5 - The Worm Dude
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Jurors held pastor nick hagman's freedom in their hands. The question was whether they were prepared to convict him of murder based not just on some mooly discovered forensic science, but also on the word of church profit, Sandy glass. In this episode, the verdict and the damage the case did, I think.

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

community, how IT drove some .

from the church. Say, you can walk into any organization, church included, without your head screwed on. You can have a direct relationship with god. You don't need you to go through another person.

The courtroom ling, that no one saw coming dance .

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

And what name is doing these days?

I understand that he's done some some pretty amazing things with warm farming.

Yes, you were that right. Warm farming. I'm judge moods. And this is model sin, a podcast from deadline. Our final episode, the warm dude.

After nick hacky was charged with his wife's murder, there was quite a bit of soul searching among the members of Christ community church and in the wider community of bremerton, washington as well. Remember, postle Robert bali said he'd had suspicions about the youth pastor years earlier, back in one thousand nine ninety seven, when dawn died. Millie told me others in the church had felt .

the same way people mention their suspicions to me also had suspicions, but there were many people that were very much rowling around him to support him in a tragic event. And I was not sure, despite my suspicions, that what I thought may have happened actually happened. So I was observing and waiting. I didn't feel IT was IT was appropriate to be telling people i've got this suspicion. I was trying to ascertain the truth of IT.

We're all talking after the fact here. I mean, this wouldn't necessarily you have kept on life, but if you'd go into the police that first day and said, you know, this fellow who's acting so beaves was improperly involved with at least one person in the church that we know of, and we had to speak up about IT, and I just feel you should have that information. Would that have been breaking some rules, some common in the church?

Well, I don't. No, not at all. I think that was something that the general leadership council we've had to decide IT was not something that I would have done unilaterally.

Why not european citizen, you're allowed to talk to the police just like I am or anybody else.

Well, suspicion, you know, is not the same thing, is really evidence. And to throw that into the mixer would have been potentially valuable at the time or not. It's hard to say.

I asked detective suu shoulder about that. Did anyone from that church come forward at the time after don died to say, here's something you should know? no. Would that to make a difference .

for me at the time, if I had been an investigator and someone had said i'm concerned because of this, you bet I might have turned around and taking a second look at that investigation.

Well, no one said anything. And that second look didn't happen until Sandy glass decided to spill. Why was so much missed back then? Keep in mind, this was one thousand nine ninety seven, and therefore before the flood of stories, notably the boston globes spotlight series in which catholic priests stood accused of reprehensible crimes against children, with church elders simmun tane ously accused of covering them up. So maybe the reputation, generally, of men of the cloth at that time helped make acme author golson suggests the goodness of so many at Christ's community. Church may also have blind them to next true nature.

They were trusting because they looked at everybody the way their own hearts were. They were decent, kind and worthy of trust. And they found through this whole ordeal, that is just not so.

None of this is exactly the best commercial for organised religion.

Well, it's religion. Know when man gets involved in, decides to rewrite the rules, then they're are going to be problems. And that's what happened in that church over their binary. Ds, definitely.

just as delayed is allegedly just as denied five years to the day after dawn hackney died. Her husband ultimately did have his day in court. IT was december twenty six, two thousand, two, when jurors announced they had a verdict.

They'd spent just a few hours deliberating. They're verdict guilty of aggravated first degree murder. A net. And craig Anderson had no doubt the jury got IT right.

I believe that is a murder. I believe that that makes sense for everything I saw him do and heard him say, and his attitudes and his extraordinary, huge ego.

We know his study was instant until we found out the whole story and shows he had motive. He had, you know, plans. The motive was to be with Sandy, or to be with a Sandy and a succession of other one dawn's mother, Diana .

harmony, knowing that he murdered dawn. I have a tremendous management now he did. I could have done what I did.

I don't know if it's possible, even count in every time they betrayed you.

I know that .

now for .

what I did. yes.

You're gonna over that. I don't know.

Part of me won't to bet. I just need to keep going back to the fact that I know Dennis still alive.

SHE means alive in heaven. Nick agne was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He appealed that conviction. Now, as you know, most appeals go nowhere. This one would be very, very different.

Msnbc films presents the sense in chronically, a new four part series from nbc news studio featured decades of investigative reporting from deadline producer dan slavia that exposes the injustices of wrong for convictions.

I still have my life in prison, and this time .

we get you back the same critical first two episodes previous saturday at nine pm. Ter on ms. nbc.

I think without question, IT left kind of scar on on the community just far.

Ly is now an editorial writer for the seattle times. But when nick hat ney's appeal was working its way through the courts, finally was a reporter covering IT to the kids have some newspaper. He says the proceedings surrounding the appeal reopens and old wounds from the case.

I think there was some mistrust um that was created by someone who we you know we put in our face leaders so much confidence that they are the most righteous, that they follow a moral compass, that they're .

Better than the rest of that there may be more righteous and more more old than the rest of us because they're giving us those lessons. And then what when they let you .

down is worse .

IT IT is nice's appeal was unusual. Remember, he'd been convicted of aggravated murder. The jury found the aggravating factor was nick having set the fire in the course of killing dawn.

And that's why he was given life without parole in his appeal. Help me did something kind of aston. He used the same evidence that had convicted him, the lack of suit in daw's lungs, to argue that the murder was over before the arson began.

Mix argument at appeal was essentially the fire was just to cover up. IT wasn't part of the murder. He was already dead by the time the .

fire started right in two .

thousand and seven, the washington state supreme court agreed with nick ni and overturned his life with no parole sentence.

In this case, the states supreme court ruled that because the arson didn't have anything to do with john's death, that is, sadly, he was already dead. She'd already passed away, that that could not be used as an aggravating factor. And when the jury did that, IT was incorrect.

That meant nick would have to be respondents, ed, and you would now have the opportunity to walk out of prison someday, eleven years after he was convicted, the knee once again walked at a judge analysis courtroom for a sentencing reporter. Josh fairly attended the hearing. Daw's family was there.

There were members of the congregation. They were upset by this that that he would have a chance to, uh, to leave for sm. Mister hacky did not say anything at sentencing, but I remember that he wrote a letter to the judge and continues to profess, uh, his innocence is my understanding?

yeah. In that letter, he said, I am not guilty. Whatever else I may have done, I did not murder my wife.

So he simultaneously arguing, well, shoes are already did by the time I started the fire, but I didn't do IT. I don't quite get that. Yeah there .

seems like a disconnect there. What he wants to communicate to the judges is what he communicates and and .

it's not really part the really you can say that in a letter to the judge and IT doesn't really fight the argument that .

you're lawyer just made. Exactly exactly. I remember sitting in kids up country superior court, the wood paneled walls and and she's coming to make her decision on on how to make sentence he believed that he committed this crime and that SHE had an obligation to go with the the harsher sentence possible under the law.

And it's going to be finite sentence. He's not going to have a life sentence without the possibility of pole anymore. The likelihood he will get out of prison becomes clear.

And the chance that you're gone to encounter name on the sidewalk or in a puppet just got a lot bigger.

Certainly there is that chance. And and you know, that is part of the correction system, is that most people will get out. Most people do not have aggravated life sentences. Most people do receive finite sentences .

this time around. Judge Lorry, sentence nick hague to twenty six years and eight months. By now, he's already served a lot of that time. He'll likely served even less time than that. I talked with former prosecutor clear broadly about why that is the next a pellet Victory had the effect of shaving some years of his sentence. And he might actually get out here among the rest of us one of these days.

yeah, I think it's two thousand and twenty five, which is right around the corner. In washington state we have standard range sentencing and the judge has to sentence within that range. We don't have parole in washington, but we have what's called earned early release. And so if if he um is good in prison, he gets automatic fifteen percent off of the sentence and so he's behaves he's behaved in prison and so he's gonna get that earned early release for sure.

And then what happens? Maybe you'll be surprised or maybe you had a propac's this was coming.

I also understand that once he's released, he wants to go back to the ministry.

Well, forewarned is forearmed correct. Now, waiting till you hear what nick happy has been doing in prison.

Msnbc films presents the synchronous, a new four part series from nbc new featured decades of investigative reporting from deadline producer dance slavia that exposes the injustices of wrongful convictions.

I Better have my life in prison, and this time I .

take you back first. Two episodes premiere salary of nine pm ter on M. S B. C.

It's now been more than twenty five years since don hack ney died. Christ community church no longer exists, the congregation split, and what remained of next flock then collapsed under the weight of their pastors misdeeds, both moral and legal. The building that once ring with next voice was put up for sale. For some of the former congregants. The pain is all that's left.

They accepted him into their homes. And all the while, while he's doing all of this stuff with women, not to mention that he burned his wife.

That's former prosecutor clear badly once .

everything came out and he was charged. I think IT was really a slap in the face and really A A very bitter pill for people to swallow that they had supported nearne and believed him when he said nothing was going on.

Life has moved on for the people in this story passed, or bob Smith passed away in two thousand twenty one. He was seventy three. Robert Billy now leads a church in gig harbor, washington.

Sanny glass and her husband Jimmy, divorced in two thousand two. SHE has since remarried. And what about nick will listen to this. In march two thousand and fourteen, neck acne, convicted murder and disGraced former pastor walked on stage at the mono correctional complex in mono, washington.

He was wearing gray prison garb and a blue apron with a name nick on IT, along with a cartoon image of a warm Mickey has aged IT looks like he's lost a lot of his hair and shave down what's left now. He has a go tea, and he still has that gift of gab. As you can hear in this recording of the ted talk nick gave that day, he called himself the warm dude.

So I imagine right about now, some of you might be asking in yourself, how exactly does a prisoner become known as the warm dude? A lot to you. Thirteen years ago, when I came into the prison system, I wasn't looking for one of those cool, tough guy handles like Spiker mayhem, but i'm pretty sure if I could have chosen a name. IT wouldn't have bend the worm due.

Nick was talking about what he's made his prison mission, preaching the benefits of using hungry worms to compose the food ways generated by the correctional facility that is now his home.

Now not a lot of guys in here to day you're going to break to you about the food, but the worm's absolutely love IT.

He explained to a literally captive audience that he's trying to train his fellow inmates in what he calls sustainable principles. Nick agne says he wants to help prisoners feel their lives and actions count for something.

The sustainable prison would have a mechanism for identifying those individuals whose continued incarceration no longer a benefit to society, and redirect resources to those inmates who need more tools to be successful.

He's also become an activist and writer advocating for criminal justice reform, riding pieces on topics including post incarceration, reentry prison recidivism and free speech in prisons. And as you can hear, this former breach can still hold a crowd's attention.

This is gonna sound weird, but every morning the bars to myself self open, and I go out to the warm farm. I feel like I have six million worms counting on me every single day.

Nick is currently housed at the washington corrections center in sheldon, washington. And here's something you might find interesting. Remember to call matheson the church member. Nick pursued, he proposed to her, and they got married in two thousand five, while nick was locked up. They divorced in two thousand and eleven.

And that and craig Anderson are still together. They told me their experience at Christ community as brutal as IT was taught them some valuable lessons.

I would say you can walk into any organization, church included, without your head screwed on. You cannot abdicate your yourself over to people no matter who they claim to be, and that you can have a direct relationship with god. You don't need you to go through another person. There's are the lessons .

that I take away.

And the moment somebody .

else starts interpreting what god wants and telling you that you need to follow along that line.

right, be .

suspicious.

absolutely.

When I interviewed him, craig Anderson told me he forgave his wife. Their marriage, he said, was too important to throw away. And there's something else they held onto as well. Maybe the most amazing thing out of all this thing is that the two of you didn't lose your .

faith right on the Anderson's .

now live in organ, former prosecutor bradlee told me he has stayed in touch with them.

I went down to org and actually um to talk to them before the trial, just kind of give them a heads up of what trials gona be like and I they invited me into their home and they were just absolutely lovely and really open about the troubles that they were having and how they were able to turn IT around and um I was just like in all of them being able to put that behind them and be so strong now .

when I talked with her after the trial, dan's mother Diana, who went through so much, was philosophical about .

at all my belief is that. We as Christians are not supposed to know everything. God's ways are not our ways, and it's not god that does the evil in .

the world. In this case .

that was made in IT was man. And also, I believe it's said there is god. There is also a double.

and this was the .

devil that does the bad in the world. yes.

And SHE said he had found comfort after all of the hardship the comforting .

fact that I know that donors still alive and I do sensor presence. Is just the wonderful support system that I have. Is our happy cheers. Now, the support of the wonderful man that .

god .

blessed me with, I truly believe, because god was the one that told me that I loved the man i'm with now. And I questioned that first. I said, are you sure? But he definitely, this is the right one. It's my salmon.

As this final episode of our podcast drops, it's about to be Christmas again in bremerton, washington, that makes IT twenty seven years since don hacked me headed for bed trusting her husband nick. That turned out to be a mistake, but he also trusted god, and he said as much to her father. Before SHE layed herself down the sleep, SHE was ready, SHE said, for whatever was going to happen. Don murray hacky was buried among the ever Greens at Cherry growth memorial park. Her tombstone reads, forever dwelling in god's arms and in our hearts.

Model sin is a production of date line, and nbc news Jessica knows the producer, ryan drew, Kelly law dean and martial household are audio editors. Carsons commons and kiani read are associate producers, adam grouping 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 production.