“Hi, I’m here for a missing person’s report.”
“A night out for a mother of three ends in tragedy. Her injuries were brutal. It was so bad that they couldn’t ID her.”
“But identifying a killer… when I interview someone, what I want to do is give them the opportunity to talk… becomes a complicated task.”
“Thank you, guys.”
“So, nobody? That’s your alibi? Your alibi is a guy that’s in custody for murder? That’s what you’re going to walk out this door with?”
“As we move from one suspect to another, so obviously you’re brought in handcuffs, right… which means you’re arrested.”
“Hey there, everybody. I’m Jesse Weber and welcome to Prime Crime, where we break down some of the most compelling and memorable true crime cases.”
“Back in 2016, a woman goes out for the evening to have some fun, but the night takes a very dark turn. This is the case that you may think is easy to solve, but as we’re about to show you, the answers are sometimes not right in front of you.”
“Brown County Public Safety. Yes, um, how do I go about, I guess, the missing person?”
“In May 2016, out in Green Bay, Wisconsin, a 911 phone call begins a new case.”
“Who’s missing?”
“Uh, it’s my girlfriend and she, she does live with me and she’s never done this before.”
“What’s her name?”
“Nicole VanderHeyden.”
“Nicole VanderHeyden was a mother of three, was a substitute teacher, and was described by most of the people in her life as someone who really enjoyed life.”
“She was described as someone who had a zest for life, enjoyed the outdoors, and a holistic lifestyle.”
“And what’s your name, Doggy?”
“My name, Doug.”
“Doug and Nikki had been in a relationship. They had been in a relationship for some time. They had had a child together.”
“Officer Shield arrived at Berkeley Road on May 21st, 2016, completing a missing person’s report.”
“Hi there. Is Doug here? Oh, okay. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hello. Hi, we’re here for a missing person’s report.”
“Time becomes critical in a missing person’s case, and one of the first things investigators need to do is to understand the sequence of events leading up to a disappearance.”
“What’s going on?”
“Uh, I haven’t seen, no one, nobody’s seen or heard from her since last night. I’d say like what, midnight? Yeah.”
“Nicole VanderHeyden was with her boyfriend, Doug Dietrich, and they were out with a group of friends.”
“We were actually on the west side at the Water Hole. I was on my way down there and she was down at the Sardine Can with some other friends of mine, actually the… what is it called, The Sand Lot or whatever it was, a concert there, and that was over with, and then I spoke with her and she was already in the car with my friends headed down to the Sardine Can where we were all going to go down.”
“During the evening, they had a disagreement and became separated.”
“My friend Aaron saw her. She was upset and walking away down south on Maple.”
“So before you even got down to the Sardine Can, he texted you that she just stormed off south on Maple Street?”
“He talked to her in the car and she was all mad.”
“Who is he?”
“I did.”
“Okay, what was she mad about?”
“I don’t know. She said I was talking to a girl. I have no idea.”
“Were you guys drinking?”
“Yes.”
“Doug’s intoxicated, Nicole’s intoxicated. Obviously, alcohol is a contributing factor.”
“You’re not making the best decisions because we’re not thinking and acting the same way.”
“I was still at the Watering Hole and wondering where she was, and because we were going to go on to the next place as the show was over.”
“Yep.”
“Um, that’s when I talked to her and she was with a couple of my other friends. Ryan with them, that was actually on the phone. It was… did you call her?”
“Conversation.”
“She called you?”
“I called her.”
“She was angry at Doug because she thought that he was flirting with other people that night.”
“There wasn’t a seamless relationship between the two. There had been some static in the relationship, some arguments historically.”
“We had actually talked to her.”
“I was call her on the way down.”
“You actually talked to her?”
“Talked to her. She’s mad.”
“She’s walking. She was trying to get her to tell us where she was. I thought maybe if I was talking to her outside of Doug, that maybe she would let me know where she was and let us come pick her up so she’s not just wandering the streets.”
“Yeah, she didn’t believe that I wasn’t Doug talking to her, then she hung up.”
“Okay, and then every time we tried to call her again, her phone just went… to.”
“Nikki went to the Sardine Can and Doug did not, at least not right away. And that’s where law enforcement kind of ran into a little bit of a dead end because the last video that they had of Nikki was leaving the Sardine Can and they didn’t know where she went next.”
“Did you see her walking?”
“No.”
“We drove up and down the streets for a while trying to find her, and then we went back to the Sardine Can thinking maybe she walked back there. And then we asked people around the Sardine Can if they had seen her.”
“What time did you guys get home?”
“2, 2:30, maybe.”
“Doug then went home and relieved the babysitter and took care of his child. And he reported that he was hungover the next day and assumed that she had been as well. So while he was concerned that she hadn’t shown up, he wasn’t so concerned at that point to make a missing person’s report or alert authorities.”
“It wasn’t until some time later that he actually did report her missing to the police.”
“Is it normal for her to sleep off being angry at you somewhere else? Is that normal?”
“No. Even when she’s been upset with me, um, still maintain contact.”
“We had had text messages from that night that were very indicative that there was issues. She told you where she was at, but she was definitely upset at that time, thinking maybe she saw you.”
“Oh, this, yeah, ’cause she had sent me a text saying that she was upset with me.”
“Can I see the text?”
“Why is she calling you abusive?”
“I, I don’t know.”
“As we learn more into the case, the relationship maybe wasn’t what it seemed between Nikki and Doug. Doug had allegations of abuse against him in the past. The fighting that had happened before, obviously, was of concern to law enforcement.”
“Investigators then bring Doug in for more questioning.”
“What time did you leave the Watering Hole?”
“I don’t know. I’m guessing, all the night-ish, a little after. I was pretty intoxicated at that point.”
“The first person we are going to look at is the significant other. They’re the closest to the person. A lot of times they’re the easiest to eliminate, depending on their alibi and the evidence that we see.”
“How long do you think you drove around looking for her before you went to the Sardine Can?”
“I… yeah, I don’t… 10 minutes. I don’t know.”
“And this whole time you were driving around looking for her, were you either calling and/or texting her?”
“Yeah.”
“When I interview someone, what I want to do is give them the opportunity to talk. I’m looking at body language. How’s the person reacting?”
“What do you think happened or where do you think she may have gone? Any idea?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. She… I think she just sort of just walked out. I think she might went to another bar.”
“A lot of times I’m going to ask questions that I already know the answer to to see if they are being truthful.”
“You said I did it.”
“I think you could argue, well, he’s under the most stressful time in his life, so you can’t blame him for that. But that’s one moment that it was just like, you felt it in your throat, a little bit of like, ‘Oh, I wish that wouldn’t have happened.'”
“Nikki was strangled. She had a fractured jaw, correct?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“That’s what the medical examiner said. You saw her injuries. You sat through court to see the defensive injuries to her hands, to her feet, to her palms, to her fingernails, that she fought for her life, right? According to what the doctor said?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll have the jury believe that Doug Dietrich sat there and did all of these things to his girlfriend while you were just out cold on the lawn, hanging out?”
“I wasn’t hanging out. I’d been knocked out from behind, sir, when I didn’t know anyone was behind me.”
“Actually, you didn’t say you were knocked out from behind. You didn’t remember what happened. You were having sex and the next thing you knew, you woke up on the ground, right?”
“It made me leave me to believe that I had been knocked out because I didn’t pass out from standing there.”
“And then you only recall just maybe a small little bump on the back of your head?”
“I remember being painful in the back of my head, not even a bump, ’cause that Jackson would have seen that. I’m 6’7″, so it’s hard for someone to see the top of my head when they’re sitting on a boat within 10 feet from you all afternoon.”
“That I don’t know, sir. What he saw?”
“Two theories, one decision. After 3 hours of deliberations, the jury decided if George Burch was in fact Nicole VanderHeyden’s killer.”
“State of Wisconsin versus George Steven Burch. We, the jury, find the defendant, George Steven Burch, guilty of first-degree intentional homicide as charged in the information.”
“You felt the tension. Everybody was there that had been watching in terms of Nikki’s family, Doug’s family, people that were familiar with George and his story. So, once they read the guilty verdict, um, you just heard… it was just emotion. It was pure emotion.”
“The jury’s verdict was not terribly surprising. His story did not line up with the evidence, and his story was belied by things that are very difficult to argue with, namely DNA and geolocation data.”
“George Burch was sentenced to life in prison without parole.”
“It’s devastating. You have children that no longer have their mother around. Very rarely does just a complete stranger walk in and murder someone, and a lot of times they’re sloppy, and there’s evidence that really will zone in and pinpoint who committed the crime. I think law enforcement in this case did an excellent job. They used the technology piece, they used the DNA piece to put all this together. That’s going to give you the best chance of getting that conviction that you want.”
“Now, the story didn’t end there because Burch appealed his case, arguing against how certain evidence was used in his trial, like the Fitbit data. But in the end, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin upheld his conviction.”
“What matters most in this case though is not Burch; it’s Nicole. Her family and loved ones have spoken so passionately about her, and you can really understand who she was and what she meant to those around her.”
“I do want to leave you though with one quote. It happened during Burch’s sentencing, where Douglas Dietrich’s mother, Diane, made a statement and she said, quote, ‘Go home today, hug your loved ones, tell them you love them, show them you love them.'”
“That’s all we have for you here on Prime Crime. Thank you so much for joining us, as always, and until next time, stay safe.”
