3 – The Truth Emerges
29:10 Share

As he walked into the ramadan police department, Sandy glass had to have known that life was about to change dramatically for her, for Christ community church and for pastor nick agony. The thing he was about to say, the secrets about the affairs, the awful thing he said he knew about dawn's death, were you imaginable to so many who knew her? And they would turn her community upside down? Inside the police department, Sandy was introduced to the investigators, took a seat and began telling her story.

Sandy glass came forward and said, i've been going through counselling. I've been talking to folks, and I need to tell you what happened. I need to talk to .

about this by two thousand.

One so shut was a detective at bremerton bd. SHE actually .

arranged to come into the department, believe he had legal representation with her and some other support, and provided information about dance death at that point.

This was a close case. This was an accident, correct?

But saying the glass changed everything he .

did back in one thousand nine ninety seven shells was a petrol officer, when done, died in the fire. SHE had some knowledge of the incident. But what Sandy now added to that was stunning.

SHE believed that don had actually been murdered by neck economy.

You believed Sandy .

IT took us back. We had to go back, and we had to look at the case with her .

statement to police. Sandy glass suddenly up ended years of assumptions about how dawn had died. In this episode, you'll learn how that reinvestigation unfolded.

I knew that he was still in an active al leadership, and nobody knew this IT was appalling. I D go up and you blow the whistle.

You will hear about a church leaders suspicions.

Well, I was concerned deeply for his state, but his state didn't seem to need prayer, need any kind of support. Is in calculating and details .

of how police came to believe don was murdered.

We did have information that don did have a cold Christmas day and had been taking benefico, but there is an excessive amount in her body.

Judge mates, and this is mortal sin, a podcast from dateline. Episode three, the truth emerges. When Sandy glass walked into the remeron pd SHE spared not a single embarrassing, humiliating detail.

He told us that he had been involved in a relationship with nec me while he was married to dawn.

What's sand said next was a game changer.

SHE had talked to him extensively about ending both her husband's life and the life of dawn, that they had discuss this.

They discuss this as a plan, or they discuss this as one of the many promises that he had, that he allowed her to sort of four tale, the future.

One of many promises .

SHE had them about a lot of different things. But apparently one of them was that her spouse was gonna die. Nx spouse dawn was going to die, and that he and neck would be together.

And Sandy disclose all of that to you, to your department. When you came in the to report that naked killed. Did you look at whether Sandy was part of some plot to commit murder?

absolutely. I mean, that was as part of your investigation. If you go into an investigation, then you don't eliminate everyone is suspect to get to a suspect, you're doing someone at this justice. So part of that investigation include a investigating Sandy and eliminating her as suspect.

Do you think Sandy glass knew in advance that IT was made to kell's wife?

no. Do you think .

her propac's that her husband would die and next wife would die and SHE and nit would be together? Was her profession, or did nc somehow manipulator into that?

That's a tough question because I think neck cony did glad of manipulating. That was evident throughout my investigation with the other women in the church. He had the ability to convince a lot of people of a lot of different things, whether or not he could convince Sandy that he was having visions of dawn and her husband's death, I don't know.

Police tend to deal with proof, not privacy. Sandy, word from god, put a whole new spin on the investigation who think .

Sandy really had those profits?

I don't know. I I mean that I can't answer that. We hear that.

We hear of folks that say they've had a message from god and I can I I will respect that an investigation, though we'd have to stop and say, okay, is this something that is that you had a profit about? Is that something that god has relate to? Or is that something that you actually started? And we'd have to be very careful with that, because in this particular group of of folks in their faith, they they strongly believe in profits and the ability to receive and provide messages from god. Well.

and provinces have at least equal weight with things that they actually are did maybe more weight .

in some cases.

Complicating things for detective shirt was one huge question about Sandy. Why had he waited for years to come forward to understand that we need to go back to early nineteen ninety eight and the story of a net. Anderson, remember, SHE had been keeping her affair with nick hagley to herself.

Now, just because one person keeps a secret doesn't mean another won't notice. There is something on sad. During that time, craig Anderson began to the notice that his wife seemed withdrawn, depressed. He choked him up. The grief over dawn's death, even so, and that sadness seemed unusually intense and craig was worried .

he was a very quiet, very distorted, spent a lot of time on the porch a IT was a tough time to watch your wife um good to me, I think was almost suicidal. Maybe you maybe you win a grab again and use IT, but h but certainly are very depressed being um emotionally and and physically after several .

months and that's affair with nick ended and as more months went by and SHE spent time with friends and family, things got Better for her that continued until a few years later when he learned that while SHE had been secretly involved with neck he's been having a cy multi eus affair with church secretary Sandy glass for a that Anderson that had to be a combination of a cold shower and some White hot anger IT confirmed to her the affairs hadn't been god's planned at all. I had been only next so in the spring of two thousand and one more than three years after daw's death and net finally blurted out the truth to her husband IT was during a fight about the pastor they both .

had trusted craig started defending neck. And I can take .

you .

any more I just said, um he's .

not a .

good guy and kick said, did he did he have sex with Sandy is as for you to mad and I said the abbot, that's not all in he said IT wasn't you also was IT and the uni said he actually I was so that's how crack came to find out was .

I like .

that was a that was a big punch in the gap. I was caught, you know, off guarded by that. I didn't amazingly didn't see that coming.

You never suspected.

Are you angry?

Yeah, yeah, I was. I was pretty angry.

Or at nick.

both just the, I probably took IT. You know, who can do that to me? So two people that I trusted, you know, just starving the bag.

IT was a lot for cragged the process at .

a tough time with IT um but we serve god that that is the same yesterday, today and forever and uh there's anything that I get from my faith is the knowledge that he died from in spite of you know my shortcomings and i'm not a perfect person. We all make mistakes. And that to me is the ultimate example of forgiveness. You forgive me. At least I could do is forgive my wife.

knowing what he now knew about nag at me. Craig didn't think the pastor should be preaching anywhere. By this point, the church community had split.

The low key pastor bob smith, and more intense, a postle robbert bali disagreed on the direction of Christ community. Pastor bob started a new church. And nick, following there.

I knew that he was still in an active role, leadership and the church ship there. And nobody knew this. You know, I was appalling. Um I D go up and blow the whistle.

And so craig .

called faster bob, who set up a meeting. Sandy was invited as war. Craig g. And a net. Anderson and some of the other female church members nicked pursuit. Sandy had to know that that IT was all going to come out, all the secrets, all the lies and the series of betrayals that would be heard loud and clear well beyond the walls of Christ community church.

Msnbc films presents the sync critical, a new four part series from nbc. New study featured decades of investigative reporting from deadline producer dan slavia that exposes the injustices of one for conviction.

I might have my life in prison.

and that's time we take you back.

First two episodes, premiere sarty at nine P, M, on S, N, B, C.

Everybody has told a company from the show reminding you to check out my podcast making space. In this weeks episode, I sit down with hollywood legend gold han to talk about her access ized to fame, her famous family and where he finds her purpose. You can listen to the full conversation right now by searching, making space wherever you get your podcasts.

Thursday on nbc found retirements with a post pounding new season. Babbie mostly childhood doctor is at large. He escaped this, my family, and with her on the leaves, everyone he loves is in danger. I warned you not to end up, but get never backed down no matter what.

Playing right into his .

hands are taking dangerous. Please finish this all new found thursday on nbc.

The night before the meeting, saying this phone ring IT was he'd found out that he had revealed their affair to others. He says next response was, do you see any reason I shouldn't go end at all right now? Sandy says he didn't answer, but told nick he had gotten a lawyer and was going to the police.

He suggested he turned himself in. That's when he says, nick asked her, are you sure this is what god wants? I don't know.

He said, this is the truth. The truth about what happened on is exactly what detective su shoulder was seeking in reading the old case files. SHE came to an unsettling conclusion when .

looking at IT from another set of eyes. Later on, IT appeared that there is a lot of things that could have been done and should have been done at initial team. People went off of what corner was same.

People went off what fire department was same. IT was a wife of a pastor, seemingly happy couple um supported by their church. Nothing was really raising to the level where someone was saying, hey, we need to dig into this deeper.

admit standard procedure when somebody dies, when a spouse dies, that you or any investigative agency look first at that person's husband or wife and find out what kind of marriage they had, whether there was any trouble at home and whether anybody was being unfaithful. Pret, pretty Normal.

If we had a clear homicide, yes, I think officers would have started digging into the, the investigators would have gone into the past, into the relationships, into the the activities of the church.

But this seems .

like an accident.

This seemed like an accident.

And after Sandy came forward, detective shells and her colleagues did something quite familiar to the date line audience. Something you might have expected would have happened a lot sooner. They focused on my husband.

and you started digging around a nick, a kse background.

Yes, we did.

finding out what was really going on in that marriage.

Yeah, in short.

all the stuff police offers should have done in the first couple of days after that death.

Yes, the detectives learned about max affairs, of course, and track down some of the women in the church who had those relationships with him. You've met two of them already. Daw's friend, a net Anderson and dan's mother, Diana harmony, detective shot, said her interview with down's mom was particularly difficult. SHE asked her male colleagues to leave so SHE and Diana could talk woman to woman.

I SAT my talk to daun's mother for a long time, and that's when we talked about the relationship that dance mother had had with nec ony after daun's death. And he was devastated, ashamed. And I tried to encourage her and tell her that SHE had been victimized, manipulated and then IT was okay .

and that .

we get through IT. That was tough.

I'm not sure she's ever going to over that.

Probably not. And that's what makes her a wonderful person.

These were women lied to and seduced by nick. The detective was surprised by how direct they were with her.

their housewives, their mothers, their upstanding women. And not to say that, you know, women do make different choices sometimes that we don't understand, but every woman that I went to go interview, every woman that broke down and told me that that he had done this awful thing and was ashamed of IT. I walked away thinking, I went, have expected that I went, have expected them to deny IT or say, knowledge, not true information. But I walked away, just amazed and wondering, how could a man like the carony convinced these women to have sex with him?

What you like the answer to that?

I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Detective schulz and fellow investigators also contacted many other key players in the case. They talked with a postle bii about nix n ortho docs counselling sessions, by luck or by design, make chinese couples counseling for Christ community church seem to have gifted him with a sort of x ray vision that was true for a net percent y glass and for other women as well.

The sessions allowed nick to see into the emotional lives of the woman who came to him for help. All of IT gave the pastor some strategic insights into marriages he would later breach should neck even have been given that level of trust and responsibility. I church apostle Robert bayley told me he had not even been aware that nick was doing that kind of work.

Would you have any problem with .

nico ing marriage councillor? I think so, because he was not in a position in the church to do that really well, meaning he was to be dealing with youth problems, not marriage problems.

He was be a anybody on the marriage.

I feel so .

by lee says he had suspicions about pastor nick almost immediately after dawn died that day by ley says he was width ick at the scene of the fire and was paying close attention to him.

I was concerned deeply for his state, but his state didn't seem to need prayer, need any kind of support. They seem calculating. He seemed, he seemed odd to me. I guess, is the best way I can put IT in.

And then there was the conversation by lei says he had with neglected that day. IT was beyond strange. Now remember, the Andersons described crist community church as charismatic, a community filled with signs and wonders. So when a postle Billy saw nick on that awful day, he suggested perhaps god could work, not just a wonder, but also a miracle.

He was aware of the work we had done in africa and tensor ia. And our ministry associated there had raise several people from the dead.

literally.

brought people back to bite people back from the dead.

literally. And you offered to do that for them.

Well, I ask if he and I together can go pray, believing that this was an accident and IT wasn't god's. Well, and I would like at least an opportunity to pray for .

her and to literally bring down back life.

Well, I would ask god if he was willing. It's a prayer that they would be restored to life.

And nix said, sure.

no. He said, no way. He said, no way. Don't want to do that.

That had the same strange here.

IT did seem strange to me very much.

so it's hard to know why nick wood have said that perhaps he didn't believe in man made resurrection of the dead, or perhaps for whatever reason, nick didn't really want them to come back to life. The detectives were making progress in the case. At the same time, they knew quite well a falander husband and a potentially flawed ruling from the coroner would not separately or together, be enough to make a murder case stick for that. Investigators wanted details about means, motive and the opportunity. Maybe Sandy glass could help with all of that.

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

I might have my life in prison.

This time we can get .

back the same, same quality, first two episodes, previous salary of nine pmr on sn bc.

To prove their case, detectives needed evidence. After so many years, that wasn't going to be easy to find.

Cold cases are tough. You, you don't have the body, you don't have the crime scene to walk through. You have to go back in in research all the reports that the initial officers did.

You have to take crime, seen photographs and look at them completely differently. There is just is A A totally different way of investigating because your you're limited to what you have, what you can put your hands on. And in this case, we were extremely limited.

The protein was gone on, right?

correct? That was an issue. Remember, the coroner had not found smoke or sut in don's lungs.

The explanation at the time was that one of the prophets ttl in the bedroom had exploded, causing a flash of heat that immediately sealed dons wind pipe before any smoke. Good ether. Now, years later, detective shoulder and lead detective dan trudel, doug deeper.

detective trudeau and and I had went back and contacted propane companies, contacted everyone that we could find the experts to tell us, can prop in bottles cause this kind of an explosion. And they absolutely not. When we went back and we looked at things, we were able to say this couldn't happen this way done. Don should have had smoking her lungs .

and SHE didn't provinces .

Carry more weight in church than they do in a court room? Except Sandy told investigators about something that went beyond something he says nick hati actually did. Sandy told the detective that on the day dawn was killed, he got a call from .

nick IT was .

after the fire and .

all he told her was IT is done and there was some other biblical reference. But he knew that something had happened and that SHE was coming forward now in two thousand and one, because he couldn't keep IT to herself self any longer.

And then Sandy delivered perhaps the most chilling part of her story, what he says. Nick told her about how he killed on, if true, IT was brutal.

SHE talked about a plastic bag being put over dow's head and and nick later telling her how he watched dawn die and need a plastic.

Sandy said. Nick told her that in order to sufficit his wife more easily, he had overdosed her with a medication sometimes used as a sleep bid.

He had provided her a large amount of bindra, which we did have information that don did have a cold Christmas day and had been taking bena drill, but there is an excessive amount in her body.

And Sandy said that nick had told her that he had overdosed dawn on bena drill so SHE won't able to fight back when he suffocated .

to correct that he would sleep through IT.

Finally, detectives believe they had enough to go to the district attorney.

We built a very strong case. We built the case until the point where the prosecutor said, you have enough detective trudy and I traveled all over washington and organ talking to folks, meeting with prisoners, uh, work partners, fellow pastors of nex, interviewing everyone, collecting information and looking at things like the the propane bottles and and establishing that there's safety balls on prop little propane ttl so IT, which allows them not to blow up or to league.

In september two thousand and one, almost four years after dawn died, detective shells and trudeau u. Arrested nick on a charge of first degree premeditated murder.

We brought him to the police station, and detective trudeau and I were interviewing him. And Normally, when we interview folks, we have the ability to run the interview, we asked the questions, we get the answers, and we go from there, and we usually allowed people to talk. In this case, IT was very evident that nick ony wanted to control the interview.

He wanted to be the one in church and IT was interesting. One of the things he did was instead of referring ing to us as detectives or officers, he he began talking to us with our first names, referring to us as soon in down. That doesn't usually happen in in the interrogation when you're talking .

about a homicide. And this is just nick, we're now friends yeah .

we're friends .

and i'll asking the questions .

here exactly .

even though i'm being charged with murder.

correct? There was one more question I wanted to ask. Detective shouts then go out .

to and a last for a minute. You know that sometimes cutting a deal to get someone is testimony, sometimes allows a guilty person to go free so that you can build the case against someone who maybe has committed greater crimes. Unfortunately, did that happen in this case? Did Sandy glass go free so you could get making acme?

I know I don't believe that.

Do you know think any glass is beauty of anything except fell in bad judgment.

fell any bad judgment? I think here a victim. There are so many victims in this case. There's in there all it's it's above, beyond, just down. It's it's the prisoner is the people in the church is a dan's mother is it's Sandy.

The case against nick hamm was headed for trial. Jurors would have a lot to consider whether to believe Sandy or her professor meant and her credibility given that immunity deal, what to make of nick alii and whether the evidence was enough to prove he himself had drugged and suffocated dawn before setting their bedroom on fire with her in IT.

And if they killed on what exactly was the motive? In trials, when witnesses are sworn in, we often hear four words, words that were very likely on a lot of minds, at the happy, strong. So helps me, god.

Next time on model thin.

I think he liked his life, uh, with all of these women falling over him and IT gave him a sense of power. A divorce was round upon that was just not gonna an option for him.

I argue that that he saw the world through propac's color glasses, that SHE couldn't distinguish between reality and fiction, what he was dreaming about her, what god had told her and reality. IT shook my face, not in god, but in the church in mon. Definitely shook my face in man.

Mortal sin is a production of date line, and nbc news Jessica knows the producer, ryan drew, Kelly law, dan and martial household are audio editors, carsons commons and kiani read are associate producers, adam gordin is co executive producer, list 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.