Heidi Firkus ////// 415 | Forensic Files

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[Applause] [Music] s the people purchase firearms is for protection protecting themselves
their loved ones and their homes from the dangers beyond their walls keeping the bad outside
no one ever wants to have to deal with the home invasion by a dangerous intruder
in today's case we have just that a young couple expecting to be safe and secure in their own home
when they hear someone breaking in to their house the husband grabs his gun and confronts
the intruder but something goes wrong and instead of the Intruder being shot the husband and the wife are both shot
with their own gun one of them will not survive the incident the other is left to answer a lot of
questions this is true crime garage and this is the case of Heidi Fergus [Music]
We Begin several of our shows with the 911 calls that signaled the beginning of law enforcement's attention to a crime
of course the call for help usually indicates that something is very very wrong in this case there were two 9-1-1
calls from different people two different callers asking for help at the same crime scene the audio for these
calls has not been released but the transcripts have the first call was made to the Ramsey County emergency
communications center on April 25th 2010. the call came from 1794 West Minnehaha
Avenue in the city of Saint Paul Minnesota this was a residential neighborhood in
which the small Bungalow style homes were packed together in fairly close proximity the caller we would later
learn was a 25 year old woman named Heidi furcus yeah Heidi furkus is married to Nick furcus and they live in
a house that they are purchasing they they own the house correct so this first 9-1-1 call it's pretty short and really
the only information that's communicated to dispatch by Heidi is that a somebody's breaking into their home
and B she's trying to communicate with them her location their address and it never really fully gets out in this
first call what ends up happening is there's a loud noise Heidi or somebody else know and then the call ends
abruptly so this leaves dispatch with wondering okay well what's going on there and
where exactly is this place located they tried to call her back several times but
this is not successful then a second 9-1-1 call came in from the same address the caller this time was a male
we were not able to find anything that would tell us how much time elapsed between these two different calls well
the reason why is because police have released the time of Nick's call but not of Heidi's call right this is a crucial
piece of information that would be very helpful for us to know but it's not been
released all that has been reported is that the second 9-1-1 call came in as squad cars were still responding to the
scene and what information we do have here Captain is that the second 9-1-1 call came in at about 6 30 a.m and what
we can make out from this call is that it's coming from a man's home who was violently invaded by an intruder and the
man's wife was shot in the melee she appears to him the man on the phone to be dead he sounds hysterical and who
wouldn't be an unknown essay valent was in his residence his wife was shot and he was shot it all likely went down very
fast and as we said Captain this is supposed to be a quiet Sunday morning he's calling 9-1-1 and he stays on the
phone until the officers arrive on the scene well eyewitnesses in the neighborhood also state that at the time
that it would have been daylight or almost daylight at that hour and what we're going to see is as the police
investigation begins there was a frustrating lack of detail to go on what actually went down in that house in the
early morning hours of that Sunday before we get into the nitty-gritty of this case I've got to say Heidi and Nick
Fergus this seems like just a totally normal everyday American couple Heidi Erickson grew up in Falcon Heights
she played basketball and tennis in high school she was in the choir and loved to
draw and paint she was known for making beautiful cards that she gave to her friends she was close with her two older
brothers her parents describe her as a very trusting but maybe a little naive Heidi and Nick met in 2003 at the
Calvary Baptist church youth group right after Heidi graduated from high school they got married when Heidi was 20 years
old Nick was 22. so they were married for five years before this shooting happened Heidi recently started an
administrative job at a financial services firm where her father worked and in fact the two had met for coffee
at work on the Friday before Heidi died we know that Nick Fergus well he grew up
in the area as well and his family was very active in the church where Nick and Heidi met in 2010 Nick was the director
of operations at Crew 2 Chem-Dry which was a local Carpet Cleaning company by the accounts of every single one of Nick
and Heidi's friends and acquaintances the two had an ideal marriage they enjoyed many activities like travel and
biking together these were wonderful people involved at their Church even working as youth group leaders they had
lots of friends and loved to throw dinner parties at their home or even after a decade of this crime happening I
have not heard one friend family member come forward and say you know what Heidi
and Nick they they weren't getting along they had some problems well and that's what's so weird about this case because
of the suspicions it would later come out you would expect to hear some problems
or expect to hear some bad stuff but there just doesn't seem to be any coming from people that knew these people
closest their home was a three-bedroom two-bath house with just a touch over 1500 square feet they purchased the home
in 2007. when police arrived at the Fergus home Heidi furcus was dead lying in the
entryway to the kitchen Nick was wounded no one else was present according to the
first news reports this is published the same day that this all went down this is
from the Pioneer Press Twin Cities 27 year old Nick Fergus told police that he and his wife heard an intruder near
the front door of their home this was very early on Sunday morning again we don't know the time of the first 9-1-1
call made by Heidi but the second 9-1-1 call from Nick was at 6 30. according to
Nick both he and Heidi went downstairs to investigate Nick armed with his shotgun there was a struggle and Heidi
and Nick were both shot quote during the struggle Nick fergus's gun went off and
Heidi was shot the struggle continued and Nicholas was shot in the leg with his gun this from a Saint Paul police
spokesman the Intruder fled nothing was taken from the home this is according to police
police were able to recover the shotgun from the Fergus home and while Heidi Fergus was dead when First Responders
arrived on the scene Nick Fergus who was shot in the leg was treated and released
from Region's Hospital real quick back to the the gunshots because the the police spokesman says he
was speaking from Nick's account of the events this this is weird because on the
9-1-1 call Nick said that he didn't know who shot him now it sounds like the only gun that was
fired was in fact Nix Nick told police that he did not know the intruder and although they scouted the area
police had no luck locating the person who broke into the home Nick described the Intruder as a male of unknown race
six feet to six feet two inches tall 200 to 220 pounds he said the man was wearing a dark colored hooded sweatshirt
there was no sign of forced entry into the home police would say only that the home was
quote secured when they arrived there was a witness this is Clifford Mitchell who lives down the street said
that he heard a car pull out real fast screeching tires in the alley behind the fergus's home he estimated it was about
6 15 or 6 20 a.m Clifford said he did not see the car he only heard the vehicle the problem with this eyewitness
is it's a heavily dense area the other thing too Captain is there's no public report
out there on the lapse of time between the the two gunshots right we don't have anybody saying that they heard the
gunshots now we know they obviously they did take place we just don't have anybody else to tell us when they took
place if we go off of the 9-1-1 calls that would lead us to believe Heidi's call Ended as the first shot went off or
just before the first shot went off and we know based off of what Nick tells 9-1-1 that he's already been shot by the
time he's called back to 9-1-1 so sometime between the start of Heidi's call and the start of Nick's call
we have two gunshots first Heidi shot and then Nick shot this according to our only living witness so our only living
victim yeah so let's simplify this this couple is up in their bed room the husband Nick hears something
says the front door now does the front door mean the front door to Nick because you know how some people
have a front door and then they have a door that they use all the time and then that's what they call the front
door I cannot tell you what what door means what to this man I I don't know him but seeing the layout of his home it
would be hard to confuse the front entryway with with any other door to that good that clears it up so
he wakes up his wife hey wake up I think somebody's trying to get in the house and then he claims that they both go
downstairs she obviously has her phone I don't know if he has his phone at the time
they s he sees the Intruder he struggles with this intruder he looks to me about maybe Nick and he
looks maybe to Me Maybe 5 10 or so so he's wrestling with a guy that's larger than he is heavier than he is
during that wrestling the gun goes off which shoots his wife in the back the gun then goes off and
shoots him in the leg her wounds being fatal his not fatal at all I wouldn't say that they're not they weren't severe
yeah so regarding his wound this was a tricky thing to to figure because the reports just say hey he was treated that
day and released from the hospital so when you hear that you're like oh you know it's uh merely a flesh wound right
right but there have been conflicting reports there are some people out there that said hey this dude showed me the
gunshot later and it was gruesome and then there's other people that do say the same thing that that you would
expect oh it was just it just grazed him right so there's conflicting reports I've not seen any pictures or anything
or any detailed Hospital reports to to get a better idea on what this looks like but if we are to believe next story
it sounds like the two of them go down the steps almost the stairs at almost the same time she's armed with her cell
phone he's armed with a shotgun and when they get to the foot of the stairs they're encountered by the Intruder and
now we got two men rustling over a big gun right fights on now what's interesting though is why is she going
down there to me it's like hey there's an intruder I got my gun get call 9-1-1 right right call 9-1-1 I got my gun
let's do this he claims that she he was trying to get her to go to the garage yeah or or at least outside in the
backyard which makes no sense to me unless again what kind of noises are you hearing if
you if you're just hearing a jiggle of a door handle maybe that sounds like uh one person
if it sounded like more people maybe that would be a reason to run to the garage or to run outside
it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me and then you have this struggle that takes place
I would assume that this Intruder wouldn't know what kind of gun he was wrestling away how many shots that it
would be able to fire but all of a sudden it's like one shot kills somebody the other shot wounds the other person
and then the person decided to then take off from my teachings when I was working
in security and everything that I learned there the majority of the time believe it or not they do say the safest
place for a person to to get to in a situation like this would be to get out of the house you want to especially
knowing that it's it's the light of day is coming about right you want to be out in public or or at
least in the view of other people of witnesses and you're less likely to have something bad happen to you in that
situation now you have variables that are going to change that given this situation where you are arming yourself
you're looking like you're ready to defend yourself I probably would not instruct anybody to go outside I mean we
have the Intruder who's believed to be on the ground level let's keep everybody who's not armed upstairs and I will go
down and try to stand our ground here yeah lock the bathroom or if there's a master suite lock the the bedroom lock
the bathroom door hide in here make the call that's why rich people have Panic rooms because they they can barricade
themselves in call for help and not have to encounter the Intruder now here what
I what I love about this and and often people will buy a shotgun for the purpose of protecting their home
everybody knows the universal shotgun sound you can usually make that sound and if a
perp hears that and they're inside your home they are not effing with you anymore they are out picking them up
putting them down and they're they're gone right [ __ ] that gun that's a universal sound for get out of my house
and ninety percent of the time that's what goes down my guess here is if this goes down the way Nick said it did
there's a chance that this Intruder did not see the gun until they were already fighting over the gun if that makes any
sense right because he says they're coming down the stairs and that's when boom bump into the Intruder now we have
a fight going on one of the problems though with this story is we have no sign of force entry
right well and then listen to this so I was looking for okay I will any public report for when these gunshots went off
right because then you go well if they're not going to tell me what time both 9-1-1 calls took place I'm curious
how how much earlier than the the second call did these gunshots go off but there
is no public report for that there is this report a next door neighbor his name's Brandon O'Connor he says that he
heard a man yelling who sounded like he was in pain so presumably this is Nick's
9-1-1 call we we can tell by the transcript that Nick is yelling I mean he he's calling for help he's saying
everything you would think anticipate somebody to be saying during this situation we need to go over that
transcript a little bit clearer the neighbor makes no reference to the loud gunshots only that he heard a man
yelling yeah then you wonder they need to do ballistic tests to see how what range when she was hit with the Heidi
being hit with the gunshots so the day after the shooting police released some more information that was interesting
Heidi had died after being shot once in the back with her husband's shotgun a second shot from the same gun this is in
this report grazed Nick's leg the gun was fired only twice so both both it was fired only two times
one hitting the wife one hitting Nick in the leg according to Nick Heidi had been shot as
she was running out of the room where he was fighting with the intruder but police were unable to detect any signs
of a struggle inside the home which was processed as a crime scene and they processed this crime scene for two days
following the murder it's also not clear to us how long this struggle was it could have been grabbed the gun you know
Push Pull shot shot the guy takes off running you know a struggle for 10 seconds 20 seconds
and I do want to be clear Heidi's death certificate does read cause of death shotgun wound to the back manner of
death homicide police collected DNA and fingerprint information from Nick to help them sort
out any physical evidence collected at the scene this of course is standard procedure to help them isolate any
stranger or Intruder DNA or Prince the police spokesman told the media that Nick was not considered a suspect a
couple of days after Heidi died the Prescott win of some information that police said was unrelated to the case
but those following the case found it very interesting they found it very relatable the fercas home was under
foreclosure in fact the Sheriff's Office was scheduled to take possession of the
house on the morning of Monday April 26th this would be the day after Heidi was killed
the ferguses were being evicted it turned out that the house had been sold in June of 2009 in a foreclosure sale it
appeared that Heidi and Nick were living there despite this sale and the eviction
notices that they were receiving for months they were living there for months without paying anything
the ferguses were going to be homeless now what does this have to do with the Intruder who broke in well it was noted
by police that the house was not all packed up as one would expect right it looked totally normal there's Furniture
there's personal possessions there's framed photos on display pictures on the walls dressers are full with clothes
right because it also if everything was packed up and you go well there was a struggle but there's no sign of a
struggle of course there's not you know or not obvious signs of a struggle like holes in a wall or anything because
everything's packed up but that's not the case with their house it appears captain that there weren't even boxes or
crates to be packed up and Heidi had not told anyone about an eviction or moving
or anything some people procrastinate though well after Nick was released from the hospital this on the 26th he and his
parents sat down with Heidi's parents and they told them about the eviction at that time
Nick assured them that Heidi knew about this but John and Linda Erickson her parents
they weren't buying it Heidi's parents told the media that their daughter had not known that she was about to be
evicted right so this becomes a possible motive Linda says that Heidi talked about looking into a short sale of the
home uh this would be apparently because she wanted to live in a different house
have some kids raise the kids in a different home in other words they were considering selling the house even
though they knew they would not make any money off of the sale they've not been in the house very long the thought here
Linda Heidi's mom says was that they were going to downsize to an apartment this so they could save up money for a
different house apparently Nick was present for that conversation and her parents would later say that
Nick remained totally silent during that entire conversation on Tuesday April 27th the sheriff's
department was on site as soon as the crime scene tape was down this to ensure the smooth takeover by the mortgage
company [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you all right cheers mates cheers
Nick Fergus told police that he struggled with a man who broke into his home well eventually he managed to come
up with some details about this man in mid-may police released a sketch of a suspect based off of what Nick told them
this was not your typical sketch compiled by a police sketch artist this was created by a private artist
hired by Nick's attorney it is not known why Nick and his attorney chose to use a private artist
rather than a trained police sketch artist to create the rendering and the sheriff's department said that
investigators preferred police prepared sketches now even more strange remember Nick could not provide police with a
detailed description of his attacker including the man's race but in this sketch that he paid for we
see a drawing of a black man with very detailed facial features and with the sketch came a new detail
that the attacker was estimated to be between 40 and 60 years old it seems a month after the attack Nick
now magically realizes I did get a good look at this cat in my memory of this event is better now than it was the
first 48 hours after my wife was shot in the back I do want to point out captain
that the police did receive a few calls after the release of the sketch now about a month after Heidi's death
reports came out that police executed a search warrant to collect the couple's Financial records
luckily for us the local papers published excerpts of this warrant and police found correspondence that
indicated that the couple was under water financially it in fact it read severe financial problems including
foreclosure unpaid bills large credit card balances and a lifestyle of wanton spending outside of their means the
media had a field day with the wanton spending terminology this was the phrase of several headlines the affidavit also
confirmed that Heidi furcus did not know about the couple's Financial plight or that they were being evicted from their
home apparently the two recently took a trip to Hawaii which Heidi told her mother Nick paid for with some bonuses
he received from work Captain you went to Hawaii a few years back tell us is that a cheap trip I'm sorry I'm the
worst person to ask it was actually not that expensive okay so not as expensive as I thought it
would be but it was it was still a few thousand dollars but I always heard when I was younger oh if you want to take a
trip to Hawaii you're going to spend 10 grand or so and that was not even close to that regardless a few thousand
dollars from people that are not paying their mortgage correct and the house was full of brand new
purchases recreational items that they obviously could not afford it appears that Nick handled the finances and they
chronically overspent well and we hear counseling from our family that there was kind of a neat naivete that she went
through life with Heidi and so maybe once they got married it was like oh well my husband takes care of the
finances and I trust him so we're fine per the affidavit it looks like Nick is trying to cover up the mounting debts
even from his wife and we have words like investigators interviewed several members of Heidi's
family and her Close Associates they found no evidence that Heidi was in any way aware of the dire Financial Straits
the couple was in they found no evidence that Heidi was in any way aware of the eviction or the
foreclosure on their home and why is this important because I think one side her family and friends are saying look
she had no clue about this and this is establishing a motive for Nick why would he want to kill his wife they didn't
seem to argue about anything well did he get his head so up underwater and that she was going to have to
uh deal with these consequences that might have led I've seen this happen with plenty of families family
businesses and things like that where they're going under and the other spouse has no clue of what's happening and once
this all comes out it's lies upon lies upon lies and it's almost very similar to when somebody is having a long time
affair with somebody it's the mountain of lies that this person told you that gives you reason to go I can't trust
this person anymore I I have to leave them yeah and this is what is very difficult for us on the outside looking
in because we don't know the the confidential if you will conversations that were had between
husband and wife I don't know that we will ever be able to say with 100 certainty that Heidi
didn't know any of this I think what we can base our thoughts and our speculation off of is what the
police and investigators are saying to the public what Heidi's family is saying to the public and the police are saying
look we couldn't find one shred of evidence that Heidi was aware that any of this
stuff was going on right what we also have here this is is a bit strange this is a little more evidence
that Nick was covering this mess around the time of the foreclosure the couple's insurance agent his name is
Kurt Brown received a notice that the couple's home insurance was canceled because of the
Foreclosure now brown was an old college friend of Heidi's parents Brown called Nick
and he says hey I got this notice about your home insurance being canceled Nick tells him quote a teller or somebody was
stealing his paychecks and he was working to resolve that issue with the bank and brown would later say this look he
believed the young man but he also said in all of his years of working in the business he had never had
anything like that ever happen well and also being somebody that worked at a bank if there was some suspicion that uh
teller was taking this money from this individual and they caught the teller the teller one would be fired
immediately and they would refund the money immediately until they could figure it out they don't just go well we
gotta hold this money back and and before we figure things out the bank will front the money to you and and make
sure that they do a proper investigation the day before she died Heidi and a friend went to the Mall of America and
did some shopping together the friend said later that that Heidi talked about wanting to have a burger for dinner and
getting a pedicure the next day her friend dropped her back off at her home around 6 PM this was on that Saturday
Okay so she is killed Heidi is killed 12 hours later if she was planning on spending time at
a nail salon on Sunday then it doesn't sound like she was planning on packing up and moving out remind you
they were scheduled to be evicted from that home on Monday she's killed in the early morning hours of Sunday and again
no boxes no crates to me it doesn't look like well I'll tell you what we know that the
couple made let me count them oh zero Arrangements who live elsewhere right they've made no arrangements with Mom or
Dad or in-laws or anyone to go anywhere after that Sunday I think the question for a lot of people is is this motive
enough is this motive for murder and I would argue yes because we've seen this in other cases before I I think you
could argue like the Christian Longo case with the guy getting his head so underwater that this becomes a rational
way out for this this person now I don't think there's a lot of evidence to show
that Nick received a bunch of money or that there was some insurance claim because I I just don't see that and and
after all these years nothing has come out stating well once she died he collected
half a million dollars or something right but I think it's motive enough that this person wanted to get out of
this situation and if this individual is lying to his wife we're talking about not one line not two lies not three lies
possibly thousands of lies to lead them up to this point what else is he lying about what other
secrets were in his life that he didn't want his wife to find out about this reminds me a lot of
the John list case where we have an individual who is living a lie and he's not just living
the life from society he's living that lie in front of his kids his wife and his mother yeah good point and what did
John list do he even pretended to go off to work every day to a job he no longer
had go sit on a damn park bench and read the newspaper because he had to pretend to
be gone for a certain amount of time each day so that his family continued to believe that he had a job that he was
paying for the house that they lived in that everything was fine that's what I do every week then you have to wonder
too like I mean this is psychologically this case is is Beyond bizarre because then you have to
wonder is there some kind of weird level where Heidi never ever knew that Nick was a
bad guy Heidi never ever knew in the course of their relationship in the entirety of her life that Nick wasn't
who he said he was to the point that he led her to believe that there was an intruder she shot in
the back she dies she may if she didn't know anything wrong was going on if she didn't know
that they were about to be evicted she never knew that and she never knew that it was Nick's fault and a really good
point that was brought up I was watching brain scratch one of our favorites uh our buddy John and he brought up the
point that it wouldn't be that hard if your wife is deep into sleep and we know this is let's say this is happening
closer to 6 00 A.M it wouldn't be that hard if you were let's say you were up all night or you
woke up early or whatever it was it wouldn't be that hard to shake her and immediately with no sounds with no
nothing you could convince somebody hey hey I heard some noises I think somebody's
breaking into her house and right away their brain would go into that mode okay what do we gotta do you know I mean so I
I don't think it would be that hard to convince somebody that something bad was happening even though there wasn't
possibly any evidence of that well and here there's the other problem we need some evidence of the Intruder right
because with the Intruder Theory investigation if the authorities are to believe that
Nick really did struggle up close and personal with the intruder you would think he would be able to
describe the man that he fought with or at least what the man was wearing and we
don't get any type of really good description until almost a month later right and here's a statement to the media that
says investigators have tried to locate Witnesses but have not interviewed anyone they canvas the area they didn't
interview anyone who said they saw an intruder go into the home or flee from the home and as you pointed out Captain
the neighborhood is densely populated and it was light at the time of the incident so police felt well yeah they
stated publicly we really believe somebody would have seen something well not just somebody would see something
but Nick would have seen something because it would have been lighter out you go look if you if your house if you
have all the lights off in your house and you go down at 3am and you run into an intruder you might not see anything
but you're talking six o'clock and everybody's telling you that it's pretty much daylight already out there you run
into this intruder you're going to know and you struggle with them you're going to know his race you're going to know
roughly the size roughly his weight what he was wearing I I just don't buy that once you're on
this 9-1-1 call it's I don't know it's almost like he planned this out so perfectly
but a couple things he just wasn't prepared for well what did the man look like I don't
know what was he wearing I don't know maybe a sweater it just seems like once he got to that
point of the story I mean what a great thing hey you go to the garage you call 9-1-1 once you realize
that she's on the phone boom that's when you shoot her because now we have audio
evidence that something happened and then now you got to shoot yourself and but then on on the 9-1-1 call
they he's saying somebody shot my wife somebody shot me you're the one that was holding the gun
you're the one that shot her you're the one that shot yourself even if you're in
a struggle with somebody don't you think that would have came up in the 911 conversation my wife shot who shot her I
was struggling with the Intruder and the gun went off that information is left out in the 9-1-1 call so it it seems to
me like he plans certain things out pretty well but other things he couldn't figure out and didn't even
wasn't even able to come up with a plan until a month later yeah so this affidavit did have some other
interesting information in it it states that Nick told police he was upstairs with his wife when they quote heard
noises downstairs and they thought someone was breaking into the residence he says he grabbed a shotgun and they
both walked down the stairs at this time she calls 9-1-1 when they were walking toward the back door to escape to the
backyard they encountered a person wearing a hooded sweatshirt Nicholas stated he struggled with the person in
the shotgun discharged striking his wife Nicholas stated he continued to struggle
over the shotgun and it discharged again striking him in the leg he said that the
person ran away he said he went to his wife and he used her phone to call 9-1-1 again
there was no explanation of how or why the first 9-1-1 call was made by Heidi and and why it was disconnected and I
think that's the key thing why was that first call disconnected and I also want to make sure that we
talk about some reasons why the Intruder Theory here does not track to me anyway
well again okay so let's just stay on that one point real quick it sounds or what the dispatchers have
stated what police have stated that there's this loud noise and a no by somebody a scream of no most people when
they hear this I guess claim that it makes the most sense that the gun went off in Nick's story
he doesn't reiterate that that all she's on the phone and that's when she was shot well the other thing
too if she's shot at a total surprise to her and she's the one on the call and Nick says I mean his words where he went
to his wife so I'm assuming they're at some distance you pointed out something good I'd love to know the uh if we could
piece together the trajectory of that shot right and piece that together because here's the problem we don't know
how the phone got disconnected again that's that appears to me to be an action that somebody had to make
she didn't just get shot in the back fall to the ground and then the phone hangs itself up right she hung up the
phone he hung up the phone the Intruder ran over and grabbed the phone and hung it said all right hold on let me get
this for you right hang up so here's some other things that don't add up to me Captain and and you chime in where
you when and where you want to but I have a I got a list for you okay so one no sign of forced entry police tried to
determine how the Intruder could have got into the home they couldn't find any evidence of how the Intruder made their
way into the home right let me let me uh chime in real quick no fingerprints of course the person
could have been wearing gloves they didn't find any they did some touch DNA uh forensics evidence nothing there's no
scratch marks there's no broken locks there's no broken glass right and the the other difficult thing for the
Intruder as well is the front entryway to the home where Nick said they heard the intruder
has a vestibule you know it's one of those there's a there's an outside door then a small entryway then there's a
second door into the home this means the Intruder would have had to get through two doors and yet left no Trace
the time of day this is confusing too why would the Intruder wait for it to be light out
before entering a home to Rob it's easier to see it's well this is a Sunday morning and you know some
people get up early they like to drink coffee maybe they're getting the paper off their front porch or their driveway
and nobody sees a man sprinting from the home after two shotgun blast then we have a pair we pair that with
the report from a neighbor about screeching car tires from the alley but this alley was behind the hole the
Intruder according to to Nick came through the front door not the back door closest to the alley he would have to
run around the house out the gate and then to his car the only reason why this somewhat makes sense to me is that he
could have entered from the front or possibly knew that these houses would be easier to enter to the front you could
go through the house grab a couple things run through the back and now you're at your uh Escape vehicle nothing
was stolen from the house we also have the police report stating no signs of a struggle now mind you they processed the
home for 48 hours so they spent a good deal of time looking at the crime scene the location of Heidi's body is
questionable too Heidi was found dead in the kitchen entryway this is not near the front door area where Nick alleged
the struggle went down to get to the kitchen from the foyer you would have to pass through other rooms now yes it is
possible that Heidi was shot in the foyer and then managed to run or crawl to the spot where she died trying to get
away from her shooter but on the 9-1-1 call she made she told the dispatcher quote someone is trying to break into my
house and quote not someone broke in and my husband is fighting with him in front
of me right then we have Heidi never told the dispatcher that she actually saw anyone or that anyone was actually
in the home which look that's that's the big red flag here you just said it she's
on the phone at the same time that her husband is claiming he is having altercation in with the intruder
and that is never stated by her it again somebody's trying to break into our home is way different than a guy's
in our home my my husband's struggling with this Intruder well and then you have the real scary possibility that if
this whole event was on purpose the Nick planned on killing Heidi in this scenario he woke his wife up and
convinced Heidi that someone really was breaking in resulting in her calling 9-1-1
which she evidently believed there was an intruder because she's the one that called 9-1-1 this is almost providing an
alibi in a way for him to verify his story because it's so smart to have her call 9-1-1 then to you
call just after the fact right because had he been the only one that called 9-1-1 and it was all after the fact
don't you think they'd be looking at this a whole different way and probably immediately from the get-go but again
here's an individual that is not good at planning and we know this because we have a he
has a history of this buys a house didn't plan on paying for the house you know well maybe he's running and
that was his plan all along possibly but but again well hold on just a second because the thing that we have here too
and this is very interesting in May of 2011 this is almost a year after this whole thing went down according to Saint
Paul police department senior Commander Bill Martinez who headed up the homicide
unit at that time he said quote Nick has not been eliminated as a possible suspect now we know that Nick lawyered
up pretty quickly per the Pioneer Press Twin Cities article that says Joe Friedberg fergus's attorney said police
have treated him as a suspect from day one and that that's why he got involved he says that I believe them to be wrong
and I believe from the beginning that Nick was a victim and not a perpetrator but Friedberg had an answer for
everything as for the dire financial situation the couple was facing and the impending eviction he commented the
police either negligently or intentionally misrepresented his financial condition
they said he was Far More in debt than he actually was he said my office we did our own
Financial investigation and we found no possibility for any Financial motive in this type of thing furthermore he said
it was totally false that Heidi did not know about the eviction saying we have documentary evidence of the fact that
she knew exactly what was going on in fact they were out together shortly before meaning the shooting looking for
a new residence yeah but they don't do they have but they weren't right yeah I want to see
the realtor that showed him around she was talking about eating a burger for dinner and having a pedicure the
next day I also think it's hilarious how how he says the situation wasn't as bad as the
police made it out to be still pretty bad but not as bad they were going to be kicked out of their home with no place
to go that's pretty bad and look both of their parents are are good people with homes of their own
if they needed if they needed somewhere to stay or possibly alone right just a bed to sleep in for a couple of months
Arrangements could have been made and they weren't and that to me when Mom and Dad don't know that you're
getting kicked out of your house and you've made no plan to have a place to stay
yeah I I just can't believe I can't believe that it's anything other than what it actually looks like well in
Nick's defense though because a lot of people say look Heidi was a really good person and so
she wouldn't have done this she wouldn't have just lived rent free she wouldn't have just spent money that she didn't
have there's a lot of very good people that don't pay their bills that don't pay
their bills there's a lot of good people that run in to um it reminds me I have to call the
electric company yes no but there's a lot of people that are just ignorant when it comes to finances
I I learned a lot about finances as being a teller I would see people that were really good about saving little
percentages back every month I also saw guys that made six figures easily live in the negative
yeah so I've seen people that make six figures and they can't get a car loan because
they have collections out on them for tiny little bills that they were just unaware of
they're either unaware of them or they slip through the cracks right and so the idea that they're like she's a really
good person that's evidence of her not knowing about their bad financial situation
I don't think that's evidence of that so in Nick's defense is it possible that she knew I don't think it's as easy as
black and white she either she either knew everything or she didn't know everything I think there's a gray area
right the and there's evidence of that because when she says look we don't have enough equity if we sold
our house we'd lose money we want to do a short sale that means that she was aware of some things
happening financially and so I think there was like I said this kind of gray area but I still think it's enough of a
motive because it's lie after lie after lie after lie I'm gonna use her words to
kind of confirm what I think was going on and her words too this is according to her mother and the mother says that
Nick was present for this conversation and remained quiet he didn't say anything during the course of this
conversation I'm talking about the conversation where Heidi and her mother discuss the couple
downsizing their life moving out of their house selling their house moving into an apartment so they can save up
for a home there's a few problems with that they don't just love giving out new home loans to people
that were evicted from their first home loan right and then second of all if you
are going to save up for a home and you again you have these nice parents with homes of Their Own
if you really know how broke you are you go and live with Mom and Dad or you go live somewhere where you can live as
cheap as possible to save up to try to right the ship no she's saying we're thinking about getting an apartment
that costs money too so even though this Friedberg has an answer for everything I
think look that sounds good way to spin it positive for your client there Mr free Burger but I'm going to call
[ __ ] as my man Pete Townsend would say it's an Eminence Front it's a put on detective Martinez said in May of 2011
quote we have a number of questions we would like to ask him meaning Nick he hasn't been interviewed for almost a
year since it happened he hasn't been fully Cooperative in some of our requests we have strict orders from his
attorney that he is not to talk to us and this is the problem I have because again it doesn't have to be one or the
other you can lawyer up and guess what if this happened and there's all these question marks and they and somebody
said well sir we think you you set this up and you killed your wife goddamn right I'm getting a lawyer
but if I actually care about figuring out who did this there you go then I'm going to say hey
we need to be open to answer all the questions and what his lawyer stated was well they just want to talk to him
and to try to find inconsistencies in this story to trip him up no [ __ ] Sherlock that's what they do
well hold on but you have the power to to go to the police if he give if he gave uh just the
smallest bits of shits about his wife he would then go to police and say any question that you have submit that to my
lawyer I'll answer it the best of my ability and that would give them time to know he
he doesn't remember this or he doesn't know this so he can't answer that but you would be assisting with the police
but that's not what you've done right you have moved on with your life you have married somebody else you started a
family you're probably lying to her every chance you can get and when your head sinks about underwater again
you're probably going to try to find a way out too well see I I have three really big questions in this case and
really I have one very simple answer that covers all three of these bases one why under the advice of counsel did
broke ass Nick refuse to talk to investigators after his initial interview why is Nick not out pounding
the pavement looking for the man responsible for his wife's death why is Nick not pounding on the table
demanding that police find the man responsible for the death of his wife that's because old nasty Nick knows
right where to find that man he sees him every day when he looks in the mirror Nick continues to this day
to refuse to respond to Media requests for interviews or comments Friedberg is no longer his attorney Nick because he
couldn't pay him right Nick got married again this was in August of 2012 but a web sleuther posted a link to court
filings in Minnesota that the new wife recently filed for divorce surprise surprise and and she
should go to police if if you married Nick Fergus right first of all sorry that became your last name
because I'd hate to meet somebody and be like oh they seem like a great person what's your last name Fergus oh I'm
going to change my name to that no way [ __ ] ass name change it but if he was lying to you about things
and lying to you about financial records or lying to you about anything you should go to police because that would
confirm their suspicions of his ability to lie and and she should do that well frankly I think it's shameful that
Nick Fergus is not in prison I believe there is ample evidence to obtain at least a manslaughter conviction here in
this case and police are asking anyone with information on this case to call them at
651-266-5650 [Music] [Applause] thank you foreign so much for joining us here in the
garage and if you'd like to help out the garage go to iTunes and leave us a five-star review leave us some Stars we
need Stars we need as many stars as possible any kind words that you can leave us for a nice review really does
help the show well what I prefer is when they leave five stars but then they say
like some shitty stuff something nasty to leave five stars and then be like but Nick kind of sucks he really sucks he
five star sucks he five stars sucks and the captain Oh I would give him negative
stars but but we're gonna give you five stars anyways all right until next time everybody out there be good be kind and
don't listen foreign [Music]

Heidi Firkus ////// 415

Part 1 of 1 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week’s case starts with two calls to 911. The homeowners are reporting a break in at their home. When police arrive, they find one person injured and another dead. Beer of the Week - Razz the Roof Garage Grade - 3 and 3 quarter bottle caps

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Brief Summary

Heidi Fergus was shot during a home invasion; her husband Nick's story raises suspicions about his involvement and their financial troubles.

Key points

The Tragic Case of Heidi Fergus. A couple's home invasion leads to a shocking tragedy, leaving one dead and the other wounded.
The 911 Calls. Two 911 calls from the same address reveal confusion and urgency during a home invasion.
A Normal Couple's Life. Heidi and Nick Fergus were seen as an ideal couple, involved in their community.
Mysterious Eviction. Heidi's parents claim she was unaware of an impending eviction, raising suspicions about Nick.
Sketch of a Suspect. Nick provided details for a sketch of an intruder, raising questions about his memory.
Financial Struggles Uncovered. Police discovered severe financial issues, including foreclosure and unpaid bills, after Heidi's death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

One of them will not survive the incident.

Describing the couple's fate

4:20WatchNov 12, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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