The Hotel Room Murder Nobody Could Explain | Forensic Files

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The evening of Wednesday, September 16, [music] 2010 was an ordinary one for Suzie Flanigan.
Her husband, 55-year-old Greg Flanigan, [music] was in Texas for work, leaving Suzie alone at the couple's home in
Louisiana. Greg worked as a landman in the oil and gas industry, [music] a job that
involved negotiating leases, meeting with clients, and spending long stretches on the road.
As the vice president of the OGM Land Company, which he co-owned with his brother, [music]
Greg spent his weekdays traveling and returned home for the weekends. Although Suzie missed Greg when he was
gone, after [music] 15 years of marriage, she was used to them spending time apart.
The two kept in regular contact, speaking on the phone several times each day, [music] even if it was just to
briefly check in with one another. That evening, [music] Suzie sat down at her computer to work on her taxes.
Shortly after 7:00 p.m., she sent Greg an email to update him on how it was going.
He wrote back, [music] "You're doing good, babe." As the night wore on, >> [music]
>> Suzie expected to get her nightly phone call from Greg. He didn't go out much when he traveled,
[music] preferring to keep to himself. His evenings were mostly spent in his hotel room watching television and
unwinding from the day. But, Susie's phone didn't ring. At first, she [music] assumed Greg must
be tired or distracted. She waited a while, then eventually went to bed. The next morning, when there was still
no word from Greg, >> [music] >> Susie tried calling. There was no answer. She tried [music] again.
Still nothing. This worried Susie. Even if Greg was in the middle of a meeting, he always answered her calls,
even if it was [music] just to say that he'd call back later. When she still hadn't heard from Greg by
around 10:00 a.m., [music] Susie called his office to see if anyone there had heard from him.
Her anxiety [music] sparked when she discovered that his co-workers were wondering the same thing.
Greg hadn't shown up for work, and no one had been able to reach him. With no word from him and [music] to no
explanation for his absence, two of his co-workers decided to drive to his hotel
to check on him. Greg was staying at the MCM Elegante, a large conference-style hotel just off
Interstate [music] 10 in the Texan city of Beaumont. It was a hotel he stayed at often, and
he'd been there all week. When his co-workers arrived, they noticed [music] that Greg's pickup truck
was still sitting in the parking lot. They made their way to his room, number 348, which was located on the third
floor of the cabana wing, a distinct [music] section of the building that provided views of the outdoor swimming
pool. They walked down the hallway and knocked on Greg's door. There was no response.
After several minutes, [music] Greg's co-workers tracked down the hotel manager and told him about the
situation. The manager agreed [music] to let them in and came upstairs with a key.
The three men gathered outside the room, not knowing what to expect [music] as the door swung open.
Inside, they were met [music] with darkness. Heavy curtains were drawn across the
windows, blocking [music] out the morning light. Then, they saw Greg. Room 348 of the MCM Elegante Hotel was
just like any other standard hotel room. >> [music] >> But, in the space between the bed and
the front door, Greg Fleniken was lying face down on the floor, cold to the touch.
>> [music] >> He was dressed in pajama shorts and a t-shirt, and in his left hand was a
cigarette burned down close to the filter. The color of his skin [music] indicated
he'd been dead for some time, but nothing else about the scene was out of the ordinary.
On [music] his bed, the pillows had been propped up in a way that suggested he'd
been lying back shortly before he died. A hand towel had also been laid out on the bed with Greg's [music] mobile
phone, an ashtray, and a half-eaten chocolate bar sitting neatly on top of it. There was no blood or obvious wounds,
and no visible signs of a struggle. The door to the balcony stood slightly ajar, but nothing in the room was
overturned or scattered. >> [music] >> Detectives were summoned to the scene, and almost immediately, they were struck
by the temperature of the room. >> [music] >> Outside, Beaumont's September air was
heavy with humidity, and the air in Greg's room felt warm and stale. This suggested [music] that the air
conditioning wasn't running properly or hadn't been used at all. But other than that, nothing about the
room was particularly noteworthy. While the cause of Greg's death wasn't immediately clear, they found nothing in
room 348 to suggest it was a crime scene. There was no sign of forced entry or damage to the door.
To get inside the room, hotel staff had to lift the swing bar latch from the outside, indicating the room had been
secured from within. Although the balcony door was open, the windows were sealed shut and intact.
Greg's wallet with a stack of $100 bills inside was still in the room, as was his
laptop, ruling out a robbery gone wrong. Detectives spoke to guests in the surrounding rooms, but no one reported
hearing shouting, fighting, or anything else unusual [music] coming from room 348.
A search of Greg's luggage didn't reveal any prescription medication or anything
else that could explain his death, and his colleague said he wasn't a particularly healthy man.
When the other [music] guests asked what happened, detectives described it as what it appeared to be.
A natural causes thing. Given that Greg Fleniken was a middle-aged, long-term smoker with no
known illnesses or external injuries, the expectation was that his death had a likely been caused by a major medical
event such as a cardiac arrest, stroke, or aneurysm. When Susie Fleniken was notified, the
only consolation to her grief was that Greg would have likely wanted it this way.
She later told Vanity Fair that Greg was a stubborn man who didn't exercise, had
no interest in fitness, and never went to the doctor. When hearing about people who died
suddenly, he would make remarks such as "Lucky bastard. That's how I want to go."
Greg's autopsy was carried out the following day by Dr. Tommy Brown, a respected [music]
Jefferson County medical examiner with a strong reputation among local law enforcement and the courts for being
meticulous, consistent, and conservative in the way he reached [music] conclusions.
Dr. Brown began his standard external examination and noted there was a small abrasion on Greg's cheek, which was
consistent with him having collapsed and struck the carpet. >> [music] >> He then moved on to Greg's groin area
and he noticed there was a small vertical laceration on his scrotum, about half an inch long.
At first glance, it was so small that it could have been mistaken for a superficial injury, but the tissue
around it was markedly bruised and swollen, indicating it'd been hit by something hard.
Dr. Brown proceeded to the internal examination. To his surprise, he found that Greg's
abdominal cavity contained a significant amount of blood. His liver was also lacerated and torn.
His intestines were perforated in multiple places. His stomach showed bruising and two of his ribs were
fractured. There was also a hole in the right atrium of Greg's heart. Dr. Brown was taken aback.
It looked to him like a Greg had suffered some kind of extremely hard blow to the chest.
But this type of extensive internal trauma was more commonly associated with high impact incidents such as a car
crash or something heavy falling on a person, not a lone man relaxing in a hotel room.
Although it went against the physical evidence at the scene, Dr. Brown concluded that Greg Flanigan's injuries
were consistent with severe blunt force trauma and that he had likely been beaten to [music] death or crushed.
In the official documentation under manner of death, he wrote homicide. When the autopsy findings arrived at the
Beaumont Police Department, Detective Scott Apple was shocked. Having attended the relatively
unremarkable scene at the MCM Elegante Hotel, the realization dawned on him that he now had a murder investigation
on his hands. But, if Greg Fleniken hadn't simply collapsed from a medical event, that
left just two broad possibilities. Either something had happened inside room 348 that left a little to no
outward trace, or Greg had been injured elsewhere and had somehow ended up back in his room.
Neither option sat comfortably with what Detective Apple had witnessed. He went back over the initial response,
looking for anything that might have been missed or dismissed too quickly. He couldn't figure out how someone could
have possibly sustained that level of internal trauma without clearer signs on the surface.
A check of the hotel security footage showed that Greg arrived at the hotel alone at around 6:30 p.m., but there was
no footage of the hallways. Apple considered the possibility that something heavy could have fallen onto
Greg, >> [music] >> but nothing in the hotel room supported this theory. He also wondered whether Greg could have
been assaulted in the hallway or another part of the hotel and then left for dead
in his room. But, there were no visible marks on the carpet that suggested Greg's body had
been dragged, and it seemed highly unlikely that someone could have moved an adult male through a public hotel
without being seen or heard. And if Greg had indeed been [music] the victim of a homicide, then there was a
bigger question of who could have killed him and why. For Susie Flanigan, the possibility that
someone might have wanted to harm her husband seemed preposterous. Greg was the love of her life.
The two had married young before going their separate ways and then reconnecting later in life.
When Susie contacted Greg after years apart, he told her that he'd been waiting for her call.
They'd remarried and stayed together for the next 15 years. >> [music] >> In all that time, Susie knew Greg to be
a kind, dependable, and quiet-natured man with no enemies. The couple ran a bed and breakfast from
their home in Lafayette and Greg warmly welcomed the guests from all over, >> [music]
>> often serving them fish or meat that he'd caught or hunted himself. As a world traveler, he loved nature
more than anything >> [music] >> and never took a good sunset or star-studded sky for granted.
Greg also adored animals and relished [music] the quiet moments sitting in his courtyard surrounded by his cats and
visiting birds. Greg touched many lives and others who knew him gave a similar account to
Susie's, describing him as well-liked, generous, and easy to get along with. He was also a creature of habit,
especially when he traveled for work. Susie told detectives that at the end of the day, Greg typically returned to his
hotel room and kept to his routine, >> [music] >> watching television and unwinding before
going to bed. He wasn't a big drinker, [music] making it unlikely that he would have gone down
to the hotel bar. This was confirmed by staff and guests at the MCM Elegante, none of whom had
seen Greg outside of his room on the night he died. Police found nothing to suggest Greg had
sought out anyone's company or done anything out of the ordinary during his time in Beaumont, and by all accounts,
he was a devoted and loyal husband to Suzy. However, there was one workplace incident that caught their attention.
Five days before Greg died, his company had fired one of their employees. The woman's husband, a man named Joseph,
was furious, believing the decision to be unjust, [music] and he called the office demanding to
speak with Greg. Detectives looked into Joseph's background and learned he had martial
arts experience, which was a possible explanation for the injuries. But, Joseph provided an alibi, and it
checked out, confirming he was nowhere near Beaumont on the night Greg died. Detectives also reviewed Greg's
financial records, but found nothing to suggest pressure, conflicts, or any obvious cause for concern.
With no clear motive or suspect emerging, >> [music] >> the detectives were dealing with three
immediate problems. A victim who was, by all accounts, much loved, a hotel room that didn't appear
like a crime scene, and a fatal injuries that made no sense. "It's a big mystery," reporter Zach
Lajoie told the Investigation Discovery Channel. "We all just go to bed [music] thinking
we're going to wake up in the morning. Nobody's going to do us any harm while we're sleeping.
But, in Greg's case, there was evil in his room that night." As investigators [music] worked to
narrow down Greg Fleniken's final movements, one detail from the night of Wednesday, September 15th, stood [music]
out. At around 8:30 p.m., Greg had called the front desk of the hotel to report that
he tripped a circuit breaker while using the microwave to make popcorn. The outage had affected not only his
room, but also the room next door and the several rooms on the floors below. Hotel records showed that the employee
who responded was a maintenance worker named Nicholas Garcia. And it wasn't the first time he'd had
contact with Greg. Earlier that evening at around 7:30 p.m., [music] Greg had rented the film
Iron Man 2. Hotel records showed that Garcia handled that transaction as well. But when detectives first spoke to
Garcia, >> [music] >> he denied having seen Greg or having entered room 348. Curious as to why he would lie,
detectives looked into Nicholas Garcia's background and discovered [music] that he was a registered sex offender.
That information paired with the unusual injury to Greg's groin created an avenue
detectives couldn't ignore. They considered whether Garcia could have injured Greg during some kind of
sexually motivated assault. Or perhaps the two men knew one another personally and Garcia had some kind of
vendetta. They summoned Garcia to the station for a formal interview where they told him
they had evidence placing him in room 348 on the night that Greg Fleniken died. Faced with that information as well as a
photo of Greg, Garcia changed his account. He admitted that he went to Greg's room
to reset the breaker, [music] but insisted that Greg was still alive when he left.
If Garcia was telling the truth, [music] it meant that Greg was alive after the power had been restored and the fatal
injuries were inflicted sometime after Garcia left room 348 around 8:30 p.m. Exactly when and how remained unknown.
The outage also drew attention to the room directly next door to Greg's, room 349.
At the time of Greg's death, a group of union electricians were staying at the hotel while working on a refinery
expansion in Beaumont. It was a major project and many of the electricians had come from interstate to
see it through. After work in the evenings, they often gathered in one another's rooms to drink
and socialize. Two of the electricians had been staying in room 349 and witnesses said that on
the night of September 15th, they and some others had been drinking in their room and getting a bit rowdy.
>> [music] >> Detectives considered whether one of them could have gone to Greg's door to
complain about the power outage. >> [music] >> Perhaps a drunken argument had broken
out in the doorway or hallway and quickly [music] escalated with Greg then crawling back to his room where he died
from his injuries. This could explain why his room appeared undisturbed and why guests [music] in
nearby rooms hadn't heard anything unusual coming from inside. But nothing had been found to indicate
[music] that an assault had taken place in the hallway or anywhere else in the hotel for that matter.
Detectives had also interviewed some of the electricians on the day Greg's body was found, but none of them reported
having any contact [music] with Greg or hearing anything out of the ordinary next door.
>> [music] >> Nine days after Greg's death, the union electricians were still in Beaumont, so
a detective returned to speak with them again. Room 349 was registered to a Wisconsin
man named to Lance Mueller, who was sharing the room with his colleague Tim Steinmetz.
>> [music] >> Both men were polite and willing to talk, but they had a little to add to
their original accounts. They said they'd been drinking in their room on September 15th with a couple of
friends [music] and hadn't heard anything unusual from Greg's room or in the hallway outside.
Although they acknowledged that they were being pretty loud that night and probably wouldn't have heard anything
coming from outside. They said they went down to the hotel bar at some point after the power outage
and returned to the room around midnight. Upon their return, they thought they might have heard a cough coming from
next door, but they couldn't be sure exactly what time. Like others at the hotel, Mueller and
Steinmetz were curious to know what had happened to Greg Flanagan. The detective simply told them that
Greg's injuries were unusual and that investigators were considering whether some kind of heavy force might have come
down on him. Mueller scanned the room and frowned. It was a standard hotel room.
Nothing looked heavy enough to cause that kind of damage. The detective also spoke to an
electrician named Trent Passano who'd been hanging out with Mueller and Steinmetz [music] in room 349 on the
night that Greg died. Like the others, Passano said he hadn't heard or seen anything [music] of
interest. The electricians were scheduled to be in Beaumont for months. They gave
detectives [music] their contact details and said they would be happy to help if
anything else came up. For the detectives, [music] the fact that Greg's death had taken
place in a busy hotel added an extra layer [music] of difficulty to the already confusing investigation.
The Elegante was a large and popular venue and guests from all over the country stayed there for all kinds of
reasons, be it business or personal. If another guest was responsible for Greg's death or knew anything about it,
they could have checked out before his body was ever discovered and they would have been long gone before detectives
started investigating the case as a homicide. As the months passed with no breakthroughs, the lack of progress
became harder and harder for Greg Flaniken's family to accept. In November, after the Beaumont police
publicly announced that Greg's death [music] was being treated as a murder, his family offered a $50,000 reward for
information. Susie told the Beaumont Enterprise that Greg lived an honest and sincere life
and had an impact on anybody who got to know him. "It's such a difficult situation to have
a life of an incredible person shortened in a dishonorable way," Susie said. "I don't know much about the
investigation, but I do know who Greg was. He was such an incredible person and he had an impact on anybody who got
to know him. We're just hoping and praying [music] for information. Somebody knows something."
With [music] no leads coming from the reward, Greg's brother hired a private investigator, but that didn't generate
any meaningful results, either. By February 2011, 5 months had passed since Greg's [music] death and the case
remained at a standstill. Desperate for answers, Susie Flaniken began reaching out to private
investigators outside of Beaumont. >> [music] >> Among them was a Florida-based investigator named Ken Brennan.
A former police officer and a drug enforcement special agent, Ken now worked on cold cases [music] with the
aim to uncover the truth for his clients, even if the truth was uncomfortable. He was selective about the cases he took
on, looking for two specific [music] things when reviewing a file, whether the facts remained unresolved and
whether further work could still produce results. Ken was fascinated by Greg's case and
believing there were further avenues that needed to be explored, [music] he agreed to look into it further.
In April 2011, Ken traveled to Lafayette to meet [music] Susie. He asked about Greg's life, his work,
his finances, and the state of their marriage. He then asked whether there was anything
about the scene of Greg's death that had stayed with her. Susie said there was. When Greg's co-workers had entered room
348 on the morning his body was found, the room had been warm. This detail had always struck Susie
[music] as odd, as Greg typically slept with the air conditioner running at night.
Ken Brennan traveled onwards to Beaumont and met with [music] Detective Scott Apple, who brought him up to speed on
the investigation. The men agreed [music] to work together, and from that point on, the
investigation continued as a joint effort. The following day, Detective Apple [music] took Ken to the MCM Elegante,
where he walked him through room 348 and showed him the photographs of the crime
scene. Ken listened carefully, mulling over the details before calling Susie with a
question. Was Greg left or right-handed? Susie told [music] him that Greg was right-handed.
Ken then asked which hand Greg used to smoke cigarettes with. Susie's answer was assuredly the same.
His right hand. [music] For Ken, this was a significant detail. When viewing the crime scene photos, he
was struck by the fact [music] that Greg had been holding a burnt-down cigarette
when his body was found. With the ashtray sitting on the bed nearby, it suggested that he had been
smoking shortly before he collapsed. But, if that [music] was the case, it complicated the police theory that Greg
could have been attacked in the hallway or elsewhere before being brought back to room 348.
If he had indeed been carried back into the room after sustaining catastrophic injuries, the cigarette in his hand
became difficult [music] to explain. It seemed highly unlikely that an attacker would have taken the time to
gingerly place the lit cigarette in his hands, or that Greg would have been in a
state to light it himself. Furthermore, Greg [music] was holding the cigarette in his left hand.
If he was right-handed and normally smoked with his right, then why, Ken wanted to know, was the cigarette in his
opposite hand when he died? If Greg had been sitting on his bed smoking in the moments before he died,
Ken considered whether he could have shifted the cigarette to his left hand in order to free up his dominant hand to
do something [music] else. Maybe he'd been reaching for something with his right hand, or had stood up to
open the door. While it didn't help explain Greg's injuries, it did suggest that Greg was
conscious and acting normally right up until that final mysterious moment. [music]
Then there was the fact that Greg's hotel room had been warm when his body was found, despite Suzy's insistence
that he typically slept with the air con on. Investigators already knew that Greg had
blown an electrical circuit at 8:30 p.m. while using the microwave. So, Ken reasoned that the loss of power had
likely stopped the air conditioning, too. It had been a hot night, and without the
air con running, and with Greg's balcony door slightly opened, it would have only
taken about 20 minutes for the room to heat up. >> [music] >> The fact that the air con hadn't been
turned back on suggested to Ken that Greg had likely died sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m.
But, if that was the case, [music] then why had the electrician said that they'd
heard coughing coming from Greg's room shortly after midnight? Ken went to visit Dr. Tommy Brown, the
medical examiner who had conducted Greg's autopsy, >> [music] >> and asked whether Greg's injuries could
have been caused by an assault. Dr. Brown said they could. [music] In fact, the laceration to his scrotum
could be consistent with a forceful kick, particularly from someone wearing a heavy boot,
>> [music] >> including a steel-toed boot, just like the electricians wore. Knowing that the electricians had
already been spoken to and denied hearing anything out of the ordinary on the night Greg died, Ken suggested
[music] that detectives start speaking to people who had worked with them during that period and may have heard
something second-hand. He then reviewed the hotel surveillance footage. The cameras showed Greg returning to the
hotel that evening, as well as members of the electrical crew moving between their rooms and the parking lot.
But, there was no confrontation on camera and nothing to explain what had happened inside room 348.
By late May 2011, more than 8 months had passed since Greg's death, and the electricians had long since left the
hotel. >> [music] >> Ken Brennan and Detective Apple made inquiries with various people who had
worked alongside the occupants of room 349. Most had heard that a man had died at
the hotel, but they didn't know anything else about it. A foreman mentioned that he'd heard
something about a gun going off in a boarding house. >> [music] >> When the detectives told him this was
regarding a death that the MCM Elegante, the foreman said he hadn't heard anything about that.
After hearing this, Ken told Detective Apple he wanted [music] to go back to the hotel.
Apple was dubious. Greg's room had already been examined multiple times, and he didn't know what
they could gain by returning again. Ken didn't argue [music] the point. "We're going to look for a bullet," he
said. >> [music] >> By this point, room 348 had been cleaned numerous times [music] and many other
guests had stayed there. If a bullet or fragment had been left loose on the floor, there was every
chance it was long gone. Yet, Ken Brennan wanted another look. He and Detective Apple worked slowly
through the room with flashlights, [music] checking beneath the bed, behind the furniture, and along the skirting
boards, looking for anything that might have escaped to notice the first time. Near the connecting door to the
adjoining room, Ken stopped. On the wall beside the door was a shallow patched indentation.
In most hotel rooms, this wouldn't have stood out. Walls get marked and damage gets filled
and painted over all the time. But something about this bothered Ken. Wondering if the mark could be caused by
the door handle hitting the wall, he opened the connecting door and checked where the [music] handle struck the
wall. It didn't line up. The doorknob landed slightly to the right of the repaired mark.
Hotel staff then gave Ken access to room 349. >> [music] >> He went straight to the opposite wall
beside the connecting door and saw a small neat hole. It was an unusual round mark that didn't
look like a doorknob strike or ordinary wear and tear. Someone had filled the hole with a pale
dried substance. Up close, it appeared to be dried toothpaste. There was no doubt to Ken Brennan or
Detective Apple that someone had made a hole in the wall and tried to hide it. They compared its height and position to
the patched indentation in room 348. [music] The points lined up perfectly. Crime scene investigators were called in
and material was carefully removed from both damaged areas exposing the impact points beneath. [music]
A laser was then used to trace the path through the shared wall. The beam ran from room 349 into room 348
and angled upward toward the bed where Greg would likely have been sitting. The answer to Greg Fleniken's mysterious
death was finally solved. He hadn't been attacked elsewhere >> [music] >> but had been shot through the wall.
Before investigators could move forward, one problem remained. From the beginning, [music]
Dr. Tommy Brown had concluded that Greg Fleniken's death was a homicide caused by blunt force trauma.
If Greg really had been shot through the wall, the medical evidence [music] needed to support it before any further
investigations could take place or charges be laid. When Dr. Brown was told about the
evidence found at the hotel, he responded [music] plainly, "You're trying to tell me this man was
shot. I'm telling you he wasn't." Performing a second autopsy wasn't an option as Greg had been cremated.
All that remained were Dr. Brown's notes, measurements, and autopsy photographs which he agreed to go over
with the investigators. As Ken Brennan examined the photos, he kept returning to the same point.
Greg's injuries weren't scattered. [music] They appeared to follow a line that ran
upward through his body >> [music] >> before returning to the small laceration in his groin.
Ken suggested that if a projectile had entered there and traveled upward, it could account for the internal damage
pattern that we're seeing in the photographs. Dr. Brown acknowledged that a bullet
could produce a similar internal injury, but he maintained that in his opinion, >> [music]
>> the cause remained blunt force trauma. As they continued to move through more
photographs, Ken kept asking whether each injury could be consistent with a gunshot track.
Dr. Brown's answers remained cautious until they reached the photographs of Greg's heart.
He pointed out the ruptured right atrium, explaining this was something he'd seen in other cases involving
significant blunt trauma to the chest. Ken studied [music] the image carefully before indicating a small defect in the
tissue, which he believed could be a bullet hole. He asked [music] Dr. Brown to look at it
closer. The doctor maintained his initial explanation, but Ken asked him to look
again. Dr. Brown studied it for a second time. There was a long pause. Yeah, he agreed.
That's a bullet hole. The media is going to kill me on this. Room 349 now sat at the center of the
investigation, but the electricians who had occupied it, Lance Mueller and Tim Steinmetz, had long since left Beaumont
and returned to their home state of Wisconsin. Police tracked Steinmetz down, [music]
and on June 1, 2011, he was summoned for an interview with Ken Brennan and Detective Apple at the Chippewa County
Sheriff's Department. Asked to go back over the night at the MCM Elegante, >> [music]
>> Steinmetz maintained that he'd been out drinking with some of the others before
returning to the room to go to sleep, and that they hadn't heard anything unusual coming from the room next door.
Asked directly [music] about Greg Flannigan's death, Steinmetz said that they'd heard something had happened to
the man in the adjoining room, >> [music] >> but didn't know any details. Steinmetz was then presented with a
written statement of his account, which he was asked to read over and sign. He made a few minor amendments before
signing off on it. >> [music] >> He then stood and asked if that was all. Ken Brennan told him to sit [music] back
down. He said the statement Steinmetz had just signed was false, [music] and warned that making a false police
report carried a serious consequences. The investigators told Steinmetz that they already knew what had happened in
Beaumont, and that if he continued to lie, he could place himself in legal jeopardy.
"I know you know what happened," Ken Brennan said. "Just tell us what happened."
Steinmetz's [music] posture changed. Finally, he started talking. >> [music] >> According to Tim Steinmetz, on the night
of Tuesday, September 15, 2010, he'd been drinking beer in room 349 with Lance Mueller and Trent Pessano. [music]
At some point, Mueller told Pessano to go down to his car and bring back a bottle of whiskey and his gun.
Pessano returned with a 9-mm Ruger. Mueller took it, loaded [music] it, and started playing around with it, pointing
it at Steinmetz, who dropped to the floor and swore at him. Mueller then swung the gun toward
Pessano, who was standing near the foot of the bed. A moment later, it fired. For a second, Pessano thought he'd been
hit. Then he turned and saw a bullet hole in the wall behind him. Mueller panicked. [music]
He bundled up the gun and hurried it back down to his car. By the time he returned, [music]
Pisanos had left for his own room disgusted by what had happened. Not knowing if anyone had been in the
room next door, Mueller and [music] Steinmetz then went downstairs to the hotel bar.
When they returned later, Steinmetz remembered hearing coughing through the wall from room 348.
>> [music] >> The next morning, he saw police outside the room and then later a gurney in the
hallway. That was when it hit him that the man next door was dead. It was the answer the investigators had
been chasing for months, but one detail still sat uneasily. >> [music] >> If Steinmetz had really heard coughing
coming from Greg's room later that night, it meant he might have survived the gunshot for some time.
But other witnesses had described Greg as having a persistent cough throughout the trip and investigators believed
Steinmetz [music] might have correctly remembered the sound, but not the timing of when he
heard it. Ken Brennan then asked Steinmetz [music] the most obvious question. Did anyone knock on the door to check on
Greg? No, >> [music] >> Steinmetz said. He started to say more and then stopped.
The investigators [music] tried to call Lance Mueller, but he didn't answer. Assuming he was ignoring their calls,
Tim Steinmetz agreed to call Mueller from his own mobile phone while the investigators recorded his conversation.
Steinmetz kept his voice casual as he explained to Mueller that he'd just spoken to the investigators from Texas.
When Mueller asked how it had gone, >> [music] >> Steinmetz repeated the story they had
previously agreed on before eventually admitting he'd come clean and told the police [music] the
truth. There was a long silence. Lance Mueller then asked to Steinmetz if he told them about the gun going off.
Steinmetz said, "Yes." He told Mueller that the investigators believed that Greg Fleniken had died
from that gunshot. >> [music] >> Mueller refused to accept it. He said his lawyer had obtained a copy
of the autopsy report and there was no mention of a gunshot wound. The case had been on the news and no one
had mentioned a firearm then, either. Mueller had heard Greg's death described as a heart attack or from something
having fallen on him. "There was no way," he insisted, "that Greg had died from a bullet."
But, in trying to deny it, >> [music] >> Mueller had acknowledged exactly what the investigators had hoped he would.
He knew about the gunshot in room 349 and he had agreed [music] to the false story.
The police tracked Trent Passano down and he corroborated Steinmetz's version of events.
Lance Mueller was subsequently charged with manslaughter, a charge which carried a maximum of 20 years in prison
and released on bail. With the truth finally revealed, a memory resurfaced for Detective Apple.
When he had attended the hotel with some officers on the morning that Greg's body
was found, they'd been standing around waiting for the body to be transported to the morgue.
Mueller and [music] Steinmetz had arrived at their room and stood around awkwardly.
To break the silence, Detective Apple had asked the two men how they were going.
Mueller had responded, "I was doing better till now." When the case reached court in Jefferson
County in September 2012, 48-year-old Lance Mueller did not deny that the gun had fired, but he disputed the outcome.
His position was that the discharge had been accidental and that he didn't know the bullet had struck anyone in the
adjoining room. To pursue manslaughter, the prosecutors didn't need to prove intent to kill, but
they did need to show that Mueller's conduct met the threshold of recklessness and that his actions had
caused Gregg's death. Having sought an opinion from another medical examiner, the prosecution's case
was that Gregg had been relaxing on his bed when a bullet entered his scrotum, tearing upward into his body, lacerating
organs and breaking bones before lodging deep in his chest. [music] The bullet wound had not been visible
because it was hidden by folds of flesh, which resulted in the mark looking more
like a bruise. In contrast to Dr. Brown, who believed it would have taken Gregg anywhere
between 30 seconds and 10 minutes to die from his injuries, >> [music] >> the second medical examiner estimated
that Gregg could have been alive for hours. The gunshot likely caused him to lurch
to his feet [music] and then stagger to the spot where he was later found by his
co-workers. It was a painful, silent death, one which Lance Mueller did nothing to help.
Immediately after discharging the gun, he concealed the damage in the wall with toothpaste, removed the weapon, and made
no effort to check on Gregg or alert hotel staff or the police while Gregg's death was still being treated as a
medical event. The prosecution also pointed out that while on bail, Mueller had been arrested
in Wisconsin for drunk driving. It was his fourth such offense, and given that alcohol had also been
involved with the Greg Fleniken incident, the prosecution honed in on this hard. [music]
Lance Mueller ultimately entered a no contest plea to manslaughter, which meant [music] that he didn't admit
guilt, but didn't contest the charge either. >> [music] >> By the time Mueller's sentencing hearing
took place the following month, over 2 years had passed since [music] Greg Fleniken's death.
It had been an incredibly difficult time for Susie Fleniken. Before the case had been solved, the
thought that Greg had been savagely [music] beaten and left for dead by persons unknown had left her terrified
that she could be [music] next. Since the truth had come out, Susie Fleniken had also filed a wrongful death
lawsuit [music] against the MCM Elegante, as well as the hotel security team, arguing that the hotel had failed
to take action against the disruptive behavior of the occupants of room 349, and the security hadn't performed an
adequate investigation of the incident. She also named Lance Mueller, Trent Passano, and Timothy Steinmetz in the
claim, [music] accusing them of failing to report the incident to the police. The case was ultimately dropped, and no
charges were laid against Steinmetz and Passano in relation to Greg's death because they didn't handle the weapon.
The stakes were therefore high for Susie on the day of Mueller's sentencing, as [music] she wanted someone to be held
accountable. She was joined at the Jefferson County Courthouse by many of Greg's loved ones,
as well as Ken Brennan and Detective Apple, as she delivered an impassioned victim impact statement. [music]
Addressing Mueller directly, Susie said, "I have waited over 2 years [music] to look you in the face, eye to eye, and
simply have the chance to speak directly to you. You would never have come forward with
the truth. You murdered Greg. No, you didn't intentionally seek him out to murder him, but you murdered him
>> [music] >> with every lie you told, with every intentional selfish deception, with
every cover-up, over and over again. You saw his body taken out of the room in a body bag the next [music] day.
You knew you killed him. He meant nothing to you. She also [music] made it clear that she
would not have let the matter go, saying, "You have met your match. I would have
spent the rest of my life tracking you down." The judge focused on not just on the
gunshot itself, but the entire situation, [music] which included the irresponsible
decision to bring a handgun into a hotel room when alcohol was involved, >> [music]
>> and the egregious actions that came afterwards. Susie watched Mueller's expression as he
was sentenced to 10 [music] years in a Texas prison. She was pleased to see that he looked
shocked. Outside [music] court, she told reporters that drivers who hit a dog on
the side of the road show more compassion [music] than Lance Mueller did for her husband.
She thought Greg would have been proud of her for pursuing [music] the truth, remarking,
"I think Greg would say, 'Good for you, Sue. You stuck with it. You found out who did [music] it, brought them to
court, and now, please go and have a happy life.'" >> [music] >> Hey.

Casefile Extra: Greg Fleniken

Casefile Extra features bonus episodes exploring compelling cases, stories and topics beyond our regular weekly releases.

When 55-year-old Greg Fleniken was found dead inside his hotel room in Beaumont, Texas, nothing about the scene appeared suspicious. There were no signs of forced entry, no obvious wounds, and no indication of a struggle. At first, it seemed Greg had died suddenly from natural causes.

But an autopsy revealed something far more troubling. Greg had suffered catastrophic internal injuries, leading investigators to treat his death as a homicide. The problem was that nothing inside Room 348 explained how those injuries had occurred.

With no clear suspect, no apparent motive, and a crime scene that made little sense, the case quickly reached a dead end. What had happened inside Room 348?

CREDITS Narration – Anonymous Host Research & writing – Matthew Dawe Production & music – Mike Migas Audio editing – Anthony Telfer

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RESOURCES

Brief Summary

Greg Flanigan was shot through a hotel wall, leading to a manslaughter charge against Lance Mueller after a lengthy investigation.

Key points

Unusual Injuries Discovered. An autopsy reveals extensive internal trauma inconsistent with a natural death.
The Mysterious Death of Greg Flanigan. Greg Flanigan's sudden death in a hotel room raises questions of foul play.
The Search for Answers. Detectives face challenges as they investigate Greg's unexpected death.
Susie's Heartfelt Plea. Susie Flaniken expresses her grief and hope for answers regarding her husband's death.
The Turning Point. Investigator Ken Brennan discovers a crucial detail about the crime scene that challenges the initial theory.
The Shocking Revelation. Steinmetz reveals the truth about the accidental shooting that led to Greg's death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

"Lucky bastard. That's how I want to go.".

Greg's perspective on sudden death.

7:41WatchJul 25, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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