What the Neighbors Saw

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0:41As a career detective, this case is very unique. Little did I know that this would lead to one of the most fascinating cold case homicides that I'd ever been a part of. How did this case begin for you? So on December 3rd of 2017, the Sheriff's Department received a 911 call from a homeowner reporting that their family dog brought back a human skull. It came back with a human skull? Yes. And it had an obvious gunshot wound to the back of the head. We kind of organized a grid search and within minutes located the clandestine grave right off in this area.

1:32So Peter, this is the area right up here. I'll follow you. Now this is quite a thicket, isn't it? It's a little thicket. If you see this little indention in the soil right here, that's where the skeletal remains were found.

1:50case. We literally have human bones, human remains with a gunshot wound to the head. And at that point, is this a murder? Is this a suicide? We have a model of a human skull. Can you show us where that wound was? It's pretty much towards the back rear of the skull. When you look at these scattered bones, are they telling you a story? Yes. It tells me that it's most likely the story of murder. We were reviewing missing persons cases throughout the Midwest, but nothing was definitive to who this victim was.

2:30When the cases come to the DNA Doe Project, everything's already been exhausted. Genetic genealogy is the last resort. So we use the DNA to look at the matches, and we can build family trees that way and figure out the identities of people. In this case, that person is Gary Albert Herbst. The victim, Gary, was from Scott County, Minnesota. We located the home where Gary had last lived. Some of the neighbors who still lived in the neighborhood had reported some, remembering some activity back in 2013 that they found suspicious. It's pouring down rain. It's probably 1130 at night, pitch black dark.

3:23Something catches your eye across at the Herp's house. Chad, what do you see? I see the neighbors scrubbing the floors. I see them scrubbing the walls. We saw them bringing out black garbage bags. They eventually brought out a rolled up carpet. I didn't know what I was looking at. I had no idea. And I turned to Chad and I was like, what is going on? And Chad looked at me and he said, Kaya, I think they finally killed him.

4:10It was in June of 2020 when Linda Dane learned the disturbing circumstances of how her long-lost brother Gary's skull had been found by a dog in rural Barron County, Wisconsin. Yeah, it's kind of an eerie type thing to think of, but it still led to finding out what happened, the truth. Linda says Gary, who was 57 when he went missing, was a loner with a difficult personality who rarely saw his own extended family, which is why pictures that exist of him are from his younger years, seen here with his wife Connie. He could be stubborn. He could be crabby. It had been years since Linda and Gary had spoken.

4:58And in 2013, she learned from Connie that he had vanished, walking out on her and their son Austin, seen here as a teenager. What did you think of that? I was shocked. I didn't know what to think. Linda says she found it strange that Connie had not reported his disappearance to police. And it's like, OK, did you file a missing persons report? Did you report it? Did you do anything? And they did nothing. What was her reason for not reporting that her husband was missing? She didn't give us a reason. At Linda and her family's urging, Connie filed this missing persons report with the Elko Newmarket Police Department in Minnesota, where the Herps lived.

5:40In the report, Connie said Gary grabbed a suitcase and left in an older gray Honda vehicle. But she claimed she did not get a look at who was driving. Six years would pass before an investigative genetic genealogist, Robin Espenson, would be able to construct a family tree that led to identifying the skull. We knew that we had found the identity of our doe as Gary Albert Herbst. Gary Herbst was originally born in north-central Wisconsin. We located family members of his in south-central Minnesota. That's when Detective Jeff Nelson from the Barron County Sheriff's Office tracked down Austin and Connie at the retirement community where they both worked.

6:30I think it was a little bit of a surprise to them because we actually found out that both Connie Herbst and her son Austin worked at a nursing home. We basically walked in unannounced and met with both Connie and Austin. When you told Connie that you had found her missing husband, likely had found him was she excited about the news or was she stoic about it both of them were very stoic never never even commented well at least we we know it's him uh it's like they just glassed over it brent peterson a special agent with the minnesota bureau of criminal apprehension joined jeff nelson to interview connie she was not uncooperative she was just trying to be helpful.

7:19At least that was the appearance. Did you get into the issue about why she didn't report her husband as being missing? Yeah, that was a red flag from the beginning. Here's Connie's answer about why she didn't report it. Because he left on his own. I said I didn't think I had to. Connie told investigators she wasn't surprised Gary walked out on them because he had a troubled lifestyle. She described Gary as a drug user. He would use drugs and spend all their money. He just was described to us as just being a generally kind of a volatile, angry, unpleasant person. How was he with Austin? Up until the age of 10, great.

8:05But at the age of 10, when Gary would started yelling and screaming at me yeah Austin would step in between okay don't you yell at my mom did he ever hit you in the 30 plus years you guys were married once or twice yeah one time he hit me pretty hard and blackened my shoulder the other time he actually didn't hit me he pushed me I broke my toe in his interview Austin told investigators his father had become enraged the day he left and later learned he had stolen$5 ,000 in cash and his mother's wedding ring. I heard him banging around in the master bedroom. I'm like, okay, what's going on? Looked in, he was packing a suitcase.

8:50He's like, I'm leaving. And yeah, he got in, some guy pulled up, picked him up. Connie told investigators she was at the library that day and remembered getting a frantic call from her son. He goes, Dad left. Dad left. He got in the vehicle with somebody. Investigators soon realized that Connie may have lied to them. Why? Because in her missing persons report, Connie had said she was home when Gary walked out. We're suspicious of their stories right away. So there was a lot of things. This didn't match up. Connie added to investigators' suspicions when she gave yet another new detail. The.40 caliber gun was gone.

9:35And that was mine. Connie had never mentioned Gary had stolen her gun when she first reported him missing. So there's a lot of oddities that she's telling. Had she said something in your mind that was particularly incriminating? I wouldn't say incriminating, but I strongly felt she had certainly knowledge of his murder. I figured she had some form of involvement. So investigators redoubled their efforts to try to learn more. So there's a lot of working pieces going on. Several months passed before investigators were ready to interview Connie and Austin a second time. This time, they dug deeper into Connie's claims of abuse.

10:20So, you know, your mom talked of some abuse issues in the family. How you were very protective of her. Yeah. We understand. It was more the fact that I hated when he would sit there and yell at her and would upset her. And the more investigators questioned Austin, the more he began to blame his father for his own demise. Yeah, he was an angry guy and stuff, but I never expected that it would get to the point where someone would want to kill him. Directing attention toward a mysterious man with tattoos, he says his father drove away with. You remember a guy with a black shirt and tattoos? That's about it.

11:02That's as far as I can get. And then I got a really uneasy sense about it. That was it.

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12:14Gary Herbst went missing in 2013. A dog found his skull in 2017. And by June of 2020, investigators suspected his own family, his wife Connie, and son Austin Herbst were somehow involved in Gary's disappearance and murder. There's some follow-up questions and information we need to gather to try to piece all this together. And during their second interview, they consented to a polygraph. The investigators from Wisconsin had arranged with the FBI, they both agreed to take polygraphs. Line detector tests are generally not admissible in court, but investigators will use them as a tool to judge an individual's credibility.

13:01What were the results? Connie did not show any signs of deception, but Austin did. An investigator from the FBI confronted Austin. So, I'm very convinced, but you clearly know what happened. I don't, I'm telling you. Austin, you can't walk away here saying you don't know anything, because you clearly know something. Yeah. Whatever it is, you've got to tell me. I suspected that the guy in the truck wasn't exactly friendly. Just the look I got from him, he was sketchy. Either you're involved with your mom in killing your father, or you're involved with someone else in killing your father. I'm not involved with it.

13:46I'm just going to tell you, saying my mom's involved with that is pretty out of this world. Detectives say Austin continued to draw the investigator's attention toward the man with tattoos he says picked up his father that day. Tell me, describe what you're talking about when you talk about the look of him.

14:11The first interview, he recalls his dad getting into a vehicle and leaving. Then that changed to he remembered some heavily tattooed man that looked, in his words, to be some sort of criminal that was the driver of a vehicle that his dad got into. So the story changed and morphed each time you talked with him. Investigators suspected Austin's story was pure fiction. I just find way too many inconsistencies in your stories. I mean, with your story, with your mom's story. And did you feel that the story was rehearsed? Certainly. That he was trying to recall a script? Script. But a feeling isn't evidence, and investigators had no choice but to let Connie and Austin go.

15:04Next, they headed to the family's old neighborhood and former home. Ironically, to a T, all the neighbors remembered Gary very well. Detective Nelson says that to a person, they described Gary as a mean, horrible human being. We repeatedly heard the term the biggest a** that you'll ever meet. if he was mad at a neighbor. Apparently he had a pipe organ and he would set up big speakers in the windows and he would blast pipe organ music into the neighbor's house. In the wintertime, when he would get mad at a neighbor, he would take a snowblower over and purposely blow and fill people's yards up in the middle of the night.

15:46With snow? With snow. He was just an evil person. Neighbors Kaya and Chad Crammel's house was right behind the Herp's house. They say Gary often yelled at their two daughters and was caught secretly recording them on video. I looked in their back window. You could see the red light from the camera on. And I walked out there and I could see the camera and Gary behind the camera. This is a video camera. Video camera, like camcorder. and he was just staring at me blatantly, like on purpose, wanting to, you know, almost show me up and be like, yeah, I'm recording. And I sat there and I was raising my head like, are you kidding me?

16:35Chad filed an incident report with police. It sounds like this has a psychological component to it, like he was messing with your mind. Absolutely. I feel like he wanted power and he wanted everyone to know that he had that power. He most definitely tried to exercise that power by messing with people, neighbors.

16:57Another neighbor, Jason Grimm, says he experienced that firsthand when Gary complained about the time he was snowblowing. He came out and started screaming and shouting at me, telling me I was going to flood his basement. Did you feel like he was a little dangerous? I never feared him, just surely because it was all bark, no bite. Did you feel he was a dangerous man? Absolutely. And did you? The same way? Absolutely. And when investigators interviewed Dee Hamlin, the new owner of the house where Gary and his family lived, they learned something that would confirm their suspicions about Connie and Austin.

17:40Over in this area right here, before the closets were put in, somewhere over here, there was a big red stain.

18:17When investigators canvassed Gary Herp's old neighborhood, they uncovered a trove of new clues from the time around his disappearance. People didn't like him, were afraid, because he was very confrontational. Neighbors Chad and Kaya Crammel recalled a storm. Thunder, lightning, everything. Like, it was crazy. And unusual activity in Gary's backyard. It was maybe midnight-ish, and we looked out the window. I see a truck backed in the backyard. The truck was pulled right up to the sliding glass door, which we knew was super strange because Gary was very particular with his yard. He did not like anything out of order.

19:10Chad and Kaya told investigators they remembered seeing Austin and Connie scrubbing the floors in the middle of the night. You could see directly from those windows into their house. Absolutely. And loading large garbage bags into Gary's truck. They were also carrying out a carpet or some sort of rug and also throwing it in the back of the truck. So we were watching the scene and I turned to Chad and I was like, what is going on? And Chad looked at me and he said, Kaya, I think they finally killed him. And did the two of you ever think we should share what we've witnessed with the police? Absolutely not.

19:52No. And as a matter of fact, he was horrible. And soon after that night, they say Connie and Austin seemed completely different. It was good. It was fun to see them actually happy. A few weeks later, their neighbors saw them setting up a yard sale. So everybody started filtering over there, myself included, and we were looking at all of the things that they had for sale. And what was for sale? Men's clothing, men's shoes, there were tools, ammo boxes. Now, did you ask her, where's Gary? Yes, and the answer was that he didn't want to be married anymore, and he left. Jason says he scored a bargain.

20:39I did. Bought a riding lawn tractor. Neighbors say Austin and Connie began happily walking the neighborhood, offering up baked cookies. And do you think his disappearance in some ways liberated their lives? Absolutely. Their steps were lighter. It was nice not to have them around. All of a sudden, Connie and Austin, they would be out in the yard stopping and greeting people where none of that happened prior to the date that Gary allegedly left. The next break in the case came when investigators obtained a search warrant for the former Herbst house and notified the new owner, Dee Hamlin, that they would be bringing in a cadaver dog, along with her handler, police officer Dan Moldenhauer, to see if she could detect the scent of human remains.

21:29So this officer said there may have been someone killed inside the house and they wanted a dog to come in to see if they picked up any odor of death. Yeah, exactly. I go, absolutely. When you got that call and you brought Radar out here, this is the very house you came to, correct? Correct. Radar is the cadaver dog who searched Dee's house. She came back to the scene along with her handler to show us what she did that day. Boy, Radar wants to get inside, I'll tell you. Yep, and I follow her.

22:03I was present when the dog originally came in. I was there for the first sniff around. Hamlin says something in the garage caught Radar's attention. Radar concentrated heavily against this wall. and on the brick behind the drywall pieces and the boxes. Radar, find it. Radar's search continued inside the house. Radar would run from space to space and room to room and almost like he had a pattern. And then we went downstairs and that's where he slowed down. According to Radar's handler, the dog detected the odor of human remains around that red stain Dee had seen. She went straight to this room, ignored every other thing else, came back, went along the wall, and then came to the corner where that closet door is.

22:56That wasn't the only area that Radar was interested in. She had a lot of odor here. I mean, she checked all the walls before she came back and sat. So there was definitely a presence of some sort of material, the guess is blood, around this sliding door. Yes. Crime scene investigators tested the spots with luminol, which indicated the presence of blood in the areas where the cadaver dog alerted. When you have the luminol literally lighting up, what is it suggesting to you? Well, it's certainly consistent and corroborates what the neighbors saw. We believed Gary was most likely murdered inside that particular house.

23:37That's when they called Connie and Austin in for a third interview. So we went to your old house on Wagner Way and just had a look, trying to piece together Gary's kind of last movements. And there was some blood. Okay. Connie said Gary, who was a machinist, often worked on projects and sometimes accidentally cut himself. Usually it's his fingers. This blood that we're finding is a bit more significant than just a little cut on finger. That I wouldn't know. Investigators also questioned Connie about what the neighbors reported seeing. Some witnesses saw what they thought was a rolled up rug being loaded in the back of the pickup.

24:28No. I don't know. We didn't have any carpet just up in the living room. Her body language was, to me, was like she was defeated. Phil Naraki, a captain with the Scott County Sheriff's Office, was also present at the interrogation. Like, as long as I can continue to deny everything, I'm going to be okay. But she didn't get rattled, very soft-spoken. Did she sense she was in real trouble, do you think? Yes. I think she knew at that point that all the evidence was starting to gather up. against her and Austin. Investigators continued to press Connie. So it sounds like Gary was a little psychologically abusive with you guys.

25:19Yeah. What about physical abuse? One time he hit me. Yeah. Not that I didn't probably deserve it because I got pushed too far. For Austin's interview, cameras were rolling as he was grilled by Detective Jeff Nelson. Do you feel that he was the husband that he should have been to your mother? No. And you stepped in and intervened in several times, did you not? Yeah. Okay. You became a protector. Yeah. Okay. Which I would have to believe culminated in July of 2013 when you took action to protect your mom. Did you pull the trigger and put the round in the back of your father's head? But no matter how many times Austin was asked that question, he never answered it.

26:07Once again, Connie and Austin were allowed to leave the police station And that was a strategic plan that we had come up with Knowing full well that if we needed to arrest them, we'd be able to find them later Now, investigators believed they had enough evidence to bring the case to prosecutors There was some reluctance, there was no confession It's simply a circumstantial case, albeit we felt it was a very good one and on november 19th 2020 around 7 a.m connie then 62 years old and austin 26 were taken into custody i tell austin that he is under arrest for the murder of his father the two would eventually be charged with second degree murder connie had already declined the final interview with us and had been taken away to the jail.

27:05But this time, Austin was ready to explain everything to investigators. Do you remember where you shot him? Yeah. And later, to 48 Hours. And what do you do with his body? I sling him over my shoulder and I walk into the forest.

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