reason why she had decided to come over to Bloomington. Theresa had left Leo's house and gone to a hotel with Christine. She was staying in the days in in Bloomington. Given the likelihood that it was somebody that did have an emotional connection with Teresa, my first thought was, we need to speak with Leo. Coming up, detectives learn of a toxic pattern. In the several months leading up to this time,

there were incidents in which she had basically just disappeared for several days at a time. And surveillance footage reveals a new suspect. We observed an unknown male. They had dropped her off at a residence in Hayworth, and that was the last time they had seen her. Go Sound Reel. At least as a journalist, that's what I've always believed. Sure, odd things happened in my childhood bedroom, but ultimately I shrugged it all off.

That is, until a couple of years ago, when I discovered that every subsequent occupant of that house is convinced they've experienced something inexplicable too. Including the most recent inhabitant, who says she was visited at night by the ghost of a faceless woman. And it gets even stranger. It just so happens that the alleged ghost haunting my childhood room might just be my wife's great grandmother. It was murdered in the house next door by two gunshots to the face. From Wondering and Pineapple Street Studios comes Ghost Story, a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence, and the things that come back to haunt us. Follow Ghost Story wherever you get your podcast.

Listen everywhere on October 23rd or you can binge binge early and ad-free on Wondering Plus the same day. Bosch Legacy returns. My name's Harry Bosch. I'm a private investigator. Now streaming in a two-episode premiere event. Maddie's been taken. Oh, God.

His daughter is in the hands of a madman. What are the police looking for me? The missing officer. And the clock is running out. Is he alive? I'm not going to tell you that. But nothing can stop a father. And we want to find her just as much as you do.

I doubt that very much. From doing what the law can't. You gotta let us do our job. Don't cut me out of this. You have no idea what I'm feeling right now. Harry, we have to do this the very way. You have to. I don't.

Nowhere is my daughter. Bosch Legacy. Watch the new season, now streaming exclusively on FreeVee. July 4, 2017. Family members of Murder Victim Theresa Palman mentioned a recent conflict with her boyfriend, Leo Schuck. Theresa's father, Terry, was able to provide us information. The Teresa was in a live-in dating relationship with Leo.

After getting contact information from Terry, investigators track Leo down for questioning. Leo agreed to immediately come over to the Sheriff's Office. During Leo's interview, he didn't shy away from the fact that he and Teresa had recently been involved in an argument, which resulted in her leaving his residence. In fact, Leo admits this wasn't the first time that Teresa had skipped town. Several months leading up to this time, there were approximately five incidents in which she

had basically just disappeared for several days at a time while living with him. Theresa would disappear, so she could go out drinking, drugging, the drugs, and drinking became too important to her, to Theresa, to really care about anything or anybody else. The more detectives hear from Leo, the less they believe he could have anything to do

with Teresa's death. Leo showed a lot of emotion when you would expect it from somebody that just lost somebody that was close to him. He cooperated with every request that we had. We asked to search his cellular phone. We asked to search his vehicle, and he provided us with the consent to do that without hesitation. And ultimately, we were able to corroborate his statements with the data that was retrieved from his cellular phone. ["Full-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-Eight-E We were able to narrow down that Teresa, the last couple of days that she was alive,

she was staying in a hotel in Bloomington. We determined that there was an active room for Teresa at the days in, and there was also a room that was registered to Chrissy. We secured search warrants to go search the hotel rooms, see if you can find any evidence of, you know, possibly her death, possibly anybody else that had been around her. Chrissy's rooms had been checked out of and cleaned prior to us executing our search warrants,

and we were unable to locate any obvious items of evidence at that room. But Teresa's room is a different story. We were able to locate a lot of personal effects, and the hotel had no record of her checking out, so it was still an active rental. So we knew at that point that it was likely that this was her last known where about to prior to when she was murdered. Officers find evidence to suggest about prior to when she was murdered. Officers find evidence to suggest Teresa had been unable to overcome

her battle with addiction. There was items collected that were indicative of heroin usage at her room. Anytime that drugs are involved with a death, whether it be directly related or indirectly related, you always have to consider the idea that it could have had something to do with a drug deal that had gone bad. When you receive that information, you realize that your suspect pool has just grown exponentially. grown exponentially. To help narrow down their list of suspects, investigators want to speak to Teresa's daughter,

Christine Rausch, but where she is now is anyone's guess. As far as what we've learned, Christine Rausch was the last known person that probably saw Teresa Pullman alive. Chrissy had already checked out of her room. We were still unsure of her whereabouts. Speaking with her was the primary focus at that point. But with all the phone numbers that we were given by Sharon and Terry and Leo to communicate with Chrissy,

we were unable to reach her. Investigators are forced to try a different approach. I went to Dezend to obtain surveillance video and spend most of the day reviewing video from people exiting rooms, people going to each other's rooms. The footage reveals something of interest in the 36 hour time frame before Theresa's body was found. We see Teresa walking around the halls of the hotel at 11.15 a.m. on July 1st. And that's the first time we can see her moving around that day.

And at that point, Teresa's wearing the clothes that she was found deceased to end. As he scrubs through more footage from that day, Detective Beverlin observes Teresa and Christine come and go from the hotel. But it's the company they receive later that night that's most intriguing. In the evening of July 1st, we observed an unknown male meet with Chrissy while watching the surveillance video. He entered a hotel room.

We were able to obtain the hotel room number and we checked with the hotel manager and they identified the person as Matt Isbell. But as Matt continues to appear on the video late into the night, detectives soon notice a chilling detail. In the early morning hours of July 2nd, there is footage of Teresa, Chrissy, and Matt,

leaving the area of the hotel where they were all staying together, three of them. They had left the hotel at approximately 2.15 in the morning and Matt and Chrissy were the only ones to return approximately 4.03 in the morning and Matt and Chrissy were the only ones that returned approximately 4.03 in the morning. Teresa is not there. And so that's going to be something they have to explain. Before they have time to track down their new potential suspect, detectives get another promising lead.

I received a phone call from a sergeant on our patrol division. He had just received a call from Chrissy, letting him know where she was at, and how to contact her, because she suspected that she might need to speak with somebody regarding Teresa's murder. that she might need to speak with somebody regarding Teresa's murder. On July 5, three days after Teresa's body was found,

detectives bring Christine to the Sheriff's Office for a formal interview. When Chrissy was picked up and asked to come in for an interview, she very much acted like a grieving family member, very upset, crying a lot. I asked her to explain to me what had led up to the time where she left Teresa. Chrissy starts off by telling detectives

what they already know. Chrissy told me that her mom recently came over to the Bloomington area following an argument that she had had with her boyfriend, Leo, and Chrissy met up with her whenever she arrived over here. But when talk turns to their mother, daughter reunion, Chrissy insists that was never the draw. Chrissy and Teresa had a rocky road to say the least. Chrissy had just within the last few years started to reconnect with Teresa.

Chrissy says her first attempt at contacting her birth mother was in 2015. Though the two hadn't seen each other since Chrissy was a child, the reunion was anything but heartwarming. They met at a restaurant. Teresa told her once they got back in contact that she hated her and she never wanted her. And they arose a physical altercation

where Chrissy's birth mom attacked her physically. Teresa was arrested for assault and spent the next two years in prison. Chrissy says after her mother's release, they reconnected again. Lisa was arrested for assault and spent the next two years in prison. Chrissy says after her mother's release, they reconnected again. They'd go through phases of being able to get along and then not being able to get along and not speaking for a while. Detectives then asked Chrissy about Matt Isbell, the young man spotted with her in Teresa

on the hotel surveillance footage. She let us know that Matthew Isbell was also with her that night. From what we were able to gather, he is just a long time friend of Chrissy's. Chrissy explains that on July 1st, she invited Matt to come hang out at the hotel. But investigators are more interested in the time they spent away from the hotel. Chrissy had given information that they had dropped Theresa off at a residence in Hayworth, and that was the last time they had seen her.

Hayworth being less than 10 miles from the location where the body was found. Coming up, detectives are hit with a startling confession. During the interview, he changed the story. Detective Prince exited the interview room and approached me and the rest of the investigative team with kind of a blank look on his face. Haleman, McLean County Sheriff's detectives work to confirm her story. She had given us a lot of vague information about where Theresa was dropped off at. It became important for us at that point to make contact with Matt Isbell

and see if he could provide us with a little bit more insight as to what took place on the evening of July 1st. as to what took place on the evening of July 1st. But detectives are unable to reach Matt on the cell phone number Chrissy provided. During Chrissy's interview, she also let me know where he was working at. And I searched the white pages found the phone number for that location and made contact with Matt

at his place of employment. As talk turns to the night of July 1, Matt doesn't offer much more insight than Christine. Matt was very vague with his response, indicated that he was tired that night and couldn't recall a lot of the details or what had taken place. He did let me know that he and Chrissy

had dropped Trees off to a rural location where she was supposed to be meeting somebody and they didn't need to wait for her. So they left and went back to the hotel without Teresa. Now, I let him know that I needed him to come to the Sheriff's office to speak with me in person. I thought that we might be able to extract a little bit more information from him if I sat down with him and talked to him about specifics. On July 7, 2017, detectives bring both Matt Isbel and Christine Rausch

in for questioning. I explained to Chrissy that, you know, we did execute search warrants on her hotel rooms and asked her if she is concerned that we might have located any type of evidence that would link her to Teresa's death. Chrissy indicated that she wasn't concerned about it and she had nothing to do with Teresa's death. And it was at that point, she asked to speak with her attorney

and didn't want to speak with me anymore. In Matt Isbel's interrogation room, detectives get a very different response. I think at that point, Matt might have realized that this was a serious situation, and he needed to do what he could to cooperate with us. During the interview with Matt, he changed the story. Two, he took Chrissy and Teresa to the nature preserve.

At this point, Matt said that he let Chrissy and Teresa out of the vehicle and Matt left the area. As Matt was driving away, he claimed that he saw a vehicle approaching the parking lot. A few minutes later, Matt returned back to the parking lot and only Chrissy was there. Matt assumed that Teresa got a ride with the other vehicle and they returned back to the hotel.

Noting inconsistencies in his story, detectives turn up the pressure and elicit a shocking confession. Detective Fritz exited the interview room and approached me and the rest of the investigative team with kind of a blank look on his face. And he said, Matt just told me that Chrissy stabbed her mom. that just told me that Chrissy stabbed her mom. It definitely was, there was a shock factor involved with what was being told to us. We definitely didn't expect it all to be just laid out there for us during one interview.

According to Matt, the night of July 1, 2017 started out innocently enough. He and Chrissy were hanging out in her hotel room. But later that night, Teresa showed up in Toxicated and Angry. Chrissy was the reason Teresa had gone back to prison. And I think Teresa resented that. Chrissy was prost reason that Teresa had gone back to prison. And I think Teresa resented that. Chrissy was prostituting herself. And Teresa was telling Chrissy, you should stop doing that,

or I'm going to call the police and tell them and have you arrested to make you stop. And that infuriated Chrissy. As it comes out, Chrissy was involved in a custody dispute with a former partner of hers. Teresa was preparing to report her to DCFS for acting as an escort, which was going to prevent her from obtaining custody of her daughter in this long drawn out.

It's a custody dispute that she's been having. In Chrissy's house, her only course of action was to murder Teresa to stop her from doing that. Mad explains to detectives that shortly after 2 a.m. on July 2nd, he, Chrisy and Teresa left the hotel. They were supposedly going to get alcohol. They had went down to McLean, Illinois, to a truck stop and attempted to purchase alcohol.

On the way back, they pulled into Funks Grove. Chrissy had told Teresa she was looking for a cigarette and got out of the truck and said, help me look for a cigarette. Teresa accidentally vehicle and Chrissy accidentally vehicle and they started looking for a cigarette. And at this point, Chrissy grabs a crowbar out of the back of Matt's truck

and strikes Teresa in the back of the head. Teresa turns and look at Chrissy and says, what the hell Chrissy? It took Teresa by surprise at Chrissy and says, what the hell, Chrissy? It took Teresa by surprise, and Chrissy then attempted to, you know, go behind Teresa and and strangle her. Chrissy puts Teresa in a chokehold and drags her to the ground until she stops moving. After Teresa's lifeless body is laying on the ground,

Chrissy drags Teresa off into the woods. Chrissy, after a couple of minutes, returns back to the truck, where Matt still seated, and Chrissy is carrying a knife and covered in blood at that point, and Matt assumes that Chrissy just stabbed Teresa. Matt Isabel stuck to his story consistently, that he was the driver, but he was the witness in terms of what had happened and was not a participant.

With Matt's scurrying blame for the actual murder, can detectives be sure he's telling the truth? Coming up, detectives search for a lynch pen. We found a bloody t-shirt. That's material evidence. And a murder plot is revealed. There was a text message, in essence, tonight is the night I'm going to kill my mother.

July 7, 2017. As Matthew Isbell spells out the details in criminating Christine Roush in the murder of her estranged mother, detectives need some substantial evidence to nail down arrest warnings for the pair. Matt was able to show us on a map where the crowbar was discarded on a bridge in the pure area,

and we were able to send investigators to the area and they were able to locate the crowbar and recover. Matt had talked about the knife, but we were never able to locate it. We don't know where it was disposed of. With evidence corroborating a large portion of Matt's statement, he and Christine Rausch are arrested for the murder

of Theresa Pailman. After the search of her property, including a purse, we found a bloody t-shirt that was described as being worn by Chrissy, by Matt. Matt voluntarily drove his vehicle to the Sheriff's office for his interview, provided us with consent to search and process the vehicle. There was blood evidence that was collected from various locations on the interior, as well as the exterior of Matt Isbelstruck. That did cooperate and was very much in line with what Matt told police. That's material evidence that you is used against both of them.

Matt's cooperation leads detectives to believe his claim that the murder was planned and carried out solely by Christine as an act of revenge on her mother. His cooperative stance became critical. He's able to tell them things about what happened in the forest that night that really only the killer would know. So he's really the kind of the secret weapon and the investigation and the one who turns it all around.

Matt just seemed to be blindly loyal to her to the point where he would come whenever someone's and do whatever she asked him to do without question. In an attempt to prove their theory of Chrissy's motive, detectives Sapina her phone records. We were able to locate text messages where she stated that she and Teresa had gotten into a physical argument

and Chrissy was not going to put up with it. Detectives continue digging through Chrissy's messages and soon find exactly what they've been looking for. There was a text message where Chrissy set to this third party. In essence, tonight is the night I'm going to kill my mother. She also had communication and reference to not pulling the body as far back in the woods as she should have and having to go back and pull it in further.

When results come in on DNA collected at the crime scene, prosecutors are convinced they have enough to take both Chrissy and Matt to trial. Evidence recovered from the scene, particularly the cigarette, but once it was sent for DNA analysis, it was found to contain the DNA of Matt Isbill. To get to this point where we have a confession from one of the people involved and seemingly all this evidence to support exactly what he's saying, it was a great moment for the entire investigative team. On the day of her preliminary hearing, Christine makes a surprising move. She unexpectedly entered a guilty plea with no parameters or no agreement that

had been made with the State's Attorney's Office. So it definitely caught everybody off guard. I'm not quite sure why she pled guilty. I think because I think she felt like she was saving people from pain by pleading guilty. At this point, Matt decides to plead guilty, and he secures a sentence of 12 years in prison. And that's a lighter sentence because he indeed helped investigators crack the case.

On January 31, 2018, Christine Rausch is sentenced to 40 years in prison for first degree murder. 40 years is going to be her entire life. She was 22 years old. She's not going to get out until she's 62 years old. Her daughter is going to be grown and have kids of her own before she ever comes out. Teresa was a good person. She didn't deserve to have happened to her, what happened.

As bad as she was troubled, I don't think she hurt Chrissy on purpose or wrong Chrissy on purpose or maliciously. She tried to do the best she could. Christine Roush is currently housed at Logan Correctional Center in Broadwell Township, Illinois. She will not be eligible for parole until 2057. Matt Isbell became eligible for parole in 2023, and has since been released from prison. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪