Window of Opportunity

Speaker 1 Grand Canyon University is one of the largest universities in the country.

Speaker 1 Praised for its community and impact, GCU integrates a welcoming Christian worldview and open discourse into over 300 online programs.

Speaker 1 Redefine your online education through GCU's industry-driven, academically rigorous programs. In 2024, online students received over $161 million in institutional scholarships.
Find your purpose.

Speaker 1 Private, Christian, affordable. Discover available scholarships at gcu.edu/slash slash myoffer.

Speaker 3 It's time for Black Friday, Dell Technologies' biggest sale of the year. Enjoy huge savings on select PCs like the Dell 16 Plus featuring Intel Core ultra processors.

Speaker 3 Plus, earn Dell rewards and enjoy many other benefits like free shipping, price match guarantee, and expert support. They also have huge deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC.

Speaker 3 and make perfect gifts for everyone on your list.

Speaker 5 Shop now at dell.com slash deals.

Speaker 6 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 4 Tonight on Dateline, the mystery that took almost 14 years to solve.

Speaker 6 Who killed a mother of three?

Speaker 7 Driving into that property, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. How that was just the perfect place.

Speaker 8 The perfect place for a murder.

Speaker 7 Perfect place for a murder.

Speaker 9 How do you live without her? I mean, your parents are your world.

Speaker 4 Nobody expected a mother of three to be murdered sleeping in her home.

Speaker 8 And we call the usual suspects, her husband. They were going through a contentious divorce.

Speaker 10 You've got a man who's there on the property when she's being murdered.

Speaker 4 We looked intensely at him.

Speaker 8 We knew from the get-go we wanted to bring in her sister. Was she involved?

Speaker 11 There was jealousy and competition between the sisters.

Speaker 4 We just thought somebody's going to talk.

Speaker 10 That is one powerful secret.

Speaker 4 Absolutely.

Speaker 9 That kind of hits you out of nowhere. I was absolutely shocked.

Speaker 2 I mean, heartbroken.

Speaker 5 Here's Andrea Canning with Window of Opportunity.

Speaker 10 Rockford, Michigan, perched on the Rogue River just north of Grand Rapids, is an outdoorsman's paradise.

Speaker 10 But this piece is fragile, easily pierced by one troubling phone call. The kind of call that often begins a story like this.

Speaker 11 Renee didn't meet up with a friend that she was supposed to go to a craft fair with.

Speaker 10 It was a Saturday afternoon in the summer of 2006.

Speaker 11 So this friend called Renee's dad and said, Renee never doesn't show up.

Speaker 10 Something's something's wrong. Renee Pagel's father jumped in his car and drove over to his daughter's house.
What he found inside her bedroom was something no parent should ever have to see.

Speaker 13 Emergency, can I help you?

Speaker 14 My daughter was just founder in bed and she's got a full lash on her arm and she's off luggage. Not control.
Is she still breathing?

Speaker 14 No, I don't think so.

Speaker 10 41-year-old Renee Pagel was dead. Her father tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

Speaker 3 She's coughed in her touch?

Speaker 14 Yeah,

Speaker 14 I think she's gone. Okay, now we'll be on the way.

Speaker 10 On his way was Detective E.J. Johnson of the Kent County Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 4 I think he was just shocked, obviously, to find his daughter laying in this bed.

Speaker 10 At first, her father wondered if it was a medical complication. He told authorities Renee was recovering from major surgery.
The story behind that operation will tell you a lot about her.

Speaker 10 Renee was a nurse and loved nursing so much, she decided to teach it.

Speaker 10 She noticed one of her students, Caitlin Saliot, had taken a particular interest in kidney disease.

Speaker 15 My dad had been diagnosed and had kidney failure, and I just wanted to know as much as possible on it.

Speaker 10 Renee learned that Caitlin's dad was on a waiting list for a new kidney and out of the blue asked for his number.

Speaker 9 Are you thinking, why?

Speaker 15 Yes,

Speaker 15 why does she want to know this?

Speaker 15 And she said she wanted to see if she could be a possible match.

Speaker 10 What in the world were you thinking when she said that to you?

Speaker 9 Total shock.

Speaker 15 Really shocked. I think I ran and called my dad

Speaker 15 on the bus, school bus, heading back to my school, calling him and letting him know.

Speaker 10 You probably have to pinch yourself that somebody would do that.

Speaker 16 Yeah, A complete stranger to my dad.

Speaker 2 A complete stranger would offer up part of herself for him.

Speaker 10 To save him.

Speaker 18 To save him.

Speaker 10 Renee was a match. And the weekend before the surgery was her 41st birthday, her good friend Chris Crandall decided to throw Renee a surprise party.

Speaker 7 We were going to meet at the carnival at one o'clock, and the plan was then to walk up the street to my house and cool off.

Speaker 7 She came and everybody else had taken off and gone up to my house and gotten everything ready and Renee and I did a cherry pit spitting contest together and I kicked her butt.

Speaker 10 This must be a Michigan thing, right?

Speaker 8 A cherry spitting?

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 7 She walked in my front door when everyone's waiting in the other room and she came out. We totally surprised her.
We totally

Speaker 7 got her and it was so fun.

Speaker 7 It was so fun. It was the day before she went in to the hospital.

Speaker 10 Renee's daughter, Sarah, was seven years old at the time. You might not remember this, but did you realize what a selfless thing your mom was doing by donating the kidney?

Speaker 19 I don't think I understood until I was a lot older.

Speaker 9 But after I did, you know, that's something that's really impactful too, to realize that was the type of person she was.

Speaker 10 Renee's friends remember back then Sarah was aware something scary was happening.

Speaker 7 Sarah had such a sensitive heart and Renee was so concerned about Sarah. She was nervous about her mom going into the hospital, and she just sat on the couch and was just quiet.

Speaker 10 Laura Beach is a childhood friend who was particularly close with Renee's daughter. At the party, Renee asked Aunt Laura to reassure Sarah.

Speaker 11 She called me into the bedroom and she said,

Speaker 11 Aunt Laura, tell Sarah that you will watch over me when I have my surgery. And I said, Sarah, I promise you I will take care of your mommy.

Speaker 11 I couldn't keep that promise.

Speaker 9 I do remember that very well, you know, because I was really scared. I had no idea what was going on.
And she just said, you know, no matter what happens, like, you have so many people that love you.

Speaker 10 So she just was preparing for anything that could happen, but wanted you to know that you were loved and taken care of.

Speaker 9 I'm sorry, I know how hard this is.

Speaker 10 Renee and her husband, Michael, were separated. So Sarah and her younger siblings went to stay with their dad while Renee went in for surgery.
Four days later, Renee went home to recuperate.

Speaker 10 It was just two days after that when Detective E.J. Johnson was pulling up to her house.
What happens as you arrive on the scene?

Speaker 4 I just saw a lot of police cars. Everybody was out here towards the road, and they had taped it off just to secure the scene so that way no one's in and out.

Speaker 4 They're going to wait for us detectives to get here.

Speaker 10 Officers on the scene told him the deceased woman's name. Did you know Renee?

Speaker 4 I knew of Renee. We were actually the past few weeks praying for a member at the church, my church, that was getting a kidney transplant, and she was the one that was donating.

Speaker 10 Oh wow, so how did you feel when you realized that there was that connection there?

Speaker 4 Well I was pretty shocked by it because

Speaker 4 the daughter of the gentleman that received the kidney was at my house at a youth activity. They were doing a swim party at my place.

Speaker 10 That's right. In this small town where there were lots of connections, Caitlin, the nursing student, was at Detective Johnson's house as he was responding to the call.

Speaker 10 What he saw told him right away, this was no complication from surgery, no medical calamity. This was murder.

Speaker 6 A selfless act followed by an evil one. Who could have killed Renee? When we come back.

Speaker 4 When I walk into the bedroom, I see Renee laying sideways on the bed, and I was seeing blood all over her.

Speaker 7 It's just etched in my mind forever.

Speaker 8 Complete shock.

Speaker 4 I felt almost immediately it was somebody that had an absolute hate for Renee.

Speaker 10 Before he ever set foot at the crime scene, Detective E.J. Johnson had been praying for Renee Pagel.
She just donated a kidney to a member of his church.

Speaker 10 Did you feel right away just with that church connection that I need answers for this family?

Speaker 10 In his call to 911, Renee's father had mentioned the surgery as a possible explanation for her death. But he also reported seeing cuts on her arm.

Speaker 13 She has laceration on her wrist, you said?

Speaker 14 Not on her wrist, on the upper part of her arm.

Speaker 4 When I got up here, I was just told that the father thought it was a potential suicide, but she did have a major surgery.

Speaker 4 But what happened was, is one of the deputies took a photograph of her. So I looked at that photograph and saw numerous wounds on Renee.
So I knew it was more than a suicide, more than a complication.

Speaker 4 It was going to be a murder.

Speaker 10 The detective went in to see it with his own eyes.

Speaker 10 Renee had been stabbed more than once.

Speaker 4 When I walk into the bedroom, I see Renee laying sideways on the bed, and I was seeing blood all over the bedding.

Speaker 4 Then I started looking at her arms and then around her head and face and just a lot of lacerations and cuts.

Speaker 10 As word spread among Renee's friends, they were in disbelief.

Speaker 10 Renee Pagel was a respected nurse, a passionate teacher, a generous friend. Just a week earlier, Chris had thrown her that surprise party.

Speaker 7 It's just etched in my mind forever. Laura called me and she said her words to me were, Chris, Renee is dead.

Speaker 7 And my mom can tell you, I ran out of the house, fell on her front lawn in a fetal position, just screamed.

Speaker 8 Complete shock.

Speaker 15 Like to see it on the news and see her picture.

Speaker 16 Like I'd seen her just before she left the hospital.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 16 three days later,

Speaker 20 we find out

Speaker 8 shocking.

Speaker 10 Her student Caitlin could only think of Renee's generosity. It's what everyone remembers.
Sounds to me like she just loved everyone.

Speaker 7 I know people say this

Speaker 7 when someone dies, that, oh, they were a saint. She really was like,

Speaker 7 she gave and gave. And the stories that have come out

Speaker 7 about how she went above and beyond to show kindness

Speaker 7 and grace. I just often say she was Jesus in skin.
Was she perfect? No, but she was so generous.

Speaker 10 Childhood friend Laura Beach remembers Renee's firm commitment to her Christian faith.

Speaker 11 Religion was a very important part of her life,

Speaker 11 her relationship with God.

Speaker 20 It was in her DNA for sure. She was leaving for Africa on a mission trip and when Renee left, her mom started sobbing and she said, I just don't know where she gets this from.

Speaker 20 I just don't know where she gets this from.

Speaker 10 Joy Schener met Renee in college.

Speaker 20 Day one, we became thickest thieves. We clicked, we talked every day.
I drove her back and forth to school, we studied, we spent a lot of time together.

Speaker 10 Detective Johnson already knew Renee was a well-liked person.

Speaker 10 Now, he needed to put his investigative hat on to figure out who would want her dead. He took a closer look at the crime scene.
What are you noticing right away as far as things that are obvious?

Speaker 4 It was a brutal murder scene. There was blood on the walls, blood on the lamps, blood on the ceiling.
But other things I noticed was a jewelry box with jewelry still in it.

Speaker 4 I noticed some money on a counter or one of her dressers that wasn't missing. So right away I'm thinking, didn't appear to be a robbery.

Speaker 10 Did it look to you like Renee had fought back at all? Could you tell?

Speaker 4 Looking at Renee, I could see defensive wounds on her hand.

Speaker 4 specifically one defensive wound that went through her hand.

Speaker 4 Then when you dove more into it, you could see on her her cat, well on her heel of her foot was a large laceration, like she was kicking and she was pushing away from the suspect.

Speaker 10 The coroner's report said she had been stabbed more than 50 times. Someone wanted to make sure Renee was dead.
This looks personal, the fact that there's that many stab wounds.

Speaker 4 I felt almost immediately it was somebody that had an absolute hate for Renee, a rage that was built up. These stab wounds were from somebody, in my opinion, that really had had a deep hate for her.

Speaker 10 But who? The question would occupy the investigators and her friends for a lot longer than anyone could have imagined.

Speaker 6 Coming up, investigators start with Renee's soon-to-be ex-husband. Where was he the night of the crime?

Speaker 10 His alibi wasn't exactly rock-solid.

Speaker 4 No, I mean, you're sleeping in the front room with your kids and your mom's in the back bedroom. That's not an alibi.

Speaker 22 When dateline continues.

Speaker 10 The investigation into Renee Pagel's murder was only hours old when the news had to be broken to her then seven-year-old daughter Sarah and Sarah's two siblings, Joel and Hannah.

Speaker 10 How did you learn what had happened and do you remember what you were told?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I remember I was at my Aunt Nancy's house, so my

Speaker 9 dad's sister's house, and we were just told like right there in like the living room that, you know, she passed away. Wow.

Speaker 10 Did life kind of stop in that moment?

Speaker 19 I mean, it's definitely something you don't forget either.

Speaker 9 You know, that moment, like, I don't think I'll ever forget.

Speaker 10 Sarah says she isn't even sure when she learned how her mother died.

Speaker 10 The adults around her shielded her from the details.

Speaker 9 We didn't realize kind of the situation until we were, until I was at least around 13, 14. And so it wasn't something that it was like since she passed we were dealing with that, at least in my eyes.

Speaker 9 That wasn't something I comprehended.

Speaker 10 Young Sarah didn't understand the circumstances of her mother's death, just like she'd known little about her parents' pending divorce.

Speaker 10 Renee and Michael Pegel had been separated for a year before she died.

Speaker 9 We were very sheltered from that. I don't have any

Speaker 9 bad memories of them when she was together.

Speaker 9 You know, I didn't understand what was going on at that point in time either, so I never felt like they didn't still love us and they didn't still care about each other either.

Speaker 10 So they were doing good co-parenting?

Speaker 23 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Everything always felt very civil.

Speaker 10 Her mom worked long hours nursing and teaching. So Sarah says her dad was more the at-home parent.

Speaker 9 We all lived on a farm together and I would wake up at six in the morning with my dad and we'd go ride the horses and take care of everything on the farm.

Speaker 10 You would sometimes call him a Disney dad?

Speaker 23 Is that right?

Speaker 9 We liked, I mean, we liked to go on trips all the time. We'd go to like Great Wolf Lodge and I mean,

Speaker 9 yeah,

Speaker 9 he was a good dad.

Speaker 20 He loved those kids. I can still hear him calling Sarah and Hannah his little princess.
He would always refer to them as Princess, Princess. No, he loved those children.
He totally loved those kids.

Speaker 10 Michael's love for his kids was obvious. And at the beginning, at least, so was the love between Michael and Renee.
What made them a good couple?

Speaker 20 They both had a very strong faith. He too wanted to start a family.
They just seemed like they were meant to be.

Speaker 10 The perfect match.

Speaker 20 The perfect match.

Speaker 10 But like many marriages, it wasn't perfect for long. And friends say they saw cracks of resentment appear.

Speaker 11 She was the worker. She was the breadwinner.
And he had backed off a little bit on his full-time work. And he stayed home and was able to play with the kids.

Speaker 11 And I know there was a little bit of tension there.

Speaker 20 I assumed the pressure of three small children. And Renee was not only working full-time, she was working two extra part-time jobs.
So I assumed, you know, pressure of life, no big deal.

Speaker 20 You know, they'll get past it.

Speaker 10 But they didn't. And a few months shy of their 10th anniversary, Michael had moved out.
As the divorce details were worked out, the children split their time between two parents.

Speaker 10 Were you at that point sort of going back and forth, I guess, between houses? Yeah. And did you ask, like, why are we not all under one roof?

Speaker 9 I guess that was something I never really asked specifically. It was just having two houses.

Speaker 10 The night Renee died, Michael had all three kids with him at his house not too far away. His mom was staying with them to help out.

Speaker 10 Detectives headed over to talk to Michael right away.

Speaker 4 We knock on the door and Michael's mother, Patricia Pagel, answers the door. We ask, hey, is Michael around? And she says, no, he's at a meeting.

Speaker 4 And she gave us about a half hour, 45 minutes that he'll be back at home.

Speaker 10 Detectives didn't say anything to her about Renee. Instead, they wanted Patricia to tell them about the night before.

Speaker 4 She stated that they had the kids that night, all three of them. They were just having a bonfire, just hanging out, just, you know, just doing the normal family stuff.

Speaker 4 During the evening, the kids were sleeping in the front room, having a fortnight or a pillow night or something like that, where they were all sleeping in the front room, where she said Michael slept with them.

Speaker 10 Patricia told the detectives she recalled waking up in the middle of the night.

Speaker 4 She remembers getting up one time during the night and seeing Michael sleeping in the living room. I said, well, was there any other activity that you remember, any other sounds or anything going on?

Speaker 4 And she said, yeah, she remembered the door sometime during the night opening and closing. And she said, maybe it was for the dog.

Speaker 10 His alibi wasn't exactly

Speaker 10 rock solid.

Speaker 4 No, I mean, you're sleeping in the front room with your kids and your mom's in the back bedroom. That's not an alibi.
She's sleeping. She's elderly.
The kids are very young and sleeping.

Speaker 10 While they were talking to his mother, Michael returned home. Detective Johnson broke the news to him that Renee was dead.
But because it was a murder investigation, he didn't reveal any details.

Speaker 4 We're not sure if it was from, you know, the surgery or what was going on. I need to talk to you.

Speaker 10 Did you tell him that being just

Speaker 10 purposely a little cagey?

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 10 Because you knew it wasn't from the surgery.

Speaker 4 I knew that, yeah.

Speaker 10 After a brief conversation, police hurried back to the crime scene. For now, there was work to do there and another man to talk to.

Speaker 10 Someone close to the victim and someone who was at Renee's house that night.

Speaker 22 Coming up.

Speaker 10 You found yourself in the center of a murder investigation. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Questions for Renee's tenant, Mike.

Speaker 8 We went at him. We went him pretty hard.

Speaker 10 After talking to Renee Pagel's soon-to-be ex-husband, Detective E.J. Johnson headed back to the home where she'd been brutally stabbed.
The property was still being searched for clues and evidence.

Speaker 10 There was a curious object discovered by deputies outside: an orange flashlight found in the grass behind the house.

Speaker 10 Detective Bill Marks says investigators had a hunch it had been left there by whoever killed Renee. Why were you convinced that the killer had dropped the flashlight?

Speaker 4 The flashlight, it was clean, it wasn't dirty, there was no signs it had been outside for a long period of time, so we were pretty convinced that whoever had it

Speaker 4 had recently left it there.

Speaker 10 The instinct would later prove right, but for now, there was somebody they needed to talk to. Renee had a tenant, Mike Decker.
He rented an apartment above Renee's horse barn.

Speaker 10 Where was he when this murder happened?

Speaker 4 He was at home.

Speaker 10 30 or so yards away from Renee's bedroom.

Speaker 4 An apartment unattached from the house. He doesn't have any windows or anything at his apartment.
It's just a door with the window facing towards the rear.

Speaker 4 He said he was home all night, just hanging out and didn't hear anything or didn't see anything.

Speaker 10 Mike Decker said he had no idea what happened. But at this stage of the investigation, everyone was a potential suspect.

Speaker 4 You were on the property when this happened. So we are going to be looking at you.
We are going to be talking to you. And he was getting a little testy and probably frustrated.

Speaker 10 Did you think anything seemed off with Mike at all? Because some of Renee's friends kind of describe him as odd.

Speaker 4 Well, he was odd. I mean, he was living above technically a horse stalls.
I mean, it's an apartment, but he was living in this. He's a grown man.
He really didn't have a job.

Speaker 4 No relationships that we were aware of. So that is a little odd.

Speaker 10 It seems that if you look at Mike Decker's alibi, it's pretty weak.

Speaker 4 His alibi is pretty weak. There's nobody accounting for him.
There's nothing that says he didn't go next door and do this to Renee.

Speaker 10 Decker agreed to give his DNA and fingerprints and consented to a search of the apartment. The deputies took his computer and three knives for testing.

Speaker 10 Then, as they spoke to family and friends in Renee's circle, a story emerged. Renee's sister, Michelle, thought Mike Decker was interested in Renee.

Speaker 4 There was talk from Michelle. She did insinuate that they might have been involved with

Speaker 4 one another.

Speaker 10 Friends also mentioned he was having financial troubles.

Speaker 4 There was talk from Joyce that Mike Decker wasn't paying his rent on time or that he was late.

Speaker 10 When they heard all that, investigators asked him to come down to the station for a more detailed interview.

Speaker 4 It's one of those things that the book is wide open with him and that you've got to start flipping the pages of, all right, no, this is not the reason why he would do it or wouldn't do it.

Speaker 4 We want to look at it all.

Speaker 10 You found yourself in the center of a murder investigation. Yeah.

Speaker 18 Not fun.

Speaker 18 And especially when things weren't going very well

Speaker 18 in your life to begin with.

Speaker 10 Was this a time in your life where you were a little down on your luck?

Speaker 18 It was one of the lower points in my life. I was downsized out of a job and then this happened a few months later.
So it added a whole lot of chaos

Speaker 18 to my personal life.

Speaker 10 A personal life that was being examined in a four-hour interrogation.

Speaker 2 What do you all talk about for four hours?

Speaker 18 Reminds me of TV, the good cop, bad cop scenario at times.

Speaker 18 But just, you know, verifying my story, wanted some of those accusations that were false about me that they wanted to really thoroughly question me about that.

Speaker 10 You mean like the romantic connection?

Speaker 18 And those kind of things there that

Speaker 18 were so untrue.

Speaker 10 One of the rumors was that Renee had turned him down.

Speaker 10 One of the friends had said something about that you had asked Renee out for pizza and that she didn't want to go and that perhaps there was something more.

Speaker 2 Yeah, nothing.

Speaker 18 Nothing like that.

Speaker 10 So it never happened?

Speaker 18 There was a time, maybe a month before she was murdered, that

Speaker 18 she was having a stressful time and I said, hey, let's just grab a pizza pizza. You know, let's go out there, take the kids,

Speaker 18 type thing as a friend would do for someone going through a hard time.

Speaker 10 An offer, he says, Renee never took him up on.

Speaker 10 Investigators also wanted to know about his financial woes and if they caused any issues with his landlord Renee.

Speaker 18 I was struggling being unemployed.

Speaker 18 It was tough so working odd jobs there so I wasn't always paying

Speaker 18 full rent at time but I was up to date with her at that moment.

Speaker 10 Was Renee did she ever get frustrated with you?

Speaker 18 That I don't know.

Speaker 18 I'm sure she did, but she also knew the circumstance that I was into, and we communicated.

Speaker 10 At the crime scene, the detectives noted there was no forced entry. They heard he'd been in the house more than once.
Another reason to look at Mike Decker.

Speaker 4 Mike Decker was familiar with the home, familiar with the kids, the layout. You know, he, I believe, even had a key to the home.

Speaker 10 Decker said it was true, but insisted that was all above board, too.

Speaker 18 There were times if they needed someone to watch the kids, especially after Mike moved out, then I would babysit the kids and watch them for her.

Speaker 10 Apparently, Renee had told a friend that sometimes you would walk into the house without permission, which got her a little upset.

Speaker 24 That never happened.

Speaker 10 Ken County Assistant Prosecutor Kelly Konski, who got involved in the investigation early on, thought Decker and his denials needed to be thoroughly investigated. Why did you feel that way?

Speaker 8 Because he's the only one on the property.

Speaker 8 At the time of the incident, we had heard from one or more witnesses that he had asked Renee out to dinner, may have gone to Pete's Hut with her one time, and that was, there was some inconsistencies on that.

Speaker 8 You can't ignore it. So we went at him.
We went him pretty hard.

Speaker 22 Coming up.

Speaker 20 She said, just make sure you stay clear of him.

Speaker 6 Bad blood between Renee and her brother-in-law.

Speaker 8 He was supposed to be the best man in their wedding, and he backed out.

Speaker 4 There was a scratch on his arm that we documented.

Speaker 8 Was very suspicious of him.

Speaker 22 When dateline continues.

Speaker 10 Investigators were suspicious of Renee's tenant, Mike Decker.

Speaker 20 How are you handling this?

Speaker 18 I was labeled as a person of interest, sure, but I had nothing to hide, so

Speaker 18 I'll cooperate as best I can with them.

Speaker 10 Mike answered their questions for hours and then went over it all again hooked up to a polygraph machine two days later. Did they put you through the ringer?

Speaker 18 They did their job. I mean, polygraph test wasn't fun.

Speaker 10 Did the police straight up ask you, did you kill Renee?

Speaker 18 In the polygraph.

Speaker 10 And what did you tell them?

Speaker 18 No.

Speaker 18 I didn't.

Speaker 10 He passed the lie detector test, and the more they looked, the less they found.

Speaker 8 The rumors about their romantic connection weren't true we found zero to connect him to that murder we found no motive we found

Speaker 8 no reason why he would be involved in this

Speaker 10 it appeared that he and Renee got along fine she liked Mike a lot Mike pretty much kept to himself he was an excellent tenant a nice guy in fact Renee seemed to get along with everybody So it was unusual, alarming even, when detectives heard about another man who friends said Renee did not get along with.

Speaker 20 She just basically told me that

Speaker 20 she didn't like him. And it wasn't like her to say she didn't like a human being.
That was very out of character for Renee.

Speaker 10 The man was her brother-in-law, Bo Pagel. Had Bo ever said or done anything to Renee that was of concern?

Speaker 11 She just would say, I just don't get good vibes from him.

Speaker 20 I remember at her wedding reception, she told me Bo was going to be there, and she said, just make sure you stay clear of him.

Speaker 10 Renee had told people that she felt very uncomfortable around Bo.

Speaker 8 Yeah, we heard a lot of that. He didn't like her, which was another reason to be suspicious of him.

Speaker 8 He was supposed to be the best man in their wedding, and he backed out, according to the people that we talked to and family members. So, you know, there was some bad blood there.

Speaker 4 When they were married,

Speaker 4 Bo was upset by it, did not approve of Renee, and cut off the relationship, any relationship with Michael.

Speaker 10 Joyce says Renee didn't want anything to do with Bo.

Speaker 20 She was afraid of her daughters ever being alone with Bo.

Speaker 20 She never wanted her daughters to ever be alone with him.

Speaker 10 Friends say the animosity between the two got so bad that when Bo's wife unexpectedly died, Renee jumped to a dark conclusion.

Speaker 11 After she passed away, Renee said, I think Bo killed her.

Speaker 2 Really?

Speaker 11 I think Bo poisoned her. She said that to you.
She said that to me.

Speaker 10 That sure got the attention of the detectives. They drove out to talk to him a week after the murder.
What's his demeanor like?

Speaker 4 You know, he's surprised that we're there, but he wants to talk to us and kind of gives us the same statement of, yeah, I didn't like Renee. I didn't think she was right for Mike.

Speaker 4 And at that point, we wanted to get his alibi. Where are you at? What were you doing during this time of Rene's death?

Speaker 10 What is his alibi?

Speaker 4 He was a trucker. He was on the road, and then he goes home.
And then in the morning, he wakes up and goes canoeing or kayaking with his daughter.

Speaker 10 Bo said he was home in Saginaw, only two hours away from the crime scene near Grand Rapids. Detectives thought that was plenty of time to make a round trip during the night.

Speaker 10 What is your gut telling you as you're talking to Bo?

Speaker 4 I mean, I thought he was a little odd, but again, he was cooperative and willing to talk to us.

Speaker 4 And we did ask him when the last time he was in Grand Rapids because when I was walking around his car, I saw a Grand Rapids press newspaper in there. So I saw the date on there.

Speaker 4 And I'm like, hey, when was the last time you were there?

Speaker 10 He told them he had been in Grand Rapids recently, but not on the night of the murder. They pulled up his phone records to track his movements, but.

Speaker 4 There was no activity.

Speaker 10 He could have left his phone at home. Yep.
This is another alibi that's also not rock solid.

Speaker 2 Absolutely.

Speaker 10 Before leaving Bo, Detective Johnson took note of something else. Something suspicious.

Speaker 4 There was a scratch on his arm that we documented. It jumped out, but it was just something that we documented and asked for an explanation for.

Speaker 10 Bo said his dog had scratched him. But what about Renee's suspicion that Bo had poisoned his wife? Investigators got in touch with the Saginaw County Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 10 The Saginaw detectives confirmed her death had been from natural causes. So Renee's speculation was off base.
There was never any proof of.

Speaker 4 There was never any proof of that, nope.

Speaker 10 But still.

Speaker 10 What are you thinking of Bo at this time?

Speaker 8 Was it very suspicious of him?

Speaker 10 Were you thinking that it's a possibility that Bo killed Rene?

Speaker 8 I felt strongly that we had to investigate him so that we could either implicate him or eliminate him.

Speaker 10 One of the people in Renee's orbit sharing stories about Bo was Renee's sister Michelle.

Speaker 10 But as they spoke to the sister more and more, her story would take the investigation in a different direction altogether.

Speaker 7 Coming up, she was so deeply wounded and so hurt.

Speaker 6 Renee's sister and Renee's husband, how close were they?

Speaker 10 Did anyone think that there was a possibility of her having an affair?

Speaker 9 Michelle, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 4 We just came out and bluntly asked her, Did you do it?

Speaker 10 Seven-year-old Sarah Pagel knew nothing about the murder investigation swirling around her mother's death, but she always knew this.

Speaker 9 I guess that I never doubted that she loved me. I think that's something really important.
But I never doubted that either.

Speaker 2 My parents love me.

Speaker 10 And as a young child, she felt cherished and protected by the only parent she had left, her dad.

Speaker 10 She says she also felt loved by her mother's family. When it came to your mom's side of the family, who did you mostly spend time with?

Speaker 9 With her sister and her dad.

Speaker 10 Michelle?

Speaker 9 Yeah, Michelle, her dad Forrest. I'm very close with my Aunt Michelle.

Speaker 9 Yeah, we have a great relationship, I think. I have no idea what I do without her, honestly.

Speaker 10 Aunt Michelle was Renee's older sister. Friends said the sibling dynamic between the two had always been complicated.

Speaker 11 Michelle loved the kids. She was always a part of like Christmases, and I know she went over to Renee's a lot because she did have a good relationship with the kids.

Speaker 11 But they never did anything just as sisters. They would never go out to eat or go shopping or things that maybe sisters would do.

Speaker 10 Laura knew the two sisters since childhood.

Speaker 11 They were so close in age that Michelle would have some friends and maybe they would come over and then Renee would join in and those friends would become Renee's friends.

Speaker 11 And then Michelle would be left out. So I think there was jealousy and I think there was always that competition

Speaker 8 between

Speaker 11 the sisters.

Speaker 10 But as investigators looked into Renee's murder, a more recent story got their attention. They found out that in Renee's divorce, Michelle had sided with Michael.
They asked her about it.

Speaker 4 She was blunt about their relationship. It's not like she was trying to sugarcoat anything because her sister had died.

Speaker 4 She was saying there was issues and she believed the majority of the problems were from Renee. You know, whether she was not being patient with Mike, she was expecting too much of Mike.

Speaker 4 She was pointing at Renee.

Speaker 10 Her sister's just been murdered and now she's going into details like that?

Speaker 4 It just seemed like there was not a sisterly connection between the two.

Speaker 10 But there was more. It came to light that during the divorce, Rene's husband, Michael and Michelle talked to each other on the phone a lot, sometimes eight hours a day.

Speaker 8 It was pretty shocking how much she talked to him.

Speaker 10 These two were in constant communication.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I was suspicious of that because, you know, a lot of communication.

Speaker 8 You know, they seem pretty close.

Speaker 10 Renee was not at all happy about her sister's close contact with her ex-to-be.

Speaker 7 She was so deeply wounded and so hurt, so betrayed by her sister.

Speaker 10 Did anyone think that there was a possibility of her having an affair?

Speaker 7 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 7 Yeah, she thought that they had been having an affair.

Speaker 20 That was her perception, yes. And it took a lot of convincing for me to tell her, no,

Speaker 20 I truly do not believe they're having an affair.

Speaker 4 We asked Michelle, we just said, hey, are you having an affair with Michael? And she said, absolutely not.

Speaker 10 But the rift between the two sisters was deep and it bothered their mother. She urged her daughters to make peace.
So on the day of her kidney surgery, Renee extended an olive branch to Michelle.

Speaker 20 The day I drove Renee to the hospital, she actually had wrote this beautiful, poignant letter to her sister. It was basically saying, you know, I want to bury the hatchet.
You're my sister.

Speaker 20 Let bygones be bygones. I really want a relationship with you.

Speaker 10 Laura remembers the first question Renee asked her in the recovery room.

Speaker 11 I was there when she woke up from her kidney surgery, and the first thing she said to me was, did Michelle come?

Speaker 11 And I said, no.

Speaker 9 And just tears ran down her cheeks. That's heartbreaking.

Speaker 10 Heartbreaking for sure. But to homicide investigators, it was something else.

Speaker 4 I also asked Michelle, did you have anything to do with Renee's death? Did you do it? Again, she denied having any part of that. So we just came out and bluntly asked her.

Speaker 10 You interviewed Michelle multiple times.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 10 Of course, they would have to put those same questions to Michael Pagel.

Speaker 6 Coming up, Michael and Renee's divorce. Bitter doesn't begin to describe it.

Speaker 24 He had been told that he was going to have to pay Renee alimony and child support, work harder.

Speaker 20 He was incensed. I mean, he was

Speaker 22 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 2 Hey, weirdos.

Speaker 25 I'm Elena, and I'm Ash, and we are the hosts of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 17 Each week, we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 25 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 17 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 25 Two new episodes drop every week and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 17 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts. Yay! Woo!

Speaker 26 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 26 Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zen offers a robust rewards program.
There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 26 Check out Zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 26 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 27 If you're an experienced pet owner, you already know that having a pet is 25% belly rubs, 25% yelling, drop it, and 50% groaning at the bill from every vet visit, which is why Lemonade Pet Insurance is tailor-made for your pet and can save you up to 90% on vet bills.

Speaker 27 It can help cover checkups, emergencies, diagnostics, basically all the stuff that makes your bank account nervous. Claims are filed super easy through the Lemonade app and half get settled instantly.

Speaker 27 Get a quote at lemonade.com/slash pet and they'll help cover the vet bill for whatever your pet swallowed after you y'all drop it.

Speaker 10 As children, Sarah and her siblings had had a difficult time processing the magnitude of their loss.

Speaker 9 How do you live without her?

Speaker 9 And so that was just kind of something that I think I was so young I didn't really understand and I didn't really understand the depth of it.

Speaker 9 But at the same time, it was something that I had a lot of family there too.

Speaker 10 Do you remember what you missed about her the most when she was gone?

Speaker 9 I mean, everything, really.

Speaker 9 I mean, your parents are your world.

Speaker 9 So losing one was I mean, yeah, it was it was very difficult, but I guess just her being there

Speaker 10 was what I missed the most just tucking you in or making you breakfast like the little things.

Speaker 2 Yeah

Speaker 10 Just as Sarah had been in the dark about her parents divorce she had no idea about the rumors of an affair between her dad and her aunt Michelle But investigators trying to solve a murder were very interested in those details.

Speaker 10 After checking it out, they quickly concluded the rumors were baseless. There was no romantic relationship.

Speaker 8 There was nothing in the communications that we had to indicate that it was a romantic relationship. More of a friend relationship.

Speaker 8 In the end, it looked like what Michelle really wanted was to stay close to him so she could be close to the children.

Speaker 10 Still, they had been hearing troubling stories about Michael and the pending divorce. Friends said it started with Renee being blindsided.

Speaker 20 She was served with divorce papers in the middle of teaching. Yep.

Speaker 20 In her classroom. In her classroom.

Speaker 11 She said, you know, he had an opportunity to have it served to me after school or at a different time. But she said, no, he did it right when I was teaching with my class.

Speaker 11 And he knew how important they were to me and how he could just embarrass me.

Speaker 10 And it went downhill from there. Chris Crandall says Michael changed as they hammered out the divorce.

Speaker 7 He would just play mind games with her all the time, tell her they were meeting at McDonald's and not show up,

Speaker 7 and tell her that, well, that's your fault. You didn't hear what we were gonna do.

Speaker 10 For what reason?

Speaker 7 I believe it's called gaslighting. He was the master at it.
He would make her feel like she was the crazy one.

Speaker 10 Friends all agreed Michael was a great dad who spent a lot of time with the kids while Renee worked. But now they saw his parenting in a different light.

Speaker 10 An opportunity to cash in and keep the big house he'd convinced Renee to buy.

Speaker 20 I feel like he had divorce already in works before that they bought that house. He was hopeful he would get the house.

Speaker 10 From everything I've heard, he didn't want to work. He wanted to raise the kids and he wanted Renee to support him.

Speaker 20 Yes. He specifically went back to school to get another degree so that he didn't have to work.

Speaker 7 He had himself working part-time

Speaker 7 and had her working two to three jobs.

Speaker 7 And so his plan, I believe with every fiber in my being his plan was to go to court and to have the house the kids and two thousand dollars a month he had worked to set himself up that way he wanted alimony oh he wanted

Speaker 7 that was he wanted it all and he believed that he had had had worked himself into that position

Speaker 10 Worked himself into that position, Renee believed, by not working.

Speaker 11 Rene even said, they base it on your last three years. Well, you look back, he's gone part-time or hasn't even worked his last three years.

Speaker 11 And it was just all part of his plan.

Speaker 10 In the weeks leading up to Renee's murder, things weren't going well for Michael in court. This plan didn't go as planned.

Speaker 20 No, it sure didn't.

Speaker 10 It got into the divorce courts.

Speaker 20 No, and the judge told Mike, under no uncertain terms,

Speaker 20 you're going to go get a job and you're going to work full-time and you are going to pay child support and Renee is going to stay in the home. And he was incensed.
I mean, he was livid.

Speaker 20 That day Renee came home from her court hearing. She told me she had never seen him so angry in her whole life.

Speaker 10 Prosecutors Dan Helmer and Kelly Konsky, investigating the case, believe this was a turning point.

Speaker 24 He had been told that he was going to have to pay Renee alimony and child support,

Speaker 24 work harder, and likely wasn't going to get full custody of the kids.

Speaker 24 he thought of. He filed for divorce thinking, Mike's such a great guy, he's going to get X, Y, and Z.
And none of that turned out to be true, and it infuriated him.

Speaker 10 Just weeks after that hearing, Renee was in the hospital for the kidney surgery.

Speaker 11 I was right there when she woke up, and like I told you, she asked about Michelle.

Speaker 11 And the next thing she said, is there a sign on my door that says you cannot enter without permission?

Speaker 10 Renee didn't want Michael anywhere near her.

Speaker 11 And I said, No. She said, do it because he's going to try to kill me.
He's going to try to put insulin in my IV or something.

Speaker 10 As soon as she was discharged, Renee went to see her kids who were staying with their father. It didn't go well.

Speaker 7 She called me that night. She was just freaked out.
She was so agitated.

Speaker 10 Renee said Michael greeted her by tossing their youngest daughter at her.

Speaker 7 And he said, oh, look, Hannah, mommy, so glad to see you. And she held her hand out and said, Mike, stop.
And he threw Hannah at her.

Speaker 10 Renee said she dropped to her knees to catch her daughter.

Speaker 11 She was crying, and she said, he knew that I had just had surgery and that I couldn't catch her. She said, he just wants to hurt me.

Speaker 10 Detectives wanted to talk to Michael Pagel again. But if he wouldn't answer their questions, they were about to find another way to know exactly what he'd been thinking about Renee.

Speaker 22 Coming up,

Speaker 12 hidden deep inside the house, Michael Pagel's secret journals.

Speaker 6 What would they reveal?

Speaker 8 In this journaling, you do mention your feelings about Renee, correct?

Speaker 28 I'm going to instruct you not to answer that question.

Speaker 10 The women in Renee's circle believed her soon-to-be ex, Michael, was capable of killing her. And apparently, Renee had thought the same thing.

Speaker 11 She went up to my mom and she said, Mrs. Staffey, if I end up dead, you'll know Mike did it.

Speaker 10 Stories like this shot Michael Pagel to the top of the potential suspect list.

Speaker 4 We weren't completely focused on Michael at first, but he definitely was in our crosshairs.

Speaker 10 In fact, Detective Johnson had been suspicious of Michael from day one when he and his partner went over to tell him Renee was dead.

Speaker 10 Before they could say much of anything, he'd handed them a card for his divorce attorney.

Speaker 4 We start talking to him about we would like to talk to him about Renee and something that happened to her. And he's basically saying, yeah, my lawyer stated that I shouldn't talk to the police.

Speaker 10 Michael eventually hired a criminal defense attorney to communicate with detectives.

Speaker 10 Police got a search warrant for his house, but they didn't find anything linking him to the murder. However, they found something else.
During the search, a detective tapped on a beam.

Speaker 10 It sounded hollow. It was, and hidden inside, a number of hard drives with scanned pages of Michael's writings.

Speaker 4 He had a lot of documenting journal type things with his feelings about Renee. We started going through all all these journals.

Speaker 10 The journals are

Speaker 10 not so complimentary of Renee.

Speaker 4 No, not a bit. He had an absolute hatred for Renee.

Speaker 10 Detective Marks read a passage from the Unearthed Journals.

Speaker 4 The bitch is such a drain. I am not appreciated for anything, not respected for anything I have done or I am doing or I will do.
I must terminate with extreme prejudice.

Speaker 10 Terminate? That sounded ominous. They still had no physical evidence to link him to the crime, but they did have an alibi to pick apart.

Speaker 10 Remember, it was just his mom saying he'd slept in the living room with the kids the night of Renee's murder. How do you feel about his mom as his alibi?

Speaker 4 You know, again, at first, we just, I didn't want to put everything on Michael, you know, so I'm listening. I'm trying to, you know, believe her.

Speaker 4 But also, in the back of my mind, I'm like, yeah, it is his mother, so I'm not quite sure what she's going to say or do to protect or not to protect her son.

Speaker 10 And investigators saw a hole in the mom's story.

Speaker 8 She said candidly, well, I did hear the door open, the slider in the middle of the night about 3 a.m., which we think is in for sure in our range when she was killed.

Speaker 8 And she thought it was odd. And there were a couple times she heard the door that night.
And we thought, well, that's the window.

Speaker 10 A window of opportunity to commit the crime. They wanted to talk to Michael's mom again, this time on the record.

Speaker 10 The prosecutors turned to a special legal tool used in Michigan called an investigative subpoena.

Speaker 8 This investigative subpoena process allows us to, in secret, subpoena people by court order, bring them in, and we use a courtroom and

Speaker 8 they have to take the stand, take an oath.

Speaker 10 Patricia Pagel was served with one of those subpoenas and the court recorded her questioning.

Speaker 8 Good afternoon, ma'am. My name is Kelly Konski with the Kent County Prosecutor's Office.

Speaker 10 The prosecutor wanted to know if Patricia Patricia would confirm under oath that she heard the sliding door open and close that night.

Speaker 8 Did you hear the dog being let out at all?

Speaker 2 No, I didn't. No.

Speaker 8 You hesitated.

Speaker 10 Any reason?

Speaker 20 Pardon?

Speaker 8 Now she's saying, no,

Speaker 8 that wasn't correct. I don't remember saying that.
I know that the dog went out, but I saw Mike.

Speaker 8 You know, she put him there. Did you hear anyone open or close the slider? Anything sounded like the slider once you went to bed?

Speaker 29 No, I guess I did not.

Speaker 8 Certainly you could hear that slider if it opened or closed wouldn't you think did i hear it

Speaker 29 you know i cannot say right now i don't know

Speaker 8 she gave him no opportunity to not be there so now she's covering

Speaker 8 all right

Speaker 10 finished with patricia a few days later prosecutors used another subpoena to call in michael for questioning through his lawyer Michael said that certain topics were off limits the divorce his relationship with his wife if they didn't agree to his terms, he would plead the fifth.

Speaker 10 And then you got nothing.

Speaker 8 I have nothing. And I agreed only because what choice do I have? Do you remember if you got up at all that night?

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 8 No, you didn't, or no, you don't remember?

Speaker 30 No, I didn't.

Speaker 8 Do you remember if the children woke up at any time during the night that night?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 8 Do you remember if your mom got up for any reason that night that you were aware of?

Speaker 28 No.

Speaker 10 The prosecutor kept at it

Speaker 10 and kept getting very little.

Speaker 8 You've already told me that you were not at

Speaker 8 or in Renee's home either on the fourth, which is a Friday, or the fifth, which is a Saturday, at any time.

Speaker 28 That's correct.

Speaker 10 No doubt about that.

Speaker 26 No doubt.

Speaker 8 And did you kill her?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 8 Did you conspire to kill her with anyone else?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 8 Did you have any knowledge prior to learning that she was dead through the police that she had been killed?

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 8 Has anyone admitted to you that they killed her or knew who killed her?

Speaker 21 No.

Speaker 10 How was Michael's demeanor in the questioning?

Speaker 24 I don't think he ever struck me as somebody that, divorce or not, was going above and beyond to try to help find who killed the mother of his children, his wife.

Speaker 24 It never was forthcoming, never was, it was almost like pulling teeth to try to get anything out of him.

Speaker 10 Prosecutors brought Michael back two weeks later to ask about the journals discovered by police.

Speaker 8 It's my understanding you're not going to answer any questions about your takeaffs regarding the journaling that's on those hard drives. Is that correct?

Speaker 28 That would be my instruction, Mr.

Speaker 21 Pagel.

Speaker 8 When it came in, he acted very cooperative, but when you went to questions like, well, really, you know, didn't you for years write in your journals and diaries that you hated her, you wanted her out of your life, you wanted her gone?

Speaker 8 He wouldn't answer it. Chief confirmed when I called it journaling, there's journaling on one or more of these hard drives by yourself, correct?

Speaker 4 Correct.

Speaker 10 In this journaling,

Speaker 8 you do mention your feelings about Rene, correct?

Speaker 28 I'm going to instruct you not to answer that question.

Speaker 8 So what is your response?

Speaker 28 I assert the fifth is what you should say. I assert the fifth.

Speaker 8 Did we think we were going to get a confession from him? No.

Speaker 8 But I think we had to lock him into a story so then we could work on

Speaker 8 pulling it apart if it wasn't true. How he acted was

Speaker 8 suspicious. Like he acted like he was covering, like he wasn't comfortable with what he was saying, things like that.
But you know,

Speaker 8 you can't charge on suspicion.

Speaker 10 Prosecutors didn't have enough to charge Michael Pangel. And despite all the red-hot suspicion, the case was growing ice cold.

Speaker 10 Months turned into years.

Speaker 10 Sarah was growing up largely oblivious to the police investigation that had centered on her dad. Did you worry all these years about the fact that your mom's killer was walking free?

Speaker 9 I mean, yeah, it's something that I think everyone would worry about and wondering, you know, who it was, wondering what happened, but it was something that as I got older, it really felt like there wasn't ever going to be an answer.

Speaker 10 But Renee's friends were determined that wouldn't happen.

Speaker 6 Coming up, that orange flashlight found in the grass is about to become a crucial new clue.

Speaker 10 This is the smoking flashlight.

Speaker 2 Yep, kind of is. Yeah.

Speaker 6 And was someone finally ready to talk?

Speaker 7 He sent me a friend request. Just sort of freaked out.
He's reaching out to me again.

Speaker 22 When dateline continues.

Speaker 10 Sarah says growing up, her family didn't talk about the murder. But her father, Michael, did talk to them about Renee.

Speaker 9 He talked about the good times and how we we were similar and, you know, our senses of humor and like how I loved Christmas and things like that. And it wasn't, it never felt like it was hostile.

Speaker 9 It never felt like there was any sort of reason like you couldn't bring her up or you shouldn't talk about her. That was never, you know, the atmosphere in our house.

Speaker 10 Did you feel like he did the best he could raising you?

Speaker 23 Yeah, I do.

Speaker 10 Were there any milestones that you would celebrate about your mom?

Speaker 9 Her birthday, when we were younger, when we lived around here, you know, we talked about it. It was like flowers.
We did that kind of stuff really with her

Speaker 9 side of the family. We spent a lot of time with them growing up.

Speaker 10 Friends remembered Renee too at get-togethers and vigils.

Speaker 10 Kindest,

Speaker 10 most wonderful person I've ever met and probably will ever meet. But mixed with the good memories was a profound and growing feeling of anger.

Speaker 7 My prayer is for him

Speaker 7 to come to a place of confession and repentance.

Speaker 7 There was zero,

Speaker 7 zero doubt in my mind. Let me make that absolutely clear.
Zero doubt in my mind that Mike Pagel did it.

Speaker 11 I was so angry because he had taken

Speaker 11 my best friend, and yet he got to be free.

Speaker 11 And it was, it was very hard.

Speaker 10 Joyce carried a sense of guilt about the night Renee was killed.

Speaker 20 She desperately wanted me to spend the night with her that night so that I could go to an art fair with her the next day, and I couldn't. And I feel so terrible that I didn't pick up those signs.

Speaker 20 Would he have killed me too?

Speaker 2 Or would I have deterred him?

Speaker 20 I don't know. I mean, it goes through my head all the time.
I don't know.

Speaker 10 As time went by without an arrest, Renee's friends did everything they could to keep the case alive.

Speaker 20 Putting up posters, flyers. We had a Remember Renee night once a month.
I met with media.

Speaker 10 You wanted justice for Renee and you weren't going to stop until you all got it.

Speaker 20 I did want justice for Renee. I did want that.

Speaker 10 Susan Samples reported the story for years at the NBC affiliate in Grand Rapids.

Speaker 32 There was outrage when no one was arrested and everybody knew it was the husband, but they couldn't make the case. From a news perspective, it was a huge story, of course.

Speaker 31 But as the years went on, you know, people's interest goes elsewhere to some degree in the news, but her friends wouldn't let us forget it.

Speaker 10 And they wouldn't let investigators forget either. Detective Johnson remembers hearing weekly from Chris like it was her job.

Speaker 4 Chris Crandall would call you and say, hey, what's going on with the case?

Speaker 7 I just felt this passion inside of me to fight. And people would say to me, Chris, you just need to stop.
You just need to let the police handle it and

Speaker 7 step back.

Speaker 10 But that she couldn't do. Instead, she set up a Facebook page asking for tips to help find Renee's killer.

Speaker 8 A Facebook page saying who killed Renee Pagel. I mean, she has been her own little private detective and zealot, you know, over the years to keep the case alive.

Speaker 10 In her mind, Michael was the only suspect, and she was fearless in calling him out.

Speaker 7 Yeah, hello. On the website, we called him the only suspect.
I did multiple interviews with local media, made it very clear.

Speaker 10 Chris and other friends started mailing Michael handwritten cards with verses from the Bible. Chris says he didn't appreciate getting scripture through the mail.

Speaker 10 I mean, he could say, hey, you're harassing me.

Speaker 7 Well, his family came against us.

Speaker 10 I was never afraid.

Speaker 7 It's like, if you want to come after me for harassing you by sending you scripture cards, because because you know what, buddy?

Speaker 7 I really might be the only person on this planet who really does care about your where you spend eternity, truly.

Speaker 7 And I am sending him scripture cards so that he will see the truth.

Speaker 10 Where is his eternity?

Speaker 7 Right now, unless he comes clean, he's going to hell. That's what my Bible says, and I believe it's true.

Speaker 10 Michael Pagel and the kids left Rockford, eventually settling in Saginaw, away from prying eyes, scripture cards, and news reports.

Speaker 9 I moved around a lot as a kid and it was always something I never... it made it hard to find a home with that kind of thing, you know, out there.

Speaker 9 So yeah, it took a while to really understand what they were doing.

Speaker 10 As a young teenager, Sarah became aware of the internet campaign against her dad. What kind of toll did it take on you?

Speaker 9 I mean, it was definitely difficult. It really prevented me really from talking about my mom to my friends and because I didn't want want any questions.

Speaker 9 And if anyone looked anything up online or their parents did, then it would be my dad's face there. And so, when stuff like that would come out, it was very hard.

Speaker 10 Assistant prosecutor Kelly Konski had never forgotten this unsolved murder.

Speaker 8 This case, it never went away. I always wanted to work this case again.
I knew there would come a time. My boss was ready a couple years ago to open one of the cold cases.

Speaker 8 He asked me to look at it and decide which one.

Speaker 8 And,

Speaker 8 you know, I just always wanted to solve Pagel.

Speaker 10 12 years after her murder, investigators dusted off boxes full of evidence and reports. It was 2018, and Bill Marks was the new lead detective.

Speaker 4 We really tried to start with a, from a fresh perspective. We wanted to start from the beginning and not focus on any certain person.

Speaker 4 We took a step back, we looked at every single person who was involved in the case, everybody that was named, and really tried to work

Speaker 4 through each one of them individually and see if they could possibly be a suspect.

Speaker 10 Anything with the evidence that jumped out at you that maybe had been missed?

Speaker 4 Nothing initially.

Speaker 10 But then he spotted something that warranted another look.

Speaker 4 As we worked through it, we did find an orange flashlight that was thought to have been tested in the past and wasn't.

Speaker 10 The orange flashlight investigators discovered behind the house the morning after the murder. It would take eagle-eyed assistant prosecutor Dan Helmer to make an interesting connection.
Get this.

Speaker 10 In an old evidence photo of Michael Pagel taken at his house, Helmer noticed a very similar flashlight in the background, but this one was blue.

Speaker 10 You did a little investigating, and it turns out these flashlights have something in common.

Speaker 24 They came in a two-pack that year,

Speaker 24 one of which was an orange and blue combination, which is the colors we had.

Speaker 24 The batteries were actually from the same lot number.

Speaker 10 This is the smoking flashlight.

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 24 what was important for us is it puts Mike there either that night or right around there, and he had no reason to be at that home. No reason.

Speaker 10 It was an interesting piece of the puzzle, but still not enough for an arrest. With her online posts, Chris was still asking who killed Renee.

Speaker 10 And one day, out of the blue, someone wanted to talk to her on Facebook. It was Michael's brother.

Speaker 2 Bo.

Speaker 7 He sent me a friend request and I saw it and I just sort of freaked out. I didn't respond to it, slept on it the next day.
He's reaching out to me again.

Speaker 10 Could it be that Bo had information about the murder of Renee after all?

Speaker 22 Coming up.

Speaker 10 So Bo just cracks this case wide open.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I had to hold myself down.

Speaker 21 There was

Speaker 21 like a rag and there was a knife.

Speaker 10 in the rag. That is one powerful secret he was keeping.
Absolutely.

Speaker 10 The Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid has a full design, a spacious interior with 232 horsepower, and a 12.3-inch panoramic display to keep the adventure going and fit with the way you live.

Speaker 10 And with Sirius XM, every drive comes alive, bringing you closer to the music, sports, talk, and podcasts you love, right in your vehicle or on the Sirius XM app.

Speaker 10 Every Sirius XM-equipped Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid includes a three-month trial subscription to SiriusXM, so the experience begins the moment you drive.

Speaker 10 Learn more at kia.com/slash sportage-hybrid, Kia movement that inspires.

Speaker 30 Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here.

Speaker 1 If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe.

Speaker 30 And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or...

Speaker 30 Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J.

Speaker 1 Fox.

Speaker 30 There new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 26 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 26 Zen is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zen offers a robust rewards program.
There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 26 Check out Zen.com/slash find to find Zin at a store near you.

Speaker 26 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 10 More than a decade after Renee Pagel's murder, detectives were taking another crack at her cold case. At the same time, her close friend Chris got a message on Facebook from Michael's brother Bo.

Speaker 10 Chris hadn't met the guy, but she knew he and Renee never got along, and that Bo had been looked at as a potential suspect. Now, out of the blue, he wanted to talk.
This is Bo.

Speaker 7 What's this? Hi, this is Chris Crandall.

Speaker 10 Unbeknownst to Bo, police asked Chris to record the conversation, and she sure did.

Speaker 10 Right from the start, he made it clear he was calling to talk about his brother.

Speaker 14 First off, I'll apologize. You guys are absolutely 100% right about Blake and how he is.
Oh, he fooled us all.

Speaker 14 Oh, he's a liar.

Speaker 10 What did he say to you?

Speaker 7 Well, he just said Mike was starting to lose it.

Speaker 10 Chris quickly cut to the chase.

Speaker 7 I said, So, why are you calling me? Well, something needs to be done.

Speaker 7 And I said, Well, I agree. I mean, you know what I believe.

Speaker 7 Do you believe he killed Renee?

Speaker 7 I

Speaker 7 don't know.

Speaker 7 I don't know for certain, but I will tell you this, I would not defend him now.

Speaker 10 Bo said his brother Michael had turned on him.

Speaker 14 For whatever reason, in his drunk, warped mind,

Speaker 14 he

Speaker 14 thinks I am out to get him, and he tells everybody this.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 14 he carries a loaded gun on him all the time.

Speaker 10 Chris steered the conversation back to the information she needed.

Speaker 7 Who do you think killed Renee?

Speaker 14 I got no clue to tell you the truth. I couldn't tell you.

Speaker 7 Do you think Mike did it?

Speaker 14 Do I think Mike did it? Yeah.

Speaker 14 I don't know. I don't, I, you know, I don't know.
I don't think so. I don't think he would have the

Speaker 14 guts to do it. That's still a good question.

Speaker 10 Bo sounded very much afraid of his brother.

Speaker 14 Mike has got to be stopped.

Speaker 21 I am going to be his next victim.

Speaker 21 He is going to kill me at some point.

Speaker 10 Next victim? Bo was all over the place. Did he know something or not?

Speaker 4 Next victim is a big, it's a big statement.

Speaker 10 Once investigators played the tape, they wanted to talk to him under oath.

Speaker 10 Prosecutors sent him an investigative subpoena.

Speaker 8 At any time prior to the murder, let's start with that. Did Mike ever say or do anything to indicate that he wanted to kill her, wanted to hurt her?

Speaker 33 I don't think so. I don't remember.

Speaker 8 I do remember that, Mr.

Speaker 33 Pagan. Yeah, I'm trying to think.
I just don't.

Speaker 33 I just don't talk in those conversations.

Speaker 33 I don't.

Speaker 33 What does that mean?

Speaker 33 I don't know.

Speaker 33 I just talk about other

Speaker 33 stuff.

Speaker 4 The body language just wasn't saying the same things that his mouth was saying. It appeared as if he had more to talk about.

Speaker 10 Prosecutors sent him home and two weeks later asked him to come back. Bo comes in for a second interview and just cracks this case wide open, like the Grand Canyon.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I had to hold myself down, like not get too excited.

Speaker 10 Prosecutors granted Bo immunity in exchange for his testimony. And this time, he had a story to tell.
With an audio recorder rolling, he remembered a day back in August 2011.

Speaker 10 It was exactly five years after Renee's murder.

Speaker 21 He had come to my mom's and

Speaker 21 Saginaw.

Speaker 21 he had said, let's

Speaker 21 go look for some badir and get a six pack of snacks, which he was referring to beer.

Speaker 10 A couple of beers in, Michael started talking about his marriage to Renee and how it had gone bad. They came to a bridge and Michael told Beau to pull over.

Speaker 21 Which is not out of the ordinary because we would typically stop on the bridge. He had a small case or bag or something

Speaker 21 with him.

Speaker 21 And he opened up the case and there was

Speaker 21 like a rag or a t-shirt or something like that. And he unwrapped it and there was a knife in the rag.

Speaker 10 And right then, holding the knife in his hand, Beau said Michael revealed what he'd done.

Speaker 21 He said to me, this is how I finalize a divorce.

Speaker 10 There was no doubt in Bo's mind what he meant. He said it was clear Michael had killed Renee.

Speaker 21 He started going on about, you know, that she had it coming to her, that all she had to do was pay him what he was asking for as far as alimony or child support and give him the house and

Speaker 21 whatever else he felt he was entitled to. That's all she had to do, and she wouldn't do it.
And so

Speaker 21 he said he finalized the divorce.

Speaker 10 That is one powerful secret he was keeping. Absolutely.

Speaker 10 Still, there was more to Bo's story.

Speaker 21 So then, we're arguing.

Speaker 21 I mean, this is just more than I'm ready for, you know. And then

Speaker 21 he takes the knife and he throws the knife in the creek.

Speaker 10 Once the murder weapon disappeared in the creek, Bo said his brother turned to him with a threat.

Speaker 21 His words were,

Speaker 21 I

Speaker 21 f her up, and if you tell anybody, I'm gonna f ⁇ you up too.

Speaker 10 Bo said he went to see their mother, Patricia, right away.

Speaker 21 I talked to my mom and I told my mom. Same day? It was the same day.
I told her

Speaker 5 what

Speaker 21 he had told me and I told her and she says, just don't do anything till after I'm calling. Did she seem surprised? No.

Speaker 8 Bo's explanation for staying quiet for so long was not just that he loved his brother, but that his mom had asked him to not say anything while she was alive.

Speaker 10 She knew about the murder, for sure.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 10 So why was he finally telling the story? Well, their mother had just died six months earlier. He had kept his word to her, but now said he wanted to get this big secret off his chest.

Speaker 33 The truth just needs to come out, and I need to get it off, and

Speaker 33 our family needs to go on.

Speaker 10 The truth? Investigators would have to corroborate Bo's story, looking for evidence that was never meant to be found.

Speaker 4 Coming up, there's a knife on here. It was exactly as Bo described it.

Speaker 10 Unbelievable.

Speaker 6 Was this the murder weapon? And could it lead to an arrest at last?

Speaker 9 I was absolutely shocked. It really felt like it was out of the blue.

Speaker 22 When date line continues,

Speaker 10 The investigation switched into high gear once Michael Pagel's brother Bo swore under oath that Michael confessed to killing Renee and dropped the murder weapon into a creek.

Speaker 10 Detectives asked Bo to draw a picture of the knife and help them locate the spot.

Speaker 4 February 5th, 2020.

Speaker 10 And soon, Bill Marks and a dive team headed to Saginaut to search.

Speaker 4 Day one, we found a lot of metal, a lot of shards.

Speaker 10 Day two.

Speaker 4 Day two, we collected everything from car parts to home stereos.

Speaker 10 So you went back for a third day?

Speaker 4 The third day we were just about done the last few passes.

Speaker 10 This was the end of the search. Yes.

Speaker 4 I started pulling back the magnet toward me and I got hung up on something stuck really strong.

Speaker 10 One of the divers finally wrestled it out of the water.

Speaker 4 I still couldn't see it because it's all black and all the metal rusty. There's a knife on here.

Speaker 2 Wow. There was no doubt.

Speaker 4 It was exactly as Bo described.

Speaker 10 Unbelievable.

Speaker 10 Bill texted the picture of the knife to the prosecutors.

Speaker 24 I couldn't even describe what I was seeing. I was so shocked.
All I could do was show the boss a picture, and

Speaker 4 it was amazing.

Speaker 24 It was entirely consistent with what we knew from the medical examiner's report was used in this.

Speaker 4 We were confident we had the right one. It matched the drawing that Bo had given us.
The description was identical.

Speaker 10 Now, they had enough for Michael's arrest. And after all these years, Detective Johnson, now Lieutenant Johnson, wanted to be the one to do it.

Speaker 4 We've put a lot of time and effort into this. Yeah.
And when the time comes to arrest him, I want to be there.

Speaker 21 Have a seat.

Speaker 4 I go to Mike, I place my cuffs on him and put him in the back of the car.

Speaker 4 But I did take a nice picture of him prior to me leaving and sent it to Chris Crandall.

Speaker 7 I see E.J. Johnson's number

Speaker 7 show up on my phone, and I answered it and he says, you know how they say God is good all the time, God is good. I said, what? Tell me.
And he said, guess who I have in my back seat.

Speaker 2 And I said, you are kidding me.

Speaker 7 He sent me a picture of him in his back seat.

Speaker 11 I remember I was teaching.

Speaker 9 Chris called me

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 19 she said,

Speaker 11 You will never guess who is in the back of EJ's car.

Speaker 11 And I remember I just started crying and my teacher friends had really embraced me over these years because they knew what I had gone through.

Speaker 4 You can't even describe how relieved you are to finally have this moment that you've been waiting for for 13, 14 years of a man that's been out there walking free that killed his wife, mother of his children.

Speaker 10 The news of Michael's arrest had a different effect on those children. His daughter, Sarah, was now 21 years old.
Now you're not seven anymore. You're able to really process at this time.

Speaker 10 And so what's going through your mind?

Speaker 9 I mean, at first

Speaker 9 I was absolutely shocked. I mean, that's the last thing I thought I would hear.
And it really felt like it was out of the blue. I mean, that kind of hits you out of nowhere.

Speaker 9 It was very hard to process at first. And, you know, until I could really talk to him, it felt like I had no idea what was going on.

Speaker 2 But I,

Speaker 9 yeah, it was definitely, it was very difficult.

Speaker 10 Did you think, not my dad? Go find the real killer. You know, he or she is out there.

Speaker 9 Of course, you never want your dad to be the one behind everything. And obviously, I was thinking like, yeah, there has to be another way.
There has to be something else.

Speaker 9 Like, there's something missing here.

Speaker 10 Sarah went to talk to her father in jail. What did he say to you?

Speaker 9 He just said everything's going to be okay and we talked about everything that we need to figure out.

Speaker 10 Did you ask him, Dad, did you do this?

Speaker 9 No.

Speaker 10 Have you ever asked him that?

Speaker 9 No, I've never felt the need to.

Speaker 10 Was there a part of you that thought for a moment

Speaker 10 he did this

Speaker 10 or I think he did this?

Speaker 9 I think I thought, you know, now that he's arrested, you know, there's something there.

Speaker 9 So maybe if it goes to trial, he's found innocent, then we can just finally actually go on with our lives.

Speaker 10 But it wouldn't turn out to be that simple. Just when you think this story is over, it isn't.

Speaker 10 The biggest bombshell of all drops in your lap.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 22 Coming up.

Speaker 5 Michael Pagel speaks, and he's got a whopper of a story.

Speaker 21 We agreed on $100,000 for him to murder Renee.

Speaker 8 Mike Pagel says, I didn't kill my wife.

Speaker 10 Do you have to investigate to be sure that the real killer isn't walking around?

Speaker 4 Absolutely.

Speaker 10 Sarah Pagel was bracing for a trial. Her father accused of killing her mother.
Did you think my dad doesn't have the temperament to kill someone or to take our mother away from us?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I absolutely thought that.

Speaker 10 But one email from Michael's defense attorney changed all of that. Michael wanted a shortcut.

Speaker 8 He reached out to us and said, through his attorneys, early on before our preliminary hearing, said, hey, would you be interested in making him an offer? And we're like, what?

Speaker 8 That was a surprise also.

Speaker 10 Before responding to Michael's attorney, prosecutors met with his children. They wanted to know how they felt about letting their father take a plea instead of going through a painful public trial.

Speaker 8 We did not want to make any kind of offer or even consider an offer. In fact, if it wasn't for those kids, we would have made no offer.

Speaker 8 We would have tried him, and God willing, the jury would have seen the truth, and he would have gone away for life without parole and died in prison.

Speaker 8 But the fact is he does have three lovely children who are impacted by this more than anybody.

Speaker 10 For Sarah, it was the first time she heard the evidence pointing at her father's involvement in her mother's death.

Speaker 9 They explained the evidence they had, they explained how they got it. They were definitely in a difficult situation,

Speaker 9 you know, representing my mom and justice for her, but also knowing that

Speaker 9 we were the ones that were suffering because of my dad's actions. And so putting him in jail, you know, was

Speaker 9 doing good by my mom, but also hurt us immensely. But they wanted us to know that there were two

Speaker 9 different

Speaker 9 Mike Pagels at that time.

Speaker 10 He could be an amazing father to you, but then be capable of something evil.

Speaker 23 Yeah.

Speaker 10 And how do you deal with that?

Speaker 9 This is

Speaker 19 just, I mean,

Speaker 10 I have no words.

Speaker 9 It was difficult. I mean, absolutely.
And I talked to him maybe an hour after the plea deal.

Speaker 9 I mean, yeah, it was a difficult conversation.

Speaker 10 Did he apologize to you?

Speaker 23 Yeah,

Speaker 9 I mean, absolutely.

Speaker 10 What was the biggest question you had for him?

Speaker 9 I guess why.

Speaker 9 What did he say?

Speaker 9 I don't feel comfortable answering that. Sorry.

Speaker 10 Michael pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with a prison term of 25 to 50 years. At his plea hearing, he told his story.

Speaker 21 Back in 2006, I was going through a divorce with my wife, and it was

Speaker 21 going

Speaker 21 from

Speaker 21 bad to worse. I was losing more and more time with the kids.
It was getting more and more contentious, and I was just

Speaker 21 at a breaking point.

Speaker 21 So I, 2006, in the spring, spring, I talked with

Speaker 21 my brother.

Speaker 21 Okay to call him Bo.

Speaker 21 Okay, I talked with Bo.

Speaker 10 And then his confession took a sharp turn.

Speaker 21 I asked him, what did he think the odds were that we could get away with killing him? And he said, well, they were better than half.

Speaker 21 And at that point, I

Speaker 21 made the bad decision.

Speaker 8 Mike Pagel pleads guilty,

Speaker 8 but says,

Speaker 8 I didn't kill my wife. My brother did.

Speaker 21 We agreed on $100,000 for him to murder Renee.

Speaker 10 It was quite a story. A bombshell dropped onto what was supposed to be a closed case.
The only trouble was no one believed it.

Speaker 4 When we got to court and listened to him tell this story about how he had hired his brother and his brother's the one that actually killed Renee.

Speaker 4 There was just a

Speaker 4 level of disbelief, a certain amount of kind of disgust, like, come on, really?

Speaker 10 Do you still now have to investigate to be sure

Speaker 10 that the real killer isn't walking around?

Speaker 4 Absolutely. We spent weeks and weeks digging into all these claims that he made, but we never found anything at all that pointed toward Bo being involved.

Speaker 10 Bo denied any involvement in Renee's murder, and investigators concluded Michael had acted alone.

Speaker 20 It's really despicable that he couldn't take accountability. Man up,

Speaker 20 tell us what you really did do. It certainly is going to make life a lot easier for those of us trying to move forward, trying to find forgiveness, if you could just bloody tell the truth.

Speaker 10 Did you believe his story that his brother had helped him?

Speaker 9 Like I said, it was something that I just decided to remain neutral on.

Speaker 10 For Sarah, it was a lot to absorb. Even with her father changing his story, Michael had admitted he wanted her mother dead and was going to prison for her murder.

Speaker 10 How did you leave that conversation feeling after you had spoken to your dad?

Speaker 10 It's a conversation that like almost no one has with their parent.

Speaker 2 I mean heartbroken. Yeah.

Speaker 10 And did you... did you tell him I will stand by you?

Speaker 9 I said I'd forgive him.

Speaker 10 Forgive him.

Speaker 10 Because you still have a relationship with him, right?

Speaker 15 Yeah, I do.

Speaker 10 How are you able to keep that intact?

Speaker 20 I think

Speaker 9 he was always my dad. You know, I never saw that side of him.
And even if that was

Speaker 9 something he did,

Speaker 9 I mean, everyone deserves to be forgiven. And it was something that he apologized.
He sincerely

Speaker 19 felt like he knew he made a mistake.

Speaker 9 He knew it was the worst thing he could have done to us and for us, and he knew that, and he admitted that.

Speaker 9 But that doesn't take away the fact that he's my dad.

Speaker 9 I think growing up with a single parent, you really hang on to the one that you have and I wouldn't want to lose him for anything.

Speaker 10 At his sentencing five months later, Michael addressed his children.

Speaker 21 I ask God to forgive me.

Speaker 21 and give all, give us all the strength to endure the consequences. Sarah, Joel, and Hannah, your mom loved you very much and would be very proud to see how well her children have grown.

Speaker 10 Sarah wrote a letter to the court.

Speaker 9 I just wanted to get across that he wasn't just the person who was involved in her death. He was the one that raised us.
And the people that we are today, we are because of him.

Speaker 9 It is a very difficult situation to understand being the one in the middle of both sides of that story and it's something that I think only we can really understand and so no one

Speaker 2 has passed judgment on that.

Speaker 10 The friends who fought so long and hard still feel the loss of Renee. A beautiful person was taken from

Speaker 9 this world.

Speaker 20 When she died, I genuinely and truly felt like a piece of me died as well.

Speaker 10 Sarah says the committed effort by so many to solve the case is a testament to her mother's character.

Speaker 9 She had a beautiful personality that clearly speaks. I mean, so many people care about her today, and

Speaker 9 the efforts that her friends put in over the years. While

Speaker 9 I kind of felt like collateral damage of some of that, it was for her and it was for justice for her. And I understand that and appreciate that.
And I think that speaks to the type of person she was.

Speaker 6 That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again next Friday at 9-8 Central.
And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 6 Good night.

Speaker 26 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zen Nicotine Pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 26 Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program.
There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zin.

Speaker 26 Check out zinn.com/slash find to find Zinn at a store near you.

Speaker 26 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.