One Too Many

Summary

Podcast Summary: Small Town Dicks — "One Too Many" (June 12, 2026)

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Episode Overview

"One Too Many" delves into a haunting and complicated homicide case from rural Oregon, unfolding the senseless murder of Anna, a young Russian woman lured to the U.S. by her manipulative boyfriend, William. The episode follows Detective Captain Chris and the Small Town Dicks team as they untangle a web of deception, relationships, and investigative challenges leading from the discovery of Anna’s body in a remote logging area to the final pursuit of justice through two trials.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Discovery of the Crime (07:05–13:36)

• Initial Response: Captain Chris describes receiving a call about a body found in an extremely remote wooded area on April 17, 2017. Despite skepticism—many such calls turn out unrelated to crime—the scene immediately felt “off.”
• Crime Scene Details: The female body is discovered with a major head wound, evidence of a shotgun blast, no ID, and only a couple tattoos as distinguishing features.
• Quote: “We’re sitting there looking at a dead girl in the middle of the woods with absolutely nothing to lead us to who she is, how she got there, what happened.” — Captain Chris (09:33)

2. Initial Investigation: Piecing Together Clues (13:36–18:57)

• Key Evidence: Investigators find a fast-food receipt dated April 14, three days prior to the body’s discovery.
• Tattoo Leads: Detectives check local tattoo shops for identification, unsuccessfully.
• Autopsy Confirmation: Confirms shotgun wound, establishing a homicide.

3. The Trail to William (16:52–23:37)

• Receipt Leads to Kevin: The receipt connects to Kevin, who is cooperative and points investigators toward his friend William—described as “like a brother,” a bouncer, and a (supposed) Marine.
• William’s Relationships: William is entangled in affairs with Anna (the victim) and Michelle (a married woman whose husband, Raleigh, is aware but passive).
• Ownership of Shotgun: The key weapon is traced; Kevin says William has it.

4. Interviews and Confrontations (23:37–29:41)

• William’s Portrayal: William is evasive about ever being near the crime scene, but his explanations raise multiple red flags. He offers alternative explanations for why his trash (the fast-food bag) would be near the scene.
• Quote: “They give you information about themselves up to a point, but they can’t go past a threshold because then they know that commits them to something... When you’re lying about little things, what do I have to expect from you when I ask you about the big things?” — Dave (23:37)
• Strategy: Police lock William into a story, identifying inconsistencies and collecting more evidence via simultaneous interviews with Michelle, Raleigh, and Kevin.

5. Identification & Arrest (29:41–31:38)

• Victim Confirmed: Anna is identified by a Facebook photo showing wrist tattoos matching the body.
• William Arrested: When told explicitly he's being arrested for Anna's murder, William shows no surprise or denial, simply complying.
• Quote: “He simply stood up and put his hands behind his back.” — Captain Chris (29:41)

6. Establishing Motive and Timeline (32:06–43:18)

• William's Double Life: William misleads both Anna and Michelle about each other, builds elaborate lies about marriage plans, and manages stress by juggling and manipulating both relationships.
• The 'Wedding Day': William orchestrates a fake wedding for Anna, buying rings at Walmart and staging calls to nonexistent officiants.
• Murder Timeline: The night prior, William promises Michelle he’ll ‘solve’ the situation. He turns off his phone, drives Anna to the woods, kills her, and soon after, meets Michelle and has sex.
• Quote: “Within two hours. I believe that William is having sex with Michelle after just killing Anna.” — Captain Chris (41:21)

7. Aftermath & Behavioral Red Flags (44:57–50:17)

• Post-Murder Actions: William accesses Anna’s bank accounts, spends her money on trivial purchases, behaves erratically at bars, and consoles himself through material comfort and attention.
• Efforts to Conceal: He rids the apartment of Anna’s belongings and tries to make Michelle believe Anna left voluntarily.

8. Legal Process: Trials and Appeals (51:03–56:44)

• First Trial (2019): William is convicted of murder, identity theft, and theft. His entire persona is revealed as fabrication; he was not a Marine.
• Defense Strategy: Defense points baselessly at Michelle as the potential killer, despite physical and digital evidence strongly implicating William.
• Appeal and New Trial: Legal technicalities regarding search warrant specificity (related to cell phone evidence and William’s bizarre attempts to "time travel" to reverse his mistake) lead to a new trial in 2025.
• Second Trial: Despite restrictions on presenting the "time travel" evidence, William is again convicted. He takes the stand and attempts to shift blame to Michelle with an implausible story.

9. Impact on Anna & Community Response (59:01–62:03)

• Lack of Advocates: As a Russian national, Anna has little support structure in the U.S., which is keenly felt during both trials.
• Jury Action: Moved by Anna’s isolation, jury members install a memorial cross for her at the site where she was found.
• Quote: “So out at the scene, currently, right where Anna was discovered, one of the jury members created and welded a big metal cross with Anna’s name and date of birth and date of death on there.” — Captain Chris (61:27)

10. Reflections and Conclusions (62:25–End)

• Detective Perspective: Dan and Dave commend Captain Chris for the team's work, highlighting the emotional toll such cases take on investigators.
• Quote: “You guys are like sprinters who run hurdles... And the win is if you can get all the way around the track without knocking anything over... That’s a job well done.” — Yeardley Smith (62:26)
• Justice Achieved: While the process was harrowing and fraught with uncertainty, Anna’s killer is ultimately held accountable.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the complexity of deception:
  “William's whole life is deceptive.” — Dave (37:25)

• On the emotional impact for Anna’s family:
  “The worst way you can notify somebody is over the phone.” — Captain Chris (48:56)

• On investigative challenges:
  “It’s stressful, obviously, during the investigation, but then, you know, to hit that finish line... and then all of a sudden, here it is again.” — Captain Chris (63:00)

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Key Timestamps

• [07:05] — Discovery of Anna’s body
• [13:36] — Crime scene and evidence analysis
• [16:52] — Interview with Kevin, the receipt lead
• [20:46] — Confronting William, observing red flags
• [29:41] — Identification and arrest of William
• [32:06] — Michelle’s account and love-triangle dynamics
• [34:05] — Finding the murder weapon
• [38:41] — Motive for murder emerges
• [44:57] — William’s post-crime behavior detailed
• [51:03] — Trial and defense strategy
• [54:39] — Appeal, legal technicalities, and second trial
• [61:27] — Jury’s compassion: Anna’s memorial cross
• [62:25] — Detective reflections and closure

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Tone and Style

• The episode weaves grim procedural detail with frank, at times acerbic, commentary. The hosts adopt a mix of empathy (especially for Anna), detective skepticism, and wry humor, while Captain Chris communicates with clear-eyed gravitas.
• Throughout, there is deep respect for the victim and a strong sense of the lasting emotional impact such cases have on detectives.

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Summary prepared for listeners new to the episode, offering an in-depth reconstruction of the investigation, emotional complexities, and pursuit of justice in the tragic case of Anna’s death.

Transcript

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[Captain Chris]

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[Yeardley Smith]

Hey Small Town fans, it's Yeardley. I want to remind you that if you want access to bonus episodes and regular episodes a day early and ad free and our community forum and other behind the scenes goodies, you gotta go to smalltowndicks.com and then in the top right hand corner hit that little tab that says join and then listen to the end of today's episode for a sneak peek at today's new bonus episode. Hey Small town fam, it's Yeardley. Hi, how are you guys? I hope you're all well. Oh boy. We have a truly tragic case for you today. I mean, pretty much every case we cover on this podcast is tragic, but this case feels particularly senseless to me. So the suspect who gets in way over his head has zero ability to hold himself accountable and be honest either with himself or the people he's involved with. He then decides murder is the solution to his problems. But like so many people who aspire to commit the perfect crime, this suspect makes mistakes. And as often happens, once the deed is done, events start to move quite quickly, and this guy is wholly incapable of containing the multitude of tentacles that metastasize almost immediately as a result of his actions. This fact becomes hugely important as the case progresses, because just when you think the case is over and justice has been served, the suspect gets a second chance to plead his innocence. And if not for his many mistakes, he might very well have gotten away with murder. Here is one too many Hi there, I'm Yeardley.

[Dan]

I'M Dan.

[Dave]

I'm Dave.

[Captain Chris]

And I'm Paul.

[Yeardley Smith]

And this is Small Town Dicks.

[Dan]

Dave and I are identical twins and

[Dave]

retired detectives from small Town, usa.

[Captain Chris]

And I'm a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

[Dan]

Between the three of us, we've investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

[Dave]

Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare personal account of how they saw the crime.

[Safeway/Albertsons Announcer]

Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

[Dan]

And although we're aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved out of respect

[Dave]

for what they've been through. Thank you.

[Yeardley Smith]

Today on Small Town Dicks, my friends. Well, I have most of the usual suspects. I have Detective Dan.

[Dave]

Hello there.

[Yeardley Smith]

Hello there. I'm so happy you're here.

[Dan]

Likewise.

[Yeardley Smith]

And I have Detective Dave.

[Dave]

Hello, yeardley.

[Yeardley Smith]

Hello, David. Hello. I'm happy to see you too, Small Town fam. We do not have the one and only Paul Holes. Today. Paul is off doing Paul things. As I always say, the busiest retired investigator ever. But we are thrilled to welcome a new guest to the podcast. His name sounds like a superhero. We're calling him Captain Chris.

[Captain Chris]

Thanks for having me.

[Yeardley Smith]

We're so happy to have you, Chris. Thanks so much for sitting down with us. And since you are not retired, this means that you're giving up one of your precious days off to sit down with us. And RO is grateful and humbled by that. So thank you.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, thank you.

[Yeardley Smith]

So, Chris, we'd love to give our listeners a little thumbnail biography of our guests. And since you're new to us today, give us a little snapshot of who you are and how you've done what you've done and where you've been.

[Captain Chris]

Sure. So I have always worked at a sheriff's office in my career, and I have about 18 years of experience at this point. I started off in patrol and I've spent about 10 years in detectives in some fashion. I'm currently the patrol captain for our patrol division, and during the time that I was investigating the case we're gonna be talking about, I was the detective sergeant in charge of our detective unit.

[Yeardley Smith]

You have a lot of stripes on your shoulder. Do you guys get stripes? Stars? What do you get?

[Dave]

You get stripes when you become a sergeant, and then all the headaches begin.

[Yeardley Smith]

Stripes and headaches. They don't tell you that part.

[Captain Chris]

It can happen.

[Dave]

Chris, how many sworn in your agency? What's the layout of your jurisdiction? Is it rural, is it urban? What are you guys dealing with?

[Captain Chris]

So most of our jurisdiction is in a rural type of the county. The main town within the county is Corvallis, so a college campus town. And then we have a lot of the surrounding towns kind of goes out towards the Oregon coast. But we have a large responsibility of patrol that's out in the county in the rural areas.

[Dave]

Got it. The county that Chris is talking about is very similar to the county that Dan and I worked in. So you're dealing with other city agencies. Sometimes your pursuit takes you to another county and you're dealing with their sheriffs and then state police.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, and we're very lucky to have, you know, the relationships we do with the people in our county. So when some of these cases come up, we have, you know, that automatic built in team that can kind of get together and, you know, focus all of our energy on solving these cases.

[Yeardley Smith]

That's awesome. Well, Chris, please tell us how this case came to you today.

[Captain Chris]

So this all started on Monday, April 17th of 2017. Normal day for me about 5 o' clock, and I started actually headed towards home and I heard a call on our radio say that there had been a body found out in the woods. And sometimes we get those calls and it can turn into a suicide or it can turn into not even a body or just some discarded trash. But for some reason, to me, on this day, it felt like it was something that I should be going to. Probably took about a half an hour to drive to this area of our county. It kind of leaves the municipal area, goes out to the county about, you know, halfway between us and the coast. So we drove a couple miles past this little town and took a right hand turn off onto a gravel road. And the gravel road that this was on starts going up immediately, kind of up a mountain. And to me, every single turn I took made it more suspicious. It wasn't something that was just off the roadway. So we kept kind of going up this mountain. We kept going and we kept going and we kept going and it kind of felt like forever. We're kind of going in the middle of nowhere until we get to this kind of clearing area where there's logging equipment. And the caller, his name is Russell, tells us that he had been walking his dog in this area. And he points down this other road from where we had parked and said, it's down there. So Deputy Cyrup and I Not knowing what we're going to find, we start walking down this in a muddy, grassy rutted road and trying to step in areas where we weren't going to disturb any of the evidence that could be there. But we don't know what we're walking into. We get to this kind of cul de sac is how I always kind of looked at it. And there's a body on the far side of it. We could see that it was a female. There's a large open wound on top of her head. We could see, you know, brain matter and blood around her head. She was laying on her back. Her eyes are open, facing up towards the sky. Her legs were kind of, you know, just straight down and both of her arms were up. With her hands kind of next to her head laying flat on the ground, it looked like it was, was a wound that was beyond saving. We still put on gloves, checked for a pulse, made sure there was nothing that we could do. We saw that she was cold to the touch, but still really well preserved. She hadn't been there for that long. When we're looking at it, we're like, this looks like a homicide. There's no gun, there's no weapon, there's no car. She has nothing on her. So really at this point, we're sitting there looking at a dead girl in the middle of the woods with absolutely nothing to lead us to who she is, how she got there, what happened.

[Yeardley Smith]

Chris, this place where you find this body is so remote. Did you think like, oh, and Russell's the guy? Because you don't just happen on a clearing like this.

[Captain Chris]

Definitely that's one of our thoughts. But he was up there because he was a caretaker. They were doing logging work in this area. So he was hired by this company to kind of watch the equipment.

[Yeardley Smith]

Right.

[Dan]

Chris, as you're standing over the victim, how old are you estimating her age to be?

[Captain Chris]

So our initial thoughts were that she was a 20 something year old female. Nothing that really stood out for us in clothes. But we could see that she had a couple tattoos on her wrists and she had blondish red colored hair.

[Dan]

And what you're looking at there, are you thinking that's a dump site or the actual homicide occurred right there.

[Captain Chris]

So we weren't sure. We can see that she's laying on her back and we can see that the brain matter was around her head to more suggest that that was where the homicide occurred, but we weren't sure. The other thing that kind of stood out to me from the scene was There's a lot of trash around this area. There was shotgun shell casings and there was clay pigeons and shot up pieces of cardboard and all these different things that were out there. And it kind of looked like a place that people typically set things up to target practice. So that's the hard part. One of our next steps in any death is the death investigation and to try to figure out and determine how somebody died. So we set up an autopsy that occurred the following day. Probably isn't going to tell us who she is, but at least they'll give us some indication on how she was killed. The best identification that we were able to see on her at that point was these two tattoos on both her right and left arms. We're looking into identifying her through these tattoos. We have a couple of our detectives go out to just the local tattoo shops and start trying to figure out if maybe somebody just gave these tattoos or somebody knows who these tattoos belong to. Knowing that's probably a long shot, but it's one of the best things we had at that point. And we start just trying to knock down every possible lead we can. So the tattoo parlors that we went to, none of those leads panned out. So we are looking at the autopsy the next day. Myself and another detective went to the autopsy. That was when we first learned how this female had been killed. They do an X ray and we're able to see it kind of lit up like a night sky of all the pieces of metal shot that were littered throughout her head and the inside of her head. So that was when we had found out that it was a shotgun that had killed this girl.

[Dave]

Where do you think the shooter was?

[Captain Chris]

We were able to see from that autopsy as well that there was a shot that had been placed, like right in the back of her head so she wouldn't have seen this coming to us. It appeared that it was at a very close range. We didn't learn much more from the autopsy. We took samples of blood for DNA and fingerprints and those kind of things. But, you know, those things are gonna take time for us to process to figure out if those are even on file for somebody that we can, you know, match them to.

[Dave]

So we've got the autopsy results. We're dead end on tattoo shops. And you guys still have no idea who your victim is?

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, you're right, Dave. We have no idea. And it's kind of looking to us as are we going to figure out who she is. We're also looking at, is there anything at the scene that Helps lead us to a killer. Can we find tire tracks? Can we find something that was discarded? Can we find, you know, just anything that can lead us there? And nothing really stood out as obvious. It wasn't like we walked up and we're like, that's the shell casing or that's the evidence that's gonna crack the case. I mean, really, it all looked like garbage.

[Dan]

It's just a challenging crime scene.

[Yeardley Smith]

Oof. I would say so.

[Dan]

So much evidence.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's like, do you take everything?

[Dave]

Right.

[Captain Chris]

There was a fast food bag laying kind of against the side of this clearing that we had found her at. And pressed up against the bag was a receipt. The receipt was from the previous Friday, April 14th. So we're like, that's kind of a close proximity time frame and we should probably see if we can track down where that receip came from and who had felt like it was going to be one of those leads that didn't really lead us down any particular direction, but something that we wanted to rule out.

[Yeardley Smith]

And Chris, the receipt is from the 14th. And as I recall, you are called to this scene on the 17th. So we're talking about three days.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, it was very close. So this receipt takes us back to Corvallis and takes us to a restaurant there. And we have one of our detectives go to the restaurant with the information from the receipt and see if there's, you know, any identifying information that they can find of who made this purchase. What we learned for the case was that this receipt was for a purchase made in cash in a vehicle that came through the drive through. So obviously the cash purchase doesn't lead us to anybody in particular because the video is not very good. But from watching the video we learned that there was two people in the vehicle and there was another purchase made with a card which leads us to a man named Kevin. And Kevin is obviously the next person that we need to talk to.

[Dave]

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[Captain Chris]

So a couple days after we had discovered this girl out in the woods, we go track down Kevin. Kevin lives in an apartment in Corvallis. Myself and another detective end up speaking with him about his timeline. In these cases, timelines are so important. Kevin ends up telling us that he had not been out in this remote area, had never left Corvallis between Friday, April 14th to that point. April 19th.

[Yeardley Smith]

Is Kevin surprised to see two police officers at his door asking about a receipt in the middle of nowhere?

[Captain Chris]

Kevin was surprised, but Kevin was very cooperative. He was very polite. He answered our questions. He was very easy to work with. So the things that stood out to me about talking to Kevin were that Kevin also doesn't drive or leave town. So it made no sense for him to have driven this distance into the middle of nowhere to drop this receipt off. But he starts telling us about his friend William. This is who the person is that Kevin had been to that fast food restaurant with, and tells us the William is a bouncer. He's a Marine. Kevin tells us that they're not biological brothers, but he's so close to this guy, he considers him his brother.

[Yeardley Smith]

So, Chris, going back to the receipt you found at the scene, Kevin is telling you that that receipt belonged to William.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, William made that other purchase with cash on April 14th. So in talking to Kevin about William, he explains to us that William is dating a married woman. And Kevin's frustrated with William that William's kind of playing this. Doesn't really give much detail to that, and we don't really know if that's important at that point. But the other detail, Kevin tells us is that he owns a shotgun.

[Yeardley Smith]

Kevin owns a shotgun.

[Captain Chris]

Correct. But Kevin tells us that he has loaned out the shotgun to William and that William is The one who is currently in possession of the shotgun. William had had the shotgun for the last couple months, which is significant to us at that point.

[Dan]

So, Chris, I imagine the conversation with Kevin Gets steered toward who's the female in William's life.

[Captain Chris]

So we find out that William has a girlfriend named Michelle. So Michelle is married. And we find out William also has dated a girl named Anna. Kevin describes Anna as a thin, blond, small Russian. So, really, our next steps at that point Were going and tracking down William and talking to him. Really? I thought, we're going to go talk to William, and he's going to tell us. Yeah, I went out and I went shooting. You know, we were going to check the box and kind of move on. So we went out looking for William. We drove to a house in that same town. Where we had seen the same car. That we had previously seen on the video from the fast food restaurant. This house where we see this car Is the house that belongs to Michelle. And Michelle lives there with her husband, raleigh, And William, I guess, also lives there.

[Yeardley Smith]

Really like William lives there. They're not all just, oh, we're pals. And the husband doesn't know that William is.

[Captain Chris]

Everybody's kind of connected. So we knock on this door of this house, and the man who answers is Michelle's husband, Raleigh. So we ask if William's there, and he goes and gets William for us. William comes out on the porch. It's raining. And we start making small talk with him the same way that we did with Kevin. And William's very nice to us as well. He speaks to us, Wants to go get a drink and a cigarette and kind of stand there and hang out with us as we ask him questions about his whereabouts and his trash.

[Yeardley Smith]

Chris, how old is william?

[Captain Chris]

William was right around 30 years old. And at one point, William wants to step away from the front door a little bit more. As we start asking him about his whereabouts. Because he doesn't want the man inside Raleigh, which is Michelle's husband, To hear us talking to William about his relationship with Michelle. It was kind of a weird part of that for me. Because I'm trying to figure out, is he lying to me about what he did, Is he a murderer, or is he kind of acting the certain weird way he was acting. Because he was having an affair and doesn't want this man to know.

[Yeardley Smith]

I don't believe that Raleigh doesn't know that Michelle and William are having an affair. That's just me.

[Captain Chris]

You're right. He does know. But from everything, we kind of Learned it was almost like he had his head in the sand and kind of allowed Michelle to do what she wanted to do. And one of the things she wanted to do was William. Okay, so it's kind of hard to understand why or the what's for that for me. But, yes, William rented a room inside the house with Michelle and her husband as he's having an affair with Michelle. So there's a lot of different, like, kind of working pieces to that.

[Dave]

That's messy, I would say. So does William have any explanation for trash being found associated with him up on a logging landing 25 miles outside of town?

[Captain Chris]

William doesn't justify it to us. One of the things that stands out as the red flag is that he said, yep, I've never been out there. He admits to buying this fast food on April 14th. He kind of gives us a timeline of what he did over the weekend that goes into that Monday, which was April 17, when we found this female's body. So we start pressing him on that and he starts kind of opening up a little bit more and tells us, yeah, I went out there with Michelle, but we only went as far as the little store that's in the town that's before this turn off to this landing and won't put himself past the store. It's like, that's like the magic threshold. He tells us that he took trash from the backseat of his car and he threw it on the side of this building and says, you know, somebody must have taken that trash from the side of the building and relocated it in the middle of the woods. Which to us obviously makes no sense because why would somebody do that? William admits to having sex with Michelle. William kind of explains his hesitation to tell us this because he's having an affair. So at that point, we still don't know who this female is, nor if she's even related to William. So his explanation could be true. And he's just trying to cover his own ass from this affair. So we really don't know at that point. And we're still trying to ask those questions to figure out what matters and what doesn't matter, baby.

[Dave]

Cops listen up. Using open ended questions and drilling down to get detail and allowing the suspect to speak, to lock in their story is COP101. It is beautiful. And once you lock someone into a story, I mean, Chris is already exposing the frayed ends of William's story. William's indicating familiarity with the area where this body is found. His trash is a mere yards or feet from where this body is found. Chris is describing what happens to a lot of suspects that we get into a room with or start interviewing, which is they give you information about themselves up to a point, but they can't go past a threshold because then they know that commits them to something. And so they lie about the little things to cover up for the big thing. But we've talked about it. When you're lying about little things, what do I have to expect from you when I ask you about the big things? So Chris has done a great job. Lock him into a story and see how William can explain his way out of these holes.

[Yeardley Smith]

So, okay, Chris, you're saying you're on the porch with William and he's telling you, I sort of know that logging road. I mean, I've had sex with Michelle up there. But, I mean, he's really kind of, look over here. Don't look at me.

[Captain Chris]

You're right. He's throwing up these red flags to us. And at this point, we still don't tell him we're there for a murder. Like, we're there investigating why his trash

[Dan]

is in the woods, which is another red flag.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, he never asks. He never says, you know, why are we doing this? And it gets even deeper than that, too, as we start to see these red flags, and we say, why don't we go back to our office? And he ultimately agrees. He comes out and gets in the car with us, and we drove him down back to our office in Corvallis. And at that point, still, we're not talking about murder. He knows why we're there. We also know why we're there. But neither one of us are saying it to each other, and we're picking those little tidbits that matter out of all of this. So at that point, we had been with him probably for an hour and a half, and then we start knocking down those same doors about his timeline, readdressing everything he told us in the past, trying to figure out where those inconsistencies are. Every question we ask, we get a little bit more and a little bit

[Yeardley Smith]

more you guys always talk about. If the story continues to change. That is also a red flag.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, absolutely. It was a red flag for us. And we start talking to him about his relationships and about his possession of the shotgun. And William tells us that he does not have a shotgun. He says, I gave it back to Kevin. And he tells us that he had dated a Russian girl at one point named Anna and said that they had met at a bookstore in Corvallis and had Decided to go on a date, but he only had been on a couple dates with her, and that she freaked out on him. And that Anna had put online that they were engaged, and that wasn't true. Michelle found out about it, and then Michelle was mad at William. So William very much distanced himself from Anna. I should say this. During the timeframe we're speaking with william, Our other detectives went out and found michelle, and we've also found raleigh, and we've also brought Kevin in. So we have all these different interviews Happening at kind of the same time. So at a couple points during the interview with william, I had stepped out of that interview and went over, introduced myself to michelle and tried to verify things that william had said. And michelle would tell me something that was not the same of what william told me. So I'd use that information. I'd come back into the interview room with william, and I would confront him on that stuff. Because at this point, we didn't really have stuff to confront him on because we didn't know what was true and what wasn't true. So you could kind of see the wheels turning on William's face As we're bringing in information from other parties to confront him on his lies.

[Yeardley Smith]

It's like whack a mole.

[Captain Chris]

You're right. It is. And it's almost hard to explain because there's so much happening at once.

[Dave]

So where you go next with william?

[Captain Chris]

At one point, I decide to finally address why we're there with william and to let him know the fact that we're there investigating a death and not

[Dan]

this affair or the offensive littering up in the woods.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Dave]

I'm detective, and I'm here to talk to you about your.

[Yeardley Smith]

About your trash.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, exactly. And it's almost at that exact same time that one of the other detectives Is in another room with raleigh, which is michelle's husband, and he is pulling up a facebook picture of anna and showing it to the detectives, saying, this is who anna is. And from that picture, we could see Anna had tattoos on her wrist Just like this female out in the woods. Just the timing was odd. So after william is confronted with, hey, somebody died, he kind of stops talking, and it's right then we get a message from one of the other detectives on our phone saying, we've confirmed that Anna is this girl in the woods, and we now know that Anna is this girlfriend of william. So now we actually know he has this connection. We have to figure out kind of what we want to do and how we're going to proceed with the case and what evidence we have to make that arrest.

[Dave]

I think about the movie LA Confidential where Guy Pearce is going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, using information. And it's not like that, but it's kind of that frenzied, excited. When all the detectives are working and you know that they're listening to your interview in real time and they're in the background doing little expeditions to track down information. That's what I miss about the job. Dan talks about it too, like the chase. This is the stuff we love, right?

[Yeardley Smith]

Right.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah. At that moment, so many things kind of click together. We know who Anna is. We know William had the connection to Anna. We know that we have the female identified. So we end up arresting William that night. And the first time I ever said Anna's name was to William, when I told him that he was being arrested for Anna's murder. And you could see it all over his face. You know, he doesn't jump up and start denying it and say, I don't know what you're talking about, or oh my God, she's dead. Or, you know, anything that would suggest that he had nothing to do with it. He simply stood up and put his hands behind his back. Which then starts all of the. The next steps of putting together all the evidence, figuring out who Anna is, tracking down his steps, what he did. That's when the investigation truly picks up.

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[Captain Chris]

So that night is when we start writing search warrants. We have search warrants that are written for several different houses. We find out that William and Anna have an apartment together in Corvallis. We also know that William is living with Michelle and Raleigh in another town. We know that there's different vehicles that belong to them that are involved. We know that William has this vehicle that he was driving in the day that receipt was created.

[Dan]

What does Michelle have to say?

[Captain Chris]

Michelle says that she is in a relationship with William. He's also in a relationship with Anna. And she kind of explains an ultimatum that she had given to William in those days leading up, saying, you need to pick one of us.

[Yeardley Smith]

Ironic, given that Michelle is married. Anyway.

[Captain Chris]

Yes. Michelle says that on that Sunday, which was Easter Sunday, that's the day before we find Anna's body. But on this Easter Sunday, Michelle says that she is at her mom's house for their, like, Easter celebration, and that at some point, she's with William, and they drive out and that they have sex off a road, you know, out in the general direction of where we found this body, but that they don't pull off the highway very far, which is also confirmed by William.

[Dan]

And so after those interviews, now you guys are writing search warrants. What other good pieces of evidence do you find during this process of search warrants?

[Captain Chris]

Through all of our search warrants, we find a lot of stuff, but the most significant evidence that we find is a shotgun. And the shotgun that we find is in the back kind of trunk area of William's Xterra. The other more important evidence to us comes through location data that was a part of William's phone. Through that information, we're able to see that on April 16, on that Sunday, William drives out onto this logging road. We later learn that his cell phone has been off from 10:30 that night before William turns his phone back on in that exact same clearing where Anna's body was found. And I don't really have an explanation for that of why he turns his phone back on at the exact location that puts him within feet of Anna's body. But that's at about 4:35pm on April 16th on that Sunday. And they were kind of able to see, like, the breadcrumbs as he leaves and then ends up driving back to town later that night.

[Dan]

Well, in that huge find of finding the shotgun in the back of William's vehicle, because William has said, hey, I gave that shotgun back to Kevin.

[Captain Chris]

That's right, You're Right. That was huge for us to be able to find that weapon and to prove that he was lying to us in that interview, which obviously then makes you wonder what else he was lying about.

[Dave]

Chris, what can you determine, based on your investigation, happened to Anna. Anna that day?

[Captain Chris]

First of all, I'll give you a little backstory on Anna. William meets Anna online. It was on a Russian social media dating app. They have, like an online relationship for several months, and she decides she's gonna come here to see him. So she comes and visits him on December 20th of 2016. During that time, William is living with Michelle at her house. So Anna stays with Michelle and her husband and William in this. Apparently, they spend most of the time in a bedroom together and don't really socialize with everybody else, which sounds like it was an awkward thing for both William as he's trying to keep his other girlfriend out away. And it's also a weird thing for Michelle because now her other boyfriend has this other girl in the bedroom. So beyond that, we find out that William proposes to Anna as she's leaving to go back to Russia at the new year of 2017. Anna makes a plan, and her parents are all supportive of this. Her family's supportive that she's going to move to Corvallis on March 1, and she's going to get married to William March 25, which turned out to all be not true because William didn't ever plan the wedding, didn't ever put together the pieces for a wedding, Kind of led her down another lie that she was going to get married to him on this day. But we were able to see that he had no intentions of actually marrying her on that day. On March 25, William has her get into her wedding dress, he drives her to the coast, and they're supposed to get married at a lighthouse. He has a friend even come to be a witness to this event, but he has never applied for a marriage license. He's never looked into anybody who can marry them. And to kind of put on a show for Anna, he gets on the phone call and he calls two video game stores. The witnesses who were there describe him yelling at the pastor, how angry he is that they didn't show up for the wedding and, you know, let him down in this way, which is all just a show.

[Yeardley Smith]

Wait, I'm sorry. William calls up a video game store and pretends to yell at the pastor that he never booked for not showing up. And he does this all for show.

[Captain Chris]

Yes. Anna went home that day in her wedding dress without Getting married. I'm not really sure what she believed. The only reason we know about most of that is because we found another receipt at that logging road that took us back to that March 25th date from McDonald's where we could see Anna in her wedding dress, kind of going through the drive through with William as they arrived to the coast. And that led us to bank records that showed us that William had bought two wedding rings at Walmart. And as he's buying these rings for his wedding day, he's walking around Walmart talking to Michelle, of all people, on the phone.

[Yeardley Smith]

Oh, my God, this guy.

[Dave]

William's whole life is deceptive.

[Captain Chris]

You're right, Dave. It's interesting as we kind of put this all together, is Anna believed that Michelle was a ex girlfriend of William who wouldn't leave him alone. So when she's calling him or he's talking to her, he's kind of, you know, she's my ex girlfriend. I don't know really what she wants. She won't leave me alone. And William would have Michelle believe that. He kept trying to send Anna home. So William's telling Michelle constantly, I went and put Anna on a bus. I went and dropped her off at the airport. I went and did all these things to get rid of her. And she kept showing back up, which all of that is a lie. And his whole life is this kind of stressful ball of chaos as he's trying to manage these two women and make them both kind of have this animosity against each other.

[Dave]

It's a lot to keep track of.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, it's so convoluted and a lot to keep track of, which is one of the reasons that I believe ultimately he made the decision he made is because this whole thing was so stressful and was wearing on him so much. You know, William could have just sent Anna home. He could have just stopped talking to Michelle. But for whatever reason, he makes this decision to kill Anna, which I can't understand why that would be the easy choice. But the stress led him that direction or his behavior and the evil within, I guess.

[Dave]

Yeah. So you have this wedding day that didn't happen in late March, and I'm guessing Anna was not happy. But we fast forward to Anna's last day, and I'm guessing that William and Anna had arranged to meet up or talk or we're hanging out, and at some point, some plan is, hey, let's take a road trip.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah. So what we know is that the night before this murder happened, Michelle and William are talking and they're having this kind of, you need to get divorced from Raleigh. You need to break up with Anna. Michelle tells William, well, I'll come over there and I'll tell her to wait, leave.

[Yeardley Smith]

When Michelle says, I'll come over there, she is referring to the apartment that William shares with Anna.

[Captain Chris]

Correct. Michelle is telling William, I'll come over to the apartment, because he's currently there with Anna. William doesn't want that confrontation. So he tells Michelle, stay away, basically. And he sends a message that he will permanently solve the situation by 1800 tomorrow. And it's shortly after William sends this message that he turns his phone off completely. So his phone is off for that entire night through the next morning. He briefly turns his phone on on that Sunday morning and calls his mom, and then he turns his phone off again. So we know right around that same time William starts making that drive out into the forest. We're able to get a bunch of different video angles of his vehic and kind of put that timeline together. We're able to see him drive through the little town where that store is at. And then it's shortly after that, in the 4 o' clock hour, where his phone turns back on. He's at the scene of where Anna's body's discovered. And he's making a call to a friend. And then he makes a call to Michelle. We know that he ends up driving back down this mountain to this store. William parks at the store. He goes inside this little market, and he buys a soda and some candy and some cigarettes. We know that Michelle shows up at the store a short time later, and she goes over and she gets into the vehicle with William and they drive out again. Their phones go just down the road and they stop at a park. At that point, you know, knowing the interview and how they said they parked and had sex, that's what our belief is that happens during that time. Time.

[Yeardley Smith]

Are you saying, Chris, that William and Michelle had sex within hours of Anna being murdered?

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, within two hours. I believe that William is having sex with Michelle after just killing Anna.

[Yeardley Smith]

Good God.

[Dave]

I feel like Michelle knows, should have known a reasonable person would know that something had happened that day. So I'm wondering, did Michelle have any exposure in this?

[Captain Chris]

We wonder that too. There's no evidence to support that Michelle did anything related to the event or actually killing Anna. Is it possible she might have thought something happened like that? It's hard to tell. Michelle's always stood by the fact that she had no idea that this happened. She told us that William had told her that Anna was gone, she wouldn't have to worry about it. She also described William crying and getting drunk that night and kind of carrying on and acting kind of weird and being upset that Anna was gone, which also made her kind of frustrated of why are you crying about this other girl leaving?

[Dave]

I mean, if it's not there, it's not there. So I'm also struck by William at this crime scene. He's clearly thought prior to committing the crime about his phone being on or off, at least given some cursory thought to his movements. But I'm not surprised at all that the phone fired up and a call was made right after from the crime scene. And I figured William would be calling Michelle at some point to let her know, hey, I took care of that problem that I have. William clearly is not thinking straight after he's committed this crime. He's kind of screwed up his whole turning the phone off plan. We talk about it a lot on this show, but once the act is committed, now the suspects have to think about all the things they have to do to conceal their identity and their involvement. It's just another example. William is. Is not used to this.

[Yeardley Smith]

He's over his head. Which makes me wonder, Chris, did William have any criminal history prior to this?

[Captain Chris]

No, William did not have any criminal history. Yeah, I totally agree with everything Dave just said. There's a plan in place until you witness this horrific event right in front of your eyes. And then now you start messing up. You know, he was so methodical of turning the phone off, watching his tracks leading up to the murder. As soon as this happens, William starts making mistakes and he starts breaking down.

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[Captain Chris]

Chris.

[Dan]

Right after the murder, William's behavior starts spiraling a little bit. He makes mistakes. Can you go over what you were alluding to there?

[Captain Chris]

Yeah. So William takes Anna's debit card. He first drives to a gas station. And William goes inside the gas station, and he goes up to one of those little ATMs they have inside there. And William withdraws $200 of Anna's money. William then goes to a gas station employee that he's familiar with, stands kind of awkwardly behind him. And William starts hugging him in this long embrace where he's. She's gone, she's gone, she's gone. And the guy at this gas station believes he's talking about Anna and also believes, you know, that they broke up. So he's consoling William at this point, which is within a couple hours after this murder took place. William goes outside, hugs another employee at the gas pumps. Then he gets into his car, William drives to another bank, and William withdraws another $600 out of Anna's bank account. After that, William goes back to his apartment, and we believe he starts cleaning stuff up. So he starts getting rid of Anna's belongings. Anna came here with whatever she could carry in her suitcase. It wasn't like there was a lot of property that Anna had that connected back to her. So William later has Michelle come over and to kind of prove to her, like, look, Anna's gone. See, none of her stuff's here. There's nothing for you to worry about anymore.

[Yeardley Smith]

Except for Raleigh.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, there's a thing about a husband still involved, right?

[Yeardley Smith]

Yeah, a thing about a husband.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah. I don't know what their plan for that was. We know that William drives now to a third ATM. This is about 9 o' clock on Sunday night. And he puts in 160 bucks or something into his account. Now, as soon as he gets that money into the account, he calls this insurance company and he's like, hey, I got that money now. So his priorities after this murder are having sex with Michelle, going and pulling out the majority of Anna's money, and paying his insurance. After he pays his insurance, he goes to a bar and he starts drinking, like, heavily, and he's crying to people. He's carrying on about how he's so sad about how he's a horrible person. And this is really like unusual for them, but they all think it's just because he's been drinking and this girl broke up with him. So they're consoling him and telling him it's going to be okay. And he's, you know, kind of pulling them into the corner and having them hug, hug him and feel sorry for him and feel bad for him not knowing the truth about what really just happened. It's in the days after that William continues to kind of spend that money. So we know that he goes and he takes the remainder of that cash and he goes and buys like a hundred plus dollar set of Legos. He buys ice cream, he buys cigars. William goes to a video game store and he buys several video games. He buys the Hitman video game, which is about a guy running around killing.

[Yeardley Smith]

He's like a child, though. Three games, ice cream and cigars. Like, what the.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah, to me, it's always kind of been he was looking for things to make him feel better. And that was girls hugging him at the bar. It was having sex with Michelle. It was Michelle telling William it's going to be okay. It was William buying these toys and games to comfort him in this time. So, yeah, there's all those things that kind of add up to his behavior of what he was doing and what he was thinking and how he was processing it, everything.

[Dan]

These women at the bar, when they have the realization that they were consoling William over a woman that he murdered and what that moment was like when you square that in your head, oh, William's a shitbag.

[Yeardley Smith]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Were you able to track down Anna's family to give a death notification?

[Captain Chris]

Usually that's one of our first steps of trying to contact the family and make this identification. Very difficult for us in this because she was from Russia and we had no really way to contact her family and didn't know how to. The most like, unfortunate way that they could have found out is how they found out. So within a couple days of William's arrest, you know, now we've put out this information not identifying Anna, but talking about the arrest. Somebody tags Anna on Facebook to this article and our family's seeing this article that doesn't identify Anna, but suggests that Anna's the one who's been killed. So her family has to figure out how to contact us. I get a phone call from our dispatch who says there's a phone call from somebody in Russia who is demanding to Talk to somebody. So it turns out to be Anna's brother's mother in law. And the reason she's calling is because she's the only one who can speak English. And they had her call. You know, the worst way you can notify somebody is over the phone. So I confirmed with her that Anna was the one who had been killed and that somebody had been arrested for her murder. And we arrange a time the next day so I could have her parents there and I could have this mother in law of her brother kind of act as a translator to try to answer questions for the parents and get questions answered for us.

[Yeardley Smith]

And did Anna's family actually come to the States at any point? Or this discussion you're going to have with Anna's parents and the mother in law of sorts is going to happen over the phone.

[Captain Chris]

So our conversation was over the phone and then it turned into several emails. But there was very little communication with Anna's family. And that wasn't as a result of, you know, their lack of care or our lack of ability. It was just. It was very difficult to have that kind of open communication. It was hard. And it was one of the difficult elements of this, of understanding who Anna was and keeping her family involved and also helping them understand like what our criminal justice process looks like, which is not what they're used to. Russia.

[Yeardley Smith]

Right, Right.

[Dave]

Did this go to trial or was it a plea deal?

[Captain Chris]

So William went to trial in 2019. It was over a month long trial and he was ultimately found guilty of murder. He was found guilty of identity theft and theft for the taking of Anna's money.

[Yeardley Smith]

Chris, how did the people who were close to William react to that verdict?

[Captain Chris]

Kevin felt so deceived by William. And it wasn't only Kevin, it was all these people. They had this story about who William was and William was this Marine, he was this tough guy, he was a bouncer. And it all came crashing down when they found out he was a murderer. And they also were finding out that William was never Marine. He had this Persona and this image that he let everybody around him believe who he was. But the majority of who people believed William was was not. Not true.

[Dave]

I'm guessing William's defense attorney did not allow William to take the stand.

[Captain Chris]

You are right, Dave. He did not take the stand, which was not a surprise, but did change later on.

[Dan]

Well, we'll get to that. What was the defense's strategy during Williams trial?

[Captain Chris]

I'm not really sure if I can describe a strategy. There was very few witnesses and the Evidence that was presented to the jury was not presented as evidence. It was presented through a opening and closing statement where they said William was with Michelle. Michelle's the true killer. That's all you need to know.

[Yeardley Smith]

This is William's defense attorney pinning the blame on Michelle.

[Captain Chris]

Yes. Point the finger at Michelle so it's not pointed to William and going to trial. We have evidence that on the shotgun, we have William's DNA. We have William's fingerprints. We have blood residue on the end of the gun. We do not have Michelle's DNA on the gun. We do not have Michelle's fingerprints on the gun. William's got blood on his shirt, belt, pants and boots that we found. And, you know, things like that show, first of all, Michelle never goes to the scene based on evidence we have. And then we have all this evidence that shows William is the one that had possession of this gun, was the one who used this gun and was up there with Anna.

[Yeardley Smith]

Right? Yeah. Does William get convicted of this murder?

[Captain Chris]

He does. He's sentenced to life in prison.

[Dan]

Chris, I'm just curious. How long was the jury out on this conviction?

[Captain Chris]

The jury was out for only a few hours. It was very quick that they came back.

[Yeardley Smith]

So, Chris, I've peeked ahead and I happen to know this isn't the end of the story.

[Captain Chris]

You're right. So in 2023, William successfully appeals his conviction. And how he appeals the conviction is that case law has changed about how are able to apply for search warrants. It needs to be basically very particular, and it wasn't sufficiently particular in how we wrote that warrant in 2017, although we wrote it by the lawful practice. The way we do things now, things have changed. And I didn't quite understand how this worked either, is that that case law can be kind of applied retroactively as case law in the future can be applied to things in the past. So nowadays we have to be very, very specific and say we're evidence in the cell phone related to this person, talking to this person on this date about this topic or something like that.

[Yeardley Smith]

How would you know that, though?

[Captain Chris]

Most of the time you can't. And that's what's very frustrating, is we can't know everything that we're looking for, but we have to be very particular. So we do our best to know how to tailor these search warrants to find the things that we're looking for with the evidence we know. And the cause for the appeal was that a couple days after this murder, we know that William starts researching how to time travel. He also communicates with somebody through a texting app where he's directed to. Through a time travel spell. He's talking to somebody saying, I want to go back to this date at this time to correct a horrible mistake. Obviously, that looks like evidence to us. We found that information in the cell phone as we were searching. They said we shouldn't have been allowed to. So therefore, the jury could have held whatever weight they held to that piece of evidence. And therefore, this appeal was granted, and we have to go back and do it again. Very frustrating on our part.

[Yeardley Smith]

It's unreasonable. All right, so William wins his appeal and his conviction. Is it overturned? Does he get a new trial? What's the upshot?

[Captain Chris]

So William wins his appeal, and he gets a new trial. The new trial happened in 2025, and basically the main thing that we could not Was that time travel piece. So the trial itself was nearly identical to the first trial. All the other evidence stood, but we weren't allowed to talk about time traveling. So William was found guilty yet again.

[Yeardley Smith]

Incredible. First of all or last of all, the idea that we're going to hang this appeal on William's genuine quest for time travel is ridiculous. And, yes, you can infer that William wants to turn the clock back and that there's text evidence of him saying, you know, I need to undo this terrible mistake.

[Dave]

But really, Yardley, you are once again applying reason where you are not allowed to do so.

[Captain Chris]

Shame on you.

[Yeardley Smith]

I quit.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah. The only thing that changed, really, out of that trial was that William did take the stand in the second. Second trial.

[Dave]

How'd that go?

[Captain Chris]

I don't believe it worked in his benefit. I'll give you a brief rundown of what his story was. So William tells us that the night before the murder, Michelle comes over to the apartment that William and Anna live in. And Michelle and Anna decide, hey, we should fight each other. We should go verbally, yell at each other. And whoever wins this verbal fight will get to have William somehow. William remembers driving out on this logging road with Anna that next day. He doesn't really remember anything else because he's blacked out, obviously, from the trauma of what he's about to witness. And that he goes down and he picks up Michelle.

[Yeardley Smith]

Hang on. William is saying he leaves Anna at the logging road location, drives back down the mountain, and picks up Michelle.

[Captain Chris]

Correct. So he remembers driving back up the mountain with Michelle. Doesn't remember really anything else. And he remembers that they get up to the scene and that he goes and stands in the trees with his Face turned away from everything so he cannot see what's happening. All of a sudden, Anna's dead. Michelle has a shotgun and doesn't remember anything else after that point. But he does remember that he's not the one who killed Anna. So they tried to kind of weave together this limited story.

[Yeardley Smith]

I would expect as much from a person who believes in time travel.

[Dan]

Well, William gets to sit on the stand and explain to jurors and whoever's in the gallery that he's this prize that these two women are fighting over. It's disgusting. And I think it's just further evidence that William is a narcissist and he feels like he can manipulate anybody into doing what he. He wants.

[Captain Chris]

I agree.

[Yeardley Smith]

Yeah. And poor Anna. I'm assuming she just came to this country because she thought, oh, I met a guy. I'm going to get a better life. Who knows what her situation was in Russia. But, you know, chances are she had great hope for her future. Obviously, she got into the wedding dress, she was ready for the day, and this is what she's met with.

[Captain Chris]

You're right. Anna came to this country looking for love. She came looking for somebody that could take care of her, somebody to start a family with, somebody that. That, you know, could provide for her in this new life. And she was held captive in this lie of what William told her because what he portrayed himself to be. None of it was true. So in a lot of ways, Anna gets lost in this case because of the fact that Anna didn't have those, like, advocates for her here. She didn't have those friends and the family and the supporters. And even at trial, like, there was nobody. The first trial, her mom came and her mom was able to testify. Second trial, you know, there's nobody there to support Anna to be that cheering section for her. Usually you have, you know, families, especially of murder victims who are calling you every day for what's next, or what do you know? Or how is this whole thing working out? And they hold us accountable. They're there to, like, provide us information. They're there to assist with the case. And in this case, there really wasn't that. So, you know, Anna unfortunately, kind of gets lost in this whole thing because, you know, we don't have those advocates for her on.

[Yeardley Smith]

Were you able to tell her family that the first conviction had been overturned and was there any reaction to that?

[Captain Chris]

So Anna's family was made aware, and I've had the ability to kind of keep in touch with her brother through email over the last little bit he speaks English to a point as well. They've been very great during this whole thing and just understanding the cultural differences of how stuff works and why we did things the way we did and why, you know, punishment, injustice doesn't look the same way it does in our country as it does in Russia. Like, you know, kind of trying to bridge some of those gaps with them has been very rewarding for me to have that relationship and connect with them. It's also been frustrating to, like, have to be kind of that bearer of bad news, not only for her death, but also be the. Here we go back to trial, and now we have to do this again. So after the first trial, I was able to speak with a good portion of the jury, and the jury felt similarly to the way we. We felt of seeing that there's no supporters and no advocates for Anna watching trial every day. So they decided that they would go and create a memorial for Anna. So out at the scene, currently, right where Anna was discovered, one of the jury members created and welded a big metal cross with Anna's name and date of birth and date of death on there. And I was able to go with the jury as they planted that cross, planted flowers in that area, area, to give Anna that last piece that showed people cared about her and kind of give that closure for them and for Anna.

[Yeardley Smith]

I love that.

[Captain Chris]

Yeah. So I thought that was a very unique part that I'd never heard of before, I'd never seen before. And it was amazing that the jury wanted to come together and do this and that. They invited me, invited the prosecutor to kind of go out there and have this kind of, like, moment and give her that respect.

[Yeardley Smith]

That's beautiful.

[Dave]

It all goes back to locking William into a story on his front porch while he's about to confess to having an affair with his roommate. You and your team did advocate for Anna very well, and I think really great work from start to finish. You know, that was a big question mark up on that logging landing. So kudos to you and your team.

[Captain Chris]

Thank you.

[Yeardley Smith]

It's such good work, Chris. You know, sometimes I think when I listen to the cases that the detectives who join us here on this podcast tell us, you guys are like sprinters who run hurdles, you know, jump, jump, and that as you go around the track, it's just one hurdle after another. And the win is if you can get all the way around the track without knocking anything over or breaking your ankle and you cross the finish line first. First. That's a job well done.

[Captain Chris]

I appreciate it. Yeah, it's stressful, obviously, during the investigation, but then, you know, to hit that finish line, kind of like you're talking about, and then all of a sudden, here it is again. There is an added amount of stress in that second trial. We did it once. I think we can do it again. And I think that, you know, obviously the evidence is on our side, but there's another chance for a murderer to go free, and no one wants to be in that position. We have a really good group of people who put this together, and I think that was super helpful for this case and in seeing John justice through.

[Dan]

Really well done. You know, we talked to guests on this podcast, and just from my own experience, I know Dave's the same, and so is Paul. When you stand in a room or in this case, you're on this logging landing and you're standing over Anna and trying to put yourself in Anna's shoes in the last moments of her life and what that gravity feels like. Chris, your description of this case really kind of put me right there in the scene. And I imagine this is a case that's going to stay with you for

[Dave]

the rest of your life.

[Dan]

And that's one of the things that I like about the detectives that we have on the show, is these cases do stick with you and they leave an imprint on you. I think you guys did a wonderful job, and I'm so glad you got justice for Anna.

[Captain Chris]

I appreciate that.

[Yeardley Smith]

Now for a sneak peek at today's new bonus episode.

[Dave]

The new owners basically inherit this contract and don't own honor it. And so is that civil? Or we can have both. Like, you can be breaching the contract and at the same time, you know, defrauding someone or stealing from them. I mean, I think that's probably what this is, is you got both going on, but it's so heavily civil on the property side. But then there's other things that are happening that turn it into criminal. This is one of those that would just be a. A messy investigation. And I got a few of those early on in my career where you're just like, oh, my gosh. God, I. I feel bad for the detective that's going to inherit this case because it's a mess already. And that's what this is. It's a big mess.

[Yeardley Smith]

To listen to today's bonus episode and access hundreds more, go to smalltowndicks.com superfam and hit that little join. But. Small Town Dicks was created by detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halsted and me, Yardley Smith. Our senior editor is Sorenvasion and our editor is Christina Bracamantes. Our associate producers are the real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Logan Heftel is our production manager, Our books are Cooked and Cats Wrangled by Ben Cornwell and our social media maven is Monica Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. At Smalltown Dicks, we love hearing from you. Oh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you'd like to support the making of this podcast, go to Smalltown Dicks and hit that little join button there. For a small subscription fee, you'll find exclusive content you can't get anywhere else. The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to Speech Docs and they can be found on our website smalltowndicks.com thank you speech Docs for this wonderful service. Small Town dicks is an audio 99 production. Small town fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.

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