Raising the Dead

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Speaker 2 Tonight on Dateline.

Speaker 6 She loved horses. She was a horse girl.
Well, he was just... He was a cowboy.

Speaker 7 You never ever thought that something like this would touch your life, that somebody would break into your home and kill you.

Speaker 10 My sister was stabbed. Tim was stabbed.
It was pretty much gut-wrenching devastation.

Speaker 11 The major scene took place inside the house.

Speaker 2 What did you see when you got in there?

Speaker 11 A lot of blood. Probably the worst scene in my entire career.

Speaker 2 There were some strange goings on before this occurred. Tim's truck was blown up, is that right?

Speaker 11 There was an explosion and all of a sudden it was burning.

Speaker 12 He had gotten at least one threatening letter.

Speaker 13 The letter scared me.

Speaker 8 I just said, you need to be careful.

Speaker 2 There were a lot of suspects, a lot of people who might have done it.

Speaker 14 I thought, that's insane. There's been a mistake.

Speaker 16 In my heart, I know he did not do this.

Speaker 2 He's an innocent man. 30 years without an answer.
And then finally, there is one. It's pretty tough to talk about.

Speaker 8 I mean, murder is shocking, but this?

Speaker 2 Two deaths, three decades, one shattering twist. Murder at the farmhouse.

Speaker 17 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Date Live.

Speaker 2 Here's Keith Morrison with Raising the Dead.

Speaker 2 The morning was gray

Speaker 2 and solemn.

Speaker 2 It was Friday, the 13th of June, 2025.

Speaker 18 We are present at Oakwood Cemetery in the city of Wiawega.

Speaker 18 This is the official recording for the court-ordered exhumation.

Speaker 2 They knew, every one of them knew, it could all turn on this moment. Raising the dead to solve the murders.

Speaker 12 Evidence doesn't lie.

Speaker 2 Was the man in the grave the killer? Did you hear that he had made statements about getting away with murder?

Speaker 5 I did.

Speaker 2 Or would he, now long dead, point to someone else?

Speaker 8 He's not a man.

Speaker 8 He is a monster.

Speaker 2 It all started on another Friday. in tiny Wiawega, Wisconsin.
That was March 20th, 1992.

Speaker 2 Tana Togstadt Togstadt and her boyfriend Tim Mumbrew were heading for a night out at a bar. Tim's sister, Tina.

Speaker 19 Their plans were they were going to go watch a band called Sweetwater.

Speaker 20 Are you coming?

Speaker 2 This is Tana's brother, Rick.

Speaker 10 They were up there dancing and stuff.

Speaker 2 They liked to have a noisy, good time.

Speaker 10 No, yeah, yeah, they did. Yeah, Tana and Tim, they enjoyed having fun, yes.

Speaker 2 And why not? She was 23, he 34, and their love was still new, exuberant.

Speaker 2 They were on a double date with their friend Jill and her boyfriend.

Speaker 12 It was elbow to elbow. Tim and Tana started dancing Country Swing, which takes up a lot of room and it's a very fast-moving dance.

Speaker 2 Not everyone loved that, as Jill could see, even if Tana didn't.

Speaker 12 I said, it might be a good idea for us to leave. I expected an argument, but she's like, yeah, I think I'm ready to go too.

Speaker 2 You don't forget certain moments. Even now, Jill recalls it fresh, like a wound.

Speaker 12 She gave me a hug, which was

Speaker 12 odd. We weren't real, you know, physically affectionate at all.
And then she said, you know, will you come over to my house tomorrow morning?

Speaker 2 When Saturday broke, Jill saw that it had snowed overnight. She didn't feel like going to see Tana.

Speaker 12 I

Speaker 12 talked myself out of going over there. We did that often, you know,

Speaker 12 I guess broke commitments, and I thought maybe she would call me later in the day and say, Hey, are you going with us tonight? But I never heard from her.

Speaker 2 All day that Saturday, no one heard from Tana, and no one heard from Tim, which was unusual given Tana's family lived right next door.

Speaker 2 And then the following day, Sunday, they couldn't help but notice Tana and Tim's Tim's trucks hadn't moved and Tana hadn't fed her horse. And so

Speaker 2 they walked over to her farmhouse, went inside.

Speaker 2 What they saw could not be erased or undone.

Speaker 11 I was the detective on call for the weekend, and my weekend was winding down.

Speaker 2 It was mid-afternoon when Al Krager, then a newly promoted police detective, got the call, go to Tana's farmhouse.

Speaker 11 They just said there were people deceased, and I was to head over there. The chief deputy was en route.

Speaker 2 Oh boy, a big deal here. Yes.

Speaker 11 When I got to the scene, everything was roped off with the Do Not Cross sheriff line.

Speaker 2 Another detective took him inside the house. What did you see when you got in there?

Speaker 11 A lot of blood. Then he takes me to the bedroom, and

Speaker 11 that was like there was a war in that room.

Speaker 2 Jim's body was on the floor. Could you tell what had been done to him?

Speaker 11 He had a lot of blood on his chest.

Speaker 2 He'd been in a hell of a fight. Was stabbed 27 times.
His throat cut. Tana's body lay on the bed.

Speaker 11 Totally exposed with no clothes. And then she had one single piercing to the heart area in the chest.

Speaker 2 Man. Had you ever seen such a thing before? Never.

Speaker 11 Never.

Speaker 11 In fact, that was probably the worst scene I've ever seen in my entire career, 41 years.

Speaker 2 Not even Tana's little dog, Scruffy, was spared. Scruffy,

Speaker 11 we believe, was stabbed out by the front door.

Speaker 2 Did it seem to you like it was done by one person or more than one person?

Speaker 11 That was tossed back and forth. Could it be one? Could one possibly do that? Whoever entered took him by surprise.

Speaker 2 And was very, very angry. Yes.

Speaker 2 Inside the farmhouse, Crime Lab techs went about the dismal work as best it could be done in 1992.

Speaker 11 Blood was collected from various spots. There was semen collected on Tana, so we believe she was sexually assaulted.

Speaker 2 They lifted what fingerprints they could, though perhaps surprising, given that chaotic scene, they didn't get any useful matches.

Speaker 2 But there was this.

Speaker 11 The door was taken because we had a bloody palm print. They collected anything that they thought might help in the future in case this case didn't get solved immediately.

Speaker 2 Just as well, because it did not get solved immediately. Neighbor eyed neighbor with suspicion.

Speaker 8 Are we next?

Speaker 2 As the families lived and relived their pain,

Speaker 2 never giving up on justice.

Speaker 10 I don't give up.

Speaker 2 No matter what. They were sure they knew who did it.

Speaker 22 Guilty as hell.

Speaker 2 He knows that he did it.

Speaker 22 The evidence was overwhelming.

Speaker 2 And they were sure they knew who didn't do it.

Speaker 23 It's not possible.

Speaker 24 I was just in disbelief.

Speaker 2 There's just no way. No way.

Speaker 2 But of course, that's why we have juries, isn't it?

Speaker 25 I said, he'll either be found guilty by the twelve in the jury or by God.

Speaker 2 That Sunday in March 1992, amateurs monitoring the crackle of police radios picked up the news that Tana and Tim had been stabbed to death.

Speaker 2 Neighbors lit up the phone lines as they tried to reach the couple's families.

Speaker 10 Get home as soon as you can. They said, well, what happened?

Speaker 2 Tana's brother, Rick, was out getting farm supplies when his wife called the store to find him.

Speaker 10 Just in a panic. She said, Tana's dead, Tim's dead.

Speaker 2 What happens inside you when, you know, in your stomach and your heart? The pain and the anger and...

Speaker 10 I guess I was completely distraught.

Speaker 2 Tana's friend, Jill, who, remember, had planned to see Tana again hours after they'd all left the bar on Friday night, was working when she got the news from her mom.

Speaker 12 At first, I thought, well, this has to be some kind of mistake. And

Speaker 12 I didn't, I was just in shock.

Speaker 2 Tim's sister Tina had been expecting him to visit that weekend.

Speaker 19 I can't even explain how horrific it is to have something that

Speaker 19 savagely, brutally horrific happen.

Speaker 2 She called her brother, Todd, in a foreign run.

Speaker 2 It was Tina.

Speaker 11 She told me they both had been stabbed to death.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, Tana's family told investigators about some strange noises they heard from their place just a few yards away, night of the murders.

Speaker 11 Tana's sister heard a dog barking in the middle of the night. She got up to explore and see what was going on.
And she looked out this window right over here.

Speaker 11 She saw a pickup truck leaving the residence and it sped off very fast.

Speaker 2 That was after 4 a.m. on Saturday.
The detective figured it could have been the murderer or murderers getting away.

Speaker 2 But why would anyone want to murder this young couple, both from local farming families? Tim remember was 34, Tana just 23.

Speaker 6 She was just... She was a goofball.

Speaker 26 She was an absolute goofball.

Speaker 2 And captivating, said friends Michelle and Tammy, from the minute they met her in high school. It was her smile.

Speaker 6 And it would just light her face up.

Speaker 8 And you would just see just behind the eyes this little bit of trouble.

Speaker 12 She loved horses, but also dogs and cats and cowboy culture.

Speaker 2 We got along really good.

Speaker 10 It was just her love of life and her fun personality.

Speaker 2 Fun, even when getting busted by the cops.

Speaker 7 We ended up getting underage drinking, but not Tana because she told the cop that she wasn't feeling all that great.

Speaker 23 And she's like, sucker,

Speaker 27 you got it, not me.

Speaker 10 And I'm like, Really?

Speaker 2 When her father died, Tana moved into his farmhouse. To pay the bills, this being Wisconsin, she worked at a local cheese factory.

Speaker 2 Boys, her friends said she was cautious, didn't put up with any BS.

Speaker 8 For her, I think her knight in shining armor would be a cowboy.

Speaker 2 And around Halloween of 1991, she found him.

Speaker 12 Tall, slender,

Speaker 8 great smile,

Speaker 13 attractive-looking man.

Speaker 8 If you saw him standing someplace, you would think he came in on a horse.

Speaker 2 Her cowboy, Tim.

Speaker 19 All of our family have been rodeo people.

Speaker 28 We're all really close.

Speaker 2 Tim's friends, Carol and Mark. He was good to everybody.
Easy going, good with the kids.

Speaker 2 Tim was the protector when his sister Tina was 12 years old.

Speaker 19 We were hunting, and I had fallen through the ice and it was up to my neck and he was the first one up there to run up to me and grab my gun and pull me out of that.

Speaker 2 After a stint in the U.S. Navy, back home, Tim got a job doing maintenance at the local iron foundry.
But his passion was rodeo.

Speaker 19 He would protect the kids by being the clown to distract the bulls so that the bulls wouldn't hurt the kids.

Speaker 2 It was thanks to Tina that Tim first laid eyes on Tana. He had been looking through Tina's photos.

Speaker 19 A picture of Tana was in those pictures because Tana was at my baby shower.

Speaker 19 And he saw her and he's like, who is she? I need to meet her.

Speaker 2 Awkward. Tim was still married to his second wife, Colleen.
They had a four-year-old son. So Tina said maybe not a good idea.
But Tim didn't listen. And anyway, he and Colleen were getting a divorce.

Speaker 2 It was weeks away from being finalized.

Speaker 19 Tim, when he set his mind to doing something, he was going to do it.

Speaker 2 So Tim and Tana became an item. They rode horses, they went dancing, they fell hard for each other, said Tim's brother-in-law, Mike.

Speaker 2 He was in love with her. Devoted.
Apparently, until his last breath.

Speaker 29 He did everything he could until he couldn't do nothing else. And it was to protect her and to keep her safe.

Speaker 2 But why them, of all people? Neither Tana nor Tim seemed to have any enemies. There was no obvious motive.
Not from the crime scene, anyway. Was there any sign of robbery?

Speaker 11 Not that we could tell. Once the family was allowed to go in there, once the scene was released, they couldn't pinpoint anything that was taken.

Speaker 2 So somebody just walked in on the middle of the night as they were in bed?

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 2 In a town like Wiaweka, with fewer than 2,000 people, somebody had to know something.

Speaker 2 Tana's brother Rick was sure of it. What's in a little town?

Speaker 10 Well, little town, as they say. Everybody knows everybody and everybody's business.

Speaker 2 Way back at the beginning, soon after that awful Saturday in 1992, investigators already had some solid leads. They knew who they needed to talk to.

Speaker 11 He had a temper

Speaker 11 and

Speaker 11 he was into knives.

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Speaker 2 Investigators were pretty sure of it. They'd soon figure out who killed Tim and Tana.
Did the sheriff tell you that he thought it could be solved fairly quickly?

Speaker 10 I think they did think it was going to be solved very quickly.

Speaker 2 As Detective Krager interviewed family and friends, he learned that there had been signs, terrible signs, that something bad was coming. Scary stuff.

Speaker 2 About two months before the murders, Tim's truck was parked in the driveway.

Speaker 19 Then we heard just the most horrific

Speaker 19 boom you could imagine.

Speaker 11 Something exploded underneath the hood and his truck caught on fire.

Speaker 19 And his whole entire truck was engulfed in flames and it was 20 feet in the air. Everything that he had

Speaker 19 from his home was in the back of that truck. And he was in the back of the truck throwing things off.

Speaker 2 They were all yelling and got out of there and it's just burned up.

Speaker 2 Of course they called the police right away they couldn't find out if there was something put in there to detonate or what nobody knew why or how or who write it correct

Speaker 2 then poison pen letters arrived about a month before the murders one warned tana that tim was a jealous violent man and that he was using her

Speaker 2 another warned tim that Tana was sleeping around.

Speaker 2 The final threat came just days before the murders. A message scrawled on a bathroom wall at the foundry where Tim worked.

Speaker 28 Tim Mumbrew must die on Friday or something like that.

Speaker 2 And Friday was the day it happened, right?

Speaker 11 Friday night into Saturday morning, yes.

Speaker 2 Did you get the sense from these incidents that somebody was targeting? At least Tim and maybe both of them? Yes.

Speaker 2 But who?

Speaker 10 I suspected everybody. Anybody that looked at me crossways.

Speaker 2 And one obvious man to suspect was a guy known as Scooter. Scooter was Tana's ex-boyfriend.
What did you know about Scooter?

Speaker 11 He had a temper. Uh-huh.
And

Speaker 11 he was into knives.

Speaker 2 Tana's family and friends had stories about Scooter. He could be scary, they told the detective, and violent, too.

Speaker 12 This is where Scooter punched the wall. This is where Scooter kicked the wall in or broke the door or whatever.

Speaker 8 He threw a beer bottle through the back window of his truck and she was sitting in the passenger side. It came through the window and just ruptured the window.

Speaker 8 I don't know if she got hit by the bottle, but I went to see Tana the day after and she was still picking glass out of her hair.

Speaker 2 Thing was, investigators learned Scooter was determined that Tana couldn't leave him.

Speaker 13 He did not take the breakup well.

Speaker 8 He threatened her.

Speaker 6 If I can't have her, nobody will.

Speaker 8 So we just assumed it was him that he finally did it.

Speaker 2 He was a good suspect.

Speaker 11 Yes, he was. He had nobody that could give him an alibi.
I interviewed him many times. I was convinced he was our guy.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 relationships. If Tana's ex was getting the third degree, so was Tim's.

Speaker 2 In fact, Krager discovered that Tim's not quite ex-wife, Colleen, was the one who'd written those menacing letters to both Tana and Tim.

Speaker 2 Was it obvious right at the get-go that it was Colleen? Yes.

Speaker 2 The divorce was especially bitter because Tim, who'd moved in with his sister Tina, wanted more access to their four-year-old son, according to family.

Speaker 19 The divorce that he was going through was the most wicked divorce thing I'd ever seen and heard. I needed to remove my baby daughter from the house.

Speaker 19 because of what was being said on both ends of the phone.

Speaker 2 Did you question Colleen?

Speaker 11 Yes, but she was a very small, petite gal.

Speaker 11 and there was no way that she could do this. If she wanted it done, she would have to find somebody to do it for her.

Speaker 2 So was it a murder for hire?

Speaker 2 Certainly there was a motive, possible one, anyway.

Speaker 11 There was a $100,000 life insurance policy.

Speaker 2 That had to make you think a time or two?

Speaker 11 Or three or four.

Speaker 2 They couldn't find the murder weapon, the knife, but they had two viable suspects, and they didn't stop there.

Speaker 2 They widened the search and rounded up men who lived in the area who were known in the past to have been violent.

Speaker 2 One of them was a guy who worked at the foundry where Tim worked and also lived close to Tana's farmhouse. His name was Jeff Teal.

Speaker 11 He was capable of doing it. He had a record.
He carried a knife, but his threats usually were with a gun.

Speaker 2 Jeez. Nice fella.
Yes.

Speaker 2 A fella investigators learned who liked liked a drop or two of the hard stuff.

Speaker 10 If you ran into him in a bar or someplace where he's having a bunch of liquid fight, you just stayed away from him.

Speaker 2 He just

Speaker 10 always carried a knife and he'd come off as a very mean ombre.

Speaker 12 I just remember a lot of talk about violence with him, domestic abuse.

Speaker 2 Kind of the guy you would think, we got to look at him for sure. Well, they did.

Speaker 10 They did look at him for sure.

Speaker 2 What might his motive have been? Investigators found out that Jeff Teal had stolen some wire from the foundry, and Tim had turned him in. What did you think about him as a possible suspect?

Speaker 11 With his background and his build and strength,

Speaker 11 he was certainly a person that we had to go after.

Speaker 2 Tim and Tana, such a bright young couple, were gone.

Speaker 2 The whole county seemed in mourning as their families laid them to rest.

Speaker 10 All I remember is I could still see her laying there.

Speaker 2 And the rest of the whole thing was just.

Speaker 3 I don't remember any of it really.

Speaker 10 I was in shock.

Speaker 7 Tana's mom let out such a guttural.

Speaker 8 It sounded like an animal.

Speaker 7 It was, it was devastating.

Speaker 13 She screamed, oh my Tana, why my Tana?

Speaker 13 Man was the worst thing.

Speaker 10 It was pretty much gut-wrenching devastation. It was like,

Speaker 10 you don't even know the amount of pain that's involved.

Speaker 2 In a separate ceremony, Tim was honored as any cowboy would hope to be.

Speaker 29 There was a team of black horses that was the escort out to the cemetery, and they were the capes and like you'd see like in the old movies or something like that.

Speaker 29 So it was like the old west type of thing.

Speaker 2 Tim's brother-in-law Mike remembers how investigators roamed through the mourners.

Speaker 29 They videotaped the whole thing and I understood why. I mean, most times a person does something like this, they may come back and act like nothing's wrong just to see.

Speaker 2 Did it help?

Speaker 2 Not much, apparently. This wouldn't be quick and easy after all.

Speaker 2 But every day the investigators chipped away at their leads and one by one their list of potential suspects narrowed. This was 1992, remember.
It was two years before the O.J.

Speaker 2 Simpson case made DNA a household word. Back then, Detective Krager and the others could only compare blood types.

Speaker 2 But that simple test was enough to rule out their very first person of interest, Tana's ex-boyfriend, Scooter.

Speaker 11 He did not match. So then I left him alone and moved on.

Speaker 2 Moved on to Tim's ex, Colleen. The investigators brought her in again and again,

Speaker 2 trying to suss out whether she hired someone to kill Tim for the insurance money.

Speaker 11 That was looked at very hard. In fact, I think we even held that up for a while, the payment of it, until we were totally convinced that she

Speaker 11 probably didn't have anything to do with it.

Speaker 2 Eventually, investigators would rule her out.

Speaker 2 But they kept looking at Jeff Teal, that known-to-be-violent character from the foundry.

Speaker 2 He had left town three years after the murders in 1995, but the next year, in 1996, they got a sample of Teal's blood. That's around the time DNA was becoming an evidence gold standard.

Speaker 2 They ran a test with Teal's blood. And

Speaker 2 investigators concluded Teal

Speaker 2 was not the killer either. Well, they kept at it, but there were no arrests, no new suspects.

Speaker 2 Then in 2008, Mike Sassi took over the case. Sassy, one of the original deputies of the crime scene, was by 2008 an agent with the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation, the DCI.

Speaker 25 Myself and my partner started to methodically go piece by piece by piece through this investigation, organizing it into the modern day age.

Speaker 2 They dug all the way back to the first days of the investigation, looking for leads that back in 1992 didn't look like leads.

Speaker 2 It was granular sort of work. And it seemed to pay off when in 2012, they found something, or rather someone,

Speaker 2 and they pounced on it.

Speaker 25 I get to a name of Glendon Gowker.

Speaker 2 Glendon Gowker was one of the men they'd looked looked at back in 1992.

Speaker 25 Glendon Gowker then worked for a man named Lane Shields and he ran a Western store at the time.

Speaker 2 Why was that an issue? Tim and Tana bought their cowboy gear in that store, so a kind of connection.

Speaker 2 Anyway, back in 1992, they interviewed Gauker multiple times, strapped him into a polygraph at one point.

Speaker 2 Nothing came of it then.

Speaker 2 But now?

Speaker 25 I literally go to Google and I looked at my partner and I said, is it Glendon C. Gowker? He said, yeah, why?

Speaker 25 And I said, because he's in Oklahoma and he's in custody for a homicide he committed in Oklahoma in 2010.

Speaker 25 And it was a brutal murder.

Speaker 2 The case was splayed across the internet. In September of 2010, a 19-year-old man named Ethan Walton drove out with his girlfriend to meet with Gauker at his home outside of Prague, Oklahoma.

Speaker 2 Gauker lived in a trailer home down a dead end road. Ethan thought he was there to sell Galker some land.

Speaker 25 There was a property deal that was fictitiously put together by Galker.

Speaker 2 Instead,

Speaker 25 Galker kills him and puts him in 55-gallon drums. He calls the girlfriend into the shed.
She comes in and he sexually assaults her. She's naked and literally gets herself free.

Speaker 2 She squeezed through a window to escape, then ran for dear life through a field to the nearest neighbor's place and made it.

Speaker 2 Gauker in hot pursuit shooting off his gun before the police caught up to them. And now Galker was facing the death penalty for killing the boyfriend.

Speaker 25 As this hits warp speed, like we might be onto something here. We now have somebody that's in custody for the same situation.
Yeah. That's involved in our case and was a suspect back in 1992.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 25 It marries up very similar to Tim and Tana.

Speaker 2 It sounds to me like this guy fits the profile of a psychosexual serial assaulter, if not killer. Correct.
You think you got something here?

Speaker 25 Yeah, we think we got something. Absolutely, we do.

Speaker 2 After the murders, a certain terror descended on Waupaca County, Wisconsin.

Speaker 8 This was a safe community.

Speaker 13 Tana never locked her doors.

Speaker 7 For the longest time, I went through, oh my gosh, is it something that did they go after Tana and now maybe Michelle's next or I'm next? Yeah.

Speaker 23 Yeah, that was a definite fear.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 As long as the case went unsolved, that fear lingered.

Speaker 2 Now Agent Sassy and his unit had revived a person of interest, Glendon Gauker.

Speaker 2 As they dug into his time in Wapaka County, they discovered police had interviewed him even before Tim and Tanna's murders for another crime back in 1990.

Speaker 25 Glendon Galker had been a person of interest in a rape in the village of Iola, which is 20, 30 miles from this location.

Speaker 2 Just your sort of guy who would do this.

Speaker 25 Yes, he's a guy with a violent demeanor. He was never caught for the rape.

Speaker 2 Back in 1990, in the days before common use of DNA testing, investigators simply didn't have sufficient evidence to charge him. And the case went cold.

Speaker 2 But now, Gauker was in jail in Oklahoma, charged with rape and capital murder, and Oklahoma had his DNA.

Speaker 2 And it matched, no question,

Speaker 2 Gauker was the rapist.

Speaker 2 So maybe Gauker killed Tim and Tana, too. Kind of want to talk to him.
Right.

Speaker 2 And Galker agreed to cooperate. But with one very big condition, the death penalty he was facing.
They'd have to make that go away.

Speaker 2 And after some wrangling, they made a deal.

Speaker 25 So we go down and we confront him. And I said, I know you did this.
You were involved in the Togsted Mumbrew case. And he starts shaking.
He just literally starts shaking.

Speaker 2 I didn't do anything. He swore he did not murder Tim and Tana.

Speaker 2 So who did?

Speaker 2 Gauker pointed the finger at this man, Lane Shields, his former boss at that western shop that Tim and Tanna frequented.

Speaker 2 Gauker listed off all sorts of crimes he said he'd committed at Lane's behest, anywhere from arson to burying bodies.

Speaker 2 Gauker told them Shields had asked him to murder Tim and Tanna.

Speaker 45 He asked me, he said, where I killed him, where I killed him.

Speaker 45 He said, I don't want him shot and he said I want him,

Speaker 45 quote, slaughter my cattle.

Speaker 2 And it freaked me out because I'm like, he insisted he refused the job.

Speaker 2 And Galker said, after the murders, Lane admitted he was responsible.

Speaker 45 I asked him directly, did you do it? He said, I brought somebody in. When you said no, he said, I brought somebody in from outside to do it.

Speaker 2 Gaucker offered to take a polygraph to back up his claims. They conducted it the very next day.

Speaker 46 Regarding the two victims, did you stab either one of them? Oh.

Speaker 25 He fails questions about did he kill

Speaker 25 Tana Togsted and Tim Umbrew.

Speaker 2 So what was true and what wasn't? The investigators headed back to Wisconsin to try to run down Gauker's account. They got nowhere.
And so they returned to Oklahoma.

Speaker 47 There were some inconsistencies last time.

Speaker 2 And this time, Galker told them a different story.

Speaker 47 There's only one thing that I haven't told you.

Speaker 2 He admitted he was at Tannis' farmhouse the night of the murders,

Speaker 2 but he said he didn't stab anybody. He was just the driver.

Speaker 23 And you're saying he never went in that house.

Speaker 47 No.

Speaker 47 I certainly drove.

Speaker 47 I was not in the house. I was never in that house.
You won't find anything

Speaker 47 for me in that house.

Speaker 2 It was Lane who went into the farmhouse, he said, with that guy Lane had hired.

Speaker 47 I drove him

Speaker 47 and this guy out there that night.

Speaker 47 The night of the homicide?

Speaker 47 I drove.

Speaker 47 Alright. That's all I did.
Who's the other guy?

Speaker 47 But he brought him from outside.

Speaker 25 Lane and the unknown third person, who he said was an Irish guy, committed the homicide.

Speaker 47 Tell me what's that when they walk out.

Speaker 47 Didn't say anything. Bull.

Speaker 47 Are you kidding me? No.

Speaker 47 I tell you, the guy that

Speaker 47 Lane brought, this guy is that this is the scary guy. The guy scared the shit out of me.

Speaker 47 This guy

Speaker 47 was a predator.

Speaker 2 What did you make of his story?

Speaker 25 Well, obviously the hair stood up on my neck.

Speaker 2 But could they believe him? The truth and Glendon Gauker were not well acquainted at all.

Speaker 2 That was obvious. So...

Speaker 25 Are our chips all in on this poker table? Absolutely not. I mean, he is a con man.

Speaker 2 But a lot was writing on this. If there was even a chance his Lane Shield story was true, it had to be resolved one way or the other.

Speaker 2 Just maybe this admitted murderer, this slippery liar, would help them finally catch their killer.

Speaker 31 Hey, weirdos, I'm Alina, and I'm Ash, and we are the hosts of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 9 Each week we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 35 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 33 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 37 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 15 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 9 Yay! Woo!

Speaker 48 Love the night? Reach for Zinn After Dark, a limited cocktail-inspired series for those who get up when the sun goes down.

Speaker 48 Try Zinn's mojito, spiced cider, and espresso martini nicotine pouches.

Speaker 50 Find them at select retailers, available while supplies last.

Speaker 48 Zinn After Dark.

Speaker 13 Bring on the night.

Speaker 52 Warning, this this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 53 Dermatologists have long highlighted the benefits of indoor humidity for healthy, glowing skin.

Speaker 43 Dry air can start damaging your skin in just 30 minutes.

Speaker 27 That's where Canopy Humidifier comes in.

Speaker 57 Recommended by leading dermatologists, the Canopy Humidifier is a completely reimagined humidifier with invisible clean moisture, the best kind for your skin.

Speaker 56 Go to getcanopy.co to save $25 on your purchase today with Canopy's filter subscription.

Speaker 43 Even better, use code Sirius to save an additional 10% off your Canopy purchase.

Speaker 27 Your skin will thank you.

Speaker 2 Murderer, rapist, admitted career criminal, Glendon Gowker, was hardly the sort of man any investigator could take at his word. Certainly not Mike Sassy or his partners.

Speaker 2 It helped, mind you, that Galker came clean and pleaded guilty to that whole other murder in Oklahoma.

Speaker 2 But his story claiming that his former boss, Lane Shields, was responsible for the Tim and Tana murders, well, it might be true, but they couldn't know without learning more about Lane Shields.

Speaker 2 And then they caught a break.

Speaker 25 We were able to actually draft and go up on a state Title III wiretap on Lane Shields. This has only been done maybe a few times in Wisconsin.

Speaker 2 You wouldn't be able to get one unless it was a pretty good case. Correct.
How to get Lane talking about the murders? Well, get everyone else talking.

Speaker 25 We beefed the media up out of Green Bay in Madison and

Speaker 25 we put billboards up on near the crime scene out on our major highways around there. If you know who, any information who killed Tim and Tana, their pictures were on the billboards.
Please call.

Speaker 2 Now the thinking went? A nervous Lane would want to make sure the men with him at the murder would keep their mouths shut. So they set up a phone call, Gauker to Shields.

Speaker 2 And of course, unbeknownst to Shields, they listened to every word, full of, what, hope, expectation. Instead, what they got was the nasty, deflating feeling of having been had.

Speaker 2 They're not saying what you thought they'd say. Right.

Speaker 25 What we were led to believe they were going to say.

Speaker 2 Lane didn't sound worried or threatening or indicate any involvement at all. It was just worthless chit-chat.
So, what did they say?

Speaker 25 There were no confessions. There were no admissions.
There were no, they're coming after me now.

Speaker 23 We didn't get what we were looking for.

Speaker 2 This wasn't the chatter of guilty individuals that you were hearing. Right.

Speaker 2 As for the rest of the so-called evidence Gauker had provided?

Speaker 25 We pulled out

Speaker 25 every investigative, high-end investigative technique that we could. And we didn't get anything that corroborated what Galker was telling us.

Speaker 2 If that didn't put Gauker's account to rest, this did.

Speaker 2 They searched Lane Shields' property.

Speaker 46 You come in here and trash my fing house.

Speaker 2 They interviewed Blaine. He was angry, sure, but more than willing to talk.

Speaker 10 I gave you everything when you were here.

Speaker 38 We've talked back. I agree.

Speaker 2 To the investigators, the hard as nails, Blaine came off as upfront, even honest.

Speaker 59 I should have an evidentiary hearing on these people that are putting heat on me because it's not true.

Speaker 11 I run a fing

Speaker 59 here.

Speaker 2 So when he told them he was innocent, they believed him. Hard as they tried, investigators could find nothing incriminating.
Agent Sassy walked away knowing Lane was not their guy.

Speaker 2 As for Gowker,

Speaker 2 they'd had enough of him.

Speaker 2 Was there ever any point in the conversations you had with him when you said, Glendon, you're full of it. Yes.

Speaker 1 And that was it.

Speaker 2 All that time and money they'd spent on Gowker and his story, their deal to allow him to avoid the death penalty for his own crimes in Oklahoma, it was all for naught.

Speaker 2 They wanted so badly to solve the Tim and Tanna murders, and Glendon Gowker had simply played them.

Speaker 2 For more than two and a half decades, Tim and Tanna's families were in the dark about the ups and downs of the investigation.

Speaker 2 There were no arrests, no resolutions. It never got easier.

Speaker 10 It's really stressful. It's very stressful.

Speaker 2 Rick Toddstad didn't blame the investigators. He knew how hard they were working.
Still.

Speaker 10 Always seems like right around the anniversary, you know, the newspapers and local TV stations and everybody wanted to know what's going on.

Speaker 10 And, you know, and then I'd get all nerved up and I'd be hard to live with and I'd be just...

Speaker 10 you know, wanting this thing solved and it wasn't getting done fast enough.

Speaker 2 Tim's older sister, sister, Tina.

Speaker 19 There's no closure, you know, and I watched my family suffer from so much unforgiveness and hurt, and that hurt would turn into anger and distrust.

Speaker 19 I mean many of us didn't know who might be over our shoulder or why or because there was no answers.

Speaker 2 2018, Detective Captain Nick Traeger of the Wapaca County Sheriff's Office had taken over the case. By then, the world of DNA evidence had opened up like a flower.

Speaker 2 And Traeger wanted to try something new, familiar DNA.

Speaker 2 That is the now widely accepted method of finding unidentified suspects by searching for their family members in DNA databases and then using family trees to narrow it down.

Speaker 2 Basically means, okay, not this person, but maybe somebody related to this person.

Speaker 23 Correct.

Speaker 2 In the same genetic, in a line.

Speaker 23 Yeah, Yeah, so that was the thought process.

Speaker 2 They submitted that semen found on Tana's body to criminal databases and got back

Speaker 2 nothing.

Speaker 2 They were out of new methods to find their killer, out of names. They were rudderless.

Speaker 2 And then, a surprise. It was April 2022.
A woman called investigators. She was a child at the time of the murder, she said.
But she thought she knew who did it. A credible suspect.

Speaker 2 A suspect she knew all about. 30 years after the crime, she was still carrying this around and she wanted to do something about it.

Speaker 23 Correct.

Speaker 2 She believed she told them that her DNA could finally identify the man who murdered Tim and Tana. And who was that person?

Speaker 23 So she turned on her profile and it was like the Christmas tree lit up.

Speaker 3 Really?

Speaker 23 Yes.

Speaker 2 Murder casts its dreadful damage wide and for a long, long time. Through the years Tim and Tana's families never stopped looking for answers.

Speaker 2 What is it about you, your personality, that made you push so hard for all these decades to try to solve this? Well,

Speaker 10 I don't give up.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's just as well Rick didn't get to know what he was up against as he vowed to get justice for his sister.

Speaker 10 I just don't stop. I won't stop.

Speaker 2 I will not stop.

Speaker 19 We prayed a lot that

Speaker 19 somebody would come forth and somebody wouldn't be able to live with themselves.

Speaker 2 Three decades after those brutal stabbings in Wiawega, Wisconsin, the family seemed to get their wish. When a woman called investigators in 2022, her name was Heather.

Speaker 2 She told the investigators she had heard about those murders when she was just a little girl. And ever since, she'd had this awful feeling that her father had something to do with it.

Speaker 2 And this got investigators' attention because

Speaker 2 her father was Jeff Teal.

Speaker 2 Remember him?

Speaker 2 Teal, the known violent offender, was one of the original suspects. But why did Heather wait so long?

Speaker 2 Well, it turned out she didn't. She told investigators the same thing way back in 2010 when Agent Mike Sassi had the case.
Do you remember Heather Teal coming forward? Yes. What did she have to say?

Speaker 25 She was emotional. She says, I think my dad had something to do with this.
And I knew that he was ruled out.

Speaker 2 That's because three years after the murders, back in 1995, Jeff Thiel got into an armed standoff with law enforcement and then escaped and skipped town. It didn't end well.

Speaker 25 He dies by suicide, I believe, in the state of Washington.

Speaker 2 It's how investigators were able to get his DNA.

Speaker 25 The Sheriff's Department and detectives at that point in time are sent his clothing of when he died.

Speaker 2 That was blood on the shirt, is that correct? Yes.

Speaker 25 And that is sent in to a private lab, and he is compared to the semen left at the crime scene, and he's not a match.

Speaker 2 In other words, the DNA on his shirt said he didn't do it, and he was cleared.

Speaker 2 Jeff Thiel was buried near his home in Wisconsin, and the suspicion about his involvement in the case was buried with him.

Speaker 2 But Heather Thiel was so sure her father was behind the murders. 30 years after the crime, she was still carrying this around and she wanted to do something about it.

Speaker 23 Correct.

Speaker 2 So Captain Traeker and his partner went to see Heather and her mom, Marie.

Speaker 44 You've always believed he's involved in this. What made you believe that?

Speaker 21 Because he did it and then said, it's funny how you can get away with murder these days.

Speaker 23 Jeff even saying

Speaker 23 to Marie, I've gotten away with murder.

Speaker 60 And his ultimate dream was to kill somebody. He used to tell me that all the time.

Speaker 44 Did you believe him?

Speaker 60 Oh yeah, he's had a gun in front of my face that if I ever call the cops on him, he's going to use it.

Speaker 23 A lot of childhood memories.

Speaker 51 My biggest memory of my dad is his obsession with knives too.

Speaker 21 Sitting in his chair in his rock recliner sharpening his knives.

Speaker 2 On top of all that, they said, Jeff made it pretty obvious how he felt about Tana.

Speaker 21 He was obsessed with Tana.

Speaker 44 How do you know that?

Speaker 60 I had heard, and I can't remember who I had heard it from, if it was Tana herself, Jeff wanted to date Tana. Tana wanted nothing to do with Jeff.

Speaker 60 I always would think back when I heard that she was murdered or whatever that,

Speaker 60 okay, Jeff doesn't live far from her, wanted to date her she wanted nothing to do with him and how he always said he wanted to kill somebody and remember Tana's dog Scruffy was stabbed to death too apparently trying to protect him and Tana

Speaker 2 well Marie told investigators Jeff had a history of killing dogs two of them right in their neighborhood They were two huge dogs.

Speaker 60 I mean, they were really, really big, and Jeff shot them both. I saw him shoot them and kill them.
He picked them up and he threw them in the back of his truck. I remember that.

Speaker 39 You saw Jeff shoot whose dogs?

Speaker 60 Neighbors' dogs.

Speaker 2 But DNA doesn't lie, and DNA cleared Jeff deal.

Speaker 2 Just to be thorough, they did a cheek swab anyway of Heather.

Speaker 23 So we collected her DNA, which she gave along with her mom. And I guess there was really no intent other than to, I guess, kind of have it because

Speaker 23 Jeff was eliminated.

Speaker 2 Then, just as they were getting ready to leave, Heather offered investigators something else.

Speaker 60 I'm on Ancestry, too.

Speaker 23 She had explained that she does the genealogy as well.

Speaker 2 She told investigators she'd been working on her family tree on ancestry.com and offered them access to her account.

Speaker 2 The FBI had been helping with the investigation and got to work.

Speaker 23 And the FBI agent had reached out to Heather to turn the feature on where law enforcement can view your profile. So she turned on her profile and

Speaker 23 it was

Speaker 23 like the Christmas tree lit up.

Speaker 2 Really?

Speaker 23 Yes.

Speaker 2 Heather was right.

Speaker 2 There was a connection with her father. But here came the twist and it was a big one.

Speaker 23 So the FBI agent said, we are very close in the family, but it's not Jeff Thiel.

Speaker 2 After 30 years of of waiting, investigators finally had a DNA match and a new name. Was this their man?

Speaker 31 Hey weirdos, I'm Elena and I'm Ash and we are the host of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 34 Each week we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 35 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 33 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 37 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 15 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 9 Yay! Woo!

Speaker 48 Love the night? Reach for Zen After Dark, a limited cocktail-inspired series for those who get up when the sun goes down.

Speaker 48 Try Zinn's Mojito, spiced cider, and espresso martini nicotine pouches.

Speaker 50 Find them at select retailers.

Speaker 51 Available while supplies last.

Speaker 48 Zinn After Dark.

Speaker 13 Bring on the night.

Speaker 52 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 53 Dermatologists have long highlighted the benefits of indoor humidity for healthy, glowing skin.

Speaker 43 Dry air can start damaging your skin in just 30 minutes.

Speaker 27 That's where Canopy Humidifier comes in.

Speaker 57 Recommended by leading dermatologists, the Canopy Humidifier is a completely reimagined humidifier with invisible clean moisture, the best kind for your skin.

Speaker 56 Go to getcanopy.co to save $25 on your purchase today with Canopy's filter subscription. Even better, use code Sirius to save an additional 10% off your Canopy purchase.

Speaker 53 Your skin will thank you.

Speaker 2 Summer of 2022, 30 years after the murders of Tim Mumbrew and Tana Togstad, investigators finally had a new suspect. Genetic genealogy pointed to Heather Thiel's first cousin and Jeff Teal's nephew.

Speaker 2 a man named Tony Hayes.

Speaker 23 Nobody had ever heard of Tony Hayes in the case file. So we started looking into, you know, where does Tony Hayes live?

Speaker 23 Who is he? And realized that he lives less than two miles from the original crime scene.

Speaker 2 Like a lot of men in town, Tony worked at the Iron Foundry. But unlike his uncle Jeff Teal, he had no criminal record.

Speaker 23 Just unbelievable. He's been there his entire life.
and he's a nobody.

Speaker 2 Hiding in plain sight.

Speaker 1 Correct.

Speaker 23 So we spent several weeks following Tony and it was

Speaker 23 the same thing almost every day. He went to work at the foundry and he went home and he worked around the farm.

Speaker 2 What to do? Get the man's DNA. So they rifled through his garbage, but nothing.

Speaker 23 So we had to get creative.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I would think. I mean, because you're chasing him around looking for him to drop.

Speaker 23 Yeah, throw something out the windows. Yeah.

Speaker 2 They noticed that Tony's car was missing its front license plate. So they came up with a plan.

Speaker 23 Let's write him a warning for no front plates and have him touch a brand new pen, and then we'll send the pen down to see if he's a match.

Speaker 2 Clever idea, but it would involve you kind of conducting this ruse traffic stop, right?

Speaker 23 That's what we did. I am Trooper Pullman with the State Patrol.

Speaker 2 I stopped you for no front plate on the vehicle today. I'm just going to ask that you sign to acknowledge that you're a secret warning.
Got a pen right there for you as well.

Speaker 2 They sent the pen with Tony's DNA to the lab, and

Speaker 2 it was a match.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 What was that moment like?

Speaker 11 It was unbelievable.

Speaker 23 I've never felt so joyous in my life.

Speaker 2 And yet, nothing about him looked like the killer. He was just a regular guy, a father of four, with no criminal record of any kind.
Not even a hint of any impropriety.

Speaker 2 He lived quietly on the same farm his family had owned for decades.

Speaker 14 We spent a lot of time goofing off at the farm and with our grandparents.

Speaker 2 Tony's sister, Cherry Hayes Gust.

Speaker 5 But as we got older, he was my defender.

Speaker 14 I always looked up to him.

Speaker 2 Jody Lynn Morgan met and rode the school bus with Tony when they were just five years old.

Speaker 52 He's the gentle giant.

Speaker 61 As long as I've known him, always, always has been.

Speaker 2 So they grew up liking each other and then loving each other. They lived together for about two years, had two kids before deciding to go their separate ways.

Speaker 2 And then a couple of years after that, Tony went on to marry Tracy.

Speaker 2 How'd you meet him?

Speaker 23 We

Speaker 42 both liked to fish, so we met in a bait shop.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that was his thing, right? How did you get fishing?

Speaker 16 Yep, both of ours. Yep.

Speaker 2 Tony and Tracy had two kids of their own and eventually grandchildren. The couple celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in June of 2022.

Speaker 2 And two months later, investigators went to the Iron Foundry, found Tony, and asked to speak with him.

Speaker 23 So he came in

Speaker 23 very nonchalant. It was low-key.

Speaker 2 Hi, Tony.

Speaker 23 We introduced ourselves. We asked just kind of some basic background questions of him, who he was, where he lives, some work history.

Speaker 2 He knew Tim and Tana personally?

Speaker 23 He said he had never met Tim. He knew of Tanna only because they lived in the same town.

Speaker 2 Interesting. Did he wonder why you were talking to him about this all these years later?

Speaker 23 He questioned why we were talking to him. We explained that his name had come up in the investigation.

Speaker 2 Now, investigators asked him directly. Did you have any

Speaker 2 involvement whatsoever in this incident?

Speaker 2 In what

Speaker 2 incident with Tim and Tanna?

Speaker 23 No, No.

Speaker 23 We asked if he'd be willing to give his cheek swabs and fingerprints to us, and he agreed to.

Speaker 2 Tony also agreed to take a polygraph. So investigators took him down to the sheriff's station, performed a cheek swab, and had him take that polygraph.
And then they placed him in an interview room.

Speaker 46 I'm sure you want to know how you did? Yep. Okay.

Speaker 46 You did not pass. Okay?

Speaker 46 It was very clear when it came to the questions regarding Tim and Tanna's death that you are lying. You continue to deny and lie,

Speaker 46 and we will show you the evidence that we have.

Speaker 46 It's not going to look good for you.

Speaker 46 That makes sense? Well, it makes sense.

Speaker 46 I don't believe that I could have done something like that.

Speaker 2 And did he actually fail it? Yes.

Speaker 23 So they confronted Tony and explained that he was the match to the semen of the DNA that was left at the crime scene.

Speaker 46 Your semen that was found on her body at the murder scene. I still won't buy it.
It doesn't matter if you buy it, Tony. I get it.
I get it. You need to explain it.

Speaker 23 And what I found interesting was he never said, hang on, guys, you're talking to the wrong person. That's not me.

Speaker 23 He just kind of sat there and was like, I don't understand.

Speaker 2 Did he ever say anything that would suggest that maybe he did remember doing something?

Speaker 23 So, Tony took a long time to kind of get going.

Speaker 2 But once he did get going, it's gonna sound stupid, but

Speaker 2 I never knew I did it.

Speaker 46 Okay,

Speaker 2 August 11th, 2022.

Speaker 2 At the sheriff's office, investigators led Tony Hayes to an interview room and asked him questions about the murders of Tim Mumbrew and Tana Togstad.

Speaker 2 That is where he first mentioned what he called clicks or blurbs from the night of the murders, memories of some sort.

Speaker 46 Over the years, little by little,

Speaker 46 you know, I'd see a little click here and there, but

Speaker 46 that I was wondering if I had something to do with it. But I'll tell you straight up, and I'm not lying, that I don't believe that I would do that.

Speaker 2 But then he recalled going on a binger that night and ending up at Tana's house.

Speaker 45 I remember the house.

Speaker 46 I remember the. You remembered that house?

Speaker 45 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 46 Remember the steps. I remembered a...
like a barbell or something like that.

Speaker 23 Which, when you look at the crime scene photos, there's a dumbbell in the bedroom.

Speaker 46 What's another blurb?

Speaker 46 I remember walking down the road.

Speaker 46 I got into my truck

Speaker 46 and drove home.

Speaker 2 Could that be the truck Tana's sister saw driving away late that night?

Speaker 2 But even as his memories seemed to incriminate him, Tony remained adamant. He could not have done this.

Speaker 46 I don't remember nothing about hurting any people.

Speaker 2 Investigators pressed him for a possible motive.

Speaker 46 You were never attracted to Tana when you saw her? No.

Speaker 46 Never wanted to date her, never jealous of some guys that were dating her. No.

Speaker 2 Tony was dating Jodi at the time and denied any attraction to Tana, but then he started describing what sounded like a motive of sorts.

Speaker 2 It happened when Tony was just seven years old.

Speaker 2 His dad had been racing snowmobiles with Tana's dad and another friend, and suddenly the belt on Tony's dad's snowmobile blew and he was hit by the snowmobile coming up behind him.

Speaker 46 Killed my dad instantly. The third guy

Speaker 46 coming up ran that guy over. It was a horrible accident.

Speaker 2 Only Tana's dad survived, though he died a few years later. His father's death said Tony resurfaced 14 years after the fact on the night of the murders.

Speaker 46 I was drunk

Speaker 46 and all I could think about was that accident. I didn't go there to hurt anybody.
I didn't.

Speaker 46 But I honestly can tell you that I don't know

Speaker 46 what started, what happened, what started it all. I don't.
What took you so long in this room

Speaker 46 to tell us the story about your dad and the snowmobile and Tana's dad being involved. Because I didn't want it to sound like I had this planned.
Because I didn't.

Speaker 2 Planned or not,

Speaker 2 investigators felt they had enough.

Speaker 46 It's 1:39, Tony.

Speaker 46 I have to place you under arrest for the homicide of Tana Togsted

Speaker 46 and Tim Mubre. Yes.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Investigators were convinced they finally had their man.

Speaker 3 Tony's family was blindsided.

Speaker 16 Our youngest son messaged me in the afternoon and

Speaker 16 said that the cops were at our house. And I couldn't even drive down my road that I live on because I had it all blocked off.

Speaker 2 Did you, Tracy, have to somehow deal with that question

Speaker 2 that you might be married to and living with a man who had done a very, very, very terrible thing all those years ago?

Speaker 16 No.

Speaker 2 Not even when they got the DNA in comparison with the semen that they were.

Speaker 2 In my heart,

Speaker 16 I know he did not do this. There is no possible way he could have ever done something like that.
So, no.

Speaker 2 The investigators talked to Jodi, too, of course.

Speaker 61 Well, the first thing I said was:

Speaker 61 no, you have the wrong guy.

Speaker 61 You have the wrong guy.

Speaker 2 Back in 1992, Jodi and Tony had only just moved in together. And yes, the murder happened nearby, but...
Did you notice any changes in Tony's behavior after that?

Speaker 61 No.

Speaker 2 No, nothing.

Speaker 61 Nothing at all.

Speaker 2 But then landing with a sickening thud,

Speaker 2 that DNA.

Speaker 2 And Tony placing himself at Tana's house? Remembering that barbell? The snowmobile accident? Why do you think those things came out of his mouth? And what do you think it all meant?

Speaker 14 He didn't say any of those things until he had proclaimed his innocent 100 times and was shown pictures and videos.

Speaker 14 They repeatedly told him he must have done it.

Speaker 5 He did it. He did it.

Speaker 14 They kept coming down harder on him.

Speaker 2 Tony's family knew they needed help and they turned to defense attorneys John Birdsall and Nicole Mueller.

Speaker 22 Usually when we get contacted, we get contacted by maybe one family member.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 22 And the interesting thing was, is that

Speaker 22 everybody believed in Tony Hayes' innocence so much, all his family, all his friends, that we had a conference call of people that wanted to help him financially to hire us.

Speaker 11 On that conference call, there were 55 people.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 22 right there, before I even met Tony, I was like, there's something going on here. There's something wrong with this picture.

Speaker 2 Bert Sahl and Mahler got to work that summer of 2022, trying to get their heads around 30 years of records they received from the prosecution.

Speaker 41 It took months. It was almost as if they just brought a truck with a bunch of boxes and dumped it out on the front lawn and said, there you go, work it out.

Speaker 2 And in the middle of all that working out, they read about the sheer depravity of the crimes.

Speaker 22 This is not

Speaker 22 somebody who just got drunk and had a bad night, like the interrogators tried to suggest to Tony. Something else was going on here.

Speaker 2 Which, it seemed to them, fit those other suspects. Remember? The suspects we've told you about.

Speaker 11 Basically, there were three there.

Speaker 2 Three? Three.

Speaker 62 Yeah.

Speaker 41 Glendon Coker, Lane Shields, and Jeffrey Thial.

Speaker 2 But remember, all three had been pretty thoroughly investigated, and all of them were cleared. In Teal's case, by his own DNA, which excluded him back in 1996.

Speaker 2 But 26 years later, thanks to familiar DNA technology, it identified his nephew Tony Hayes as the likely killer. So now, pretrial, a legal skirmish began.
Defense versus prosecution.

Speaker 2 The defense wanted to claim Jeff Thiel was not excluded from all the blood evidence at the crime scene, and because of that, remained a potential suspect. Wapaca County DA Kat Turner objected.

Speaker 2 Jeff Thiel seems like an obvious suspect to go after. He's dead.
He was a bad guy.

Speaker 62 So

Speaker 62 he had already been excluded in 1996.

Speaker 2 The judge sided with the defense.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 investigators decided.

Speaker 23 Let's show for a third time that he's been eliminated. And that way the defense can't use Jeff Thiel

Speaker 23 as the person who committed these crimes.

Speaker 2 But testing Jeff Thiel's DNA wasn't easy. He was six feet under.

Speaker 2 Which brings us back to that gloomy day in the cemetery.

Speaker 62 So we asked the court to allow us to exhume Jeff Teal. We did.

Speaker 31 Hey, weirdos, I'm Elena and I'm Ash, and we are the host of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 9 Each week, we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 35 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 33 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 37 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 15 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 9 Yay! Woo!

Speaker 48 Love the night? Reach for Zinn after dark, a limited cocktail-inspired series for those who get up when the sun goes down.

Speaker 48 Try Zinn's mojito, spiced cider, and espresso martini nicotine pouches.

Speaker 50 Find them at select retailers.

Speaker 51 Available while supplies last.

Speaker 48 Zinn After Dark.

Speaker 13 Bring on the night.

Speaker 52 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 53 Dermatologists have long highlighted the benefits of indoor humidity for healthy glowing skin.

Speaker 43 Dry air can start damaging your skin in just 30 minutes.

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Speaker 2 The man in this casket had kept his secrets to himself for almost 30 years.

Speaker 2 But Jeff Thiel was about to give one up.

Speaker 62 We rushed the testing. The DNA analyst worked on nothing but that until he had the analysis complete and again excluded Jeff Thiel from all of the blood evidence that was available.

Speaker 2 All of the other evidence, prosecutors said, pointed straight at Tony Hayes, who was due to stand trial for murder in just two weeks.

Speaker 2 But when the prosecution revealed the new evidence, Tony's attorneys argued they didn't have time to prepare a response. And the judge agreed with the defense.

Speaker 2 He ruled that if the trial went ahead, the prosecution could not tell the jury about any DNA evidence involving Jeff Thiel.

Speaker 2 Did you think that was a good decision?

Speaker 62 No, I did not.

Speaker 62 And we very, very, very, very, very strongly argued to the court that it was inappropriate because everyone in the room, with the exception of the jury, knew that Jeff Thiel had been excluded as a potential contributor to any of the biological evidence.

Speaker 2 Tough luck, said the defense.

Speaker 1 They had years to do this.

Speaker 2 And they were trying to act like they were the victims.

Speaker 22 And even the judges, like, that's really, he used the word twice, disingenuous.

Speaker 2 For the prosecutors, Tana and Tim's families, it meant an agonizing choice. Go to trial with a weaker case, as they saw it? Or set a new trial date, who knew when, with a stronger case.

Speaker 2 In the end, they decided to go for it.

Speaker 2 Tanda's friend, Jill.

Speaker 12 They said the case is strong enough, we will go forward.

Speaker 2 And so on July 17th, 2025, it began.

Speaker 2 One of the biggest trials in Wapaca County history. Finally, a jury could deliver justice, said Tennis friends and family.
What was the most important thing in your mind that they had against him?

Speaker 10 Well, the confession was huge to me.

Speaker 2 I mean, it was just like, wow, it's on tape.

Speaker 7 There were things that

Speaker 7 he said that

Speaker 7 unless you did it, you don't make that kind of stuff up.

Speaker 6 No, he wouldn't know.

Speaker 2 Did you feel a kind of weight on you as you're trying to bring this case to a successful conclusion?

Speaker 62 Absolutely. This is a small, small town, and you want, as the prosecutor, to get justice for those

Speaker 37 people

Speaker 62 who you care about.

Speaker 38 For three decades,

Speaker 5 this crime went unsolved.

Speaker 2 Assistant Attorney General Amy Otani opened for the state.

Speaker 5 For three decades, the person that committed these crimes believed he would never get caught botany told the jury that tony hay stabbed tanna and tim in the early morning hours of march 21st 1992 and she said the prosecution had the receipts so what ties tony hays to this crime his semen on tana's body his handprint in blood on tana's door his own memories of killing Tim and Tana.

Speaker 2 The handprint evidence first, found on the door, for years a bloody emblem of this case. A forensic analyst for the state crime lab testified she was able to make a match to Tony Hayes.

Speaker 63 Item AB FRD2 was identified to the left palm of Tony Garrett Hayes.

Speaker 63 AB FRD3 was identified to the left palm of Tony Garrett Hayes.

Speaker 2 How confident can you be in a handprint?

Speaker 62 I believe they're reliable.

Speaker 53 However,

Speaker 62 I would not feel confident if

Speaker 62 that was the only evidence.

Speaker 2 It wasn't.

Speaker 2 Remember that male DNA on Tana's body? Over 30 years, it had been seriously depleted by repeated testing. But new testing methods require very few cells.

Speaker 2 So when the analysts retested the DNA for investigation, they used the minuscule amounts that remained.

Speaker 3 But were you confident there was enough,

Speaker 2 even at that level, that they could get an accurate result?

Speaker 62 From speaking with our genetics DNA analysts, I was confident.

Speaker 2 It's a principle of DNA testing that there cannot be 100% certainty.

Speaker 2 So the prosecutors called a DNA analyst with the Wisconsin State Crime Lab, who had worked out an exact probability to show it most certainly was Tony Hayes' DNA.

Speaker 64 The randomized probability, the profile would not be

Speaker 64 less common than one in 234 quintillion.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 63 And that's 234 followed by 18 zeros, right?

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 2 In other words, the likelihood of the DNA on Tana's body being from anyone other than Tony Hayes was astronomically small.

Speaker 2 But perhaps the most compelling evidence came from Tony Hayes himself during that marathon interrogation.

Speaker 46 I remember getting into the scuffle. You're in a scuffle with who? With Tim.

Speaker 2 Would you call it a confession?

Speaker 62 I would call it an admission.

Speaker 62 I don't know that he confessed to everything, but he did acknowledge remembering committing the crime.

Speaker 2 Prosecutors played that interview for jurors, all five plus hours of it. They heard Tony recall fragments from that night.

Speaker 46 Whatever

Speaker 46 happened

Speaker 46 that him and I started tussling, I'm pretty sure she was the one that said, what the f? And that's when I hit her.

Speaker 46 And

Speaker 46 then I was, you know, fighting with

Speaker 46 Tim.

Speaker 46 And then you go back to her.

Speaker 46 I must have.

Speaker 11 He

Speaker 62 said that he recalled some details of the order that Tim and Tana were killed in. And he said he remembered a knife.

Speaker 46 There was a knife. I remember having a hold of his arm

Speaker 46 and we tussled.

Speaker 46 And then

Speaker 62 I had the knife. He said he remembered trying to have sex with her.

Speaker 46 Had sex with her. What made you...
Okay, I'm sorry. Keep going.

Speaker 46 She started to stir, and I had to have stabbed her.

Speaker 2 And this, as the interview was ending.

Speaker 46 I remember

Speaker 46 thinking, holy,

Speaker 46 what did I do?

Speaker 2 In the end, the prosecutors told the jurors it was the weight of all the evidence that pointed to Tony Hayes.

Speaker 62 Despite living a seemingly law-abiding life for 30 years, he remembered and he knew what he was hiding.

Speaker 9 He knew what he had done.

Speaker 62 I'm confident

Speaker 62 you'll find him guilty.

Speaker 2 Not so fast, said the defense.

Speaker 2 The prosecution had it all wrong.

Speaker 22 When they lie and manipulate to get someone to make a statement, that is not discovering the truth. That's planting it.

Speaker 2 Tracy Hayes dealt with the trial just as she had dealt with the years of heartache since her husband's arrest in 2022.

Speaker 2 She took it day by day, going to court, sitting right behind her husband, stoic and silent.

Speaker 16 We were told we couldn't talk to him. I couldn't give him a hug.

Speaker 16 Couldn't tell him I love him.

Speaker 2 Anything. What'd you do?

Speaker 16 I knew he was there. He knew I was right behind him.

Speaker 2 And she listened intently to defense attorney John Birdsall.

Speaker 22 What kind

Speaker 28 of a sick,

Speaker 2 twisted, psychopathic person

Speaker 2 would commit a crime like this?

Speaker 2 Not gentle Tony Hayes.

Speaker 2 The state had the wrong man, he declared, thanks to a deeply flawed investigation.

Speaker 22 You're going to see

Speaker 22 the utterly botched crime scene collection of both fingerprints and DNA and blood for that matter.

Speaker 41 And it's like once you have a compromised crime scene.

Speaker 22 How do you trust anything from that scene?

Speaker 41 It's just not possible.

Speaker 2 That door, for instance, with handprint evidence on it, other prints were on it as well.

Speaker 2 Prints that should never have been there, said Birdsall.

Speaker 22 One of the detectives, the main detectives, fingerprints on it.

Speaker 2 Fingerprints on the palm print or just on the door? On the door. What's more, the defense insisted, no one could be certain any of the prints on the door actually belonged to Tony.

Speaker 51 The problem is that it's subjective.

Speaker 41 And I'm not even going to call it a subjective science because it's not a science. But the whole point of trial, the analyst, she had to admit, she couldn't be 100%

Speaker 41 sure.

Speaker 2 And the DNA from the crime scene?

Speaker 2 Utterly unreliable, the defense attorneys argued. Its quality undone by repeated testing.
and decades of storage.

Speaker 2 And so they said the state was driven to extreme measures, examining DNA residue in tubes and spin baskets.

Speaker 22 So they're just retesting their old equipment, basically.

Speaker 2 As well, the defense alleged the state's analyst had added data to the DNA profile developed from the crime scene. Those were used to compare to Tony.
Correct?

Speaker 41 Correct. We saw the DNA profile was a...
engineered profile. And when you are engineering facts, you're not finding the

Speaker 2 The analyst denied engineering facts. On redirect, he testified that he updated the DNA profile to reflect new standards.

Speaker 56 So you didn't add anything.

Speaker 2 Objection rule. Right?

Speaker 2 Objection rule.

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 2 But the defense attorneys reserved their greatest outrage for that hours-long interrogation.

Speaker 2 They argued that any admissions from Tony Hayes were false, pried out of a frightened man by investigators using a controversial interrogation procedure called the Reed technique, which critics say uses manipulation and pressure tactics.

Speaker 46 You can't just keep saying, I don't want to remember this. I don't want this to be true.
That stuff's got to go. Now it's got to be, I did it, and now I've got to come up with the answers.

Speaker 46 There's a lot of people who are waiting for your explanation.

Speaker 46 I don't have one.

Speaker 46 I don't.

Speaker 2 And when Hayes insisted he did not commit the murders, the investigators kept at him, told him they knew what happened that night.

Speaker 46 We are telling you,

Speaker 46 and this is true, your semen was on her body, okay?

Speaker 46 So, regardless of whether you're the kind of guy that could ever do that, regardless of the guy doesn't want to believe he did that,

Speaker 46 when I say, Jay says, you did that, no dispute,

Speaker 46 how do you feel about that?

Speaker 46 Well, I sure wish I remembered it.

Speaker 2 As for those fragments of memory he'd told them about, those were flashbacks investigators said to a nightmare he'd been trying to suppress for decades.

Speaker 46 You know you stabbed her through the chest when you were having sex with her or right after.

Speaker 46 You see it, but you don't want to say it. But.

Speaker 46 Those are the facts. Yeah.

Speaker 46 And we can see that from the scene.

Speaker 2 The The defense called an expert in false confessions to the stand. He believed what they said, that he was, there was no question that he was there and that it was his semen.

Speaker 2 So now he had to figure out how that could have happened.

Speaker 2 Dr. David Thompson testified that when he evaluated Tony Hayes, he found him to be suggestible, vulnerable to the investigator's tactics.
When you look at those personality characteristics,

Speaker 2 and then you look at the investigator's tendency to provide suggestive questions to him. That combination, I think, is very significant.

Speaker 22 When they lie and manipulate to get someone to make a statement, that is not discovering the truth. That's planting it.

Speaker 2 Well, but, you know, he's a grown man. He's not some kid.
No, there's no buts about it. Okay?

Speaker 2 Those injuries. But the defense attorneys weren't done.
Instead, they put a different man on trial, Jeff Thiel.

Speaker 2 Remember, the judge had ruled the jury could not hear the prosecution's DNA evidence, which they said excluded Thial as a suspect. And now the defense went after Teal hard.

Speaker 2 They called his ex-wife, Marie Stanchik, to testify to his bad character. I do.
Did he ever physically hit you?

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 63 I was pregnant with Heather then, and we were on our way to Hamas classes. And he hit me in the mouth, and I got a fat lip.

Speaker 2 And then just months after Tana and Tim were murdered this.

Speaker 63 He'd held a gun in my face and said he was going to use it on me.

Speaker 41 And she told law enforcement Jeff Teal told me that he was going to kill me and get away with it just like the Togstead mumbrew homicide.

Speaker 2 That's not somebody having to do that. They told jurors Jeff Teal had reason to murder Tim and Tana.

Speaker 2 Tim had reported Teal for a theft at the foundry, and Tana had rejected his advances.

Speaker 22 So we have direct connection and direct motive to both the victims.

Speaker 2 How did it go down on that long ago night?

Speaker 2 The defense leaned on the tale told by convicted criminal Glendon Gowker, that he, Gauker, drove two men to Tana's house that night, and one of them, an Irish-looking guy, the guy the defense decided was Jeff Teal.

Speaker 2 Surely there was more than enough reasonable doubt, the defense told jurors, to find Tony Hayes not guilty of the murders.

Speaker 22 If you pause or hesitate

Speaker 22 when considering all of the manipulation,

Speaker 22 mistakes, cover-ups, lying that you heard in this trial that I didn't make up,

Speaker 22 if that makes you pause or hesitate,

Speaker 2 you know your duty.

Speaker 2 Now

Speaker 2 it was the jury's turn.

Speaker 2 There's always more to the story. To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our Talking Datelines series with Keith and Andrea available Wednesday.

Speaker 2 In August 2025, A jury of 12 at the Wapaca County Courthouse went out to decide if Tony Hayes murdered Tana and Tim.

Speaker 3 Tim's sister Tina leaned on her faith.

Speaker 19 We walked around the courthouse seven times praying. I was praying for God's justice.

Speaker 2 Tana's brother Rick on his 33-year journey for justice was trying to stay calm. When they went out, were you feeling relatively confident at least?

Speaker 10 I felt as though we were going to get a good verdict.

Speaker 2 Even though the defense had persuaded the judge to throw out all the DNA evidence clearing alternate suspect Jeff Teal, so the jury never got to hear about it, Tim's family remained upbeat.

Speaker 28 I was feeling real confident because

Speaker 11 I thought the prosecution did an amazing job.

Speaker 5 We thought for sure we had a slam dunk.

Speaker 2 Jurors would later reveal that when their deliberations began, six jurors believed Tony Hayes was guilty and six not guilty.

Speaker 16 It was extremely hard to know that his life was in somebody else's hands.

Speaker 2 Tony's family and friends were all too aware that a guilty verdict had to be unanimous.

Speaker 22 Was I confident when they went in?

Speaker 2 You can't be confident. I'm confident that he's

Speaker 2 not the guy,

Speaker 2 but it's not me, it's them.

Speaker 13 Of course you're worried and you're scared,

Speaker 62 but I feel like it had been proven.

Speaker 2 But then the days went by, right? One after the other.

Speaker 16 That meant that they were really

Speaker 16 looking this over.

Speaker 2 Among Tana and Tim's family members and friends, anxiety was setting in.

Speaker 12 I was more and more nervous the longer the jury stayed out.

Speaker 29 You could hear those guys arguing in the room. The jury.

Speaker 29 And you could tell they were arguing about something, but we didn't know what.

Speaker 2 On Monday, August 11th, 2025, day four of deliberations, the moment of truth was at hand. The jury came back, and the judge read its verdict.

Speaker 2 We, the jury, find the defendant Tony Garrett Hayes not guilty.

Speaker 16 When they came back and they said not guilty,

Speaker 34 that was beautiful.

Speaker 2 Tony's friends, Joe, Jason, and Liz.

Speaker 28 I cried.

Speaker 2 Tears of joy.

Speaker 2 They got it right.

Speaker 14 Thank God the jury.

Speaker 4 I was just thinking of Tony, right? I can't imagine what he'd been through, you know, during that three years of being put in that position, right?

Speaker 2 Tony's wife, Tracy, would get her husband back. What was it like to give him a big hug when he finally came out of there?

Speaker 16 It was awesome to

Speaker 16 take him home to our children.

Speaker 34 He got to see his grandpa.

Speaker 29 His grandpa said that was the best day of his life.

Speaker 2 Of course, it was a different reaction on the other side of the courtroom. What that was like when the judge read the verdict?

Speaker 10 I couldn't believe he even said it.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 2 It's just like, wow.

Speaker 28 My heart just dropped. My stomach turned.

Speaker 19 A complete shock that 12 people could be that deceived.

Speaker 12 Took you outside of your body almost.

Speaker 6 Pure rage.

Speaker 4 I couldn't breathe.

Speaker 2 Today, Tony is back home with his family, breathing the clean air of Wiawega's farmland, feeding his cows.

Speaker 2 He's a free man.

Speaker 2 His wife, Tracy, feels free, too.

Speaker 2 So what now?

Speaker 16 Just live day by day.

Speaker 16 Let's see what happens.

Speaker 16 See where God takes us.

Speaker 2 How are you and Tony adjusting to this?

Speaker 2 Good.

Speaker 8 He finally gets the sunshine and the fresh air.

Speaker 2 Have you gone fishing lately? No, not yet.

Speaker 2 We will, though.

Speaker 42 He owes me that.

Speaker 2 On the advice of his attorney, Tony himself did not speak with us. His criminal case is over.
Hard to accept for Tim and Tana's family members and friends.

Speaker 8 Those people on that jury let out

Speaker 8 a man that butchered two people. And he is now walking around, gonna have family time, play with his grandkids.

Speaker 8 Tanna never got to have a kid. Tanna never had a life.

Speaker 2 It's a hard pill to swallow. Yeah.

Speaker 10 Was he found innocent? He was found not guilty.

Speaker 2 Tanna's brother Rick, who lives just three miles from Tony,

Speaker 2 filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit against him said it isn't about financial gain

Speaker 2 I don't want his house and I don't want his retirement acknowledgement is what I want it's going to be expensive that acknowledgement

Speaker 2 Rick set up a go fund me page and meantime the crime against Hannah and Tim remains officially unsolved

Speaker 2 Even though investigators and prosecutors believe they know the answer. Nothing to do about it now.

Speaker 2 You're going to be able to get used to it, live with it?

Speaker 10 I don't know if I'll ever get used to it. Sometimes not knowing is better than knowing.

Speaker 2 That was a piece of wisdom right there.

Speaker 2 As Tana and Tim's families and friends try to make peace with the outcome, they take some comfort from their memories of the vibrant young couple taken far too soon,

Speaker 2 who lived long enough to find each other and fall in love.

Speaker 17 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 2 Thanks for joining us.

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