The Phantom

30:11My wife isn't responding to text messages or phone calls. Dan also called Christele's mom. He calls me and he says, would you please go check on her and see if she's in the house and just not answering the phone? You live closer? We all live about 15 minutes. Linda headed over to her daughter's. Officer John O 'Hare was already there. 151, send medical and 110. I need a force entry. I got a female down in the garage. At that point, I rushed around to the front door, kicked the door one time. Ruffield police! Officer O 'Hare ran through the house and into the garage. Oh, s***. So I immediately see her at the base of the steps that lead from the house down into the garage.

31:05It's about three steps there, I believe. By the time the officer opened the automatic garage doors for EMTs... Garage is open now. Christele's mom was just getting there. Hello? Hello, ma 'am. I need you to stay out, please. And there she is, laying on the floor with her legs towards me as I was trying to walk in. And the police officer on her doing CPR. And he was putting up his hand saying, ma 'am, you can't come in here, you can't come in here. And I'm going, but that's my daughter, I need to come see her. And I'm just hoping and praying that she was still alive. The husband said there was a stalker.

31:41It looked as if Christelle had been attacked getting into or out of her car. Her purse lay just inches away. Inside, the handgun she never had a chance to use. Detective Justin Marshall of the Broomfield Police responded to the scene. They were pretty aware that there was some head trauma. The husband called in to check on her. Detective Marshall says as EMTs worked to revive Christelle, they could tell she'd been struck in the head. Then they noticed this. a penetrating stab wound to the upper part of her chest, and there were no signs of life in that type of injury. And that's what killed her, that stab wound.

32:22Either the blunt force or the stab wound would have been fatal. They rolled out the stretcher, and I thought, oh, she's going to be okay, they're going to do everything for her. But then they rolled the stretcher back out without her. And so, I knew. I ran into Linda inside the police tape, and they stopped me from going any further. And that's when Linda told me, he killed her, she's dead. Jenna got a call and raced to her sister's house. When you're driving there, what are you thinking? God, I hope she's at the hospital. And not there. As soon as she pulled up and saw the tape, a part of her knew.

33:07And then my stepbrother started walking down towards us And I remember him just hugging me. And I remember him just saying, she's gone. Dan Krug was one of the last to arrive. He came from up the street here. That's my house, that's my house.

33:29Dan was overwhelmed.

33:36It was the exact outcome Christelle had tried so desperately to head off. It was also, sadly, one she had predicted. It's beyond description what goes through your mind. You're just completely beside yourself. A stalking case had led straight to a murder investigation, and detectives knew where to go next. It was time to go get Anthony. They go in thinking, this could be a gunfight. Absolutely. This is a guy who just maybe killed someone. Correct.

34:26Christelle Krug was gone. Her family huddled behind crime scene tape. A terrible new reality sinking in. Shocked, miserable, disbelief, not really knowing what to do, where to go, what to say. You don't want to believe it, and you're just absolutely, completely distraught. That changes you forever. This is not something that time heals. At 43, the organized, clear-headed Christelle had done so much to protect herself and her family from this person. Cameras at home, police involved, and a handgun literally at her side. None of it was enough to escape the stalker. The fact that he actually got to her and actually killed her was just, you can't wrap your mind around it.

35:19Christelle's cousin Becky Ivanoff received a text from her mother. She said, Christelle's been killed. And my first question was, was it the stalker? to hear that she had been murdered was pretty devastating. Anaya Hempelman is Broomfield's chief of police. So from an investigative standpoint, what are you able to do now that it's a homicide that you couldn't do when it was a stalking case? We can elevate some of those warrants. Before, we didn't have the information that was necessary to elevate the warrants. And now we have a deceased person. And possibly a threat to other people who are still alive.

35:56Well, that was my biggest concern. The first thing I think is someone is out there who's just committed this crime and is my community safe? Once again, detectives reached out to Google, TextNow, and Verizon, asking a second time for information about the source of the stalking messages. The difference? Now there was a killer on the loose. And investigators set out to find their most obvious suspect, Anthony Holland. Prosecutor Kate Armstrong. on. Different police were assigning different individuals to kind of go look into various leads, including the location of the person that we believe to have been stalking her.

36:37And pretty hard to believe her death's not connected to that. Yes. I mean, at that time, our number one suspect was this person who's been stalking her. Investigators had addresses for Anthony in Idaho and Utah, all more than 500 miles from Broomfield. Broomfield's chief deputy DA Stephanie Fritz thought it unlikely Christelle's killer could already be at any of those addresses. So that's an eight-hour drive. Correct. He's not going to make that drive in that amount of time. No. Investigators also had a possible license plate number for Anthony. They put out a nationwide alert and got a hit. Only it wasn't on any roads leading out of Colorado.

37:20It was in north central Utah. They talked with authorities there. We're a few blocks away from where Mr. Holland resides. Ray Ormond is a sergeant with the Utah County Sheriff's Office. He was assigned to check out one of Anthony Holland's possible addresses, a friend's house in the town of Eagle Mountain, about 40 miles from Salt Lake City. We made the joint decision to go make contact at the residence. Ormond and his deputies made their approach carefully. They had a warrant for Anthony's arrest on stalking charges. I didn't know what we were walking into. I didn't want to get my people ambushed by any type of violent encounter.

38:05Through the windows, they saw someone inside the house. They knocked on the door. Mr. Holland answers the door. We introduce ourselves. We ask him who he is. He introduces himself as Mr. Holland. Anthony was already home. How was that possible? Once we confirmed it was him, I went back to my vehicle, and I had Mr. Holland stay with my two deputies that were with me on the porch. And again, contacted the investigators in Colorado, informed them that we were out with Mr. Holland. By the time Ormond got back to the porch, Anthony had invited his man inside. Stay seated. Stay seated. And out of abundance of caution, I advised him of his rights.

38:47Then the sergeant got to the point. Have you ever heard of the name Crystal Krug? She may have been Grimsrod when you knew her. Yeah. And do you know what Daniel Krug? No. No? How do you know Crystal? She was an ex-girlfriend. She was an ex-girlfriend? How long was the ex? Like how long ago? Um, 1999. Oh, so like a long while ago. She was my very first girlfriend ever. Oh, okay. He asked Anthony where he'd been that day. and we went through the course of his morning. He'd been out running errands, been shopping for clothes that morning in American Fork, which is a neighboring city. And Anthony did have a receipt from that shopping trip.

39:31We confirmed that he had been at the store that morning, that he had been purchasing those items in the department store in American Fork, and that he had been in essentially our area here in Utah County for that entire day. in Utah and not in Colorado. It was physically impossible for him to have been there. Is it conceivable that he's not there, but he's still involved, that he has somebody else do this for him? Sure. Investigators had plenty more questions for Anthony Holland. So did I. You did not want to let her go.

40:19This is who Broomfield police had been looking for. The man they believed stalked, then killed Christiel Krug. Anthony Holland. He agreed to sit down and tell me his side of the story. And we started with those deputies banging on his door and holding that warrant for his arrest. There was a lot of police officers. and there was cars everywhere, and I'm like, geez, I must be in trouble. I had no idea what was going on. You say to them, what are you guys doing here? Yeah, and they wouldn't tell me. They asked me if I knew Crystal Krug, and I said, yes, I know her, and that was it. They didn't say, when did you last speak with her?

41:03When did you last get contact with her? No, they took me to my room, and they took a bunch of evidence. Anthony told me the same story he gave Sergeant Ormond and those deputies. He was shopping in Utah that morning and nowhere near the crime scene. I asked Anthony about his relationship with Chris Steele, starting with when they began dating just after she graduated from high school. We both worked at JCPenney. She worked in the department in the front. I was package pickup. He was 17. She was 18. What was so great about her? She was very smart, which I rarely looked up to. First love? Yeah, my first love, yeah.

41:43He does admit he and Christiel were headed in different directions. The breakup was hard on both of us. We both held each other and just cried when we broke up. I haven't cried that hard until my mom died. She was the one that got away? Yeah, I always say that to people. You blame yourself for that? Yeah, I do. Christiel finished college and became an engineer, wife, and mom. Anthony's life didn't go as well. I went down the wrong path after that. Drugs, didn't go to school, started partying, hanging out. I still worked all the time, so I had money to support my habit. What got you back on the right path?

42:29I just was sick of how I was living. I was like, I don't want to live this way anymore. He went back to school for a while and kept working. And he says Christele was never far from his thoughts. I thought about her all the time, especially when I got drunk, I would really think about her. You did not want to let her go? No. No, I probably struggled with that. Feels like you were pining for Christele for a very long time. Well, I dated lots of other women throughout the time, just none of them were like her. and I think I was searching for something like that. You reached out to her a few times over the years.

43:08Just in 2004 and 2016. And we became friends on Facebook. I got a little drunk and I left her a message saying that I apologized to her for all the things that I did when we were together and that she stopped talking to me. Christiel blocked him on Facebook. It was 2016. That was the last time you had any contact with Christiel? Yep. Social, email, phone calls, anything. Yep. I couldn't, I was blocked. Couldn't remember email. It was too long ago, so I mean, and I didn't have it saved. And so I didn't have her email. I didn't, I couldn't get through to Facebook. I, like, I was done. It was over.

43:50Anthony insisted. He was not Christelle's stalker. You weren't in touch with her at all in 2023. No. You didn't send her texts. Nope. You didn't send her emails? Nope. You didn't take out an ad in her name? No, I never did any of that. I was just doing my own thing in Utah. Doing his own thing, he says, and leaving the Krug family completely alone. Did Christelle ever tell you anything about Dan, her husband? No. You didn't threaten him? You weren't following him? No. Or her? No. Ever been to their house? No. Or the neighborhood? No. I had no idea where she lives. Anthony says by 2023, he had finally moved on.

44:35And he says he would have told those deputies that. Except they never asked. They didn't even tell him Christele was dead. They just told him detectives would be in touch. And they left. I heard back from Colorado that they were not going to extradite him on the warrant. And that they just wanted us to get good contact information from him. At that point, Colorado police were left without any legal basis to arrest Anthony Holland. And, says Prosecutor Stephanie Fritz, they had zero proof he was either Christelle's stalker or her killer, since he was provably 500 miles away at the time of the murder.

45:16He's not the kind of person who has access to private aircraft. No, Anthony Holland did not have access to personal aircraft. And I'm guessing law enforcement checked every flight manifest. They did check to see if there was any indication, and there was none that he flew. Anthony Holland couldn't have been in the garage, but he could still be the stalker. He could be, yes. And that wouldn't be 100 % out of character in the sense that he tried pretty hard to reestablish a relationship with Chris Steele years earlier, and that definitely was him. Yes, he definitely did. Since they broke up 20 years ago, he was reaching out to her.

45:54Possible he had somebody working with him? At that point, anything is possible. Possible, but a long shot. Investigators knew there was a problem with the idea that Anthony Holland might have hired a hitman after stalking Chris Steele. That's not common in these kinds of cases. Prosecutor Kate Armstrong points out stalking is an intensely personal crime. Because the idea of stalking is not, I've hired someone to watch you. It's, I'm watching you. I'm here all the time. I have control. Exactly. Yes. So, unlikely that you're going to find somebody else to do your dirty work. Yes. Their investigation into Christelle's murder was about to start all over.

46:39And suddenly, the spotlight shifts. Yes.

46:55A murder investigation that once seemed so close to being solved was now back at square one. The day of her murder, Christelle's grief-stricken family members spent their afternoon in interview rooms at the police station. Dad, I'm so happy. I'm so happy. Oh, my God. They were pretty effective about splitting us up so that we didn't talk a whole lot amongst ourselves any more than what we already had at the scene. You hadn't heard from her message to her today at all? No. I tried to call her. I have that long here. Christelle's sister Jenna did not hold back her frustrations with police. I just think that the long work could have been done and this wouldn't have happened.

47:51She did everything right. She reported everything. She kept copies of everything. She called you guys. Dan came in to talk with investigators and took a seat on the same couch he had occupied just a month before. I arrived at the police department and immediately went to go speak with Dan. I'm not a dead girl. It's not your fault.

48:22I'm so, I'm so protected. So how's Dan doing at that point? Dan is not doing well. He's very emotional, distraught. He's stuttering, he's crying. He's just borderline hyperventilating in some points. He was simultaneously mourning his late wife while trying to help police solve her murder as he went through what he could recall from that morning. Dan, when did you leave the house today? How did he get? Can I tell you, I'm just a little bit. Guess. Approximate. Eight.

49:06Eight. I was late leaving. She told me I had to go because she had a meeting. She was rushing me. We actually had kind of a live feed camera of him in his room up in the room that we were working in. Prosecutors Kate Armstrong and Stephanie Fritz were at the Broomfield Police Department alongside detectives as information came in from other investigators. We had a pretty good handle on kind of all of the different leads and investigatory steps that were being taken at that point in time. One of those steps was to go back to the companies they'd served with search warrants. Detective Martinez had been waiting nearly a month for the digital information that would tell him for sure where those stalking messages originated.

49:59Search warrants to Google, Verizon, and TextNow had gone unanswered. Only now, when detectives reached out again, citing urgent circumstances, did the companies respond almost immediately, turning over the requested information within an hour. And suddenly the spotlight shifts. Yes. The reason? The data finally provided by those companies showed the stalker was not operating from Utah, where Anthony Holland lived, and not from some random corner of Colorado. The data showed Christelle Krug's stalker had been using the Wi-Fi at Dan Krug's office. The email that was used, the phone number that was used, all of those things are coming back to one place and that's Dan's work.

50:55It was just kind of like an earth-shattering moment of like the realization that I was on the wrong path the entire time trying to track down Anthony. You were on the wrong path the whole time. Yeah. Because somebody wanted you on the wrong path the whole time. I felt like a puppet. Had Dan Krug been lying from the beginning? I saw someone. I think it was a guy. Had he sat back and watched as his wife compiled a stalker log for police? I just always heard document everything. Was he the true architect of her suffering? I'm doing what I can. I'm literally sitting back right now. And then did he put on a big show?

51:38Sitting on that blue couch pretending to be in fear for Christelle's life and also for his own. So what am I doing? I'm panicking. Detective Martinez was convinced the answer to all of that was yes. And knowing that Dan had fooled me, had fooled her, it was a really tough moment to be able to process that in such a short amount of time and then immediately get back to work. Back to work and back to Dan, who was literally still sitting at the police station at the exact moment all that new digital data came in, just hours after the murder. I would say the tone of his interview shifted. What if I told you that we had already spoken with Anthony and there's no way that he was in town today?

52:32Then I have nothing. Then I'm f***ing terrified to bring my children home. Now, Martinez hit Dan with that new digital information. The Gmail account that you guys initially received with the photo of you in it, and the phone number, those originated through their IP addresses at your office. It doesn't make any sense. What did make sense, said Dan, was that perhaps the stalker accessed the building's Wi-Fi. There's public Wi-Fi access throughout the entire facility. And we literally post the passwords in every single meeting room. Detective Martinez persisted. Things are certainly pointing in one direction right now.

53:26I had just laid out the facts like we know where Anthony is. We know the IP addresses. Everything's pointing to you. Dan watched the skies of suspicion. turned suddenly darker. You could see his demeanor change, his body language changed. He immediately withdraws and tucks his knees back, crosses his arms, rolls his eyes very sardonically, and then says, I asked you that. Oh, yes. You heard that right. Even when confronted with the evidence, Dan didn't get mad. He didn't yell or even raise his voice. He just seemed annoyed. You have your theory. It is wrong. That's when Dan decided it was time to stop talking.

54:17Is this the point where on that checklists I say, I'll have an attorney now? Police collected his clothes for processing. I've taken socks, shoes, pants, shirt. He was not arrested. Detectives gave Dan a change of clothes and let him leave. Prosecutor Stephanie Fritz. You're starting to get evidence that Dan is involved in the stalking. But you have essentially no evidence at that point that Dan's involved in the murder. No, we don't have evidence that Dan is the murderer. We have suspicions. It turns out investigators were not alone in their suspicions. He was very upset. But there were no tears.

55:21The Christelle Krug murder case had turned inside out when investigators learned some of the messages from her stalker came from her husband's office. Police confronted Dan Krug. They did not arrest him. We don't have any evidence that Dan is the murderer the night he walks out of the police station. As Dan left, he had these parting words for Detective Martinez. I'm f***ing doing this. I don't care if you capture him. I don't care if you kill him. Find him. Dan joined Christele's stunned family. And we were all spending time together, just holding each other, crying, whatever people needed. Investigators were not yet sharing the head-snapping news about the stalking messages, so none of those present realized Dan was suddenly at the top of the suspect list.

56:18When he got to the house, he was very meek and shriveled. Did you talk to him that night? I did. I hugged him. I told him how sorry I was, and he asked me to help him find an attorney. That it's always the husband, and he needs help finding an attorney. Did he also say to you, I'm so sorry you lost your sister? No. No. I can't imagine what you're going through. No. She loved you so much? No. It was all about him? It was. And that was Dan, or that seemed weird? It seemed very weird. To the family, the idea that Dan might need an attorney was not weird. Husbands are always looked at, especially when a marriage is on the rocks.

57:11And Christelle's family knew she and Dan were not getting along, something her mom, Linda, had mentioned to police. Last year, her husband and her were not in good terms. I don't know the whole story, and I don't want to paint it as horrible, because I don't know. Linda knew only what Christelle had shared, and what she saw with her own eyes over the years. I think the best way to describe it is that I always had an uneasy feeling with Dan. But I loved my daughter, she loved him, and I would see them together and they seemed very happy. And that made you happy? Yeah. That happiness appeared to last for years.

57:57It was recently that her family saw the relationship deteriorate. They weren't as connected and with each other as much as before. They were constantly arguing that last year. Christelle's dad, Lars, says Dan's arrogance did not help. He always made sure that you knew that he was the smartest guy in the room. He always needed to be in charge, in control, or at least feel like he was in control. If it didn't have an adverse impact, you know, she would, in the interest of her relationship and everything, she would forfeit that control to him. Christelle told her parents she and Dan were likely headed for divorce, but said she planned to stay married until their youngest, who was not yet 10, was grown.

58:45And at some point, Christelle says, that plan I had to stick around until the kids are out of the house. Not going to work. I'm not going to be able to do that. Right. What'd she tell you? She's had enough. She says, I'm done with him. So I think on some level, you know, she needed to go. Hanging over that simmering marital tension were the escalating messages coming from Christelle's stalker. And even though Dan at least acted the part of a concerned husband for Detective Martinez, So what am I doing? I'm panicking. Christelle's family had a completely different impression. I did ask him, I said, are you doing okay?

59:26And how are you? And he goes, oh, I'm just fine. And he rolls his eyes and says, she's just making a big deal out of this. He just didn't take it seriously? No. I know she told me specifically that he felt like she was blowing it out of proportion, that it wasn't as serious. Something else had always bothered Sister Jenna. It was that photo the stalker took of Dan. I mean, if that person was that close to take that picture, like, they're there. It's not, you can't zoom that far and have that good of quality. So it just made me think, like, there's got to be something else going on closer to home, potentially.

1:00:05A marriage headed south, a controlling husband who seemed indifferent to his wife's fear. Jenna says she was thinking about all of that, even as she wept behind the crime scene tape. I've seen the video of Dan arriving. Yeah. He's very emotional and shouting and seems to be overwrought. Except there were no tears. at least when I was there. He was very upset. He was attempting to make himself sick, but there were no tears. You think that was all an act? I think it was fake. Right there at the crime scene, Jenna couldn't help but say the quiet part out loud. I remember hugging Linda, and I don't know why it came out, but I remember just saying, like, did he kill her?

1:01:00Like, did Dan kill her? and I remember Linda telling me, like, I don't know. Investigators thought they did know. Now they had to prove it. And maybe all those cameras at the house would help. Just not in the way you might think.

1:01:29A Facebook. If the entire stalking campaign had been an elaborate deceit created by Dan Krug and ending in murder, the next question was why. Christelle's family had long felt Dan tried to control her. Now, after learning about a strained marriage heading for divorce, that idea of control was becoming central to the theory investigators were developing. They suspected Dan was trying to generate fear to make Christelle change her mind about leaving him. And the stalking was to control Christelle to bring her closer to him. Make her afraid and want to be with Dan more. Correct. If that was Dan's motive, it had been a failure.

1:02:17Christelle was determined to end their marriage sooner than she'd originally planned. She went from wanting to be separated to wanting to be divorced. in the time frame of that case. And once it turns to divorce, now that it's to control her, he's lost power. And so it's the ultimate form of control of the murder. Prosecutors believe Dan must have felt time was running out and that he was about to be exposed. The police are getting closer. He knows search warrants are out. And when those search warrants come back, he's going to be found out. He's got to know that. He's got to know that. it. This is a motive I have not seen before, which is, I'm going to make you afraid, I'm going to make you want to be with me again.

1:03:00And then if that plot gets found out, then I'm going to have to kill you. This is the most unique case that I've ever been involved with. Investigators traced the burner phone first used to text Christelle and learned it had been purchased at a store in Broomfield using a gift card. That card was registered to Dan Krug. To prosecutor Kate Armstrong, it was more evidence that the stalking had been an elaborate hoax, with Anthony Holland as the perfect fall guy. Anthony Holland's sort of undying love for Christelle, which he'd expressed again and again over the years, that was kind of like a gift to Dan in planning this.

1:03:43And it was very believable, especially to Christelle, that it would be Anthony and that Anthony would be popping back up. At the house, investigators went over all the video from the morning of the murder, the cars and people coming and going. They noticed something curious. Four cameras were recording that morning. Then, right around the time of the murder, Detective Marshall says something changed. The doorbell camera was covered with a piece of blue painter's tape. The house had at least three other cameras, which almost covered 360 degrees around the house. Only one of those was operational during the time of when we arrived.

1:04:26Because the others were broken? They were turned off, intentionally turned off. The only video they had was from the camera above the garage. It showed Dan leaving just before 8.30 a.m. It's his alibi. It shows when he leaves the house. And that was important because of that text message Dan received from Christele 30 minutes later, asking him about after-school pickup. It looks as if Christele has sent texts after Dan is provably out of the house. Then he's got an alibi that I don't know how you shatter. Right. And there was Dan, waving to the guard as he arrived at the office. Dan's alibi and the timing of that text from Christelle certainly complicated the investigation.

1:05:13So did a lack of physical evidence connecting Dan to the actual murder. Prosecutors needed more. And they got it. A breakthrough piece of evidence was handed to them by none other than Dan himself. It happened as he sat on that couch talking with detectives. Dan allowed you to search his phone. Gave you consent. Cracked. And gave you his password. Yes. I think an attorney might have told him not to do that. Yes. Dan might be rethinking that decision. Because on that phone, they found this. The day before the homicide, Dan had searched a number of different things related to head trauma. How hard you have to hit someone for them to be unconscious.

1:05:59How long someone needs to be unconscious to become brain dead. All a variety of those kinds of searches. Remember, before she was stabbed, Christele was struck in the back of the head. Learning about Dan's searches is what took prosecutors from stalking to murder. A team was assembled, including Officer O 'Hare, who had discovered Christele's body. I got word that he had gotten into his vehicle and left the house and was headed in the direction where I was. He pulled his cruiser behind Dan. Dan then pulled into a grocery store parking lot, so I initiated my lights.

1:06:43Dan Krug was arrested on his way to his daughter's dance performance. I don't remember how I found it out. I probably heard it from my dad. But I remember feeling shocked, but also not shocked, if that makes sense. As she processed the news that her son-in-law was her daughter's accused killer, Linda went over the events of that awful morning, how Dan asked her to go check on Christele. He wants you to find your daughter's body. Yeah. Yeah, pure evil. It was just a cruel thing to do. I mean, you wanted an alibi, obviously, but why did it have to be me? Cruel could also describe how the stalking campaign terrorized Christelle in the last months of her life.

1:07:34It's heartbreaking to think about everything that she went through, because I don't think anybody knows the full extent of it. But knowing what we know now, it's just unimaginable. Dan Krug pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and stalking. Prosecutors knew the physical evidence against Dan was thin, and the crazy motive they offered might be hard for a jury to wrap its head around. Perhaps this woman's story would be the final piece of the puzzle. Suddenly, Dan Krug's past was stalking him. It made me feel watched.

1:08:28In the spring of 2025, Dan Krug entered a courtroom to face trial on charges he had stalked and murdered his wife, Christele. By that time, Dan's hair had turned gray, and his former in-laws had turned against him. Christele's family attended every day of court. Did he know you were there? Um, the very, very first hearing, Dan walked in the room and made eye contact with all of us and smiled. Because, like what, he thinks you're there to stick up for him? Yeah, I think he thought we were there for him. And apparently the look on my face, after he saw me, he never looked at me again, ever. Prosecutors laid out the digital evidence pointing to Dan as Christelle's stalker.

1:09:17The burner phone he bought, the messages from his office Wi-Fi, and Broomfield Police did a digital analysis of that photo of Dan outside his office, the one that bothered Jenna. It showed the photo had been taken in selfie mode, likely on a timer. Prosecutors called Anthony Holland as a witness, the man they said Dan intended to frame. Dan is right there, the guy who tried to frame you for stalking and was probably fine with you going down for murder. Oh, yeah, he was fine with it. As I was leaving, I just stared him down, and he didn't look at me. He just looked straight like this. Didn't want to face you.

1:09:57He couldn't even look me in the face. He's trying to frame you for murder, and he couldn't even look at me. You're unquestionably a victim here, along with Christele and her kids and her family. Yeah, I feel for those kids, man. How can somebody do that? It's horrible. It's just pure evil. Prosecutors showed the jury the searches on Dan's phone about head injuries, made the day before Christelle's murder. And on the day of the murder, they argued, Dan tried to cover his tracks by leaving only the camera above the garage working as he drove away. They also argued he was the one who covered the doorbell camera.

1:10:40because in a kitchen drawer, investigators found blue painter's tape. The roll in the drawer was a forensic fit to that tape on the doorbell. Like a jigsaw puzzle. Yes. The tears lined up astonishingly perfectly. Much harder for the prosecution to explain was that text message Dan received from Christele after he had already left the house. If we had believed that Christele was alive at 8.56 when those texts go out to Dan, that would mean that she was alive at least half an hour after he left the house. So, how to prove Christele was already dead by then? Well, a careful analysis of her phone showed it wasn't active at the time the text was sent.

1:11:28Essentially, for a layperson, the gist of how we were able to determine that was that Christele's phone, the screen was not illuminated. Prosecutors think Dan fabricated his alibi by using Christelle's phone to schedule a text to be sent after he was already out of the house. Stephanie Fritz told the jury the real story was that after Dan returned home from dropping the kids and before he left for work, he ambushed Christelle in the garage. First, he hit her in the back of the head. She didn't even see him coming. He did not even give her a fighting chance. She said Dan then turned his dying wife onto her back.

1:12:11He didn't need to stab her. She would have died anyway. But he goes in for that one final fatal blow and it was deep. Prosecutors knew the story they were telling a jury about Dan Krug and his elaborate stalking plot was an unusual one. And they had one more witness to wrap up their case. After hearing about Dan's arrest a woman contacted police with an astonishing tale And what she expressed to Detective Marshall was that she had dated Daniel Krug about 20 years prior Even after all this time she said she was still terrified of Dan so much so that she asked us not to reveal her identity It made me feel watched, so I was just constantly on guard.

1:13:06The woman dated Dan for a little more than a year in high school and college, until she broke it off in the fall of 2000. She says soon after, she began receiving weird messages and phone calls from someone she did not know. He had created a fake person. He had created a number of fake people. Fake people who were trying to push her back into Dan's arms. They talked about Dan a lot, told her to cherish her friendship with Dan. Other characters that he had created through email also were kind of trying to sabotage her new relationships. And then they got very sexual and explicit. And I carry that with me to this day.

1:13:53Just small things, you know. I worry all the time. Back then, she reported it to campus police. After a three-month investigation, the messages were traced to an IP address at Dan's College on the East Coast. The woman got a temporary restraining order against Dan, but he was never charged with any crime. It was eerie how similar it was to what had now happened to Christy. On the stand, the woman told Dan's jury her story. We sat there and we even looked at some of the jury while they were listening to this, and they were in shock. It was jaw-dropping. That took a lot of courage for her to do that.

1:14:38Oh, unbelievable. We are so thankful that she had that courage. Using a cache of digital evidence, prosecutors had made a strong case suggesting Dan Krug and no one else was behind the stalking of his own wife. So much now hinged on the jury believing Dan was not just Christelle's stalker, but also her murderer. And in that regard, prosecutors were missing something big. And Dan's attorneys knew it. Juries like DNA. They do. You didn't have any DNA. We did not.

1:15:26Dan Krug was staring at a possible life sentence. His defense attorneys implored jurors to focus their attention on all the evidence the prosecution did not have. There is absolutely no physical evidence on Mr. Krug's clothing. There's no blood found on that car inside or out. Juries like DNA. They do. You didn't have any DNA. We did not. You can't pick up the murder weapon and show it to the jury. You can't even tell the jury what it was. Yes. The evidence in this case says something far different with what the prosecution has told you. The defense argued Dan's internet searches were not about killing Christelle, saying he made them after having lunch with a colleague who the defense said struggled with a head injury.

1:16:12He can't hear. He struggles with speech. He struggles with walking. He uses a wheelchair. And immediately after that, we have a search for head injuries. The defense warned jurors to be wary of the evidence prosecutors did have. We know the physical evidence. And there is an enormous disconnect between that and the circumstantial picture the prosecution wants you to believe. In closing, the defense argued that if police couldn't figure out that Dan was Christelle's stalker, How could they be trusted when they said Dan was her killer? They sort of suggested that Detective Martinez is at fault here because he didn't figure out it was Dan soon enough.

1:17:00Yes. Right? Which is an odd defense. It is an odd defense. I mean, I think the stalking evidence was so clear that it was Dan that they didn't have much else. I'm telling you, Mr. Krug did not kill his wife. he did not commit these crimes. Period. After seven days of testimony, the jury got the case. So I'm a defense attorney, so my brain works a little bit differently than a prosecutor's. And so I'd be lying if I say I wasn't nervous. No verdict after day one. Or the morning of day two. And then finally... Please rise for the jury. When the jury came in, I was desperately trying to make eye contact with somebody, and not one of the jurors would look at me, and I was right in front of them.

1:17:56And that might be a bad sign. It made me really nervous. Because if they're avoiding you, maybe they're about to set him free. Yeah. I remember grabbing the family attorney's hand next to me, and we just held hands. We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree. guilty of murder, stalking, and criminal impersonation. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty on each one of them. And bang, and that was it. You look at Dan during that time? Oh, we were watching him. Not a flinch, not an emotion. Nothing. Like he knew it was coming or like he didn't care? I don't know. He wore those masks very well.

1:18:41Since Christelle's murder, her family has a mission. led by cousin Becky, the former prosecutor. They want to change the speed with which communications companies respond to stalking investigations. In Christelle's case, it was not fast enough. We don't know what would have happened if Christelle had had the information earlier that this wasn't Anthony Holland and that this was actually Dan. But she would have understood the calls coming from inside the house. Christiel was carrying a handgun. He knew he had to take her from behind in order to kill her. If she had known that it was Dan, he never would have had the opportunity to take her from behind.

1:19:26And she could have safety planned in a way that could have saved her life. All three companies still had the original search warrants submitted by Detective Martinez in their systems when Christiel was killed. And eventually, all three did respond to those. Except Google and Verizon took weeks. TextNow took nearly three months. None of that came in time to save Christele. To her family, the quick response of those same companies to the urgent requests on the day of the murder proves it is possible to turn over data almost immediately. So we know there's a structure. It's just a matter of having companies prioritize those responses.

1:20:09The family is advocating for legislation requiring companies to respond to warrants in stalking cases within 48 hours. They want to call it Christelle's Law. She marshaled the support of law enforcement. She tracked every single contact. Law enforcement wrote search warrants, issued those search warrants. And she's dead. And she still got killed. So I want to see not just state-based legislation, but federal legislation that requires these communication companies to respond within 48 hours when they've received subpoenas or search warrants pursuant to stalking or domestic violence investigations.

1:20:50This legislation is homicide prevention. When asked about their response to Christele's case, Google and Verizon told us they receive thousands of law enforcement requests each month, and neither company said stalking cases automatically receive any special attention. Google says requests are prioritized based on numerous factors, while Verizon says their usual policy is first in, first out. Verizon added that they generally do not know the nature of the investigations behind police requests. And both companies say they rely on law enforcement to let them know what's an emergency. TexNow did not respond to our questions.

1:21:34Dan Krug was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Christelle's children are with her family. What do you want them to know about their mom? She loved them. She loved them. She wanted to protect them. And she wanted them to be happy. I think the most important thing about Christelle is that her memory lives on and we don't stop talking about her. Christelle's kids are not the only children who will grow up without her. And right this minute you're pregnant. And now I'm pregnant. And she would have been thrilled. She would have been over the moon. She would have been the best aunt. And now my kids just get memories and they don't get to make their own.

1:22:22And it's really hard to talk about her. But the stories and who she was is just really important to keep her alive however we can.

1:22:38That's all for this edition of Dateline. And check out our Talking Dateline podcast. Josh Mankiewicz and I will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed, wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 central. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.