Justice for Nikki

Transcript

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Speaker 43 She was an amazing mother, literally one of the best.

Speaker 44 Everything that

Speaker 43 you hoped wouldn't be true.

Speaker 43 I just remember thinking this can't be happening.

Speaker 46 It was the mystery that gripped Green Bay,

Speaker 46 a vivacious young mother of three,

Speaker 46 found murdered in a field.

Speaker 47 It's a lot of sadness that someone would do that to a mother.

Speaker 48 Why would this happen to her?

Speaker 43 Was it someone she met that night? Is it someone she knows?

Speaker 47 Do we know them?

Speaker 46 Blood in the house, in the car, on the road, and the trail led straight to her boyfriend.

Speaker 49 She started crying.

Speaker 51 There is no way, no way Doug could do this.

Speaker 49 We knew that there was another person out there.

Speaker 46 Then, a tantalizing high-tech clue. A Fitbit.

Speaker 47 The Fitbit was almost like a witness in this case. Not human, but a witness.

Speaker 16 It definitely played a big part.

Speaker 52 It showed steps, and then there was nothing again.

Speaker 46 Investigators will crack this case one step at a time.

Speaker 49 We're crazy excited.

Speaker 51 This is getting really scary.

Speaker 53 Whose side

Speaker 47 do you believe?

Speaker 54 I was tug-e-boring the whole time.

Speaker 46 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 46 Here's Andrea Canning with Justice for Nikki,

Speaker 47 Green Bay, Wisconsin, home of the legendary Packers. A place where folks love their Sunday football and a good knockdown on Lambeau Field.

Speaker 47 But in 2018, after the football season had ended, the city became transfixed by a new battle of sorts, one that played out not on the gridiron. Instead, in a courtroom.

Speaker 47 A murder case where nothing was as it seemed. A A whodunit featuring, of all things, a fitness tracker as an intriguing clue.

Speaker 47 With two opposing sides pointing fingers at each other, and one gavel-rattling twist.

Speaker 47 At the heart of it all, a beautiful 31-year-old mother named Nikki Vanderheiden.

Speaker 48 My first encounter with Nikki was at a cookout, and I just remember

Speaker 48 being like, okay, this girl, like, she's definitely my type of person.

Speaker 43 when haley deaf net and caitlin uncles first met the perky cheerful single mom they instantly clicked it was just like three musketeers like right away as soon as we get together we're like a bunch of little kids like playing on the playground yeah we called ourselves the traveling music group we would rollerblade and sing

Speaker 43 of these bfs nikki was the oldest You could count on Nikki for anything and everything. She had the biggest heart.

Speaker 47 Nikki was as active as she was loyal. What did Nikki like to do?

Speaker 43 She was so spontaneous. We would jump on the trampoline, be cooking, be planting, be making games, just up for like any adventure.

Speaker 47 Case in point, how Nikki celebrated her 29th birthday.

Speaker 48 She decided to jump off a plane.

Speaker 47 That's Nikki taking the leap.

Speaker 43 Yep, with a big smile on her face.

Speaker 47 Why did she decide to jump out of a plane?

Speaker 43 That's just Nikki.

Speaker 47 Nikki also taught high school science and shared a passion for biology with her students.

Speaker 43 I think she just loved the discovery of this.

Speaker 47 Kids meant the world to Nikki, and she had two of her own, a son and a daughter from a previous marriage. Was she a good mom?

Speaker 48 Absolutely. She's amazing mother.

Speaker 47 In 2015, the busy mother finally decided to start dating again when she met 33-year-old Doug Dietri. The two immediately hit it off.

Speaker 48 When they met, everything

Speaker 48 happened quickly with their relationship. They just, you know, clicked right away.

Speaker 47 Doug came from a prominent Green Bay family that owned a successful homebuilding company. He had a reputation around town as an attractive, wealthy bachelor.

Speaker 44 A catch.

Speaker 25 Do you think that's part of what attracted Nikki to him?

Speaker 48 I'm sure it was, you know, him and his family having a company, him having his own house in a nice neighborhood. Any woman would be attracted to that.

Speaker 47 About a month after they met, Nikki was pregnant.

Speaker 43 I think she was probably surprised, but, you know, like a good surprise.

Speaker 47 In October 2015, she and Doug welcomed a son into their lives.

Speaker 48 I think she was very excited to be a mother again.

Speaker 47 Nikki wasted no time getting back in shape by hitting the gym.

Speaker 48 That was one thing about Nikki. She was very physically fit and loved working out and going to the gym.

Speaker 47 And she inspired Doug to do the same. The new dad started wearing a Fitbit fitness tracker.
Little did he know just how how valuable that digital device would become.

Speaker 47 Seven months after their son's birth, Nikki was ready for some adult fun. A popular band was playing at a local venue called The Watering Hole.

Speaker 47 So she and Doug and a group of his friends planned to make a night of it. She was thrilled just to spend time with Doug and, you know, do a couple things.

Speaker 47 Nikki's friend, Dallas Kennedy, offered to babysit. She never gets an opportunity to stay out all night, and I was available, so why not?

Speaker 47 The night started out great. As the concert was getting underway, Nikki sent Dallas a photo of her and Doug.
She was happy, he was smiling.

Speaker 47 They looked like it was a great, great time together out at that moment. But the moment wouldn't last.
After the concert ended, Nikki and Doug got separated.

Speaker 47 Doug stayed inside the bar while Nikki and Doug's friends followed the large crowd as it emptied into the parking lot.

Speaker 51 I said, where's Doug? And she just shrugged her shoulders at me and I said, well, come with us. She's like, okay, perfect.

Speaker 47 Doug's friend, Angela Delphos, took Nikki, new to the group, under her wing as they left Doug behind and headed to the next bar, the sardine can. This was just a fun night.
Yes.

Speaker 47 But by around 12:30 a.m., friends said Nikki had enough. So she left the bar and headed home alone.
Or so they thought. That was the last time you saw her?

Speaker 51 It was.

Speaker 47 The next day, Haley got a text text from Nikki's sister.

Speaker 48 This was on Saturday evening and had said, Hey, have you heard from Nikki at all?

Speaker 48 We're concerned about her. She hasn't returned home from last night.
She's still breastfeeding, so this isn't like her.

Speaker 47 Were you worried?

Speaker 48 I had a hard time sleeping that night, to be honest with you. I really didn't know what to think at that time.
I just knew that something wasn't right.

Speaker 47 Then, a news alert.

Speaker 37 Brown County officials searching for more clues after a body was a body found in a farm field

Speaker 47 town. Rumors spread the body was that of a male.

Speaker 48 So I'm kind of like, okay, well, chances are then we're good. You know, it's not her.
She's fine. She's somewhere.

Speaker 47 But the news only got worse. They later learned the body was, in fact, a young woman's.

Speaker 45 Your heart must have sank.

Speaker 43 I dropped to my knees and prayed.

Speaker 43 And I just rethink this kept reappearing.

Speaker 47 A young mom missing. A young woman found dead in a field.
And Nikki's friends and family holding out hope. This was all an unfortunate, horrifying coincidence.

Speaker 46 When we come back, clues to a mystery.

Speaker 52 We were looking for trade marks, footprints, any type of weapons that might be involved.

Speaker 46 Who was the woman in that farm field?

Speaker 52 The only thing she was wearing was socks and then a pink bracelet on her left wrist.

Speaker 47 This was a real whodunit and who is she?

Speaker 49 Absolutely.

Speaker 58 When dateline continues.

Speaker 47 Green Bay winters can be long, brutal, and unforgiving. But local teenagers Tommy Vandehei and Jacob Vincent have learned to take them in stride.

Speaker 47 It was a lot warmer here back in May of 2016. when both boys were helping Tommy's grandfather till an alfalfa field for planting.

Speaker 59 We were picking stones in a field down on Hoffman Road. We were clearing out a field so we could plant it.

Speaker 47 That's when the two boys made a gruesome discovery. The body of a woman.

Speaker 59 She was lying on her stomach with like her arms folded across her forehead.

Speaker 47 And she was naked.

Speaker 61 Her hair was all bloody and it looked red. And half of her face was showing like maybe like this half.

Speaker 61 But it was all bloody.

Speaker 47 It was a sight neither teen will ever forget.

Speaker 62 I I was shocked, like more shocked than anything.

Speaker 61 It just felt weird.

Speaker 64 Like

Speaker 61 the sudden, like, knowing of, like, that that's a dead person. You never really think that you're gonna see someone dead.

Speaker 47 Tommy's grandfather immediately called 911.

Speaker 50 Uh, we just found a human body laying in somebody.

Speaker 50 Okay. Oh, God.

Speaker 50 Is the person beyond help? Or do I need to give instructions for CPR? No, it's beyond help.

Speaker 47 Soon, Brown County Sheriff's detectives, Brian Slinger and Rick Lopknow got a call and headed to the crime scene. Neither detective had to travel very far.

Speaker 47 So the body was found right near here, the sheriff's department?

Speaker 52 Yep. It's about a half mile away.

Speaker 47 You don't see that every day. I mean, it's literally right in your backyard.

Speaker 55 Yes.

Speaker 47 The condition of the victim's body disturbed even these two seasoned detectives.

Speaker 49 I had been in law enforcement for 18 years, but to see this up close and personal on a young lady was very difficult for everyone.

Speaker 47 Describe her body for us.

Speaker 52 When I arrived on the scene, she was laying face down with her head towards the field and her feet towards the road.

Speaker 52 Her arms were up in front of her face crossed, and there was other abrasions and bruising really throughout her body.

Speaker 47 What was the approximate time of death, do you think?

Speaker 52 It was hard to say up front, but we believed it was

Speaker 52 probably from the night before sometime.

Speaker 47 From all indicators, the woman had been sexually assaulted.

Speaker 52 The only thing she was wearing was socks and then a pink bracelet on her left wrist.

Speaker 47 And nothing else? Nothing else. This crime sounds very personal.

Speaker 52 Yeah, it was

Speaker 55 apparent early on that

Speaker 52 there was a pretty good fight that must have happened.

Speaker 47 Initially, the detectives couldn't find a murder weapon. Severe bruises on her neck led them to believe she had been strangled.
Identification?

Speaker 52 There was no identification with the body.

Speaker 47 You had no idea who this woman was.

Speaker 52 No, not at first.

Speaker 47 This is sad. And not only sad, it's scary.
I mean, to see a woman like that just lying in a field.

Speaker 52 It is in a community like Brown County or the Greater Green Bay area, it's not something we deal with normally.

Speaker 47 Both Slinger and Lopnow were struck by just how little evidence there was to go on.

Speaker 9 Initially, we didn't really know

Speaker 9 if it happened here or not or if she was just dumped here.

Speaker 52 We're very careful about how we were approaching the body, looking for drag marks, footprints, any type of weapons that might be involved.

Speaker 52 There was no indication of how many people might have been involved or any evidence to point us in any certain direction, at least not right away.

Speaker 47 This was a real whodunit and who is she?

Speaker 47 Did you also immediately think about the community and if this would start ringing alarm bells for them?

Speaker 55 Yeah, I think

Speaker 52 when the news of what was going on started to break and that we didn't have

Speaker 52 you know, information up front of who was involved, I think that's definitely alarming to the community.

Speaker 47 While the detectives continued searching the field for clues, they learned a woman by the name of Nikki Vanderheiden had been reported missing. Who filed the missing person's report?

Speaker 49 Douglas Dietri, who was the boyfriend and father to Nicole's child.

Speaker 47 A sheriff sergeant headed to Doug's house with a video camera to take the missing persons report.

Speaker 45 I'm here for a missing person's report?

Speaker 47 There was no reason just yet to tell Doug they had found a woman in the field.

Speaker 45 What color are her eyes?

Speaker 51 Blue.

Speaker 47 Doug gave a physical description of Nikki to the sergeant, who then relayed it to Slinger and Lop now in the field. They suspected their victim was Nikki van der Heiden, but they couldn't be sure.

Speaker 52 Based on the condition of the body, it was not easy to make a positive identification.

Speaker 47 Then, early the next morning, detectives got a break. Bloody clothing near the crime scene.

Speaker 49 A large amount of clothing and other items laying along the side of the road here in between the fog line and the ditch.

Speaker 49 The person that was responsible was panicking and probably didn't know what to do at that time and just discarded them as they were traveling back westbound on 172.

Speaker 47 The clothing, did it tell you anything about who the victim was?

Speaker 49 Yes, I was able to go through the clothing. There was a lanyard that had a Green Bay School District photo ID on it.

Speaker 47 The photo was of Nikki. Dental records later confirmed what everyone by now already knew.
The victim was Nicole Vanderheyden.

Speaker 47 Representatives of the sheriff's office went to the home of Nikki's parents where all of her friends and family had gathered.

Speaker 48 The chief and another police officer came over and had the immediate family in the backyard. We knew, you know, we saw the looks on their faces and all we could do was just hold them.

Speaker 47 That is an awful moment.

Speaker 47 Did anyone talk, or was it just silence?

Speaker 39 Just crying.

Speaker 56 Silence. You know, everything that

Speaker 43 we hoped wouldn't be true.

Speaker 43 It's hard.

Speaker 48 So, why? You know, why would this happen to such a good person? And of all people, you know?

Speaker 65 Coming up.

Speaker 51 I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat.

Speaker 46 The last night Nikki was seen alive. Where was her boyfriend, Doug? You went to bed.
Yep.

Speaker 50 I'd say Walt Trees, Reserve,

Speaker 55 Tibet.

Speaker 47 This doesn't make sense. You go out together and you're not coming home together?

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Speaker 47 A body in a field with few clues to go on. Detectives Brian Slinger and Rick Lopnow began trying to answer the question everyone in Green Bay was asking.
Who murdered Nikki van der Heiden?

Speaker 52 The official cause of death ended up being blunt force trauma and ligature strangulation.

Speaker 47 The detectives also found what appeared to be a shoe print on Nikki's back, indicating she had been stomped on.

Speaker 49 Like a herringbone or zigzag pattern that would be consistent with like the bottom of a shoe.

Speaker 47 Multiple abrasions and bruises covered Nikki's body. That sounds like a monster.

Speaker 52 Yeah, it's hard to describe. It's obviously severe.

Speaker 52 Pretty extreme.

Speaker 47 At the sheriff's office, detectives continued their investigation by talking with those who saw Nikki last, including her boyfriend Doug. A lot of people saw Nikki.

Speaker 49 Correct. Our first step was to interview Doug Dietri,

Speaker 49 get a good timeline from him from the night prior. What time did the concert end?

Speaker 50 I'd say 11:30, maybe? 11, 11.30?

Speaker 47 They also interviewed Doug's friends.

Speaker 52 How did the night start? How did you guys know what to do? We were all going to Steel Canther. Okay, who was at the watering hole? With

Speaker 52 a big group of our friends.

Speaker 49 I mean, all accounts from all the people that saw her said she's having a blast.

Speaker 47 Slinger Slinger learned that after the concert at the watering hole, Doug and a friend stayed behind while everyone else headed to the next bar. Nikki was here at the sardine can.

Speaker 47 Take us through her night.

Speaker 49 So Nikki came here with Doug's friends. There's a group, about four or five of them, including Nikki.

Speaker 49 The plan was to come here and hang out and have a couple extra drinks.

Speaker 47 Detective Slinger asked to review the sardine can security video. On it, he could see Nikki.
There she is on the left. Was she having a good good time? Did anything seem like it was wrong?

Speaker 49 No, she appeared to be having a great time. She was up dancing, socializing, talking to people, walking around, just like any normal night.

Speaker 47 But according to Doug's friend Angela, Nikki's mood soon changed. Doug was still at the other bar, and Nikki began to feel ignored.

Speaker 51 I noticed her being a little quiet, and I said, well, where's Doug?

Speaker 51 And she just shrugged her shoulders.

Speaker 49 She starts texting, calling him, asking him where he is. She's with all his friends that she wasn't all that familiar with.
So she wanted her boyfriend to come be with her at the new bar.

Speaker 47 Is she getting a response from Doug?

Speaker 49 Very limited. She was getting annoyed and kind of frustrated that he wasn't responding to her.

Speaker 47 Angela offered to help Nikki out by calling Doug herself using her own cell phone.

Speaker 51 And I was just like, let me call him.

Speaker 47 Did he answer?

Speaker 51 He did.

Speaker 47 That, said Angela, made Nikki furious. Nikki was upset because he wouldn't answer her calls, but then he answers your call.

Speaker 44 Yeah.

Speaker 47 Did she have a reaction? Did she say anything?

Speaker 51 It happened so fast. I just remember her jumping up and running.

Speaker 47 Detective Slinger could see Nikki leaving on the bar's security video. Did anyone follow her, try to get her to come back?

Speaker 49 Yeah, one of the friends of the group tried following her. He exited out this same gate here.
You can see that on the video.

Speaker 51 And he's like, come on, Nikki, come on, Nikki.

Speaker 51 Come back to the bar. We'll Uber you home.
And she just started hitting him. And she told him, let me be, let me go.
And so he said, okay.

Speaker 47 At first, neither Angela nor anyone else could figure out what had just happened.

Speaker 51 I'm like, why did she go running? Is that something I said?

Speaker 47 So she was more upset than she was letting on in the bar. She must have been.
I mean, to run out like that. Yeah.
So not too far from here is where the mystery began.

Speaker 49 The ultimate mystery began as she went out of the camera view here, just a few feet from where we're standing.

Speaker 47 To try to solve the mystery, Detective Slinger reviewed all the text messages between Doug and Nikki on Doug's phone.

Speaker 47 To Slinger, those messages revealed a relationship more troubled than their friends knew. What kind of things was she writing?

Speaker 49 Trust issues that she had with him, maybe that he was out with some other girls.

Speaker 47 Nikki wrote, wow, what slut are you with? Because none of your friends know. And then, you hurt me all the time.

Speaker 47 When Angela learned just how angry Nikki was with Doug, she couldn't help but feel she may have contributed to the couple's problems by making that phone call to Doug outside the bar.

Speaker 51 I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat

Speaker 51 because I kept thinking,

Speaker 51 what if

Speaker 51 could I have done something different?

Speaker 51 Should I have not called Doug?

Speaker 47 Because that was her trigger, it seemed.

Speaker 47 Detectives also asked Doug why why Nikki was so angry with him that night.

Speaker 50 Sending me some wild texts, you know, she was just wound up real mad and drunk and does not make any sense.

Speaker 49 He said he didn't know where any of that was coming from, which to us, you know, seems weird.

Speaker 47 Did you think he was lying?

Speaker 49 Wasn't sure if he was lying, but it was just bizarre that he would have no clue where these messages were coming from from her as far as accusations go.

Speaker 47 They then asked Doug what he did after finding out Nikki had left the second bar. Doug said he immediately drove around the area looking for her.

Speaker 47 But the bar security camera seemed to tell a different story. Was he really out looking for Nikki?

Speaker 49 Based on the surveillance video, it didn't really appear that he was. He went into the sardine can, started drinking, stayed at pretty much the same spot in the bar the whole time.

Speaker 49 It seemed like maybe he had exaggerated the amount of looking that he was doing for her at the time.

Speaker 47 Was that suspicious to you?

Speaker 49 Partially, at that point, yeah.

Speaker 47 Doug told the detective he couldn't find Nikki, so we went home. Nikki's friend Dallas was there babysitting and greeted him.
My first question is, where is she? Like, this doesn't make sense.

Speaker 47 You go out together and you're not coming home together. And he had said, we're all out together tonight.
And she just got mad and stormed away. She wanted to walk home.

Speaker 47 Dallas then offered up several suggestions of where Nikki could be, including crashing at a friend's house. And everything I'm saying, he is coming back to me with a no, no, no.

Speaker 47 So I finally had said, Doug, is she in the trunk of your car?

Speaker 47 And he looked at me and he smiled and he goes, no.

Speaker 47 And his whole demeanor just changed. I was just feeling some sort of urgency to get out of the house.
Dallas said she finally headed to her car at about 3 a.m. There's nobody around.

Speaker 47 And I

Speaker 35 said out loud, like, where are you, Nicole?

Speaker 47 Like, what's going on? According to Doug, once Dallas took off, he checked on the baby and then went to bed. You went to bed.
Yep. I'd shave Waltre's resurrecting a little

Speaker 49 bit. We really didn't have an alibi for him because he was home sleeping.

Speaker 47 Hours after Nikki's body was discovered, Detective Slinger and his team decided to search Doug's house. What they would find inside would set off alarm bells.

Speaker 49 There was some blood on some tissues as well as a sweatshirt.

Speaker 46 Bloody evidence in the house, on the road, in a yard.

Speaker 49 He started crying. This is so wrong.

Speaker 46 Doug Dietri, are police reeling him in or ruling him out?

Speaker 49 We knew that there was another person out there that knew something.

Speaker 58 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 47 Haley Deafnet and Caitlin Uncles walked the the main drag of Green Bay, desperate for answers.

Speaker 48 We had a lot of communication with Detective Slinger during that time, and he had asked us first to hang some flyers for him, just to get some information on where

Speaker 48 she could have gone.

Speaker 43 We hit every bar,

Speaker 43 up and down that street, all downtown.

Speaker 47 Why did you two decide we're going to be proactive, see if we can get any clues?

Speaker 43 We needed to find out what happened to our friend.

Speaker 43 I mean, it's that simple.

Speaker 47 Meanwhile, Sheriff's Detective Brian Slinger was about to search the house of Nikki Vanderheiden's live-in boyfriend Doug.

Speaker 49 After learning the two had been arguing just hours before she disappeared, she accused him of being abusive on one of the text messages from that night. That was obviously alarming.

Speaker 47 At first, nothing seemed to be amiss.

Speaker 49 There was not a lot of signs of any struggle in the house. There was no like broken bases or broken tables or anything like that.

Speaker 47 But after a closer inspection, they found a trail of intriguing clues.

Speaker 49 There was some areas in the garage that had concerned us.

Speaker 47 Specifically, what appeared to be bloodstains on the floor.

Speaker 49 And then down in this area here is what appeared to be drag marks, maybe potentially back this way towards the rear of Nicole's vehicle.

Speaker 47 And inside Nikki's car.

Speaker 49 Her vehicle had what we thought at the time to be some blood smears throughout the back and throughout the headboard area. This is the red drip consistent in nature of that of a drop of blood.

Speaker 49 As you can see here, it's some more brownish

Speaker 49 dried substance that we were concerned about.

Speaker 47 Back inside the house, more blood.

Speaker 49 And in one of the lower bathrooms, there was some blood on some tissues that was located on the floor, as well as a sweatshirt that had some blood on it.

Speaker 49 And there's also what appeared to be potentially blood drops near the entrance into the shower.

Speaker 47 Detectives then discovered a possible source of the shoe imprint found by the medical examiner on Nikki's back.

Speaker 49 And you can see there is some of the zigzag pattern here. Some shoes like that were found in the garage on the shoe rack, which had what appeared to be some sort of red dots on the bottom of them.

Speaker 49 They could be blood. Could be blood, but that pattern on the bottom of the shoe was consistent with what we had seen on Nicole's back.

Speaker 47 What's more, a member of the search team reported smelling what she thought was cleaning solution throughout the house.

Speaker 49 She thought she smelt a strong odor in the house that caught her attention.

Speaker 47 CSI sent swabs of all the evidence taken from inside the garage and house to the lab for testing. But it was what detectives found outside that proved to be the most intriguing evidence yet.

Speaker 47 A neighbor across the street from Doug was mowing his lawn when he saw in the grass a strange object.

Speaker 49 We responded out to the scene, found what appeared to be like a phone charging cable cut in two in his front yard that he had ran over with his lawnmower.

Speaker 47 Detectives believe that cord was likely used to strangle Nikki.

Speaker 49 It was full of blood and it matched some of the markings that we had on her neck.

Speaker 47 There were multiple large bloodstains on the roadside near the cord.

Speaker 47 Detective Slinger felt confident this was the area where Nikki was beaten, strangled, and ultimately killed. An area just 118 feet from Doug's front door.
Nikki's blood was telling you a story.

Speaker 47 Correct. As detectives began looking more closely at Doug Dietri, they discovered a local police report that initially seemed only to strengthen their suspicion.

Speaker 47 The The report cited a past incident involving an ex-girlfriend who claimed Doug had abused her.

Speaker 49 How bad was that? It sounded like she was in fear.

Speaker 47 In the incident report, the woman accused Doug of choking her and covering her mouth and nose with blankets. Doug was arrested and he denied the allegation.
He was never charged.

Speaker 47 As it turned out, the woman had been convicted of battery in a previous relationship. Then, detectives interviewed Nikki's own mother.

Speaker 47 She told them that just a week before the murder, Nikki revealed Doug had abused her. She was crying, and

Speaker 47 I

Speaker 47 started asking her questions, you know.

Speaker 47 I asked her, did he ever hit you? And she said, yeah, she wouldn't go into it. She was real private.

Speaker 47 With the blood, the text messages, the shoe print, and those allegations of abuse, detectives felt they had enough probable cause to arrest Doug Dietri two days after finding Nikki's body.

Speaker 50 Right now, I'm going to be taking you into custody. I'm going to be handcuffing you.
Just be cooperative with me and we'll roll it that way. Wow, okay.
I'm a decent guy. Okay, I'm a decent guy too.

Speaker 50 I get that. I'm sure you are.

Speaker 49 Eventually, he was brought out to our vehicle when we transport him to the jail, and that's when I think it really hit him.

Speaker 49 He started crying.

Speaker 47 While they waited for the results of the forensic testing, they wanted to learn all they could about Doug Dietri. They continued interviewing anyone with information about Doug's past.

Speaker 49 We had some people come forward from his background that had talked about some things that they had observed in his behavior from past relationships.

Speaker 47 Did they come involuntarily, or were you digging into his past?

Speaker 49 Probably a little bit of both.

Speaker 47 Another ex-girlfriend of Doug's spoke to detectives and described Doug as controlling and a stalker type. This woman never filed a complaint.

Speaker 52 So we have all these ex-girlfriends coming forward. Obviously, those relationships didn't work out for a reason

Speaker 52 why do they have a bone to pick? You know, are they coming forward and saying this because it's their ex and they want to see something happen to him?

Speaker 47 We don't know. But then there's also power in numbers, too.
The fact that you had that many women coming forward.

Speaker 49 Right, yeah, and it's you have that many people. It does definitely take out the whole revenge factor when you have that many people that are coming forward.
Absolutely.

Speaker 49 There's definitely patterns of behavior from his past that would lead us to be concerned.

Speaker 47 Doug Dietri's attorney tells Dateline the allegations about Doug's past behavior are defamatory. What are you all thinking?

Speaker 49 At that point, it's definitely looking like Doug's our person that's responsible here.

Speaker 47 What did you think happened that night?

Speaker 49 I thought that she got a ride home from someone and that he had heard her get dropped off and went outside to confront her about where she was.

Speaker 49 And there was some sort of altercation, what happened out in front of their house. And then he used the vehicle in the garage to transport her body to the field.

Speaker 47 But why would Doug want Nikki dead? Detectives felt the answer could be in Doug's phone. They discovered more text messages about his relationship with Nikki, this time to his mom.

Speaker 49 He was contemplating ending the relationship. He wasn't happy.

Speaker 47 According to those messages, Doug seemed to be buckling under the pressure of being a family man and he wanted out.

Speaker 47 Doug wrote, I'm very seriously thinking about telling Nikki and the kids they have to move. I'm not cut out for this life one bit.

Speaker 47 He also wrote, when this house sells, we are going separate ways, I'm sure. Don't worry about it.
It is what it is. That could be a motive for murder.

Speaker 34 It could be.

Speaker 47 News of Doug's arrest quickly spread across Green Bay and to Doug's friend, Angela Del Foss.

Speaker 51 I was shocked.

Speaker 47 Angela couldn't believe what she was hearing. She was convinced the police had made a mistake.

Speaker 51 There is no way.

Speaker 51 No way Doug could do this. He's never had a mean bone in him where he could do this to somebody.

Speaker 47 Did you feel like he was being wrongly accused? Yes. Was that kind of the sentiment among your friends and your group?

Speaker 51 Yes. We knew he didn't do it.

Speaker 47 Nikki's friends, Haley Deafnet and Caitlin Uncles, were just as dumbfounded. There were a lot of arrows pointing at Doug Dietri based on what the police had.

Speaker 56 Yes.

Speaker 47 Did you two start thinking that as well because everybody else was thinking that?

Speaker 48 Of course, yeah.

Speaker 43 You don't know what someone is capable of, so it didn't put it past me that it could be him. It also didn't deter me away from trying to find out what happened to her if it was not.

Speaker 48 You don't want to think that it would be someone that would love her and share so much with her, especially a child.

Speaker 47 The investigation was only days old, and already the pieces seemed to be easily fitting into place. But were they fitting too easily?

Speaker 49 See, I knew we had a lot of work ahead of us.

Speaker 47 And there were still vexing questions left to answer.

Speaker 49 Sergeant Lautnow and I struggled to find out how Nikki got home. We knew that there was another person out there that knew something of value.

Speaker 47 This is a missing piece of the puzzle.

Speaker 49 A huge piece.

Speaker 47 Another problem? This one coming from the lab. Techs found male DNA all over Nikki's body, but the profile was only partial, so they couldn't find a match.

Speaker 49 We need to try and find a match for that.

Speaker 47 The investigation was just getting started, and its direction was far from certain.

Speaker 46 Coming up: the shoe, the tissues, the blood in the garage, the blood in the car.

Speaker 51 I still kept thinking, no way.

Speaker 46 How solid was this evidence? Really?

Speaker 47 That's a big revelation, right there.

Speaker 49 Huge revelation.

Speaker 51 I'm like, oh my god.

Speaker 58 When dateline continues,

Speaker 47 Police thought they had a strong case against Doug Dietree. They believed there was motive, opportunity, and compelling physical evidence.

Speaker 47 Nikki's friends, Haley Deafnet and Caitlin Uncles, didn't know what to make of it all.

Speaker 48 It didn't make sense that,

Speaker 48 you know, anyone besides Doug would be in her front yard killing her.

Speaker 47 Yet Angela Delphos remained squarely by Doug's side.

Speaker 51 I still kept thinking, no way.

Speaker 47 And yet the police are sure they have the right guy.

Speaker 51 I still knew

Speaker 51 there was something in me telling me it was not him.

Speaker 47 How good are you feeling about your suspect? Do you feel like this is your man? You found, you caught the killer.

Speaker 49 Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't have arrested him if I didn't think that he was our guy.

Speaker 47 But less than two weeks after Doug Dietri's arrest, tests of the forensic evidence taken from in and around the house started to trickle back from the lab. And the case against him began to collapse.

Speaker 47 First, there were Doug's shoes that detectives believed could have left the imprint on Nikki's back.

Speaker 49 The imprint was very generic zigzag pattern.

Speaker 47 The lab could not make a definitive match.

Speaker 49 It was inconclusive. It could be anybody's shoe.
It could be any shoe that has that zigzag pattern.

Speaker 47 Then came the DNA and blood tests. As for those red dots detectives found on the shoes?

Speaker 49 No DNA on the bottom of those shoes. Another surprise? Another surprise.

Speaker 47 But what about the blood on the garage floor? What are you learning?

Speaker 49 We're learning that the blood in the garage was not human blood.

Speaker 47 It was, in fact, animal blood.

Speaker 49 We had found out earlier that Doug was into hunting and that he had actually killed a turkey a couple weeks prior.

Speaker 47 That's right. It was the blood of a turkey.
That's a big revelation right there.

Speaker 49 Huge revelation.

Speaker 47 Then there was Nikki's car. The car detectives thought Doug used to transport Nikki's body out to the field.

Speaker 49 There was one little drop that turned out to be human blood in the back seat, which was ultimately determined not to be Nicole's. It was likely a daughter of hers.

Speaker 47 But that wasn't the only thing calling the car theory into question. Detectives found a device installed in Nikki's car, one that insurance companies use to track driving habits.

Speaker 47 It indicated the car remained in the garage the entire night of the murder.

Speaker 49 The vehicle last moved on Friday the 20th.

Speaker 47 And the blood on the tissues and the sweatshirt found inside the house? It was from Nikki's sister, a nosebleed. And even more surprises from the forensic evidence you found in the house.

Speaker 49 Yes.

Speaker 47 Have you ever seen anything like this before? That's just one thing after the next. That's not what it appeared.

Speaker 49 Yeah, it was definitely crazy.

Speaker 47 Then came the biggest blow to their theory. It had to do with that partial profile of male DNA found on Nikki's body and the bloody cord.

Speaker 47 While lab techs couldn't identify whose DNA it was, they were able to definitively rule out Doug.

Speaker 47 I mean, this is a huge mistake to arrest somebody for murder who it's really appearing now did not commit the crime.

Speaker 49 Yeah, I mean I take full ownership of that myself and my supervisor that made the decision based on what we had at the time.

Speaker 49 I didn't have a crystal ball to know the results of some of the testing that was going on. You know, we're responsible for the safety of the community,

Speaker 49 safety of Doug's child that he would have had custody of. So we had to take all those things into consideration.

Speaker 52 I would really hesitate to say use the term mistake. Based on the circumstances, we had probable cause to make our arrests.

Speaker 47 But detectives had bigger problems on their hands. The unknown male DNA on the cord and the unknown male DNA in her body, was that a match? It was the same person.

Speaker 49 Those were all consistent with one another, yes, with one person. And I'd add that it was of no one's DNA that we had already collected.

Speaker 47 Which led Slinger and Lopnow to one very disturbing conclusion.

Speaker 52 There's someone else out there involved that we had to identify.

Speaker 47 You knew that there was a mystery man out there at this point that very likely killed Nikki.

Speaker 49 Yeah, that's to the point where we were at with trying to figure out

Speaker 49 who is this person.

Speaker 47 Without enough evidence left to keep Doug in jail, the sheriff's office had no choice but to let him go. Doug Dietri spent 18 days in jail.

Speaker 47 His release left Caitlin and Haley more bewildered than anything else. By now, they had come to believe Doug was responsible.
Doug Dietri is released. It's a huge twist to all of this.

Speaker 47 What are you two thinking?

Speaker 48 It was definitely surprising and not the news that we really wanted to hear at that point.

Speaker 47 Did this start to shift your focus away from Doug? A little bit. Learning about this DNA.

Speaker 43 We knew that there was someone else's DNA.

Speaker 43 So then it became whose DNA.

Speaker 48 And there was different rumors, you know, of what could have happened, but we kind of worked around our own scenarios trying to figure out why this could have

Speaker 48 went bad. You know, it was supposed to be a fun night out for her and

Speaker 48 why did it go so wrong?

Speaker 43 There was a lot of, you know, missing pieces.

Speaker 47 As for Angela Delphos and the rest of Doug's supporters, they were elated by the news that Doug was now free.

Speaker 51 I'm like, oh my God,

Speaker 51 thank God.

Speaker 51 They had no proof it was Doug.

Speaker 51 No proof. And nor would he have ever done this.

Speaker 47 Did you feel sort of vindicated? because maybe your opinion that he didn't do it wasn't the popular one at the time?

Speaker 51 Yeah, I didn't care.

Speaker 51 I didn't care what anybody thought.

Speaker 47 But Doug Dietri wasn't off the hook just yet. Police could not overlook that he seemed to have motivation to kill Nikki.
And they weren't impressed with his alibi that he was home sleeping.

Speaker 47 Did you think that maybe Doug paid someone or someone did this for him?

Speaker 49 Yeah, that was definitely something that we had thought about. Obviously, that's something that's always in the back of your mind.

Speaker 47 So the door wasn't completely shut on Doug.

Speaker 49 Correct.

Speaker 47 For Slinger and Lop now, 10 frustrating weeks passed with no breaks in the case, and still no clue whose DNA was on Nikki's body.

Speaker 49 So I kind of felt like we were going to get a full profile eventually.

Speaker 52 I felt like something was going to break eventually.

Speaker 47 And it did.

Speaker 56 It did.

Speaker 47 You got a hit on Nikki's sock.

Speaker 46 A sock? A cell phone? A dark past. Who was this mystery man?

Speaker 47 That must just set off alarm bells right there. It did.

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Speaker 45 Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists and are compensated for their stories. Results may vary.

Speaker 47 It had been an adrenaline-rushing start to the case, an arrest just two days after the murder. But the investigation came to an abrupt stop with the release of their first suspect, Doug Dietree.

Speaker 47 After you released Doug, did you feel like you were back to square one after all that work?

Speaker 49 In a way, because you just have to keep moving. But I definitely viewed it as a step back.

Speaker 47 But 10 weeks after Doug Dietree's release from jail, detectives received startling news from the lab. You got a hit on Nikki's sock.

Speaker 52 That's where the hit came from.

Speaker 49 Ultimately, that was the item that got us the DNA that we needed. We were crazy excited.
It gave us new hope

Speaker 49 that we were going to be able to get answers for the family.

Speaker 47 Answers about the origin of the unknown male DNA found on Nikki's body and on the cord. And this hit is a full DNA profile.

Speaker 16 Enough to put into CODIS

Speaker 52 to be able to be processed against all the records nationwide.

Speaker 47 Which is just what the lab tech did. That's when he got a match.

Speaker 49 He gives us the name, George Stephen Birch, out of the state of Virginia.

Speaker 47 Does that mean anything to you? What are you thinking when you hear this name?

Speaker 49 It meant nothing to me. Next step is to find out who George Birch is.

Speaker 47 Detectives discovered that 38-year-old George Birch had moved to Green Bay from Virginia five months earlier. He'd been living with an old pal, Ed Jackson, who owned an auto repair shop in town.

Speaker 68 He had no place to go and asked me if, you know, he could get a fresh start.

Speaker 47 George said he was getting a divorce. Ed immediately lent him a helping hand.
After all, the two had been friends since they were young adults.

Speaker 56 Longtime friend.

Speaker 47 20 plus years. Did you consider him to be trustworthy?

Speaker 56 Oh yeah.

Speaker 68 Yep. Would have trusted him with anything back then.
Great with kids, great around my family. You know, never really had an issue with him.
Never really saw him snap too much about anything.

Speaker 68 You know, always calm, cool, collected.

Speaker 47 And a lot of fun. Both Ed and George shared a love of fishing.
A lot of male bonding can go on while two men are fishing. Yep.
Is that kind of what happened?

Speaker 68 Yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 56 Spend a lot of time in a boat.

Speaker 47 Ed's wife, Linda, considered George to be the typical southern gentleman.

Speaker 69 He called me Miss Linda all the time and I always thought that was kind of cool because he had that southern accent.

Speaker 47 Did you take an instant liking to him?

Speaker 69 Yeah, he seemed real easygoing and we're just really easygoing people so it was, hey, cool.

Speaker 47 George got a job and soon started dating. A young woman named Jordan Schuyler became the object of George Birch's affection.

Speaker 70 The way he kind of talked, the way his mannerisms were so

Speaker 70 gentlemanlike, I guess guess that was the best thing that drew me towards him.

Speaker 47 Jordan said the older man with a southern accent swept her off her feet.

Speaker 70 We ended up hanging out almost every day, literally every day.

Speaker 47 Did your mom worry that maybe he was a little too old for you?

Speaker 70 She honestly didn't know.

Speaker 70 I didn't know how to tell her because my mom is my best friend and I know that she wouldn't approve of the age difference.

Speaker 47 Was he romantic?

Speaker 70 Yes, very much so. Very much so.

Speaker 47 In what way?

Speaker 70 No, it sounds dumb, but like little stupid corny ways, I guess.

Speaker 70 He would make little poems or something or come up to me and say something very sweet.

Speaker 47 Did you feel safe around him?

Speaker 70 100%.

Speaker 70 He made me feel

Speaker 70 like he would always be there to help me and protect me and be by my side.

Speaker 47 George the gentleman. That's the man who swept Jordan off her feet.
But turns out there was a lot she didn't know about George Birch.

Speaker 46 Coming up, investigators take a deep dive into George's past and make a startling discovery.

Speaker 47 You're seeing George Birch homicide. Correct.

Speaker 47 Three months after Nikki Vanderheiden's badly beaten body was found in a Wisconsin field, investigators matched DNA on her sock to a man named George Birch.

Speaker 47 George had recently moved to the area from Virginia and was staying with an old buddy and his wife. He had friends, a job, a romantic relationship.

Speaker 47 It seemed like George had settled in nicely to Green Bay. But then, Detective Brian Slinger started digging into George's past.

Speaker 49 We were able to find that he was involved in another homicide case from 1998 in the state of Virginia.

Speaker 47 Slinger immediately began researching the case, but the information was limited. After all, it was 18 years earlier.
Did you learn anything else about that case?

Speaker 49 We learned it was a shooting between him and another group of people at the time, and that, for whatever reason, went to a jury trial, and he was ultimately acquitted of it.

Speaker 47 Acquitted of all charges, but still.

Speaker 47 You're seeing George Birch homicide. Correct.
That must just set off alarm bells right there.

Speaker 55 It did.

Speaker 47 Detective Slinger also learned George Birch had been suspected of a crime here in Green Bay. The crime, far less serious, a traffic accident that occurred about two weeks after Nikki's murder.

Speaker 47 Someone drove this Chevy Blazer into a parked car, then abandoned it on a Green Bay street. The blazer happened to belong to Ed and Linda Jackson.

Speaker 47 They had lent it to George when he moved in with them. Was he saying somebody else hit the car? Yes.
The truck?

Speaker 69 He swore he didn't do it.

Speaker 68 He claimed it was stolen.

Speaker 47 A seemingly minor offense, and Green Bay police never ended up charging Birch with the crime.

Speaker 47 But during their investigation of the car crash, they did obtain a treasure trove of evidence that would become critical for the detectives involved in the homicide case.

Speaker 49 They had gotten consent from Mr. Birch to download his cell phone.

Speaker 47 Was that a stroke of luck that you had all this information at your fingertips?

Speaker 49 Luck is one way to put it. Yeah, I would say definitely some luck was shining on us that day.

Speaker 47 And when sheriff's detectives, Slinger and Lopnow, began poring over that data, they couldn't believe what they stumbled upon.

Speaker 49 There was some phone internet searches that we found very interesting about he was looking up the homicide, looking up the case, looking up things on local news about Nikki and about that event in particular.

Speaker 49 But the big thing that we found was his Gmail address, which was associated to his cell phone.

Speaker 47 And that Gmail address led detectives to George's Google Dashboard, a service that enables users to store and manage personal data, including detailed information as to where and when they traveled.

Speaker 47 Where did it take you? The location data.

Speaker 52 When we prepared the search warrant, we obviously focused very much on that night of May 20th into the 21st.

Speaker 47 What they found was astonishing.

Speaker 47 At about 12.30 a.m., the night of Nikki's murder, George Birch was at this bar called Richard Cranium's, a bar about a half mile from the sardine can, Nikki's last known location.

Speaker 52 They showed him going from there to his residence briefly and then from there right to Nikki's residence. They were there for about 40 or 50 minutes.

Speaker 52 From there, it tracked him to where Nikki's body was found within an accuracy of about nine feet.

Speaker 24 But that wasn't all.

Speaker 52 The GPS location actually followed a set of tracks that we saw in the field that did a loop from the driveway.

Speaker 52 It almost went right with those tracks out of the field to where her clothes were located along the highway and then all the way back to his residence.

Speaker 47 That is so incredibly precise.

Speaker 52 That appeared to be very accurate.

Speaker 47 The detectives could now place George Birch close to every known location of either Nikki or her belongings that night.

Speaker 47 From the sardine can to Nikki's house, to the field, and finally to the highway on ramp. They could also now answer that vexing question of how Nikki got home from the sardine can.

Speaker 49 When we got it back with the roadmap, so to speak, of the crime,

Speaker 49 it was huge.

Speaker 47 This is your moment.

Speaker 46 George Birch under arrest and apparently unphased.

Speaker 47 What was his reaction when you told him why he was there?

Speaker 49 His demeanor changed zero.

Speaker 46 But not everyone takes the news in stride.

Speaker 63 Shocking.

Speaker 68 Didn't believe it?

Speaker 70 This is a totally different guy you're talking about. He's so sweet.
There's no way.

Speaker 46 Could police have the wrong guy again?

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Speaker 47 George Birch was now the chief suspect in the Nikki van der Heiden murder investigation.

Speaker 47 Data from his Google dashboard had allowed investigators to retrace his movements on the night Nikki was killed. And the picture that emerged cemented their suspicions.

Speaker 47 First, the DNA on Nikki's body matching George Birch's, now this.

Speaker 47 What do you think happened?

Speaker 49 We knew that Nikki and George came into contact with each other, most likely near Richard Cranium's bar, which is a short distance away from the sardine can.

Speaker 49 We knew that they drove over to Nikki's neighborhood, where they were in the car for roughly 40 to 45 minutes.

Speaker 47 Detective Slinger believed that's where George Birch sexually assaulted Nikki and strangled her to death.

Speaker 49 We did have evidence of a sexual assault that likely occurred, so that was clearly our motive at that time and explained his behavior.

Speaker 49 Obviously, there's only two people people that would have known exactly what happened: Mr. Birch and Nicole.

Speaker 49 My belief is there's some sort of struggle inside the car, and she would have tried to get out of the car.

Speaker 49 She likely then fell out of the car onto the concrete, where he then went around to proceed to stomp on her face and on her back up against the curb.

Speaker 47 It's amazing that nobody heard anything. I mean, you would think she would be screaming for her life at that point.

Speaker 49 You'd think that, but if you're being strangled,

Speaker 49 you really can't scream.

Speaker 52 The injuries to Nicole's neck were very, very severe. It's likely that she would not have been able to get much of a scream out, if anything.

Speaker 47 Both Slinger and Lopnow were certain they had their man. But remember, they had been down this road once before.
So this time, they waited.

Speaker 49 We wanted to make sure that we had all of our ducks in a row before he was taken into custody.

Speaker 49 And to make sure that there wasn't anything in that Google data that would maybe potentially have exonerated him before he was arrested. Subject outside on the porch.

Speaker 47 They also watched Birch carefully. You had been worried about public safety.
One of the reasons you arrested Doug when you did.

Speaker 47 Obviously there would have been concern about public safety for him as well. Correct.

Speaker 49 We maintained pretty good eyes on, pretty good surveillance on him.

Speaker 47 Satisfied they had crossed T's and dotted I's, they made their move.

Speaker 49 We came up with the game plan that we were going to come in early one morning, set up eyes on his house on the west side of Green Bay.

Speaker 49 And then when he left there, we were going to follow him briefly until we had enough cars, law law enforcement personnel in place to do a high-risk traffic stop on him.

Speaker 47 As he did with Doug Dietri three months prior, Detective Slinger personally took George Birch into custody.

Speaker 49 He was handcuffed and then placed in the back of a squad car, transported here to the sheriff's office.

Speaker 47 Birch sat in the interview room, smoked, and casually chatted with the detective.

Speaker 47 What was his reaction when you told him why he was there?

Speaker 49 His demeanor changed zero. The reason you're here is into

Speaker 50 reference to a homicide investigation into Nicole Vanner Heiden okay

Speaker 50 so is this something that you want to talk to me about

Speaker 11 I'm sir what's that birch appeared to be calm throughout so if I read your Miranda rights you don't you don't want to talk to me so I would prefer a lawyer okay according to detective slinger too calm he just continued smoking

Speaker 49 yeah Donald Trump is buying up all the properties Less than 30 seconds later, he starts talking about Donald Trump.

Speaker 49 It was like we were buddies from way back, and we were just hanging out, chatting, catching up, and didn't seem to have care in the world at that time.

Speaker 49 It's alarming that someone would be that nonchalant about such a serious crime that they're being accused of doing.

Speaker 49 That told me that we're definitely dealing with someone that has some psychological issues.

Speaker 47 Just as Doug Dietry's supporters were stunned to find out about his arrest months earlier, George Birch's supporters were now left scratching their heads.

Speaker 47 What was your reaction when the police told you that George Birch had been arrested for Nikki's murder?

Speaker 68 Shocking.

Speaker 47 Didn't believe it. After all, longtime friend Ed Jackson and his wife Linda had invited George into their home.

Speaker 56 Why not?

Speaker 68 Just wasn't him. It wasn't what I knew of him.

Speaker 69 I was stunned, of course. I was just like, really?

Speaker 47 It's like, oof.

Speaker 47 George's girlfriend, Jordan Schuyler, felt the same way. Did you tell the police there's no way he did this?

Speaker 70 First time I was interviewed, I just kept thinking, this is a totally different guy you're talking about. He's so sweet.
There's no way.

Speaker 47 That would soon be up to a jury to decide. As for George Birch, he was about to break his silence and drop a bombshell no one could predict.

Speaker 49 I saw

Speaker 63 what looked like a man standing with a fire on his hand.

Speaker 46 A dramatic story from the stand. Was there someone else there that night? Someone else who killed Nikki?

Speaker 60 Do you know who that individual is now?

Speaker 63 No, I do.

Speaker 60 Who was it?

Speaker 56 All right.

Speaker 47 On February 19th, 2018, almost two years after Nikki van der Hayden's murder, George Birch sat in a Green Bay courtroom, hoping to convince a jury he was innocent.

Speaker 49 George, from the start, told us he did not commit this crime.

Speaker 47 So you have him driving. Lee Shuggart and Scott Stebbins were public defenders trying their first murder case.

Speaker 47 And in the shadow of Lambeau Field, these young attorneys were going to call some unusual plays.

Speaker 47 Please state your full name and spy your last name.

Speaker 63 George Stephen Birch Jr.

Speaker 47 Starting with their decision to let their client, George Birch, all six foot seven of him, tell the jury exactly where he was the night of the murder. He admitted he was with Nikki.

Speaker 63 I noticed there was a fairly attractive blonde woman standing next to me.

Speaker 47 Birch said he met Nikki at Richard Cranium's around 11 p.m.

Speaker 60 How were you acting towards her?

Speaker 68 I was flirting.

Speaker 6 And how was she acting towards you?

Speaker 63 Same, somewhat the same, pretty much.

Speaker 63 Flirting back and forth with each other.

Speaker 47 As closing time approached, Birch said he asked Nikki if she wanted to go home with him.

Speaker 60 She gave you the impression that she agreed to that.

Speaker 63 Yes, sir. She walked to my vehicle.
I opened the passenger's door. She got in the passenger's door.

Speaker 47 But when they arrived at his house, according to George, someone was still up watching TV. So they agreed to head to Nikki's place instead.

Speaker 47 As they approached, he said Nikki noticed someone was home there too.

Speaker 63 She said there was a light on that. She thought the babysitter was still up.

Speaker 47 Instead of going into the house, Burch says they stayed in his car.

Speaker 56 Started

Speaker 63 fooling around, messing around a little bit. Started kissing.

Speaker 49 Did Did you guys stay in the front seat? Um, no, sir.

Speaker 47 Where'd you go?

Speaker 63 Uh, the back seat, the blazer.

Speaker 60 How did you get into the back seat?

Speaker 49 I got out of the driver's side and walked around to the back passenger.

Speaker 47 He said he stood outside the blazer with the door open while Nikki was lying down in the back seat. By then, he claimed, Nikki had taken her clothes off.

Speaker 6 You were having intercourse with her?

Speaker 63 Yes, sir.

Speaker 14 What ended up happening?

Speaker 63 The next thing that I remember was waking up on the ground

Speaker 63 outside the truck.

Speaker 49 Did you see anything?

Speaker 63 I saw what looked like a man standing with a firearm in his hand.

Speaker 47 Burch says he figured the man must have pistol whipped him, knocking him out with the gun.

Speaker 63 The first thing I heard was

Speaker 49 don't even think about it.

Speaker 63 The whole time, he still had the firearm pointing in my direction.

Speaker 47 Burch said he spotted Nikki lying on the ground by the side of his car, unconscious and bloody.

Speaker 63 The next thing I remember was

Speaker 63 the person behind me had been saying, look what the f ⁇ you made me do.

Speaker 47 Birch said the man then forced him at gunpoint to put Nikki in the car and drive. It was then, he said, peeking in the rearview mirror, he finally got a good look at the mystery man.

Speaker 60 At that point, did you know who that individual was?

Speaker 63 Never seen him before in my life.

Speaker 60 Do you know who that individual is now?

Speaker 63 Now I do.

Speaker 60 Who was it?

Speaker 63 Who's Doug Dietri?

Speaker 47 Doug Dietri. It was quite the twist.
Nikki's boyfriend. The man who was first accused, then cleared, was now being accused again.

Speaker 47 And according to Birch, that night, Dietri was forcing him to do his dirty work.

Speaker 60 Were you being given strict directions?

Speaker 63 Yes, sir.

Speaker 47 When they arrived at the field, Birch testified, Dietri ordered him to carry Nikki's body from the car and then put her down.

Speaker 63 The whole time, I'm trying to figure out a way to get out of this situation.

Speaker 47 Birch said he finally got a chance to get away when Dietri got momentarily distracted.

Speaker 63 That's when I turned and with everything I had, I lunged at him. and pushed him as hard as I possibly could.

Speaker 60 Did he fall down?

Speaker 72 I don't know.

Speaker 62 What'd you do?

Speaker 63 Haul the ass to my car.

Speaker 47 He testified that as he drove away, he spotted Nikki's clothes in his car. He panicked and threw them out the window.
He also admitted he never called 911 or told anyone what happened that night.

Speaker 63 Where I'm from,

Speaker 63 you don't talk. You don't tell about things you've seen.
You don't tell them people. People get killed all the time where I'm from for that.

Speaker 63 And I feared for my own safety.

Speaker 47 It was an amazing story. One that certainly seemed to explain much of the damning evidence against George Birch.

Speaker 47 Namely, why his DNA was all over Nikki's body, why he was at Nikki's house, and why he was in the field that night, just feet from where her body was discovered.

Speaker 74 Our theory from this whole thing is look at the whole picture.

Speaker 74 What's George's motive in this versus what's Dietri's motive in this?

Speaker 47 So Birch's defense team called another unusual play. Essentially, they put Doug Dietri on trial for Nikki's murder.

Speaker 71 Our strategy to show that he was never truly looking for Nicole, that he didn't care about Nicole, and that ultimately when he caught Nicole with George, he snapped at that point.

Speaker 47 And during cross-examination, they tried to use Doug Dietri himself to make their case, zeroing in on his behavior before, during, and after the night Nikki was killed.

Speaker 47 To show Doug's relationship with Nikki was on the rocks, Sugart asked Doug about those messages he'd sent his mother.

Speaker 71 So in May of 2016 when you said that when your house sells you and Nikki were going to go on your separate ways, don't worry about it.

Speaker 49 It is what it is.

Speaker 71 When you said that to your mother, is that an accurate statement?

Speaker 67 I don't recall that

Speaker 67 conversation.

Speaker 71 How about when you told her I'm very seriously thinking about telling Nikki and the kids they have to move. I'm not cut out for this life one bit.
Do you remember that?

Speaker 67 I remember, you know, I think I sent something on the lines of that. I just said that to my mom with not truly meaning it, I guess.

Speaker 47 Do you think he looked guilty on the stand? Did he come across that way to you?

Speaker 74 I would have thought that, you know, two years, almost two years after my girlfriend's murder, that I would have pieced together every single part of that night and talked to every single person again and again and again.

Speaker 74 And when I'm asked questions about it, I'm going to remember it and I'm going to be able to talk about it. And I'm not just going to say, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 47 As for the night of the murder, the defense suggested his response to those angry text messages Nikki had sent showed he didn't care about her.

Speaker 71 So when you were receiving those messages, you never thought, oh my gosh, I should go be with Nicole, I should figure out what's going on?

Speaker 67 Well, I tried to, you know, I sent her an LOL, you know,

Speaker 67 what's the deal, basically, you know, nothing to be upset about.

Speaker 71 So it was funny to you that she was upset.

Speaker 55 You laugh out loud.

Speaker 72 Well, I don't know.

Speaker 67 I overly use that.

Speaker 71 Does she typically call you an abusive ass?

Speaker 72 No.

Speaker 71 Does she typically ask you what bit you with?

Speaker 72 No.

Speaker 71 I mean that still didn't cause alarm to you that you need to get with Nicole?

Speaker 67 I mean, I didn't know what she was thinking.

Speaker 47 And what was he thinking? Sugar asked the day after Nikki was killed. Why did he wait until 4:30 the next afternoon to report her missing? Even though he was up early that morning.
6.30 to be exact.

Speaker 71 You did not call the police at 6.30?

Speaker 72 No.

Speaker 71 You did not call Nicole's sister at 6.30?

Speaker 72 No.

Speaker 71 You did not call Nicole's mother at 6.30?

Speaker 67 No, I did not.

Speaker 49 You just went back to bed?

Speaker 67 Yeah, I was tired. I was hungover and I just

Speaker 67 had a crying baby and

Speaker 67 took care of him and fed him and went back to bed right away.

Speaker 47 And when Doug got up again at 11 a.m., he never attempted to look for Nikki.

Speaker 49 Did you search for Nikki on foot or by vehicle?

Speaker 47 There was a reason the defense claimed that Doug waited so long to report Nikki missing.

Speaker 71 Because he knew where Nicole's body was and he knew what happened to Nicole.

Speaker 47 The defense had planned to show that Doug had a history of abuse towards women. In a pretrial motion, they listed several such allegations, but the judge ruled that evidence was inadmissible.

Speaker 47 This just has to be a huge blow to your defense.

Speaker 49 It was.

Speaker 71 We weren't able to present the pattern of abuse that we saw from past girlfriends, girlfriends, from people that knew Nicole, from anybody that we could talk to on the case, specifically for the people Doug dated.

Speaker 47 And there was something else the judge would not allow. Doug Dietri had recently been arrested for abuse.
It is a wild story that he gets involved with Nikki's sister after her death.

Speaker 49 I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 47 Of all people, Nikki's sister. She had been living with Doug, helping him take care of the baby.
According to the criminal complaint, Doug was driving when he touched Heather's leg in a sexual way.

Speaker 74 She didn't want it, and so, you know, he locked the doors and took off at a high rate of speed to the point that her father's following him and he's running red lights and doing all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 47 Doug was charged with second-degree, recklessly endangering safety, false imprisonment, and disorderly conduct. He would later plead no contest to those charges.

Speaker 47 Even without that evidence, the defense still felt it had made a strong case against Doug Dietri.

Speaker 74 He had the motive to murder her, he had an opportunity to murder her, and he had a direct connection with her murder.

Speaker 47 Halfway through the trial, Nikki's friend Caitlin still wasn't sure what to think.

Speaker 43 There were holes in Birch's story, but there was also things that didn't quite make sense about Doug's, and I think that that's how it, you know, turned this case into a whodunit.

Speaker 43 Whose story or whose side

Speaker 47 do you believe?

Speaker 46 No, a new side of George Birch.

Speaker 63 I told you before and I would say it one more time for you, sir.

Speaker 47 You thought a little bit of that temper showed.

Speaker 46 And a new witness with revealing information. A witness right on Doug Dietree's wrist.

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Speaker 47 On day eight of the trial, prosecutors David Lasse and Mary Kerrigan-Mayers finally got their shot at George Birch. Their chance to pick apart his story.
What did you make of George Birch's story?

Speaker 64 Seems like utter fantasy to me. Seems a little ridiculous and far-fetched.

Speaker 47 Lasay says since Birch had declined to speak to police when he was arrested, he had months to concoct his version of events.

Speaker 47 Do you think he used the evidence to fit the narrative of his story that would make him look good?

Speaker 64 It certainly seemed as if this was a story that was created after the fact.

Speaker 47 And the prosecutors had a game plan of their own to show the jury that Birch's story was nothing more than a Hail Mary to cover up a vicious crime.

Speaker 47 They told the jury about Birch's DNA found on 16 different points on Nikki's body and on the murder weapon.

Speaker 47 They also showed the tracking data from Birch's phone that put him in all the locations where Nikki was that night, including the place where her body was dumped.

Speaker 47 One thing that just seems hard to explain is George Birch's motive.

Speaker 64 He attempted to sexually assault her. She did not want to have sex with him, and she would have fought.
She would have struggled.

Speaker 64 Obviously, Nicole got into the wrong car with a very violent individual, and something horrific happened to her.

Speaker 47 And D.A. Lessee had a very interesting card to play.

Speaker 47 Ed and Linda Jackson, George Birch's friends, the couple who had taken him in. They were testifying for the prosecution, now convinced Birch was guilty.

Speaker 68 George is a smooth talker and he's got a very good imagination. And knowing him for as long as I've known him and reading that story, I don't buy it one bit.

Speaker 47 On the stand, Ed was asked about a fishing trip he and Birch took the day after Nikki's murder.

Speaker 47 Ed said Birch never said a word about what happened the night before. The prosecutor then showed the jury a photo taken that day.

Speaker 47 That picture was very important

Speaker 47 because he said that he had been hit on the head.

Speaker 47 And this picture showed his head.

Speaker 47 And when Birch got on the stand, the prosecution tried to poke holes in his story. For starters, Lasay didn't believe Nikki willingly had sex with him.

Speaker 64 You mean he described it as this, you know, fantasy sex in the back of a vehicle.

Speaker 47 If that were true, Lasay argued, how could Birch explain away earlier testimony from the medical examiner that Nikki's injuries suggested she had been sexually assaulted?

Speaker 64 That was all a result of your not gentle sexual activity that you had with her?

Speaker 63 If that's the way you would put it, yes, sir.

Speaker 64 I think that's the way you put it.

Speaker 63 It wasn't gentle, no.

Speaker 34 It was painful.

Speaker 63 That I don't know.

Speaker 64 Painful. Because it wasn't consensual, right?

Speaker 63 No, sir, that's not true.

Speaker 47 And the prosecutors wanted the jury to get a glimpse of Birch's temper.

Speaker 47 He kept his composure throughout his cross-examination until the prosecutor asked Birch about dragging Nikki's body through the field.

Speaker 64 So clear this up for me. You're backing down the embankment with Nicole's body in a fireman's carry position, right?

Speaker 63 No.

Speaker 64 What are you doing?

Speaker 63 I told you before, and I will say it one more time for you, sir, I was carrying her over to this area. When I got to the final position, I let her legs go because I could barely carry her.

Speaker 47 At one point, he pretty much barked at David. He wasn't going to answer any further.
And I thought a little bit of that temper showed. Anger, violence, lies.

Speaker 47 Lasay put it all together for the jury with a series of questions that laid out what he believed really happened outside Nikki's house.

Speaker 64 And when you get there

Speaker 64 and it becomes clear that Nikki isn't going to have sex with you, when she attempts to go into her house and leave your vehicle, that's when your mood changes, right?

Speaker 31 No, sir.

Speaker 64 That's when things get aggressive, don't they?

Speaker 63 Not at all.

Speaker 64 That's when you grab that cord and strangle her, don't you?

Speaker 63 No, sir, not at all.

Speaker 64 That's when Nikki gets slammed on the ground repeatedly when she's trying to run toward her house.

Speaker 63 None of that is true.

Speaker 47 Not only did prosecutors have to prove George Birch was guilty, they also had to leave no doubt that Doug Dietri was innocent, that he would not and could not have killed Nikki.

Speaker 64 Did you have absolutely any involvement in Nikki's disappearance or death?

Speaker 47 As for how he and Nikki got along, Doug said they were a family with typical family problems.

Speaker 64 How would you describe your relationship with Nikki?

Speaker 67 It was very, very good for a lot of it. We did have

Speaker 67 little arguments here and there, but always had

Speaker 67 plans for future and everything like that.

Speaker 47 He told the jury they had even discussed marriage and their son would be part of the ceremony.

Speaker 67 We had talked that when he was old enough to kind of maybe walk down the aisle that that would be a possibility of when

Speaker 6 we go to that step.

Speaker 47 The prosecutor then asked Doug about those text messages from Nikki. Doug insisted he wasn't angry with her.

Speaker 64 How did it make you feel when you heard those text messages?

Speaker 67 I was kind of puzzled. I didn't know what she was thinking, or

Speaker 67 I didn't know what was going on, you know.

Speaker 47 Lesay also called a crime lab analyst to the stand who testified that Doug's DNA was not found anywhere on Nikki's body or on the murder weapon. And the prosecutor had one more ace in the hole.

Speaker 47 A silent witness. A witness that could corroborate Doug's alibi that he was home sleeping.
Remember Doug had started wearing that Fitbit to get in shape? Prosecutors say he was wearing it that night.

Speaker 47 And what did it show?

Speaker 64 Doug Dietri's Fitbit demonstrated that he took a total of 12 to 18 steps during the three hours of 3 a.m. to 6 a.m.
when we know that Nikki was killed.

Speaker 47 Could he have taken it off?

Speaker 64 Those 12 to 18 steps that were registering during that timeframe. So it demonstrated that he was likely still wearing it or it would not have registered any steps during that time frame.

Speaker 47 Doug Dietri's alibi wouldn't wouldn't have been all that strong without that Fitbit because just to say you're home with a

Speaker 47 six-month-old sleeping isn't that's not the strongest alibi.

Speaker 47 It helped a lot but the lack of anything of note in his home once the crime lab reports came back in was very helpful and and that you would commit this you know heinous crime outside your own home down the street and you'd leave the cord, the murder cords laying in the street to be found.

Speaker 47 I mean, you'd have to be pretty lame as far as a murderer to do that. So we we thought that was helpful too.

Speaker 47 After nine days of testimony, attorneys gave their closing arguments. Public defender Lee Sugart addressed the jury.

Speaker 71 Doug Dietri had the motive, the opportunity, and the connection to this crime.

Speaker 47 He then asked the jurors to search their souls for reasonable doubt.

Speaker 71 As we sit here right now,

Speaker 71 You are literally surrounded by doubt. You are surrounded by reasonable

Speaker 71 That's why you must return a verdict of not guilty.

Speaker 47 Did you have any concerns about reasonable doubt? Pointing the finger at Doug,

Speaker 47 giving the jury another person to look at?

Speaker 55 I think there's always concerns about reasonable doubt.

Speaker 74 That's why we have trials.

Speaker 64 That's why trials are challenging.

Speaker 47 So D.A. Lesay knew what he needed to address as he summed up his case for the jury.

Speaker 64 We bear the burden of proving this case to you beyond a reasonable doubt. Beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 8 Follow the path.

Speaker 64 Follow the evidence that's been presented to you in this case.

Speaker 63 That path leads to one place, his guilt.

Speaker 64 That is the man that killed Nicole Vander Heiden. Bring justice to Nikki and her family.

Speaker 47 The case went to the jury, and we went to a jail for an exclusive interview with George Birch.

Speaker 63 We ended up getting a little intimate, and then one thing led to another.

Speaker 47 I'm just going to put my mother hat on here.

Speaker 56 Okay.

Speaker 47 Nikki is breastfeeding. She has a new baby.
Her infant child is asleep in the house. Why would she have sex with you right outside the house?

Speaker 47 We met George Birch at the Brown County Jail for an exclusive interview with Dateline.

Speaker 47 We came with a lot of questions about that night, starting with his claim that his encounter with Nikki was consensual.

Speaker 63 We ended up getting a little intimate and then it, you know, one thing led to another.

Speaker 47 I'm just going to put my mother hat on here.

Speaker 56 Okay.

Speaker 47 The one thing that just doesn't add up for me is

Speaker 47 Nikki is breastfeeding. She has a new baby.
Her infant child is asleep in the house. Why would she have sex with you right outside the house?

Speaker 63 I can't tell you what she was thinking.

Speaker 56 There.

Speaker 63 I have no idea why she would do that. We didn't get into that.

Speaker 47 George Birch then described what happened after he said Doug Dietri pistol whipped him. Why didn't you fight back with Doug? I mean, you're 6'7.

Speaker 47 You're a lot bigger than him.

Speaker 63 Bullets don't know size. I don't know if you're familiar with firearms, but someone can shoot someone no matter how big they are.
It doesn't matter how big you are. A bullet can still kill you.

Speaker 47 What kind of gun did he have?

Speaker 67 I am not sure. A handgun?

Speaker 72 Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 47 A handgun no one was able to find. Where do do you think the gun is?

Speaker 63 I bet I don't know.

Speaker 47 Is the gun something you made up?

Speaker 55 Why would I make that up?

Speaker 63 I'll say this to you straightforward so you understand it correctly. I have not made up any single part of this at all in the least little bit.
Everything I have stated is exactly what happened.

Speaker 47 You said that Nikki took her clothes off before

Speaker 47 Doug

Speaker 47 attacked you.

Speaker 56 And attacked Nikki.

Speaker 55 Right, I believe so.

Speaker 47 And yet her clothes were bloody. Right.
How do you explain that if she had no clothes on?

Speaker 63 That I am not sure.

Speaker 63 They could have gotten bloody from when I put her back in the vehicle because blood was coming out of her and her clothes were in the vehicle.

Speaker 47 Did you kill Nikki van der Heyden? No, ma'am.

Speaker 63 Had no part of it, had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 47 Did you try to have sex with her? She rebuffed your advances and you snapped?

Speaker 63 No, ma'am. The sex was purely consensual.

Speaker 47 Who do you believe is Nikki's true killer?

Speaker 63 The only person that I physically saw there was me and Douglas Dietri. Did I see him do that? No, I didn't.
But I can tell you one thing, I didn't do it.

Speaker 47 How do you explain the presence of so much of your DNA on her body?

Speaker 63 We had sex.

Speaker 63 How hard is that to understand? She's naked. My body is on her body.

Speaker 47 And if Doug Dietri brutally beat her, why is his DNA not on her?

Speaker 63 He had on a sweatshirt. I don't recall if he had pants on.
He could have had on gloves.

Speaker 47 How do you explain that your DNA was found on that cord, but not Doug Dietries?

Speaker 63 I don't know if I was laying on the cord. I don't know if I touched the cord when I picked her up.
It wasn't an overwhelming DNA match. It was barely there.

Speaker 63 He could have had gloves on and touched me.

Speaker 52 I don't know. I'm not a scientist.

Speaker 47 According to your story, this is a horrific event that you've experienced.

Speaker 44 It is.

Speaker 47 And yet you wake up the next morning and you go fishing with your buddy like nothing happened.

Speaker 63 I thought a lot about not even going. I wasn't sure what to do.
I kind of just went along with the motions is the way that that ended up panning out.

Speaker 47 You claim that you were struck from behind with the gun? Yes, ma'am. Ed Jackson says that there were no injuries on your head.
Where was the injury from the gun?

Speaker 58 That I don't know. My head was sore.

Speaker 63 Was there...

Speaker 63 laceration or a cut? No, ma'am, there wasn't.

Speaker 63 Just because someone hits you doesn't mean there's going to be a cut.

Speaker 47 George Birch never told his friend Ed Jackson what he says happened. In fact, he only told his attorneys what happened months after the murder.

Speaker 47 Some people see that you had a big advantage when you finally revealed your story because you knew what had happened to Doug Dietri.

Speaker 47 You were able to use him and his story and his arrest to help your own story.

Speaker 63 How would I know what happened with him?

Speaker 47 Because it was on the news.

Speaker 55 I didn't.

Speaker 63 The police just said he was arrested. It didn't tell me what they had on him, the evidence or any of that stuff.

Speaker 52 Didn't say anything about it.

Speaker 63 So how would I know anything about that stuff?

Speaker 47 And when we asked George Birch about that unusual piece of evidence used to help clear Doug Dietrie. How do you feel that a Fitbit has been used as an alibi for the man you're claiming killed Nikki?

Speaker 63 If they can prove that he was supposedly warned everything, then hey, great for them.

Speaker 47 But how do you feel about the fact that Fitbit is

Speaker 47 because I know it's not true.

Speaker 47 As for all those who doubt him and his story, many people say that your story is just really bad fiction. That you created this story that would fit the narrative of the evidence.

Speaker 47 You already knew about Doug Dietri, that he had been arrested, and that you just fabricated this whole thing to work in your favor.

Speaker 63 Everyone's entitled to their opinions.

Speaker 47 Maybe so, but the only opinion that mattered was the jury's. And it was about to speak.

Speaker 65 Coming up,

Speaker 46 one verdict that would affect two men's lives.

Speaker 64 I hope they get it right.

Speaker 46 Would they?

Speaker 47 It was emotionally really hard. Yes, I was tug-of-warring the whole time.

Speaker 58 When dateline continues

Speaker 47 as jurors in the Nikki van der Heiden murder trial began their work behind closed doors, those outside the jury room also deliberated.

Speaker 74 And a key component in this case really comes down to believability and credibility, Doug Dietri versus George Birch.

Speaker 47 Doug's friend, Angela Delfoss, had no doubt who she believed. Did you watch George Birch testify?

Speaker 51 I did. I didn't believe one word that came out of his mouth.

Speaker 47 Neither did George Birch's girlfriend, Jordan Schuyler. Even before the trial started, Jordan had a change of heart.
heart.

Speaker 71 I knew that he did it.

Speaker 47 Her boyfriend's behavior on that fishing trip with Ed Jackson, just one day after the murder, kept gnawing at Jordan. Any mention of that night at all?

Speaker 70 No.

Speaker 70 He sent me a picture of them fishing. He was with his best friend fishing, what he loved to do, and he was enjoying every second of it.

Speaker 47 For Jordan, having to accept that the man she once felt safe with had murdered Nikki was overwhelming. Did you feel like just how could I have trusted trusted this guy?

Speaker 23 There were so many thoughts that went through my head.

Speaker 70 Biggest questions I have is why her, why wasn't it me? And why did you even do it?

Speaker 47 And then there were Nikki's friends, Haley Deafnet and Caitlin Uncles. Throughout most of the trial, they remained on the fence.

Speaker 43 I had my quorums with

Speaker 43 both sides. I was on Nikki's side.

Speaker 47 But hearing Birch's testimony proved to be their tipping point.

Speaker 48 It didn't seem to make sense.

Speaker 48 Having someone take her home and willingly sleep with him in her front yard,

Speaker 48 there's no way.

Speaker 43 It just

Speaker 43 wasn't Nikki.

Speaker 47 From their offices, prosecutors Kerrigan Mayers and David Lessee waited and worried. What if one person believed that story and thought maybe Doug did this or had some involvement?

Speaker 64 There's always concern about that. The thing that just kept running through my head was, I think this is a very dangerous individual.
He needs to be off the streets and I hope they get it right.

Speaker 47 Then in just under four hours, the 12 jurors filed back into the courtroom for the last time. Rachel Hillary and Eric Lardnois were two of the 12.
How tricky was this case for a juror?

Speaker 47 It was emotionally really hard.

Speaker 54 I was tug-of-waring the whole time on the state side, the defense side.

Speaker 47 It was tough. Over the course of the nine-day trial, these two jurors carefully considered the guilt of two men.
First, there was the defendant himself, George Birch.

Speaker 47 What are you thinking as George is telling his story?

Speaker 67 The first half of the story was believable, but once it got to the point where he got knocked out, it almost seemed fabricated. Almost too much like a movie.

Speaker 49 Bad movie?

Speaker 21 Like a bad cop movie, yes.

Speaker 47 Then there was Doug Dietrie. What evidence made you think that maybe Doug Dietri was the real killer? The text.

Speaker 64 Yeah, the text messages.

Speaker 47 But of all the evidence presented at trial, Eric and Rachel gave the greatest weight to the Google dashboard data on Birch's phone and his DNA on Nikki's body.

Speaker 47 The DNA all over Nicole's body was George's. There was nothing for Doug on there.
And the cord that was used as the murder weapon...

Speaker 47 No Doug Dietri DNA, only George Birch DNA.

Speaker 44 Correct.

Speaker 47 The DNA doesn't lie. Were you nervous?

Speaker 44 Yeah.

Speaker 47 You must have been on pins and needles waiting.

Speaker 70 You don't even know. I was such a nerve.

Speaker 50 Reck.

Speaker 47 A packed courtroom listened intently as the judge read the jury's decision.

Speaker 46 The verdict reads as follows.

Speaker 73 We, the jury, find the defendant, George Stephen Birch, guilty of first-degree intentional homicide.

Speaker 47 What's that moment like for you after so much time spent working this case?

Speaker 49 I just felt great for the family. It's not going to make Nicole come back.
It's not going to fix everything, but it's a part of the healing process for them.

Speaker 47 Angela Delphos and the rest of Doug Dietri's supporters were elated.

Speaker 51 I screamed, hallelujah,

Speaker 51 and I was so happy.

Speaker 47 Technology played an unprecedented role in this case. The Fitbit was almost like a witness in this case.
Not human, but a witness of sorts.

Speaker 16 It definitely played a big part.

Speaker 47 According to Detective Slinger, advancements in DNA analysis, location tracking data, and that Fitbit all helped convict George Birch and prove Doug Dietri did not kill Nikki.

Speaker 47 Has anyone apologized to Doug Dietri?

Speaker 44 From the department.

Speaker 49 I've spoken with Doug and his family at length. I understand there's some hard feelings there for a while, and there may still be.
I get that.

Speaker 49 But ultimately, we're all one team to get justice for Nikki.

Speaker 47 George Birch came to Green Bay hoping to start a new life. He may now die in prison for having taken one.

Speaker 63 I'm 40 years old. I will never be out of this

Speaker 63 jail cell again.

Speaker 47 As he had from the beginning, Birch remained defiant. Nikki's friends and family want to see you confess.
to her murder. Are you willing to do that today?

Speaker 63 Never happened in a million years. I will never in my life confess to something I didn't do.
Ever.

Speaker 63 I will go to my deathbed and tell you to this day that I never did anything to her and never hurt her in any way.

Speaker 47 What would you say to Doug Dietri?

Speaker 63 That I hope the truth comes out and I hope he burns in hell.

Speaker 51 Oh, wow.

Speaker 47 What's your response to that?

Speaker 51 He's an evil person.

Speaker 51 Evil.

Speaker 51 We hope he burns in hell.

Speaker 47 Do you think George Birch is the one who's going to hell?

Speaker 43 It's not my place to say.

Speaker 43 He'll face his judgment day and we can all speculate.

Speaker 47 Three months after the verdict, George Birch sat in the courtroom again, this time for his sentencing. The judge first addressed the matter of Doug Dietree.

Speaker 75 And of course, there's Mr. Dietri.

Speaker 75 He's certainly a victim here as well. First being accused as her killer.
You took away the mother of his child, Mr. Birch.

Speaker 75 That's a terrible, terrible crime.

Speaker 47 And then the judge turned his attention to George Birch's fate.

Speaker 75 This is a crime that would,

Speaker 75 I believe, merit the death penalty, and for that you have to to die in prison.

Speaker 75 It's the order of this court, the sentence of this court, that you, George Birch, are sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole.

Speaker 49 To Vicki

Speaker 75 and the family, to the Dietri family, the prayers and support of this community are with you. Good luck and God bless.

Speaker 75 This court is in recess.

Speaker 43 I really hope that he understands. for a lifetime what he all took away from us.

Speaker 47 How is the world different now without Nikki in it? What did she leave behind?

Speaker 48 I mean, she left behind her three beautiful children that are going to grow without having a mother to teach them.

Speaker 48 But I just, I see her in so many things.

Speaker 48 I'm just constantly reminded of her.

Speaker 48 I feel like she's still there. She's still here with us.

Speaker 58 That's all for now.

Speaker 46 I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.

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Justice for Nikki

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Transcript

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