The Last Day

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Speaker 4 The desert is a strange place.

Speaker 4 It's so isolated. Somebody got lost out there.
A Marine's wife had gone missing. I never expected to be a huge piece of a murder case.

Speaker 5 My heart just sunk.

Speaker 7 Something had happened.

Speaker 8 We don't know if she's stranded in the desert, but if she's being held somewhere, can we find her before she meets a horrible end?

Speaker 10 It was a little suspicious that he waited to report her as missing.

Speaker 13 They treated me like suspect.

Speaker 15 they were laughing and carrying on he's kind of started out and bomb there was something big going on there

Speaker 17 i had no idea what we were getting into it makes me think of indiana jones one long turn can be your last

Speaker 6 this really can't be happening we didn't realize that there would be a predator

Speaker 16 They say if you're feeling down, it's time to saddle up. With a little love, trust, and respect, these majestic creatures can emerge as loyal and gentle companions.

Speaker 16 For both horse and rider, there's nothing like it. She transformed into this awesome horse handler, and she knew what she was doing and what she was talking about.

Speaker 16 If only romantic relationships were that simple. This is the story of a young woman, so gentle, so vulnerable.
She may have understood what makes horses tick, but humans? A different beast indeed.

Speaker 6 This doesn't happen to people we know.

Speaker 6 It just doesn't.

Speaker 16 It was crushing. I cried.
I cried for days. I still cry when I think about it.
Not really sure what type of person it takes to do that.

Speaker 16 Oak Ridge, Tennessee, nestled along the beautiful Clinch River, is an unassuming place with a big story.

Speaker 21 Atomic capital of the world, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Speaker 23 Home.

Speaker 16 They call it the secret city for its part in the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bomb.

Speaker 16 Oak Ridge still prides itself on being a community that values science and education, and it's a good place to raise a family. This is where Erin Hevillin grew up.

Speaker 6 When Erin was three weeks old, she joined our family as a foster child.

Speaker 16 Erin's mom, Laura.

Speaker 6 She was a tea tiny little thing. I think she was five pounds, three ounces when we got her.

Speaker 21 That's small.

Speaker 6 Oh, we thought she was the sweetest little thing. Our oldest girls were 16 and they carried her around.

Speaker 16 She was like their little doll.

Speaker 6 Yeah, they loved her.

Speaker 16 Laura and her husband officially adopted their little doll when she was three. Erin grew into a shy little girl, reserved around those she didn't know.

Speaker 16 But with the horses she cared for at the East Tennessee Riding Club, that was a different story. When I think of Erin with horses, I think of her as a bigger.

Speaker 16 She's very confident. She knows exactly what she wants and what she's going to do.
Erin's friend, Abby Googe.

Speaker 21 But with

Speaker 16 people, she was much meeker, much quieter,

Speaker 24 calmer.

Speaker 16 Horses would always be Erin's first love. But as she entered her teen years, a certain young man caught her eye.
His name is John Corwin. What was it about you that could kind of break through?

Speaker 16 to Erin because her mom says how shy she was and she was better with horses than people. So what was it about you?

Speaker 13 I guess it's my charming personality.

Speaker 13 I have no idea. It still surprises me today.

Speaker 21 Really? Yes.

Speaker 13 I guess that I was always able to talk to her, figure out what she was feeling.

Speaker 16 Erin's parents had strict rules about when she could start dating. John was sure to get their blessing first.

Speaker 16 That's very chivalrous of you to go to her parents.

Speaker 13 That's the way I was raised. You always get the parents' permission before anything.

Speaker 16 After graduating from high school, John joined the Marines. He asked Erin to marry him when she was just 18 years old with an unusual proposal.
There was no champagne, but there was a cup of sprite.

Speaker 13 His hands are clammy and everything, nervous as heck. And so I go grab the sprite out, put the ring on top of it, and ask her to marry me.

Speaker 16 So the ring was around the straw? Yes. Did she see it right away?

Speaker 13 No. I told her, hey, look, get your drink.

Speaker 21 Oh.

Speaker 16 And what did she, what was her reaction when she finally looked down?

Speaker 13 She was crying tears of joy, ecstatic, ecstatic, and just screaming, yes, yes, yes, I would love to.

Speaker 16 Erin's mom had heard that being a military wife comes with sacrifice. I'm a Marine Corps wife myself, and I know that it can be a very lonely life for people, and it's not easy.

Speaker 16 Did you try to warn her?

Speaker 6 Oh, yes. And did she listen? I know, mom, I know, mom.

Speaker 6 You know, and of course when I was 18, I knew also.

Speaker 6 You know, you probably couldn't tell me a whole lot.

Speaker 16 The couple decided to elope to Las Vegas and tied the knot after an annual formal celebration known as the Marine Corps Ball. Okay, so my husband and I have had a lot of fun at Marine Balls.

Speaker 16 However, I never thought about getting married at one of them. Why did you guys decide to get married there?

Speaker 13 Because we were young. It was Vegas.
We honestly didn't plan out a lot of things. It was more like spur-of-the-moment type deal, and that's how we lived.

Speaker 16 John was assigned to the 29 Palms Marine Base out in the California desert. In September 2013, Erin packed up for her move to join him.
Her mom saw her off at the airport.

Speaker 6 She's very directionally challenged and she had two layovers.

Speaker 6 And I'm like, when you get off that plane, you ask somebody where you need to go and you let me know as soon as you get there.

Speaker 16 What emotions were you feeling letting your baby go to start? her new life.

Speaker 6 It was scary for me. You know, I knew that

Speaker 6 it was going to be harder than she ever dreamt.

Speaker 16 Like any parent, Laura worried about her daughter finding her place in this new life.

Speaker 6 She's very shy and I did have concerns about her making friends. We felt like base housing would be safer for her because her husband was out in the field so often.

Speaker 16 It wasn't long before John and Erin learned they were expecting a baby.

Speaker 6 She was very excited. I was excited for her.

Speaker 16 Sadly, her excitement was short-lived. In early 2014, she suffered a miscarriage.
Wanting desperately to be a mother, Erin vowed to try again.

Speaker 16 Around four months later, in June of that same year, during a visit to the hospital for nausea, the couple got good news. Erin was pregnant again.

Speaker 16 She decided to wait to surprise her mom with the news. Laura already had a trip planned to visit the following month.

Speaker 6 We had, you know, plans of like just going for walks. We were going to go to San Diego to go to SeaWorld and San Diego Zoo, but mostly just spend time together.

Speaker 16 You both must have been really wanting, needing this trip.

Speaker 6 Absolutely.

Speaker 16 In anticipation of her mother's visit, Erin told her husband she was going to scout out some good hiking locations at nearby Joshua Tree National Park.

Speaker 23 She had woke up

Speaker 13 and gotten dressed and gave me a kiss goodbye and said, Hey, I'm heading out for the day and I love you.

Speaker 21 Told her I love you too, and I rolled back over and went to sleep.

Speaker 16 A routine goodbye, or so it seemed, until Erin Corwin vanished vanished without a trace.

Speaker 16 What had happened to Aaron?

Speaker 6 John calls and he said, Aaron's missing.

Speaker 13 I was just so stressed and worried.

Speaker 8 John was concerned, but he was withdrawn. When you have a spouse who's not extremely frantic, you've got a question, why aren't they super upset? We had a lot of questions for John.

Speaker 16 19-year-old Erin Corwin couldn't wait.

Speaker 16 Her mom would soon be making her first trip to see Erin and her husband John at their new home in 29 Palms, California, at the Marine base in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Speaker 16 Around 7 in the morning, Erin said goodbye to John and told him she was coming here to Joshua Tree National Park to scout out hiking trails for her mother's upcoming visit.

Speaker 16 John expected her home that afternoon, but she didn't show. He tried her phone.
No answer. Did you keep calling?

Speaker 13 Called her throughout the night.

Speaker 16 How many times would you say you tried to call her or text her?

Speaker 25 At least 50 times.

Speaker 13 I was just so stressed and worried.

Speaker 16 Hours passed, and by the next morning, John was frantic.

Speaker 6 John calls, and he said, Erin's missing.

Speaker 16 Laura Hevlin got the call back home in Tennessee.

Speaker 6 He said, she left yesterday morning and I haven't seen her since. My first question was, how much water did she have with her?

Speaker 16 You're thinking this is like maybe a hiking situation she's gone through.

Speaker 6 You know, this is the child that has no sense of direction. You know, so I'm assuming she's lost.

Speaker 16 John reported his wife's disappearance to the local police station. San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department was soon notified.
Detective Trevis Newport.

Speaker 8 Obviously we were concerned. Can we find her before

Speaker 8 something, you know, horrible, before she meets a horrible end. You don't know if she's being held somewhere.

Speaker 16 We don't know if she's stranded in the desert still lore's phone rang again this time it was a deputy he had another idea about what might have happened to erin one of his first questions was do you think she's driving home to tennessee yes and maybe she's just left yes

Speaker 6 and

Speaker 6 i about laughed because i know how much she hates to drive has no sense of direction and there's absolutely no way she would give up a trip to SeaWorld and the zoo.

Speaker 16 Back at 29 Palms, John rounded up some of his marine buddies and headed into the national park.

Speaker 16 It's a vast expanse of nearly 800,000 acres of rugged rock formations, twisted Joshua trees, and desolate open desert where summer temperatures climb well past 100 degrees.

Speaker 13 We literally drove around Joshua Tree National Park all day, trying to find any signs and clues of where she might have been.

Speaker 16 Do you see anything? Any signs of her? Her car, a piece of clothing, anything?

Speaker 21 Nothing.

Speaker 16 There's a certain protocol detectives follow when investigating a missing person.

Speaker 16 Start small and close to home. That inner circle of friends and family, the ones who know the person best.

Speaker 16 So when John Corwin reported that his wife Erin had disappeared, it was natural they'd look at him.

Speaker 8 So like with any investigation, you start closest to the source of the missing person. So we had a lot of questions for John.

Speaker 16 Investigators learned that once childhood sweethearts Aaron and John settled in 29 Palms, things were far from perfect.

Speaker 8 Their relationship wasn't intertwined. We knew that it was a relationship that was probably

Speaker 8 starting to dwindle.

Speaker 16 There was her miscarriage in early 2014. John says it was heartbreaking and Aaron had trouble coping.

Speaker 13 She became very enclosed and depressed and would stay at home. And I'm definitely not the one that actually speaks out on his emotions.
I've always kept him bottled up my whole life.

Speaker 21 She felt like I didn't care about him and I did. It actually hurt me a whole lot.

Speaker 13 It really took a toll on our relationship.

Speaker 16 And Aaron's mom, Laura, knew that the young married couple also had money problems.

Speaker 6 We gave each of our kids a certain amount of money when they got married and they kept just buying things and all of a sudden I think that huge chunk of money was not there.

Speaker 16 You struggled with finances? Definitely.

Speaker 13 The pay is not that great but we had food on the table. We just didn't have any money for extracurriculars.

Speaker 16 Was that hard for Erin? I know there was an issue with her credit card.

Speaker 13 Yes, it was hard.

Speaker 21 We ended up racking up debt. I ended up having to take away the card.

Speaker 16 Times were lean?

Speaker 21 Yes, very lean.

Speaker 16 They were grown-up problems for a couple barely out of high school. Erin shared her worries with her friend Abby.
It's just hard to transition from being on your own to being married.

Speaker 16 And sometimes a hard hand is what you need. And I think that's what John was teaching her.
And she didn't like it.

Speaker 16 Detective Newport and his colleague Jonathan Woods wondered about John's behavior when his wife didn't return home. Why did he wait a whole day to call police?

Speaker 11 It was a little suspicious that he waited till the next day to report her as missing.

Speaker 16 John said he explained to the investigators he thought that was how these things worked.

Speaker 13 You see these common things on television now. You can't report a missing person until 24 hours after they've been missing.
And I I truly believe that.

Speaker 16 Made sense. Maybe.
But detectives noticed something.

Speaker 8 John was kind of withdrawn. He was concerned, but he was withdrawn.
And at times we wondered, is it his, you know, his military background?

Speaker 8 You know, when you have a spouse who's not extremely frantic, you've got to question, you know, why aren't they super excited? Why aren't they super upset?

Speaker 16 John had gone into the park to search for his wife. Sign of a concerned husband or something else?

Speaker 8 Well, obviously as an investigator, you have to wonder, is this person trying to put themselves there?

Speaker 8 Is this person trying to give us a reason why they would be there where the last person was seen or was possibly contacted?

Speaker 16 You were seriously looking at him.

Speaker 21 Yes.

Speaker 16 I did think maybe John. And I think that's normal.
It doesn't make it right, but I think that it's a normal human response to think the spouse.

Speaker 16 But really, they might have been getting ahead of themselves. Erin was missing and could well have run off on her own.

Speaker 16 There was no reason yet to believe any harm had come to her, much less that John was responsible. There were other people to talk to and a new place to explore.

Speaker 16 A sanctuary for Erin right here in the desert. One that would prove to be full of clues and secrets.

Speaker 16 They were laughing and carrying on. Anything flirtatious? Giggly.

Speaker 7 I hadn't seen her act like that.

Speaker 16 Erin, the shy young wife. Exactly what kind of secret was she keeping?

Speaker 8 You have a spouse who's missing, and there might be some infidelity involved.

Speaker 16 When Erin Corwin went missing after a trip to Joshua Tree National Park, detectives started out by questioning her husband John.

Speaker 16 Then they widened the circle, trying to learn as much as they could about her life at the Marine base here in 29 Palms.

Speaker 16 They discovered that Erin had been lonely when she first moved to the base, but quickly bonded with other military families. It was like, kind of like Melrose Place in there.

Speaker 11 That's a perfect description of that apartment complex.

Speaker 16 Everybody's friends.

Speaker 8 Everybody's doors.

Speaker 11 10 feet away from the next couple's door.

Speaker 16 Erin and John grew close with their fellow Marine Corps neighbors, including Nicole and Chris Lee. A couple originally from Alaska, Aaron's mom, Laura.

Speaker 6 Chris and Nicole and John and Aaron cooked out together all the time. I was

Speaker 16 happy, you know, that she had this. Aaron and Nicole shared a common passion for horses.

Speaker 6 I was excited when Aaron and Nicole met because Nicole was into horses and I knew Aaron needed

Speaker 16 the horses. Nicole introduced Aaron to the White Rock Horse Rescue Ranch and its owner, Isabel Megley.
You're not very far away from 29 Palms, the Marine Corps base. 45 minutes.

Speaker 16 So is this not only kind of a sanctuary for the animals, but maybe a little bit for the Marine Corps wives? Yeah. Isabel started the ranch in 2004.

Speaker 7 The spouses come to the ranch when their husbands or their fiancés or boyfriends are out in the field. They have nothing to do.
Most of them don't work. And they get very lonely.

Speaker 7 Loneliness is probably the biggest problem that they have.

Speaker 16 And this is where Erin has her horse named Cassie. Cassie.
Uh-huh.

Speaker 16 And that was very special to her.

Speaker 7 Yes, it was.

Speaker 21 Come here, Cassie.

Speaker 21 Come here.

Speaker 16 So you're Erin's horse.

Speaker 7 She picked a horse that I would never have chosen for her.

Speaker 16 Why? What was with the horse?

Speaker 7 The horse was standoffish.

Speaker 7 It didn't like anybody

Speaker 7 and it liked her. This horse was so bonded to her.
And we couldn't believe it.

Speaker 16 Before long, Aaron and John, Chris and Nicole, were spending more and more time at the ranch together.

Speaker 13 I think we'd go shooting out in the desert and shoot our guns. And

Speaker 13 we'd go up to the horse ranch and typical shenanigans. I had a little dune buggy that we'd all go take off-roading while the girls were doing their horse stuff.

Speaker 16 Isabel said when the couples were together, Chris was always the life of the party.

Speaker 7 At the ranch, Chris was very funny. He was a real soft individual when he talked about his daughter, his wife, his family.

Speaker 7 But he also had the ability to be very

Speaker 7 stern.

Speaker 16 The ranch was clearly an escape for Chris, who struggled after returning from deployment in Afghanistan.

Speaker 7 There was something that he just stayed away from that subject.

Speaker 16 So he might have had a rough time overseas.

Speaker 7 Yes, he did. He had a very hard time.

Speaker 16 But, said Isabel, Chris was a loving father to his and Nicole's daughter, Liberty. Erin took to the little girl, too, and would help out her friends by babysitting the six-year-old.

Speaker 16 Erin's mom says she was always good with children.

Speaker 6 Gentle, very gentle. The younger kids at the barn.

Speaker 6 Now they knew that she cared about them.

Speaker 16 So Erin had found her place here, surrounded by friends and horses.

Speaker 16 But Isabel said that around Christmas of 2013, she started to see a connection between Chris and Erin that seemed a little too close for comfort.

Speaker 7 They were laughing and carrying on about something on the computer.

Speaker 16 Was there anything flirtatious about it, or was it just too close for you?

Speaker 21 Giggly.

Speaker 7 I hadn't seen her act like that, and it was like a kid in a candy story. I wasn't used to it, so it stuck out.

Speaker 16 Isabel said she found the behavior so alarming, she mentioned it to Chris's wife, Nicole.

Speaker 7 I said, Nicole,

Speaker 7 something's wrong. I said, the way they're acting.
She says, no, no, there's nothing going on. She says,

Speaker 7 they connect.

Speaker 16 What was it that they could relate to each other about?

Speaker 7 She said they could relate to being sad. She said Chris was sad.
And that when he came back from the service, he was a different person. And that he just wasn't himself.

Speaker 7 And Aaron could understand depression. She said they were just friends.

Speaker 16 But two months later, Nicole told Aaron's husband John she needed to talk to him. And by then, she was singing a very different tune about Aaron Corwin.

Speaker 13 Nicole had found out that Chris had been having an affair with Aaron. I didn't actually get specifics at the time.

Speaker 16 You're totally clueless.

Speaker 21 Yes.

Speaker 16 Is this just a bombshell to hear this news?

Speaker 13 Yes, it was a bombshell. It was earth-shattering.

Speaker 16 But John says he still loved his wife and was committed to his marriage.

Speaker 13 I tried my hardest to make it work.

Speaker 16 Were you in this for life?

Speaker 24 Yes.

Speaker 16 This marriage?

Speaker 21 Definitely.

Speaker 13 You should always try to fix something instead of just replacing it, and I was trying everything I could to fix it.

Speaker 16 He says that over time, he and Aaron reconciled and even patched things up with Chris and Nicole.

Speaker 13 They started hanging back out with us.

Speaker 21 Really? Yes.

Speaker 16 You were able to accept them in, knowing what Chris had done

Speaker 21 with Aaron?

Speaker 13 It wasn't the same that it was before, but

Speaker 13 you always give somebody a second chance.

Speaker 16 Or do you? Erin was now missing, and the fact that she'd been unfaithful to her husband just added to investigator suspicions about him.

Speaker 8 Anytime you have a spouse who's missing and you hear that there might be some infidelity there involved,

Speaker 8 it's just human nature, not just as an investigator, but as a human being, to question whether or not that person might possibly be involved in the significant others missing.

Speaker 16 But then, detectives found out something that made the potential pool of suspects a whole lot deeper.

Speaker 8 It was full-on.

Speaker 16 Stunner number one: the secret affair with the neighbor wasn't exactly over.

Speaker 13 Felt like somebody literally stuck a knife in my back.

Speaker 16 And stunner number two: this baby might not even be his.

Speaker 25 Absolutely.

Speaker 8 John realized that it was very likely not his kid.

Speaker 16 Detectives in San Bernardino, California were working around the clock to figure out what had happened to 19-year-old Marine wife Erin Corwin.

Speaker 16 They soon learned that Erin had had an affair, and that made them suspect that her husband, John, may have had something to do with her disappearance.

Speaker 16 Some of the detectives thought that your behavior was strange, that you weren't acting sad enough.

Speaker 16 Do you get why they were thinking that?

Speaker 13 I understand. I'm a very inclusive kind of person.
I don't show emotions at all.

Speaker 16 Did you worry at all in the moment that

Speaker 16 they're looking at me?

Speaker 13 No, I did not.

Speaker 16 John told detectives that his wife said the affair was over. He and Aaron had reconciled, and he'd even reestablished his friendship with Aaron's former lover, Chris Lee, and Chris's wife, Nicole.

Speaker 16 But in in the first days of their investigation, detectives learned that Erin's relationship with Chris seemed to be going strong right up until the day she disappeared.

Speaker 8 It wasn't just your friendship, slight infidelity. It was full-on.
They were completely involved with each other.

Speaker 16 One of Erin's close friends back in Tennessee told investigators she talked and texted with Aaron nearly every day. Erin, the friend said, was making plans for a life with Chris Lee.

Speaker 8 Erin had expressed to this friend that she was going to get married to Chris.

Speaker 16 The friend told investigators, Erin said that Chris was taking her on a special trip the morning she disappeared, and she texted her all about it.

Speaker 16 Erin wrote, so apparently this surprise trip is super important, and I finally got him to tell me it's by the national park. Erin told her friend she didn't know what plans Chris had in store.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I'm clueless, LOL. I'm ready to know what it is.
I mean, I have a couple ideas. I feel like it's big, but yeah, LOL, we shall see.

Speaker 16 The friend responded with a series of emojis, including a diamond ring, hearts, and question marks, suggesting perhaps an engagement.

Speaker 16 Aaron responded, maybe, and mentioned he was mysteriously playing with my ring the other night. Aaron added, we shall see.
This day cannot come quick enough.

Speaker 16 And it apparently takes two hours just to get there. A long, slow drive.
Good talking time, though. After Aaron went missing, that same friend spoke to John.

Speaker 13 She had told me that Aaron had supposedly been out with Chris that day

Speaker 21 and

Speaker 21 that

Speaker 13 she was expecting that Chris was supposed to propose to her that day.

Speaker 16 How betrayed did you feel?

Speaker 13 It was earth chattering. I was...

Speaker 13 felt like somebody just stuck a literally stuck a knife in my back. I was honestly ready to about strangling Chris.

Speaker 16 But detectives soon learned something even more explosive. Remember, Erin had recently found out she was pregnant.

Speaker 16 She told her friend that she believed the father of her baby was her lover, Chris, not her husband.

Speaker 16 Did you think that the possibility existed that he did find out that this affair had not ended like he had thought and that this baby might not even be his?

Speaker 16 I mean, that's heavy stuff for someone to deal with.

Speaker 25 Absolutely.

Speaker 8 That's why we wanted to question him so much. Did John realize that it was very likely not his kid? Which again, that brings motive to a spouse.

Speaker 16 Did you have anything to do with your wife's disappearance?

Speaker 13 No, I did not. Everybody that knew me personally knew that there was no way I could do that.

Speaker 16 But John says Marines on the base who didn't know him well seemed suspicious.

Speaker 13 You could tell that they would look at me differently, and I eventually ended up staying home because of it.

Speaker 16 Were you not able to do your job then, if you didn't want to leave the house?

Speaker 13 No. At that time,

Speaker 13 they considered me to to be mentally unstable, and

Speaker 13 they took me away from

Speaker 13 everything pretty much because we handled firearms every day. And so I stayed at home.

Speaker 16 But now, John wasn't the only one on detectives' radar.

Speaker 16 If his fellow Marine, Chris Lee, might be the father of Erin's baby and the person she was going to meet that day, then Chris, too, might have a motive and an opportunity.

Speaker 16 Did you look at both Chris and John as suspects?

Speaker 21 Yes,

Speaker 8 absolutely.

Speaker 16 There was at least one other possibility that Erin, naive and just 19 years old, had simply decided to run away from her troubles. Whatever happened, there was still no sign of her.

Speaker 16 That is, until this woman noticed something strange, something she had never seen before.

Speaker 4 I didn't know if somebody was doing drugs in there or if somebody was just up to no good, and I knew that it wasn't supposed to be there.

Speaker 16 A breakthrough, new clue.

Speaker 8 There were shoe impressions, tire impressions.

Speaker 7 Something had happened.

Speaker 6 I know my daughter. I couldn't get to 29 Palms quick enough.

Speaker 4 29 Palms is definitely an experience to live out there.

Speaker 4 The desert is one of those places that you go out to find yourself and then after you've found yourself, you're really happy to leave the place behind.

Speaker 16 Debbie Valak and her family lived just outside the Marine Corps base in 29 Palms, California.

Speaker 4 It's pretty barren. It's really flat.
You can see for hundreds of miles in every direction.

Speaker 16 It was so remote, in fact, that a Saturday morning donut craving meant an eight-mile drive to the nearest grocery store. So around 8.30 on June 28th, 2014, Debbie and her daughter set off.

Speaker 4 And we were going to go get doughnuts together. And my daughter was all excited.

Speaker 16 They took their typical path into town via Ranch Road.

Speaker 4 And as we were driving down the road there, I noticed a car parked off to the left-hand side of the road that wasn't there the night before.

Speaker 16 Debbie said it was extremely rare to ever see cars parked near their home in this desolate stretch of desert outside the national park, a full five miles from the entrance.

Speaker 4 I thought it was odd because there was no reason for it to be there. There's no hiking trails near my property.
There's nothing to do out there.

Speaker 4 And if you don't live out there, there's no reason for the car to be there.

Speaker 16 About 30 minutes later, on their return drive from town, Debbie said she was surprised to see the vehicle still sitting there.

Speaker 4 And I decided to drive up behind the car and take some pictures with my cell phone.

Speaker 16 From inside her truck, she took three photos of the back of of the car.

Speaker 4 I didn't want to get out of my truck because I didn't know what was inside the car and who it belonged to.

Speaker 16 She had no idea at the time how important those photos would become. Debbie and her daughter went home, enjoyed those donuts, and got on with their day.

Speaker 16 She said she thought about reporting the car to police, but...

Speaker 4 It's like, I think I thought my imagination was just getting the better of me and somebody had probably parked it out there with good reason.

Speaker 16 So there it sat until two days later. 9 a.m.
Monday, June 30th. Debbie and her family were eating breakfast when to their surprise, they heard choppers overhead.

Speaker 4 I guess it dawned on me at that moment that I probably should have called the police

Speaker 4 because you could tell there was something big going on there.

Speaker 16 Someone else had called police who quickly determined the abandoned vehicle was Aaron Corwin's.

Speaker 16 Debbie's photos showed it had been there for two days since the morning Aaron disappeared. What's more, next to Aaron's car, detectives noticed tire tracks and shoe prints.

Speaker 8 Those tire impressions made what appeared to be a loop back towards the vehicle, Aaron's vehicle, and there were shoe impressions that appeared to walk from the driver's side of Aaron's vehicle to those tire impressions that came through that area.

Speaker 16 It appeared to detectives that Aaron had driven to this spot and possibly switched into another car and gone off.

Speaker 8 I realized at that point we were dealing with a situation where we're being led into one direction, which is the Joshua Tree National Park.

Speaker 8 Whereas in fact, now her car is several miles north of that location. So, I'm obviously very concerned that we hadn't been searching the right area.

Speaker 16 That's a daunting task.

Speaker 16 Joshua Tree National Park is huge, and then now you're adding on this new area.

Speaker 16 Is it like finding a needle in a haystack? Did it feel like that?

Speaker 11 It's like finding a needle in a thousand haystacks.

Speaker 16 When Erin's mom heard about the car, her mind went to the worst possible place.

Speaker 6 When they found her car, without her,

Speaker 6 that's when I knew

Speaker 7 something else

Speaker 6 had happened. And I think at that point in time I knew she was not with us anymore.

Speaker 21 You knew just from the car? Yeah.

Speaker 16 I know my daughter.

Speaker 6 And it was just,

Speaker 6 I couldn't get

Speaker 6 to 29 Palms quick enough.

Speaker 16 What's that like getting on a plane? You've had this revelation, the worst

Speaker 16 kind of revelation,

Speaker 6 and there you have to turn your phone off.

Speaker 6 You know, you can't get any communication until you get back on the ground.

Speaker 6 I mean, it was must be excruciating.

Speaker 16 It was.

Speaker 6 The plane could not fly fast enough.

Speaker 16 But detectives had to keep an open mind. They had no way to know yet whether Aaron had run away or gotten lost or was the victim of a crime.

Speaker 8 We had to bifurcate the investigation. We had to turn it into a search and rescue mission and potential homicide investigation.
One was to try and look for a live and well, hopefully Erin Corwin.

Speaker 8 And the other was to work another angle, whereas unfortunately, we might be looking for a deceased Erin Corwin.

Speaker 16 Whichever course the investigation took, they knew they needed to check out a key piece of information.

Speaker 16 Erin had told her friend back in Tennessee that she was supposed to meet up with someone the day she vanished. Her neighbor and lover, Chris Lee.

Speaker 16 Deputies first knocked on Chris's door the day Aaron was reported missing.

Speaker 8 Christopher Lee told the deputies the extent of any contact he had ever had with Aaron Corwin was waving high in passing in a hallway of the apartment complex.

Speaker 16 Apparently, that wasn't true, but it wasn't necessarily incriminating either. Chris had every reason to downplay his relationship with Aaron.

Speaker 16 Nevertheless, detectives knew it was time to talk to Chris Lee again.

Speaker 15 We found her car. How did you?

Speaker 9 I could see it definitely him more tense in his body.

Speaker 16 Marine Corporal Chris Lee prepares for battle.

Speaker 15 Your tire tracks are there, as well as her tire tracks.

Speaker 9 It was just a very unusual, wild story that he was telling me.

Speaker 16 Two days after Aaron Corwin disappeared, Chris Lee sat down for a formal interview. Was he being cooperative?

Speaker 21 Yes, he was.

Speaker 16 Detective Daniel Hanke was part of the team investigating Aaron Corwin's disappearance. He wanted to know why Chris didn't admit to police right away that he and Aaron were more than just friends.

Speaker 15 I didn't bring up mine and Aaron's thing because it didn't seem pertinent at the time. Okay.

Speaker 16 But now Chris began to open up. He said his relationship with Erin started innocently enough.
He was depressed after his 2013 tour in Afghanistan. Erin was someone he could talk to.

Speaker 15 I

Speaker 15 confided in Aaron that I was feeling suicidal

Speaker 15 and she's like, you can't be doing that stuff.

Speaker 16 He said Erin confided in him as well. A terrible secret that she suffered physical abuse at the hands of her husband, John.

Speaker 15 She said her husband was beating her and choking her and like she was scared for her life. She'd say that if he would chill her whenever like he would get mad.

Speaker 16 The way Chris told it, Aaron's story of John's abuse is what brought them together.

Speaker 15 I just like being in the state I was was like, okay, well I can fix this. And then you know

Speaker 15 broken pieces fix each other, so we just kind of started developing a bond that could be.

Speaker 16 Chris said that bonding soon turned to love.

Speaker 15 But you told her that you loved her. Did she tell you that she loved her? She did?

Speaker 21 Okay.

Speaker 16 Remember, police had heard from a friend of Aaron's that she thought she was pregnant with Chris's baby. But Chris insisted the relationship had stayed pretty PG.

Speaker 15 Okay, and how many times did you guys kiss?

Speaker 15 Four tops. Maybe some like hands up and down where we're kissing, but nothing real heavy.
Okay.

Speaker 15 Nothing under your clothes or anything like that. Okay, so clothes never came off.

Speaker 16 Chris said they talked about running away together, but he didn't want to risk losing his daughter liberty.

Speaker 15 And then I told her now I'm not gonna put her with her but you know we

Speaker 16 gotta stay here back and forth he said the affair ended abruptly when his wife nicole found out about it chris also said that's when he learned a big part of his bonding with aaron was based on lies Would she lie to you?

Speaker 15 She told me that her husband was beating her and she was afraid for her life.

Speaker 16 He said he never talked to Erin again after that, but detectives had those text messages between Aaron and her friend back in Tennessee, which seemed to show the affair was far from over.

Speaker 16 Detective Trevis Newport confronted Chris.

Speaker 15 So no reason at all why she would message people saying that she's planning to meet with you on Saturday. Like she or Brooklyn overheard me and Connor talking or me and Skyler talking.

Speaker 16 Chris suggested Erin had overheard his plans for a trip to the desert and upset that she wasn't invited, lied to her friends, saying Chris planned to meet her that day.

Speaker 15 I just don't think she ever got over the fact that we had stopped seeing each other.

Speaker 16 We all know cheating in the military that that can be a dishonorable discharge. Did you think that that could be a possible reason he didn't want to talk about it?

Speaker 8 Yes, and it's not uncommon to see military personnel deny such a relationship because they know that it could lead to repercussions.

Speaker 16 Still, they pressed Chris on his whereabouts the day she went missing.

Speaker 16 He told them he'd taken a drive to Joshua Tree National Park to hunt coyotes and that he'd shot his.22 caliber rifle four to five times at some rocks.

Speaker 16 And at one point he said he encountered another man with a gun.

Speaker 15 I'm not sure if the individual shot at me or if it was just like recreational shooting, but there was an individual out there with a hanggun and it was fired in my general direction.

Speaker 9 He was very descriptive about

Speaker 9 this guy and his clothing and where he was out on a ridge line and you know that he was reloading and then he fired you know four rounds at him.

Speaker 15 I got kind of lost and at one point in time I came out

Speaker 15 followed Gold Trim Road to Old Delmine Road and then followed that to

Speaker 15 the road that comes out of the national park and came home that way and then I got home about 3.30.

Speaker 9 It was just a very unusual wild story that I thought he was telling me.

Speaker 16 So Detective Hankey tried to shake Chris up with new information. We found the car.

Speaker 15 Oh did you? Yeah it was parked in that dirt. Okay.

Speaker 9 He seemed surprised that we had found the car.

Speaker 16 Did he start to tense up after this this reveal?

Speaker 21 Yes.

Speaker 9 I could see definitely him more tense in his body.

Speaker 16 And then Hanky tried bluffing.

Speaker 15 Your tire tracks are there, as well as her tire tracks, and your tire tracks are all over hers, showing that you had her there.

Speaker 16 But you didn't know for sure.

Speaker 9 I didn't know for sure, but I had a suspicion.

Speaker 16 Under pressure now, Chris changed his story slightly, saying that while he didn't see Erin the day she disappeared, he did see her car.

Speaker 15 I was worried that if I told you guys I saw her car because of my previous relationship with her, you would have automatically assumed I did something.

Speaker 16 That didn't ring true to Hanky, and his ears perked up even more when Chris said this.

Speaker 15 Did you make any of the phone calls when you were out? No.

Speaker 15 I literally like the ability to because of the area we're in.

Speaker 16 You heard that word.

Speaker 21 Yes. We.
Yes.

Speaker 9 Yeah, that was a big tell for me. He had told me this entire time he was by himself.

Speaker 16 Detectives interviewed Chris for nine hours and thought they'd caught him in numerous lies, but they didn't have proof he'd committed a crime, or for that matter, that anything bad had even happened to Aaron.

Speaker 16 So, Detective Hankey drove Chris home. Anything telling from that car ride?

Speaker 9 Yes, it was

Speaker 9 pretty chilling, actually, some of the questions he asked me.

Speaker 16 Like what? What was he asking you?

Speaker 9 He asked me how good I was at my job and how good our detective team was. What did you tell them?

Speaker 29 Really good? Told him we were very good.

Speaker 9 He asked me specifically, how many bodies have we not found in the desert?

Speaker 16 This is a freaky conversation.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 16 It wouldn't be long before investigators heard another strange thing, this time from Chris's wife, Nicole, about something out at Isabel Megley's horse ranch.

Speaker 16 Nicole told you that something was hidden in Isabel's closet.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 16 What was that?

Speaker 8 It was a rifle, a.22-caliber rifle.

Speaker 16 Chris Chris Lee's wife.

Speaker 8 Extremely uncooperative, angry.

Speaker 16 A chilling warning.

Speaker 7 Tell Erin that if she ever had anything else to do with her husband, she'd kill her herself.

Speaker 8 Really makes you wonder, did this person pay somebody to harm Erin?

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Speaker 16 Three days had passed since Erin Corwin told her husband she was going out to scout hiking locations in Joshua Tree National Park, but there was still no sign of her.

Speaker 16 And so, detectives turned their attention back here, the horse rescue ranch that seemed to hold so many secrets.

Speaker 8 Aaron Corwin and John, Chris Lee, his wife, they were all tied to that ranch.

Speaker 16 You conducted a search of the entire ranch?

Speaker 21 Yes.

Speaker 16 Looking possibly for a body on that ranch?

Speaker 8 Not just a body, but we were looking for any piece of evidence we could. You know, anything linking anybody to Erin's disappearance.

Speaker 7 I said, she's not here.

Speaker 7 But they said they had to follow every lead that they thought might be possible. So that's what they did.

Speaker 16 Detectives knew one thing they were looking for. Nicole told them she had stashed a rifle in Isabel's bedroom closet.
You had no idea it was there.

Speaker 7 I had no idea.

Speaker 16 It was the.22 caliber rifle that Chris had told detectives he took with him to the park the day Aaron went missing.

Speaker 7 I was very disturbed.

Speaker 7 I can't imagine somebody hiding something in my house and not telling me. So I'm starting to get more angry at Chris and Nicole because now I'm part of it and I didn't even know I was part of it.

Speaker 16 And you don't allow guns here. No, I don't.

Speaker 16 Now Isabel told detectives that the day Aaron disappeared, she received a text from Nicole saying she and Chris wouldn't be at the ranch that day because she was sick.

Speaker 16 The next morning, Chris and Nicole were back at the ranch. By By then, Isabel had received a call that Erin was missing.

Speaker 7 And I kind of blew it off because I couldn't believe it. They'll find her.

Speaker 16 Isabel noticed things were tense between Chris and Nicole that day and that Nicole had nothing good to say about her missing friend.

Speaker 7 Nicole was telling me that Erin is probably hiding out somewhere to make Chris's life miserable.

Speaker 21 That she's setting us up.

Speaker 7 She's trying to hurt our family.

Speaker 7 Erin's doing this just to get even.

Speaker 7 She's trying to get sympathy.

Speaker 16 So the idea was that Aaron was okay somewhere, but was causing trouble to make Chris look bad.

Speaker 7 Right.

Speaker 16 Chris was about to be discharged from the Marines and planned to move back to Alaska. Isabel had lent them her SUV to move some of their belongings.

Speaker 16 Detectives searched the SUV and found a potato launcher like this one, a sort of homemade cannon that shoots chunks of potato or other small objects.

Speaker 7 And the officer said, you didn't know

Speaker 7 that's a weapon? I said, I had no idea it was even in my car.

Speaker 16 A weapon, as it happens, that is illegal in California. Detectives were already suspicious of Chris.
Now they use that potato launcher to get some leverage on him.

Speaker 7 He's arrested here.

Speaker 16 This patio we're sitting on is where Chris was arrested.

Speaker 7 He was handcuffed to a chair.

Speaker 16 The charge? Possession of a destructive device.

Speaker 16 Chris had already spoken to detectives at length, but now that he was under arrest, Isabel noticed that Nicole seemed to be getting nervous, and she started to say some odd things.

Speaker 7 She was very concerned that he would get his story confused because he wasn't in control of the facts as much as she was.

Speaker 16 Detectives had already noticed Nicole didn't seem interested in helping to find her friend Aaron.

Speaker 8 Extremely uncooperative, angry, just not what you would expect of somebody who's trying to assist in an investigation.

Speaker 16 Isabel told them Chris and Nicole had also searched the internet for some very specific information.

Speaker 7 They had researched

Speaker 7 how to dispose of a body, a dead body. She said that

Speaker 7 We've watched enough of those CSI movies to know no body, no case.

Speaker 16 Remember, it was Nicole who told John about the affair. According to Isabel, Nicole said that she then confronted Aaron.

Speaker 7 It was very important to her to tell Aaron that if she ever had anything else to do with her husband, she'd kill her herself.

Speaker 16 Given that Erin has disappeared, that is a very strong statement and now very relevant. Yes.
Did you have to consider her as a possible suspect as well?

Speaker 8 Of course we did. Hearing a statement like that obviously just raises all kinds of red flags.

Speaker 16 Nicole Lee had an alibi. Detectives learned she was at home with her child the day Aaron disappeared.

Speaker 16 But even if she wasn't out in the desert that day, investigators believed she still could have played a role in arranging Aaron's disappearance.

Speaker 8 Really makes you wonder, you know,

Speaker 8 did this person pay somebody to harm Aaron?

Speaker 16 Aaron's mom, Lore, had suspicions of her own. In those initial days following Aaron's disappearance, Lore stayed at Aaron and John's apartment on the base.

Speaker 6 I went for a walk and I come back and

Speaker 6 Nicole's sitting on their walkway and

Speaker 16 if Lux could kill to work you towards me. Must have been an odd moment.

Speaker 6 I guess it for some reason didn't surprise me.

Speaker 16 Instead of shrinking, the suspect pool seemed to be growing. But there was still no proof any crime had even occurred, except maybe possession of a potato gun.

Speaker 16 Chris bailed out on July 5th, 2014, one week after Aaron disappeared. Two days later, he was officially discharged from the Marines, and the Lees returned to Alaska.

Speaker 6 People kept having a fit because they let him go to Alaska.

Speaker 16 Meanwhile, detectives in San Bernardino continued to hunt for clues as to where Aaron Corwin might be found.

Speaker 16 And they learned something that would launch them on a massive, treacherous search in the desert.

Speaker 30 You don't want to make one wrong little turn.

Speaker 18 One wrong turn can be your last turn.

Speaker 16 Danger in the heart of the desert. It makes me think of Indiana Jones.
What would investigators find?

Speaker 16 Was Erin Corwin still alive somewhere in the desert, or was she the victim of foul play? This is a huge operation, trying to find Erin Corwin.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 11 Yeah, we had hundreds of searchers from four different counties.

Speaker 16 But with such an enormous area to cover, the search dragged on. And in the withering desert heat, the odds of finding Erin alive dwindled.
Her parents had long ago returned home to Tennessee.

Speaker 16 It must have been so hard getting on that plane. It was.
Was there any part of you that felt like,

Speaker 16 of course it's reasonable, but did you feel guilt or oh yeah, she shouldn't be leaving or what if they find her tonight or tomorrow?

Speaker 21 Right.

Speaker 16 The investigation had narrowed in one way. Detectives cleared Aaron's husband, John, of any wrongdoing in connection with her disappearance.

Speaker 16 Cell phone and computer records showed John was on the base the entire day that Aaron went missing. They also concluded Chris was lying when he said Aaron claimed John had been abusive.

Speaker 8 Over the period of the investigation, John was interviewed multiple times.

Speaker 8 John submitted to a polygraph test. I mean, easily 20 hours total, we had spoken with John.

Speaker 16 Did he pass the polygraph?

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 13 I knew what was true, and

Speaker 13 I gave them my honest answers, and I never lied to them, and the light shined through.

Speaker 16 But Chris Lee had lied to them and seemed interested in how to dispose of a body. Come on, baby.
And Isabel told them he'd taken a trip to the desert with a friend the week before Erin disappeared.

Speaker 7 And he said, we found a lot of mines, but I found this one mine.

Speaker 7 No one will ever find.

Speaker 16 Detectives believed it was all adding up. Chris killed Erin and then dumped her body in a mine shaft.
So they decided to start searching. But here was the problem.

Speaker 16 The Mojave Desert is pockmarked with hundreds of mine shafts. Detectives knew they needed help.

Speaker 8 The search and rescue folks explained that there was a guy who knew a lot about the desert, knew a lot about the caves, you know, would be a great resource to us.

Speaker 16 This is the man they were talking about, Doug Billings, cave dug to his pals.

Speaker 16 As much desert rat as the gold miners who used to roam the Mojave a century ago. But instead of a pickaxe and a mule, he's outfitted with GPS and a hummer.

Speaker 30 I've been down every one of these mines, including the one we're standing in front of right now. I know how deep they are.
I know what's inside them.

Speaker 16 When other kids were playing Little League, Billings was hanging off a rope catching rattlers.

Speaker 16 By the time he was an adult, Billings was traveling the globe, exploring the underworld, but the Mojave is his home.

Speaker 16 So Detective Newport and Billings started talking, and a relationship quickly formed.

Speaker 8 Almost every day, Doug and I would talk on the phone, and He would send me photographs, aerial images, satellite images, and say,

Speaker 8 check these mine shafts. You know, these are more that I have located.

Speaker 16 Just getting to a mine shaft could be an ordeal, as we discovered.

Speaker 16 Billings took us out to one of the high-priority search areas, but the road got so rugged and treacherous, we were forced to leave behind our SUV, along with two members of the crew.

Speaker 16 and carry on in Billings Hummer. This is really hard to get around.
I mean, this is sort of at times white knuckle driving.

Speaker 16 I have to admit, yeah, I mean, you look straight down, you don't want to make one wrong little turn.

Speaker 18 Yeah, one wrong turn can be your last turn.

Speaker 16 So this is one of the mines that was searched. Yes.
Billings and the other volunteers checked off one dangerous mine shaft after the next.

Speaker 34 We're monitoring the oxygen, so it's all clear.

Speaker 30 The next step we do is we also always throw in a little bit of rocks and you listen quietly for a rattlesnake. It's kind of a general protocol.

Speaker 30 This part of the desert, they love to come and hide out in these mines to get out of the sun. Yeah, you see the temperature drop.

Speaker 20 and

Speaker 30 as we walk in here you click your light on.

Speaker 16 Ooh that could be scary if it dropped down.

Speaker 30 Yeah so this could be a false floor here.

Speaker 16 We'll stay on this side here. It makes me think of Indiana Jones, kind of the unknown trap almost.

Speaker 20 I've seen that in real life.

Speaker 30 We would send this down.

Speaker 16 These are the most dangerous shafts to search. Vertical ones that go straight down into a crumbling abyss.

Speaker 30 Originally we were dropping mine shafts. We were physically going down the shaft.
We rig the ropes, repel in, check it, clear it, and move on.

Speaker 30 But it became not feasible with the amount of mines we had to search. A couple ropes.

Speaker 16 So they outfitted buckets with cameras.

Speaker 27 And then you just began feeding it down the shaft.

Speaker 16 It sped up the process, to be sure, but with hundreds of mines to explore, the search dragged on for days, then weeks.

Speaker 16 How daunting of a task was this?

Speaker 30 Well, at first, I didn't really quite grasp it. And then once we had been out here pounding this area area for several weeks,

Speaker 30 it started going through my head like, oh my god, when is this going to end?

Speaker 18 You know.

Speaker 16 Detectives were often side by side with the hundreds of searchers looking for Erin.

Speaker 9 We were digging holes, we were searching.

Speaker 9 I was wearing t-shirt and jeans, going into mine shafts. We wanted to find her.
So we were doing everything we could to help.

Speaker 16 And yet, there was no sign of Erin Corwin anywhere. No clothing, no footprints, nothing.

Speaker 16 But then, detectives caught a break.

Speaker 16 Remember that trip Chris took with a friend to look at mines? Turns out, Chris's friend had taken pictures. Detectives obtained the photos and seven weeks into the search, showed them to Cave Doug.

Speaker 8 Without skipping a beat, Mr. Billings almost immediately began identifying each photograph and we began plotting them on the topographical map.

Speaker 30 The first picture they showed me was of the mine across here. I immediately recognized the tower.
They showed the shaft going down the shaft. I recognized that.
Second, they showed me the cabin.

Speaker 30 And then the next picture was of actually the mine we're standing next to.

Speaker 16 So they bet on Billing's memory and focused their efforts here around what's known as the Rose of Peru mine. Around the Rose of Peru mine are hundreds of other abandoned mines like this one.

Speaker 16 And any one of them could have been a potential burial site.

Speaker 16 Investigators had high hopes that they were finally targeting the right area. But after an exhaustive and and expensive search that lasted for weeks and weeks, they decided this was it.

Speaker 16 Saturday, August 16th, 2014 would be the last day of the search.

Speaker 11 We felt we had one more shot at it.

Speaker 16 In the early evening, they headed for the very last mine on their list.

Speaker 8 And as nighttime falls out there, you don't want anybody out there still. So we began to really collect our thoughts and decide, you know, any minute now we need to start calling this search.

Speaker 16 A member of the San Bernardino Cave Rescue Team, a doctor in fact, came upon this mine and right away noticed a strange smell. It was the stench of gasoline.

Speaker 16 There was also a shell casing resting near the mouth of the mine. The searchers lowered a bucket cam.

Speaker 8 We received a phone call from one of the satellite phones that was out there with the search team, and they could see what appeared to be a leg or some sort of a body part down at the very bottom of the mine shaft.

Speaker 16 That is unbelievable

Speaker 16 that this search was minutes away

Speaker 16 from being called off after weeks and weeks and you find something.

Speaker 8 It was very unbelievable.

Speaker 16 A full exploration of the mine would have to wait until daybreak.

Speaker 13 Detective Hanke, he called me at roughly

Speaker 13 9 or 10 o'clock that night and said that

Speaker 13 we had found a body at the bottom of this mine shaft.

Speaker 16 Did you sleep at all that night?

Speaker 21 I did not know.

Speaker 17 Do I want to put my life in danger?

Speaker 16 Journey to the bottom of the mine. Whatever was down there, could rescuers retrieve it?

Speaker 8 Overwhelming emotion.

Speaker 6 This really can't be happening to us.

Speaker 16 A massive search effort that once spread across 2,000 square miles of desert was now focused on a single four by six foot hole.

Speaker 17 I had no idea what we were getting into.

Speaker 16 Paul Anastasia and Brenton Baum are with the San Bernardino County Fire Department's elite urban search and rescue team.

Speaker 17 I was told they had found a body approximately 140 feet in a mineshaft.

Speaker 16 But there were problems.

Speaker 21 They detected propane gasoline fumes.

Speaker 16 The bucket can used the day before picked up images of a gas can and propane tank which were venting fumes into the shaft.

Speaker 16 That's why Anastasia and Bomb were called. They're trained to work inside tight spaces while using sophisticated breathing equipment.

Speaker 12 From what they described, it sounded pretty precarious.

Speaker 21 Just as far as the soil type we were facing, how deep in the environment it was. It seemed like a pretty questionable entrance.

Speaker 16 The two regularly risk their lives to rescue people in danger, but in this case, taking a grave risk in order to recover a dead body gave them pause.

Speaker 13 It's risk versus gain.

Speaker 17 Do I want to put my life in danger?

Speaker 16 After talking it over and knowing how important their recovery efforts could be to solving Aaron's disappearance, they agreed to go.

Speaker 16 Bomb, who's admittedly claustrophobic, got the short straw and was first in the hole.

Speaker 21 When I started descending down, how deep were you going in? About 100, 140 feet. It was a lot deeper than I've ever been.

Speaker 16 And what are you seeing as you're on your way down? How tight is it?

Speaker 30 It was eerie.

Speaker 21 Rock collapsing.

Speaker 21 Snakes.

Speaker 21 Yeah. And also just the heat.
It was about 110 degrees topside, and I believe it was about 90 degrees downside.

Speaker 21 So work in that environment, you only have a limited amount of time effectiveness before you're quickly fatigued.

Speaker 16 What did you see?

Speaker 21 A sprite bottle,

Speaker 21 a rope, tire down there, a propane tank,

Speaker 21 some plastic jugs,

Speaker 21 a lot of rock and

Speaker 21 rock debris, some railroad ties.

Speaker 16 And then he saw it, a human body. That sounds like out of a horror movie.
I mean, I hate to say it like that, but to repel down and then to see a decomposing body.

Speaker 21 Obviously, we see a lot of death in this line of work. Over time, you just develop a method where you just ignore your emotions for a little while and you just focus on the task that you need to do

Speaker 21 and then face up with your emotions later.

Speaker 16 Bomb first took photos while suspended above the grisly crime scene, then methodically set about gathering evidence and sending it back to the surface.

Speaker 21 The original plan was for me to do the whole operation, but I had been down there about 45 minutes and I was pretty fatigued. So our captain made the decision to go ahead and rotate us out.

Speaker 16 How did you feel when you finally got out of that mine?

Speaker 21 I took my mask off. I was hit with the smell all of a sudden.
What I had been immersed in, I didn't smell on the shaft. I smelled on the top side because it was all saturated in my clothes.

Speaker 21 I started dry heaving.

Speaker 16 Then it was Anastasia's turn. His assignment? Get the body.

Speaker 17 I would be lying if I said I was excited about going down to that mine shaft.

Speaker 17 I never put a body in a bag.

Speaker 16 Once in the mine, Anastasia realized retrieving the body was going to be far harder than expected.

Speaker 17 I did a little assessment with my flashlight and I realized that that was a false bottom and then I got a little more concern with

Speaker 17 some rocks coming down and knocking out that false bottom or loosening it up.

Speaker 16 Because then everything would be gone. Yeah, I wouldn't have to go.

Speaker 17 I would go to the bottom of the bottom. I had no idea how deep that shaft was.

Speaker 16 So, suspended in mid-air, Anastasia began placing the body in the bag without disturbing the false bottom on which it rested. Once that was done, he found something else.

Speaker 3 A torch

Speaker 17 in the corner of the mine.

Speaker 16 Had it been lit?

Speaker 17 It didn't look like it had been lit to me. It looked like it was brand new, like someone had just made it.

Speaker 16 Ever so carefully, Anastasia made his way back up the mine shaft with that torch and with the body. Back on the surface, detectives made a positive ID.

Speaker 16 After eight weeks of searching, on the day they decided would be their last, they had finally found Aaron Corwin.

Speaker 16 I don't know if either of you are religious, but it almost feels like some kind of divine intervention that it would happen that way.

Speaker 23 I felt it was a small miracle.

Speaker 11 I get emotional just thinking about that day.

Speaker 8 All these hours we had worked and just thinking

Speaker 8 deep down inside, she's got to be somewhere in one of these last caves. She just has to be.
And then actually having that confirmed, just

Speaker 8 overwhelming emotion.

Speaker 6 A few minutes before midnight,

Speaker 6 the phone rings again.

Speaker 6 Wakes us up,

Speaker 16 and it's Detective Dan

Speaker 6 and says it's her.

Speaker 6 It's like,

Speaker 6 this really can't be happening to us.

Speaker 20 You know, not that child.

Speaker 16 The cause of Erin's death, possible blunt force head injury, and apparently strangulation with a sinister tool.

Speaker 11 The pathologist discovered what's known as a garot. I was unfamiliar with that at the time, but I quickly learned what that was.
It was a

Speaker 21 paracord

Speaker 11 with two rebar handles, and it encircled her neck.

Speaker 16 Isabel from the Horse Ranch said Nicole Lee once told her, no body, no case. Now, detectives finally had the body, and soon they had an arrest warrant.
The charge, murder.

Speaker 34 All of the evidence in this case points to one person. One person who prepared, planned, studied, and executed the murder of Aaron Coral.

Speaker 16 An accused killer on trial.

Speaker 10 Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy. Live and uncensored, catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues, and bodily ailments.

Speaker 10 With that kind of drama that seems to follow me, you never know what's going to happen.

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Speaker 38 Subscribe now and get three months free. Offer details apply.

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Speaker 34 Ladies and gentlemen, at its core, this is really a very simple case.

Speaker 16 October 2016, two and a half years after Aaron Corwin's death, a jury gathered in the San Bernardino courtroom.

Speaker 16 The person on trial, Chris Lee, that charge, first-degree murder, prosecutor Sean Daugherty.

Speaker 34 All of the evidence in this case points to one person.

Speaker 34 One person who prepared, planned, studied,

Speaker 34 and executed the murder of Aaron Corwin.

Speaker 37 There was so much

Speaker 37 connecting him out there at that mine shaft, even the very location of that particular mine that tied him to the crime, that for him not to have done it, he would be probably the unluckiest man ever.

Speaker 16 The prosecutor used friends and family of the Lees and Corwins to lay out the case against Chris.

Speaker 16 Several people who knew Chris, including this fellow Marine, testified he'd shown a lot of interest in how to dispose of a body.

Speaker 24 He did mention the benefits of hiding a body in a vertical position so ground-penetrating radar wouldn't be able to see the outlines outline of a body.

Speaker 16 Former downstairs neighbor and one-time friend, Ashling Malachi, also took the stand.

Speaker 20 How many times prior to June 28th did you hear Senna talking about her?

Speaker 20 More than I can count.

Speaker 16 Ashling also told the jury about Chris's wife Nicole's odd and cold response when she heard Aaron was missing.

Speaker 21 I called Nicole and said,

Speaker 16 Where's your husband? There's people here looking for her.

Speaker 40 You know, Aaron's missing.

Speaker 40 she replied with

Speaker 40 I don't care what happened to that little bitch and she laughed at me and told me to mind my own business and then I hung up on her

Speaker 39 so you're becoming emotional

Speaker 29 why

Speaker 21 Because

Speaker 40 I just I knew something happened to Erin at that point and there's no way she went off on her own.

Speaker 16 And Ashling's husband, Connor Malachi, testified he saw Chris Lee around six o'clock the morning Aaron disappeared. And in the back of his Jeep, he noticed something.

Speaker 28 I saw a bunch of items covered by a tarp and I saw a white propane cylinder.

Speaker 34 White propane cylinder?

Speaker 37 Correct. Like for a barbecue?

Speaker 31 Yes.

Speaker 16 Connor said the propane tank he saw on the Jeep looked like the one recovered from the mine.

Speaker 28 I asked him why it was in there, what he was planning on doing with it.

Speaker 34 What was the defendant's response?

Speaker 28 That he was going to blow up a mine shaft with it.

Speaker 16 Isabel Megley from the horse ranch told the jury she also recognized the tank pulled up from the mine. She said Chris had borrowed it from her the day before Aaron disappeared.

Speaker 7 I asked him if he was going to have a barbecue.

Speaker 41 And what was his response?

Speaker 7 He said no, he was going to use it to play games.

Speaker 24 Did the defendant ever return the propane tank?

Speaker 41 No.

Speaker 16 And Detective Woods testified that a search of the SUV Chris was driving at the time of his arrest yielded another piece of evidence.

Speaker 11 That is the garage that was located underneath the front passenger seat. I'd only seen one of those in my life, and that was the one that was wrapped around Miss Corwin's neck.

Speaker 11 And for the second time in the same week, I saw the second one.

Speaker 16 And there was another link to Chris. That shell casing found near the mouth of the mineshaft.
It matched Chris's rifle. The jury also got to hear from Aaron's confidant back in Tennessee.

Speaker 16 Jessica Trentham was Erin's close friend and secret keeper. She's the one who told detectives everything she knew about Erin's affair with Chris.

Speaker 30 Did she tell you how she felt about Christopher Lee?

Speaker 14 She made it known that she loved him more than her husband.

Speaker 16 Jessica said Erin had plans for a future with Chris.

Speaker 14 She stated that she believed she would be divorcing her husband

Speaker 14 or that a divorce would come and that she was hoping to be able to stay with him.

Speaker 16 She said Chris told Aaron he had a special trip planned for her the weekend she disappeared.

Speaker 14 She said that he was going to surprise her with a day trip out to the desert.

Speaker 39 How did she sound? What was her feelings about that? What did she sound like to you?

Speaker 14 She was excited to get to spend time with him.

Speaker 16 Jessica also testified about a text she got from Aaron. My mother comes in a week.
I'm excited. Jessica responded, are you gonna tell her?

Speaker 20 What did you mean when you said

Speaker 35 you said it was already going to tell her?

Speaker 14 That she was pregnant.

Speaker 16 Erin texted back. Well, Chris wanted to tell everyone next week.
On June 28th, 2014, Jessica spoke to her friend for the last time. At 7.19 a.m.
California time, Erin called Jessica back in Tennessee.

Speaker 14 She said that she was getting ready and about to leave the apartment to go meet Chris to have their special day.

Speaker 23 Did

Speaker 21 what was your response to that?

Speaker 13 I was excited for.

Speaker 21 Why?

Speaker 14 I wanted her to be happy.

Speaker 30 Did you guys make plans or talk about her

Speaker 24 calling you later?

Speaker 14 She was supposed to call and let me know how it went.

Speaker 24 Did you ever get that phone call?

Speaker 24 No.

Speaker 16 Do you think she was planning to start this new life with him?

Speaker 16 With the baby?

Speaker 21 It seems so.

Speaker 6 It seems so. It was really hard to hear that.

Speaker 6 I think one of the harder things is to know that she was going through all that and she did not share it. It just makes me wonder the level of his manipulation.

Speaker 6 Because obviously he was leading her on.

Speaker 16 But perhaps the most damning evidence came from this DNA expert who analyzed the items that were pulled out of the mine shaft where Aaron's body was recovered.

Speaker 36 In this case I chose to go with the more substantial testing.

Speaker 16 Remember that homemade torch? It consisted of a piece of wood with a green t-shirt wrapped around one end. On the shirt's collar, DNA.

Speaker 36 In this particular case we have a major DNA profile which includes Christopher

Speaker 36 Christopher Lee.

Speaker 16 There was also DNA around the mouth of the sprite bottle found in the mine.

Speaker 36 I have a mixture of two individuals, Christopher Brandon Lee and Aaron Corwin.

Speaker 16 Erin and Chris, it appeared, had been sharing a sprite that day, the same drink her husband had once used to propose marriage.

Speaker 8 I believe Christopher Lee took Aaron Corwin out to the desert to kill her that day because she was a hurdle between him and the rest of his life.

Speaker 8 By the end of this entire investigation, we realized Christopher Lee didn't care about anybody but himself.

Speaker 16 The prosecution said Chris took Erin out to to the mine, strangled her with the garot, and dropped her in.

Speaker 16 He may have intended to use the propane tank and torch to blow up the mine and conceal her body, although he apparently didn't follow through.

Speaker 16 Their conclusion: it was a carefully planned, cold-blooded murder. The evidence seemed overwhelming.
But now it was the defense's turn, and jurors were in for a surprise.

Speaker 16 Chris Lee was about to testify, and no one was prepared for the dark tale he would tell.

Speaker 36 I need to tell the truth.

Speaker 16 A story from the stand that stuns the court.

Speaker 24 I couldn't live with myself if I kept this a secret any longer.

Speaker 36 I need to tell the truth.

Speaker 16 Chris Lee, a husband, father, and decorated Marine, would be the first and only witness in his defense. His attorney, David Kaganidis, took Chris through his version of events.

Speaker 24 I couldn't live with myself if I kept this a secret any longer.

Speaker 16 By June 2014, Chris was preparing to leave the Marines. He told the jury that he knew it was time to end his relationship with Aaron.

Speaker 23 Did you have any plans after leaving the Corps?

Speaker 24 Yes, me, Nicole, and Liberty were planning on moving back up to Alaska. Had you told Aaron this?

Speaker 23 I did.

Speaker 16 Chris said that he had planned a hunting trip and that he invited Aaron along so they could talk.

Speaker 20 Was it just going to be you and Aaron?

Speaker 24 No, it wasn't.

Speaker 16 Chris had asked two friends to join him, including his neighbor Connor.

Speaker 24 Why were you inviting all these other friends of yours if you needed to talk to Aaron?

Speaker 35 Because...

Speaker 24 I didn't really want to have lengthy conversations, so I wanted to be able to go hang out with my friends and actually do some hunting in case the conversation got too deep or became to the point where i was uncomfortable with it but chris said by the morning of june 28th he found out his friends had bailed so he and aaron set out for the park just the two of them chris had a propane tank and he said he wanted to blow off some steam literally Had you told Erin that you were going to actually try to blow up this mine?

Speaker 24 On the way there.

Speaker 24 Do you remember what her reaction was?

Speaker 35 She wasn't happy about it. She thought it was stupid, unsafe.

Speaker 24 You know, she thought this trip was going to be about us talking. And I told her that it was, but, you know, that I wanted to try and do this too.

Speaker 16 When they arrived, Chris began unloading his supplies.

Speaker 24 I took the tires out of my Jeep and I tossed them down the mine shaft. What was Erin doing during this time? She was sitting in the Jeep listening to music.
She didn't want to be near any of this.

Speaker 24 Alright, so what did you do next to

Speaker 24 blow them up i went to the back of the deep to grab my torch and i realized i had not doused it and gasoline feeling frustrated chris said he returned to his jeep we started having a conversation uh about what

Speaker 24 about plans um she wanted to come to alaska she

Speaker 24 wanted to be part of Liberty's life.

Speaker 24 I told her, you know,

Speaker 24 I didn't want that.

Speaker 24 Told Told her, you know,

Speaker 24 I decided that, you know, you can't be part of Liberty's life. And she said that she wanted to, that she loved Liberty, you know.

Speaker 24 And I told her, you know, it's not your choice. It's not your daughter.
You don't get to love her. She's mine.

Speaker 23 What were you thinking at that point?

Speaker 24 I was thinking there's no reason for Aaron to love Liberty. She was not hers.
She shouldn't have any kind of emotional attachment to her.

Speaker 16 And then, Chris said he remembered something else a story that would be central to his defense and would stun this courtroom he said he recalled something his wife had shown him one night when she was giving liberty a bath signs chris said that nicole believed showed sexual abuse that she thought maybe aaron had molested liberty because she was uncomfortable with the way she was around her when she had been watching her what was your reaction to that

Speaker 24 i felt so safe in my little community that I didn't think it was possible. So you didn't believe Nicole? No, not at the time.

Speaker 16 But now, as they talked at the mine, he said Erin seemed way too attached to Liberty.

Speaker 24 When Erin told me she loved Liberty and that she wanted to be with her, you know, something clicked.

Speaker 24 It turned a gear in my head. And I said, why do you care about Liberty so much?

Speaker 24 Why do you want to be part of her life?

Speaker 24 And

Speaker 24 Erin told me, you know, I just love her. And I stood up and I stopped her.
And I said, did you touch Liberty?

Speaker 35 And she reeled back a little bit and started stuttering up her words.

Speaker 24 And she was saying, you know,

Speaker 24 and I stopped her again. And I yelled at her this time.
I said, did you molest my daughter?

Speaker 24 And she said, yes.

Speaker 24 But, and that was the last thing I heard her say.

Speaker 16 An explosive allegation against the victim. Did you worry that that could really turn off the jury? Absolutely.

Speaker 13 But it was what Chris insisted was the truth.

Speaker 16 Erin's husband said it simply wasn't possible.

Speaker 21 She was

Speaker 21 nurturing, caring, never did anything elusive or crude or harmful.

Speaker 13 Nobody that personally knows Erin or has even heard of Aaron would believe that.

Speaker 16 And for detectives...

Speaker 11 I personally felt disgusted. From all the people we've talked to that knew Aaron,

Speaker 11 we didn't think this was even an angle that Christopher Lee would play. This came out of left field.

Speaker 16 But Chris said it was hearing what he believed to be a confession from Aaron that caused the horrible events he now recounted in chilling detail.

Speaker 24 I stumbled back and I

Speaker 24 sat on the edge of my Jeep and caught myself with my hands. And in my right hand I felt the metal from the garrot.

Speaker 24 It set me off.

Speaker 29 I just felt

Speaker 24 so much hate, so much rage, and I grabbed it and I stood up and I came up behind her and I put it around her neck. Training took over then and I turned around and I started pulling.

Speaker 24 Nothing would have stopped me from doing what I was doing.

Speaker 24 I told myself while I was doing this never again.

Speaker 24 I wasn't going to let anybody hurt my daughter again.

Speaker 35 I had let her into my daughter's life.

Speaker 24 It was my fault that my daughter was hurt. I just kept choking her.

Speaker 35 I don't know how long it was.

Speaker 24 Might have been five minutes, ten minutes, it felt like forever.

Speaker 24 And I just kept choking her.

Speaker 23 And then the anger, that

Speaker 24 feeling of disgust and hate ebbed a little bit and I let go. And she dropped to the ground.

Speaker 16 Christopher Lee was describing for the jury how he had killed Erin Corwin.

Speaker 24 After a few minutes went by, I realized what happened. I know I killed her.

Speaker 24 And so the grope was still around her neck.

Speaker 24 So I grabbed it and I dragged her to the edge of the mineshaft and I pushed her in.

Speaker 16 His story accounted for all the physical evidence and portrayed the killing as a crime of passion committed by an outraged father.

Speaker 16 But now the prosecution took over and shocked the courtroom all over again.

Speaker 16 A heart-stopping moment.

Speaker 41 He could have stopped there, right?

Speaker 24 No.

Speaker 41 He couldn't have stopped.

Speaker 16 The fate of Marine Corporal Chris Lee. What will the verdict be?

Speaker 16 Chris Lee had shocked the courtroom, telling the jury that he did kill Aaron Corwin, but it wasn't premeditated.

Speaker 16 Instead, he said, he snapped when he claimed Aaron confessed to him that she'd been molesting his daughter.

Speaker 16 Now, prosecutor Sean Doherty cross-examined Chris, confronting him on those allegations against Aaron.

Speaker 34 You heard these accusations from your wife, who you loved, right?

Speaker 21 Yes.

Speaker 35 So you immediately picked up and called the police.

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 39 Nicole immediately picked up and called the police.

Speaker 24 No.

Speaker 39 So you're still having sex with the woman who your wife thought was Melissa your daughter, right?

Speaker 21 Yes.

Speaker 16 The prosecution's mission to show the jury that they could not believe Chris because he'd lied, claiming not to know where Erin was through all eight weeks she was missing.

Speaker 34 People lie for a reason.

Speaker 37 It is important that I point out that he lies to protect himself.

Speaker 39 You had a choice to tell the truth, right?

Speaker 21 I did.

Speaker 32 You knew Erin had a mother?

Speaker 23 Yes.

Speaker 41 You knew she had people that loved her.

Speaker 35 Yes. You knew a lot of people were looking for her.

Speaker 41 Yes, I did. You essentially made the decision to hold them hostage right yes

Speaker 41 perhaps the biggest moment in court came when the prosecutor found a striking way to demonstrate how chris had killed aaron what you did is okay so for the record what you did is you put it around the dummy's neck that i'm holding you twisted around and then you turned backwards so you're actually back to back with her yes sir okay and you testified earlier that you pulled really really hard yes sir you could have stopped there right no you couldn't have stopped you already made the decision to kill her yes and you were gonna follow through with that decision Yes.

Speaker 23 Okay.

Speaker 37 My goal was to show the jury how long it takes to kill somebody like that and to show them the brutality of what was done.

Speaker 37 It's one thing to say, as he did on Direct, well, then I strangled her and I pushed her down the hole. It's another thing for him to actually show us what you did.

Speaker 37 So I think the jury was entitled to see that.

Speaker 37 It was heavy. It was one of the heavier moments I've had in court.

Speaker 30 That's about 10 seconds in.

Speaker 20 You could have stopped.

Speaker 24 Right? No.

Speaker 20 20 seconds in, you could have stopped.

Speaker 24 No.

Speaker 20 Why not?

Speaker 41 Nothing would have stopped me at this point. I was too angry.

Speaker 34 I saw the reaction of the jurors.

Speaker 37 It was pained.

Speaker 37 Their expressions were pained.

Speaker 41 So we're about 40 seconds in.

Speaker 20 You're still doing it.

Speaker 24 Yes, sir.

Speaker 20 That's about a minute in.

Speaker 30 You're still doing it. Yes, sir.

Speaker 20 And your testimony is you couldn't have stopped. You couldn't have just let go of those handles.
No.

Speaker 20 Minute 20? Still no, huh? No. Okay.

Speaker 23 You didn't let go.

Speaker 20 Can you let go now?

Speaker 24 Yes, sir.

Speaker 39 Then you threw her down a mine shaft, didn't you?

Speaker 25 I did.

Speaker 19 Like a piece of trash.

Speaker 27 I threw her down the mine shaft, yes.

Speaker 19 Like a piece of trash.

Speaker 30 Right? Is that a question? Yes.

Speaker 21 Yes.

Speaker 16 The jurors had heard a confession from Chris Lee. Would they think it was voluntary manslaughter, a killing carried out in the heat of passion?

Speaker 16 Or was it premeditated murder? The prosecutor made his final appeal to the jury.

Speaker 39 Do you think the defendant testified to express remorse?

Speaker 34 Ladies and gentlemen, if you do, you're mistaken.

Speaker 34 The defendant is not remorseful.

Speaker 34 He didn't care.

Speaker 39 He didn't care when search and rescue and homicide and people in fire departments are putting their life at risk looking for Erin.

Speaker 3 He didn't care that he was holding her mother hostage.

Speaker 39 He didn't care one bit until it came time to talk to you,

Speaker 39 the people who are going to decide what crime he's guilty of.

Speaker 16 Defense Attorney David Colunidas asked the jury to consider this case as a tragic crime of passion, not one of premeditated murder.

Speaker 8 Mr. Lee was provoked.

Speaker 29 Only you can decide whether that provocation was sufficient to justify a lesser included.

Speaker 8 Not justify the killing because it wasn't justified.

Speaker 41 But

Speaker 23 was it murder?

Speaker 21 Was it deliberate,

Speaker 13 willful, premeditated, lying-in-wait murder?

Speaker 19 Or was it a tragic killing

Speaker 21 that shouldn't have happened?

Speaker 16 The jurors pondered those questions for just an hour and a half. Then they reached a verdict.
We, the jury, find the defendant, Christopher Brandon Lee, guilty of first-degree murder.

Speaker 16 The defendant intentionally killed the victim by means of lying in wait.

Speaker 16 Christopher Lee was convicted on all counts.

Speaker 16 He will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. True.
Dated.

Speaker 16 what was that moment like for you? That was pretty final at that point, guilty.

Speaker 13 It was like taking a breath of fresh air.

Speaker 16 Although John Corwin still feels the lasting pain of regret.

Speaker 13 I just wish I could have been there for her more.

Speaker 13 I've tried my hardest, but it wasn't enough.

Speaker 8 Erin was a kid.

Speaker 25 She had her whole life ahead of her.

Speaker 8 She just...

Speaker 8 didn't know that, in my opinion, she was dealing with the devil.

Speaker 16 Chris's wife, Nicole, told detectives she had nothing to do with Aaron's disappearance, and she has not been charged with any crime. Is there still a chance? Is Nicole out of the woods?

Speaker 8 Not every door has been closed.

Speaker 16 But for Aaron's mom, the door on Chris Lee is closed, and she breathes a little easier knowing it.

Speaker 6 Every time there's a hearing, your emotional scab gets ripped off.

Speaker 6 And to know that I'm not going to have to deal with that?

Speaker 16 Laura finds comfort here, way out in the Joshua Tree Desert, where Doug Billings, cave dug, created this. In the desolate place where Aaron's life was cut short, a garden now grows in her memory.

Speaker 16 When you look at that desert garden, what are you thinking?

Speaker 16 It's beautiful, like my girl.

Speaker 6 It's a peaceful place.

Speaker 6 I have a peace that can't be explained.

Speaker 6 I decided I couldn't be bitter and angry.

Speaker 6 He's already taken enough from me.

Speaker 6 And if I'm bitter and angry, he's taking my mind, my soul, and my heart.

Speaker 21 And I'm not giving him that.

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