Mystery at Payson Canyon

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Speaker 13 Tonight on Dateline.

Speaker 14 It happens on TV.

Speaker 12 It doesn't happen to your family, to your brother, but it does.

Speaker 13 No one thought it could happen to him. He was a tough guy, prepared for anything.

Speaker 16 He always would say, if anyone tries to break in here, I'll kill him.

Speaker 13 Instead, he was killed. Stabbed in his own home.

Speaker 19 You sure your dad's cold to the touch?

Speaker 13 His son and daughter-in-law stumbled into a terrifying scene.

Speaker 20 That's when I saw the gun.

Speaker 21 They said we're going to have to kill you now.

Speaker 22 A strange story that only got stranger.

Speaker 24 They had purple gloves on.

Speaker 25 And they had blue fuzzy gloves.

Speaker 26 Something isn't right here.

Speaker 27 Could he have killed his own father?

Speaker 22 What really happened in that house?

Speaker 21 I did not do this.

Speaker 22 Then a witness came forward and changed everything. In this bizarre story, the strangest thing of all was the truth.

Speaker 14 He planned for any scenario, except for the one that happened to him.

Speaker 5 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 13 Here's Keith Morrison with Mystery at Payson Canyon.

Speaker 5 There are people on this glorious sun-kissed planet of ours who get up each morning to the miracle of being alive and worry.

Speaker 34 Not that there aren't things to worry about, of course, whether we can do anything about them or not.

Speaker 29 But some people worry a very great deal indeed and do try to be prepared for whatever.

Speaker 38 And one of those prepared people was a a brilliant retired university professor named Kay Mortenson, whose sister was a woman named Fern.

Speaker 14 I said, well, Kay, what would happen if I'm not prepared and

Speaker 14 I'm hungry or my kids are hungry or can we come to your house? And I'll probably just shoot you.

Speaker 14 You know, so jestingly, he wouldn't have, but he was definitely willing to protect what he had.

Speaker 31 Oh, yes, he certainly was.

Speaker 1 And sure enough, one night.

Speaker 40 911, what's the after severe emergency.

Speaker 30 But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Speaker 29 What happened that night was a long time coming.

Speaker 43 It was long before that when Kay became a survivalist with attitude.

Speaker 39 You knew exactly what he thought about everything.

Speaker 14 And even though he knew what he was saying was going to be outrageous and not accepted,

Speaker 45 he...

Speaker 14 would say it anyway.

Speaker 32 He had a black belt in karate. He owned scores of firearms, kept guns in just about every room of the house, and in all of his cars.

Speaker 41 A fully stocked concrete bunker outside his home in Payson, Utah.

Speaker 12 He had food, he had everything there, you know, water, waiting to go to the bathroom, magazines, books to read.

Speaker 30 Kay was very clear about it with his wife, Darla.

Speaker 17 And he'd say, this is where you and I are going to end up because there's going to be a nuclear war.

Speaker 16 And I'd say, I don't want to live if everybody else is dying.

Speaker 12 So,

Speaker 44 oh, he was a true patriot.

Speaker 12 He worried about things and wanted to be prepared for the civil war that was going to erupt.

Speaker 44 And so he was a little over the top.

Speaker 2 Darla wasn't thrilled about it, but she accepted him and his radical views.

Speaker 49 After all, they were still kind of in their honeymoon phase.

Speaker 16 It was all kind of surreal.

Speaker 12 I think we both felt like we were back being teenagers again.

Speaker 16 So,

Speaker 16 because we both, you know, hadn't really had love for quite a few years.

Speaker 50 They'd found each other late in life, after both had raised families.

Speaker 23 Kay had three adult children by then, one of whom, his eldest, Roger, stayed close.

Speaker 21 He was my best friend. We did everything together.

Speaker 53 Mind you, Roger was not at all like Kay.

Speaker 30 For one thing, He'd suffered a brain injury in an accident years ago, so unlike Kay, he couldn't work much, lived on disability.

Speaker 50 But he liked to hang out with his dad.

Speaker 21 We lived less than a mile apart because we did enjoy spending so much time together. If I ever needed help, he'd be there in a minute to help me.

Speaker 55 Although, said Roger's wife Pam, it wasn't always easy.

Speaker 56 That's just the way Kay was wired.

Speaker 20 Roger's dad was a very strong-willed person.

Speaker 20 It was his way or the highway.

Speaker 1 So Roger learned early to shy away from confrontation with his father.

Speaker 20 If he said something that Roger maybe disagreed or wanted to do it a different way, Roger would leave, he would come back, and everything would be good again.

Speaker 29 Not at all how it was with his new love, Darla.

Speaker 53 When she was around, they said Kay's tough hide melted.

Speaker 20 We knew then that he really loved her and that he was willing to compromise and do some things so that he could make her happy.

Speaker 58 Also, did it seem to kind of soften him up a little bit?

Speaker 44 Yes, it did.

Speaker 30 So Kay and Darla got married.

Speaker 13 Married couple.

Speaker 33 And they were as happy as either one of them had ever been.

Speaker 16 He'd say, what else do we need to do?

Speaker 12 We're retired. We have plenty of money.

Speaker 16 We'll just have fun.

Speaker 59 Kay was a rich man. Made most of his money buying gold at $2.50 an ounce, said Darla.

Speaker 16 He just had the foresight. He'd always, he was, you know, the dollar bill's not going to be worth anything.

Speaker 56 He put his money into a trust so that Roger and his other children would inherit everything everything once he was gone.

Speaker 32 Heaven knows, he wasn't spending it.

Speaker 5 Worth millions, but...

Speaker 12 He was very frugal, very frugal.

Speaker 16 And I just, I used to say to him, you know, like, he just, I say, when is it you're going to spend your money, you know?

Speaker 12 What are you waiting for?

Speaker 8 It's okay.

Speaker 29 He promised Darla he'd travel with her, see the world.

Speaker 57 But he made sure his bunker was stocked, and he kept his guns close to hand, just in

Speaker 10 And then it was November 16th, 2009.

Speaker 30 Darla was away watching her granddaughters.

Speaker 53 Kay was alone at his house in Payson.

Speaker 40 911, what's the address of your emergency?

Speaker 35 It was evening when the call came in.

Speaker 19 I have help on the way, but I just need to get some information. Are you sure that he's dead?

Speaker 55 Darla was on her way home. Her cell phone chirped.
It was a neighbor.

Speaker 16 And he just says, well, something terrible's happened. And up Payson Canyon, he says, I think it's at your house.

Speaker 59 Darla's mind flashed to Kay and his guns.

Speaker 16 And I thought, oh my gosh, he's probably shot somebody, an invader or something.

Speaker 32 She phoned a family friend named Chris Andres.

Speaker 16 I says, something's going on.

Speaker 34 I'm alone.

Speaker 16 I just need to be somebody.

Speaker 12 Can you come down and be with me?

Speaker 1 Chris rushed to meet Darla at the foot of the canyon.

Speaker 31 Police had blocked off the road that led to Kay and Darla's house.

Speaker 32 And now Darla and Chris thought exactly the same thing.

Speaker 24 Kay probably shot someone.

Speaker 13 Turned out Kay never got the chance.

Speaker 19 Are you sure

Speaker 19 your dad's cold to the touch?

Speaker 13 His son makes an agonizing discovery and stumbles right into a murder scene.

Speaker 21 They said, You're the wrong place, wrong time.

Speaker 62 Everyone knew that Kay Mortensen was always prepared.

Speaker 2 Surrounded himself with a veritable arsenal of firearms. Just a tough old bird who could defend himself against just about anything.

Speaker 16 He always would say, if anyone tries to break in here, I'll kill them.

Speaker 61 But life, no matter how well we prepare, is full of rude surprises.

Speaker 63 As it was for Kay Mortensen, it was November 16, 2009, just before Thanksgiving.

Speaker 40 Hi, this is, we have the police on the way to help you there. Are you sure your dad's, your dad's cold to the touch?

Speaker 53 Kay did not shoot some intruder, as he'd long promised he was prepared to do.

Speaker 42 No, somebody killed him without firing a shot. Yes, I'll put his overface morning back.

Speaker 36 And the man on the phone reporting the crime?

Speaker 10 Roger Mortensen, Kay's eldest son.

Speaker 19 I sliced his throat.

Speaker 37 It wasn't long before Kay's wife, Darla, had made it to the mouth of the canyon and was led to the command post that had been set up just down the hill from their home.

Speaker 61 That's where they gave her the news.

Speaker 16 Your life just comes tumbling down.

Speaker 17 You know, you have it all planned out, you think, you know, what it's going to be, and then everything's gone.

Speaker 64 Kay, caught off guard?

Speaker 32 Not Kay, thought Darla.

Speaker 44 Impossible.

Speaker 37 But that seemed to be just what happened.

Speaker 5 At least, that's what Roger and Pam told the police and later us.

Speaker 27 And a very strange story it was.

Speaker 58 That began, they said, when Pam received a pie at work as a gift.

Speaker 21 We knew how much he loved that pecan pie and we decided as soon as she got home from work to take him that pie.

Speaker 35 So they said they went to his house, intending to drop off the pie and then leave.

Speaker 27 But when they got there, they said, there was an unfamiliar car in the driveway.

Speaker 35 Pam said she knocked on the door and a young man answered.

Speaker 20 I said, is Kay here? He said he is. He's upstairs.
I said, we're just here to drop off a pie.

Speaker 20 And they said, go ahead in. I got to about the landing.
When I was asked to come back down, I heard the door shut.

Speaker 20 And when I turned around, that's when I saw the gun.

Speaker 23 What was it like to see that?

Speaker 21 It was a shock. As soon as we turned around and saw the gun, another guy started walking down the stairs also.
He had in his hand a wad of zip ties.

Speaker 21 They turned to us and said, you're here at the wrong place, wrong time. Pull out your hands.

Speaker 27 The intruders zip-tied their wrists, forced them down on the living room floor, then zip-tied their ankles.

Speaker 21 After we were tied up, they said that, well, I'm sorry, but you've seen our faces. We're going to have to kill you now.

Speaker 10 Pam, quaking in terror, she said, looked up at a picture of Jesus that was hanging on the living room wall.

Speaker 20 I kept thinking,

Speaker 20 Heavenly Father, if you really love me and care for me, please make us get through this. And it calmed me to keep looking at that picture of Christ and to be able to help Roger stay calm.

Speaker 44 That really had an impact on you. It did.

Speaker 41 Oh, why?

Speaker 20 It just brought me comfort. It brought me peace to know that.

Speaker 1 Even if they killed you.

Speaker 20 To know that

Speaker 20 my heavenly father loves me and that he would do the right thing for me.

Speaker 2 Both men left the room, they said.

Speaker 37 And then Roger began praying aloud.

Speaker 8 He was in mid-sentence, he said, when the men walked back in and something quite amazing happened.

Speaker 21 But my wife nudged me and she says, okay, be quiet.

Speaker 7 They're back.

Speaker 21 And one of them says, no, that's okay.

Speaker 32 Keep praying.

Speaker 21 Go ahead. And they both folded their arms in front of them and bowed their heads and listened to me as I continued this entire prayer.

Speaker 9 How weird is that?

Speaker 21 When I got done with the prayer, we both sat down and

Speaker 21 their demeanor changed at that point. One of them looked at us and says, well, we've decided we're not going to kill you.

Speaker 21 We've decided that we're going to tell you a story that you need to relay to the police.

Speaker 10 What was that story that the intruders told them to say? The three black men with ski masks invaded the house.

Speaker 38 Three, not two, as they actually were. Black, not white, as they actually were.

Speaker 51 And then, said Roger, they took his driver's license, told him they'd know if he or Pam ever told the truth, and if that happened, they'd hunt him down and they'd kill him.

Speaker 50 And then the two men left.

Speaker 52 Roger and Pam waited a while, got out of the zip ties, and Roger ran upstairs while Pam dialed 911.

Speaker 47 and was on the phone with the operator when Roger found his father in the upstairs bathroom.

Speaker 21 And I saw my father kneeling over the bathtub.

Speaker 21 His feet were tied and he was his head was down in the bathtub.

Speaker 54 Inconceivable.

Speaker 61 Tough, resilient, armed to the teeth, K.

Speaker 52 Murdered with his own kitchen knife.

Speaker 30 What a story.

Speaker 37 Sergeant Eric Knutson of the Utah County Sheriff's Office was assigned as one of the lead detectives.

Speaker 4 He was sitting in the office when, from up of the house, the first officer to talk to Pam and Roger called him and said, You know, something isn't right here.

Speaker 66 It seems, from his perception, that maybe some things were staged or some things were just not what he would think would be normal for a crime as heinous or as vicious as this.

Speaker 29 Something about that bizarre story didn't sit right.

Speaker 32 He just couldn't put his finger on it.

Speaker 8 Not yet, anyway.

Speaker 22 Coming up, problem was that bizarre story got weirder by the minute.

Speaker 25 They had purple gloves on, and they had blue fuzzy gloves.

Speaker 18 Really?

Speaker 22 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 37 The death of Kay Mortensen was horrific, humiliating.

Speaker 10 Helpless to defend himself inside his own sacred fortress.

Speaker 60 The killer had bent him over his own bathtub, slashed his throat several times, stabbed his neck.

Speaker 37 All those guns, and not a single one fired.

Speaker 10 It seemed so personal.

Speaker 10 Sergeant Eric Knutson of the Utah County Sheriff's Office got a briefing from the first officer at the scene, who turned on his audio recorder when he met Kay's son, Roger, and Roger's wife, Pam.

Speaker 56 Roger had found the body and was already suggesting possible killers.

Speaker 69 He told me he had an appointment for lunch at noon with a guy named Mike Kipp discussing $25,000 worth of guns.

Speaker 63 Mike Kipp?

Speaker 49 Mike was Kay's former student.

Speaker 66 Roger and Pam identify him real quick. They say he's involved.

Speaker 66 He owes my dad money. He's the one who did this.

Speaker 29 Roger told detectives that Kay was holding a collection of Mike's weapons, about 30 of them, mostly pistols and rifles, and some shotguns.

Speaker 10 Kay put the guns in his bunker.

Speaker 61 Roger thought there might be a grudge involved.

Speaker 37 When detectives went to look for the guns, they were gone.

Speaker 66 So we pull in Michael Kipp that night, too. We interview him and we can get his alibi.
It's quick.

Speaker 10 Nothing suspicious about it.

Speaker 33 It turned out Mike had not a thing to do with Kay's murder.

Speaker 53 He simply needed money and Kay agreed to buy his guns.

Speaker 42 By now, tips were coming in.

Speaker 66 And this female said, it's the Baker Boys.

Speaker 11 She said, the Baker Boys did this.

Speaker 61 The Baker Boys were brothers who, fairly or not, had developed a reputation as the town's troublemakers.

Speaker 32 Detectives found them.

Speaker 30 They had solid alibis.

Speaker 49 Then the next day, another tip, a woman who implicated her own husband.

Speaker 66 He came home last night before the timeframe before the homicide. He grabbed a bunch of stuff, including a knife.
And he's been looking for guns. So I know he's involved.

Speaker 54 But the woman's husband was eventually eliminated as a suspect.

Speaker 10 Detectives hoped maybe the stolen guns would lead them to Kay's killer.

Speaker 66 And we recovered a lot of firearms that were stolen, just again, none linked.

Speaker 27 That just highlighted another aspect of the mystery.

Speaker 32 Kay, remember, collected firearms, had close to 100 valuable guns locked up at his house.

Speaker 30 Yet the thieves just stole the cheaper ones from the bunker.

Speaker 28 Pretty bizarre robbery to take those guns and not take the far more valuable collection that Kay had.

Speaker 28 Agreed.

Speaker 27 In fact, the inside of Kay's house was pristine, untouched.

Speaker 53 No sign anybody had stolen anything.

Speaker 33 If this was a home invasion, it was an odd one.

Speaker 55 But by then, truth be told, detectives were already homing in on the two people who admitted they were there the whole time.

Speaker 10 Kay's son, Roger, and his wife, Pam.

Speaker 19 You sure that he's dead?

Speaker 55 Starting with that 911 call they made, something odd about it.

Speaker 66 Didn't sound

Speaker 66 how I would think that a phone call should be made to 911 after discovering your father had just been killed with the throat cut and sipped tight in the bathtub.

Speaker 10 Roger and Pam, said the detectives, appeared to be unemotional, uncaring, even callous.

Speaker 10 Even though they claimed that gunmen stood over them, kept them hostage for almost two hours.

Speaker 63 At first, Pam couldn't seem to describe the man.

Speaker 40 Hey, the guy that had the gun, what did he look like? Was he white guy, black guy, Hispanic?

Speaker 19 Pam, I don't know.

Speaker 54 She seemed uncertain even about the number of gunmen.

Speaker 40 How many were there? How many guys were there? Um,

Speaker 40 there could have been many.

Speaker 29 But listen to what happened next: Roger took the phone and changed the story.

Speaker 40 Were they white, black, Hispanic?

Speaker 40 Two, white. Three white males came out how.

Speaker 40 Two white males. Two white males.

Speaker 8 Roger explained the reason for all the apparent confusion, that if they ever revealed what their captors looked like, they'd be hunted down and killed.

Speaker 23 Did you buy that?

Speaker 44 Not really. I didn't.

Speaker 66 They didn't appear fearful. They were saying it.

Speaker 28 They weren't really acting fearful.

Speaker 37 Anyway, why would vicious killers not have killed them, too?

Speaker 42 Night of the murder, Knutson interviewed them.

Speaker 66 My name is Eric Knutson, by the way.

Speaker 24 I'm Pam One.

Speaker 5 Did they seem nervous or

Speaker 44 agitated? Not really nervous or agitated.

Speaker 66 Just kind of unemotional.

Speaker 42 Even at times, cold toward the victim, Roger's father.

Speaker 21 He's a contender's old fart, and he said his mouth to everybody.

Speaker 23 And as they told their stories, detectives started noticing subtle differences.

Speaker 25 And they had blue fuzzy gloves.

Speaker 21 They looked like women's winter driving gloves or something, the fuzzy kind.

Speaker 24 They had, I know they had purple gloves on. Purple, you know, your medical gloves.

Speaker 37 Lots of details on which they didn't agree.

Speaker 10 So Sergeant Knutson decided to employ a well-known police interview technique.

Speaker 60 He got tough accusing.

Speaker 66 Quite frankly, I think the story is a bunch of crap. I think the story is a bunch of crap that you and Roger have come up with.

Speaker 28 Okay?

Speaker 28 I'm sorry you don't believe me, but

Speaker 21 I'm trying to. Does it sound too rehearsed?

Speaker 34 Or...

Speaker 62 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 66 I want them to say, I had nothing to do with this. You know, Detective, you're crazy.
I had nothing to do with this. That's what I wanted to hear.
And it never came out.

Speaker 9 But listen,

Speaker 9 to what did come out?

Speaker 71 Is your husband capable of killing somebody?

Speaker 11 Did he get drinking?

Speaker 24 I wouldn't hope. I mean, I wouldn't think he is.

Speaker 20 I wouldn't think that he's capable of killing his father.

Speaker 47 A search of Roger and Pam's home showed they appeared to be in financial trouble.

Speaker 42 Detectives found collection notices and unsent mortgage coupons, suggesting at least that they were behind in their house payments.

Speaker 17 I know we're in a lot of debt, but

Speaker 34 we

Speaker 39 I personally would not have my father-in-law killed for his money.

Speaker 29 And yet as Roger told the detective...

Speaker 65 I'm not a sole beneficiary, but I get a big share of my dad's millions too.

Speaker 43 Within days of the murder, Pam and Roger agreed to go back to the house with detectives for a videotape retelling of their intruder's story.

Speaker 12 Go ahead.

Speaker 21 At the front door, my wife was holding a pie

Speaker 21 right here.

Speaker 70 Did that provide you any useful information?

Speaker 66 It provided useful information from our standpoint as far as more circumstantial evidence that they're not being 100% truthful.

Speaker 42 Once again, detectives heard foggy memories.

Speaker 21 She either knocked on the door or rang the doorbell. I believe she knocked on the door.

Speaker 72 They heard dialogue that sounded like a bad crime movie.

Speaker 21 He pointed at us and said, you're here at the wrong time.

Speaker 41 Put out your hands.

Speaker 72 Then there was that same strange lack of emotion when Roger described what should have been the worst moment of his life.

Speaker 21 I came back downstairs and my wife was talking at the time to 911 dispatch

Speaker 21 and I said, he is dead.

Speaker 41 Roger and Pam took a polygraph test.

Speaker 18 And what do you know?

Speaker 27 Roger was found to be deceptive.

Speaker 42 And Pam was jumpy.

Speaker 45 The operator couldn't complete the test.

Speaker 28 But still, Roger and Pam swore up and down they had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 57 They were victims themselves. Truth be told, the police needed some real evidence.

Speaker 53 And out of the blue, something arrived.

Speaker 13 And that new evidence? Something else that was strange. Someone saw the killing.
In a dream.

Speaker 11 So I have a photo line of drawn up, and then she puts her finger on it.

Speaker 27 She puts it right on Roger's face.

Speaker 37 Within days of Kay Mortenson's murder, members of his family began hearing deeply troubling reports from the Utah County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 58 The investigation was leading, sure as can be, detectives told them.

Speaker 33 to Kay's own son, Roger, and Roger's wife, Pam.

Speaker 29 Darla said she couldn't believe it at first.

Speaker 17 I was just adamant that they couldn't have done it.

Speaker 16 I was their biggest defender.

Speaker 23 But then detectives asked her to listen to Roger and Pam's recorded statements, and she too started to wonder.

Speaker 16 They told lies, and then it got, it just put more suspicion on them.

Speaker 51 Gradually, her conviction grew.

Speaker 43 Same for Kay's sister, Fern.

Speaker 14 I could... buy the fact that they were thinking of Roger's involvement.

Speaker 8 There were just too many things about Roger and Pam's story.

Speaker 48 Didn't make any sense to Fern.

Speaker 35 And there was something else, too.

Speaker 43 A possible witness.

Speaker 62 Remember that woman who suspected her husband was involved? The police found him here in Salt Lake City at a drug binge with some friends. They were high on meth.

Speaker 62 And one of the people there, a woman named Cami Bills, told the detectives she had a story to tell about a dream she'd had.

Speaker 66 She describes in what she calls a dream

Speaker 66 seeing somebody get killed. She describes being outside of a room.

Speaker 66 She describes a female off to her left crying in hysterics. And she describes three or four males in the bathroom.

Speaker 66 And she says there's one male who I think is related to the female that's on the floor screaming.

Speaker 23 Now remember, the woman was on methamphetamine, reporting not what she saw, but what she dreamed she saw.

Speaker 30 Still, you never know till you ask.

Speaker 66 So I have a photo lineup drawn up, and she stares at it and she puts her head down and she puts her finger on it.

Speaker 27 She puts it right on Roger's face.

Speaker 57 The next day, detectives took Cammie to Kay's house, showed her the crime scene, and again, she named Roger.

Speaker 29 I can't really see Roger, just arms, piece holding Kay.

Speaker 1 You don't hear a story like that and say, well,

Speaker 1 that's a piece of crap, and go on from there.

Speaker 66 No, not when she gives that that amount of detail.

Speaker 5 This mission of Roger and Pam was hardening by the minute.

Speaker 61 Detectives kept the rest of the Mortensen family informed of developments.

Speaker 9 What did the studio?

Speaker 39 Oh man, it just it threw me for a loop.

Speaker 36 When Pam and Roger attended Kay's funeral, the tension was thick.

Speaker 20 It was very difficult to be there because everybody wanted to know what happened that night.

Speaker 8 But they couldn't say anything, said Pam.

Speaker 46 Detectives told them not to.

Speaker 21 And my sister came up to me at one point and says, tell me what really happened. And I told her, I'm sorry, I cannot talk about this.

Speaker 36 Shortly after Roger and Pam took the polygraph test and were told about the dismal results, they hired a lawyer.

Speaker 33 Few in the Mortensen family could understand why they would do a thing like that, if they were innocent, that is.

Speaker 14 I tried to say, what would I do if I was in their situation?

Speaker 39 I would do everything

Speaker 14 I could to help get these people that had caused such horror in their lives and murdered Kay.

Speaker 31 On the advice of their attorneys, Roger and Pam stopped talking, and the lopsided rift in the Mortensen family widened from mistrust to anger to outright accusation.

Speaker 36 Chris Andres, the woman Darla called the night of the murder, was one of very few people who continued to support Roger and Pam.

Speaker 24 They were left to hang out and dry.

Speaker 58 How'd you feel about that?

Speaker 24 Oh, I was so angry.

Speaker 14 I was just so, so angry.

Speaker 24 I couldn't believe that you could love somebody and do that to them. Even if I thought Roger had done it, I would not have abandoned him.
And they did? Oh, absolutely. They did.

Speaker 24 Not only did they abandon him, they crucified him.

Speaker 30 Months dragged by.

Speaker 59 Roger and Pam were headline news in Utah.

Speaker 63 But in the absence of definitive physical evidence linking them to Kay's murder, They remained free.

Speaker 58 Day by day, they went about their business as if their lives were were still quite normal.

Speaker 65 Then on July 28, 2010, Utah County Prosecutor Tim Taylor took a dramatic step to break the log jam. He presented the case against Roger and Pam to a grand jury.

Speaker 70 So why call the grand jury? Why not just charge them?

Speaker 73 We thought the grand jury was a great

Speaker 73 tool to force them to come in to talk.

Speaker 48 It was a secret proceeding.

Speaker 29 No defendants, no defense attorney, only prosecutors, police, some members of the Mortensen family, even some of Pam's co-workers, all in front of 16 jurors whose job was to decide whether or not they should charge Roger and Pam with Kay's murder.

Speaker 23 And in just over an hour, the jury decided to indict.

Speaker 70 So what did that say to you?

Speaker 14 Well, there was enough to proceed.

Speaker 10 It sort of reinforced what you were already thinking.

Speaker 14 It did.

Speaker 1 And that same day, eight months after Kay Mortensen was found dead in his home, Roger and Pam were deposited in the county jail.

Speaker 30 Chris Andres, the family friend who still believed they were innocent, went to Roger's sister.

Speaker 14 They said, Julie,

Speaker 24 we need some money to hire an attorney for Roger. We think Pam's family can come up with money for Pam, but we've got to get him a separate attorney.
Can you help me?

Speaker 24 There's millions of dollars in the trust. She told me her words were, not one red penny will be spent on his defense.

Speaker 61 Julie told us she did not use those specific words, but she said the family was advised by their attorney not to use Kay's money to pay for Roger's defense, which meant that Roger, who stood to inherit a big chunk of his dad's millions, would have to rely on a public defender.

Speaker 55 Were he and Pam diabolical killers, as detectives and their own family had come to believe?

Speaker 28 Of course, we and everybody else just had to know.

Speaker 13 Coming up, Roger and Pam face questions from Dateline.

Speaker 9 As the interrogations continue, your stories didn't stay the same, according to the police at least.

Speaker 13 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 56 Much of Utah County, along with Roger's own family and many of their one-time friends, joined the lineup arrayed against Roger and Pam Mortensen as they sat in jail, charged with murdering Roger's father, Kay, and they waited for their day in court.

Speaker 63 The evidence against them, their strange demeanor, their alleged financial troubles, Roger's failed polygraph, but mostly, according to detectives, the bizarre and ever-changing story they told about the night of the murder.

Speaker 5 What was the truth?

Speaker 32 We asked the only people who knew for sure, starting at the beginning with that strange 911 call.

Speaker 32 Who held you hostage?

Speaker 70 I don't know.

Speaker 44 Our viewers hear that 911 call and they think, wait a minute, something's wrong there.

Speaker 33 That doesn't, you know, people scream on 911 calls.

Speaker 27 They're crazed.

Speaker 20 And I think I was in a lot of shock, too. And I don't know the real reason why.
I was, I could stay as calm as I can, but

Speaker 20 I just, that's just my personality and that's the type of person I am.

Speaker 23 And although she didn't sound like it, she was terrified, she said.

Speaker 1 Their captors had just threatened to kill them if they told the truth.

Speaker 20 And so when the 911 operator asked me how many were there, I was totally confused what to say. Do I tell the truth, which

Speaker 20 is what I wanted to do.

Speaker 30 Roger said he knew exactly what he had to do when he discovered his father in the bathtub.

Speaker 21 And I hollered down to her while she was selling the phone: tell them the exact truth. We are going to get these guys.

Speaker 10 But Pam said she still couldn't spit it out.

Speaker 20 I was kind of

Speaker 20 staggering through what was going on. Well, there was two, maybe there was three, because I didn't know.
I was terrified for my life, still.

Speaker 20 And I didn't know what I should have said.

Speaker 1 What about their police interrogations when their stories didn't match?

Speaker 21 I thought their gloves were one color. She thought their gloves were another color.
Other than that, our stories were basically the same.

Speaker 23 They both cooperated fully, said Roger.

Speaker 50 Kept talking for days, even as police brought up one accusation after another.

Speaker 70 There was an inheritance involved.

Speaker 10 Yes, and you talked about that with the police.

Speaker 21 I may have, I'm not sure.

Speaker 70 Well, according to them, you talked about it. And it provided one of the classic motivations that children have for killing their parents.

Speaker 70 Cops run into it all the time, right?

Speaker 21 They say they do.

Speaker 70 And that's clearly what they were thinking when they talked to you.

Speaker 44 Yes.

Speaker 65 Did they make that clear?

Speaker 21 They didn't make very much clear to us. They just said that we were not

Speaker 21 being

Speaker 21 cooperative with them, even though from the very beginning we told them everything that happened. They just didn't believe it.

Speaker 21 They didn't believe that two people would kill one person and leave two more alive.

Speaker 29 Perhaps.

Speaker 32 But what about Roger and Pam's apparent financial troubles?

Speaker 21 We were not having any financial problems. If we were having financial problems, my father would be glad to help us.
We had that type of relationship.

Speaker 54 They were certainly not debt-free, they said, but didn't amount to a whole lot. And as for the pile of unsent mortgage coupons, they simply started paying online, they said, like everybody else.

Speaker 1 And as for that failed polygraph test, Roger said he should never have been asked to take it.

Speaker 1 Remember, he's on disability because years ago he had a serious accident that left him with a brain injury, which caused, among other things, short-term memory loss and confusion and the sort of thing that would make a polygraph result quite useless.

Speaker 21 I said, how could I have felt I did not do this?

Speaker 28 So

Speaker 54 was he lying?

Speaker 4 Or did police have it all wrong?

Speaker 21 They didn't know how to proceed.

Speaker 21 They could not find fingerprints because the people had gloves on. They didn't find a gun because they took it with them.

Speaker 21 They didn't know what to do, and so being confused, they went after the easiest subjects they could find. It was us.

Speaker 61 The days piled up.

Speaker 30 A month, two months, four months in jail, waiting for their day at court. A day for which Rogers' lawyer maybe wasn't quite so eager as they were.

Speaker 15 We had a case that I believed in. We had a case that I thought we could defend.
At the end of the day, I was scared.

Speaker 28 And no one was prepared when one cold winter day in the Utah County Sheriff's Office, the phone rang.

Speaker 13 Coming up, the unexpected call, the truth revealed.

Speaker 13 A surprising ending you won't believe.

Speaker 8 Summer turned into winter again.

Speaker 1 The family marked the grim anniversary of Kay Mortensen's murder.

Speaker 10 As Kay's son Roger and his daughter-in-law Pam cooled their heels in jail awaiting trial, all the while maintaining their innocence.

Speaker 10 Pam said she was offered a deal if she turned state's evidence against Roger.

Speaker 20 If you just tell them what they want to hear, then you could go home. But for me, I was not going to lie, just so that I could be a free person.

Speaker 32 Roger's public defender, Anthony Howell, believed his client was innocent.

Speaker 15 I was looking for that piece of evidence that would be, ah, that's the thing I can't explain. And there just was nothing.

Speaker 32 But here was the rub.

Speaker 15 howell knew juries and as trial approached he was deeply unsettled i was worried he was going to be convicted regardless of what i tried to do why

Speaker 15 because

Speaker 15 this is the kind of case where a jury would be worried that if they didn't convict that they would be letting a murderer go free but howell didn't get the opportunity to defend his client in court the reason was that phone call to the utah county sheriff's Sheriff's Office, a call from a woman named Rachel Bingham.

Speaker 23 And here's what she had to say.

Speaker 40 I've just been blocking it out. Why did it happen? And I just watched the news, and these people are going to go to jail, prison, probably life sentence.

Speaker 43 What she had been blocking out was a bombshell.

Speaker 55 Her ex-husband, Martin Bond, told her he and a friend named Benjamin Rettig went to Kay's house to steal his guns. They pulled out their guns and told him to put zip ties on.

Speaker 55 He said that he wasn't willing at first, but he eventually did.

Speaker 32 Bond, she said, told her everything.

Speaker 11 He said that they took him to the bathroom and bent him over the tub.

Speaker 72 And cut his throat.

Speaker 46 And then...

Speaker 40 He said right after that, they heard the door, the doorbell ring, and

Speaker 34 it was the two.

Speaker 1 The two were Roger and Pam, and we know the rest of the story.

Speaker 47 Rachel Biggam kept the secret for months until finally her conscience won out.

Speaker 36 And she told the police one more thing, how the crooks got the drop on Kay Mortensen.

Speaker 1 It turned out that Martin's dad and Kay were old friends.

Speaker 63 Kay had known Martin as a kid, which is why Kay, armed against intruders, welcomed him in and turned his back to his killers.

Speaker 14 He had planned for any worst-case scenario to happen, except for the one that happened to him.

Speaker 70 In that, there are so many ironies, aren't there?

Speaker 14 There are so many ironies, yeah.

Speaker 52 The biggest, perhaps?

Speaker 44 Roger and Pam's crazy story about armed intruders was true all along, though Sergeant Knutson still had trouble believing it.

Speaker 66 I can pick up the case and I can read through it.

Speaker 66 And I can read through it and I can see discrepancy after discrepancy. I can see.

Speaker 70 But can you see where maybe that ain't enough?

Speaker 28 Yeah.

Speaker 58 And as for treating as possible evidence, the dream sequence of a girl on meth?

Speaker 2 This is evidence?

Speaker 44 Well,

Speaker 66 it's more circumstantial evidence. It's a lead.

Speaker 63 You'd even call that circumstantial evidence.

Speaker 66 I think it's definitely something we follow up with.

Speaker 1 Saying she had a dream.

Speaker 66 It's a good dream, and it's pretty close.

Speaker 8 And in the end, the prosecutor admitted, he and the detectives got it wrong.

Speaker 73 Based upon the new physical evidence that we have located, we anticipate anticipate dismissing the charges against Roger and Pam Mortensen tomorrow.

Speaker 42 Roger and Pam were finally freed.

Speaker 20 Those four and a half months seemed like

Speaker 20 four and a half thousand years.

Speaker 20 I felt like I was in there forever.

Speaker 55 Pam got a standing ovation from an unlikely crowd.

Speaker 20 As I was walking out of that big dorm area, there was 90 women clapping and cheering for me they knew I was innocent and for me having the situation that I that I've we dealt with with Rogers family turning against us friends turning against us to have that support of those people that people would consider criminals to have them cheer and and yell and scream was a very emotional thing for me Pam wanted the prosecutor to issue a public apology.

Speaker 30 That would help make up for what all this has cost them, she said.

Speaker 61 We offered the prosecutor this forum.

Speaker 73 Am I sorry?

Speaker 21 Yeah, I am.

Speaker 73 I have no problem with saying that I made a mistake. We didn't try to defraud anyone.
We didn't try to lie. We didn't try to fabricate anything, but we made a mistake.

Speaker 5 Pam and Roger filed a lawsuit.

Speaker 52 arguing that the prosecutors and detectives lied to the grand jury.

Speaker 10 But just a few months later, the U.S.

Speaker 48 Supreme Court ruled that grand jury witnesses and prosecutors were immune from civil litigation.

Speaker 30 So the judge dismissed their case.

Speaker 36 So let me understand this.

Speaker 1 The police come to your house, you're arrested, your names are dragged through the mud.

Speaker 71 Then somebody gets the right guy

Speaker 27 and they say, well, bye, see you later.

Speaker 68 Exactly.

Speaker 37 As in so many cases, Bond and Reddig ended up blaming each other. Redig took a deal, got 25 to life.

Speaker 30 Bond went to trial, was convicted, and is doing life without parole.

Speaker 10 The star prosecution witness, Rachel Bingham.

Speaker 29 And if she hadn't come forward, would two innocent people be in prison today?

Speaker 23 It's going to chase you for a while.

Speaker 66 A little, but, you know, I can put it behind me. The case is closed out.

Speaker 66 What I'm happy about for me personally is... The family has closure.

Speaker 29 But do they? It isn't just Kay's murder they must learn to live live with, but also the wreckage strewn for God knows how long through the family story.

Speaker 14 I had emotions of happiness and relief, but still there's some regret that I didn't support Roger and Pam

Speaker 14 from the beginning.

Speaker 21 It changes your perspective on the world. It really does.

Speaker 48 And by the way, said Roger and Pam, A little piece of advice.

Speaker 20 If anything happens and there's anything dealing with law enforcement, you don't say a word and you get an attorney.

Speaker 29 As for Darla, who'd finally found the love of her life, what was there to say?

Speaker 70 That moment of sunshine snatched away.

Speaker 34 Yep.

Speaker 16 You just take what life brings you and it's not always what you'd expected.

Speaker 16 When you're a young girl, you have all your dreams of what your life's going to be, and somehow it just doesn't quite work out that way.

Speaker 31 That's all for now.

Speaker 29 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 27 Thanks for joining us.

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