The Figure in the Garage

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Speaker 7 That's the hardest part. I can't help him.

Speaker 8 I'm a mother, I fix stuff.

Speaker 7 A skin me, a hurt feeling.

Speaker 9 I cannot fix this.

Speaker 7 I can't bring him back.

Speaker 10 He's on the ground in front of this vehicle. Something is very wrong.

Speaker 11 It was devastating when they found him.

Speaker 11 The single dad, so passionate about helping others.

Speaker 12 He was a selfless person. He just wanted to do for everybody.

Speaker 11 So dedicated to his bright young daughter, Sienna.

Speaker 9 They were TPs and a pod.

Speaker 13 She loved being with her dad.

Speaker 8 She just was every single thing to him. Every single thing.

Speaker 11 For police, a puzzle.

Speaker 14 It was such an unusual murder with a victim who seemed to have no enemies.

Speaker 11 Then, the chilling on-camera clue.

Speaker 14 There's a figure. You see someone wearing a hoodie come out from the dark.

Speaker 15 You're looking at the killer, you believe.

Speaker 14 Yes. You get the goosebumps, you get the hairs on the back of your neck.

Speaker 11 A father dead in the garage.

Speaker 15 Who was behind it?

Speaker 13 I'm thinking, what?

Speaker 12 It's mind-blowing.

Speaker 7 Lies, delusion, betrayal.

Speaker 8 You just don't want to believe that people can be that evil.

Speaker 11 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Dennis Murphy with The Figure in the Garage.

Speaker 16 Look closely.

Speaker 17 Top left of the screen.

Speaker 18 A hooded figure walks away from the camera.

Speaker 19 Who is it?

Speaker 4 What are they doing?

Speaker 7 Why are they there?

Speaker 20 Minutes later, a truck pulls in.

Speaker 21 A different person walks out.

Speaker 22 His name we know, Don Fluid.

Speaker 23 It appears that his trash can was tipped over.

Speaker 16 He pulls it back up.

Speaker 12 You look at him and he's fine. And he's happy and healthy and picking up his trash can.
And then the garage closes.

Speaker 20 That's the end of Don Fluid's life, basically.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 18 The neighbor's security camera captured these images and left a mystery.

Speaker 14 That was one of those moments where you kind of get the chills and think, I think we know when it happened. Now we just got to figure out who.

Speaker 2 And why.

Speaker 12 There was just nobody that I could think of that would want to hurt him.

Speaker 18 Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Speaker 25 Thousands of people come here every fall to watch the colorful hot air balloons sail through the desert sky.

Speaker 26 For others, it's just a pit stop as they continue their trek onto Santa Fe.

Speaker 25 But for some, it's a place for new beginnings.

Speaker 20 Would you just throw a dart at the map and

Speaker 13 yeah, pretty much?

Speaker 28 This is Dennis Fluitt, Don's younger brother, less than a year apart in age.

Speaker 32 Born and raised in California, they grew up close, the two of them and two sisters.

Speaker 13 We had to rely on each other. You know, I mean, when my parents divorced, it was just my mom, so there was a lot of home time alone.

Speaker 29 Like most siblings, the brothers were competitive.

Speaker 28 Mom, Sharon.

Speaker 33 They had to outdo each other constantly.

Speaker 33 What one did, the next one did.

Speaker 1 The brothers fluent led a hard partying lifestyle until Dennis headed east at age 20.

Speaker 34 Dennis matured, thought his brother could do the same. He urged Don to join him in New Mexico.

Speaker 13 He was on a dead end trail. You know, he wasn't doing anything good or productive.
So I called him. convinced him to come out here.

Speaker 36 Did you see your brother change?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 13 You know, I mean, he

Speaker 13 you saw a complete change.

Speaker 21 Don turned his life around.

Speaker 31 At 26, he got married, had two kids, but the marriage didn't last.

Speaker 38 His kids moved to Oklahoma with their mom.

Speaker 40 But daughter Tiffany says Don never stopped being a loving father.

Speaker 20 So he really had to go out of his way to keep you two in his life, too, huh?

Speaker 7 No, he did.

Speaker 16 Albuquerque is a far piece away.

Speaker 7 It is.

Speaker 41 He always made the drive, though.

Speaker 38 When Don was in his late 30s, he decided to pursue a childhood dream to to become a firefighter.

Speaker 20 Dennis joked with him, told him he was too old, but that didn't stop Don.

Speaker 17 Was it the adrenaline, you think, running hot when it's all going down?

Speaker 13 Maybe. I just think that he cared for people and he wanted to do his part to save as many lives as he could.

Speaker 38 And soon, Don met Dennis' neighbor, a woman named Christine.

Speaker 41 She made him happy. She was kind of quirky and silly like he was, so I think they got along real well.

Speaker 4 And she was like literally the girl next door.

Speaker 41 Yes, literally.

Speaker 5 It wasn't long before Don Don and Christine married and just a little over a year later they had a baby girl together.

Speaker 18 They named her Sienna.

Speaker 17 Don's son Josh says Sienna seemed to complete Don's life.

Speaker 44 He was above the world knowing that we were so far away that at least he can have his own child right there with him every step of the way, every second of the day.

Speaker 10 There you go, you get it.

Speaker 38 As you can see in this home video that Christine took, the couple doted on their little girl.

Speaker 45 You can do do it. Keep pushing, keep pushing.

Speaker 46 She loved him.

Speaker 41 They were always doing goofy things.

Speaker 44 They were two peas in a pot.

Speaker 39 Life was great until Don, after eight years as a firefighter, lost his job.

Speaker 40 According to a close friend, Christine, who worked as an x-ray tech, had to shoulder most of the bills.

Speaker 47 The financial strain proved to be too much.

Speaker 20 When Sienna was only four years old, Christine filed for divorce.

Speaker 30 The couple shared custody of Sienna.

Speaker 20 Don made sure his life still still revolved around his little girl.

Speaker 12 He wanted to make the best life possible for Sienna and be the best man he possibly could.

Speaker 38 This is Amber, Dennis' daughter and Don's niece.

Speaker 48 She says Don taught Sienna to help others, as he always tried to do.

Speaker 12 They would go to church every Sunday and they would have spaghetti on Sundays and one day they just made too much spaghetti. They decided to find somebody and give them dinner.

Speaker 40 They started calling it spaghetti Sunday.

Speaker 42 Don and Sienna would hit the streets of Albuquerque and feed the homeless.

Speaker 36 She's not dragging her feet with all of this.

Speaker 12 Not at all. I think they were in cahoots.

Speaker 22 From spaghetti Sundays to silly homemade music videos.

Speaker 44 He wouldn't do anything unless he can do it with her.

Speaker 25 Just a few weeks before Christmas 2016, Don's oldest sister died of cancer. His mother, Sharon, was devastated.

Speaker 43 Don and Sienna, then 11 years old, took a road trip to California to spend Christmas with her.

Speaker 33 And when the festivities were over, I didn't want him to go.

Speaker 38 Don, who was now working at an agency that served the developmentally disabled, told his mom he had a meeting he could not miss.

Speaker 15 It's all right.

Speaker 33 So went outside with him, hugged and kissed, and got everything in the car.

Speaker 3 After an 11-hour drive, they arrived home in Albuquerque, where Sienna found a new bicycle under the Christmas tree.

Speaker 1 But before she could ride it, Don needed to drop her off with her mom, Christine.

Speaker 34 The next day, Sienna, who spoke to her dad every day, didn't hear from him.

Speaker 29 She called her dad's coworker, Valerie Torres.

Speaker 8 She says, I can't get a hold of my dad. And I said, you know, honey, I said, let me try your dad.
I said, don't worry, he's fine.

Speaker 3 Valerie called, texted, no answer.

Speaker 20 She and a coworker went to Don's home.

Speaker 8 When I knocked on the door, the door gave a little bit.

Speaker 16 So the front door wasn't locked?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 8 And I was able to walk in the house.

Speaker 51 Valerie called out Don's name.

Speaker 21 No response.

Speaker 8 So I told my friend, the only way we're going to know whether he's here or not is if his truck's here. So I opened the garage door.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 when I opened the garage door, I found my friend.

Speaker 11 When we come back, what had happened in that garage?

Speaker 10 He's on the ground in front of this vehicle.

Speaker 24 Something's very wrong.

Speaker 7 A clue from the neighbor.

Speaker 14 She has two cameras in her house and she sees Don Fluitt's truck backing out.

Speaker 11 And another from his ex-wife. Had someone been in Don Fluitt's house?

Speaker 8 He said it's weird.

Speaker 45 You see a pan in my house.

Speaker 40 It was December 29th, 2016.

Speaker 1 Even as the Rio Grande, the great but gentle river, ran through this bedroom community north of downtown Albuquerque, Valerie Torres made a grisly discovery inside Don Fluitt's garage.

Speaker 24 911, emergency!

Speaker 42 Her friend called 911.

Speaker 10 He's on the ground in front of this vehicle. Something is very wrong.

Speaker 1 Don had been bludgeoned, his throat slit and stabbed. Oh my God.

Speaker 8 I absolutely knew he was gone.

Speaker 8 I knew that there was nothing that I could do to help him.

Speaker 34 Then she thought about Sienna, who was at her mother's house.

Speaker 8 And I just remember my heart breaking, like literally, I've never felt my heart hurt like that.

Speaker 24 Where is he?

Speaker 21 Within minutes, an officer from the Albuquerque PD arrived on scene.

Speaker 47 Valerie and her friend were still in tears.

Speaker 20 His body camera rolled as he walked past Sienna's new bicycle, still next to the Christmas tree.

Speaker 4 Then into the garage where Don's body lay.

Speaker 50 As night fell, the yellow tape went up. Albuquerque Police Detective Matthew Kaplan led the investigation.

Speaker 14 Everything was in pristine order. The only thing out of order was Don Floyd in the garage.

Speaker 36 So the house hadn't been tossed?

Speaker 24 Not at all.

Speaker 21 There was no sign of forced entry.

Speaker 39 Don's cell phone was on the couch, his wallet on the kitchen counter.

Speaker 31 Police located all the kitchen knives and sent them off to the crime lab.

Speaker 21 They also gathered other forensic evidence, including Don's fingernail clippings.

Speaker 14 There was immediate blood in the vicinity on the walls, underneath him, on the truck that looked like handprints.

Speaker 18 But the detective thought it didn't seem like enough blood, given the injuries Don had sustained.

Speaker 14 And that's when he noticed an empty bottle of bleach on the washer and dryer and towels that smelled of bleach in the washer.

Speaker 52 So there have been some effort to clean up.

Speaker 14 That's what it appeared, yes.

Speaker 18 His team did a test with a substance like luminol.

Speaker 17 The kitchen sink lit up with traces of blood.

Speaker 14 So it looked like either hands or the murder weapon was washed off in the sink.

Speaker 3 The floor also lit up.

Speaker 38 Same with the door. Kaplan and his team had already started going door to door and met Don's next door neighbor.

Speaker 14 She tells us she has two cameras in her house.

Speaker 2 So that's interesting.

Speaker 14 Yes, there's one which happens to catch a portion of Don Fluitt's garage.

Speaker 50 And she told them she'd been home the night before when.

Speaker 14 She hears the garage come up. She happens to look at her camera when she sees Don Floyd's truck backing out and leaving.

Speaker 30 The time, 7.37 p.m.

Speaker 30 Kaplan had the first data point for a timeline.

Speaker 21 He gathered more when he talked to Don's ex-wife, Christine, at her home.

Speaker 40 Christine confirmed he dropped Sienna off with her at 7.45 p.m.

Speaker 30 And she remembered something Don told her that afternoon.

Speaker 34 He thought someone had been in his house while he was away.

Speaker 45 He said, it's weird. There's like cat hair in my dryer dryer and someone using a pan in my house.

Speaker 1 Christine also told the detective that Don sometimes suffered road rage.

Speaker 45 As he's had many heated exchanges as a driver

Speaker 45 before.

Speaker 21 So maybe an angry motorist followed Don home after an argument. Or maybe it was someone he knew, someone with access to the house.

Speaker 21 Kaplan spoke to Don's landlord, Benny Ruiz, who'd shown up at the scene.

Speaker 39 He told Kaplan that Don was a kind-hearted man and wondered if his murder had anything to do with his work with homeless people.

Speaker 13 He opens himself to everybody.

Speaker 53 He opens his home.

Speaker 34 Don's mom, Sharon, out in California, got a call in the middle of the night.

Speaker 42 Detective Kaplan was on the line.

Speaker 3 And he said, ma'am, I'm sorry you're so just dead.

Speaker 3 And I think I started screaming.

Speaker 25 Just 19 days before, she'd lost her eldest daughter to cancer.

Speaker 3 19 years before that, her youngest daughter had also died.

Speaker 20 And now, Don.

Speaker 7 Then I had to call Dennis to tell him now you are an only child.

Speaker 13 I couldn't get my head around it. It didn't seem real.

Speaker 4 Dennis called Amber to let her know about her Uncle Don.

Speaker 12 I just started screaming no

Speaker 12 over and over again. My dad was obviously a mess.

Speaker 37 And the news soon made its way to Oklahoma, where Don's older children lived.

Speaker 44 I was just like, no, this isn't real. This stuff don't happen.
You just see this stuff on TV.

Speaker 7 It was horrible.

Speaker 36 This is an intimate murder. This is a hands-on murder.

Speaker 1 Yeah, very personal. It was up.

Speaker 13 It was very violent. Personal.

Speaker 42 So who would put a target on your brother, of all people?

Speaker 36 Mr.

Speaker 36 Sunday Night Spaghetti.

Speaker 13 My first thought was Terry.

Speaker 13 I even told the detective that.

Speaker 20 Terry White, Christine's husband, Sienna's stepfather.

Speaker 13 Don told me a lot about him. You know, I knew that there had been some altercations in the past.

Speaker 20 Detective Kaplan went to see Terry the next day.

Speaker 31 Terry, a truck driver, was back from his shift and at home with Sienna and Christine.

Speaker 17 Sienna and Christine left the room.

Speaker 31 Kaplan asked Terry about his relationship with Don.

Speaker 55 You know, in the beginning, I would say it was rocky.

Speaker 39 Terry told Kaplan that when they went to court over custody of Sienna, Don sometimes seemed to want a confrontation.

Speaker 55 Man, if he can get me into any kind of way, violent or yell or scream at him, then it would make him look good, and he would ultimately, you know, win the court side about, you know, if he could have thought him more.

Speaker 56 So I just, I wouldn't bite for that.

Speaker 25 Terry said to the detective that he mostly avoided Don and hadn't had any contact with him in a while.

Speaker 14 We're not going to find any DNA

Speaker 46 It wasn't worth it because I love that protocol.

Speaker 24 Yeah.

Speaker 24 And I don't want to

Speaker 42 make her hate me because she loves her dad.

Speaker 4 Kaplan asked about the night of the murder.

Speaker 25 Terry said he spent the evening visiting his sister. He said he left about nine, stopped at a Wendy's for dinner, then drove to work and slept in his car until his shift began.

Speaker 4 began.

Speaker 14 So you knacked that in their partner and I work?

Speaker 57 Yeah.

Speaker 20 Terry's sister confirmed his story.

Speaker 18 So did his boss, who said she had security cam video that would show Terry at work that night.

Speaker 17 But by then, Kaplan had received an unexpected phone call from Don's neighbor.

Speaker 14 She had become curious about her own surveillance video. She had looked at it and made a discovery and said, Hey, detective, you need to look at 7.41 p.m.

Speaker 11 Coming up.

Speaker 11 a mysterious figure captured on camera.

Speaker 14 There's someone in a hoodie, and the individual walks off camera towards where Don Fluent's door would be.

Speaker 52 Did you think that surveillance camera had taken a picture of your killer?

Speaker 14 I did.

Speaker 11 When dateline continues.

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Speaker 21 January 2017. Instead of celebrating the start of a new year, Don Fluitt's family was making funeral arrangements.

Speaker 20 His niece Amber made posters with photos of Don.

Speaker 40 His ex-wife Christine pitched in.

Speaker 12 She brought some pictures over that she had had that I could add to the boards and she said, can I help you?

Speaker 49 I said, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 12 Let's do this. And so we had a glass of wine and put the picture boards together.

Speaker 50 Sienna helped too.

Speaker 12 She lost her best friend and she wanted to be a part of it.

Speaker 20 Sienna picked out most of the music and readings for the service.

Speaker 34 It was held at the church she attended with her dad.

Speaker 20 Meanwhile, the murder investigation continued.

Speaker 39 Detective Kaplan spoke to Don's neighbor, who said she'd found something on her home security video.

Speaker 14 I start looking at the clip she's talking about, and believe it or not, there's a figure. A figure.
A figure. There's someone in a hoodie.
walking to Don Fluitt's trash can.

Speaker 14 They lay the trash can down on its side, and the individual walks off camera towards where Don Fluitt's door would be. Don Fluitt returns and pulls into the garage.
You see him walk out of the garage.

Speaker 14 He walks to his trash can, picks it up, and then walks into his garage again.

Speaker 4 At this point, said Kaplan, you could see the light from the garage diminishing as the garage door closed.

Speaker 14 And then inexplicably, the garage shoots back up,

Speaker 14 and you see a series of flashes.

Speaker 4 I'm the hooded figure outside.

Speaker 30 We went to the scene of the crime to understand how this could happen.

Speaker 26 It's as easy as that, huh?

Speaker 4 So where is Don? He's in the house now?

Speaker 14 I believe he's in the house now. And there's the flashing life.
And there's your series of flashes that you see on the surveillance video.

Speaker 18 Kaplan believed that hooded figure tripped the sensor and sneaked into Don's garage, the door closing behind him.

Speaker 52 Did you think that surveillance camera had taken a picture of your killer?

Speaker 3 I did.

Speaker 20 A tantalizing image, but no face to go with it. Do you see the figure depart?

Speaker 42 No, never.

Speaker 14 The garage closes, and

Speaker 14 Don Fluid's found dead the next morning.

Speaker 32 Even as he puzzled over the hooded figure's identity, the detective started to hear about someone else, Don's brother, Dennis.

Speaker 20 Just days after the murder, Dennis got the keys to Don's house.

Speaker 27 Don's children from Oklahoma wondered what he was up to.

Speaker 14 They felt that it was odd that Dennis was there and sort of kind of taking control.

Speaker 52 Taking over his brother's life.

Speaker 14 Yes, that was a concern to them.

Speaker 21 Kaplan also learned that Dennis and Don had had a falling out a year before.

Speaker 21 Dennis had moved away, lived in Arizona for a while, but he'd moved back to Albuquerque just a couple of months before Don's murder.

Speaker 14 It kind of puts up a red flag for me. You're in the process of reconnecting.
You had a falling out before,

Speaker 14 and now Don's inexplicably been murdered.

Speaker 34 Tiffany and Josh had the same feeling.

Speaker 7 But did you think maybe your uncle, his brother, had something to do with this?

Speaker 41 There was talk of it just because of the estranged relationship and what had happened.

Speaker 7 And when you're hurt, you're grieving.

Speaker 41 You don't know what to think.

Speaker 47 Kaplan interviewed Dennis, who said it had all started after their father died.

Speaker 56 I got a little bit angry with him about that because he took a lot of my dad's stuff.

Speaker 13 There were just disagreements,

Speaker 56 just like I'm starting to see with my brother's death.

Speaker 38 Kaplan had learned that Don had lost his job as a firefighter because of a drug test.

Speaker 20 He asked Dennis about that.

Speaker 14 That's true.

Speaker 7 Marijuana.

Speaker 42 Marijuana.

Speaker 24 Okay.

Speaker 13 Nothing heavy. I guarantee my brother hasn't touched heavy drugs in 30 years.

Speaker 50 Then Dennis came up with a name, someone else he thought detectives should be taking a look at.

Speaker 56 You know, and it makes me mad. I mean, you know,

Speaker 56 I'm no investigator.

Speaker 7 I'm no cop.

Speaker 13 You know, but this guy spends two hours in my brother's house.

Speaker 55 Are you talking about the landlord, Benny?

Speaker 7 Benny, the landlord.

Speaker 4 Dennis said just days after Don's murder, he found Benny inside Don's home.

Speaker 14 Benny claimed he was feeding the dog. Dennis claimed, well, I don't know if he's messing with the crime scene.

Speaker 39 Dennis told Kaplan that he had heard that Don was upset with Benny over a hole in the ceiling that hadn't been repaired.

Speaker 21 Detectives asked Benny for fingerprints and DNA.

Speaker 21 But as Kaplan questioned him, Benny told the detective he was uneasy about Dennis.

Speaker 20 Benny said Dennis wanted to rent another townhouse Benny owned, just a few blocks down from the murder scene.

Speaker 56 He said he was going to move all of Don's stuff over there and set it up.

Speaker 18 Did he tell you why he wanted to do that?

Speaker 53 For Sienna, he wanted to set up for Sienna for Don's little daughter.

Speaker 53 Which is kind of weird.

Speaker 22 Benny said he didn't rent to Dennis.

Speaker 29 Not after a background check revealed that Dennis had a criminal record for assault and disorderly conduct.

Speaker 14 Kaplan, of course, already knew about Dennis's record, but more importantly, I wondered why he had suddenly taken a

Speaker 14 massive interest in Don Fluid's affairs with the condo and with CNN.

Speaker 34 When we spoke to Dennis, we wondered that too.

Speaker 7 Coming up, they kept talking about an estrangement between the two of you: the brother, the landlord, the stepfather, three possible suspects.

Speaker 14 These were names that I just couldn't eliminate.

Speaker 11 And one of them is about to change his story.

Speaker 39 To say Don Flewett loved the Christmas season would be putting it mildly.

Speaker 7 He was obsessed.

Speaker 7 We're talking lights, music, you know, it was everywhere.

Speaker 3 A month after Don's murder, his family was still grappling with the fact that he would never see another Christmas.

Speaker 23 No one more distraught than his daughter, Sienna.

Speaker 1 How was she doing? She was strong.

Speaker 12 She said she just just was praying about it.

Speaker 49 She would cry.

Speaker 4 Meanwhile, Detective Kaplan was looking very closely at the apparent bad blood between Don Flewitt and his brother Dennis.

Speaker 36 They kept talking about an estrangement between the two of you.

Speaker 43 Do you know what they're referring to? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 13 When my dad passed, we all came to an agreement on the few assets that he did have. Yeah, there was a set understanding, set understanding.

Speaker 13 Well, Don didn't keep his part of the deal and kept one of the trucks that we were going to sell.

Speaker 21 According to Dennis, that led to radio silence between the two brothers.

Speaker 1 Dennis said he tried to reach out to Don just a couple of months before his murder, but Don never returned his call.

Speaker 25 And when he heard about Don's death, he only wanted to help.

Speaker 13 I knew him better than anybody, and he knew me better than anybody, and I made a promise to him and Sienna early on that I was going to do everything to bring justice and protect him.

Speaker 34 He said if some people found that suspicious, so be it.

Speaker 21 Dennis remained on Detective Kaplan's list of potential suspects.

Speaker 14 Benny, Dennis, Terry, these were names that I just, I couldn't eliminate.

Speaker 29 So he kept the heat on all three.

Speaker 17 Kaplan had already questioned landlord Benny Ruiz and obtained a sample of his DNA.

Speaker 29 He also took another look at Sienna's stepdad, Terry White.

Speaker 18 Remember, Terry initially told the detective that on the night of Don's murder, he stayed with his sister until 9 p.m., then drove to work and took a nap in the parking lot.

Speaker 14 But when Detective Kaplan checked the security cam video, you can see Terry White pull in and immediately get out of his truck and walk to the front door. So now there's a discrepancy in his story.

Speaker 14 Again, thank you for coming down.

Speaker 53 No worries, I'm sure.

Speaker 1 Detective Kaplan asked Terry to stop by the station, go over his timeline one more time.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 14 his story changed.

Speaker 14 He didn't pull into the parking lot as originally expressed. He went around the corner to a dark area and fell asleep there.
And then he pulled into the parking lot.

Speaker 25 That wasn't the only discrepancy.

Speaker 23 Remember, in his first interview, Terry said he'd only stopped at a Wendy's on his way to work.

Speaker 2 But now.

Speaker 52 I stop

Speaker 52 at

Speaker 48 Walmart.

Speaker 42 Walmart. Now, what's he doing at Walmart?

Speaker 14 That was an interesting story.

Speaker 55 I'm going to stop to get a new sweatshirt for me for work because my wife bought me one for Christmas. I said, I'm not going to wear that to work, so I went and bought this one.

Speaker 51 Kaplan asked Terry about Dennis.

Speaker 23 He never met the guy, he said, but he'd heard about his troubled relationship with Don and that Dennis had moved into Don's home.

Speaker 56 Now he's back and he's like trying to protect Sienna from whatever.

Speaker 55 And it's just, it's making people feel kind of off.

Speaker 18 Terry willingly gave a DNA sample and Kaplan sent him on his way.

Speaker 40 Two days later, the detective went back to Dennis.

Speaker 14 I took his DNA and I took his fingerprints.

Speaker 21 Dennis, too, was cooperative.

Speaker 37 He told detectives he worried about Sienna and he felt bad for Christine.

Speaker 13 You know, she's a mess. I mean, I talked to her for half an hour on the phone this morning and there was probably four or five times she started to cry.

Speaker 26 And he was still very vocal with his suspicions about Benny Ruiz.

Speaker 13 I mean, how do we know that Benny didn't go over there and Don might have just let him in and everything like everybody knew each other and then it and then it went bad.

Speaker 50 Kaplan didn't think Dennis was helping himself.

Speaker 20 Was he receding as a person of interest for you?

Speaker 14 No, unfortunately not.

Speaker 13 Do you have your eye on anybody in particular?

Speaker 14 Oh, you know, I can't tell you that.

Speaker 55 Come on, man.

Speaker 34 You know, I can't tell you that.

Speaker 55 Oh, that's right. I'm still not cleared as a suspect.

Speaker 14 Nobody is. In my opinion, nobody's.

Speaker 21 As the weeks passed, Don's kids began to worry.

Speaker 32 Did you think it was going to be cold and not solved?

Speaker 36 That someone was going to get away with murder here?

Speaker 41 It scared me for a little bit that it may be that way.

Speaker 40 But that was about to change.

Speaker 60 Remember, fingernail clippings from Don's body had been taken for testing.

Speaker 21 Three months after Don's murder, the lab reported a hit, someone else's DNA, beneath Don's fingernails.

Speaker 14 I remember just kind of jumping out of my chair. Well,

Speaker 14 whose DNA is it?

Speaker 11 Coming up.

Speaker 27 That's a bingo moment, huh?

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 11 A final suspect at last.

Speaker 14 We do have a suspect and we do have an arrest warrant.

Speaker 37 Yes!

Speaker 11 But can they get to him in time?

Speaker 14 The deputy immediately thinks, oh no.

Speaker 11 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 20 One murder, three potential suspects.

Speaker 30 Something had to break the tie.

Speaker 42 Then, about 12 weeks into the investigation, the crime lab called with some major news.

Speaker 37 The foreign DNA under Don Flewitt's fingernails belonged to none other than his ex-wife's current husband, Terry White.

Speaker 27 That's a bingo moment, huh?

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 4 It all started lining up.

Speaker 51 Terry's strained relationship with Don, his shifting timeline, his sudden need for a new hoodie.

Speaker 42 The fact that he's amended his second story to include buying a hoodie, what does that tell you?

Speaker 14 In hindsight, a lot. It tells me that there was probably a lot of blood on him and that he needed something to wear when he went to work.

Speaker 1 And above all, Terry's DNA where it simply did not belong.

Speaker 54 And we're not going to find any DNA or fingerprints of yours anywhere in his house or on his vehicle or anywhere in that area.

Speaker 24 No. No.

Speaker 24 Go back.

Speaker 14 So if we did, it'd be weird.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I would say that would be okay.

Speaker 24 Weird.

Speaker 14 At this point, I'm 100% sure that Terry is our guy.

Speaker 21 Kaplan spoke to Don's mom, Sharon, and his brother, Dennis.

Speaker 14 We do have a suspect in this case, and we do have an arrest warrant.

Speaker 37 Yes!

Speaker 14 It's Terry White.

Speaker 21 The case seemed to be solved, but there was a problem. Before Kaplan could find Terry, he got a call from Christine.

Speaker 37 She said Terry was missing.

Speaker 36 You're putting the noose around Terry's neck, but you're also finding out he doesn't seem to be around anymore.

Speaker 24 Right.

Speaker 40 Kaplan asked Christine to stop by the station.

Speaker 30 He thought she might have information that could help him find her husband.

Speaker 36 And you're having a contentious kind of relationship now with Christine.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 14 And I think at that point,

Speaker 14 her willingness to cooperate with me was sort of gone.

Speaker 39 Kaplan got a search warrant for her car and phone, hoping to find clues that might lead him to Terry.

Speaker 14 Interesting enough, we find her cell phone in the glove compartment, and there's a last will and testament right next to it.

Speaker 42 A last will and testament in the glove?

Speaker 14 Yes, it's Terry White's. I found that to be extraordinarily unusual.

Speaker 4 And how old again was it?

Speaker 48 The document?

Speaker 14 Three days after we took his DNA.

Speaker 39 Kaplan started to wonder if Terry would be gone permanently.

Speaker 18 Then a few days later, he caught a break.

Speaker 25 A sheriff's deputy had happened on a pickup truck at an Arizona rest stop more than 200 miles from Albuquerque.

Speaker 14 There's a hose traveling from the exhaust into the cab. So the deputy immediately thinks, oh no, it looks like someone's trying to commit suicide.

Speaker 25 In the cab of the truck, the missing murder suspect.

Speaker 14 Terry White is red-faced, probably from the carbon monoxide, looks a little bit drowsy and out of it. Deputy runs his name and realizes he has a warrant for a homicide.

Speaker 14 So he is arrested right then and there.

Speaker 1 Detective Kaplan and his partner made a beeline for Arizona to see if Terry would talk.

Speaker 14 Do you want to talk to me today?

Speaker 55 Need to detect.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 You guys, obviously, you were thinking something, so I gotta protect myself.

Speaker 18 So, Terry didn't feel like talking, not to the police anyway.

Speaker 43 But once he was transferred back to Albuquerque, he did talk to someone.

Speaker 20 Dennis received a Facebook message from a woman.

Speaker 13 She's like, you don't know me, but my boyfriend is in jail with a guy by the name of Terry White. And you can imagine, I'm thinking, what?

Speaker 18 The boyfriend's name, Roderick White.

Speaker 29 No relation, of course.

Speaker 38 Rod and Terry shared the same last name, the same birthday, and and for three days in April 2017, the same jail cell.

Speaker 22 Soon, Terry's former cellmate was in the interview room with Detective Kaplan.

Speaker 56 From what I understand, you want to talk about kind of what Terry's confiding you.

Speaker 11 Yes.

Speaker 4 According to Rod, Terry made a full confession.

Speaker 14 He tells him everything. He tells him how he snuck in.

Speaker 61 He tripped the garage door and I thought I was fing busted right then.

Speaker 61 But he ended up getting underneath the guy's finger.

Speaker 19 Terry told Rod that Don was a smoker whose routine was to smoke in the garage.

Speaker 20 So he waited for Don to come out.

Speaker 61 He said, I got up and I was waiting right there by the

Speaker 34 door.

Speaker 23 Rod said Terry then described in gruesome detail what took place inside the garage away from the neighbor's security camp.

Speaker 61 He's a truck driver, so he has target thumping a little batch he checked the target with. He said as soon as he came out, he said I hit him as hard as I could with that f ⁇ ing tariff bumper.

Speaker 61 He said I hit him so hard it split the tariff thumper in three pieces.

Speaker 30 Kaplan showed us how the cellmate's story matched the evidence at the crime scene.

Speaker 14 He explains that he hits Don with this tire thumper. Don continues to fight.
It continues in here. We know this because there's a coat rack that would have been right here.

Speaker 14 There's blood on a jacket that belonged to Sienna. There's blood on the garage door.
And then we find... And then what?

Speaker 42 The action moves back out here, Matt, or what?

Speaker 14 It moves back up here. And this is a very narrow space because the bumper of...

Speaker 14 He's got a big old truck, and I would have used every inch of this to get to about right here um what we do know is there's bloody handprints on the hood of the truck there's handprints and blood swipes on the wall so we know that don had fallen on his back uh this way he even described how don got terry's dna on and he says and i know exactly when it happened it was when i was ringing down on the mother he reached up and his his finger caught the inside lip then rod continued that terry hit him so hard don finally went down So I'll give him this.

Speaker 61 He was f ⁇ ing fought for his life.

Speaker 17 Then, according to Rod, Terry finished the job.

Speaker 61 He said, I went inside the house and I got a steak knife. And he said something about

Speaker 61 splitting the side of his throat.

Speaker 4 And if the knife didn't work, Terry told Rod that he had a backup plan.

Speaker 61 I had plan B. He said there was an axe there on the wall of the garage.
He said, that was plan B.

Speaker 14 Which you can clearly see in the crime scene photos. There is no way you would know that unless you were were there.

Speaker 36 Now, importantly, were any of those details detective that you just listed, were they online? Were they in the newspapers?

Speaker 14 No.

Speaker 36 So this cellmate is telling you a story that exactly matches your evidence, huh? Or the observations at the scene?

Speaker 42 Yes.

Speaker 14 Not only is it matching the evidence, it's filling in some of the gaps.

Speaker 3 The case against Terry White was starting to look airtight, but Rod, the informant, wasn't done talking.

Speaker 11 Coming up.

Speaker 61 She's the one that told him, we've got to do this now. You've got to do this for your family.

Speaker 29 She?

Speaker 7 She said, we all have our dirty little part in this.

Speaker 11 One more jaw-dropping revelation to come.

Speaker 61 He was suggesting this. He was fought for his life.

Speaker 20 Informant Rod White gave detectives a virtual play-by-play of how Terry White murdered Don Floyd.

Speaker 17 One revelation after another.

Speaker 53 Terry told him on several occasions

Speaker 61 that he did it for her, that she's the one that told him, we've got to do this now. You've got to lose your family.

Speaker 28 According to Rod, the she in question was Terry's wife, Don's ex, the mother of his darling Sienna, Christine.

Speaker 30 Rod said and would later testify in court that Christine was the prime mover of the murder plot.

Speaker 14 So Terry told you that Christine told him to do it for the family.

Speaker 61 Yes, they've been looking for an opportunity for a while.

Speaker 29 The cellmate said that Christine and Terry called Don the Black Cloud, and with him out of the way, they'd have Sienna all to themselves.

Speaker 21 Of course, any dreams of a happily ever after had gone belly up once police zeroed in on Terry.

Speaker 29 But Terry did have an ironclad life insurance policy.

Speaker 42 So the reasoning would be then that I, Terry White, am in the can.

Speaker 36 I'm going to go down for this thing. They got me.
But I can do you, Christine, and the little girl a final bit of good by killing myself, and the insurance will be paid off to you.

Speaker 14 Having you collect $250,000.

Speaker 57 Rod told the detective that Terry's suicide attempt in Arizona was his third.

Speaker 29 And according to Rod, Christine was not exactly thrilled when Terry survived.

Speaker 3 When he called me the chick picked the phone and said, what the f ⁇ ?

Speaker 61 Why are you still here?

Speaker 61 Why didn't you kill yourself?

Speaker 38 The cellmate's tale got even stranger.

Speaker 30 He said after he was released from jail, he met up with Christine and made up a story.

Speaker 20 He told her he would smuggle some pills into the jail so Terry could make good on his suicide promise.

Speaker 61 And I said, and I need to buy the pills and I just, I don't have money. Blue entered her bank and $9,200.

Speaker 3 Rod said he never bought the pills or completed the scheme

Speaker 61 what did you do with the money the money i spent it to be honest with you i just got out of jail broke you know but he said he had a vivid memory of the last time he saw christine she was crying and she grabbed my hand and she like was patting my hand and she said

Speaker 37 we all have our dirty little part in this detectives had heard enough a few days after the interview we arrested her Christine was charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy.

Speaker 14 She was upset but but resigned to what was happening.

Speaker 30 But the case against Christine was flimsy.

Speaker 20 It rested on the word of a felon.

Speaker 14 It wasn't strong enough to move forward with her.

Speaker 30 The charges against Christine were dismissed.

Speaker 60 In June 2018, Terry White went on trial, the sole defendant.

Speaker 53 The prosecution's star witness was Terry's cellmate, Roderick White, back in jail by then on an unrelated charge.

Speaker 60 He told the jury everything about how Terry killed Don.

Speaker 20 But even this career criminal couldn't seem to understand why.

Speaker 61 Why did you kill him? I said, was he touching the little girl?

Speaker 7 And he was like, no, no, he wasn't touching her.

Speaker 25 And I said, okay, well, was he beating her?

Speaker 62 No, he said, no, he wasn't.

Speaker 4 And I said, well, why'd you kill him?

Speaker 61 And he said, looked at me and he said, the mother just wouldn't go away.

Speaker 7 As a result of his testimony, Rod, a meth addict, avoided prison time and enrolled in a drug rehab program.

Speaker 18 He insisted he didn't come forward in hopes of a deal, but rather because he believed Don's murder was wrong.

Speaker 61 They killed him because he was a good father. That's why they killed this guy, because he was a good dad.

Speaker 20 It took the jury a little over six hours to reach a verdict.

Speaker 23 Guilty of first-degree murder.

Speaker 7 Guilty.

Speaker 44 I was just instantly relieved.

Speaker 41 That this man wouldn't be able to just walk freely ever, you know, that he wasn't going to get to take my dad's life and have his own still.

Speaker 20 In August 2018, Terry White was sentenced to 42 years in prison.

Speaker 1 But for Don's family, it's not over.

Speaker 33 The puppeteer is still pulling the strings, though.

Speaker 16 Who's the puppeteer?

Speaker 33 Christine.

Speaker 23 And the puppet is Terry.

Speaker 13 I mean, think about it. She manipulated that man into killing himself.
Think about that for a second.

Speaker 13 I mean, it's one thing to talk somebody into murdering somebody for you, but then,

Speaker 13 but to talk that same person into killing themselves if they got caught, I mean, how do you do that?

Speaker 39 Christine White did not attend the trial.

Speaker 31 She declined our request for an interview, but wrote us a letter saying she and Don had no custody battle in December 2016, only different ideas and school choices, tuition.

Speaker 48 Regarding Don's murder, Christine wrote, I knew nothing of the events that occurred until I got a call from the co-worker of Don who found him that night in December.

Speaker 34 It was an awful and unbelievable thing to hear, and even harder to have to tell your child.

Speaker 30 Prosecutors Natalie Strubb and David Waymire say the investigation into Christine is no longer open.

Speaker 30 But if new information comes to light, that could change things.

Speaker 14 We would have to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she intended all along for Terry White to do this, and more than that, that she actually did something concrete to aid in a bet

Speaker 14 to help the crime be committed.

Speaker 20 Natalie, can you get there?

Speaker 4 I'm hopeful.

Speaker 41 I would like to say yes, but if the evidence isn't there, we can't charge her for something we can't

Speaker 22 Anyone who knew him will tell you, Don Flewitt enjoyed helping people.

Speaker 18 He loved being a firefighter, feeding the homeless, and helping people with disabilities find work.

Speaker 34 But what he loved most was being Sienna's dad.

Speaker 20 A bond so tight, people stood in awe of it.

Speaker 13 She loved being with her dad. She, I mean, she reveled in it.

Speaker 13 She loved that man.

Speaker 13 You know, to this day, I think about that void that's in her life.

Speaker 2 Terrible loss, certainly, with your uncle, but it's primary victim here, in a way, seems to be Sienna.

Speaker 7 I would say so.

Speaker 12 Tiffany and Josh and myself, too, we got to live our childhood with him. We got to go to him for advice and

Speaker 12 to share those

Speaker 49 milestones in life with him.

Speaker 12 What about Sienna?

Speaker 53 My dad is still here, you know, and hers is not.

Speaker 11 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.
Thanks for joining us.

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