1 – Ashes to Ashes
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IT was the morning after Christmas nineteen ninety seven, bremerton, washington, just across budget sound from seattle, holiday lights twinkle in the foggy air. A building contract or named Geoffrey Richardson, was up early. He was headed to his assistance home to pick up some paperwork.

He pulled up to the man's house on genson avenue at about seven eight as he got out of his truck. Richardson heard a loud, crackling noise from somewhere behind him. Then what sounded like glass breaking, that's when he saw flames and smoke making out of a window at the house across the street. He bang on the door and yell fire. There was no response.

Engine three from the burger and fire department rolled up in five minutes. Firefighters contained the blaze and made their way to the main bedroom. IT had been completely scorched, the ceiling joyce were black with sudden ash, and they were starting to collapse into the room.

On the charred bed, investigators saw a body in the sleeping position. What about ten? fifteen? I am. A twenty seven year old man named nick hacket arrived.

He identified himself as a pastor from a church on nearby bambridge gilland and said he'd been on a hunting trip earlier that morning. Nit looked at the smoking rack of a home and told a cup, that's my house. And then he heard the grim news.

There was a body in the bedroom. Neck hat me put his head in his hands and then he said he knew who IT probably was. His twenty eight year old wife done.

Word quickly spread among next flock at his church. Next Young wife of just seven years was gone. IT was also heartport breaking, so shocking, so dreadful and so unfair. They didn't know the half of IT. This is a story about religion.

They're singing their homes, they're saying their prayers and they're getting caught up in something just a noch at a time until IT seems like it's too late to turn back.

It's about the power of privacy and one of the chaos matic gifts is the gift of profit, where you hear an inspirational word from the holy spirit or from the lord.

SHE made a comment to him. He said, i'm ready to go. SHE said, if I were to die.

i'm ready. Oh, and it's also about sex, a lot of IT. So you .

could serve god by providing physical comfort to one of his servants.

right?

And finally, this is a story about murder.

There is god. There is also a devil. The s i'm dash .

my goods and this is mortal sin, a podcast from deadline. Episode one, ashes to ashes. As firefighters hosed down what remained of his home, nick at me was left sitting on the back of a fire truck on the street outside.

He told police the fire must have started when wrapping paper left over from presence he and dawn had opened in their bedroom the night before had gotten too close to the space ear they were using. He had also been storing property models in the room. For all of that, nick blamed himself for not being more cautious, and two investigators make theory about the fire made sense.

There was no indication that there was a concern that this was nothing more than A A house fire that resulted in the death of A, A Young mommy.

Sue shultz was a patrol officer at the bremerton pd. When the fire broke out.

the actions were remodeling their house and there was no heat the house. So they're using a space ear, correct? And this was the day after Christmas. So logical that there are be wrapping paper line around. And so, you know, space's plus loose paper frequently equals house fire.

correct? As for the cause of death, that seemed obvious.

We had a Young woman that was in a house seemingly asleep when the fire broke out. Uh, investigators at the time contributed her death to the fire.

There was one odd thing, though, about the death by fire theory.

I guess the unusual pieces that if had been started by rapping paper, if dawn had been in the bed when that fire started alive, breathing, they would have been smoke, they would have been certain .

in her lungs there, and there wasn't. But the corner is a theory about that.

correct? And that theory was developed by the corner of the time. Is this this unusual event that occurs when you have a high instant heat.

like the heat of a flash fire from a leaky lo pen tank ignited by a Spark? That was the coroner theory.

You're throat close up and therefore there wouldn't be .

any certain in lines correct there. There was an explanation to the cause.

Dawn's death was determined to be an accident. However, much of what would follow in the coming weeks, months and years would not be accidental, and IT would become harder and harder believe.

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Almost as soon as the fire was out, the members of Christ community church were, nick was youth pastor, started sharing the news with one another.

Early in the morning, a phone call came in from another church member that I was a close friend .

with that's partier a net Anderson SHE had. Her husband craig were at her mother's house in organ. When SHE heard .

about the fire, SHE said that they're been a fire and that done was dead IT had been a nick and dance house, and I was a completely devastated IT was completely shocking. I mean, we had just part of company with these people think that our close companions had just had a terrible hospice, and one was dead with .

incomprehensible. You don't have people die like that and and hadn't in in our life was a tragedy. IT was a horrific.

The Andersons handed back to a bremerton to the home of bob smith. He founded Christ community church and brought a nick as the youth pastor.

There was A A group had gathered on there throughout the day and for support for nick and and that was there.

He was peaceful. He looked exhausted. He seemed like he was welcoming everyone that came through the door. We were part of a large crowd that IT and heard, and he seemed happy to see us.

He sounds remarkably composed for someone who would just server to a horrible loss.

remarkably composed. And that was within the context of next extraversion personality that we know. So IT didn't seem weird. IT almost seemed confirming that, you know, what a remarkable man of god here is. People were devastated, and next seem to be, you know, holding IT together.

Dawn's mother, Diana parny, heard the awful news from her husband.

He said .

it's done.

He said there was a fire and .

that SHE was gone.

And I just well, went into shock. That just, you know, fell part and I I felt like my heart had just been ripped out. And I didn't. I didn't want na go on.

IT was hard for Diana to rapper head around IT SHE taught with her daughter just the night before dawn. Nd said he wasn't feeling well and has taken some allergy medicine bena drill before bed. Now there was a funeral plan.

So many people wanted to come to dawn hone's funeral that IT couldn't be held at Christ community church.

IT was asked. IT was at a different church that could hold more congregants. Nick was stoic. He was so strong again. I was just another moment to see him in a remarkable way that he can deliver his wife's funeral.

What kind of things you say about that?

I remember one thing he did say was he would not grip for donor, cry for on, because IT was impossible to be sad for one that was in heaven. Now, dan's mother .

also came away impressed by mixology.

I thought .

that .

I was amazing that he could come up with such a link sea ology in such a short matter time that he had to prepare IT.

As you would expect, IT was all very moving from the mourners. At the same time, there was also something quite unexpected that happened. Annett Anderson says. IT came after the funeral service when church members gathered for coffee.

Afterwards, snick came over to me and gave me a big hug there, inappropriate, but almost within his big, you know.

he did that kind thing. He did that of .

thing all the time. He did that. IT was a little more unusual, that situation, because somebody thought and suggested to me that that was a little extreme. And then he brought me over and introduced me to some of his mom's friends as daun's very best friend, which I thought was a little over the top two.

You non's very best friend.

I felt like if I was dawn's best friend. And that made me sad, because I don t feel like I knew her enough to be where they have been called.

that people grieve in different ways, as we always say, around here. So maybe a hug that was a little too tight and went on a little too long could be understood in that context. And in the days after dance, funeral, IT seemed to a net and some of the other women in the congregation that nick really was desperate for help.

Nick had a lot of needs. IT seemed he was without a house. He had not only lost his wife, but his home and all his things. And he projected need to several of us.

And that says the stoic version of nick, the pastor, who, in the days after the fire, showed such incredible strength. Well, that man seemed to have disappeared.

He was kind of collapsing about more intense dies at the time. I think we were just in what can we do mode for a friend who lost his wife.

nick at me did not lack for people to lean on. After dawn sudden death, the church community cradled him in its collective arms and swallowed him in a blanket of love and support that was all quite public. That's why a net went over to pater bombs s house, where nick was staying to help nick with some insurance forms.

When I walked into the house, gave me another one of this fantastic cally huge huggs. And I know that had been a progression of several huggs over weeks time. And I told enough, stop fucking me like this. Enough hugging and let's get to work. And like, he apologized for that a little bit, regretted that he can help IT whatever SHE says.

Nick did not stop there.

He went and late on the couch where he had a blanket, and I looked over him and asked him to continue on helping me. He said he couldn't have that. He was preoccupied about what I would be like to kiss me.

When you saw that he was not. I thought I had just finished reading a book that his mom had suggested. I read on grave a story of a man who lost his wife and child. And the book said that people, when they agree, they will act strange, and they need their plus friends not to abandoning them. So I just kept putting IT in that reacting strange and not going abandon you.

And that says nick wouldn't give up. So he told him to stop.

knock IT off, knock IT off. And he went further with IT. Tell me he want, what would I say if he wants to run me upstairs and make mad, passionate love to me? I told him to knock IT off, that he was singing, that he wasn't right. He talking .

about probably .

three weeks or three weeks.

You choked that up to bizarre behavior, sponge from brief right .

next behavior with a net was about to go to places no one in this church could have imagined.

M S N B C films presents a new four part series from nbc name studios that exposes the injustices of conventions. The singing critical first two episodes premiere sarty at nine P M. Turn on M S B C.

Hey, everyone is genius. Sh hagger from today with hold and jena reminding you to check out my podcast open book with china. Each episode I get to have inspiring conversations with celebrities, authors, fellow book lovers and more. And this weeks episode, I sit down with ami award winning actress and singer kicky palmer to talk about how he fame at a Young age and how she's embraced to SHE truly is, you can listen to this conversation now by searching open book with jana .

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IT was sudden, shocking.

terrifying.

I have never in my life felt fear like thinking .

he killed them.

And fill lines newest podcast, the man in the black man. All episodes are available now to listen, add free, subscribed the outline premier among apple podcast, spotify or deadline premium dot com.

If you visit Christ community church in the midnight thousand and nineties, you have found IT sitting on low hill, a Brown one story building with a peaked roof nestle amid the seeds and pines on bambridge island, not far from the hacky home. If you're thinking a small town church from a movie, you're not wrong. So now that you have that image, think about this very little that went on there may make any sense to you at all in terms of what occurred under the umbrella of religion, what church members were expected to do, and how the unacceptable suddenly became reasonable. When IT was framed as having come from not man, but from god, from his puppet, nick was captivating and charming, and his enthusiasm for the gossip l was infectious, as you can hear in this church recording.

Open your bibles. A man and man, praise god. Get used to the people. We're raising up a generation of Young people. They're excited about the word of god.

excited perhaps, but unaware as they listen from the views of the sins that would spill out in their midst, making some of what nick preached, erly issue .

of readers, the issue of prepared ness. And so I believe, with all my heart.

that god is.

Giving us this time and expressing us now to ask why what is IT that we're preparing for?

In early one hundred and ninety seven, before dawn died, nick had been leading marriage counseling sessions at the church and net, and craig Anderson were one of the couples he was working with.

He was extremely help. He was very good at counselling. We thought at that time he was really relational and seemed to know how to break down the barriers and cause, you know, the root issues to come out.

And he did that. And the two of you, what? Total closers?

Yeah, yeah.

And that says there came a time during their early days of counselling when past or nick took her aside and told her he needed to trust god more.

So he had me to the exercise where he had a spot stand up in his office, and he stood behind me. He told me to fall backwards. And I, you know, was asking, why would why? And he said, just do IT turn around.

I'll be here to catch you. And and so I didn't. He said that how god is he's going to catch you when you follow, you just needed trust more. I probably did think and question more than and the average person and his .

answer to that was, no, no, it's like falling back or you just need to trust that gotto be there. Don't question.

Just I got .

you catch.

Usually that exercise is something that counsellors do for couples, not one member of the couple and the councillor. 哇。

i didn't really know that.

Okay, correct me. I'm wrong here. But IT sounds as if nick was maybe drawing you in a little bit more to him, promising you a special closer relationship with god if you had a special closer relationship .

with them yeah as time went on he did use me as his confidant more um he called me and told me I was in his prayer circle. I was in the inner circle of his ministry nick .

began councell and that one on one author, greg awesome, whose book a twisted faith is about nick hati and Christ community church, says one on one sessions were typical for nick, and there was a pattern to them.

When next to a marriage counselling, he inevitably ends up talking more .

with the women than with the man. Yeah.

seems like the guy is booted out the door after the session.

IT was around this time that don hack ney seemed to have become concerned maybe he was losing her husband's attention or maybe IT was worse than SHE knew in her faith community. Don't hackney stood out .

SHE um worked which in this situation .

was kind .

of different than what the rest of her peering at our church would have been like. We were staying home. Um a lot of the women were homeschooling their kids and don had a career and nick talked like theyd planned IT that way don was gonna be the bread winner and next job was to work for god because SHE .

worked at the credit union. SHE had to skip many church of ads.

A lot of people sort thought sorry for her that way they thought, too bad you can't be here with nick at the retreat or SHE can't be here tonight at the youth group meeting because she's having to work late yet every other woman, I mean, he's preaching you stand by me. I'm the man in charge yet he was pulling down the money and taking care of things at home.

olson says. People who knew don described her as being tolerant, even as they spend their money to help out other church members and also ministered to them at all hours. He says, dawn seem content to let nick be. Nick SHE never said.

don't do that. You never said that a mistake, never said you're hurting me, hurting her marriage. nothing. How many of the women in that church sort of saw their role in what might be thought of as a sort of more fundamentalist way that their their role in life was to be? Maybe not submission demand subsequent or second saw .

because that's what the church I mean. That is the role the woman is to be submissive to the man.

As the summer of nineteen ninety seven turned to fall, some church members got the feeling that I was becoming harder for dawn to be the beautiful wife, a busy preacher. He complained .

to a couple of people, and he complained to a friend that SHE, you know, had missed him and that he was trying to lose some wait. She's probably fragile because her husband is away during the Christmas .

season in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven, the church and congregation were in full celebration mode at the same time, and ed Anderson saw some sadness in her friend.

Well, I saw on crying several times. I saw a different part of dawn in several occasions where he was sad and reaching out for something, but he had stopped short of maybe completely expressing what IT was. He told you once that .

he was trying to make herself more attract different.

that she's trying to lose weight. Uah SHE had a complete breakdown and a baby shower where SHE actually did open up to myself in a couple of their ladies. And SHE said SHE was trying to you make herself more pleasing to neck and that he hadn't been around very much and that she's trying to cook Better meals and he was just going to strategize good as attention because he thought .

he was losing interest in her as a man.

SHE seemed to let that out at that moment. Yeah, that was a part of a SHE shot for a moment. Was sad.

You ever going to be sense before that that nick wasn't attract to his wife?

And well, if nc gave any signals that were I D, i'd always asked him about IT. And I would ask him, what about dawn? And he would assure me that don was exactly where god wanted her to be, and that everything that was going on in down's life was what god had planned for her, that I wasn't worry about anything.

Dawn's mother.

Diana. I know that pastors and people that minister are away a lot from their families because there's a lot of needs out there. And I just figured he was doing what he was supposed to do in that position.

And then in the fall of one thousand nine ninety seven, a shadow fell into next life. He told a net about IT. Something was coming, something bad.

talked a lot about something was gonna happen. Something was gna happen. And I wasn't to be alarmed.

That was part of god's plan. That was gona go through some terrible things. IT was all gonna part of god's plan.

He made IT clear that the terrible thing that was going to happen was going to have to, right? Not to you.

not anybody else. Now it's gonna en to him and I wasn't to be alarmed at what happened to him because he knew that, you know, we cared about him.

Did you say, what's the thing? What's going to happen?

Yeah and he wouldn't allow me to ask that. And he said, don't ask and I want to answer, there's no use and even asking, he would shut me down before I even asked.

You were pretty close to him by that point. You'd spent a lot of time.

right?

Was he trying to pass you some signal, do you think? Or did he just really not want to tell .

you he was giving me as much information as he wanted me to have? I don't know if there was a signal in that, or if you just didn't want to tell me. I say you didn't want to tell .

me right before Christmas, down two seemed to send something very dark ahead on Christmas eve. Her friend unit code had worked like when he got home. He saw that dawn had called.

and there was a message on my machine from down saying, we need to get together soon, pretty much as soon as we could. And IT was late. I didn't call that night. And the next morning I was early, I woke up and I just felt something is not right.

That sad night, her mother says, don told her father something .

chilling. SHE made a comment to him. He said, i'm ready to go. SHE said, if I were to die, i'm ready. And this was what, a day .

before .

he passed.

did you know about that coming of the time?

Not at the time. No, I had been in the other room, so I I didn't hear their conversation. He said he was ready.

SHE knew he was right with god. And I mean, that was done. You know, he was always all the way through her life here that SHE with anything SHE was prepared IT sounds me .

like you take a little .

comfort in that.

Oh yes. I mean, was this the remark of someone predicting their own death?

IT was almost as SHE knew something after dawn died.

and that Anderson flashed back to those conversation she'd had with nick, in which he told her something bad was going to happen.

I had asked him, shortly after down die, is this what you were talking about? And he just shipped me, shut me down again. You don't ask, don't ask.

I'm thinking that the two of you have not spent quite as much time around murder stories as I have. But I can tell you that when someone predicts something bad is gonna happen, and then something bad does happen frequently, there are people who will see a sort of link of cases there. What you guys didn't .

seem to say that .

never occurred.

You, no way, no way. He was a man of god. I didn't like her to us ever, not once.

So you took dawn's death as a sign that nick really did have a processing. He saw that going.

right? yeah. And we felt that, yeah, that was a wow, that he thought coming motion of his close relationship with god. And yeah, that he was gone to be walking through some terribly hard things.

SHE didn't know IT then, but I net herself would soon be dealing with some very hard things too. This season on model scene.

he pulled men who taner and kissed me.

And you just come back. I did because in .

his calling, he felt like god wanted us to be together intimately.

He was able to get these women to do these incredible things, to break their marital bows, to do all sorts of things that don't make sense.

SHE actually arranged to come into the department and provided information about dance step.

You ever have a stranger case in this? Oh.

you answered that very quickly.

yeah. no.

Mortal sin is a production of date line, and nbc news Jessica knows the producer, ryan drew, Kelly law, dan and martial households are audio editors, carsons commons and kiani read are associate producers, adam gordin is co executive producer, liz coal is executive producer, and David corvo is senior executive producer from nbc news audio sound mixing by bob mallory and Katherine Anderson. Bryon barns is head of audio .

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