The Perfect Mine | "48 Hours: NCIS" | "48 Hours" Podcast (Episode 4) | Forensic Files

a warning to listeners this episode contains graphic depictions of [Music] violence Chrisley was going to be out of
the military soon he was just days away from being honorably discharged while the cloud of Suspicion for Aaron
Corwin's disappearance hung over him no charges had been filed against [Music] him the Le had planned their moved back
to Alaska where Chris was from but before they left they won't have a home because they're out of their
Barracks that's White Rock horse rescue owner Isabelle megley Chris and Isabelle had spent a
lot of time together at the ranch so they had become friends at this point when Chris was in a jam he asked
Isabelle if his family could stay at the ranch while they plan their move to Alaska we made this agreement I said
well you can stay at the bunk house until you leave 7 Days how in innocent was that but that's not how it turned
out once Aaron Corwin went missing the police had started to suspect that Chris might be connected but they still hadn't
found her and all the evidence against Chris was circumstantial or hearsay they needed something
firm the police were here detectives were here he had his uh U-Haul here and they were going they wanted to go
through this U-Haul uh they had them handcuffed to the chairs over at the house where they
did this they checked my house uh they did not think I was involved but my vehicles were involved because chrisly
had used them the police didn't find a literal or figurative Smoking Gun in Chris's
belongings but they knew a lot about him that he had been having an affair with Aaron an affair that continued in secret
even after they were exposed before Aaron disappeared she'd been texting her friend Jessica or as
she called her Jesse about her relationship with Chris but there was one message that caught the eye of the
police a text that gave them a clue on where they'd find Aaron this is NCIS agent sha Nash who
saw the text this text message referred to a trip that Aaron and Christopher Lee had
made uh the day before she went [Music] missing all Chris told Aaron was that this trip was going to take a couple of
hours and Aaron thought this meant she was in for some big romantic gesture Aaron had text Jessica laugh out
loud I seriously don't know why he would drag to a very special place to be a dumb
surprise Jessica had text back to Aaron uh some Emojis with a ring and a diamond
and then uh kiss symbols I would assume that would be an engagement ring the detectives knew the trip would
likely have been out to the move desert surrounding Joshua Tree but they didn't know which specific
part the search and rescue teams were beginning to look for Aaron and learning where she could have gone with Chris
could be the key to find her I'm CBS News correspondent Natalie Morales this is 48 Hours
NCIS episode 4 the perfect [Music] mine Aaron's car was found on July 1st 2014 a few days after after she went
missing the car was parked just a few miles outside the 29 Palms military base with nothing missing or really any sign
of disturbance there was however another pair of tire tracks when San berino County Sheriff's
Department located Aaron Coran's car the tire Impressions surrounding the car did
not match Aaron's car this is NCIS special agent Clifton Randolph J Jun who worked with the sheriff's department and
local detectives on Aaron Corwin's case special agent Randolph says that it looked like Aron drove out to the spot
to meet up with someone in a second car then went out to the desert it seemed that someone drove out
to that location and she got out of the car got in to this other vehicle and went somewhere else uh with those tracks
ending at the black asphalt road out [Music] there investigators believed that the
tracks were left by a Jeep and it just so happens Chris Lee drove a Jeep this was one of the reasons that
the San Bernardino sheriff's department initially brought him in for questioning
three days after Aaron's disappearance you already heard some of what he said his issues with memory loss challenges
adjusting to life after deployment and how he met Aaron in video of the interogation Chris
sat down under the dim hum of fluorescent lights in a t-shirt shorts and flipflops the detective sat across
from him at a small table and asked about his plans for the future I think we're going to live with her brother cuz
we got our two horses that we're shipping up there and then I'm going use my GI Bill to try to get a chemical
engineering Dee Chris told told the detective that in the coming weeks his family would be driving cross country to
Alaska where he grew up to start a new life yeah it's it's scary like I mean but and I'm ready for a change my
wife she's definitely ready to get this interview was a very important opportunity for the detectives on
Aaron's case Chris wasn't named a suspect at this point he was invited in to answer a few simple questions about
Aaron the detectives had an opportunity to talk to Chris without a lawyer and to
get his story on the record they also could use information to their advantage Chris did not know what the detectives
knew that he'd been having an affair with Aaron her pregnancy and the possible proposal and that the two had
planned a mysterious trip out to the Mojave Desert just before Aaron vanished then they started to talk more
about Chris and Aaron's relationship Chris admitted that he and Aaron became an emotional support system
for each other and that the relationship turned physical he also talked about his
wife Nicole when she found out about the affair and the effect it had on their marriage and during the time that you
were texting Aaron how was your relationship call um it was under a lot of duress a
lot of strain like she kept trying to like talk about things and I just kept shutting her out
our relationship was under a lot of strain Chris said she kept trying to talk about things and I just kept
shutting her out he called Aaron his make believe wife but while recounting their Affair Chris also seemed to
downplay it they only kissed a few times Chris said that's where things stopped according to him that was a reckoning
point he broke things off with Aaron after after they got caught and then that was the end of it okay and that was
kind of like my Reckoning point where I realized you know I was messed up and I needed to ask for
help now the detectives tried to get more details they wanted to get Chris to describe what he was doing in the days
leading up to Aaron's disappearance Chris did not know that the investigators had found Aaron's car and
that they believed he might have been out in the desert with her the detective asked Chris when was the last time he
saw Aaron okay and then you saw her Wednesday of last week I think so I'm not 100% sure I just
notic Wednesday that was 3 days before Aaron went missing but then Chris second guessed himself I'm not 100% sure Chris
said she and John had come out of the house but I would usually try to avoid them when detectives asked for more
specifics Chris's memory got hazy once again um so when you would you see their cars there on the weekend um sometimes
um I really don't keep track of other things and so like I said unless like she FES something like wrong or
different I don't really remember um sometimes I don't keep track of things I don't really remember he
said Chris referenced memory problems several times throughout the interview sometimes blaming shell shock or
PTSD then the detective started asking Chris about the desert while they talked volunteers were searching the desert for
any evidence of Aaron so the detective wanted Chris to piece together his whereabouts where did he go around the
time Aaron went missing maybe if he told them about his trips out to the desert he'd give up a piece of information that
might help them find Aaron the detective asked about Saturday June 28th the day Aaron went missing okay I went to bed at
midnight what time did you wake up Saturday 6 um I wasun actually that morning Chris said
he woke up that morning and went coyote hunting alone and then he guided the the
police along the Route he took so I went by myself and then I went down Adobe took a left
on Chris's story had morphed and changed several times over the hours he spent in
that interrogation room but it was couched in hazy Recollections and other memory problems Chris
said then Chris's story took a wild turn it's at this moment as he described one
wandering around the desert coyote hunting that Chris said he heard gunfire and then I got kind of lost and
at one point in time I'm not sure the time of the day check but uh I'm not sure if the individual shot at me or if
he was just like Recreation shooting but there was an individual Chris said that
he heard four booms claiming that he saw someone out there with a hand gun turn like
this and I heard four shots as I was coming back down the bridge line I got out of there as fast as I could Chris
said he said he couldn't tell if they were intentionally shooting at him or not while Chris told this story he gave
detailed descriptions of where he went Chris talked the detective through his hiking trails that carve through the
mountains and dunes in the desert he even marked up a map that the interrogators brought in to show them
where he went just put like an ask where your house is at okay and then so you go out that way to
the 62 to a gold crown did you make any other stops prior whether he knew it or not Chris gave investigators tons of
details to work with evidence that could help the search and rescue efforts for Aaron that were continuing in the desert
Chris could be telling the police which parts of the vast desert to focus on the Mojave Desert stretched on for
thousands of miles and dotted through it were the landmarks of a literal Golden Age the hundreds of abandoned Min shafts
that filled the Horizon the desert is at the edge of two plates of the Earth's crust that
Collision meant that this land was rich with minerals ore for Iron and Steel but
most importantly gold so during the Gold Rush of the mid 1800s people started coming from around the world to scour
this l for wealth more kept coming and making money through World Wars 1 and two before the resources started to dry
up the legacy of that time were the abandoned Shacks Mills Railways and mine shafts carved out of the earth that dot
this Sandy landscape this is where the investigators were looking for Aaron Corwin she'd been missing long enough
that the teams had to prepare prepare themselves for the possibility they were looking for her body the first aerial
searches via helicopter identified over 100 abandoned mine shafts that were big enough to hide a corpse the task ahead
of the search and rescue teams would be daunting so they Enlisted the help of an
expert a local Man by the name of Doug Billings Doug Billings who we called the Mind Whisperer experts like
Doug Billings he's also been called The Cave Whisperer he knows all about every single mine that is out in the Mojave
Desert by day Doug Billings is a softspoken owner of his family's hardware store in his free time though
he was an experienced and Savvy cave diver the 48 Hours team went out with Doug to the desert where he showed them
the land that he knew like the back of his hand as I stand here right and now I'm looking at a beautiful turquoise
rock and I'm looking at another white crystal rock and I'm looking at the skyline and these black Iron mountains
and thinking about you know Prospectors who a hundred years ago were with a pick
and shovel trying to make a living out here there's nature there's history you know there's Wildlife out here you see
it is beautiful it's God's country Doug doesn't like to call himself an expert but his connection to
this terrain runs deep his grandparents had a homestead here as he grew up Doug started exploring the caves dotting the
very stretch of land where Aaron Corwin went missing many of the M chefs that the
search and rescue teams were looking at Doug had already been in and spent a decade or more going through every
single one of them reading journals about them mapping them taking inventories of what you could find in
them when Aaron went missing the search and rescue teams came to Doug to get his
advice on where to start looking and he ended up joining them the teams went out
into the desert in Red Hats and yellow jackets and traveled in small groups of two or three temperatures would swell
above 100° in the Sun so their days had to start Before Dawn at first the search
was being largely done by volunteers who had to rig safety equipment lights and cameras just to look inside some of
these M shafts [Music] Doug and the team assigned numbers to every mind they could find and they
color coordinated which ones had been searched and which ones hadn't well the goal was to basically
check every mine until we we either cleared him or found her and and there was a lot of jumping around at the
beginning I mean you just had evidence and you had to decide of the evidence what was worthy and what's not all the
while the detectives interviewing Chris Lee were relaying information to the search teams those stories that Chris
Lee told about the desert were coming in handy you had a story of the suspect saying he drove up a canyon over here or
some Ranger saw something funny in this mine over here so we were bopping all around but as days turned to weeks
without finding Aaron or her body Doug and the rest of the team had to go back to the drawing board which parts of the
de desert could Aaron be in the answer might be found in Chris Lee's interrogation the interview you heard in
the beginning of the episode The Detectives spent hours in that interrogation room asking Chris
questions and pouring over evidence they had already gone through Chris's phone and computer where they found something
strange um one other thing I want to ask you about when we do analysis on your computers and your phones and all that
stuff um are we going to see anything about uh murder or anything like that um probably Chris admitted to something he
said that he had been doing research on the best ways to get rid of a dead body Chris chocked it up to harmless research
he did after an off-hand conversation with a friend I was having a conversation with one of the guys in the
duty that um it came up randomly you know R Marine talk about the best way to the
[Music] body as Chris talked to the police a detective asked more about his phone
remember the search and rescue team was trying to use cell phone data to find out where Chris may have
traveled and when you took off Saturday um did you have your phone with you mhm okay yeah but I put it in airplane mode
Chris said he did have his phone with him but it was on airplane mode to save the battery then the detective asked
about Aaron have you and Aaron ever met in this area have you and Aaron ever met
in this dirt area no does she know about this area um maybe I me she drives on that way you can see it
was in this moment that the cat and mouse game between Chris and the detectives in the room
changed things became more confrontational and that's why I'm asking about her car okay cuz that's we
found her car how did you yeah it was parked in that dirt okay okay so any reason why she would
have been parked in that dirt no not that I think maybe she was meeting up with somebody the detective pressed
Chris on his story all right guys here's the deal man we've been doing this a long time
okay we found our vehicle okay we found your tire tracks we know that you were going to
meet her on Saturday we know that we know that you were going to go take her for a long
drive and it was going to be a surprise we know those things okay and we also know that you
were one of the last people to see her alive the detective pulled his chair close to Chris sitting just inches away
from him while Chris leaned back against the wall stone-faced have you ever been
up with her up in the mountains or in this area no I okay do you know she's been in this area
I don't but the police police kept the pressure on only problem is is there's so many different versions of your
story that nobody's nobody can will leave you honestly then the police confronted
Chris over Aaron's pregnancy I don't know what might have been going through your
head when you found out she was pregnant but I can only imagine if it were me I'd have a hell of a lot
to think about there'd be a lot of emotions there would be a lot of stuff built up
inside and I'm telling you manto man any man facing that type of situation has a lot to worry
about at every question he faced Chris denied any wrongdoing at this point it might have
felt like they had reached an impass but finally during a long silence several hours in Chris revealed a small sliver
of critical information I didn't see her on Saturday I just saw her vehicle I was at that way
when I was picking up more tires for a fire and I drove past it to see if she was in there but she wasn't he told
detectives that he did see Aaron's car the day she went missing I drove past it to see if she was in there but she
wasn't Chris said I didn't actually ever see her on Saturday and I was worried that if I told you guys I saw her car
because of my previous relationship with her he would automatically assume I did
something I was worried that if I told you guys I saw her car you would automatically assume I did something the
interrogators tried to give Chris opportunities to confess I'm not here to play games with you but I can tell
you something happened out there something something definitely happened it's only a matter of was it
planned was it a cold blooded killing or did something just happen that's all it
is but Chris stuck to his story and without Aaron's body the police had nothing directly linking Chris to her
disappearance so they were forced to let chrisly go with a warning we're going to find
Aaron right now the Marine Corps base is helping us they are gathering as many soldiers
as they possibly can to go out and start checking all these areas we're going to find
her after his interrogation Chris left the police department and went to Isabelle mey's White Rock horse ranch
his family had been living there as his military service ended and they prepared
to move to Alaska it was an awkward Arrangement Chris and his wife and daughter all living in a spare room at
the ranch the news about Chris and Aaron's Affair and his possible involvement in Aaron's disappearance put
the ranch's owner Isabelle megley in an uncomfortable position Chris never reacted to anything from the time she
went missing he never uttered a word to me never talked to me it was the strangest thing I've ever
seen in the days after Aaron's disappearance Isabelle was becoming increasingly suspicious of Chris and she
was thinking back to the odd things Chris would do when he was around one time Isabel remembered Chris
taking a cattle prod and shocking people for fun he also made a gat it's a small
handheld Weapon made up of a nylon cord stretched tight between two small plastic candles the finished product
looked sort of like a pair of nunchucks at the horse ranch Chris even showed some local kids how to use it he
was very proud of it so we would put it on their necks and show them how to how to eliminate them he found great
pleasure and showing them Chris was no stranger to weapon he' grown up hunting he served in
Afghanistan and back in the States friends recalled how he liked playing with explosives and shooting target
practice with his guns but something else stuck with Isabelle something Chris told her after returning from the desert
about a week before Aaron disappeared he said to me uh in a very exciting tone I found the perfect
mine he said no one will ever find it the mine was totally isolated he had to go off-roading for 2 hours just to
find it and I looked at the pictures uh that he showed me but I couldn't tell a mine at that time it was just rocks to
me and I wasn't interested to tell you the truth and then when she went missing I told the detectives
this was potentially a big lead the pictures of this mine that Chris Lee took could be the key to finding
[Music] Aaron Cave expert Doug Billings and the rest of the team were weeks into their
Surge and still scouring the desert for Aaron I was I was in the sheriff's office going over some of the evidence
trying to uh narrow down the search and we were talking about is Aaron really in a Min shaft and he
walks up to me and he pokes me on my chest a couple times says she's in a Min shaft and he points to me goes and
you're going to find her I said okay let's do it over the course of the search Doug
dropped down 30 mines himself but the entire search effort covered more than a 100 mines in total the teams were
fighting 115 degree days dehydration yeah I mean some of the other hazards we were encountering right from the day one
in addition to the heat was probably one out of every three mines we went into had a rattlesnake in it and a few of
them had giant black widow nests blocking them and uh you had rock falls and and we had even one incidence where
we had a big colony of Africanized bees basically infest our camp and the heat the heat was just terrible you know it
was just so hot you know and it slows you down eventually Doug was brought into the
crime lab to see the pictures that Chris Lee took during his trip out to the mines the pictures that Isabelle megley
had mentioned Doug saw them and recognized the area she has to be in that Canyon and as I started making a
list of everything there I really had a lot of areas where I said I'm not sure everything in there was searched so I
went back and redrew up a new map and really highlighted the areas that got missed
the M shaft itself is small and nondescript tucked between the desert and a small mountain range while the
search and rescue teams made their way toward this spot NCIS investigators and local detectives were trying to keep an
eye on Chris Lee he no longer had anything tying him to the 29 Palms military base and because they couldn't
charge him with the crime Chris was a Flight Risk things changed with when Isabelle
megley mentioned something else in passing to the detectives she said that Chris borrowed megley car to run an
errand and when he returned she noticed something in the back this big metal contraption that she couldn't really
make sense of I said what is that thing in my car it's a potato launcher I said what's a potato launcher
and out of the blue comes a detective he came out and he saids what did you say and and so we repeated it that it was in
my car I don't know what it is I have no idea why anyone would have a potato gun
NCIS special agent Clifton Randolph Jr again potato gun is a high-powered destructive device that basically
launches potatoes or projectiles of that type here's where a small part of California law became very important to
this story because in California that potato gun is classified as a destructive device that meant owning one
was illegal here's Isabelle megley again he said that's a felony we will get him right away and so
Chris Lee was arrested not because of Aaron's disappearance but instead because he was in possession of a
destructive device a potato gun it's a relatively minor charge in the scheme of things but the important thing is that
even if Chris made bail he'd have to stay in the state of California as a condition of his bond it's a plan that
investigators concocted to keep tabs on Chris as they kept up the search for Aaron and as each day passed the
pressure on those investigators was building this is a person this isn't a case NCIS special agent Clifton Rand Jr
again you put that photograph of Aaron in your case and that humanizes the person that you're looking for you you
can't forget that this person has a family has a husband has a mother has a you know brother a sister a friend they
wanted to know where Aaron was and you can't forget that aon's case only captured local
headlines at first but on August 1st People magazine published a six-page cover story headlined pregnant and
missing mystery of the Marine's wife the front page featured a picture of Aaron and John John in his blue Marine uniform
and Aaron in a matching gown pasted next to a picture of Chris Lee in his cowboy
hat these faces were now plastered across magazines from coast to coast the Corin investigation had officially
capture the national Spotlight so the pressure on investigators was going to be higher than ever around this time
NCIS special agent Randolph stepped onto an airplane only to see row after row of
passengers reading that very People magazine story you see a sea of it walking down that aisle and I
remembered I think weeks after that I kept seeing that image in my head there and like con reminded me hey you have a
job to do with the national Spotlight on Aaron the search for her continued back in the
desert but 6 weeks into the search the sheriff's department scaled back their efforts saying there was too much ground
to cover and not enough manpower Doug Billings was helping the remaining search and rescue teams pick
up the slack they were still focused on finding that mind that Chris L visited before Aaron disappeared Doug had been
leading searches at spots that fit that description they were wrapping up a search on the evening of Saturday August
16th when a firefighter took one last look deep down one of the mine shafts a 10x10 Gap in the rocks that looked down
into a dark Chasm flashlights didn't reveal much but something stood out to the team as they approached it
the smell of gasoline and a smell of decomposition this is reporter Beth Ford Roth again she says the firefighters
were on high alert could this finally be it they wondered could this be Aaron's resting place the mines were dangerous
some didn't have enough oxygen for a human being to survive so what the Searchers were doing
they were taking buckets putting a camera in inside the bucket and then lowering the bucket down the
mines Beth Ford Roth has seen the terrifying video taken during this search she said you can hear the bucket
scraping against rock as it slid down into darkness all of a sudden you start to see color and you see a little flash
of pink and you see you know what looks like Denim and they realized that it was
a body the firefighters then repelled down into the dark Cavern there laying on a Ledge 140 ft
beneath the Earth was Aaron's body identified by her tattered pink shirt and denim
shorts then they looked around because other things had been dumped down the Min shaft as well
basically um the person who killed Aaron used it as sort of a Dumping Ground for
every possible piece of evidence that would tie him to Aaron there was a propane tank a
makeshift torch a bottle of sprite some old tires and a Marine Corp t-shirt but when they were able to
finally pull Aaron's body out of the hole they found something else something wrapped around her neck a nylon cord
stretched between two pieces of rebar a handmade garat next time on 48 Hours NCIS while
ain's family Mourns her death The Manhunt for Chris Lee begins from CBS News and CBS Studios
this is 48 hours and CIS original reporting by 48 Hours producer Paula Rosa Anthony Batson is the senior
producer for 48 hours Jamie Benson is the senior producer for Paramount audio special thanks to 48 Hours executive
producer Judy igard CBS studi senior vice president Rob luchow and Paramount audio vice president Megan Marcus our
podcast was written and produced by Jay venables Isabelle Kirby Macwan Cara shillan Max Johnston Megan adoli and Ian
Enright additional reporting and recording by Isabelle Kirby mcowan Jay venal and Megan adoli our executive
producers are Megan adoli and Ian Enright theme and music by epidemic sound original music from goat rodeo
with additional music from Paramount Final Mix by Rebecca Sidell Ian Enright is our fact Checker our production
manager is Megan aduli I'm Natalie Morales if you're enjoying this show be sure to give it a
rating and review it helps more people find it and hear our reporting if you liked 48 Hours NCIS check out the rest
of our 48 Hours podcasts by searching 48 Hours on your favorite podcast app thanks for listening
[Music]

NCIS and local investigators have honed in on a potential suspect for Erin Corwin’s disappearance: Chris Lee. Detectives try to piece together the details of his affair with Erin in the interrogation room, while search and rescue teams comb through the desert in search of Erin.

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Crime. Social justice. Impact. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

Chris Lee's interrogation reveals inconsistencies as investigators search for missing Aaron Corwin, leading to shocking discoveries in the Mojave Desert.

Key points

The Disappearance of Aaron Corwin. Aaron Corwin goes missing, leading to a complex investigation involving Chris Lee.
Chris's Interrogation. Chris Lee is interrogated by detectives about his relationship with Aaron and her disappearance.
Chris's Dark Past. Isabelle recalls Chris's troubling behavior with weapons and explosives.
The Mine Discovery. Chris claims to have found a perfect mine, raising concerns after Aaron's disappearance.
The Potato Launcher Arrest. Chris is arrested for possessing a potato launcher, a felony in California.
National Spotlight on the Case. The investigation gains national attention after a cover story in People magazine.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I didn't actually ever see her on Saturday.

Chris's statement about Aaron's disappearance.

21:51WatchNov 19, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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