The Murder of Dawn Hacheney | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is morbid baby [Music] this is morbid I made it like it's
molded baby this is molded baby yeah like Tiana yeah you just sounded actually just like Tiana did I she's my
girl or a princess oh my God I'm like my favorite princess oh my God she was also
the sweetest one that we met in um what's that place Disney World you can say my body rejects it but we met
her and she was so sweet and she called everybody Suga I didn't get to meet her because I wasn't with you
guys at that point I think John like John was like Starstruck with Tiana I mean I would be sorry completely
straight up we're like that's is that Tiana she's right there oh my God it's Tiana
I mean she's a great Disney she is she's underrated as [ __ ] I feel like she might
be a humble opinion she won't be soon because Disney got rid of Splash Mountain and they're doing like a whole
Princess and the Frog themed ride it's about [ __ ] time when did that movie come out I know you know what it's about
time I didn't realize how how long that movie had come out because at that point
I had like I wasn't watching Disney movies religiously anymore yeah and now it's like if I ever really was but now
you are though and now I am I think I'm 2009. I thought it was it's about time it's about time you give Tiana her do
and Prince Naveen underrated prince in my opinion did it just get hot in here yeah it did and it was Prince Naveen
he's a really hot fictional character okay I don't know how I feel about making that statement out loud but here
I am my girls love Prince Naveen I know he's their guy he is yeah I think he's probably like out of all the princes I
would say He's the hottest I'm telling you it literally underrated criminally in all facets is another movie those
characters the songs the soundtrack songs slaps never did I ever think that we would have this conversation on this
podcast no I did not it was everything I don't know how we got here but I'm glad
we did I said it's small but baby oh yeah and it was very good and then you did like Tiana arms and everything yeah
it was crazy it's it's really uplifting right now it is we we need it we know yeah we sure do what the world needs now
please please I just started crying please everybody's like what the [ __ ] is wrong with you
nothing we just create nothing also I'd like to clarify I feel like a lot of people thought that Drew and I broke up
and that's like not what we're talking about right now we are alive and thriving okay oh hell yeah I just wanted
to put that out there because we just sounded very stressed and I didn't want people to start speculating further no
everything everything's honestly it's just one of those weeks I think Mercury just came out of retrograde a shadow
period yeah we were feeling a weird way we we turned the room around we changed positions and now we're feeling much
better we're kind of like at a chat set now it's pretty good we were you know why we were feeling that way like the
way that we were not only Mercury was in retrograde and now it's in a shadow period I don't know if the moon is still
in cancer but as of yesterday it was and that gets you in your ma [ __ ] feels but then we're entering Gemini season
the best season so everybody's feeling like the best season debatable we could do this all day
so everybody's feeling like a [ __ ] so you know what be your best [ __ ] self and I hope everybody watched the
Vanderpump Rules reunion oh [ __ ] how did we not open up with that I know I mean
guys I don't know what to say about it I'm gonna go to time out it was when when James said nah it's not hitting for
me it's not hidden for me I didn't even listen it's sang James and Lala's friendship forever oh oh four all day
every day ever I'm very excited about episode two and three um and I hope that you guys are too yeah
just one more quick thing Lala on her podcast which everybody should go listen to It's called give them Lala [ __ ]
love it um and she said that she texted her producer about the first part of the
reunion and was like holy [ __ ] like this was incredible it like yeah I love it
and the producer was like oh you think this is good it doesn't even stand up next to part two and three don't even
tell me that I already did I think I told you twice because I'm pretty sure I told you because I'm gonna wish time
away I mean me too oh y'all we are but yeah so we we Tiana do we disneyed which was
crazy we Vander pumped and now we're gonna morbid and we zodiac too oh we did we did we covered all the astrologies
not you know we zodiac astrology so now we're gonna morbid yeah we're six minutes in I think so like perfect we're
good I like it here we are I'm gonna bring you down because this is a really really sad case a really tragic case a
really gnarly case oh good and I feel like this case may it makes the most sense to start in the middle which I
used to do a lot and I haven't done that in a while oh I love that so I'm excited
too let's go I'm gonna start in the middle we're gonna work our way back to sort of the beginning and then obviously
we will cover the downfall of the monster of the case at the end but I'm not gonna like Give It Away who it is
just yet don't worry don't give it away I won't don't you [ __ ] dare I said I [ __ ] wouldn't all right I'll Trust
you well that's good we should always test that we should always trust each other always trust always I don't really
know what happened there anyways so bring it down so everything happened just one day after Christmas oh yeah
that's upsetting yup and it was December 26th obviously the year was 1997. and police and fire were called to the home
of Nick and Don Hackney in uh Bremerton Washington so when they got to this house it was
absolutely engulfed in flames oh but as far as the investigators knew the house was empty
that unfortunately changed when they were able to make their way inside and they were immediately hit with the smell
of burnt flesh oh no yes and somebody thought you know maybe it was like one of the dogs that got stuck
inside but as the firefighter searched through the first floor of the home they weren't finding the source and then when
they reached the Hackney's bedroom they unfortunately did and they found 28 year
old Don Hackney badly badly burned like beyond recognition 28 years old just laying in her bed her laying in her in
her husband's bed and her husband Nick had left early that morning for a hunting trip with his friends so
obviously he was okay and this was what he was going to come home to oh so the fire had started well after Nick went
out for the day and the Hackney's neighbors Tim and Amy Pitts they were the ones to call the fire in and how
they noticed it was Tim's co-worker Jeff Richardson was his name that guy usually
picked him up for work in the morning so he was the first one to see the fire and
he called it in or he didn't call it in he started banging on the Pit's door to wake them up and like screaming like
call 9-1-1 okay so Amy the wife called 9-1-1 and Tim and Jeff ran over to the Hackney's home to see if they could help
anyone who was still inside oh no Jeff was able to kick the door open but by that point the fire had already spread
to the first floor and the room was filled with not only Flames but like super thick black smoke
it was obviously Beyond dangerous but Jeff tried to make his way into the living room just wanting to help anybody
that was inside yeah I kept trying kept trying but the flames and the smoke kept
pushing him back it was obvious he wasn't going to be able to get inside without getting physically hurt himself
so at that point there was literally nothing they could do except wait for First Responders to get there so they
just stood on the lawn and watched the House burn oh that's awful I can't imagine like you see that in a movie and
you're like oh my God like I can't imagine oh that's awful so Nick Hackney pulled up to his house this chaotic or
what was left of his house this chaotic scene a little after 10 in the morning and he was met at the steps of the home
by chief deputy coroner Jane Jeremy I believe how you say it in a coroner walking up to you yes so she steered
Nick away from the house luckily and back towards her truck and she explained what had happened and he was like oh my
God Don and I spent Christmas together with our family earlier like yesterday but she wasn't feeling very well she had
a gnarly head cold so she took Benadryl to go to sleep and he said that he had woken up around
2 A.M or excuse me she had woken up around 2 A.M to take another dose and she wondered out loud whether she had no
tolerance for it because she didn't take that medicine very often so she's like oh my God like this I'm kind of feeling
this so that's that was his explanation to the coroner the day before how and how
she would sleep through and how she would sleep through it so it made sense to the corner yeah because the position
of Don's body on the bed suggested she hadn't even tried to get up to escape the fire oh wow which at first was
baffling to investigators they were like yeah nobody would just sleep through a roaring fire like that
but if Don wasn't used to taking Benadryl it was possible that it had a strong effect on her and it kept her
sleeping entirely while the fire occurred some strong Benadryl oh it is yeah so as far as anybody as anybody
could tell Nick Hackney was completely devastated and he started leaning closely on the members of his and Dawn's
Church while he grieved he and Don had been married about seven years at that point and they'd been together even
longer from when they were dating so this was going to be a process for him to get over yeah but before we get into
that whole process and what it looks like I want to tell you more about Dawn more about Nick and more about their
life that they had made together okay so Dawn Marie was born December 5th 1969 in
Seattle Washington to parents Donald and Diana Donald worked in a shipyard which
I think is really [ __ ] cool that is cool and Diana Diana was a homemaker and Don was their first child and she
would eventually be the oldest of four kids and their only daughter she had her brothers excuse me she and her brothers
Dennis Darren and Derek they were all raised in Bremerton Washington okay so she had lived there her entire life
now their childhood was not always the easiest Don's Mom Diana struggled a lot with anxiety and from the sounds of it
probably depression too oh okay she was really going through it and she by her own admission quote required more love
than she could get from her husband Donald oh so I think it was one of those things where they were very like they
were religious people so I think they stayed together even though they weren't necessarily the happiest together yeah
that makes sense and for that reason Diana would sometimes look outside of her own marriage for love and affection
or to put it less lightly she was stepping out on Donald uh-oh so in 1980 when Don was 11 Diana actually left the
family and moved in with a man that she was having an affair with I'm gonna stay over here quiet yeah me
too no it also turned out that she was pregnant and this man was the father oh yep so she had her son Darren with him
but eventually things fell apart with whoever that guy was and she ended up returning home to the family with her
new son and they all just kind of made it work together wow so obviously things were um
tense yeah the least I mean you just left your whole family and then you just come back with a baby I'm like oops
sorry I'm back here's your brother so things were tense when she came home and the kids could feel the tension in
the air so in response to all the tension at home Don really leaned into making her mom happy and she became just
determined to achieve achieve achieve I don't want to call her an overachiever because I feel like that's that's like a
weird label like you're an overachiever it makes it sound like a bad thing well people give it a negative connotation
yeah because people do it when you're like working too hard they're like oh you're such an overachiever and it's
like okay it's like a cheating okay yeah it's like achieving all right it just feels yucky to call somebody that so I'm
not going to call her an overachiever I would really just say that she decided to be the light that she thought her mom
needed and worked really hard at it I like that so in grade school what she did to do this she became a champion
speller which eventually led her to participating in the Scripps National Spelling Bee which would later lead to a
visit to the White House where she got to meet then President Ronald Reagan wow I know no wow wow oh I mean spelling
yeah spelling right exactly now so all throughout her school year she kept that same tenacity worked super hard at
everything she did and it would actually lead her to becoming Bremerton Christian
Schools valedictorian in 1988. get it girl no After High School Don enrolled at Northwest College of the Assemblies
of God which is informally known as Northwest Bible College damn like even the people there call it that that's a
mouthful it is that I think that's why they shortened it to Northwest Bible College it's just the Bible the Bible
and it was at College the Bible College where she met Nick Hackney just like Don
he was also born and raised in Washington uh he was just raised about like a half an hour from Bremerton in
the coastal city of Poulsbo I think is how you say it I love it I like I looked it up so yeah I looked it up I looked it
up still I just like trailed off there that's it now so he grew up there and while Don's family had their issues it
seems like they were able to keep the home life somewhat stable at Don's house okay that wasn't necessarily the case
for Nick's family uh the author of Twisted Faith which is a really good source on this book and
actually I was looking at another book and then I saw that book advertised and that's how I found this case it's a good
name it is Twisted Faith yeah I like that and it's by author Greg Olsen he's an incredible writer so definitely read
that book but anyways I digress he put it that Nick came from a troubled family okay Nick's father Dan he worked really
long hours as a mechanic and when he was home he wasn't really emotionally there
he was very distant from his children and it seems his wife cool yeah and Nick's mom Sarah Sandra excuse me did
her best to support the family she ran a daycare out of the home and she would take in foster kids when she could but
it didn't seem like she thought too much about the fact that her children were already looking for more themselves and
other children just kept coming into the house yeah she's spreading herself too thin she is and I mean for like a great
cause yeah is amazing take take care of these kids that are already here first yes make
sure their cup is full I agree so that's the thing their home life became even more chaotic with all these other kids
running around and this is really sad later in life Nick would tell his friends he always felt like his mom
preferred his brothers and his sisters and he said sometimes even the foster kids to him like even his foster
brothers and sisters oh and he said looking back on the situation I don't think she ever loved me actually I think
she hated me oh my god really that's awful and I'm like I don't know why why why you thought she hated you yeah like
what would make you think that exactly that's troubling it is so obviously we don't know if she actually truly hated
Nick or not but what we do know is that she did unfortunately also suffer from long bouts of depression that left her
really repressed and also emotionally unavailable so these kids didn't really have an emotionally available parent
that's tough and when she wasn't feeling that way her time was spent managing the
chaos and the needs of all these children in the house so she didn't have a lot of time left for Nick and because
of that he ended up spending a lot of time alone yeah and eventually while he was alone he turned to the Bible and
kind of like found peace and Harmony in that and it was then that he developed an interest in Christianity okay
according to Nick quote it was God's calling that gave him strength and shaped every bit of his character wow
so yeah Nick found a new confidence through his dedication to religion and all throughout his teen years it seemed
actually like his self-esteem was really improving but unfortunately that didn't always
endear him to other people huh yes when he and Don first met at Northwest Bible College Don's friends and roommates
thought it was really odd that she would have any interest in Nick some of her friends thought he was pushy he was like
too self-assured like almost came off cocky oh and others called him a loser a guy who tried too hard and was clueless
about it damn which that's not very nice but you know so they also started to notice a change
in Dawn whenever Nick was around before Nick Don was super confident super self-reliant always working hard
accomplishing accomplishing like I said and just like looking for her next goal that she was gonna Crush yeah but around
Nick she kind of seemed to mute all of those parts of herself she was reserved she was shy and she started looking to
him when it came time to make a decision for anything oh no and that's never a good thing no like you don't want your
partner to mute the best parts of you you want your partner to bring out the best parts in you yeah and make you feel
comfortable I remember one of my best friends had this significant other who was always like annoyed by their like
outgoing personality and would like kind of like mute them down yeah like be like
you're being annoying right and it always bothered me because I was like no like that's one of the best parts about
this person yeah whether you think it's annoying or not that's like who they are
and if you think it's annoying you're not meant to be like you know if you if your love is conditional in that way
that like only if you tamper yourself down a little bit then you don't love that person exactly and and spoiler
alert they did not say together they didn't work out yeah and also I feel like it honestly just always comes from
a place of jealousy yeah when somebody's trying to stifle like those parts of you
like your outgoingness your ability to make a decision it's something they don't have right that they wish they
could do so they want to take that control over you and not let you do it either love should not be conditional
never but after two years at Northwest Bible College Don she got her associate degree
and in 1990 Nick did end up proposing to her um The Proposal actually sounds adorable
it was over Oreo cookies and milk on Alki Beach okay that's really cute yeah like give me oreo so I know it's real
hell yes they got married on April 20th 1991 and they ended up moving back to Bremerton where Don had grown up okay
now she started work as a loan officer at a credit union and Nick started pursuing a job as a youth pastor at
Christ Community Church which was on uh yes Bainbridge Island okay and that's a small island Community right across the
bay from Seattle I love these little islands with like a Spooky Little Church on it like midnight
mass oh It's a Spooky Little trick chart right yeah this spooky like it that just
gave me like midnight mass Vibes a little bit like I don't know anything about midnight because you have to watch
that show I know I'm late to midnight mass and I just like we just finished it like uh like in the beginning of the
year sometime John and I know we finished it I was super late on the midnight mass train but like and it
sucks to be late on something like that because you're like guys midnight and everybody's like yeah I've watched that
like years ago what the [ __ ] like you're they're just like you're just doing that
now I'm like but it's so good can I talk to someone you need to find somebody who
well I haven't seen it you need to watch it I was like you need to find someone who has why don't you go look I should
go take a poll in the streets for someone that's never seen one is willing to watch that girl you would like it
I'll watch it I have to finish succession first you do and then I also the offshoot I just really want to um
watch Yellow Jackets too me too okay great well so there's that but this gave me like Spooky Little Church like
midnight mass Vibes and if it's anything like midnight mass it did not end well for anybody well you're great at
foreshadowing what are you an author tinyural.com so to her friends Don seemed happy
enough but a lot of them were still worried about her and how easily she was deferring decision-making processes to
Nick yeah even when his decisions went against her own preferences and seemed to make her uncomfortable e like that's
not good no it's one thing if you're just like oh I mean I'm super indecisive so I'll be like Drew what do you think
like oh yeah do we finalize it like this but when you're done comfortable deferring all and when you're
uncomfortable with the outcome of the situation then it sounds like you could have made your own decision yeah you
knew where your heart was leading you yeah that's not good and it makes me sad that she felt like she had to do that to
me yeah like she couldn't make her own choices or something you know would go awry right and I think part of that and
I think author Greg Olsen also points this out the reason why Don was submitting to her husband was because
she believed in quote the fundamentalist edict that's submitting to her husband's
Authority was God's plan and the greatest gift a woman could give him that sucks a lot I
personally I think that success if the greatest gift a woman can give a man is uh to submit to submit to their wishes I
will never give a man the greatest gift but you know what or a woman it's all it's all consensual man if you decide
that that is something that you can send to and you enjoy doing then go off queens and kings go right off personally
that just sounds like [ __ ] awful to me yeah I I'm not a teacher I'm not good at that I'm not good at that as well I'm
not good at that but Nick had dreamed of becoming a youth pastor and he specifically wanted to work at Christ
Community Church because of his connection to his own former youth pastor who was Bob also known as PB
Smith he sounds like a really cool guy I'll put it out there good he sounds like he was like a nice gentleman that's
great and he still worked at the church all right he had been in charge of the church since the late 1980s but by the
time Nick arrived on the island and and was hoping to kind of like link up with PB and become this youth pastor PB
already had a partner that he was leading the church with okay Robert I think it's Bailey Robert Bailey it could
be Billy I couldn't figure it out and I looked it up she did I was there for it thank you yeah so Robert I'm just going
to call him either Robert or Pastor Robert for the rest of this so I don't piss anyone off but Robert he was this
like charismatic very animated man he was in his early 40s he'd been raised in a wealthy family and he kind of seemed
to like he would start these like really big projects and like have like this big
picture in mind but then it would all kind of fizzle out and he had just left a job working for the Galloping Gourmet
television program wow I'm just gonna urge you to look further into that it's wild but to most and especially to get
my Google machine Galloping Gourmet television program type in Robert b-i-l-y so to most and especially to Nick though
he seemed like an odd fit for church leadership okay okay PB Smith he took more and he's the nice gentleman he took
more of a friendly but still conservative approach to church leadership where Pastor Robert was um
very strict and extreme okay according to Greg Olsen quote Roberts seemed to try his best but neither sympathy nor
empathy appeared to be in his web repertoire wow so that's something you don't want in the pastor I would think
something I don't want him like anyone yeah I would like to hang out with people that have sympathy and empathy
and they're repertoire also repertoire is a really fun word filter in your mouth yeah now even though that was his
approach um and on top of that he actually had no theological training oh even though of
all of those factors the church board still voted to promote him to Pastor okay I don't understand how any of that
works but interesting but all right but okay go off so his new position seemed to go to his head almost immediately PB
sermons they usually related to the more like traditional subject matter of the Bible and his whole message was just
about forming a strong relationship with God and your community those were like his main goals yeah
but Roberts they were really theatrical his sermons okay he Incorporated very different elements of belief systems
that were like on the fringes of Christianity like not really there and he also this was like the main thing
that he did that I was like oh he set up a new Deliverance counseling program that was put into place to help the
congregants quote unquote build a stronger relationship with God but to me it sounded more like setting up Scare
Tactics oh I don't love that yeah so these sessions again according to Olson were intense dramatic and stepped in
fear and shame with Robert and PB praying and screaming at demons to exit The Afflicted church members okay PB had
never done that before Oh so this is all new this is all new these these church members had never had demons screamed
out of them oh no but they would ask the congregants all kinds of personal questions in these counseling sessions
about their marriages their sex lives like they wanted to get any kind of deep deep dark secret out of them I hate that
and they would also focus on of course how wrong it was to be gay how shameful it was to have an abortion and those
kind of things yeah that we personally don't agree with so Greg Olsen goes a bit further into
his book this this whole peer piece of this in his book and I would really recommend reading that section at the
very least because holy [ __ ] the things that they were doing during these counseling sessions are [ __ ] oh I hate
that and it's not even like the actions like I think the actions of like I don't
like the idea of exorcisms personally but it was more like the topic of conversation and like they just seem to
be trying to shame people into submission I think that's the like that's the vibe I'm getting and that's
why I don't like it like that's why I said boo it just sounds like this is really steeped like you said in like
shame fear yeah but like almost bullying absolutely in some way you know like this doesn't sound fun no and it it
wasn't what Christ Community Church was before yeah that's the thing because it sounds like it was like a you know
regular Church yeah that people seemed happy with before this and this oh by the way I meant to mention it it's a
very small church it's compromised of only like a hundred families oh really yeah so yeah these are people that are
that are used to something and like yeah they have this community community and family and then all of a sudden this guy
walks in and kind of like disrupts all of that yeah I don't like that I feel like a lot of people were probably on
edge yeah so that was the environment that Nick Hackney entered into when he finally managed to get an offer to join
that congregation oh boy as youth pastor he achieved his dream of becoming youth
pastor but uh it was different it was different these days different and that's the thing he saw PB as like again
this charismatic War man somebody he really looked up to but then he walked on the scene and realized that this guy
had been completely pushed to the side by Pastor Robert and Pastor Robert was domineering and dominating the entire
conversation of the church and the other thing was not only had Pastor Robert risen up the ranks quickly
but he had completely changed the entire church along the way like that sucks so by the mid 90s poster Robert had
convinced the congregation that he had a direct relationship with God and was one
of his apostles like he could get messages from God and then convey those messages is I'm this is an
actual question I have isn't that exactly what a co-leader does yes okay absolutely okay so but the thing was and
he he essentially was a co-leader yeah I'm just gonna go ahead and say that that's my opinion yeah well that's
literally isn't that what a cult leader does they say they have some kind of connection to a very direct connection
to a higher power yes and that's how they get everybody to do their bidding yes honestly the beginning of all of
this kind of reminds me of the Holy Rollers case that we did I think we did it with Rachel O'Brien on her podcast
yeah I was that really does remind me that it's it's spooky but yeah so he was like I have direct messages from the big
guy to tell you and that makes my word more valuable than PB Smith's or anybody on the church boards because they're not
talking to God directly now most members at the church they fully believed him I think because they
either believed fully in their faith or because they were scared into believing him yeah and there were also some
members in this congregation that said they were starting to receive messages and prophecies from God or they had all
along and just realized it yeah but those who didn't believe Pastor Robert were definitely scared into silence when
one of these people spoke out and called him a false Apostle uh-oh so that man who was brave enough to say that is it
Apostle or apostle [Music] um I don't really know did you say an apostle or Apostle it's Apostle it's
Apostle all right sorry I didn't get it later it's Apostle So This Man Called him a fake Apostle there
you go it's losing all meaning at this point it sure is but that man and his entire family were excommuted from the
excommunicated excuse me from the church in a 10-page letter that was actually written by PB Smith and circulated
throughout the entire congregation damn so this family they made an example out of them yeah so Robert was free to and
continued to take the church in a more conservative Direction at this point and now he was insisting that they should be
homeschooling their children eating healthier diets oh don't tell people what to do with their kids don't in
their bodies or their bodies so yeah he wanted them to not only do all of that but also start dressing more modestly
this is becoming a call to everybody absolutely Jesus now since it was well known that Nick and PB were close Robert
didn't really have much interest in Nick when he first joined the church he figured Nick would probably just be kind
of an extension of PB and not worth his time or somebody to push out yeah so it kind of came as a surprise to the pastor
when Nick approached him and asked Robert to take him under his wing like Nick said to Robert will you take me
under your wing huh he apparently said I'm working with PB and we never do anything I don't want his culture to
affect me and cause me to become like him you don't want to be a charismatic warm
man a charismatic man a charismatic War man yeah what the hell what if you look at this guy do you want to be like him
like I mean cult leader power yeah so even though he'd been close with PB for years
Nick clearly identified Robert as the stronger of the two and that's why he wanted to align himself with him he
wanted to align himself with the guy he thought was going to come out on top oh that never works out man it doesn't
unfortunately Robert did kind of seem to come out on top but that's upsetting didn't work out for Nick but similarly
Robert saw Nick as a tool to help him achieve his goal of outstanding PB and just taking over the church once and for
all as senior pastor which I didn't realize that there was even levels of pastors I didn't either I knew they were
like that's interesting yeah I knew there was like youth pastors I thought that was like just because they were
like kids me too yeah but anyways by early 1997 Nick and Dawn had gotten really sick of moving around they were
moving around a lot and obviously the inevitable cost that comes along with that they were in like the little side
business of flip flipping properties but Don was also getting tired of that she just wanted to move into a home where
they could build the life together yeah and not have to like fix up a ton of [ __ ] absolutely so when Nick found yet
another Fixer-Upper for sale in East Bremerton Don just reluctantly agreed that it was time for them to become
homeowners they were going to buy this house fix it up flip it but not sell it okay but she didn't want to do that but
she agreed because it's what Nick wanted oh a yet another house to fix defaults yeah right but the thing was she and
Nick spent the better part of the winter in early spring remodeling but by the spring of 1997 the cost of renovating
and the second mortgage that they had taken out on the house put them very deeply into debt oh oh which is not good
not a good place to be not a good place to be tensions Run High tensions were running very high inside of the house
but the congruence of the church thought that Nick and Don just had the perfect marriage they saw them as this loving
couple they saw that Dawn seemed to be willing to do whatever it took to support Nick's dreams and she was she
absolutely was sounds like it it she worked really hard to always support Nick but the renovation and the
spiraling debt was really starting to put a strain on their marriage and it went deeper than probably anybody could
have imagined now one afternoon Don meant for Don meant met I kept saying Men Don met for lunch with her friend
Eunice Eunice had also fallen on hard times recently so she moved back in with her parents and she was one of Don's
friends that wasn't really so fond of Nick but she was still surprised when Don confided in her saying if Nick and I
end up splitting two I would never ever want to live with my parents so don or Eunice is like oh she's even mentioning
the fact that like they could split yeah like even putting that out there as a possibility like that's a big [ __ ]
deal yeah so she laughed it off just like casually and was like well if that ever happens you can live with me like
don't worry about it she was half joking but Don apparently applied a replied okay that might happen oh yeah
I'd be like do you want to talk do you want to do something to say I think it was like a very like passing yeah
exchange but at the very least it suggested that Don was thinking of a world where Nick wasn't a part of her
world anymore and it was significant enough that Eunice remembered it years and years after had passed so Don and
Nick's marital issues they didn't only boil down to the renovation and the debt coming just from that it was more Nick's
Reckless spending and irresponsibility with money in general like not just with the house but with everything if the
church needed something he would volunteer to buy it if a congregant needed money he would lend it to them
without any expectation that they paid the money back which is like very kind sure absolutely like but not when you're
when you can't when you have a family like you you also have to have a responsibility to them you gotta put
your oxygen mask on first exactly you know yeah so by 1997 he had started also funneling money into his latest dream
project which was a Christian Youth Camp he really really wanted to go all in for
this and he actually even started eyeing some property in Jefferson County he thought it was going to be perfect for
the camp in fact he thought that this was the camp that God wanted for him and his feeling was only solidified
further when Sandy glass another member of the congregation who claimed to have very frequent Visions from God himself
she claimed that her latest and most prominent Vision was that of a new church on a property just like the one
Nick had seen for his Youth Camp interesting oh she said she saw this new church prospering under Nick's
leadership and of course with her own support she would be more than willing to help and support my goodness yay look
at that my Guy Greg Olsen he notes that notably absent from the vision was any mention of Sandy's husband Jimmy and
Nick's wife Dawn I was wondering that much yeah no they weren't enough like is dawn in there God said forget about that
no he said no way so Sandy glass just to tell you a little bit more about her she
came from a difficult background she had really gone through her fair share of tragedy she was only in her 20s at this
point and her first serious boyfriend had died from an unspecified disease oh her father had been killed in a
construction accident oh and her brother was struggling with addiction which was
causing a lot of stress and heartbreak for their family oh she's going through it and she's only in her 20s oh geez so
I can understand why she turned to God for sure oh absolutely I can understand why a lot of people people do yeah
absolutely and that's all I'll say about that yeah exactly now she didn't she wouldn't let those things become excuses
and I think or I yeah she did her best to be a strong source of support for her kids and her husband Jimmy but by 1997
things with Jimmy hadn't been going well for a while and money was tight because they were a single income
household only relying on Jimmy salary as a carpenter because Sandy was staying home with the kids yeah but she also was
very Reckless with money like Nick and couldn't stop spending money that they didn't even have oh no so obviously that
led to a lot of fights between her and Jimmy where Jimmy would just yell and lose his temper or completely distance
himself from the situation and go to the bar for hours and hours and hours no and
they have kids yeah so he's either there and like they're fighting or he's not there at all yeah
it's sad yeah now like a lot of the other couples at Christ Community Church Sandy and Jimmy decided to turn to the
church for help with their marriage with the Deliverance Counseling in their case
that meant turning to Nick Hackney and again the Deliverance counseling program to which I say big [ __ ] yikes and
Jimmy's parents also said big [ __ ] yikes oh really James and Mary glass they were like I don't know about this
they thought that Sandy and Jimmy's decision to turn to the church for help seemed rash and they also wondered if
Nick had the experience or even the qualifications to help their son yeah and they especially started to worry
when Nick seemed to take a very very defined interest in Sandy instead of Sandy and Jimmy as a couple uh-oh and
his interest and special attention also wasn't just happening within the walls of Sandy and Jimmy's counseling sessions
he was calling Sandy at all hours of the day especially during like family gatherings and events that she would
have even if she was the Ho or the host she would walk away and excuse herself and be on the phone with Nick for like
way too long just privately [ __ ] it was weird that's inappropriate it is and Jimmy's parents James and Mary they
weren't the first members of the congregation to notice that Nick seemed to pay not only special attention to
Sandy but just to the women in the congregation in general oh Nick actually when Nick took over the
counseling program a couple years before there were multiple people that complained about them about him and how
he was interested in things that they considered to be very very private one woman actually went to Pastor Robert
about Nick and said all he wants to do is talk about sex and for that reason she didn't want to go to the church for
counseling anymore she was like I'm at the point where like I want to look outside of the church for counseling
because this [ __ ] that you have running it is disgusting ew can you imagine like what a pig what a pig
absolutely no I just feel so bad for anybody that had to go through the counseling process with him because it's
like you're at a low Point already in your life or you're struggling at the very least and you're turning to a place
where you you believe in and this guy just ruins all that for you and this guy is like being really inappropriate and
gross like exactly what a low feeling that must be right like it must take you even lower yeah he just preyed upon
people now Pastor Robert's wife Pamela she was yet another person who noticed how Nick was treating the women and she
was starting to get really ticked off and troubled by it so she actually took Nick aside herself and she was like I
want to have a conversation with you about this counseling program and she was like you are too eager to involve
yourself in people's marital issues and especially their sexual problems and you
need to knock it off well I'm glad somebody was like you creep yeah and I love that it was a woman yeah she was
like yeah Pamela cut the [ __ ] she literally told him and this is a quote this is marital abuse you need to focus
on dawn like your wife yeah you need to comfort her and Don needs to know that she's number one in your life good for
her so she was like hey why don't you focus on your own [ __ ] family yeah stop being weird so Nick surprisingly
not one to welcome criticism just brush the conversation off and forgot about it
Pamela was the first woman to openly criticize him but she probably wouldn't be the last
other people at the church were being quiet about their opinions but they also felt like Pamela did and like James and
Mary glass did it was clear to them that Nick did not give a [ __ ] about Don's feelings at all and they thought it was
really gross how he threw himself headfirst into private issues but at the same time they trusted PB who was still
with the church and Pastor Robert I don't know if they trusted him but I think they just didn't want to pick any
fights with him yeah and they assumed that Nick wouldn't be in charge of this program if he couldn't be trusted
so the church had almost been completely transformed by the fall of 1997 and in late August Pastor Robert had officially
pushed PB out oh no as the senior pastor and it was a decision that was actually
backed by the church board oh no so now that he wasn't in charge of the church PB and his wife just headed off to
Africa to do some Mission work I mean good for PB and his wife I love it I think they were like this has gotten
really weird and we need to get as far away from this as possible well they were probably like we're gonna go do
what we are like preaching yeah and we're gonna go help people exactly we're gonna go do what we believe in you can
continue doing like your version of this but we're gonna do what we were setting
out to do except for them yeah I agree but back at the church the Deliverance counseling sessions they were starting
to become routine and they were getting stranger and stranger and stranger Nick was relishing in this newfound power and
Pastor Robert was too busy to give a [ __ ] ew he's busy becoming a cult leader the sad thing about telling this story
is that because she passed away when she was so young and because if she had spoken out against anything it would
have caused it caused a huge uproar we don't know how Don felt about all the changes going on in the church and
that's sad yeah and not even only just the changes going on in the church but the changes going on in her husband yeah
her marriage like we don't know how she felt about it because once she passed away so young and also because I don't
think she was allowed to say it yeah she didn't feel comfortable exactly that's sad it is by all accounts she was smart
gorgeous self-reliant and she definitely would have had an opinion about what was
going on in her home in the church but like I said earlier maybe she wouldn't have said it out loud be because she
took the conservative church doctrine very seriously she always believed that the wife should
be subservient to the husband so even if she suspected that Nick was cheating on
her or being inappropriate at the very least it's not that likely that she would have confronted him because that's
part of the whole thing it's like deal with it yep quietly quietly and with a smile on your face
so you know she may have been staying tight-lipped about her suspicions but by the end of the year more and more people
in the congregation were starting to notice that Nick was really going for it with the inappropriate behavior and
especially they were noticing that he was spending a lot of time with Sandy glass in particular so more and more
people were going to Pastor Robert to say like we're concerned about this we don't like this the counseling sessions
are getting weirder and weirder but he didn't care yeah as long as Nick wasn't planning to take over power of the
church you could do whatever they wanted so toward the later half of 1997 the cons the concerns were becoming so
frequent that even Pastor Robert couldn't push them off he tried his best but they started they were coming in
probably daily at this point when Pastor Robert is doing anything besides leading
a cult you know that it got intense you know it's real yeah exactly but instead of pulling Nick aside he pulled Sandy
aside and he was like hey your relationship with Nick is inappropriate and you should focus on your husband
Jimmy because your relationship is already [ __ ] up so I'm I'm sorry can we talk to the church leader no it's
Santa's fault what are you talking about obviously she's a woman of course it's her fault
Sandy didn't receive this well nor would I not well received not well received me
either now she maintained that she believed that God wanted her and Nick to be together oh literally said that and
in a letter to Pastor Robert she said the Judgment I feel from you makes it hard for me to believe that you accept
my giftings at all talking about her Visions or that you have any confidence in my ability to hear God and use this
help to help anyone oh boy yeah so like essentially what she was saying is God wants me and Nick to
be together and if you don't believe that then you don't believe in me and [ __ ] everybody else
yeah yeah this is a wild story it's it's truly crazy now outside of the church Sandy and Nick
were barely hiding their Affair and it was taking a toll on literally everybody around them yeah and this is really sad
I just want to let you know this is going to bum you out big time one day one of Sandy and Jimmy's kids went to
their dad upset and crying and told him mom and Nick told us that after you die Nick's going to be our new dad
that is [ __ ] up in a way that I can't even describe can you shame imagine them
shame on them shame on them because it wasn't like Nick told us this it was no it was the moment like that's [ __ ]
visiting [ __ ] yeah and not shame on them that hurts my heart so badly that that
kid was probably terrified of their dad Yeah that poor confused little child like who says that to a kid like that's
[ __ ] up it's so weird ugh it's it's beyond these two are gross but Jimmy refused to entertain the idea that Sandy
was cheating on him even still at this point when the affair was so public that even his kids were coming to him with it
so the tension in the glass family was growing and growing and growing and it was dangerously close to a Breaking
Point like dangerously close and by Thanksgiving the cracks were beginning to show even in Dawn who as we
know usually put a brief Face Forward yeah she told two other women in the congregation things are not so good
right now I'm overwhelmed by everything our finances are a mess but mostly I'm worried about Nick I don't think I make
him happy he's never home he's gone all the time I don't even know if he wants me anymore oh that's so sad and what's
sadder is she was trying everything she could do to make him happy she was trying to lose weight which she did not
need to do she was beautiful she was just doing anything she could think of that's so sad it is so the woman in the
congregation they tried to reassure her and they were like whatever is causing problems between you and Nick is not
your fault like yeah and I'm I'm happy that somebody told her that yeah not like yeah like try this diet because you
know some people will do that absolutely and it sounds like you know there were people around her who could have said
that so I'm glad that she had people who were like no like you don't need to change all anything about yourself if he
doesn't love right crazy and that's the thing I like do doing research for this I watched a couple shows about it and
all of the people that in Don's life like absolutely loved her she had friends that were her friends in high
school that she was still friends with ugh like and like friends in like grade school that she was still friends with
that spoke her Praises so you know that's a good person of course so but the thing was people could still tell
there was something deeper and more complicated that was upsetting Don yeah and she told them my life isn't what I
would what I thought it would be and then she went on to explain that there were major and irreconcilable
differences between she and Nick's long-term plans oh geez and at the Forefront of that was that she
desperately wanted to be a mother she wanted to have kids so bad and Nick did not want children oh which I think we
talked about that a couple weeks ago like just so [ __ ] sad if you find yourself in that situation yeah that you
weren't that you didn't talk about it beforehand or right were honest with each other beforehand and now you're
married and you're and two totally different camps that way and she feels stuck and when you want
kids yeah it is a feeling and a need that you simply cannot ignore like you just can't like yeah when John and I
decided we wanted kids it was a desperation oh I remember kids like when it was when it was hard when it took a
long time and we had to go through the fertility treatments it was devastating of course it the thought of not being
able to was devastating so I can't imagine what she was going through I'm not even at the place right now where
like we're taught like we're talking about it obviously but like I'm not at the place where we're like ready to make
that happen but one of my biggest fears is like not being able to yeah it's it's
hard honestly because of seeing what you guys went through yeah it was gut-wrenching it is it's really really
off so knowing she desperately wanted kids and he was just like no no that's got wrenching into me I'm sure it wasn't
even a conversation it was just like he said when that was the end of it oh that's awful so sad
now strangely all of the chaos actually seemed to be affecting Nick too by December he seemed absolutely exhausted
to everyone who knew him which was a big change because normally outwardly he was
very enthusiastic and like excited about church and being weird in Deliverance counseling yeah but there were a few
women in the congregation in particular who seemed to be demanding his time more
and more other than Sandy and then there was still Sandy whose messages from God
were growing more demanding she was urging Nick that he needed to take action toward that dream of the Youth
Camp oh yeah and as Christmas got closer it seemed like there was something big that was going to shift and it was going
to be Nick who shifted it so don woke up on Christmas morning to find that like I said she was sick with
a cold remember I said that at the beginning yeah she'd been fighting a cold the previous day and when she woke
up on Christmas it was even worse she like didn't even want to go out but she always showed up for everybody in her
life so she and Nick took the ferry to the mainland that morning and they spent the day with her parents and her
brothers later that night they actually dropped by to see PB Smith's family um they played board games and Nick made
plans with pb's daughter Lindsay and two other friends to go hunting the next morning okay now when Don and Nick said
good night their friends had no idea that would be the last time they would see Don obviously because she died in a
tragic fire so the next morning December 26 Lindsay Smith and her husband Phil met Nick to go hunting Just Before Dawn
um at the Hood Canal Bridge in Jefferson County they spent a couple hours in the
woods but they never fired a single shot there was nothing to hunt to which I say
ha but around 9 A.M they decided they were going to call it a day because like nothing was going on yeah so they drove
into town to have breakfast at a local Diner and as they were eating breakfast Nick suddenly jumped up like out of
nowhere and was like Don and I still haven't had time to open our Christmas presents and then he asked for the check
and quickly headed home oh now the time stamp on the credit card receipt showed that it was 9 30 in the morning when
that happened so Nick would have made it home a little after 10. okay you know as
we know he did show up a little after 10 to his home completely engulfed in flames and heard the news that his wife
Don had been killed in a fire now as far as fire investigators could tell the blaze had been actually mostly confined
to the bedroom at first which now was like a burned out shell of what it had been
and the cause of the fire appeared to be a faulty space heater which escalated quickly due to quote the abundance of
newspapers and wrapping paper and a collection of mini propane containers near the headboard on one side of the
bed um okay are we looking at that as the origin point so Nick Carson accident okay so Nick explained to the
investigators that he and Don had opened their Christmas gifts the night before uh-huh
do you remember when earlier he just said they had him yeah yep no they did and since John wasn't feeling well they
just headed right to bed instead of cleaning up all the wrapping paper and they were like okay totally what about
the propane tanks well that I'm like did you get propane tanks for Christmas yes
oh that's literally the okay yes okay he told the investigators that they had actually been a gift to him from dawn
because they were still using space heaters to heat the home throughout the renovation
okay now overall the death seemed to be an accident it was truly a tragic one but unfortunately in the winter months a
very familiar accident a faulty space heater poof you're up in Flames okay so once the scene had been cleared Pastor
Robert showed up oh good he was like I'm here to help yeah things weren't chaotic
enough let's bring this guy in he showed up and you know he wanted to try to provide support and comfort to Nick and
when Nick told Robert what had happened that Don had passed away Robert immediately suggested that they try to
raise her from the dead with the power of prayer shut the [ __ ] up I'm sorry that you can believe whatever you want
to believe but they suggested they try to raise her from the dead with the power of Prayer
that I mean that like literally can't happen so like that's really [ __ ] up to do to someone of course it is to
place that kind of Hope in there okay but he had been doing that back at church his sermons at the church had
recently come to include the belief that certain people those of the truest faith
had the power to resurrect somebody from the dead okay or the truest of Faith had
the power to resurrect themselves okay and uh to him it seemed like there was no better time to put that practice than
with somebody from his own congregation yeah I was like let's go but the mention of Resurrection seemed
to alarm Nick he jumped up from the truck bed where they were sitting in and insisted that
nobody should try to pray over Don's remains he insisted to Pastor Robert and told him she's been so badly burned
she'd be in terrible pain it would be awful okay which is a belief system that people are
holding here that this could happen that is a very reasonable thing to say yeah and something that I can absolutely go
oh yep I get it for sure like that sound that would be terrible like just thinking about that
is [ __ ] terrible so I mean I would think that like if you can resurrect from the dead like that's crazy in a
miracle in itself so like maybe if you got that ability you would just like come back like not in the way that you
would die you don't know that's a possibility that I can understand like I don't want her to be in pain or like
horribly disfigured or yeah okay totally so even though their relationship had gone all gotten off to a rocky start
Robert always knew Nick to be among the most faithful in the church so the fact that he refused to even try to raise
Dawn from the dead it struck Robert as strange you just went hmm so instead Nick asked Robert if he could inform
Don's family of the deaf which Robert also thought was strange he was like you want me to go tell them and Nick was
like yeah I do I just can't bring myself to do it yeah and he was like okay no problem
so the news made its way through the church congregation very quickly and a lot of the congregants were absolutely
shocked by this nobody expected Don to pass away in a house fire like yeah why would you ever
so they formed a prayer chain to pray for don'sol which that's nice yeah and but at the same time not everybody was
so quick to accept this explanation of what had happened Sandy's mother-in-law Mary glass had a lot of insight into the
tensions at church not only with just like her daughter-in-law and that whole side of the marriage but she she seemed
to have eyes on everything in the church okay she knew what was up and she suspected that Don's death was not an
accident oh look at her she did not think so and she told her husband she was like I don't think it's an accident
like I don't know if we should go talk to somebody about this but he said if Nick really had something to do with
the fire the police will certainly discover that in their investigation and we need to keep our noses out of this as
far as he was concerned it was best that they stay as far away from this investigation as possible okay okay
um but Mary was quickly proven wrong just days later the fire and Dawn's death were ruled accidental and the
Bremerton Police handed the investigation off to Safeco Insurance Company who had already received Nick's
request to process Don's life insurance claim huh which he was struggling with money so sure yeah no uh
some people were like okay yeah her death was an accident and you know Nick is just a victim of cruel circumstances
so the church Community held a celebrations of life event as a funeral for Don and they invited family and
friends to tell stories and just celebrate Don's life while they grieved her death
Nick ended up giving a 45-minute eulogy and some people were like how is HE capable of being so clear so soon after
his wife tragically died yeah to give a 45-minute eulogy but then on the other side of things people were like
absolutely touched by it and thought it was beautiful to say and then there was probably that whole and also the fact
that he's a pastor he's a pastor this is what he does yeah turn to God and tragedy exactly so with the house
destroyed by the fire Nick moved in with the Smith family actually he moved into their daughter Lindsay's
old bedroom and around that time some people started noticing how strangely hot and cold he was when it came to the
subject of Dawn's death at times he seemed like he was like almost performatively grief-stricken and
then there were other times where it seemed like he couldn't be bothered to even think about Dawn okay now one day
when Lindsay came back to the house to get some of her things she found a photo collage of dawn that she'd made for Nick
and I probably for the funeral and she found it stuffed into the back of her bedroom closet and she was like At first
she was like that's weird and obviously like Nick must have been the one to stuff it back there but then she said to
herself it must have been really hard for him to look at that every day okay Fair yeah so in the weeks and months
that followed it's just Nick's way of grieving was a constant answer to a myriad of bizarre callous and rude
behaviors back he snubbed his neighbors he kept having inappropriate relationships with young
women from the church and he seemed to be using his widower status to try to make other people feel bad for him hmm
yeah I don't like it I don't either just months after Don's death he started confiding in several women from the
church including pb's daughter Lindsay oh the one married to his friend Phil oh yeah uh-huh but rather than see his
behavior as extremely inappropriate all of these women seemed honored that a leader of the church had chosen them to
trust with his most inner thoughts his innermost thoughts so some people they made sure to keep their relationship
platonic and just you know be a shoulder to lean on uh and others welcomed his sexual
Advantage advances excuse me and they were sure that it was what God wanted for them okay
this is going to blow your [ __ ] mind Nick was able to manipulate Dawn's own mother into thinking he was a suffering
Widow and they too slept together not long after Don's death Dawn's mother had sex with her husband had after she
died relations with her husband after she died that's [ __ ] up I was I I don't like I'm shocked right
now and I already knew that obviously when I I was reading it in the book and I was like oh my God and for those that
are going to read a twisted Faith just know that it it's a little graphic in that scene oh my so I'm gonna move on
now oh boy please do just kept on abusing his power and taking advantage of his conversation he's a [ __ ]
filthy animal yeah he kept taking advantage of his congregation for a few more years but it got to the point where
the complaints were too numerous for the church board to ignore because now people were not they were going over uh
[ __ ] Robert's head there to the board and being like what are you gonna do about this glad that you guys were
taking it seriously so they couldn't ignore it at this point he wasn't just carrying on affairs with a few women
that would have been bad enough but there were some cases where he was clearly just leading women on and taking
advantage of them I'm so confused by this yeah so these women obviously they felt completely
betrayed and victimized and they weren't gonna let things go yeah so finally in the spring of 2001 they had a church
board meeting about the issue and it was decided that Nick needed to leave Christ
Community Church damn finally not only like did he get like demoted he had to leave yeah
now some congregants called for forgiveness but a majority seemed happy to see him go and they were happy
because the tension and the drama that he had caused for years they they were like okay maybe this will finally come
to a close mm-hmm so being kicked out of the church that he devoted almost a decade of his life to was a big blow to
Nick but it was just the beginning of his troubles oh because on April 10 2001 Sandy glass and her lawyer sat down with
the County district attorney and Sandy was presented with a document offering her immunity from prosecution in
exchange for her testifying in court to something that she'd been keeping to herself since the end of December 1997.
shut up Don's death was not an accident it was a [ __ ] murder [ __ ] Nick she had been murdered according to Sandy
Nick called her on the morning of December 26th and all he said this cryptic [ __ ] [ __ ] of a loser
said I did it before the call was interrupted by another incoming call what so Sandy put Nick on hold to answer
the other call which was actually somebody from the church calling to say to tell her what had happened to John so
Sandy was like oh my God and she went back to her phone call with Nick and she was like what are you talking about and
all he would say to her was it's done what it's done so maybe she was too scared or maybe she
didn't want to know but Sandy allegedly didn't ask Nick for further clarification until a few weeks later
and when she finally asked him what he meant according to Sandy Nick told her that on the morning of the fire this is
terrible and graphic he had given down a large overdose of Benadryl and then covered her face with a plastic
bag to smother her oh my God according to Nick the Benadryl had been enough to mostly immobilize her but she was still
awake and quote could see him through the plastic bag and what he was doing oh she literally watched her husband
kill her through the plastic bag through a plastic bag in their bedroom oh in their home
that's horrific so once he was sure that she was dead he scattered old newspaper
and wrapping paper around the room and under her body and placed the propane tanks by the bed
and set the heater up in a way that it would cause a fire and Destroy any evidence of a crime or so he thought oh
my God the story seemed too bizarre to be true to investigators and parts of it didn't seem to make any sense but it did
explain some of the more unusual aspects of the case like why Don wasn't even slightly roused by the region of fire
around him she was already dead why there was no soot or carbon monoxide in her lungs
I'm sorry we ignored that to begin with we didn't ignore it no but we came up with a very [ __ ] weird bizarre reason
for why that happened or why in one of the photos of Don's corpse taken immediately after the fire was
extinguished why you could see paper lying underneath her body I don't know how anybody didn't question that
wow I think some people looked the other way because this was a pastor I mean this is wildly watched wild the fire
marshal at the time said he never forgot about this case all throughout the years
he was like I didn't think it was an accident but he there was it wasn't up to him yeah
so when the prosecutor asked why Sandy hadn't come forward with all this information before now all she could say
was that she was too afraid she'd lose her kids if the police thought she was involved which I understand but wow and
then at the same time she also had been thoroughly manipulated by Nick to think that their relationship was what God
wanted for them and it was only after she learned that he was stepping out on her too with other women in the church
that she realized she was being used damn she realized the relationship was not what God wanted and then she
realized that if this relationship wasn't what God wanted that meant that God hadn't pre-ordained Dawn's death it
was murder oh no the story was wild yeah this is wild Reckless I can't believe that this just like came to be yeah I
never would have heard of this otherwise no I was just looking at another book on
Amazon this one came up and I saw the the a whole description and I was like what the [ __ ] this is wild wild so this
yeah it was enough for investigators to reopen the case and look into what Sandy
alleged yeah so they Revisited the evidence that had been collected in the initial investigation and they spoke to
most of the witnesses and members of the church that they had spoken to before and in talking to those folks they
learned all about the other women that Nick had been having affairs with oh no and investigators also reviewed the
original autopsy results with the forensic pathologist who not only discovered that Don had toxic levels of
Benadryl in her system oh oops she had five times the normal dosage in her system [ __ ] but that's why he said she
didn't think she had tolerance for it and she just kept taking of course yep he was trying to set it all up but there
were also signs of her having been dead before the fire started like I said though soot in her lungs in the original
autopsy it was noted that there was no carbon monoxide in her lungs and once blood work was done there was no carbon
monoxide in the blood and obviously like you were just saying that was something that did stick out to
the forensic pathologist initially because carbon monoxide always attaches itself to red blood cells in a case like
this and if a person is breathing while a fire rages around them they will sure as [ __ ] have some [ __ ] soot in there
absolutely but this pathologist was working under a preconceived idea that the fire was accidental and this was a
pastor's wife there couldn't be there couldn't be murder involved here no way that's that's wild so that's looking the
other way of course it is like there's no to put that along to with them being like it is weird that she didn't move at
all while being burned alive like Benadryl you're telling me Benadryl makes it so you don't feel your flesh
burning like I'm sorry she would have moved a little and I maybe it was because it was five times the amount but
even still it doesn't paralyze you it doesn't kill all the nerves in your body you're gonna feel it yeah and your
body's gonna move a little bit you're gonna at least attempt to move or shift and for them to take that and also take
that along with the fact she didn't have sit in her lungs and along with the fact
that there was propane tanks there it's like and to not look at that and go we should take a little more of a look at
this and just go yep accident that's wild well they decided to take a look into other stuff they decided to take a
a real big look into why there wouldn't be any soot or carbon monoxide in the blood yeah they went really hard in
proving why that is all not weird at all no they literally instead of looking the
other way and going well that's weird what they did was they kept researching for some reason why this case would be
different and they found their reason in a medical journal that's no no so the article that supported the pathologist's
belief that this was still accidental pointed to something called a laryngospasm laryngospasm
essentially in a flash fire like the one at the Hackney's house apparently it is
possible for the larynx to suddenly close off and the airway is sealed because of the high heat it is very very
incredibly rare but possible okay but now that Sandy had offered up what she knew and it sounded like Nick had killed
Don before setting the fire and considering all of this newly found evidence the prosecutor's office felt
like there was enough to move forward and so a warrant for Nick's arrest was issued good and the pathologist changed
the cause of death because of this lady saying all of this and being like yeah I
know he did it like I know that this happened he admitted it to me and then you put it along with all that stuff
it's like okay I know rare things can happen that laryngeal laryngeal spasm or whatever
that can happen and if there wasn't other things involved I'd be like wow yeah like rare cases that happens right
when you put it next to somebody he killed her first come on right and how specific it was
yeah and like there's like newspaper and wrapping paper under her body yeah when
he just told his friends that morning that they hadn't opened Christmas gifts yet and then immediately got to the
house fire and was like oh we opened Christmas gifts last night and I we haven't even cleaned up and it was
propane tanks yeah wild I I think she actually might have got him propane tanks for the for Christmas because I
didn't see anything about him purchasing those beforehand oh yeah so I think that
might have actually maybe been a gift but I don't know but maybe it was just like um they might have he might have
already had them yeah so so yeah so yeah on the afternoon of September 12 2001 detectives did arrest
Nick in the parking lot of a Kinkos for the murder of his wife he immediately insisted that he had absolutely nothing
to do with Dawn's death and this was all a conspiracy being carried out against him by the members of Christ Community
Church particularly Pastor Robert he insisted to the investigators you have no idea what these people are capable of
wow but regardless of his denial Nick was booked on a charge of first-degree murder the next day and his bail was set
at 750 000 bye-bye so the news of his arrest came as a shock to a lot of people in Bremerton and to some people I
guess at his former congregation but I think others were like yeah I saw that coming yeah so for a little stretch
there at least he was a well-respected youth pastor and a leader in his community and now people were portraying
him as a manipulative philandering murderer like stark contrast there and one of the more unsavory facts
released in the media just after his arrest was after collecting the insurance payout from Dawn's policy
Nick couldn't even be [ __ ] bothered to purchase a headstone for his wife's grave shut the [ __ ] up he took out her
entire life insurance policy and got all of that money and it wasn't much but still it would have been enough to pay
for a [ __ ] headstone anything anything a marker wow it was literally like a taped piece of paper to the area
that tells you something of course it does piece of [ __ ] [ __ ] and instead of spending the money on what he should
have the headstone he quote took several women shopping for new clothes yeah [ __ ]
this guy so hard so hard now just for the comfort of everybody's mind like all of us in this room and all
of us out there in the world luckily a victim's right or rights organization did end up paying for a headstone for
Dawn so she has one that's amazing which like the fact that a victim's [ __ ] rights organization had to do that thank
goodness they exist yeah what about anybody else that loved her Jesus [ __ ] Christ
so some of Nick's former congregants from the Poulsbo offshoot of Christ Community Church so it's like a sister
church I guess yeah they showed up at the hearing to support him and his lawyer tried to suggest that their
showing up was evidence of Nick's reliability oh yeah absolutely because he was hoping to get him released on
personal recognizance um when I first read that I was like wow wow so personal recognizance according
to Google is a release without the requirement of posting of bail based on a written Promise by the defendant to
appear in court when required to do so it's the honor System of Baal ah you're on trial or you're about to be
for the murder of your wife this isn't a game of Monopoly there's no get out of jail free card or like I promise I'll
come back like hey just just sit on your palm and shake my hand and tell me you're gonna be here tomorrow Scout's
honest absolutely like you're you're literally sitting in this room because we think you
burned your wife in a [ __ ] house fire after suffocating her with a plastic bag
and you just think that you're gonna after drop out of here after drugging her yes thank you there was also that
make sure you include that so um obviously the judge was unmoved thank goodness and he only reduced the bond to
five hundred thousand dollars which nobody was going to be able to pay to get him out so on September 17th Nick
went before a judge where he pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder he also again claimed that this entire
thing was a plot against him by the former Church led by Pastor Robert and he also claimed are you ready that
Pastor Robert had placed a curse on him and the reach of his diabolical influence was just so much deeper than
the police or anybody could possibly comprehend you have no idea I have been cursed I
have no idea he is correct about that oh I have no I have no idea how you really
thought in a court of law you could look up at the judge and say you couldn't possibly comprehend how diabolical this
pastor is he cursed me couldn't possibly possibly comprehend sir this is a court
is what the judge said this is a Wendy's this is this is better than a Wendy's not surprisingly the judge was not
interested in talks of curses or conspiracies and he said okay trial date November 7th see you there [ __ ]
probably a little more eloquently probably now while Nick was in jail awaiting his trial the Kitsap County
prosecutor's office was obviously building their case against him in early October Deputy prosecutor Neil Watcher
or watched her excuse me announced that they were considering changing the original charges to aggravated first
degree murder which meant that Nick could face life in prison without the possibility of parole now the change in
charges was because of the arson of it all the prosecutor's office was considering it and considering it an
aggravating factor and that charge also meant that if he were guilty Nick would have been eligible for the death penalty
damn but prosecutor Russ houg I think it is I shared the press that they weren't
going to go for the death penalty now as part of the apar goodbye as part of their investigation Jesus Christ I
keep saying Jesus Christ through that and it's very ironic because I know I don't know if I usually say that I was
gonna say because I don't even think you usually no but it's just coming to me in
the moment happening it's a it's a vision but the prosecutor started collecting testimony from the women that
Nick was having affairs with at the time three of those women were willing to give testimony but one of them named
Nicole was now engaged to Nick shut up they had gotten engaged shut up and she was refusing to cooperate Nick
and Nicole actually were planning to get married and then moved to Tennessee at the time that he was yeah I bet they
were like they were already planning it when he was arrested but they were planning to move to Tennessee so the
Prosecutors office was like uh no no don't reduce his [ __ ] bail yeah and they also had to get a court order to
compel her testimony and they were like yeah like he's gonna run away to Tennessee and complicate
this whole case further do not let him out and luckily at the final bail here uh Hearing in late October the judge
agreed with them and the bail was left at 500 thank goodness and he said killing of a wife is one of the most
serious crimes in our system of justice yeah you're not just gonna be able to go
away for that no so fall turned over to Winter and Nick's trial date kept getting pushed back for
like different reasons the prosecutors and the defense team were arguing over what was going to be admissible what
wasn't but the gist is that the defense didn't want most of the Affairs to be discussed because they they claimed that
they didn't start until after Don had died which that's not true it had like we can create a timeline
so they were like they can't be used as a motive what's the point in talking about it shut up it's like a character
like maybe and then relating to Sandy and Nick's whole affair they couldn't argue that it was going on while Dawn
was still alive like it absolutely was so they just argued that her testimony was questionable because she was a woman
scorned oh yeah okay so the prosecution obviously fought both of those claims and they said even if the Affairs hadn't
started until after Dawn's death Nick was still counseling all of these women at the time yeah one of which was the
teenage daughter of his own Mentor PB Smith Lindsey Smith and their argument was that Nick was laying the groundwork
for sex through these counseling sessions and he murdered Don to quote unquote free himself up for this ew it's
so gross so the judge Superior Court Judge Anna Laurie decided with Excuse me sided with the prosecution and noted
that Nick quote had romantic attachments in the form of flirting hugs physical contact act in intimate conversations
with several women prior to the death and these relationships were sexually consummated once he was freed of the
confines of the confines of his marriage wow yeah so a few more delays uh after a
few more delays Nick finally went on actual trial on November 4th 2002 and his opening statement the deputy
prosecutor Neil watched her told the jury in the early morning hours of December 26 1997 Nick had drugged his
wife with a toxic dose of Benadryl placed a plastic bag over her head and suffocated her until she had died then
to cover up the murder he scattered and arranged a large number of flammable items around the room precariously close
to a faulty space heater wow which he turned on and then left for a previously planned hunting trip with his friends
which he was fully intending to use as his Alibi damn and they argued obviously again that he did all of this to free
himself up to have relationships with all the these other women and not only that but because he had put himself and
Dawn in a [ __ ] ton of debt from his church activities and the home renovation so he hoped to cash in on the
life insurance policy to remedy all those financial troubles okay Alice it's so messed and they also
said in their opening statements how he couldn't even use that money to buy a headstone for his wife
and how he spent a lot of it on women he was having affairs with yeah now Mark yellowish the defense attorney
there claimed of course that quote the initial investigation was right it was an accidental flash fire like the
medical examiner said it was wow so he tried to obviously put doubt in the minds of the jury telling them that
the prosecutor's office had to suggest otherwise was one jealous witness that's all they had to oh okay to point away
from this yeah obviously it's ridiculous absolutely ridiculous so the prosecution called all four women
that Nick was having affairs with around the time of Dawn's death to testify and
it was through these women that the jury learned about the heavy influence that the church had on their lives and they
also heard all about the visions and direct messages people claim to have from God that played a role in Don's
death yeah and how Nick used those Visions as messages for justification and manipulation
Lindsay there uh formerly Lindsey Smith she was married now but she told the jury about how she had met Nick through
her father PB and how she'd been groomed by Nick as a teenager oh just after Don
died they did engage in a sexual relationship and that happened until she actually finally left the area about a
year later oh man and the prosecution also introduced into evidence a large number of sexually explicit emails
between Nick and Lindsay that contained quote a mix of protestations of Love fantasies about sexual contact yet to
come and attempts to explain to one another how God could allow what they were doing
wow I can't like can you hear the blink blink I cannot so some of the more important testimony came from the
pathologist Dr Emmanuel lacina who had performed the original autopsy on Dawn now like we know his original report
concluded quote a spasm in the woman's larynx when a flash fire engulfed in her bedroom must be the explanation for
absence of soot in her lungs or common carbon monoxide in her blood that's a quote but when he was informed by the
police that they suspected Don had been murdered he changed the results of the autopsy when he learned about more of
the details yeah meaning the change was purely on the circumstances not new evidence so that was a little tricky uh
I was gonna say that can get a little hairy it got a little hairy because the defense obviously used this to their
advantage yeah and they said well would you change your results if it turned out
that Sandy's story was proven false yeah would you like flip it back and he said
yes I would so the defense pushed even further and they said does having a bag over one's
head like would that cause a violent reaction but this backfired when the doctor noted that absolutely it would
cause a violent reaction kind of question is that but only if a person is fully conscious and at the time of her
death Don had been drugged to the point of sluggishness which meant that she couldn't put up a fight exactly so I
think what they were trying to do there is say like well if he put a bag over her head why didn't she fight back and
he was like uh because she had five times the normal dose of Benadryl in her system and was immobilized he had
drugged her first idiots they did everything they possibly could the defense to undermine the state's
evidence against their client but it was Sandy glass that the defense attorney pushed the hardest the case against Nick
obviously rested a lot on Sandy's statement to the police that Nick had confessed to her so they were determined
to frame her as this jealous ex-lover who wanted Revenge Revenge when she found out about all these other women of
course they pointed to the fact that Sandy never warned anybody about Nick before going to the police which is true
and the fact that she waited years before reporting about a murder yeah so the defense attorney asked her you never
warned your good friend Annette and didn't you have any fear of him yourself and Annette was one of the women he was
having an affair with so that's the crazier thing a lot of the women that he was having affairs with were friends I
know that's wild and like if you read uh Twisted faith it goes a lot more into their relationships with one another
yeah and I think what got Sandy to the point of being like this is wrong and I can't believe I've been going along with
it for this week and this is so messy it is but so so he said you know you never
warned anybody and you weren't scared yourself so obviously suggesting she was lying yeah now finally he got at what he
had been implying all along and he said by accusing Mr Hackney of murder haven't
you changed your role in the relationship as a victim that you were manipulated by a murderer so he's like
you're just trying to rewrite history here eek trying to point to the fact that she herself was involved in this
affair and could have been involved in this murder and now it's like oh no no I'm the victim and I I want to believe
that Sandy didn't know about the murder I also want to believe so that's what I'll believe yeah but anyway the trial
lasted nearly two months until finally on December 26th 2002 which was super Eerie because it
was five years to the day since John had been discovered the jury retired for deliberation they deliberated for less
than a day and ended up siding with the prosecution and found Nick Hackney guilty of aggravated first-degree murder
in his statement to the Press prosecutor Neil watched her said we're extremely gratified by the verdict and we are
happy they could reach the only Common Sense verdict here yeah now on February 7 2003 Nick Hackney returned to Superior
Court where he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole damn and after the sentence was
passed Nick obviously was allowed to make a statement and he did the whole eye medicine I loved my wife I did bad
things but I'm a good man and he told the courtroom which included Don's parents and family I didn't murder Don
there are a lot of things that I regret that I wish I could take back and undo I'm sorry for the pain of going through
this trial and losing your daughter Don was kind and beautiful and true she deserved better than me I loved her with
all my heart no the [ __ ] you didn't I'm gonna call [ __ ] on you you don't place a plastic bag after drugging your
wife over her head and then light your entire house on fire when you love that person yeah you don't no it can confirm
that and uh Dawn's father was absolutely pissed that that was his statement yeah
and he jumped up and yelled at Nick then why didn't you even buy a headstone for
her good and then her brother Derek was equally pissed and added you don't know when to give up and like they were just
like yelling at him the judge was about to call the room back into the into order but they both just left I'm glad
they were both like you're [ __ ] worthless see you never and I think the fact I like I think they should be able
to respond to that statement because that's an absurd statement it is and I'm glad that they got to yeah now
unfortunately any uh Comfort found in Nick's conviction was a little bit undermined in the spring of 20 uh 2007.
when the state supreme court sided with him on an appeal that nixed his mandatory life sentence which then sent
him back to court for re-sentencing essentially what Nick's team argued was that the jury was not properly
instructed on the aggravating Factor thing because Dawn was already dead since Nick
had suffocated her the fire happened after the murder and technically they were arguing it wasn't an aggravated
Factor during the course of murder because she was already dead it's I don't know how you find that loophole
so yeah sometimes these little loopholes are like really but it worked with the appeal he was still convicted of murder
but because it wasn't technically aggravated murder the life sentence was thrown out and he was re-sentenced to 26
years in prison I love that they were like it wasn't aggravated murder because he didn't burn her alive he just did
that he just put a bag over her head after drugging her so that's not really aggravated no it's just that's just
murder yeah it's just straight up oh okay so that means he could get out within like the next several years
that's awesome and that is the tragic wow of the murder of a beautiful beautiful soul I know like if you look
up pictures of her she just seems like such a sweet kind I'm like you are better than everyone in this story yeah
except your friend Eunice and like a few of the supporting people of everyone yeah she is better than all
of these you deserved a lot better she did and the fact that life didn't give it to her pisses me off yeah that sucks
it does it was a really tragic case to research but again I really really recommend that book Twisted faith I was
it it's a [ __ ] page Turner yeah it sounds wild yeah and you can get it on the Kindle if you want if you if you
like to do that you can get it on the Kindle everybody get it on the Kindle you can get a hard copy it's available
it's available you can just read it yeah it's available I'll link it in the show
notes oh my God that story cuckoo nuts bananas and just senseless and so sad and like
ridiculous like the the visions and all that yeah it's just too much there's a lot yeah it is that's what it is it's
too much so we need to go have a palette cleanser yeah for real all right well guys we love you we hope
you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that any of this just go hugs them on and touch
grass yes do all that [Music] foreign [Music]

On the morning of December 26, 1997, police and fire services responded to a call about a structure fire at the home Bremerton, WA home of Nick and Dawn Hacheney. When they were finally able to extinguish the flames and search the home, they discovered the badly burned body of twenty-eight-year-old Dawn Hacheney in her bed, where her husband had left her several hours earlier. After a brief investigation, Dawn’s death was determined to be the result of an accidental fire—a tragic end to a short life, nothing more. The case, which most had considered closed years earlier, was revived in April of 2001 when a woman went to Bremerton Police with a startling statement. She claimed to have been having an affair with Dawn’s husband Nick, at the time of Dawn’s death and that, at some point during their affair, he’d confessed to drugging his wife and setting the house on fire to cover up the murder. Investigators took the woman’s claims very seriously; however, Nick Hacheney was a former minister, which added

Thank you to the gorgeous, vibrant and talented David White for Research assistance.

References:

Associated Press. 2002. "Former minister on trial in wife's death." The News Tribune, November 11: 16.

Baker, Travis. 2003. "Angry words erupt at Hacheney Sentencing." Kitsap Sun, February 8: 1.

—. 2002. "Defense presses woman who pointed finger." Kitsap Sun, November 27: 4.

—. 2001. "Ex-minister might face life in prison without parole." Kitsap Sun, October 4: 1.

—. 2001. "Ex-minister pleads innocent in wife's death." Kitsap Sun, September 18: 1.

—. 2002. ""Former minister guilty of murdering wife."" Kitsap Sun, December 27: 1.

—. 2001. "Hacheney denied reduced bail." Kitsap Sun, October 27: 4.

—. 2002. "Judge: Jury will hear of alleged wife killer's affairs." Kitsap Sun, February 28: 10.

—. 2002. "Pathologist testifies about changing autopsy results." Kitsap Sun, November 13: 3.

—. 2002. "Sexual affairs not relevant, attorney argues." Kitsap Sun, February 9: 5.

—. 2002. "Trial begins for ex-minister accused of killing wife." Kitsap Sun, November 4: 1.

Kitsap Sun. 1997. "Dawn Hacheney Obituary." Kitsap Sun, December 30: 5.

McCormick, Julie. 2001. "Former minister suspect in wife's death." Kitsap Sun, September 14: 1.

Olsen, Gregg. 2010. A Twisted Faith: A Minister's Obsession and the Murder that Destroyed a Church. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.State of Washington, Respondent, v. Nicholas Daniel Hacheney. 2007. 77767-5 (Supreme Court of Washington, May 31).

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Brief Summary

Nick Hackney murdered his wife Don in 1997, staging it as an accident to cover his affairs and financial troubles.

Key points

The Tragic Fire. A devastating fire claims the life of Don Hackney just after Christmas.
Dawn's Childhood Struggles. Dawn's upbringing was marked by her mother's struggles with anxiety and depression.
Nick's Troubled Family Life. Nick Hackney felt unloved and neglected in his chaotic family environment.
Nick's Dream Job. Nick achieves his dream of becoming a youth pastor, but the church has changed dramatically.
Tensions in Marriage. Nick and Dawn's financial struggles strain their marriage, leading to serious discussions.
A Troubling Affair Unfolds. Sandy and Nick's relationship raises eyebrows, causing concern among church members.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I can't imagine like you see that in a movie.

8:23WatchJun 9, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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