PETTEE: There was a clear bullet hole
on the right side of his temple.
Next to him is that unknown person,
and I can just see the blood pouring out of his head.
Just the worst thing I've ever seen.
NARRATOR: A shocking double murder
in a small town funeral home.
It had been 25 years since we had a homicide.
This was something totally new to us.
We weren't expecting it.
Was the person paranoid and found an affair was going on?
NARRATOR: A list of suspects
both radical and unusual.
Sometimes people have very extreme beliefs,
and that can lead to violence.
In the letter that they sent out, they threatened death.
NARRATOR: The truth will be revealed.
The only person that would know this information
is the shooter -- That is our killer.
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: Every day in North America,
dozens of people are murdered.
The key to solving the toughest of these homicides
lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life.
To crack the case,
detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline,
the minutes and hours containing evidence
that can help unlock the mystery
and catch the killer.
♪♪
Hudson, Wisconsin -- a small,
sleepy town on the western edge of the state bordering
the scenic St. Croix River.
Hudson's a small bedroom community.
It's a kind of a town where everybody knows everybody.
People are comfortable with leaving their cars unlocked,
they're comfortable leaving their doors open.
NARRATOR: Hudson is also home to the annual Pepper Fest.
In the 1950s, there was a large Italian population,
and that was the origin of the Pepper Fest.
There's a pepper eating contest,
a pound of peppers, and if you can do it about 10 to
15 seconds, you're doing pretty good.
There's a Pepper Rest royalty.
They have a queen, several princesses, and a king.
NARRATOR: But on a cold February afternoon,
police received a 911 call that shatters the innocence of
this close-knit community forever.
I'll never forget the 911 call.
It came in at about 1:40 p.m.,
and the dispatcher said that there was
a shooting at the O'Connell funeral home.
There are two bodies that have been shot.
NARRATOR: The response from law enforcement is swift.
Police, ambulances, helicopters,
and a SWAT team all descend on the funeral home.
So we had all hands on deck coming to assess, because
this is a typical that nobody ever heard
over the police radio.
It had been 25 years since we had a homicide in Hudson.
This was something totally new to us.
We weren't expecting it.
NARRATOR: Detectives find the bodies of 39-year-old
Dan O'Connell, the funeral home director,
and 22-year-old James Ellison, his intern.
Dan O'Connell was one of the most friendly,
outgoing, energetic,
loving people you could ever meet.
He was involved in everything.
He was a former North Hudson Pepper King.
Everybody loved Dan O'Connell.
He was just a stellar individual.
JENNIE: Dan was my soul mate, love of my life.
We were the best of friends.
Besides being lifelong partners and parents,
he was just always compassionate.
He could make everybody feel comfortable.
PETTEE: James Ellison was a 22-year-old student
who always dreamed about being the funeral director.
James had a longtime girlfriend,
high school sweetheart,
and they had planned on getting married.
And he picked O'Connell funeral home because he thought, "Hey,
I want to learn from the best."
NARRATOR: Tasked with solving the brutal double homicide
of Dan O'Connell and James Ellison
is rookie detective Sean Pettee.
PETTEE: You have to prepare yourself mentally.
How am I gonna...
balance my emotions with what I need to get done?
In my mind, this is a close, personal friend
that's murdered.
It's time to take a deep breath and look
at the big picture.
I have to fix this somehow.
I owe the family.
NARRATOR: Detectives begin their investigation
by surveying the crime scene.
PETTEE: Dan has an obvious bullet hole to his head,
and next to him is James hunched over, and he's bleeding,
and I can just see the blood pouring out of his head,
obviously deceased, as well.
Both of them, their colors were gone.
I've seen a lot of death.
I've seen a lot of suicides.
I've seen a lot of gunshot wounds, but this was different.
Investigators look for clues to help establish
the time of death and a possible motive.
Because the blood was still running down the walls,
we knew that this was a relatively fresh crime.
We received the call at 1:40 p.m., and we determined
that it probably happened within the past two hours,
so somewhere between 11:40 a.m.
and 1:40 p.m.
The first question I asked myself was,
is this a robbery that went bad?
But the office was basically undisturbed.
The landline was still in the cradle.
There was nothing that appeared out of place in there,
no signs of a struggle.
And James clearly had his wallet in
his left pocket, it was in plain view.
So in my mind, I'm thinking this
is something far beyond a robbery gone bad.
The bullets were recovered
and sent to a crime lab,
and we determined that they came from a nine-millimeter weapon.
The shell casings that were phoned on the ground actually
told us a lot about the crime scene.
We believed that our killer
walked into the office,
walked right over to the desk,
and as Dan is pushing up,
getting up off the chair,
probably gonna say, "Now, wait a minute."
Suspect's got a gun and fires one...
[gunshot blasts]
And hits him right in the head.
It appeared that James
walked in,
saw Dan deceased,
and started walking behind the desk over to see him.
[gunshot blasts]
Then all the sudden, he hears a gunshot,
and he dropped his papers, and went into a defensive mode.
[gunshot blasts]
And that's when the third shot came, hit him in
the pinky, went through his head,
and out his head and into the wall.
So now we believe that Dan was shot first
and was most likely the original target.
James just happened to be an innocent bystander,
and he had to be killed, because he was a witness.
Whoever did this went right in with
the sole purpose that I'm gonna kill Dan.
He didn't have a chance to defend himself.
He didn't have a chance to say anything.
He just was murdered, point blank.
NARRATOR: To catch Dan's killer, detectives will need to
unravel the final 24 hours of his life.
Now, I'm looking at Dan and saying, "Okay, wait a minute.
What did he do wrong?"
Is somebody that angry that they're gonna kill him?
NARRATOR: The first person detectives look at
is Dan's widow, Jennie.
PETTEE: One of the toughest things for me is to have
to go and ask a lot of the hard questions.
I know I have to get personal with Jennie.
I need to find out what's going on.
What do you know? Are you involved?
Everyone knows that the first person you think of
is the spouse, you know, that's who did it.
And so I knew that I was number-one suspect.
PETTEE: I had to ask Jennie, was there any extramarital affairs?
And I assured her that I wasn't
gonna pass judgment on either one of them.
But we had to find out.
She said they were happily married, in love.
Then I asked her about the life insurance policies.
Is she gonna benefit hugely with Dan being gone?
Is there a motive for her to want him dead?
People do things for money. Money talks.
It's the power of greed.
But she said that life insurance policy
was not an extensive amount,
nor was it to be paid out immediately.
So we didn't believe it was a life insurance issue.
NARRATOR: Detectives ask Jennie where she was during
the time they believe Dan and James were killed.
This starts the timeline for me.
Jennie said that about 7:40 a.m.,
Dan left for a meeting in Baldwin, Wisconsin.
Jennie stayed home until she brought
the kids to school, about eight o'clock, 8:15.
Because her son's birthday was coming up,
she spent the entire morning and the afternoon preparing
the house for the guests for the birthday party.
[phone ringing]
She told me that she received a phone call from a friend
advising her that there was some type of incident at
the funeral home.
She immediately stopped what she was doing
and drove directly to the funeral home.
We check Jennie's alibi,
and it was confirmed by friends and neighbors
that she was where she said she was.
NARRATOR: With Jennie ruled out as a suspect,
Detectives ask if she knows of anyone
who would want to hurt Dan.
I racked my brains, because nobody disliked him.
Nobody talked bad about him.
I had no scenarios going through my head.
I had no clue.
NARRATOR: Working to fill out Dan's timeline,
detectives asked Jennie where Dan was going when he left
the house the morning of his death.
She tells them he was headed to
a meeting with his business partner and brother, Mike.
Now that we've cleared Jennie, we have take a look at Mike.
Mike is operating a funeral home in Baldwin.
Dan's operating one in Hudson.
Are they arguing? Are they complaining?
Is there any kind of a hardship between the two of them?
Mike agrees to meet in my office, and I ask him,
"Is there any kind of problems between you guys?"
Mike informed me that both funeral homes
were doing very well.
There was no financial hardships on either Dan or Mike.
In fact, knowing both of them,
you couldn't find a closer combination of brothers there.
Those two were as tight as a drum.
NARRATOR: Detectives ask Mike where he was during
the critical time they believe Dan and James were killed.
Mike and Dan were together between
eight o'clock in the morning and nine.
Mike did subsequently leave to run some errands
in Hudson, and Mike got back to
the funeral home in Baldwin about 11:30 a.m.,
which was confirmed by his secretary.
We know that Mike stayed
at the funeral home from 11:30 until the time he was notified
of the shooting.
NARRATOR: With Mike ruled out as a person of interest,
detectives turn back to the crime scene,
looking for new clues.
PETTEE: We find a calendar in the office.
And what was unique about it was there was a appointment
at one o'clock that Dan had,
for whatever reason, bumped back to two o'clock.
So what is so important that he had to bump that back?
Clearly, he has another meeting with somebody that
he has to get taken care of right away.
Now we need to figure out who Dan was meeting
at one o'clock, because that is more than likely our killer.
NARRATOR: Detectives are working the theory that the person
Dan O'Connell had a 1 p.m. appointment with on
the day he was murdered could be his killer.
[gunshot blasts]
In an attempt to find out who that is,
they interview his colleagues.
Dan and the family had a close relationship with St. Pat's,
the Catholic Church in Hudson.
Father Ryan Erickson was one of the priests at St. Pat's,
and because of the funeral home business,
they had a working and personal relationship
with Ryan Erickson.
NARRATOR: Investigators hope that Father Erickson
can help them figure out who Dan's
1 p.m. appointment was with.
Father Erickson knew Dan very well.
He considered him a friend.
They worked a lot of funerals together.
I asked him, "Hey, what do you think happened?
Tell me what you know."
NARRATOR: Father Erickson suggests that Dan might
be having an affair with his secretary, Bonnie.
PETTEE: Dan and Bonnie worked very close together.
They did a lot together.
There were conferences that the two had to attend.
So we need to look,
"Hey, is there an affair going on here?
"Could Bonnie's husband, Duane, be involved?
Did he find something out?"
NARRATOR: Working the theory that Dan O'Connell
may have been killed by a jealous husband,
detectives bring Duane down to the station for questioning.
PETTEE: Duane was standoffish.
It appeared to me that he was hiding something,
that he knew more.
I asked Duane if he was a jealous husband.
He said he did not like the fact that
Bonnie had to go to these events with Dan.
He thought, "You know what? Dan, go by yourself."
"She needs to be home with the family,
with the kids, with me."
So he had a little bit of jealousy
that she was going on these events with Dan.
NARRATOR: Suspicious of Duane,
they ask him for his alibi on the day Dan was killed.
He's a dairy farmer,
and he said, "Just like every other morning,
I get up, and I start milking at 5 a.m."
After he was done milking, he continued doing chores.
About 12 o'clock, he borrowed a friend's
truck to run to a supply store.
We were able to confirm
the fact that he did borrow the truck,
and he did return it at approximately 1 o'clock p.m.
NARRATOR: Duane says he then stayed on the farm, because
he had a meeting scheduled there at two o'clock.
So now we know that he dropped the truck off
at one o'clock and had a meeting at two o'clock,
so that gives him a one-hour window to kill Dan.
We know that the homicides occurred somewhere
before 1:40 p.m.
It's 30 minutes from his farm to the funeral home.
It would be almost impossible for
him to drive from Baldwin to Hudson,
kill two people,
get back in his vehicle, and get back in
the timeframe that is basically unaccounted for.
[gunshot blasts]
We now have to rule Duane out,
because of the timeframe.
And now we start over from square one.
Where do we go from here?
We have nothing. Absolutely nothing.
NARRATOR: With the investigation hitting a wall,
detectives examine the victim's phone records
looking for new clues.
We want to get a tighter timeline.
At 1:07, Dan calls an engraving company.
Then, at 1:22,
a call is placed to James's cellphone,
but it goes unanswered.
So somewhere between 1:07 and 1:22
is what we believe was the time of the crime.
NARRATOR: Having narrowed down Dan's time of death
to between 1:07 and 1:22 p.m.,
investigators attend his funeral, looking for new
leads that could point to his killer.
ARNTFIELD: I've always advocated that
police investigators attend the funeral,
discreetly, because a suspect, if they attend the funeral,
and they frequently will, are there to monitor
the investigation.
Often, their behavior will give them away.
They're either too over the top,
or they're too underwhelmed.
Either way, it will stand out,
and it will help you narrow your suspect pool.
The funeral was held in the Catholic church,
and it was standing room only.
Hundreds of people standing outside of the church.
JENNIE: It was just amazing how many people came.
It was just breathtaking that he had touched that many people,
and people -- That people would say,
"You met Dan O'Connell once,
you were his best friend for life."
That's how he made you feel.
So here I am, mourning the loss of my friend, yet still keeping
my eyes and ears open, because this -- this case isn't solved.
We have nobody.
We actually had had undercover officers canvass the area,
and we ran license plate checks on every single
vehicle -- hundreds, hundreds of vehicles.
NARRATOR: But investigators leave the funeral empty-handed.
We have no leads. It's gonna go cold.
And the frustrating part is,
I'm not ready to be done.
But I don't have anywhere else to go.
NARRATOR: As the case stalls, the FBI contacts
the Hudson Police Department with a surprising new lead.
PETTEE: About a month into the investigation,
our department received a call from the FBI stating that there
is a religious group about an hour and 1/2 east of Hudson
called the Rest of Jesus Ministries.
And it's kind of a radical group
that is against the embalming of bodies.
The Rest of Jesus Ministries believed that
the body should be wrapped in a shroud
and shown as-is.
NARRATOR: When detectives look into the organization,
they learn something alarming.
ERIC: They sent out over 400 letters to funeral homes
in the community or in the area,
and in the letter, they threaten death.
Based upon that pamphlet,
we looked at it as a possible motive for a killing.
This changes everything.
NARRATOR: Detectives are working a new theory that a religious
cult may have targeted funeral home director
Dan O'Connell for betraying their beliefs.
The letters appeared threatening in nature,
and that is a red flag to me.
WOMAN: Pickling of the body by the draining of the blood
is an abomination to me, and this practice must cease.
Failure to comply will bring
a judgment of much death upon this land.
When I read that letter, I'm thinking this is a radical
group that would do almost anything
to get their point across.
They distributed over 400 pamphlets to various
funeral homes, and our department
wanted to know if the Hudson Funeral Home,
and in particular, Dan O'Connell,
received a letter from the Rest of Jesus Ministries.
NARRATOR: Detectives run a background check
on the group's leader, Kathryn Padilla.
We found out that she had been arrested
twice for disorderly conduct and two counts of stalking.
To me, she potentially has a motive to
commit such a crime based upon her past history.
ARNTFIELD: Kathryn immediately jumps out in my mind as a viable
suspect in that we have this strange ideological fixation,
even an obsession.
She's part of this anti-embalming cult,
and then she has a history of stalker-like behavior.
Combine those things, you're talking about
someone very obsessive, very committed, someone who can
act, then, very dangerously.
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: Believing Kathryn Padilla could be responsible for
a double homicide,
detectives travel to Augusta, Wisconsin, to interrogate her.
What we learned from her is that...
[indistinct whispering voices]
...she is the prophet of approximately
25 people consisting of adults and children.
She holds these little gatherings at her home
every Saturday and talks about Biblical scriptures.
And she speaks in tongues.
To me, that's very odd.
STOCKDALE: And often times, cult leaders are very charismatic.
They draw followers to them.
They can influence them into doing what they want.
In popular terms,
we might call this brainwashing or mind control,
but really, what it is
is a coercive process where people manipulate
and exploit others to do what they want.
Sometimes that ends in violence.
NARRATOR: When investigators confront Kathryn
with the threatening letters she sent to funeral directors,
she has a quick answer.
PETTEE: She just said it was simply an expression of her
religious belief and that she isn't going to harm anybody.
It's taken out of context.
NARRATOR: Suspecting Kathryn is lying to them,
detectives carry out a search warrant of her home.
PETTEE: We did do a search warrant Katherine's apartment
and seized several documents,
including a letter that said, "Prepare for war."
As alarming as it sounds, we couldn't find anything
to tie her to Dan O'Connell.
We asked her where she was on the day of the homicide.
She said she was at home, giving a sermon.
We were able to determine based upon other interviews
that, indeed, her time was
accorded for several 100 miles away from Hudson.
NARRATOR: Having ruled out yet another suspect, leads
dry up, and the case goes cold
JENNIE: Waiting for this to come to a conclusion was the worst.
It's the looking over your shoulder,
you know, I mean, are they gonna come after me and my kids?
And looking at people differently.
Who are my friends? Who can I trust?
Do I know this person really? Do I really know who you are?
Did you have anything to do with Dan's death?
Did you do this?
I became very enclosed,
and I didn't trust anybody,
because I didn't know.
PETTEE: Deep down, I knew I had to do something.
I had a personal interest in this now,
unlike any other case that I've ever worked.
And I told myself and I told Jennie that
I will work it until the day I die.
If it means stayin'
another 20 years on the force,
we're gonna get to the bottom of it.
NARRATOR: After two years, the families of Dan O'Connell
and James Ellison fear
their murders may never be solved.
Dan's family decides to take matters into their own hands.
Kathi O'Connell, the sister to Dan, reached out to, uh,
a group of retired homicide detectives,
forensic psychologists, out of Philadelphia
called the Vidocq Society.
We ended up presenting our case to the Vidocq Society,
hoping for an answer.
This is precisely what we do is offer advice
and direction and peer review for free on
stalled investigations.
In many cases, it's just about getting a set of
fresh eyes with no existing sort of presumptions or biases
to look at something objectively,
and you'd be amazed what the results can be.
NARRATOR: Richard Walter, a criminal profiler and one of
the society's founding members,
agrees to take a look at the case.
Mr. Walter was able to paint
a better picture of the crime scene for us.
He indicated that this crime showed a lack of emotion.
It was very purposeful.
The shooter was detached from the victims.
He wanted to show power over the victims.
This is not an anger retaliatory, a jealous husband,
angry co-worker type of situation.
You didn't see that multiple shots to the body.
He didn't see signs of overkill.
This was a power sort of cold, calculated killing.
NARRATOR: Detective Pettee and Richard Walter start from
the beginning, digging into the background of all of
Dan's close friends and colleagues.
PETTEE: Of the top 10 persons of interest,
we were able to rule out nine of them.
There was just one person left
that we could not rule out completely.
And that was Ryan Erickson.
NARRATOR: Detectives look deeper into Father Erickson's
background and discover something alarming.
We learned before he came to Hudson that a college student
reported that he had been provided alcohol
while he was underage.
And that he had been sexually assaulted
by Father Ryan Erickson.
Just because he's doing these sexual assaults
doesn't mean he's a killer.
But it gives us an idea of his mental state.
If he's committing this type of crime, who's to say
he can't commit another further, bigger crime?
NARRATOR: Detectives track
Father Erickson down at the parish,
and he agrees to come into the station for an interview.
PETTEE: We question him about his actions regarding these
sex assaults and the consequences of
underage alcohol consumption.
PETTEE: He pretty much blew it off, stating that he was just
trying to teach these kids a lesson on how to drink
and how to consume alcohol responsible.
PETTEE: Who in their right mind would be
even remotely saying that they're trying to teach
these kids how to be responsible with alcohol?
We need to find out where Father Ryan Erickson was
on February 5th, 2002, the day Dan and James were killed.
He stated at eight o'clock a.m.,
he conducted Mass -- Between 11:30 and 12:30,
he had lunch at the school with children.
And between 12:30 and 1:30, he went back
to the church to work on his computer.
This information is important, because if it's true
and accurate, that shows that
he was not at the scene.
And so if he has an alibi here,
it's important information.
When I asked him what he heard about the homicides,
he stated...
And he stated that he read it in the newspaper or heard it
on the news or something to that effect.
That was a huge red flag for me,
because he just explained in detail the crime scene.
That information was never ever released to the public.
The only person that would
know this information is the shooter.
NARRATOR: After revealing details about
the murders of funeral home director
Dan O'Connell and his intern,
James Ellison, that only the killer would know,
detectives zero in on Father Ryan Erickson as
their prime suspect in the 2002 double homicide.
You're giving us information that was
never ever released to the public.
You have told us exactly what happened in the funeral home.
However, he still denies it.
One of the last questions I asked him was,
if you committed these homicides and knew you could get
away with it, would you tell anybody?
And I said, "If you committed these homicides
and knew you were gonna get caught, what would you do?"
My reaction when he said he would commit suicide
if he was going to get caught was overwhelming.
I mean, that's a sin in itself to
commit suicide in the eyes of the Catholic Church.
NARRATOR: Investigators now have enough circumstantial
evidence to request a search warrant.
So we end up conducting a search warrant at his house,
and we seize this computer.
We found several images of
child sex assaults.
We located a software device that he put on his computer
in attempt to wipe the hard drive.
We located 16 different firearms,
and clearly we were most interested
in the two nine millimeters that he had.
Those were sent to the crime lab.
NARRATOR: When detectives dig deeper into
Father Erickson's computer,
it reveals a key piece of evidence.
There was no activity on his computer
between 12:30 and 1:30 like he said.
We have to wonder now if between 1:07 and 1:22 p.m.,
Ryan Erickson killed Dan and James.
NARRATOR: Having destroyed Father Erickson's alibi,
detectives work to figure out why he would want
Dan O'Connell, the town's beloved funeral director, dead.
Their questions are answered when
a surprising witness comes forward.
PETTEE: Dan had coffee with the bus driver at one of
the local stores,
and, according to her,
Dan told her that he had a meeting
with Father Erickson later on that day.
Dan was concerned about Father Erickson
and about his relationship with boys
and allegations of touching and that type of thing,
which would give us a motive.
NARRATOR: Detectives now theorize that Father Erickson
was the mysterious 1 p.m.
meeting that Dan had booked last-minute
on the day he was murdered.
PETTEE: Clearly, Dan knew something about Ryan Erickson
that he didn't want let out.
JENNIE: Dan was the kind of guy
that's like go head-on.
I'm gonna talk to you first before I go to the police,
but I am going to the police.
NARRATOR: Detectives race to the rectory
to arrest Father Erickson.
They are met by his superior, Deacon Russ Lundgren.
He advised that Ryan Erickson
put a rope around his neck,
tied it to the balcony, and jumped off
and committed suicide.
Russ Lundgren found a couple letters on
Ryan Erickson's desk.
One of them was a last will and testament,
and the other was a letter just stating he didn't do it.
I've lived a hard but exciting life, I learned and I taught.
I helped people, and I hurt them.
But I never killed anyone.
My ego, my pride, my lust, my envy have always
stopped me from being the best person I could be.
I am tired.
STOCKDALE: In this note,
he talks about certain characteristics in himself that
he's not happy with,
even though he denies doing the crime.
I see this as kind of a shame-anger cycle,
where you blame other people,
but then, when you have nobody else to blame,
you end up blaming yourself.
NARRATOR: But what Deacon Lundgren tells detectives next
confirms their deepest suspicions.
A few days earlier,
Lundgren overheard Father Ryan York said, slamming his fist
on the desk and said,
"[bleep] I did it, and they're gonna get me."
And Lundgren peeked his head in the office and said,
"What are you talking about?"
And he said, "You know what they do to priests in prison?"
That statement alone is a confession.
There's no doubt in my mind that Ryan Erickson killed
Dan O'Connell and James Ellison.
NARRATOR: Detectives now believe they know what happened in
the final hours of Dan O'Connell's life.
PETTEE: He left his home at 7:40 a.m.
and met with his brother, Mike, in Baldwin about
eight o'clock -- Around nine o'clock,
Dan leaves the meeting and arrives in
Hudson and has coffee with the bus driver about 9:30.
Dan told the bus driver that he had
a meeting with Erickson between 12:30 and 1:30.
At 1:07, Dan calls an engraving company.
Sometime between 1:07 and 1:22,
Father Ryan Erickson is in the funeral home.
He pulled the trigger, killed Dan O'Connell in cold blood.
[gunshot blasts]
And as he's getting ready to leave,
James Ellison just happens to walk through that doorway,
and now, we have a witness.
James was in the wrong spot at the wrong time,
and he paid the price.
NARRATOR: When detectives tell Jennie that they believe
Father Erickson killed her husband and his intern,
she's in disbelief.
It shocked the hell out of me, because that man was in
my house hours
after he shot and killed Dan and James.
He consoled me and my family.
He spoke at Dan's funeral.
And that was...
that was almost as bad as the day that Dan was murdered,
because I trusted that man.
He took away my --
My faith in my Catholic church,
and I felt I didn't know anybody,
if he could shoot two men in cold blood,
and
go about his life as if nothing happened.
NARRATOR: St. Croix County District Attorney Eric Johnson
requests a John Doe hearing.
THOMAS: A John Doe hearing is something similar
to a grand jury hearing -- Except for
it will not result in charges coming,
but it will show that there was a sufficient amount of
evidence to find the person guilty of the offense.
NARRATOR: After only 20 minutes, the judge rules
that Father Erickson was the likely killer.
His findings were that we not only showed probable cause that
Father Erickson killed Dan and Jim,
but also beyond a reasonable doubt.
The judge came back and said, on a scale of 1 to 10,
this case is a 10 out of 10.
JENNIE: He did it. He would have been guilty
And I was like, okay, now it's over.
That was closure.
I could shut that chapter finally in my life
and... open up ano -- a new one.
And that's when I decided to start to
live and breathe, because it was done.
NARRATOR: Detectives are finally able to bring closure to
the families of both Dan O'Connell and James Ellison.
It felt like a big weight was lifted off my shoulder,
because I know it affected my family.
I know it affected the victims.
It was just a huge sense of relief that
what took two years seemed like it took 10.
NARRATOR: But the scars still remain after all these years.
I think of all the time
and memories and things that Dan has
missed in the life of the kids.
The learning how to drive,
going to prom,
graduating from high school.
He's just missed out on a lot,
but we're survivors,
and the kids and I, we talk about that a lot.
There's nothing we can't survive, because
we've been to hell and back already.