I'm kate snow and this is "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
- Paige, this is carol.
I just saw something on tv about you being gone
Since Thursday night. I hope you're all right.
Oh, my god. Oh, my god.
- Paige, if you get this, please,
Please call somebody.
Everybody is worried about you.
Everybody is looking for you.
Please let us know you're okay.
- Paige was a woman with a premonition.
- She said she knew something bad was going to happen.
A couple of days later, she was missing.
- We found out that she had this second life.
- Quite obviously, it's dangerous.
- She'd been playing a risky game.
- That opened up the door to a multitude of people
We needed to start looking at.
- He was a scam artist. - Correct.
- He was a liar, he was manipulative.
- We have a list of names, their bra size
And whether or not they would have sex.
- Could investigators get their man
Before he struck again?
- I turned around and he was just sitting in the dark.
And he said, "I'm going to kill you."
♪♪
Paige birgfeld was a single mother
Who found joy in shuttling her kids
From one activity to the next.
When she vanished,
Friends and family feared the worst.
The investigation quickly yielded a stunning clue.
The soccer mom was leading a secret life.
As the seasons passed with no sign of paige,
Police wondered had someone from that other world
Put a target on her back?
Here's keith morrison with "double lives".
- It's been years since she vanished.
But few people in grand junction, colorado,
Have forgotten paige birgfeld.
How could they?
The story of this young mother's disappearance
Has long since woven itself into local lore.
- She's a great mother, a great friend.
- It's a mystery we've been following since it began.
And now, as thunderheads darken the high desert sky,
Finally, a trial.
- What he told me is that
He knew how to get rid of a body
So that nobody could find it.
- He said, "I'm going to kill you."
And then he slapped me repeatedly.
- Finally, rumors and gossip would be dispelled
Or made fact.
And the secrets known not only by the guilty,
But also the shamed, would finally be revealed.
Why so many secrets? Whispers? Rumors?
Because in this town,
Where everybody knows everybody else's business,
There were enough potential suspects to fill a minivan.
- Did you have anything to do with the disappearance
Of paige birgfeld? - No.
- I was put under psychiatric care
For the first 48 hours and then sent to jail.
- I did not kill paige.
I mean, that's the bottom line.
- It was late June, 2007,
When news of paige birgfeld's disappearance first spread
Like the morning sun.
Over the mountains in denver, four hours away,
Frank birgfeld was driving to his office.
The phone rang.
- Voice on the phone says, uh, this is, uh,
Somebody with the mesa county sheriff's office.
Then he said, "are you paige's dad?"
And I said, "yep."
He said, "did you know she's missing?"
- Barbara campbell got the call from her husband, hans,
Who told her-- - "paige is missing."
I was, "what do you mean she's missing?"
- Andrea land got the news in an email.
- It said "paige is missing" in the subject line.
And I knew something horrible had to have happened
Because it didn't make any sense
That she would be missing.
- No way for even a best friend
To prepare for such a thing.
- Stunningly beautiful.
One of those women that was almost
A little bit intimidating at first,
If you were, you know, your more average mom.
- Andrea land and the other young mothers
Of grand junction could have been forgiven
For feeling a little envy.
She had the look, the money,
The big house on the hill
And three attractive kids.
But no, it wasn't like that at all.
- The way she talked, the way she acted,
The way she treated you,
Everything about her was just so wonderful.
- Barbara campbell, andrea, and paige were members
Of grand junction's mom's club international.
A kind of social and support group
For young stay-at-home mothers.
- Woo! It's paige! [cheering]
- Once a year, they'd throw a spring fling,
Sort of put-on prom for moms.
Fancy clothes, red carpet entry,
Even a pretend reporter throwing fashion questions.
- Tell us, who are you wearing?
- Paige was always the star, of course.
And this year the party was held at her place,
Which made it a very special event.
- Most of us did not live in a home that large.
She was just so down to earth and humble about it
That once you got over the artwork on the walls
And how, you know, beautiful a home it was,
Uh, you almost forgot that you were in
This really, um, very high-end home.
- So, the winner is, drumroll please,
[drumrolling] paige birgfeld!
[cheering, applause]
- She was so comfortable hosting people that made it--
It made anybody there feel comfortable.
Sometimes you meet someone, and you just instantly have
A good feeling about them. - Mm-hmm.
- You're going to be friends with them,
It's just going to be an instant match.
[sniffling]
That's what I had with paige.
- And then that call.
The sheriff's deputy told the birgfelds
That after meeting a friend on the afternoon
Of Thursday, June 28, 2007,
Paige simply didn't come home.
As they drove from denver to grand junction,
Paige's parents tried to understand
What was happening.
- As we started out, I-I don't know that
I was very tense, or I had thought of the worst.
I guess, gee, I wonder where she is.
I hope she's--
But as-as the drive went on,
It became more and more anxious,
More and more tight, more and more--
- And I would be calling the kids on the home phone,
Just saying, "we're gonna be there."
You know? And trying to sound reassuring.
- The kids had just a nanny with them
Because paige had parted ways with her husband, rob dixon,
Who had since moved out of state.
Still, as a single mom with three little kids,
Paige had her life well in control,
Due in no small part to her obsessive
Organizational skills.
She ran several small businesses
And kept track of every soccer practice
And dentist appointment
In an old-fashioned handwritten day planner.
- And every page was full and cross-referenced and--
- And she was always with it.
When she'd come over to visit, it came in the door,
Right there in front of her,
As she was always checking it, phoning.
- Overbooked, divorced, three kids.
The first question,
Is there a chance paige birgfeld
Simply walked out on her life?
- We talked about, boy,
Sometimes I just want to run away.
And she said, you know, "I never feel that way.
I never want to run away.
Even if I did want to run away just to get away from here,
I would want to take my kids with me."
- There was no way she would leave
Without her children. They were her life.
- If she needed to hide,
She would have found a way to do it with them.
- So, what then?
What happened to paige?
Her friends, her parents didn't know what to do
Or where to look.
Maybe a clue could be found
Tucked away in her day planner.
Except it, too,
Was missing.
- Coming up...
- Police piece together the hours
Leading up to paige's disappearance.
- And one encounter grabs their attention.
- We found out that she had been visiting her ex-husband.
Obviously, he was a person of interest.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
It was a Thursday, June 28th,
When paige birgfeld of grand junction, colorado,
Quite suddenly went off the radar,
Which was at least a place to start.
So, henry selful and wayne weyler
Of the mesa county sheriff's office
Set out to trace her steps that day.
- We found out that she had been
At eagle visiting her, uh, ex-husband
And they had been reconciling at that point.
- But he, having been the last person
Known to have seen her,
I suppose would be a person of interest in the--
- Yes, obviously, he was a person of interest.
- This person of interest, ron beigler,
Was paige's first ex-husband.
They married right out of high school.
Young, immature, and soon divorced.
But funny how this works.
Ten years had sanded off their sharp-edged disputes
And they saw anew why they fell in love.
- It seemed like as if no time had passed at all.
- This is ron beigler talking to a "dateline" producer
Soon after paige's disappearance.
- At what point did you start
To, um, rekindle your relationship?
- About six months ago.
We tried to take it slow, but there was--
There was no denying that--
That it was just as it was before.
- The problem was beigler lived in denver,
A four-hour drive east.
So, the two lovers would often meet
At some midway point.
On the day of paige's disappearance,
They chose eagle, colorado.
- We're going to have a picnic and hang out together all day.
We went to subway and brought-- brought it back to, um--
We were sitting outside, down by the river.
It was very familiar.
And, you know, I brought some pictures, you know,
And, um, you know, we just sat there and relaxed
And enjoyed the day and the weather.
It was a special, wonderful day.
- And then around 7 p.M.,
They kissed and said goodbye and drove back
To their respective sides of the state.
Two hour later, at 8:57 p.M., paige called beigler.
- To see if I made it back into denver.
- Mm-hmm.
- And then we had a-- a brief conversation.
- Paige told beigler she wasn't home yet.
She was stuck
Behind a bad traffic accident in grand junction.
And, indeed, investigators confirmed
There was a fatal traffic accident
Right here at this intersection.
Somebody saw paige's car here, too,
That very evening.
The thing is, this is five miles past her house.
Why was she here?
- An hour later, 9:56 p.M.,
Paige's 8-year-old daughter jess
Left this anxious voicemail message
On her mother's cellphone.
- No response.
Her daughter waited, worried, and called again.
- They slept then, best they could,
All three children.
And they woke the next day, Friday, June 29,
To a whole new kind of anxiety.
She still wasn't home.
- Something in the pit of the stomach.
Paige's old and new love, ron beigler,
Seemed to feel it, too.
- And hour by hour they piled up,
Phone messages, like a normal day.
- Not a single call was returned.
And that night, again,
The children with their nanny
Waited in vain for their mother.
The following day, Saturday, June 30,
Ron beigler called the house
And spoke to paige's 8-year-old daughter, jess.
- She didn't sound particularly that distraught.
I don't think she had an idea what was going on.
Of course, she didn't.
- Beigler's next call was to 911.
- And that's when word of paige's disappearance
Began to spread across colorado.
Investigators didn't have a clue what happened to paige.
But they wondered if beigler did.
- Have police questioned you?
- Yes, they have.
- And have they released you as, um, you know,
A potential suspect or...?
- Um, I don't know what they-- what they've done on that.
Um, I know that I-- that was never a concern
Or worry of mine, you know, having it get pinned on me.
- Mm-hmm. - You know...
- You have an alibi for that night?
- Just, um, I'm confident that
The police know that I had nothing to do with it.
- Do you feel like you have any thoughts
As to what may have happened or what's happening?
- I think it was, uh, a major premeditated abduction
Or a completely random incident.
I think that it's more likely
That it's a premeditated abduction.
- But sometimes those not asking questions find answers.
It was the third day,
Sunday, July 1, 2007, 9:58 p.M.
A woman driving home from work
Slammed on her brakes, called 911.
- Coming up...
Paige's car, what will it reveal?
- Where it was really more intense
Was on the driver's side.
- And then something else belonging to paige.
- It was an awful feeling of dread thinking
How did this get here; what does it mean?
- Either paige's abductor
Was trying to throw them off track or...
- She was in the trunk of a car or something
And dumped these items out to leave a trail.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
[sirens]
Sunday night, the 1st of July,
The grand junction fire department
Was called to an industrial parking lot.
A little red car was on fire.
Frank birgfeld heard about the fire the morning after,
Roared over there
And could do nothing except watch from a distance
As investigators crawled over his daughter's car.
And that morning frank gave the first
Of what would be many, many interviews.
- We were hopeful when we found the car
Things would fall into place, and maybe they will.
- This interview, though,
Was one frank just couldn't get through.
- You know, it occurred to me I hadn't cried in a long time.
I've learned how to do that.
That's it.
- Firefighter robert thomason
Helped with the arson investigation.
- You can see that the glass itself was all burned out,
And you can see where it's still kind of intact over here.
- Yeah. - It was really obvious to see
The more intense was on the driver's side.
- Meaning that's where the fire started.
That's where the arsonist wanted to be sure to erase evidence.
Under the car, damaged skid plates
And strands of wild grass caught in the suspension,
Meaning somebody had driven off road very recently.
And after, dumped and torched the car
In an industrial area just 1/4 mile
From where paige made her last phone call.
- It was way beyond her house, right?
- Correct.
It didn't fit for the car to be there.
- News of the car fire was a turning point.
No longer did the public suspect this was a case of
An overwhelmed runaway mom.
The response was an outpouring of volunteers,
A spontaneous community project to find paige.
- Just seeing the data on tv and everything like that,
And I have, you know, some children of my own
And I know what I'd be feeling like
If one of my children was gone.
And I just wanted to try to help if I could.
- Paige's dad was there every day,
Greeting a small army of volunteers.
- Thanks for helping us.
You know, it's really tough, you know?
For people to give of themselves to that degree,
I just...
- One of our moms was gone.
And her kids needed her,
And we needed our friend,
And our kids needed to know
That if someone's mom is missing,
That people are going to work hard to find her.
- Paige's brother and his wife came from seattle to help.
- The thing is I know that somebody out there
Knows where she is.
And, you know, we're looking for clues to find that person.
But there's somebody, maybe who's watching this,
Who knows where she is.
- But this seemed odd.
Not helping to find paige was her ex-husband
And current boyfriend ron beigler.
- Do you feel like you wish you could go there
And help search for her?
- A part of me does, definitely.
- What's keeping you away from there?
- Um, I don't know if I can handle being--
Being right in the situation.
- Then, knowing we were preparing
A report about the case,
Beigler made a strange request.
- Try to keep me out as much as possible.
Like, just a few words here and there.
But I don't want to, like, be on talking about things.
- But hundreds of people,
Many who had never once met paige,
Searched on horseback, on atvs, on foot.
They peered under bushes,
They walked miles of desert brush
In 100-degree heat and nothing.
Truth be told, paige could have been anywhere.
But then, four days after paige's disappearance,
A driver stopped along a lonely stretch of highway 50.
And as he stepped out of his truck,
A piece of litter caught his eye.
A blank check trapped in the roadside weeds.
The name on it?
Paige dixon.
Paige's married name.
So, then the flock of searchers descended on that road.
- Making my way back west,
Along the median I saw a checkbook.
It was an awful feeling of dread thinking how did this get here?
Why is it here? What does it mean?
- Then more.
Paige's wallet, charm bracelet, the shoe.
Various cards, bank registers, and dozens of checks
From both paige's personal and professional accounts,
Nearly 100 items spread along 13 miles of road.
Which left investigators with two very different theories.
Either paige's abductor
Was trying to throw them off track or...
- She was in the trunk of a car or something
And dumped these items out to leave a trail.
- And while volunteers gathered
This sad detritus of paige's life.
A new wrinkle.
- Paige's most recent ex-husband rob dixon
Came back to town to look after the kids
And help out with the search.
And his reappearance
Stopped volunteers in their tracks.
Because of the stories paige told while they were married,
Many thought him the most obvious suspect.
- She was afraid of him.
- Coming up...
- What else paige told loved ones about rob dixon.
- She was afraid he'd kill her.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
I'm kate snow.
Where was paige birgfeld?
Investigators hoped the charred remains of her car
Would provide clues, or that a roadside trail
Of blank checks and other personal items
Might lead to the missing mom.
But as family, friends, and even strangers
Continued the search,
Some wondered if the key to the mystery
Lay in paige's past,
One that had recently come back to haunt her.
Here's keith morrison with more of "double lives".
- A wave of whispers spread at the speed of suspicions
Among the searchers looking for the missing single mother,
Paige birgfeld.
The ex was in town.
The most recent ex, that is, rob dixon.
The one paige had all the trouble with.
Of course, the relationship didn't start out that way.
It never does.
- At first, we only saw the-- what we referred to
As the good rob side.
- And that's certainly what paige only saw.
- And-and we-- he was part of our family,
And we loved him as much as an in-law would be.
He was a good guy to have.
- Dixon had been a hard-working paramedic
Until his dad made a one-time fortune in the tech industry
And passed that windfall onto his kids.
And not long after getting his millions,
Dixon met and married paige.
And they had three kids
And moved into a fine, big house.
- He had admitted to having over $10 million.
And I think when you admit to that,
You have maybe twice that much.
- And paige's parents watched him change.
The whole town saw that, actually.
- In his garage, I saw three range rovers,
A jaguar, two porsches,
And then later he had a lemon-yellow ferrari.
If you've been to grand junction,
And you want to fit in,
A lemon-yellow ferrari is not exactly what you do.
- Did he have-- make any effort to meet you or the other guys?
- Um, the mom's club would get together,
They would have occasions
When all the families would get together.
But he would never--
He would never come to any of them.
Um, I never once saw him attend.
- I was so baffled how someone as upbeat
And just eternally happy as paige
Could have this grump around.
- But in hopes of promoting either goodwill or himself,
Dixon joined the grand junction fire district board
And then donated a brand-new firetruck.
His generosity made news,
Had locals wondering if they'd misjudged him.
But soon it turned to dust.
Dixon got himself in charge of fire district investments,
Put public money in what he said was a sure thing.
It wasn't.
The money vanished.
- Blew away, as I recall, about $750,000
In bad investments for the fire district.
- Peter hautzinger was at that time the mesa county d.A.
- I made the decision
To take that case to the grand jury,
And ultimately the grand jury decided felony stupid,
But not worthy of criminal charges.
- Then, one day a repo man showed up
For that shiny new firetruck dixon had donated.
- It turned out the firetruck was leased,
And they came and took it away from the fire department.
- That's when frank and paige and the whole town
Found out dixon's money was gone, too.
- He gave it to someone who pyramid-schemed it.
- The missing money, the repoed truck,
The grand jury investigation had all kept dixon
On the front pages of the local paper for months.
A series of public humiliations ending with an exclamation point
When he was embarrassingly picked newsmaker of the year.
- It was clear rob;
He was a big deal because he had a lot of money.
And then to lose it and be disgraced
In a relatively small community.
- They're writing about him in the local paper.
- And I said he has taken a gigantic fall,
And he will change dramatically for the worse.
And I think that was very predictable,
And I think for rob that's what happened.
At the end, it was almost always bad rob
That we were dealing with.
She, uh, told friends and we saw an email.
She was afraid he'd kill her.
- He said he would kill her several times.
- In 2004, paige, in the midst of this downward spiral,
Called 911.
- Police were dispatched, but there was no arrest.
According to paige's parents,
The fighting only got worse.
- It was, you know, very ugly,
The psychological, emotional abuse
That she endured all of the time.
And when I was there visiting,
I saw an awful lot of it.
- After a second incident, dixon was arrested
On suspicion of third-degree assault.
- We had a misdemeanor domestic violence case
Against him with paige as the victim.
- Dixon pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of harassment,
Got a deferred sentence.
The entire case, though, was later thrown out.
Anyway, paige filed for divorce, and dixon for bankruptcy
And moved away to philadelphia to work as an ent again.
And paige did what she could to keep the kids
In the only home they'd ever known.
That big place with a mortgage to match.
Close to six grand a month.
- She would just sit and ponder how can a single mom
With three kids make enough money to stay
In the house that her husband used to support?
- She had no lack of ideas or ambition.
She sold cooking products
For a company called the pampered chef
And slings for carrying babies.
She taught dancing classes for little kids.
Anything to turn a buck,
Keeping track of it all in that big day planner of hers.
The one that was almost an hour-to-hour record
Of her life.
And even though he was now far away,
She also kept an eye out for dixon.
- Flat out, she was afraid of him.
Um, she was afraid of him coming back to town.
She was always nervous
He was going to be coming back into town.
- And sure enough, two years later in June, 2007,
The week before she vanished,
Paige got a call from dixon.
He said he missed the kids;
Said he was moving back to colorado.
- She said that she knew
That rob was coming back
And that he was going to do something.
And I was floored.
- Do something?
- I thought, what does "do something" mean?
And she just said she knew
Something bad was going to happen.
But murder did not enter my mind.
Kidnapping did not enter my mind.
- It must have been very strange to hear that.
- It was a staggering conversation.
I mean, we were just two moms with small children
Faced with an unknown situation.
And, um, a couple of days later she was missing.
- Coming up...
Inside the wreckage of paige's burned-out car,
Her day planner.
- It still had the pages intact.
- Inside the planner, a shock for everyone on the case.
- That was stunning.
- Quite obviously, it's dangerous.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
It was a dismal clue.
The trail of bits and pieces of paige birgfeld's life
Found scattered by the highway.
But still no paige, alive or dead.
And now, detectives had two ex-husbands
To investigate.
Ron beigler, the last person known to have seen her alive,
And rob dixon, the man she told friends
She lived in fear of.
- Most people that she knew, friends, believed
That rob dixon had something to do with this.
- So, he pops right up to the top of your list?
- Absolutely. He and rob beigler both.
- As for hard evidence, there was very little
Except for the investigators little secret.'
The one bit of evidence
They'd been hiding from everyone,
Even the birgfelds.
Something that by pure luck survived that car fire.
Paige's day planner.
- The melted dash had fallen down onto the floor
Covering up the day planner.
And so, it was protected from the heat
As well as from the fire
Because it had an upper layer on it.
- What sort of condition was it in?
- It was in -- I mean, it was smoke damaged,
And it had heat damage,
But it still had the pages intact.
- The day planner, as you can see,
Still very readable, was full of appointments,
And plans, and contact numbers,
Most mundane, routine.
But, and this was strange, three key pages,
June 26 through 29,
The dates surrounding paige's disappearance,
Had been ripped out.
And there was something else.
One particular business card, that just didn't belong,
For a company called ladies en confidante.
An enterprise that oddly shared the same phone number
With a business called models, inc.
Those cards were found scattered along highway 50
Among paige's personal effects,
Which appeared to support a strange story
Told by ex-husband ron beigler
That paige had clients she would see.
- It was, you know, lonely, older married men
Buying companionship from a really intelligent woman
That they wanted to spend time with.
- As hard as paige tried, what with the dancing classes,
The baby slings, the cooking products,
She simply couldn't keep up with the bills.
And so, paige, investigators learned,
Had taken on one more job.
She started moonlighting as an escort.
- Finding out that paige was running a rather high-class,
High-quality sort of, uh, prostitution business
Was kind of stunning.
I had no idea that that took place in my jurisdiction.
- Living in a very nice house in a nice part of town.
- And known to a number of people that --
That I knew.
I mean, she was a soccer mom. - Yeah.
- One of my best friends', um, daughter, I believe,
Played on the same soccer team as paige's kids.
- So, how did paige manage to keep her escort service
A secret from everybody but clients for so long?
Well, she went by the name carrie,
Selling her services through a front company she ran
Called models, inc.,
A name that implied, intentionally,
That several women worked with her,
When, in fact, it was just her.
Some friends suspected, most didn't.
- It was very hard for me to believe
That she would want to have sex with men for money.
- But she did.
According to this investigative report,
Paige would charge up to $1,000 a session.
You can imagine how these revelations
Hit paige's mom and dad.
They just couldn't believe it.
- If I had known about it, I-I definitely would have tried
To use whatever persuasion I had to turn her away from it.
- Um-hmm.
- I mean, if nothing else, quite obviously it's dangerous.
- So, it was a shock, obviously,
But they said they could understand her motives.
After all, rob dixon's money had run out.
- She was doing what she had to do
To keep life as normal as possible for the children.
- The news spread, of course.
Pretty soon, most people in town knew.
- There were people who wrote to the paper
And said horrible things like,
"why are we spending all this time
"looking for a dead hooker?" - dirt.
Spread, said andrea, by those who didn't even know paige.
- We knew her heart.
We knew who she was everyday with us
And with her kids.
And if anything, it only put us into
Hyper vigilant "defend her" mode
And made us all want to get out there
And talk about what a good person she was
As much as possible.
- A much bigger problem, though,
Was that paige's secret life
Made an already complicated missing person case
Far more difficult.
- We start looking at the phone that she was using
For models, inc.,
And you start identifying people
Who had the most recent contact with her.
And you came across multiple people.
- Hello, you've reached models, inc.,
Colorado's premiere gentleman's service.
- Now, every client who contacted paige on June 28,
And there were many, was a potential suspect.
Here's just a sampling of her phone messages that day.
- So, they put together a list, called it possible suspects.
The two ex-husbands now joined by
Six of paige's clients.
Nothing to do but check out all of them,
Beginning with the last client paige called.
This guy, george coralluzzo who, the day paige disappeared,
Called her 19 times.
- We're thinking that's our guy.
- I couldn't get rid of him. - Hmm.
- And he's still haunting me.
- Coming up... What this woman saw.
- It just -- it hit me.
- And what she told investigators.
- He totally did this.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Grand junction is a modern town in every way.
But lift your eyes from the humdrum,
Watch a setting sun
Fire the great monument cliffs all around,
And for a moment you're in the old west.
The mystique that clings to the place,
As do the drifters attracted to such things.
Young men who split their time between odd jobs
And the county jail.
Like, for example, george coralluzzo,
Here from new jersey and eager to hustle a buck
Or a woman or whatever.
- George coralluzzo was a conman, a sick person.
- Meagan williams knew coralluzzo
Because he and her then husband had partnered in
A house painting business.
Knowing coralluzzo as she did, she was not surprised by
A visit she got on July 1, 2007.
- Sheriffs came to our house and they said,
"is george coralluzzo here?"
I actually thought they were there to talk about
This kidnapping case. - Yeah.
- To meagan, this kidnapping case
Meant one six months earlier in which coralluzzo
Allegedly took this woman against her will
On a long, scary ride across state lines.
- I spilled to them everything I knew
Up to that point.
- Thinking you were talking about
A different crime altogether. - Correct.
- Deputies didn't let on.
But, of course, they were really looking into
The disappearance of paige birgfeld
Three days earlier.
Where was coralluzzo that day?
"well, very interesting," said meagan.
He'd failed to show up for work,
And later that night
He offered a truly bizarre reason why.
- That his family had been in an accident.
And we said, "what kind of accident?"
Oh, well, my brother and my sister-in-law
And my niece and nephew were beheaded
On the turnpike in new jersey.
He had to go to new jersey;
He had to solidify funeral arrangements.
He was sobbing and hands were flying.
And he was just like,
"I don't know what I'm gonna do!"
And just very upset. And we believed him.
- And she told the detectives
Coralluzzo took the first available flight
Back to new jersey. And that was that.
The detectives thanked her and left.
Didn't mention a thing about paige birgfeld.
And then the very next day,
Megan was watching the news on tv
And saw the story about the burned-out car.
- Her car was found ablaze in this parking lot off 23 road.
- And then I saw paige's face come across the news.
And I looked at my -- my ex-husband tim
And I said, "that's what happened."
I said, "he murdered that woman."
It just -- it hit me.
- Then, of course, she had to know.
Was that wild story
About a decapitating accident in new jersey
Just coralluzzo's excuse to run from what he had done?
To get out of town?
- I scoured the internet and made phone calls.
- Scoured the internet looking for evidence of
A big traffic accident? - Um-hmm.
Nothing there. - So, who'd you phone?
- I called their local gazette newspaper.
- Okay.
- Talked to a reporter. Nothing happened.
I called the coroner. Nothing.
So, newspaper, coroner, hospitals.
Nothing.
- But meagan was able to locate coralluzzo
And passed that tip onto lead investigator,
Beverly jarrell,
Who would end up playing a key role.
You'll hear more about her later.
Jarrell caught up with coralluzzo in new jersey,
Grilled him for five hours.
But coralluzzo denied everything.
More important, he was in new jersey
When paige's car was set ablaze.
So, jarrell let him go.
- If he didn't burn the car, doesn't that let him out?
- No. - Why not?
- Because his actions lead me to believe
That he did something so disgusting and vile
That he had to leave grand junction
And lie about his family dying. Something happened.
- And there was something else, said meagan.
- He told multiple people that he did something so terrible
That he could never take it to the grave.
And that he would never be forgiven.
What was that, besides murdering somebody?
- Um-hmm.
- George was a sketchy person and he totally did this.
- The coralluzzo she knew, she said,
Was cunning enough to have one of his pals help him.
Somebody like this guy, his best friend, jose tavera.
Detectives suspected that, too.
So, they found tavera, brought him in for questioning,
And what do you know?
He'd recently injured his arm.
- I had a bandage on it and, uh, the cop asked me what--
What is that, you know?
The detective goes, "what happened there?"
Well, I said I burned myself at work.
He was like, well, are you good enough of a friend
To burn a car down for george, you know?
- It was a traumatic time here in grand junction, colorado
That summer of 2007, what with the fruitless search
For the missing mother of three, loved by so many,
Who turned out to have secrets.
And the day planner and voicemails and phone records
That seemed to point eight different ways at once.
Two ex-husbands and six clients.
- Well, I don't think that I've ever seen
A more difficult case in my entire career.
- One by one, the detectives cleared their suspects,
Or tried to.
Ex-husband number one
And current boyfriend, ron beigler...
- We were able to determine that mr. Beigler
Had been in the denver area through cellphone records.
- Second husband rob dixon,
The one man she said she feared...
- We were able to corroborate with his employer
That he was in the philadelphia area
At the time.
- And rob dixon's cellphone connected to a tower
In pennsylvania the night paige disappeared.
And three days later,
When he left his message on paige's phone.
- Still, there were caveats to dixon and beigler's alibis.
- That doesn't eliminate them as far as, um,
Having some involvement and maybe paying somebody.
- Then there was the list of clients,
Coralluzzo at the top of it,
Given he didn't have a solid alibi
And skipped town right after her disappearance.
- Coralluzzo was the one that was most concerning.
- Not to mention coralluzzo's friend, jose tavera,
The one with the big burn on his arm,
Who swore he did not help coralluzzo
By setting fire to paige's car.
- I said I don't care if mother theresa comes
And asks me to burn a car,
I said I'd tell her to go to hell, you know?
- So, they let him go too, for the moment.
The other clients?
Hautzinger knew one of them very well,
A prominent real estate investor named steven hield.
He was almost as well known in town as rob dixon.
And like dixon, for the wrong reasons.
- The first major case I handled
When I came to this jurisdiction
Was his multimillion-dollar fraud case.
I mean, I prosecuted him and sent him to prison
Back in the early 1990s for that.
So, when he came up again as a suspect
In the birgfeld matter, it was interesting.
- When detectives questioned him,
Hield admitted he embezzled money
From his company to pay for dates with paige.
But then he claimed paige turned the tables on him.
- He made allegations that
She was essentially blackmailing him,
Asking for extra money.
- Authorities wondered could this be a motive for murder?
- Coming up...
A startling discovery about one of paige's clients...
- I thought, oh, my god. - ...Triggers a police search.
- He had their phone numbers, bra size,
And whether or not they would have sex.
- Strange, maybe, but did it mean anything?
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
I'm kate snow.
Friends said that when paige birgfeld met someone new,
She immediately put them at ease
Like she'd known them for years.
But there was a secret side of paige
Very few people knew.
And detectives suspected it may have led to
Her disappearance.
Now, they were about to receive an intriguing tip
That could tie one of her clients
To someone in paige's personal life.
And also to the crime.
Here again is keith morrison with "double lives".
- Paige birgfeld had disappeared,
Leaving behind three children and a secret life as an escort.
One of paige's clients, steven hield,
Told police she was blackmailing him.
It seemed like a promising lead
Except hield's wife supplied an alibi.
They were home that night reading, watching tv.
So, hield seemed to be in the clear,
Which made it all the more shocking
When after being questioned by detectives,
Hield attempted suicide.
That, d.A. Hautzinger assumed, was not guilt but shame.
- People don't really want to have it out in public
That, uh, yeah, I was patronizing a call girl.
- They checked out a drifter named john livingston
Who, the night paige vanished, called her again and again
From a motel 6, desperate, apparently,
For her attention.
Except there was no evidence paige ever went to see him.
But then there was this client, lester ralph jones.
That's him standing in the shadow of his front door.
Investigators got a tip about jones
From this friend of paige's named carol linderholm.
Paige had scheduled an appointment with jones
The night before she disappeared,
But for some reason didn't want to go,
Asked linderholm to meet jones instead.
- He was expecting her and then I think...
- And then you showed up at his door?
- Right.
- I'm sure he had some expectations, right?
I mean, he called an escort service.
- Well, he let it be known almost immediately
That he wanted sex.
- Linderholm said that didn't happen.
Instead, they talked for an hour or so
And then she left.
A couple of days later she said she called paige.
- Got no response.
- At first, I thought she was just busy,
And she couldn't call back.
And then when I heard on the news
That the kids actually went to
The police department about it,
That's when I knew something terrible
Had happened to her.
- Linderholm mentioned paige's second ex-husband,
Rob dixon, because she knew paige
Was afraid of him.
Then, the next day, linderholm heard about
Paige's car and the fire.
- I wanted to go over and-and look at it.
And I arrived just in time for --
It was put on a platform on a trailer
And it was being hauled away.
When it passed me, I just--
It just left me with this horrible feeling.
- As she drove away,
Something across the road caught her eye.
It was a sign for bob scott rv's.
- Lester jones had told me
That he worked for bob scott rv's.
And when I drove around, I saw a car in the parking lot
That was the same one that was in the driveway
When I walked up to lester jones' house.
And I thought, "oh, my god."
- Right away, carol went to the sheriff's office,
Told them all she knew about lester ralph jones.
- How much credence did you give that story?
Or did you?
- We gave it a lot of credence.
- In fact, a week after paige disappeared,
They brought jones in for questioning.
- Jones was once chief of a rural fire department,
Which is where his story gets strange.
- Rob dixon, paige's ex-husband.
- And had also met dixon's then-wife, paige.
- And was taken aback, jones claimed,
When a couple of years later
He went to the models, inc. Massage parlor
And was greeted by rob dixon's ex-wife.
- While jones answered questions downtown,
Investigators scoured his house and bob scott rv's
Where he worked.
- What did you find when you searched
Bob scott's rv location?
- A list of names of escorts that we knew
In the grand junction area where he had their names,
Phone numbers, bra size
And whether or not they would have sex.
And some viagra, also some, uh, condoms.
- Along with wigs, a black bra, and in a locked cabinet,
This old scale from pampered chef,
One of paige's many businesses.
Creepy. Certainly suspicious.
But not necessarily incriminating.
Besides, jones had no reason to kill paige.
No motive.
Which led investigators to a new theory.
- Coming up...
Investigators get lester ralph jones on the phone
For a very strange call.
- Which came out of nowhere.
- Because nobody had asked him where he buried the body.
- Nobody.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Detectives investigating the disappearance
Of paige birgfeld had a big hunch.
There just had to be some connection between
Lester ralph jones
And paige's second husband, rob dixon.
- They already knew dixon
Had been looking for dirt about paige,
Something he could use in family court
As a way of getting custody of their kids.
So, as the cops saw it, rob dixon had the motive
While lester ralph jones had the means.
So, maybe murder for hire.
But -- big but--
They couldn't find evidence of any contact
Between jones and dixon before paige vanished.
No phone calls, no wire transfers,
Nothing suspicious. Nothing at all, really.
Jones himself, on the other hand,
Oh, there were just too many holes in his story.
For starters, no alibi the night paige went missing.
And even worse, jones admitted that
When paige's car was set on fire,
He was at bob scott rv's, practically across the street.
- And guess what they found at jones' worksite?
A discarded package that once contained
A prepaid tracfone.
The disposable kind
That doesn't reveal the identity of the user.
Except on the package was the phone's serial number.
- And from that, we were able to determine
That the phone was bought at walmart on north avenue.
- So, they got the security camera video
And well, well, well.
The buyer looked a lot like lester ralph jones.
Why was that important?
Because someone using that particular tracfone
Called paige at model's, inc. Five times
The night she disappeared.
- If there was one thing that rose above all else,
It was the video of him buying the tracfone, um,
That was used to call her that evening.
- Except jones denied that was him in the video.
- Jones, as you can see, was unflappable.
Talked for five hours.
And then they had to let him go.
A couple of days later, a detective called jones
To say his two cars, which had been impounded,
Were now free to pick up.
And jones' wife answered the phone.
- Which came out of nowhere, which surprised us.
- Because nobody had asked him where he buried the body?
- Nobody had asked him about where he buried the body.
We were calling him about, uh, his vehicle.
And the day before,
We never talked about burying the body.
- Very, very strange.
And most certainly interesting.
When they found out why jones seemed so out of it,
He'd just taken an overdose of sleeping pills.
After leaving for his wife
What appeared to be a suicide note.
"my dearest love," he wrote, "I've prayed all night
"and this morning.
"I've asked for his forgiveness.
"I want you to know how much I love you.
"you're the best thing that has happened to me.
"please forgive me."
And then he added this.
Tell the cops to get -- I never did it,
But I can't be railroaded.
Jones recovered quickly, but his actions that day
Remained a mystery
Because he wasn't talking anymore to investigators.
- The evidence was definitely pointing toward, uh,
Lester jones.
But we still had to keep an eye open on mr. Livingston,
Mr. Hield, mr. Coralluzzo.
And remember that these are the ones we knew about.
Is there somebody else out there
We don't even know about yet?
- Didn't help with lab results from paige's car
Came back negative.
The fire burned it clean of evidence.
So, the sheriff's office turned to a volunteer
Search dog team for help.
And sure enough, the dogs appeared to
Hit on jones' scent in paige's charred car.
And along highway 50 where all those items were found.
And then they sniffed their way down this gravel road
That dead ends at the gunnison river.
When given paige's scent, the dogs followed
Exactly the same path along highway 50,
Down the gravel road, into the gunnison river.
So, was paige's body in here somewhere?
They called in divers.
- Basically, we go across the river about 100 feet.
They let us out five feet,
We come back across the river 100 feet.
And basically, just searching by feel.
I just got out of there
And it is pitch black at the bottom.
- But there just wasn't a body down there.
Swept away by the river, perhaps?
Anyway, the labor-intensive search of the countryside
Which had been going on for two long months,
Now seemed rather pointless.
So, at summer's end, the command post closed.
- I guess that's the only thing, at this point, to do
Because there aren't any more volunteers coming out
And people do have to return to their own lives.
- But that was not an option for paige's family.
Her parents rented an apartment in town
And carried on the search alone.
- This is my life now.
And I really wish I could get in a different line of work.
- Even offered a $15,000 reward, no questions asked.
- It's about 100 days and, uh, if she's out there,
We need to find her and, uh,
If this will help stimulate that, so be it.
- But no useful tips. Not a one.
Even though frank stayed on in grand junction
For a whole fruitless year.
- At some point, you have to say,
"do I want to stay here doing this
"or is it time to go back to denver?"
- What was it like on the way back to denver
As you realized you were leaving for good?
- Uh, I-I would say kind of a heaviness to it.
That, uh, somewhere she's back there
And I'm-I'm leaving her.
- But while no one knew where paige was,
There was one woman who had an idea
As to what may have happened to her.
This is lisa nance, who was rather briefly married
Once upon a time to lester ralph jones.
Lisa will always remember him.
- Coming up... The ex-wife's tale.
- He looked at me and he said, "I'm going to kill you."
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- My kids really liked him.
- No doubt about it, thought lisa nance,
Lester ralph jones was a catch.
Tall, strong, a firefighter, for heaven's sake.
And...
- He was a really nice person.
- Really nice, huh?
What do you mean by really nice? Nice how?
- He just seemed really nice, and genuine, and sweet.
- Well, you know how people are,
Caught up in the blinding glare of new love.
And then in a month or two or six,
Disturbing things began to occur.
Unimagined traits emerged.
And sometimes a nightmarish story.
Like the one lisa nance told us
About lester ralph jones.
- I caught him, you know, watching me and stuff,
You know. - What do you mean?
- Like watching me where I was going
And stuff like that.
- He tapped her phone, she said.
He hid secret recording devices.
- If I talked to any of my friends
Or anything like that and I didn't tell him,
You know, he would already know that I had talked to whoever.
- It just wasn't working for lisa.
She ended it.
Better sooner than later, she thought.
And she moved on.
But, of course, it wasn't over.
And one morning as she was driving her new boyfriend to work,
A car drew up beside her car.
It was him, jones.
- He, um, got up beside me and hit my car,
Which knocked me over into a ditch.
And then he pulled up and backed up really hard
And rammed my car.
And it caused the airbags and stuff to go off.
- The new boyfriend took off running,
But jones had a gun.
- He shot at him twice.
One bullet hole went through his cap,
And I think the other one grazed his head.
- And you were going to be next?
- Mm-hmm, I thought.
I thought that.
- You must have been shaking like a leaf.
- It was scary.
I asked him to put the gun down, you know,
Because he had it pointed right at me.
And finally, he put it in the back seat,
The back floorboard.
And then, you know, I talked to him
And tried to calm him down, you know.
- What was he saying to you?
- That I didn't love him anymore
And I didn't want him anymore, stuff like that.
And I was trying to convince him otherwise.
- Eventually, he left. She called the police.
He was arrested, but in no time made bail.
And then lisa was at home a few weeks later.
- I came out of my room and I went to the kitchen
And I turned around
And he was just sitting on the couch.
I mean, just sitting in the dark.
My stomach just, you know, sank.
I mean, I asked him what on earth
Are you doing here, you know?
And he didn't say anything.
And that's when I really got scared
Because he just didn't look like himself.
And he wouldn't say anything.
- He had something on his mind?
- I think so. It seemed like it anyways.
I didn't know what it was.
He just didn't-- and I wanted to get out of the house,
You know, as quick as we could.
I just wanted to get out in public,
Around other people.
- She said what came into her head.
"let's go out to dinner."
And he agreed, got behind the wheel, started driving.
But then she realized he wasn't going to dinner.
He was headed out of town toward the mountains.
- I was like where are we going?
And he wouldn't say anything.
He just kept rubbing the back of my head
Saying it's gonna be okay.
- Rubbing the back of your head? - Mm-hmm.
- What sort of tone did he have in his voice
When he said that?
- He wasn't being loud; he wasn't yelling
Or anything like that.
He was just really, really quiet.
- That's a little creepy. - Mm-hmm.
And I looked at him and I said,
"we're not gonna eat, are we?"
And he looked at me and he said, "no."
And I said, "what are we gonna do?"
And he's like, "I'm going to kill you."
And then he just started slapping me over and over.
- The moment had come for you.
- Mm-hmm. That's what I thought.
Because all I could think about was my kids,
You know, not seeing them. - Yeah.
- But I was like trying to talk to him, you know,
And trying to get him to talk to me,
Listen to me, you know?
He's like, "you don't love me anymore.
"you don't want me."
And I said, "no, that's not true."
You know? And he's like, "well, then prove it."
And I said, "how?" you know?
And he wanted me to make love to him in the car.
And so, I tried, you know, but there wasn't no room.
So, I asked him if we could just go get a room
And talk, you know.
And so finally, he agreed to that.
- So, what happened when you got to the--
Got to town?
- Um, we went to that motel and he pulled in there
And he looked at me.
He's like, 'you'll be waiting here when I come back?"
And I said yes. So, he goes in.
As soon as he went in that second door
And he was out of sight, I took off.
I started driving back toward town.
And I was going really fast, hoping that...
- I should think so.
- Hoping that someone would pull me over.
And they did.
And finally, I told him what was happening
And then they took me back to the police station.
- Some officers went to the motel
To arrest jones, but...
- They said they couldn't find him.
He wasn't there.
- Where was he?
Lisa, still shaken, still terrified, went home.
And he called.
- The first thing he said was, "where are you?"
And I just hung up and I called 911.
And they took me to a safe house.
- And did they catch him?
What?
- No, they didn't know where to look.
- A few days later, somebody broke into
Lisa's mother's house in oklahoma.
- She called me later that day
And said when she was leaving work
That she noticed this car was following her.
And she said it was ralph.
And she called the sheriff's department.
And she's like, "he's here. He's following me."
And they arrested him.
My mom said she asked him what was he doing
And he said looking for your daughter.
- Lester ralph jones was convicted of assault
And kidnapping and served three years.
But now, he was out and remarried.
And by the fall of 2007,
A pile of circumstantial evidence connected him
To paige birgfeld's disappearance.
- Why didn't you just go arrest him?
- My job is to gather the facts
And then present it to the district attorney's office
And they make that determination.
You want to add? Because he had to fight
That battle constantly for years.
- I think you hit it-- you hit it right on.
- Meaning they were ready to pick up jones,
But d.A. Hautzinger was not.
- Why didn't you decide to pull the pin
On lester ralph jones. - We didn't have a body.
- And that was the defining thing?
- Absolutely. That was really...
- I mean, there are lots of no body cases
That go to trial.
- Not a lot of no body cases
Where the victim has a double life
And has been lying to her family and friends.
Because of her double life, the possibility that
The defense attorney could throw out there
That she ran off with some rich client
And is living on a beach in brazil or something...
- And as the years passed, paige's story went from
The front of the paper
To being filed away on microfiche.
Where was she?
- They were about to find out.
And it would transform the case.
- Now, we need to make a critical decision.
- And then a brand-new theory of what happened to paige.
- I think that triggered something
And something went wrong.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Welcome back.
Paige birgfeld had been missing for seven years.
But she was never far from investigators' minds.
They had no shortage of possible suspects,
But without a body, the prosecutor
Was reluctant to bring charges.
Now, detectives were about to get the break they needed.
A bombshell discovery that would finally unlock the secret
Of what happened to paige.
Here again is keith morrison with "double lives".
- Grand junction, colorado has been a boom-and-bust
Sort of place over the years,
But the great majestic cliffs are eternal.
The monument, they call this, guardian of the rugged
And beautiful places that have drawn bikers
And hikers and rafters for years.
Like the couple trekking through the wells gulch
On March 6, 2012.
And pretty soon, paige's dad got
Another one of those phone calls.
This time, from a local reporter.
- And he said, "did you know they found paige's remains
"this morning?" and he--
He asked if anybody had called me.
And I said you're the-- you're the first one.
- It took time, though, to be certain it was her.
- In a couple of weeks or so it was verified
That it was, in fact, paige's remains.
- She was just a few miles south of the place
Where all those documents were found along the roadside.
So it had to have been paige who left that trail,
Said the police.
A call for help or an arrow pointing
To where to find her.
And all that while restrained.
They found remnants of duct tape
Still wrapped around her jaw.
- And we really think the searchers were here.
To miss it, you know, it's like,
"darn, how did that happen?"
- Probably, said the detectives, her killer buried her
Five years earlier, way back in 2007
When she first disappeared.
And eventually, what was left of her
Was unearthed by a heavy spring runoff.
And so, said d.A. Hautzinger...
- Here we go!
This is what I've been waiting for!
Um, now we need to really put the pedal to the metal
And make a critical decision.
- So now, finally with a body, investigators once again
Attempted to fashion a murder case
Against one of the eight possible suspects.
The two ex-husbands, rob dixon and ron beigler,
Had what looked like solid alibis,
What with both their cellphones being hundreds of miles away
When paige was kidnapped and killed.
So, that left the six clients.
Of course, lester ralph jones was at the top of the list.
But george coralluzzo, remember him?
- Coralluzzo was the alternate suspect
That gave me, as the d.A.,
Heartburn and concerns.
- That's because coralluzzo's alibi
Was so hard to pin down.
Multiple witnesses said he was partying that night
At joes tavera's apartment.
But what time exactly?
Well, that depended on who you spoke to.
But what everybody did agree was this:
Coralluzzo was out of control.
- Uh, he was intoxicated.
Like slurring his words, you know,
And not being able to focus.
He wouldn't have been able to-to, you know, murder her
And then go get rid of the body.
You know, he was incapable of it.
- Of course, tavera might have been lying
To protect his friend.
Detectives wanted to talk to coralluzzo himself,
But they couldn't find him.
So, they asked tavera for help.
- They're like well, do you know where george is?
I said george is dead.
- Drowned the year before while swimming
In a river in new jersey.
Still, to satisfy the d.A., investigators had to make a case
That coralluzzo was either guilty or innocent.
But because dead men don't talk,
It meant they had to slog through seven years of reports,
And interviews, and statements.
And it was two years after paige's body was discovered,
While wading through that mountain of material,
An investigator stumbled on an overlooked piece of evidence
That would change the whole case.
It was security camera video of coralluzzo's friends,
Including tavera, at a market the night paige disappeared.
Coralluzzo wasn't in the video, mind you, but the timestamp
Backed up the story, minute by minute,
That tavera had been telling the cops.
Suddenly, lifting his credibility
And, in turn, helping to establish
Coralluzzo's whereabouts the night paige disappeared.
- That video helped to corroborate
What the witness was saying.
It was piecing together a timeline of where he was,
Where we could prove he was during
The relevant window of opportunity.
- Right.
- That evening and the next day when paige went missing.
And by interviewing lots of different people
Who had been with coralluzzo or had talked to him,
We were able to painstakingly,
Essentially alibi him.
- Hautzinger felt he finally had enough
To take the case to a jury.
And in November 2014, seven and one-half years
After paige vanished, police arrested
Lester ralph jones for her murder.
But did they know the whole story now?
Oh, no, they certainly did not.
They didn't know where or even how paige was killed.
- It would have been nice to have
That additional piece of evidence
Or additional puzzle piece
To put into the jigsaw.
- Well, it would help you tell the story, too.
- Exactly.
- And telling the story is an important thing
For a prosecutor to be able to do.
- It's really the entire thing.
I don't have to prove motive, for example, um...
But I usually try to anyway because the jury wants to know,
Why did this person do this.
- So, tell us the story.
What happened, in your view?
- I think, uh, lester jones
Was obsessed with paige
And she had not enjoyed her time with him
And was putting him off.
And I think that triggered something.
- Mm-hmm. - That's why he got the tracfone.
And something went wrong.
My guess is that he physically subdued her
And drove her down to where her body was found,
But she was conscious and had the ability
To throw some of the things out the window or the trunk
Or whatever it was leaving that trail going down to delta.
And that she was ultimately killed wherever--
Not far from where her body was found.
- But the defense had its own compelling story to tell.
Or rather stories.
A separate tale for each of those alternate suspects.
A waste of time?
Well, maybe not.
Remember, it takes just one juror with reasonable doubt
To throw a whole case into-- well, you'll see.
At trial, the defense goes hard
At the original lead detective in the case.
- Did you actually receive an official reprimand
For the poor quality of work you did in this case?
- Maybe the case against jones never stood a chance.
- If you're doing shoddy work in the beginning,
Your investigation becomes sick.
It's almost impossible to make it well again.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- In a town with zero degrees of separation,
Paige birgfeld's disappearance and murder
Impacted many here.
If they didn't know paige personally,
Then they were in on the search,
Or were a potential witness, or knew somebody who was.
Or in the worst case,
Knew one of the possible suspects.
So, when the trial finally got underway,
The town's attention was very much focused
On this courtroom.
- We're on the record in 1401432 mr. Jones...
- But the trouble began before a single witness
Could be called.
Ron beigler was angry, wound up.
The new district attorney, dan rubenstein,
Was set to call paige's first husband.
He was a key witness.
But was afraid he might actually attack jones
In the courtroom
Because beigler had actually threatened to kill him.
- And indicated that he wanted mr. Jones
To be found not guilty so that he could kill him
And feed him his genitals,
But used a different word than that.
- Proceedings ground to a sudden halt.
Beigler was hauled before the judge.
- If you have any outbursts or you do anything
In an attempt to harm anybody in the courtroom,
That that will result in serious consequences.
- I think it's overexaggerated.
Or council may be taken out of context.
- Chastened, but still insisting it was all a misunderstanding,
Beigler took the stand and testified
About his last day with paige.
- We talked about me moving into her house in grand junction.
We talked about her quitting that business.
- Which business?
- The adult entertainment business.
- Did you give her reasons why you wanted her to quit?
- Mm-hmm. - What were the reasons you said?
- Because she could get killed, for one.
- The jury heard about it all.
The day planner, items along the roadside,
The bits of paper left along the highway.
The search dogs who scented on jones.
The tracfone jones bought then lied about.
And the apparent suicide note he'd left for his wife.
And the jury heard that strange call jones had
With the deputy when jones said...
- Lisa nance told the jury the harrowing tale
Of the night jones took her into the mountains.
- And he looked at me and he said,
"I'm going to kill you."
- And there was this.
- The prosecution played the fearful phone messages
Paige's then eight-year-old daughter jess left
On her mother's cellphone.
- And here was jess today, a senior in high school
But still able to give a child's perspective
Of a very loving mother.
- She was pretty much a typical soccer mom.
She, uh, we did everything with her.
We all slept in the same bed with her
And we always went shopping together.
And she took us to all of our soccer games
And to school and she provided us with everything
That we needed, whatever that may have been.
- A procession of witnesses that lasted for weeks.
And the defense team's response?
That this was all so much show
To distract from a shoddy investigation
That focused on jones from the start,
Despite the lack of any physical evidence.
- Do you solemnly swear...
- And they drove that theory home by boldly calling
Former lead investigator beverly jarrell.
Remember her?
She was in charge of the investigation
And all those detectives from the beginning.
- Good afternoon.
- Yet was never called to testify for the prosecution.
Perhaps for good reason.
- Would you agree, investigator jarrell,
That you made some mistakes in this investigation?
- Uh, yes. - Okay.
Has it come to your attention that you did, in fact,
Forget to book in a few recordings into evidence?
- Yes.
- Jarrell admitted reports had gone unwritten
And evidence was actually lost.
Like jose tavera's first police interview.
- And did you actually receive an official reprimand
For the poor quality of work you did in this case?
- Um, I don't remember that.
- You don't remember getting a major disciplinary action
Because you kept evidence from this case in your office?
- In writing? No.
- Jarrell said her memory has been fuzzy
Since a 2010 horse-riding accident.
Something that happened three years after the slipups
On the birgfeld case.
And then came the alternate suspects.
The guy who called paige from that motel 6.
- And in that storage unit, you had numerous guns, right?
- I did have.
- This former client who allegedly discussed killing paige.
- Did you tell ms. Whalen that you had killed ms. Birgfeld
By putting ms. Birgfeld through a woodchipper?
- No, ma'am.
Somebody said something about did you do this to paige,
Or did you murder paige, and I said,
Just out of context, had I-- had I,
Uh, they wouldn't find her
Because I'd have used a woodchipper.
And it was totally out of context.
- The client who admitted embezzling his company's money
To pay paige.
- Did you kill ms. Birgfeld? - No.
- Are you responsible for her disappearance?
- Absolutely not.
- And then the defense went after jose tavera,
Who admitted he was so tight with coralluzzo
He would have done just about anything for his friend.
- Including burning a car to help him
If he needed that done? - I wouldn't do that.
- You wouldn't do that? - No, I would not.
- That's the one thing you wouldn't do?
- Yeah.
- Meagan williams told the jury she was sure
The killer was really coralluzzo.
- He was a pathological liar and anything that came out
Of his mouth was a lie.
And any story that he made up was made up.
- So many suspects, said the defense.
And they put on a retired detective
To accuse the police of tunnel vision.
- Because if you're doing shoddy work in the beginning
And you're not paying attention to all the details
And all of the information and vetting all of the leads,
Your investigation becomes sick.
It's almost impossible to make it well again.
- As for forensic evidence, said the defense,
Forget about it.
They called an expert to say there is no way
A dog can follow a month-old scent.
- My opinion is that it's not possible.
- If true, that meant there was no proof jones
Had ever been in paige's car or along the highway
Where her belongings were found.
By the end of the six-week trial,
The jury had heard from more than a hundred witnesses,
Testifying about a nine-year investigation
Involving multiple suspects.
So, it wasn't surprising, during deliberations,
The jury came back with one question after the other.
Prosecutor dan rubenstein...
- I started to get worried
And the question popped into my mind,
Is it possible to ever convince 12 people
Beyond a reasonable doubt, unanimously,
As to an answer on this case?
And I started to worry about that.
- Please rise for the jury.
- On day three, the judge called the hurry
Into his courtroom to ask...
- Is there a likelihood of progress towards
A unanimous verdict?
- After getting this far,
Is the prosecution's case coming undone?
- Jurors speaking out saying the case went wrong
From the start with the original lead detective.
- She just boggled me when she was just,
"I don't remember. I don't know."
And you're a lead investigator?
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- By day three of deliberations,
The jury sent word to the judge.
They were deadlocked.
- Is there a likelihood of progress towards
A unanimous verdict?
- No. - No? All right.
Thank you.
- The judge ordered them back to deliberate further.
But now, of course, there was concern.
- So, they will make it- make another effort,
Considering each other's opinions further.
And if they're unable to reach a verdict,
We'll declare a mistrial and reset the trial.
- Less than two hours later,
Another message from the jury.
- And it states as follows:
"the jury remains in the same position.
"we are not unanimous in our decision.
"we do not feel any further discussion
"will change our current state."
- And that was it.
The judge had no option but to declare a mistrial.
Minutes later, paige's dad frank
Tried to keep it positive.
- Listen, if we hadn't had a trial,
That would have been a problem.
This was a massive effort.
It was well done.
I am grateful they gave us a shot at it.
- But like so many times in the past,
Frank's façade cracked just a bit
And the pain slipped through.
- At the end, they showed a nice picture of paige.
That all kind of came down.
- In my heart, I believed he was guilty.
- A handful of jurors spoke to us afterwards
To explain how the trial played out for them.
This man, william sullivan, voted guilty.
- Because of the evidence. You know?
Nobody has that bad of luck in one week.
- And this man, judd swihart, was disturbed
By lead investigator beverly jarrell's testimony.
- She just, uh, just boggled me
When she was on the stand and just,
"I don't remember; I don't know."
Or whatever.
And you're a lead investigator?
You-- they should have replaced her immediately.
- Still, he voted guilty. But there were others.
Three, all told, who couldn't overcome their doubts.
One of them was bobbi sanabria,
Who spoke for the three dissenters.
- The fact that there was not enough evidence for them
To get past the reasonable doubt.
- Prosecutor dan rubenstein said in a way he understood.
- The biggest weakness of the case, in my opinion,
Was that there was just no eyewitnesses
That placed mr. Jones with ms. Birgfeld that night
And we really didn't know exactly how she was killed.
- And he conceded the defense did an admirable job
Protecting jones.
- I think the point that they were trying to make
Was a good one, which is it could be anyone.
It could be somebody we never thought of.
- So, the seasons slip by,
And now with the leaves gone and snow falling,
A retrial.
- Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
- And with time and money tight, all knew this would be
Rubenstein's last shot at jones.
Another mistrial would be just as good as an acquittal.
- Do you solemnly swear...
- And so, it all played out as before.
- You have a track record of being dishonest.
- Yes.
- The same witnesses.
- Did you kill ms. Birgfeld?
- No, ma'am.
- The same testimony.
- I have never been able to run a dog on a trail
That's a month old.
- The same alternate suspects.
- In your opinion, did the sheriff's office conduct
An objective investigation?
- No.
- The same closing argument from the defense.
- This man is innocent, and he stays that way
Unless these people can convince you otherwise,
Beyond a reasonable doubt.
- But what was different this time
Was rubenstein's closing argument.
Taking the alternate suspects seriously,
He went after each theory one by one with attitude.
- And to think that somebody who's so drunk
That three different people have to cart them around,
Who's probably also on cocaine,
Is capable of doing this, carefully doing it,
And then going back and cleaning it up,
Carefully, with a car fire
That's specifically targeted to get the evidence.
To tear pages out of a day planner.
I mean, does this sound like george coralluzzo at all?
No.
- But would that make a difference
To this new jury?
Few thought so.
And so, while deliberations went on from one day
To the next, paige's parents braced themselves.
- I think there's a reasonable chance
It could be another mistrial.
If it is a mistrial, I expect jones
Will walk out a free man.
- And just as in the first trial,
The jury deliberated for three days
Before sending a note to the judge.
Please be seated.
- But this time, there was a verdict.
- We, the jury, find the defendant
Lester ralph jones guilty of count one,
Murder in the first degree.
- The jury also found jones guilty of second-degree murder
And second-degree kidnapping.
The judge sentenced him to life without parole
For the murder,
Plus an additional 12 years for second-degree kidnapping.
Jones has filed an appeal.
- When the verdict came in,
I think we were supposed to feel elated,
Like the home team kicked a field goal
With two seconds left and we just won.
And to be honest, I didn't feel that.
Uh, there were no winners in this case.
Uh, none of this brings paige back to us.
- What about you?
- This is about paige.
This is about paige who has been gone
And will not be able to come back to her friends,
Her brother, her parents, her kids.
- Who moved to pennsylvania soon after paige vanished.
The birgfelds tried to get custody,
But a judge ruled against them and in favor
Of the father, rob dixon.
- It's been the book of job for you two.
- Just trying to get back to our normal lives.
And we won't.
We never will be what we were.
It's changed, I think, each of us.
But we're working at trying to get back to normal and...
- Or something like it.
- A big word that always hangs over the room is closure.
And, um, I'm not sure what that means.
- Paige birgfeld was kidnapped.
- There were difficult moments for the birgfelds
During the murder trial.
Like the first time they heard
The frightened voicemail messages
Of their grandchildren.
- And I would tell you that was a hard part.
- That was the hardest for me.
- There is almost a recognition that you're in trouble.
Please don't be in trouble.
Please come home to us.
- And then there was the day planner
When the sweet, mundane details of paige's life
And those of her children were made real once more.
The family nights, soccer games,
The dance recitals and birthday parties
And library visits.
They were all there.
The precious, chaotic rhythms of a family that once was.
Proof that there was a time when all was as it should be.
Proof also, that time is gone forever.
- That's all for this edition
Of "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
I'm kate snow. Thank you for watching.