← Criminology
Criminology
Harold Henthorn
00:54:39
By 2012, Harold and Toni Henthorn had been together for twelve years. They celebrated their anniversary by going camping and hiking at Rocky Mountain National Park. Toni's family and friends grieved after learning that, while on the trip, Toni...
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- [00:00]
A
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. WIX is the website builder that just keeps on giving. It's giving.
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B
I just built my whole site in under an hour.
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A
It's giving. I actually made that.
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C
Whoa.
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A
It's giving.
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B
Our sales are through the roof.
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A
So whether you need help expressing yourself or just need something to make your life easier, WIX has you covered. Try it out@wix.com.
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C
Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
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B
Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 352 of the Criminology podcast. This is Mike Ferguson.
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C
And this is Mike Morford.
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B
Mr. Morford, what you got going on this week?
- [01:33]
C
Not a whole lot. Just trying to catch up on some extra work. How about you?
- [01:36]
B
I'm, you know, really following the tournament. My Kentucky Wildcats made it to the sweet 16. I know you're not a huge college basketball guy, but, you know, I'm just really into the tournament this year and I haven't been for quite a few years because my team keeps getting knocked out early.
- [01:55]
C
Well, then that's something to be excited about. If your team's there and you got something to root for.
- [01:59]
B
Yeah, it definitely makes a difference. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had one new Patreon and that was Laura Holcomb Duke. So we really appreciate that new support.
- [02:13]
C
Thank you so much. That really helps out the show. And for anyone else that would like to support us, you can head over to patreon.com criminology to get started.
- [02:22]
B
All right, it's time to jump into this week's case. And you know, in this episode, we're starting with a question for our listeners. What would you do if you got away with murder? Not the kind of murder where the authorities are still searching for the killer and you're always looking over your shoulder, but one that investigators never even thought was a murder? You're not on the run and you're completely in the clear. Would you consider yourself lucky and lay low so that your past couldn't come back to haunt you? Or would you maybe think it was something you could easily do again while a man named Harold, he maintains his innocence? In this episode, we'll discuss why Investigators believe he picked the second option, treating murder as something he now knew he could get away with. They also have reason to believe he would have chosen option B as many times as he could and that he may have killed over and over if they didn't eventually catch on to him.
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C
In 1999, Harold Henthorn met Tony Bertolet on the online dating service Christian Matchmakers. They bonded over their shared Christian faith and similarities in their lives like having previously been married. Though Tony was divorced and Harold was a widower, his first wife, Sandra Lynn Henthorn, passed away in 1995. He was open about the fact that he had been married and Tony's family learned that Sandra Lynn had been in an awful car accident. So her death was very sudden and unexpected. It was such a difficult topic that no one ever asked him for any details. Tony's sister in law Paula told CBS News, we just took it for face value. Everyone knew how hard that must have been for Harold to go through and they were just happy that he was able to be open to love again because he found Tony.
- [04:16]
B
It seemed like Harold and Tony were absolutely perfect for each other. According to CBS News, Toni had described Harold to friends and family as very kind, very romantic and very smart. Tony's family believed that she found her true love and her brother Barry remembered being extraordinarily happy for Tony. Tony's father Bob agreed, telling cbs, he seemed like a good match for her. Her and her mother Yvonne remembered Harold telling her, I was just smitten by Tony. As a surgeon and an eye doctor, Tony was a very successful person in her professional life and now she finally had a partner who fulfilled her in her personal life. It seemed that Harold felt that Tony was a special and wonderful as the rest of her loved ones did. What more could they ask for?
- [05:09]
C
About a year after they met, Harold and Tony got married and moved from the Jackson, Mississippi area to Denver, Colorado. Having lived there in the past, Harold had more ties there for his job and Tony easily found work at an ophthalmology practice. After a few years living together as a married couple and trying for a baby, they had a daughter named Haley. Tony fit right in while living in Denver and quickly made plenty of friends. She also taught Sunday school at Cherry Hills Community Church and became a partner at her practice called Associates in Eye Care. Despite things going good for Tony and her new community, over time the relationship between her and Harold began to deteriorate. Although Tony liked her new city, she still missed her old one. But she never really visited back home because Harold didn't want to fly to Mississippi. Despite having friends in the Denver area. Toni was pretty isolated because she was never really able to be on her own or have her conversation on her own. Every single time anyone called to talk to Tony, Harold would answer the phone. He would then put the call on speakerphone, and it usually sounded like he was much closer to the phone than Tony was. Barry told CBS that the only one on one conversation I ever had was with Harold. If I tried to talk to Tony or Haley, it was always on speakerphone.
- [06:29]
B
And I think more, you know, anytime you start to hear things like this in a true crime story, it's a very bad sign. You know, someone is being isolated. One person in the relationship is showing very controlling type behavior that oftentimes doesn't work out well and leads to, you know, some really bad things happening.
- [06:56]
C
It seems common in a lot of the cases that we talk about, these relationships that start out pretty well and then over time you see there's different cracks in the foundation of that relationship. Sometimes it's. It's a controlling partner or an untrusting partner or paranoid. They won't let their partner go out by themselves or even in this case, really talk on the phone by themselves. So it seems like a troubling development in this relationship.
- [07:26]
B
And the question that I always have is whether the person who is the controlling partner, did they have that in them all along, and then it just kind of came up slowly over time, or did something happen in their life that kind of made them that way or caused them to be that way?
- [07:50]
C
It seems as if there was anything like that there in a relationship. Tony didn't tell her family about it, at least early on.
- [07:58]
B
Well, and let's face it, in the beginning, people put their best foot forward, right? You know, you can't let all of the demons out in the very beginning or the person that, that you like wouldn't like you back. They wouldn't go out with you, they wouldn't marry you. So I don't know if it was there all along with Harold and he was just that good at hiding it. I don't know. But there's no doubt Harold was controlling and he was always in Toni's business, even when she was at work. Tammy Abrascato, the office manager at Tony's practice, explained that no one really liked Harold, even though they absolutely loved Tony. She told cbs, he made us uncomfortable. There was something creepy about him. And Tammy indicated that coworkers noticed that Harold was overbearing, saying of Tony she was not able to schedule anything outside of her normal schedule without first consulting with Harold. Despite the friction in the relationship, the Henthorns marked their 12th year together in 2012. To celebrate their actual wedding anniversary September 30th, Harold planned a surprise hiking and camping trip at Rocky Mountain National Park. For just the two of them, it would prove to be a fateful trip. They set off for the park the day before their anniversary and began their hike up Deer Mountain. After about two miles, they had a picnic. They took photos together. Once they finished lunch, they left the Walmart Trail and headed down the cliff. Looking back, this detail seemed very odd to Tony's brother Barry. Navigating established trails was hard enough, but going off the trail would mean additional work and effort. Barry said that while his sister Toni did like to hike, she had to have multiple knee surgeries in the past and was not a well person to go hiking in such a rugged terrain.
- [10:05]
C
Harold would tell a couple of different versions of what happened that day. What we do know without a doubt is that Tony ended up 140ft below Harold on Deer Mountain, where she died from her injuries from what appeared to be from a fall. It's believed that this happened around 5:15pm just half an hour after they finished eating a meal. 911 was not called until just before 6pm Harold claimed that it took him time to get down to Tony, assess her injuries, and then get to an area with cell phone service. After hanging up with 911, which he claimed was due to a low cell phone battery, Harold began to text Tony's brother Barry. According to cbs, the text read in part, barry, urgent, Tony is injured. Critical, requested flight for life. Another text read, please come to Denver next flight. Eventually, he texted Barry, she's gone. Harold would also claim that he desperately tried to perform CPR and mouth to mouth resuscitation on Tony. But apparently Tony's lipstick was not even smeared from the alleged mouth to mouth resuscitation, a detail that would be troubling later on. Dispatchers trying to guide Harold through the steps of CPR also doubted whether he was doing what he claimed that he was doing on the other end of the phone.
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B
So Morv, obviously this is a terrible situation. 140ft fall. I mean, I can only imagine what type of injuries someone would sustain from that type of fall. But there are a few things that jumped out at me here in, you know, what Harold was claiming. Number one, he's able to call 911. It was definitely delayed by perhaps, you know, as much as 45 minutes. And then all of a sudden, the call ends, according to him, due to a low battery, but he's able to send all these texts. I mean, it just kind of. That in and of itself seems a little strange, but the idea that he's trying to perform CPR and mouth to mouth, you have dispatchers not believing that he's doing that, I'm assuming, based on what they're hearing on the other end of the phone. And then also Tony's lipstick not even being smeared. I mean, things don't seem to be adding up.
- [12:29]
C
And I don't know what I would do in this situation if somebody that I was with fell. But I'd like to think the very first thing I would do would be to take out the phone and try and call 91 1, knowing that if they've fallen a great distance, they're going to need help. So before I even tried to get down there, I would be calling 91 1. He says that he had to take time and assess her injuries. Then he had to move to a spot where there was good reception. To me, it doesn't sound believable because I would have been trying 911 immediately, and if I didn't have reception, then I would have tried to move.
- [13:03]
B
Yeah, I think that's a great point. I mean, yes, at some point you're going to want to assess injuries, but you know, there's going to be catastrophic injuries in that type of fall. So why not just make the call right away and then try to get down to it? Help arrived around 8pm but it was already far too late. Authorities believed that Tony was already dead by the time Harold was texting her brother. Harold first distanced himself from what happened to his wife. He said that Tony had been having a hard time keeping up with him because of her knee problems, so he ended up quite a ways ahead of her. He turned around to check on her and realized he couldn't see her anymore, so he turned back. Eventually, he saw her body far below the edge of the cliff. In another version, Harold claimed that he had received a text message and he was reading it when Tony fell. He didn't realize what was happening until it was too late because he was looking at his phone. But if two versions of what happened weren't enough, there was actually a third. In this third version, Harold would go on to tell people that Tony was taking a photo of him when she stepped too far backwards and fell to her death. He would have seen everything as it happened if that was the truth. This is probably starting to sound to most listeners like something isn't adding up here. Just wait, because we get a fourth version from harold. In this fourth scenario, Harold said that, for some reason, when tony fell, he was using tony's cell phone, Making sure that she hadn't missed any calls from work. This fourth version was clearly a lot, because toni had forgotten her cell phone at work, and two days after tony died, Harold showed up to collect it. So, by my way of thinking, the authorities were going to be suspicious of harold. No matter what, your wife falls to her death, and it's only the two of you out there. They're going to look at you. You're going to be on the radar as a potential suspect. But I think, as in any true crime story, When a person tells two, three, and, in this case, four different versions of events, I mean, it just makes police look at them even harder.
- [15:33]
C
Yeah. When there's only one story that you tell and it's the truth, it should always be the same. And I know there are some people out there probably, that will elaborate when they're telling you a story, add details to make the story that much more interesting or compelling. But why would he do that about his wife's death? You know, it's not like he's telling some tall tale and trying to add details. He's talking about the death of his wife, so why would he need to embellish on it, Change things and. And make it sound more interesting? It just sounds like he's lying and telling different people different things.
- [16:10]
B
Yeah. He's not talking about his golf game or catching a fish or something like that. Right. You might exaggerate the size of the fish In a story that you're telling to people. But exaggerating or, you know, telling different versions of how your wife died, that's. That's not going to be good.
- [16:33]
C
Investigators might not have given the case a second look if there had been only one version of what happened to tony. But with multiple stories, they had to look closely. One thing police noticed was that the fall that killed tony hadn't done any damage to her hands or fingers. But despite that, the $30,000 diamond that was once part of her wedding ring was missing. Investigators could not find it at the scene. Now, to be fair, trying to find a small diamond in a wooded hiking area Is probably the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack. Not finding the diamond was odd, but it didn't prove anything either way.
- [17:08]
B
After toni died, her family looked back at something that had Happened to her a year before with suspicion. In 2011, Tony was hit in the back of the head by a 20 foot wooden beam that fell from the roof of their cabin near Grand Lake, Colorado. It happened during construction, which Harold just happened to be doing. At night, after Haley had been put to bed, Harold had yelled to his wife, asking her to come out and help him before proceeding to throw things down to the deck without checking to see if Tony had come outside after he called her. Looking back, Tony's family wondered, was this truly an accident, or was it an earlier attempt by Harold to kill Tony? The beam that struck Tony fractured one of the vertebrae in her neck and caused her to lose some feeling in her hands. But it could have been a lot worse. According to cbs, Tony's family recalled her saying to them after the accident, if I hadn't been down after I walked outside, the beam would have killed me.
- [18:15]
C
Harold had described multiple versions of this accident, too. First, he said Tony was holding the flashlight for him when he dropped a beam and it hit her. He also said that he was on a ladder when he slipped, dropping the beam and hitting Tony. In a third version, Harold said that he threw a beam and didn't realize that Tony was there. And in yet a fourth version, he said the beam fell on its own, striking Tony. It was weird at the time, but everyone was just happy Tony was okay. But now, looking back at it after Tony's death, her family felt certain that this was her first attempt by Harold to kill Tony.
- [18:51]
B
And what is it with this guy Morf and having four stories, four different versions of the same event, like that's his lucky number or something, he has to tell four different versions.
- [19:04]
C
I think it just demonstrates a pattern that he's not someone you can take what he says seriously because he might just change that what he tells you the next day.
- [19:15]
B
Well, the other thing that crossed my mind was, you know, things happen, you hear about something, an event, and in this case, you know, Tony's family hears about her being hit by this beam. I mean, is your first thought, oh, well, obviously her husband is trying to kill her? No, probably not. But after she dies, then some of these things that you didn't look at sideways before you start to look at a little differently. Apparently, 16 different people called authorities after Tony's death to request a thorough investigation. It seemed like to the overwhelming majority of friends and family of the Henthorns, that there was more than meets the eye. At the same time, investigative reporter Brian Moss received a tip that made him dig into the Deaths of not only Tony, but also Harold's first wife, Sandra Lynn. According to cbs, the tip he got was that Harold's first wife died in a freak accident as well as Brian would uncover, in both cases, the accidents were freakish or bizarre, and both wives had a lot of insurance money on them. Harold had collected almost $645,000 thanks to Lynn's life insurance policy payout. Just months before her death, Harold selected the option to double the payout of her $300,000 policy in the event of an accidental death. He managed to live off of that money for quite a while. Investigators discovered that by the time of Tony's death, Harold had not worked at all in at least 20 years. Now, having done as many cases and research as much true crime as we have in as many cases as listeners have heard about, I mean, how many of them involve money? A lot. They really do. People do things for money. They kill for money. It's shocking to us still, every time I hear it, it's shocking. But to think that a husband would kill his wife so that he can collect life insurance money and not have to work. Well, heck, nobody wants to work. But are you willing to kill not to have to and kill your wife, for that matter?
- [21:52]
C
Well, it seems like he treated Sandra Lynn's death like a. Like a lottery win that he had won the lottery, didn't have to work, and had money for all those years. And, you know, it's not always nefarious that somebody has a high insurance policy or doubles it for accident. You know, my wife and I have policies like that, but it's mainly to protect, you know, loss of income, Especially if you have children. You need to provide for their college for things like that. So sometimes there is a need for that. But it's also suspicious when they double an insurance policy and then they happen to die in an accident not too long after.
- [22:39]
B
Yeah, I think the changing it weeks before. Right. Obviously means something a little different than if it was 10 years after.
- [22:49]
C
For his part, Harold never admitted that he was just coasting off his dead wife and their life insurance. He claimed to be very well off financially. A little over a year before Sandra Lynn's death, Harold was arrested for shoplifting a 40 pack of underwear from JCPenney. So there does seem to be evidence he needed money. When Harold told people that his first wife had died in a car accident, it brought up the image of getting into a wreck while driving, maybe colliding with another car. He'd never really mentioned that. In reality, it was A freak accident involving a car. According to what Harold told investigators at the time, on May 6, 1995, he and Sandra Lynn were driving to Sedalia, Colorado, for dinner and to enjoy the scenery as they drove. At some point, one of the tires on their Jeep started to go flat. So Harold pulled over onto the shoulder of Highway 67 so he could fix the flat. He decided to change the tire because it was dark outside. Sandra Lynn was helping him. She held a flashlight, and as he removed the lug nuts, he handed them to her to hold. But she dropped one and it ended up just out of reach under the car. It wasn't immediately needed, so Harold didn't try to grab it. Instead, he took the flat tire to the back of the car. He lifted it into the trunk, not knowing that Sandra Lynn was at that exact time under the Jeep trying to retrieve the lug nut. According to Harold, when he threw the tire in the trunk, the weight of the tire knocked the car off the jack and the car fell on top of Sandra Lynn and she was trapped.
- [24:21]
B
A passerby who stopped to help after the Jeep fell on Sandra Lynn was one of the people who called in a tip about her death possibly being a homicide. She recalled seeing no lug nut under the Jeep and was unnerved by Harold and his behavior. She explained to the Denver Post, the whole thing was creepy. You remember things like that. It was one of the creepiest things that I had ever come upon in my life. The passerby's husband and and her brother in law got the Jeep back up on the jack and were going to pull Sandra Lynn out from underneath it when Harold began to yell at them not to touch her. He also told them not to perform CPR after they attempted to because it was so cold outside and Sandra Lynn was only wearing a light sweater. They all put their jackets on her body, but Harold refused to give up his to cushion her head. He searched the roadside ditch for something to put under her head instead. The next day, the woman who stopped called the police station to see if she could pick up the jacket she left behind. And according to Rolling Stone magazine, she also asked, did you arrest the husband yet? A note of her call was made and placed in the file. But less than a week later, the case was classified as accidental and closed. Sandra Lynn was airlifted to Swedish Medical center in Inglewood, Colorado and rushed into surgery. But despite the efforts of the medical team, she passed away.
- [25:56]
C
So one thing I'm getting out of this is that if you're married to this Guy, you better keep your head on a swivel because it doesn't seem like his wives are safe. And they both wind up in these quote, unquote accidents.
- [26:13]
B
Well, and again, is it shocking that it took less than a week for authorities to close the case and classify it accidental? We talk about this all the time. Determination of death or cause of death is a big thing. Obviously, if it's an accident, then there's really nothing to investigate. But if it's undetermined, well, maybe they continue to look into it a little bit. You would think his behavior alone and what these people said he did at the scene would be enough to look into this guy. I mean, what kind of person is unwilling to remove their jacket or their coat to make their wife, who has just been in an accident, feel better? Who says, don't touch her, don't try to help her. I mean, all of that stuff is very suspicious to me. And you would think it would be to the police as well.
- [27:17]
C
Yeah, especially if they looked and found out that he had just doubled that. That life insurance for an accident.
- [27:23]
B
But here's the thing, Morph. They're not going to probably find that out because they don't have time to really get into it, and they're not going to pursue it once it's determined to be accidental.
- [27:36]
C
No one within Sandra Lynn Henthorn's family really questioned whether her death was anything other than a shocking and tragic accident. Her sister Lisanne told cbs, this was a man we vacationed with and spent hundreds of hours with, and we just didn't allow ourselves to go there. However, just like Tony's family, Sandra Lynn's family felt like the circumstances around their loved one's death didn't sound much like them. Sandra Lynn had arthritis and was still recovering from surgery two weeks before she died. Even if the lug nut had managed to roll on the flat gravel shoulder, she likely never would have tried to crawl underneath the Jeep, especially in the dark and in such a precarious location to try and grab it. But once the second wife of Harold's died under mysterious circumstances, her family started to wonder. Sandra Lynn's sister Lisanne said to cbs, he's either the unluckiest husband in the world or a psychopath. She added, he killed them both because the law of averages doesn't work that way in life. Their brother Kevin agreed, telling cbs, this isn't going to happen twice to the same guy. He killed my sister.
- [28:45]
B
Just like Tony's family, Lynn's family were overjoyed that she found what seemed like a great man. Her sister Lizann recalled for CBS that Harold was charming, adding that he was a fun guy to be around. Sandra Lynn's brother Eric said to CBS that when he met Harold, he remembers that he thought, this is good. My sister needs a good man like this. I thought Harold was a great guy. The whole family felt that way. Sandra Lynn's sister in law Grace, added, he began to be like this wonderful big brother to me.
- [29:19]
C
Looking closer at Harold's actions after the supposed Jeep accident that killed Sander Lynn, it's very similar to how he acted after Tony's death too. He told several different stories depending on who he was talking to. Whether they were on their way to or from the restaurant, which side of the highway they were on when he pulled over, the time they left their home, and who pulled Sandra Lynn out from under the Jeep, all differed as he spoke to more people. According to cbs, in one version, she only died because of the efforts of the first responders who according to him, didn't know what they were doing and they actually crushed her. In another version, probably the most common one Harold told was that she had been in a head on collision.
- [30:02]
B
And we've talked about it, right. There's a pattern here of Harold telling multiple versions of an event and some of them are small. When you're talking about were they on the way to the restaurant, were they leaving, which side of the highway were they on? Okay, those are not the biggest details in the world. But then when you start telling people that first responders actually killed her, they didn't know what they were doing, or she died in a head on collision, I mean, those are big differences from what actually happened.
- [30:40]
C
Yeah. And again, I go back to why change the story at all? Why elaborate? And how do you go from a car falling on top of her to her being killed in some kind of head on collision? It just doesn't, doesn't make sense and it sort of sets off my BS meter. But for some reason it didn't seem to do that with the police.
- [31:02]
B
But again, did they know about all of these different stories? Because they're not investigating heralds. The police report from Sandra Lynn's death mentions a partial footprint on the wheel well of the Jeep right above the tire that had been removed. This placed the footprint pretty much directly above the jack. This points to someone likely Harold, kicking the Jeep and knocking it off the jack right onto his wife. Despite the photo of the partial print and investigators taking pictures of the bottom of a pair of sperry topsider shoes, the brand Harold was wearing that night. No one ever actually compared the two. They could have been a perfect match, but no one even checked. Investigators also learned that another car had passed while they were changing the tire. And when the driver offered to park so that they could use the light from his headlights, Harold turned them away. He apparently preferred to change a tire on the side of the highway in nearly complete darkness.
- [32:09]
C
Authorities believe that Harold chose that dark and forested location, where there was no cell phone service, as a perfect place to get away with killing Sandra Lynn and have no witnesses. They believe he planned the perfect spot for Tony's murder, too. Cell phone records would show that Harold visited the area of the national park at least nine different times, but he told investigators that he had only been to the park once before the anniversary hike. This was proven without the cell records. When Harold described an area of the park that had been accurate earlier, but not on the day that Tony died. He said there was a white sheet on one of the cliffs and. But park rangers had removed it a week earlier.
- [32:49]
B
In 2013, Detective Dave Weaver examined a Jeep Cherokee, the same kind of car Harold was driving the night that Sandra Lynn died, trying to get it to fall off the jacks like Harold had claimed happened. He did everything Harold said he did, like throwing the tire into the trunk and roughly closing the tailgate. The car remained squarely on the jacks, leaving no explanation for how Lynn was killed. Then detective Weaver kicked the car right above the wheel well where the partial footprint was. It fell right off the jacks. Detective Weaver, with zero doubt in his mind, told rolling Stone magazine, I know he killed her.
- [33:33]
C
According to cbs, after Harold's second wife, Toni, died, his first wife Sandra Lynn's family released a statement explaining their stance. It read, our family has known harold Henthorn for 40 years, first as a college friend, then as her sister Sanderlyn's husband. When we learned of Tony's death two years ago, we were shocked and saddened at the same time. However, the baffling circumstances surrounding Tony's death gave us a strong sense of deja vu. As the investigation into Tony's death progressed, it became clear that Harold Henthorn was not the man we thought we knew and that he had, in fact, been lying to us for many years. After she died, Sandra Lynn's family was against cremation, but Harold wanted it done quickly. Tony's family also wanted her to be buried so they could visit her burial site. But just as he had done with Sandra Lynn, he rushed to have Tony cremated Harold, spread Tony's ashes in the same place that he had spread Sandra Lynn's ashes 17 years earlier, an area of Red Mountain near Ouray, Colorado and Morph.
- [34:38]
B
I know a lot of people choose to be cremated, right? It's a choice. But in a lot of these cases where the husband goes against either what the family knows the wife's wishes to be, or let's say the wife goes against what the family's husband knows his wishes were to be and cremates the person very quickly, again, it's another red flag.
- [35:09]
C
Yeah, it's easy to see that that's the possible motive, is you want to get rid of any kind of evidence that could come back to haunt you. So getting rid of the body eliminates any chance that they're going to find a clue with the body that will indict you.
- [35:25]
B
Because Tony died in a national park, the investigation involved federal officers. Harold wasn't concocting a story for small town cops. He was lying to agents working a federal investigation. Mark Magnuson, Rocky Mountain national park chief ranger, cited a Release from the U.S. district Attorney's Office that read in part, when a violent crime such as this occurs in a national park, one of our nation's most treasured places, we work hard to ensure that those responsible are held accountable and the victim and the victim's family are afforded justice.
- [36:06]
C
There was a lot more pressure this time around in Tony's death investigation. Investigators believe it got to Harold and he changed some of his plans, like giving up the diamond from Tony's ring that he likely was planning to sell. Eight months after Tony's death, Harold investigators went back to the crime scene and discovered the missing diamond from her wedding ring. They had scoured that area eight months earlier and found no diamond. This time, they found it easily. Inside of Harold's car, investigators found a map of Rocky Mountain National Park. The trail on Deer mountain, which he and Tony hiked, was highlighted. But what detectives found suspicious was an X marking the very spot that Tony had supposedly fallen off the edge of the cliff.
- [36:50]
B
So, you know, if all the different stories weren't enough, if the rush to cremate two wives, there was just all these details that, you know, didn't add up. And then, you know, these ones that you talked about more seem very damn all of a sudden, the wedding ring is just like there when they go to look for it. To me, this map with the X on it is very telling. You know, add that to the fact that it was known he had been to that spot you know, nine times prior according to cell phone records. I mean, I don't think you have to be a genius to put this one together.
- [37:37]
C
And sometimes when people that commit these kinds of crimes start getting a sense that they're being suspected, there's heat on them, they start making mistakes or trying to do things that might help to cover their path. In this instance, maybe it was his plan to sell that diamond from that ring. But then he realized if he got caught doing that, that would look, make him look very guilty. So he decided the only thing to do was put it back in the area where she died and hope that if it was ever found, they would just tie it to her falling off the edge of the cliff.
- [38:16]
B
Finally, on November 6, 2014, 58 year old Harold Henthorn was arrested on suspicion of the murder of his second wife, Toni. A month later, coroner Laura Thomas changed the manner of Sandra Lynn's death from accidental to undetermined. The eight day trial for Harold in Tony's case and began In September of 2015, almost exactly three years after Tony's death. The only possible sentence for his charge if he was found guilty was life in federal prison without the possibility of parole. So no doubt the stakes for Harold were incredibly high.
- [38:59]
C
One big clue that came out in court was that Harold was planning on Tony being out of the picture. Just two days before she died, a bank account that she recently opened had been emptied. It's likely that Harold withdrew the $6,800 in cash without Tony's knowledge. Tammy Abrascato, one of Tony's co workers, told People magazine, I've seen her signature a zillion times and that clearly was not her signature on that check. That man wanted every single dime he could capture. One juror later told the cbs, I wanted to hear from Harold. I would have loved to see him get on the stand and give another account to the jury of what happened that night. But after the state rested, the defense put on no witnesses as the burden of proof lies with the prosecution. The jury heard from no one on Harold's behalf, let alone from Harold himself. This choice would stick with at least one juror who explained to cbs, I just remember the defense attorney saying I don't have to prove anything, which is.
- [39:58]
B
A true statement, right? The, the burden lies solely with the prosecution. I think one of the, the things though, morph, is that sometimes juries, they want to hear some things from the defense, they might want to hear from the defendant themselves. Now, defendants don't often testify in, in murder trials. Most of the time, Defense attorneys caution against that. But there are some jurors that say, hey, you know, we want to hear from at least somebody who knew the person, give us something, Even though technically the defense doesn't have to.
- [40:41]
C
Well, I think in this case, his attorney was smart not to put him on the stand because the prosecution probably would have brought up how come you had four different stories in each of your dead wife's cases as to what happened to them and that he probably would have turned into a mess on the stand and it would have been very bad for his defense. I think his attorney made the right call.
- [41:07]
B
Oh, absolutely right. And that's oftentimes why defense attorneys caution their clients against taking the stand, because it opens them up to questions about things that maybe haven't been introduced at trial. And the only way that they could come up is if the defendant takes the stand, but he's not going to be a good witness anyway. This guy was a pathological liar. It took 10 hours, but the jury unanimously agreed Harold he was guilty of murdering Tony. After the verdict, one juror rushed to Tony's mother, Yvonne, and hugged her. Following the verdict, Sandra Lynn's brother Kevin told cbs, we grieve for the Bertolettes because had we come forward at that time with more suspicions, then maybe Tony would be alive today. Harold was sentenced to life in prison in December 2015. It's sentencing, Harold said, I did not kill Tony or anyone else.
- [42:11]
C
I think it's important to detail just how horrible the injuries to Tony were as a result of her murder. This is from a court document. Tony's fall was broken by a tree at the cliff's base, which scalped hair and tissue from her skull. Her brain was hemorrhaging. Her neck was fractured. She had blunt force trauma to the chest, abdomen and pelvis. Her ribs were broken and her chest deformed, with her liver and lungs lacerated and bleeding. And her skin was pale from blood loss. In comparison, Sandra Lynn died from internal injuries consistent with traumatic asphyxiation. These were both extremely cruel ways to kill someone you promised to care for forever.
- [42:53]
B
Now, they haven't convicted Harold of killing Sandra Lynn, but it's hard not to believe he did right More if when everything comes out, and especially when a second wife dies and it's proven to be murder. Pretty hard not to think that he murdered Sandra Lynn and why he did it for the insurance money. Tony's co workers and family believe that she was preparing to leave Harold. There are multiple signs that she was taking back her Independence and keeping things separate from him. According to her brother Barry, she had a new email address under a different name, Jay Salvo, and a new bank account. She started one for herself In June of 2012, just months before she was killed. Barry also said to People magazine that when work was done, Toni was hanging out at the office, not wanting to go home. And he also explained that at the time of her death, they were sleeping in separate bedrooms.
- [44:02]
C
During an interview with the FBI, Sandra Lynn's former sister in law, Grace, learned about a life insurance policy that Harold had taken out on her, naming himself as the beneficiary. It was a $400,000 policy that she knew nothing about despite having her name in the signature box. When she found out and wanted to cancel the policy, Harold basically hijacked her policy. Harold continued to make policy payments for the next two years. In 2013, the policy was canceled when it was determined that as the brother in law and in no way her next of kin, Harold had no actual reason to have a life insurance policy. On Grease. Grace told the cbs, I I think it's logical to conclude that he was planning on taking my life at some point.
- [44:47]
B
And there's a lot of scary things about this story involving Harold Henthorn. I mean, any person who can kill their spouse and most likely more if, let's say two spouses the way Harold did, that's a scary thought. But then you have a sister in law, no blood relation, finding out later on that Harold had taken the policy out on her and obviously knowing that he had designs on killing her.
- [45:22]
C
Yeah, I think anytime you find out that somebody has taken out a life insurance policy on you and you haven't been part of the process, that's got to be alarming. I know there's instances where if you're a partner of a company or CEO, company, what have you, that they insist on insuring you through your employment. But usually even that's done with your consent and knowledge. Here this is just somebody opening up a policy for somebody else in their family that they, that person has no idea that they've done that. So you have to wonder what his reason for doing that was.
- [46:00]
B
This entire story could have ended differently with Tony alive and Harold deceased if it hadn't been for Tony's brother, Barry. In 2006, when Haley was only a year old, Barry Bertolet, who is a doctor, received a new CAT scan machine. He decided to test the machine out on Harold. And while looking at the results, according to cbs, Barry saw that Harold was in the Throes of the beginnings of a heart attack, he almost immediately underwent emergency surgery. This undoubtedly saved Harold's life. Looking back on it, Barry feels conflicted. He told cbs, I think as a physician, you know, you have this oath, an obligation to do that before tearfully admitting, but I'd like to have my sister back. And that's a very strange position for a doctor to be in, looking back on it, knowing what their oath is and what the requirements are, but then thinking, if I hadn't done that, maybe my sister would still be alive.
- [47:08]
C
Yeah, and what a fateful event to go out and get this machine and then decide to test it out on your brother in law and find out that he's having a heart attack. You save his life and then later on he kills your sister. Just. I'm sure he deals with some kind of guilt over that. Even though it wasn't his fault. Barry and his wife Paula were hopeful that they would be able to gain legal guardianship or adopt Haley, who was just 10 years old when her father was found guilty in December 2015. It finally happened. Paula told ABC, When Haley came to us, she was almost afraid to do anything without permission. Barbara Cashman, Haley's guardian ad litem, believed that Haley was being manipulated by her father. She told the Denver Post, I knew she was at risk of serious emotional harm. She also explained that Haley does not wish to refer to Harold anymore as her father, but only as Mr. Henthorn. She was actually afraid that she might grow up to be like her father, strengthening her decision to distance herself from him.
- [48:11]
B
And we talked about it more of how controlling Harold was with Tony. We don't have all the details of the. The controlling nature, but it was there. It's hard not to believe that he was similarly controlling with his daughter Haley.
- [48:28]
C
And it's hard not to think that down the road, when the money ran out, who's to say he might not have put an insurance policy on his daughter and, you know, the next thing you know, she's dead under mysterious circumstances and he's cashing in on it.
- [48:45]
B
Yeah, it's hard to think like that, but I think with people like Harold Henthorn, you can't put anything past them. A judge denied Harold's request for a new trial. In 2022, Harold filed a motion for post conviction relief on the grounds of ineffective counsel that year. In the motion, Harold wrote in part, craig Truman acted in his own self interest and put his personal financial gain ahead of conducting a solid defense for me, adding his employment with me Was all about him taking as much money from me and my immediate family as possible, extorting as much money from me as he could. Tony's brother Todd Berthelet told cbs. Appeals by Harold Henthorn as to the actual merits of the case have been denied and exhausted. This latest motion is yet another example of Harold Hern blaming others for his failures and shortcomings. The motion for post conviction relief was denied in 2023.
- [49:52]
C
Harold has still not been charged in his first wife Sandra Lynn's murder, though the circumstances of her death were used to help ensure conviction for Tony's murder. Tony's father, Bob, passed away in April 2023 at the age of 89. Both of Sandra Lynn's parents have passed, too. Her father, known as Rish, passed away in 2011 at the age of 83. And her mom, Marilyn, died in 2022. She was 92. Neither of them got to see Harold tried in their daughter's case. In the end, two women are dead, Likely killed by the same man that was supposed to love and protect both of them, Harold Henthorn.
- [50:29]
B
And as we wrap this one up, morph. You know, it is always sad to me when parents die without ever seeing resolution in their. Their child's death. I'm sure they, they knew in their heart that after Tony was murdered, Harold most likely murdered their daughter as well. But there's a difference in knowing it and, and actually getting the conviction, right, getting the finality. I think the, the silver lining would have been that he's probably never going to see, you know, the outside of a prison. So he is going to pay for what he did, just not specifically for the murder of Sandra Lynn.
- [51:22]
C
Yeah, I think you're right. There's definitely some satisfaction in knowing that the prison person that took your loved one's life is paying for it. And I think, you know, maybe their family has to take whatever comfort in that they can in knowing that he is locked away and can't do this to someone else. Because it definitely seems like he would have kept going with this scheme that he had of killing off people, making it look like accidents, and cashing life insurance money.
- [51:53]
B
You know, it's hard for me to imagine killing anyone. Hopefully everyone listening also has a hard time imagining that. But killing your spouse specifically is very hard to imagine. I mean, this is the person who you decided you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. Now, I get it. Not all marriages work. Sometimes they, they fall apart. But making the decision to kill that person, it's just. It's mind blowing to me. And I can't help but think of how it was for Tony up on that cliff. We don't know all of the details. Did he push her? Did he incapacitate her and then throw her off the cliff? It could have happened a number of different ways. I was struck by them coming out and saying that, you know, she didn't have any, like, injuries to her hands. But, you know, maybe that's just because she was taken by surprise or she was incapacitated. I don't know.
- [53:06]
C
Yeah. And if you're her family, maybe take comfort in hoping that she was unconscious and didn't know what was happening to her when she went over that cliff, because that has to be a horrifying situation to be standing there. Maybe he's showing her a view off a cliff and she's, you know, thinking that he's celebrating his anniversary, looking at this nice view, and all of a sudden she's getting shoved. That would be a terrible experience. And then even for his first wife, however she got into that car, whether she was there willingly, maybe she too could have been incapacitated and he put her under the car before kicking the jack out. But either way, it just shows a complete ice coldness to him where he could do this, you know, not just once, but twice to people that he, you know, supposedly loved.
- [54:01]
B
Yeah, I don't, I don't think there's any doubt. This guy was an absolute monster, plain and simple. But that's it for our episode on Harold Henthorn. If you love the show but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave a review, give us a rating, but also keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way.
- [54:24]
C
If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle criminologypod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com criminologypodcast and you can join our Facebook discussion group criminology podcast discussion and fans.
- [54:40]
B
So that's it for another episode of criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morph, we'll talk to you next week.
- [54:51]
C
Take care, everyone. It.