Introducing: Dakota Spotlight

True Story Media

This is Dakota Spotlight Season 3, The House on Sweet and 7th.

I'm James Walner.

This podcast contains content that some may find disturbing.

Discretion is advised.

Today, many of us sit at home, and at the touch of a button, we binge movies and TV shows online and on demand.

But many of us can remember another era when we had to leave the home and take ourselves to the video store to rent or purchase movies on VHS tapes.

In fact, if we were really eager to see a new movie release, we might even line up outside of the video store before they opened up in the morning.

Such was the case on September 1st, 1998, when the movie Titanic became available for purchase on video all around the United States.

One such place was Bismarck, the capital city of the state of North Dakota.

Titanic was called the ship of dreams, and it was.

It really was.

On that morning, September 1st, 1998, video stores in Bismarck were flooded with customers.

They fled to places like the Suncoast store in Kirkwood Mall, or Cashwise Video near the corner of Expressway and 12th.

And in the older part of town near Main Street and the railroad tracks at Blockbuster Video, a line of excited North Dakotans spiraled through the parking lot and filed right up to the front door.

So hungry were Americans to get their hands on the movie Titanic, a movie they knew would deliver on Hollywood's long-standing promise of allowing them to escape to the movies.

Escape.

Being taken to another world for just a little while.

That's what most moviegoers are looking for.

After all, who wants to watch a movie about something they see every day?

Two hours of your own life or your own backyard.

No, thank you, we say.

Give me a love story.

Gimme a love story on a ship.

Gimme a love story on a ship sinking in the middle of the ocean.

Give me anything but my own backyard.

I like to imagine a fictitious resident of Bismarck, North Dakota, at Blockbuster Video on that September morning in 1998.

She already has her copy of Titanic tucked under her arm.

But while she's there at Blockbuster, she thinks she'll pick up another movie, something else to take her far away, something she would never experience right there in her hometown, right there in downtown Bismarck, near Main Street and the railroad tracks.

Suddenly, one movie jumps out at her, a movie titled River's Edge.

Later that evening, in her Bismarck home, she sits down with her spouse or partner or friends and they settle in to watch River's Edge.

Perhaps someone picks up the video case and reads the plot.

Interesting.

Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover, a story about a murder in Northern California.

A bunch of teenagers who knew about a murder had seen a body and didn't go to the cops.

It's kind of exciting.

Perfect, they think.

This is going to take us far, far away.

This kind of crazy California stuff would certainly never happen.

Could never happen here.

I feel real twisted right now.

Twisted like I should just go to the cops and tell them where John is.

I wouldn't even joke about that, Clarissa.

What would you do?

Kill me?

You and John could run off and be outlaws together.

But first, strap my dead body to the top of this car and drive all over town.

But of course, as you may have already guessed, what they don't know on that September evening in 1998 is that that in just a few days a crime very similar to the movie River's Edge will take place right there in Bismarck.

And that North Dakota story is the subject of this podcast.

These are harrowing times in America, especially for our friends and neighbors in immigrant communities.

So if you're looking for resources or ways to help, we wanted to let you know about a a wonderful organization that we're partnering with this month.

The National Immigrant Justice Center has worked for more than 40 years to defend the rights of immigrants.

NIJC blends direct legal services, impact litigation, and policy advocacy to fight for due process for all and to hold the U.S.

government accountable to uphold human rights.

NIGC's experienced legal staff collaborate with a broad network of volunteer lawyers to provide legal counsel to more than 11,000 people each year, including people seeking asylum, people in ICE detention, LGBTQ immigrants, victims of human trafficking, unaccompanied immigrant children, and community members who are applying for citizenship and permanent residence.

NIJC continues to fight and win federal court cases that hold the U.S.

government accountable to follow U.S.

law and the Constitution.

In recent months, NIJC's litigation has challenged ICE's unlawful practice of arresting people without warrants and has successfully blocked President Trump's proclamation to shut down access to asylum at the border.

As ICE continues to to abduct people from our communities and the U.S.

government deports thousands of people without a chance to have a judge consider their cases, it is more important than ever that we come together to defend due process.

All people in the United States have rights, regardless of immigration status.

You can donate and learn more about NIJC's work by visiting immigrantjustice.org.

That's immigrantjustice.org.

You can find that link and more information at our website.

This ad was provided pro bono.

Hey, it's Andrea.

It's come to my my attention that some of you have been served programmatic ads for ICE on my show.

Now, podcasters don't get a lot of control over which individual ads play and for whom on our shows, but please know that we are trying everything we can to get rid of these by tightening our filters.

And if you do continue to hear them, please do let us know.

In the meantime, I want it to be known that I do not support ICE.

I am the daughter of an immigrant.

I stand with immigrants.

Immigrants make this country great.

The stem of this story is rooted in a murder, a double homicide which took place in Bismarck, North Dakota, in September of 1998.

These murders were very brutal and terribly tragic.

But this story is not just about the homicides themselves, as much as it is a story about a disparity, a huge gap that existed and still exists today between two worlds.

You will likely recognize one of these worlds because that is where most of us live.

It's that place where, for the most part, laws are adhered to, and where we exercise a type of basic respect for human life and the lives of our neighbors.

No, we're not perfect.

We might not even like our neighbor, but if the life of someone in our vicinity is threatened, or taken, or lost, this little thing inside of us wakes up, and this feeling, this moral compass, is deployed, and at least for a little while, it guides us and our actions.

Normal, everyday concerns, such as getting to work on time or taking out the garbage, or what opinion our friends might have of us, all of those things become pretty trivial when stacked up against our concern for a human life.

Most of us live in this world.

But in 1998, when law enforcement began investigating this tragic crime, they were quickly led to a different world in Bismarck, North Dakota.

It was a darker place, an underbelly of the city, which somehow coexisted right there alongside everything else in town.

Granted, this world was not completely foreign to law enforcement.

Every city has its set of subcultures where crime and drugs and alcohol are at center stage.

But this time, when members of the Bismarck Police Department ventured into this place, they were stunned by what they found.

Or perhaps I should say they were stunned by what they could not find.

Beneath this murky underbelly, detectives did find evidence of a crime committed.

Weapons, discarded gloves, bloody clothes, a gas can.

What was much harder for them to locate in this other place was signs of that innate respect for human life.

It seemed as if that mechanism, that moral compass, could not flourish in this darker environment.

It had been damaged or lost.

Or maybe, maybe it had simply been tossed aside like an empty beer bottle shattered along South 7th Street.

It was soon discovered that about a dozen people, most of them teenagers and friends of two young men who committed these murders, they had all had some connection to the homicides themselves.

Some rode along with the killers when they dumped bodies in a remote location.

Others helped plan the killer's getaway and begged to be taken along with them.

Some promised to return to the dump site and burn bodies.

None of these people had immediately gone running to the police or to their parents or to anyone else.

And when detectives came knocking on their doors, they were met by a lot of lies and vague answers by young people with attitude.

Teenagers shrugging their shoulders, protecting each other, supporting two killers.

Some say these individuals were not just friends but more like followers.

Some called them a band or a crew.

More than one person told me they were cult-like and smacked of the Manson family.

Others claim they were really just a bunch of normal, teenage kids caught up in a sad and dysfunctional world.

Two young men were eventually caught, tried, and convicted for these crimes.

On the first day of the trial, the prosecutor began his opening statement like this.

live in.

There is a portion of our community that is somewhat of a subculture where drinking, drinking alcohol, taking drugs is the order of the day.

The society within our society has many things, things that we cannot understand or comprehend.

Twenty-two years later, the disparity between these two worlds is still so wide that it has never been fully bridged with understanding.

And back in the late 90s, when investigators and reporters, and parents, and priests and judges and teachers and so many others in Bismarck attempted to make some sense out of what had happened, all comprehension and understanding ultimately sank to the bottom of this void, much like the Titanic was lost to the sea.

This story, then, is an exploration, a deep dive down to the wreckage of this sad event, and an attempt to retrieve to the surface whatever understanding might still be salvageable and intact.

Welcome to Dakota Spotlight Season 3, The House on Suite and 7th.

Let's start this story with a 17-year-old boy in Bismarck, North Dakota.

It is the year 1998, and this young man is exactly where where he's supposed to be at 4 a.m.

on a school night in his downstairs bedroom, in bed, asleep.

All is well for the moment on this Thursday morning in September.

Like so many other teenagers in the state capital, he expects nothing other than to wake up in the morning, to get dressed, and then to go to high school.

Sleep is just what he needs, what any growing teenager needs, but it also renders our young boy vulnerable and exposed to whatever threats might be lurking in his vicinity.

Our predecessors, those nomads who slept outdoors, must have done so with one hand-on weapon, always primed to defend themselves against an array of predators, everything from large carnivores to little red army ants.

Certainly, while he sleeps indoors, our 17-year-old Bismarck boy has no concern for encroaching hyenas or little red army ants.

What he doesn't know, however, is out there in the deep dark night something is crawling towards him.

It is something little and red, but it is not a little red army ant.

It is a little red car, a little two door Chevrolet geometro crawling across the streets of Bismarck.

This tiny car trudges along like a determined beetle, head down and hell bent on finding our boy maneuvering through a midwestern maze of one way streets, skirting potholes, ducking cop cars.

When I imagine this little car bumping along the blacktop that night, for some reason I picture it from high above the small glowing city of Bismarck.

And somehow everything down there on the ground looks back at me in black and white, everything except the red car.

Pearly street lights glitter like rhinestone while shadows slide across the pavement as a little car tumbles along.

This little red car stays centered in my frame, the streets sliding beneath it.

Perhaps it's my central character, a leading role, the manifestation of everything that's about to come, everything that is about to change for our sleeping young man and so many others.

Those streets down there they are much like most people who live amongst them.

Here in this small city the avenues are mostly structured and orderly.

They run in predominantly straight lines, north, south, east, west, sketching perfect rectangular clusters of sleeping homes.

And the vast majority of those sixty thousand residents down there they mimic this adherence to order that is, they're dialed into Midwestern values of hard work, common sense, and reason.

They obey most laws, they pay their taxes, and they chew their food with their mouth closed.

This is the capital city of North Dakota, after all, in the hard-working heartland of America.

Not everything down there is straight and orderly, however.

From high above, you'll see the Missouri River snaking the western flank of town.

On the other side of that water lies the city of Mandan, which, in 1998, was home to another 15,000 sleeping North Dakotans.

And then there's the Bismarck Expressway, which drips out of Interstate 94 in the east, then swoops down through the southeastern quadrant of town.

And just like those infrastructural exceptions, there are a few people down there in Bismarck and Mandan who have no desire to abide by laws or move forward in straight lines.

On this early morning, the driver of the little red car is one of those people.

The driver of the little red car is a girl, a 16-year-old girl.

The young woman navigates to a small side street near downtown Bismarck, just south of the railroad tracks.

She parks outside of the sleeping boy's home, exits the car, and then, like a cat beneath a street lamp, she darts across the sidewalk, descends a few steps, and approaches a basement door.

Then, she grabs the unlocked doorknob and slips inside the home.

Several people are sleeping in this house and so the young girl moves swiftly yet carefully in the dark.

Our sleeping young man is completely oblivious when the girl prowls to the side of his bed and silently hovers above him.

If the boy is dreaming at the time, perhaps it is a delicate and peaceful dream, a dream to end all dreams before the main event, before the nightmare begins.

We cannot ask him today, however, and he cannot tell us because, unfortunately, this young man is no longer alive.

Wherever in Dreamland he may have been, he is very abruptly jarred back to Earth in a millisecond when the young girl reaches out and grabs him by the arm.

Wake up, she says.

Ryan, wake up!

Wake up!

Our psycho-friends have really done it!

September is here, and you know what that means.

Sowetaweather is coming.

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Two days later, on the morning of Friday, September 18th, the weather was just about perfect for many North Dakotans.

In the state capitol, the temperature would reach 86 degrees by 4 p.m.

But as many people headed to school or work that morning, it was already a pleasant 65.

Those who picked up the morning newspaper read about President Bill Clinton and a girl named Monica Lewinsky.

On popular radio stations, you were guaranteed to hear the number one song on the nation, I Don't Want to Miss a Thing, performed by Aerosmith for the highest-grossing movie of the year, Armageddon.

At 8:40 a.m.

in Fargo, North Dakota, Cass County Sheriff's Deputy Patty Wassmouth was on patrol.

A farmer named Hocum had reported a car abandoned in one of his bean fields.

It's about a mile and a half southwest of Flying Jay truck stop, he said.

The officer pointed her cruiser to the area and located a blue 1990 El Dorado Cadillac about fifty yards into a field facing south.

She called her dispatcher Mary Carraway and asked her to run the plate number DMH eight nine two.

Carraway responded that the car was owned by a couple who lived two hundred miles away to the west at two hundred forty-five Laredo Drive in Bismarck.

I'll give them a call at their home, the dispatcher said.

Moments later, Deputy Wassmith's radio cracked again, and Carraway said, Nobody answered in Bismarck.

I left a message.

Want me to call Wally's towing?

Wassmith took another look at the abandoned car, the bean of hill, and finally the wide open landscape.

Yep, she responded.

Call Wally's.

Let's get this thing out of here, I guess.

Over in the state capital, those 200 miles to the west, a slightly festive mood was in the air that beautiful Friday morning.

Many in the area were looking forward to the evening and the annual homecoming football game between Bismarck High and Mandan.

One person at work that morning was 41-year-old Jeannie Karhoff, a social worker worker and counselor within the Bismarck School District.

I don't know what Ms.

Karhoff might have had planned for her weekend, but at around 9.15 a.m., a student walked into her office and shared something with her that would change a lot of plans for a lot of people.

The girl's name was Amy Werner, and she was 17 years old.

Amy Werner told Jeannie that she was concerned about her boyfriend's parents.

She said that her boyfriend, 18-year-old Brian Erickstead, was acting strangely, and Amy Amy was concerned that Brian may have hurt his parents.

Amy reached into her pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper.

This is his parents' home phone number.

We should call them, she said.

Jeannie Carhoff dialed the Erickstead home, but nobody answered.

Amy Werner told Carhoff that Brian's mother worked at a grocery store in town.

Again, Karhoff picked up her phone.

The store manager said, We expected her about 30 minutes ago.

She's not shown up yet.

She's usually usually punctual.

17-year-old Amy Werner said she was really concerned and she wanted to go to the police department.

And so that's what they did.

They went to the Bismarck Police Department and headed directly over to the youth bureau to speak with caseworker Stacey Liebin.

Stacey Liebin listened carefully to Amy's concerns.

This was not the first time Amy's boyfriend's name, Brian Erickson, had been uttered at the police bureau.

Stacy recognized that name, but she also knew that her colleague Teresa Porter knew much more about Brian.

Teresa would know what Brian may or may not be capable of.

So Stacy Lieben asked Amy to sit tight.

She then briefed a police officer named Keenan Kaiser, and then the two of them dropped in on Teresa Porter in her office.

They updated Teresa on the situation, and then one of them said something like, So, Teresa, what can you tell us about Brian Erickstead?

Brian Ericksted was the adopted son of Gordon and Barbara Erickstead.

Brian had a history of violent behavior.

In fact, Teresa explained, a couple years earlier, Brian's father, Gordon, had come to see her with his own concerns about his son.

Mr.

Erickstead told Teresa Porter that he and his wife were afraid of Brian's temper.

Brian had started skipping school, smoking marijuana, and so forth.

During that meeting, two years earlier, Mr.

Erickstead became emotional and reiterated that he and his wife were afraid of Brian's temper to the point they felt that whatever they did just made it worse.

Teresa Porter said that Brian should be considered very dangerous and he was not stable mentally.

Officer Keenan Kaiser made a quick call upstairs to the investigation section and spoke with Sergeant Bob Haas.

Because nobody could get in touch with these folks, we decided we'd head on down there, so we did.

It was me, another sergeant, and two patrolmen.

This is Bob Haas, retired police detective of Bismarck Police Department.

We were told that

the mother worked for Kirkwood Supervalue, and the father was a, I think he was a mechanic with the North Dakota National Guard, the aviation facility.

And we tried contacting both of the employers.

And both of them indicated that they hadn't heard from the people for a while, and they too were concerned.

So we decided that we would go over.

The boyfriend, Brian, was known to us.

We'd already had some dealings with him that summer.

He'd been arrested for some drug offenses and been placed in jail.

And his father had come down and bonded him out, I think, maybe three weeks prior to this happening.

I asked Bob Haas if he was on high alert at this point as they made their way towards the home.

No,

not specifically because, I don't know, we live in Bismarck.

And at that time, yeah, where murders occur in Bismarck and in North Dakota?

Yeah, they do, but it's not a common occurrence.

We tried to do as much background as we could, find out where that we were told that the Ericksteads had a, I think, a cabin out at Lake Isabel or something.

And, you know, we were trying to see if maybe they were out there and they just hadn't told anybody because it was getting towards the end of the camping season and stuff.

And so we thought maybe they were out cleaning up their cabin and then getting things ready for winter and stuff.

So

when we got over there, it was basically what we called a welfare check.

But it was a little bit heightened anticipation because

we knew Bryant.

We got over there and we just, it looked pretty normal.

We looked in the windows.

Sergeant Houghton and I looked in the windows in the garage, and we couldn't see any vehicles in there.

Keenan Kaiser and Mike Arnold went around to the back to check in the back of the house.

I checked the walk-in door to the garage, and it was open, so it kind of opened up the door.

You can see that there was a mess over by the exterior door, the door in between the house and the garage.

There was a carpet that was all balled up at the base of the garage door there.

It also looked to me like there was blood at the base of there was a chest freezer there.

And it looked to me like there was blood on the freezer.

And now things are starting to ramp up a little bit.

Because of who we were dealing with, this was Brian's residence as far as we knew.

I called the state's attorney's office and I talked to Bruce Romani.

Bob Haas told the assistant state's attorney everything he had learned that morning.

He told him about Amy's concerns, the employer's concerns, and the potential blood.

The assistant state's attorney had one very important question for the detective.

At this point, do you fear for the well-being of the people inside?

And I said, judging from what I can see and from what I know, yes.

I think we should have some concerns for their well-being.

And he says, well, it's exigent circumstances.

You can enter without the search warrant.

The Fourth Amendment, expectation of privacy for Brian in his residence and stuff.

We don't want to screw anything up if there's going to be a case.

And so Sergeant Houghton and I opened up the storm door and right on the base down there, you could see there was blood smears on the base of the door.

And we opened the interior door.

And you can see that there was a big mess on the landing.

There were stairs that came down from from the living area down to the landing to go into the garage.

And there was a mess there.

It's like

something, you know, somebody was throwing stuff all over the place, somebody drugged something through there or something.

And we could see blood on the carpet on the stairs going up.

Now we're really, our interest is, you know, we had both of us had our weapons out.

And we're yelling, you know, police, you know, if you're in here, show yourself.

Or, you know, let us know where you're at.

Meanwhile, back at the police department, Stacey Liebin had asked the police detective Steve Lundine to come down to the youth bureau to interview Amy Werner more thoroughly.

While waiting on the detective, Amy Werner shared something else with Stacey Liebin.

She told her that Brian hangs out a lot with her sister's boyfriend, 27-year-old Robert Lawrence.

She said that Robert and Brian had talked a lot about killing people, and if they did it, they would knock out their victims' teeth teeth and cut off their hands so the bodies could not be identified.

Who did they talk about killing?

Stacey Liebin asked Amy.

Amy said, just anyone who crossed them.

Detective Lundine showed up and asked Amy to start from the beginning.

Amy explained that she had known Brian for a few months and that they were dating.

In fact, they were engaged to be married.

Amy was 17 years old, and Brian was 18.

Just two days earlier on Wednesday evening, Amy and Brian and Brian's friend Rick had moved some of Brian's belongings out of Brian's parents' house on Laredo Drive and into Amy's house.

Brian had essentially moved in with Amy and her family.

Her family consisted of her 17-year-old brother Brian, her sister Michelle, her younger sister Naomi, and her mom and her mom's boyfriend.

They lived in a little house on the corner of South 7th Street and East Sweet Avenue, right next to A and B Pizza.

Amy added that several times during the past two weeks, Brian had said something like, If my parents got killed, I'd get so much money.

She also explained that Brian had stolen some blank checks from his parents, and when they had discovered this recently, his parents informed Brian they were going to report him to the police.

Brian was very upset about this.

He was already facing some other charges, and he told Amy that he could get life in prison for the stolen checks.

It's either their life or mine, he had once told her, Amy said.

Detective Lundine asked her why she thought something might have happened now.

Amy said that all day yesterday, Thursday, Brian and her sister's boyfriend, 27-year-old Robert Lawrence, were driving around in a brand new pickup.

The truck belongs to Brian's parents, and she didn't think they would just let him borrow it.

Robert Lawrence was doing all the driving.

Robert also lived at her house by A and B Pizza on East Suite Avenue.

Amy added that she had asked her boyfriend Brian several times why they were driving around in his father's pickup, and Brian told her that his parents were at their cabin at the lake and they had given him permission to use it.

This story sounded fishy to Amy.

She didn't think that Brian's parents would let him borrow the pickup and on top of this if they had gone to the lake they would have driven there in that vehicle.

Meanwhile, over on Laredo Drive inside the Erickstead home, Detective Haas and others continued their search.

And we go upstairs and we looked into the living room and it was just ransacked.

There was stuff thrown all over the place,

end tables and stuff opened up and paperwork and stuff just thrown all over the place.

Kind of looked to the left and there was a hallway that leaded down.

to there was three doors down there.

The first door on the left was a

bathroom and then it looked like there were two bedrooms down at the end of the hallway.

Well, in the middle of the hallway, there was a big pool of blood.

So we knew something bad happened here.

We go down a little bit further, and we look in the bedroom to the left, and that's pretty much, it's well kept.

There's no issues there.

We look to the one in the right, we can see a big pool of blood on the carpet there.

And this bedroom is just absolutely, it's like an explosion went off in there.

The mattresses are thrown up against the wall.

There's paperwork and stuff all strewn all over the place.

Individual pieces of jewelry and stuff like that.

Just everything is just thrown all over the place.

And so, kind of concluded our search up top, and we went downstairs and looked around.

And so we decided, okay, there's nobody in here.

We retreated out of the residence.

While Sergeant Haas started the process of obtaining a search warrant, back at the police department, Detective Lundine was collecting more alarming information from Brian Erickstead's girlfriend, Amy Werner.

Amy said that on the previous afternoon, Thursday, she'd been riding around town in that pickup with Brian, her sister Michelle, and her sister's boyfriend, Robert Lawrence.

Robert was doing all the driving.

At about 3 p.m., they drove to Brian's parents' house on Laredo Drive, and then Amy and Brian got out of the pickup.

and went into the parents' garage.

And in the garage was the Erickstead's other vehicle, a blue Cadillac, which they all referred to as the Caddy.

Brian went into the house, but before leaving Amy alone in the garage, he said to her, Stay here and don't touch a damn thing.

When he returned, Brian had the keys to the Cadillac.

Amy jumped in the passenger seat, and off they all went, Brian and Amy in the caddy, and Amy's sister Michelle and her boyfriend Robert in the new four-wheel-drive pickup truck.

They now had both of the Ericsteads' vehicles.

Amy told Detective Lundine that from there, Amy and Brian drove to Rick Storhog's house.

Rick was one of Brian's best friends, the same Rick that had helped Brian move his belongings out of the Erickstead home on Wednesday evening.

Once they found Rick, they told him to meet them at Pony Express gas station.

Amy told the detective that once they got to the gas station, Brian got out of the caddy and had a private conversation with Rick in Rick's car.

When Brian got back into the caddy, he told Amy, Everyone thinks I killed my parents.

When did you last see Brian?

Detective Londine asked Amy.

Amy said that the last time she saw Brian was at a place they called the Rapids by the Heart River in Mandan, near the North Dakota Youth Correctional Center.

It was last night around 5 p.m.

Detective Londine asked Amy to write a statement while he made a phone call.

The detective figured they should speak with this guy Rick Storhog.

Rick Storhog was known around the police bureau too.

He was 17 years old and a student at Bismarck High School.

Londine got a hold of Rick's father and arranged for him to bring Rick into the police department as soon as possible.

As Amy Werner was writing her statement, she told Detective Londine that she had just remembered a couple more things, a couple more details that sort of tipped her off that maybe, just maybe, her boyfriend had hurt his parents.

She said that yesterday, immediately after leaving the Ericksted home in the caddy, before they found Rick, they had gone to a gas station, the Expressway Amoco.

There, she witnessed Brian holding his father's wallet, and he paid for gas with a credit card.

Brian didn't have any credit cards of his own, or even a wallet, she said, and she had never seen him with his father's wallet before.

Oh, and then there's one more thing, she said.

Last night, my mother's boyfriend, Weasel, he told me that a few days ago, Brian asked how much jail time he would get for murder.

Meanwhile, over on Laredo Drive, the coroner had just finished walking through the crime scene.

This is Detective Bob Haas again.

And

he walked in and he looked and he came out and he said that he would have severe concern for the well-being of the people that were involved in us.

Because the amount of blood that was there in the scene, he just didn't think that anybody could survive that.

Suddenly, it was all hands on deck at the Bismarck Police Department.

They would need a lot of manpower on this day.

Among others called in from home were three detectives named Lloyd Halverson, Troy Schoener, and Steve Sysewski.

What's Bill's last name?

I don't don't know.

I can't really know anybody's last name.

You guys can just have a seat here.

Scoot the chairs wherever you want.

That's fine.

Not a problem.

Okay.

Rick Storhog, friend of Brian Erickstead, arrived at the police department with his father, Rod.

Detective Lundine sat down with them.

He told Rick and his father that they were investigating a very serious situation.

They needed Rick to tell them about his friends, 18-year-old Brian Erickstead and 27-year-old Robert Lawrence.

They needed to locate Robert and Brian, and more importantly, they needed to locate Brian's parents.

Rick said that he was happy to help.

When was the last time you saw Brian or Robert?

Lundine asked.

It was yesterday afternoon at Pony Express gas station, he claimed.

He was outside his house when Brian Erickstead and his girlfriend, Amy Werner, drove up in a dark blue Cadillac.

Something like that.

And you were outside when they drove up?

Well, yeah, and I was going outside to my car, you know, after I brushed my teeth and everything, and I got some money out of my arm.

And Brian pulled up right almost, like, right beside him, like, you know, an inch away, almost hit the thing.

Right next to that car.

And while I was walking out there, he just goes, you know, gold.

Amy was with him?

Yeah, Amy was with him beside him.

Brian and Amy told him to meet them at Pony Express gas station.

Rick drove there, and he did have a private conversation with Brian, just like Amy Werner had said.

What did you talk about?

The detective asked.

Rick Storhog said that the conversation was about something he had heard from friends, namely that Amy's mother, Pam, was going to report Amy as a runaway if she didn't get home right away.

After that, Brian and Amy drove off and Rick drove home.

That was all he knew and that was the last time he saw them.

Detective Lundine asked, when you spoke to Brian in the car at Pony Express yesterday, did you talk about his parents at all?

Rick said that at no time did they speak about Brian's parents.

The fact that Brian was suddenly driving a car that Rick Rick didn't recognize, that didn't come up either, he claimed.

Detective Lundine asked Rick if he had helped Brian move his belongings out of his parents' house on Wednesday night, two nights earlier.

Yes, he said, he had driven in his car with Brian and Amy to the Ericstad home on Wednesday evening to get Brian's stuff.

He said that while they were leaving, Brian's parents arrived at home.

No argument took place.

In fact, Brian's mother sent them off with a plate of cookies.

Regarding this interview with Rick Storhog, Detective Lundine would later write in his report:

Neither Teresa Porter nor myself felt that Rick was being totally honest with us concerning the situation surrounding the Eric stats.

However, he continued to deny having any further knowledge.

In reality, Rick knew a lot more about what was going on, and as we shall see, he was lying when he said that the last time that he had seen Brian Erickstead was during that conversation at Pony Express gas station.

On the other hand, that lie would turn out to be just one of a big pile of lies and half-truths that the Bismarck Police Department would be fed while struggling to locate the Ericksteads and to untangle this crime.

In fact, the actions of some of the players in this story would continue to baffle and frustrate police, judges, parents, and others for many weeks and months to come.

In some ways, it all just got weirder and weirder as time went on.

Still to come on future episodes of Dakota Spotlight Season 3, The House on Sweet and Seventh.

Two people died, they died a horrendous death, and yet these kids are idolizing the people that did it to them.

When they told me who they suspected, Robert Lawrence and Brian Erickson, I knew immediately where to look.

It was just a, it was a difficult time.

It was a difficult group of people to deal with.

They worked with and I was like, oh my god, this is what I got told today.

And when I was in one of the bedrooms where one of the runaways was hiding, I had seen a bloody shirt.

They did it and then they came back to your house and you went down there with them?

I did it before they went to delta bodies?

No, I didn't go with the pick up the dead bodies.

I don't remember who it was.

It could have been DJ, could have been Buddy, could have been Christy, could have been Kenny, it could have been Amy, it could have been Michelle.

You know, it's hard to find anything that's not odd about this entire situation.

And it still to this day baffles me.

The House on Suite and 7th is hosted and reported by me, James Wollner.

Again, thank you so much for listening to Dakota Spotlight.