Sword and Scale - Episode 218

Episode Date: August 21, 2022

When Wisconsinites Bart and Krista Halderson were reported missing over the Fourth of July weekend in 2021, the case unfolded more quickly than detectives could keep up with. What started as a simple missing persons case quickly turned into a murder and dismemberment investigation. In this jam-packed 91-minute episode, we (finally) team up with Minnesota lawyer and legal mastermind behind the highly popular YouTube channel RekietaLaw to break down this ridiculously absurd-to-the-point-of-comical case.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. We found our legs. One complete leg, then somewhat farther away in another bush, a foot, a thigh. A foot, a thigh. This is it. After years of planning, it has finally happened. A collaboration, you would say. We got dirty shester lawyer on deck.

Stay tuned. I forgot to mention this is episode 218 of Sword and Scala show that reveals that the war monsters are real. This is the episode we finally got Nick Riccata to join us from the small law firm in Minnesota, and also the proprietor of Riccata Law, the YouTube channel much more importantly. So stay We all know the American dream certainly isn't attainable to everyone, it is after all meant to be something to aspire to, not be entitled to. There are circumstances that many are born into that serve as massive roadblocks standing in the way of success. Everyone has a different story. So when an underdog overcomes those circumstances,

their success story is one that inspires us. Who doesn't love a good rags-to-richest story, right? We're less inclined to be impressed with successful people who were given a leg up from the start. For instance, Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced former CEO of Theronis, a once multi-billion dollar tech company, raised $6 million to launch the start-up when she was just a teenager. That sounds really impressive, doesn't it? It sounds like she put a lot of work into shmusing venture capitalists and angel investors Except she got all the cash from her friends and family six million dollars It sure would be easy to try your hand at entrepreneurship

with that kind of starting capital Elizabeth Holmes was born into wealth Cheated and lied her way to success, and still ultimately failed. Isn't that kind of like bringing a cheat sheet to your SAT and still flunking it? It's infuriating to see people squander such great advantages, making us even more inclined a route for the underdog. We yearn to see people reach success based on merit and hard work.

That is, after all, what the American dream is all about. The world isn't full of honest, hardworking people, though. Everywhere you look, you'll find someone trying to cut corners. It might be on a small scale, like the linecuck who doesn't wash his hands after using the bathroom at work, or it could be on a large scale, like Elizabeth Holmes, who created an entirely false identity to aid in her pursuit of success. The point is, we can't all be cutting corners. If we did, planes would crash into each other and rockets wouldn't get off the pad. A functioning society requires diligent people who put in the work when it

matters. A life built on lies is a house of cards, and no one wants to live in a house of cards, right? I don't. But we can all learn something from watching other people's paper lives collapse. Um, please welcome Nick, Motherfucking Rikeda. Yeah, I'm Nick Rikeda of the Rikeda law YouTube channel, Twitter channel, Twitch channel. I'm a lawyer in a small town, Minnesota, but mostly I spend my time broadcasting on various, various places to just tell legal stories, talk about legal issues, political issues, media issues, whatever issues that could come up and also remind people that it's okay to have a little levity in their life, to tell a joke from time to time, to laugh at something that might be

even a little bit offensive. Well, that sounds very problematic, Nick. It is. It is nothing but problems. Nick is a lawyer who runs a small practice, but he's really, mostly, a YouTuber, an entertainer, and a self-proclaimed grifter who, much like myself, has made a pretty good life for himself. I'm actually the internet grifting champion of 2020. I have a trophy and everything for it.

I started as kind of a hobby at first, putting out, you know, maybe a couple videos a week on stuff and then my thumbnail guy was like, hey, you should try live streaming in this super chat thing. I was like, okay, so I did that. And then it was, it was like, hey, you should try live streaming in this super chat thing. I was like, okay, so I did that. And then it was, it was not too terribly long after that that I thought, you know what? It's risky, but I could, I think if I do this full time, I could maybe actually do it and be successful. And then it just kept going up and it still is. So it's been pretty good. So what Nick does now is he watches trials for a living on YouTube from beginning to end, every second after boring second.

But I find myself watching his channel because as a lawyer, he sees parts of these cases, like the one we're about to get into, that we laymen don't actually see. He breaks them down for you as it's happening in court live, sometimes alone, sometimes with a panel of other irreverent lawyers. There's a little bit of drama, sometimes there's a little bit of laughter. Like he said, don't take everything so seriously all the time.

It's always entertaining, it's always fun, and it's hours and hours of entertainment, as well as a bit of education as to the actual legal processes that are occurring in real time. Anyway, I wanted to introduce you to Nick up front because you're gonna hear a lot from him in this jam packed episode. Hope you enjoy, but with a little levity.

Chandler Holderson, student at Madison Area Technical College. The majority of my experience consists of lifeguarding and technology. But it doesn't stop there. I also have experience in teaching and leadership from when I was a teachers assistant for an installation course at a local college. I created an online class for students to work on assignments and tests as well as assisted the instructor with teaching and held office hours for questions. Eagle Scout, certification and renewable energy, skills, Microsoft Word, critical thinking, CPR, management, and leadership.

This excerpt comes from 23-year-old Chandler Halderson's LinkedIn profile. He's in his 20s, he's physically in decent shape. He's I guess conventionally attractive and seems to have been relatively charming. Chandler and his older brother Mitchell Halderson were apples in their parents eyes. Wisconsinites Bart and his wife Christa Halderson were proud of all the wonderful things their two sons had already accomplished in their life. Mitchell had a job working as a all the wonderful things their two sons had already accomplished in their life. Mitchell had a job working as an IT person for a local corporation doing pretty well in life. It's engaged doing pretty well in life.

Mitchell had moved out of the family home and was getting ready to buy a house. Chandler, whose friends and family referred to him as Chaz, still lived at home with his parents and deforest Wisconsin. But only because he was preparing to fly the coop and start his own life. He's a Madison College student, M-A-T-C. They go by Madison College, no, if you didn't get the email. Madison College student, he's about to graduate. He's studying renewable resource engineering, kind of a hybrid IT degree, solar panels, things of that sort. He's about to get a certificate.

kind of a hybrid IT degree, solar panels, things of that sort, he's about to get a certificate, but things that looked bright for him. He'd recently been working at American Family Insurance, he's working for home like most of us the last couple of years, but he's working a good job in American Family Insurance, and not only was he working a good job, Chandler had just gotten a better job,

he got hired at SpaceX. This stellar opportunity would require an out-of-state move, but for a job like that, Chandler was willing to go anywhere. Naturally, Bart and Crystal Halderson were excited for what the following years would bring for their sons. It was about to embark on a career that people in the IT field could only dream of. He's planning to move to Titusville, Florida. That's where SpaceX operation is down in Florida. With his girlfriend, he'd rented an apartment, they'd bought a car.

Things were going well for both young men until July 7th, 2021. When everyone's hopes and plans for the future were suddenly put on hold. I talked to you yesterday. So today is July 8th. It's about 5.11 now. We started talking at 5.08. So yesterday July 7th, it came to your house where you live with your parents, Bart and Christa Hilderson. And the reason I was there is, as you had gone to the Windsor Police Department and reported them missing, right? Bart and Christa Hilderson told their son they'd be going up to the cabin, the family

owned, and white lake. They planned to watch the Independence Day parade. According to Chandler, he helped his parents pack up on July 1st. And the next morning, another couple came and picked them up. I was told they'd be home Monday or Tuesday, and Tuesday afternoon I got a little worried. Chandler Holderson says his parents, Christa and Bart, were getting picked up by friends that Friday. They were planning to be at the cabin over the 4th of July weekend. Apparently they did make it. I got a text on Sunday. Made it safely.

Can't get anything through. And yes, it's packed going to white lake today for the parade. And we'll be home Monday night, Tuesday early. Love you lots. Holderson says after that text, he began getting worried when his calls to his mom went directly to voicemail. That's when they were, I got worried and I went to make a report. Holderson says his aunt went to the cabinet on Tuesday,

but did not find anyone there. They went with their friends, but I didn't ask who their friends were, so I'm still not really sure. So at this point, the sheriff's deputies don't know what they're dealing with. These folks get up there and decide, now we're going to go to the casino for a few days. We're going to play hooky. Didn't make a lot of sense. They started talking to coworkers and now we're gonna go to the casino for a few days when I play hooky. Didn't make a lot of sense.

They started talking to coworkers and realized these people had never no call, no show and missed work, which they both did on Friday. Did they crash their car? Did this other couple kidnap them? Where the hell are they? I just wanna make sure that I'm asking everything so I don't have to keep calling me and stuff.

Do you know my brother? Is he okay? Mitch? Yeah, did he make it? I know, that's a long drive for him. He hasn't called me at all, so I don't know. Mitchell and his fiance were traveling up to Langlade County where the family Cabin sat, hoping to assist Dane County Sheriff's Department in the search for the Halder Sons. This is their son and then are you

a friend? I'm a fiancée. Okay. Apparently he was just having a phone with Dane County and they got called back to Dane County. So there are no hundred coming up here. Oh, so at least they let you know that I guess. I was just calling to see what was going on. Sure, yeah, yeah, because we were kind of thinking the same thing too based on when they said they left that they should probably be here So yeah, I'm to take some sergeant girls with Langley County sergeant O'Neill deputy Rojas Deputy Rojas has been out here a little bit yesterday and then this morning as well Maybe we could just take a walk around and see you would know the property probably better than we would

It's changed your bits as I've been here, but yeah sure how long has like it been in the family? Oh, it's always been in the family since the 40s. Okay. Do you guys typically use it a lot or a few times a year This is when my parents come up I've been coming to wild. Okay, if you had to guess I mean how long is it been since you were up here? Me personally probably five, six years. Okay. Do your parents regularly come up here? Yeah, they come here a few times a year. A few times a year, okay. Three or four, I don't remember if this is the first time this year or not.

No, this is the third time this year. Both in their early 50s, Bart and Crystal Halderson were just one child away from having an empty nest. And Chandler would be finishing school soon. And Krista Halterson were just one child away from having an empty nest. And Chandler would be finishing school soon. Bart worked as a small business tax specialist, and Krista had recently rejoined the workforce as a receptionist at a car company. 2021 was a chaotic year for the Haltersons. Hoping to help Chandler fly from the nest, they were focused on tracking

his schooling and career path, dedicated to helping him every step of the way. This 23 year old was not going to enter the adult world unprepared. While Bart and Krista tried to find balance between their careers, their marriage, and their son Chandler's life, Mitchell had a major health incident that shook up the whole family in June, the month before the Halderson's trip to White Lake. I went to the doctor for a regular schedule. The appointments I had had gone during COVID and wanted to get blood work done, and I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. My mom was overly concerned. Not as much to me trying to not show me that,

but I have heard later on that she called her best friend many times crying. Being somewhat of a helicopter parent, all of Christ's attention shifted to Mitchell and helping him through his life-changing event. Then about a week after Mitchell's diagnosis, Chandler had a fall down the steps, landing him in the emergency room. I was told that while my dad was home working, he had heard a thud and that he went upstairs

to find my brother on the ground next to the staircase or on the staircase. After a visit to the ER, Chandler dawned in neck brace and was waiting for some follow-up appointments to figure out what had been damaged in the fall. Now the Haldersons had two ailing adult children and stressful jobs to contend with, who could blame them for wanting to get away for the 4th of July. One weekend up at the cabin was normal, but Bart and Krista weren't known to miss work. They just weren't, no call, no show kind of people. On Monday, one of Krista's co-workers drove past the house and noticed that both cars

were still in the garage. Who had taken the hauler sends up to White Lake? And why hadn't they returned? Chandler texted me that he is worried about them. Asked more about why, and just to hear what they had told him about leaving. They had gone up north with friends, that he didn't know who those friends were, and didn't know the car that they had taken. After officially filing a missing persons report for his parents, and giving a statement

to police, Chandler began canvassing his neighborhood, asking the homeowners if they had any useful footage from the dates in question. Just about everyone has a doorbell camera system these days, there are cameras pointed at nearly every populated corner of our country. Think about that for a second. It's kind of terrifying. But there had to be something out there that the police could use. Hi, my name is Chandler Halderson. I live just down the road. Oh, yeah. You're the one above the police. Yeah. I was told you if you were able to capture the road or my house. Um, the police actually came and downloaded everything they have. So we're hoping they didn't capture anything on. We don't know.

We don't know. They just took a copy of everything and he had crafted this story that his parents were going up to this vacation spot, you know, a cabin, very common up in Minnesota and Wisconsin, have a cabin on a lake or friends have a cabin and you go there. And then that they just never, just never responded after a certain point. They were just gone. And so then they were missing. And he was leading the efforts to try and find them.

I mean, he was going around his neighborhood, asking people if they're cameras had seen anything. You know, of course, what he was doing, presumably, was gathering intel on what possible things might be around about him, but the idea that he was putting forward was that he was leading the efforts to find his parents and he was very cooperative with detectives in trying to locate them. I don't know if we've ever met or it really didn't meet. I think we might want to start a place where we went.

I went in first and moved over there. I think we met. Sorry about the one arm. What it is. But I was wondering if you'd door camera. You just have to ring it out. Just a kick off the road. Some, yeah, some of it does. Would you have any notifications from Friday morning early before 615? If a weird, weirdo kid from your neighborhood knocked on your door and started asking if they could see the video on your ring doorbell camera, what would you do, Nick?

I'd say, uh, no, get out of here. Go away. Get off my lawn. Spray him with the hose. Shhh. Go away. I know you! You stink!

Leave! It seemed that police had already snatched up all the relevant footage from the area. So Chandler began calling law enforcement, confused about why he wasn't being included more closely in the investigation. I'm watching Chandler go listen, and I haven't heard anything about my pants since then I've heard everyone talk to my brother and not me. And I'd like to hear something. You need to call back on number 920-T3-84549. Thank you. A short time later, a detective called Chandler back. Um, we're looking to choose to hire a two squad smart screen outside my house.

They're not really campus signatures. Kind of sit back. Is everything alright? Yeah, I mean, they're in the area doing canvassing and they're also probably doing a shift change right now. Getting our second shift crew on around 3 330. Oh, there's four now. Something going on that we need to know.

Well, they're probably doing reports, they're probably doing shift change. They've been going around trying to get old in neighbors, so I'm wondering if they're in the area, trying to catch people now that they're coming home from work. I'm not sure I haven't talked to any of them in just a little while. Any news on your end at all? If you got any phone calls, text messages. Got any messages I've given from consent to?

I can't. There's no mail. I got a... there's a hold. I'm not here. Okay. Is that normal? Are you guys getting it at least? No, we don't put a hold on people's mail. I've never heard of that happening before. There's a hold on my mail. There's a ticket in there. All mail held at the station is what it says.

Okay. Yeah, nothing done by us, that's for sure. Is that my medical bills? Yeah. No, we wouldn't put a hold on people's mail, and typically only the people that live at the address can do that. So, I don't know. This kind of stressful. Sorry, so there's nothing new going on? Nothing I'm aware of. Well, I'll keep you posted if I hear anything. Sorry, so there's nothing new going on? Nothing I'm aware of.

Okay. Well, keep you posted if I hear anything. I mean, obviously with the mail, that has nothing to do with us at all. I've never heard of a detective or law enforcement agency holding some news mail. You know, I'm not as far as everybody in the area. You know, you kind of had to figure

we were going to be in the area all day today. Yeah, I was just wondering why they were four cars instead of the canvas thing. Yeah. Oh, and he knew about that blue house with the big cameras. The blue house with the big cameras. Is that the one across the street? Yeah, across the street, kind of in a corner, it's a newer house. Um, I haven't talked to it. I haven't had a house. Yeah, I have a detective that's getting footage from the area. I don't know exactly which house is he's gotten video from that. But yeah, I don't know if it's in our evidence.

Okay. So he's probably reviewing it now. Yeah, it takes time to go through those things you figure going fast forward so much. All right, we'll give you a holler if anything pops up. You know, not give a call around and just kind of get a briefing from people up in the area. Yeah, I appreciate that. Okay, thanks, Chandler. Thank you. Bye. Again, Chandler called the detective. This time to offer more information. That one, I believe, was approximately 130 PM. Chandler told me that he had been searching around in his parents' bedroom.

It located a set of keys in his father's nightstand, the end table, that he believed were to the cabin. He told me that his brother Mitchell was on his way over to the Oak Springs home to grab those keys because Mitchell was going to drive up with his fiancee to the cabin to check it out. As you'll recall, Mitchell and his fiance stood up at the cabin with Langleyed County detectives waiting for the arrival of Dane County officials. The officers in route were swiftly rerouted back to Dane County. Something significant had happened between Chandler's second and third calls to the detective, but they were keeping him out of the loop. Those members of the Sheriff's Office were part of our crime scene unit.

We immediately called them and arranged for them to turn around and come back as we now had an active crime scene. We received information that Chandler Hilderson was observed out at the farm in Cottage Grove, near a wooded area, also had just received prior to the third call information that torso was located in the area that Chandler-Holerson was lasting. So Chandler is seen hanging out in the woods, and shortly thereafter a human torso is recovered in the same location. Coincidence?

I'm guessing, probably not. When Bart and Christa Halterson went missing during the 4th of July weekend back in 2021, their two young adult sons Chandler and Mitchell went on the hunt for them. Turns out Chandler was doing a few extra errands along the way. At one of these locations, deputies later found a human torso. It belonged to an adult male. Detectives wanted to speak to both Chandler and his girlfriend, Cat Melender. We shortly before noon on July 8th, Detective Liz Allen came to my office.

She said she had just had a phone call with the mother of Captain Melender who was the girlfriend of Chandler Halterson. And during that phone call, she'd intended to do initially just a phone interview, just to kind of get some background information. But some things on that phone call alerted her to believe that we needed to follow up with a in-person interview.

And Kat says, I was with him like all weekend. We had a normal 4th of July weekend. We went out to my family's farm, we got farm, there was a pool, we ate dinner, Chandler was having the concussion issue and he couldn't really move his legs and so he asked to use their pool the next day because he thought that was good therapy.

So the police, what do they do next? They go talk to the person who owns the farm and they say, was Chandler out here and she goes, yeah, he was out here on the Fourth of July. But you know what? He showed up the next day by himself. He showed up the next day by himself. He showed up the next day by himself. I told him he could come back any time

as we just say to people not expecting they're gonna roll into your house the next day. She says he was acting bizarre, said that he had a doctor's appointment and they'd given them some bad news that he was gonna lose his job at SpaceX because he couldn't travel, he couldn't attend orientation. Chandler, dejected as he was going to lose his job at SpaceX because he couldn't travel, he couldn't attend orientation.

Chandler, dejected as he was, then asked if he could use the family's pool. Kat's mother told him it was no problem to go right ahead. She sat in her house for a while, perhaps a bit weirded out, someone had just shown up at her rural farm, but she let him have his space. But about an hour later, she goes down to the pool to check out him. He's not there. No one had opened the pool, no one had been in the pool.

But she sees his car and it's parked out in the field. Away from the pool, backed in toward where that grass is a bit longer and had its hatch up. She thought, boy, that was strange. But she thought maybe he's just on a walk. Well, that's one way to tell story. Here's another. This story. Oh my God. Now you're you're bringing me back and you're getting me into it. This is when you get into this story, it is the most insane thing. You couldn't, people would not believe this if it weren't told in court, right?

Okay, so I'll set the stage. Chandler has his girlfriend's mom Subaru, which is really funny. Which Subaru is, you know, their for love. Yep, and the other L word. Um, to this. Hahaha. By the way, the forensic analyst, we checked out Chandler's car, didn't swab the Subaru at all.

Oh. You always got a swab a Subaru. Kat's main transportation. They're just like, ah, no, we didn't look at that. Why would we? Anyway. It's like, no, we didn't look at that. Why would we? Anyway, so he's would go over to Kat's mom's girlfriend's farm. The girlfriend is this Gary Busy looking lady. That's unfortunate.

I there's no better description. It's not meant in a derogatory way. She looks like Gary Busy with breasts. But she's and Gary Busy now, not like a young she looks like Gary Bucy with breasts. But she's, and Gary Bucy now, not like a young Gary, like Gary Bucy now. Anyway, she's got a farm, it's like a hobby farm, it's not huge, but there's significant amount of acreage with a bunch of woods and there's a barn and there's a pool. And the idea was that Chandler would go over and he went over with Kat for Fourth of July and they used the pool.

And it was nice. It was therapeutic for his concussion to be in the water, I guess, is what they said. And so Chandler asks, he calls up the mom's girlfriend or whatever and says, hey, can I come over and use the pool? And she says, yeah, whatever. So he drives the Subaru over, but he drives down past the barn and he parks by these burn barrels and over by the woods, which is nowhere near the pool. But he's down a decent way from that.

And the house is separated from the pool by some trees and there's a trail through them. So he goes down to this, to the burn barrels. Well, Kat's mom finds out that he's gonna go over there and she freaks out apparently. And she rushes over to the house because her girlfriend, she knows, likes to go tits out for Harambe. She is just topless outside, you know,

with the girls flapping in the wind. And, and she knows that she'll also want to go swimming because she likes to swim and she likes to swim topless apparently. And, and she's very nervous about how that will go with Chandler there because it's embarrassing for her. So she goes over there and they get on a riding lawnmower, just two big lesbians on a riding lawnmower, to head down to the pool from the house. And I cannot, I looked it up. It is not some special like extra capacity lawnmowers, just like a, you know, like a John Deere tractor.

These two not small ladies are apparently riding this thing around the yard. What's the weight capacity of one of those things? I don't know, but whatever it is, I mean, that tractor company should use this as an ad. They ride this thing down and they notice Chandler isn't anywhere near the pool at all. And the barn is like one of these big pole barns with, you know, big, double doors on either side and they're open. So they can see through it as they drive past and they can see the Subaru down there with

the hatchback up. And they think logically as anyone would, if you see a Subaru with the hatchback opened, that the person inside must be in there taking a nap. So they don't really think too much of it, but they decide to drive down. Okay, that was obviously a facetious statement because that's not- Yes, it was a facetious statement,

but that's what they said in court. Was that right? Well, I looked down there and the hatchback was open so he must have been taking a nap. And I was like, that doesn't follow. That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, you just assume that doesn't follow. Does it make any sense? Yeah, you just assume that. For some reason.

Yeah, this is, so this is part of the weird story. And I, I apologize for my crass way of thinking about it, but it's, it's so odd that it's stuck with me. And I, I don't know if I'll ever get over that. They drive down, eventually they ride the tractor down to the car and he's not in there. They look around and they're like, oh, well, whatever, we'll go back to the pool. I'm getting the girls out and I'm hopping in. So they do.

I mean, they know he's still somewhere. He's just not in the car. Maybe he's off in the woods. Turns out that's where he would probably be. It was an exceptionally hot day, hot enough to take your tits out, but where was Chandler? And then out of nowhere, after they're in there for a little bit, Chandler walks up and Chandler's like, hey, and the, you know, Kat's mom kind of shields her. And it's like, well, what are you doing?

He's like, oh, I'm going to get in this pool. She's like, I don't think you should. You know, this kind of embarrassing. He's like, whatever, what are you doing? And he's like, oh, I'm going to get in this pool. She's like, ah, I don't think you should. You know, this kind of embarrassing. He's like, whatever, and just hops in. He's just in the water. And this is the going on. This is the story that they tell. And I don't believe a word of it.

I'm telling you, I just, I will never know the truth, but I will know to my core that whatever they said is not true. No, that's nonsense. All of that is nonsense. You just said is nonsense. I know. I can't get over it. He's walking out the woods in that area. Now at this point in the investigation, the police are out there with this woman. They're out on the farm. And she says he walked out over there. I got there and nobody was there. I went to the house, knocked on the door and nobody answered.

And I got worried that they maybe went up and started searching on their own. So I went up there. I went up into the grass area, the farm there. So I could see whether or not anybody was back by there. And I noticed during my contact, she did talk that she had recently seen cultures circling over the property.

Most birds really don't have a sense of smell except for turkey cultures. Turkey culture is actually, when a body or an animal or creature dies, starts going through some changes. The microorganisms on there start producing different gases and it emanates in order. Tricky vultures can smell that. When they do, they'll start circling the area to locate where it's coming from. These vultures knew there was a large meal waiting for them.

In the wooded area Chandler just had his vehicle backed up against. Chandler had left his father's torso there. No head, no arms, or legs. Just the middle of poor Bart shirtless with a rope tied around his waist, rested in a thicket, and the rear of this property just beyond a large log. The log covered in moss looked like it had been there for a while, but behind it, a suspicious looking pile of sticks.

The pile of sticks on the other side of the log, and there was just something that wasn't natural under the sticks. It took me a while to process what I was seeing. You know, then it was, it became obvious that I was looking at a human torso. Someone had crudely chopped off the head, the arms, and sawed off the legs in the middle of the thigh, leaving the underwear on in the beginnings of the pants. They rolled the torso over.

There were gunshots in the back. This man had been shot in the back and chopped up. Next to the body, just a few feet away was a large trash bin with a tarp stuffed in it. Upon a search of the rest of the farm, which totaled nearly 45 acres, detectives recovered an oil drum with a cutout in it. Inside there were tools, a handsaw, scissors, a broken saw blade, and pruning shears, all of which tested positive for blood, not just Bart's blood, but Christa's too. What was the plan at that point following that call with Chandler at, you said about 330?

Correct. And approximately how long before that had you received the torso news? It was approximately half hour prior. So your 30 minutes into knowing it's a homicide investigation. What plan do you come up within the command post at that point? So we had already like I said called their crimes in unit back to respond to the farm We had several deputies and detectives in the area of the Alps Springs address, doing canvassine, we're contacting neighbors, we're talking to friends, you know, basically I was trying to arrange for Chandler to come downtown to the public safety building where I was located so we could perform an interview.

We wanted to interview Kat also, Kat Melinder. They can essentially, basically, they were told that detectives wanted to talk to them downtown and they consented to that. So you reported your parents missing, we got some information from you yesterday. We've been following the aids last night working today to go through different things, just trying to locate them. So, I guess if you want to start with, let's just go back to last Wednesday. Wednesday. I was with my dad. What time Wednesday?

I remember it. It was kind of a bad day. Okay. Why was it a bad day? Well, my mom had worked, so she was gone. My dad and I were watching something over lunch. It was a wheel of fortune. And we normally have the couch like with our back

facing her at the table we sat at the end of you coming downstairs upstairs okay that room with the TV I tossed the ball and I smashed the glass okay with the Okay. With the dog. The dog's help. Then, yeah, except my dad off, we tried to clean it up. Notice how oddly specific this recollection is. Chandler is recounting Wednesday, June 30th, the week right before he claimed his parents left for the cabin. Nothing really notable happened that day except Chandler's accident with the downstairs fireplace. By the way, a detective at my house said something's happened and while we were leaving people

were going inside, is there a warrant for my house? Should there be? No, I'm just wondering if they could. As far as I know, they were at your house and they were going to be there talking to you to ask if you would come up here and talk to us. Yeah, but officer Haley just like walked pretty much into the gate, you know, the gate on the outside. She's kind of walked in as I was wondering. When you were getting your wallet? No, we were. I was in the car waiting to leave. I was just wondering if everything's okay because she said something's happened. Okay, and we need to go down. All right, I'll find out what that's about. Well, has anything bad happened?

Cat is in one room and Chandler isn't another. Chandler, for over an hour, meets with police. And again, vergutates this odd story of his parents with this missing couple, a random car, going places that no one really knew, or Cat, in the other room, she's vomiting information to the police. Literally, vomiting at times.

But also vomiting information in terms of she has her phone help. She's giving them pictures. She's providing every single detail she can because she'll tell you she's one of these people that watches these crime shows. And she knows, and someone's missing, you got to exclude the people closest to him first. And she thought, that's what we got to do. Chandler never knew anything to do with us, I never knew this. We got to get to the people who did and the first step is we got to exclude us.

She did it for a second thing. The Mr. Halnerson had done anything wrong. She thought she was with him most of the weekend. How could Chandler have gotten away with all of this when his girlfriend was with him, often on all weekend. This was the question lingering in investigators' minds as they uncovered the entirety of the events leading up to the discovery of Bart and Krista's bodies. Hiding such a huge crime would be quite an undertaking. Joel Guy Jr., who we've talked about previously,

got halfway through the cleanup of his dismembered parents before running out of time. How did Chandler pull this off? Cat, not knowing anything about her boyfriend's true involvement in this crime, allegedly, was handing over tons of data that would not only help with Chandler's conviction, but would also help investigators draw out a more accurate timeline of events, and eventually locate more remains. Cat and Chandler were in contact a lot. Being in their early 20s, they had a normal, young adult relationship.

Well, except for maybe this part. So cats have victim in all this, according to the state, right? Except these two would take showers together by Snapchat. So they would mount their phones on the wall, right? Take a shower, watch in each other, take a shower, you know, do what they're gonna do there.

And this happened while he's got the concussion. So this is a guy who has impaired functionality at the point where he can't really stand or walk according to him. I think he was using a walker even at times, but yet they're jerking off to the shower. I'm like, wait, you can't honestly buy this. I knew Mr. Holerson through Chandler. I would be at their home quite often and he would show me fishing tips or if I was cooking him and Mrs. Holler's Simba Beam the Kitchen and we would have game nights quite often. And we would also play Mario Kart together a lot. In their phones Chandler had cat's contact name changed to Wifey, and Chandler's contact

name was Hubby. A fucking cute. They often talk through different platforms, switching back and forth between texting, Snapchat, FaceTime, Facebook Messenger, you know how it goes. The couple was preparing to move to Florida in the coming weeks so Chandler could begin his job at SpaceX. Originally Chandler told Kat he would be starting his job on June 14th. He would get them set up. A few weeks after Chandler was supposed to start the job,

Kat would follow and move in with him. Chandler would move down the floor to start working. I would go at the end of August after my lease ended. And I celebrated my birthday in Madison. And Titusville isn't too far from Walt Disney Landers. I was looking at pharmacy schools in Florida as well. Cat was excited about her future with Chandler, this man who was pursuing his education seriously and landed this dream job paying $80,000 a year. All of the pieces of the life they were trying to build seemed to be coming together beautifully. Is job at SpaceX was gonna pay $80,000 which is of course like I'm not sure what janitor position

He's applying for it SpaceX it only pays 80 grand But you know like SpaceX if you're talking about an engineering job or something that they're doing You've got to be well into six figures. I would think they were obviously expecting their cash flow to be Abundant and when she's looking at houses in Florida. You know, she's looking at these houses that are $500,000 houses more. I think they're like $700,000. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right I think it was it was even higher when Chandler's brother Mitchell had a health emergency a few weeks after his initial conversation about SpaceX the plans came to a halt.

He didn't want to leave while Mitch was ill. Then, not a week later, Chandler had his accident. He was running and slipped down the stairs, and then fell pretty hard in his head. Following a concussion diagnosis at the emergency room, Chandler continued to suffer from neurological symptoms. Tingo's in his legs. So it's an activity to light, severe headaches, weakness. He had a hard time lifting things

and quite often would get lightheaded. Toward the end of June, Chandler told Cat he wouldn't be able to fly down to Florida to start his job due to the concussion. And because of the neck brace he was wearing. He scheduled appointments with some specialists to figure out what was going on and whether he had sustained permanent damage. For now, the SpaceX job was off the table.

No one could figure out why in the hell SpaceX would hire this guy who at his best had a certificate in like windmill engineering or whatever. There's a lot of windmills on Mars, don't you know that? That's the way to do it. At least it's lighter to transport the materials. Between July 1st and July 7th, Chandler and Cat talked over Snapchat about the way things were going. Their idyllic life together seemed so promising, but now they were hitting roadblocks at every turn. Thursday, July 1st.

How'd you sleep? I slept good. How'd you sleep? I slept good, how'd you sleep? I hardly slept. I'm sorry B, why? I don't know. Stuff really hasn't been going well for me lately, so I'm trying to plan for the next thing to fuck me over. B, it's gonna be okay.

Yeah, I just had a great future planned and it's falling apart. No, it's not be. You're gonna be okay and you're gonna go to Florida. You even said it's probably just the brace. Thanks, Bee. Of course, I love you and I'm here to keep your booty in check. Will you leave me if it doesn't work? Where did bad but you understand?

No, I wouldn't. I won't stop trying. Like Florida would be so dope and like nice, but I'm not dating you for money. I love you tons. I love you a ton too. By the way, I'm not giving up, I'm just worried. Chandler had good reason to be worried. He was worried about more than anyone knew,

and his worries only continued mounting after this conversation with cat. As Chandler sat in the interrogation room with Dane County detectives, it was one rare circumstance in which police really did have a mountain of evidence against their suspect. There was no need to bait him into a confession with lies. The detectives had a hunch Chandler wasn't planning on confessing to anything anyway. I think what really did him in was his police interview. Hmm. Tell me about that.

Oh, it's on YouTube and everyone should watch it. I did a review of it. You could watch it on my channel, but I'm not here to chill that. But he keeps up the lie. And the police at this point, they knew they had gathered enough evidence that they were relatively certain that he had done this. And so they let him go for like 45 minutes to an hour, just weaving this story and telling this story that he'd been working out. And then the sheriff or deputy or whoever drops it on like Chandler, we know. We know what happened to your parents. Come on now. You need to start talking to us right now. And

that's when he changes completely. And that change, I mean, that was, that was the executioner being called in three in the morning to come over. They knew you could just read it on him. This man is guilty of something. Look at all the background I think, right? Yeah, like so. So I think it's time to start talking about what happened to your parents. Like a truthful version.

And correct. Okay. So we have like 20 pages of writing. I'm going to start with a clean white piece of paper, a few to start telling the truth. Okay. Word because listen, listen to me. This is the only chance you're going to have to tell us the truth. Okay. What we listen, listen. I can't tell you what we know. What we know you're not telling us the truth. We know your parents are no longer with us. Okay, and we know the reason why

Okay, you need to tell the truth. There's listen listen. You need to tell the truth about what happened and just tell us why it happened Okay, if something happened if you were defending yourself or if you just I fed up with stuff need to tell us tell us the truth. Okay? This is your chance to tell us why. Okay? I'm not BS in you. Okay. So can we do that? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Cat meets with police not just once, but multiple times. And in one of these meetings, she says, you know what? It was weird. Is this weekend, when I was with Chandler, while his parents were at the cabin, I left

the house early one day, on Saturday fact Saturday July 3rd and she says He told me he was gonna do chores that morning around the house But when I looked at my snapchat I Saw his location Was in a weird spot if you're not aware snapchat has a similar feature to apples find my friends app You can select certain friends to view your location or anyone who is on your friend's list, can view it. A GPS tracker on you at all times, if you will.

Chandler had that set up with his girlfriend. And she goes, it was so weird where he was, I took a screenshot of it on my phone. But she said, at 8.58 in the morning, when he was supposed to be doing chores on Saturday, July 3rd, I thought it was strange that he was in what appears to be a forest on the banks of the Wisconsin River near Prairie du Sack. The police took that, they identified immediately where that location was, just based on looking

at it. That's a bridge. Couldn't be hard. Out they go. The drones go up, the dogs go out. The search teams start searching. Well, the Haltersons were last seen a month ago at their home in Windsor.

Their son, Chandler, reported them missing on July 7th. Telling police's parents never returned home from a trip up north. Well, then on July 10th, dismembered remains belonging to Bart were discovered in Rural Dane County. Then two days later Chandler was charged with first degree homicide in his father's death. Authorities remained hopeful that they would find Christa alive, but on July 14th, they found more human remains in the town of Roxbury. And just today, the sheriff says that those remains belong to Christa. We found her legs.

One complete leg, then somewhat farther away in another bush, a foot, a thigh, but the same pattern. Crudely cut apart, with appears to be hand saws, axes, things of that sort. Police thought this location was random at first. Then they began interviewing some of Chandler's friends and ex-girlfriends about this particular spot. And they say, yeah, Chandler really liked this location out on the Wisconsin River. He'd go there all the time.

It's where he'd go swimming. When his friends came into town, that was the secret swimming spot. And one friend even said, you know what? Last year he sent me a picture while he was out there. Kind of shirtless, hanging from a tree with a machete. I don't know. Didn't have a lot of significance at the time

when the police saw it, but eventually someone realized, the tree looks unique. Interesting V pattern right there, the hollowness of the tree as it goes down, the way in which five of those branches branch off, and eventually one of the detectives realizes why. Something clicked.

It was the exact location he ditched his mother's remains. As this case quickly unfolded over the month of July, the lives of the Halterson family and their friends had been turned upside down. Chandler had fooled every single person in his world, and he fooled them to such a degree that it would take several more months for anyone to fully grasp. When the dismembered remains of Bart and Krista Halderson were discovered scattered about various Wisconsin properties, their 23-year-old son Chandler Halderson was arrested for lying

about his missing persons' report. Murder charges would soon follow. Dane County detectives were actively waiting through their waist-deep evidence, compiling their case against him. Several glaring facts stood out to investigators, making them absolutely positive that Chandler was the responsible party, even before any forensic evidence was processed in the lab. And I said, the police were initially thrown off because of one thing, and that was this text message from Christo.

And it's real! It's on the phone that we were able to search. We're not able to search every phone with some of them are, made it safely. Can't get anything through though. Yes, it's packed. Going to white lake today for the parade. Be home Monday night Tuesday. Love you lots. Sent on the 4th of July. Initially, this didn't seem like an important message until investigators followed up about the event and realized that the Haldersons had missed the parade. Christa sent her son the message about watching the event

on July 4th, but festivities had concluded the day prior. So they started thinking, well, how the hell did this message get sent? So they searched the Halderson home where Chandler was. And in the garage under a shelf in a shoe, wrapped in aluminum foil was his mother's phone along with her driver's license. Chandler had sent those messages himself from his mother's phone. Bart and Krista were already dead at this point. And Chandler had almost a whole week to clean up his mess, divert the suspicion, and scatter his parent's body parts all over the state of Wisconsin.

Among property recovered in a search warrant was a burner phone owned by Chandler. This phone, along with Chandler's internet and email history, explained exactly why a seemingly normal 23-year-old, with everything going for him, would brutally murder his loving parents and try so desperately to cover it up. Chandler's entire life was a lie. The old and service service was a wonderful man. Hi, I'm trying to get an appointment scheduled to meet with somebody to maybe just get a copy of the transcript

and also a printed copy of a certificate that was earned and other degree verification. It's actually awful to listen to. They played it in court. It was the last recording of his dad. His dad had tried to get some answers through Chandler because they were trying to get an insurance discount based on his grades. You know you get a B average they knock 20% off your car insurance payment or whatever. He was trying to do that and

Chandler was just talking about how much trouble he was having getting a transcript and so it gives his dad the email you know emails of these characters he created which the dad didn't put together that these were Gmail accounts and most schools use .edu accounts, not Gmail accounts. But you know, he gets email accounts from his son to take care of this thing. He believes him. It's his kid, right? Your kid isn't lying to you about the very act of going to college. That'd be crazy. Yeah. Where's he go every day? What's he do every day?

So he does this and the data has the email conversations and it doesn't get anywhere. So he ends up looking up the, he looks up someone at the school and he makes a phone call and he records the phone call and he starts lighting up the dude on the other end of the phone because he's been trying to resolve this problem forever. For the term square, you have to go online at a question. I've tried to request them online and we've never got them. And I've spent all my time doing that at eight bucks a piece, so I'm not willing to do that again. Why is that letting you put pressure on transcript?

What is it? It's not my system, it's your system, so you don't have to ask me questions like that. I've gone through the process before, I've worked with Daniel Spite to see if he can get through the information. I don't know if he's with you guys anymore, but it just seems like the ball keeps getting dropped. And you can just imagine, like, I'm trying to just get this flipping transcript, and the

guy tells him, you know, your son hasn't been to classes in a year and a half. Like he registers, but he just never shows up. And you hear the dad just like, wait, what, like the processing error, right, system reboot on this guy, as he's trying to, he's trying to figure it out. Do you know, do you have an Alissa Brent that works in that area or anywhere in the campus? What is the last thing? and take it to your DT. Set up for the list. A-L-Y-S-S-A?

No. All the best. Stay there, Alyssa. With all the last news that I put. Is that check non-teachers, remember? There would be anybody on campus. Orchard? There would be anybody on campus. Or it will be anybody on campus. The directory will have anybody on campus. How about the thing of Spice still worked there?

Spice, the last name is Spice, it's, I think the proper spot. Yeah, S-P-E-I-T-H, I-P-H. No, it's not so, no. And eventually, you know, the guy kind of walks him through what's been going on, how he has got withdrawals or forced withdrawals from all these classes. He has not completed his certificate program. He was doing like a a windmill green energy certificate program, didn't complete it. The dad thought he was either closer, had finished it, and he's trying to get this info. And the guy eventually just

has to break it to him. No, I mean, he didn't have any credits at all because his first semester was not anything to speak of either. He didn't do well. So that's when, you know, the dad eventually gets off the phone and he texts Chandler. Something to the effect of, I just talked to the school, meet me, I think at the house at this time. And then that was the last, that was the last of it. It was after that that the, you know, that the murder would occur and there would be no further communications from the dad. That's just so horrible to know. You're listening to someone that's going to be dead in a few days. And dead at the hands of his son who he trusted for that long. And like the lat, that's kind of the such a sinister part of it. For me, I'm a dad, right? Is that the betrayal of the kid is there at the moment of his death.

At no point during his time at Madison College was Chandler ever considered a full-time student. When investigators started looking into Chandler's self-reported job at American Family Insurance, they realized this too was a farce. He was allegedly, according to him, working for an insurance company, and he was a dive search and rescue for the insurance company, which insurance companies, I don't know if people know this, they don't really rescue people, so they kind of just make payments, but I guess it was like a recovery sort of

thing where he would get in a scuba tank and go through a bog, marsher lake in Wisconsin was the idea. And this is all a lie, very important to realize this is all a lie. But that was the job he told people that he had was that he was on an insurance company scuba recovery team. And he would, you know would go diving for evidence in the water. That was fake. Chandler had been claiming to work there for a year, but he never had any money. And his father wasn't accountant,

so his father would ask him questions pretty much daily, why don't you have any money? Why haven't you paid any rent? And Chandler's fun and amazing web of lies. There was something going on with who American family would go through for payment. That just the check went to the wrong address and then it had to be canceled and then he tried setting up for direct deposit and something happened with that and then the amount that they had to pay him was too much so they didn't believe they owed some of that amount of money and then

Just wasn't getting to him. He kept having to ask for money from his parents from his girlfriend Everybody who would ask him hey, you know you have this job. Why do you always need money? It's like well, there was an issue with payroll. They're really trying to work it out and he of course developed this elaborate sort of really trying to work it out. And he of course developed this elaborate sort of scheme with the payroll where, oh yeah, they're trying to get it fixed. But he works for like six months without pay. And to me, if someone tells me, right,

that they've worked two months without pay, I'm immediately thinking, quit. Why are you going to work if they're not paying you? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, you're an idiot if you're doing that. They're gonna get around to it. It's like, bro, this is all state. Or whatever, state bar.

I don't remember which one. It's not like a mom in pop shop. This is a multi billion dollar insurance company that can fix their payroll today. And please started to find emails like this. This from Tom Selznick, a guy in American family insurance in Northeast remote human resources guy. Describe in this, your registered is salary, but you're making hourly. And these emails would go back and forth with Chandler and the HR person and eventually he forwarded him to his father. This was another fake email account Chandler had set up to support his life of lies.

Imagine this kid trying so desperately to avoid getting a job that he sits in his room alone, emailing himself in some bizarre role-playing scenario. All of this just to convince his father of his employment and explain away his brokenness. That was the amazing thing about all of that is, look, I went to college. College isn't that hard. It was way less work than what you were just talking about. All of the different things he had to keep up with, all of the lies, all of the email addresses, all of the stories, because he was doing this throughout his lie, and his lie was a long one, multiple years.

He was doing this in case it would ever come down on him. And then of course, it ultimately does come down on him. And he was ready for it to the point where, you know, it still persisted for a little while after it started to crash. And then, you know, there was the ultimate thing when his dad finally finds out by talking to someone at the school. If you don't want to work so hard

that you think the solution is to murder two people, hide the bodies and get away with it? I mean, that's work. Yes. But he was ultimately someone who just really didn't want to work. He didn't want to go to work. Bart was catching on, but not quickly enough. He was still sending Chandler messages frequently, reminding him to wake up in the morning for

work. Hey, are you up for your meetings? Yeah, over and over again. So Chandler woke up. But he had nothing to do all day because his job was pretend. And so he sat on his computer playing video games. He wasn't going to Madison College. He wasn't studying renewable resource engineering.

The people at American Family Insurance, they'd never even heard of him. There's no indication he'd ever even applied for a job, much less had any job at SpaceX. The apartment he told his girlfriend he'd rented and the car he'd bought, none of that was real. And this concussion he apparently suffered. He did go to the hospital, but none of the things that Chandler reported to other people. The leg weakness is inability to move, drive, travel, none of that was real. And what we've discovered in this investigation is in just the day and a half prior to being murdered,

Bart Halderson, Chandler's dad, called M-A-T-C, and pretended to be Chandler to try to finally get some information on what's going on. All of the effort it must have taken to swindle all these people seems to be equivalent to the amount of time Chandler would have spent in a full-time job. In an attempt to keep his web of lies running smoothly, Chandler was working day and night, responding through these fake email accounts, creating fake school and work projects to show his girlfriend, and all the while Chandler

was getting even more stressed. He knew that it was only a matter of time before all of his lies came to the surface, before his house of cards fell in on him. And the only solution he could come up with was murder. Imagine making the choice to kill, disremember, and hide the adult bodies of your two parents instead of getting a job. That's a whole new level of laziness that I can't even comprehend. I think most of us would rather put up with a few job interviews.

Instead of murder. Chandler was so dedicated to his fake life, he didn't know how to exist without it. After finally speaking with a real customer service representative from the school, Bart began rapidly putting the pieces together. He sent Chandler a text. I spoke with Omar Job. Chandler may not have even known what his father was talking about, given that he wasn't attending Madison College. Omar Job was the name of a customer service representative who had unknowingly blown the lid off of Chandler's whole can of lies.

The haulers since were killed between 3 and 5 pm on July 1st, 2021. Guess what was on Bart's calendar at that exact time? He was supposed to have a meeting with the people at MATC with his son. So, supposed to go to MATC and have this meeting at 3 o'clock. On July 1st, 2021, Bart Alderson's getting ready to go to MATC for this meeting. Perhaps to confront Chandler, perhaps Chandler's going to confront him. Bart Text Chandler, I'm ready whenever you are. These words, I'm ready whenever you are, are the last words ever recorded from Bart Halderson,

less than an hour before his murder. Chandler grabbed his SKS rifle. Finally, the real version of his favorite video game weapon given to him by his friend. And he shot his father in the back multiple times inside the family home. And after shooting his dad, Chandler texted his mom. Dad's phone died. Textor called me. And get soda on your way home. I have an extra hour of work. You know, he didn't have an extra hour of work.

But he was delaying her getting there. Chandler then laid in wait for his mother to return home with the soda she had promised. And then killed her, too. After the deed was done, the cleanup began. Chandler attempting the plan as best he could made a to-do list. We gun chores. H-202 lemon. Door handles. Move your shit upstairs. Get a job. Clean the floor. Chandler spent the day cleaning, and Facetimeed his girlfriend Kat while he showered.

She had a screenshot saved on her phone from the conversation. Kat was chatting with the love of her life not realizing that his parents' dead bodies were inside the home with him. She exchanged sweet nothings with a monster before, during and after the murders, totally oblivious. To say she dodged a bullet with this one, would be an understatement. After bidding cat goodnight, Chandler, with a supposed head injury, unable to use his legs or lift heavy objects, went to several gas stations. He was carrying out large bags of ice.

Because what Chandler had done that night is what you all probably suspect by now. He had dismembered his parents or at least started the process and had to fit them inside a freezer that were in the halter's at home. Chandler's plan was to burn his parents' remains in the downstairs fireplace. The same one with a broken glass pane, Chandler explained away in the interrogation room. One home behind the Halterson's captured video evidence

of bright light in that particular window of the home on the night Chandler carried out his process. Remember, this is the beginning of July. It was hot to begin with. People in the neighborhood thought it was a little bit weird. That so much fireplace was going on, they smelled stuff. One person, this neighborhood's full of retired cops, but one retired cop said, I smelled like a barbecue, like a,

smell like a pig roast. He had obviously underestimated the heat and space needed to burn to adult bodies. It wasn't something that could be done in a residential fireplace. Through the security footage, it appeared as though Chandler began fanning flames to increase the heat. The fire got out of control and when Chandler threw water on it, some of the glass exploded.

This accident wasn't caused by something as innocent as a dog. It became clear that this wasn't going to work. So Chandler came up with another last minute plan, dumped their pieces into various locations. Because his girlfriend was coming to spend the night on Friday, Chandler spent all day cleaning. Throughout that weekend, every chance he could he drove somewhere and dropped off a piece of his parents. He chose timeframes that he knew Cat would be at work, or sleeping at night, while the wild participating in her family's weekend festivities, like nothing was wrong. After the weekend concluded and Chandler had cleaned up and disposed of as much

as he could, he reported his parents missing, and searches and sued. The day he had those phone conversations with the Dane County detective, paranoid about the increased police activity outside his home, Chandler was frantically trying to determine how much information the police already had. This is what he's googling.

Body found Wisconsin. Woman's body found Wisconsin. Wisconsin dismembered body found. Dead body found Wisconsin. Body found in Milwaukee River. He's searching for whether they found his parents. Then Chandler began searching for something different. Something more ominous.

State vs. Peter Capuzza. Probably means nothing to everyone. Met nothing to me when I first saw it. The name rang a bell and I wondered why. Not only did he show you Google's state vs. Peter Capuzza, he showed that he clicked on a link on the Wisconsin Courts website and read something. What he read was a legal case, much like this one is the state versus Chandler Halterson. The state versus Peter Capuzzo though,

was a case that made it to the court of appeals based on some legal technicalities, but a man who dismembered part of his family members and through their bodies in the river. So at the same time Chandler Halterson is going door-to-door in his neighborhood, crying about his parents being missing, talking to the local news, telling Sheriff's Stepety, signing documents saying they're missing, he's conducting legal research. Research that would hopefully aid in his defense, should he need one? Just in case his plan didn't work. When he was arrested, I'm sure Chandler still had some hope that he could get out of this, somehow. So you're asking for an attorney who we're not gonna ask you more questions. It's him.

Just gonna stand up and just come over here for me. Get a new nearby, because it all flowed. Before we wrap up, there's one more question we have to ask. How stupid can a person be? And I'm not talking about Chandler. He has duped her. On the job, He has duped her on the job. He's duped her on moving to Florida. He has duped her on what happened to his parents and that they were on this vacation. Everything is a dupe of cat.

She was even convinced on the concussion with everybody else, right? And she has a text to him because he was grounded. This is 23 year old man living with his parents and they had allegedly grounded him. And she was getting really angry that she couldn't see him. And so she has this text to him that that says, basically, I want to call her and tell her how ridiculous this is. This is BS, right? And this is days before this woman would be dead. To me, like in a lot of investigations, if we're watching a movie, right, and you've got an angry text from a girlfriend

about the future mother-in-law, and then she ends up dead in a couple days. And the girlfriend is a suspect at that point in the movie. And so that was troubling. But the other thing she did, what he kind of allayed her anxiety about the whole thing, said, no, no, no, don't worry about it. They're gonna go on this trip,

and I'll be able to see you then. She's like, why don't you tell her that you can come over here to my mom's farm and stay with us. And she effectively said, we can lie and say that we can use this medical equipment to treat your concussion. And the way she wrote the text implied that she knew it was entirely fake. And then you've got cat coming over to the house while he supposedly has burned in the fireplace portions of his parents.

At exceedingly high temperatures, apparently, because that surveillance video I talked about would show these big flare-ups of light coming from the house that was supposed to be the fireplace as sort of the... I hate to be gruesome, but as the fat would render out and then ignite, humans burn really hot. So he's burned these people in the fireplace and she comes over like that day and doesn't think anything of it. In fact, they sleep on a makeshift like two couches

pushed together by the fireplace. It's very romantic. You ever go down to Hawaii and they do the pig? You know, the most pig. I mean, that's much smaller than a human body. You're talking about two human bodies in a confined space. In indoors. How do you not even like go, hey, what's that smell?

Just throw a pork shoulder in a crock pot for 12 hours. Your entire house will smell like pork. And so we're long pig. Yeah. The narrative of the case is that cats involved. She brings over hydrogen peroxide and quite a bit of it because he said he cut his foot and he had blood on the basement floor. Of course, we now are told in the narrative, and I think it's as reasonable to believe the father was killed down there in the basement, and some of the blood was cleaned up, but then they show you pictures of this cleaned up blood.

And the peroxide made it impossible to get a positive hit on it, so they're not 100% sure what it was in all of the places. They did get some of the blood spatter ID to the dad through DNA, but the majority of it wasn't there. But when you see how much blood was there, and then they show the cut on his foot, and it's like you took a toothpick and just punctured the ball of the foot a little bit,

and you're, you just left thinking, wait, foot a little bit. And you're, you just left thinking, wait, so this chick comes over. And there is the shining blood bath laying on the floor of the thing. And it's, and he's like, oh, yeah, I cut my foot. Wait a minute, wait a minute, shouldn't you be dead by now from that amount of blood loss? Like, this is ridiculous. But she, she just apparently went along with it. And that's the part that the prosecutor was talking about. She did help.

She brought this hydrogen peroxide over, like gallons of it, so that he could clean up the basement floor. Listen, Nick, I find your very misogynistic and sexist commentary, very problematic. Okay. Everyone knows that in the criminal justice system, women are treated exactly the same as men, stop it. That's true, you're correct. That's what happened.

Thank you. I don't know, somewhere in the back of my mind, I would never be surprised if there was some sort of deal for her cooperation. And I don't think it'd be written down. I think it'd be one of those things where we're going to turn the recorder off for just a minute here, Kat. And I'm going to talk to you about something.

Look, a reasonable person might assume that once presented with all the evidence by his defense attorneys, Chandler might have realized that a trial in his case would be a monumental waste of time and money. With all that stacked against him, you'd think he'd resolve to plead guilty. Chandler's felony charges were numerous and grave. Two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, two counts of providing false information on a missing person's case, two counts of mutilating a corpse and two counts of providing false information on a missing person's case, two counts of mutilating a corpse and two counts of hiding a corpse. On January 20th, 2022, a jury found Chandler

Halterson guilty on all counts. Almost every homicide I've prosecuted, there's been a fairly tragic backstory of the defendant, violence, drugs, just tragedy. And you often are left with an explanation. Not an excuse, but an explanation is to why a crime occurred. Why did this 18-year-old kill a 17-year-old? There's not an explanation here. Chandler grew up with a life of privilege by pretty much, I think, any sort of angle you look at it.

He had two parents that were married, and that seemed to be happily married. Two parents that from all evidence were completely supportive. He had numerous people that would drop everything to help him if it was needed. The only potential criticism that anyone that we talked to and we talked to well over 100 people was that perhaps his mother babyed him a little too much or was a little too doding. And all of the jail calls and messages that the detectives and Mr. Brown and I listened to. It was never even a moment where Chandler mourned his parent's death. Chandler, with a dead look in his eyes at all times, may not even be capable of mourning.

His whole life was a lie. His personality was a front. Who's actually inside that body? No one knows the true monster, but Chandler himself. The only thing he was grieving about was that this hidden monster had made a public appearance. Something he never planned for. appearance, something he never planned for. Chandler requested that he be allowed to skip out on his own sentencing hearing, but given that sentencing is the final opportunity for friends and family of a victim to speak their peace, along with the judge, the judge felt it was necessary that Chandler be there to face the music.

The emotional atmosphere of the courtroom on sentencing day was thick with tension and sadness. The judge himself, who remained composed during the entire lengthy and gruesome trial, broke down before laying out Chandler's sentence. I've tried, even though I've had to examine carefully the evidence, not to think about it. I've tried not to think about how or what steps were taken or how these things even took place. I don't wish to engage in that speculation at sentencing, but I recognize that the jury found Mr. Halterson guilty of mutilating both bodies, hiding both bodies, and presenting a story to law enforcement

to try and lead them on a completely different path than what had actually occurred, and that he took steps in those actions which really robbed those people of dignity. But fortunately their dignity is it all here in these people that remember them, these people that are here today because of them. I appreciated learning more about them and my condolences go to every member of their family. The gravity of these offenses and the need to protect the public out way, the potential that there could be that at some future point, he should have presence among us. The judge then sentenced Chandler Halterson to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Some could argue that this was a crime that had a purpose, that his two targets are now gone from this world, and so Chandler couldn't possibly pose a threat to the rest of the public. The problem with this idea is that Chandler has demonstrated his lack of humanity, time and time again. He has shown his character through his behavior, at this type of solution, murder, is an acceptable way to deal with his problems. When corner cutting didn't produce the expected result, Chandler's behavior escalated. He soon began cutting classes then school altogether and finally, he cut his own parents

out of his life and everyone else's. He robbed them of a chance to forgive Chandler for his missteps. Neither Bart nor Christa Halterson will ever take another breath or send another text, or go to the store to pick up Soda for their beloved son. Chandler's avoidance of admitting guilt shows us exactly where he's at in life. And ultimately, the story should not be about him. Nick Riccata is often asked by his fans on his channel to give a toast to loved ones that have passed. So we'd like to do that here. To Barton, Christa Halterson,

there are two parents raising children by all accounts, diligent workers, respectful parents, contributing people who did one of the hardest jobs, and that's to raise children in a dark and corrupted world, and to try and bring them into some semblance of normalcy, productivity, and integrity. And despite their best efforts, we're unable to. To the fact that they tried, in a world of darkness to bring light.

They should be remembered for their efforts, not for the poor choices of the child they brought in. May their rest in peace, cheers. Okay, that's gonna do it. Thank you so much for joining us. There's so much of this interview with Nick Rukita that we had to cut out for time because it was just particularly long. There's a full two hours plus where we talked about this case and so many details, so many extra things that we just couldn't jam back in here.

Like where they found the gun, that was nuts. Anyway, if you want to see that, go to our channel at youtube.com slash sword and scale. It'll be right up there, and you can hear the whole thing unedited. We also talked about all kinds of other things, like the Johnny Depp trial, because we recorded this like a long time ago

when the trial was still going on. Before everybody knew that Amber Hurt was a dirty liar. I mean who knew right? Well we did because we were watching the trial. You should too head on over to next channel ricada law on YouTube and subscribe. Don't forget to hit the smash button as they say you know these kids these days and subscribe to ours too while you're at it. Anyway, I hope to see you there. I hope you enjoyed it and until next time, stay safe. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% I'm going to put it on the top right here.

I'm going to put it on the top right here. I'm going to put it on the top right here. I'm going to put it on the top right here. I'm going to put it on the top right here. I'm going to put it on the top right here. I'm going to put it on the top right here. In the past, I wouldn't even mind paying attention to this, or if this is all I listened to, I'd track crime junkies. I mean, case file, fail, stuff, there's nothing like fraud and fail. And for case products, I just can't afford $5 or $10.

Just know that all these extra fun episodes really go a long way. I mean, all I do is drive around for work. And I don't even listen to music anymore. So, thank you my friend. Thank you for being born. And, stay awesome. you