4 – So Help Me God
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IT was an imaginable, a man of the cloth, accused not only of sins of the flesh, but also the deadly scent of murder. News of nick chinese arrest spread through his community and his church, much like the fire that killed his wife dawn, almost four years earlier. And that Anderson was stand .

IT was terrible. I can't imagine that kind of thing at all. That's just impossible for most people to to come up with. But you know, I can look back up on a lot of things in that fits. Dawn's mother .

learned from police that her former son in law had been arrested the day they told her. Happened to be september twelve, two thousand one. This was, this was a good day after nine eleven. yes. So like everyone in the world, certainly everyone that you know was thinking about something else and dealing with .

this fresh heart, and suddenly .

police say, and by the way, we need to talk you about where or not your daughter was actually murdered.

Yeah, they hit me with this news and I was like, I just.

Because you don't want to admit that that actually happened down, right that choose a murder victim and not just so .

that yeah and it's just, you know that's not the nick that I knew that the neck I knew couldn't have done something like he supposedly did.

Nick hanne's trial would unfold like no other with testimony about religion, about prophetic and about those many extra marital affairs. And there was one voice that would get a lot of attention at trial that belonged to god. In the end, a jury would have to decide if nick was a wolf in sheep clothing who murdered his wife or the victim of a flawed investigation and the false words of a self proclaim ed profit. In this episode, you'll hear how nicks arrest affected his flock.

IT shook my face, not in god, but in the church. Definitely shook my faith .

in man and his trial and the case against him.

I think he liked his life. A with all of these women bonding over him, and divorce was round upon.

And what next defense had to say about the states star witness Sandy glass?

I argued that he saw the world through propac's color glasses that he couldn't distinguish between what god had told her and reality.

I'm judge mates and this is mortal scene, a podcast from deadline. Episode for so helps me, god.

On november fourth, two thousand and two trial got underway at the kids up county courthouse, a fifteen minute drive from bremerton judge ana Lori took the bench. The american flag over her right shoulder, the washington state flag over her left.

The courtroom was not an ornata fair, no murals of the scales of justice or anything like that, just plain blond wood panel, warm enough to be pleasant, but blind enough to be the canvas on which the story of don's death would unfold in images, testimony and arguments. Judge Lorry called in the jury and ask the panel to turn its attention to prosecutor k. braddy.

By the end of the case, the prosecutor told them you are going to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of premeditated murder and the defendant committed arson in the course of that murder. When I spoke with her recently, readily described the case as beyond unusual. You never have a stranger case. Then then h, you answered that very quickly.

yeah. No, never bravely .

is no longer a prosecutor today. She's the presiding judge. And kids up county, raised in connecting law school, brought her to seattle. After graduation. In one nine hundred and ninety seven, he joined the prosecutors' office. Bradly knew this was going to be a big k and also a big chAllenge, because sh'd been dealt a louy hand on the evidence.

We didn't have a lot of the pictures. We didn't have a lot of the evidence that we would have had had had this been deemed even just undetermined at the time. But since I was deemed an accident, then we were kind of a lock in terms of a lot of the evidence that would have been collected.

You would just all gone. Everything was gone on. Which allows essentially anybody to argue any theory correct .

can drive a mac truck through that.

Bradley was also stuck with the original official determination that dan's death was an accident. The forensic pathologist who made that call back in one thousand ninety eight was now prepared to testify that IT was actually homicide. A guarantee was that jurors would wonder why, four years later, he suddenly ly had a different opinion. That experience was not going to be pleasant for the prosecutor.

At best, it's really uncomfortable to have to call them to the witness stand and have them admit I was wrong. At best is uncomfortable. At worst, it's very messy.

From the witness stand, the forensic pathologist said I was seen the statement to police about what nicky told her regarding dan's death that had sweating.

He was able to amend his opinion based on new information that he received ah and change the manner and cause of death.

Now the pathologist testified don hackneys death was homicide. By as fixation.

we were able to say, did you have the full picture of what was happening at the time? No, I did not. And uh, now if you knew what you what you now know back then.

well, I would never set that back then.

yes. yeah. yep. As for the fire, IT was nicky.

who early on told investigators that propane ank he'd had in the bedroom must have leaked and accidentally fuel the fire. Bradly y called experts to refuse that theory.

In the history of the manufacturing of those procaine tanks, none had ever failed and leaked.

So whatever fire did kill don hackney, propane was not a factor. That was not, as we often mentioned, on date line, prosecutors are not required to offer or prove a motive. At the same time, clare, bravely, new juries like to hear one SHE argued. This murder was mostly about the woman I think .

he liked his life, uh, with all of these women falling over him. And he gave him a sense of power. IT gave him a sense of purpose. And you know, this particular church divorce was found upon if he were to get a, he might be even x communicated from the church. And that was just not gonna be an option for him, either because of his belief systems and also because of where he wanted to be in this church. He wanted to be a leader in this church.

In addition, bradley said next to to collect some money in the event of daw's death, though maybe not as much as he thought .

yeah so um SHE had actually bumped up her insurance but what he didn't know is that the insurance policy didn't um go into effect until january first and so that bigger policy was not payable. Um but he did I mean he had the life insurance that he had through her credit union, which was a fairly substantial amount, and the homo er's insurance and so he was a pretty substantial amount of money. I think that was gravy. I don't think that's the that was that all the motive? Um I think that was just an added bonus.

Prosecutor bradley told me the youth pastor had yet another potential motive. Sandy glass.

I think in his own way he thought I can free myself up to be with Sandy glass. I mean, I think IT started with Sandy glass. And because they they've got each other like .

engagement rings and that .

was before don oh yeah yeah. That was the summer and fall before he died. Uh and so I think it's started with Sandy that I want to be with this woman. And then he started um marital counseling and he had a veritable buffet of of particular women that he could then manipulate um and I think he he enjoyed that and more. If I think from I want to be with Sandy and I can get a divorce to, I like my life is good to be the king.

Sandy glass was the most important witness for the prosecution, and this case would turn on her credibility. As you'll here, her testimony would add some haunting details to the confession he says nick made to her.

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The prosecution essentially threw its arms around Sandy glass, church secretary, self described profit. And also the woman who had an affair with neck then predicted his wife's untimely demise. I mean, if i'm the defense, or like, why are you believing anything that comes out of this woman's mouth? I mean, SHE said SHE heard IT from god. Well, what's the proof that that he says? IT.

right. Well, luckily SHE wasn't the only one. You know, luckily this was A A very faithful church, was an episode church that believed in the word of god, whether IT comes through visions or dreams, or whether IT comes through speaking in tongues. Um this is an entire church who had that belief system.

S, however, had not been part of that church, so prosecute bradley knew he would need colaba ating evidence. SHE offered some. Starting with that phone call, Sandy said nick made her in which he said he claimed to have killed, done himself.

The test was that that morning he was at home and he got a phone call. He he called and said it's done and he didn't ask any follow questions and he didn't offer any follow up. And at that moment, uh, one of the the congregants called her her call waiting clicked in and so he went to the other line, and the congregant told her that dawn had parish in a fire that morning.

The reinvestigation had identified that color .

that congregant did call at that time that morning, that at least the phone call from the congregant was made. This was before cellphones really were such a big thing. So, you know, we didn't have any of the phone records, but we did have that one piece corrupting that that person did call her. At that time.

bradley star witness was Sandy glass, and there was something new about the evidence that bRandy wanted the jury to hear. When Sandy took the stand, bradlee question her about the story. Nelatu told her as to how the fire had started.

The testimony from Sandy glass was that he told her that he put paper around the bed and started the fire and left. So what pictures we did have did did uh absolutely kind of CoOperate that story because there were newspapers all over all over her around the bed um and IT certainly was clear to the fire investigators that the the fire did start in the bedroom.

This wasn't wrapping paper spontaneously ignited, the jurors heard IT was kindling with that. Prosecutors had played out their case for premeditated murder. Now IT was time for the defense iron, tell me.

One of necked ese public defenders stood to face the jury. He'd been in attorney for a decade, and he believed there were serious flaws in the prosecution case. In his opening statement, djs telly talked about the problems with the state's case, and he referred often to Sandy glass.

We know he told the jury that the autopsy finds that this should be an accidental fire, and that nothing changes those finding scientifically. We know that the only change is the statement by one person, Sandy glass. And when you look at all of this evidence, in this case, you're going to find there's reasonable doubt and you're going to find that nick acme is not guilty.

You know, when you watch television shows, I think one of the great miss of forensic evidence out theirs that is actually based on science and medicine that's iron.

Tell me who SAT down with me recently .

and much of IT is just human judgment call. So um you know, my argument was this wash in a medical decision, you have medical degrees, your serving as a medical examine to evaluate this evidence. But there was no there was no medical fact that changed from one to the other. There was no new research done. There was new no new article IT was merely the statement of another individual.

So this really does hand john Sandy, you think.

absolutely hundred percent .

so tolly targeted. Seeing this story, he argued to the jury that the fact did not fit. There was no evidence, he said, of strangulation on don's neck and that the elevated level of bena drill and dawn system have been artificially exaggerated by changes in her body following death. Perhaps most importantly, hatty's defense council told the jury that Sandy glass was simply not reliable.

I asked in an interview, and I asked on the stand months later about how could you tell the difference between just sitting around and feeling i'm hungry, I want a hamburger and god telling her to eat a hamburger and she's like, I don't know what that difference is.

So nick, confessing murder might have been just a feeling.

Well, he was, the one was having proof theses that their spouses would die so SHE was the one was that god was talking to about these people dying um and then all the sudden he comes forward and is claiming that mister hacky committed this crime to defense .

attorney toy and all seemed a little too convenient he questioned Sandy glasses motives for coming forward to police. Remember, he went to police after a nt, Anderson's husband, craig g, had called for a meeting with church founder bob Smith in which craig plan to blow the whistle on next behavior that would have left Sandy open to shaming, and maybe worse from other church members.

Basically at the time SHE disclosed um her of affair was about to be exposed and he then became a victim as opposed to a perpetrator of any wrongdoing by accusing mr. Hagi of this haneys crime all the son and her role had completely flipped in the eyes of everyone perpetrator.

I asked badly about that Sandy glass, sometimes when you want somebody's testimony against someone that you want to convict, you got to let that first person go. Uh, is that what atmos y glass could chief been charged with something absent an immunity agreement?

You know, we did a lot of due diligence investigation after he gave us her profile. SHE seemed to have a lot of information about how the fire started. So IT doesn't take a genius to go to the next level there and say, okay, well, maybe he was part of this whole plan and maybe he was an active participant in IT and so we did a lot of investigation to check that out um and there is absolutely no evidence that we could that we could find that he would have been actively involved SHE had at alii for the morning of the fire SHE was home with a whole family.

just as prosecutors had tell me, focused on the fire at the hack my home. He told the jury IT was spontaneous, not intentional, and that there was no evidence to prove nick was at the house when the fire started. Tell me, told me nick at left to go hunting far too early to have started the blaze.

I don't believe there's any question that mister hackney could not have started that fire, that he would have been gone on a hunting trip at the time the fire was slip to .

back out at ny. Story tell me, called a witness who had studied how fires behave and who testified about the rate at which this fire had burned.

Our fire expert determined that he believed that he had burned for about twenty minutes, that he would have been, that the fire would have started about seven o'clock, and by then he was long gone on the hunting trip.

he went.

have had to have been gone for how long? I would say, at least an hour.

So your contention is nick hutton at the fire and gone on the on the dock ending trip.

I don't think there's any way that that's possible.

Prosecutor bradly disagrees. SHE says nak hati actually left home much later than he told anyone, allowing him to set the fire and beyond his way by the time his neighbors first saw the flames at his house, maybe the biggest hurdle the defense faced was next behavior with women, including his own mother in law. How would his lawyers explain that?

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In this podcast we've heard from women who described nick Anthony as a man who used god to seduce them soon after his wife dawn died. This was probably not the best look for someone later accused of murdering her. He's a torney. Iron town asked the judge to keep testimony about next love life with church members out of the trial. Clearly next conduct ah and i'm not surprised that you wanted to get IT excluded is not the kind of thing that in deers are defendant to a jury uh.

clearly not. I mean, there's obviously court rules to try and prevent a person from getting smarter with poor character. Um and so this was where the basis of our arguments h the judge obviously didn't see IT our way and allowed all that testimony in and you can't look at up in the law books, but the reality is lots of trials are determined on how a jury feels about you.

Do they like you? Do they not like you? Are you a sympathetic figure? Um are you a hated member of society? That trigger is a lot of how obviously they look at the evidence.

You spent some time during your case trying to kind of rebuild next reputation as the youth faster and as a man of god and as a good guy. And that's very hard to do when there was so much evidence that he had been having affairs with multiple members of his own congregation. So this was one of those cases in which things that the defendant wasn't accused of and which arch crimes ended up working against them.

You think, well, I certainly argue that this was a trial of inuendo, uh, and gossip, uh, IT is amazing how people's memories and interpretations of everyday events might change when you're accused of murder.

You didn't deny that nick had been involved with multiple members of the congregation.

No, we had not.

Of all the women nick had affairs with, perhaps the most disturbing was his relationship with Diana paralel, dan's mother, his mother in law, prosecutor bradly y, called her to the stand, but the judge limited her testimony to dawn a nix relationship. And what dawn had said the night before he died, bradley told me he had already decided SHE did not want Diana to get into her own relationship with neck that SHE said would have been risky. We as prosecutors.

we decided we're not going in there because it's just too prejudicial to him. Um and you you will list that and they're gna sit back in their chairs and they are going to not listen anything else because they're just going to think he's a creep okay?

Well, you do think he's a creep, but you didn't want the jury to think that because what that's an a pallet issue.

you don't want them to be like, oh Y I heard you know that he was to use his his mother in law and now I think he's a horrible person. So I he's, of course he's guilty because is a horrible person. If we had tried to eliminate that and I was allowed IT would be a big appeal issue.

Clare bradley says he had another reason to not go there. Part of IT too, was.

you know, just of mercy for her. Like, can you imagine trying to have put her on the stand and have her have to recount that in front of a pack room?

In the state's closing, assistant prosecutor neil walter addressed the jury. IT was december twenty six, one, nine hundred and ninety seven. He said, don hacky was taken from us not by fate, not by happenstance, not by a bizarre combination of physical phenomenon, but rather by him.

He said, pointing at nick at me who was sitting at the defense table, he went on. Behavior demonstrated by mister hacky was inconsistent with that of a grieving man, inconsistent with innocence. And then he lead in the Sandy's testimony, telling the jury that he was credible because he put her life and her own in discretions out there for everyone to hear. Prosecutors believed they had proved a next guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In his closing argument, defense atterly totally focused on Sandy glass, nick accuser, I argue .

that that he saw the world through propac's color glasses, that SHE couldn't distinguish between reality and fiction, the what was what SHE was dreaming about her, what god had told her and reality.

And he attacked the prosecution theory about next motive.

He was having an supposedly an affair with Sandy glass before his wife's death. So why would he kill her for that? The subsequent relationships, how could you have ever known that he was going to have them sometime in the future? So how could that be a motive for murder for something that you have no idea that's onna happen in the future and and I think it's unfair to cast expressions about what a Normal reaction might be after your spouse. Some people handle that Better than others.

Both sides had argued their cases. Jurors filed out of the courtroom to deliberate for Diana parny. The death of her daughter, then the arrest of her son in law, then the trial accusing him of her murder, all had a profound effect.

IT shook my face, not in god, but in the church, in the religious institution of church, but not in god, in man. Definitely shook my face in man.

Now, IT may be that only god knows just what happens that they don't died here on earth. Those twelve models were about to provide an answer of their own.

Next time on moral sin, I think.

without question, IT left kind of scar on on the community.

Did anyone from that church come forward at the time after done died to say, here's something .

you should know?

no. And a stunning legal twist.

daw's family was there. There were members of the congregation. They were upset by this.

Mortal sin is a production of deadline and abc news, Jessica know is the producer, ryan drew, Kelly lin and martial households are audio editors, carson commons and kiani read are associate producers, adam gordin is co executive producer, this coal is executive producer, and David corvo is senior executive producer from nbc news. Audio sound mixing by bob mallory and Katherine Anderson. Brice bonds is head of audio production.