Without a Trace

Speaker 1 Digline is sponsored by Capital One. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees.

Speaker 1 Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way.
What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank, Capital One NA Member FDIC.

Speaker 4 If you're a custodial supervisor at a local high school, you know that cleanliness is key and that the best place to get cleaning supplies is from Granger.

Speaker 4 Granger helps you stay fully stocked on the products you trust, from paper towels and disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Speaker 4 Plus, you can rely on Granger for easy reordering so you never run out of what you need. Call 1-800GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 2 It was rough.

Speaker 6 It was a rough time for the whole community.

Speaker 7 It hit her town like a lightning bolt. The strange disappearance of Carrie Olson.

Speaker 4 It was scary.

Speaker 6 Everyone loved Carrie.

Speaker 8 It was so painful.

Speaker 5 You reached out to Dateline.

Speaker 6 I did, yes. We started getting people following our page.

Speaker 7 Where was she? What was behind this?

Speaker 2 Far from home, a lead.

Speaker 9 I saw the tattoo and I said, that's her tattoo, isn't it?

Speaker 7 And three caught-on-camera clues.

Speaker 7 Someone's in her car, someone's at her bank.

Speaker 7 But most jaw-dropping of all, someone's up on stage with a song turned sinister.

Speaker 6 I couldn't believe what I was hearing and seeing.

Speaker 7 Could karaoke be a key to this case?

Speaker 9 My heart was just pounding and pounding.

Speaker 8 I was sweating. I was nervous.
We needed to figure this out fast.

Speaker 7 Here's Andrea Canning with Without a Trace.

Speaker 5 It's a sad fact of American life. Families separated from their loved ones, gone without a trace.
Nationwide, there are almost 100,000 active missing persons cases.

Speaker 5 Since December 2013, Dateline's online Missing in America series has been telling some of those heartbreaking stories.

Speaker 5 One of the first came from the heartland,

Speaker 5 where not everything is serene and pastoral.

Speaker 5 This is the Quad Cities.

Speaker 5 Urban,

Speaker 5 industrial,

Speaker 5 gritty.

Speaker 5 Four cities split by the mighty Mississippi River. Two on the Iowa side, two in Illinois.

Speaker 5 These days, the Quad Cities is a sometimes uneasy mix of old-fashioned Midwestern values and modern urban life, where crime is an inescapable part of the landscape.

Speaker 5 This is where Carrie Olson went missing in December of 2013.

Speaker 6 She had a heart of gold and she made you always feel welcome.

Speaker 5 Amanda Smith and Carrie were BFFs from the moment they met as 11-year-olds at a neighborhood pool.

Speaker 6 We were just swimming together one day and Sparks just flew.

Speaker 5 How do little girls have sparks? What was it about Carrie?

Speaker 6 She was outgoing, fun. She'd push you in the pool.
She'd splash it. She'd give you the best bear hugs.
You know, just would send tingles through your body and make you feel so special.

Speaker 5 The vivacious Carrie was a people person. And according to Sarah Paxton, another friend, a dog person too, she loved her Colby.

Speaker 9 Her dog, Colby Jack.

Speaker 8 Colby.

Speaker 5 Colby cheese.

Speaker 9 She loved, love, loved Colby. Colby was like her child.

Speaker 5 29-year-old Carrie worked in her father's flooring and carpet store. Carrie was a bit of a mommy and daddy's girl.

Speaker 2 Is that fair? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Her dad seemed to do a lot of things for her. He did.

Speaker 6 If she needed something, he was there taking care of it.

Speaker 5 But Carrie was trying to find her own way. She lived in her own house and dreamed of one day walking down the aisle.

Speaker 9 She wanted to be loved. She wanted a family.
She wanted something stable in her life.

Speaker 5 The outgoing Carrie had no trouble meeting guys, but hadn't found Mr. Wright.

Speaker 6 Carrie was such a sweetheart. She's always bubbly.

Speaker 5 Kelly Hornick is a nurse who moonlights as a bartender at a karaoke joint named Jimmy O's. Carrie was a regular.

Speaker 6 She was always well-behaved, always there just hanging out with her girlfriends, having a good time.

Speaker 6 I think they came here for karaoke, and that's a fun crowd.

Speaker 5 It was at Jimmy O's where Carrie met Tim McVeigh. From the moment they laid eyes on each other, they were smitten.

Speaker 6 They were flirty with each other. You could tell that they were both interested.
It's cute.

Speaker 5 Tim studied theology at Augustana College. He planned on becoming a minister, but felt he was just too young and inexperienced to live up to the responsibility.

Speaker 5 So he took a dramatic U-turn and found a very different calling in bars and clubs as the karaoke king of the Quad Cities.

Speaker 6 He was very good at running karaoke. He was funny.
He entertained the customers. He got out there and danced with them.
He would sing songs. You know,

Speaker 4 he's a good guy.

Speaker 5 Tim, a divorced father of two, was 10 years older than Carrie, but that didn't seem to matter. They were having fun, and Carrie could imagine a future together.

Speaker 9 She saw everyone around her getting married. and having children, myself included, and I know she wanted that.

Speaker 5 But Tim wasn't interested in having more children, and that was a deal-breaker for Carrie. So they decided to go their separate ways.

Speaker 5 Carrie soon started dating Justin Mueller, an Iraq war vet, with a very different personality from the gregarious, fun-loving Tim.

Speaker 9 He seemed very quiet, pleasant. He was polite.
He was nice.

Speaker 8 He seemed a little awkward.

Speaker 5 Despite his quiet and awkward demeanor, Justin looked like a good fit for Carrie. He was closer in age, hardworking, loyal, and he seemed to find a place in her heart.
So they moved in together.

Speaker 5 It was a big step. For Carrie, it was the first time she had set up house with anyone.

Speaker 5 But right from the start, it wasn't the happily ever after kind of life Carrie dreamed about. The Iraq War left Justin with a difficult case of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Speaker 6 I felt like it wasn't a good match. All he wanted to do was stay home where Carrie was always wanting to go out and do things.

Speaker 5 Did you sort of see that as like, I can see this is going to be a problem?

Speaker 12 I did.

Speaker 2 I saw like a clash.

Speaker 5 Then just three weeks after Justin moved in, there was a problem. And it was a big one.
Carrie suddenly disappeared. It was a Monday, December 30th, 2013, the start of a work week.

Speaker 5 Carrie didn't show up at the store and didn't call in.

Speaker 5 Not like her at all. Something was wrong.
Right.

Speaker 6 I called her. I could tell her phone was off.
It was going straight to voicemail. And I thought about calling hospitals.
I just was scared.

Speaker 5 Not home. Not at work.
Not in touch. Where was Carrie?

Speaker 7 Coming up.

Speaker 13 It was in the news. It was on Facebook.

Speaker 6 I even contacted Dateline.

Speaker 7 A frustrating search for Carrie.

Speaker 14 It's traumatic and it's overwhelming.

Speaker 9 It just felt like a needle in a haystack.

Speaker 7 And maybe signs of trouble.

Speaker 15 Stomping out, slamming a door.

Speaker 1 Carrie was upset.

Speaker 16 Grief can sneak in like a thief and steal your joy.

Speaker 5 That's what seemed to happen when Carrie Olson disappeared. Grief gripped an entire community and didn't let go.

Speaker 14 Everybody knew about it. It was the talk of the town.

Speaker 5 Dennis Harker is the founder of the Quad Cities Missing Persons Network.

Speaker 13 Whenever there was anything newsworthy, it was posted. It was in the news, it was on Facebook.

Speaker 5 Carrie's best friend, Amanda, was a big part of that.

Speaker 6 On New Year's Day, I did create a Find Carrie Olsen Facebook page. People were sharing it left and right, so her story was getting out.
I even contacted Dateline and they published her story.

Speaker 5 When we posted Carrie's story as part of Dateline's online Missing in America series, it reached 1.9 million people and was shared 42,000 times. Did you feel like that was something that could help?

Speaker 5 Just getting it out on a national level? I think it helped out a lot.

Speaker 5 Thousands started to follow Amanda's page. Carrie's story united the Quad Cities in a remarkable way.

Speaker 5 Everyone wanted to help, and everyone was hoping for a break in the case, but they were also on edge. Did you just start to have worse and worse thoughts as you waited? I did.

Speaker 5 What are you told about what's going on with Carrie?

Speaker 17 That she did not show up for work. The family was concerned.

Speaker 5 The family was so concerned, they called the police. The case went to detectives Rick Voy and Bill Thomas of the Davenport Police Department.

Speaker 5 They say Carrie's live-in boyfriend, Justin, told them he had no idea where she was.

Speaker 15 Justin didn't have

Speaker 2 any answers.

Speaker 5 Justin said he and Carrie had a fight. She stormed out of the house, and he hadn't seen her in two days.

Speaker 1 Carrie was upset.

Speaker 5 What did she say to him?

Speaker 18 She said something to him about being stupid.

Speaker 5 Carrie's ex, Tim McVay, was in Las Vegas on vacation when he was told she was missing. He and Carrie were still close friends.
Tim said he wanted to help and had an idea.

Speaker 5 He talked to Carrie's father, Dave, about where to look.

Speaker 18 Tim told him, hey, she could be at my place.

Speaker 18 Go over and look.

Speaker 5 There's a window open you can crawl into the window and search the house dave went over there and searched yes through the window did he see anything nope

Speaker 5 no carrie at tim's no carrie anywhere and one thing left behind at her house was a sure sign something was terribly wrong her beloved dog colby her everything was colby just like a little kid and if she did go somewhere colby was either with her or she would make arrangements for colby there was

Speaker 9 she would never just leave.

Speaker 5 Colby being at home without Carrie led detectives Roy and Thomas to a grim possibility. As detectives, do you have to consider that someone might have taken their own life?

Speaker 18 In a missing person's investigation, that's always a possibility.

Speaker 5 Did you think that Carrie was capable of taking her own life?

Speaker 6 Well, she seemed depressed at times.

Speaker 5 Still, detectives needed to know more. They executed two search warrants.
The first at the house Carrie shared with her boyfriend Justin.

Speaker 18 The search warrant that we prepared for Carrie's house included everything that Justin owned in Justin's vehicle.

Speaker 5 Justin's truck was checked and photographed, and a sweep was made of the house. It was tidy, undisturbed, didn't look like a crime scene.
Another search was done at ex-boyfriend Tim McVay's house.

Speaker 8 We wanted to get into his residence and see, was she there, was she not there? Were there any clues that we needed to go on?

Speaker 5 Detective Tina No executed the search on Tim's home.

Speaker 8 We took lots of photographs because you never know what's going to be important, possibly later on.

Speaker 5 Tim was in the middle of a major renovation. The house was a mess.
Random things were strewn everywhere. Clothes, construction materials, rolls of carpeting.
But nothing looked like a good lead.

Speaker 5 Carrie's family was growing increasingly desperate. They wanted to do something, anything.

Speaker 5 When they reached out to Dennis Harker of the Quad City's Missing Persons Network, sadly, he knew just what to do.

Speaker 14 It's traumatic. I mean, it's just a crisis and it's overwhelming.

Speaker 5 His own son went missing just a few months earlier.

Speaker 14 You find yourself being tireless.

Speaker 14 You know, you can't sleep anyway. You might as well be doing something.

Speaker 5 Dennis offered suggestions and organization to help find Carrie and keep her story public. It was a remarkable effort.
A reward was offered. A prayer vigil became a moment of peace and faith.

Speaker 5 And of course, there were endless searches. Dennis led one at the Mississippi River, where his son's body had been found.

Speaker 14 The Mississippi tends to collect a lot of people that go missing.

Speaker 5 Amanda was with Dennis for one of his river searches.

Speaker 6 Maybe she had drowned or been dumped in the river. So we started looking along the river and I was lifting up everything looking for her.

Speaker 9 I had to do something for her, because she would have done it for me.

Speaker 5 Sarah Paxton was searching too. She remembers the frustration of trudging through a huge park covered with a fresh blanket of snow.

Speaker 9 Every search, I felt smaller and smaller, and the world felt bigger and bigger. She was one of my closest friends.
I loved her dearly.

Speaker 9 It just felt

Speaker 9 like a needle in a haystack.

Speaker 5 A needle in a haystack. But Carrie's friends and family would not stop looking or hoping.
Dozens of tips came in from strangers, well-wishers, even psychics.

Speaker 5 But it would be something much closer to home that would finally lead to the first clues about what really happened.

Speaker 7 Coming up.

Speaker 5 Had you ever heard anything about Justin stalking Carrie?

Speaker 6 She had told me that he would drive by her house.

Speaker 7 New questions about Carrie's new boyfriend.

Speaker 8 It sounds like she was getting ready to maybe end the relationship with Justin.

Speaker 7 When dateline continues.

Speaker 1 Looking to crack the code on your career? Well, maybe it's time to get your degree. Southern New Hampshire University offers over 200 programs you can complete online.

Speaker 1 No set class times means you can do it all on your schedule. And with some of the lowest online tuition rates in the U.S., they make getting your degree affordable, too.

Speaker 1 Get started at snhu.edu slash dateline. That's snhu.edu slash dateline.

Speaker 10 We all take good care of the things that matter. Our homes, our pets, our cars.
Are you doing the same for your brain?

Speaker 10 Acting early to protect brain health may help reduce the risk of dementia from conditions like Alzheimer's disease.

Speaker 10 Studies have found that up to 45% of dementia cases may be prevented or delayed by managing risk factors you can change. Make brain health a priority.

Speaker 10 Ask your doctor about your risk factors and for a cognitive assessment. Learn more at brainhealthmatters.com.

Speaker 19 A BetterHelp ad.

Speaker 19 This November, BetterHelp is encouraging people to reach out, grab lunch with an old friend, call your parents, or even find support in therapy.

Speaker 19 BetterHelp makes it easy with its therapist match commitment and over 12 years of online therapy experience, matching members with qualified professionals.

Speaker 19 And just like that lunch with an old friend, once you do reach out, you'll wonder, why didn't I do this sooner? Start now at betterhelp.com for 10% off your first month.

Speaker 5 The people of the Quad cities were desperately searching for Carrie Olson, and law enforcement on both sides of the Mississippi were doing their best, pushing the investigation as hard as they could.

Speaker 5 For Detective Tina No, solving the case became a mission. Finding someone quickly is very important.

Speaker 8 It is very important.

Speaker 8 It was bothering me.

Speaker 8 Where is she? What could have happened to her?

Speaker 8 We need to find answers.

Speaker 18 In murder investigations, eight out of ten, suspects and victim know each other.

Speaker 5 And that meant taking a harder look at Carrie's boyfriend, Justin Mueller. Detectives started by talking to Carrie's family about him.

Speaker 18 We rely heavily on the information that families give us early on in an investigation.

Speaker 5 But Carrie didn't share details of her love life with her family. They didn't even know Justin had moved in with her.
It turns out the person Carrie did confide in was her ex-boyfriend, Tim McVay.

Speaker 8 To me, it appeared that they were best buds. They talked daily.
Sometimes they would talk over 20 times a day. Their main way of communicating was text messaging.

Speaker 5 Tim drove straight to police headquarters when he flew back from Las Vegas, saying he wanted to help.

Speaker 15 I want to talk to you

Speaker 11 about Carrie.

Speaker 11 Absolutely. You know, that's why you're down here, right?

Speaker 15 Anything you want to know? I don't know where she is.

Speaker 11 I don't know what she's doing. I very much want to know because I am concerned.

Speaker 5 It turned out Tim also had a lot of concerns about Justin, which he shared with the detectives. He said the problem started even before Justin moved into Carrie's house.

Speaker 11 She called me out of the blue one afternoon, freaking out because this guy, Justin, that she had been dating,

Speaker 11 was

Speaker 11 kind of stalking her.

Speaker 5 It was something best friend Amanda also worried about when Carrie went missing. Who did you think would want to hurt her?

Speaker 6 I immediately thought Justin.

Speaker 5 Had you ever heard anything about Justin stalking Carrie?

Speaker 2 She had told me that he would drive by her house before he ended up moving in.

Speaker 6 He wanted to be with her so bad.

Speaker 5 And then there was Justin's post-traumatic stress disorder. Carrie had talked to her about it, and she could relate.
Amanda's own military husband also struggled with PTSD.

Speaker 5 That could be a lot to handle if you're not used to that and then you start dating a guy with PTSD.

Speaker 12 It is a lot to handle.

Speaker 5 Tim told police that Carrie thought her relationship with Justin had reached a tipping point.

Speaker 11 And she was, yeah, I just, I can't do this anymore.

Speaker 20 I'm sorry, I can't even keep pretending, you know, that this is going to be okay.

Speaker 5 Tim then speculated that the problems in the relationship had escalated into that Saturday morning fight.

Speaker 11 Her and Justin got in a fight. She didn't really want to go back and get into Mora.

Speaker 11 She was stewing. She wanted him to learn his lesson.

Speaker 5 And how did Tim know about that fight? Carrie had gone to his house after running out on Justin in a huff and told him all about it.

Speaker 8 It sounds like she was getting ready to

Speaker 8 maybe end the relationship with Justin.

Speaker 5 Tim went on to tell police that he dropped Carrie back home the next morning.

Speaker 11 I just watched her walk into the garage.

Speaker 5 He then borrowed her car and headed to the airport for his trip to Las Vegas.

Speaker 5 But when detectives spoke to Justin, he said after Carrie stormed out, she never came back home and he hadn't seen her since. And that made a tip called into police all the more intriguing.

Speaker 5 You all get a tip that there's...

Speaker 5 A man looking for Carrie in the Milan area.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 5 That deserved a close look because two days after she disappeared, her phone, which hadn't been connecting to her cell network, suddenly started pinging in the nearby town of Mylan.

Speaker 5 The man with the tip said the searcher was Carrie's boyfriend. Did you think it was Tim at first, or did you think it was Justin? Justin.
But Justin had another story to tell.

Speaker 5 He said he wasn't in Milan and insisted the fight with Carrie was no big deal, that it was about something trivial.

Speaker 8 There were some burnt eggs.

Speaker 5 And she had left that day, slammed the door, and called him stupid?

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 5 Justin insisted he never saw Carrie again after that fight. And the morning Tim said he dropped her at home and watched her go into the house, Justin said that never happened.

Speaker 18 When one guy tells us, I dropped her off here at 6:30 in the morning, and the other guy says, She never came in the door, we know there's a problem.

Speaker 5 A boyfriend who had a blowout with Carrie and an ex who gave her a shoulder to cry on. One of them was lying.
But which one?

Speaker 7 Coming up.

Speaker 18 A caught-on-camera stunner.

Speaker 7 Who's that using Carrie's bank card?

Speaker 8 He is seen on video trying to get $400 out.

Speaker 7 And a song turned sinister clue. The karaoke moment that no one could believe.

Speaker 8 It was sickening.

Speaker 5 Carrie Olson's boyfriend and ex-boyfriend had given conflicting stories about the day Carrie went missing, and now police were taking a close look at both of them.

Speaker 18 One of these two individuals is not telling the truth.

Speaker 5 Detectives were trying to figure out which one when they came across a significant clue. A trace on Carrie's debit card led them to a gas station where they looked at security camera video.

Speaker 5 It was chilling. There was Carrie's car.
Her debit card was being used, but there was no Carrie. Instead, the person using the card was Tim McVay.

Speaker 8 He is seen on video at the pump trying to enter a number several times. You can tell it's unsuccessful.

Speaker 5 Tim also tried the card at a drive-through ATM at the Mississippi Valley Credit Union, but he had problems.

Speaker 8 That's Carrie's bank. He is seen on video over there three separate times trying to get $400 out.

Speaker 5 The pin is not working.

Speaker 8 The pin is not working.

Speaker 5 Why was Tim driving Carrie's car and using her debit card? Tim told Detective Voyd there was a simple explanation. Even after they broke up, he and Carrie always had each other's backs.

Speaker 11 She's the kind of friend, if she called me, I would drop whatever I was doing to go help her out, shirt off my back, kind of thing.

Speaker 5 Tim said that's why he had taken care of Carrie when she came to his house after storming out on Justin. And it also wasn't unusual that she lent him her car and debit card, he said.

Speaker 11 She gave me her debit card. She said, go to the IH Mississippi ATM and get out $400.

Speaker 11 Then go and top off the gas tank, whatever it takes to fill it up.

Speaker 5 Tim said Carrie had also promised to drive him to the airport in Minnesota that Sunday. But then she changed her mind at the last minute.

Speaker 11 She says, just take my car, drive yourself up there, drop me off at home.

Speaker 8 So according to Tim, he goes back up to his house and he and Carrie get into the car and he takes Carrie back to her residence.

Speaker 5 And when they pulled up to the house, Tim said Carrie told him she didn't care how Justin might react to her doing him a favor.

Speaker 11 She was saying, I'm going to walk in the door and say, hey, I let Tim borrow my car. to get himself up to the airport.
You need to shape up, ship out.

Speaker 5 Detective Voy questioned Tim's version of events, saying security camera video from the Genesis health clinic next to Carrie's house did not show him dropping her off at home.

Speaker 11 He explained to me then, the video cameras on the side of the Genesis where you dropped her off. It does not show you there.
It has to show that the car was there.

Speaker 5 Tim didn't realize it, but Detective Voy was testing him. There was actually no video camera at the clinic.
Tim stuck to his story, insisting he dropped off Carrie.

Speaker 11 You're not on the video, and Justin said she never came in that house.

Speaker 2 He's home.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 11 She didn't walk into the garage and then walk away. I'm thinking Justin's probably not being very truthful with you.

Speaker 5 Did you ask Tim to take a polygraph?

Speaker 2 Didn't.

Speaker 5 Did you give Justin a polygraph?

Speaker 2 Didn't.

Speaker 5 But when Justin and Tim took those lie detector tests, they both passed. And then they they both went back to their lives.
Still, detectives kept an eye on them, hoping one might slip.

Speaker 5 One night later that winter, Tim McVeigh, the karaoke king of the Quad Cities, was back, singing in front of a crowd. He sang, I used to love her by guns and roses.

Speaker 2 I used to love her

Speaker 2 who gave up.

Speaker 5 A woman at the bar who was aware of the case knew McVeigh was a suspect. Shocked by his performance, performance, she said she shot this video to document it, then gave it to Detective No.

Speaker 8 He says, I used to love her, but I had to kill her. And I put her six feet under.

Speaker 2 Six feet under.

Speaker 5 Tim knew what he was doing.

Speaker 8 And to get up there and sing that song, it was sickening.

Speaker 5 But that song was played frequently at the bar, and Detective No knew that Tim's performance didn't prove anything.

Speaker 5 So with no physical evidence connecting Tim to Carrie's disappearance, there was nothing she could do. The investigation had hit a wall.

Speaker 8 It was a mystery. We felt something just wasn't right.
Something was going on. And we needed to figure this out fast.

Speaker 7 Coming up, a brand new clue. This tattoo.

Speaker 9 I emailed Amanda.

Speaker 6 There's a definite match.

Speaker 1 Where will it lead?

Speaker 7 Police are poised for a major break in the case.

Speaker 8 That was a huge piece to our puzzle.

Speaker 7 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 19 A BetterHelp ad.

Speaker 19 This November, BetterHelp is encouraging people to reach out, grab lunch with an old friend, call your parents, or even find support in therapy.

Speaker 19 BetterHelp makes it easy with its therapist match commitment and over 12 years of online therapy experience, matching members with qualified professionals.

Speaker 19 And just like that lunch with an old friend, once you do reach out, you'll wonder, why didn't I do this sooner? Start now at betterhelp.com for 10% off your first month.

Speaker 5 April 5th, 2014, warm weather. Finally, after a merciless Midwestern winter, melting snow led to a terrible discovery.

Speaker 9 A body had been found in Minnesota that was similar to Carrie's description.

Speaker 5 It was found unclothed in a wooded area off a country road in the town of Hastings, 300 miles from where Carrie Olson went missing.

Speaker 5 Police circulated a possible identifying image. The dead woman's tattoo.

Speaker 9 I emailed Amanda and I said

Speaker 10 I hate to say it, but

Speaker 10 that's her tattoo, isn't it?

Speaker 6 I had one picture of her tattoo. I sat and compared it to the drawing on that news report.

Speaker 5 What is that moment like when you look at the photograph of your friend and the photograph of the tattoo in the news report?

Speaker 6 I was completely empty.

Speaker 6 I called my mom and dad and I said,

Speaker 6 there's a definite match. for Carrie in Hastings, Minnesota.

Speaker 5 This is where Carrie Olson's body was found on Saturday night. And tonight, police.

Speaker 6 We had mixed emotions. Obviously, we wanted to find her, but then finding out what had happened, it was rough.
It was a rough time for the whole community.

Speaker 9 I just sat there. I cried.

Speaker 2 I lost a confidant.

Speaker 9 I lost someone I could laugh with. I lost

Speaker 6 a very good friend.

Speaker 5 The funeral was at St. Paul's Church in Davenport.

Speaker 8 She got to come back home again.

Speaker 5 It was a day to lay Carrie to rest and remember a beautiful life. But there were still so many unanswered questions.

Speaker 9 Now we need to find out why. We need to find out what happened.

Speaker 5 First step, an autopsy. But it couldn't answer the key question for detectives.

Speaker 18 The doctor that did the autopsy called it homicide by unspecified means.

Speaker 5 No cause of death.

Speaker 18 No cause of death.

Speaker 5 Are you thinking, come on, there's got to be a cause of death?

Speaker 18 It's rare, but we had seen the photos of the scene, and you can tell that she didn't walk up there and just fall over dead, that her body was placed there.

Speaker 5 But the autopsy did offer a possible clue.

Speaker 8 The doctor had found a chunk of carpet in her hair. We remember from January search warrant that Tim had beige carpet rolls in his house.

Speaker 5 But they also knew that Carrie worked in a store that sold carpeting, so it might not mean anything.

Speaker 5 Still, the carpet in Carrie's hair and the carpet in Tim McVay's house were sent to the lab for analysis. How long did it take you to get your answer?

Speaker 18 It takes a while. It doesn't come back after the commercial break like on TV.

Speaker 5 While detectives waited for results, they explored the most tantalizing clue they had received. And it didn't come from Carrie's body.
It came from where she was found, Hastings, Minnesota.

Speaker 8 We knew that's where Tim parked his car before he went to the airport.

Speaker 5 When Tim McVeigh flew from Minneapolis to Las Vegas the same weekend Carrie disappeared, it turns out he left Carrie's car in Hastings. Why? That's where his girlfriend at the time lived.

Speaker 5 Pretty big coincidence.

Speaker 8 Yeah, that's what we call a clue.

Speaker 5 But detectives needed more. They had to tie McVeigh to the very spot where Carrie's body was found.
They did have one long-shot clue.

Speaker 5 Just a few feet from Carrie's body, investigators discovered this $4 price tag.

Speaker 5 A Google search showed the tag was for a kid's shovel sold at the discount chain Big Lots.

Speaker 5 Detective Thomas found a Big Lots store in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where that kind of shovel was bought on the same day McVay drove to Minnesota.

Speaker 5 La Crosse is about two-thirds of the way between the Quad Cities and Hastings, but the store security cameras were broken. No video.
So how could detectives tie McVeigh to this purchase?

Speaker 5 They decided to work backwards.

Speaker 8 Inside the tobacco outlet he is seen on video.

Speaker 5 McVeigh had told police that before driving to Minnesota and the airport that Sunday, he stopped to buy a cigar at this tobacco outlet in the Quad Cities.

Speaker 5 So you knew exactly what time Tim had been here here

Speaker 5 and where he was going. Correct.

Speaker 5 The Big Lots in La Crosse is a three and a half hour drive up Highway 61 from the tobacco outlet.

Speaker 5 And it turns out the shovel was purchased exactly three and a half hours after McVay bought that cigar.

Speaker 8 That was huge for us. You leave the tobacco outlet, which is the exact amount of time to get to La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Speaker 5 But detectives still needed something more concrete to connect McVay to the purchase of the shovel.

Speaker 18 So then we asked for

Speaker 18 the actual sales receipt.

Speaker 5 On the receipt was not only the shovel, but a black bag.

Speaker 2 Black bag.

Speaker 5 A Desage brand travel bag. It cost only $10, but it was the big payoff police had been looking for.

Speaker 8 We found it in the garage at Tim's parents' house. That was a huge piece to our puzzle.

Speaker 5 So on July 18th, 2014, three and a half months after Carrie's body was found and seven months after she went missing, Tina No and the other two detectives went to a construction site where McVay was working.

Speaker 8 Tim was up on a ladder, and I said, We have a warrant for first-degree murder for you and concealing a homicide.

Speaker 5 Tina also brought along her signature accessory, pink handcuffs.

Speaker 5 You chose to cuff him with your hot pink cuffs?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 5 How did it feel seeing him in pink handcuffs?

Speaker 17 Good.

Speaker 5 Was it an extra little jab?

Speaker 18 Yes.

Speaker 14 Yeah, for Tina.

Speaker 8 That was a good moment for us.

Speaker 22 McVay, come on up.

Speaker 5 Tim McVay pleaded not guilty. He was denied bail and put in the county jail.
That's where Dateline found him for his first television interview.

Speaker 15 I did not kill Carrie, and I did not dump her body.

Speaker 5 Tim said the wrong guy was behind bars, pointing to the fight Carrie told him that she and Justin had that Saturday morning. Did she say what the fight was over?

Speaker 15 Romantic issues, I guess that'd be the best way to put it.

Speaker 5 Of a sexual nature?

Speaker 15 That was my impression, yes.

Speaker 5 And then what happened after that?

Speaker 15 There was some throwing. A couple of things had gotten broken.
There was a little bit of a physical altercation between the two of them.

Speaker 5 Tim said the last time he saw Carrie was when he drove her back to her house just before he went to the airport.

Speaker 15 She was walking into the garage at her house, alive, happy, as well as could be.

Speaker 5 Tim said he still loved Carrie, even though they'd broken up.

Speaker 5 How could he explain this seemingly damning lyric? I used to love her, but I had to kill her. But he sang at the karaoke bar while she was still missing.
Maybe not the best choice of songs.

Speaker 2 I agree with that.

Speaker 15 Actually, I told my brother-in-law, he was with me that night. I said, Why didn't you slap me when I put that song in? It's kind of a bonehead move, just, but

Speaker 15 it had nothing to do with Carrie. It was nothing to do with anything.
It was a song.

Speaker 5 But to prosecutors, it was more than a song. It was a look inside the mind of a killer.
And they were determined to prove that in court. Tim McVay was about to stand trial for murder.

Speaker 7 Coming up. A showdown in court.
One boyfriend accused and another on the stand.

Speaker 3 She stormed out of the door, and I thought maybe I upset her.

Speaker 7 What really happened to Carrie?

Speaker 5 Tim McVay's murder trial started in June of 2015.

Speaker 12 What I would like to do is...

Speaker 5 There was no jury. Judge Michael Mearsman would decide.
McVay's defense attorneys believed they held the winning hand.

Speaker 16 They had passed the polygraph. So we thought this could be the truly innocent accused here.

Speaker 5 Prosecutor John McGehee knew he was facing a tough test. You had no cause of death.
You had no weapon. You had no ironclad forensic evidence.

Speaker 23 I did feel that it could be an uphill battle, that it was going to be a real challenge.

Speaker 5 As the trial began, McGeehee presented the prosecution's theory as to how Tim did it.

Speaker 5 Even though there was no official explanation for how Carrie died, the state presented something called Birking, a method of suffocation designed to leave no marks by sitting on someone's chest and covering their nose and mouth.

Speaker 5 To support that scenario, the state called one of McVeigh's ex-girlfriends, Katie Smitty. Are you a little bit nervous?

Speaker 24 Yes, Miami.

Speaker 24 Scared of him.

Speaker 5 Katie described an incident one night in 2013. She said she was startled awake by McVeigh sitting on her chest.

Speaker 24 I couldn't breathe. He'd cut off my air.
I couldn't.

Speaker 24 He's a big man, and I'm not a very large woman.

Speaker 24 I couldn't inhale.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 5 The evidence in Prosecutor McGeehee's case was largely circumstantial, but he still felt it was strong. He believed McVeigh was the last one to talk to Carrie.

Speaker 5 He had her car, used her debit card, and her body was found just minutes from where he parked her car at his girlfriend's house.

Speaker 5 And the prosecution had the test results for the carpet fibers found in Carrie's hair. They matched that rolled-up carpet in McVay's house.

Speaker 25 How does a piece of carpet get lodged with someone's hair and remain in her hair?

Speaker 25 Her head must have been on Tim McVay's floor at the time of her death.

Speaker 5 The prosecutors also used McVeigh's internet searches to show how he was constantly checking the website of the newspaper in the distant town where Carrie's body was found.

Speaker 21 He knew that he had concealed her body in Hastings, so he started accessing the Hastings Star Gazette in January, wanting to know the headlines when her body would be discovered.

Speaker 21 He accessed that website 100 times. That is an action of a guilty man.

Speaker 5 What were you looking for? You don't live in Hastings.

Speaker 15 It's kind of a newspaper's a newspaper, but I'm not going to answer any questions about that.

Speaker 17 And why not?

Speaker 15 All I can say is a newspaper is a newspaper. I don't have any other comments about that.

Speaker 5 Just interest in Hastings?

Speaker 3 Move on to your next question.

Speaker 5 Finally, prosecutors called to the stand Carrie's boyfriend, Justin Mueller. He testified about the last time he saw Carrie.

Speaker 25 Did you say goodbye?

Speaker 3 I didn't really have a chance to say goodbye.

Speaker 3 The way she left, I mean, I tried to say goodbye, yes.

Speaker 5 Justin acknowledged that she was upset with him.

Speaker 3 The way she stormed out of the door, and I thought maybe I upset her in maybe some minor way or because I wasn't paying attention to her somehow.

Speaker 5 As the hours of Carrie's unexplained absence and silence grew, so did Justin's concern and his texts. Prosecutors had him read them in court.

Speaker 3 Baby, come home. I love you.
I'm sorry for whatever I did. I love you, Colby, and I miss you.

Speaker 1 Is everything okay? I gave Colby his pill.

Speaker 25 Did you get any kind of response?

Speaker 20 No.

Speaker 25 How was Sunday night at 8:10?

Speaker 25 Were you starting to get ready then?

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 5 Although there was no evidence presented about McVeigh's motive for murder, in closing arguments, the prosecutors offered their theory.

Speaker 5 He killed Carrie in a twisted fit of rage because he demanded her car to get to the airport, and she'd said no.

Speaker 5 We see it all the time that people

Speaker 23 are murdered for sometimes the smallest little things

Speaker 23 and

Speaker 23 you're just surprised that another human being can do this to another human being.

Speaker 10 But that's what happened.

Speaker 5 McVeigh's attorneys, Aaron Dyer, Dan Dalton, and John Rood, argued that the prosecution's theory of motive was preposterous.

Speaker 16 The idea that he could kill her and take her car to just get a ride to Minnesota, I think is laughable.

Speaker 17 They didn't have a cause of death, so how do you point the finger at somebody?

Speaker 5 The defense didn't produce any witnesses of their own. Instead, they aggressively challenged the state's witnesses, like that former girlfriend.

Speaker 5 The defense tried to show McVay was more playful than violent.

Speaker 20 You said, and I finally did get him off me. He said he was just playing around, but you didn't find him fucking.

Speaker 24 Yes.

Speaker 16 He wasn't striking you, right?

Speaker 24 No, he was not striking me. He's never struck.

Speaker 5 Defense attorneys also attacked Detective Bill Thomas, who traced that kid's shovel to a big lot store in Wisconsin.

Speaker 22 You have no videos of that transaction, right?

Speaker 13 No.

Speaker 22 You have no receipts with Tim's name on any of them for that date, right?

Speaker 18 No, it was paid by cash.

Speaker 5 The defense confronted Justin Mueller. Police said he was spotted in the town where Carrie's phone last pinged, but he wouldn't admit it.

Speaker 20 Do you remember being in the Milan area during that week?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 17 His phone records put his phone, at the very least, in Milan.

Speaker 17 Another person indicated to police that he was seen in Milan.

Speaker 5 What do you make of that?

Speaker 16 I think it's a huge hole in the prosecution's case.

Speaker 5 The defense also challenged the state's evidence, like the carpet fibers found in Carrie's hair that investigators said matched the carpeting in McVay's house.

Speaker 17 She worked in a carpet store. So just because it happened to be in her hair certainly doesn't indicate anyone intentionally killed anybody.

Speaker 5 They even challenge the idea that a crime had been committed at all.

Speaker 18 How did she get there?

Speaker 15 We don't know. How did she die? We don't know.

Speaker 7 It's one of the biggest mysteries that not even Sherlock Holmes, I don't think, could solve.

Speaker 5 Tim McVay declined to take the stand in his own defense, but he maintains that he's a family man who loves his kids, not the violent thug described in court.

Speaker 15 I'm just not that kind of person.

Speaker 24 I couldn't inhale.

Speaker 5 You were accused by Katie Schmitty, though, of

Speaker 5 getting violent.

Speaker 1 That was a lie.

Speaker 5 Did you kill Carrie?

Speaker 15 I did not.

Speaker 5 There's a lot of coincidences going on. Terrible coincidences for you.

Speaker 15 I agree.

Speaker 5 What do you say to those people watching who just maybe don't believe you right now?

Speaker 15 All I can say is what I know. I know that I did not kill Carrie.
She was a beautiful person.

Speaker 15 a wonderful friend, a lover, a confidant.

Speaker 15 She meant the world to me.

Speaker 12 And it's been the end of a long trial.

Speaker 5 After more than two weeks of testimony and argument, Judge Mearsman was ready to give his verdict.

Speaker 12 Timothy McVay, I'm finding you guilty of count one murder, count two concealment of a homicidal death.

Speaker 6 I jumped out of my seat. I was so excited and happy.

Speaker 5 Tim McVay was stoic, showing no emotion.

Speaker 5 And three months later, he was just as stoic when the judge sentenced him to 45 years in prison.

Speaker 25 I believe you killed her. And the saddest part is you killed her for a car and some money.

Speaker 5 For Justin Mueller, the cloud of suspicion finally lifted. For Carrie's family and friends, the verdict meant justice and bittersweet relief.

Speaker 9 I just bowed my head and started crying.

Speaker 9 And it felt just like this huge weight was gone.

Speaker 5 But justice for Carrie still couldn't explain the why.

Speaker 9 If it was over a ride to Minnesota, a car and money, it's not a very good why.

Speaker 5 What will you miss most about Carrie?

Speaker 6 What I ultimately miss is she's not there pulling in that driveway, honking. You know,

Speaker 6 announcing that she's here.

Speaker 2 She had a heart of gold.

Speaker 6 She was there for everybody.

Speaker 5 She had a lot of hope for her future.

Speaker 8 She had everything to live for.

Speaker 15 That's all for now.

Speaker 7 I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.