Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:00]

If you're feeling a little lost or overwhelmed right now, I can relate, and that's why I can't recommend our sponsor better help enough. They'll assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist and you can start communicating with them in less than 48 hours. This is not a crisis line and it's not self-help. It's professional counseling done securely online. One of the best things about better help is that you can log into your account any time and send a message to your counselor.

[00:00:26]

You'll get timely and thoughtful responses. Plus, you can even schedule weekly video or phone sessions. There's a broad range of expertise available and they're recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states. So you're sure to find a great match to get 10 percent off your first month visit. Better help dotcom slash DL. NBC join the over one million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional at better. Com Slash Dell NBC better help Dotcom slash Dell NBC.

[00:01:10]

Hey, this is Carol. I just saw something on TV about you be gone since Thursday night. I hope you're all right. Oh, my God. Oh, God.

[00:01:20]

Paige, if you get this, please, please call somebody. Everybody's worried about you. Everybody's looking for you. Please let us know you're OK. Paige was a woman with a premonition.

[00:01:32]

She said she knew something bad was going to happen. A couple days later, she was missing.

[00:01:37]

We found out that she had this second life. Quite obviously, it's dangerous.

[00:01:42]

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. He had a list of names, the bra size and whether or not they would have sex. Could investigators get their man before he struck again? I turned around, he was sitting in the dark and he said, I'm going to kill you.

[00:02:20]

It's been years since she vanished. But few people in Grand Junction, Colorado, have forgotten page bernfeld, 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.

[00:02:38]

It's a mystery we've been following since it began. And now, as thunderheads dark in the high desert sky, finally a trial.

[00:02:49]

What are you told me is that he knew how to get rid of a body so that nobody could find it.

[00:02:55]

He said, I'm going to kill you. And then he slapped me repeatedly.

[00:02:59]

Finally, rumors and gossip would be dispelled or made fact. And the secrets known not only by the guilty, but also the shame would finally be revealed by 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. Do you have anything to do with the disappearance of Page Felt? No. I was put under psychiatric care for the first 48 hours and then sent to jail.

[00:03:32]

I did not kill Paige. I mean, that's the bottom line. It was late June 2007 when news of page Bergdahl's disappearance first spread like the morning sun over the mountains in Denver, four hours away, Frank Birkenfeld was driving to his office. The phone rang.

[00:03:53]

Voice on the phone says, this is somebody with the most county sheriff's office. And he said, Are you Page's dad? And I said, yep. He said, Did you know she's missing?

[00:04:03]

Barbara Campbell got the call from her husband who told her pages missing as what do you mean she's missing a drill and got the news in an email. It's a page is missing in the subject line.

[00:04:17]

And I knew something horrible had to happen because it didn't make any sense that she would be missing.

[00:04:23]

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.

[00:04:33]

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 to look the money, the big house on the hill and three attractive kids. But no, it wasn't like that at all.

[00:04:52]

The way she talked, the way she acted, the way she treated you, everything about her was just so wonderful.

[00:05:00]

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 mother.

[00:05:13]

Once a year, they throw a spring fling, sort of put on prom for mom's fancy clothes, red carpet entry, even a pretend reporter throwing fashion questions were you wearing? Paige was always the star, of course.

[00:05:30]

This year, the party was held at her place, which made it a very special event.

[00:05:34]

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 home it was, you almost forgot that you were in this really very high end homes.

[00:05:53]

So the winner is drumroll, please. She was so comfortable hosting people that made it. I mean, anybody there felt comfortable. Sometimes you meet someone and you just instantly have a good feeling about them. You're going to be friends with them is just going to be an instant match. And that's what I had with Paige.

[00:06:23]

And then that call, the sheriff's deputy told the Brookfield's 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. Page's parents tried to understand what was happening as we started out.

[00:06:41]

I don't know that I was very tense or I thought of the worst, I guess. Gee, I wonder where she is. I hope she's. But as far as the drive went on, it became more and more anxious, more and more tight. And I would be calling the kids on the home phone just saying we're going to be there, you know, and trying to sound reassuring.

[00:07:04]

The kids had just a nanny with them because Paige had parted ways with her husband, Rob Dixon, who has 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.

[00:07:23]

She ran several small businesses and kept track of every soccer practice and dentist appointment in an old fashioned handwritten day planner meant every page was full and crossed referenced and and she always with it.

[00:07:38]

And she came over to visit. It came in the door right there in front of her.

[00:07:43]

She was always checking it and phoning overbooked, divorced, three kids. First question, was there a chance Paige Birkenfeld simply walked out on her life?

[00:07:56]

We talked about the boy. Sometimes I just want to run away. And she said, you know, I never feel that way.

[00:08:04]

I never want to run away. Even if I did run and want to run away just to get away from here, I would want to take my kids with me.

[00:08:12]

There is 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.

[00:08:23]

So what then what happened to Paige? Her friends?

[00:08:28]

Her parents didn't know what to do, but where to look. Maybe a clue could be found tucked away in her day planner, except it, too, was missing.

[00:08:45]

Police pieced together the hours leading up to Page'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. It was a Thursday, June 28, when Paige Bernfeld of Grand Junction, Colorado, quite suddenly went off the radar, which was at least a place to start. So Mesa County Sheriff's investigators Henry Soulful and Wayne Taylor set out to trace your steps. That day.

[00:09:28]

We found out that she had been an eagle visiting her ex-husband and they had been reconciling at that point.

[00:09:35]

But he, having been the last person known to have seen her, I suppose, would be a person of interest.

[00:09:39]

And yes, obviously, he was a person of interest.

[00:09:42]

This person of interest, Rob Biegler, was Page's first ex-husband. They married right out of high school, young, immature and soon divorced.

[00:09:54]

But funny how this works, 10 years.

[00:09:57]

It's sanded off their sharp edged disputes and they saw anew why they fell in love.

[00:10:03]

It seemed like as if no time had passed at all.

[00:10:06]

This is Ron Biegler talking to a Dateline producer soon after Page's disappearance. At what point did you start to rekindle your relationship? About six months ago, we tried to take it slow, but there was there was no denying that it was just as it was before.

[00:10:22]

Problem was, Biegler lived in Denver, a four hour drive east, so the two lovers would often meet at some midway point of the day of Page's disappearance.

[00:10:32]

They chose Eagle, Colorado.

[00:10:34]

We're going to have a picnic and hang out together all day. We went to Subway and brought it back to where we were sitting outside down by the river. It was very familiar. And, you know, I brought some pictures, you know, and, you know, we just sat there and relaxed and enjoyed the day and the weather. It was a special, wonderful day.

[00:10:54]

And then around 7:00 pm, they kissed and said goodbye and drove back to their respective sides of the state. Two hours later, at eight fifty seven pm page called Biegler to see if I made it back to Denver.

[00:11:08]

And then we had a brief conversation.

[00:11:12]

Paige told Biegler 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 Page's car here to that very evening. Thing is, this is five miles past her house. Why was she here an hour later?

[00:11:36]

Nine fifty six PM pages, eight year old daughter Jess left this anxious voicemail message on her mother's cell phone in front of your home when you die.

[00:11:48]

No response. Her daughter waited, worried and called again. Mom. Oh, I agree with you. They slept in best they could.

[00:12:03]

All three children that awoke the next day, Friday, June 29, to a whole new kind of anxiety, she still wasn't home or he would be back to go find something in the pit of the stomach pages, old and new love. Ron Biegler seemed to feel it, too. Hi. Where are you calling me? His chance getting worried about you.

[00:12:33]

An hour by hour, they piled up phone messages like a normal day in order for me to give you call that, you know, this is a funeral service for the fans calling for a change in Kevin Bacon.

[00:12:46]

If your pork cleared up, please give me a call. Thank you.

[00:12:49]

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 30th, Ron Biegler called the house and spoke to Page's eight year old daughter, Jess. She didn't sound particularly that distraught, but I don't think she had an idea of what was going on. Of course she didn't.

[00:13:12]

Bugler's next call was the nine one one dispatch the client.

[00:13:17]

Yes. I need to talk to you about the missing persons emergency, OK, and who is missing? Her name is Paige Dickson. How old is age? She's 33 and she hasn't been home all night. Thursday night. All day yesterday and today. Something is definitely, definitely wrong. She's got to stop in or an accident.

[00:13:39]

And that's when word of Page's disappearance began to spread across Colorado. Investigators didn't have a clue what happened to Paige, but they wondered if Biegler did.

[00:13:50]

Have police questioned you? Yes, they have. And have they released you, as you know, as a potential suspect or.

[00:14:00]

I don't know what they what they've done on that. I know that I that was never a concern or worry of mine having it get pinned on me.

[00:14:08]

You know, you have an alibi for that night.

[00:14:12]

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?

[00:14:21]

I think it was a major premeditated abduction or a completely random incident. I think that it's more likely that it's a premeditated abduction.

[00:14:32]

But sometimes those not asking questions find answers. It was the third day, Sunday, July 1st, 2007, nine fifty eight pm, a woman driving home from work slammed on her brakes called nine one one one.

[00:14:47]

This is Jessie, we're sure. Emergency. Hi, I'm at the corner of twenty three and Logo's and there is a car on fire in the parking lot at the building right here. There's a car on fire. Yeah. You see flames or smoke. Yeah there's there's a lot of flames.

[00:15:04]

Page's car. What will it reveal. Was really more intense. Was on the driver's side and then something else belonging to Page.

[00:15:13]

It was an awful feeling of dread thinking. How did this get here? What does it mean?

[00:15:33]

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.

[00:15:43]

Frank Brookfield's 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, friends Frank gave the first of what would be something many, many interviews.

[00:15:59]

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.

[00:16:09]

You know, it occurred to me I hadn't cried a long time. I've learned how to do that. This firefighter, Robert Thompson, 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 was really obvious to see that more intense was on the driver's side. So meaning that's where the fire started.

[00:16:37]

That's where the arsonist wanted to be sure to erase evidence under the car damage sked place and strands of wild grass caught in the suspension, meaning somebody had driven off road very recently.

[00:16:53]

And after dumped and torched the car in an industrial area just a quarter mile from where Paige made her last phone call, it was way beyond her house.

[00:17:02]

It didn't fit for the car to be there.

[00:17:05]

News of the car fire was a turning point. No longer did the public suspect this was a case of an overwhelmed runaway mom.

[00:17:13]

The response was an outpouring of volunteers, a spontaneous community project to find page.

[00:17:21]

Just seen the dad on TV and everything like that. And I have, you know, some short 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 just dad was there every day greeting a small army of volunteers. Thanks for helping us.

[00:17:36]

You know, it's just really tough, you know, for for people to give of themselves to that degree.

[00:17:42]

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.

[00:18:02]

Paige, his 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 Biegler.

[00:18:27]

Do you feel like you wish she could go there and help search for her? A part of me does, definitely. What's keeping you away from there? I don't know if I can handle being being right in the situation.

[00:18:44]

Then knowing we were preparing a report about the case, Biegler made a strange request.

[00:18:50]

Try to keep me out as much as possible, like just a few words here and there. But I don't want to like beyond talking about things.

[00:18:57]

But hundreds of people, many who'd never once met page searched on horseback, on ATVs, on foot. They peered under bushes. They walked miles of desert brush in 100 degree heat and nothing to be told. Paige could have been anywhere. Then, four days after Page's disappearance, a driver stopped along a lonely stretch of Highway 50.

[00:19:22]

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, Page Dickson Page's married name. So then the flock of searchers descended on that road, making my way back west.

[00:19:42]

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?

[00:19:51]

Then more pages, wallet, charm bracelet, the shoe, various cards, bank registers and dozens of checks from both pages, personal and professional accounts. Nearly a hundred items spread along 13 miles of road. Which left investigators with two very different theories, either Page'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.

[00:20:20]

And while volunteers gathered this sad triteness page's life, a new wrinkle pages, most recent ex-husband, Rob Dixon, came back to town to look after the kids and help out with the search and his reappearance stop volunteers in their tracks because of the stories Page told while they were married. Many thought him the most obvious suspect. She was afraid of him.

[00:20:49]

What else?

[00:20:50]

Paige told loved ones about Robert Dixon. She was afraid he'd kill her. A wave of whispers spread to the speed of suspicion among the searchers looking for the missing single mother page Brookfield, the X was in town, the most recent X, that is Rob Dixon, the one Paige had all the trouble with. Of course, the relationship didn't start out that way, never does.

[00:21:29]

At first, we only saw what we refer to as the good Rob's side. And that's certainly what Paige only saw. And we was part of her family and we loved him as much as an in-law would be. He was a good guy to have.

[00:21:47]

Dixon had been a hard working paramedic until his dad made a one time fortune in the tech industry and passed that windfall on to 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.

[00:22:04]

He had admitted to having over ten million dollars. And I think when you admit to that, you have maybe twice that much. And Page's parents watched him change. The whole town saw that actually in his garage.

[00:22:19]

I saw three Range Rover, Jaguar, two Porsches, and then later he had a lemon yellow Ferrari. If you've been to Grand Junction, then you want to fit in a lemon yellow Ferrari is not exactly what you do.

[00:22:34]

Did he make any effort to meet you or the other guys?

[00:22:37]

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. I never once saw him attend.

[00:22:48]

I was so baffled how someone is upbeat and eternally happy as Paige could have this grump around.

[00:22:57]

But in hopes of promoting either goodwill or himself, Dixon joined the Grand Junction Fire District Board and then donated a brand new fire truck. His generosity made news and locals wondering if they had misjudged him.

[00:23:13]

But soon it turned to dust.

[00:23:16]

Dixon got himself in charge of fire district investments, put public money in what he said was a sure thing. It wasn't.

[00:23:25]

The money vanished blue eyes, as I recall, about 750000 dollars in bad investments for the fire district.

[00:23:31]

Peter Howard senior was at that time the Mesa County D.A..

[00:23:35]

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.

[00:23:49]

Then one day, a repo man showed up for that shiny new fire truck Dixon had donated. It turned out the fire truck 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.

[00:24:10]

He gave it to someone who. Pyramid scheme did the missing money, the repo truck, the grand jury investigation. It 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. The writing of the local paper, and I said he is taking a gigantic fall and he will change dramatically for the worse.

[00:24:50]

And I think that was very predictable. And I think for Rob, that's what happened at the end. It was almost always bad that we were dealing with, she told friends. And we saw an email she was afraid he'd kill her. He said he would kill us several times in 2004. Page in the midst of this downward spiral called nine one one nine one one where where's your emergency?

[00:25:13]

My husband and I were in a fight and he was forced to watch my children go to work. And he said that I was hoping for a double murder.

[00:25:22]

Police were dispatched, but there was no arrest, according to Page's parents. The fighting only got worse. It was very ugly, the psychological, emotional abuse that she endured all 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 pictures as the victim. Dixon pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of harassment, got a deferred sentence.

[00:25:59]

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 EMT again. And Paige did what she could to keep the kids in the only home they'd ever known.

[00:26:17]

That big place with the 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?

[00:26:34]

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.

[00:27:03]

She was afraid of him. She was afraid of him coming back to town. She was always nervous he was going to be coming back into town.

[00:27:11]

And sure enough, two years later, in June 2007, the week before she vanished, Paige got a call from Dixon, 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. I do something. What does do something mean? And she just said she knew something bad was going to happen. That murder did not enter my mind.

[00:27:47]

Kidnapping did not enter my mind. Something very strange to hear it. It was a staggering conversation. I mean, we were just two moms with small children faced with an unknown situation.

[00:28:01]

And a couple of days later, she was missing inside the wreckage of pages, burned out car, her day planner, and still had the pages intact inside the planner, a shock for everyone in the case. That was stunning. Quite obviously, it's dangerous. It was a dismal clue, the trail of bits and pieces of page Brookfield's life found scattered by the highway, but still no page alive or dead. And now detectives had to exhusband to investigate Ron Biegler, the last person known to have seen her alive.

[00:28:53]

And Rob Dickson, the man she told friends she lived in fear of most people that she knew.

[00:28:59]

Friends believed that Rob Dixon had something to do with this.

[00:29:02]

So he pops right up to the top of your list. Absolutely.

[00:29:06]

He and Rob Biegler both.

[00:29:09]

As for hard evidence, it was very little, except for the investigators little secrets. The one bit of evidence had been hiding from everyone, even the Bergdahls, something that by pure luck survived that car fire pages, day planner.

[00:29:27]

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 wasn't I mean, it was smoke damage then. It had heat damage, but it still had the pages intact.

[00:29:47]

The day planner, still very readable, was full of appointments and plans and contact numbers, most mundane routine. But and this was strange. Three key pages, June 26th through the 29th, the day surrounding Page'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 Own Confident, an enterprise that hardly shared the same phone number with the business called Models Inc, whose cars were found scattered along Highway 50.

[00:30:25]

Among Page's personal effects, which appeared to support a strange story told by ex-husband Ron Biegler that Page had clients she would see was know lonely, older, married men buying companionship from a really intelligent woman that they wanted to spend time with.

[00:30:44]

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 Page investigators learned that taking on one more job, she started moonlighting as an escort, finding out that Paige was running a rather high class, high quality sort of prostitution business was kind of stunning.

[00:31:11]

I had no idea that that took place in my jurisdiction, living in a very nice house and nice part of town and known to a number of people that I knew.

[00:31:21]

I mean, she was a soccer mom, one of my best friend's daughter, I believe, played on the same soccer team as Paige's circuits.

[00:31:28]

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 Carey, selling her services through a front company she ran called Models Inc, a name that applied intentionally that several women worked with her when in fact it was just her some friends suspected, most didn't.

[00:31:53]

It was very hard for me to believe that she would want to have sex with men for money, but she did.

[00:32:01]

According to this investigative report, Page would charge up to a thousand dollars a session. You can imagine how these revelations hit pages. Mom and dad, they just couldn't believe it. If I had known about it, I.

[00:32:14]

I definitely would have tried to use whatever persuasion I had to turn her away from it. I mean, if nothing else, quite obviously it's dangerous.

[00:32:25]

So it was a shock, obviously, but they said they could understand her motives.

[00:32:31]

After all, Rob Dixon's money had run out she was doing, but she had to do to keep life as normal as possible for the children.

[00:32:43]

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?

[00:32:53]

Dirt spread, said Andrea, by those who didn't even know Paige. We knew her heart. We knew who she was every day 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.

[00:33:16]

A much bigger problem, though, was it? Page'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 Link and you start identifying people who had the most. A recent contact with her and came across multiple people. You've reached models in Colorado's premier gentlemen survey. 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.

[00:33:49]

Yes, this is Betty. I was wondering if you had any girls available this afternoon. Please give me a call back or give me a call. Yeah, I'm just calling to see if Kerry was available tonight. So this is great. I'm just wondering if anybody is still there. I'm at the country in and I was just trying to see if he is still available for the night. Hello, this is Jim. OK, try calling your last give me a call names Dave A.I.M. and this.

[00:34:14]

Now I want to speak to one of your female escort you on your hours and so forth. So this giant Motel six thirty seven.

[00:34:22]

So they put together a list called it possible suspects. The two ex-husband now joined by six of Page's clients. Nothing to do but check out all of them, beginning with the last client page called George Carluccio, who today page disappeared, called her 19 times.

[00:34:43]

We're thinking that's a guy I couldn't get rid of him and he's still haunting me. What this woman saw, it just it hit me. And what she told investigators, he totally did this.

[00:35:12]

Grand Junction is a modern town in every way, but lift your eyes from the humdrum watch of setting sun fire the great monument cliffs all around. And for a moment, you're in the old west, a mystique that clings to the place, as do the Drifters, attracted to such things, young man who split their time between odd jobs and the county jail, like, for example, George Carluccio here from New Jersey and eager to hustle a buck or a woman or whatever.

[00:35:45]

George Carlotto was a con man, a sick person.

[00:35:48]

Megan Williams, new Galluzzo, because he and her then husband had partner, did a house painting business. Knowing Galluzzo as she did, she was not surprised by a visit she got on July 1st, 2007.

[00:36:02]

Sheriffs came to our house and they said, Is George Carluccio here? I actually thought they were there to talk about this kidnapping case to Megan.

[00:36:10]

This kidnapping case met one six months earlier in which Galluzzo allegedly took this woman against her will on a long, scary ride across state lines.

[00:36:21]

I spoke to them everything I knew up to that point, thinking you were talking about a different crime altogether. Correct.

[00:36:29]

Deputies didn't let on, but of course, they were really looking into the disappearance of Paige Berg failed three days earlier. Where was Carluccio that day?

[00:36:40]

Well, very interesting, said Megan. He'd failed to show up for work. And later that night, he offered a truly bizarre reason why his family had been in an accident.

[00:36:52]

And we said, what kind of accident? 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 going to do and just very upset. And we believed him, as she told the detectives, Galluzzo 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 Burchfield.

[00:37:24]

And then the very next day, Megan was watching the news on TV and saw the story about the burned out car.

[00:37:32]

Her car was found ablaze in this parking lot off 23 road.

[00:37:35]

And then I saw the pages 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 Carlito's excuse to run for what he had done to get out of town?

[00:37:59]

I scoured the Internet and made phone calls, scour the Internet, looking for evidence of a big traffic and do nothing there.

[00:38:05]

So who did you find? I called their local Gazette newspaper. I talked to a reporter. Nothing happened. I called the coroner, nothing. So newspaper corner hospitals, nothing.

[00:38:17]

But Nagin was able to locate Galluzzo and pass that tape on to lead investigator Beverly Jerell, who would end up playing a key role. You'll hear more about her later. Jarrel caught up with Carol Nuzzo in New Jersey, grilled him for five hours, but Carluccio denied everything more important. He was in New Jersey when Page's car was set ablaze. So General, let him go. And if he didn't burn, the car does not let him out.

[00:38:47]

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.

[00:38:58]

Something happened and there was something else, said Megan.

[00:39:01]

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? George was a sketchy person and he totally did this.

[00:39:17]

The Carletto she knew, she said, was cunning enough to have one of his pals help him, somebody like his best friend, Jose Tavera. Detectives suspected that, too. So they found Tavera brought him in for questioning. And what do you know? He recently injured his arm.

[00:39:37]

They had a bandage on it. And the cop asked me, so what? What is that? That was what happened there. When I said I burned myself at work, he's like, well, are you good enough for friend to burn a car down for George?

[00:39:50]

You know, a startling discovery about one of the page'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? Hi, I'm Brooke, and I'm America, and we're the hosts of Even the Rich, a show about people with a lot of money and a lot of feelings.

[00:40:19]

Brooke, what's the worst thing that can happen to a politician getting voted out of office? Hmm?

[00:40:24]

How about driving your car off a bridge and leaving a young woman trapped inside, which is exactly what Ted Kennedy did in 1969. It was a scandal that rocked the nation and threatened to bring down the entire Kennedy empire.

[00:40:36]

Subscribe to even the rich Chappaquiddick on Apple Podcast's, Spotify, the wonder app or wherever you're listening right now, join Wonder E-Plus in the Wonder app to listen ad free.

[00:40:46]

We get support from Madison Reid. For decades, women have had two options for coloring their hair outdated at home color or the time and expense of a traditional salon. I knew there had to be a better alternative out there and lo and behold, I found Madison read. What makes Madison Reed color unique is that it's crafted by master colorists who blend nuances of light, dark, cool and warm tones to create over 55 multidimensional shades. And they make it really easy to find what will suit you best.

[00:41:16]

Just go online and take their color quiz. You can even use their trian tool to see how you'll look with different shades. I wasn't planning on going brunette, but the Trian tool might have convinced me. Get Omonia free multiton hair color delivered to your door starting at just 22 dollars at Madison Dasch retcon. Use our code date line and you'll get 10 percent off plus free shipping on your first color kit. That's Code Dateline at Madison. Dasch, Reid, Dotcom.

[00:41:54]

It was a traumatic time here in Grand Junction, Colorado, that summer of 2007, what was the fruitless search for the missing mother of three loved by so many who turned out to have secrets? And the day planner was available and voicemails and phone records that seemed to point eight different ways at once to ex-husband and six clients.

[00:42:20]

I don't think I've ever seen a more difficult case in my entire career.

[00:42:25]

One by one, the detectives cleared their suspects or tried to ex husband number one and current boyfriend Ron Biegler.

[00:42:34]

We were able to determine that Mr. Biegler had been in the Denver area through cell phone records.

[00:42:41]

Second husband, Rob Dixon, the one man she said she feared we were able to cooperate with his employer, that he was in the Philadelphia area at the time, and Rob Dixon's cell phone connected to a tower in Pennsylvania the night Paige disappeared. And three days later, when he left this message on Page's phone page.

[00:43:01]

If you get this, please, please call somebody I love you. Please, please, please let us know you're okay.

[00:43:09]

Still, there were caveats to Dixon and Bechler's alibis that doesn't eliminate them as far as having some involvement and maybe paying somebody.

[00:43:19]

And then there was the list of clients, Galluzzo at the top of it, given he didn't have a solid alibi and skipped town right after her disappearance, Carluccio was the one that was most concerning, not to mention Galluzzo friend Jose Tavera, the one with the big burn on his arm.

[00:43:37]

I said, well, I said I burned myself at work. Who swore he did not help Carluccio by setting fire to Page's car? I said, I don't care.

[00:43:46]

Mother Teresa comes and asked me to burn a character. I until you go to hell, you know.

[00:43:51]

So they let him go too. For the moment. The other clients housing a new one of them very well. A prominent real estate investor named Steven Heald. 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 90s for that.

[00:44:17]

So when he came up again as a suspect in the Birkenfeld matter, it was interesting when detectives questioned him, healed, admitted he embezzled money from his company to pay for dates with Paige, but then he claimed they turned the tables on him.

[00:44:35]

He made allegations that she was essentially blackmailing him, asking for extra money. What a motive.

[00:44:41]

Except was wife supplied an alibi. They were home that night reading, watching TV. So he seemed to be in the clear, which made it all the more shocking when, after being questioned by detectives, Heald attempted suicide that day housing assumed was not guilt and shame.

[00:45:02]

People don't really want to have it out in public that yeah, I was patronizing a. Call-Girl, they checked out a drifter named John Livingston who the night page vanished, called her again and again from a Motel six, desperate, apparently, for her attention.

[00:45:21]

So this giant Motel six, room 237, except there was no evidence Page ever went to see him.

[00:45:28]

But then there was another client, Lester Ralph Jones. Investigators got a tip about Jones from a friend of pages named Carol Linder. Home Page scheduled an appointment with Jones the night before she disappeared, but for some reason didn't want to go ask Lindero to meet Jones instead. And he was expecting her then, I think. Then you showed up at his door, right? I'm sure he had some expectations. Right. I mean, he called her an escort service.

[00:46:00]

Well, he let it be known almost immediately that he wasn't sex.

[00:46:07]

Linda Holmes 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 Page.

[00:46:18]

So where the heck are you? 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 all I knew something terrible had happened to her.

[00:46:35]

Hey, this is Carol. Oh, I hope you're all right. I hope this isn't Rob.

[00:46:41]

They got their home mentioned Page's second ex-husband, Rob Dixon, because she knew Paige was afraid of him. Then the next day, Lindhome heard about Page's car and the fire.

[00:46:53]

I want to go over 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.

[00:47:07]

As she drove away, something across the road caught her eye. It was a sign for Bob Scott ARV's.

[00:47:15]

Lester Jones had told me that he worked for Bob Scart RV. 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.

[00:47:33]

Carol went to the sheriff's office, told them all she knew about Lester Ralph Jones. How much credence to do that story or did you?

[00:47:42]

We gave it a lot of credence. In fact, a week after Paige disappeared, they brought Jones in for questioning. Mr. Jones, I appreciate you coming down on.

[00:47:50]

Jerry Jones was once chief of a rural fire department, which is where his story gets strange.

[00:47:58]

And I know Rob OK, Rob Dixon, Page's ex-husband, go down that road.

[00:48:03]

What do you know? I used to be with the fire department up there. OK, all right. I've met him there.

[00:48:09]

OK, that was a long time ago and had also met Dixon's then wife, Paige, because she at one time had come up there and she Kendler the fire department.

[00:48:21]

Yes, OK.

[00:48:22]

And was taken aback, Jones claimed, when a couple of years later, he went to the models ink massage parlor and was greeted by Rob Dixon's ex-wife.

[00:48:33]

Do you know if she recognized you? When do you think she would? I would think, OK, so kind of made you feel comfortable. Yeah, but things were OK, you know. And how often have you done business with them?

[00:48:47]

I think twice. I think. Well, Jones answered questions downtown. Investigators scoured his house and Bob Scott ARV's where he worked. What do you find when you searched Bob Scott's RV location?

[00:49:02]

The list of names of escorts that we knew in the Grand Jackson area where he had their names, phone numbers, bra size, and whether or not they would have sex with some Viagra's also some condoms, along with wigs, a black bra, and in a locked cabinet and old scale from pampered chef, one of Page'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.

[00:49:41]

I still have difficulty believing that you killed her unless you were looking for objects. Investigators get Lester Ralph Jones on the phone for a very strange call to ask information, Barry Bonds, which came out of nowhere because nobody had asked him where he buried the body.

[00:50:01]

Nobody. Did you like detectives investigating the disappearance of Pittsburgh found had a big hunch that just had to be some connection between Lester Ralph Jones and Page's second husband, Rob Dixon, much less contact as they already knew.

[00:50:33]

Dixon had been looking for dirt about something he could use in family court as a way of getting custody of their kids. So as the cops got, Rob Dixon had the motive. Well, 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, there were just too many holes in his story.

[00:51:09]

For starters, no alibi the night page went missing. And even worse, Jones admitted that when Page's car was set on fire, he was at Bob Scott. Harvey's practically across the street. You're there by your own admission. You're there with the fires. I understand that. Tell me that. I can explain it to you. And guess what they found at Jones's work site, a discarded package that once contained a pre-paid track phone, a disposable kind that doesn't reveal the identity of the user except on the package was the phone's serial number.

[00:51:48]

And from that, we were able to determine that the phone was bought at Wal-Mart on North Avenue.

[00:51:53]

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 track phone called Page at Models 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 track phone that was used to call her that evening.

[00:52:22]

Except Jones denied that was him in the video. I have you on video by a long way. I did not try calling Wal-Mart. I don't know, I, I there is no video.

[00:52:36]

Jones was unflappable.

[00:52:38]

Talk 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, his wife, answered the phone.

[00:52:52]

Oh, yes, I speak with Ralph, please. Hello, Mr. Jones. Yes, this is our Smith with the sheriff's office. Just calling to let you know that we have both your cars ready for them, obviously are down here, the sheriff's office right now. So are you with lady right now? No, I'm sorry. I don't think so. Mr. Jones, I'm not following you. Yes, I am. Very. Lady, I'm sorry.

[00:53:24]

You're asking information.

[00:53:26]

Very light, 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 his vehicle. And the day before, we never talked about burying the body.

[00:53:40]

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.

[00:53:56]

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.

[00:54:07]

Please forgive me. And then he added this. Tell the cops to get. I never did it, but I can't be railroaded.

[00:54:16]

Jones recovered quickly, but his actions that day remained a mystery because he wasn't talking anymore to investigators.

[00:54:25]

The evidence was definitely pointing toward Lester Jones. We still had to keep an eye open on Mr. Livingston, Mr. Hill, Mr. Carluccio. And remember that these are the ones we know about. Is there somebody else out there we don't even know about yet?

[00:54:37]

Didn't help. When lab results from Page's car came back negative, the fire burned that 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's scent in Page's charred car and along Highway 50, where all those items were found.

[00:55:00]

And then they sniffed their way down this gravel road that dead ends at the Gunnison River when given pages. And the dogs followed exactly the same path along Highway 50 down the gravel road into the Gunnison River. So was Page's body in here somewhere?

[00:55:19]

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.

[00:55:28]

I just got out of there and it is pitch black at the bottom, but that 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.

[00:55:48]

I guess that's the only thing at this point to do because there isn't any more volunteers that are coming up and people do have to return to their own lives.

[00:55:57]

But that was not an option for Page's family. Her parents rented an apartment in town and carried on the search alone.

[00:56:04]

This is my life now and I really wish I could get in a different line of work.

[00:56:09]

Even offered a fifteen thousand dollar reward, no questions asked.

[00:56:13]

That's about 100 days. And if she's out there, we need to find her. And 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.

[00:56:31]

At some point you had 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? I would say kind of a heaviness to it that somewhere she's back there and I'm I'm leaving her.

[00:56:53]

But, well, no one knew where Paige was. There was one woman who had an idea as to what may have happened to her, Lisa Nance, who was rather briefly married once upon a time to Leicester, Ralph Jones. Lisa will always remember him. The ex wives tale, he looked at me and he said, I'm going to kill you. My kids really like them. No doubt about it, thought Lisa Lester Ralph Jones was a catch.

[00:57:39]

Tall, strong, a firefighter, for heaven's sake.

[00:57:43]

And he was really nice person. Really nice. What do you mean by really nice and nice? He just seems really nice and genuine and sweet.

[00:57:53]

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 begin to occur, unimagined traits emerge, and sometimes a nightmarish story like the one lesson that's 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.

[00:58:24]

She said he had secret recording devices. I talked to my friends or anything like that.

[00:58:29]

And I didn't tell him, you know, he would already know that I had talked to whoever.

[00:58:35]

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.

[00:58:52]

He got up beside me and hit my car, which not relevant to it did. And then he pulled up and backed up really hard and ran my car. And it caused the airbag and stuff to go off.

[00:59:05]

The new boyfriend took off running, but Jones had a gun. He shot at him twice. One bullet went through his cab and I think the other one grazed his head and you were going to be next. I thought I thought that must've been shaking like a leaf. It's scary asking 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 I talked to him and tried to calm him down.

[00:59:34]

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 them otherwise.

[00:59:42]

Eventually, he left. She called the police. He was arrested, but in no time made bail. And then Lisa was at home.

[00:59:51]

A few weeks later, I came out of my room and I went to the kitchen and I turned around and he was sitting on the couch. I mean, just sitting there in the dark. My stomach just, you know, I think I mean, I did I ask him, what on earth are you doing here? You know, and the same thing. And that's when I really got scared because he just didn't look like himself and he wouldn't say anything.

[01:00:11]

It's on his mind, I think so it seemed like it. Anyways, I didn't know what it was, but 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.

[01:00:23]

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.

[01:00:37]

It's like where we're going. And he wouldn't say anything. He just kept running the back of my head saying it's going to be OK. Rubbing the back of your hands, 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.

[01:00:49]

It was just really, really quiet. It's a little creepy. And I looked at him and I said, we're not going to eat, are we? And he looked at me and he said, no. I said, what are we going to do? And he's like, I'm going to kill you. And then he just started slapping me over and over the moment I'd come for you. But I thought that's all I could think about was my kids, you know, about seeing them.

[01:01:09]

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, things like you don't love me anymore, you don't want me. And I said, no, it's not true, you know? And he's like, well, then prove it. 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.

[01:01:36]

So I asked him to get this, go get a room and talk, you know, and so finally he agreed to that. So what happened when you got to the go to town? He got 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.

[01:01:58]

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 and then they took me back to the police station.

[01:02:11]

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. First thing he said was, where are you? And I just hung up and I called nine one one. And they took me to a safe house and. Do they catch them? No, they didn't know where to look. A few days later, somebody broke into Lisa's mother's house in Oklahoma.

[01:02:46]

She called me later that day and said when she was leaving work that she noticed his car was following her. And she said it was rouf 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, Lyster.

[01:03:05]

Ralph Johns was convicted of assault and kidnapping and served three years. But now he was out and remarried. And by the fall of 2007, the pile of circumstantial evidence connected him to page Brookfield's disappearance. Why didn't just go arrest him?

[01:03:22]

Our job is to gather the facts and then present it to the district attorney's office, and they make that determination. When I actually had to fight that battle constantly for years.

[01:03:31]

I think you hit it right on meaning they were ready to pick up Jones, but D.A. Holsinger was not.

[01:03:39]

Why didn't you decide to pull the pin on Lester of Jones? I didn't have a body. And that was the defining. Absolutely.

[01:03:45]

That was really I mean, there are lots of nobody 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.

[01:03:58]

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.

[01:04:08]

And as the years passed, Page's story went from the front of the paper. To be 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. Grand Junction, Colorado, has been a boom and bust sort of place over the years, but the great majestic cliffs are eternal.

[01:05:01]

The monument they call this guardian of the rugged and the beautiful places that have drawn hikers and bikers and rafters for years, like the couple trekking through the Well's Gulch on March six, 2012. And pretty soon, Page's dad got another one of those phone calls, this time from a local reporter.

[01:05:22]

And he said, did you know they found Page's remains this morning? And 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 and a couple of weeks or so was verified that it was, in fact, Page's remains.

[01:05:42]

She was just a few miles south of the place where all those documents were found along the roadside. So they had to have been paid to left that trail, said the police. A call for help or an arrow pointing to where to find her and all that. Well, 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?

[01:06:11]

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 sad day, Helsingør. Here we go.

[01:06:26]

This is what I've been waiting for. Now we need to really put the pedal to the metal and make a critical decision.

[01:06:34]

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 Biegler, had what looked like solid alibis, but with both their cell phones 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 Carluccio remember him?

[01:07:01]

Kaluza was the alternate suspect that gave me. Is the D.A. heartburn in? Concerns. That's because Correlatives Alibi was so hard to pin down. Multiple witnesses said he was partying that night at Jose Tavarez apartment, but what time exactly when that depended on who you spoke to. But what everybody did agree was this. Galluzzo was out of control.

[01:07:30]

He was intoxicated, like slurring his words, you know, 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 wasn't capable of it. Of course, the Verra might have been lying to protect his friend, Detector's wanted to talk to Galluzzo himself, but they couldn't find him, so they asked Tavera for help.

[01:07:54]

They're like ordinary George Georges's.

[01:07:56]

George was 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 Carluccio 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.

[01:08:21]

And it was two years after Paige's body was discovered while wading through that mountain of material and investigators stumbled on an overlooked piece of evidence that would change the whole case.

[01:08:33]

It was security camera video of Galluzzo friends, including Tavera, at a market the night Paige disappeared. Galluzzo wasn't in the video, mind you, but the time stamp backed up the story minute by minute that Tavera had been telling the cops, suddenly lifting his credibility and in turn helping to establish correlatives whereabouts the night Paige disappeared.

[01:08:57]

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.

[01:09:14]

And by interviewing lots of different people who had been with Carluccio or had talked to him, we were able to painstakingly, essentially alibi housing or felt he finally had enough to take the case to a jury.

[01:09:30]

And in November 2014, seven and one half years after paid vanished, police arrested Lester Ralph Jones for her murder.

[01:09:40]

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.

[01:09:50]

It would have been nice to have that additional piece of evidence or an additional puzzle piece to put into the jigsaw. Well, how can you tell the story to Ekland? Telling the story is an important thing for a prosecutor to be able to do.

[01:10:02]

It's really the entire thing. I don't have to prove motive, for example, but I usually try to anyway, because the jury wants to know why did this person do this?

[01:10:14]

So tell us the story. What happened in your view? I think Lester Jones was obsessed with Paige and she had not enjoyed her time with him and was putting him off.

[01:10:26]

And I think that triggered something. That's why he got the tracked phone 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 leading 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 suspect waste of time.

[01:11:07]

Well, maybe not. Remember, it takes just one juror with reasonable doubt to throw a whole case into.

[01:11:21]

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?

[01:11:33]

Maybe the case against Jones never stood a chance.

[01:11:36]

If you're doing shoddy work in the beginning, the investigation becomes second. It's almost impossible to make it. Well, again.

[01:11:56]

In a town with zero degrees of separation, Paige Bernfeld disappearance and murder impacted many here.

[01:12:03]

If they didn't know Paige personally and they were in on the search or were a potential witness who knew somebody who was or in the worst case, knew one of the possible suspects.

[01:12:16]

So when the trial finally got underway, the town's attention was very much focused on this courtroom.

[01:12:23]

We're on the record in 14 zero, 14, 32.

[01:12:26]

But the trouble began before a single witness could be called. Ron Biegler was angry, wound up the new district attorney, Dan Rubinstein, was set to call Page's first husband.

[01:12:37]

He was a key witness but was afraid he might actually attack Jones in the courtroom because Biegler 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. Use a different word than that. Proceedings ground to a sudden halt.

[01:12:59]

Biegler was hauled before the judge.

[01:13:01]

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 that have being overexaggerated. Our counsel may be taken out of context chasten.

[01:13:13]

But still insisting it was all a misunderstanding.

[01:13:16]

Biegler took the stand and testified about his last day with Paige, talked about me moving into her house to Grand Junction.

[01:13:25]

We talked about her quitting that business. Which business? The adult entertainment business. Did you give her reasons why you wanted her to quit? And what were the reasons you said because she could get killed for one, the jury heard about it all.

[01:13:41]

The day planner items along the roadside, the bits of paper left along the highway, the search dogs who sent it on Jones. The track phoned Jones, but then lied about and the apparent suicide note he left for his wife at the jury heard that strange call Jones had with the deputy. Jones said yes. I wonder why Lisa Nance told the jury the harrowing tale of the night. Jones took her into the mountains and he looked at me. He said, I'm going to kill you.

[01:14:13]

And there was this high moral clarity for the prosecution, played the fearful phone messages, pages, then eight year old daughter Jess left on her mother's cell phone. When you die. And here was just today, now a senior in high school, but still able to give a child's perspective of a very loving mother.

[01:14:37]

She was pretty much typical soccer mom. She, uh, she 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.

[01:14:57]

Well, 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 so to distract from a shoddy investigation that focused on Jones from the start, despite the lack of any physical evidence. Do you solemnly swear?

[01:15:19]

And that drove that theory home by boldly calling former lead investigator Beverly Jerell. Remember her? She was in charge of the investigation and all those detectives from the beginning.

[01:15:30]

Good afternoon. Yet was never called to testify for the prosecution, perhaps for good reason.

[01:15:36]

Would you agree, investigator General, that you made some mistakes in this investigation? Yes. OK, has it come to your attention that you did, in fact, forget to book in a few recordings into evidence for this? Yes.

[01:15:52]

Jerell admitted reports had gone on written and evidence was actually lost, like Jose Tavarez first police interview.

[01:16:00]

And did you actually receive an official reprimand for the poor quality of work you did in this case?

[01:16:08]

I don't remember that.

[01:16:10]

You don't remember getting a major disciplinary action because you kept evidence in front of this case in your office, in writing now said, are memories been fuzzy since a 2010 horse riding accident, something that happened three years after the slip ups on the Birkenfeld case?

[01:16:29]

And then came the alternate suspects, the guy who called Paige from that Motel six. And in that storage unit, you had numerous guns, right? I did have this former client who allegedly discussed killing Paige. Did you tell Miss Whalen that you had killed Mincberg Felt by putting his Bernfeld through, would you?

[01:16:50]

No, ma'am. Somebody said something about, did you do this to Paige? And I said, just out of context, had I Halide, they wouldn't find her because I used the woodchipper and it was totally out of context. The client who admitted embezzling his company's money to pay.

[01:17:09]

Paige, did you kill me? No. Are you responsible for her disappear? Absolutely not.

[01:17:16]

And then the defense went after Jose Tavera, who admitted he was so tight with coral so he would have done just about anything for his friend, including burning a car to help him.

[01:17:28]

If he did not want to do that, you wouldn't do that? No, that's the one thing you wouldn't do. Yeah.

[01:17:33]

Megan Williams told the jury she was sure the killer was really Carlotto.

[01:17:38]

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.

[01:17:46]

So many suspects said the defense, and they put on a retired detective to accuse the police of tunnel vision.

[01:17:53]

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.

[01:18:05]

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.

[01:18:15]

My opinion is, is that's not possible.

[01:18:17]

If true, that meant there was no proof Jones had ever been in Page's car or along the highway were.

[01:18:23]

Her belongings were found by the end of the six week trial. The jury had heard from more than 100 hundred witnesses testifying about a nine year investigation involving multiple suspects.

[01:18:35]

So it wasn't surprising.

[01:18:37]

During deliberations, the jury came back with one question after the other prosecutor, Dan Rubenstein, started to get worried.

[01:18:45]

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.

[01:18:56]

These guys from day three, the judge called the jury into his courtroom to ask, is there a likelihood of progress towards a unanimous verdict after getting this far?

[01:19:06]

Was 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 if you're a lead investigator and then Page's parents emotional reaction, I would tell you that was a hard part.

[01:19:29]

That was the hardest for me.

[01:19:44]

By day three of deliberations, the jury sent word to the judge they were deadlocked.

[01:19:50]

Is there a likelihood of progress towards a unanimous verdict? No, no. All right. Thank you.

[01:19:57]

The judge ordered them back to deliberate further, but now, of course, there was concern.

[01:20:02]

So they will make it make another effort, considering each other's opinions further. And if they're unable to reach a verdict, will declare a mistrial.

[01:20:10]

And we set the trial less than two hours later. Another message from the jury made states as follows.

[01:20:17]

The jury remains in the same position, period. We are not unanimous in our decision, period. We do not feel any further discussion will change our current state period.

[01:20:29]

And that was it. The judge had no option but to declare a mistrial. Minutes later, Page's dad, Frank, tried to keep it positive person. 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.

[01:20:51]

But like so many times in the past, Frank Facade cracked just a bit and the pain slipped through.

[01:20:59]

At the end, they showed a nice picture of. 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 luck in one week. And this man, Judge Sweetheart, was disturbed by lead investigator Beverly Jerrold's testimony. She just just boggled me when she was on the stand and just I don't remember.

[01:21:31]

I don't know whatever. And you're a lead investigator. They should have replaced her immediately.

[01:21:37]

Still, he voted guilty, but there were others, three all told, who couldn't overcome their doubts. One of them was Bobby Sanabria, who spoke for the three dissenters.

[01:21:48]

There was not enough evidence for them to get past the reasonable doubt. Prosecutor Dan Rubinstein said in a way, he understood.

[01:21:58]

The biggest weakness of the case, in my opinion, was that there was just no eyewitnesses that placed Mr. Jones with Miss Bernfeld that night, and we really didn't know exactly how she was killed.

[01:22:09]

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.

[01:22:23]

So the season slipped by and now with the leaves gone and snow falling, a retrial.

[01:22:29]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and with time and money tight, all knew this would be Rubenstein's last shot of Jones. Another mistrial would be just as good as an acquittal.

[01:22:41]

Do you solemnly swear? And so it all played out as before.

[01:22:44]

You have a track record of being dishonest. Yes.

[01:22:48]

The same witnesses. Did you kill Mincberg felt? No, man, the same testimony. I have never been able to run a dog on a trail that's a month old.

[01:22:57]

The same alternate suspect. In your opinion, did the sheriff's office conduct an objective investigation?

[01:23:04]

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.

[01:23:16]

But what was different this time might be was Rubenstein's closing argument, taking the alternate suspect seriously. He went after each theory one by one with attitude.

[01:23:27]

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 Kaluza at all now?

[01:23:51]

But would that make a difference to this new jury? Few thought so. And so. Well, deliberations went on from one day to the next. Page's parents braced themselves.

[01:24:03]

But I think there's a reasonable chance there could be another mistrial. If it is a mistrial, I expect Jones to walk out a free man.

[01:24:11]

And just as in the first trial, the jury deliberated for three days before sending a note to the judge, please be seated.

[01:24:20]

But this time there was a verdict.

[01:24:23]

We, the jury, find the defendant, Lester Ralph Jones, guilty of count one murder in the first degree.

[01:24:29]

When the verdict came in, I think we were supposed to feel elated, like the home team kicked the field goal with two seconds left and we just won. And to be honest, I didn't feel that there were no winners in this case. None of this brings Paige back to us.

[01:24:50]

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 now live far away in Pennsylvania, as they have since Paige first vanished.

[01:25:13]

The Brookfield's tried to get custody, but the judge ruled against them and in favor of the father, Rob Dixon.

[01:25:19]

It's been the book of job for you, too. Just trying to get back to our normal lives. And we won't we never will be. But we were ten years ago. I just changed, I think each of us. But we're working at trying to get back to normal and something like it.

[01:25:39]

A big word that always hangs over the room is closure, and I'm not sure what that means. Paige Birkenfeld was kidnapped.

[01:25:48]

There were difficult moments for the Bergdahls during the murder trial, like the first time they heard the frightened voicemail messages of their grandchildren will be back by.

[01:26:04]

And I would tell you that was a hard part.

[01:26:07]

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.

[01:26:17]

And then there was the day planner when the sweet, mundane details of Page'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. The Meet the Press Chuck Todd cast, it's an insider's take on politics, the twenty twenty election and more candid conversations with some of my favorite reporters about things we usually discuss off camera.

[01:27:04]

Listen for free wherever you get your podcast.