Tag Archive for: unsolved crime

Paige Birgfeld & Howard (Ron) Beigler

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Paige Birgfeld disappeared on June 28th of this year and has not been seen since. You may have seen the story on ABC’s Family Secrets last night.

Birgfeld was a mother of three, held down odd jobs to support her family, and was twice divorced. Life wasn’t coming easy for Birgfeld who ironically lived in a million dollar home.

When she disappeared, it didn’t take people long to point the finger at her ex-husband, Rob Dixon. Birgfeld had posted her fears online in a Pampered Chef forum that she was afraid of her ex-husband who was moving within a four hour drive of her and the children.

But Birgfeld had domestic disputes with both of her husbands, and before she disappeared the last known person to publicly speak of seeing Birgfeld alive was her first husband, Howard (Ron) Beigler.

Police have said that both husbands are talking with police and are cooperating, but neither has been ruled out as a suspect.

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The story then takes another interesting turn. Police discovered that Birgfeld was leading a secret life as an escort by the name of “Carrie”. It appears she told different people different things about what she did. Her first husband, Beigler, seems adamant that police will find that she didn’t sleep with any of her customers (you can see part of his conversations online by following the link above). He believes she only gave topless massages with no physical contact.

I think Beigler is in denial, personally. You don’t live in a million dollar home by simply giving topless massages. Money doesn’t come that easy.

I suspect Birgfeld lied to Beigler because they were rekindling their romance recently, or simply because she just couldn’t confess to what she was doing to an ex-husband, knowing it would get him potentially angry or upset.

But when Beigler said to ABC’s John Quinones, “I’m not the least bit worried about them coming after me for this,” I believed him. I believe Beigler is being honest. I don’t believe he has a worry about being looked at closer.

Police also have another person-of-interest in this case, a person named Lester Ralph Jones who they say knew Birgfeld intimately. They have searched Jones’ home twice.

You have to wonder if Jones was a client of “Carrie” and was perhaps one of the people in her book for that night, or one of the last people she called before she disappeared.

I would still like to see Dixon and Jones speak. If anyone see them talking online — point me to the videos!

Looking at Matthew Gretz (Kira Simonian)

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Matthew Gretz is the husband of Kira Simonian. Simonian was a graduate student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. On June 28, 2007, Simonian’s landlord found her dead in her Minneapolis apartment. She was 32-years-old and an art student. Police are not saying exactly how she died, but they are calling the case a homicide and they are saying there are “multiple causes of death”. No one has been called a suspect, yet no one has been ruled out either.

That leaves us to look at Gretz. Where was he the night before and the day that Simonian was found dead?

According to news reports, he left town for business on Thursday morning before Simonian’s body was found later that evening. So, I would think by the time line, if reports are accurate, Gretz could still be a suspect.

Read more Gretz has only spoken publicly one time that I am aware of and there is only a tiny snippet of him speaking at a vigil held for Simonian several weeks after her death.

Does it tell us anything?

We know he is not lying in this video simply because he doesn’t say anything that is worthy of a lie. He makes the most generic statements which I personally find a bit odd. Usually at vigils, people talk personally about the loss of someone they love. That’s not to say that Gretz did or did not say more personal things. We really can’t discern this from the tiny snippets of vigil shown in this clip. He may have and the camera crew may not have caught it, or showed it on TV — which would be odd in itself. I would think the camera crew was looking to get him talking emotionally about Simonian, wouldn’t you? With that, we have to wonder and ask is this all he said at the vigil? If this is all he said, I’d find it perplexing.

What Gretz does say is this:

“Since my wife was murdered, everyday it gets a little bit harder in some ways…But it’s kinda days like today or moments like this: seeing your faces and seeing your support and knowing were all in this together, that makes it a little bit easier.”

He continues:

“I know that we all appreciated Kira in different ways. It’s not just my loss, it’s friends losses, it’s student’s losses, it’s neighbors losses. Going forward, let’s tell good stories about Kira because that’s what she would have wanted.”

Can we glean anything from this?

We can glean, at this point, Gretz is not in denial about his wife’s murder by the fact he uses the word “murder”. It’s a strong word. If Gretz were to try to play the part that he couldn’t accept her death , I would find that odd and contradictory — but we don’t know how Gretz is behaving at this point. If we did, we could see if his behavior is consistent. That’s key.

I do find the fact that he says, “…everyday it gets a little bit harder in some ways…But it’s kinda days like today or moments like this…” interesting. These statement shows that Gretz is having some confusing and conflicting feelings.

Things are getting harder “in some ways”? They either do, or do not get harder after the murder of a loved one. When emotions run high, things become stark black and white. I can accept either answer, but I would expect a definitive answer. You either will or will not face challenges — but you don’t face them “in some ways” at a highly volitile time in your life. It’s a half-baked answer. It’s odd. It’s unusual. It’s a raised-eyebrow but nothing more.

I would like to ask Gretz what has gotten harder in some ways? His answer might be telling.

Gretz goes on with his wishy-washy response when he says “But it’s kinda days like today…” It kind of is, but it isn’t? This is another odd answer. It’s unusual. This response doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Either you find solace in the gathering of Simonian’s friends, or you don’t. You don’t sort of find solace, do you?

Is he not finding solace– but trying to act like he is?

I also find Gretz’s word choices odd here when he says, “It’s not just my loss, it’s friends losses, it’s student’s losses, it’s neighbors losses. ” This statement lacks personal connection. It’s almost as if Gretz is distancing himself. You have to wonder. It’s just unusual again. I would expect to him to say something like, “It’s not only my loss, but your loss too. We all lost…”.

And last, when I watch Gretz talk, I see fear in his eyes and in his face. He looks frightened: really frightened. You can see he is trying to comfort himself by rubbing his chest. His voice quivers and he sounds as if he is out-of-breathe when he starts talking. Why? Is it due to the cut of the video, or is this how he started talking? I’d be curious to know. It would give me more information because if this is how he started talking, his voice pitch is strange.

Can I determine why he is frightened? No. I can only speculate. Why would he be afraid? Well, he could be deathly afraid of the person who murdered his wife, if he is a victim here. If that is the case, would he go to or hold a vigil after dark in the same neighborhood — a block away — if he feared for his life? That makes me ask the question who organized the vigil? I’d be interested to know.

All these answers would give me more definition.

Perhaps Gretz would be the type to push his fears aside and go to a vigil to honor Simonian. I can’t determine that from the little I know about Gretz. He doesn’t hit me as the type to take risks for his safety when I look at him, but I could be wrong. That’s simply just a guess.

Another scenario is that Gretz is an extremely shy guy — and going to this public vigil was too much for him. Could that be why he was afraid? When I watch Simonian’s video on CrimeBlog.us, I see Simonian was a strong character. I don’t believe such a timid guy would be attracted to someone like her, if that was the case. She hits me as the type to make him deal with situations — not avoid them. With that, I don’t believe Gretz was that shy and hence simply afraid of being on TV.

I’d be interested to talk to Gretz to ask him why he was so afraid. I think his responses would tell us a lot.

We can only guess at this point what is going on inside Gretz’s head. I’d love to ask him some questions, but I am not sure if I would like the answers I got back.

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Update:

September 2007:
Matthew Gretz has been arrested.

June 2008
Gretz Confesses
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Click on the labels below to see the most current posts.

Dale Fullwood

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Click here for an update on this case 8-12-2008

Click here for an update on this case 3-03-2009

Earlier this week, a reader asked me to look at the case of Coralrose Fullwood. Coralrose was a 6-year-old little girl who was reported missing by her parents shortly after they woke up on the morning of September 17, 2006. Within a few hours, a local resident was walking his dog two blocks from the Fullwood house when he stumbled upon Coralrose’s body at a new home construction site.

Nine months later, police have not named any suspects, but have not ruled anyone out as a suspect, either. Apparently, DNA was found on Coralrose’s body that does not match any of the family members.

The reader pointed me to some videos of Coralrose’s father, Dale, here.

I watched the three videos yesterday, and I must say I got a horrible pit in my stomach. It really upset me and bothered me- so much so that I had to walk away for a few hours. Nothing in the video sat right with me. Dale is not a person I trust. He makes me feel uneasy and uncomfortable. And while his DNA was not found on his daughter’s body, I still don’t believe Dale is telling us what he knows to be true.

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  1. The first thing that struck me about Dale was his demeanor. It brought me right back to Adam Saleh. You don’t get a hint from his demeanor that he has just suffered a major life tragedy within the past two weeks. Instead, he jabbers on and on like he is talking about remodeling his house or something inane. You don’t get a clue that his children were taken away and his daughter was murdered— that this man’s life is in (or should be in) total chaos. His emotional response is completely in contradiction to his circumstances. Why isn’t he feeling normal emotions? That’s a big question.

    I know many of you are thinking that someone could go into denial about a situation like this, and it’s absolutely possible, but we would see other behavioral traits that would support this. With Dale, however, we see the exact opposite. He is willing to conjecture with you about all the “what-ifs”, which is not someone who is in denial. It’s hair-raising!

  2. In the video interviews, the reporter talks about how Fullwood’s number one mission is to clean up the filthy house so he can get his children back into the home. Dale tries to act like the house wasn’t all that bad. The reporters continues, “Reason number two is obviously trying to find out who did this,” to which Dale responds:

    “Who is the person who just took my daughter away from me? Yeah, and…”

    I find this statement perplexing. Most parents whose daughter gets murdered violently — don’t say “take my daughter away from me” so matter-of-factly. There is an anger in people who are violated to this extreme. There is a resentment, or at least a deep sorrow and pain –but with Dale, he isn’t feeling any of this. Why?

  3. The reporter goes on, “Are you surprised it’s taken this long?” (It’s been approximately two weeks):

    Fullwood: In all honesty, I think they are moving along at a very rapid pace. I mean…uh..the first 48 hours, you’re kind of hoping and praying that it’s a quick fix – that there was something… that the person dropped…a….a cell phone or something like that, that has his phone number on it. I mean or I mean… you could…you could…you could come up with scenarios. The first 48 hours is basically what the police did is sealing off the whole area.

    Dale is showing classic thinking-as-he-speaks-clues, with his word-stuttering and speech repetition.

    Rapid pace? When you endure life’s tragedies, time usually stands still, or moves at a snail’s pace. It doesn’t speed up during nightmares, tragedies or huge losses. Only when we have fun does time fly. Is Dale enjoying this? He sure makes you wonder. This is another red flag.

    Quick fix? A quick fix for a murder? This is simply nonsense. Normal people who feel normal emotions don’t believe that a quick fix can ever happen after someone they loved is murdered. It’s ludicrous. I suspect this is just Dale rambling off the top of his head, without thinking.

  4. The reporter: What do you think happened after you went to sleep?

    Fullwood: Um… (long pause) There were a couple of strange things, and the more I think about this, that and the other – it’s…it’s kind of weird. Um…I notice when I took the dog out, there was like….you know how the dews in the morning and when something crosses the path, it …it leaves…you could actually see a visible trail. I noticed a trail like that…and at first I thought it might have been an ATV or something like that, but they’re erratic. Um……(long pause) And it was kind of strange – because there was two trails. So, if….you’re walking you normally make one trail…and I don’t know there’s …. there could have been a second person. Eh..Uh… Everything is just speculation and everything like that.

    There is more classic thinking-on-your-feet speech again. When we recollect things, we do not talk like this.

    When a parent of missing child gets asked this, they typically don’t conjecture. Number one: it’s way too painful. Number two: what purpose does it serve? And when they do talk, they usually tell what they saw and know in order to help people crack the case. Dale isn’t doing that here. First he hints that he saw “a trail”. He suggests he thought it might have been an ATV, but ATVs are erratic. What? Where is the logic in this that ATVs are erratic? It’s quite illogical and nonsense again. And then he pauses a long time before suggesting there were actually two trails! Yeah, right. I wonder if Dale is hinting there were two people involved in this crime.

    I suspect people who have known Dale in the past would tell you he changes everything he says to suit his needs. He says whatever works for him. I suspect Dale has been telling tall tales for a long, long time. The thing is, he comes across as happy-go lucky and nice, and he isn’t threatening looking in any way, so he probably got away with it a lot.

  5. The reporter: I’m sure you have been …you know, working it over and over in your brain. How often do you think about that night?

    Fullwood: Every night.

    He only thinks about her at night? That’s ODD. Most parents in his situation would tell you they think about a situation like this constantly…every waking moment, all day long, every day… but they usually don’t say “every night”.

    Furthermore, most parents would tell you that being at the home where the abduction occurred would be unimaginable, because they would keep reliving the nightmare. Yet Dale has no problem being at the home where this occurred, cleaning it up, building shelves — getting everything ready so they can live again as if nothing ever happened. Dale makes you feel like he is ready to get back to everyday life. So soon? It just doesn’t fit.

  6. Fullwood continues:

    I mean, since I’ve got into this house, ah…I really don’t think I have slept more than two hours — an hour and a half at time without waking up, hearing something or something that just shocks me, and I take a walk around the house, even though the house is not there, and nobody else is here right now….um…double-checking, triple checking—quadruple checking the doors – making sure they’re locked. Um…as I said…I don’t think I locked the front door.

    The house is not there? This is odd, and a sign he is just rambling for attention — not thinking things through.
  7. Why does he feel the need to say he doesn’t believe he locked the front door that night? He is trying to make sure people believe his story? Why isn’t he saying, “If only I had locked that door that night, my little girl would still be here!”
  8. Dale confuses me with his obsession about keeping the doors locked now. He doesn’t give any indication he is truly afraid. He says he wakes up frequently at night — which sounds more like a paranoia than fear, if you ask me. If there was an accomplice, could he be afraid of what they might do to him?

  9. Fullwood continues:
    As for a theory or philosophy of what might have happened? What seems strange is …um…on this side of the house over here – the screen was pulled out and left on the ground. So I don’t know if somebody tried pulling that screen out to break into the house at first and knowing those windows were locked … might of come around back here…and in coming back here, the only thing I can think of is this door was always kept unlocked, and I mean its not now, as you can see, I always keep checking things all the time. Somebody might have come in here, and I really don’t think, in my mind, they were out to grab her.     If it was a sole thing just to go grab her, they would have just grabbed and ran…and with the opportunities with five children here…ah…there’s a lot of things. I think it might have been like a quick robbery where the guy came up here…my wallet was sitting up here and he could have been grabbing my wallet and…I can’t tell you for sure if my daughter was in the bedroom. She might of waken up and come out. Or, if she was sleeping here on the couch right here and someone grabs a wallet and she wakes up there, the person might have panicked, or something like that seeing that okay this is someone who could identify me, or recognize me or something like that whether… I’m not saying it’s someone from our neighborhood or anything like that….ah but…

    Here Dale tries to play detective. It’s very unusual behavior for a victim to do this. Most parents are too overwhelmed with grief to play this game, but of course Dale isn’t. It’s hair-raising. Maybe it’s just his happy-go-lucky demeanor that is hair-raising at this point. I’m just not liking this.

  10. What are the “opportunities”, that Dale is speaking about, with five children? This is really perplexing. A man who is a sexual predator might see children as “opportunities” but would a normal person ever put the word “opportunities”, in the mix here? It’s quite strange and very out-of-place.
  11. The reporter says “Do you think it could be (a neighbor)?

    Fullwood: (pause) Nh…The possibilities are endless. I could say that. I mean the possibilities are endless. Do I have somebody that I suspect in my neighborhood? I would have to say honestly say at this time, no. I really don’t think somebody would go to that type of extreme, seeing we’ve only been here two months …um…to do something like this. You know, but it is something that was done.

    The first thing that struck me here is it appears as if Dale started to say the word “no” when answering the reporter’s question. That’s really important. If he has no idea of what happened, why would that come out of his mouth? It was a normal and natural response, and yet Dale stopped it. Then he repeated himself to be sure he was clear,”I could say that. The possibilities are endless”. How could he be so certain a neighbor wasn’t involved? Then his continued rambling is utter nonsense. Innocent victims of a crime like this don’t make such arguments. They just don’t do it. How could they possibly rule anyone out — so much without a thought? It’s inconsistent and illogical.

  12. The reporter “Does it make it harder for you because officially you guys have not been cleared as suspects?

    Fullwood: I think…in all honesty, the answer on that…the police department are trying to cover everything. I don’t think they are really looking at my wife or myself or the children. I do know there are a lot of ….detectives out there …that maybe a couple of them might be following up everything on me….

    Notice how he doesn’t answer the question directly? That’s a big red flag. Notice how he pauses at key points within the sentence? He is clearly thinking as he speaks, not talking from his heart and about his true feelings. Honest people would immediately talk about their innocence, how painful it is to have the finger pointed at them in a time like this. They would show emotions. Dale doesn’t. Why? Instead, he acts like he is at a party conversing with a friend.

  13. Reporter: “You don’t feel like they are putting undue heat on you, another words?”

    Fullwood: No, no, no

    Watch Fullwood as he answers that question. His body language is key here. When people are overly stressed or feel they’ve held composure through a difficulty or have been scared and manage to cope, many times, they collapse their knees in response to the situation. I don’t know if the response is subconscious or not, but it’s definitely odd for Dale to do this here. It’s not something someone would do if they felt there was no pressure.

  14. Somewhere I would expect Dale to stop and show some emotion for Coralrose — some compassion, some care, some feelings of loss, share some thoughts, some memories about her – but he doesn’t. Coralrose doesn’t seem to enter Dale’s mind AT ALL, and this is a double-triple-quadruple WHY NOT?

I’ll stop my assessment here. Do I trust Dale? I absolutely do not trust Dale. Do I think he killed his little girl? I cannot say. Was he involved somehow? I suspect so, because he isn’t telling us all he knows. In my opinion, Dale knows more than he is admitting to, sadly, and the implications of that are a little more than I can handle thinking about…

Jessie Davis/Bobby Cutts, Jr.

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The Canton Repository did an audio interview with Bobby Cutts, Jr. on June 19th. I have been curiously looking for video footage of Bobby Cutts, Jr. talking about the disappearance of his girlfriend, but I guess I am not going to get it. I would have loved to see his facial expressions when he talked to the Canton Rep, Todd Porter, the other day. Instead, I will have to settle for audio only.

I have listened to his audio-taped interview — and while I CANNOT draw the same conclusions I do when I watch someone, I can see if things are making sense, and are logical — and at this point, I must say my eyebrows are raised.

Todd Porter interviewed Cutts for a reasonable amount of time — at least 10 minutes from what I can tell — and what amazed me the most during that entire time is all he did was talk about himself. He didn’t once talk about Jessie or the baby. Cutts gives me a real strong feeling that he thinks he is the “victim” here by his choice of words. He even goes so far as to say the word “betrayed”. That really perplexes me.

Who does he feel is betraying him? Why is this all about him?

If I interviewed him, I’d have to find this out. Many spouses, boyfriends, and lovers are closely examined in a missing persons case — but when they are innocent — they don’t act like victims. They usually go public and state their innocence, and try to keep focus on finding their loved ones. They want to do all they can to help get their loved one back. We aren’t seeing this behavior in any vein from Cutts. Why?

Does he feel the police station where he worked is betraying him? Could that be why he feels betrayed?

TODD PORTER: Uh, how have uh, your co-workers and colleagues and, and supervisors at the Canton Police Department been throughout this process?

CUTTS: They’ve been very supportive. They told me they had my back in anything I need.

So, why is Cutts playing the victim? Why would he feel like a victim? He even said they weren’t calling him a suspect in the media.

TODD PORTER: Have the, have any authorities told you that you’ve been cleared in this, in this investigation?

BOBBY: No they, they, they have not told me that I have been cleared but as like I said, on the media, I mean they said to the media that I, me nor my wife are suspects but uh, I don’t feel that we’ve actually been treated as that was 100 percent true.

He isn’t giving us any strong indication that he is upset about this, or is he holding back his true feelings? If people are suggesting you might be a suspect, and you are innocent — what would you do? Would you say what Cutts is saying, or would you defend your innocence? Would you be clear and precise, or beat-around-the-bush?

The next statement below is the first statement within the interview that I heard, and it immediately caught my attention. You can tell he is clearly thinking as he is talking. He is not letting the words flow naturally.

TODD PORTER:
Bobby, what have the last five days been like for you?

(Do I hear laughter here? — or is this some object moving in the background? I can’t tell. If it is laughter, that is a big concern!)

CUTTS:
“The past five …five days.. have been a like nightmare that that …won’t end, like…every…every second of it , I mean when it seems like it’s turning… and gonna change… it goes back to same, or it gets worse … its different…the way I’ve been…. betrayed and just, I mean I haven’t been myself. I…I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Anybody that knows me knows me that if I’m normal joking around and laughing…trying to have fun and make everyone else laugh and…it’s juss….just been hell.”

This statement perplexes me as well. It isn’t very coherent, it rambles on and on — and then I am perplexed by what it all means. When Cutts says “…every second of it , I mean when it seems like it’s turning… and gonna change… it goes back to same, or it gets worse … its different…“. What is Cutts referring to?

What’s been “turning”? What gives him the impression “it” (whatever it is) is going to change? He continues “…and it goes back to being the same, or it gets worse.”

What has gotten worse? From the media, we haven’t received any clues that there is any new evidence with regards to the police finding Davis. There have been no false hopes, no false leads, etc. This statement is perplexing. What has gone back to the same? What is he talking about here?

I have to wonder is Cutts referring to being looked at as a suspect. Is that his nightmare? Or is his nightmare that his girlfriend disappeared?

If your girlfriend disappeared with your unborn child — which of the two would be a priority for you — nurturing your feeling-like-a-victim, or fighting for her safe return? This is a man who says he can’t eat or sleep, but ironically he does have it within him to do an interview to talk about himself. He can do that — but he can’t muster anything for Jessie? Who is Cutts concerned about?

I found the next two statements odd too. Why does Bobby have to be prompted to talk about the unborn child he is expecting? Isn’t this all about Davis and her unborn child in the first place?

TODD PORTER: Um, just for the record and to clear this up, how many children do you have? Um…

CUTTS: Cur- currently I have three children.

TODD PORTER: And expecting a fourth with Jessie, correct?

CUTTS: Possibly, yes.

I found the words “currently” and “possibly” odd as well.

Last, wasn’t Bobby Cutts supposed to pick up or drop off his son on Thursday? Why then was the child still home alone on Friday? I find it odd if he was close to his girlfriend that he wasn’t the one to figure out she was missing.

These are just a handful of things that I see that are odd. At this point, I think all eyes should remain on Cutts as a suspect. My eyebrows are most certainly raised by his behavior. If any video comes out — please let me know.
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To see more that I have written on Davis/Cutts, click on the Label below.

Lisa Stebic Missing

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Lisa Stebic went missing from her Plainfield, Illinois home back on April 30th. I saw the story profiled on Greta Van Susteren last night.

Lisa “…was last seen at her home (in Plainfield, Illinois) at around 6 pm. Her car is still in her garage and she has her cell phone and wallet with her. According to police, her cell phone has not been used since April 30th and neither has her credit card. Lisa would never leave her children.” (Source FindLisaStebic.com).

I attempted to find video of Lisa’s husband talking this morning and I am unable to. I found one small clip of him talking behind a glass door, but it didn’t yield much information outside of the fact he was very nervous. It was hard to see him as he was questioned at an odd angle.

So far, it appears police found blood on a tarp which Craig said came from deer hunting. However, DNA revealed the blood was from Lisa.

At this time, Craig has not officially been charged with anything, nor is he being called a suspect by police.

If you see any video of Craig Stebic talking about his wife’s disappearance, please let me know.