Dawn Hacheney | Truth About My Murder | FilmRise True Crime | Forensic Files

[suspenseful music] [camera clicks] - When a murder's committed, it's always a race against time
to find the truth, to separate fact from fiction, to catch the killer, and to make sure that justice is served.
But what happens when the truth vanishes with the victim? I'm Dr. Richard Shepherd,
and I've spent my entire career as a forensic pathologist, performing nearly 23,000 autopsies.
I've learned that the dead don't hide the truth, and they never lie. Through me, you'll be hearing directly from the victim.
With the aid of a state-of-the-art laboratory, using groundbreaking technology, I'll be investigating a series of intriguing crimes
where, from the victim's bodies, are revealed to you the truth behind these murders.
[camera clicks] [air whooshes] Back in 1997, on the day after Christmas, emergency services were called
to a house fire in Bremerton near Seattle. But as they battled to contain the fire,
they had no idea what lay inside. [gentle music] [phone line rings] - [Operator] What's your emergency?
- Shortly after 7:00 AM, 911 was called for a house fire. Neighbors had noticed that there was smoke billowing out
of a window. When the firefighters arrived, the house was fully engulfed, and it was a major fire.
It took a while for the firefighters to extinguish the fire. And so when the fire was finally out, they did a sweep
of the home, and they found what looked to be charred remains of a human being. The body was located in the western corner of the home
in the primary bedroom. The body was found laying on its back, and it appeared that a blanket had been over the victim,
because you could see the wires from an electric blanket that were over the victim's body.
The victim's body was horribly, horribly burned, and it was unrecognizable, and there were no distinguishing features
that could be seen, whether it was a male or a female. - In this, a small community, and just hours
after Christmas Day, how had this fire started, and whose life had it tragically taken?
As a forensic pathologist, some of the most difficult cases I've dealt with are those
where a body is recovered from a fire. Where the burns are extensive, identifying the remains can be very difficult,
because fire destroys many things, but not everything. Vital evidence can be lost when the skin is burnt,
but some clues always remain. In this case, jewelry found on the body indicated it was 28-year-old Dawn Hacheney,
and that was confirmed by comparing her teeth that survived the fire with her dental records.
Closer examination revealed that there were extensive burns to the front of the body, but on the back, there were none.
And what that tells us is that not only was she lying on her back on the bed, but crucially, it tells us that she didn't move
from that position as the fire engulfed the room. [suspenseful music] So as flames ravaged through the home,
why was Dawn unable to save herself? Was she simply asleep, unconscious, or already dead?
To find out, police had to build up a picture of who Dawn Hacheney was. - Dawn and I were friends almost, it felt like forever,
but she was my best friend. We first met when we were in seventh grade, and it was just instant friendship from that point on.
She had a strong, strong faith core. We went to a private Christian high school,
and so we all kind of had that. She lived it, though, and it just was part of her,
and she was just the sweetest thing. I mean, she would give you the coat off her back
if you needed help. And that was her. That was Dawn. - [Richard] Dawn Hacheney was the wife of Nicholas Hacheney,
a young pastor from the Evangelical Christ Community Church of Bainbridge Island, just across the Puget Sound
from Bremerton near Seattle. - Dawn met Nick at college. She went to Northwest Bible College.
We call it Northwest Bridal College, type of thing that's where you went to get a husband.
My feelings for Nick were kind of ambivalent, but I respected her choice of him, and they seemed in love,
and that's all that mattered at that point. We all picked somebody different, and that's who she picked.
[suspenseful music] Dawn asked me to be her maid of honor for her wedding, and I was so, so excited.
She was gonna be mine. It didn't happen. But yeah, I was her maid of honor, and it was a beautiful wedding.
Nick was the most happy looking guy ever. He really was very sweet. It was just an awesome, wonderful wedding.
[suspenseful music] - By outward appearances, it looked like they had just a wonderful, picture-perfect marriage.
She was the sole breadwinner. She was a loan officer for a local credit union. Nick Hacheney was a youth pastor,
and so with that comes a lot of volunteer work. I think he might've at most gotten $600 every so often
as a stipend, but this was not a money-making venture. This was a passion for him.
She enjoyed having him be a pastor. She enjoyed being a pastor's wife, and by all accounts, they had a wonderful marriage.
- She loved him. She did. She did everything she could for him, and he was the leader of the house, and he is the man,
and she will love and obey him to a point. She wasn't a doormat, but she did feel very strongly in her vows
and this is what she chose to do, and she loved him for that. - She was your typical pastor's wife.
She was very supportive of him. He was an up-and-coming star at his church. He was going places, they all thought,
and she was playing the supportive role. - The Christ Community Church was an apostolic church,
the congregation believing in the Word and the will of God coming through them. And so they believed they could hear the word of God
through prophecy, through speaking in tongues, and through dreams. - They would be seized with the word of God during services,
and there would be shouting. And there were very lively services. - And he, by all accounts, he was a great youth pastor.
He was fun, and silly, and kind, and he drew a huge following of kids in that program,
He had a couple of favorite people that he called the little disciples that he had paid particular close attention to.
And because of his success and his charisma, he was then put in charge of a marital counseling program.
[suspenseful music] - [Richard] Nick's counseling sessions proved popular, but there were soon rumors
that they were becoming controversial. - Eventually, the marital counseling sessions started
to become more oriented towards the female of the couple. And he would say, "Okay, well, I think I really need
to speak privately with your wife, and we have deal with some issues that she has privately."
- He was said to have befriended quite a few married women in the church, and would take these counseling sessions
where his main interest was said to be about their sex lives. And there were some complaints about that.
- Some of the husbands started to complain about these private sessions, and how long they were taking,
and what hours they were being conducted. And so questions were starting to be asked about his relationships
with some of these women. It was very clear that that was his passion is to preach,
and preach the Word of God the way he saw it. [suspenseful music] - Mr. Hacheney had gone out duck hunting
with several people that morning, and when he came back, his house was basically destroyed,
and his wife was dead. He was comforted by our coroner at the time, gone out doing something innocent and comes back,
and the love of your life is dead. A tragedy. - Faced with charred remains, it's easy to assume
that the cause of death was the fire, but most people are killed by the smoke and fumes rather than the flames.
When someone inhales smoke, the airways are usually black. It's easy to see. It's barn door obvious.
But the examination of Dawn's airways showed that they were clear. There was none of the powdery soot
in the trachea and bronchi. With no soot in the airways, it tells us that she might have been dead
before the flames took hold. But if the fire and smoke didn't kill Dawn, what did?
- It was just incomprehensible that there would be foul play. You know, it just never entered anybody's mind.
[air whooshes] [air whooshes] [suspenseful music] [water rushing] - In 1997, the body of 28-year-old Dawn Hacheney was found
in a burnt out house in Bremerton, near Seattle. Her husband, Nick, had been away on a hunting trip
when the fire broke out. Shortly after Dawn's body was discovered, fire investigators searched the property looking for clues
to tell them how the fire might have started, and what had caused Dawn's death. - The fire investigators noted
that there was a space heater in the bedroom close to the bed, that there was paper all over the room,
some wrapping paper, some newspaper, and they found a case of small propane tanks
such that you would use when you're camping with a camp stove. Nicholas Hacheney tells the investigators
that they were renovating their home, and so they didn't have central heating. And so he had turned that space heater on
to warm Dawn while she was sleeping, so that the room would be warm when she got up.
He indicated that the propane tanks were a gift from Dawn for Christmas. He was a big hunter and he was a big camper,
and so she had gotten him a case of propane tanks as a Christmas present. He said that they had opened
their Christmas presents late the night before, and he had just left the presents
and the wrapping paper all around where they had opened them in the bedroom. - [Richard] So what did the experts make
of Nick Hacheney's story? - In determining the mode and manner of death, a forensic pathologist has to look at everything,
not just the body, but the history, the context and the parties. And so this was a pastor who, by all accounts,
was extremely distraught by the death of his wife. So there wasn't really a lot of suspicion with respect
to the cause of the fire. And the fire investigator noted that yes, there were propane tanks in the bedroom,
and that there was paper all over the bedroom, and that it was very possible and even likely that the fire had been started
by paper too close to the space heater. Perhaps there was a flash fire because of the propane.
The propane tanks might have had an impact on the severity of the fire, and deemed that it was accidental.
- But was there more to learn from Dawn's body about the events of that fateful day
and how she died? When Dawn's body was found, there were no obvious injuries indicating a cause of death.
And the first pathologist concluded the reason there was no soot in the airways was that her throat had suddenly closed
when the fire started. We call this laryngeal spasm. The theory is that inhalation of a flash
of hot air from the fire causes the vocal cords and the larynx to snap shut. Now this can happen, but it's far from common.
In fact, it's exceedingly rare. With no evidence to prove otherwise, the pathologist recorded the death as accidental,
and so the police investigation was shelved. [suspenseful music] The findings may have been rare,
but they were enough to satisfy the authorities involved. - It was deemed to be an accident,
and a very tragic accident. So there was no indication of any foul play. - It was just incomprehensible
that there would be foul play. You know, it just never entered anybody's mind. - Because of his role in the church,
a pillar of the local community, I think that an awful lot of things went by the by.
So a thorough investigation into it just didn't seem to happen. - At the time, when I heard that it was an accidental fire
and the cause of it, I was just sad. You know, they thought it was an accident. [somber music]
At the funeral, Nick met me, and gave me a Christmas card that Dawn was gonna give me,
and it was the last Christmas card that she even made. She even put it together with all her crafty stuff.
And so I've got her words. He said he found that in their car, and I gave him a hug,
and he gave me a hug, and he was crying, and he showed true grief. But during the funeral,
he pulled off his behavior like a preacher. - He actually delivered the eulogy. And there were a lot of people that thought,
how on earth can this guy be so strong as to give this powerful eulogy about the wife that he loved?
There was insurance money after Dawn's death, and so he did get some money. I think it was in total about $110,000
that he received in insurance money. What he did with that money is, some of it went to trying
to repair the house, but he also bought a brand new truck. He bought a boat, he bought a motorcycle,
and was seemingly enjoying having this extra money, really just living it up with this new found money.
- After the funeral, I didn't see him. The only thing I really remember is getting frustrated
with Dawn's mom that he wasn't doing anything to put a headstone on her grave. And I didn't understand why he wasn't doing that.
That made no sense to me at all. And that's where the first time I ever felt something
was just weird. Why wouldn't you do that? If you loved her, why? [suspenseful music] [birds chirping]
- There were also some other odd things after her death that, he seemed to be surrounded by a bevy of women
who were there to comfort him, and to give him whatever it was that he needed, because he was in such a state of grief.
So there were kind of some rumblings about how maybe inappropriate that he was with women immediately after her death.
There was a kind of a difference of opinion among people in the church as to, which side were you on?
Are you on the side that he's showing that he's this grief-stricken loving husband,
or is he just loving all of this attention? - He had a lot of weird behaviors. But to figure out that that was criminal?
No, it was just sad and weird, and maybe grief strikes people differently. [gentle music]
[birds chirping] - [Richard] It seemed like an open and shut case. But four years later, all that changed
when a woman called Sandy Glass contacted the police. [suspenseful music] - Sandy Glass had a lot to say.
Sandy Glass was the church secretary, so she worked for the church. She was also a very prominent figure in the church.
She was one that they deemed to be a prophetess, and the church congregants put a lot of weight
into what Sandy Glass had to say with respect to her prophecies. One year she had prophesied that there was going
to be a huge earthquake. So based upon her prophecy, the entire church started to stockpile food and provisions for the period of time
after this giant earthquake was to occur. So she was a very central figure in the church.
She was well-respected, and people believed what she had to say. - [Richard] And what she told the authorities was shocking.
- She indicated that Dawn Hacheney, who had previously been killed by a house fire,
well, there was more to the story, and that this was, in fact, a homicide. She had told the prosecutor's office that,
at the time, she was engaged in an extramarital affair with Nick Hacheney, and that they had sexual relations
before Dawn Hacheney's death. She had indicated that Nick Hacheney had, in fact, murdered Dawn Hacheney
so that they could be together, and shortly after the murder, had told Sandy just how he had done it,
that he took a clear plastic bag, put it over her face, and suffocated her to death.
She had said that once that happened, that he had stayed with the body all night
and then in the morning, set fire to the bedroom and left, and went hunting. [birds chirping]
The day of the fire, she had received a phone call from Nick Hacheney, and Nick had just said, "It is done."
And at that moment, her call waiting clicked in. And so she went over to the other line,
and was told by one of the congregants that Dawn had perished in a house fire. So she knew what "It is done" meant.
- Sandy Glass's testimony threatened to blast the case back open, but was she telling the truth?
[air whooshes] [air whooshes] [suspenseful music] In 2001, four years after Dawn Hacheney's charred remains
were found in her burnt-down house, a woman contacted police, claiming the death had been no accident.
That woman was Church Secretary Sandy Glass. Her claims were extraordinary, but were they backed up by the medical evidence?
Nick Hacheney's former lover, Sandra Glass, claimed he'd confessed to her that he'd suffocated his wife
by putting a plastic bag over her head. If this explosive claim was true, it would explain why there was no soot in Dawn's airways.
If she had been suffocated by a bag over her head, I might have expected to see signs
that she'd struggled against him, fighting for breath. I'd be looking for defensive injuries to the wrists
and the forearms, grazes, abrasions, bruises, or signs that her arms have been held down.
But there was nothing like that. With no signs of a struggle, the evidence from Dawn's body didn't appear
to support Sandy's claims about the plastic bag, but suspicions had been raised.
So prosecutors began a thorough investigation. Could Sandy Glass be believed? - We did a lot of investigation
about Sandy Glass's credibility. As you can imagine, a late disclosure like this,
of course, needs to be investigated, and we need to make sure that she was, in fact, a credible witness
and not some woman scorned that's willing to make something up. - [Richard] But as prosecutors began
to examine Sandy Glass's claims, the story they uncovered was even more extreme than anyone could have imagined.
[suspenseful music] - Sandy Glass and her husband Jimmy Glass were having some marital difficulties,
and so they were one of the first people to avail themselves of Nick Hacheney's marital counseling.
Nick started to have private sessions with her without Jimmy Glass being there, and one thing leads to another,
and they begin a romantic and sexual relationship, and it became serious, very serious.
And they had been talking a lot about having a life together, and trying to figure out what that might look like.
Divorce simply was not an option in this church, because that could give rise to him being excommunicated from the church,
and at the very least, have him being removed as a pastor. I mean, he's a pastor who's conducting marital counseling,
and here he is, cheating on his wife and getting a divorce. - [Richard] Meanwhile, cracks were beginning
to show in Nick and Dawn's marriage, - I started seeing some unhappiness in Dawn,
and then you start paying attention. When you go over, you start paying attention to the vibes in the house.
And every time I'd go over, he'd be laying around doing nothing. And when he told her that she needed to lose weight,
she was like, "You need to too." And it was just some of the comments that I started hearing her share
about what he would say to her in private, and I'm not a subtle person. I call him on it.
And I started telling Dawn, "If you need to get out of this relationship, 'cause you're not getting respected,
it doesn't even seem like he really cares for you, and you could just feel that, you can come into my house,"
an apartment at the time. And he heard me say that and that didn't help. But I really feel strongly that Dawn
would never have divorced Nick, that she made her vows and her vows of her life.
And she felt that very strongly, but she didn't know what was going on, and she started getting hints
and kinda putting pieces together on what was going on, but never had the complete puzzle.
- [Richard] At the time of Dawn and Nick's marital problems, he was having an affair
with Sandy Glass, and the pair were desperate to be together. But with divorce out of the question,
both were looking for alternative ways to get out of their marriages, however drastic.
- In the fall of 1997, Sandy Glass had a prophecy that her husband, Jimmy Glass, was gonna die.
And so on the one hand, that was one answer to their prayers. So the time came and went, Jimmy didn't die,
and was very much alive. And so she had another prophecy that Dawn was going to die,
and it was going to occur December 18th, 1997. December 18th came and went, and Dawn did not die.
And over the course of the next couple days, they prayed about it, and Sandy had another prophecy,
and she told Nick the prophecy and it was, "Your hands are no longer tied." And she didn't know what that meant,
but I think they both thought that something was going to happen to make their life together a possibility.
So fast forward a couple days, and it's December 26th, 1997, and Dawn dies in a house fire.
So I think Sandy Glass thought that this was their way out. This was they were going to be able to be together.
Unfortunately, Nick Hacheney had other plans, and had now started hooking up with three other women.
[suspenseful music] - It tells us that Nick is not a very good Christian, that he's preaching one thing,
and doing something completely different. For somebody who was a pastor and loved Jesus,
he broke every commandment that he possibly could. - [Richard] Some months before Dawn's death,
and in a repeat of what he'd allegedly done with Sandy Glass, Nick Hacheney had started
to give marriage counseling to Annette Anderson and her husband, before starting to see Annette on her own.
[suspenseful music] - Nick Hacheney told Annette that he wanted to do a trust exercise.
So it's the trust fall where she's standing, and she has to trust that Nick's gonna catch her.
And so she does the exercise, he catches her, and Nick says, "See, that's what God is.
You have to trust God, and trust God's will, and trust God's Word, and things will be all right."
So it was clear that there was an emotional connection between Annette Anderson and Nick Hacheney.
Things escalated very quickly, and became a sexual relationship within days of Dawn Hacheney's death.
- He believed that God had told him that he was to be fruitful and multiply, and he took that statement from God as he was supposed
to be sleeping with his parishioners. - He was very, very good at manipulating, a complete charmer,
so that you would never suspect it of him. - [Richard] Already engaged in sexual relationships
with Sandy Glass and Annette Anderson, Nick's affairs didn't stop there. - Nicole Matheson had also been one to come to Nick
for marital advice. She was not happy in her relationship, and it was very clear that that relationship
was going to end. So once again, it became an emotional connection between Nicole and Nick.
But after Dawn's death, that also quickly became a sexual relationship. [suspenseful music]
- [Richard] Nick's involvement with multiple women from the congregation was escalating,
but worse was to come, this time, even closer to home. - Bob Smith was a co-pastor
in the Christ Community Church, and Nick Hacheney was kind of like a son to Bob Smith.
He supported Nick wholeheartedly, and invited him into his home to live with them
after the fire, because Nick didn't have anywhere to live, and he needed help. So this really was like a family relationship.
Within days of Dawn Hacheney's death, Nick Hacheney started a relationship with Lindsay Smith,
who was 18 years old at the time. Lindsay Smith is Bob Smith's daughter. She was a child when they first met,
'cause he was her youth pastor, and one of the two that everybody referred to as Nick's little disciples.
This relationship continued until Lindsay left for Africa, 'cause she was going on a missionary trip.
And the relationship continued from afar by way of emails of a sexual nature, of emotional nature,
of feelings of love and talking about their future. And it was a really serious relationship.
Lindsay was in love, and she just couldn't think of a life without Nick Hacheney.
[birds chirping] - [Richard] Now involved with four different women, Nick Hacheney's relationships continued throughout 1998.
- He kind of decided that Nicole Matheson was the one. And so he over time had contacted Annette Anderson,
Sandy Glass and Lindsay Smith to say, "Hey, I really want to be with Nicole Matheson.
We wanna be together, and so we gotta stop what we're doing." And so from there on,
the relationship really was just Nicole Matheson. [suspenseful music] - [Richard] Now free to enter into a new marriage,
Nick got engaged to Nicole Matheson in 2001, but his past was about to catch up with him
as gossip about his affairs began to circulate through the church. By then, in a new relationship,
and with her guilt growing over the secret she had been harboring for Nick Hacheney,
Sandy Glass finally disclosed what she knew to her fiance. - The fiance says, "You have to go to the authorities on this.
You're morally obligated to go to authorities on this. You know this information,
and he's gotten away with this murder now for four years." And so that is how she ended up getting an attorney
and then contacting the prosecutor's office. - [Richard] If Sandy Glass's claims were true,
her love affair with serial philanderer Nick Hacheney had given him a motive for murder.
The police were convinced enough to reopen the case. So would the truth finally be revealed?
- In my opinion, he's a misogynist. He really doesn't like women. He treats 'em dreadfully, you know,
and the closer they are to him, the worse he's going to treat them. [air whooshes]
[air whooshes] - In 2001, Nick Hacheney's former lover told police that he'd confessed to killing his wife.
Now, four years after her death, was Dawn's body ready to reveal further secrets about how she'd really died?
It was suggested that Nick Hacheney had suffocated his wife, Dawn, with a plastic bag before setting fire to their home.
In the light of Sandy Glass's claims, the case was reopened, and the previous autopsy report reviewed.
- We hired a different forensic pathologist, but we also asked the original forensic pathologist
to re-review what his findings were based on the new information. - Particular attention was paid
to the toxicology report, which identified chemicals and toxins found in the body.
On review, the test for carbon monoxide in Dawn's blood, which had shown negative, looked odd,
as it would've been present if she'd taken a breath in the smoky room. What's more, Dawn's blood have been shown to be free
of natural cyanide, but this chemical would have been expected after a house fire,
because it's released when plastics burn. The absence of cyanide and carbon monoxide strongly suggested
that Dawn's airways were shut before the fire started. And although the rare instance
of a laryngeal spasm described in the first autopsy was still not out of the question,
the toxicology revealed something that could be more sinister. They found Benadryl, a cold remedy that contains a sedative.
This raised no concerns at the time, because everyone assumed this was an accident,
and her husband, Nick, had told police that she'd had a cold. A review of the toxicology results showed that Dawn had
as much as five times the normal dose of Benadryl in her body. It would have knocked her out, so she would've been unable
to fight off her attacker as he suffocated her with a plastic bag. When the investigators stopped assuming
that this was an accident, and considered that she could have been murdered, suddenly all of the pieces slotted together,
and the evidence fitted perfectly. [suspenseful music] So why had these test results been overlooked
at the time of Dawn's death? - They did take into account that he was a pastor. They did take into account that he was well-respected,
and kind of, I think, presumed that somebody like that would never kill their wife.
And so there was perhaps a rush to judgment that this couldn't possibly be homicide.
So let's make the facts fit into an accidental death. - [Richard] So in 2002, with this new information at their disposal
and having taken a fresh look at the events surrounding Dawn's death, the state charged Nick Hacheney with Dawn's murder,
and the trial was set for later that year. - I was just confused. What? What is going on?
I never imagined Nick being a murderer. I didn't like him. I didn't think he was good for her.
I don't think that they had a healthy relationship, but you don't assume that, and that caught me off guard.
[suspenseful music] - [Richard] The trial was held at Kitsap County Court. It was Judge Anna Laurie's first murder case.
- The first day, it was this giant courtroom, and there was just everybody in the courthouse wanted to see him.
I mean, at that point, the word had spread. [suspenseful music] - It's not often that you have a pastor accused
of murdering his wife. It's not often that you have some of the salacious details
that were going to come out during the course of the trial. - It was really interesting,
because it was my first look at him, and I thought, "Really, you killed your wife?
You're being accused of killing your wife." 'Cause he was a very innocuous looking young man.
I mean, there was nothing especially significant about him. He was kind of colorless,
and just nothing there that you would think would have that kind of evil about him.
- [Richard] Over four years since the fire and tragic death of Dawn Hacheney, Nick Hacheney was finally facing trial.
- The prosecution's case was pretty straightforward. It was the story that Mr. Hacheney had told
is so improbable that it couldn't be true. And thus, the only thing that makes sense
is that he gave his wife an overdose of Benadryl. He caused her to die. He set the house on fire to mask his bad actions,
and he wouldn't have gotten caught, but for the fact that he cheated on his wife with all
of these women, and he finally got caught. The defense case was, this was all a terrible, tragic accident.
And this man over here is really a grieving widower. - So the defense case was, "Nope, they got it right the first time."
She died of basically the laryngeal spasm and died in the fire as a result. - [Richard] But the prosecution had uncovered evidence
that proved a laryngeal spasm was impossible. - Laryngeal spasm is extremely rare,
and it really is usually when there is an explosion like a bomb or something of that nature.
It doesn't really fit the facts of the fire in this case. - [Richard] The only possibility
that this had happened would've been if there was a massive explosion of propane
from a leaky cylinder. - The tanks were examined. They were completely full of propane.
There were no cracks, there were no seals that were broken, and so they didn't even vent during the fire.
So it's not as if the tanks just spontaneously blew up. We also looked at the manufacturer
and asked questions, quality control questions, things of that nature. And for that model of propane tank,
the seals had failed exactly zero times in the history of that particular model.
[suspenseful music] - [Richard] According to prosecutors, no leaks meant no explosion, and so no laryngeal spasm.
Therefore, Dawn must have been dead before the fire took hold. What's more, there was evidence
that the fire had been started deliberately. - If you look at the pictures, you can see there's not just wrapping papers,
but there's newspapers stuffed all around her, stuffed under her body, and so the the fire experts
had indicated that newspaper is a great accelerant, and all he had to do was put newspaper
and other paper in the bedroom, light it, and it would be a fantastic accelerant.
- [Richard] The evidence against Nick Hacheney was mounting up, but he gave nothing away.
- When Mr. Hacheney was at the defense table, he would sit quietly, almost motionless
through the whole proceeding. - He believed that he was gonna be acquitted. I would note, too, there was an interesting thing
that happened when I was preparing. I was getting ready to do closing argument, and we were on a break.
We were at recess, and I was standing at the podium looking at my notes, and he walked by,
and said, "My life is in your hands. And I really hope you understand that when you do your closing argument."
And I thought to myself, "Even now he's trying to manipulate women." - [Richard] The trial lasted for seven weeks.
The jury delivered their verdict on the 26th of December, 2002, five years to the day of Dawn Hacheney's death.
- So we brought him back in, and I was the first person that got to see the verdict.
So I'm looking at this, and I'm just going, "Oh my God, they found him guilty." There is only one sentence in Washington state law,
and that is life in prison without the possibility of parole. - [Richard] Justice had finally caught up
with Nick Hacheney, and he would end up at the state prison in Monroe, Washington to serve his sentence.
[cell door slams] - When I found out about the verdict, my first thought is, "Why?
If you didn't wanna be married to her, divorce. That's simpler. Why did you have to murder her?" That was my first thought.
And then there's a lot of other thoughts I had on him that I'm not gonna share, but "I hope you rot" was my thinking.
[suspenseful music] - This man killed his wife. He killed her in a way that caused her to suffer.
By all accounts, she was a sweet, innocent, loving wife who never would've guessed
what her husband was about, ever. Yeah, she deserved so much better than him. - It's such a human story.
And it's so sad that you know this lovely lady who did nothing but absolutely adore her husband had to die
because of a pastor who wanted too much power. - It was a wrong place, wrong time,
wrong marriage, wrong man. So he's where he belongs. - When Dawn Hacheney's body was found
in her burned-down home, everyone assumed the fire was an accident, and so was her death.
But her body revealed tiny clues that something more sinister had happened. There was no soot in her airways
or carbon monoxide in her blood. She had died before the fire broke out. Four years after her death,
Dawn Hacheney's body finally revealed the truths her husband Nick had tried to conceal.
Dawn had as much as five times the normal dose of Benadryl in her body. He had asphyxiated her with a plastic bag,
so with a mystery surrounding her death solved, justice was duly served. [suspenseful music]

In this edition, Dr Richard Shepherd looks at the murder of Dawn Hacheney, whose pastor husband set fire to their home to cover up her murder.

In The Truth About My Murder, Dr. Richard Shepherd showcases a state-of-the-art digital autopsy table featuring digitally scanned sample bodies to investigate a series of intriguing murders where the victims' bodies help reveal the truth behind horrific crimes.

For More FilmRise Check Out Our Other Channels: FilmRise Television: https://www.youtube.com/⁨@UCVVXDVee0JZ2dlPYtpdTZVg FilmRise Movies: https://www.youtube.com/@FilmRiseMovies Highway to Heaven - Full Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@HighwaytoHeavenFullEpisodes

Brief Summary

Dawn Hacheney was murdered by her husband Nick, who suffocated her before setting their house on fire.

Key points

The Mysterious Death of Dawn Hacheney. Dawn Hacheney's body was found in a house fire, leading to questions about her death.
Nick Hacheney's Alibi. Nick claims he was out hunting when the fire broke out, but was it an accident?
Sandy Glass's Shocking Testimony. Four years later, church secretary Sandy Glass claims Nick Hacheney murdered his wife.
The Prophecy. Sandy Glass's prophecy about her husband's death sets a dark tone for the story.
A Shocking Revelation. Sandy Glass discloses her knowledge of Nick's affairs, leading to a reopened investigation.
Trial and Verdict. Nick Hacheney faces trial for the murder of his wife, culminating in a shocking verdict.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The dead don't hide the truth, and they never lie.

Dr. Richard Shepherd on forensic pathologists' work

0:29WatchFeb 13, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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