BONUS: The Hunter and the Hunted (Accident, Suicide, or Murder)

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Speaker 11 killing each other.

Speaker 13 All her fault.

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Speaker 14 Hi, Snap listeners. We are bringing you a special bonus episode today from Oxygen's hit series Accident, Suicide, or Murder.

Speaker 14 You can also watch full episodes live or on demand on the free Oxygen app or on Peacock by clicking the link in our description.

Speaker 15 Enjoy.

Speaker 2 A young mother who came to America for a better life dies in a hunting accident while out with her fiancé.

Speaker 9 The shotgun blast struck her in the chest.

Speaker 16 Hunting accidents are a relatively common occurrence in South Dakota.

Speaker 10 She has a young son. She has a family.
She's supporting in the Philippines. She's engaged to be married.
So there's a lot of victims in this tragedy.

Speaker 9 The fiancée continues to communicate with her family in the Philippines.

Speaker 17 When my sister dies, he treats us like family.

Speaker 2 It appears to be a tragic accident, but a love triangle gives police cause for concern.

Speaker 13 There's nothing to tell me that she had another boyfriend.

Speaker 9 Someone is using the victim's phone pretending to be her.

Speaker 7 There is a saying in South Dakota that if you want to murder someone, you take them hunting.

Speaker 2 And then a shocking encounter becomes a critical break in the case.

Speaker 9 How is it you fell in love with your fiancé's sister?

Speaker 3 911, merge emergency.

Speaker 3 Yes, my

Speaker 3 friend just accidentally got shot, and I I'm on the way to the Gregor Hospital. Call him right away.
Okay.

Speaker 3 About five miles out. Five miles out?

Speaker 10 Is she breathing conscious?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 3 She's not breathing? No.

Speaker 16 It's an emergency.

Speaker 10 Okay, I'll let the hospital know that you're coming, okay?

Speaker 18 All right.

Speaker 9 Approximately 1.40 p.m. The shooting victim and the caller arrive in a pickup truck.
They immediately start attending to the shooting victim. The shooting victim is a young female.

Speaker 8 The victim has a shotgun wound to the chest.

Speaker 8 She had came in still breathing a slight heartbeat. They were working on her at that time, doing what they could.

Speaker 9 Law enforcement is summoned to the hospital to start investigating what happened.

Speaker 8 The initial call was an accident and since it was pheasant season we assumed maybe it was a hunting accident.

Speaker 16 Gregory County is in the heart of farmland and during pheasant season it'll call itself the pheasant hunting capital of the world.

Speaker 9 When Deputy Dre and Gregory County Sheriff Charlie Wolfe arrived at the hospital, they were immediately directed to the caller, the driver of the vehicle.

Speaker 9 That subject identified himself as Russell Bertram.

Speaker 4 Sheriff Wolfe knew him.

Speaker 8 He was a former law enforcement officer.

Speaker 9 Bertram was 52 years old and he had been a police chief in a town near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Mr.
Bertram said that the person that was shot was was his 26-year-old fiancé.

Speaker 8 Her name was Leonila Stickney, but everybody called her Nyla.

Speaker 9 Mr. Bertram said that he and Nila had been out road hunting.

Speaker 8 Mr. Bertram said that he was an experienced hunter.

Speaker 9 But Leonila had never been road hunting before, and she was not familiar with guns. Bertram told law enforcement that prior to the shooting, he had already shot two pheasants.

Speaker 9 And as they're going down this dirt shoe track, he saw a pheasant up ahead.

Speaker 9 He got out of the vehicle with his Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun, went forward and shot the bird, collected the bird, threw the bird in the back of the pickup truck, and then he opened the driver's side door.

Speaker 9 He extended the gun forward into the passenger compartment.

Speaker 8 Russell stated that was when Leonila grabbed the shotgun and pulled it towards him and said, kiss me.

Speaker 9 And that's when he said the gun accidentally discharged.

Speaker 9 And the shotgun blast struck Leonila in the chest.

Speaker 9 Immediately after the shooting occurred, Bertram called 911 to report that there had been a shooting.

Speaker 2 While doctors rush to save Leonila Stickney's life, Deputy Dre takes Russell Bertram back to the scene of the shooting to find evidence to verify his story.

Speaker 8 Russell Bertram told me where the accident had occurred, so we drove to the spot.

Speaker 9 It was kind of in the basin of this dirt road, very hard to see from any surrounding area.

Speaker 8 Bertram showed me where he thought we had exactly shot the pheasant. We searched the area several minutes for a spent shell from his shotgun.

Speaker 8 It was very dense with weeds.

Speaker 8 We could see the tracks from the vehicle that were in the weeds. There was evidence that he had been there at that spot with the vehicle.

Speaker 8 He told me again how he had placed the shotgun back into the vehicle and my thoughts were that's not how an experienced hunter puts a gun into a vehicle, especially a loaded gun.

Speaker 8 An experienced hunter would put it into the vehicle, angled down so that threw up some red flags.

Speaker 2 Back at the hospital, investigators have discovered a clue in Russell's pickup truck.

Speaker 8 While I was away with Russell Bertram, Sheriff Wolfe found three pheasants in the back of the vehicle. Two were cold and one appeared to be warm and freshly shot, which very much verified what Mr.

Speaker 8 Bertram had told law enforcement that he had just shot a pheasant at the scene.

Speaker 8 On the inside of the truck, we found an 870 Remington pump shotgun. The barrel was on the hump of the transmission.

Speaker 8 There was blood in the vehicle on the passenger side and it was all consistent with what Bertram had stated. At that point it was very plausible that this could have been an accident.

Speaker 2 Shortly after, law enforcement is informed that the worst case scenario has happened.

Speaker 9 Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the emergency room team, Neela died of her injuries.

Speaker 8 We notified Mr. Bertram that his fiancée, Nila, had passed away.

Speaker 9 Bertram was seemingly non-emotional. He was stoic.

Speaker 8 We thought that was very odd.

Speaker 16 But hunting accidents are a relatively common occurrence in South Dakota. Being the former law enforcement officer, that gives him a little more credibility.

Speaker 9 What Bertram was describing is certainly plausible. It was an unfortunate accident that resulted in Nila's death.

Speaker 10 Nila was immigrant with a family that she still really cared for in the Philippines.

Speaker 9 At two o'clock in the morning after Leonila's death, Bertram calls her older sister, Melissa, in the Philippines to tell her the tragic news.

Speaker 17 Russ called me. He told us that Nila died in a gunshot accident.

Speaker 17 She's far from us, so we cannot even see her for the last time.

Speaker 18 We cannot even see her how much we love her.

Speaker 16 Nila was raised in poverty in the Philippine jungle and she wanted to improve her life.

Speaker 17 Nila is a loving sister, a loving mother.

Speaker 17 She is an independent woman, an achiever, and she loved to dance.

Speaker 9 She had only come to the United States in 2004 after meeting a gentleman from South Dakota named David Stickney. David was was 67.

Speaker 9 They wound up getting married and relocated to South Dakota and a year later had their son.

Speaker 9 By 2008, Leonila was estranged from her husband David, but still had a close relationship with her son.

Speaker 9 Prior to her breakup with David, she had met a former police officer named Russell Bertram.

Speaker 10 They wound up becoming friendly and decided to get engaged.

Speaker 10 Bertram told law enforcement that he did in fact love Nila and they were in a loving relationship.

Speaker 9 Leonila worked at the nursing home and she would send much of the money that she earned back to her family in the Philippines.

Speaker 17 Nila is a big contributor to our family. She is our source of income.

Speaker 10 Nila has a young son. She has a family.
She's supporting in the Philippines. She's engaged to be married.
So there's a lot of victims in this tragedy.

Speaker 6 It's very painful for us.

Speaker 6 But it's still painful for me.

Speaker 9 Two days after the shooting, Dr. Brad Randall conducted the autopsy in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Speaker 7 It was evident that there was a shotgun wound to the left chest. There was a very small diameter wound for a shotgun.
So it was clear this was a very close-range shot.

Speaker 7 The pellets all entered the body and did catastrophic damage. The survivability of this type of injury is essentially zero.

Speaker 2 Leonila Stickney has no defensive wounds to suggest a struggle. But as Dr.
Randall continues the autopsy, he makes a shocking discovery that adds to the tragic circumstances of Leonila's death.

Speaker 7 When I'm looking under the microscope, I was able to identify an early pregnancy in the uterus.

Speaker 9 Leonila was actually a few weeks pregnant at the time that she was shot. Is there a motive for this death?

Speaker 10 It seems like there's another man in Nila's life, possibly a new boyfriend.

Speaker 12 You didn't know she was pregnant?

Speaker 9 Bertram was very non-emotional about it. That certainly raises our suspicions.

Speaker 2 After discovering at the autopsy that the victim, Leonila Stickney, was a few weeks pregnant, detectives question whether this could be a motive for something more sinister.

Speaker 7 As a forensic pathologist, we are charged with determining two things primarily. One of them is the cause of death, which in this case was obviously the shotgun wound to the chest.

Speaker 7 And the next thing is the manner of death. But in this case, I could not distinguish whether this was an accident or a homicide.

Speaker 16 The circumstances of the shooting is not something that you can determine forensically.

Speaker 7 In fact, there was only one person at that point in time who really did know what the circumstances were.

Speaker 19 That point of finding out that Nila was pregnant, Sheriff Wolfe went and spoke with Mr.

Speaker 8 Bertram again.

Speaker 10 Bertram told law enforcement that he didn't know Nila was pregnant when she died.

Speaker 9 Again, Bertram was very non-emotional about it. That certainly raises our suspicions at that point.

Speaker 9 Is her pregnancy a motive for her death?

Speaker 16 But it was even possible that Nila didn't know she was pregnant. That would eliminate the pregnancy as a motive factor.

Speaker 2 Investigators hope forensics can help shed light on whether or not Russell's initial statement was true about Leah Nila grabbing the barrel of the shotgun, causing it to discharge accidentally.

Speaker 9 On October 27th, three days after the shooting, Sheriff Wolf brought the shotgun to the South Dakota Forensic Lab in Pierce, South Dakota to have the gun examined for fingerprints.

Speaker 8 If we find Leonella's fingerprints on the barrel, then that is consistent with his story that it was just an accident.

Speaker 9 On November 9th, the South Dakota Forensic Lab reported back that they had examined the barrel of the shotgun. Absolutely no fingerprints were found on that barrel.

Speaker 9 It's quite possible that they could have been wiped off, but that doesn't really tell us anything.

Speaker 9 If her fingerprints are on the gun, boy, that certainly supports what Bertram said happened. But the fact that her fingerprints are not on the gun, it doesn't support him.

Speaker 9 So we continue to investigate.

Speaker 2 Nearly four weeks after the shooting, with no forensic evidence, the local coroner rules on the manner of Leonila Stickney's death.

Speaker 7 At the time that I did this autopsy, I was coroner in my local jurisdiction, but the autopsy was done for another jurisdiction, and they had the ultimate responsibility for certifying the death.

Speaker 8 On November 30th, 2009, the doctor at the hospital filed the death certificate.

Speaker 9 Neelas, the attending physician, listed the manner of death as accident.

Speaker 8 But we were continuing with the investigation that this was not an accident at that time.

Speaker 7 Accident was a very plausible manner of death. On the other hand, there is a saying in South Dakota that if you want to murder someone, you take them hunting.

Speaker 2 Nearly two months after Leonila Stickney's death, police are at a standstill with no evidence to corroborate Russell Bertram's story or incriminate him. But then they catch a break.

Speaker 9 In December of 2009, there was a completely unexpected revelation to the case.

Speaker 9 Nila's estranged husband, David Stickney, He called Sheriff Wolf and informed him that he had learned of two life insurance policies totaling almost a million dollars. On Nila,

Speaker 9 David is the father of their four-year-old child, yet he had no idea such a large insurance policy had been taken out on Leonila's life.

Speaker 9 According to David, the money from the life insurance policies are not going to him or their son. That made David Stickney suspicious of the circumstances surrounding his wife's death.

Speaker 10 Anytime that there's insurance policy, it's always something that law enforcement looks into for a potential motive.

Speaker 9 We subpoena the actual applications for these insurance policies. We have to find out when were these life insurance policies applied for and who is a beneficiary.

Speaker 9 On December 16th, 2009, we received the results of the subpoenas. We look and lo and behold, the beneficiary is in fact the guy that shot her,

Speaker 9 Russell Bertram.

Speaker 8 That could be a very huge motive for this not being an accident and this being an actual murder.

Speaker 2 South Dakota law enforcement continues to investigate the shooting death of Leonila Stickney.

Speaker 2 Though her fiancé, Russell Bertram, claims it was an accident, the discovery of a large life insurance policy points toward a motive for murder.

Speaker 9 Sure enough, we find that the person that is going to benefit the most from her death is, in fact, Russ Bertram, the guy that shot her, he claimed accidentally, who's been a law enforcement officer most of his life.

Speaker 10 There were about $900,000 in these policies.

Speaker 9 It's certainly leaning, more nefarious, and less accidental.

Speaker 8 Why Russ Bertram? Why not her family in the Philippines?

Speaker 8 Why not her son? What was the reason behind Russ Bertram being the beneficiary?

Speaker 9 The next step is to interview Russ Bertram.

Speaker 8 We asked him about the reasons for him being the beneficiary.

Speaker 10 Bertram told law enforcement that Nila took out these policies because she was a bad driver.

Speaker 9 He explained to us that Nila named him the beneficiary so he would distribute it to her family in monthly allotments.

Speaker 10 Bertram was her fiancée, so she must have thought that he was a trustworthy person.

Speaker 9 Bertram also told us us that he continues to communicate with Melissa, Leonila's sister in the Philippines.

Speaker 17 When my sister died, Russ was taking over the responsibility of Nila.

Speaker 17 Russ told me that he's fighting the insurance fallacy in the court, so he needs more in supporting documents.

Speaker 17 So I've been helping him. That way he can get the money and also to help our family, which is what he promised to my sister Nila.

Speaker 17 He's nice to us. He treats us like family.

Speaker 17 Because of his kindness that he showed to me and to my family, I grew an attachment to him.

Speaker 9 Nila's estranged husband, David Stickney, thought the insurance money should go to their four-year-old son. And because because of that, there was a civil suit over the insurance money.

Speaker 16 Until the insurance money was paid, law enforcement doesn't really know how much of a motive factor the money is.

Speaker 2 It appears that the investigation is at a second standstill. But then, only a few weeks later, yet another possible motive for murder is discovered.

Speaker 9 During the course of our investigation, we went back to David Stickney to update him on the status of the case.

Speaker 9 David Stickney volunteered to us that he had, in fact, hired a private investigator to follow Leonila and surveil her to see where she went.

Speaker 10 During the divorce proceedings, there's questions about custody over Neela and David's son. So David hires a private investigator to learn who their son is spending time with.

Speaker 9 The private investigator revealed to David Stickney that he followed Leonila not only to Russ Bertram's residence, but then to the home of another man.

Speaker 10 It seems that there's another man in Nila's life, possibly a new boyfriend, named Nathan Meter.

Speaker 9 That adds a whole new complexity to the investigation. Now we have this new man.
What is his connection to Leonila and how close are they?

Speaker 9 On January 16, 2010, three months after Nila's death, we approached Nathan Meter and questioned him about his relationship with Nila.

Speaker 13 I got a knock on my door and it was the sheriff and another detective. They wanted to question me about Nila and then I was informed that she'd been killed.

Speaker 13 I was so shocked.

Speaker 9 Nathan Meter didn't know that Nila had died.

Speaker 13 My heart definitely sunk.

Speaker 13 I asked what happened, and then I was told that she was shot in a so-called hunting accident by her fiancée, you know, which that to me was almost harder to believe than the fact that she had been killed.

Speaker 13 I knew she was going through a very drawn-out divorce, but there's nothing to tell me that she had another boyfriend.

Speaker 9 We learned from Nathan Meader that he had met Leonila in September 2009 at a bar called Borrowed Bucks in Sioux Falls.

Speaker 20 Nila, he was very witty.

Speaker 13 We kind of had it off right away. I'm not a big dancer, but she did get me on the dance floor, which is pretty hard to do.

Speaker 13 But, you know, when you like somebody, you're willing to do that kind of stuff.

Speaker 13 It just progressed into her talking, texting daily, and seeing each other whenever we could. And she'd bring her four-year-old son, and we'd hang out.

Speaker 9 And then on October 22nd, two days before her death, Neela told Nathan that she was pregnant and that she believes that he's the father.

Speaker 13 When she told me she's pregnant, I was at peace with it. I'm not going to just not be in that child's life.

Speaker 13 But Neela. She wanted some time.
She wanted a couple weeks.

Speaker 18 And

Speaker 13 then she just kind of disappeared off the face of the earth.

Speaker 9 Neela died two days later.

Speaker 13 That's when I was informed of the date. I was like, no, that could have been it because, you know, I've texted them with her.

Speaker 9 Nathan got out his cell phone and he showed the text messages between his phone and Leonila's phone. Two weeks after the death, someone is using Nila's phone pretending to be her.

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Speaker 2 In January 2010, nearly three months after the shooting death of Leonila Stickney, law enforcement discovers another man in Leonila's life, Nathan Meter.

Speaker 2 Nathan provides shocking information to police.

Speaker 2 Someone posing as Leonila texted him two weeks after her death.

Speaker 13 When Nila told me that she was pregnant, she wanted some time. She asked for like two weeks, and I gave her that time.

Speaker 13 And then, you know, after that two weeks, tried several times to get a hold of her.

Speaker 13 Unbeknownst to me, she'd been killed almost the next day.

Speaker 10 On November 5th, he texts her, hey, it's been two weeks.

Speaker 16 What's up?

Speaker 10 Am I going to get to see you?

Speaker 4 But still, no response.

Speaker 13 And then she did start responding to texts.

Speaker 9 Someone pretending to be Neela texts Nathan saying that she can't see him anymore.

Speaker 9 Nathan texts back, I've missed you a lot and I really don't understand why you don't want to see me anymore. And the response he gets from Leonilo, it's, I'm married.

Speaker 13 I just kind of assume that she did decide to get back together with her ex-husband, her son's father.

Speaker 9 After that, the next text that Nathan got was a lewd question.

Speaker 10 I want to know if you think I was good and bad.

Speaker 13 It became quite evident that I wasn't dealing with Nila, so I asked her to call me, and at that point the text messages stopped.

Speaker 13 I assume it was her ex-husband texting me.

Speaker 9 Nathan Meter didn't know about Russell Bertram or know that Leonila had died,

Speaker 9 and so he didn't think to contact the police.

Speaker 13 I miss Neela. I would have liked the opportunity to have tried to build a life with her.
That was taken away. That's one of the things that does haunt me.

Speaker 8 Obviously, the text messages were coming from the person who had Lionella's phone, which we knew was Mr.

Speaker 19 Bertram.

Speaker 9 Does Russ Bertram know about Nathan Meter? Does that give Russ Bertram more motive other than the insurance money to kill Nila Stickney?

Speaker 2 Without proof, law enforcement's suspicions are not enough to acquire warrants, so they must rely on cooperation and public records to dig deeper.

Speaker 9 Do we obtain a public records search of Russ Bertram's background. We found that in 2008, just before his relationship with Neela began, Russ filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

Speaker 9 He was in debt for about $86,000.

Speaker 16 His debt payments each month equaled his monthly income. So this is a guy who's at the end of his financial rope and he has a very strong motive to try and get some money quickly.

Speaker 9 We also learned that Bertram had been married three times prior to this relationship. We were able to track each of them down and interview them about Russ.

Speaker 16 All of them reported the same thing, that Russell Bertram was somebody who was obsessively jealous.

Speaker 9 He was unnecessarily suspicious. He took their phones from them.
He accused them of having affairs with other men.

Speaker 9 So now we're thinking Russell looked at Leonila's phone records. He knew about Nathan Meter.

Speaker 10 There are a number of things that were suspicious. It's not finding any fingerprints on the barrel.
It's the life insurance policies.

Speaker 20 There is his history of jealous behavior.

Speaker 9 We're not thinking that it's an accident. We're thinking it's a murder.

Speaker 9 On January 21st, 2011, over a year after the shooting, Sheriff Wolf and I interviewed Russ Bertram at the Gregory County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 9 That day you didn't know she was pregnant? No, I did not. She made the comment that she was late.

Speaker 1 Meaning AI could be pregnant.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 9 This was the first time that Russ disclosed to us that he knew that she might be pregnant.

Speaker 22 She did not know I had a best act.

Speaker 12 You couldn't have been the father, correct.

Speaker 9 Russ knows that if she's pregnant, he can't be the father. That's more motive to kill Nila.

Speaker 23 She was fooling around on the side, but you didn't know it.

Speaker 12 Right.

Speaker 23 Had you ever checked her phone to kind of feel out what she was doing before her death? No.

Speaker 9 He said he wasn't suspicious of anything that she was doing.

Speaker 9 And so then we asked him about the text messages Nathan Meter received after Leonila's death.

Speaker 23 We have text messages from Leonella's phone to him after she died, which I assume came from you. Yes.
Because I was trying to find out who he was.

Speaker 9 And he said he did that because he wanted to know for a fact if Nila was having sex with another man.

Speaker 2 Without a confession from Russell Bertram, investigators must wait for the civil suit over the $900,000 in life insurance money to be settled.

Speaker 2 It is not until October 17th, 2011, nearly two years after the death of Leonila Stickney, that an agreement is reached between the father of Leonila's child, David Stickney, and her fiancé, the man that shot her, Russell Bertram.

Speaker 9 David Stickney knew that Bertram was the beneficiary, but he felt that Nila's son deserved the money and they got a settlement.

Speaker 10 Insurance Insurance companies pay out $600,000 to David Stickney and their son and the rest goes to Bertram.

Speaker 9 According to Bertram, that insurance money was to benefit Nila's family in Philippines.

Speaker 16 If Bertram ended up paying that money to her family, that would tend to mitigate motiv.

Speaker 16 But it took about a year for the money to be paid, and then we had to watch him to see what he did with the money.

Speaker 2 Two more years pass as investigators wait for the money to be paid out by the insurance companies and then to see what Russell Bertram does with the money.

Speaker 2 If he gives it to Leonila's family, it weakens their homicide case. But if he keeps it for himself, it is their clearest motive for murder.

Speaker 9 In September 2013, I went to Bertram's house in Sioux Falls to conduct an unexpected interview.

Speaker 9 I knew he had gotten the money and so I wanted to know, did he in fact give the money to the family?

Speaker 9 I knock on the door, a Filipino woman who looked strikingly similar to Leonila Stickney, answers the door. She said her name was Melissa Delval.

Speaker 9 I immediately recognized that name. Melissa was Leonila's sister from the Philippines.
Then she said she was married to Bertram.

Speaker 9 How did that transpire?

Speaker 2 In September of 2013, nearly four years after the shooting death of Leonila Stickney, investigators make a shocking discovery.

Speaker 2 The man they suspect intentionally killed her, Russell Bertram, is now married to her older sister, Melissa Del Valle.

Speaker 9 Completely unexpected and surprising to me,

Speaker 9 we have Melissa, the victim's sister, married to my suspect.

Speaker 9 I wasn't ready to interview Melissa Del Val,

Speaker 9 so I thanked her and then I left.

Speaker 10 How did Melissa end up married to Russell Bertram?

Speaker 10 It seemed very unlikely she would move across the world to marry someone who, she thought, murdered her sister.

Speaker 2 Four months later, law enforcement makes another attempt to re-interview Russell Bertram.

Speaker 9 January 14th, 2014, I went back to Russ's house again, hoping to catch him off guard.

Speaker 9 And so I knocked on Russ's trailer house door. Russ answered the door.
Russ said he was willing to speak to me. We stepped into my unmarked patrol vehicle and my tape recorder was going.

Speaker 9 I heard you got married. Yeah, I'm married.
Well, congratulations.

Speaker 9 And you're married to Lonila's sister. Her sister, Melissa.
All right, so how was it you fell in love with your fiancé's sister?

Speaker 22 Well, I got in contact with them right when this happened.

Speaker 9 After Leonila's death, Bertram calls Melissa in the Philippines to tell her the tragic news that her sister has been accidentally killed.

Speaker 10 Over time, they continued talking and entered a relationship of their own.

Speaker 22 And so then I went over there a year ago and I asked her if she would come to the States.

Speaker 9 He asked her, if I take you back to the United States, will you marry me? And she agreed.

Speaker 9 On July 6, 2013, Melissa and Russ Bertram get married and we're now living in Sioux Falls, South Dakota with Melissa's daughter.

Speaker 9 So then I started to question Russ about his suspicions of Nila fooling around on him.

Speaker 9 And I questioned Bertram again about whether or not he looked at Leonila's phone records before she was shot to death.

Speaker 9 It wasn't Leonila's phone, phone, it was your cell phone that you gave to her to use. And you see the phone bills and you become suspicious that she's stepping out on you.

Speaker 22 I did not know that she was messing around. I'll swear to you on that.

Speaker 22 I knew she's going out supposedly with some of her friends and going dancing at Bucks.

Speaker 9 Okay, well how did you figure that out?

Speaker 22 Well I did look at her phone record.

Speaker 9 Before, he had said he had never looked at the phone or phone records. This time, Bertram tells me that he had, in fact, looked at the phone records.

Speaker 9 He became suspicious of these phone calls that she was making constantly to another number.

Speaker 22 Yeah, I asked her, and she said it was to her friends, so I let it go.

Speaker 9 This is something completely different than what he had told us earlier. At what point, Bruss, does she tell you she's late?

Speaker 12 At what point in that? Oh, that was

Speaker 12 probably

Speaker 23 three, four days before we went out hunting.

Speaker 9 Before the day you went hunting?

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 9 That's a shocking new revelation to this entire case.

Speaker 9 When I questioned Bertram before, he said that he was told that day of the shooting.

Speaker 10 Bertram learning when Neil is pregnant really impacts the case. Now, it's something he had time to plan.

Speaker 9 I think you become suspicious. I think the phone records had quite a lot to do with it, Russ.

Speaker 4 You can think what you want.

Speaker 9 The phone records were the confirmation to you what your suspicions are.

Speaker 12 Because you killed her.

Speaker 1 No, I did not kill her.

Speaker 4 I'm done.

Speaker 9 Bertram knew that Leonila was not being loyal to him.

Speaker 9 If Leonila leaves Bertram and goes on with her life with Nathan, it's quite possible that she changes the beneficiary on these life insurance policies, and so Russ is going to lose out on that money.

Speaker 9 So Bertram takes her road hunting and it sets up the perfect scenario for killing her and claiming it was a hunting accident.

Speaker 2 With significant circumstantial evidence, the investigation is closing in on Russell Bertram. But law enforcement still has to prove one last piece of the puzzle.

Speaker 9 I needed to know from the family what was truly going on. Had Bertram been sending the insurance money.

Speaker 9 So the next step is to interview Leonila's sister, Melissa, and I wanted to talk to her alone.

Speaker 9 On August 24th, 2014, I saw Melissa walking walking down the street. I pulled up alongside of her.

Speaker 17 Agent guy asked me if I have a minute. He wants to talk to me about my sister.

Speaker 9 She was willing to speak with me. I immediately told her that I was suspicious about her sister's death, and I think Russ did it.

Speaker 17 So I was shocked.

Speaker 17 Because all we know is that was a tragic accident.

Speaker 16 Russell Bertram told her family that Nila was handling the gun wrong and shot herself.

Speaker 16 He didn't tell them that he had any role in it.

Speaker 17 When I arrived here, the first thing I asked from him is, did you want the insurance case? for Nila? And he said that no, he did not. He lost the case.

Speaker 16 He's told the family that there was no insurance money.

Speaker 9 So at that point I show Melissa the checks from the insurance company.

Speaker 9 Russ received hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Speaker 17 When I see it I said oh oh my gosh. I cannot believe that Russ was telling me all lies.
And then I sleep with the man who killed my sister.

Speaker 2 in August of 2014, after nearly five years of building a case against Russell Bertram for the murder of Leonila Stickney, police have no hard proof, but have a mountain of circumstantial evidence.

Speaker 2 They just need one last piece to finally charge him with murder.

Speaker 9 Now, I asked Melissa, has he given that money to your family?

Speaker 17 I told Agent, Guy, that we really didn't receive any amount from Russ except for the monthly, which is $200 a month.

Speaker 9 He had never given her family $20,000 in a lump sum like he claimed.

Speaker 9 I asked Melissa if she would testify against her husband in a murder trial.

Speaker 17 I feel like I want to go home back to the Philippines right away.

Speaker 17 I don't want to see his face again, but I have to be strong for my sister, Nula, because I want to give her

Speaker 17 justice and also for my family. So I decided to testify against him.

Speaker 9 Now the evidence exists to arrest Bertram for Leonila's murder, and that's what needs to happen next.

Speaker 10 On September 8th, 2015, Russell Bertram, a former police chief, is arrested and charged with the first-three murder of Leonila Stickney.

Speaker 8 Bertram had found out from Leonilla that she was possibly pregnant.

Speaker 8 Having a vasectomy knew that she was having an affair on the side. He was a very jealous man.

Speaker 9 And if Leonila leaves Bertram and goes on with her life with Nathan, Russ is going to lose out on that money.

Speaker 9 Although David Stickney and the boy get $600,000, Russ was able to get hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of her death.

Speaker 16 In the three or four days prior to Nila's murder, when he learns that Nila was pregnant, he conceives this plan to stage her death. We believe Russell Bertram committed a highly calculated murder.

Speaker 10 In September 2016, the case finally finally goes to trial.

Speaker 13 There's a pretty good case against him. You know, it's an overwhelming mountain of, yes, circumstantial, but never know what a jury is going to do.

Speaker 16 The text exchanges between Nathan and Nila's phone undermined Russell Bertram's story that he had not known about the pregnancy at the time of the murder.

Speaker 16 Those texts ended up being rather critical evidence in the case.

Speaker 16 Also, Melissa's testimony was very powerful.

Speaker 17 And it's very hard to testify against him, but even though there's fear in my mind, I love my sister and I want everyone to know the truth because I want to give her justice.

Speaker 16 After 10 days of trial, the case was finally turned over to the jury. They deliberated for nine or ten hours and returned a verdict.

Speaker 9 The jurors convicted Russ Bertram of first-degree murder.

Speaker 16 In South Dakota, the automatic punishment for first-degree murder is life in prison without possibility of parole.

Speaker 13 There was no doubt in my mind that that man as a predator should not be on the streets ever again.

Speaker 17 I feel relief.

Speaker 17 Victory for me and for my family.

Speaker 9 We

Speaker 17 get the justice for my sister and Nila.

Speaker 9 Bertram intentionally murdered their sister, their daughter, and now they were going to see him go to prison for the rest of his life.

Speaker 13 I miss Neela.

Speaker 13 Her life was ended so soon in the relationship. It has been a long time.

Speaker 13 I definitely think about it all the time.

Speaker 13 What would have happened, what could have happened.

Speaker 13 I think about her quite often, you know.

Speaker 17 I love my sister.

Speaker 17 she's too young,

Speaker 17 and also her son is too young.

Speaker 17 We just I just miss her so much.