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Short filmTranscript
00:00:00I don't know what you want.
00:00:18What's my money?
00:00:19Well, what's the money for?
00:00:22For drugs.
00:00:24The next time the shots are not going to be warning shots.
00:00:30They would say that at first he was very charming.
00:00:39But then he was very possessive.
00:00:43He put one woman in the hospital.
00:00:46He beat her so badly.
00:00:50I walked inside.
00:00:53Tables were overturned.
00:00:56Bloods battered all over the refrigerator.
00:01:00It was a poor attempt to make it look like a robbery had occurred.
00:01:07We had another victim.
00:01:11He was marked there at the point of a gun, then shot.
00:01:16And buried in the snow in Deep Gap, North Carolina.
00:01:20There was an international connection.
00:01:28I stepped right into a murder investigation.
00:01:33We had a murder of a prime minister.
00:01:37He escaped into the shadows in old Stockholm.
00:01:41Perhaps Swedish hitman came.
00:01:45That gave us the final piece of the puzzle we needed.
00:01:51I'm going to tell you something.
00:01:52You're going to quit spreading these damn lies and rumors that you've been spreading about me.
00:01:57You're trying to ruin me in this damn town.
00:02:00Damn it.
00:02:01I'm tired of it.
00:02:02And I'm going to put a stop to it.
00:02:05Watauga County is in the northwest corner of North Carolina in the Appalachian Mountains.
00:02:28It's a very rural area, very mountainous, and the winters are very treacherous.
00:02:36The temperatures range from sub-zero to a little above freezing.
00:02:41On the morning of January 7, 1994, the roses already started getting bad because it was snowing
00:02:54and there were freezing temperatures.
00:02:59We received a phone call into our dispatch center.
00:03:02The survey crew with the Department of Transportation had been out in the Deep Gap area surveying some land
00:03:13and had stumbled across a pair of bare feet sticking up out of the snow on the ground.
00:03:25The surveyor believed it to be a human body.
00:03:32We went to the intersection of U.S. Highway 421 and the Blue Ridge Parkway there in Deep Gap.
00:03:38There were no houses in the area.
00:03:40It was very remote.
00:03:42The deputies that were first on the scene had set up boundaries to protect evidence of the crime scene.
00:03:51The surveyor appeared as a blee shaken by what he had discovered.
00:03:59He led me in the snow and the wind.
00:04:02Into a wooded area with thick pine trees and thick underbrush.
00:04:06Up a hill to the base of a fallen tree where the body was discovered.
00:04:18There was lots of snow on the ground and there were no footprints around anywhere.
00:04:24No vehicle tracks.
00:04:25All that was visible when I arrived were two bare feet that were sticking up out of the snow.
00:04:37No shoes, no socks.
00:04:40Some of the skin and the toes were missing off of one foot.
00:04:44We could see the outline of the body underneath a blanket of snow.
00:04:51It was evident that the body had been there for some time.
00:04:58Near the feet of the body was a length of tape, maybe 18 inches long.
00:05:03There was hair and small dots of blood spatter on the back of the tape.
00:05:08It wasn't until we started removing a little bit of that snow that we were able to get a better look at what we had.
00:05:19The body was nude.
00:05:25It was an adult male and he was not wearing anything with the exception of a signet ring and a watch.
00:05:33There was a gunshot wound to the left temple, also to the right side of the neck.
00:05:43This scene is very bizarre.
00:05:46At this point, we're trying to figure out how this nude adult male ended up in Deep Cab, North Carolina, buried in the snow.
00:06:03Salisbury, North Carolina, is about 40 miles from Charlotte, along Interstate 85.
00:06:26The town has a lot of history in it, a lot of historic homes and parks.
00:06:36Salisbury was pretty laid back.
00:06:37Small town, local-owned stores, charming downtown.
00:06:43It was really safe.
00:06:44My friend, Victor Gunnarsson, moved to Salisbury, North Carolina, from Sweden.
00:06:58By 1993, he's been traveling all over the world, the globetrotter.
00:07:04And Victor liked the United States.
00:07:08I think he saw America like the land of opportunities.
00:07:12He wanted to live the American dream.
00:07:14And I think he adapted very easily.
00:07:18I always had a dream.
00:07:20I wanted to come over to the United States.
00:07:22This would be a good opportunity.
00:07:25On October 25th, I flew over.
00:07:27It was my first time out of Europe.
00:07:30It was wonderful.
00:07:31Victor introduced me to many of his friends in Salisbury.
00:07:36He didn't consider people strangers.
00:07:38It was just like friends that you didn't know.
00:07:40Victor knew everybody in Salisbury.
00:07:46He really loved it.
00:07:48He said that that felt more like home to him than Sweden did.
00:07:53He was an extremely smart person.
00:08:03He was probably the sharpest one I've ever met.
00:08:06He was a genius when it came to languages.
00:08:08He knew the Scandinavian languages.
00:08:10And English, German, Spanish, Italian, and French.
00:08:15He worked as a language tutor.
00:08:18And he enjoyed it.
00:08:21Victor had a good life in Salisbury.
00:08:22I worked at West Rowan High School.
00:08:31I taught English and theater.
00:08:34My mother lived in Salisbury.
00:08:38I had decided to come back after my divorce.
00:08:43And I wanted to raise my son, Jason, in a small-town value system.
00:08:48My friend Tana and I went to a cafe.
00:08:58Victor Gunnarsson and his friend Daniel Johansson were there.
00:09:02Tana was a very social person.
00:09:04And she had met Victor before through some friends.
00:09:10And I thought Victor was the best-looking thing I'd ever seen.
00:09:13He had dark hair and beautiful blue eyes.
00:09:16So charismatic.
00:09:20We talked.
00:09:20And I just thought, what a delightful person.
00:09:23He just was nice.
00:09:25And somebody so entirely different.
00:09:30When I saw Victor and Kay together, I mean, I knew there was instant attraction.
00:09:35It was mutual.
00:09:37On the ride back to his apartment, he said he really liked her.
00:09:40And everything felt really good with her.
00:09:43And he hoped that they could get involved more seriously.
00:09:50The following week, we spent almost every day together.
00:09:55I introduced him to my son, Jason.
00:09:59Victor helped him with his math homework.
00:10:01Jason felt very comfortable with Victor.
00:10:04He just liked him immediately.
00:10:07I had got this strong feeling that this relationship with Kay was going to turn out to be something really good.
00:10:14After about a week, there was time for me to go home to Sweden.
00:10:25Victor woke me up in the morning and we drive to the airport.
00:10:29I said, thank you.
00:10:30I had the time of my life.
00:10:32It's been amazing.
00:10:33And he thanked me, too.
00:10:35And he said, we'll meet when I get back to Sweden in March.
00:10:38I'll see you then.
00:10:40We said goodbye.
00:10:42And I see him walking down that long corridor.
00:10:45And he turned around, smiled at me, and waved one time.
00:10:49So that's my last memory of Victor.
00:10:57That night of December 3rd, we were going to go to Blue Bay Seafood.
00:11:02And I asked my mother if she wanted to go so that she could meet Victor, because I just thought so much of him.
00:11:08And when my mother met Victor, she thought he was such a nice-looking man and so kind.
00:11:14It just was a really nice, nice time.
00:11:22The date ended, and I asked Victor if he was interested in going to find a Christmas tree.
00:11:32And maybe cut it down and bring it back to the house and decorate it.
00:11:36And of course, with his agreeable nature, yeah, let's do it.
00:11:42Let's do it.
00:11:43I think we both felt something, and it just was starting to grow.
00:11:50I got back to Sweden on early morning on December 4th, and I called Victor, and I left the message.
00:12:11I said, hey, I made it safe.
00:12:13I'm back home now, and you can call me back.
00:12:17So when he didn't call me back, I thought it was a bit strange, because we talked to her all the time.
00:12:24I never heard from Victor.
00:12:31We were going to go find a Christmas tree.
00:12:34And so I started calling him and saying, hey, did you forget?
00:12:39So we went and got the tree by ourselves.
00:12:42After that, Tana and I went to Victor's apartment, because I was starting to get concerned.
00:12:49The door was open about four or five inches.
00:12:55It was winter and very cold outside, and you don't leave your door ajar.
00:13:00It was very strange.
00:13:02I just felt something was not right.
00:13:05Inside, it was disheveled, items strewn about, blood on the floor, blood spatter all over the ceiling.
00:13:23It was scary.
00:13:35I never heard from Victor after our date.
00:13:47On December 3rd, I called, and I never could get him.
00:13:52My friend Tana and I went to Victor's apartment.
00:13:56The door was ajar, but he wasn't home.
00:14:06I walked inside and saw that everything was just like he had been there.
00:14:11But there was a blinking flash on the voice machine.
00:14:15And I thought, well, he hasn't even picked up his voicemail.
00:14:19So where could he be?
00:14:20I walked right back out, thinking that maybe he was downstairs, maybe he was visiting friends.
00:14:28But he wasn't anywhere.
00:14:30And I see his cars outside.
00:14:33Nothing makes sense.
00:14:37I thought, does he not want to see me anymore?
00:14:39What have I done?
00:14:41My feelings were hurt.
00:14:43I thought it was over.
00:14:50When I got home to Sweden, I tried to call Victor quite a few times.
00:15:00He didn't respond to any of my phone calls.
00:15:04I was worried.
00:15:09This is not like him, to not call you back.
00:15:11I was thinking, well, maybe he's out and doing some stuff.
00:15:18Maybe he was with Kay.
00:15:33On December 9th, 1993, I woke up, did my usual thing.
00:15:39I went to school teaching my classes, and they called me to the office.
00:15:44And I went to the office, and I saw my mother's boss.
00:15:50He told me that my mother didn't come to work.
00:15:54He was concerned, because she was a widow who lived alone.
00:16:03He drove me from West Rowan High School to my mother's house.
00:16:09Her car was in the driveway.
00:16:11My mother didn't come to the door.
00:16:14I had the wrong key.
00:16:16As much as I tried, I could not get in.
00:16:19Something had happened to my mom.
00:16:22I was afraid.
00:16:25My mother's boss called the police.
00:16:29Kay was prevented from going in the house.
00:16:32The officers who had responded to Catherine Miller's home had to force entry.
00:16:40As an investigator for the State Bureau of Investigation, I was immediately called in for assistance.
00:16:49When I entered the Catherine Miller residence,
00:16:53Mrs. Miller was propped up against her refrigerator inside of her kitchen.
00:16:58She was covered with blood.
00:17:13There was blood on the floor.
00:17:16There was blood spatter all over the refrigerator and her ceiling above her.
00:17:22A brief examination showed two apparent gunshot wounds to the head.
00:17:30She was fully clothed.
00:17:33Her legs were in front of her.
00:17:35The glasses that she wore were still on her head.
00:17:39There was a pot of beans on her kitchen stove, as if she was about to prepare some dinner when she was killed.
00:17:49There was no question that Catherine Miller had been murdered in her own residence.
00:17:58I was standing in the driveway.
00:18:00After a few minutes, a detective came to me, and he said, she's gone.
00:18:11Some kind of scream came out of my throat that I had never heard before.
00:18:17I remember not knowing what to do.
00:18:22I felt nothing, and then everything.
00:18:26It's almost like time stops.
00:18:32My mother and I had a love for each other that every mother and daughter should share.
00:18:40At that moment, I felt so all by myself.
00:18:49This is a 77-year-old, defenseless, older person.
00:18:55Whoever did this is just filled with evil.
00:19:01Who would do this to my mother?
00:19:10On December the 9th, 1993, I responded to the murder scene of 77-year-old Catherine Miller.
00:19:32It was scary.
00:19:35I stood out there on the street with neighbors.
00:19:40Police cars everywhere for hours and hours.
00:19:45While they conducted their investigation to see what had happened to Mrs. Miller.
00:19:55There did not appear to be any evidence of her residence being broken into.
00:20:03The alarm system was not set.
00:20:06It had been turned off.
00:20:07Inside the house, it was disheveled.
00:20:11There were items strewn about.
00:20:13There were magazines thrown across the floor.
00:20:20Tables were overturned.
00:20:22But there were jewelry in jewelry boxes.
00:20:27There were firearms in the residence, in closets.
00:20:30As we examined the scene, we believed it was a poor attempt to make it look like a robbery had occurred.
00:20:39But all kinds of valuable things remained in the property.
00:20:44So she hadn't been robbed.
00:20:45There was a Salisbury Post newspaper inside her residence.
00:20:55An evening newspaper.
00:20:58This was on Thursday, December the 9th.
00:21:02But the newspaper was dated December the 8th.
00:21:05We knew she collected a newspaper, so there was no question that she was murdered on December the 8th.
00:21:17Kay Whedon was the closest person in Catherine Miller's life.
00:21:22She was completely devastated and in no state to be interviewed.
00:21:34We started interviewing Catherine Miller's grandson, Jason Whedon.
00:21:39He was visibly upset that she had been murdered, and he had no idea why this happened.
00:21:46Catherine Miller did not have enemies that we could determine, or any people who even disliked her.
00:21:58Fall Spring has lots of drug activity that creates violent crimes, robbery, shootings.
00:22:17So we had a lot of work cut out for us to try to determine how and why this happened.
00:22:28The autopsy showed Catherine Miller was murdered by .238 caliber gunshot wounds directly into her head.
00:22:58The 13th of December, I was back home in Sweden.
00:23:04It's been 10 days since I last heard from my friend, Victor Gunnarsson.
00:23:09His dad had called, and his parents were worried because they haven't heard anything either.
00:23:15He was very close to his parents.
00:23:18They had a very good relationship.
00:23:20And I was thinking that was strange.
00:23:23So I called him, but he didn't call back.
00:23:28I had a beginning to get a strong feeling that something just isn't right.
00:23:34So I called Bonnie Whitley, Victor's landlord, Liquid Apartments, Salisbury.
00:23:40She went to his apartment, and his car hadn't been moving.
00:23:46Victor loved his car, and that's also confirming that there might be something wrong.
00:23:50The door was unlocked, so she went in.
00:23:57She found his keys in there.
00:24:01That was about the time that Bonnie found the missing persons report on him with the Salisbury Police Department.
00:24:07I had a strong feeling that something just isn't right.
00:24:13Something really bad may have happened to him.
00:24:17It was a nightmare.
00:24:18She had received several anonymous, threatening letters, and also telephone calls.
00:24:31I thought, when is it going to stop?
00:24:35Bad things were happening to Kay and Jason Whedon.
00:24:39A few days after the murder of Catherine Miller,
00:25:06the department office manager where Victor Gunnarsson lived,
00:25:11filed a missing persons report with the Salisbury Police Department.
00:25:18Victor Gunnarsson was a Swedish national who had relocated to Salisbury, North Carolina.
00:25:26His family in Sweden were very concerned.
00:25:29The missing persons report was put out all across North Carolina,
00:25:35but we received no leads.
00:25:44My mother was murdered.
00:25:47I was in shock.
00:25:49I didn't think about Victor until there was something in the newspaper that showed a picture of him.
00:25:54They were looking for Victor as a missing person.
00:25:58I really thought something had happened to him.
00:26:03This isn't right.
00:26:04And then Daniel called me.
00:26:08Kay told me that she hadn't heard from Victor.
00:26:12We just prayed and hoped for the best,
00:26:14that somewhere there might be some kind of logic answer.
00:26:18When the local Salisbury Police went to Victor's apartment,
00:26:24Victor's car was there covered in snow.
00:26:28Inside there was a dirty skillet on top of his stove.
00:26:33His brown bomber jacket was inside the apartment.
00:26:36And they also were able to see Victor's car keys and his wallet inside the apartment.
00:26:44There was no indication of violence or what happened to Victor Gunnarsson.
00:26:54At this point, he was just missing.
00:26:59At the time, I was with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation,
00:27:04working on a different case.
00:27:06We were trying to determine who would want to kill 77-year-old Catherine Miller.
00:27:14A neighbor came forward and stated that the day before her body was discovered,
00:27:21she had seen a red Oldsmobile parked at Catherine Miller's house sometime on December 8, 1993.
00:27:29The neighbor had seen a white male get out of that red Oldsmobile and walk around Catherine's house.
00:27:38We brought in a sketch artist who sat down with that neighbor
00:27:43and created a composite drawing,
00:27:46which we had hoped would help us lead to the identification of this person.
00:27:52The next day, we interviewed Kay Whedon.
00:28:10We learned Kay and her mother, Catherine Miller, were very close.
00:28:17She didn't know anyone who would harm her mother,
00:28:21but then she revealed that earlier in 1993,
00:28:26she had received several anonymous threatening letters
00:28:31and also telephone calls implicating her son Jason
00:28:36as owing drug money to different people.
00:28:41Some of those letters threatened Jason physically.
00:28:46I told the detective that Jason wasn't a troublemaker.
00:28:52He was just a kid that walked to the edge.
00:28:55A letter that I got was,
00:28:57Roses are red, violets are blue.
00:28:59We're going to f*** up Jason in your house, too.
00:29:02And then there was something about burning it down.
00:29:06And that really scared me.
00:29:08And then one day, I discovered on the garage wall,
00:29:13written in red paint, f*** Jason.
00:29:15I called the police.
00:29:17I told the detective.
00:29:19I thought maybe Jason had made somebody mad at his own school.
00:29:24But I just, I didn't know.
00:29:28Also, I got a series of phone calls
00:29:30about Jason and drugs and breaking both of his legs.
00:29:34I didn't recognize the voice.
00:29:37It was very gravelly.
00:29:39I don't know what you want.
00:29:41And I don't know.
00:29:42I want my money.
00:29:43Well, what's the money for?
00:29:44For drugs.
00:29:45He's not buying $2,000.
00:29:47Tell us the next time the f***ing shots
00:29:50are not going to be warning shots.
00:29:52Well, let me ask you a question.
00:30:00And then one night in March, it was late.
00:30:04And we were in bed.
00:30:09And Jason woke me from a sound sleep.
00:30:13He heard something.
00:30:17We went outside to look.
00:30:20I saw a hole.
00:30:23The wood had sort of splintered off of it.
00:30:27Somebody had shot at the house.
00:30:29I called the police.
00:30:31When the detectives came out,
00:30:33we found the bullet in the sock drawer, inside a sock.
00:30:38I was really terrified that something was going to happen to me or to my child.
00:30:43I would never sit in front of a window anymore.
00:30:47You're always looking over your shoulder.
00:30:51I thought, when is it going to stop?
00:30:52Those letters were personal.
00:30:57The telephone calls were personal.
00:30:59That being the case, it's someone close to the family who's involved in this.
00:31:06The case had not been resolved.
00:31:11At that point, the State Bureau of Investigation began investigating the threats
00:31:16and Kay's house shooting as part of the ongoing homicide investigation of Catherine Miller.
00:31:24All of this clearly indicated that Jason and or Kay were being targeted.
00:31:32On Thursday, December the 9th, 1993,
00:31:53Catherine Miller had been found murdered in her own residence.
00:31:58Shot in the head.
00:32:02We interviewed her grandson, Jason, several times at great length and in great detail.
00:32:18He didn't know who sent threatening letters or shot at the house.
00:32:26Jason admitted using marijuana,
00:32:28but he said that he did not owe anyone any money for drugs.
00:32:34He was always forthcoming with his information.
00:32:38Jason and Kay Whedon, their alibi completely checked out.
00:32:44They were not suspects in the murder of Catherine Miller.
00:32:47But there is no doubt bad things were happening to Kay and Jason Whedon.
00:32:58I interviewed Kay about her past relationships to learn about any incidents that may have occurred.
00:33:06I learned that she was the former fiancé of police officer L.C. Underwood with the Salisbury Police Department.
00:33:16I told the detectives, I met L.C. through my next-door neighbor.
00:33:27He was a police officer.
00:33:30He said all the right things.
00:33:34He was handsome.
00:33:35I thought he was wonderful.
00:33:38After a few months, he took me to Boone for a weekend, and he proposed to me there.
00:33:49It seemed like too good to be true, which it was.
00:33:52Soon, L.C. started questioning my every move.
00:34:00It seemed like he was trying to isolate me.
00:34:04I refused to let that happen.
00:34:06I just couldn't take this behavior.
00:34:09I ended the relationship at the end of summer of 92.
00:34:13L.C. Underwood did agree to talk with S.B.I. agents early on in the investigation.
00:34:26He was willing to cooperate.
00:34:29He said that he was at home the night of Catherine Miller's murder.
00:34:33He had no problem with Kay Whedon or her mother.
00:34:43The murder of Catherine Miller was a difficult case, not easily or quickly solved.
00:35:08And then, on January 7, 1994, a man discovered a body buried in the snow in Deep Gap, North Carolina.
00:35:30I met the other deputies on the scene.
00:35:32I was directed into a wooded area up an incline, completely out of sight from either road.
00:35:41We could see the outline of the body.
00:35:45Two bare feet were sticking up out of the snow.
00:35:48We started removing snow.
00:35:54We saw the gunshot wound to the left temple of the victim's head and also to the right side of the neck.
00:36:02An animal had chewed on one of the toes.
00:36:10It had been there for some time and was in the process of decomposition.
00:36:18It was difficult to look at it and to give any recognition based on facial or body appearance.
00:36:25But when law enforcement removed the snow, they discovered the body was nude.
00:36:37He was not wearing anything with the exception of a signet ring and a watch.
00:36:44Immediately, that made us think, well, robbery wasn't a motive here.
00:36:47There was no weapon found at the crime scene.
00:36:52There was no clothing in the area.
00:36:55But near the feet of the body was a length of tape with hair stuck to the back and small dots of blood spatter.
00:37:04They photographed the body and sent it to the North Carolina chief medical examiner for autopsy.
00:37:17The victim had been shot twice about the head with a .22 caliber weapon.
00:37:30The bullets were found inside the body, extracted, and sent up to the lab for analysis.
00:37:37We reached out to law enforcement agencies across the state.
00:37:40I received a telephone call from Detective Paula May that a body had been found in Watauga County, buried in the snow.
00:37:55Based on his description, she gave tall, dark hair, mustache.
00:38:01We thought it was Victor Gunnarsson, but it wasn't official.
00:38:04From that point forward, we were working together as one unit.
00:38:11We did not have dental records or fingerprints.
00:38:15We had to request them from Sweden because this was a foreign citizen.
00:38:20When the documents arrived, the records confirmed the man buried in the snow was Victor Gunnarsson.
00:38:29His family in Sweden was notified.
00:38:39Victor's dad called me and just said, sit down.
00:38:43They found him.
00:38:44He was murdered.
00:38:46And, uh...
00:38:51It was awful.
00:38:54Daniel called and they had found Victor Gunnarsson's body in Deep Gap.
00:39:07My mom had only been dead for a month.
00:39:10I didn't connect Victor with the death of my mother.
00:39:15I was thinking, how can anybody do this?
00:39:18Kay did not tell us initially about missing person.
00:39:24Victor Gunnarsson, it's completely understandable.
00:39:28She was so extremely upset about her mother's death.
00:39:33She only dated Victor for a few days.
00:39:37Two victims from the same town found 90 miles away from each other.
00:39:42We didn't know if there was any link between these cases.
00:39:53On January 11th, the investigative team and I went back to the crime scene there in Deep Gap, North Carolina, where the body was found.
00:40:01At that point, the State Bureau of Investigation performed a luminol test.
00:40:07The whole place lit up, indicating the presence of a lot of blood.
00:40:11That made us believe that he was murdered there and bled out on the scene.
00:40:14At that point, we went to Victor's apartment, looking for evidence of what happened.
00:40:32We inventoried everything.
00:40:34His passport and ID were present, his wallet.
00:40:38He had dirty dishes in the sink.
00:40:40He had mail stacked up.
00:40:41We needed to learn more about his nature and what was going on with him in order to figure out who killed Victor Gunnarsson.
00:40:49Earlier that month, Victor's parents called my newspaper and asked if he could help them find out where Victor was.
00:40:58I know the Gunnarsson family in Sweden.
00:41:01Victor Gunnarsson's parents were worried because they had not heard from Victor in a long time.
00:41:06I had been the U.S. correspondent for the Swedish newspaper Express.
00:41:12I had been traveling for most of that week to Salisbury.
00:41:16That day, I arrived at Gunnarsson's place.
00:41:20I stepped right into a murder investigation.
00:41:23There were detectives working there.
00:41:26They had a bunch of newspaper clippings and letters in Swedish that they were looking at.
00:41:32Then they realized that I could be of help with translations.
00:41:35We learned that Victor Gunnarsson had actually been arrested and charged with the assassination of Olaf Palme.
00:41:43He was Sweden's prime minister.
00:41:50February 28th, 1986, Wolf Palme was murdered in the old city of Stockholm.
00:41:58And Victor had been a suspect.
00:42:00He was one of the Palme haters.
00:42:01Some of the policemen working on the case quickly came to the conclusion that Victor Gunnarsson was their man.
00:42:12They were going to get him.
00:42:14We thought perhaps he had political enemies that we were not aware of.
00:42:20There were so many possibilities.
00:42:22Perhaps Swedish hitmen came and murdered Victor.
00:42:35He moved to Salisbury, North Carolina.
00:42:38Just turned the page.
00:42:39We have two homicide victims.
00:42:43It was sitting in shock, country in shock.
00:42:46They opened his mail.
00:42:48They listened to his phone.
00:42:51Couldn't feel safe.
00:42:52He was looking over his shoulder all the time.
00:42:54They're setting up their tripods in the street, waiting for me to come out.
00:43:01It was, it was a madhouse.
00:43:03Did you f*** him backstabbing, son of a f***?
00:43:07He showed anger.
00:43:09He showed volatility.
00:43:11You want to f***ing fight?
00:43:12Come get it.
00:43:14And he had guns.
00:43:24The body of a nude adult male has been found murdered and buried in the snow in a rural area of Deep Gap, North Carolina.
00:43:54It's very bizarre.
00:43:57We believe that our victim's body belonged to Victor Gunnarsson, a language tutor.
00:44:04He moved to Salisbury, North Carolina early in 1993, several months before he was killed.
00:44:12When we found the body, we learned that Victor was a Swedish citizen who had been formally charged with the assassination of Sweden's prime minister, Olaf Palme.
00:44:24The Swedish authorities' charges were never carried out against Victor, but the prime minister.
00:44:31He was very controversial.
00:44:33Most people either loved him or hated him.
00:44:36It was a huge group of Palme supporters and Palme haters in Sweden at the time.
00:44:42Victor was one of the Palme haters.
00:44:44But the government posted a big reward about many millions of dollars to find the murder of the prime minister.
00:44:50When we learned that, I thought perhaps Swedish hitmen came and murdered Victor.
00:44:59February 28th, 1986, Olof Palme and his wife went to the cinema, late night performance, 9 o'clock, to meet their son and his girlfriend.
00:45:14When we left the cinema in the old city of Stockholm, a man came running up.
00:45:23He shot two shots, one for the wife and one for Palme.
00:45:28The prime minister's wife was only two, three meters from the shooter.
00:45:33She was wounded slightly.
00:45:35The prime minister was shot.
00:45:37There's a lot of blood.
00:45:39He was a lone gunman.
00:45:40He escaped into the shadows, up the stairs.
00:45:49There was a taxi cab on the other side of the street.
00:45:52The taxi cab called the police, say, there's a shooting.
00:45:57The alarm went off in the police headquarters.
00:46:02The ambulance brought Palme to the hospital and soon after declared him dead.
00:46:10We had a murder of a prime minister.
00:46:19It's big news.
00:46:20Such things were not supposed to happen in a country like Sweden.
00:46:28It was a city in shock, a country in shock.
00:46:30There's a kind of news that changes everything.
00:46:37To compare it with the American experience, it was like the Kennedy murder.
00:46:48There's a ton of interrogations with people who have been close to the murder scene.
00:46:53Thousands of phone calls, tips, information regarding the murder.
00:47:00Victor Gonershon was one of those that was mentioned in those tips.
00:47:07We call him the 33-year-old.
00:47:09Witnesses saw him sitting at the cafe a few hundred meters from the crime scene about the time of the murder.
00:47:26The police investigated his apartment.
00:47:28Police found documents, anti-Golf Palme, propaganda material in a zoo.
00:47:36We arrested him.
00:47:37It was questioned several hours without any lawyer.
00:47:49The prosecutors let him go after the first 24 hours.
00:47:53That enraged the policemen working the case.
00:47:58They opened his mail.
00:47:59They listened to his phone, to his friends, to his telephones.
00:48:03And they went all over the place to find something about him.
00:48:11Victor's name was everywhere, over the media.
00:48:16It was terrible.
00:48:18He was like a prison in his own home.
00:48:20It took like three years before they finally realized he had an alibi for the crucial hour of that murder night.
00:48:33The government's lawyer had paid Gonershon damages for the time he had had been arrested.
00:48:51What really happened, nobody knows.
00:48:54Victor being accused of a suspect of killing our prime minister, that was devastating for him.
00:48:59He was innocent.
00:49:01He was innocent.
00:49:05Victor's name was everywhere in the media.
00:49:08And he lived in such a small village, so everybody knew.
00:49:12People could see him everywhere, and he couldn't feel safe.
00:49:14He was looking over his shoulder all the time.
00:49:17He felt like he wanted to get away from Sweden.
00:49:20Victor had a friend.
00:49:23He lived in Salisbury.
00:49:25He said that it was the perfect place.
00:49:27He moved to Salisbury, North Carolina.
00:49:32Just turned the page, saw from scratch somewhere else.
00:49:36It felt like a safe little town.
00:49:39But it turned out not to be for him.
00:49:44Four years later, Victor Gunnarsson's body was found buried in the snow, in a rural area.
00:49:50Of Beat Gap, North Carolina.
00:49:58The fingerprints of Victor Gunnarsson arrived from Sweden on January 14th.
00:50:04Following the identification of Victor Gunnarsson, several media outlets began contacting us.
00:50:13Victor's murder was huge news once this information got back to Sweden, and it attracted a lot of international attention.
00:50:25The international press was really speculating about maybe this was a payback killing.
00:50:31Victor Gunnarsson had been vocal about his opposition to the Prime Minister Palme, and we thought he could have been targeted.
00:50:46We also spoke with Victor's friend, Daniel Johansson, who had been in Salisbury a few days before Victor was murdered.
00:50:55The detectives wanted to know who would want Victor dead.
00:51:01I just knew that someone did it.
00:51:03But who it was, I had no clue.
00:51:06It wasn't real.
00:51:07Now we're trying to play catch-up.
00:51:16Victor was last seen on the night of December 3rd.
00:51:19We didn't find his body until January 7th.
00:51:22We're about 34 days behind in our investigation.
00:51:27Don Gale was the assisting agent from the State Bureau of Investigation.
00:51:30It was, at that time, Watauga County Sheriff's Department learned that officials in Salisbury had been investigating the murder of Catherine Miller for the past three weeks.
00:51:40Catherine Miller was Kay Wheaton's mother.
00:51:44We very quickly began sharing information.
00:51:48I told him Catherine Miller was the 77-year-old woman shot in the head inside of her kitchen.
00:51:55At the time of his death, Victor Gunnarsson had become friends with Kay Wheaton, and they had begun a romantic relationship.
00:52:09They were together the last night that Victor Gunnarsson was ever seen alive.
00:52:16We had a clear relationship with Victor Gunnarsson and Kay Wheaton and Catherine Miller and Kay Wheaton.
00:52:25It could have been why both of them had been killed.
00:52:31We immediately thought there was an instant and very strong connection there.
00:52:38We just could not rest until we saw both the murder of Catherine Miller and Victor Gunnarsson.
00:52:43We have $200 bombers in this car.
00:53:01We have $200 per day.
00:53:01We're back to $500 per day.
00:53:02We can see if you can tell us any more questions.
00:53:05We have two homicide victims, Swedish national Victor Gunnarsson, Salisbury native Catherine
00:53:19Miller, and one common denominator, and that is Kay Whedon. Victor Gunnarsson was in a romantic
00:53:25relationship with Kay Whedon. Catherine Miller was Kay Whedon's mother. There was an instant
00:53:31and very strong, important connection there. With all that was going on, we certainly did
00:53:36not want to overlook even the smallest detail. We began with the apartment. Victor had been
00:53:45reported missing by his apartment manager in Salisbury on December 15th. We learned from
00:53:51the apartment manager that a few days after Victor went missing that his apartment door was left ajar.
00:53:57But when we went there with a search warrant, the apartment door had been locked and secured
00:54:03by the apartment manager. His car was in the same place in the parking lot, still covered with
00:54:10a little snow and ice. Victor Gunnarsson was found murdered in Deep Gap, 90 miles away from Salisbury.
00:54:19You start thinking about potential scenarios. We also learned that Victor had lots of female friends
00:54:30because many of them had been intimate with Victor and had shared some kind of relationship with him.
00:54:37We didn't know if we were going to end up with a jealous husband or a jealous boyfriend.
00:54:47On January the 18th of 1994, we began a follow-up interview with Kay Whedon.
00:54:57I learned from Kay, she and her mother, Catherine Miller, and Victor had all gone to dinner together
00:55:03on the night of December 3rd. After dinner, they had then gone home to Kay's house.
00:55:11Victor and Kay were sitting outside around a fire with her son, Jason, and some of Jason's friends,
00:55:19and she saw Elsie Underwood drive by her home.
00:55:26Underwood was a Salisbury police officer. Kay had been through a terrible relationship with Elsie Underwood.
00:55:32She said that her relationship with Underwood was super dysfunctional and unhealthy.
00:55:39He wanted to get back together, and she did not want anything to do with him.
00:55:44She said that he was extremely jealous.
00:55:48Months before she went to a restaurant to have dinner with one man, Underwood shows up,
00:55:54causing a scene, dumps a glass of tea in her lap.
00:55:57That got Underwood temporarily suspended from the Salisbury Police Department.
00:56:04What really unnerved me about Underwood is that not only did he go by her house,
00:56:11but Victor Gunnarsson's car was parked there in Kay Whedon's driveway.
00:56:15It was the last night that Victor Gunnarsson was ever seen alive.
00:56:18Elsie would have seen Victor and Kay together at Kay's residence.
00:56:27We thought that Underwood could have been mad and bitter that Victor Gunnarsson was in a dating relationship with Kay Whedon.
00:56:34We were also aware that Kay's mother had a very strong feeling about Underwood.
00:56:39I learned from Kay that her mother advised her to get a restraining order against Elsie Underwood.
00:56:47And the magistrate talked them out of applying for the restraining order,
00:56:52saying that, did they really want to end a man's law enforcement career?
00:56:58Kay had gone for help, but she did not receive the support that she should have received.
00:57:03Kay Whedon said that during that weekend of December 3rd and 4th and 5th,
00:57:11when Victor went missing, Underwood was really reaching out to Kay,
00:57:16but Kay is still not interested in a relationship with him.
00:57:22A couple of days later, Catherine Miller's body is found.
00:57:25He wasn't jealous, but he was also law enforcement in North Carolina for 19 and a half years.
00:57:35We didn't know, was he capable of murdering two people?
00:57:42He was bound and taken there against his will.
00:57:47The husband said, look, I'm not letting nobody miss my wife.
00:57:51He obviously is very dangerous.
00:57:55At this point in the investigation, Catherine Miller and Swedish national Victor Gunnarsson
00:58:23had both been violently murdered.
00:58:29The one common link between both of these homicides turned out to be Elsie Underwood.
00:58:39He was the former fiancé of Kay Whedon.
00:58:45The other detectives and I delve into Underwood's background.
00:58:53We learned that he was married three times.
00:58:56All three marriages failed.
00:58:58We interviewed those women.
00:59:02They would say that at first he was very charming,
00:59:05but then he was very possessive, very jealous,
00:59:08and he would become very controlling and very violent.
00:59:13He put one woman in the hospital in intensive care.
00:59:17He beat her so badly.
00:59:18Mr. Underwood was interviewed by detectives.
00:59:29Again, he nodded very vigorously that he was involved in the murders.
00:59:36He showed anger.
00:59:39He showed volatility.
00:59:40When Underwood was questioned about the night of Friday, December 3rd,
00:59:45and he said that he had a date with another Salisbury woman, Shirley Twitty,
00:59:50and he was in the neighborhood.
00:59:54We went to Shirley Twitty, and she was able to tell us everything that happened.
00:59:59She told us that the night that Victor Gunnarsson was having dinner with Catherine Miller and Kay,
01:00:04Underwood had told Shirley that he was going to take her to dinner.
01:00:09Then on the way, he said, I'm really not hungry.
01:00:12He said, I need to drive by my buddy's house because he thinks his wife is cheating on him.
01:00:17They drive by.
01:00:18She says he gets very interested when he sees there's a car in the driveway.
01:00:23Shirley said that Underwood called and had his buddy with Salisbury police run the tag number
01:00:28and then ended up going home early that evening.
01:00:32After the interview, detectives took her, put her in the car, and said,
01:00:37lead us to that house that Underwood had you drive by.
01:00:40She took them right to Kay Whedon's house.
01:00:49We believe he was talking, Kay.
01:00:51We had confirmed that Underwood obtained Victor Gunnarsson's name and address
01:00:57from his license plate number, but at that point, we didn't have any physical evidence.
01:01:03We did not have his fingerprints or any DNA at the crime scene at Catherine Miller's house.
01:01:09Catherine Miller had been murdered with a .38 caliber,
01:01:12and Mr. Gunnarsson had been killed with a .22 caliber.
01:01:16A search warrant was necessary to see if the weapons were there in L.C. Underwood's house.
01:01:26On February 1st, 1994, we conducted a search warrant of L.C. Underwood's house.
01:01:35He was super OCD.
01:01:37Everything was in its place.
01:01:40The fringe on his throw rugs had been ironed.
01:01:44His canned goods were alphabetized.
01:01:46And all the labels turned facing forward.
01:01:50He had six, eight pair of the same sheet.
01:01:52On his walls, where most people have photos of their family,
01:01:56he had professionally framed letters from his time in law enforcement
01:02:01for him directing traffic at a funeral.
01:02:05I'd never seen anything like this.
01:02:07These were all things that he apparently had to control.
01:02:10Because we thought that Victor was kidnapped and taken to Deep Gap,
01:02:17we searched his vehicles as well.
01:02:20Both trunk mats were seized from L.C. Underwood's red Monte Carlo
01:02:27as potential evidence.
01:02:30A neighbor had stated that she had seen a red Oldsmobile parked at Catherine Miller's house
01:02:40sometime on December 8th, 1993.
01:02:44She had seen a white male get out of that red Oldsmobile.
01:02:48We could not confirm that it was, in fact, L.C. Underwood last seen in the driveway.
01:02:58But we did not find any weapons.
01:03:01Both trunk mats were processed extensively with no results at all.
01:03:10We knew he was very jealous, but there was no physical evidence to connect L.C. Underwood.
01:03:16It was really important to me that we all remain open-minded,
01:03:20not zero in on one suspect.
01:03:23There were so many possibilities of the murdered Victor Gunnarsson.
01:03:30The Swedish news organizations were curious because Victor Gunnarsson had become infamous
01:03:37as a suspect in the assassination of the Swedish prime minister, Palmer.
01:03:44One theory was that hitmen from Sweden had come and murdered Victor Gunnarsson.
01:03:52We tried a number of tactics to develop information on this.
01:03:57I spent a lot of time talking with the investigating officials in Sweden,
01:04:02but there was no evidence to confirm the Swedish hitmen theory.
01:04:07It became a whirlwind of investigations.
01:04:13Who killed Victor?
01:04:15Who killed Miss Miller?
01:04:16Everywhere.
01:04:18Internationally.
01:04:19Worldwide.
01:04:20Salisbury became the focus.
01:04:23The Swedish press came to Salisbury and used our newsroom.
01:04:27I had been trying to figure out what happened.
01:04:29I had to get the story home to Sweden now.
01:04:33They're calling me.
01:04:35They're showing up outside my house.
01:04:38They're setting up their tripods in the street, waiting for me to come out.
01:04:43It was a madhouse.
01:04:45With no one arrested, and the interest internationally into Victor's homicide growing,
01:04:57we felt the pressure on the investigators intensify.
01:05:01We have two homicide victims, and the killer was still at large.
01:05:05In early 1994, in the months following the murder of Victor Gunnarsson,
01:05:30we still have no physical evidence to connect a suspect to Victor Gunnarsson and his murder,
01:05:36or Catherine Miller's murder.
01:05:45We felt like we had plenty of reasoning that L.C. Underwood could be involved.
01:05:53We got a court order for a mail cover to make a copy of all the incoming mail that Underwood received.
01:06:00Salisbury was a very, very small town,
01:06:10and the only thing people were talking about was this case.
01:06:18I had known L.C. since the late 80s,
01:06:21and one day L.C. started calling me at night,
01:06:26telling me about how they were zooming in on him,
01:06:32that they had tunnel vision, that he didn't do it.
01:06:38L.C. Underwood had talked to the press.
01:06:42He was telling friends with the Salisbury Police Department,
01:06:45we were trying to frame him, and this was all a setup.
01:06:48In May of 1994, we decided to request a court order
01:07:00to trap and trace Underwood's phone call.
01:07:05Trap and trace does not allow you to hear the contents of the call,
01:07:09but it identifies the caller.
01:07:12In July, four of us were interviewing the people
01:07:21that were identified by the trap and trace.
01:07:25One of the people identified happened to be
01:07:28the girl that L.C. Underwood was dating at that time
01:07:33in Charlotte, North Carolina.
01:07:35I went to that person's duplex apartment in Charlotte,
01:07:43knocked on the door.
01:07:45The door was opened.
01:07:47I identified myself.
01:07:49She stepped outside of her door and told me,
01:07:53I know all about you, I know everything I need to know,
01:07:57and I don't have a thing to say to you.
01:07:59Instead of just walking away politely,
01:08:04what I said was, well, really, all I wanted to know
01:08:09was that, was he beating you like he did his other girlfriends?
01:08:15And then I left.
01:08:17I knew that he was very hot-tempered,
01:08:20but we needed to tell her who the real L.C. Underwood was.
01:08:25Later that same evening, my pager started vibrating,
01:08:32and I looked at the number,
01:08:35and I recognized it as L.C. Underwood's residence,
01:08:41and it just kept going off.
01:08:46We went to the sheriff's department,
01:08:48set up a recording device,
01:08:50and Don made the call to Underwood's number.
01:08:55L.C., this is Don Gale.
01:09:02I'm going to tell you something, Don Gale.
01:09:03You're going to quit spreading these damn lies and rumors
01:09:06that you've been spreading about me.
01:09:08I'm going to guarantee you that.
01:09:09I'm tired of it, and I ain't taking you no more, Don.
01:09:12You tried to ruin me in this damn town.
01:09:16You're not going to do it anymore.
01:09:17Now, damn it.
01:09:18I'm tired of it,
01:09:20and I'm going to put a stop to it.
01:09:21I was able to say very, very little.
01:09:27L.C.
01:09:28L.C., hello?
01:09:29He just goes ballistic on me.
01:09:31I'm hurt him.
01:09:33You ain't taking you damn
01:09:34no more, you mother f***er.
01:09:36What I was hoping for
01:09:38was that he would threaten me.
01:09:42You damn backstabbing, son of a f***er.
01:09:45So that we could arrest him for that
01:09:48and put him in jail.
01:09:49You don't want to f***er fight.
01:09:50Come do it.
01:09:52You man.
01:09:57Even though he was raging,
01:09:59he still never crossed that line.
01:10:02Unfortunately, there was not enough evidence
01:10:05to make an arrest of L.C. Underwood.
01:10:10Because this was such a high-profile case,
01:10:13we had not one but two homicide victims.
01:10:15The governor of North Carolina
01:10:18did issue a reward of $50,000
01:10:20for anyone with information.
01:10:28Calls began to come into our dispatch center.
01:10:32We did receive information
01:10:34from a person who said
01:10:35that their male friend told him
01:10:37that in November of 1993,
01:10:40his friend caught Victor Gunnarsson
01:10:42in bed with his wife
01:10:43in a hotel room.
01:10:46He had made Victor leave nude
01:10:49from the hotel room at gunpoint.
01:10:53And then the husband
01:10:54had, in a jealous rage,
01:10:57gone and murdered Victor Gunnarsson.
01:11:00In the fall of 1994,
01:11:19the investigation of the murder
01:11:20of Victor Gunnarsson and Catherine Miller,
01:11:23we did receive information
01:11:25from a person who said
01:11:26that their friend had confessed to them
01:11:28that he had caught Victor Gunnarsson
01:11:30in bed with his wife
01:11:32in a hotel room.
01:11:35And in a jealous rage,
01:11:38he had killed Victor Gunnarsson.
01:11:41So, of course,
01:11:42we jumped all over that lead
01:11:43and we interviewed the people involved.
01:11:46We learned there was a man
01:11:48who was jealous over his wife.
01:11:51He'd been seeing all these things
01:11:52about Victor Gunnarsson's murder
01:11:53in the newspaper.
01:11:54And the husband said,
01:11:57look, I'm not letting nobody
01:11:58miss my wife.
01:12:00They're in a bar when he tells them.
01:12:03But none of that ever happened.
01:12:05He's just bragging.
01:12:07And through that interview,
01:12:08he admitted that he had just
01:12:09made the whole thing up.
01:12:10At that point,
01:12:16we refocused the investigation.
01:12:19As we kept building this puzzle,
01:12:21it just became apparent
01:12:23that the only suspect
01:12:26with the motive for the two murders
01:12:28was Elsie Underwood.
01:12:30We had placed a trap-and-trace device
01:12:40on Elsie Underwood's telephone.
01:12:43So it was recording
01:12:46both the numbers
01:12:48of people who were calling him
01:12:51and the numbers of people
01:12:53he was calling.
01:12:55We did that for months.
01:12:57We found multiple calls
01:13:05from a person
01:13:07identified as Cherry Mac.
01:13:09We learned
01:13:10that Cherry Mac lived
01:13:12on Hoorah Street.
01:13:17When Catherine Miller
01:13:18was murdered,
01:13:19one thing that was taken
01:13:20was her wallet.
01:13:23Its contents were found
01:13:24on Hoorah Street
01:13:25in Salisbury.
01:13:28Cherry told us that
01:13:29somebody probably
01:13:30used her phone,
01:13:32but we weren't sure
01:13:33what it meant yet.
01:13:41On the first anniversary
01:13:42of Catherine Miller's murder,
01:13:44Agent Gale suggested
01:13:45that we would ask
01:13:46the public for help.
01:13:47We decided to play
01:13:50one of the recordings
01:13:51of the anonymous caller
01:13:52who may threaten
01:13:54and cause to Kay Whedon.
01:13:56In March of 1993,
01:13:58we believe there is
01:14:00a connection there
01:14:00to the murder
01:14:01of Kay's mother,
01:14:02Catherine Miller.
01:14:07So the local TV station
01:14:09plays the recording
01:14:10of this threatening call.
01:14:12I don't know what you want
01:14:13and I don't know...
01:14:15I want my money.
01:14:16Well, what's the money for?
01:14:17For drugs.
01:14:18The next time,
01:14:19the shots
01:14:20are not going to be
01:14:21warning shots.
01:14:22If you know
01:14:24who this person is,
01:14:25please give us a call.
01:14:27And it worked.
01:14:29A federal probation officer
01:14:31contacts the news station
01:14:32and he says,
01:14:33I know exactly
01:14:34whose voice that is.
01:14:35In fact,
01:14:35I have him
01:14:35on federal probation.
01:14:37That person
01:14:38who was making
01:14:40those calls
01:14:40was a man
01:14:41by the name
01:14:42of Rex Keller.
01:14:50Once we had
01:14:51Rex Keller identified,
01:14:53we learned
01:14:53he was Cherry Mac's boyfriend.
01:14:56We interviewed him
01:14:57and we confronted him
01:14:58with the calls
01:14:59that were made
01:15:00to Kay Whedon.
01:15:00Keller said
01:15:02that at the time
01:15:03he had been
01:15:04running a convenience store
01:15:06in South Salisbury.
01:15:08He said
01:15:09he didn't know
01:15:10about any phone calls
01:15:12or Catherine Miller
01:15:13or Victor Gunnarsson,
01:15:16but he was on probation
01:15:18and was not looking forward
01:15:19to any more prison time.
01:15:24Rex Keller
01:15:26finally confessed
01:15:27that Elsie Underwood
01:15:29had asked him
01:15:30to make threatening calls
01:15:31about Jason Whedon,
01:15:33the son of Kay.
01:15:36At that point,
01:15:37we had circumstantial evidence,
01:15:39but we needed something
01:15:41even more tangible
01:15:42that would give us
01:15:43probable cause
01:15:44to arrest Elsie Underwood.
01:15:48We just could not prove
01:15:50beyond a reasonable doubt
01:15:51that Elsie Underwood
01:15:53committed these two homicides.
01:15:55He's still living
01:15:56in Salisbury, North Carolina.
01:15:58He's a free man.
01:16:00It was extremely frustrating,
01:16:02to say the least.
01:16:05In October of 1995,
01:16:08almost two years
01:16:10after these homicides occurred,
01:16:13State Bureau of Investigation
01:16:14looked at the trunk mat,
01:16:16evidence of Elsie Underwood's
01:16:19red Monte Carlo,
01:16:21and we didn't get
01:16:23any positive results.
01:16:27But the lab analyst
01:16:29examined both trunk mats
01:16:31one last time.
01:16:33The light hit just right,
01:16:36and then he saw
01:16:37deeply embedded hairs
01:16:39in that trunk mat.
01:16:41He then analyzed those
01:16:45microscopically with known
01:16:47head hairs of Victor Gunnarsson,
01:16:50and it was a match.
01:16:54That gave us the final piece
01:16:56of the puzzle we needed
01:16:58to arrest Elsie Underwood
01:17:00for Victor Gunnarsson's homicide.
01:17:03After Victor Gunnarsson's hair
01:17:09was found in Elsie Underwood's car,
01:17:12we submitted to the grand jury
01:17:14of Watshawker County
01:17:15an indictment
01:17:16charging first-degree murder
01:17:18and first-degree kidnapping.
01:17:20I put together
01:17:26a multi-faceted plan of action
01:17:30to make the arrest
01:17:31involving multiple police agencies.
01:17:35We didn't want Underwood
01:17:36to barricade himself
01:17:37inside his home.
01:17:39We were conducting surveillance.
01:17:41If at some point
01:17:42Underwood left his residence,
01:17:44they were going to stop him
01:17:45in a car.
01:17:48Elsie Underwood
01:17:49was a police officer
01:17:51and he had guns.
01:17:55He was a very dangerous
01:17:57and volatile person.
01:18:00Finally, he left his house.
01:18:03We were holding our breath,
01:18:06waiting to see what would happen.
01:18:19Prosecutor, District Attorney Tom Ruscher,
01:18:28gave the go-ahead
01:18:29to arrest Elsie Underwood
01:18:32for the murder of Victor Gunnarsson.
01:18:36They stopped him
01:18:38in a felony vehicle stop,
01:18:39made the arrest.
01:18:43We took custody of Underwood
01:18:44and brought him back
01:18:45to the Sheriff's Department.
01:18:47I was at school teaching
01:18:49when they called me.
01:18:52Don said,
01:18:53we have arrested him.
01:18:55I was so excited.
01:18:58I just fell out of the chair,
01:19:00crying.
01:19:01I was so relieved.
01:19:09This case also involved
01:19:12a second capital offense.
01:19:15Elsie Underwood murdered
01:19:17Victor Gunnarsson first
01:19:19and then we thanked
01:19:20a letter to Catherine Miller.
01:19:22So we announced
01:19:24that we were seeking
01:19:25the death penalty.
01:19:27It was a tense time.
01:19:29There was no direct evidence
01:19:33that positively pointed
01:19:35to him.
01:19:36Underwood was the killer
01:19:37of Catherine Miller.
01:19:40In 1997,
01:19:42the state put Underwood
01:19:44on trial
01:19:44for the murder
01:19:46of Victor Gunnarsson.
01:19:49We felt that Elsie Underwood
01:19:52could not accept
01:19:53the breakup
01:19:53of the relationship
01:19:54with Kay Whedon
01:19:56and he was insanely jealous
01:19:58of Victor Gunnarsson.
01:20:01He felt that Catherine Miller
01:20:03was an impediment.
01:20:05He felt that Victor Gunnarsson
01:20:07was an impediment.
01:20:09Therefore,
01:20:10they had to be destroyed.
01:20:15We believe that Friday night,
01:20:17December 3rd, 1993,
01:20:20Underwood left his home
01:20:21and went to
01:20:22Victor Gunnarsson's apartment.
01:20:23Gunnarsson was kidnapped
01:20:35and transported
01:20:36in the trunk
01:20:37of a Monte Carlo
01:20:39owned by Mr. Underwood.
01:20:42Victor was bound
01:20:43and taken there
01:20:45against his will.
01:20:48Gunnarsson was probably
01:20:50marked there
01:20:51at the point of a gun
01:20:52and shot.
01:20:58Underwood was a police officer.
01:21:00He had been trained
01:21:01in forensic work.
01:21:03We think he removed
01:21:05all the clothing
01:21:06to eliminate
01:21:07any possible trace evidence.
01:21:12We believe
01:21:14that on December 8th,
01:21:16he murdered Catherine Miller
01:21:18and her house.
01:21:19both victims
01:21:25had been shot
01:21:25twice in the head.
01:21:32L.C. Underwood
01:21:33wanted to be
01:21:34with Kay Whedon.
01:21:35His motive
01:21:36was jealousy
01:21:37and control
01:21:38and that was it.
01:21:40A jury can do
01:21:48whatever they want.
01:21:49You never know.
01:21:51But it did not
01:21:53take them long
01:21:54to come back
01:21:56with the verdicts.
01:21:59Mr. Underwood
01:22:01was found guilty
01:22:02of the first-degree
01:22:03kidnapping
01:22:03of Victor Gunnarsson.
01:22:07Underwood was found guilty
01:22:09of first-degree murder
01:22:10of the death
01:22:12of Victor Gunnarsson.
01:22:24I was never so happy
01:22:25the day that he was convicted.
01:22:27And the sentencing here,
01:22:33the jury came back
01:22:3411 to 1
01:22:35in favor of the death penalty.
01:22:37And because of that
01:22:38one holdout,
01:22:40he was given
01:22:40a life sentence
01:22:41for the first-degree murder.
01:22:44For the first-degree
01:22:45kidnapping,
01:22:46he was sentenced
01:22:46to 40 years
01:22:48to be served
01:22:49consecutively
01:22:50rather than concurrently.
01:22:53Unfortunately,
01:22:54we didn't have
01:22:55any physical evidence
01:22:56against him
01:22:57regarding Catherine Miller.
01:22:59And that's
01:23:00a tough hurdle
01:23:01to overcome.
01:23:04It's not fair,
01:23:05but Elsie was locked up.
01:23:08I hope he suffered.
01:23:09It kept him away from me
01:23:11and I think kept my family
01:23:12out of harm.
01:23:15I spoke to Kay
01:23:17the same day.
01:23:22Kay was crying
01:23:23and I was crying
01:23:24and we were happy
01:23:24at the same time.
01:23:26You know,
01:23:27that,
01:23:28you know,
01:23:30now he is where he belongs.
01:23:31And my mother,
01:23:52who was a working mother
01:23:55and made herself somebody.
01:23:59she was Catherine,
01:24:01she was mom,
01:24:02she never skipped a beat.
01:24:05My mother was beautiful.
01:24:08I always remember Victor
01:24:10as a happy,
01:24:13humble,
01:24:15warm-hearted,
01:24:18genuinely friendly person.
01:24:24Victor was just so kind.
01:24:26and I just admired
01:24:28that so much
01:24:29about him.
01:24:31What an amazing person
01:24:32he was.
01:24:34I love you, brother.
01:24:34I love you, brother.
01:24:34I love you.
01:24:42I love you.
01:24:52I love you, brother.
01:24:55Transcription by CastingWords
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