34: 17-Year-Old Girl Killed While Her Baby Slept Next to Her | The Case of Candace Hiltz

In 2006, 17-year-old Candace Hiltz was found shot to death in the family's home just outside of Canyon City. You first saw rope and nothing real important. And then when I opened up one and looked in it and I saw a bloody socks. It's just like an empty spot knowing that something happened or nothing's ever been done to prove who did it. I'm going to be honest with you, I do definitely believe that they were all involved. Our family has suffered enough, you know. We deserve justice and above anything Candace deserves justice. On August 15th, 2006, Jesse Weaver walked over to his neighbor's house in Fremont County, Colorado. Now this was so that he could check in on his neighbor at the request of her mother. Which actually I have to say neighbor is kind of a funny way to put it because yes, they were neighbors. But living at this home was Jesse's girlfriend, 17-year-old Candace Hiltz, along with her mom Dolores. Now Dolores is the one who had told Jesse to go check on her daughter Candace. Also living there was Jesse and Candace's 11-month-old daughter Paige. So Dolores had called Jesse and asked him to go check in on Candace in Paige because she was out running errands. Jesse immediately headed over. Now normally Dolores didn't leave Candace and the baby home alone. You see Paige unfortunately had been born with hydrocephalus, a disorder that causes build-up of spinal fluid in the brain. And it's something that comes with a lot of complications, health issues, developmental delays, just a very difficult situation to navigate. And it wasn't that Dolores didn't trust Candace to handle being a home alone with Paige on her own. But it was that she always wanted to be there to help support her or help in any way. So that's why she called Jesse that day. I mean she was likely feeling guilty for even stepping out to go run an errand, even if it was just for a short period of time. And she wanted to make sure that her daughter and her granddaughter were okay. So Jesse went over. But when he got to the front door of the Hiltz trailer home, he just stopped dead in his tracks. Right away he knew that something was wrong. It was open. And it had been broken into. So he was scared but his adrenaline kicked in. I mean as far as he knew, his girlfriend and his baby were still inside. So he went in. But what he found once he stepped inside was even worse. As he moved through the trailer looking for Candace in Paige, he saw what looked like a trail of blood leading down the hallway. Straight to Candace's room. That would not only change his life forever, but that would completely unnerve everyone involved in this case. Hey guys, I'm Annie Elise. Go ahead and hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. And if you're listening to the podcast version, make sure you're following along and let's get into it. Now before we go any further, I'm going to warn you today's case is incredibly frustrating. Every time we look into a case, the goal is of course always the same, advocate for the victims and their families. The people closest to them who just want a sliver of peace and justice for their loved ones. But unfortunately today's case isn't one with much peace or justice. When Jesse got to Candace's room, he was very confused because Candace was nowhere to be found. And inside the crib next to her bed was Paige, alone, crying, his 11 month old daughter. And it looked as if she had been there by herself for a while, which certainly wasn't normal. Candace was a very attentive mother, honestly even more attentive than most given Paige's condition. When Paige was first born, doctors had told Candace and Jesse that she likely would only live a few hours, maybe, maybe a few days if she was lucky. But hours turned into days, days turned into months, and before they knew it, she was 11 months old. Her health never really improved. It just became more manageable as part of their daily routine, but she survived. So Candace's family said that she lived every single day with Paige like it could be her last, because the reality was it could be. They never knew when they would wake up if that would be the day that Paige would pass away. All of that to say, Candace hardly ever let Paige out of her sight, even for something as simple as showering or using the bathroom. Only if somebody else was there watching her, so she certainly would have never left her alone willingly. So now the fact that Paige was by herself, it wasn't just strange, it was alarming. And that's not even factoring in the blood in the hallway that Jesse saw. So Jesse scooped Paige out of the crib yelling out for Candace, but there was nothing, no response. And that is when he knew he had to get the hell out of there. He didn't know what had happened, but the door being broken, the front door, as a matter of fact, being broken, and then the blood trail, I mean, that was more than enough to tell him that whatever the situation was, it wasn't good. And for all he knew, whoever had broken in, could still be nearby, watching. So once he got himself and his daughter Paige to safety, Jesse called Dolores, telling her that something was very wrong and that he couldn't find Candace. So Dolores rushed home and she unfortunately walked into that exact same scene that Jesse had just left, the broken door, the blood, Candace gone. But something was different from when Dolores stepped inside. Dolores had seven kids and immediately that motherly instinct, it just that gut feeling, that sixth sense, it kicked in immediately. Where Jesse had seen chaos and confusion when he walked in, Dolores now saw a story. Almost like she could piece together exactly what had happened. She later said, "I saw a shell casing by the fireplace, an obvious bleed out at the beginning of the hallway, and a bloodmarked down the hallway. A blood smear on her bedroom door and the quilt that is usually folded at the end of her bed is gone." Dolores was just taking inventory of everything at that moment, clocking every little thing that was off, and truly a mother's instinct kicking in. And when she took a closer look at Candace's room, she noticed something else. The corner of Candace's green comforter, it was just sticking right out from underneath the bed. And that was weird, the comforter was usually on top of the bed. Now before she could even fully process what she might find, Dolores started pulling that blanket out. And that's when she found Candace, underneath her bed, in that green comforter. Candace's body had been wrapped in her own blanket and then shoved underneath her bed. And Candace had a gunshot wound to her chest, a shotgun wound to her face, and she had been shot five times in the back of the head. This was overkill, yet somehow it gets even more gut wrenching. Candace's head was not wrapped in the blanket, meaning Dolores saw everything. And she later told the media that 75% of Candace's head was gone. Now reading that for the first time, it honestly made my stomach turn. I can barely handle open casket funerals when someone is dressed nicely, hair done, makeup done, and things are done to make them look alive as possible, which I can't even begin to imagine finding your own child like that. It is so devastating to think about. Candace's death was horrifying. It was brutal. It was savage. There was no questioning that. And there really aren't enough words to truly do it justice, what Candace went through. But beyond even that, it was shocking. Candace was a good kid. She was a mother, a girlfriend, a daughter, a friend, everything. And even though she was only 17 years old, she had already accomplished more than some people do in decades. At 17, she was already a junior in college at Brigham Young University. And I mean, being 17 and already that far along is just like wild on its own. But when you also add in the fact that she was raising a medically fragile child, it is incredible to think about. She was accepted into Stanford Law School, and she was actively planning her future. She was so passionate about law, the justice system, and she dreamed of one day becoming a Supreme Court justice. Now, as I mentioned a bit earlier, she came from a big family. She was the youngest of seven. And all of her siblings were much older than her and had already had their own lives and families established, which is why it really was just her, her mother Dolores, and Paige, living in the home at the time. And even though she was the baby of the family, she didn't fit that stereotype at all. She was hardworking, outspoken, and loyal. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind, especially when she felt like something wasn't right. Dolores even said, "There was no gray area for candy. If you were wrong, you were wrong. It didn't matter who you were. Candace would call people out." And she said what she felt, and Dolores even joked that Candace, this very small, petite young girl that she was looking for. would go toe-to-toe with her much older, bigger brothers without hesitation. She just didn't care. She didn't have that kind of fear. She was also incredibly well-liked and just focused on her daughter, focused on school. That was her world. Now, I know what you might be thinking. Okay, well, the front door was broken in, so this sounds like maybe it was a burglary gone wrong that they caught Candace off guard. She maybe fought back. They shot her. They left the baby on harm and then took off. However, the problem was that theory fell apart almost immediately because there wasn't a single thing missing from the home. No drawers were rummaged through, no valuables taken, no cash missing, nothing. So the crime scene pointed to one thing and one thing only. Whoever went into that trailer that day, they went there for Candace. Now, from very early on, Candace's homicide investigation, I got to say, was pretty botched. And in cases like this, it's difficult to tell. Is it a lack of care, a lack of experience? Maybe a little bit of both. But after law enforcement arrived, they had asked Dolores to leave the trailer since it was now an active crime scene that needed to be processed, which, okay, totally makes sense. On paper, that's exactly what should happen when a teenager has been brutally murdered inside her own home. But then, after three days, Dolores was told that she could return to the house. But when she got there and saw how the investigators had left it, she was literally too stunned to speak. And I think that you're about to feel the exact same way when I break this down for you. Because first of all, the front and back doors were just hanging wide open, not unlocked, open. And there wasn't a single thing indicating that the home had ever been secured as a proper crime scene. No tape, no barriers, nothing. Just looked like anybody could walk in and out at any given time. And again, I know what you might be thinking here. Okay, Annie, well, maybe there was crime scene tape that was up at one point. And it had been taken down when they told Dolores that she could return. Maybe it just wasn't considered an active crime scene anymore. The problem with that is that what Dolores found next honestly makes it feel like the scene was never handled with that level of care in the first place. Because all throughout the house, there were items left behind that anyone would assume were critical evidence. For example, the bloody blanket that Candace had been wrapped in and then shoved under her bed, it was just lying there, just left there on the floor. There were also bloody towels, which Candace's family believed were likely used by the perpetrator. Could have DNA, obviously, right? And not to be too graphic, but after being shot in the face with a shot gun, Candace obviously wasn't the one going to the bathroom to try to grab towels and clean anything up or try to put pressure on a wound. So it only made sense that whoever killed her is the one who used these towels after the fact. Even the shirt that Candace had been wearing when she was murdered was still there at the house. Now all three of those items, the shirt, the towels, the blanket, those could have easily contained the killer's DNA, fingerprints, hair strands, something, and based on the blood trail that was in the hallway, Candace's body was likely dragged or carried into the bedroom, which means that the killer would have had to touch her, touch her clothing, handle the blanket. So it just doesn't make sense. And look, I get it, I'm not a forensic expert, not by any stretch, but even at a basic level. How are those things not collected? Even if they believed that the killer wore gloves, wouldn't he still take those items? Test them and see? Maybe if there were defensive wounds at all or maybe there was a cut like they could have dropped their blood on there. Who knows? I mean, you want to check everything, right? It's honestly mind-blowing. But that wasn't everything that these investigators left behind. Because what they left behind next, it might be the most unbelievable part of this entire case. It turns out investigators had also left behind evidence from the murder weapon itself. In addition to the bloody clothing and the towels, there were shotgun shells just left on the ground by the fireplace in the living room. Another shotgun shell was also found inside Paige's crib, which remember Paige was in her crib when Jessie found her. So I don't think that I need to go on a whole like tangent about why shell casings from the murder weapon then being left behind makes absolutely no sense, even on a shell casing, fingerprint. You have to load the gun, right? Like, come on. And throughout this case, you'll see that Dolores had to really do the absolute best that she could with what little she had. And coming face to face with all of that evidence, that was one of those moments. At the time of Candace's death, one of her brothers Jonathan was also in college, and ironically, he was taking a forensics class. So when Dolores saw everything that had been left behind, the two of them kind of put on their own detective hats working together. They were very careful not to contaminate anything or touch anything directly. They didn't want to screw up the scene, contaminate it any further than it already had been. I mean, between Dolores and Jessie being inside the house when Candace was first found, and however many investigators had walked through over the course of three days, the scene was already compromised. That was the truth of it. Not to mention, the doors had been left wide open. So anyone, any lucky Lou could have walked in and checked things out or changed things or collected things. And I'm not saying that someone did that, but there was no way to know because there were no cameras, no security, nothing. So Dolores and Jonathan put on rubber gloves and they took photos of everything. Then they labeled them and they placed everything into evidence bags. Again, just doing the best that they could do with the situation that they were handed. Then they took everything down to the police station and essentially said, "What is this? Why were we told that the scene had been processed when some of the most critical evidence was still sitting inside the house?" And allegedly, investigators had collected some evidence. I mean, according to Dolores, they took about 15 items, all of which fits in two envelopes, along with a piece of wall paneling and a section of the carpet. But that was it. Now that information comes from Dolores, okay? So I wasn't able to find any official documentation confirming or denying it or even listing what those items were, but it really does make you wonder, what were those 15 items, if not the shell casings or the items that were covered in Candace's blood. And this visit to the police station, it ends up being pretty important in the bigger picture of this case. There's one name that keeps coming up and that's Deputy Robert Dodd. He was working for Fremont County at the time and he was heavily involved in the investigation. When Dolores got to the station, she specifically had asked to speak with Deputy Dodd. She wanted to look him in the eye and ask why these decisions had been made, why had stuff been left behind. But get this, the person at the front desk went into the back for a moment, then came back out and told her that Deputy Dodd didn't want to speak with her. That he was busy. Which busy? What could possibly make you so busy that evidence in a brutal homicide isn't your top priority? I get it maybe if he didn't want to talk to the family because he's trying to investigate the case and it's a distraction and he's like, I can't share anything with you, but no, they weren't there to just talk to him. They were there to deliver evidence and it's like he didn't even want to hear it. And as if that wasn't enough, they sent out a different deputy to speak with her, knowing full well that she had asked for Deputy Dodd, the one actually assigned to the case. Now, not to get sidetracked, but it honestly feels like one of those situations where there's like this angry customer and nobody wants to deal with it, so they just send somebody else out instead, except this obviously isn't retail and this isn't about a coupon not working or a deal or mispriced thing, whatever. This is a mother trying to understand what happened to her 17 year old daughter. The source doesn't mention who the deputy was that came out, but honestly, I mean, it doesn't even matter what matters is that it was not who Dolores asked for and it wasn't someone even directly involved in Candace's case. So Dolores tried to still explain everything to this new deputy or person, why the evidence mattered, why this was serious, why she needed answers, even if they could just spare a few minutes, but the officer wasn't having it. He told her they weren't coming out and they weren't interested in the evidence that she had brought in, which what? I mean, so frustrating and honestly strange, but it gets even weirder too, because not long after all of this went down and they had this interaction, a deputy showed up at Dolores's front door with a search warrant demanding that she turn over the evidence. The very evidence she already tried to hand deliver. So Dolores is just standing there like, uh, okay, I was literally just at the station begging you to take this and now you're here acting like I'd been hiding it, like I'm the one interfering with the investigation. What is going on here? Now with strangers all over the place. of this is already. There is a lot more to this case that we've got it get into. We have barely scratched the surface here. I mentioned earlier that I wasn't sure whether this investigation was botched because of a lack of care or a lack of experience, but honestly, there's also a third possibility. Because from the very beginning, within the first few hours and days, investigators had already decided who they thought the suspect was. They believed that the person responsible, the person who planned all of this and executed it and killed Candace was one of her older brothers Jimmy. Dolora said that after Candace's body was found, she was brought in for an interview that lasted for around four hours, and apparently almost all of that entire time was spent talking about Jimmy. Detectives were asking who he was associated with, what he was doing, questions about his life, which really raises the question, how did they zero in on Jimmy so quickly? Well, to answer that, all I can say is that Jimmy was a complicated person. He had been struggling with serious psychological issues for a long time. His mental state had deteriorated to the point where he had essentially cut himself off from everyone. He no longer spoke to his siblings, he had divorced his wife, he didn't see his kids. Dolora said that even after Jimmy had distanced himself from the family, she still tried to be there for him though. But his mental illness, it was severe and it was untreated. It wasn't something that was just going to get better on its own. He became increasingly paranoid and convinced that the reality around him wasn't real at all. Doloris described his mental state by saying, quote, "He thinks I am not his mother and that some other woman has replaced me." Now, despite all of that, Doloris was still trying. In the time leading up to Candace's death, Jimmy was homeless. He was living in a tent in the woods not far behind their trailer. Now, I guess Doloris knew that he wouldn't come to the house if anyone was home. So she left him a butter knife under one of the front steps so that he could pop open the front door if he wanted to get inside. She also kept his favorite foods and water in the house just in case, just waiting for him to come in and then grab them when nobody was around and go back to his tent. That was really their life, their cycle. She would let him come in if nobody was home. He'd grab whatever he needed because she still wanted to take care of him and then he would go back out to his tent. But to make matters worse, Jimmy disappeared almost immediately after Candace was murdered. He wasn't in that tent. He was nowhere to be found. So could Jimmy have run because he killed Candace and he didn't want to get caught? Yes, sure. That's a possibility. Could he have also run simply because he was scared maybe and he was paranoid and he heard sirens and saw officers swarming the area and got spooked? Possibly. I don't know. Honestly, either one seems possible. But here's why detectives honed in on Jimmy from day one. Apparently, at the time of Candace's death and even before it, Jimmy was already a suspect in a string of local break-ins. So for whatever reason, investigators seemed to believe that Jimmy was responsible not only for those break-ins, but for Candace's murder as well. So of course, I wanted to look more closely at the family dynamic. Everybody's relationships, involvement, things like that. I mean, did Candace and Jimmy get along? Was there something happening behind the scenes? Was there contention? Was there toxicity? And the answer? It's pretty layered if I'm going to be real with you. As soon as Candace's body had been found, there was someone in the family pointing the finger at Jimmy, saying that he was the one who killed her. And that person? Well, it was her mother Dolores herself. But very quickly, she did a full 180 and she totally changed her position. Dolores went from blaming Jimmy to then being adamant that she did not believe that he was responsible for Candace's murder. And she had a few reasons for that. First, she said that he didn't have access to the multiple guns that had been used to kill Candace. Then there was the fact that according to Dolores, Jimmy wasn't violent, and he had no reason or motive to kill her. But some people strongly disagreed with that, especially the part about him not being violent. I mentioned that Jimmy had separated from his ex-wife Jessica, right? Well, Jessica had a lot to say about him, and none of it was good. Jessica said that about a month before Candace was murdered, she and Jimmy had split for good because he was allegedly being physically abusive toward her. She also claimed that it wasn't just his mental illness, making his behavior worse. According to her, Jimmy was also heavily into drugs, and he had been, since he was 16 years old. Which just for context, he was 28 years old when Candace was killed. So, if anything, the drugs certainly could have made his mental illness even worse, especially for prolonged use of 12 years. Jessica also said that there were times when he would get high and he would go into what she described as a drug-induced mania, that he would act differently, he would hallucinate, he would even call himself the devil. Now, here at Ten To Life, and my other true crime podcast, seriously, we believe women. I believe women, we believe women. If someone says that they were abused, they were abused, if somebody says that they were sexually assaulted, they were sexually assaulted. But I also know that there may be at least one person out there thinking, you know, well that's his ex, maybe she just didn't like him, maybe she wanted to make him look badly, maybe she hated him and had resentment towards him. So, if that's what you're thinking, let me just push back on that a little bit. Jessica wasn't the only person who described Jimmy as scary or violent. There was someone else who also had a first hand run in with him too. Jesse. Apparently, there was more than one time that Jesse, which remember was Candice's boyfriend, felt threatened by Jimmy. But in the most recent incident, Jesse had stopped by the trailer to check on Candice in page, his normal routine, and all of the sudden when he got there, according to Jesse, Jimmy suddenly showed up out of nowhere with a knife, and he tried to stab him. Now, Jesse said that nothing had happened between the two of them. There wasn't an argument, there wasn't any sort of confrontation, nothing. Jimmy just snapped. Luckily, Jesse dodged the knife, and then Jimmy apparently just left and went on his way, but he was scared by the encounter. And the timing of all of that, that is very important because all of that happened the day before Candice was killed. Now, obviously, a history of violence alone isn't enough to arrest or convict someone. One of the biggest reasons that Dolores didn't believe that Jimmy was the killer was because she said he didn't have access to the guns that were used to kill Candice. And remember, if he did have that encounter with Jesse the day before, that was allegedly with a knife, not a gun. However, that whole point about him not having access to guns, it has also been debated. You know how he mentioned that Jimmy was a suspect in all of those other local strings of break-ins, even before Candice's murder? Well, a few of the items that the local residents had reported as missing from their properties included a 410 shotgun, a 22 caliber pistol, 200 bullets, two axes, work gloves, and a knife. All very interesting things to steal. If I were going to the trouble of breaking into somebody's house, I'd probably be going straight for cash, maybe some jewelry, maybe even electronics. I don't know, that's just me, but typically when we hear about burglaries, robberies even, robberies gone wrong, people are after money. It's for a financial gain, not necessarily to steal weapons. So that's a little unnerving. Like I mentioned earlier, Candice's official autopsy report showed that she was shot in the face with a shotgun, a 410 shotgun to be exact, and the five shots to the back of her head, they were from a 22 caliber pistol. The shot to her chest came from a 45 cult, which I have to say though, was not listed among the stolen items from local residents. So if Jimmy hypothetically was the person committing those burglaries, there still is that 45 cult that was unaccounted for. It would have had to come from somewhere else. Nobody had listed that as a stolen weapon. But here's also where I go back to the shell casing of it all. And look, I am not an expert when it comes to guns, but based on past cases that I have reported on, it's my understanding and feel free to school me and correct me in the comments. It's my understanding that you can identify if you have a shell casing, what gun it was fired from. And you can do different ballistic tests. You can do different testing to not only see if there's fingerprints, obviously on the casings, but like what kind of weapon was it fired through? What kind of weapon does it go to? So remember, Dolores found all those shell casings sprinkled at the house still that had not been collected. Like it just seems like they're very clearly could have been a checks and balances type situation as they were going through the evidence here so that there wasn't so much speculation and theorizing. And look, sure, just because Candace was shot with the same type of weapons that had recently been stolen, it doesn't automatically mean that Jimmy was the one who stole them, or used them to kill her. It could have certainly been somebody else. However, when investigators searched Jimmy's tent, they did find the work gloves and the knife that had been reported missing from those homes. And in the woods, not very far from the tent, they also found the shotgun. And it was clear that someone, possibly Jimmy, had tried to destroy the shotgun with an axe. And remember, two axes had been stolen. So I think that that's really interesting because now it's like you have this axe that you didn't choose to use as a weapon, but you're using it potentially to destroy a weapon. So looking at all of that, I certainly can understand why the investigators identified Jimmy as a possible suspect. But that still doesn't excuse the sloppy detective work. I mean, even if Jimmy was the killer, they still would have needed real evidence to arrest him and take him to trial. So leaving evidence behind in the home and contaminating the crime scene, it still makes absolutely no sense. Either way, by this point, Jimmy had fled. And investigators didn't believe that he was just running for no reason. So a full blown manhunt got underway. It only took three days to find him, and he was camping nearby. When he was found, he was arrested, and he was charged with first degree and second degree burglary, criminal trespassing, theft, and criminal mischief. And just take a second to think about those charges for a minute, because none of them sound like murder charges because they weren't. Jimmy was not being charged with Candace's murder. He was only being charged in connection with the local burglaries that he had already been suspected of. So then why did the investigators let Dolores back into the trailer after just three days once Jimmy had been arrested, as though he had been charged with Candace's murder and they didn't need to secure the scene anymore. As if the case was basically wrapped, it wasn't. Now personally, I think that there was a lack of care in Candace's case from the jump, from the very beginning. I think that investigators had already decided, you know, Jimmy probably did it. I don't think that they cared enough to properly preserve or collect the evidence. And I think they just were moving forward with what they deemed as the correct narrative. But look, that's just my personal opinion. And you might be thinking, you know, jeez Annie, you're going pretty hard on these investigators right now. But like I said, we are still just at the tip of the iceberg in this case. And I promise, by the end of this episode, you are going to be every bit as frustrated as I am. So Jimmy was arrested and he had that laundry list of charges, but none of which had anything to do with Candace's murder. Because of his deteriorating mental state, he and his legal team pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. And in 2008, he was committed to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo. The one and only suspect in Candace's case was placed in an institution. And then that was that. And when I say one and only, I truly mean it because I tried to look into whether anyone else was ever scrutinized as heavily as Jimmy. And honestly, I could not find a single person. Early on in the case, I was pretty suspicious of Jesse. I'll be honest. I mean, I wasn't necessarily suspicious of him, but I did wonder if maybe he was ever considered a suspect. I mean, he was Candace's boyfriend after all. And the child of his was left unharmed, which statistically, boyfriends and husbands are some of the first people that the investigators will look at in cases like this one. Not to mention, he lived nearby. He knew their routines. He knew that Dolores was gone that day. And he would have had a reason to leave his daughter page alive, but from everything that I could find, he was never seriously treated as a suspect. Or at least there's nothing out there that suggests that he was. I couldn't even find a photo of him. So with Jimmy arrested and placed in a facility, Candace's case went completely cold. Because remember, there were no murder charges. And even with all of the evidence pointing toward Jimmy, Dolores still did not believe that he was the one responsible for Candace's death. Now, was she in denial? Was the idea that one of her children could have killed her other child? It would just too much for her to process? Or was she overwhelmed with the guilt for not being home and just in deep grief, unable to see what might have been right in front of her? Possibly. That's something that you'll have to decide for yourself, especially as we keep going. Because if Dolores was just in denial, she stayed there. Four years, she continued advocating for Candace, convinced that something much more sinister was at play and that her daughter's killer was still out there. Now, everything that I'm about to go over, it comes from media reports or statements made by Dolores herself. I wasn't able to find a single court document that confirmed or denied these claims. So just keep that in mind as we go through this. Dolores believes that Candace wasn't killed by Jimmy, but rather by deputies from the Freemont County Sheriff's Office, who then took it upon themselves to frame Jimmy for it. Now, I know that that is a bold claim littered in conspiracy, but don't worry, I'm going to break it all down, okay? Dolores ties this theory back to an incident on August 10, 2006. Just five days before Candace was murdered. Deputy Dodd, from the Freemont County Sheriff's Office, showed up at the family's trailer looking for Jimmy. Now, at that point, Jimmy was already being investigated for trespassing and for burglary, which is why Deputy Dodd was there. According to Dolores, she told him the truth. The Jimmy wasn't there. He didn't live there. And if they wanted to find him, they needed to go check the woods. He lived out there. He lived in a tent. And it wasn't her being uncooperative. She just genuinely didn't know where Jimmy was at any given time. Remember, he would only come to the house if nobody was there. But apparently the deputy, deputy Dodd, he didn't like that answer. So he started grilling her. Now Candace was also home that day. And she did not like the way that deputy Dodd was speaking to her mother. And remember, Candace was feisty. She didn't back down. She stood up for what she believed was right, no matter who it was, even standing up to her own older brothers at times. And she felt like this officer was being aggressive for no reason. So Candace allegedly got in his face and told him he wasn't going to talk to her mother like that. And as you can imagine, the deputy did not take too kindly to this 17 year old girl challenging him. According to Dolores, deputy Dodd told Candace, you know, you need to calm down, let the adults talk or I'm going to arrest you. And Candace being the brave ballbuster she was, she just held out her wrist in like the handcuff position and said, okay, go ahead, arrest me. But she warned him that if he did, she would tell people that she had seen him going around town collecting suspicious envelopes from local drug dealers. Which this is where it gets really interesting because she's implying that he's on the take, that he's working with drug dealers and he's getting kickbacks and all these things. And according to Dolores, once Candace made that allegation, it shut him up. She claimed he didn't deny it either. He didn't push back. He didn't get angry. He didn't raise his voice. He just left. Now I want to be very clear. This is all alleged. Okay. Not only speaking to you listeners, but also to you, Fremont County. This is all alleged. Don't come after me for saying one of your deputies allegedly might have been smuggling drugs or on the take with money or murdering teenagers alleged. Now like I said, that was on the 10th. So sometime after that encounter, but before Candace was murdered, the family dog, Jacks, went missing. And really, Jacks was Candace's dog. So understandably, I mean, when Jacks was missing, she was completely heartbroken, devastated. They lived near the woods after also. At first, there was the thought that maybe a wild animal got him. Maybe he wandered off. I mean, it's sad, but it would make sense. But then, investigators found Jacks. They found him when they were searching for Jimmy after Candace's death. And they came across the dog in the woods. And what they found made it very clear that this was not some random animal attack. Because Jacks had been shot with a 22 caliber gun. And his remains were found not far from where Jimmy had been living in his tent. Now, despite that, Dolores does not believe that Jimmy killed the dog. She believes that the deputies noticed the dog during that earlier encounter at the house. And they got rid of it to make entering the home much easier later on. In her view, it would eliminate the risk of barking, attacking, alerting the neighbors, and placing the dog near Jimmy's campsite would also help to frame him. So in other words, she believes that it was all part of a larger setup to pin Candace's murder on Jimmy. And I'll be honest, when I first heard all of this, I was kind of like, I don't know. That kind of feels like a stretch, especially considering the main person advocating for Jimmy's innocence was his own mother. I was like, "Ugh, does this make sense?" And look, I'm not saying that Dolores is about to. person or trying to cover anything up. But sometimes, it is hard to accept the worst when it comes to your own family. But either way, Candace's case remained cold for years. And you have to think too, if they were so hell-bent on Jimmy and there was never another suspect, why never charge him with the murder? Was there not enough evidence because he was not the guy? In the meantime, Dolores never stopped speaking out, never stopped pushing for justice, never stopped asking for the case to be reopened and looked out with fresh eyes. Then, on Thanksgiving day in 2012, Paige sadly passed away. She was seven years old. Now, like I mentioned earlier, from the moment that she was born, her prognosis was uncertain. But despite everything, she lived for seven years. It was incredible. Dolores said that Paige couldn't walk or talk, but she could smile, and that that was everything. Which, as heartbreaking as it was for her to lose Paige, Dolores took comfort in believing that Candace and Paige were finally reunited. And I truly cannot imagine that kind of pain. I mean, losing your child, then losing your grand child just a few years later, it is the worst. Then, fast forward, and ten years after Candace's death, there was a massive development in the case, more like breaking news. Because what we're about to get into next is something that I truly never saw coming. On December 17, 2016, a man named Rick Ratzleff bought a storage unit in Cannon City, Colorado. He purchased it at auction for $50. Everything inside included. If you've ever seen those shows like storage wars, it's like once these storage units go unattended to for so long, you have the option to buy it at auction, and you get everything inside. Some people end up finding like treasure or like valuable things, things like that. And so he got it for $50, and he was able to keep everything inside. Now, Rick said that the weather that day was terrible. Bad enough that under normal circumstances, he would have probably just stayed home. But for some reason, he had a gut feeling that everything would be fine, that he needed to go. Now, I don't know his exact reasoning for all of this, but a lot of people do buy storage units like this, as I mentioned, hoping to find antiques or valuables. So then you can flip a profit for it. You spend $50, and if you're lucky, you can turn that into a few hundred or maybe even more. So I would imagine that that's what he was thinking and why he's like, "Eh, even though it's raining and the weather sucks like I'm gonna go." So when Rick got inside, it was pretty typical at first. Old furniture, kids toys, random clutter. But as he kept digging, he started finding things that were oddly specific, like 15 red and blue emergency lights from old police cars, police uniforms, boxes of old court documents, even an old police name tag. Interesting finds. I mean, the kind of stuff that collectors would probably pay good money for. But then it took a turn. Rick found a rope that appeared to have blood on it, also an axe. Then a manila envelope containing blood stained socks with the word "evidence" written across it. And that name tag that was found inside, it read deputy "Dodd." It turned out that this storage unit belonged to deputy Robert Dodd. And after he stopped paying the bill, it was auctioned off, eventually ending up in Rick's hands. Now right away, Rick got a bad feeling. I mean, it's one thing to store old uniforms or police memorabilia, but blood stained evidence? That is an entirely different story. In no world should evidence from any case be sitting in a storage unit. First I saw rope and nothing real important. And then when I opened up one and looked in it and I saw the bloody socks, I knew it was bad then. And then I got a real eerie feeling. You know, I started, then I found the axe and then it started getting more serious with the shell casing. And I knew it wasn't good. Not knowing what else to do, Rick called the local police. And honestly, even he knew that that might not be the best move given what he had just found. But who else was he supposed to call? And after making this call almost immediately, it felt like a mistake. The sheriff at the time, sheriff Jim Biker, along with deputy Dodd himself, warned Rick not to go public with what he had found. And this was just during the initial phone call. So I mean straight away, these red flags, they were flying. And thank God, Rick is actually a good human being because he wasn't just about to leave this in the hands of these officers to handle it and hush them down and like be quiet. So he stayed at the storage unit while this sheriff and a commander named Jeff Worley arrived so that they could see what he had found. And not only did he stay, but he watched them very closely. And he also recorded them. I went up there, I had my ex-wife record in there. And just the panic he had, he was sweating pretty hard and nervous. Deer in the headlight look, but at the same time trying to butter me up. No, I just went along with it. Oh, man, I don't, this is odd. Rick makes me enrope a lot, but he said we could take that and look at all this stuff. I just, I don't know if we say her and do it up here right now. How do you want me to go about it? You're not supposed to take evidence on me. That was kind of discerning. Well, can I ask you this? It's here. Okay, if we put, if you give me a truce here for your other complaints against us, would you be willing to let us go through it all? Yeah. So like you just heard in that recording, it sounds like the other officer and the sheriff are taking it seriously, or at least they are acting like they are. And this is what Rick says happened next. He stepped outside to talk about what they would do, how they would handle this. And they're out there a little bit, came back in and said, what we're going to do is call CBI. And I want you to leave this locker open, just close the door, don't lock it. And I will, I will post an officer here to watch it until CBI can come and pick up all the evidence. Let me let us get our head together because it's kind of, yeah, well, thanks for giving us time. So we drove away in about 10 minutes later he had called and he wanted to know the code to the gate to get out. She got a key in a code. So I was like, well, that's weird. I gave him the code and he's like, okay, thanks. And you know, hung up. I told my ex-wife I said they didn't have an officer there and they didn't have CBI come that quick from Plublo. He went in there, took everything I told her. So we immediately drove right back up there and we went in the gate and went to the unit. I opened up the door and everything was turned upside down in there and the evidence was gone. Now the sheriff later held a small press conference about all of this claiming that they were simply following instructions from CBI, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Briefly looked at the items that remained in the storage unit and I immediately contacted the car of your investigations regarding the matter. With their consultation and cooperation they asked myself to kept in order to catalog and to photograph the items that were in the unit and to collect them and secure them and bring them to the sheriff's office to place in our evidence lockers. On January 3rd they agreed and sent two agents to meet me at the sheriff's office and I turned the entire matter over to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for further investigation. As a result of that investigation we have placed Lieutenant Robert Dodd with the criminal kind of sheriff's office on routine administrative leave pending the outcome of that investigation and because it's active as you all understand until they're able to complete their investigation we will not be releasing any further information until they've had a chance to do that. Now what's even crazier in all of this and about this storage unit and honestly the aftermath in general is how law enforcement handled things afterward. At one point Rick said the deputy Dodd's family actually reached out to him trying to casually buy the unit and everything inside of it back from him which obviously he denied. Then there was another moment in all of this where Rick says that the sheriff approached him with what he described as an ominous warning except to Rick it didn't feel like a warning at all. It fell like a threat. Yeah he called me and you know said that I heard you got a unit with things in it, evidence and I said yeah I kind of explained a few items to him and and he said it was a case that he knew and that my life could be in danger you know kind of made it like a kind of like a threat that needed to give him everything in there that pertained to the murder case. The one positive thing in all of this if you can even call it that was that Deputy Dodd was placed on leave. So it's not like people were continuing to try and cover for this guy or like help him get a leg up in any regard. But what does this mean for Candace's case? That question is just as layered and complicated as everything else in this story. Dolores believes that this discovery proves what she had been saying all along. The Deputy Dodd killed Candace after she threatened to expose his alleged dealings with the local drug dealers. I mean is it a coincidence that potential evidence from Candace's case ended up sitting in Deputy Dodd's storage unit? If Jimmy had actually killed Candace and investigators were simply lazy or negligent, why go through all the trouble of removing evidence and storing it privately? Why not just leave it in an evidence locker somewhere collecting dust never to be revisited? Unless there was concern that the case could be reopened and that the evidence would tell a very different story than what had been presented all those years earlier. In April 2017, Robert Dodd retired and just one month later, he and his family moved out of state. Now my guess, he was probably hoping that things would quiet down, that the attention would start to fade. But it didn't. Not at all. Because shortly after relocating to Texas, on May 4, 2017, he was charged with two counts of second degree official misconduct, along with abuse of public records for altering Candace's case file after learning that the storage unit had been sold. A few weeks later, on May 17, even more came to light. That day, an employee from Phantom Landfill in Penrose contacted Rick, the same Rick who had purchased that storage unit, and he told him that he needed help, that it was urgent. The employee had seen Rick on TV speaking about Deputy Dodd and the potential corruption in Fremont County. So Rick, along with a couple of reporters, went out to this landfill, and what they found there was just as shocking as the storage unit. The employee had discovered what appeared to be piles of police evidence, not just from Candace's case, but from multiple different investigations. There was also a VHS tape of a sexual assault interrogation, paperwork from a criminal case, a computer, a box labeled F-C-S-O, Fremont County Sheriff's Office, and they were able to trace all of this back to a single dumpster, a dumpster from Deputy Robert Dodd's residence. I mean, this guy just can't get a fucking clue, right? I mean, first you get caught with this shit in the storage unit, then you're moving and you put it in a dumpster like, get a grip, aren't you a cop? Are you a freaking cop like you don't know better? Now it's believed that the items were thrown away during his quick move from Colorado to Texas, and regardless of when exactly that happened, it raised a huge question, right? Candace's case wasn't the only one that he had taken evidence from. He had hoarded it, he had kept it, and then tried to dispose of it before moving. And it had names like of the victims and everything on the tapes. General manager tells us this came from Robert Dodd's house. Why does this guy have this stuff in his home? So clearly, this wasn't isolated. He had evidence from multiple cases just sitting there in his home. At best, being contaminated and at worst, being intentionally hidden or destroyed. In 2018, Deputy Dodd went to trial. And if you're not already angry, your probably will be at this point now, because in the end, he was found guilty of abuse of public records, which is a misdemeanor, and then also second degree official misconduct, which his sentence for it, okay, get this, get ready. 15 days, 15 days in jail, and he didn't even serve those days. His attorney filed an appeal and he avoided jail time altogether. That he would destroy evidence that he would tamper with evidence, that the whole thing is just sickening. I was pretty upset. I was kind of furious. I'm not going to lie that really upset me. I don't think that's fair. I mean, what kind of message does that send? That you can tamper with evidence, hide it, throw it away, and face virtually no consequences. It's honestly unbelievable. And through all of this, Candice's case, it remains unsolved to this day. Remember, Jimmy was institutionalized for unrelated charges, and whether or not Deputy Dodd was directly involved in Candice's murder. I mean, we don't know, but it certainly seems like he played a role in ensuring that the case might never be solved. While researching, I also did come across rumors that Deputy Dodd is now working as a private investigator in Houston. But to be clear, those are just rumors. I couldn't find anything that definitively confirmed or denied it. But still, the thought alone is unsettling, almost as unsettling as Casey Anthony getting into like the advocacy business. So that leaves us with now a really unfortunate ending, no resolution, no justice here, no sense of closure, no peace for Candice's family, no one has been held accountable for her murder, and no one has been fully held accountable for the way that her case was handled. Nothing. I don't know, it infuriates me, but I am curious to know where you all land on this. Do you think that Jimmy had a mental break and he killed his own sister, Candice, and that everything that followed was just a deeply flawed investigation? Or do you think that Deputy Dodd was hiding something, that maybe he was involved and he framed Jimmy and then tried to bury the evidence before it could come back on him? I don't know. I mean, I go back and forth, honestly. There's no question that there was certainly corruption and sloppiness. I think that much is clear. Evidence should never, ever end up in someone's home or storage locker. But does the evidence found in Deputy Dodd's possession actually prove that he was Candice's killer? Because if the argument is simply, you know, he had evidence, therefore he's guilty, then wouldn't that also implicate him in every other case that was tied to the evidence that was found in his home and the landfill? I don't know. And maybe he was involved in those. Who the heck knows? So definitely let me know what you think. This is a wild one and I am so curious to know where you land on it. So thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for hearing Candice's story today. And please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Before you head out, if you're watching this on YouTube, please don't forget, give this a quick like, press the subscribe button, share it on your social media or with a friend of yours who's into true crime as well, because it definitely is a complex case that has a lot of different opinions out there. 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