The Reporter (Sean Dugas)

Summary

Anatomy of Murder: "The Reporter (Sean Dugas)"

Podcast: Anatomy of Murder
Hosts: Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi and Scott Weinberger
Episode Date: December 16, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dissects the tragic and complex murder of Sean Dugas, a beloved Pensacola crime reporter with a vibrant personality and niche hobbies. The hosts—former NYC homicide prosecutor Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi and investigative journalist/former deputy sheriff Scott Weinberger—walk listeners through the layers: Sean’s life, the investigation into his mysterious disappearance, and the brutal truth behind his death at the hands of people he trusted. The case ultimately hinges on loyalty, deceit, and the fatal consequences of greed.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Sean Dugas: The Victim and His World

• Background: Sean Dugas was a well-known local reporter at the Pensacola News Journal, famous for his dreadlocks, vintage clothes, and deep commitment to the marginalized. (04:38)
  • “Sean contributed to local homeless shelters and food pantries and generally had a soft spot for anyone vulnerable or in need.” — Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi [04:53]
• Lifestyle: Although perceived as a “bohemian” or “hippie,” Sean was “a thorough and dogged journalist,” admired by peers and sometimes a “lovable thorn” to law enforcement. (05:49)
• Hobby: He was a serious Magic: The Gathering collector, holding a rare card collection valued in the tens of thousands. (06:39)
  • This hobby, and the social circle around it, becomes crucial to the crime.

The Disappearance

• Initial Concerns: Sean vanished in August 2012. A friend, Patty, found two unfamiliar men at his house and later, found his home “almost entirely empty of furniture.” (07:45)
• Family Response: Sean’s father quickly realized this disappearance was out of character, triggering a police investigation. (07:58)

The Investigation

• Detective Danny Harnett’s Role: Assigned to the missing persons case, he immediately noted the oddity of Sean’s empty house, describing the situation as “unusual, especially for missing persons.” (08:51)
• All Possibilities Explored: Danny keeps an open mind: “At the same time he’s been murdered...he just left...somebody broke in...all these possibilities are true. And eventually the evidence leads you to the actual conclusion." — Det. Harnett [10:20]
• Early Leads: No signs of forced entry or foul play; reports of a U-Haul at the house prompt scrutiny of moving activity. (09:43)
• Potential Motives & Conflict: A recent assault—Sean’s jaw had been broken three weeks prior by a friend of Patty’s son—raises suspicion, but is soon ruled out as unrelated. (11:39)

Focusing on Houseguests: The Cromier Twins

• Suspect Identification: Patty mentions houseguests named Will and Chris, ultimately revealed as twin brothers and longtime acquaintances of Sean. (13:42)
• Paper Trail: Subpoenas for U-Haul rentals and storage units tie the brothers to activity surrounding Sean’s disappearance and address in Georgia. (14:31, 15:05)

Breakthrough: Confession and Discovery

• Father’s Admission: When contacted, William Cromier Sr. first lies, then calls back to admit, “He’s buried in the backyard of my house.” [20:49]
  • “So after the call, I go into my sergeant's office, and I go, I think Sean’s dead.” — Det. Harnett [20:08]
• Body Recovery: Local police and media descend on the scene; Sean’s body is found in a large Tupperware container, wrapped with potpourri and hidden under concrete. (23:04)
  • “The skull is just pulverized… You have these little quarter marks where it looks like a hammer is hit.” — Det. Harnett [24:02]
  • Identification confirmed via a surgical plate from Sean’s previously broken jaw. (24:28)

The Murder and Motive

• Robbery and Betrayal: Investigation reveals the twins’ motive—to steal Sean’s valuable Magic: The Gathering cards. (37:15)
  • “They knew that Sean’s collection was very valuable... I think there was one called a Black Lotus. It was worth $10,000... estimated to be worth about 100 grand.” — Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi [37:15]
• Method of Cover-Up: The house emptied, body hidden, and cards systematically sold at conventions and through dealers. The brothers even bought a BMW with proceeds. (48:15, 48:58)

Interrogations and Confessions

• Separation and Leverage: The twins are held in separate jails, with detectives exploiting the power imbalance—Chris is “soft,” while Will is more dominant. (29:47)
  • “First one to step up controls his own future.” — Scott Weinberger [29:02]
• Chris’s Partial Confession: Initially distances himself, then, when challenged with evidence (e.g. fake camera footage at park), breaks down and implicates his brother as the primary killer. (34:14–36:54)
• Key Moment: Chris describes the attack:
  • “Sean run by the door of the smoke room, headed to the back master bedroom and bathroom, holding his neck, saying, ‘man, you cut my jugular’… Behind him is Will, saying, ‘Hey, it’s not that bad. You’re going to be fine.’” — Det. Harnett [41:07]
  • Sean was killed with multiple hammer blows and a post-mortem neck wound, likely as part of efforts to incriminate both brothers. (43:56, 44:32)
• Walmart Footage Evidence: Will caught buying the container for the body, even sitting inside to check fit—a “moment so insane” as described by Weinberger. (50:47)

Legal Outcomes

• Chris Cromier: Cooperated, pleaded guilty to robbery and accessory after the fact, sentenced to 15 years, released after 11 years in 2025. (49:48, 52:07)
• Will Cromier: Found guilty of murder, sentenced to life in prison; all appeals denied. (51:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On All Possibilities:
  “At the same time he’s been murdered, same time he just left, same time somebody broke into his house and stole all this stuff and he’s just been missing. So all these possibilities are true.”
  — Detective Danny Harnett [02:02, 10:20]
• Father’s Sudden Admission:
  “He’s buried in the backyard of my house.”
  — William Cromier Sr. (as relayed by Harnett) [20:49]
• Scene at Walmart:
  “He goes to where the Tupperware containers are, and he pulls one out, the biggest one that he sees, actually the one that he buys, and he actually opens the lid, stands in it, and sits down in this thing in the middle of the Walmart aisle, basically seeing if it’ll fit the body.”
  — Detective Danny Harnett [50:47]
• On the Bitter Irony:
  “Two brothers, one pulling the other into something so dark and senseless that it ended with the murder of a man who spent his life telling other people’s stories… Once they were separated, the truth couldn’t hold.”
  — Scott Weinberger [52:07]
• Remembering Sean:
  “Shawn, the stories you wrote for your paper will live on, along with your legacy of caring for those less fortunate than yourself. And that is a legacy to be proud of.”
  — Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi [53:14]

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Timestamps for Significant Segments

• Sean’s Background and Community Work: [04:38–05:49]
• Discovery of Disappearance and Initial Investigation: [07:08–10:52]
• Assault Incident Examined & Dismissed: [11:39–13:18]
• Will and Chris Cromier Enter the Frame: [13:42–15:16]
• Breakthrough Phone Call with Cromier Sr.: [19:07–20:49]
• Body Recovery and Crime Scene Forensics: [22:06–24:47]
• Interrogations, Confession Dynamics: [32:52–36:54]
• Chris Explains the Murder & Cover-Up: [41:07–46:09]
• Card Collection Motive and Post-Murder Activity: [48:15–49:13]
• Walmart Evidence: [50:47]
• Sentencing and Reflections: [51:51–53:14]

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Conclusion

Anatomy of Murder delivers a compelling, sensitive, and clear dissection of the Sean Dugas case—revealing how trust, friendship, and greed collided to produce a tragic loss. The episode masterfully blends investigative detail, emotional insight, and reflections on justice, leaving listeners with a sobering appreciation for the enduring consequences of violence and betrayal.

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Transcript

[Ashley Flowers]

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[Detective Danny Harnett]

Now, one of the things that I learned early on as a detective though, was all possibilities are reality, right? So at the same time he's been murdered. Same time he just left. Same time somebody broke into his house and stole all this stuff and he's just been missing. So all these possibilities are true.

[Scott Weinberger]

I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

I'm Anna Sega Nicolasi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.

[Scott Weinberger]

And this is Anatomy of Murder.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Most people, whether by choice, by luck, or just by coincidence, find their adult lives landing squarely in the mainstream. 9 to 5 job, a car, house or apartment, maybe a family to feed, and of course, monthly bills to pay.

[Scott Weinberger]

But there are also plenty of people who occupy what we might call the fringes of this mainstream society. People, people who dare to walk to the beat of their own drummer, who are not afraid to stand out, shake things up, or just pursue a lifestyle that's not always easy for the rest of us to understand or appreciate.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And while that bohemian lifestyle can obviously add to certain adventures, if you will, it can also come with added challenges sometimes. The downside, things like irregular routines, unstable housing, even unemployment, not the least of.

[Scott Weinberger]

Which is contact with other individuals who may see someone's lack of ties to a community as an opportunity to take advantage of them and to get away with it.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

Sean was somebody that was known locally. He was our local paper reporter. He worked at crime beat. So he was also kind of a standout because of the way that he looked. He was kind of a bohemian.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Sergeant Danny Harnett spent 29 years at the Pensacola police department before he retired back in 2022. But in August of 2012, he was still a detective who knew many crime reporters, including a 30 year old local guy named Shawn Dugas.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

We called him like the hippie reporter. He had dreadlocks, young kid, big scraggly beard, so he looked very unusual. But he would run around wearing like a press hat with a little press tag in the cap, and he would show up on crime scenes.

[Scott Weinberger]

Known for his trademark dreadlocks and vintage clothes, Shawn was a free spirit on a mission. Despite that bohemian appearance, Shawn was known for his commitment to serving his community, especially those on the margins.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Shawn contributed to local homeless shelters and food pantries and generally had a soft spot for anyone vulnerable or in need. And that included the victims of crime in Pensacola, which he wrote about as a staffer for the Pensacola Pensacola News Journal.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

It's the biggest paper in northwest Florida and it's the primary paper in Pensacola.

[Scott Weinberger]

So when I was in uniform, I knew guys just like this. You know, reporters on the crime beat who can be tenacious and sometimes even confrontational in their efforts to break a story. But coming from both worlds myself, I can tell you independent reporting is an essential part of the civic ecosystem.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

I didn't personally know Sean, but he had come to a couple of our, of our homicides, and he was just kind of a nosy, pushy kid who tried to, you know, cross the tape and, and get you to answer questions, and it was irritated when you didn't tell him anything.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But despite being a lovable thorn in the side of local law enforcement, Sean was a thorough and dogged journalist who was well respected and admired by his peers.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

I had seen and read his articles, so I knew something about him. I knew that he was from the next city over, a little town called Gulf Breeze, kind of a preppy community. And then he came over to Pensacola to work at the News Journal.

[Scott Weinberger]

Shawn lived by himself in a house in a town where he could stay close to the action and the beach. But when Sean was not chasing a story, he could usually be found chasing another thrill. The high stakes hobby of fantasy card games.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Specifically a game called Magic the Gathering, which, if you're not familiar, is a competitive card collecting game that is somewhere between Dungeons and Dragons and poker.

[Scott Weinberger]

And Sean was good. He participated in tournaments, attended card trading conventions, and even had amassed an impressive collection of rare cards valued in the tens of thousands of dollars.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

It was a niche hobby for what most people would agree was a pretty niche guy. And it was a break from some of the darker elements of the life that he confronted as a crime reporter. Little did he know that one day those worlds would collide in a devastating way.

[Scott Weinberger]

On August 27, 2012, a family friend of Sean's named Patty stopped by his house to pick him up for a scheduled lunch. But it wasn't Sean who came to the door and but two friends of Sean's that Patty didn't recognize.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So when she got there and these guys said that he wasn't available, that was a little concerning. But she also knew that, you know, maybe he wasn't feeling well, or maybe.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

He was on an assignment or their lunch had just slipped his mind. But after a week passed, she still hadn't heard from him. So she stopped by his place once again. Only this time, things looked very different.

[Scott Weinberger]

After knocking on the door and getting no response, she peered through the window and noticed that the house was almost entirely empty of furniture. It looked like Shawn had moved out and in a hurry.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Concerned, Patty called Shawn's dad, who said he hadn't spoken to his son in at least a week. But he was certain that Shawn would never have just moved out without warning. He had just felt that, or almost knew that something must be wrong. And so he picked up the phone and called police.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

He was reported missing by his father. And I got the case the very next day in our. In our lineup meeting when they assigned cases, and then I got his missing persons case.

[Scott Weinberger]

Danny immediately recognized the name and the face of the missing reporter.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So when it was reported, we all realized who it was. And we're like, oh, it's this guy. And then we started doing the investigation in regards to the missing person.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Being missing a week with no contact with friends or family was certainly enough to raise alarm. But the fact that Shawn's house had been emptied out really put a wrinkle in the investigation.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

It was kind of unusual, especially for missing persons. I have never seen one that was missing, and then all their stuff was gone. So it seemed like somehow he had just up and moved. And that was the theory behind the report. But his family was concerned because he didn't tell his family, he didn't tell his friends, and it was just, he's gone. All this stuff's gone now.

[Scott Weinberger]

Sean traveled a bit, sometimes to play cards or attend card conventions. But according to his dad, Shawn would never just move out without telling him.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

When investigators visited Shawn's home, they didn't see any obvious signs of a break in or foul play when. Which offered some relief. And Danny was hopeful that there would still be a simple explanation.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

Well, the first thing I did was I went out to talk to his neighbors. Upon talking with them, I found one that knew that there had been a U haul that had been at the.

[Scott Weinberger]

House, which would explain the missing furniture, but not why Shawn might have made such a sudden departure.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

The next thing I did was went to the U haul dealer, locally, the closest one, to see if Sean had rented a U haul. And they told me basically to go fly a kite until I had a subpoena. So that kind of irritated me, of course.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So Danny still had no reason to believe, or should I say, no provable reason that Sean was in danger or had been the victim of a crime. But like in any missing persons investigation, he did have to work under the assumption that the worst was possible.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

He was kind of a hippie guy, so like a free spirit. So it was a possibility that he had just legitimately just been like, screw it, and then moved. Now, one of the things that I learned early on as a detective, though, was all possibilities are reality, right? So at the same time, he's been murdered, Same time he just left, Same time somebody broke into his house and stole the stuff, and he's just been missing. So all these possibilities are true. And eventually the evidence leads you to the actual conclusion as you start to come cut those different tethers.

[Scott Weinberger]

And that's why the next step of Danny's investigation was to get a Better understanding of Sean's personal life to find out if there were any relationships or perhaps recent conflicts that might have put.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Him in harm's way in his career as a reporter. Shawn may have rubbed some people the wrong way, but there was no evidence that he had made any real enemies through his job. And according to his female friend, Patty, their relationship was platonic.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

I found her legitimately concerned, you know, and appropriately concerned for him. So no red flags came up from actually talking with her.

[Scott Weinberger]

But as it turned out, there was an incident that had occurred not too long before Shawn went missing that did raise some red flags.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The first clue was a business card found at Shawn's house that had apparently been left by someone in the local state attorney's office in reference to an ongoing case.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So I called the state attorney investigator and realized that Sean had been the victim of a battery. He had gotten his jaw broken three weeks before out at the beach. He was out with friends. Well, a friend of that kid who was arrested was Patty Burke's son.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Patty was the friend that had first reported Shawn missing. It would be hard to believe that this assault by a friend of her son's wouldn't be at the front of her mind when Shawn didn't come to the door.

[Scott Weinberger]

And, in fact, when questioned by police about it, she admitted as much.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So she kind of felt responsible for what had happened to him. And she was a family friend, so she was looking after him while he had this broken jaw, Wanted to make sure he was eating. So she had scheduled to take him out for lunch, and that's the day that she went over there to pick him up, and he wasn't available.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

According to Patty, she never suspected there was any connection between Shawn's recent assault and. And the fact that he was missing.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

She didn't have any suspicions he was in danger. She felt bad about the fact that her son and her son's friends had been in an altercation with him, and he had his jaw broken. And on top of the fact that she was a family friend.

[Scott Weinberger]

But for investigators, it was a coincidence that they couldn't ignore.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

This opened up another one of those possibilities, which is, if he has been murdered, who's had recent problems with him, and there's this guy who's been charged who may be a potential suspect, and now he's affiliated with her. So there was still a question of, well, maybe she's on the level, maybe she's not.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

After a few calls and a chat with the state attorney's office, Danny was convinced that the fight on the beach was an isolated incident, and neither the guy who had punched Shawn nor Patty's son had anything to do with Shawn's disappearance.

[Scott Weinberger]

But there were two more persons of interest that were still on his radar, because, according to Patty, Sean may not have been living alone at the time he went missing.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

She was indicating that there were some house guests that were staying with him that she didn't really know, but she was suspicious of them.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

All she had was a first name, Will. And Shawn's dad was fairly certain that the other man must have been Will's twin brother, Chris. The two were longtime friends of Shawn's who he sometimes invited over to play cards.

[Scott Weinberger]

And that information proved enough to make the next big step in the investigation, getting a subpoena for who rented that U Haul spotted at Sean's house.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

And so I knew his name. I also knew that he had a brother named Chris. And so when I did my subpoena request, I asked for a pretty wide, you know, several month window of any U Hauls that were rented by either Sean, Will, or Chris.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And that wide net, it paid off.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

What I discovered in the U Haul subpoena return was there had been two local U Haul rentals. One that occurred that would correspond with the day that they saw the U Haul at the house, and it was rented locally and then returned locally like a week or so later.

[Scott Weinberger]

But not only that, there was also a record of the brothers renting a storage facility and a second U Haul that was rented locally but returned to a location six hours away in a town called Winder, Georgia.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The rental agreement listed a home phone number and an address, both belonging to the father of Sean's house guests, a man named William Cromeier.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So with that phone number, I called dad and had a really unusual conversation.

[Scott Weinberger]

So had Sean picked up and moved to Georgia? Was he hiding out from some unknown threat? Or was it the twin brothers that had something to hide?

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

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[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The house belonged to a William Cromier Sr. The father of twin brothers that investigators believed had been staying at Shawn Dugas house in Florida at the time he disappeared.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

When I called dad Bill, he was kind of a wild character. And when he learned that I was a Pensacola police officer from Pensacola, I told him that I was looking for a missing person that was a friend of their son's.

[Scott Weinberger]

And of course, the simplest answer that Danny was hoping for was that Sean was with the man's son up in Georgia. Case closed, right? But of course, nothing is that easy.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

He told me that he hasn't seen his sons in five months, which is the first red flag because I knew that his information was on that rental along with his sons and he didn't move up there with them. So now he's saying that Sean isn't in Georgia with his sons that he hasn't seen in five months. Second lie because how would he know if he hasn't seen or talked to.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Him in Five months, according to Danny, Kromeier then proceeded to ramble on about a host of criminal conspiracies and even his own past as a wanted man.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So he's just going off on the stuff, basically trying to get rid of me. Eventually, he's antagonistic in the call, and it ends. And I ask him, hey, if you have. If happened to talk to your sons, I'm trying to get hold of him. If you can give my information. I just need to talk to Sean. And the call ended.

[Scott Weinberger]

A cop's instincts told him that the old man was hiding something, covering up for his sons, perhaps, maybe even himself, or even something worse.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So after the call, I go into my sergeant's office, and I go, I think Shawn's dead.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Immediately, they knew they needed to come up with a game plan for what they now feared was a possible homicide investigation.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

While I'm talking with my sergeant, the secretary comes and goes, hey, that guy you were talking to a little while goes back on the phone. So I go back to my desk, answer the phone, and it's Bill again, and he has left the house. He's out of breath. He's walking outside, obviously, and he goes, listen, I was acting all messed up because my sons were there. They were listening to the phone call.

[Scott Weinberger]

It turned out he had seen his twin sons. They were there in the house. And he also knew exactly where. Where Shawn Dugas was as well.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

He's buried in the backyard of my house.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

He's buried in the backyard of my house. It was a shocking admission, but was it true? Was it another lie? Or was it part of a plan to somehow throw police off the scent? There really was only one way to find out.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

I immediately called Winder PD and spoke to Sergeant Love over their investigation section and let her know what was on. Going, going on. What I'd also learned in the phone call with Bill was that they had. The boys had left the house to go get tools to remove the body because I had called. So I'm like, I've got to get local PD over there right now before they have the chance to remove the body.

[Scott Weinberger]

Danny and another detective jumped in a car and headed north towards Georgia, hoping to assist the local police in the recovery of what may or may not be human remains.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And as you can imagine, they're also hoping that if there are buried remains, like the father said, that no one who gets there before them, no local law enforcement or anyone else, does anything too hasty that could inadvertently contaminate the crime scene or say the wrong thing. To a potential witness or even suspect or otherwise complicate their investigation by mistake or unnecessarily.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

And on the way, we're listening to, like, news and watching clips, and we see that there's actually a story about a news helicopter. 45 minutes later, there's a helicopter over the house, and they've got a backhoe there, and they're digging the body up.

[Scott Weinberger]

Exactly what we detectives like to see, right? The media and heavy machinery.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

Obviously, there was a leak to where somebody called the media, and the media is above the house of the chopper. I mean, this is probably the biggest goings on in winder in decades.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

When danny arrived at the scene, the backhoe had already removed a layer of concrete that was covering what william croemier seen claimed was where his sons had buried what he first believed was a dead dog.

[Scott Weinberger]

And as the concrete was removed, A large plastic container was revealed to have been buried just below the ground surface. The strong smell of death was the first sign that it could contain decomposed remains.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The container was opened, and it became clear that the remains were not those of a dog, but a human being.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

The body was contained in, like, one of the biggest tupperware totes that you could find at walmart, which is actually what it is. So he was kind of folded up in there, and then there was still room left over. So they'd filled the inside of this tote with bed sheets. They had wrapped him up in a ton of potpourri, scented oils, insulation filler. So they were trying to fill the entire container up with this filler material and then taped it shut, like, in the hopes that that would cut down on the smell.

[Scott Weinberger]

The body was partially decomposed, Leading investigators to believe the victim had been dead for at least several weeks.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

There were also visible clues To a possible cause of death. A deep laceration across the neck, Likely caused by a long kitchen knife that was also found inside the container.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

The skull is just pulverized. And immediately when they pull back the scalp, it's clear that it's a hammer that's used. You have the little quarter on the edges of where the skull is broken in. You have these little quarter marks where it looks like a hammer is hit.

[Scott Weinberger]

And it's telltale to anyone who knew him, People like danny. It was clear that the body was that of 30 year old Shawn dugas.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

We saw the hair, we saw that, you know, it was the same dreadlocks. And how we were able to identify him Was the plate that was in his jaw to fix his broken jaw was serialized, so we were able to match the serial number with the records at the hospital, and that's how we ID'd him.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Which means that Danny's case was no longer a missing persons investigation. It was a homicide.

[Scott Weinberger]

The ME Would confirm that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and likely caused by multiple blows by a hammer. The deep lacerations to the neck appear to have been post mortem, an indication of the level of violence unleashed on the victim by one or possibly multiple assailants.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

After Danny's arrival in Georgia, he wasted no time in getting a statement from the man he had talked to on the phone. William Cromer Senior.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

And I talked to dad and actually did a record interview with him for the first time there and spoke with him. He gave me more information about what had happened. The fact that they initially had told him they were burying a dog in the backyard that belonged to a friend of theirs.

[Scott Weinberger]

But Cromer Sr. Admitted that he suspected he knew the truth all along. And his interview with Danny revealed not just a shocking lack of compassion for the victim, but. But a very clear intention to throw both of his sons under the bus.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

He was like an old, you know, 70s and 80s crook, right? He's talking to lingo like, you know, my dumbass sons, they bring a dead body to my house. Who. So he was pissed off talking about how his kids did something really stupid. He would never do something that dumb, but, you know, they're kids.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

From his initial phone call to Danny when he told him about the body in the backyard, you might have thought that the father was contacting police out of fear of his own sons, especially if he knew what they were capable of. But after getting his statement in person, it was clear to Danny that Kromier's cooperation was about making sure the murder was not pinned on him or wouldn't come back to him in any way.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

Bill was not a on the level character. I think he would have been fine with the whole thing until I called and then he was in self preservation mode and he didn't want to go to jail. I think he feared for his freedom more so than his life.

[Scott Weinberger]

And he also knew he had to act fast because as soon as he'd gotten off that initial phone call with Danny, his sons had rushed out to buy tools to dig up and remove the body from the property.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

They actually were driving back to the the house to. To try and remove the body. And when they arrived, Winder PD is there. So they drove past the house. They recognize the boys. And so they stop it down the street. They bring him back to the scene.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And here's where things could have really gone sideways, because according to Danny, the local police then attempted to interview the brothers together right at the scene, which I'm sure must have made Danny cringe.

[Scott Weinberger]

When he heard it, I'm sure, because in any kind of criminal investigation like this, the first thing you want to do is separate the suspects. One to see if they'll tell the same story, but also to see if one suspect may be more willing to cooperate than the other. But unfortunately, that is not what happened here.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

And I understand through the story that I've gotten, that they were read Miranda and interviewed kind of like together. And so the story that they get, because they say, we're looking for Sean, and they said, we dropped him off in Pensacola. And then they're like, well, what's in the backyard? And then apparently, that's when they invoked.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Which means they weren't talking. And after invoking their Miranda rights, you can't un invoke without a lawyer or some sort of self initiation, which is very specific under the law. So the opportunity to interview was officially over. And so initially, Will and Kris Kromeier were arrested and charged with just one count each of the concealed ceiling of a death and held in a local Georgia jail.

[Scott Weinberger]

But to Danny's relief, the brothers were still kept separated to eliminate any chance they could get their stories straight.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So what they did was they housed them in separate county jails. They're in one county jail. There's a chance that they could communicate or send messages back and forth. So that was fantastic.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And that's just good common sense in any investigation, really. But there seemed to be another dynamic going on here, too. And it was something that the boy's own father had hinted at with Danny.

[Scott Weinberger]

He believed it all came down to a power imbalance between the twins. The father said they'd always been inseparable, but one clearly steered the other. From an investigator's perspective, that is an opening. Once the brothers are separated. The difference between the one putting on the tough guy act and the one barely holding it together becomes leverage. You don't threaten or bluff. You lay out the truth. The first one to step up controls his own future. You make him feel that this is his moment to break away from whatever his brother is choosing. When someone is already scared, clarity becomes pressure. And in this case, the father was more than willing to spell out exactly how that dynamic worked.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

He says that Will's kind of like the Husband. And Chris is kind of like the wife, more submissive. So if anything happened, it was probably Will that did it.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Which, even if we ignore the casual misogyny in their father's analogy, that statement is very valuable insight. Investigators can try to use it to elicit a statement or potential cooperation or at least piece together an understanding of why and how Shawn was murdered.

[Scott Weinberger]

And their dad was obviously thinking the same thing. According to Danny, he was actually hoping that the son, Chris, would decide to cooperate with police.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

Bill, he's kooky as hell, but he's like, chris is not going to survive in jail. He's too soft. And so he's like, he's going to talk, and he needs to talk because I don't want to lose both of my sons. So I'm like, okay, well, he's already in vogue, so if he's going to talk, he's got to ask to talk to somebody. So hopefully he does.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So what did police know about Will and Chris Cromier? From what Danny was able to put together, neither of them worked. Neither had a fixed address besides their father's.

[Scott Weinberger]

So how did they spend their time? Smoking weed, couch surfing with friends, and playing their favorite card game, the Gathering.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Which was also their connection to Shawn Dugas, who was also very much into the game and collected the cards. They went to the same card trading conventions. They bonded over their collections, and they played these long, intense games where rare and valuable cards could change hands.

[Scott Weinberger]

I mean, it is not the high rollers table in Vegas, but for these enthusiasts, the stakes were often just as high. And as we know, when money comes between friends, violence can sometimes follow.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

When we're up in Georgia learning the details that we have, we call back down to Pensacola, and our team goes out to the the house, and they start to pour over the house.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Remember, up until Shawn's body was found, this was still a missing person's case. So while Shawn's house had been searched, it hadn't been forensically examined like you would following a homicide or any obvious violent crime or any crime at all. But that's exactly what police did now.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So what they find is there's a broken window in the front of the house with some blood on it, and they find some blood in the house, in the living room, and then stains in the garage. So we're able to kind of say that now it looks like that's going to be the actual crime scene, which.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Not only gave Pensacola shared jurisdiction over the homicide case, and it would be decided that Danny and his team should keep the case. But this also gave Danny some other important things and pieces of evidence to use in speaking to one of the suspects in particular, Chris Cromier.

[Scott Weinberger]

According to police in Georgia, Chris was taking his incarceration especially hard. He wasn't eating and he couldn't sleep. Isolated from his brother and confronted with the gravity of his situation, the pressure seemed to be weighing heavily on him.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

I instruct them, like if he decides to talk, what I would like you to do is this, because it's going to be our case. So if you would simply go out there and hear what he has to say, don't challenge him. And at the conclusion of anything that he might say, ask him if he's willing to talk to me. And so sure enough, two days later, after this conversation, he reaches out to the jail and says, hey, I'd like to talk to somebody about what happened.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And so on October 27, almost two months since Shawn's murder, Kris Kromier began to lay out what happened, at least his version of it.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

He's been in jail for, you know, basically four days and he's already freaking out. They go out there and he says, listen, I was at the house, we're staying there with with Sean and my brother asked me to go for a walk. And when I come back, Sean's gone. And I didn't realize that he was buried in a container until you guys pulled it up and found the body.

[Scott Weinberger]

So according to Chris, he didn't take part in Sean's murder. He didn't see a thing, which was a convenient alibi to say the least.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Chris even offered details of his well timed walk, saying he was in a place called Bluffs park along the bay and close to where Shawn lived. But while sharing those details may have thrown off police from Georgia, it was a huge opportunity for the local detective to call his bluff.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So I know that there's cameras down at the Bluffs Park. So I go to the park, I take pictures of the cameras on poles so I could use them later on when I go up there to talk to him.

[Scott Weinberger]

A couple of days later, Danny returned back to Georgia to confront Kris Kromeier, arriving at the jail just past 7am.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

When I first met him, he seemed like weak and sickly. I did not see anything in him that told me that this kid was going to be capable of doing what was done to this to Shawn because Sean's head was destroyed.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But he was also convinced that Kris Kromeier was lying about his involvement in Sean's Murder and the attempted cover up. So Danny's plan was to go with a bit of a ruse to see if it would lead to Chris coming clean.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

I'm very cautious to out and out lie to somebody in the interview, but my intention is to deceive him. So when I showed him the photographs of the park and then the cameras on the poles, I'm like, hey, our guys are pulling this footage. We're gonna have it by the end of the day. Are you gonna be on this footage? And if you're not, then clearly your story isn't going to work.

[Scott Weinberger]

So here's the funny thing. Those cameras, Danny actually knew they weren't working. But just the threat of there being video footage that would disprove Chris's alibi was enough to get Chromier to crack.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

It was probably about 30 minutes of going through his garbage story and then breaking it apart before he started to relax and just accept the fact. So he gives that accepting kind of sigh. His body posture changes, and now he's surrendered.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And look, for any of us that have worked with doing these statements and obviously having done many, many of them and watched, I mean, hundreds of them with various detectives, like it's something. You just see it in their face. You know, sometimes it's someone who's resigned, Sometimes they're angry. Sometimes it's like that sigh, just like Danny described.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

And so for me, it always feels like there's a door creaking open, and I'm like, this is the time to kick it. So we kicked the door and went straight into the fact as to we knew the fact that it was he was there in the house.

[Scott Weinberger]

For me, it was always more about the body language at a Seager. You know, yes, their words were important, but you can always seem to get the moment that they feel deflated or caught or you've actually know the jig is up, as you you say. And like his own father predicted, Chris agreed to cooperate with investigators and finally tell the whole story, Starting with the admission that he was in the house when Sean was killed.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

We knew that he was there and his brother was there. The only thing we don't know is who actually was the one who did the murder, Whether it be him or his brother or both of them. And so he explains it as Chris told it.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

He and his brother have been friends with Shawn for years, and after meeting at a local comic book store and bonding over their favorite fantasy card game.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

But they knew that Sean's collection was very valuable, and he had some very rare Cards. I think there was one called a Black Lotus. It was worth $10,000, you know, so he's got a collection that that's been estimated to be worth about 100 grand.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So in the summer of 2012, the twin brothers found themselves in Pennsylvania, short of money and crashing on Sean's couch.

[Scott Weinberger]

But they weren't there just to play cards and reminisce about old times.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

One of the reasons that they had gone to Pensacola is I guess a few years before, Will had a really good collection of cards as well. And they were stolen at a convention and so he was pissed off and so his idea was that they were going to go to these different conventions, conventions and steal somebody's cards to replace his collection and not to start from scratch.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Which means this was no ordinary gathering. This was all part of a plan.

[Scott Weinberger]

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[Detective Danny Harnett]

He said, he's in the smoke room. Well, I guess they would smoke weed in Sean's house. When he heard a commotion in the living room. And then he sees Sean run by the door of the smoke room, headed to the back master bedroom and bathroom, holding his neck, saying, man, you cut my jugular. Something to that effect. And behind him is Will, you know, saying, hey, it's not that bad. You're going to be fine. And this strikes Chris as odd.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So just to be clear, Chris again is saying, hey, this was my brother's plan to rob Sean. And while I knew about it, I wasn't even in the room when the attack began.

[Scott Weinberger]

But then he claimed that when he heard this commotion, he got up, looked into the hallway, and he saw Sean running towards the back of the house, being chased by his brother Will.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

And then he sprints for the garage. He sees that Will chases after him, picks up a hammer that was laying on a kitchen counter as he's running to the garage. And once he gets out the door, he hits him as hard as he can in the head and kills him.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So what Chris had described was a robbery that also involved or had escalated into violence, and then to murder, a murder that he laid squarely on his brother Will.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

He was trying to steal some items from Sean, and because Sean resisted, he cut his throat. And then eventually, when he tried to escape, he stopped him by hitting him in the head with a hammer.

[Scott Weinberger]

But right away, Danny noticed some pretty big inconsistencies with this version of events.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

Autopsy told us that cause of death was blunt impact to the head, multiple shots, like, I would say at least 13 strikes with a hammer to the head and then the laceration to the neck. Chris is saying that he hit him in that with a hammer and he kills him. Now, he only says one strike. So there's still some inconsistencies with his story.

[Scott Weinberger]

So when people finally confess, you often see them trying to sand down the sharpest edges of what they did. They'll admit the murder, but deny a sexual assault or that they don't own the weapon or not how many blows or shots they took. It's being in a survival mode. You know, it's a way to say, I did it. But I'm not the person. You know, they're still negotiating themselves, trying to keep one foot and a Sega out of this darkness.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And with that, it's really the suspect trying to put their best foot forward. Right. So they either they've been caught or they have come clean to some extent, but it is still trying to shape that narrative to try to help themselves when it comes to accountability down the line. But as we've discussed many times before, a good rule of thumb for investigators, when a suspect begins to lie, best not to interrupt.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So he's saying that he's shocked by what he's saying, and that Will tells him, Will tells Chris, his brother, his twin brother, that if he says anything, he's going to kill his family. They have the same family. So that was odd.

[Scott Weinberger]

And you know what was so odd? Chris's description of the cut to Sean's neck. He made it sound like it was pretty minor and even described Shawn running around and talking after he was cut. But investigators knew from the autopsy that the laceration to the neck was really no minor injury.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

The other thing is, this is the neck injury was said to be post mortem by the ME it was a.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Detail that Danny thought hinted at a much darker version of Shawn's murder and a version that indicated Kris Kromeier was not just an innocent bystander who uses.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

Two weapons to kill somebody. Why would you switch from a knife, a kitchen knife, to a hammer? So one of the things that kind of makes sense to me, I believe he was killed with the hammer, and then he had Chris cut his neck to be kind of like TV involved, you know, like where you have these guys that shoot a body and they have the other guy shoot the body too, because now he's involved.

[Scott Weinberger]

And he would be involved in the attempt to cover up Shawn's murder as well, which started with a trip to Walmart.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

And he seems really meek, but he. He basically lays it all on his brother. And then he says that they go, his brother leaves, comes back with a big tote, and he had gone to Walmart. They put the body in it, they leave it in the garage, and they.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Leave, but not before stealing the entirety of Shawn's collection of rare and valuable trading cards, which they immediately began selling off for cash.

[Scott Weinberger]

According to Chris, his brother then concocted a plan to conceal Sean's death by making it look like he moved. So they returned to Pensacola, rented a U Haul, and loaded Shawn's body inside and began to clean out his house. They even hired two Landscapers to tidy up the yard, all in an effort to make it look like Sean had simply just moved away.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

During this time, they had locked themselves out of Shawn's house. So Chris breaks a pane of glass on the window and cuts himself really bad. So he ends up having to go to the hospital, get stitched up.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Which accounted for the blood the detectives had found in the house, blood they would later match to the suspect. But there was another flaw in Will's plan.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

They realized that the body smells terrible in this container, even though it's taped shut. They end up going back to Walmart to get a bunch of the items that we later find in the container they buy, like potpourri, the oils, the filler for the inside of it.

[Scott Weinberger]

On September 9, 2012, the twin killers left Pensacola and returned to Georgia, where they decided to bury Shawn's body in their father's backyard.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

So they dug a shallow kind of just enough of a hole to put it in. And, like, the top of the container was actually at ground level. And then they framed out a small 6 by 6 slab and put concrete on top of it. About an inch and a half, two inches of concrete.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And in fact, it was the slab of concrete that may have given police the opportunity to recover Shawn's body before the brothers had the chance to move it.

[Scott Weinberger]

Because after they heard their dad talking to cops on the phone, they must have known it was only a matter of time before someone came looking. But now they needed more than just a shovel to get him out. They needed another trip to the store.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

Well, that's what kind of screwed them, because now they've got this body they're trying to get out, and it's under a slab of concrete, and they don't have the tools to break through to it. So they had to go to the hardware store to buy some stuff. And on their way back is when they actually got picked up by, you know, Winder pd.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

In the weeks between Sean's murder and the day Will and Chris Cromier were arrested, the two brothers had traveled across multiple states, visiting trading card conventions, selling off Shawn's prized collection, at one point making as much as $12,000 from a single sale.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

The cards that they had stolen from him. We were able to track their sales of these cards. First in Pensacola, they sold a couple of cards in order to get money to get back to Georgia and to rent the U Haul. And then they ended up going to Dragon Con up in Atlanta, a big, you know, celebrity movie, cartoons, gaming convention. And we were able to find the different vendors who would deal in magic gathering cards and found, you know, a lot of the cards that belong to Sean that were sold by Will. So that was the other piece that implied it was Will because Will was the one who was brokering the deals and selling the cards.

[Scott Weinberger]

But not only were the brothers selling the cards for cash, they were spending it, too. During this period, they spent at least $6,000 from the sale of Sean's cards, including buying a BMW.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

The other thing that was in the house that was valuable was there was a safe that had about $35,000 of gold in it that's missing. And what they ended up saying was all the stuff that they had had besides the cards, they dumped at the dump in winder. So there's $35,000 in gold in a safe somewhere in the dump and Winder that they didn't realize was there, but they were out of money. They probably sold about 30 grand worth of cards, had nothing to show for because they did a title loan on the BMW the week before I picked him up.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

With Kris Kromeier's confession, Danny had what he needed to extradite both brothers back to Florida.

[Scott Weinberger]

Chris agreed to a cooperation deal, pleading guilty to robbery and accessory after the fact in exchange for testifying against his brother. He formally entered his plea on January 31, 2014, and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

At trial, William Croemier denied everything his brother told police, instead claiming it was his twin brother who had killed Shawn. And he claimed that he had actually just been trying to protect him from going down for the murder when he didn't speak initially and claimed he'd been taking care of his brother all of his life.

[Scott Weinberger]

But the circumstantial evidence against him was overwhelming. Evidence that included video from the Walmart where he purchased everything he thought he needed to get away with murder. And there is a portion of what you're about to hear from the detective which I found so insane, all of it captured on Walmart security cameras.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

We have two trips to Walmart during this, this week of the murder. On the day of the murder, he goes to Walmart by himself. Will does, and he goes to where the Tupperware containers are, and he pulls one out, the biggest one that he sees, actually the one that he buys, and he actually opens the lid, stands in it, and sits down in this thing in the middle of the Walmart aisle, basically seeing if it'll fit the body.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The two brothers were twins, but it was Will that had come up with the plan to rob Sean, it was Will that had swung the hammer 13 times into his friend's skull. And it was Will who had orchestrated the failed coverup. But when it comes to murder or any crime, you know the saying, in for a penny, in for a pound.

[Detective Danny Harnett]

Will was more assertive and stronger and more powerful. They grew up idolizing criminals, and so Will was like the criminal. And Chris just kind of looked up to him because he's doing what the family does.

[Scott Weinberger]

Ultimately, it was a toxic relationship that would cost both brothers their freedom and one man his life.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

On February 14, 2020 14, Will Kromier was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Over the next seven years, numerous appeals were filed, all of which were ultimately denied, and his conviction was upheld.

[Scott Weinberger]

After serving 11 years in prison, his twin brother Chris was released from prison on August 13th of 2025. What stays with me in Sean's case is the sheer tragedy of it all. Two brothers, one pulling the other into something so dark and senseless that it ended with the murder of a man who spent his life telling other people's stories. Sean was a respected crime reporter, someone who understood violence from a distance, only to become the victim of a crime driven by nothing more than greed and a handful of collectible cards. And the irony is, the same bond that made these brave brothers inseparable is what ultimately cracked the case. Once they were separated, the truth couldn't hold. One brother folded, the other story fractured, and investigators finally saw the path that led to Sean. It's a reminder that behind every twist and turn, confession is a real life taken, a community still feeling that loss.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Shawn Dugas was murdered because of greed and a callous disregard for human life. He was a guy working and living like most of us do. And in his off hours, he spent time playing a game he loved and collecting the cards that were part of that game. He'd shown the brothers kindness by letting them stay with him, and they repaid his kindness with brutality. Shawn, the stories you wrote for your paper will live on, along with your legacy of caring for those less fortunate than yourself. And that is a legacy to be proud of. Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder.

[Scott Weinberger]

Anatomy of Murder is an audio Chuck.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media.

[Scott Weinberger]

Ashley Flowers is executive producer.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

This episode was written and produced by Walker Lamont, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ally Sirwa, Megan Hayward and Phil Jean Grande.

[Ashley Flowers]

I think Chuck would approve.

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