The Secrets of Cottonwood Creek

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Speaker 5 I don't even think I asked him what happened because you don't want to hear details.

Speaker 5 That was the worst day of my life that I found out about my mom.

Speaker 2 A loving couple.

Speaker 6 A romantic hike. A secluded spot.

Speaker 7 She was turning to look at the bird. It's like her feet just went out from under.

Speaker 10 All of a sudden, I hear a yelling coming from downstream.

Speaker 9 There was Mrs. Mueller floating face up.

Speaker 12 A wife falling to her death.

Speaker 6 Her husband falling apart.

Speaker 13 He was panicking, he was shaking, crying.

Speaker 15 The evidence, but the scene makes us believe that something entirely different happened.

Speaker 16 He told me she fell 20 feet.

Speaker 17 Where were the injuries?

Speaker 11 Why did I not see what I expected to see?

Speaker 6 A search for the truth in the woods and water.

Speaker 18 If your theory is right, that is almost like she was being hunted.

Speaker 15 It's almost like a hare and a wolf.

Speaker 6 Two chilling accounts of what happened to the mom they all adored. One seemingly unsolvable mystery.

Speaker 20 Either you believe crazy story A or you believe crazy story B.

Speaker 21 Both stories are crazy.

Speaker 22 Which one do you want to go in?

Speaker 23 Winding down a mountain in southwest Colorado.

Speaker 23 Waterfalls spill over granite and sunlight filters through aspens and evergreens.

Speaker 23 Cottonwood Creek, an only in the west sort of backdrop.

Speaker 23 Snapshots barely capture it, but who can resist trying? What a spot to preserve a memory.

Speaker 23 Careful though, this is wilderness, the dangerous kind.

Speaker 8 She's in the river, she fell, they can't find her, she thinks she's dead.

Speaker 23 The frigid currents here can take a life and also, maybe, sweep away secrets.

Speaker 12 Where's the perfect place to commit a murder where nobody would see you?

Speaker 5 If you go into it looking for trouble, you're going to find it.

Speaker 23 And up in those mountains, sometimes questions are left behind.

Speaker 15 I don't have an explanation for this, but certainly it does truly haunt me.

Speaker 23 The story begins with those pictures. Together, they form a couple, husband and wife, Leslie and Fred Moeller, married for almost 27 years.

Speaker 5 They were always super affectionate. They acted like they were two high school kids that had just started dating.
They were all over each other.

Speaker 23 These are the Mueller's three children, Amanda, the eldest, then Ariel, and Alex, the youngest and only boy.

Speaker 23 They were brought up in Texas, near the town of San Angelo, but for fun, the family headed out to their second home in Lake City, Colorado. Those photos of their parents were taken nearby.

Speaker 5 They both loved the cabin and going up to Colorado. It was so pretty.

Speaker 5 It was in a valley and there were just, you would look and it would look at a postcard with the mountains.

Speaker 13 There was a river running right near there.

Speaker 23 Their Rockies Getaway was a family place to relax and escape their busy lives back home.

Speaker 24 What was life like up at the cabin?

Speaker 5 We would usually go in the summers. We would just go hiking together or horseback riding and just kind of hang out as a family.

Speaker 24 Did you feel like there was a lot of family bonding that went on at the cabin?

Speaker 5 Yeah definitely. We'd ended up having a lot of fun you know board games or going out hiking and doing all these different activities together.

Speaker 23 In Texas Leslie had an OBGYN practice and worked long hours delivering babies.

Speaker 24 And she was the area's first OBGYN, female OBGYN.

Speaker 5 She was very much a pioneer in that sense. Like I think the more people told her you can't do this, she wanted to do it.

Speaker 5 She was very strong and willed and definitely a feminist in a way that she was all about like I can do anything that any man can do and I can do it better.

Speaker 23 In 2004 Leslie decided to make a change in her life. She retired from medicine and devoted her time to the church.
She even studied theology.

Speaker 23 But most of all, Leslie loved the outdoors, especially riding horses.

Speaker 5 I think if she had her choice, she would be riding horses every day and then practicing theology. And I'm sure she wished the days were longer.

Speaker 24 She's like, superwoman.

Speaker 23 Their mom embraced adventure, and she wanted her kids to as well.

Speaker 5 One time, mom and I went, just the two of us, I hadn't been horseback riding in a while, and so I told her I didn't want to go more than maybe five, six miles.

Speaker 5 And she goes, okay, well, I found this trail. It's eight miles, but you can do it.
And by the time it ended, it was 16 miles. She must have the map.

Speaker 1 So she tricked you.

Speaker 5 But we had such a a wonderful time. But the next day, I was not moving.

Speaker 23 As for Fred, he owned a multi-million dollar company importing steel for construction. Still, their dad wasn't all business all the time.

Speaker 5 In the traditional motherly roles, he would definitely step up and wasn't afraid to be Mr. Mom.

Speaker 23 The Mueller kids say their parents fit one another perfectly.

Speaker 13 You'd make a point of every night to try to do something nice for her.

Speaker 5 She was so proud of her, too. They'd talk all the time.

Speaker 5 Anytime that there was any type of disagreement about, you know, who the dishes weren't done or some honeydew chore kind of a thing, they would talk about it until they were completely resolved.

Speaker 5 And then the next second, they'd be all over each other again and be perfectly happy.

Speaker 23 It was a happy weekend at the Mueller's Colorado cabin, May 3rd, 2008. Now that Leslie was no longer working, she was spending much more time up here.

Speaker 23 That Saturday, the spring day was sunny, the high-altitude air still chilled. Morning began with with chores.

Speaker 13 I think we were unloading some hay, doing stuff kind of like that around the house.

Speaker 24 So was this just a very typical weekend in Colorado?

Speaker 23 It was just Alex, then 14, up with his parents on this trip. That afternoon, the three went to mass in town.

Speaker 23 Later, after a snack, his parents suggested they cap off the day with a hike to photograph some stunning waterfalls nearby.

Speaker 13 I was pretty wiped out by that time, and I just kind of wanted to hang out in the cabin and just read a book or something like that. So I turned them down on going for the hike.

Speaker 23 Fred and Leslie headed off with her dog Gracie, a border collie pup.

Speaker 5 I think she was only six months old, wasn't she?

Speaker 5 Was she rambunctious?

Speaker 5 She was rambunctious for sure. She was the type of dog that when the ceiling fan would be going, she would try to jump up and like follow it around.

Speaker 23 Fred and Leslie parked at the base of the trail. Snow still covered the ground in patches.
They hiked up past a series of waterfalls, up until they found the perfect spot for pictures.

Speaker 23 They had arrived at Cottonwood Creek.

Speaker 24 Fred struck a pose first.

Speaker 26 Next, Leslie's turn.

Speaker 23 One more of Fred, big smile, and then Leslie again, this time with her beloved Gracie.

Speaker 23 Then something went wrong.

Speaker 7 It's like it's just happened in slow motion in front of me.

Speaker 23 In an instant, Leslie was gone.

Speaker 8 At the waterfall, she's in the river.

Speaker 23 What happened at Cottonwood Creek?

Speaker 23 The hunt for answers would start with a frantic search. Where was she?

Speaker 9 All of a sudden, I hear yelling, and the yelling is coming from downstream.

Speaker 23 Alex Mueller was alone at his family's vacation cabin in Colorado. His sisters weren't on this weekend trip, and that Saturday afternoon, his parents went out for a hike without him.

Speaker 24 Do you remember the last words you said to your mom as she was leaving the cabin?

Speaker 13 See you later, you know?

Speaker 24 Just a normal, like, of course, I'm going to see my mom in an hour.

Speaker 13 Yeah, exactly. I mean, nothing really memorable.

Speaker 24 And so then there's a whole period of time that they're gone. What's the next thing

Speaker 5 you remember?

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 13 reading, kind of hanging around, I think the first time I kind of noticed that it was getting a little late, it had gone dark, and you know, no one should be kind of hiking or walking around when it's dark.

Speaker 23 Alex had no inkling of the tragedy unfolding at Cottonwood Creek. It started right after his dad took a picture of his mother, Leslie.

Speaker 18 Leslie and Gracie posed here.

Speaker 26 It's a stunning setting.

Speaker 18 But just about an arm's length behind me is a cliff, a steep drop-off to the granite below, and the icy cold waters of Cottonwood Creek.

Speaker 23 Right after Fred snapped the picture, Leslie fell and was swept away in the water. Unable to find her, Fred raced for help, driving more than a mile to the nearest house.

Speaker 29 Somebody just showed up at my house.

Speaker 23 With no cell service up by the creek, the owner of the house, Justin Sparks, was the first to call 911.

Speaker 8 He pulled up, he said, at the waterfall. She's in the river.
She fell and they can't find her. He's frantic, of course.
He said he thinks his wife has.

Speaker 8 His wife?

Speaker 22 Yes.

Speaker 23 The homeowner offered right away to help Fred. They sped back up the mountain and Fred dropped him off at a spot to begin searching.

Speaker 23 Just down the road, physician's assistant and EMS volunteer Michael Golub was on duty.

Speaker 9 A call went out over the radio for a female drowning victim.

Speaker 23 Golub headed over to the base of the trail. There, he ran into Fred.

Speaker 9 He comes barreling down at a very high rate of speed and kind of slams on his brakes and starts yelling at me, let's go, let's go, let's go.

Speaker 23 The EMS responder noticed this man he was trying to help could also be injured. Fred's face was scratched up.

Speaker 9 He has some superficial lacerations, and so I take a minute to make sure this isn't my second victim, to make sure he's okay. And he assures me he's fine, he's fine, just kind of wants to keep going.

Speaker 23 But then, as Fred drove, he seemed disoriented. He pulled over, but he couldn't seem to find where Leslie fell.

Speaker 9 I start to unload from the jeep. He says, no, this isn't it.
And we get back in the jeep and he continues upstream or uphill.

Speaker 23 After another stop, they found the right place and hike toward the creek.

Speaker 9 All of a sudden, I hear a yelling, and the yelling is coming from downstream.

Speaker 23 It was the homeowner, Justin Sparks. Michael Golup took off toward him.
He was in a knee-deep pool down below the waterfalls.

Speaker 9 There was Mrs.

Speaker 10 Mueller.

Speaker 9 She's dressed in a lime green jacket and she's floating face up. He actually found her, he, I believe he used the word pinned, under the log and face down.

Speaker 23 Leslie had no pulse, but Golub thought there was still hope she could be revived. Fred had caught up, towering over them from the creek embankment.

Speaker 9 He says, is she dead? Tell him it's too soon to know.

Speaker 23 Golub sent Fred back down the road to look for more help. By then, a small village of first responders had assembled at the start of the trail.

Speaker 23 Among them was Hinsdale County Sheriff's Deputy Justin Casey.

Speaker 33 We had other officers responding, that we also had the EMS personnel coming in ambulances, and we had fire personnel coming with the fire trucks.

Speaker 23 Dispatch put a call into the local sheriff, Ron Bruce.

Speaker 15 We had gotten a report of a drowning up on Cottonwood Creek, and they said they'd keep me advised.

Speaker 23 By then, a group of medical responders made their way up to the creek to help. But still, no heartbeat, not a breath from Leslie.
And it was clear she was gone.

Speaker 9 We were not going to be able to bring Miss Mueller back.

Speaker 23 At the cabin, Alex was wondering why his parents weren't back yet. Their hike was only supposed to last an hour or so, but they'd been gone more than three hours.

Speaker 24 Were you worried?

Speaker 13 Not really worried as if something happened to him. It's more like, you know, it's kind of weird that they would, you know, stay out past dark if they're going for a hike.

Speaker 23 It was past 8 p.m. when his dad got home without his mom.

Speaker 13 It's my dad and the deputy and yeah they come in. It's kind of a shock to see you know when you're expecting somebody to see strangers coming in instead.

Speaker 24 What do you think when you see that?

Speaker 15 Not a whole lot of time to think honestly.

Speaker 13 You kind of go into shutdown mode.

Speaker 23 Alex recalled his dad seemed like he was in shock.

Speaker 13 He was very disheveled, had been crying a lot. Then he, you know, gave me a big hug and that was kind of how it broke.

Speaker 24 I can't even imagine getting that news when you just thought your parents were going for a quick hike.

Speaker 13 It's kind of disbelief really. Like the whole thing just seemed so surreal.

Speaker 23 Then father and son were shuttled to the sheriff's department where Fred could file a report about the accident.

Speaker 13 I remember them saying you take Fred and I'll take Alex.

Speaker 23 Sheriff Bruce was at the station to meet them.

Speaker 15 My initial reaction to Fred was he was a victim. A grieving husband.

Speaker 23 Fred gave a brief handwritten statement.

Speaker 15 We want to make sure we've dotted the I's and crossed the T's because we're dealing with the death of a woman.

Speaker 23 Then, Fred and Alex headed back to their empty cabin. And there in that home that had, until then, been full of such happy memories, Fred and Alex endured the longest night of their lives.

Speaker 13 We stayed together in the same room the whole night.

Speaker 23 And did your dad sleep at all?

Speaker 13 It was a very long night.

Speaker 23 But they had no idea it was just the first sleepless night in what would become the longest ordeal of their lives.

Speaker 23 Fred gives investigators a detailed account of what happened to Leslie, and he's very clear on who's to blame.

Speaker 7 It was that damn dog tangled up in her legs, is what I think it was.

Speaker 23 What would police think of that?

Speaker 23 Fred and Leslie Moeller's daughters, Amanda and Ariel, were hundreds of miles away from Colorado when it happened. Their dad had to break the terrible news to them by phone.

Speaker 28 He said,

Speaker 5 I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
And I said, what happened? And he said, we were hiking. I was trying to take a picture.
She fell. And I remember saying, but she's going to be okay.

Speaker 5 And he said, no, she's dead.

Speaker 5 And I

Speaker 5 kind of lost it. I started crying terribly.
and he said, I'm so, so sorry, Mandy.

Speaker 24 What did your dad say to you when you got him on the phone?

Speaker 5 I don't even think I asked him what happened because you don't want to hear details. I mean, I could easily say that was the worst day of my life that I found out about my mom.
And

Speaker 5 the only detail that matters is she was gone.

Speaker 23 The tragic details, however, were the business of Hinsdale County Sheriff Ron Bruce.

Speaker 23 He and his small office have the huge job of patrolling more than 1,100 square miles of potentially dangerous wilderness and wildlife.

Speaker 24 Should they have not gone

Speaker 1 to that area? No, it wasn't.

Speaker 15 It was perfectly fine.

Speaker 35 I think

Speaker 15 he related it was something of an idyllic day.

Speaker 23 The day after Leslie died, Sheriff Bruce stopped by the Mueller's cabin to get a more precise account of what happened during that hike. Bruce's undersheriff and a state investigator talked to Fred.

Speaker 7 You know, I shouldn't have even taken her up there. It's all my fault.

Speaker 23 The conversation at the the Mueller's kitchen table was recorded.

Speaker 7 We started taking photos. She took a few of me.

Speaker 8 I took some of her.

Speaker 23 Fred described in detail how that Kodak moment went wrong.

Speaker 7 I suggested that she take a picture with her dog, and it's a border collie. It's very, it's just extremely skittish dog.

Speaker 7 She

Speaker 7 looks at me, and I take her picture, and we think everything's cool.

Speaker 7 I think it like a bird

Speaker 7 kind of flutters by.

Speaker 23 Fred said the rambunctious border collie got startled.

Speaker 7 But the dog just jumps out as she's turning and

Speaker 7 it's like her feet just went out from under her. It's like it just happened in slow motion in front of me.
She falls forward and

Speaker 7 I remember lunging forward to

Speaker 7 try to get to her, but I was probably five, six, seven feet from her.

Speaker 23 Fred said he witnessed Leslie free fall.

Speaker 7 It looked to me like she just did a swan dive

Speaker 7 and lands on the rocks right by the water, just

Speaker 7 like head and shoulders and

Speaker 7 just crumples and then just slides like mush into

Speaker 1 the little channel.

Speaker 7 And I'm screaming her name, I'm hollering, I should have just jumped in.

Speaker 18 Fred said he lost sight of Leslie in the water, so he ran down to where he thought the current would take her.

Speaker 18 Said he got scratched up as he stumbled up and down this embankment, navigating rocks and running through bushes.

Speaker 7 I must have tripped

Speaker 7 a few times, quite a few times, coming down, and I'm sure I hit,

Speaker 7 obviously hit something coming down a few times.

Speaker 23 He told how he had left the camera with those last images of his wife behind.

Speaker 7 I would imagine I just dropped it while I was screaming.

Speaker 23 Unable to locate Leslie, he abandoned his search of the creekbed and made the decision to go for help.

Speaker 7 I hop up down to Justin's house and I'm honking and I'm screaming him to,

Speaker 7 you know, I think my wife's dead.

Speaker 23 After listening to Fred's story, the sheriff wanted to go up to the site of the accident.

Speaker 24 You take Fred back up to the mountain?

Speaker 15 Yes, we did a walkthrough on the scene.

Speaker 23 Up at the scene, Fred repeated how the dog seemed to cause Leslie's fall.

Speaker 7 It was that damn dog tangled up in her legs.

Speaker 7 It's what I think it was.

Speaker 23 Gracie ran off into the woods right after the accident. A member of the sheriff's department later found her and took her back to his house.

Speaker 5 Everything changed that day.

Speaker 23 Changed forever in ways the kids could not, in their immediate grief, begin to grasp.

Speaker 23 That's because while their father was on that mountain talking to authorities, seeds of doubt were being planted right in the landscape around Cottonwood Creek.

Speaker 23 One of those seeds found near the ledge where Leslie spent her last moments.

Speaker 15 All the alarm bells were going off. Even to this day, it gives me the chills.

Speaker 23 Fred Muller spent the day after his wife's death talking with investigators about the accident on Cottonwood Creek.

Speaker 23 The next day, he and his son Alex flew home to Texas, furried by a friend in a private plane.

Speaker 5 You never think it would, you know, it could happen to you.

Speaker 23 There, Fred and Alex were reunited with Amanda and Ariel, Alex's older sisters.

Speaker 5 You hear horrible stories and you feel for these people. It was surreal that we were now that family and now, you know, just trying to

Speaker 1 get through it.

Speaker 23 So many came to pay their respects, but mourning took its toll.

Speaker 5 I would hold myself together in front of people who would visit visit and then I would go in the other room to cry and break down. And it's kind of just saving face a little bit.

Speaker 23 Leslie, the horse lover, was buried on the Texas ranch where she grew up riding.

Speaker 24 When the blur was over

Speaker 24 and you finally had time to process what had happened, what did you think about with your mom and your future?

Speaker 5 I was angry.

Speaker 5 I was really looking forward. to being pregnant and calling my Oregon mom anytime I had any kind of little

Speaker 5 odd thing happen. It was like two weeks before my graduation, it was like a week before my prom.

Speaker 5 Like all these big things that aren't the biggest things in the world, but it was just like things that your mom should be there for.

Speaker 1 And I mean

Speaker 5 seeing us grow up, it's...

Speaker 23 The kids weren't just grieving their own loss, they felt their father's too.

Speaker 5 I had never seen him so sad or you know, you just didn't know if he was going to do something crazy or, you know, if he was ever going to get over this and be able to move on.

Speaker 23 And up in Colorado, Sheriff Bruce wasn't moving on either. He still had questions about the accident and Fred's story.
He'd sent Deputy Justin Casey up to Cottonwood Creek to document the site.

Speaker 23 Casey brought his brother with him. They snapped photos and shot video along the way.

Speaker 33 We started below where Mrs. Mueller's body was found.
and took photographs below as we progressed upstream.

Speaker 23 As the Casey brothers moved up the creek, they noticed that the creek's flow didn't seem very strong.

Speaker 36 It didn't push us around as we were walking.

Speaker 33 We were careful with our footing in the sense that there's slippery rocks underneath the water, but it wasn't hard to go against the current.

Speaker 23 The deputy couldn't help but wonder, how had Leslie's body floated so far?

Speaker 33 The water is coming down, but it's not a raging river.

Speaker 23 It's not fast-moving.

Speaker 23 Deputy Casey reported back to Sheriff Bruce, who by that time had talked to the couple who lived by the trail and had helped Fred in those first frantic moments.

Speaker 23 What they said cast a new light on Fred's story of that awful day.

Speaker 15 A little tickling at the back of their neck had sent up some red flags to them.

Speaker 23 They told Sheriff Bruce that as they called 911 and set out to help in the search, Fred was frantic one minute and seemed calm the next.

Speaker 15 They said the vibes were all wrong from him. They became very uncomfortable.

Speaker 37 Did they kind of, like, in hindsight, think back or was it right then?

Speaker 15 They were immediately

Speaker 15 concerned that something was amiss.

Speaker 23 It was the husband Justin who found Leslie's body in the creek but he told the sheriff that initially Fred had sent him off to search too far downstream.

Speaker 15 He drove up a short ways and said he was sure that his wife's body was somewhere in that area.

Speaker 15 Justin thought that was odd.

Speaker 24 Was it possible that Fred was disoriented?

Speaker 24 It's kind of a tough area to navigate.

Speaker 15 It's possible.

Speaker 23 Yet Sheriff Bruce said he too got a strange vibe from Fred the night Leslie died and again the next day when they went back up to Cottonwood Creek.

Speaker 15 His emotions and his responses to everything seem to be extremely flat and I thought almost rehearsed.

Speaker 24 Is that fair though, with everyone being different in this world and everyone reacting differently to tragedy, is it fair for you to judge him based on how you think he should be acting?

Speaker 15 I don't know if it's fair, but in my business, it's realistic because you have to look at all angles of an event and make sure that you're uncovering everything that's there.

Speaker 23 On a ledge near where Fred said Leslie fell, investigators found Fred's camera and the photos of Leslie's last moments alive.

Speaker 23 As he stared at Leslie, the vibrant wife and mother, Sheriff Bruce's gut told him, keep looking.

Speaker 15 The vibes were all wrong. All the alarm bells were going off.
Even to this day, a little bit gives me the chills.

Speaker 23 Vibes are one thing, but investigators thought they also had evidence that Fred wasn't telling the truth.

Speaker 16 He told me she fell 20 feet.

Speaker 11 Where was the trauma?

Speaker 9 Where were the injuries?

Speaker 11 Why did I not see what I expected to see?

Speaker 23 For the folks charged with keeping the woods and waters around Cottonwood Creek safe, Leslie Mueller's drowning was a tragedy, but also a mystery.

Speaker 15 You know, I put myself in Fred's shoes and they didn't fit.

Speaker 23 Sheriff Ron Bruce had thought Fred's demeanor the day Leslie died was unusual. Fred, to him, showed a lack of emotion.

Speaker 18 but what really spoke volumes to the sheriff and his team was something they knew well the terrain around Cottonwood Creek as Fred told them Leslie did a swan dive from up there landing on her head and shoulders on this rock then she slid into the water a horrible accident that's a local law enforcement something seemed off

Speaker 23 The first train rescuer on the scene noticed it first, what appeared to be a major inconsistency in that story.

Speaker 23 After such a treacherous fall, Leslie's body, when pulled from the creek, didn't look at all injured.

Speaker 16 He told me she fell 20 feet.

Speaker 36 Where was the trauma?

Speaker 9 Where were the injuries?

Speaker 11 Why did I not see what I expected to see?

Speaker 23 One look at that drop-off and Sheriff Bruce was wondering the same thing. And when the autopsy report came back, it only heightened his suspicions.

Speaker 15 There were no broken bones, any substantial abrasions or contusions. They simply weren't there.

Speaker 24 Every accident is different. Every fall is different.
Is it possible that she just fell in a certain way that just didn't produce those injuries you were looking for?

Speaker 15 No. If she landed headfirst, as he told us she landed, she would have had head injuries, facial fractures, spinal trauma.

Speaker 15 None of that was present.

Speaker 23 So Sheriff Bruce made a quick conclusion. To him, no injuries meant no fall.
Fred had to be lying. We went back to Cottonwood Creek with the sheriff in May 2014.
That's the same month Leslie died.

Speaker 15 We had a late snowstorm this year.

Speaker 23 A spring storm had just blanketed the woods and rocks.

Speaker 18 I have to say, I'm honestly nervous just standing here.

Speaker 18 This is very steep.

Speaker 15 It's a sheer drop-off.

Speaker 23 It was up here where they had posed for pictures that Sheriff Bruce showed me what he thought were key pieces to their puzzle.

Speaker 14 The evidence here at the scene makes us believe that something entirely different happened.

Speaker 23 They found trampled bushes, what they thought looked like scuff marks, and a pair of broken glasses that turned out to be Fred's.

Speaker 14 There was evidence of a struggle in there, and that's where Fred's mangled glasses were found.

Speaker 23 Sheriff Bruce formed a theory that after snapping those photos, Fred and Leslie got into a physical fight.

Speaker 14 We think that at that point, I think anyway,

Speaker 14 that she was able to break free of his grasp at that point and she ran back this way and down paralleling this path that goes down and eventually meets up with the stream.

Speaker 18 You think he chased after her?

Speaker 14 I think he paralleled her down that road until he got to the point where he could easily intercept her as she's going down by the stream.

Speaker 18 If your theory is right, that is almost like she was being hunted.

Speaker 14 It's almost like a hare and a wolf.

Speaker 23 And according to Bruce's theory, Fred chased his wife right into the shallow pool where she was found.

Speaker 14 That's where he held her underwater and drowned her, and then placed her right by the submerged log.

Speaker 23 But Bruce admits, investigators lack some evidence to back up that scenario.

Speaker 18 What about footprints? There were no footprints in the mud.

Speaker 14 Oh, and by that time, we had investigators in here, and it had been tracked up pretty good.

Speaker 18 So the evidence was ruined, essentially, if there was evidence. Right.

Speaker 23 The sheriff and agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the CBI, worked together investigating what they now thought was a homicide.

Speaker 23 They went down to where the Muellers lived in Wall, Texas to poke around in Fred's life, but they couldn't find anyone to say anything bad about him.

Speaker 15 We found that the interviews were largely unproductive.

Speaker 24 You were hitting walls.

Speaker 15 In Wall, Texas, which is an outlying community outside of San Angelo. It's a pretty closed community.

Speaker 23 And inside that community, none of Leslie's friends or family doubted Fred and couldn't understand why folks up in Colorado were asking questions.

Speaker 5 Yeah, people love Dad. That's That's why he had immense amount of support.

Speaker 23 And then, 10 months after Leslie's death, Fred Mueller got an invitation from the CBI. An agent wanted Fred to come back up to Colorado for a talk.

Speaker 5 You know, he casually mentioned, like, oh yeah, I'm going up to Colorado. They wanted me back up there.

Speaker 5 And he was just saying, like, you know, I don't know what they're doing either, but it's just, we got to. cooperate.
They're doing their job. Let's just get past it so we can move on.

Speaker 38 I just wanted to first, Fred, thank you for coming.

Speaker 23 You're welcome. Again, he shared his recollections about that day at the vacation home.

Speaker 15 It was a beautiful day and it went to hell.

Speaker 28 There's so many things I wish I'd done differently.

Speaker 23 And again, described what happened to Leslie after she posed for that last photo.

Speaker 28 She was flailing in the air, screaming, and I was screaming, and she hit. and never made another peep.

Speaker 23 If Fred's account of the accident was the same, the tone of this interview was different. The CBI agent made it clear they didn't believe his story.

Speaker 38 And, you know, I want to take this opportunity to ask you everything that's making me think that this may not have been an accident.

Speaker 28 Ask me anything you want.

Speaker 23 They questioned Fred about those broken glasses found at the scene.

Speaker 5 And I'm just going to say it.

Speaker 38 I'm thinking you two had an argument by this bush.

Speaker 1 No, ma'am.

Speaker 28 No, ma'am.

Speaker 1 My wife and I do not have an argument anywhere that day.

Speaker 28 That was the best day of our lives until that accident.

Speaker 23 The best day of their lives? The agent clearly suspected there had been trouble in the Mueller's marriage, a suggestion Fred coolly dismissed.

Speaker 38 Yeah, so I could see after 27 years the two of you grow apart.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And you don't know.

Speaker 15 I think we made a hell of a good pair.

Speaker 38 And you don't know quite how to deal with that.

Speaker 38 Or?

Speaker 1 Or

Speaker 28 one could say that after 27 years, we were looking forward to retirement.

Speaker 23 And Fred insisted that on the day she died, he found her more attractive than ever.

Speaker 28 She was beautiful and she knew that. And I would tell her that.
She became more beautiful from being already beautiful in my eyes, became more beautiful as she became older.

Speaker 15 And we had a very

Speaker 28 it's probably not a good business. We had a very active sex life and we got along great.
And if y'all did a good autopsy, you would know that.

Speaker 38 You would know that

Speaker 30 we made love that morning.

Speaker 23 But even as this seemingly confident Fred grew clearly irritated, the agent wasn't deterred. What about those scratches on his face the day Leslie died?

Speaker 38 So these vertical scratches you're saying you got from bushes?

Speaker 28 Bushes, or that ground, or running down this hill, falling a few times, which I did fall, but

Speaker 28 it had to have been from some of that. There's no other explanation.

Speaker 15 Okay, well,

Speaker 15 that's factual.

Speaker 38 There was no altercation up there.

Speaker 28 No, ma'am. No, ma'am.

Speaker 28 You're underneath her fingernails if you think there's something underneath her nails that's missing off my face.

Speaker 15 It didn't happen.

Speaker 28 There was no altercation. Write it down.

Speaker 39 None.

Speaker 23 For now, it seemed that was all the agents could do. Document Fred's story and let him leave.

Speaker 15 I'm sorry to be a crude open book.

Speaker 38 Time is 11:23. I'm turning off the recording.

Speaker 23 Investigators had their theories, but did they have a case?

Speaker 23 Fred went home to Texas, where his family thought that would be the end of it.

Speaker 13 His entire philosophy through all of this was it was an accident. I'm telling the truth.

Speaker 1 He wanted to cooperate.

Speaker 5 He wanted to help them see that.

Speaker 23 But investigators hadn't seen that. Not at all.
And if Fred couldn't answer their questions, they'd head back to Cottonwood Creek and hope that the water could.

Speaker 23 Fred has always said that water carried Leslie away to hear where her body was found. Now, investigators put that story to the test.

Speaker 15 They said there was no way that her body could have ended up under that log unless it had been placed there.

Speaker 23 Time went by, and the Muellers didn't hear anything from the Colorado investigators. The kids assumed the sheriff and his team had finally decided to believe their dad, too.

Speaker 5 We didn't hear from them for three years after that. And so I thought that I guess, you know, I guess they finished up their cross paperwork or whatever they needed to do, and then it was over.

Speaker 23 It wasn't over.

Speaker 23 In fact, after Fred's interview with the CBI, investigators kept working. What drove them was their theory about a possible struggle and that curious lack of injuries on Leslie's body.

Speaker 23 But the sheriff knew they needed more, and he put that photo of Leslie behind his desk.

Speaker 15 She was my constant reminder, and that photo was

Speaker 15 what was the nudge that kept me going on this case.

Speaker 23 Investigators decided to zero in on one aspect of Fred's story.

Speaker 23 Was it really possible for Leslie's body to float from where he said she fell to where she was found, 150 feet and three waterfalls downstream.

Speaker 15 When we brought in the really top-notch water flow experts, we had to go back and try to duplicate the water flow as it was on the evening of the event.

Speaker 23 In August 2009, 15 months after Leslie died, investigators headed up to Cottonwood Creek to conduct some tests.

Speaker 23 They dressed a woman around Leslie's size in similar clothing to what she wore the day she died and positioned the female stand-in on the rock ledge where Fred said Leslie landed before sliding into the water.

Speaker 15 The forensic people tried to float her from that location where he alleged that she fell.

Speaker 15 The water

Speaker 15 barely touched her body.

Speaker 23 So investigators put her in the water to see what would happen.

Speaker 15 She was then moved into the very center of that stream and it wouldn't budge her.

Speaker 23 Finally, they went down to the pool where Leslie was found.

Speaker 15 They then put her in a wetsuit, which which gives her buoyancy.

Speaker 23 She was able to float, but unassisted, she had a hard time making it all the way to the log where Leslie's body had been pinned. This meant something big to the investigators.

Speaker 15 So it belied what he told us about this raging torrent tearing her away from his view.

Speaker 23 They tried it all again with a mannequin, and again. What they saw did not match what Fred recalled.
In the deeper pools, the mannequin sank. And it got stuck at the falls.

Speaker 15 Each time she had to be physically moved over the lip of those waterfalls, the stream would not move her.

Speaker 24 Did you feel like because this case was hard enough as it was, that this testing had to be just as perfect as it could be?

Speaker 15 Of course, with no witnesses, we're dealing strictly with circumstantial evidence. And circumstantial evidence is often enough to get you a conviction, but we knew we had to have a lot of it.

Speaker 23 To investigators, these tests confirmed their suspicions. To them, Fred's story of Leslie's accident was impossible.

Speaker 15 They said there was no way that her body could have ended up under that log unless it had been placed there, that the forces of nature would not have put her under there.

Speaker 23 But were these tests enough to make a full-fledged criminal case? The first person they'd have to convince was the local district attorney.

Speaker 15 He was quickly brought on board as to what we were investigating and what our thoughts were.

Speaker 23 It turned out to be a hard sell.

Speaker 27 For whatever reason, we could never pique his interest.

Speaker 15 He never said no, but he just, I didn't find the enthusiasm.

Speaker 23 Even after those tests, the DA wasn't ready to press charges. Months went by, then a year.

Speaker 23 Leslie's picture was still there right behind Sheriff Bruce's desk, but the investigators weren't about to shelve their case.

Speaker 24 Are there things happening? Are the wheels turning?

Speaker 15 It was constantly on our radar screen that there were things yet to be done, but the months did run on.

Speaker 23 All this time, Fred was a free man in Texas.

Speaker 27 His business ventures were moving on.

Speaker 15 And at home,

Speaker 15 we were all saying Fred Mueller believes he got away with murder.

Speaker 23 But Sheriff Bruce says Fred Mueller may have underestimated the Hinsdale County Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 15 I think that was what he thought. He was going to get some kind of bumbling buffoon to show up and he was going to walk away on this.

Speaker 24 What do you say to someone who says, you're a small-town sheriff who got tunnel vision, who focused on this rich outsider, and just like a dog with a bone, would not let go?

Speaker 15 Well, I'd say they're wrong.

Speaker 27 And I've got thick skin.

Speaker 15 We did the right thing.

Speaker 23 They kept working and testing and poking around, not sure if it would ever amount to anything. To go forward, something needed needed to change, and it was about to.

Speaker 23 The sheriff makes his case to a new DA, and everything changes.

Speaker 15 We were able to get 30 minutes of his time and say, here's what we're looking at, here's what we think occurred. He said, let's go.

Speaker 23 And for the Mueller kids, a shock.

Speaker 1 I was just like, why?

Speaker 13 And they said, oh, well, we can't tell you that.

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Speaker 23 As the years moved on since Leslie Mueller's death, investigators were continuing to build a case against Fred.

Speaker 23 Though his children were unaware their father was under such intense suspicion, They were trying hard to remember the happy moments with their mother and put the Colorado tragedy behind them.

Speaker 24 What became of the cabin that held so many memories for all of you?

Speaker 5 I think after the accident it wasn't going to be a happy place for us anymore and so dad decided to sell the place shortly after mom died.

Speaker 24 I would imagine that whole area is just kind of bittersweet now and unfortunately it's a beautiful area.

Speaker 35 It's just not for us.

Speaker 23 For the Mueller children, life seemed to be stabilizing. Amanda was settling in with her husband, Ariel was in college, and Alex, a high school student, was dreaming of a career in the Navy.

Speaker 23 But as Alex said, his dad was having a harder time of it.

Speaker 13 He married mom when he was 18 or 19. He depended so much on my mother, and then all of a sudden we kind of just cast adrift.

Speaker 23 Eventually, Fred's counselors and friends suggested he was ready to meet someone new.

Speaker 5 He finally started getting back on his feet and started thinking about moving on, and he met Wendy.

Speaker 23 Wendy and Fred were introduced through old family friends.

Speaker 5 She came into a very tough situation, but she also, she brought my dad out of a very dark place. You know, she saved his life essentially because he was so depressed.

Speaker 23 After two years as a widower, Fred married Wendy.

Speaker 5 She was really great and understanding and helped him move forward.

Speaker 23 A fresh start. Such a long way from Fred's tough grilling in Colorado, he had good reason to think it was all over.

Speaker 15 There were times where we were real frustrated. When they say the wheels of justice turn slow, we felt like they were turning too slow slow this time.

Speaker 24 All the while, as the years are passing, you're looking at Leslie's photo in your office every day.

Speaker 15 Yes, I am.

Speaker 24 Is that keeping you going, focused?

Speaker 15 Absolutely.

Speaker 23 Then, in 2011, two and a half years after Leslie's death, a new DA took office and the sheriff lobbied him to take action.

Speaker 15 We were able to get 30 minutes of his time and say, here's what we're looking at, here's what we think occurred. He said, let's go.

Speaker 23 The DA assembled a team to look into the case. Matthew Durkin, a deputy Colorado State Attorney General, came on board.
He was later joined by Ryan Brackley on loan from the Boulder County DA.

Speaker 5 What was your first impression?

Speaker 36 Very tough case.

Speaker 23 They combed through the case file, Fred's statements, Leslie's autopsy, and all those tests conducted at the creek.

Speaker 12 This location was a breathtakingly beautiful place in the middle of nowhere. It was the perfect place to commit a murder where nobody would see you.

Speaker 23 Fresh eyes in the DA's office began to see what the sheriff had suspected from the start.

Speaker 36 The defendant's story did not match up with the landscape, the scene, and all of the other evidence that the Colorado Bureau of Investigation was able to develop.

Speaker 24 At what point did you finally, all of you, say,

Speaker 24 we got enough. Let's go get them.

Speaker 15 I think it was when we felt like we had tested this thing to death, that we had absolutely everything we could possibly put together to take to the the jury.

Speaker 23 February 6, 2012, just over three and a half years since Leslie Mueller died. A Monday, Fred was at his office when a Texas Ranger showed up with an arrest warrant in hand.

Speaker 23 Sheriff Ron Bruce down from Colorado stood a few feet away.

Speaker 15 He looked at us almost in shock and he said, I can't believe you people are taking this serious.

Speaker 24 How was that for you to finally make that arrest?

Speaker 21 It felt great.

Speaker 15 It felt great. And at that point, I said, Leslie, we're going to make this right.

Speaker 23 Alex was in school when he was suddenly pulled out of class.

Speaker 13 You know, there's some Texas Rangers here to talk to me. And I kind of asked, you know, what's going on? Why are you really here? Your father's been arrested.

Speaker 24 Did you say anything back to them when I told you?

Speaker 1 I was like, why?

Speaker 13 And they said, oh, well, we can't tell you that. It's just, we just have some great proof.

Speaker 12 And I said, well, it took you four years.

Speaker 13 What exactly are you doing? And they said, well, we just can't tell you that.

Speaker 24 Did you ever think for one second, well, there must be something. He must have done something for him to be arrested to be going through this.

Speaker 5 We never doubted his story. We never doubted that.
We never thought that he would have done anything wrong or anything to hurt mom ever.

Speaker 5 That's something that I can't even fathom because he would have never done anything like that.

Speaker 23 The kids believe the authorities had it in for their dad and trumped up things that weren't true, like that their father showed no emotion after their mother's death.

Speaker 13 He was obviously panicked. He was panicking, he was shaking, he had been crying profusely.

Speaker 23 Remember, only Alex was in Colorado at the time, and thinking back, he got angry about the way he and his dad were treated.

Speaker 13 They separate us, like you would with criminals.

Speaker 13 Separate myself from my dad, put us in separate vehicles.

Speaker 23 To the kids, it all pointed to a rush to judgment that turned into an obsession.

Speaker 5 If you go into it looking for trouble, you're going to find it.

Speaker 13 We were also, as a family,

Speaker 13 never informed what they were doing at Cottonwood Creek, that they were paying for experts doing all kinds of

Speaker 13 tests on the water and all these different things like that.

Speaker 13 This was all like a closely guarded secret that they never felt they should share with either him or the family, you know, of the victim, of my mother.

Speaker 23 Fred Mueller spent the next year in jail in Gunnison, Colorado, awaiting trial.

Speaker 5 He sunk into such a deep depression right after mom died, and he kind of sank back into it while he was sitting in jail.

Speaker 13 And no one could get to him.

Speaker 1 It was more the fact that he was completely cut off from his family for a year.

Speaker 23 The kids were eager for their dad to take on his accusers. Attorney Roger Sagal was part of Fred's legal team.

Speaker 24 After reading through the discovery and the evidence, what were your first thoughts?

Speaker 17 Why was this guy arrested for murder? It was my first thought. It was a question

Speaker 17 from the very beginning as to what evidence did they really have.

Speaker 23 He'd soon find out in court. More than four years after Leslie drowned in Cottonwood Creek, Fred Mueller would stand trial for murder.

Speaker 23 The prosecution challenges Fred's entire story, including, stunningly, the one thing that never seemed in doubt, his rock-solid marriage.

Speaker 43 Fred was telling people that, in fact, the marriage had grown stale and that he did have a wandering eye.

Speaker 23 Four and a half years after Leslie Mueller's death, her husband Fred's murder trial began in Gunnison, Colorado.

Speaker 23 Their children and Fred's new wife dropped everything to be in court and to pray that their dad would soon be cleared. Are you all just anxious for this trial to start?

Speaker 5 Yes, definitely. I want to see why they put us through this.
What do they think that they have?

Speaker 23 As the trial got underway that frigid January 2013, inside the courtroom, the prosecution felt an icy chill.

Speaker 24 Normally when you walk into a courtroom during a murder trial, it's very divided. I walked into that courtroom and everybody was on Fred's side, Leslie's family included.

Speaker 23 Was that daunting to you at all?

Speaker 36 I wouldn't say daunting. It was certainly unique.
But we had to stay focused on what we thought, what we needed to do. We believe that the defendant was responsible for his wife's murder.

Speaker 18 It would all come down to two competing versions of what happened here. Fred's story, Leslie accidentally went over this cliff and was swept away by the current.

Speaker 18 Or the prosecution's that Fred was lying to cover up Leslie's murder.

Speaker 32 Two people went on a hike, and only one person came back.

Speaker 23 The prosecution began its case with testimony about Fred's behavior that day. They called Jennifer Sparks, whose house Fred drove to looking for help.

Speaker 32 Did you observe him become emotional at any time?

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 23 She told the jury Fred's lack of emotion concerned her.

Speaker 32 What conversation did you have with your husband at that time?

Speaker 44 I told him something's not right.

Speaker 32 Be careful.

Speaker 23 Her husband, Justin, testified that Fred's demeanor seemed staged as they drove together to look for Leslie.

Speaker 34 Just, it sounded like somebody was crying, but there were no tears. He acted like he was very, very upset, and then

Speaker 34 a few seconds later, he'd act like we were kind of buddies driving down the road in a car.

Speaker 23 The prosecution had hoped to bring the jury up to Cottonwood Creek, but in January, the terrain was virtually impassable with snow and ice.

Speaker 23 So it was up to the prosecutors to set the scene and show why they thought Fred's story defied common sense and science.

Speaker 10 Injuries are going to tell you a story that Leslie Moeller

Speaker 32 was drowned by her husband.

Speaker 21 Solemnly swear or affirmative.

Speaker 23 Prosecutors called Michael Golub, the first trained rescuer on the scene.

Speaker 46 I'm asking him what happened. Tell me what happened.
And he relates that she apparently had fallen off of a waterfall.

Speaker 23 Fred told Golub the same thing he told investigators. He'd watched Leslie swan dive off the cliff, hitting granite before sliding into the water.

Speaker 46 All of a sudden, I was struck with the fact that this didn't, there was no trauma.

Speaker 47 Did you see any blood on Leslie Mueller?

Speaker 46 There was no deformities. There was no blood.

Speaker 23 Even Leslie's clothing seemed unscathed.

Speaker 47 Did you notice any markings, tears, scrapes on the jacket, on the coat?

Speaker 48 There was none.

Speaker 9 It was remarkably pristine.

Speaker 23 The pathologist who performed Leslie's autopsy was also surprised by the lack of injuries to her body.

Speaker 47 Did you observe any injuries to Mrs. Mueller that were consistent with breaking a fall?

Speaker 15 No, I did not.

Speaker 47 Did you observe any consistent with falling on her head and shoulders off a cliff onto granite, as described to you?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 23 And what's more, investigators found no forensic evidence that Leslie ever hit that rock.

Speaker 36 There was no fibers on this rock.

Speaker 10 There was no blood on this rock. There was no hair on this rock.

Speaker 24 This is a very unique case in the sense that the evidence is lack of evidence. There's no evidence.

Speaker 36 That's the tough part of the case. What we have is a lot of evidence that what the defendant said is impossible.

Speaker 23 And here was the heart of the prosecution's case. Those tests investigators conducted up at the creek.
Tests they said proved Fred's story was a lie.

Speaker 23 They showed the jury the video of those tests, pointing out, in one, how the female stand-in wasn't swept downstream, and in another, the mannequin wasn't washed over the waterfall and eventually sank to the bottom.

Speaker 23 The prosecution's drowning expert was blunt. To her, Fred's story was pure fiction.

Speaker 49 The water, there's nothing in that environment, water-wise, that could have gotten her to that spot. A human being had to physically put a body in that position.

Speaker 23 So, what really happened? In court, the prosecution could only hint at the dramatic story the sheriff told us. His theory of a struggle, a chase, and a drowning.

Speaker 23 Well, there were no witnesses for any of that, so it never actually was presented as evidence.

Speaker 23 But an investigator who searched the area where Fred said Leslie fell did testify about finding Fred's broken glasses.

Speaker 42 This side was broken. The left-hand side was sticking in the dirt.

Speaker 32 Did you see anything on the ground?

Speaker 15 Four foot

Speaker 42 from the glasses, there were

Speaker 42 what appeared to be scuff marks as if somebody had slipped and had moved the dirt.

Speaker 23 And on the stand, this witness, the coroner,

Speaker 39 those are the gloves that Leslie was wearing.

Speaker 23 Tried to connect those scratches on Fred's face to the plastic bumps or nubbins on Leslie's gloves.

Speaker 32 To me, those

Speaker 32 plastic nubbins are a lot more consistent with the scratch marks on Mr. Mueller's face than branches and twigs.

Speaker 23 However, after a defense objection, the judge ruled the coroner's statement conjecture and told the jury to disregard it.

Speaker 23 So even though the prosecutors were not allowed to tell the jury how they thought the murder happened, they still had a theory to present for the why.

Speaker 24 They were high school sweethearts.

Speaker 23 He had never abused her to anyone's knowledge. He had no life insurance policy out on her that he was trying to collect.
What is the motive?

Speaker 12 Fred was telling people, one being an employee of his, another being a close friend, that in fact the marriage had grown stale, that

Speaker 12 it was the same old, same old between he and Leslie, and that he did have a wandering eye.

Speaker 23 And according to the prosecution, his eye had wandered here.

Speaker 38 We were very good friends.

Speaker 23 Jeannie Barnes, Fred's former assistant, testified that Fred called and texted her a lot outside of work.

Speaker 29 Did that ever make you uncomfortable?

Speaker 38 A little bit.

Speaker 23 And once Fred talked to her about Leslie and divorce.

Speaker 44 He had just kind of mentioned that their interests had kind of grown apart.

Speaker 23 So according to the prosecution team, Fred picked an idyllic spot in the middle of nowhere to find a way out of his marriage and then concocted the story of her fall as a cover.

Speaker 22 Two people went up, one came back.

Speaker 15 And we've only got his story. And we know that story is false through and through.

Speaker 10 The defendant has asked people to believe what is impossible.

Speaker 36 Impossible.

Speaker 23 But Fred's lawyers were about to turn the state's case on its head.

Speaker 23 Those tests at Cottonwood Creek, in fact, any so-called evidence of murder just didn't hold water at all.

Speaker 23 Defense experts tell the jury that the way Leslie died is absolutely clear.

Speaker 30 What was it, in my opinion?

Speaker 1 Accident.

Speaker 6 That's what I would have put on the death certificate.

Speaker 23 For three cold Colorado weeks,

Speaker 23 as prosecutors laid out their case for murder, Fred Mueller's defense attorney, Roger Sagal, sat by his side. How was Fred feeling throughout the trial?

Speaker 17 He was nervous.

Speaker 2 His life was on the line.

Speaker 17 It was tense. There's no doubt about it.
It was stressful.

Speaker 23 Fred's children found it especially hard.

Speaker 5 It was the worst experience you can imagine, the worst day of your life. Imagine that being analyzed by a room full of people and drug out publicly and scrutinized.

Speaker 5 personal private tragedy being exposed to the world and picked apart.

Speaker 23 To the siblings, each day in court felt like an unrelenting attack against their family and their father.

Speaker 5 You can't react. You can't say anything.
You just have to sit there and take it and watch them say all these horrible accusations about my dad.

Speaker 13 You're looking for one person to stand up and say, like, this is preposterous. This entire, there is no evidence.

Speaker 13 He's a good guy. He's never shown any history of violence.
And, you know, and it was his wife, for goodness sake. And can we just, let's, we're stopping this.

Speaker 23 Her grandfather.

Speaker 23 Now, fred's lawyers were ready to push back defense co-counsel mike deguerin told the jurors there was an obvious rush to judgment that contaminated the entire investigation kind of an evil suspicion from the get-go

Speaker 23 first responder michael golub testified that neighbor justin sparks started making accusatory comments while they were still trying to revive leslie

Speaker 48 justin at one point turned to me and said something along the lines that i never trusted that SOB.

Speaker 17 I think that the suspicion started with Mr. Sparks

Speaker 51 and

Speaker 17 never stopped.

Speaker 24 You think it was somewhat of a snowball effect?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I do.

Speaker 23 And even though Golub was a prosecution witness, he admitted he personally didn't find anything odd about Fred's behavior that day.

Speaker 48 He just kind of seemed to have trouble focusing and seemed panicked. Everyone deals with tragedy different, I felt, in the context that seemed appropriate.

Speaker 23 But what about that important evidence against Fred? The apparent lack of injuries on Leslie's body?

Speaker 24 Did you wonder at all why your mom didn't have more injuries as some people feel she should?

Speaker 1 I don't know. No.

Speaker 5 You can't say what people are supposed to do. She was bundled up.
She was in cold water. We've thought about this more than anyone should ever think about what their mother's body did after she died.

Speaker 23 The defense called its own forensic expert, veteran pathologist, Werner Spitz.

Speaker 23 He testified there were some injuries, bruising on her hand, and an apparent small skull fracture that no one else had highlighted.

Speaker 21 If you look carefully at this, you would see that there is an area here that is not like it should be.

Speaker 23 After looking at the medical examiner's report and Leslie's x-rays, Dr. Spitz said there was no evidence this was a homicide.

Speaker 30 What was it, in my opinion?

Speaker 6 Accident. That's what I would have put on the death certificate.

Speaker 23 A veteran emergency room doctor backed up Spitz's conclusion, saying not all falls are catastrophic.

Speaker 11 I don't see how you could rule out a fall from

Speaker 36 any of the circumstances or injuries that I've seen.

Speaker 23 And then it was time to counter all those prosecution water tests, the backbone of the state's case.

Speaker 23 The defense saw major problems with those tests and called its own water expert, a hydrologist who'd been measuring current flows for 40 years.

Speaker 32 Increase of stream flow, and as a general rule, that increase in stream flow comes in the late afternoon and evening.

Speaker 23 The defense expert pointed out that water in the mountains changes constantly. And in 2008, the year Leslie died, there was more snow melt than usual.

Speaker 29 Was 2008 a high water year?

Speaker 47 It was a tremendously high water year.

Speaker 23 Those prosecution tests were done more than a year later and in a different season. Not spring, but summer, when the creek's water level is usually lower.

Speaker 39 The flows on August 4th and 5th, 09 were less than the stream flows on May 3rd and May 4th, 08.

Speaker 23 All that so-called evidence that proved Fred's story was impossible, the defense said it was useless.

Speaker 17 The testing that you do in 2009 is not necessarily going to be reflective of what did or did not happen in 2008.

Speaker 17 The bottoms of the creek changes, the walls of the creek can change, there's erosion up creek, and you can see it as the more times you go up there, you can see every time it seemed a little bit different.

Speaker 23 And the defense attacked the state's expert for what it said was another flaw with the mannequin test.

Speaker 29 You did not start that test with the mannequin falling from the ledge, right?

Speaker 11 Absolutely not.

Speaker 29 And therefore your testing did not account for any kinetic energy that would have been

Speaker 32 initiated from the fall, correct?

Speaker 31 That's correct.

Speaker 23 And what what about Fred's story? A jumpy dog distracted by a blue jay and a swan dive toward the rocky water? The defense said it was the truth and not at all far-fetched.

Speaker 43 It is steep and angular.

Speaker 17 There's ice on the rocks.

Speaker 31 It's slippery.

Speaker 17 So it seemed perfectly plausible that she had fallen and floated.

Speaker 23 The defense brought in a canine behavior expert who analyzed that last photo of Leslie and said the young border collie looks spooked and ready to bolt.

Speaker 52 The dog is under stress. The dog is pushing back or he's pushing back from Mrs.
Mueller. She's trying to control him with the ear pinch and the dog is looking totally off in another direction.

Speaker 23 To the defense, it was clear Fred's story was entirely plausible and the prosecutions was not.

Speaker 17 Why would he do this?

Speaker 17 Why would a guy who was married for 27 years with no history of violence, no history of any sort of domestic disputes, all of a sudden decide on his vacation that he was going to murder his wife with his bare hands?

Speaker 17 I mean, it just seems that part of the case seems so far-fetched.

Speaker 23 Friend after friend arrived from Texas to support Fred. Even his in-laws took the stand.

Speaker 23 Leslie's own mother, Ginny, vouched for her former son-in-law's character.

Speaker 3 All those years, any signs of Fred being abusive or violent to Leslie?

Speaker 11 No, I never saw a sign of Fred

Speaker 32 being violent

Speaker 51 to anyone.

Speaker 23 And each of Fred's children also faced the jury to tell them about their parents' long and happy marriage. Ariel described one nightly routine.

Speaker 53 Mom and dad would walk to the pond that was in front of her house about 200 yards holding hands, and they'd be out there for 30 minutes or an hour while the sun would be setting.

Speaker 23 Amanda recalled how devastated her father was in the wake of her mother's death.

Speaker 5 I know he wasn't sleeping well. He would stay in bed a lot during the day.
He cried all the time.

Speaker 23 Also, the colored person. And Alex's testimony brought out an emotional response from Fred in court.

Speaker 12 Did you ever see your dad able to get over it?

Speaker 13 No.

Speaker 13 I'm looking at him right now and he's not over it.

Speaker 23 But what about Fred's former assistant, the woman who'd given prosecutors a semblance of motive?

Speaker 23 In fact, during cross-examination, the assistant said Fred and his wife showed affection for each other all the time.

Speaker 38 She would, if he was at his desk, she would come in, she'd go straight to his desk, she'd give him a kiss, and she would go back to her desk in the back.

Speaker 17 The absolute bottom line is there was no affair with Jeannie Barnes, and Fred did not kill his wife, and he certainly did not kill his wife for Jeannie Barnes.

Speaker 23 The defense was sure it had shown the jury who Fred really was. The people who knew him best said no way in the world could he have killed his wife.

Speaker 23 But now it was up to 12 people who didn't know Fred at all to decide whether he did.

Speaker 23 Waiting for a verdict.

Speaker 5 The longer it took, the more we were getting nervous.

Speaker 23 And then a bombshell.

Speaker 15 I was almost in tears.

Speaker 51 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition, too.

Speaker 51 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 51 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 51 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 24 This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan, real United Airlines customers.

Speaker 55 We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Catherine Andrew.

Speaker 44 I got to sit in the driver's seat.

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Speaker 56 These small interactions can shape a kid's future.

Speaker 44 It felt like I was the captain.

Speaker 55 Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever.

Speaker 56 That's how good leads the way.

Speaker 23 After a contentious, five-week-long trial, the murder case against Fred Mueller finally went to the jury.

Speaker 37 What was it like waiting for that so important verdict?

Speaker 5 Butterflies. Yeah, we were all so nervous, but we were also, I think we were all pretty confident in our gut that there's no way that he will not be, you know, acquitted.

Speaker 23 Day one of deliberations came and went without a verdict. As the waiting spilled into day two, the defense and prosecution agreed on one thing.

Speaker 17 That is the toughest time of the trial, is the waiting. You're literally in this holding pattern.

Speaker 36 That's the worst part of any trial, just not knowing what the result was going to be.

Speaker 23 Sheriff Bruce was back in his Lake City office waiting by that photo of Leslie.

Speaker 15 I had no concerns. I mean, I thought it was just we were going through the process.
And then, and then I'll admit, a little,

Speaker 15 I questioned why it was taking so long because I thought we had a,

Speaker 15 it wasn't a slam slam dunk, but I thought we had a solid case.

Speaker 23 At the courthouse, the jury was still out. Three days, no decision.

Speaker 5 The longer it took, the more we were

Speaker 5 getting nervous

Speaker 5 because it seems so clear-cut.

Speaker 1 It seemed obvious to us.

Speaker 23 It was the fourth day of deliberations when the jurors sent out a note. Everyone gathered in the courtroom to hear what they had to say.

Speaker 30 We are at an impasse.

Speaker 23 The judge offered them lunch and asked for one more try. Fred's future was in their hands.
Please rise for the jury. Ten minutes later, they'd passed on the free food and were back.

Speaker 58 Ladies and gentlemen, I do have another note from you folks, and it indicates that we are deadlocked.

Speaker 23 Hopelessly so. The judge had no real choice.
He declared a mistrial.

Speaker 5 It was

Speaker 5 extremely disappointing, very disappointing.

Speaker 5 Extremely disappointing disappointing because it was

Speaker 5 not the answer that we thought we deserved, that we did deserve.

Speaker 17 Mostly I felt for Fred. You know, ultimately it's his life that's on trial.
And so I felt sad for him that we couldn't get this resolved for him in the form of an acquittal.

Speaker 23 In fact, the defense had been very close. 11 of the 12 jurors voted not guilty.

Speaker 15 When I heard the jury vote,

Speaker 15 I was almost in tears.

Speaker 27 And I thought, how did they miss,

Speaker 15 how did they miss what we were trying to say?

Speaker 23 After the mistrial, the defense argued for his release on bond, and the judge granted it.

Speaker 28 I just, I can't wait to be able to give him a hug and to

Speaker 5 talk to him whenever I want.

Speaker 23 Now, one full year after losing his freedom, Fred was going to get out of jail. His daughters and new wife Wendy gathered to embrace him.

Speaker 23 Son Alex, who was traveling, called in for an update.

Speaker 5 So we're all at the jail right now. Just

Speaker 15 waiting for your dad.

Speaker 1 I've had

Speaker 1 him a hug in a year.

Speaker 5 We haven't been able to see him in person in a year.

Speaker 15 I love you guys.

Speaker 5 It was so wonderful to get that hug that we had waited for.

Speaker 24 Do you remember what you said to him?

Speaker 1 I love you. I love you.
I love to go home.

Speaker 5 When's the next fly out?

Speaker 15 Yeah, come on, let's go home.

Speaker 5 It was so emotional.

Speaker 5 We were all so excited. We finally got to take Dad home.

Speaker 23 Home to Texas, but for how long? Fred was only out on bond. He still was charged with murder and had the threat of a retrial hanging over his head.

Speaker 5 We were extremely hopeful that they could change their minds and decide not to go forward again.

Speaker 1 And we were really hoping for that.

Speaker 23 More than just hoping. In fact, the family actually met with prosecutors and lobbied against another trial.

Speaker 24 Did that weigh into whether to go to a second trial at all? The fact that

Speaker 24 This entire family, Leslie's family included, did not want

Speaker 24 a trial?

Speaker 36 Absolutely. We have to consider their position.
We have to consider where they're coming from.

Speaker 23 Then, one part of the decision was made for them. The judge threw out the most serious charge, first-degree murder.

Speaker 35 Why?

Speaker 23 The judge ruled prosecutors didn't have enough evidence to establish premeditation.

Speaker 17 We did manage to get an acquittal on the first-degree murder charge.

Speaker 23 Prosecutors could still move ahead with second-degree murder, but would they? That 11-to-1 vote surely made a retrial daunting.

Speaker 43 11-to-1 is not a great outcome for the prosecution's perspective.

Speaker 23 But the prosecutor spoke to some of those jurors and found out, to many of them, not guilty didn't mean innocent.

Speaker 12 And kind of behind those numbers were a group of people who, by and large, felt that something had happened here, that Fred Moeller was not telling the truth.

Speaker 23 Prosecutors weighed it all and made their decision. Fred would stand trial for murder again.

Speaker 5 I remember having a moment thinking, I can't do this again. And my mom always would be like, Blow your gun, you can do it.
And I felt like she was, you're going to be fine and it's going to be good.

Speaker 24 Your mom was kind of guiding you through my head, a little bit.

Speaker 5 She was always kind of, suck it up, you can do it.

Speaker 23 But the second trial would by no means be a carbon copy of the first. With new attorneys and new witnesses, both sides hoped that this time they'd see a different result.

Speaker 23 The defense comes out swinging.

Speaker 50 What the prosecution asks you to believe is that Fred Mueller went from this to a homicidal maniac within seconds.

Speaker 23 But then a defense witness says something that might do Fred more harm than good.

Speaker 25 Fred is very successful. He could sell anything.

Speaker 23 Would jurors think Fred had sold everyone a lie about what happened to Leslie?

Speaker 23 October 2013 felt like a grim groundhog day. Fred again in court, his family supporting him from the gallery.

Speaker 24 Did you feel at all like, okay, we know how this works now? We're a little stronger this time around.

Speaker 5 I did feel that way. We could cut out the extraneous stuff and really focus on the no case.

Speaker 23 But there were differences from the first trial. To ensure an untainted jury pool, the case had been moved northeast to suburban Denver, more than 250 miles away from Cottonwood Creek.

Speaker 29 The evidence in this case is that Leslie Mueller did not fall off a cliff.

Speaker 23 This time from the prosecution, jurors heard a streamlined version of

Speaker 23 and how, according to the state, Fred Mueller told a story that defied logic.

Speaker 29 Like most murders, this one is hard to explain.

Speaker 32 Doesn't make sense.

Speaker 29 Doesn't make sense how and why this could happen.

Speaker 23 The witnesses to that awful day again came forward. Neighbor Jennifer Sparks again told how she thought Fred was acting strangely when he pulled up to her house, and she added this new detail.

Speaker 34 He was petting my dog.

Speaker 36 When he was squatted down petting that dog?

Speaker 34 Yeah, the dog was right here and he was just petting the dog.

Speaker 36 She felt that the defendant's demeanor was oddly calm, that he bent down and petted the dog. She felt like his demeanor was misplaced.

Speaker 23 For the prosecution, this trial was a second chance to explain to the jury how Fred's story didn't match up with the landscape.

Speaker 36 This area was not vast, it wasn't huge, it was actually quite tight and it was actually quite small, and making the defendant's statement impossible.

Speaker 12 Our primary goal in the second trial was to get that jury to the scene.

Speaker 23 The judge considered a visit to Cottonwood Creek but ruled it was too expensive and impractical to bring the jury that far.

Speaker 12 Not being able to do that, we did our best in the second trial to bring the scene to the jury.

Speaker 23 This second jury had a new 3D model of Cottonwood Creek to examine and fresh testimony to consider.

Speaker 23 That apparent small skull fracture of Leslie's that the defense highlighted in the first trial, trial? No way, said the state's new witness, who was an expert in reading x-rays.

Speaker 43 Could you determine that there's any evidence of a fall from 20 feet onto a hard granite surface?

Speaker 32 I didn't see any evidence of that kind of trauma.

Speaker 29 I didn't see any other fractures.

Speaker 23 Prosecutors hammered home their key points. Leslie had no injuries from a fall, and tests showed she could not have floated downstream as Fred said she did.

Speaker 13 Just doesn't seem as a likely scenario.

Speaker 23 So they argued Fred must have drowned her right where she was found, right after a violent struggle.

Speaker 36 It was our intention to streamline the second trial as much as possible and focus in on the critical points of the case.

Speaker 23 But Fred Mueller also changed things up in this trial. He hired a new powerhouse attorney, Pamela Mackey, who had a roster of high-profile clients like Kobe Bryant.

Speaker 50 What the prosecution asks you to believe is that Fred Mueller

Speaker 50 from this

Speaker 50 to a homicidal maniac

Speaker 50 within seconds.

Speaker 23 Fred's new lawyer argued that the state's case was beyond flimsy.

Speaker 50 Their theory that because Leslie Mueller did not suffer any significant injuries in her fall from the ledge,

Speaker 23 Fred Mueller must have drowned her.

Speaker 26 That's their case.

Speaker 23 They won't give you the why of that theory. They won't give you the how.

Speaker 23 The defense again criticized the prosecution's recreations and told this jury there was no way anyone could know for sure what the water flow and depth were on the day Leslie died.

Speaker 39 If someone measured the actual stream flow of Cottonwood Creek within days or a week of the incident, it would have been informative.

Speaker 23 And several new defense witnesses took the stand. There was a biomechanical engineer who'd examined the mannequin used in this test.

Speaker 31 Well, frankly, I mean,

Speaker 31 it's not even right to call it testing.

Speaker 23 According to the defense's new expert, the state's test had a big flaw. That dummy couldn't sink or float in water the same way a human does.

Speaker 23 In fact, it wasn't even designed for this sort of experiment.

Speaker 31 As far as buoyancy is concerned, it is not a scientific instrument for determining that.

Speaker 15 So it's the wrong tool for

Speaker 31 scientifically probing.

Speaker 23 And this time, the defense brought in a memory expert to explain away possible holes in Fred's story.

Speaker 23 The expert said extremely stressful situations can play tricks with memories. So maybe Fred didn't actually see Leslie fall on her head as he said he did.

Speaker 31 False memories happen to us all the time.

Speaker 2 That's not a lie.

Speaker 31 It's just a memory that happens to be incorrect.

Speaker 23 But no expert could help the jurors understand how Fred truly felt about his wife of almost 27 years.

Speaker 23 To wrap up their case, the defense brought up Fred's family to talk about how happy the Muellers had been.

Speaker 50 Did you observe anything that led you to believe that your folks were having difficulty in their marriage?

Speaker 1 No, never.

Speaker 23 Leslie's mother, Ginny, again defended Fred.

Speaker 25 I've always had a good relationship with Fred.

Speaker 23 But the prosecution's ears perked up when she offered a new detail about her son-in-law.

Speaker 25 Yeah, Fred, Fred is very successful. He could sell anything.

Speaker 25 He's a wonderful salesman.

Speaker 23 In final statements, the prosecutor used those words against Fred.

Speaker 10 What we learned about the defendant yesterday is that he can sell anything, but he can't sell you the impossible.

Speaker 36 From our perspective, that's what he tried to do, is that he tried to sell the emergency responders, CBI, the Sheriff's Office,

Speaker 1 and quite frankly,

Speaker 36 these juries tried to sell something, a story, that was just simply impossible.

Speaker 23 Could this jury rise to the challenge and once and for all make sense of what happened at Cottonwood Creek?

Speaker 23 Jurors get the case.

Speaker 21 Either you believe crazy story A that she fell off that cliff down the three waterfalls, or you believe crazy story B that Fred, who has no history of violence, killed his wife.

Speaker 21 Both stories are crazy.

Speaker 22 Which one do you want to go in?

Speaker 23 It took more than five years, dozens of witnesses, and hundreds of pieces of evidence in two Colorado courtrooms to get to this moment.

Speaker 23 Again, 12 men and women were trying to decide if Leslie Mueller was murdered or a victim of a freak accident.

Speaker 44 We all agreed that the accident, the fall, was completely crazy. And I just kept thinking, well, crazy things happen in life all the time.

Speaker 23 We spoke to seven of the 12 jurors.

Speaker 21 Either you believe crazy story A that she fell off that cliff and down the three waterfalls or you believe crazy story B that Fred, who has no history of violence, killed his wife.

Speaker 21 Both stories are crazy.

Speaker 22 Which one do you want to go with?

Speaker 24 What were the key pieces of evidence for you or the lack thereof?

Speaker 45 Lack of injuries.

Speaker 24 You felt that she should have had more injuries?

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 45 I mean,

Speaker 45 to fall 15 to 20 feet onto a granite platform face first. And to go down headfirst, down three waterfalls, and be pulled out and be described as pristine.

Speaker 57 At one point in time, we all said, all right, let's vote and see who thinks he's lying. And we all raised his hands, okay, we convicted him of lying.

Speaker 60 The question beyond that was my question is, if we don't believe his story, does that make him guilty?

Speaker 8 He is not on trial for lying.

Speaker 22 He's on trial for murder.

Speaker 60 And I need to know how and why.

Speaker 23 The jurors wondered, where was the evidence that Fred drowned her? If he really did kill her, prosecutors never provided any clear explanation of how he did it.

Speaker 44 There was no evidence to put him down at the recovery site. There were no footprints in the snow, and there was no defensive wounds on her.
If there was a scuffle,

Speaker 44 I would think she would have some bruises.

Speaker 1 She would have fought back.

Speaker 23 They poured over technical testimony about water in the creek. To them, that flood of data and expert testimony was a complete wash.

Speaker 29 You can bring all the experts in and all the water tests, and it's just pointless because they'll always poke a hole in it because it wasn't done May 3rd, 2008.

Speaker 23 Like the jury before them, this group's first day of deliberations ended without a verdict.

Speaker 5 As the deliberations took longer and longer, it became clear that we needed to be nervous again.

Speaker 23 While Sheriff Bruce felt more confident than ever this time around.

Speaker 15 I slept well. I ate well.
I went about the rest of my normal duties at work here

Speaker 15 without a whole lot of concern about it and just expected that phone call to come in and say, we got him.

Speaker 23 The 12 jurors returned the next morning, determined to make a fresh start.

Speaker 24 Was anyone here consistently thinking about Leslie?

Speaker 24 The mother, the wife, the doctor?

Speaker 43 We had all the pictures up and everything.

Speaker 30 And I made the comment, like, Leslie, talk to me.

Speaker 21 Say something, because she can't speak.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 32 She needed us.

Speaker 23 After two days of intense debate, the 12 jurors thought they were done. They sent out a note, and the judge called everyone into the courtroom.

Speaker 59 Ladies and gentlemen, you have sent me a final note indicating that you do not believe that you can reach a a verdict. Mr.
Foreperson, is that correct?

Speaker 6 That is correct, Ron. Okay.

Speaker 59 I am going to declare the jury deadlock in this case.

Speaker 23 Hopelessly deadlocked. A second jury unable to say for sure if Fred Mueller had killed his wife or not.

Speaker 24 When you hear those two words again,

Speaker 24 hung jury.

Speaker 5 Crushing. Absolutely crushing.

Speaker 23 Disappointment again on both sides. Do you ever look back and think, you know what, maybe we shouldn't have done this?

Speaker 37 It wasn't there from the beginning.

Speaker 36 Absolutely not. No.
Both these trials were worthy of prosecution. A woman was murdered, and both the efforts were more than worth it.

Speaker 23 So how close was the jury's vote this time? Eight jurors believed Fred was guilty, and four voted to acquit.

Speaker 60 I have too many questions that are unanswered.

Speaker 30 Therefore, I have reasonable doubt. We just couldn't come to an agreement.

Speaker 30 You know, I was steadfast guilty, and he was steadfast not guilty, and we tried to get everybody's impression of what happened or what they thought.

Speaker 23 The prosecutors wondered could one decision by the judge have changed it all?

Speaker 36 To this day I believe that had either one of these jurors been able to go to that scene perhaps it would have been a different result.

Speaker 23 And then three weeks after the second mistrial, an announcement, the state dropped all charges against Fred Mueller.

Speaker 5 When we finally got the news, it was like overwhelming with joy. We finally can rest at ease and my dad can move on with his his life and we can finally just move on and relax.

Speaker 23 Fred and his wife Wendy returned to Texas, where Fred still ran his thriving business. In Colorado, the case officially remains open.

Speaker 36 Without any further investigation, without any further witnesses that could come forward to provide some new bit of evidence, at this point, the case just simply remains open.

Speaker 24 So Fred will essentially have this hanging over his head potentially forever?

Speaker 36 At this point, the case remains open.

Speaker 23 Fred told us he's well aware of this legal limbo.

Speaker 23 He said he wanted to do an interview with Dateline, but is concerned that anything he says could be distorted by the prosecutors and investigators who still believe he did something wrong.

Speaker 1 Leslie got to me.

Speaker 23 The case still haunts Ron Bruce. He kept a picture of Leslie in his office until the day he retired.
When he packed up his things, that photo came with him.

Speaker 15 I think it was just the magnitude of the terrible tragedy that stuck with me and will stay with me the rest of my life.

Speaker 24 You get teary-eyed when you talk about this woman you've never even met. Correct.
Who's not even a member of your family?

Speaker 2 I do.

Speaker 24 What is this connection you feel with her?

Speaker 15 I don't have an explanation for this.

Speaker 28 I can't put a finger on it.

Speaker 15 But certainly,

Speaker 15 it does truly haunt me.

Speaker 27 Yeah.

Speaker 15 I feel like I let her down.

Speaker 23 Leslie's family chooses to remember her vividly, not as a victim, but as a cherished wife and mother they lost too soon.

Speaker 5 We don't want people to forget about how wonderful of a person she was before the accident and all the great things that she did.

Speaker 44 All the babies she delivered and the lives she saved.

Speaker 1 A great, great person.

Speaker 23 With the vacation home the Muellers once loved, long sold, they are making new memories as a family far from Colorado.

Speaker 23 And in those magnificent Rockies, seasons change, waters rise and fall, and some believe the secrets of Cottonwood Creek will remain a mystery forever.

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