The Setup Murder of Kristil Krug | Full Episode + Post Mortem | Forensic Files

[music] My name is John O'Hare. I am a police officer with the Broomfield Police
Department. >> Officer, how did this case begin for you? >> On December 14th of 2023.
I was dispatched to a welfare check at the Krug household. >> Springfield dispatchers meeting.
>> Hi there. Uh my name is Dan Krug. Dan Krug was calling and asked that we check
on his wife Christile. >> My wife isn't responding uh to text messages or phone calls
>> said that he had not been able to reach her for about 3 hours. >> We've had threats against us. We have
both been targeted by a stalker. Dan said that this alleged stalker had made threats to both him and his wife
Christile, >> which is why I'm >> Yeah. >> I'm nervous that she's not answering me.
>> Yeah. >> The first thing I did was walk right to the front door, kind of peek inside.
Everything looked orderly, quiet. I gave it a wild knock. [music] My thinking at the time was, it's very
possible she's not even home. So, [music] I wanted to see if I could peek into the garage.
Quickly realized that I'm not tall enough to see in those windows. >> I went back to my patrol car and I
pulled it into the driveway so that I could get my push bumper close to the garage and use it as a as [music] a step
up. I stepped up on it and looked in the window. I immediately see Christile, apparently
lifeless. She had some type of wound to the head. >> 151 send medical. I got a female down in
the garage. >> Rodale police. Roomfield police. >> Immediately I just checked for any signs
of life at that point. Does she have a pulse? She does not. >> 151. >> I immediately started CPR. There was a
stab wound on her chest. >> Send the next unit eent, please. As the paramedics arrived, I opened the garage
door and a woman came up and I believe this woman was Christile's mother. >> I arrived.
>> I need you to stay out, please. >> I said, "That's my daughter." >> She came running up to me and said,
"Cristile is dead." >> It's just shocking. [laughter] >> You don't want that to be your reality.
>> Oh my god. This can't be true. This can't be true, can it? >> It was chaos. I heard screaming coming from the top of
the hill. >> My house. >> Hey, stay back. Stay back. Stay back. Stay back. >> This my house.
>> I understand. >> I see a man come running down the hill. >> This is Dan. This is her husband.
This man just lost his wife >> and he is beside himself. I'm with Dan and he's on the floor and
he's crying. They all just kind of said, "I can't believe this happened. He did it. The
stalker did it." >> We were on heightened alert. We were very, very concerned for Dan's safety.
>> This is after Christile was murdered. You're worried that Dan may be next in this in this stalker's sights.
>> Correct. We thought Dan Krug was next. >> The community was very alarmed. >> Is this a murder?
>> There's a killer out there and we're going to go after him. >> [music] [music]
>> It's a weird feeling standing there when somebody's being told, [music] "I'm sorry, but your loved one has died."
Victims advocate Heather Aates is trained to comfort those in emotional agony like Dan [music] Krug who dashed
home from work and learned his wife Christile had been found murdered in their garage in suburban Broomfield,
Colorado on December 14th, 2023. >> This man has been going through a stalking case with his wife. He's being
stalked as well and now she's gone. As investigators searched the crime scene for clues,
Heather drove Dan to the police station. An officer's body camera recorded the ride.
>> He was crouched over to the side of the passenger door, and it was very much.
I'm comforting Dan by rubbing his back. >> Dan and Christile had been married for
16 years. The couple, both 43, had three young children. >> What did he say in the car?
>> In the car, he was pretty focused on the kids. He was very adamant about wanting
to be the one to tell his children. >> Under the command of Broomfield Police Chief Ania Hempleman, investigators were
doing everything in their power to find the killer. >> We immediately uh started doing
interviews, talking to neighbors, canvasing. Several hours had passed since Dan Krug's emotional ride to the [music]
police station. He had settled down and he told detectives there was nothing out
of the ordinary that morning. >> Mornings are very routine in the house. >> He said [music] they got the kids to
school and Christile seemed fine when he left for his job at the Colorado Department of Public Health and [music]
Environment. While I was driving, uh, my my phone dinged. >> Dan said Christile [music]
texted him asking if he could pick up one of the kids after school. But when he texted back and asked what time, he
said Christile never responded. >> And that that was weird. >> So weird. So out of character for
Christile, Dan called police and asked them to check on her. I got a female down in the garage.
>> There are not words that can describe what you feel as a [music] parent at that point.
>> It's probably some parents worst nightmare. >> These are some memories, aren't they?
>> Christile's parents, Lars and Linda Grimsro. >> She was an engineer. She had incredible
skills in math, sciences, chemistry, physics, but she also had the talents in the arts. She loved to just get out and
live life. >> Throughout her life, Christile spent countless hours working with her dad on
classic muscle cars in [music] his colorful garage. We'd work on the cars. We'd race the
cars. Christile always felt very comfortable coming over here. If we needed to talk or whatever, this is
where we would sit and just en enjoy each other's company. But those fun, casual conversations
suddenly turned disturbing in the fall of 2023 when Christile first told her father that she was living with intense
fear. >> She sat here and told me that she was being stalked. And that just shocked me
when I asked her, "Well, have you talked to the police?" >> Christile had called the police and met
with Broomfield Detective Andrew Martinez. She came into the interview room and just [music] kind of took over
and just told me everything without hesitation. >> Their conversation was recorded.
>> I keep trying to remind myself this is intending to be terrorizing. This is intending to scare me.
>> Christile told Martinez that on October 2nd, 2023, she received an unsettling
text from someone named Anthony who said he would be coming to the area and asked
if Christile wanted to hook up. And how does she respond to that? >> She did not respond.
>> The following day, Christile told Martinez she got more texts from Anthony that included obscenities and said, "You
should kill yourself. Don't waste my time. >> Somebody wants to hook up now is saying,
"Go kill yourself." [music] How do you interpret that that second text? >> It's a pretty extreme reaction to not
getting a response. Christile told Martinez she knew an Anthony from her past. Anthony Holland,
a boyfriend she dated for about a year after high school and into college. The two broke [music] up in the fall of
2000. Lars and Linda say back then Anthony made a good impression. >> Very friendly, very courteous. He always
had good manners. >> In 2002, out of the blue, Anthony contacted Christile. [music]
According to Christile, Anthony never seemed to take no for an answer, contacting [music] her again in 2005,
2010, and 2016 via Facebook. >> He's like, "We're meant to be together." I said, "This is really creepy for me.
You need to stop." >> Christile deleted Facebook and thought she'd heard the last of Anthony Holland.
>> But then came the text in 2023. >> Like, this was alarming. He's never said this kind of stuff to me before.
Over the next two months, Christile said she received alarming message after message through text and email. They
included threats to her and Dan, including this disturbing photo of Dan getting out of his car at work, which
prompted Castile [music] to first come forward and call police. A few days later, this text to her. Saw
you at dentist. See you soon. That suggests he might be surveilling them both. Right.
>> Correct. >> This now is escalating. >> The harassment uh is just constant and
she's just believing that every corner presents some sort of danger for her. >> To gather evidence and locate Anthony
Holland, Detective Martinez was required to file search warrants with the phone and email companies. A slow process.
Getting that information takes time. Sometimes those companies are reluctant or they sloww walk getting that
information to you. Correct. >> Yes. >> Christile had been searching for Holland
on her own. She hired a private investigator [music] and eventually located him living in Utah about 500 m
away. Christile shared her discovery with Detective Martinez [music] who chose not to contact Holland. I
explained to Christile that we wanted to gather as much evidence as possible and
ideally obtain an arrest warrant so when law enforcement does go to Anony's door,
we can take him into custody and not have to walk away. >> But Lara says Christile had been losing
patience with the investigation. >> She made the comment that she felt uh they had abandoned her, that they
weren't doing things aggressively enough. Christile had taken steps to protect herself and her family,
including installing security cameras. >> She was scared. I said, "Well, this sounds serious enough that uh you need
to start carrying. You'll use one of my guns for for right now." >> Is this the very gun that you
>> that is the the actual gun that she initially then carried? >> Dan was also interviewed. The threats
were taking a toll on him as well. I went to the grocery store briefly on Tuesday
and someone behind me dropped a can and I panicked. So what am I doing? I'm panicking
and I'm doing a lot of protecting my life. So I'm not I'm not doing good. >> Dan told Martinez the stalker had a
nickname. We call him Kickman. >> Where'd that name come from? >> Kickman Dan had told me was because the
suspect email that was initially contacting Christ was a Holland kicks@gmail.com.
>> As the weeks went by and Martinez's investigation continued, Lars and Linda say the constant [music] threats were
ruining their daughter's life. >> It was just heartbreaking. She was just [music] in tears. She was just like,
"What am I going to do? How am I going to live?" >> Did she feel she was being hunted down
by by Anthony? >> Yes. >> Christile also shared her fears with siblings Jenna Ericson and Josh Adamson.
>> She was terrified. >> Did she ever express to either of you the fear that this man I think is going
to kill me? >> Yes. She said, "It's either going to be me or him that's dead, and I'm going to
do everything in my power to make sure it's not me." When Christ was found dead in her
garage, Detective Martinez had only one suspect in mind. My initial assumption was that Anthony Holland had uh gone to
her home and murdered her. >> Within hours, local police descended on Holland's home in Eagle Mountain near
Salt Lake City. >> So, you're alone in a house. What do you hear? >> Pounding out the door
>> like >> Yeah. >> big time. >> So, I go to the door. I see like eight cops. I had no idea what was going on.
>> Where's your ID at? Is it in my room? >> Have you ever heard of the name Crystal
Krug? >> They asked me if I knew Crystal Krug and I told them I did know her. >> She was my very first girlfriend ever.
>> When was the last time you talked to Crystal? Has it been a while? A minute. >> Um, it's been a minute. Yeah.
>> When was the last time you had reached out to Crystal? >> It was around 2014 2016.
Anthony says he'd reached out to Christile on Facebook years before. >> What are you thinking? Why would they
come over all the way here to ask me about Christile? >> I thought it was for that message where
I said I missed her. That's the only thing I could think of cuz I was like, I haven't contacted her since then.
>> They didn't tell you that Christile Crew had been murdered. >> No, they did not tell me.
>> Police were there to gather information from their suspect, not give it. >> They asked me where I was that day. Can
I prove where I was? >> Anthony had made a purchase just hours earlier at a coal store near his home.
>> What'd you buy? >> The sweatshirt. This one right here. >> And he still had the receipt. The
purchase was made at 12:16 p.m. Investigators say Christile was attacked around 8 a.m.
>> Turns out that was one of the most important purchases you have ever made. >> Cuz it was my alibi. cuz there's no way
I could have made it from Colorado back to Utah to buy the sweatshirt. It was an 8-hour drive. Anthony also showed
police some of his employment records. They proved he'd been in Utah all along, never traveling to Colorado, as the
messages from Christile stalker led cops to believe. I had a bunch of receipts from my work showing the days that I
worked and they took those took my receipt from Kohl's and went to the squad car and made a phone call. Came
back in and told me I was free to go. >> You have a better day. Okay. >> Back in Colorado, Dan was still face tof
face with investigators. He told them his theory of the crime. >> So in my brain, the story that I have is
someone came to the door. Maybe she went outside to get a package and they must have come in. And she's
she's a fighter. She's she is strong. She would have fought Earlier in the interview, Dan requested
he tell the children what had happened to their mother. >> Your kids do not know yet.
>> Okay. >> Here. Arrive in the hall. I should >> You want to tell them? >> I just don't know.
>> Okay. Watching their response [music] is just heartbreaking. >> Investigators were working every angle.
They checked those security cameras Christile had installed on the house. >> The doorbell camera, the side camera,
and the side house camera uh were all manually turned off >> except for that one Nest camera near the
garage. Police canvased Dan and Christile's neighbors in search of anything their home security cameras
might have recorded. >> So, I saw you had a Ring doorbell camera. You mind reviewing that camera?
>> Oh, goodness. Absolutely. >> If possible, if you guys can review the last 3 to 5 hours.
>> They also enlisted Randy Pilac, a digital forensic examiner with the Broomfield Police Department [music] to
take a closer look at those disturbing messages to Christile. I think it was probably 4 hours, 5 hours after the
murder was reported to us. >> Now that the stalking case [music] had become a murder investigation, Pilac was
able to file new expedited requests for information. He quickly discovered that messages from two accounts used to
harass Castile had been sent from the same location. Both came back to [music] the same IP
address. That IP address was the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment,
which is where Dan [music] worked. The messages to Christile [music] threatening her, threatening her husband
had been sent using the Wi-Fi system at Dan's office. For the first time, detectives [music]
believe Christile stalker could be sitting right in front of them. Could he be her killer as well?
>> The entire air was just kind of evacuated out of our investigations room and we realized that we need to focus on
Dan and where he's been and what he's been doing. >> Martinez along with detective Jennifer
King [music] Sullivan confronted Dan. >> Who do you think killed her? >> I think it's Kim. I think it's Anthony.
What if I told you that? We had already spoken with Anthony and there's no way that he was in town today
and I have nothing and I'm terrified to bring my children home. >> What are you terrified of?
>> If it wasn't him, was it? But even as Dan claimed ignorance, the detective saw
that his body language told a different story. >> What were you seeing with Dan? He took a
defensive posture. He sat back in the couch a little bit. He crossed his arms. Kind of like I have nothing [music] to
explain. >> I think his head is spinning thinking about what else are they going to find?
>> [music] [music] >> The mystery continues. And I ask you, >> if you were watching these facts unfold
in front of you in a movie, what would you say happened? There has to be some other.
>> Moments after detectives told Dan Krug they had eliminated Anthony Holland as a
suspect, Dan calmly insisted he was not the one who stalked and murdered his wife Christile.
>> I loved her. There has to be someone else. But I don't know who that is. Martinez [music] and King Sullivan
didn't believe a word of it and were struck by how stoic, how unmoved Dan was. >> He had no reaction. Um, and really no
explanation. >> Help me make sense of it. >> I don't know. I'm not the one who does
this. I don't have a narrative or a story that I can offer you. Within minutes, Dan Krug had gone from
sympathetic victim to murder suspect. >> I I I get the narrative you're putting together, but it alleges that I would do
this to my children. >> I love and adore my children. >> It's a pretty frightening idea that the
biggest threat to you and your safety is actually living in the same house as you.
>> We need to process you for physical evidence. Okay. He knows that we're on to him. We just
didn't have enough evidence at that point to take him into custody. >> Walk down to the lobby.
>> On his way out, Dan kept insisting the real killer was still on the loose and
he made a desperate plea. >> Might as well he took my children's mother for Christmas.
They're never going to get over that. I don't care if you capture them. I don't care if you kill them.
Find out. Don't just assume this man. Keep looking. >> When did you find out that Dan was now a
person of of interest in this case? >> I think at his interview, so that same day when they held him, they held him
pretty late. An autopsy revealed what happened to Christile. She had been attacked from behind with a
blunt object, bludgeoning to death in the head and rolled over and then stabbed in the heart.
>> With Dan now the prime suspect, the detectives wanted to know more about his relationship with Christile. According
to Christile's parents, it wasn't good. >> She said, "Well, I'm sleeping on the couch, Mom." But you knew there was
trouble in paradise, right? >> Yeah. And especially in that those last few months.
>> Christile's family says those troubles were caused by Dan's fiery temper. >> What set him off?
>> It it could be it could be anything, but it was usually if he was losing control.
>> Christile's sister, Jenna Ericson, says she could always tell when Dan was angry.
>> His face would get really red when he would was getting frustrated. I vividly
remember seeing his face get red. They had a thing where they'd go, "Okay, walk away. [music] You need to walk away."
And so, you know, they were trying to manage it. >> But in the weeks before her death,
[music] according to her parents, Christile was getting ready to leave Dan. >> She didn't want to have this marriage
anymore. >> She had decided that she needed to get a divorce. As the detectives methodically built
their case, more evidence was uncovered on Dan and Christile's cell phones by digital forensic expert Randy Pilac,
including texts from the morning of the murder. >> So on Crystal's phone, we see text
messages to Lars, Detective Martinez, and then a text message to Dan, >> the one Dan said he received while
driving to work about picking up one of the kids at school. But Pilac discovered
those texts had been set on a timer. It was a new feature on the phone [music] Cile had. Who do you believe
pre-programmed those messages? >> Uh Dan Krue. >> And he did it to do what? >> To hide his actions.
>> Pilac says the messages were pre-programmed before Dan left the house. >> And we believe Crystal was deceased.
[music] That for him then would establish an alibi that well I had already left and
my wife is alive, right? She's texting me. [music] >> Correct. >> All while Dan casually arrived at work.
Pilac discovered more damning evidence [music] from Dan's phone. Internet searches like what happens when you're
knocked unconscious? [music] Do people really go unconscious when hit in the head? and how hard for head
trauma to go [music] unconscious. >> All searches were the day before the murder. It was rather damning.
>> Just 2 days after Christile had been murdered, detectives Martinez and King Sullivan felt they had enough evidence
to charge Dan Krug with stalking and murdering his wife. We begin following him.
>> Coming up to the stop sign now. >> How many cars we talking about? >> Probably eight cars. We're like, "That's
him. He's alone in the car." >> Hey, be ready to pop that once he gets it into park.
>> We follow him all the way to the grocery store. >> Pulling in King Supers parking lot.
>> We wait for him to park. We quickly converge on his car. >> Go, go, go, go, go, go.
>> Show us your hands. Show us your hands. on your face. >> Hands on your face. >> Hands on your face.
>> So, we surround him. >> Pull him out of his car and tell him he's being arrested for the murder of
his wife. >> I asked him just one question. >> Do you want me to tell your kids that
you killed their mother or do you want somebody else to? That's quite a line that goes back to
when he said he wanted to tell his kids that their mother was dead. >> After I asked that question, he just
said that he wanted to speak with his attorney and then looked away from me. >> All right,
>> good luck. >> And I shut the door and he went to the county jail. You >> get one leg up and then kind of swing
around. I felt a huge relief. They got him. It felt like a burden had been lifted that
he had been arrested. And soon Christile's family would come face to face with the man detectives say
murdered her. >> He looked right at me and smiled at me. >> And here for the first time, Dan's side
of the story. >> [music] >> When deputy district attorneys Kate Armstrong and Stephanie Fritz were
assigned to prosecute Daniel Krug, they say they were struck by his downright stupidity in believing he could get away
with murdering his wife by impersonating her ex-boyfriend. >> The audacity with which he thought he
could manipulate not only his family, his loved ones, but also the police department.
>> And some of this is sophisticated, is it not? >> It's sophisticated, but not too
sophisticated because we were able to figure it out. [music] >> The trial began in April 2025.
When he first came in, he smiled at me like he was [music] saying, "Hey, thanks for being here for me." I believe my
facial expression made it very clear that I was not on his side. >> The prosecution laid out Christile's
final hours of life for the jury. >> On December 14th of 2023, Christile Krug started her day like any other day. She
took her younger two children to school. >> And when she returned, >> Crystal pulled back into her garage. She
gets out of the car. When she is attacked from behind >> and did she ever see him approaching, do
you think, or was this an ambush? >> It was an ambush. She had uh two or three skull fractures. As she's laying
on the floor bleeding, he pushes her over, gets over her, and stabs her just above her heart. And why do you suppose
he had to do that vicious last stab? >> I think it was rage. I think it was control and power that he wanted to
exert over Crystal. >> Dan had been losing that control for a long time, say prosecutors. Their theory
of the crime is that Dan sent Christile those disturbing messages in an attempt to drive her closer to him and not
leave, hoping she'd see him as her heroic protector. >> It was not working. The stalking was not
leading her back to him. I think it then turned to I'm still losing her kind of if I can't have you, nobody can.
[music] The prosecution says that in the last days of her life, Christile had begun to
suspect that her stalker was possibly her husband. [music] >> We know from Dan's own interview that
she confronted him and said, "I can't rule you out as the stalker." >> She said that right to my face
that she wanted to know if it was me and I told her no. >> He felt the walls closing in.
>> Closing in. He was going to lose Chris Dale anyway. He was going to be exposed
as the stalker. So, he did that last fatal act and murdered her. >> Prosecutors say Dan tried to outsmart
investigators, pre-programming [music] those text messages on Christile's phone before he left the house, assuming he
wouldn't be caught. Were we not able to discover that that was a delayed send text, it would have
appeared as though Crystal was still alive when he left the house. At trial, the long list of digital
evidence against Dan was laid out. the threatening texts, the emails, the internet searches. Also included that
photograph of Dan arriving at his office attached to a menacing email seemingly sent by Anthony Holland to Castile.
But there was one problem. According to the state's digital expert, who took this picture, do you believe?
>> Uh Dan. Dan took this picture. Pilac discovered that the phone which snapped that photo [music]
was in selfie mode using a timer. A fact that [music] Kate Armstrong reminded the jury about in her closing
argument. That's when the judge allowed cameras into the courtroom. >> The phone was propped on the back of
this vehicle next to him. The defendant took this photograph and then he sent it
to his wife. >> We respectfully disagree with the prosecution in this case. Defense
attorney Philip Geel argued the murder investigation was poor. The blunt object used on Christile's head and the knife
used to stab her were never recovered by police. The defense also zeroed in on the fact that Christile's phone was not
tested for fingerprints or DNA. >> Why not the phone? And the prosecution wants to believe, well, you know, there
may not be a lot to be found there. Well, you won't know if you won't try. Geel said other forensic tests supported
his claim that Dan is innocent. >> They submitted the chest swabs. And you know whose DNA wasn't there? The person
who lived in the house, the person who ate in the kitchen with them, the person who shared the living room, that idiot
right there. There is absolutely no physical evidence on Mr. Krug's clothing. There's no blood found on that
car inside or out. It searched three times. In week three of the trial, the jurors
began deliberations. After a day and a half, verdicts were reached. >> Please rise for the jury.
>> Judge Priscilla Lowe read the verdicts. >> We the jury find the defendant guilty of
murder in the first degree. We the jury find the defendant guilty [music] of count number two stalking
extreme emotional distress. >> [music] >> Krug was also found guilty of stalking
with credible threat and criminal impersonation. >> Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. And at
that point, I think I started breathing again. >> Krug was later sentenced to life in
prison without the possibility of parole on the murder charge and an additional 9
and 1/2 years for the stalking and impersonation counts. But right after his conviction in a
video call from jail, >> how are you? >> Uh, been better. >> Daniel Krug told his family that the
jury got it wrong, saying the real killer remained at large and that his children could be the next targets.
>> I need them safe. I don't know where or who did this, where he is or who he is.
I need my children out of Colorado. As Daniel Krug began serving his life sentence, he continued making video
[music] calls to his parents and brother in the days immediately after his conviction. The man who viciously
murdered his wife, terrorized [music] his own children, and lied to everyone was seeking sympathy from his side of
the family. Yeah, I'm probably sleeping like 16 hours a day because of the depression.
>> Mhm. >> I sleep, I read, and I cry. That's about it. >> Okay. >> Despite overwhelming digital evidence
against him, [music] Krug fell back to his old ways, lying to his loved ones, now claiming he was wrongly convicted.
>> They never produced a single piece of hard evidence. His brother Jeremy gave Krug a
much needed reality check that the foundation of the family's loyalty had started to crack.
>> Support is dwindling. You know, mom and dad want to believe you very much. I want to believe you
very much. Right? There's a lot that's come out. Um, and as imaginative as I can be with finding explanations and
ways to theorize how that, you know, this or that could have been the the reality. Um, some of it is beyond even
my creativity. The case that ended with a murder had begun with stalking and criminal
impersonation of Anthony Holland, which begs the question, what if Detective Martinez had acted on the information
CIL and the private investigator had uncovered? >> They should have found me right away.
They should have found me. They should have came to my house. They should have approached me. They should have talked
to me. But Detective Martinez chose not to call, telling us he didn't have enough evidence to do so and was
concerned a phone call could exacerbate the situation. >> Is this something where you've kicked
yourself about this? >> Uh, this case has uh haunted me since um it occurred and the outcome of this case
has haunted me for the past two years. And if you could get in a time machine, perhaps you make that call today.
>> Absolutely. >> And Christile's parents sympathize with Martinez and believe their daughter was
doomed no matter what the outcome of his investigation. Inevitably, I think he was going to kill
her. When someone sets their mind to do something like that and that's what the plan was, I don't [music] think that
would have uh stopped the murder from happening. >> Christile's death has left a hole in the
lives of those who experienced her love and joy for life. >> I've had lots of other girlfriends and
I've never been in love with anybody else like her. >> She was the love of your life.
>> Yeah. Jenna hopes her sister Christile's story will serve as a cautionary tale.
>> If it can help just one other person who's in a dangerous situation like she was in that it gives them the strength
to make a move because it can escalate and it can escalate really really fast. >> What was lost when she was taken from
us? >> Her light. you know, like >> it's a that's a tough one to talk about because there's uh there's so much.
>> I wanted to jump out of that car and say, "Hey, Bubba." Laura still passes [music] his time
restoring parts for vintage cars. That fatherdaughter hobby is [music] now being passed down to Christile's
children. >> They're in here. They run that same electric screwdriver and they can tear a
carburetor apart. >> So, in that way, you're honoring her memory, aren't you? >> Well, that's the whole idea. Yeah. Yeah.
That's the whole idea. She She would get such a kick out of seeing the kids doing
the stuff that she was involved in. I look at my grandkids and I find a moment of peace because I see her.
>> [music] >> Welcome back to Postmortem. I'm [music] your host, Ann Marie Green, and today
I'm joined by 48 Hours correspondent Peter Vans and journalist Sheila Flynn. We are discussing the murder of Christ
Krug, a Colorado mother of three. Ashila, you actually reported on this case for the Daily Mail and you were
also in the courtroom during the trial. Um, so we're going to get into that and we're really, really appreciative that
you're here to give us your perspective on this case. >> Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.
Hopefully I can help. >> And Peter, it's always great to have you here with us to break down uh this 48
hours episode here on Postmortem. >> Yes. In in honor of the Daily Mail, I'll say hello and welcome [laughter] Sheila.
>> Is that that's your best British accent? >> It's pretty good. I lived there for a
while, so I I'm all right. >> It's better than mine, so we'll take it. So, before we get into it, a reminder to
everyone. If you haven't actually listened to this 48 hours episode yet, head on back to your podcast feed.
You'll find the full audio version of this in your feed right below this podcast. So, go take a listen and then
come on back for this conversation. So, in December of 2023, Christile's husband, Dan Krug, requested a welfare
check on his wife, uh, who wasn't responding to his text messages or his phone calls. Krug also told police that
there was an alleged stalker that had been threatening them. When police arrived at the couple's home, they found
Christile dead in the garage. An autopsy later revealed that she had been bludgeoned to death in the back of the
head and she'd also been stabbed in the heart. There was a tremendous amount of police body cam footage from the crime
scene for this case, and we use it a lot in the hour, and we see also just how emotional Krug was at the scene.
Peter, when you watched that video, what did you think about his behavior at the
scene? >> I had never heard anything like that before. Here was a man you could hear
before you saw him on these body cams. He was shouting and wailing as he ran down the street. It seemed so unnatural.
And by the time he got in front of that house and he was bent over and he was wretching and making all of these
sounds. It was an extraordinary performance and we know now it was a performance and but
it was completely over the top. You know, I first viewed it actually sitting just feet behind Krug himself, who was
sitting as a defendant in court at the trial. And you know, Peter used the word performance. It seemed so much like a
performance to me. Just very overblown, not asking why. Just almost seeming like
he was trying to make himself seem scattered, like he didn't know what to do as he wailed. And it was really
interesting to watch him watch that without any reaction as he was on trial for Castile's murder.
>> I'm glad that both of you guys said that because when I watched the video, I felt
like I was judging him, but I just wasn't convinced with his behavior, the way he was sort
of hunched over. And then we see that he's actually with a victim's advocate. Her name is Heather Ace. So, she's seen
people in situations like this many, many times. Um, and we want to play for uh the listeners here some unaired
footage from Peter your interview with her and she talks about when she actually first started to suspect Krug.
>> The car ride from his house to the police department seemed like an eternity and it felt as if
something had switched. I I was starting to look at him a little differently, especially since he was
very adamant about telling the children. And he wasn't asking any other questions. He wasn't asking where was
she? How what happened? And I turn and I look at him and I get this weird feeling. And
it's a it's a it's a feeling of are you really crying? Are are you really Is this happening?
Did you do this? You didn't know. You didn't do this, Heather. You're watching You watched too many 48 hours episodes.
You're watching too much TV. This is This man has lost his wife. Why are you thinking that? But it was it was a gut
instinct. How interesting. But Peter, it's not just a gut instinct. He's not asking any
questions about what happened to his wife. >> Yeah. Bizarre behavior. and she followed
her instincts which was great. Heather has a lot of wisdom in all of this. At one point she said, you know, he had
really settled down. Then he started to make this very strange whimpering sound and she felt it was invented that it
just wasn't uh genuine. So, to bring people some of the background that we already know about if you watch the
hour, for months before her death, Christile had been receiving threatening text messages and photos that appeared
to be coming from an exboyfriend, Anthony Holland. Christile brought her concerns to Detective Martinez, who at
the time chose not to contact Anthony. Uh, he said that they were compiling enough evidence against him to actually
obtain an arrest warrant. You both interviewed Anthony. What was your impression of him?
>> He was a very uh downto- earthth individual. There's a sadness about him. Christile uh was somebody that um he
deeply cared for. They'd met in high school, but they were such different people. Christile was this intellect, a
a truly genius level intellect. An engineering future awaited for her. She was very ambitious. she was going to go
to university. And um Anthony on the other hand had no plans. He had no academic interest. These two split up
and it haunted him. He he just felt like a big part of his life was missing. >> Anthony is just very very earnest, very
honest, genuine, softspoken. Uh and he just really loved Christile. And when he described to me, you know,
they had met, they were both working at J C Penney as teenagers, and he described their first date and their
first kiss as magical. And it almost sounded like he was recounting scenes from a teen movie. And when I saw him
testify at her trial, he was so anxious he was clutching fidget toys. And you could tell he was really trying to do
Christile's memory well up on the stand as well as stand up for himself. And he told me that he stared down and I could
see this that he stared down Krug uh at the defense table kind of going, "Man, you tried to frame me for murder." And
he thanked me later after I ran a story, an interview with Anthony about his past. And Christile, he thanked me for
sharing her story as well as his because it was his great love. >> So seeing as you know she had been his
his great love. Sheila had Anthony actually contacted her over the years. >> He had you know I think in that way
sometimes you reach out with whatifs etc. Uh he sent a few messages I believe the last I think in 2016 just saying
seeing how she was doing. Nothing malicious or anything. You know he had kind of a rockolid alibi. He he
literally and figuratively had the receipts. >> Yeah. It's it's an incredible twist in
in this story that on the day that Christile was murdered, he'd gotten up and uh he now thinks this voice in his
head was Christile sending him a message. He got this urge to go to a Kohl's department store and to buy a
sweatshirt. And when I did the interview with him, I didn't realize he was wearing that very sweatshirt and he had
the receipt and it proved that he was 500 miles away in Utah and could not have been um in Colorado uh not not in
the area at all, not in the neighborhood to have committed this murder. And he thinks somehow Christile's uh spirit um
helped save him, exonerate him in in this case. >> Wow. So more and more often with these
cases though, we are able to use uh surveillance footage or you know body cam footage, but it it's not often that
we have so much of the victim before the crime. In the hour we see Christile's interview with police when she's
reporting that someone is stalking her. She seems to be taking all the right steps to protect herself and her family.
Do you think that she would have maybe eventually uncovered the truth that it indeed was her husband behind these
threatening text messages? >> You know, I think she absolutely would have. She was so smart and it was so
frustrating to see her in that footage talking to the detective with everything laid out before him. I mean, she had
spreadsheets and color-coded files and mountains of evidence, and he joked that she had done his job for him, and she
had I mean, she did everything. And she had even told her stepmom's sister, I can't even rule out my husband. This is
someone used to using the scientific method to solve problems. And she had done that looking at the facts of this
case. And we know now because Dan Krue, whether that was a this was a slip up or
whatever, he actually admits during the course of one of these interviews that she had mentioned to him that he could
be the stalker. And think about that cuz it wasn't that long after she revealed that to him that she ended up being
murdered. >> I mean, she was she was petrified as well. She, you know, she broke down in
tears in a parking lot to her mother once. She was, you know, re-uping her shooting skills. She was arming herself.
This was all discussed in court when they were outlining witnesses on the stand as well as the prosecution. So to
know that she was in fear and literally carrying a gun at the time of her death and just always looking over her
shoulder and still died, it was it was really tragic and infuriating. Dan was aware that uh she had armed herself um
when she was attacked and authorities came into that garage. Her gun was inside her purse. She may have felt a
little bit of safety going into that garage. Dan obviously knew the garage. He knew her her habits and he was able
to uh to ambush her. And all of that gun training and all that preparation uh ended up being for nothing cuz he he got
to her first. You mentioned that she had mentioned that she couldn't rule out her
own husband. Most people don't say that about, you know, their partner. I'm kind of curious
about how Christile's family felt about Krug. Did they give you any indication as to whether or not they liked him or
not? >> They did in the interview. Uh her mother, Linda, in particular, didn't really like him from the beginning, and
she just had a bad feeling about him. He was very awkward in family um gatherings. He at times could be uh
quiet. And I asked them, "Did you ever just mention it to her that you were concerned about it?" They said, "No,
she's very smart. Um we we wanted to leave that decision up to her as to who the person her partner in life would
be." But from the very beginning, it just didn't feel right to them. They said in courts that they were aware that
the marriage was disintegrating. Um, and I just think what united them in the weeks running up to Christile's death
was this stalker. I mean, there was family testimony during trial that at a family birthday party in the weeks
before Christile's murder, Dan was really playing up the stalker angle. He kept looking out the window in case the
stalker might be surveilling them or in in the vicinity. And I I just think that
his behavior looking back now must anger them so much more seeing that deceit. I
want to talk about the footage of Krug's police interrogation. We see the very the moment really where the tables turn
on him where police reveal that Anthony has an alibi. And I want to play a clip from the show. What if I told you
better? We had already spoken with Anthony and there's no way that he was in town today.
And I have nothing and I'm terrified to bring my children home. What are you terrified of? If it wasn't
him, it wasn't. >> What gets me in all of this is um I covered the Lacy Peterson murder case
many years ago and at the time we did a story about deception and signs of deception. One of them is whisper
talking and you noticed it there. It's in that audio. It is dramatic. He's talking and all of a sudden it just
falls off and you'll you hear him speak in this whisper talk which is which is for these these psychological experts a
sign that that he's lying and telling a story. Um the frustrating part in all of
this too is that they had to release Dan after this interview even though he was
their number one suspect. And at that point they were pretty convinced that he is the killer. He knew they were on to
him and that whisper talk just said it all to me. >> You know, even throughout his police
interviews that we saw during the trial, he was always presenting himself as completely harmless and non-threatening.
He's very tall, very skinny. He was stooped, slouched on the couch, hunched over, um moving gingerly, you know,
holding a cup of coffee or water as if it was going to hurt him. uh just [music] constantly putting out this vibe
of I'm harmless. Don't look at me. And even there when he was still protesting his innocence, who could it be
pretending to [music] be afraid? Uh it was all it was all a facade. Welcome back. Well, after a digital
[music] forensics expert traced the stalker's messages to Krug's office wifi and uncovered chilling searches on his
phone, like, "Do people really go unconscious when hit in the head?" Police move in to arrest him. It's rare
that we see this moment, uh, you know, the hands up, you're under arrest moment, but we actually get it from
multiple angles here. >> We get it from six different angles. This is like this is like a Hollywood
movie at this at this point. And as more and more local law enforcement gets into
the get into the body cam technology, we're seeing uh incredible moments like this unfold before our eyes. The
tragedy, he was out at that supermarket because his daughter was going to be performing in the Nutcracker that night
and they wanted to get some flowers. Um, on the day of the murder, Dan insisted to police that he wanted to be the one
who told his three children that their mother was dead. Well, at the time of arrest, you flip the script here and
Detective Martinez, who had uh such enormous frustration during the course of this investigation and some
self-doubt whether he should have acted earlier to pursue Anthony Holland, reach
out to him earlier, he finally had a moment where he's looking at him and he says basically, "Hey, you want me to
tell the kids that you murdered their mother or someone else?" And it was, I'm paraphrasing there, but it was it was
such a powerful moment there. Uh, and I I felt good for the detective that he finally got one jab of the sword at this
at this creep. >> Absolutely. Um, let's go to the trial. No cameras were allowed in the courtroom
until closing arguments. Uh, but Sheila, you were there in person for pretty much
most of the trial. >> Mhm. >> What was Krug's demeanor like? A and was there family there to support him
through the trial? >> There was, you know, he his demeanor was very similar to how it was in police
interviews and on that footage where he stooped over, he moved slowly, presenting himself as harmless, meek,
sitting there quietly at the defense table. Um, his older brother was there for much of the trial. His elderly
father was one of the last witnesses called and he and his elderly mother were there for the verdict as it was
read. His brother seemed shell shocked when he addressed the judge. But Chris Steele's family meanwhile was there
right behind the prosecution every day at the trial, active, engaged, just supporting her every step of the way.
The prosecution's biggest hurdle in this case was really the lack of DNA evidence
tying Krug to the murder. The murder weapon was also never recovered and investigators didn't find Priscile's
blood on Krug's clothes or in his car. That is something you would expect uh when someone has, you know, a stab
wound. So, it begs the question just how is it possible to have no DNA evidence in a case like this where there's
clearly a lot of blood. >> Well, for all the mistakes that he made, perhaps it's blind luck in his case. It
is something that, you know, the prosecutors and Sheila knows this very well, they all want a CSI moment in a
case like this. You know, the DNA, her DNA found in his car to really lock this down for jurors. But in this case, um,
there just wasn't that. >> And, you know, that was a cornerstone of the defense really, that there was no
DNA. And how could that be? I mean, investigators were told that he by his children that he was wearing the same
clothes that morning that he was when he came after she was murdered. So truly, how did he manage it? But I always
wondered, I mean, Krug worked for the Department of Health here in Colorado. who knows what he had access to. And
when you think about it, even though he made a number of really elementary and unbelievable mistakes when it came to
digital evidence or emails or phones, he did have a lot of time to plan this over
a matter of months as he was carrying out that stalking campaign. Well, let's talk about the digital evidence. I mean,
I don't know when people are going to learn like your Google searches will become part of the case against you. The
Google searches first off were incredible where he was asking about, you know, basically I'm paraphrasing uh
what does it take to knock somebody out and if you strike somebody on the back of the head, which of course is what
happened to his wife when they were able to determine that messages had been sent
from his company wifi system. That is as good as a fingerprint. That who else could have have done that? Now, the
defense tried to say, well, the person that was stalking him may have been in the building at the time and that's how
this occurred, but they really had him on that. Also, they were able to determine that there was a a iconic
picture in the course of this where the alleged stalker had taken a photograph of Dan as he was getting inside uh a
vehicle. Well, their digital expert was able to determine that that had been that picture had been taken on Krug's
phone at in selfie mode on a timer. And they were even able to figure out the bumper that was was used to hold the
phone to take that photograph. >> It would be laughable if it hadn't involved the loss of a life. I mean,
it's just astonishing. He bought a burner phone, but with a gift card that was registered to himself. He also in
one of the really wow moments of the trial on October 2nd when he sent a text one of the threatening stalker messages
to Christile. She didn't answer and it was the first stalker message he sent. And when she didn't answer, he clearly
was worried that the message wasn't getting through. So he texted his own cell phone test and then responded to
that text with his cell phone to the burner. Yeah. So, I mean, he absolutely absolutely kind of condemned himself
with that interaction >> clearly. Um, and a a jury uh finds him guilty. Uh, he's found guilty of
firstdegree murder as well as stalking and impersonation. Sheila, what was the reaction like in the courtroom when the
verdict was read? >> On Krug's side, his uh parents, his mom slumped into his dad. a supporter put a
hand on her back. They were just clearly in disbelief and bereft. On the other side of the courtroom, people were
tearful for different reasons. You know, they later spoke about how they felt this was some semblance of justice for
Crisio. After he was convicted, we get more fascinating video uh and we include this in the hour of a jail house call
that Krug makes to his family. We want to play for you now an extended clip of that call that was not in the show.
>> We are in a digital and monitored age. They never produced a single photograph
of me with phones. They never produced a single photograph of me buying anything.
They never produced a single piece of hard evidence. Just identity theft. That's it.
That's it. And we're in a world today where that's enough. DNA exoneration doesn't mean
because someone can do things with a cell phone. Not a single photograph, not a single
drop of blood, not a single scrap of DNA. Not a single recording. Identity theft
is all it takes to destroy somebody. >> This almost sounds like an attorney performing closing arguments. It's quite
dramatic with all those pauses and such. >> They don't have that hard physical evidence, but the evidence that was
presented was compelling um to this jury and uh I think to the community. You know, you could tell that his brother
who got up, Jeremy, who spoke at trial during victim impact statements, you could tell that he was caught off guard,
that he still had no idea how to handle this because the point he made was that the family hadn't been privy to all the
evidence until it was presented at trial, that they were holding on to a glimmer of hope. That hope had been very
quickly shattered once they saw the case that was presented. And his brother also
expressed anger at Dan for doing this to his family and putting them through it and talk about driving his elderly
parents home as they collapsed against each other in the car. So, not only did he put his children through it, now he's
putting his parents and extended family through it and continuing to do it is gling.
>> Yeah. So Dan Krug, you he is sentenced to life in prison um without the possibility of
parole on the murder charge and an additional n and a half years for the stalking and impersonation counts. And
Sheila, you were talking about the victim impact statements um at at sentencing. And Christile's
sister-in-law also got up and made a victim impact statement and and she talked about what the children will have
to deal with. >> She did. She actually read out statements from the kids themselves who
spoke of their grief. And it was not [clears throat] just Christile's sister-in-law and the children speaking.
It was a long line of friends and family members. Whether they were school friends of Christ's or friends she'd met
in adult dance classes or cousins, relatives, siblings, everyone spoke of what a bright light she was, how smart,
how quick, how she would amuse them with self-deprecating humor. And you could see how much Christile touched so many
people's lives and how angry they were that she was so needlessly stolen. >> Yeah. Um, how's Christelle's family
doing? They are um they're such incredible people. Um Lars um Christile's dad is Norwegian. Uh he's
from a family of engineers. Christile followed in that tradition. In that uh workroom they have at the house where he
has these these old vintage cars. They used to work on them together. Lars can rebuild an original Corvette carburetor.
He's a brilliant guy. He misses her so desperately as he looks around that that uh shop. He can hear her voice. He can
see her there. Um they're trying to continue that tradition with the children. Lars is and he's desperate uh
and and will never let her memory die. >> The kids, the oldest is about 16 now. And you know what they do have around
them is a very large and loving extended family. And the crowds who stood up for
Castile for victim impact statements were just I think the tip of the iceberg. And the judge even acknowledged
at sentencing what a pleasure it was despite being an awful, tragic and bittersweet circumstance to get to know
about Christile and her family. So I I guess despite this horrific situation, the kids are lucky in that regard to
have all of them around her, all the people who turned up at the trial for Christile and the many others out there.
>> Absolutely. It's a community that they will need moving forward. And it, you know, it makes me feel at least a little
good to know that they are well loved and well protected and supported. Um, well, Peter Sheila, this has been a
great conversation. Thank you so much. Thanks, Anmarie. >> Thank you. >> If you like this episode, please rate
and review us on [music] Apple Podcast or on Spotify.

Watch "The Setup Murder of Kristil Krug" and then catch up with 48 Hours correspondents Anne-Marie Green and Peter Van Sant as they speak with journalist Sheila Flynn for the "Post Mortem" podcast.

00:00 The Setup Murder of Kristil Krug 41:32 Watch the Post Mortem podcast

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Brief Summary

Christile Krug was murdered by her husband Dan, who staged a stalking narrative to cover his crime.

Key points

A Mother's Grief. Christile's mother learns of her daughter's murder, leading to chaos and disbelief.
The Stalker Threat. Christile reveals her fears of being stalked, escalating the tension surrounding her safety.
The Alibi. Anthony Holland presents an alibi that clears him of suspicion in Christile's murder.
The Investigation Turns. Detectives focus on Dan as a suspect after discovering threatening messages from his workplace.
The Arrest of Dan Krug. Dan Krug is arrested for the murder of his wife, Christile, after detectives gather evidence.
Trial Begins. The trial of Dan Krug begins, revealing the prosecution's case against him.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's probably some parent's worst nightmare.

Comment on the tragedy of Christile's murder.

7:08WatchJan 11, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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