Could Angela Prichard Have Been Saved?

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Speaker 2 My mom was calling the cops almost on a regular basis.

Speaker 2 Nothing. Nothing was done.

Speaker 3 She was terrified.

Speaker 5 He's calling her every vile name he can think of. Sitting outside of her house, stalking her.

Speaker 2 She had found something in her Jeep, a tracking device. She had found cameras inside the house.

Speaker 7 He has no idea what I go through every single day with him.

Speaker 7 No idea.

Speaker 7 I remember her saying, I don't know what else to do. I don't know where else to turn.

Speaker 7 It's been getting worse and it's been getting worse. I don't want him anywhere near me.

Speaker 8 You're describing a life lived in fear. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Every time she was out of my sight, I was so scared for her.

Speaker 8 I know this is going to be difficult for you.

Speaker 6 Take me back to October 8th.

Speaker 8 When did you realize something wasn't right?

Speaker 7 She left the house that day at 20 after 7.

Speaker 7 Ange was working at the kennels. I texted Ange a quick note.
I didn't get a response.

Speaker 7 Then the sirens went off in town.

Speaker 10 Law 721.

Speaker 10 21.

Speaker 10 I'm approaching the kennel now. I do see one vehicle out front, one vehicle.

Speaker 7 And living in a small town, you're always kind of nosy and want to know what's going on.

Speaker 10 How far out is my assistant?

Speaker 7 I got on my phone.

Speaker 10 I don't like this.

Speaker 7 And I looked, and it said

Speaker 7 Mississippi Ridge boarding kennels. Shots fired.

Speaker 7 Hello!

Speaker 9 And I

Speaker 7 immediately was hysterical.

Speaker 6 Angie!

Speaker 7 Because Angela Pritchard was my sister.

Speaker 7 Angie!

Speaker 7 What do we got?

Speaker 10 I don't know what we got here, but it said possible shots fired.

Speaker 7 We actually got behind an ambulance on the way up there.

Speaker 10 Law Center 21, we are going to enter the building.

Speaker 10 Law Center 21, we got

Speaker 10 Lady Down, Lady Down.

Speaker 7 And I got out of the car.

Speaker 10 Seeing clear, seeing clear.

Speaker 7 I went running.

Speaker 9 Down the hill.

Speaker 7 There was police officers there.

Speaker 7 And I remember walking up to them. And I said, is she alive?

Speaker 7 And they said, no.

Speaker 7 I immediately fell to the ground and I remember saying something like, I knew something like this was going to happen.

Speaker 7 I knew it was. I knew it was.

Speaker 10 Boss said to make sure you get it now. Points out for a suspect.

Speaker 4 You leave no rock unturned.

Speaker 4 You leave no building unchecked.

Speaker 3 Obviously, we're going to throw every resource that we have at our disposal to apprehending him.

Speaker 11 There was a knock on the door. Isaacs, I'm not answering the door.
He has a gun.

Speaker 12 Jonathan Vigliotti reports, could Angela be saved?

Speaker 6 On the morning of October 8th, 2022, the serene Mississippi River town of Bellevue, Iowa, population about 2,500, woke up to a calamity.

Speaker 6 News of an apparent homicide, the first in nearly a decade.

Speaker 6 Dozens of investigators from six different law enforcement agencies were combing the crime scene at the Mississippi Ridge boarding kennels with body cameras rolling.

Speaker 6 The woman who ran the kennels, Angela Pritchard, 55, had been gunned down.

Speaker 7 He knew how to get in the front door.

Speaker 6 Her sister, Wendy Buddy, believed she knew who was responsible. Angela's husband, Chris Pritchard.

Speaker 8 In that moment, did you know it was Chris?

Speaker 7 100%.

Speaker 7 100%.

Speaker 7 I knew it was him.

Speaker 6 Wendy says Angela had been trying to leave him for months and lived in fear he would kill her.

Speaker 3 This appeared to be an assailant that knew her very well.

Speaker 6 Ryan Kedley and Dustin Henningson are special agents with Iowa's DCI, the Department of Criminal Investigation. Bellevue's small police force with just several officers

Speaker 6 invited the state police to lead the investigation. While Angela's family was convinced Chris Pritchard was the killer, the special agents had to connect all the dots.

Speaker 4 We had received word that there was a 911 call in the morning.

Speaker 8 Tell me about that 911 call.

Speaker 6 911, where's your emergency?

Speaker 4 It's essentially that you're listening to the end of her life on the 911 call. Please, get out of here.

Speaker 9 I have customers coming in.

Speaker 9 911.

Speaker 9 Please get out of here. Okay, where are you at?

Speaker 6 Those were the last words spoken by Angela and the first clue investigators had to identify her killer.

Speaker 8 She says the name Chris on this call.

Speaker 13 Who is Chris?

Speaker 3 Chris Pritchard, her estranged husband. Ma'am, where are you at?

Speaker 4 As the dispatcher continues to ask, what's your emergency, you can faintly hear somebody say.

Speaker 8 When you listen to this 911 call, how do you process what you were hearing?

Speaker 3 On a personal level, it's a very difficult thing to listen to someone's end-of-life moments. On an investigative level, that was a pivotal piece of evidence in the opening stages of the investigation.

Speaker 10 You guys turned ahead.

Speaker 4 It was a very violent scene.

Speaker 3 Passing by the kennel door on the right, and this is the area where we initially get a first-hand glimpse of Angela's deceased body here on the floor.

Speaker 6 Pools of morning light illuminated pools of blood surrounding her body. Angela was lying face down in the kennel's washroom where she bathed the dogs.

Speaker 2 If I photograph, as I

Speaker 3 photographed the scene, she has a very large, significant gunshot wound to the chest.

Speaker 8 At close range.

Speaker 3 At, I would say, very close range. There has to have been some very, very high emotions involved in that.

Speaker 6 You have Angela Pritchard deceased here.

Speaker 8 You have Chris Pritchard, a person of interest, nowhere to be found.

Speaker 5 How do you track him down?

Speaker 6 The special agents spotted a barely visible blood trail.

Speaker 3 Leading out of this room and then into the dog kennel area through this door.

Speaker 3 We believe our assailant traveled from that area through here, left some blood evidence, and then likely went out this door directly in front of us.

Speaker 3 We're certainly trying to keep an open mind and determine that, okay, if Chris didn't do this, well then who did?

Speaker 6 Digging into Chris Pritchard's life, the special agents soon learned about his volatile history with Angela, which included violence and violations of a restraining order.

Speaker 3 But at this point, all of the information seems to be consistent with Chris being the guy that we need to locate.

Speaker 4 As we continue to work the investigation, we began to establish our timeline.

Speaker 8 Some of the first video that places him on this property comes from this home over here. here? That's correct.

Speaker 6 Investigators reviewed the footage starting at midnight, the day of the shooting. For hours, there was nothing to see.

Speaker 6 But just after 4 a.m.,

Speaker 6 there was something to hear.

Speaker 4 You can hear dogs start to bark. We had determined that was most likely the point at when he arrived at the kennels.

Speaker 6 Henningson believes Chris Pritchard entered the kennels and lay in wait for nearly four hours.

Speaker 4 The first video that they really got was Angela coming down to work in the morning.

Speaker 14 And right up here, you're going to see Angela start to pull down to the entrance at the Mississippi Bridge Boarding Kennels.

Speaker 4 Pulling up to the kennel at 7.34,

Speaker 4 you can see her get out of her vehicle and she's gathering her belongings and then walking into the kennel itself.

Speaker 6 Angela Pritchard had less than six minutes to live.

Speaker 4 At 7.39 and 43 seconds, we hear a gunshot go off in the video.

Speaker 8 At any point, do you clearly see Chris on any of the surveillance cameras?

Speaker 4 Yes, we believe we see him leaving.

Speaker 6 About two minutes after the gunshot, at 7.41, the man they now suspected to be her killer, Chris Pritchard, appeared.

Speaker 4 Actually walking from the kennel area down to the fence area here behind me. That makes us believe that this is the first area that we need to check.

Speaker 6 Outside the kennels, miles of thick woods stretch to the horizon, an area the northeastern Iowa locals call the wilderness. It was rugged terrain.
Chris Pritchard knew well, says Wendy.

Speaker 7 He knows the outdoors. I knew that he could probably survive out there for quite a while in hiding.

Speaker 4 We have every resource at our disposal to try and do this manhunt.

Speaker 4 We have canines, we have airplanes, we have drones.

Speaker 8 This is your worst nightmare.

Speaker 9 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8 Everything you've been trying to prevent come true.

Speaker 7 Everything I've been trying so hard to protect her and to keep her safe. And

Speaker 7 he got her. He got to her.

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Speaker 3 So you've got a fugitive out there on the run, potentially armed.

Speaker 6 The manhunt for Chris Pritchard was widening.

Speaker 4 There's hundreds of acres here of farmland and woods, and we have the Mississippi River not far away. So knowing that he could have went any direction really makes the search difficult.

Speaker 6 Fanning out from the kennels, heavily armed officers search nearby neighborhoods, neighborhoods, house to house.

Speaker 18 You guys know Chris Pritchard, don't you?

Speaker 6 Barn to barn.

Speaker 18 Is that the grand they're looking for? Right there, Chris Pritchard.

Speaker 10 Has he been known to come out here every once in a while? Yeah, I haven't seen him, though.

Speaker 8 Angela was a mother and a grandmother. She was.
What kind of mother and grandmother was she?

Speaker 7 I don't know that you would find somebody better than her.

Speaker 7 You hear a lot of people say, people put their kids in front of themselves. That was truly her.

Speaker 6 Angela Pritchard's world revolved around family, especially her two sons and six grandchildren.

Speaker 7 They were the loves of her life, her kids and her grandkids. Look at how bright we are.

Speaker 6 And with almost equal billing, Angela's five huskies.

Speaker 7 She always was an animal lover.

Speaker 6 Angela's sons, Josh Close and C.J. Hancock.

Speaker 2 She was beautiful inside and out. She liked to make everybody happy, especially her family.

Speaker 7 She loved you so much, yeah.

Speaker 2 She loved to spoil the grandkids rotten. They could do no wrong in her eyes.

Speaker 13 She loved doing arts and crafts. She still decorated her tree with the ones we made when we were kids.

Speaker 6 And making memories with their mom later in life was Chris Pritchard, the very man investigators were now chasing.

Speaker 6 Wendy Buddy and her husband Jim had known Pritchard for years.

Speaker 7 I would have trusted him with our children. He was nice, friendly, sincere, a hard worker, fun to be around.

Speaker 6 Pritchard, a longtime Bellevue resident, was an established electrician in town. Soon, Angela found her calling

Speaker 7 to be a kennel owner, to do something with animals. I was thrilled for her.
It really seemed like everything was falling into place.

Speaker 6 After dating for nearly two years, they moved into this Bellevue home and even got married here in March 2019. The newlyweds were over the moon for about eight months.

Speaker 8 When did things change?

Speaker 7 I truly think that things started to change when he lost his job. He got fired.

Speaker 6 Fired, and charged with first-degree theft, a felony. After he allegedly stole $36,000 worth of supplies from the electric company where he worked.

Speaker 7 She was just beside herself. What are we going to do now? We need that income.

Speaker 6 Awaiting trial, Pritchard was out on bail and out of work, says Wendy.

Speaker 7 He wasn't looking for work. He was definitely drinking more.
As the months went on, it just was like, wow, he's really kind of changing.

Speaker 6 Pritchard finally took some odd jobs and helped Angela at the kennels. But in the summer of 2021, Wendy says Angela discovered her husband was using methamphetamine.

Speaker 7 And then I knew that things are

Speaker 7 really getting bad.

Speaker 6 The simmering tension reached a boiling point on April 18th, 2022.

Speaker 7 She said Chris hit me.

Speaker 2 She said he's drunk, he's on drugs.

Speaker 4 So I told her, we're going to call the cops.

Speaker 6 Bellevue Police responded. The call recorded on police body cam.

Speaker 9 He hit me and I just

Speaker 9 I came to the house.

Speaker 7 She was crying. She was visibly shaking.

Speaker 7 She had a mark on her face and she said, I'm so scared.

Speaker 6 Police didn't have to go far to find Pritchard. He was in the garage.

Speaker 18 State of IRO law requires that somebody go to jail and physically domestic.

Speaker 10 I can't believe I'm going to jail. Well, she got a mark on her face.

Speaker 6 Chris Pritchard was arrested and charged with domestic assault.

Speaker 7 He's very, very, very messed up when he is.

Speaker 7 We've seen him change right in front of our eyes, haven't we?

Speaker 6 Chris spent the night in jail and was released awaiting trial staying with family. Angela sought and received a temporary no-contact order.

Speaker 7 So he can't come back here.

Speaker 10 Nope.

Speaker 8 The no-contact order now exists protecting your sister.

Speaker 14 But a few weeks later, it's lifted.

Speaker 7 Even after it happened, she said, I don't want this. I want our marriage to work.

Speaker 6 Each had been married before, but had hoped this would be their last marriage, says Wendy. Angela withdrew the no-contact order.

Speaker 7 I believe he said everything that needed to be said for her to drop that order. The drinking will stop.
He will be home more.

Speaker 6 Promises he failed to keep, says Wendy.

Speaker 7 She said, I'm scared of him, especially if he's been drinking.

Speaker 6 Wendy says Angelo was furious when she found a tracking device in her car and two hidden cameras in the house.

Speaker 7 I told her, you need to get a divorce. You need to be done with this, Angela.

Speaker 6 Chris Pritchard seemed to have vanished in the vast wilderness. Even the police dogs had lost his scent, says Dustin Henningson.

Speaker 8 How do you find somebody that doesn't want to be caught?

Speaker 4 This is where our local resources really help us.

Speaker 6 Right from the start, Henningsen had corralled state and local law enforcement agencies, even farmers and hunters, to help determine where he might be.

Speaker 8 I'll let you know if I see anything or hear anything.

Speaker 4 If we thought that Chris was going to make his way, say, back to Bellevue, what's the most likely path where are his friends at

Speaker 6 it's a small town everybody talks

Speaker 6 cattle farmer jeff junk and girlfriend kim klein were once close friends with chris pritchard neighbors called them about the rumor racing through town pritchard had shot his wife angela get out of here i i didn't believe it A Jackson County chief deputy stopped by Junk's house to warn them.

Speaker 6 Pritchard was on the run and might be looking for help from his friends.

Speaker 6 Then there was a knock on the door.

Speaker 6 The knock on the front door, the one they'll always remember, came around 8.15 that October night, Kim Klein says. She and boyfriend Jeff Junk were not expecting company.

Speaker 11 When the second knock happened, I says, I believe it's Chris.

Speaker 11 And you need to answer the door.

Speaker 8 So you open the door and what is it that you see on the other side?

Speaker 5 I see Chris.

Speaker 6 Chris Pritchard, their old friend, now a hunted fugitive suspected of murder, was standing in the dim light holding a shotgun.

Speaker 11 Jeff goes, you need to hand that gun to me.

Speaker 9 And he did, no problem.

Speaker 6 Jeff and Kim knew they had to call the police but until they could do that safely kim says they were playing along

Speaker 6 chris told them he'd been running all day from the cops and their dogs jeff said hey dude you you know you shot your wife oh yeah how's she doing the couple told him angela was dead did he express any remorse no Nothing.

Speaker 13 Nothing.

Speaker 11 He was sitting here laughing and drinking and they were talking about old times.

Speaker 6 The moment felt so surreal, Kim says. She snapped a photo.

Speaker 11 Just to show that, no, he wasn't having any remorse. He never talked about her the rest of the night.
And then I took the one when he was passed out.

Speaker 6 And the time was finally right, says Jeff, to text the chief deputy who had stopped by earlier.

Speaker 5 I said, he's up here and he is passed out.

Speaker 6 Come get him.

Speaker 6 When police arrived around midnight, Chris was still in the lazy boy chair, out cold.

Speaker 4 He didn't know what was coming.

Speaker 20 What the f ⁇ is wrong with you guys?

Speaker 16 He says, Christ, I was sleeping a lot.

Speaker 3 He's verbally belligerent to officers that have arrested him.

Speaker 22 Looks like he's got a cut to his left thumb.

Speaker 6 Special Agent Henningsen collected the evidence Chris Pritchard had left behind, a 20-gauge shotgun. and his torn clothes.

Speaker 3 He took Angela's possessions, money, a cell phone with him.

Speaker 10 I think we're good to go in then.

Speaker 6 Special Agent Kedley escorted Pritchard to the Jackson County Jail.

Speaker 18 Do you want your seatbelt, Chris?

Speaker 10 I want a bullet in the head.

Speaker 6 Shortly after 1 a.m. on October 9th,

Speaker 6 a despondent Chris Pritchard was booked into the county jail,

Speaker 6 eventually charged with first-degree murder and robbery.

Speaker 6 After hours on the run through Iowa's wilderness, I'm going to have you look right at me, okay?

Speaker 6 Pritchard found himself surrounded by concrete and steel, largely put there by the weight of a single word.

Speaker 6 Wendy says the day Pritchard ended her sister's life followed months of increasingly erratic behavior and escalating rage, which Angela had documented.

Speaker 8 Tell me about this journal and her words that lived on.

Speaker 7 She was the sticky note queen.

Speaker 6 Dozens of Angela's brightly colored sticky notes told a dark story. The scribbled entries became Angela's diary of domestic abuse.

Speaker 7 August 23rd, text message, calling me names, saying it's going to get real ugly. He's been stalking me and watching me.
Very scared of him. I think Chris is capable of anything.

Speaker 7 Booze and drugs every day. Said he doesn't give a f ⁇ if he goes to jail.
Always looking over my shoulder to see if he's around.

Speaker 7 Her words to me are, I'm done. This is it.
We're not living in the same house.

Speaker 6 Wendy invited her sister to move in with her. Angela gratefully agreed.

Speaker 7 I was like, you have a shadow now because I'm not leaving.

Speaker 7 You're stuck with me.

Speaker 16 The next day, Angela requested a second temporary no contact order granted September 1st, 2022.

Speaker 14 A no-contact order means just that, no contact of any kind with the protected person.

Speaker 16 In the state of Iowa, a single violation requires a mandatory arrest.

Speaker 8 But that doesn't stop Chris.

Speaker 10 No.

Speaker 2 Once that second no contact order got put in place, I would say that's when things went really downhill.

Speaker 6 And it was in place when Angela went back to the home she once shared with Chris Pritchard to pick up a few things, says Wendy.

Speaker 7 I was with her.

Speaker 8 You were with her along with police.

Speaker 6 The Bellevue police were there just in case Pritchard showed up. The court had ordered him to move out temporarily.

Speaker 7 We walked in the front door. The house was

Speaker 7 destroyed.

Speaker 7 There was ink and paint thrown everywhere.

Speaker 3 Picture frames broken.

Speaker 7 Furniture was destroyed. He had actually taken the mattress off her bed and rubbed it in dog feces.

Speaker 13 Guns? And he placed them all over the house to intimidate her.

Speaker 7 I mean, we both just started crying.

Speaker 8 This is in clear violation of the restraining order.

Speaker 6 What did the police do?

Speaker 7 The police said there's nothing we can do. This is his house.

Speaker 6 Nothing we can do is what they say to you.

Speaker 6 This is his house as well under iowa law with a no contact order in place bellevue police should have taken pritchard's guns but for reasons unknown he was allowed to keep them wendy and angela's sons say throughout september the frightening violations continued not physical assault but psychological terror sitting outside of her house following her texting her stalking her going and cutting the grass at the kennels while she wasn't there.

Speaker 6 Bellevue police arrested Pritchard just once on September 15th for sending Angela a text message, another violation of the no contact order. He spent one night behind bars before posting bail.

Speaker 6 The next day, says Wendy, he resumed his flurry of offenses.

Speaker 7 He had been driving by her house multiple times.

Speaker 6 One night, says Wendy, Pritchard drove by six times in one hour.

Speaker 7 I don't feel safe anymore anywhere. My sister's, my house, my sons,

Speaker 7 stores in town.

Speaker 8 You have a ticking time bomb on your hands.

Speaker 7 Yeah, but pretty much, and that's what it felt like.

Speaker 6 But instead of making arrests, the Bellevue police were making excuses, St. Angeles Sons, for not enforcing the law.

Speaker 2 They said that they'd tell him to knock it off or have a talk with him.

Speaker 2 Nothing, nothing was done.

Speaker 3 And she was terrified.

Speaker 8 You're reaching out to police. They're not doing anything.
Are you running out of hope here?

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 7 What do you do when nobody's willing to help you? I fear for my safety, fear for my life.

Speaker 7 He has guns.

Speaker 7 The fear, it consumed our life.

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Speaker 6 It was 5 a.m. at the Jackson County Jail.

Speaker 6 21 hours after Angela was found dead, Chris Pritchard waived his Miranda rights and talked about the encounter at the dog kennels with special agents Dustin Henningsen and Ryan Kedley.

Speaker 25 She said, you gotta leave. You gotta leave now or I'm gonna call the police.

Speaker 6 I said, I just want to talk. And she she shoved me and I hit the cabinet.

Speaker 6 The gun, I don't know what the gun hit, but it went off.

Speaker 6 So in so many words, he says, I shot Angela.

Speaker 8 It was an accident.

Speaker 3 Essentially, yes.

Speaker 8 Are you believing any of this? No.

Speaker 3 I'm only believing the fact that he shot Angela.

Speaker 6 Pritchard pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and robbery charges. His trial began February 7th, 2024.

Speaker 21 We believed that Mr. Pritchard planned this all out and very meticulously, for that matter.

Speaker 6 To prove premeditated murder, prosecutors Nicole Leonard and John Keyes told jurors Pritchard put his plan in motion on October 7th, 2022, the day before he shot his wife.

Speaker 6 The same day Angela's temporary restraining order became permanent.

Speaker 21 We believe that that was sort of the snapping point for the defendant. He became more and more obsessed with the situation and not letting her go.

Speaker 20 She wanted to drag me through the mud and make me a monster.

Speaker 6 Before taking Angela's life, Chris Pritchard took steps to cover his tracks, say the prosecutors. He borrowed this white pickup truck to avoid using his own vehicle.

Speaker 4 So what we think was he was setting up an alibi?

Speaker 6 Prosecutors say Pritchard secretly parked the borrowed truck inside a barn belonging to Lori and Mike Blazer, just a few miles from the Mississippi Ridge boarding kennels.

Speaker 8 We walk in, you know, notice this white pickup truck.

Speaker 6 With a note from Chris Pritchard saying he had gone hunting. Keys are on the truck if you need to move it.
I'll be back. Chris.

Speaker 11 We knew Chris.

Speaker 26 He would tell us how much he loved Angela, how devastated he was that there was a restraining order.

Speaker 6 The Blazers would soon become crucial witnesses for the prosecution. Shortly after finding the truck and note, they heard the news about a shooting at the dog kennels.

Speaker 26 We knew the minute that there was a shooting at the kennel, something had happened with Chris.

Speaker 26 We were concerned that this was a getaway vehicle for him in here because it was just so odd. It had no reason to be here.

Speaker 26 I called 911 immediately.

Speaker 26 I see you guys are looking for Chris Pritchard. Yes.

Speaker 7 His truck is in our garage.

Speaker 20 Let's just get this cleared cleared first.

Speaker 26 It was very intense because at that point, he was still missing.

Speaker 26 And we were scared to death.

Speaker 20 Clearing here, Jim.

Speaker 6 Prosecutors later viewed home surveillance footage from a camera on the Blazers' property showing Chris Pritchard entering the barn where the Blazers kept their horse trailer.

Speaker 26 The minute we came in the door, I knew that Chris Pritchard had spent some time in here. He certainly made himself at home here.

Speaker 6 Pritchard left the horse trailer in the middle of the night, hiking through the dense woods to the kennels, says prosecutor Leonard.

Speaker 21 We believe his next appearance is around 4 a.m. on October 8th at the dog kennels, in which the dogs start to go crazy.

Speaker 8 And you believe from that point forward, he's inside the kennel.

Speaker 19 Correct.

Speaker 4 I think he always had the plan to murder her.

Speaker 6 To prove it, the prosecutors played audio clips from Pritchard's police interviews for the jury.

Speaker 18 You show up at a place where you know she's going to be. You've got a gun with her.
You know you've got a no-contact order.

Speaker 18 An argument breaks out. She calls 911.
She winds up dead.

Speaker 18 This wasn't just some accident.

Speaker 4 If this was an accident, why are you taking her cell phone, which is her only means of survival? Why aren't you calling for help yourself? Why aren't you rendering any type of aid for your wife?

Speaker 6 And Pritchard kept adding details to the story of the accidental shooting, say the special agents.

Speaker 4 The gun was leaning up against the cupboards. He went to retrieve a backpack and it fell, and then that went off and shot her.

Speaker 6 But at trial, an Iowa State medical examiner testified the gunshot had a downward trajectory, meaning Pritchard had the weapon in his hands and was standing when he fired, say prosecutors.

Speaker 25 And it looked like if you hit her in the arm, how would you die from that?

Speaker 6 Angela was shot dead center in the chest, testified the medical examiner, and died in seconds.

Speaker 20 I would have loved to have stuck around, but

Speaker 25 Angie and her temper, I thought maybe it didn't even really hit her that bad because she was yelling at me like she wasn't even hurt.

Speaker 3 The fact that he's saying that after the gun went off and it struck her that she's yelling profanities back at him. Well, we have a 911 recording of that conversation.
That did not take place.

Speaker 6 Prosecutors say Chris Pritchard's last words on the 911 call prove his actions were premeditated. A final explosion of violence.

Speaker 21 When you hear his statement, standing over her dying body on that 911 call using profanity.

Speaker 14 You definitely don't say what he said at the end of the phone call after you accidentally shoot someone.

Speaker 6 Pritchard's defense attorneys, who declined our request for an interview, maintained the shooting was accidental and the case against Pritchard was a rush to judgment.

Speaker 6 After four days of testimony, the case went to the jury.

Speaker 7 We were outside the courthouse just kind of stretching and, you know, the jury's back.

Speaker 6 This man was also waiting for the verdict and already preparing for another trial-a federal lawsuit against the Bellevue Police Department. It failed, Angela, he says, time and time again.

Speaker 6 If police took action, would Angela be alive today?

Speaker 3 Absolutely.

Speaker 6 In February 2024, 16 months after Angela's death,

Speaker 6 her family's wait for a measure of justice was over.

Speaker 7 That's got to be a good sign that they're back in less than an hour.

Speaker 6 The jury found Chris Pritchard guilty of first-degree murder and robbery.

Speaker 7 When they said it, it was just

Speaker 7 a big sigh of relief.

Speaker 6 In March, Pritchard was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Speaker 7 It will never bring her back,

Speaker 9 but

Speaker 7 he's going to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Speaker 7 I also gave a victim impact statement and I said to him, I hope while you're behind bars, you always have to look over your shoulder and be scared for everything you do. How she felt, I hope you just

Speaker 7 a tiny bit of that. The way you tortured her.

Speaker 6 Civil rights attorney Dave O'Brien represents Angela Pritchard's family. She would be alive today, he says, if the Bellevue Police Department had enforced a judge's order of protection.

Speaker 8 You filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Bellevue and three officers.

Speaker 9 Why?

Speaker 5 Because they didn't do their job. And

Speaker 5 it's that simple.

Speaker 6 That lawsuit lists multiple failures to arrest Chris Pritchard.

Speaker 6 O'Brien says this led to what's called a state-created danger, meaning the officer's alleged inaction and indifference actually increased the threat to Angela Pritchard.

Speaker 8 Can a police officer decide, should I arrest him or not? Is that up to their discretion?

Speaker 5 Absolutely not. Here in Iowa, only a judge can show discretion not to enforce this restraining order.

Speaker 6 Starting September 1st, 2022, when Angela's second no contact order was issued, until her murder 37 days later, Chris Pritchard violated the restraining order repeatedly, says O'Brien.

Speaker 5 A dozen times during this relevant time period, Angela Pritchard called the Bellevue Police Department and they failed to follow that law, that judge's order.

Speaker 6 That's because O'Brien says the Bellevue police officers showed Pritchard favoritism.

Speaker 5 We have reason to believe that he was friendly with law enforcement officers.

Speaker 8 To prove this case, you must prove that the police officers' failure to enforce the protection order was intentional and reckless.

Speaker 6 How can you do that?

Speaker 5 Well, just by the sheer number of times that it was not enforced.

Speaker 6 In October 2024, Chief Federal Judge C.J. Williams dismissed the lawsuit in its entirety.

Speaker 6 The Bellevue Police Department, he ruled, did not put Angela in a more dangerous situation, and the three officers simply did not commit outrageous conduct.

Speaker 6 The judge added, there was no evidence of police favoritism. The alleged facts, even taken as true, are a far cry from establishing that any of the defendants were friends with Christopher.

Speaker 16 Dave O'Brien was granted a hearing in December 2024 after learning he says the three Bellevue officers had withheld evidence and made false statements, allegedly concealing their friendships with Chris Pritchard.

Speaker 16 Accusations they denied.

Speaker 6 O'Brien argued the officers were well aware Chris Pritchard was a serious threat to his wife.

Speaker 6 Nine days before her murder, the Jackson County attorney warned the Bellevue Police Department in an email,

Speaker 6 Chris Pritchard had 24 hours to turn himself in.

Speaker 6 If he does not report, I will be requesting a warrant. I wanted all of you to be aware as I'm afraid he might try to do something tonight.

Speaker 6 The next day, when Pritchard failed to appear at the county jail, the arrest warrant was issued.

Speaker 6 Seven days before her murder, O'Brien says this body cam footage of a Bellevue police officer speaking with Wendy and Angela.

Speaker 20 Because right now, I can guarantee he's not thinking straight.

Speaker 7 No, not at all.

Speaker 6 Confirms police knew Angela was in danger.

Speaker 20 That's my biggest fear. That's my department's biggest fear is he's going to try to hurt you and then hurt himself.

Speaker 6 During the final week of Angela's life, my job is to protect you

Speaker 20 at all costs.

Speaker 6 O'Brien says Bellevue police could have protected her by finding and arresting Chris Pritchard, but they never did.

Speaker 8 Is it hard to find Chris?

Speaker 6 Shouldn't be.

Speaker 14 Everybody knew his Jeep.

Speaker 13 Had a customized tag that says Zero Dark 30 on it. So you can't miss it.

Speaker 5 We have not been provided with any record showing there was any effort made to enforce the arrest warrant once it was issued on the 30th of September.

Speaker 8 Had that arrest warrant been executed, would Angela be here today?

Speaker 5 Absolutely. He should have been in jail.

Speaker 6 At the December hearing, defense attorneys insisted the new information presented by O'Brien was improper, should be stricken, and not considered by the court.

Speaker 5 Our ideal outcome would be just complete reversal of the judge's decision.

Speaker 6 In January 2025, Judge Williams refused to reverse his dismissal.

Speaker 6 Bellevue Police Chief Dennis Schroeder issued this statement to a local newspaper, which read in part, We are pleased with the decision.

Speaker 6 We continue to strengthen our services and response efforts to prevent domestic violence and provide support to those in need.

Speaker 5 I've heard people say that no contact orders aren't worth the paper they're written on.

Speaker 5 And in this case, that was true. But I firmly believe that they are worth something, but they have to be enforced.

Speaker 7 I

Speaker 7 still to this day have a lot of, I guess it's guilt because I think in my mind, what if I would have gone with her that day?

Speaker 7 Maybe I could have saved her.

Speaker 7 But part of me was so proud of her for like being

Speaker 7 as strong as she was in that time.

Speaker 9 She

Speaker 9 named her killer.

Speaker 7 And so

Speaker 7 she helped them bring him to justice.

Speaker 6 Chris Pritchard's life sentence also helped bring her family some comfort and the courage to move forward.

Speaker 6 They believe Angela would want them to make this public plea.

Speaker 13 Maybe other police departments that maybe are a little lenient on stuff won't be so lenient. Next time.

Speaker 12 According to the Violence Policy Center, nearly three women in the U.S. are killed by an intimate partner each day.

Speaker 12 If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

Speaker 27 Join me Tuesday for post-mortem from 48 Hours, where we'll dive even deeper into today's episode and answer your questions about the case.

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