Speaker 1: This series is inspired by true events. The stories you're
Speaker 1: about to hear are fictional, and so are the characters
Speaker 1: who are played by actors.
Speaker 2: Student Body of Mount Pine Principal Palumbo. Here, remember tonight
Speaker 2: is the homecoming game and tomorrow night is the homecoming dance.
Speaker 2: Please conduct yourselves like the young ladies and gentlemen that
Speaker 2: you are. Let's represent ourselves and our community. Well, okay,
Speaker 2: that's it. Have fun and let's go Mountaeers.
Speaker 1: It's October nineteen eighty five and we're juniors at Mount
Speaker 1: Pine High School. I cannot wait for the homecoming game
Speaker 1: and dance. I'm going with Lance Simpson. We've been going
Speaker 1: out for a few months. When he asked me, eh,
Speaker 1: it was whatever about the dance.
Speaker 3: It was the game I couldn't wait for today.
Speaker 1: Lance is fifty two years old, married kids, and has
Speaker 1: a lawn cunning business. Back in nineteen eighty five, he's
Speaker 1: fifteen about to turn sixteen like me.
Speaker 4: Like I said, the homecoming game was what I was
Speaker 4: excited about.
Speaker 3: But man, after that game, nothing was the same ever.
Speaker 1: I'm Nancy Clark. This is The Murder Years, Episode four, Charlotte.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, October fourth, nineteen eighty five and our homecoming
Speaker 1: game is against our number one rival Northgate. They've beaten
Speaker 1: us the last three times we've played each other, which
Speaker 1: is going to make this homecoming game extra crazy. My
Speaker 1: boyfriend Lance sits with me for a little while, then
Speaker 1: he goes and sits with his JV football buddies.
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk football.
Speaker 1: You know, at halftime we're losing. The second half of
Speaker 1: the game is good but close, too close for comfort.
Speaker 1: And then for you.
Speaker 3: One by one field goal, but we ate one man.
Speaker 3: That felt great. We finally beat Northgate.
Speaker 5: So after the game, I headed over to the to
Speaker 5: the concessions, then to meet everyone.
Speaker 1: My good friend Carla is on the dance team with
Speaker 1: the marching band, and we decide to meet after the game.
Speaker 5: As I was walking over there, I could see some
Speaker 5: guys wearing Northgate jackets were yelling at some of our guys.
Speaker 5: Then all of a sudden, it's a full blown fight.
Speaker 1: It's total chaos. Teachers and parents rush over to try
Speaker 1: and break it up.
Speaker 5: That macho shit was so immature. I was ready to
Speaker 5: leave anyway. I told my mom i'd after the game.
Speaker 5: I told my mom we won and I would be
Speaker 5: heading home. We lived close to the school. It was
Speaker 5: like a five minute walk. She asked if I could
Speaker 5: stop and get her some asprin, which, of course I
Speaker 5: said I would do.
Speaker 1: Carla says goodbye to all of us and heads to Buddies,
Speaker 1: the convenience store and ice cream shop on Miller Road.
Speaker 1: That's the same place where Lisa Anderson used to work.
Speaker 1: You may remember her tragic murder from episode one. I
Speaker 1: still can't believe she's gone at Buddies.
Speaker 5: I think I bought some gum and ice cream in
Speaker 5: addition to my mom's as friend.
Speaker 6: Minutes later, nine one one, what's your emergency?
Speaker 3: Oh my god?
Speaker 6: Sit, help, what is happening?
Speaker 7: Where are Buddies?
Speaker 4: There's so much blood?
Speaker 8: Shut her?
Speaker 9: Oh my god, she's pleading.
Speaker 7: She's pleading a lot. Who's bleeding?
Speaker 8: My co worker?
Speaker 4: Hi friend, Heygod.
Speaker 9: Becoming Charlotte pign.
Speaker 1: It's around ten pm when Mount Pine police and paramedics
Speaker 1: arrive at Buddies. The victim, lying in a pool of blood,
Speaker 1: is rushed to the hospital. Detective Tom Wallace, who today
Speaker 1: is retired from the force, was the lead investigator on
Speaker 1: the Lisa Anderson murder. He agrees to speak with me
Speaker 1: again It's not lost on him that he worked Lisa's
Speaker 1: murder only sixteen months before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, that murder haunts me, and I couldn't believe.
Speaker 4: I was at Buddies where she used to work, responding
Speaker 4: to another brutal attack on a young person.
Speaker 1: When Detective Wallace arrives on the scene, he sees a
Speaker 1: woman talking to officers. She's sobbing. She's the woman who
Speaker 1: called nine one one.
Speaker 10: I told them the guy was masked.
Speaker 3: You know, he had a mask.
Speaker 1: Over his face back in nineteen eighty five. Thirty two
Speaker 1: year old Angie Foster works nights Monday through Friday. She's
Speaker 1: been employed at Buddies for the last seven years. Today,
Speaker 1: she's a sixty nine year old grandmother of two.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it was a regular, normal kind of night. I
Speaker 10: was at the register and I was scooping ice cream also,
Speaker 10: and Charlotte was in the storeroom getting the chips we
Speaker 10: needed to stalk.
Speaker 1: At that time. Eighteen year old Charlotte Murphy is a
Speaker 1: senior at Mount Pine High School. Smart, super nice, and
Speaker 1: very pretty, with thick, naturally blonde hair and cheekbones like
Speaker 1: Fara Faucet. She wears sort of short skirts, so some
Speaker 1: of the mothers would gossip that the way she dressed
Speaker 1: got her pregnant and kicked off the school dance team.
Speaker 1: It was kind of big news at school and around town.
Speaker 10: Charlotte bless her Heart was four and a half months pregnant,
Speaker 10: and she worked Friday and Saturday nights, you know, to
Speaker 10: try to save some money for the baby. I remember
Speaker 10: she was in the back getting the chips, and everything
Speaker 10: just seemed like a normal night. And then this guy
Speaker 10: came in. He had a mask on and he pulled
Speaker 10: a gun out of his coat. It was a shotgun,
Speaker 10: and he said, give me all the money. So I
Speaker 10: went to the register. I was fumbling. I just I
Speaker 10: couldn't think. I was so scared. I think I said
Speaker 10: something like it, please don't hurt us, but I don't
Speaker 10: even remember. I remember I got the cash register open,
Speaker 10: I put all the money on the counter, and the
Speaker 10: guy grabbed the money and that and that's when Charlotte
Speaker 10: came out with the chips and she dropped the box
Speaker 10: and he looked at her, and I don't know, then
Speaker 10: he shot her twice real quick. It looked like in
Speaker 10: the neck, in the torso or something. There was so
Speaker 10: much blood. I just I didn't know what to do,
Speaker 10: and then the guy he pointed the gun at me.
Speaker 10: I stopped breathing. I swear to you, I was preparing
Speaker 10: myself to die. But he didn't shoot. He just ran out.
Speaker 1: Angie tells police the guy was wearing a black sweatshirt,
Speaker 1: in jeans and a black jacket. He was kind of tall,
Speaker 1: but because he had on a mask, she couldn't say
Speaker 1: much more.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 4: As Angie was giving me her statement, an officer came
Speaker 4: up to me with a horrible message. Charlotte and her
Speaker 4: unborn baby had both been pronounced dead. The last thing
Speaker 4: I wanted is a go tell Charlotte's parents and her
Speaker 4: baby were dead.
Speaker 3: God damn, I hated that part of the job.
Speaker 4: Just then I turned around and saw this young man
Speaker 4: and woman trying to cross the police tape.
Speaker 3: It turned out to be Charlotte's parents.
Speaker 1: Mary and Samuel Murphy had Charlotte when they were in
Speaker 1: high school. They're only around thirty four thirty five years old.
Speaker 1: They heard there's been a shooting at Buddies. Now they're
Speaker 1: at the scene demanding answers.
Speaker 4: This was the last way I wanted to do it,
Speaker 4: but there was no getting around it. I asked them
Speaker 4: to go sit in my car and I told them
Speaker 4: what had happened. I will never ever forget the sound
Speaker 4: of their cries, their pain.
Speaker 3: I asked them if they'd come to the station with me.
Speaker 1: At Mount Pine Police Station, the Murphy's followed Detective Wallace
Speaker 1: into interview room Wine. Today, the murphys are retired and
Speaker 1: have since left Mount Pine. They agree to share their
Speaker 1: story with me in the hope it can help others.
Speaker 11: You know, when you fall on your back and you
Speaker 11: can't catch your breath, you know, you get the wind
Speaker 11: knocked out of you. Well, that's how I felt. Maybe
Speaker 11: that's how I still feel. I remember I was just begging,
Speaker 11: begging the detective to tell me what happened. I wanted
Speaker 11: to understand what happened to our daughter.
Speaker 1: Charlotte's mother Mary does most of the talking to Detective Wallace.
Speaker 1: Her husband Samuel is just too distraught.
Speaker 4: I told them it looked like a robbery, but I
Speaker 4: had to look at all possibilities. So I wanted to
Speaker 4: know more about Charlotte and her pregnancy.
Speaker 11: I told the detective we were not happy when Charlotte
Speaker 11: got pregnant. Her life was pretty perfect before that. She
Speaker 11: was on the dance team. She'd been hoping to get
Speaker 11: a dance scholarship to college. Her dream was to move
Speaker 11: to New York and dance on Broadway. And then she
Speaker 11: started dating this guy at the end of the last
Speaker 11: school year.
Speaker 6: And once she got pregnant, it was very hard for
Speaker 6: her and us. She knew she had to give up
Speaker 6: her dream in order to have.
Speaker 11: The baby, but she decided the baby was what she
Speaker 11: wanted more than anything. And the father of her baby, well,
Speaker 11: let's just say he did not want her to have it. Nope,
Speaker 11: that was the last thing he wanted.
Speaker 1: Mary and Samuel Murphy are at Mount Pine Police talking
Speaker 1: with Detective Tom Wallace about their daughter, Charlotte, who has
Speaker 1: just been murdered during a suspected robbery at Buddy's convenience store.
Speaker 1: But the Murphys didn't just lose their eighteen year old daughter,
Speaker 1: they also lost their unborn grandchild. Here's Charlotte's mother Mary.
Speaker 11: The father, well, he didn't want her to have the
Speaker 11: baby at all.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 11: Okay, it was a real problem. But then he eventually
Speaker 11: came around and said he would help. At least he
Speaker 11: would help financially. She had baby names already picked out Brittany,
Speaker 11: Brittany if it was a girl, and Nicholas if it
Speaker 11: was a boy. I knew if Alex had anything to
Speaker 11: do with Charlotte's murder, my husband was going to kill him.
Speaker 1: The father of Charlotte's baby is eighteen year old Alex Nielsen,
Speaker 1: a foreign exchange student from Denmark. Although Detective Wallace believes
Speaker 1: it's simply a robbery gone wrong, he'll need to talk
Speaker 1: to everyone close to Charlotte. But first, the owner of
Speaker 1: Buddy's Convenience Store is at the police station. Back in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five. Buddy Wilcox, a widower, is a pillar
Speaker 1: of the community. He helped sponsor many of the high
Speaker 1: school and junior high school sports teams. He volunteers at
Speaker 1: the animal shelter, and he's kind of like the unofficial
Speaker 1: mayor of Mount Pine today. He's seventy nine.
Speaker 12: Okay, So first we lost Lisa, then Charlotte, who was
Speaker 12: shot at my store. I mean, I couldn't understand what
Speaker 12: was happening to our town.
Speaker 4: But he was very upset when I interviewed him, understandably,
Speaker 4: so I asked him if he'd been having any troubles
Speaker 4: at the store.
Speaker 12: You know, we would get choplift or something once in
Speaker 12: a while, you know, and they'd take a little lighter
Speaker 12: or maybe some slim gems, but nothing like an armed robbery.
Speaker 3: Got nothing ever like that.
Speaker 12: We didn't even have security cameras.
Speaker 3: Mountain Pine was safe, well, it was. At one time.
Speaker 3: I just kept.
Speaker 12: Thinking about Charlotte's poor parents. He was all just so
Speaker 12: incredibly tragic.
Speaker 3: My wife's since passed away. We didn't have any kids
Speaker 3: of our own. Charlotte had always been like a daughter
Speaker 3: to me. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: I told Buddy if he thought of anything that could
Speaker 4: help the investigation the police call, he.
Speaker 3: Said he would, then he left.
Speaker 4: I remember it was late at that point, like go
Speaker 4: two am, and we needed to talk to Charlotte's friends.
Speaker 4: But first we needed to start with the father of
Speaker 4: Charlotte's baby.
Speaker 1: Detective Wallace gets the name and number of Alex Nielsen's
Speaker 1: host family, Thomas and Karen Potts. They have four kids
Speaker 1: of their own. Alex is a third exchange student they've
Speaker 1: hosted over the years. Alex and the Potts arrive at
Speaker 1: the police station around two am. Detective Wallace will talk
Speaker 1: to Thomas and Karen Potts first. Today, Karen agrees to
Speaker 1: speak with me by phone from their eldest son's house
Speaker 1: in Florida.
Speaker 7: Well, it was just the most awful thing to happen.
Speaker 7: I couldn't process that Charlotte and the baby were dead,
Speaker 7: and there had been a lot of death around us.
Speaker 7: My husband's uncle died the week before in a freak
Speaker 7: hunting accident. Look, I was an am on, god fearing woman,
Speaker 7: and it made me wonder what had we in Mount
Speaker 7: Pine done to deserve all these tragedies. My husband doesn't
Speaker 7: believe this, but in that moment, I could believe that
Speaker 7: town was cursed.
Speaker 13: Maybe I still do after all these years, after all
Speaker 13: these deaths.
Speaker 4: I asked the Pots about Alex, and they both said
Speaker 4: he was a very good student. He was polite, helped
Speaker 4: with the chores around the house. They couldn't have asked
Speaker 4: for a better exchange student.
Speaker 13: But we were very upset when Charlotte got pregnant. And
Speaker 13: don't even get me started on how upset Alex's parents
Speaker 13: back in Denmark were when he told them the news.
Speaker 1: Detective Wallace tells the Pots he'll need their phone number.
Speaker 7: I wanted to know why was Alex to suspect there
Speaker 7: was no way he could have done anything to Charlotte.
Speaker 7: They were in a good place, all things can. He
Speaker 7: had been working at my husband's shoe store and would
Speaker 7: give Charlotte half of his pay for the baby. It
Speaker 7: wasn't a lot, but he was trying to help as
Speaker 7: much as he could.
Speaker 6: Oh, and he.
Speaker 7: Had an alibi. We were all at the homecoming game
Speaker 7: then went straight all right after together.
Speaker 1: Detective Wallace then brings in eighteen year old Alex.
Speaker 4: Alex was upset, but seemed to be cooperative. There was
Speaker 4: a little bit of a language barrier, but he answered
Speaker 4: all my questions. He said he wasn't thrilled about the
Speaker 4: baby at first. He said although he didn't want to
Speaker 4: be a father or raise the kid, he and Charlotte
Speaker 4: agreed that he would help with it financially, and he
Speaker 4: said he couldn't think of anyone who would want to
Speaker 4: hurt Charlotte. I told Alex and the Pots at that point,
Speaker 4: I may have more questions, but they were free to go.
Speaker 1: Just twelve hours later, it's Saturday night, and word has
Speaker 1: spread around town about what happened to Charlotte Murphy. Everyone
Speaker 1: is in shock. There's talk of canceling the homecoming dance.
Speaker 5: I didn't even want to go to the dance, and
Speaker 5: I mean I didn't want to make it about me,
Speaker 5: but from what I heard, it happened right after I
Speaker 5: left Buddies. I could have been killed that night too.
Speaker 5: I honestly felt like it was all too much.
Speaker 1: To everyone's surprise, school officials decide not to cancel the dance,
Speaker 1: my friends and I ditch our dates and hang out together.
Speaker 3: Everyone was dressed up, but no one was dancing.
Speaker 8: We wanted it to be a fun night. We wanted
Speaker 8: to be talking about winning the game, our corsages, or
Speaker 8: where we went to dinner. But all we could talk
Speaker 8: about was what happened to Charlotte. They should have canceled
Speaker 8: the dance, I mean, or at least postponed it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the dance is really weird. Then it gets even weirder.
Speaker 1: Alex walks into the gymnasium. He's at the dance, and
Speaker 1: he's not alone.
Speaker 14: I was thinking, holy shit, Alex came to the dance
Speaker 14: with a date. I mean, I think everyone thought the
Speaker 14: last place he should be is at the dance, like
Speaker 14: he should be home crying or devastated or something.
Speaker 1: And dude, he was with Ellen, eighteen year old Ellen Grover.
Speaker 1: Everyone is looking around at each other, like, what the hell?
Speaker 1: The girl is striking the type that gets discovered by
Speaker 1: a model scout. She's every high school boy's dream. You know,
Speaker 1: he was dating Ellen? How could he?
Speaker 6: She was one of Charlotte's friends.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm thinking maybe Alex and Ellen are at
Speaker 1: the dance's friends. Maybe they're consoling each other. We don't know,
Speaker 1: so how can we say, right? I mean, they aren't
Speaker 1: holding hands or anything. It's just weird Alex is there
Speaker 1: at all. I think everyone feels the same, and we're
Speaker 1: all completely fixated on them and whispering about them. And
Speaker 1: after a few songs, Alex and Ellen end up leaving.
Speaker 1: We all leave soon after.
Speaker 4: So Saturday night I was going over interviews and trying
Speaker 4: to retrace Charlotte's steps that day leading up to the shooting.
Speaker 4: Sunday morning, I heard from the coroner the cause of
Speaker 4: death was blood loss due to a severed carotid artery,
Speaker 4: and the shot to her torso killed her unborn baby,
Speaker 4: a girl. Almost immediately it was determined the weapon used
Speaker 4: was a twenty gait shotgun. Our team dusted for fingerprints,
Speaker 4: a buddy's and gout at least thirty five. I mean
Speaker 4: it was a store and people come.
Speaker 3: In and out of there all day long.
Speaker 4: There was a partial print on the counter where Angie
Speaker 4: said she put down the money.
Speaker 1: In the days that follow detectives talked to Charlotte's friends
Speaker 1: and family, including her boyfriend before Alex. They investigate all
Speaker 1: the tips that come in, but none of them seemed
Speaker 1: to go anywhere.
Speaker 4: It was two weeks after the murder. We got a
Speaker 4: call from the owner of High Stakes pawn Shop over
Speaker 4: in Summerland. It's about twelve miles down the road. He said,
Speaker 4: someone just came in who pawned a shotgun.
Speaker 3: Then someone just came in who pawned a shotgun.
Speaker 2: And because I heard about the shooting and buddies, I
Speaker 2: thought I'd call in.
Speaker 1: About thirty minutes later, Detective Wallace gets to High Stakes.
Speaker 1: He's greeted by the owner.
Speaker 4: He told me a guy came in wanting to pawn
Speaker 4: a shotgun. I asked him to show me the gun,
Speaker 4: but not to touch it. He showed me by the
Speaker 4: counter where it was emph It was a twenty gage shotgun.
Speaker 4: I asked what the guy looked like for his personal information, ID,
Speaker 4: address and phone number are required when you pawn something.
Speaker 4: The owner said he was a white guy, but couldn't
Speaker 4: remember much what he looked like. He handed me the
Speaker 4: record book. It said Jesse, but the last name was
Speaker 4: hard to read. I thought it looked like the last
Speaker 4: name started with a G, or maybe it was a C.
Speaker 4: I asked him about the surveillance video. It was a
Speaker 4: pawn shop, right, So we went in the back and
Speaker 4: he queued it up there he was at the counter.
Speaker 3: This guy might just be our killer.
Speaker 1: Detective Tom Wallace is at high stakes pawn shop reviewing
Speaker 1: security footage of the guy who may have pawned the
Speaker 1: murder weapon used to kill eighteen year old Charlotte and
Speaker 1: her unborn daughter.
Speaker 4: So I was watching this fuzzy, grainy, black and white
Speaker 4: video of the guy, and from what I could tell,
Speaker 4: he had on jeans and a plaid shirt. Thankfully, the
Speaker 4: pawnshop also had a camera outside, and in that footage
Speaker 4: I could see he arrived and left in a white
Speaker 4: Toyota and looked like a at tercell.
Speaker 1: Detective Wallace takes the video, the contact information, and the
Speaker 1: gun back to the station and runs what he has
Speaker 1: through the system. He's looking for a Jesse, last name
Speaker 1: starting with a C or G who drives a white Toyota.
Speaker 3: We got a hit. Jesse Grover, twenty.
Speaker 1: Year old Jesse Grover. He dropped out of Mount Pine
Speaker 1: High School three years before. I heard he was a
Speaker 1: burnout when he was in school. I think he also
Speaker 1: went to rehab at one point, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: So a few officers went down to his house.
Speaker 4: He was living with his parents at the time, and
Speaker 4: they asked him to come down to the stae talk
Speaker 4: about the gun he pawned.
Speaker 1: Jesse arrives at the station. He's about five to nine, dark,
Speaker 1: greasy hair. His clothes looked like he'd slept in them
Speaker 1: for weeks, and he reeks of pot. A policeman brings
Speaker 1: Jesse to interview Room three. Detective Kurt Peters helps Detective
Speaker 1: Wallace with his interview. Looking back over his notes, Detective
Speaker 1: Peters takes me back to that day.
Speaker 9: Jesse Grover looked nervous and a little out of it.
Speaker 9: I asked him where he worked. He said he didn't
Speaker 9: have a job. I don't have a job. We asked
Speaker 9: him how he spends his days.
Speaker 3: Mostly hang out.
Speaker 9: I look for work here and there. Then we told
Speaker 9: him we wanted to know more about the shotgun he
Speaker 9: pawned at high stakes. It wasn't registered in his name,
Speaker 9: where to get it, and why did he pawn it.
Speaker 9: That's when he asked, do I need an attorney? We
Speaker 9: said that was up to him. We just wanted to
Speaker 9: ask him a few more questions. He thought about it
Speaker 9: and agreed to continue. Okay, the gun was my dad's,
Speaker 9: had pondered, without him knowing.
Speaker 4: Jesse said the gun was his dad's, and he pondered
Speaker 4: without him knowing. I asked him why he needed the money.
Speaker 4: He got weird. I told him we didn't care if
Speaker 4: it was for drugs or anything like that, so he said, yes.
Speaker 9: Yes, I needed the money for weed.
Speaker 3: I spoked a lot of weed and wanted beer.
Speaker 9: I then asked him where he was that Friday night,
Speaker 9: and he abruptly ends the interview.
Speaker 3: I want my parents and a lawyer.
Speaker 9: Well, he was twenty years old, so he didn't have
Speaker 9: a right to have his parents there, but I thought, okay,
Speaker 9: maybe maybe they would talk him into talking to us.
Speaker 9: So Jesse's parents arrived in about an hour with an
Speaker 9: attorney Intel, and as soon as Jesse saw his dad,
Speaker 9: he broke down.
Speaker 4: He then said these words and it was odd. He
Speaker 4: said she made me and I was like, who made
Speaker 4: you do what?
Speaker 9: The attorney piped up this interview was over and told
Speaker 9: Jesse to stop talking, but he didn't.
Speaker 4: He said he couldn't keep it in any longer. He
Speaker 4: was dying inside and he was sick and not strong enough.
Speaker 4: I asked him what he was talking about. Then he
Speaker 4: started sobbing. He said, she made me do it. She
Speaker 4: told me it would be a good way to get money.
Speaker 4: She told me to scare her and maybe she'd miscarry.
Speaker 3: He was sobbing. At this point I got freaked out.
Speaker 3: It just shot.
Speaker 9: It was an accident. We asked him who he was
Speaker 9: talking about. Who told him to do it? Did Charlotte
Speaker 9: want to Misscary? He said Ellen. Ellen made me do
Speaker 9: it because of Alex. They were dating and she didn't
Speaker 9: want Charlotte to have his baby. She didn't want me
Speaker 9: to shoot her. There was an accident, I swear.
Speaker 3: I asked him who is Ellen, and he yelled out
Speaker 3: my sister.
Speaker 9: Well the room erupted. Jesse was fine, His parents was
Speaker 9: speechless and confused. The lawyer was trying to get everyone
Speaker 9: to shut up.
Speaker 3: In the middle of all this chaos.
Speaker 4: I asked him if Alex knew about any of this,
Speaker 4: and he said he didn't know, so we needed to
Speaker 4: find Ellen and Alex.
Speaker 3: I think it was a Tuesday.
Speaker 4: In any case, it was a school day, so that's
Speaker 4: where they were supposed to be.
Speaker 1: About twenty minutes later, police descend on Mount Pine High School.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing them pull up, unmarked cars and patrol cars.
Speaker 1: It was like a movie. In the main office, police
Speaker 1: learn Alex is in study hall and Ellen is in Spanish.
Speaker 4: Officers split up and went to their classrooms at the
Speaker 4: same time. They got Alex, cuffed him and put him
Speaker 4: in the back of the police cruiser.
Speaker 3: But when they went to get Ellen, she wasn't in
Speaker 3: Spanish class.
Speaker 1: We're obviously all freaking out looking through that little window
Speaker 1: in the classroom door, trying to see anything we could.
Speaker 1: The teacher is telling us to get back to our.
Speaker 6: Seats, get back in your seats.
Speaker 1: Cops are running through the school, going room to room.
Speaker 1: It was insane.
Speaker 4: After about ten minutes, we found Ellen in the home
Speaker 4: neck room, just sitting there one of the sewing machines.
Speaker 4: We read her rights, placed her under arrest and put
Speaker 4: her in another police car.
Speaker 9: There were so many people in the station we had
Speaker 9: almost every interview room in use.
Speaker 1: Detective Peter stays with Jesse and his parents to wait
Speaker 1: for Alex's host parents, the pots.
Speaker 9: Jesse wasn't room with his parents in their attorney. Then
Speaker 9: when Ellen arrived, she was brought into another interview room,
Speaker 9: and because she was a minor, her parents and attorney
Speaker 9: left Jesse and went to her.
Speaker 4: That's when we were informed Ellen would not be answering
Speaker 4: any questions.
Speaker 9: And we had Alex an interview room two with his
Speaker 9: host parents, Karen and Thomas Potts. It was chaotic. Host
Speaker 9: mom Karen talks.
Speaker 7: I told the detective. We called Alex's parents in Denmark
Speaker 7: and they advised us to tell police he wouldn't be
Speaker 7: answering any questions until they arrived in the States. But
Speaker 7: they wanted detectives to know that Alex was innocent, he
Speaker 7: wouldn't do anything to hurt Charlotte or the baby.
Speaker 4: We took that with a grain of salt. I mean,
Speaker 4: what did Alex's parents had Denmark know. They didn't even
Speaker 4: know their kid got I'm girl pregnant. At this point,
Speaker 4: we were pretty sure of Ellen and her brother Jesse's involvement,
Speaker 4: but Alex's role, if any, was not as clear. Because
Speaker 4: he was not a US citizen, had a passport, and
Speaker 4: was a flight risk.
Speaker 3: We kept him on a forty eight hour hold.
Speaker 1: Jesse Grover is arrested and booked on a felony murder charge.
Speaker 1: That's because Charlotte was killed during the commission of the
Speaker 1: armed robbery, which is a felony, and he's held without bail.
Speaker 1: Police decide to hold Ellen for forty eight hours, hoping
Speaker 1: that buys them time to find more evidence they can
Speaker 1: use to formally arrest her as an accessory.
Speaker 9: So a few hours later we get a call. During
Speaker 9: Ellen's medical evaluation, we learned she too was four months pregnant.
Speaker 9: Was stunned. I didn't see that coming. That made me
Speaker 9: think about what her brother, Jesse said that she wanted
Speaker 9: him to scare Charlotte so she would miscarry. She didn't
Speaker 9: want Charlotte to have Alex's baby because she was having
Speaker 9: Alex six's baby. She was jealous. That pointed the motive.
Speaker 1: Late the next night, Alex Nielsen's parents arrive in the
Speaker 1: States and they come with news the government of Denmark
Speaker 1: can't do anything to keep their son from being charged
Speaker 1: with a crime and going to trial in the United States.
Speaker 1: The following morning, Alex's lawyers encourage him to speak with
Speaker 1: the police.
Speaker 3: So we got word that Alex wanted to talk, and
Speaker 3: he did.
Speaker 4: He told us everything he knew, like how upset Ellen
Speaker 4: was that she and Charlotte were both having his babies,
Speaker 4: and how Ellen was obsessed with coming up with way
Speaker 4: as Charlotte could carry, but he never took her seriously.
Speaker 4: He offered to take a polygraph test, which he passed.
Speaker 1: The DA decides not to charge Alex with anything, but
Speaker 1: they charge eighteen year old Ellen Grover with felony murder, conspiracy,
Speaker 1: and various weapons charges, and Ellen, like her brother Jesse,
Speaker 1: will be held without bail. Almost one year later, the
Speaker 1: trial begins. Ellen Grover and her brother Jesse Grover will
Speaker 1: be tried together. After five days of testimony and one
Speaker 1: day of deliberations, the jury returns with their verdicts. For
Speaker 1: Jesse guilty, He's sentenced to life with the possibility of
Speaker 1: parole after twenty five years, and for Ellen, also guilty,
Speaker 1: sentenced to life with the possibility of role after twenty
Speaker 1: five years. Everyone in town is relieved when the trial
Speaker 1: is over. But that's the only relief anyone feels.
Speaker 3: All these lives destroyed, and for what Because of some deranged,
Speaker 3: jealous young girl.
Speaker 1: Angie the cashier that night, could never bring herself to
Speaker 1: work in a store again. Today she's a private dog trainer.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 10: I was so glad that jury came back with guilty verdicts.
Speaker 10: But I'll tell you that was never going to bring
Speaker 10: back that poor sweet girl. And I will never be
Speaker 10: able to get that gruesome image out of my head.
Speaker 11: I never got to see my little girl as a mom.
Speaker 11: I never got to meet my granddaughter. Oh maybe she
Speaker 11: would have grown up to be a beautiful.
Speaker 6: Dancer just like herm.
Speaker 11: And let us not forget that there was another baby
Speaker 11: who was collateral damage in all of this.
Speaker 1: The trial is over, the healing can begin. Alex Nielsen
Speaker 1: and his parents fly home to Denmark and he never
Speaker 1: returns to the US again. But the tragedies in Mount
Speaker 1: Pine don't leave with them.
Speaker 8: I used to think all these murders were a coincidence
Speaker 8: or bad luck, you know, I mean, bad things happen
Speaker 8: all the time in places like Mount Pine, but there
Speaker 8: were just too many.
Speaker 3: I changed my mind.
Speaker 1: Next time on The Murder Years.
Speaker 13: Nine one one.
Speaker 7: What's your emergency?
Speaker 6: Oh my god, my daughter, she's gone.
Speaker 1: A Valentine's Day turns tragic.
Speaker 11: I asked him if I could come in and ask
Speaker 11: him some questions, but he told me, in no uncertain terms, no,
Speaker 11: without a search warrant, I couldn't come in.
Speaker 1: Who killed Victoria?
Speaker 3: I've never done anything to wood child, any child. I
Speaker 3: never did anything to her.
Speaker 1: The Murder Years is a production of AYR Media and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: Executive producer Elisa Rosen for AYR Media, co Executive producer
Speaker 1: Paulina Williams. Written by Leah Rothman, directed by Michael Seltich.
Speaker 1: Original concept developed in partnership with Anne, Margaret Johns and
Speaker 1: Greg Spring. Casting by Eisenberg Beans Casting Senior Associate producer
Speaker 1: Eric Newman, Associate producer Jill Pushesnik. Editing and sound design
Speaker 1: by Tristan Bankston, Mastering by Cameron Taggie, Audio engineering by
Speaker 1: Matt Jacobson, Studio engineering by Jay Brannan. Music by Nathan Bankston.
Speaker 1: Legal counsel for AYRS Gianni Douglas, Executive producer for iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: Maya Howard. Performances for this episode by Gabrielle Carteris as
Speaker 1: Nancy Clark, Kelly Deadman as Tatiana, or La Cassidy as Melanie,
Speaker 1: Maricilda Garcia as Carla, Annie Abbott as Mary Murphy, April
Speaker 1: Adams is Karen Potts, Charles Carroll as Buddy Wilcox, Charles
Speaker 1: Carroll as Prosecutor Blythe Dathan B. Williams as Detective Peters.
Speaker 1: Desiree Rodriguez is nine one one, Operator H. Richard Greene
Speaker 1: as Detective Wallace, James B. Kennedy as Young Principal Palumbo,
Speaker 1: Julie Frankel as Angie Foster, Steve Felice as Lance Simpson,
Speaker 1: Tamil Adams as young Anngie Foster. Additional voices by Sarah
Speaker 1: Zuk and Alex Salem