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

when it comes to Quality sleep Ashley has you covered with top mattress brands at winning prices and with special
financing options available you can snooze now and pay later plus your mattress purchase helps give the gift of
better sleep to children in need and US Special Operations forces visit your local Ashley store or shop online today
and make every snooze count financing is subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for d details canva presents
a true crime of design in the office Maya spots something unusual in the presentation what's this it was an
off-brand font her coworker explains I added the font I thought it was fun it was not Maya solved it with canva open
up canva one click and the font is on brand easy stay on brand and solve font crimes at canva.com the home for every
brand [Music] [Music] never [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a guy who was distancing himself socially before it
was cool he is the captain don't stand so close to me it's good to be seen it's good to to see you thanks for listening
thanks for telling a [Music] friend it's the end of July getting ready to cruise on into August and it's
hot outside so reach for something refreshing today we've got a beauty we are drinking Raz the roof by the
hardworking folks over at susah Han Brewing Company I love this one on a hot summer day it's light fruity and a
little tart garage grade let's go three and 3/4 bottle caps out of and this beautiful beer is brought To Us
by some of our beautiful listeners right here did you know captain that it is known worldwide that TCG has the very
best looking listeners In The Biz yeah so we should R the roof R the roof of course you knew that so here is a cheers
to my friend cat listening over in Harvey's Lake PA and a big shout out to Adam and Maria and Woodstock Georgia
next up here's a cheers to Nevada in St Louis Missouri and a big shout out to Amanda and Fort Mitchell Kentucky and a
special cheers to all men and women that serve this great nation here's a big big
thank you and cheers that goes out to Casey and Brock Texas and last but certainly not least we have a big nice
jibi to the wios Nick and Jess holding it down in Napa California everyone we just mentioned went to True Crime
garage. and they contributed to this week's beer fund and for that we thank you and for
all true crme garage episodes download the Stitcher app or for just some of them maybe you just want some of them
you can still get them on the free Stitcher app yeah I would recommend not to listen to all of them and that is
enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
crime [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] one of the top reasons the people 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 a 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 into 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 [Music]
ferus We Begin several of our shows with the 911 calls that signal the beginning
of law enforcement's attention to a crime of course the call for help usually indicates that something is very
very wrong and this case there were two 911 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 Ramsay County Emergency Communication Center on April 25th 2010 the call came from 1794 West
minihaha Avenue in the city of St Paul min inota 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 ferus yeah Heidi ferus is married to Nick ferus and they live in a house that they are purchasing they
they own the house correct so this first 911 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 yells no 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 911 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 cuz 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 911 call
came in as squad cars were still responding to the scene and what information we do have here Captain is
that the second 911 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 as salent 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 911 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
ferus this seems like just a totally normal everyday American couple Heidi Erikson 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 this 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 5 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 ferus 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 to 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 well 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 they had some problems well and that's what's so weird about this case because of the suspicions that 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 ft they purchased
the home in 2007 when police arrived at the fcus home Heidi fcus 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 911
call made by Heidi but the second 911 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 St 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 ferus home and while
Heidi ferus was dead when First Responders arrived on the scene Nick ferus 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 911 call Nick
said that he didn't know who shot him now it sounds like the only gun that was fired was in fact Nicks 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 6 feet to 6' 2 in tall 200 to 220 lb 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 fcus is 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 densed area
the other thing too Captain is there's no public report out there on the laps 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 911
calls that would lead us to believe High '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 911 that he's already been shot by the
time he's called back to 911 right 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 our only living
victim yeah so let's simplify this the this couple is up in their bedroom the husband Nick hears something says the
front door now does the front door mean the front door to Nick cuz 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 entry way with with any other door to the house good that clears it up so he wakes up his wife hey wake up I think
somebody's trying to get in the house mhm and then he claims that they both go downstairs mhm she obviously has her
phone I don't know if he has his phone at the time they he sees the Intruder he struggles with this
Intruder he looks to me about maybe Nick him he looks maybe Me Maybe 510 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 mhm the gun then goes off and shoots him in the leg mhm
her wounds being fatal his not fatal at all I wouldn't say that they're not there 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
Nick's story it sounds like the two of them go down the steps almost the stairs that 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 wrestling 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 you call
911 right right call 911 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 and 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 a a 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 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 per 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 90% % 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 cuz he says they're coming down the stairs M 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 911 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 nextor neighbor his name is Brandon OK Conor he
says that he heard a man yelling who sounded like he was in pain so presumably this is Nick's 911 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 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 MH 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 2
days following the murder it's also not clear to us how long this struggle was it could have been grab the gun you know
Push Pull shot sh the guy takes off running you know a struggle for 10 seconds 20 seconds mhm 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 in 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 presscot wind 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 fcus 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 fasses 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 fuses 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 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 MH 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 Erikson 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 mhm 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 [Music] [Applause] company this show is sponsored by better help do
you look forward to the holidays maybe you struggle with seasonal Blues this time of year can be a lot and it's
natural to feel some sadness or even anxiety about it but adding something new and positive to your life can
counteract some of those feelings therapy can be a bright spot something to look forward to to make you feel
grounded and to give you the tools to manage everything going on if you're thinking of starting therapy give Better
Health help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule just fill out a
brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist at any time for no additional
charge find your bright spot this season with better help visit betterhelp.com garag toay to get 10% off your first
month that's betterhelp hp.com a consumer sell you get the same exact coverage as the largest carriers
but for up to half the cost same thing up to half the cost up to half the cost for the same thing 50% the money for
100% the same thing I hope I'm making myself clear Consumer Cellular when Freedom calls we're here to answer call
us at 1888 Freedom half the cost savings based on cost of consumer cellular single line 5 GB data plan with
unlimited talk and text compared to lowest cost single line postpaid unlimited talk text and data plan
offered by T-Mobile in Verizon May 2023 Angie's List is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I
thought it was an Eco move few worse less paper no it was so you could say it faster no it's to be more iconic must be
a tech thing but those aren't quite right it's because now you can compare up front prices book a service instantly
and even get your project handled from start to finish sounds easy it is and it makes us so much more than just a list
get started at angie.com that's ngi or download the app today [Music] [Applause]
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 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 Blackman 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 after the attack
Nick now magically realizes I did get a good look at this cat and 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 correspondents that
indicated that the couple was underwater financially it in fact it read severe financial problems including for closure
unpaid bills large credit card balances and a lifestyle of wanting spending outside of their means the media had a
field day with the won spending terminology this was the phrase of of several headlines the affidavit also
confirmed that Heidi ferus 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 asking it was actually not that expensive not as expensive as I thought
it would be but it was it was still a few th000 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 it was not even close to that regardless a few thousand doll 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 constantly from her family that there was just kind of a NE naive uh 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 yeah 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 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 confidential if you will conversation 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 cancelled 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 cancelled 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 got to 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 a 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 6:00 p.m. 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 to 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 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 Leed a bunch of money
or that there was some insurance claim because I 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 lie 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 Liss case where we have an individual who is living a lie and he's
not just living the LIE from society he's living that lie in front of his kids his wife and his mother yeah good
point and what did John Liss do he even pretended to go off to work every day to
a job he no longer had he 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's shot in the back she dies she may if she
didn't know any 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 a.m. it would 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 got to do you know what I mean MH 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 MH you go look if you if your house if you have all the lights off in your
house and you go down at 3:00 a.m. and you run into an intruder you might not see anything but you're talking 6:00 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 him 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 911 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 911 once you realize that she's on the phone boom that's when you shoot her
mhm because now we have audio evidence that something happened and then now you got to shoot
yourself and but then on on the 911 call they a 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 an intruder and the gun went off that
information is left out in the 911 call so it seems to me like he playing 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 till 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 his shotgun and they both walked down the stairs at this time
she calls 911 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 911
again there was no explanation of how or why the first 911 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 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 were
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 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 up 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 forensic 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 yeah 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 home 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 mhm 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 911 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 with the
Intruder and that is never stated by her it again somebody's trying to break into
her 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 then plannned on killing
Heidi in this scenario he woke his wife up and convinced Heidi that someone really was breaking in resulting in her
calling 911 which she evidently believed there was an intruder because she's the one
that called 911 this is almost providing an alibi in a way for him to verify his
story because it's so smart to have her call 911 than to you call just after the fact right cuz
had he been the only one that called 911 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 is good at planning and that was his plan all along
possibly but but again well hold on just a second cuz 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 St 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 it says Joe fredberg
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 believed from the beginning that Nick
was a victim and not a perpetrator but fredberg 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 I want to see the realtor that showed him around she was talking about eating a
burger for dinner and having a pedicure here 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 are good people with
homes of their own mhm 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 hii was a really good
person and so she wouldn't have done this she wouldn't have just lived rentree 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 into um 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 learned a lot about finances as being a 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 you know 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 slipped 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 going to use her words to kind of confirm what
I think was going on and her words to 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 write the ship no
she's saying we're thinking about getting an apartment that costs money too so even though this fredberg has an
answer for everything I think look that sounds good way to spin it positive for your client there Mr freeb but I'm going
to call [ __ ] MH as my man Pete Townsen 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 request we have strict orders from
his attorney that he is not to talk to us and this is the problem I have cuz 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 all the questions and what his lawyer stated
was well they just want to talk to him and to try to find inconsistencies in his story to trip him up no [ __ ]
Sherlock that's what they do well I tell but hold on but you have the power to to
go to the police if he give if he gave a just a 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 and 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 when your head sinks above 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 council 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 fredberg is no longer his attorney Nick
cuz 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 ferus 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 I going to change my name to that no way it's a
[ __ ] 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 uh ability to lie and
and and she should do that well frankly I think it's shameful that Nick ferus 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 651266
[Music] [Applause] 5650 want to thank you guys 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 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 about so leave
five stars and then be like but Nick kind of sucks he really sucks he he five star sucks he five star sucks and the
captain Oh I would give him negative stars but but we're going to give you five stars anyways all right until next
time everybody out there be good be kind and don't [Music] live the Angie list you know on trust is now
Angie and we're so much more than just a list we still connect you with top local
and show you ratings and reviews but now we also let you compare upfront prices on hundreds of projects and book a
service instantly we can even handle the rest of your project from start to finish so remember Angie's List is now
Angie and we're here to get your job done right get started at angie.com that's ngi or download the app
today

Heidi Firkus ////// 415

Part 1 of 1 (http://www.truecrimegarage.com/)

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com (http://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

The full archive of True Crime Garage is available on the Stitcher listening app - for FREE. Our show “Off the Record” is only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com (https://pcm.adswizz.com) for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Brief Summary

Heidi Ferus was shot during a home invasion; questions arise about her husband Nick's involvement and their financial troubles.

Key points

A Home Invasion Gone Wrong. A couple's attempt to protect their home leads to a tragic shooting.
The Mysterious 911 Calls. Two 911 calls from the same crime scene reveal a chaotic situation.
The Couple's Ideal Life. Heidi and Nick were seen as a perfect couple before tragedy struck.
The Intruder Theory. Nick's inconsistent descriptions of the intruder raise doubts about his account of the events.
Financial Troubles Uncovered. Investigators revealed severe financial issues facing Nick and Heidi, raising questions about motive.
Heidi's Last Day. Heidi spent her last day shopping and planning a relaxing evening, unaware of impending tragedy.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

One of them will not survive the incident.

Description of the couple's home invasion

5:22WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.