Who killed Kristil Krug? Slain Colorado mother acquired menacing threats weeks earlier than her homicide.

Sufferer advocate Heather Aites is educated to consolation these in emotional agony, like Dan Krug, who dashed dwelling from work and realized his spouse, Kristil, had been discovered murdered of their storage in suburban Broomfield, Colorado, on Dec. 14, 2023.

Heather Aites: It is a bizarre feeling standing there when any person is being informed, I am sorry, however the one you love has died.

Heather Aites: This man has been going via a stalking case together with his spouse. … he’s being stalked as effectively. And now she is gone.

As investigators searched the crime scene for clues, Aites drove Dan to the police station. An officer’s physique digital camera recorded the experience.

Heather Aites: He was crouched over to the facet of the passenger door.  … And I am comforting Dan by rubbing his again.

Dan and Kristil Krug had been married for 16 years. The couple, each 43, had three younger kids.

Peter Van Sant: What did he say within the automotive?

Heather Aites: Within the automotive … he was fairly targeted on the youngsters. … he was very adamant about desirous to be the one to inform his kids.

Underneath the command of Broomfield Police chief Enea Hempelmann, investigators have been doing every thing of their energy to search out the killer.

Chief Enea Hempelmann: We … instantly, uh, began doing interviews … speaking to neighbors, canvassing.

A number of hours had handed since Dan Krug’s emotional experience to the police station. He had settled down. And he informed detectives there was nothing out of the abnormal that morning.

DAN KRUG (to detectives): Mornings are very routine in the home.

He mentioned they bought the youngsters to high school, and Kristil appeared fantastic when he left for his job on the Colorado Division of Public Well being and Surroundings.

DAN KRUG (to detectives): Whereas I used to be driving, uh, my — my cellphone dinged.

Dan mentioned Kristil texted him, asking if he might choose up one of many youngsters after faculty. However when he texted again and requested what time, he mentioned Kristil by no means responded.

DAN KRUG (to detectives): And that — that was bizarre.

So bizarre — so out of character for Kristil — Dan referred to as police and requested them to verify on her.

OFFICER JOHN O’HAYRE (bodycam): I bought a feminine down within the storage.

Lars Grimsrud: There should not phrases that may describe, what you’re feeling as a dad or mum at that time.

Linda Grimsrud: It is most likely a mother and father’ worst nightmare

Kristil’s mother and father, Lars and Linda Grimsrud.

Lars Grimsrud: She was an engineer. … She had … unimaginable expertise in, uh, math, sciences, chemistry, physics. … she additionally had the — the abilities within the … arts.

Linda Grimsrud She beloved to only get out and dwell life.

All through her life, Kristil spent numerous hours working along with her dad on basic muscle automobiles in his colourful storage.

Lars Grimsrud (in his storage): We would work on the automobiles. … We would race the automobiles. … Kristil all the time felt very comfy coming over right here. … If we would have liked to speak or no matter, that is the place we’d sit and simply … take pleasure in one another’s firm.

Kristil Krug Tells Police She is Being Terrorized by a Stalker

However these enjoyable, informal conversations abruptly turned disturbing within the fall of 2023, when Kristil first informed her father that she was dwelling with intense worry.

Lars Grimsrud (in his storage): She sat right here and informed me that she was being stalked and that simply shocked me. … and I requested her, effectively, have you ever talked to the police?

Kristil had referred to as the police and met with Broomfield Detective Andrew Martinez.

Det. Andrew Martinez: She got here into the interview room and simply sort of took over and simply informed me every thing … with out hesitation.

Their dialog was recorded.

KRISTIL KRUG (to Det. Martinez): I hold making an attempt to remind myself, that is meaning to be terrorizing. That is meaning to scare me.

Kristil informed Martinez that on Oct. 2, 2023, she acquired an unsettling textual content from somebody named Anthony, who mentioned he can be coming to the world and requested if Kristil wished to “hook up.”

Peter Van Sant: And the way does she reply to that?

Det. Andrew Martinez: She didn’t reply.

The next day, Kristil informed Martinez she bought extra texts from Anthony that included obscenities and mentioned, “it is best to kill urself. Dont waste my time.”

Peter Van Sant: Anyone that wishes to hook up, now could be saying, go kill your self. How do you interpret that — that second textual content?

Det. Andrew Martinez: It is a fairly excessive response to not getting a response.

Kristil informed Martinez she knew an Anthony from her previous, Anthony Holland, a boyfriend she dated for a couple of yr after highschool and into school. The 2 broke up within the fall of 2000. Lars and Linda Grimsrud say again then Holland made a great impression.

Linda Grimsrud: Very pleasant very courteous. He all the time had good manners.

In 2002, out of the blue, Holland contacted Kristil. Based on Kristil, Holland by no means appeared to take no for a solution — contacting her once more in 2005, 2010 and 2016 through Fb. 

KRISTIL KRUG (to Det. Martinez): He is like we’re meant to be collectively … I mentioned, “that is actually creepy for me. You must cease.”

Kristil deleted Fb and thought she’d heard the final of Holland. However then got here the texts in 2023.

KRISTIL KRUG (to Det. Martinez): This was alarming. He is by no means mentioned this sort of stuff to me earlier than, so —

Over the subsequent two months, Kristil mentioned she acquired alarming message after message via textual content and electronic mail. They included threats to her and Dan — together with a disturbing picture of Dan getting out of his automotive at work, which prompted Kristil to first come ahead and name police. Just a few days later this textual content to her: “Noticed u at dentist… see you quickly.”

Peter Van Sant: That means he is perhaps surveilling them each, proper?

Det. Andrew Martinez: Right.

KRISTIL KRUG (to Det. Martinez): This now could be escalating.

Det. Andrew Martinez: The harassment, uh, is simply fixed. … And she or he’s simply believing that each nook presents some type of hazard for her.

To assemble proof and find Anthony Holland, Martinez was required to file search warrants with the cellphone and electronic mail firms, a sluggish course of.

Peter Van Sant: Getting that info takes time. … Typically these firms are reluctant, or they sluggish stroll getting that info to you, right?

Det. Andrew Martinez: Sure.

Kristil had been looking for Holland on her personal. She employed a personal investigator, and ultimately situated him dwelling in Utah, about 500 miles away. Kristil shared her discovery with Martinez, who selected to not contact Holland.

Det. Andrew Martinez: I defined to Kristil … that we wished to collect as a lot proof as attainable and ideally get hold of an arrest warrant so when legislation enforcement does go to, uh, Anthony’s door, we will take him into custody and never must stroll away.

However Lars Grimsrud says Kristil had been dropping endurance with the investigation.

Lars Grimsrud: She made the remark that she felt … they’d deserted her that — that they weren’t doing issues aggressively sufficient.

Kristil had taken steps to guard herself and her household – together with putting in safety cameras.

Lars Grimsrud (in his storage): She was scared. … I mentioned …effectively this sounds critical sufficient you’ll want to begin carrying. … you will use one in all my weapons for — for proper now.

Peter Van Sant: Is that this the very gun that she took along with her?

Lars Grimsrud: That’s the precise gun that she initially then carried.

Dan Krug was additionally interviewed. The threats have been taking a toll on him, as effectively.

DAN KRUG (to detectives): I went to the grocery retailer briefly on Tuesday and somebody behind me dropped a can and I f****** panicked. … So, what am I doing? I am panicking. And I am doing a s*** job of defending my spouse. … So, I am not — I am not doing good.

Dan Krug informed Martinez the stalker had a nickname.

DANIEL KRUG (to detectives): We name him Kickman.

Peter Van Sant: The place’d that title come from?

Det. Andrew Martinez: Kickman … Dan had informed me was as a result of the suspect electronic mail that was initially contacting Kristil was … ahollandkicks at gmail.com.

Because the weeks glided by and Martinez’s investigation continued, Lars and Linda Grimsrud say the fixed threats have been ruining their daughter’s life.

Linda Grimsrud: It was simply heartbreaking. She was simply in tears … She was identical to, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna dwell?

Peter Van Sant: Did she really feel she was being hunted down by Anthony?

Linda Grimsrud: Sure.

Kristil additionally shared her fears along with her siblings Jenna Ericson and Josh Adamson.

Jenna Ericson: She was terrified.

Peter Van Sant: Did she ever specific to both of you the worry that this man I believe goes to kill me?

Jenna Ericson: Sure.

Josh Adamson: Yep.

Jenna Ericson: She mentioned, it is both going to be me or him that is useless. And I’ll do every thing in my energy to ensure it is not me.

Police Zero in on Kristil Krug’s Stalker

When Kristil Krug was discovered useless in her storage, Detective Martinez had just one suspect in thoughts.

Det. Andrew Martinez: My preliminary assumption was that … Anthony Holland had, uh, gone to her dwelling and murdered her.

Inside hours, native police descended on Holland’s dwelling in Eagle Mountain close to Salt Lake Metropolis.

Peter Van Sant: So that you’re alone in the home … what do you hear?

Anthony Holland: Pounding on the door.

Peter Van Sant (bangs hand on desk): Like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Anthony Holland: Yeah.

Peter Van Sant: Huge time.

Anthony Holland: So I am going to the door. … I see like eight cops. … I had no thought what was occurring.

OFFICER (bodycam): The place’s your ID at?

ANTHONY HOLLAND: It is in my room.

OFFICER: Have you ever ever heard of the title Kristil Krug?

Anthony Holland: They requested me if I knew Kristil Krug and I informed them I did know her.

ANTHONY HOLLAND (bodycam): She was my very first girlfriend ever.

OFFICER: And when was the final time you talked to Kristil? Has it been some time? A minute?

ANTHONY HOLLAND: Uh, it has been a minute. Yeah.

Peter Van Sant: When was the final time you had reached out to Kristil?

Anthony Holland: It was round 2014, 2016.

Holland says he’d reached out to Kristil on Fb years earlier than.

Peter Van Sant: What are you pondering? “Why would they arrive all — all the way in which right here to ask me about Kristil?”

Anthony Holland: I assumed it was for that message … the place I mentioned I missed her. That is the one factor I might consider as a result of I used to be like I have not contacted her since then.

Peter Van Sant: They did not inform you that Kristil Krug had been murdered?

Anthony Holland: No, they didn’t inform me.

Police have been there to collect info from their suspect — not give it.

Anthony Holland: They requested me the place I used to be that day. … Can I show the place I used to be?

Holland had made a purchase order simply hours earlier at a Kohl’s retailer close to his dwelling.

Peter Van Sant: What’d you purchase?

Anthony Holland: A sweatshirt, this one proper right here.

And he nonetheless had the receipt. The acquisition was made at 12:16 p.m. Investigators say Kristil was attacked round 8 a.m.

Peter Van Sant: It seems that was some of the necessary purchases you have got ever made.

Anthony Holland: As a result of it was my alibi, as a result of there isn’t any means I might have made it from Colorado again to Utah to purchase the sweatshirt. … It was an eight-hour drive.

Holland additionally confirmed police a few of his employment data. They proved he’d been in Utah all alongside — by no means touring to Colorado because the messages from Kristil’s stalker led cops to consider.

Anthony Holland: I had a bunch of receipts from my work exhibiting the times that I labored. And so they took these, took my receipt from Kohl’s and … went to the squad automotive and made a cellphone name … got here again in and informed me I used to be free to go.

OFFICER (to Holland): You’ve gotten a greater day, OK?

Again in Colorado, Dan Krug was nonetheless nose to nose with investigators. He informed them his idea of the crime.

DAN KRUG (to detectives): So in my mind, the story that I’ve is somebody got here to the door, perhaps she went outdoors to get a package deal and so they should have are available in. And she or he’s — she’s a fighter. She’s — she is robust. She would’ve fought.

Earlier within the interview, Dan requested he inform the youngsters what had occurred to their mom.

VICTIM ADVOCATE: Your youngsters have no idea but. 

DAN KRUG: Are they right here? 

VICTIM ADVOCATE: They’re right here. They’re proper within the corridor. 

DAN KRUG (pats his chest): I am — I ought to inform my kids. 

VICTIM ADVOCATE: You need to inform them? 

DAN KRUG: I simply do not know the way. 

VICTIM ADVOCATE: That is OK. 

Det. Andrew Martinez: Watching their response is simply heartbreaking.

Investigators have been working each angle. They checked these safety cameras Kristil had put in on the home.

Det. Andrew Martinez: The doorbell digital camera, the facet digital camera, and the facet home digital camera, uh, have been all manually turned off.

Apart from that one Nest digital camera close to the storage. Police canvassed Dan and Kristil Krug’s neighbors searching for something their dwelling safety cameras might need recorded.

Additionally they enlisted Randy Pihlak, a digital forensic examiner with the Broomfield Police Division, to take a better have a look at these disturbing messages to Kristil.

Randy Pihlak: I believe it was most likely 4 hours, 5 hours after the homicide was reported to us. 

Now that the stalking case had change into a homicide investigation, Pihlak was capable of file new, expedited requests for info. He rapidly found that messages from two accounts used to harass Kristil had been despatched from the identical location.

Randy Pihlak: Each … got here again to the identical IP handle. That IP handle was the Colorado Division of Public Well being and Surroundings, which is the place Dan labored. 

The messages to Kristil threatening her, threatening her husband, had been despatched utilizing the Wi-Fi system at Dan’s workplace. For the primary time, detectives believed Kristil’s stalker could possibly be sitting proper in entrance of them. May he be her killer as effectively?

Det. Andrew Martinez: All the air was simply sort of evacuated out of our investigations room and we realized … we have to give attention to Dan and the place he is been and what he is been doing.

Martinez, together with Detective Jennifer King Sullivan, confronted Dan.

DET. KING SULLIVAN: Who do you suppose killed her?

DAN KRUG: I believe it is Kickman. I believe it is Anthony.

DET. MARTINEZ: What if I informed you that we had already spoken with Anthony and there is not any means that he was on the town at this time? 

DAN KRUG: Then I’ve nothing. And, then I am f****** terrified to deliver my kids dwelling.

DET. KING SULLIVAN: What are you scared of?

DAN KRUG: If it wasn’t him, who was it?

However at the same time as Dan claimed ignorance, the detectives noticed that his physique language informed a special story. 

Peter Van Sant: What have been you seeing with Dan?

Det. Andrew Martinez: He took a defensive posture. He sat again within the sofa a bit of bit. He crossed his arms. … Kinda like I’ve nothing to elucidate.

Det. Jennifer King Sullivan: I believe his head is spinning, occupied with what else are they gonna discover?

Dan Krug Goes From Grieving Husband to Homicide Suspect

DET. KING SULLIVAN (questioning): The thriller continues and –

DAN KRUG: And it has be the husband.

DET. KING SULLIVAN: In case you have been watching these info unfold in entrance of you in a film, what would you say occurred?

DAN KRUG:There must be another person. 

Moments after detectives informed Dan Krug they’d eradicated Anthony Holland as a suspect,  Dan calmly insisted he was not the one who stalked and murdered his spouse Kristil.

DAN KRUG: I beloved her… there must be another person. However I do not know who that’s.

Martinez and King Sullivan did not consider a phrase of it,  and have been struck by how stoic — how unmoved — Dan was.

Det. Jennifer King Sullivan: He had no response, um, and actually no rationalization.

DET. KING SULLIVAN (questioning): Assist me make sense of it.

DAN KRUG: I do not know. I am not the one who does this. … I haven’t got a story or a narrative that I can give you.

Inside minutes, Dan Krug had gone from sympathetic sufferer to homicide suspect.

DANIEL KRUG (to detectives): I get the narrative you are placing collectively, however it alleges that I might do that to my kids. … I like and adore my kids.

Det. Andrew Martinez: It is a fairly horrifying concept that … the most important menace that to you and your security is definitely dwelling in the identical home as you.

DET. MARTINEZ (to Dan Krug): We have to course of you for bodily proof, OK.

Det. Andrew Martinez: He is aware of that we’re on to him. … We simply did not have sufficient proof at that time to take him into custody.

DET. MARTINEZ (to Dan Krug): We’ll stroll you out to the foyer …

On his means out, Dan saved insisting the actual killer was nonetheless on the unfastened and he made a determined plea.

DAN KRUG (to detectives): I simply need the f***** to pay … He took my kids’s mom earlier than Christmas. They’re by no means gonna recover from that. …I do not care if you happen to seize him. I do not care if you happen to kill him. … Discover him … Do not simply as assume it is me. Hold trying.

Peter Van Sant: When did you discover out that Dan was now an individual of — of curiosity on this case?

Linda Grimsrud: I believe at his interview. So that very same day once they held him and so they held him fairly late.

An post-mortem revealed what occurred to Kristil. She had been attacked from behind with a blunt object.

Det. Andrew Martinez: Bludgeoned to demise within the head and rolled over after which stabbed within the coronary heart.

With Dan now the prime suspect, the detectives wished to know extra about his relationship with Kristil. Based on Kristil’s mother and father, it wasn’t good.

Linda Grimsrud: She mentioned, effectively, I am sleeping on the sofa mother.

Peter Van Sant: However you knew there was bother in paradise, proper?

Linda Grimsrud: Yeah. And particularly in that — these previous few months.

Kristil’s household says these troubles have been brought on by Dan’s fiery mood.

Peter Van Sant: What set him off?

Lars Grimsrud: It — it could possibly be something, however it was normally if he was dropping management …

Kristil’s sister Jenna Ericson says she might all the time inform when Dan was indignant.

Jenna Ericson: His face would get actually purple when he was getting pissed off … I vividly keep in mind seeing his face get purple.

Linda Grimsrud: That they had a factor the place … they’d go, OK, stroll away. … You must stroll away. And so, you already know, they have been making an attempt to handle it.

However within the weeks earlier than her demise, in line with her mother and father, Kristil was on the brink of depart Dan. 

Linda Grimsrud: She did not wanna have this marriage anymore.

Lars Grimsrud: She had determined that she wanted to break up.

Because the detectives methodically constructed their case, extra proof was uncovered on Dan and Kristil Krug’s cell telephones by digital forensic knowledgeable Randy Pihlak — together with texts from the morning of the homicide.

Randy Pihlak: So on Kristil’s cellphone, um, we see textual content messages to Lars, Detective Martinez, after which a textual content message to Dan.

The one Dan mentioned he acquired whereas driving to work about selecting up one of many youngsters at college. However Pihlak found these texts had been set on a timer. It was a brand new characteristic on the cellphone Kristil had.

Peter Van Sant: Who do you consider preprogrammed these messages?

Randy Pihlak: Uh, Dan Krug.

Peter Van Sant: And he did it to do what?

 Randy Pihlak: To cover his actions.

Pihlak says the messages have been preprogrammed earlier than Dan left the home.

Randy Pihlak: And we consider Kristil was deceased.

Peter Van Sant: That for him, then, would set up an alibi that effectively I had already left and my spouse is alive proper? She’s texting me.

Randy Pihlak: Right.

All whereas Dan casually arrived at work.

Pihlak found extra damning proof from Dan’s cellphone: web searches like “What occurs if you’re knocked unconscious?” “Do folks actually go unconscious when hit within the head?” and “How arduous for head trauma to go unconscious?”

Randy Pihlak: All searches have been the day earlier than the homicide … it was slightly damning.

Simply two days after Kristil had been murdered, detectives Martinez and King Sullivan felt they’d sufficient proof to cost Dan Krug with stalking and murdering his spouse. 

Det. Jennifer King Sullivan: We start following him.

Peter Van Sant: What number of automobiles we speaking about?

Jennifer King Sullivan: Most likely eight automobiles. … we’re like, “that is him, he is alone within the automotive.”

Det. Jennifer King Sullivan: We observe him all the way in which to the grocery retailer.

Det. Jennifer King Sullivan: We await him to park … we rapidly converge on his automotive.

Det. Jennifer King Sullivan: We encompass him …

OFFICER (bodycam): You are beneath arrest.

Det. Jennifer King Sullivan: … pull him out of his automotive and … inform him he is being arrested for the homicide of his spouse.

Det. Andrew Martinez: I requested him only one query.

DET. MARTINEZ (to Dan Krug/bodycam): Do you need to inform your youngsters that you just killed their mom, or would you like any person else to?

Peter Van Sant: That is fairly a line. … That goes again to when … he mentioned he wished to inform his youngsters that their mom was useless.

Det. Andrew Martinez: After I requested that query, he simply mentioned that he wished to talk together with his legal professional after which seemed away from me.

Det. Andrew Martinez: And I shut the door and he went to the county jail.

Lars Grimsrud: I felt an enormous reduction. … they bought him. … It felt like a burden had been lifted, that he had been arrested.

And shortly, Kristil’s household would come nose to nose with the person detectives say murdered her.

Lars Grimsrud: He, uh, seemed proper at me and smiled at me.

And so they hear, for the primary time, Dan’s facet of the story.

Kristil Krug’s Ultimate Moments Revealed

When Deputy District Attorneys Kate Armstrong and Stephanie Fritts have been assigned to prosecute Daniel Krug, they are saying they have been struck by his downright stupidity in believing he might get away with murdering his spouse by impersonating her ex-boyfriend.

Kate Armstrong: The audacity with which he thought he might manipulate not solely his household, his family members, but in addition the police division.

Peter Van Sant: And a few of this … is refined, is it not?

Stephanie Fritts: It is refined, however not too refined as a result of we have been capable of determine it out.

The trial started in April 2025.

Lars Grimsrud: When he first got here in … he smiled at me like, he was saying, “hey, thanks for being right here for me” … I consider my facial features … made it very clear that I used to be not on his facet.

The prosecution laid out Kristil’s ultimate hours of life for the jury.

Kate Armstrong: On December 14th of 2023, Kristil Krug began her day like every other day. … She took her youthful two kids to high school.

And when she returned –

Kate Armstrong: Kristil … pulled again into her storage. She will get out of the automotive … when she is attacked from behind.

Peter Van Sant: And did she ever see him approaching, do you suppose? … Or was this an ambush?

Stephanie Fritts: It was an ambush. … She had two or three cranium fractures.

Kate Armstrong: As she’s laying on the ground bleeding, he … pushes her over, will get over her and stabs her … simply above her coronary heart.

Peter Van Sant: And why do you suppose — he had to do this vicious final stab?

Kate Armstrong: I believe it was rage. I believe it was management and energy that he wished to exert over Kristil.

Dan Krug had been dropping that management for a very long time, say prosecutors. Their idea of the crime is that Dan despatched Kristil these disturbing messages in an try and drive her nearer to him and never depart, hoping she’d see him as her heroic protector.

Kate Armstrong: It was not working … the stalking was not main her again to him … I believe it then turned to, ‘I am nonetheless dropping her’ sort of, uh, ‘if I am unable to have you ever, no person can.'”

The prosecution says that within the final days of her life, Kristil had begun to suspect that her stalker was presumably her husband.

Stephanie Fritts: We all know from Dan’s personal interview that she confronted him and mentioned, “I am unable to rule you out because the stalker.

DAN KRUG (to detectives): She mentioned that proper to my face, that she wished to know if it was me. And I informed her no.

Peter Van Sant: He felt the partitions closing in.

Stephanie Fritts: Closing in. He was going to lose Kristil anyway. … He was going to be uncovered because the stalker. … So he did that final, uh, deadly act and murdered her.

Prosecutors say Dan Krug tried to outsmart investigators — pre-programming these textual content messages on Kristil’s cellphone earlier than he left the home — assuming he would not be caught.

Kate Armstrong: Have been we not capable of uncover that that was a delayed ship textual content, it might have appeared as if Kristil was nonetheless alive when he left the home.

At trial, the lengthy record of digital proof towards Dan Krug was laid out: the threatening texts, the emails, the web searches. Additionally included — that {photograph} of Dan arriving at his workplace, hooked up to a menacing electronic mail seemingly despatched by Anthony Holland to Kristil. However there was one drawback, in line with the state’s digital knowledgeable.

Peter Van Sant: Who took this image, do you consider?

Randy Pihlak: Uh, Dan. Dan took this image.

Pihlak found that the cellphone which snapped that picture was in selfie mode utilizing a timer — a incontrovertible fact that Kate Armstrong reminded the jury about in her closing argument. That is when the decide allowed cameras into the courtroom.

KATE ARMSTRONG (in court docket): The cellphone was propped on the again of this automobile subsequent to him. … The defendant took this {photograph} after which he despatched it to his spouse.

PHILLIP GEIGLE (in court docket): We respectfully disagree with the prosecution on this case.

Protection legal professional Phillip Geigle argued the homicide investigation was poor. The blunt object used on Kristil’s head and the knife used to stab her have been by no means recovered by police. The protection additionally zeroed in on the truth that Kristil’s cellphone was not examined for fingerprints or DNA.

PHILLIP GEIGLE (in court docket): Why not the cellphone? … The prosecution desires to consider, “Nicely, you already know, there might not be quite a bit to be discovered there.” Nicely, you will not know if you happen to will not attempt.

Geigle mentioned different forensic checks supported his declare that Dan Krug is harmless.

PHILLIP GEIGLE (in court docket): They submitted the chest swabs. … And you already know whose DNA wasn’t there? The one who lived in the home, the one that ate within the kitchen with them, the one that shared the lounge, that fool proper there (factors to Dan Krug).

PHILLIP GEIGLE (in court docket): There may be completely no bodily proof on Mr. Krug’s clothes. … There is no blood discovered on that automotive inside or out. It is searched 3 times.

In week three of the trial, the jurors started deliberations. After a day-and-a-half, verdicts have been reached.

Choose Priscilla Loew learn the verdicts.

JUDGE LOEW: We, the jury, discover the defendant responsible of homicide within the first diploma. … We, the jury, discover the defendant, responsible of rely quantity two, stalking, excessive emotional misery.

Krug was additionally discovered responsible of stalking with credible menace and legal impersonation.

Lars Grimsrud: Responsible, responsible, responsible, responsible. And at that time I believe I began respiration once more.

Krug was later sentenced to life in jail with out the opportunity of parole on the homicide cost, and an extra nine-and-a-half years for the stalking and impersonation counts. However proper after his conviction, in a video name from jail, Dan Krug informed his household that the jury bought it incorrect, saying the actual killer remained at massive and that his kids could possibly be the subsequent targets.

DAN KRUG (video name with household): I would like them protected. I do not know the place or who did this. The place he’s or who he’s. I would like my kids out of Colorado.

May Kristil Krug’s Homicide Have Been Prevented?

As Daniel Krug started serving his life sentence, he continued making video calls to his mother and father and brother within the days instantly after his conviction. The person who viciously murdered his spouse, terrorized his personal kids and lied to everybody, was searching for sympathy from his facet of the household.

DAN KRUG (video name with household): I am most likely sleeping like 16 hours a day due to the melancholy.

PATRICIA KRUG: Mm-hmm.

DAN KRUG: I sleep, I learn and I cry. That is about it.

PATRICIA KRUG: OK.

Regardless of overwhelming digital proof towards him, Krug fell again to his outdated methods — mendacity to his family members — now claiming he was wrongly convicted.

DAN KRUG (video name with household): They by no means produced a single piece of arduous proof.

His brother, Jeremy Krug, gave Dan Krug a much-needed actuality verify — that the inspiration of the household’s loyalty had began to crack.

JEREMY KRUG (video name with Dan Krug): Assist is dwindling. , mother and pop need to consider you very a lot. I need to consider you very a lot. … There’s quite a bit that is come out, um, and as imaginative as I may be with discovering explanations and methods to theorize how that, you already know this or that would have been, the, the truth, um, a few of it’s past even my creativity.

The case that ended with a homicide had begun with stalking and legal impersonation of Anthony Holland. Which begs the query: what if Detective Martinez had acted on the data Kristil and the non-public investigator had uncovered.

Anthony Holland: They need to have discovered me straight away. … They need to have discovered me, they need to have got here to my home. They need to approached me. They need to have talked to me.

However Detective Martinez selected to not name, telling “48 Hours” he did not have sufficient proof to take action, and was involved a cellphone name might exacerbate the state of affairs.

Peter Van Sant: Is that this one thing the place you’ve got kicked your self about this?

Det. Andrew Martinez: Uh, this case has, uh, haunted me since, um, it occurred. … And the end result of this case has haunted me for the previous two years.

Peter Van Sant: And if you happen to might get in a time machine, maybe you’d make that decision at this time?

Det. Andrew Martinez: Completely.

And Kristil’s mother and father sympathize with Martinez and consider their daughter was doomed it doesn’t matter what the end result of his investigation.

Lars Grimsrud: Inevitably, I believe he was gonna kill her. … When somebody units their thoughts to do one thing like that and that is what the plan was … I do not suppose that might’ve stopped the homicide from taking place.

Kristil’s demise has left a gap within the lives of those that skilled her love and pleasure for all times.

Anthony Holland: I’ve had plenty of different girlfriends and I’ve by no means been in love with anyone else like her.

Peter Van Sant: She was the love of your life.

Anthony Holland: Yeah.

Jenna Ericson hopes her sister Kristil’s story will function a cautionary story.

Jenna Ericson: If it will possibly assist only one different particular person, who’s in a harmful state of affairs, like she was in, that it offers them the power to make a transfer as a result of it will possibly escalate and it will possibly escalate actually, actually quick.

Peter Van Sant: What was misplaced when she was taken from us?

Linda Grimsrud: Her mild, you already know, her mild.

Lars Grimsrud: That is a — that is a tricky one to speak about as a result of there’s, uh, there’s a lot. I need her to leap outta that automotive and say, “hey Papa.”

Lars nonetheless passes his time restoring elements for classic automobiles. That father-daughter pastime is now being handed right down to Kristil’s kids.

Lars Grimsrud: They’re in right here. They run that very same electrical screwdriver and so they can tear a carburetor aside.

Peter Van Sant: So, in that means, you are honoring her reminiscence. Aren’t you?

Lars Grimsrud: Nicely, that is the entire thought. Yeah.

Peter Van Sant: You keep it up that custom.

Lars Grimsrud: Yeah. That is the entire thought. She, uh, she would get such a kick out of seeing the youngsters doing the stuff that she was concerned in.

Linda Grimsrud: I have a look at my grandkids and … I discover a second of peace … as a result of I see her.

The household has began a web-based fundraising marketing campaign to assist Kristil’s three kids.

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Produced by Betsy Shuller and Susan Mallie. Elena DiFiore and Ryan N. Smith are the event producers. Michael Loftus is the affiliate producer. Marcus Balsam, Diana DeCilio, Phil Tangel and George Baluzy are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior broadcast producer. Nancy Kramer is the chief story editor. Judy Tygard is the chief producer.