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Snapped Season 35 Episode 14
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00:00A man dies from what seem to be natural causes.
00:08Hey, wake up!
00:10My husband's really sick.
00:12He got heat stroke yesterday, and now he's not waking up.
00:16His condition continued to decline throughout the evening hours.
00:21He ultimately passed away.
00:23At the time, it was felt that this was more a medical-related death.
00:27But an autopsy reveals foul play.
00:32When we got the tox screen back, the victim had a lethal dose of ethylene glycol in his system.
00:41So ethylene glycol is mainly found in antifreeze and brake fluid.
00:44In the garage, there was a beer bottle that was full of antifreeze.
00:49I knew my dad didn't just pass away so easily like that.
00:53But when investigators discover a family inheritance at stake, it leads them to a killer who do anything to keep it for themselves.
01:04I leaned over in the truck, and she came out with a big old knife, and he tried to stab me.
01:11$17 million is a lot of money.
01:13I don't care who you are.
01:15This all could have been prevented.
01:18He died over literally nothing.
01:20On September 4th, 2023, police in Minot, North Dakota,
01:47receive what appears to be a routine emergency call.
01:51Our Minot Central dispatch received a phone call from Ina Knoyer,
01:56reporting that Stephen Riley was ill in their apartment.
02:01My husband's really sick.
02:02He got heat stroke yesterday, and now he's not waking up.
02:08Hey!
02:09Wake up!
02:09Come on, wake up!
02:13She stated that he was lying on the floor, and that he was breathing, but abnormally,
02:17and she needed an ambulance.
02:19I've got help on the way.
02:22Officers and medical staff were all dispatched to their apartment
02:26to try to make contact and see what was going on.
02:29Is he in here?
02:41Yeah.
02:41It's on the floor in here.
02:43Is he alert?
02:45Huh?
02:45Is he alert?
02:46No.
02:48Is he breathing?
02:51The apartment was very cluttered.
02:54There was trash, piles of clothing.
03:01We had to just really step over and onto a bunch of things
03:04to kind of navigate through the apartment.
03:09They eventually come to the bedroom
03:10where they see Stephen Riley barely breathing.
03:15Steve, can you hear me?
03:18Steve?
03:20Steve, can you hear me?
03:22Has he taken anything?
03:23Steve, can you hear me?
03:24No.
03:24He drank beer yesterday.
03:26He was working on the trap.
03:28Ina had mentioned to officers that she was trying to help Stephen
03:32by putting an ice compress on him
03:35to try to help cool him down from the heat stroke.
03:38She said she tried to put him up on the bed, and he fell off.
03:44Then that's when she decided to call for EMS.
03:50By the time paramedics arrive,
03:52it's clear Stephen's condition is more serious than Ina thought.
03:57He found him struggling to breathe, lying on the floor unresponsive.
04:02His condition is very poor.
04:05They had to carry him out in a cot.
04:11Once he arrived to the hospital,
04:15they quickly realized that he needed a bed in the ICU.
04:19There were no beds available here, so he was flown down to Bismarck, North Dakota.
04:27When they get there,
04:30Stephen is actually getting worse
04:32and goes into cardiac arrest several times,
04:36doctors working on him constantly to bring him back to life.
04:41He was in an organ failure.
04:44His body has just started shutting down.
04:47Stephen's condition continued to decline
04:50throughout the evening hours and the night hours
04:53into the morning hours of the September 5th.
04:56Stephen ultimately passed away on September 5th at 8.32 in the morning.
05:09My phone was blown up with messages and missed calls from some of my dad's friends.
05:14The doctors pronounced him dead over the phone to me.
05:19It was devastating.
05:21Felt like something was torn from me.
05:25So I just tried to stay as calm as I could
05:29and get the fastest flight over there.
05:34Doctors are unable to give police a definitive cause of death,
05:38but they do find traces of drugs in Stephen's system.
05:45He also tested positive for methamphetamines
05:48and had a known history of methamphetamine use prior to that.
05:52And at the time, it was felt that he likely suffered from a cardiac event
05:56complicated by the fact that he used methamphetamines.
05:59There was nothing indicating that there was any kind of foul play
06:07or there was anything requiring law enforcement to get involved
06:12and begin an investigation.
06:15But I knew my dad didn't just pass away so easily like that and so fast.
06:21I knew something was wrong and off from the start,
06:25and so I had requested an autopsy from the hospital.
06:30Shortly after that phone call with them,
06:32I called the police station and tried to open a case for my dad.
06:38I just needed to figure out what was going on.
06:47Stephen Riley was born August 25, 1972, in Palm Springs, California.
06:54He was so premature, his parents weren't sure he would make it.
06:59My brother was sort of a miracle baby.
07:02He was four pounds when he was born and made it into the newspaper for being so tiny.
07:07Stephen not only survived, he thrived,
07:11eventually becoming the protective older brother of two sisters.
07:15Having Stephen as an older brother, he was definitely in charge.
07:21He really looked after my sister and I, no matter what we did.
07:25He always made sure that we were safe.
07:27He was just that older brother that was very comforting in that way.
07:30As Stephen grew older, he took pleasure in the simple joys of desert life.
07:38He was really into mechanics a lot.
07:40We replaced his transmission like three times in his Camaro.
07:46He was always smiling, always.
07:49Steve was one of the jokesters and funny guy to be around.
07:54And, you know, just a good old friend.
07:57He'd always, he'd take the shirt off his back for you.
07:59But by the time he turned 40, he'd already been married and divorced twice.
08:11Steve was married to his first wife, Cheryl, and they have two sons together.
08:16And then he remarried to his second wife, Melissa, and they have three sons together.
08:24He was a really good daddy to them, but he wasn't the type of person that had, you know,
08:30like visible depression issues or high anxiety or anything like that.
08:35It was, I think he hid a lot of that, to be honest.
08:39I think that's where some substance abuse kicked in.
08:44And I think he just got with a crowd of people that were doing that stuff.
08:50And, you know, once you get in, it's hard to get out.
08:55My dad, he had a problem with alcohol and also had a drug habit.
09:02My mom cut off all connection between us.
09:06I think she was just worried that she didn't want us to go into the wrong footsteps.
09:09He went to jail and did some time.
09:16And then when he got out, he didn't have anywhere to go, ended up in a homeless shelter.
09:23While living in the shelter, Stephen met the woman who would help him turn things around.
09:28Her name was Ina Knoyer.
09:31Ina Knoyer was born May 27, 1976.
09:39She grew up in Bellingham, Washington.
09:43Ina was social and active in high school.
09:47But as with many teenagers growing up, Ina suffered some setbacks,
09:53which unfortunately caused her to kind of struggle through life.
09:57Ina would tell me that she had a very tough childhood.
10:03After high school, Ina struggled to find herself going through various jobs.
10:09Eventually, those setbacks led her to the homeless shelter,
10:13which is where she ended up meeting Stephen Riley.
10:18They really bonded together because they both knew what it was like to have absolutely nothing.
10:25Stephen and Ina fell in love, and in 2011, they decided to move to North Dakota.
10:34Stephen had a friend here in North Dakota that let him stay until he got on his feet.
10:41Stephen and Ina, they were always together.
10:45Always.
10:46Most of the time, he would work on cars in the garage,
10:52and she'd be coming out bringing him coffee or something to eat.
10:58Stephen and Ina looked from the outside like they were just any old happy couple
11:04living in Minot, North Dakota, living their daily lives.
11:07Now, Stephen lies dead in a Bismarck hospital,
11:18and police think his complicated past might have caught up with him.
11:25Stephen was a known user, and he probably wasn't taking the best care of himself.
11:29A lot of times, like in the summer heat, when you're not drinking fluids,
11:33your body gets really hot, and your organs start shutting down.
11:37And I think that's kind of what people thought happened.
11:40At the time of the officer's arrival, you could see beer bottles throughout the living room.
11:49Other than that, there was no obvious signs that Stephen wasn't just intoxicated
11:54or that he had been drinking that day until we got another phone call from Ina Knoyer.
12:03On September 5th, which was the day after our law enforcement had responded for the medical call,
12:08Ina had called 911 to report that Stephen's friend, Billy Burkhead,
12:14had shown up trying to steal Stephen's truck.
12:17Where's the truck at?
12:18In the garage.
12:19All right, let me just take a look at it.
12:22What's going on with the truck?
12:24I said, you know, sell everything else.
12:26You hate me selling nothing.
12:28Ina said Billy had broken into the garage,
12:30and she had voiced her concerns that she believed he killed Stephen.
12:38From an investigator's standpoint, there was a whole lot more that needed to be looked at here,
12:45and that's when we officially stepped in to try to figure this all out.
12:52Coming up, detectives question Billy's motives.
12:56There was something of interest as far as a murder weapon.
13:02Is Billy trying to get in there to get rid of that?
13:05But he points the finger at someone else.
13:09When you say she's not likable.
13:13If she don't get her way, she's bad.
13:16Detectives in Minot, North Dakota agreed to open an investigation into the death of Stephen Riley
13:38after his girlfriend, Ina Knoyer, alleged he may have been murdered.
13:44To their surprise, detectives learn the county coroner is already looking into the case.
13:51At this point, we were notified that an autopsy had been ordered by Stephen's son, Ryan.
13:56I was actually contacted by one of the ICU physicians that took care of him,
14:03and she recommended that we test for ethylene glycol poisoning as well.
14:09It was just a hunch that she had based off a lot of his symptoms that he presented with.
14:16Ethylene glycol is a very common substance, mainly found in antifreeze and brake fluid.
14:19It's a slow death over a two- to three-day period where they're basically just suffering from the toxic effects.
14:28When we got the tox screen back from the medical examiner,
14:38the victim had a very lethal dose of ethylene glycol in his system.
14:44The typical lethal level of ethylene glycol is approximately 20 milligrams per deciliter.
14:51The level of ethylene glycol in Stephen's system was 33 milligrams per deciliter.
14:59That's when I knew that we had a homicide on our hands.
15:05Ena has already given them the name of the person she suspects, Billy Burkhead.
15:12After receiving the information from Ena that Billy had broken into the garage,
15:19well, maybe there was something of interest as far as a murder weapon,
15:25a vessel of some sort that maybe administered some sort of poison to him.
15:30And is Billy trying to get in there to get rid of that?
15:35A search of the garage provides a valuable clue.
15:39During the search, we found two jugs of antifreeze.
15:46One jug was completely empty.
15:49The other jug was approximately half full.
15:53They were both gallon jugs.
15:54But also in the garage, there was a beer bottle that was full of a substance that we identified as potentially being antifreeze.
16:03Inside the house, investigators find another possibility.
16:12On an end table next to the couch, there was a Windex bottle.
16:19Typical item that you would have in your home, but not typically filled with a neon green substance that resembles antifreeze.
16:29We found that Windex bottle, and that was huge for us.
16:37It was just in an unusual manner.
16:39It was open.
16:41There was no cap on it.
16:42That bottle could have easily been knocked over and spilled.
16:45Finding those items throughout the property,
16:48I was very confident that at least one of those items was going to potentially be how or where that ethylene glycol came from.
16:59Police asked Billy Burkhead to come in for questioning.
17:07Thanks for coming down.
17:09Appreciate it.
17:10No problem.
17:12We wanted to understand the relationship between Billy and Stephen.
17:16Billy was cooperative with us during our interview.
17:22So how do you know Steve?
17:25Steve.
17:26I've known him about 10 years now.
17:27Okay.
17:28We worked on vehicles together, and just about every day, you know.
17:36Detectives find the garage incident suspicious, but Billy insists he had nothing to do with Stephen's death.
17:44Billy had told us that the reason he had went into the garage was because he was concerned that Ena was going to sell the truck.
17:52And Billy knew that Stephen was trying to fix it up as a gift for his son, Ryan.
17:58According to Billy, the person they should be interrogating is Ena.
18:04She's not a likable person.
18:11When you say she's not likable, what about her is not likable?
18:19I went over one day at their house, and I was leaned over in the truck, gathering my toes up.
18:26And she'd come out with a big old knife, and she'd come out with a big old knife, and tried to stab me.
18:31Her friend Lynn was with me.
18:34Okay.
18:34And she took the knife away from her and had her in the headlock.
18:38How long ago was that?
18:40Two years ago.
18:41And for no reason?
18:42Was she just mad about anything?
18:44She's mad.
18:45She gets mad, Steve.
18:47She don't get her way.
18:50She's bad.
18:52I mean, really bad.
18:57He mentioned a friend of his named Lynn had told him that Ena had talked about poisoning Billy and Stephen with antifreeze.
19:09Lynn had said that her and Ena were joking about the boys being the boys.
19:16Something about them being frustrating or something like that.
19:19And Ena said, hey, you know, we could just put antifreeze in Billy and Steve's Gatorades, and they would never know the difference.
19:32With Ena and Billy both accusing each other, investigators find themselves wondering who to trust.
19:39Any time somebody wants to come to law enforcement and point the finger, of course, we have to kind of keep them in the back of our mind as well.
19:49Are they just trying to distract a situation to kind of take the heat off of them?
19:54However, that statement about antifreeze and his Gatorade was pretty crucial to the investigation because now we know it's a manner of administering the poison that ultimately killed Stephen.
20:08At this point during the interview, it was definitely starting to look like Ena might have had something to do with this.
20:15As the investigation into Stephen Riley's murder gets underway,
20:35his son Ryan travels to North Dakota to handle preparations for his funeral.
20:42The two had recently reconnected after years of estrangement.
20:46It was my first year after finishing boot camp for Army.
20:52Me and my father had made some arrangements to meet up and see each other after all those years.
20:58But I ended up going on a rotation out to Europe.
21:03My father was very interested into seeing how me and my brothers were off in life.
21:10He missed all of us deeply.
21:13We were all very devastated and hurt.
21:18It's like losing half of you.
21:21When I flew up there and the case finally got opened,
21:25I felt motivated to just hopefully bring whoever did it to justice.
21:33When Ryan arrives, he finds Stephen and Ena's neighbor, Rebecca Mello, there to greet him.
21:40And she kind of looked around to make sure Ena wasn't eavesdropping.
21:45And she said that she thought it was a little suspicious that Ena,
21:49she never went to the ICU to visit him or anything.
21:53I said to Ryan, I'm so sorry about your dad, but I can't hold it in.
21:59I have to tell someone.
22:00I personally began thinking that Ena had done something to Stephen.
22:09The week leading up to it, Stephen was not talking right, acting right, walking right.
22:19He was getting sicker and sicker.
22:21And Ena was like, he'll be fine.
22:25He'll be fine.
22:26When Ryan meets with detectives to discuss the case on September 8th,
22:31he shares those suspicions.
22:33And according to Ryan, Ena had plenty of reason to kill his father.
22:38He was talking about how he was getting a large sum of money.
22:46I guess it was just like family inheritance.
22:48Okay.
22:49And he said whenever that came through,
22:53he was going to take that truck that he had in the garage that he was working on for me.
22:59Yeah.
22:59Drive that down to Texas,
23:01because he had set up like a trash fund for me and my brothers.
23:05Stephen had told him that he was going to be inheriting a great sum of money
23:12from an uncle who lived in Ireland.
23:15He was supposed to inherit $17 million from overseas somewhere.
23:20I was pretty skeptical about it because it's just out of the blue.
23:25And it's from some family member that I've never heard of or seen.
23:30I was a little surprised and shocked that my father was going to be getting a huge amount.
23:37But he put all of his trust into that.
23:41I don't know if in his mind, things might have got a little bit twisted.
23:46Steve, he did talk to me about that money.
23:49I told him not to get his hopes up.
23:51I kept feeding to him that,
23:53yo, bro, do you even know who this is?
23:55He always changed the subject.
23:58That got everybody's suspicions raised.
24:03$17 million is a lot of money
24:05and a very good motive to do something like this.
24:12Ryan says his father's friend and former landlord, Wesley Torgerson,
24:16told him they went to meet with an attorney to sign the paperwork.
24:21On September 9th, investigators ask Wesley and his son Shannon to come in for an interview.
24:30Good to have a seat here.
24:33Thanks for coming.
24:34Yep.
24:35Wesley confirms that two days before Stephen died,
24:39he drove Stephen and Ina to the airport to meet with a British attorney.
24:43While they waited for the man to arrive, Stephen began to look ill.
24:50And ultimately, the lawyer did not show up.
24:53During that time is when Stephen's condition kind of really, kind of deteriorated.
24:58And the one and I came down on the concrete.
25:01Yeah, there was an abutment in it.
25:03Well, we got him, so he kind of went down and sat there,
25:07and then he fell over backwards.
25:08The Torgerson's say they tried to take Stephen to get help,
25:14but Ina insisted it wasn't necessary.
25:19Ina was, nope, he just needs to go home.
25:22Just take him home.
25:24Ina was very adamant that it was just heat stroke,
25:28and that Ina would care for him back at the apartment.
25:30Wesley says that when he went back to check on Stephen the day before he died,
25:38Ina was acting strangely.
25:40He thought it was maybe 10 o'clock in the morning.
25:43He started to drive up the driveway,
25:44and he said Ina was standing outside with the door open.
25:48She saw my car and recognized me, and, excuse my language, but she said,
25:56oh, and in the hall she went and shut the door.
26:00Wes asked her, well, where is he?
26:04Ina said that he went to the walk-in clinic.
26:08So Wesley takes it upon himself to go to all the clinics.
26:12We have a small city, but all those trips take a lot of time,
26:16and there's no sign of him ever getting any medical help at that point.
26:21He went back to the residence to confront Ina about that,
26:25and she pretty much shuts him out, shuts the door,
26:29and doesn't want to talk to him about it.
26:34Looking back, Wesley is now convinced Stephen was inside the house dying,
26:40and Ina knew it.
26:42She wouldn't even let me in the door.
26:45She slammed it shut.
26:49She made sure that that victim was not going to get emergency medical help
26:54until it was too late.
26:59Coming up, detectives take a closer look at Ina's motive.
27:06Stephen would tell me,
27:07between you and I, when I get this money,
27:11I'm finally leaving Ina.
27:13And quickly realize they have all been deceived.
27:18As soon as Ina mentioned that Stephen had died,
27:22the emails began to get rejected.
27:24It was just fake.
27:25Less than four days into the investigation,
27:42Ina Knoyer has emerged as the primary suspect in her boyfriend's murder.
27:48To learn more about their relationship,
27:51detectives interview the upstairs neighbor, Rebecca Mello.
27:57They were truly best friends in the beginning.
28:02Ina was very quiet.
28:03She was hard to read at times because she didn't show as much emotion as Stephen.
28:14When she would tell me these stories of her childhood,
28:18I would try to come for her and tell her,
28:21that's something you should get help for as an adult.
28:25Navigate through that trauma.
28:27According to Rebecca,
28:30Ina never sought help to overcome her psychological problems,
28:35and it eventually took a toll on Stephen.
28:38She always told me they were husband, wife,
28:42but Steve would tell me,
28:44she's a crazy bitch, we're not married.
28:46He's like, but I met her at a homeless shelter,
28:51and if I leave her, she'll have absolutely no one.
28:57Rebecca says Stephen had been looking for the right way to end things with Ina,
29:02and his inheritance finally made that possible.
29:07Stephen would tell me,
29:08between you and I, when I get this money,
29:11I'm finally leaving Ina.
29:13He could leave Ina and not feel guilty
29:16because he would set her up with an apartment or something.
29:23But it seemed that in the days leading up to Stephen's death,
29:27Ina became aware of his true intentions.
29:31I feel Ina overheard things that Stephen had said in that garage,
29:39and it got the best of her.
29:41She was very resentful of the thought of him having that money
29:48and leaving her, and her having nothing.
29:53And she thought those things she overheard were going to take place
29:57so she would get that money before anyone else.
30:01Rebecca tells police that her suspicions began
30:10shortly after Stephen was taken to the hospital.
30:13I said, Ena, is everything okay?
30:15She was like, yeah, he just, he got sick.
30:19He was poisoned.
30:22Insisting, Steve got poisoned by antifreeze.
30:26She said this to you on sentence after the ambulance left.
30:34To investigators, the timing immediately throws up red flags.
30:40Stephen wasn't dead yet,
30:42and nobody had talked about antifreeze or poisoning at that point.
30:46We didn't know for two days,
30:48so how would I know within hours of him being brought to the hospital
30:53unless she is the one that did it?
30:56During that conversation,
30:57Rebecca asked her who would have done it.
30:59People often try to deflect the questions that they're being asked
31:27when they feel that they're now in the line of sight.
31:30It's kind of that fight-or-flight moment.
31:32But you can't just take it at face value.
31:35Every word that people say could be the next clue.
31:42Detectives are certain they're on the right track,
31:45but they need more to link Ena to the crime.
31:52All of the evidence that we have at this point is circumstantial.
31:55So we made a decision to go try to talk to Ena.
32:00We talked to her last.
32:01I wanted to wait until the end after we talked to everyone else
32:04because I wanted to see what she had to say.
32:07Coming up, detectives face off with their prime suspect.
32:12He wasn't at the walk-in clinic.
32:15He was at the hospital.
32:16He wasn't at the hospital.
32:17He wasn't anywhere yet.
32:19And she reaches a breaking point.
32:21As soon as we confronted Ena, she went ballistic.
32:41Detectives now consider Ena Knoyer to be the prime suspect
32:45in her boyfriend's poisoning death.
32:48Having just learned their victim was expected to receive
32:51a multi-million dollar inheritance,
32:54police press Ena for a confession.
32:58She seemed to be the one that was closest to him,
33:01that knew the most about the money,
33:03and that ultimately would benefit from whatever money
33:07he was going to get if he wasn't around,
33:09at least in her mind.
33:10When they confront her about Stephen's
33:15multi-million dollar inheritance,
33:18Ena claims she knew about it,
33:20but it didn't interest her at all.
33:24Was he going to make sure you got money?
33:26No.
33:27Okay.
33:28Because I kept telling him I don't want it.
33:30I was like, is it cursed?
33:32And people that go after it are dying?
33:36She offered up that all of the people
33:38that have been heir to this inheritance.
33:41All mysteriously just passed away.
33:47She also denies the Torgerson's accusation
33:50that she prevented Stephen from getting medical attention.
33:55Steve started getting really, really sick,
33:57and I kept begging him to let me call the ambulance.
34:00And he's like, no, I'll be fine with some sleep.
34:02And there's reports that Wes came to the house that morning,
34:07and you said that Stephen was at the walk-in clinic.
34:10He wasn't at the walk-in clinic.
34:10Because that's what...
34:12Steve didn't want to see Wes anymore.
34:14Okay, but Steve wasn't at the walk-in clinic.
34:16He was at the hospital.
34:17He wasn't at the hospital.
34:19He wasn't anywhere yet.
34:20Ina's now saying that she had begged him
34:25to go to the hospital.
34:26Ina had also said that he went to the walk-in clinic,
34:30but Stephen had never been checked in
34:31to any of these facilities.
34:34As soon as we confronted Ina
34:37with the contradictions that she had made,
34:39she went ballistic.
34:41There was just kind of an explosion of anger.
34:59And I think that was really the moment
35:00when the suspect realized that they were...
35:04they had been caught.
35:05And then she just ultimately said she wanted a lawyer,
35:07and that was it.
35:07You guys are so unbelievable!
35:11As certain as investigators are
35:17that Ina poisoned Stephen,
35:19they didn't get the confession they were hoping for.
35:22So they're forced to let Ina go
35:24while they continue to build their case against her.
35:28When we arrest people,
35:30we want to have all the information that we can.
35:34So we need to get all that together
35:36and present it to our state's attorney's office
35:38so they have the whole picture in front of them.
35:42Almost two months after Stephen's death,
35:46we were finally able to obtain
35:49a signed arrest warrant for Ina for murder.
35:54On October 30th of 2023,
35:57I then went up to her residence.
36:01Ina came out,
36:01and she was placed under arrest.
36:06I've always been out there the whole freaking day.
36:09You are innocent, so freedom's up to okay,
36:12but there is a warrant for your arrest.
36:14I've never done anything.
36:16I haven't done anything.
36:17Right.
36:18Not ever.
36:20While the case against Ina remains largely circumstantial,
36:26one of the most important pieces of evidence
36:29is the inheritance letter that gave Ina her motive.
36:32But when investigators obtain a copy of the paperwork,
36:36they make a shocking discovery.
36:39So the letter was just a generic letter.
36:42It was on this regular printed letterhead,
36:46but it had come through email.
36:47It wasn't signed by anyone in particular.
36:49It just said,
36:50thank you, Arab Bank of Switzerland.
36:53Stephen Riley was in a different font
36:55than the rest of the letter,
36:56and some of the capitalization in the letters was off.
37:01There was some correspondence
37:03with a person who called himself Richard,
37:06and in those emails was conversations
37:10about Stephen needing to send his personal information
37:13to this particular person
37:15so they could verify who he was.
37:18As soon as Ina mentioned that Stephen had died,
37:21the emails began to get rejected.
37:23The email was no longer a valid email.
37:27It was all a scam.
37:29It was just fake.
37:31None of it was real.
37:33This person was only trying to get information
37:36and or money from Stephen.
37:38For what purpose, we don't know.
37:40A gentleman from the Department of Treasury
37:42assisted us in trying to see
37:44if it was related to any other scams
37:45that they were aware of.
37:47It really kind of just landed us at a dead end
37:50because there was nothing to follow up on.
37:52Everybody that hears that story is like,
37:54oh, that's a scam, that's a scam.
37:55But to Steve and Ina, it was 100% true.
38:01I was very hopeful that we had brought enough to the table
38:05so that we could get a conviction.
38:07But I was very nervous.
38:09We wanted to make sure that we don't overlook something
38:13that we may have missed
38:15that could be detrimental to this case.
38:18Ultimately, we want to make sure that justice is served.
38:20After a two-month-long investigation,
38:38Ina Knoyer is set to stand trial
38:41for the murder of her boyfriend, Stephen Riley.
38:44Prosecutors are prepared to argue that she did it
38:48to keep his $17 million inheritance for herself,
38:52an inheritance they now know was nothing but a lie.
38:57I believe she was aware
39:06that if she secretly administered some antifreeze
39:10in his sweet teeth,
39:11that he would be gone
39:14and she would be the one
39:16who would collect the money ultimately at the end.
39:18When she found out that her love of her life
39:27possibly planned on leaving her,
39:30I think she snapped.
39:34Ina thought she was going to inherit that money
39:40from Stephen being his common-law wife,
39:43and absolutely there was not one dime to be given
39:49to her or to Stephen.
39:56This all could have been prevented.
39:58It didn't have to happen,
40:00and Stephen unfortunately died over literally nothing.
40:06Despite a lack of direct evidence,
40:08the prosecution feels their case
40:11will be persuasive to the jury.
40:13But before the court date arrives,
40:16Ina and her lawyer make a surprising announcement.
40:20In May of 2024,
40:22Ina and her attorney filed a motion
40:24for a change of plea.
40:27Ina was going to plead guilty
40:28to the charge of homicide,
40:31a double-A felony here
40:32in the state of North Dakota.
40:38Five months later,
40:39Ina is sentenced at the Ward County Courthouse.
40:43A lot of the times when you look at the person
40:47who's on trial for a murder,
40:49you can see something.
40:50They're looking down,
40:52they're feeling some type of way,
40:54but with Ina,
40:55it's a straightforward stare.
40:58There's nothing behind those eyes.
41:02The judge gave Ina
41:04a 25-year sentence
41:06with 10 years of probation.
41:11We weren't happy to hear
41:13that it was 25 with probation.
41:1625 years is not enough.
41:18Lucky for her,
41:19the Department of Corrections
41:20doesn't serve Anna Fries
41:21in their eyes to you.
41:22It's just hard for me
41:32to even comprehend
41:32that anybody would take a life
41:34over money
41:35and then to even find out
41:36that there was really nothing
41:38that anyone was going to gain
41:39from that at all anyway.
41:40It's disturbing, really.
41:43Stephen was just the best friend
41:52to ever have.
41:54He'd do anything for anybody
41:56and it was just so bad
41:58that Ina had to do this to him.
42:00I believe my dad's legacy
42:03was wanting to be a type of man
42:07to always be there
42:08to make everyone happy
42:11and just kind of live in the moment.
42:14I think I'm done grieving finally.
42:18I'm able to accept new beginnings
42:22and carry on with my dad's legacy.
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