Colorado Mom Brutally Murdered Right Before Christmas

I don't think that's an emergency, but this feels really weird. 151, send medical and 110. I need to 4-centric email down in the garage. My wife isn't responding to text messages or phone calls. A biochemical engineer working in living in Broomefield, Colorado. Kristiel Krueg is the full package, bright, beautiful, and devoted to her family. On October 2nd, 2023, the story of Kristiel's idyllic life takes an unexpected turn. When she receives a message from a man, she hasn't seen in 20 years. I just have to know where, just pop that stuff. Okay, so this is the first time I see this violent. The sender says his name is Anthony, a moniker for Kristiel's long-time ex, Jack Anthony Holland. She dated him prior to a relationship with me, so that ended sometime before summer of 2001. That's been Kristiel and I started dating. She and I got married in 2007. Fast forward, still married. He had reached out to her of the Facebook wanted to connect, and she was very open about that with me at the time that he had reached out. She accepted a friend request. It was random, and maybe a little strange, but not too concerning, until the sender became relentless. It's been almost every day since I've gotten a few days break. And it's always been text messages? Any emails? Any emails? Any strange emails on a very normal time, text messages, and too. Then he started saying some creepy things, some lyrics talking about romantic movies. She shut it down, she walked him. I don't know if he walked her and kind of went away. Kristiel tells him she isn't interested in reconnecting beyond a friend request. She's 43 years old now, a mother of three, and someone's wife. Kristiel's husband, Daniel Krueg, works a stable government job at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and spends time with his family on the weekends. The Krueg's had been married for nearly two decades, and up until the messages started pouring in, Anthony, wasn't on their radar. I don't know what kind of delusion that this is, but it's one of the things we're just like, I'm not dealing with the pages, who can ever be reasoned with. "Is that essential?" "Yeah, so I mean not responding as late as me responding, I feel like we go completely opposite direction." But her rejection isn't enough. In fact, it may have made things worse. The messages become threatening and sexually aggressive. Soon, Kristiel begins receiving an influx of sexually explicit photos from random men, and it's then that she realizes the stalker has placed an online ad for sex listing her phone number. Now, her devices are flooded with emails and messages. Kristiel's stalker seems to be obsessed, not just with her, but also with her husband, Daniel Krueg. Many of the messages demeaned Daniel, calling him a "mooser" and claiming he leads Kristiel feeling unsatisfied. The stalker seems fixated on getting Daniel out of the picture. "Sure, she has mentioned to you that she and I are going through a rough patch, kind of on the rocks, so probably didn't seem that pressing until at once." "Sure, he is in the process of separating, getting divorced, or working through things, to be determined." Kristiel doesn't mention her troubled relationship to police, but she does tell them she's concerned for her family's safety. "And I don't think he's going to keep, I think he's going to keep coming, especially after this last interaction, or like you're pretty delusional and you're coming out again at the woodworks and now going above and beyond to really find me." "Hey, how's it going?" The Krueg's believe the stalker has attempted his first physical contact with Kristiel, when Daniel Krueg sees a male figure running through their yard. "I watched the garage door closing, not necessarily closed." "Okay, my wife drove that point home. I ran up to the store, I came back about 454.55. As I came down, the door was open." "The figure one or the third?" "The double bay door." "So as I hold in, I saw someone, I think it was a guy, but it was so fast." "Blue jeans, grey shirt, run out, jump over my gate, and take off that way." "Got it, okay." "I care less about following him than getting inside and checking on my kids." "Yeah, if you have like a ring doorbell or any other cameras or anything." "I have a nest doorbell where you're checking the camera, nothing on it." "Got it, okay." Inside the garage, the Krueg's bikes, tools, and other valuables are all accounted for, leaving police to speculate that the trespassor's motives might have been personal. "I want to go over on that side because of the hill, that side of the fence is easy to jump." "Right, okay, yeah, it doesn't feel this high." "Okay, and did you look back here, nothing got dropped?" "Correct, I'm going to go over there." "I walked out of it all around the house, nothing was dropped, but I could find all of the gates on the windows, the windows wells, they were all right in relation to it." "Got it, okay." "Is that spare key just for the garage door to get in?" "It's the same key for front doors, okay." "When you can, I'm probably. " "I'm going home to each other." "Yeah, just to be safe, I know those aren't cheap, but just to be on the same side." "It'd be very brazen to come back like tonight or something and just walk into a house, so I don't think that's going to happen, but you never know, people are getting crazy or crazy stuff." "Yeah." The crew's worried the stalker might have been rehearsing a home invasion, especially after Kristiel receives a disturbing message that tells investigators the stalker's behavior is only escalating. In late October, the stalker sends Kristiel a picture of her husband, Daniel Krug, outside his vehicle. "That picture that day, there's snow on the ground. My husband had only gone into work on that Tuesday for, healthy, so like it's her first snow, and he had only gone in that day, not the Monday prior." "I can tell because of the timing when my husband looked for it, we know that was the morning." "Fortunately, even though my husband has a camera in his car, he did not see anybody, and then unfortunately lost all the video because he didn't say that, so I don't have to leave any evidence." To investigators, it seems convenient that this stalker has evaded surveillance cameras, not once, but twice, first outside the crew home and later outside Daniel Krug's vehicle. Now investigators have to wonder, does Kristiel Krug even have a stalker at all? Is this a ruse, something she concocted, to get attention and maybe get enough sympathy from her husband to fix her failing marriage? I think he's the kind of person to actually do this stuff, or do you think it's somebody else? I've never had it, you know, just a few contacts over the years directly to her, but nothing. I have never met him, never interacted via any social media platform. All I know about him is what she has related to me. So, see if it's from the past and then more information of the last few weeks. But with that being, I know that, Kristiel, we put her car on a lift on Tuesday afternoon to see if there's any GPS tracking or anything like that. We couldn't find anything on the car. So, one of the things that. if they feel better or worse. Investigators ask Daniel if they can trail his car because the stalker appears to be fixated on him as much as his wife. - Again, just kind of playing the game with Jess or just trying to figure something out and draw him out. Problem is this guy's not very tranquil. Yeah, that's what her P.O. said. Kristiel Krug has hired a private investigator to try to track down Anthony. The P.I. turns up two possible addresses for him, one in Utah and one in Idaho. But here's the thing. These locations are hundreds of miles away, leaving investigators with the lingering feeling that maybe Kristiel isn't really being followed. The question remains, could Kristiel Krug's unsuccessful marriage be a motive to make it all up? The P.I. passes this information along to Broomfield Police. The police say they want digital evidence to prove these messages and photos are from Kristiel's ex before knocking on his door. In the meantime, investigators tell the Krug's to stay calm and get prepared. - I understand that Kristiel has been working on wrapping her own hand around. Some defense type stuff, what have you been doing? Largely being paranoid for the last few days. She didn't want me to panic, so she didn't share all of the details of the walk. And so, as I go up all of the details, my panic level has gone considerably higher. So what am I doing? I'm panic. And I'm doing a (bleep) job protecting my wife. So I'm not doing good, I can see that. - On November 12th, investigators apply for warrants from Google, Verizon, and techs now, a free phone service and mobile data provider that lets users make calls and send messages using Wi-Fi. But with major companies, warrants applications tend to process slowly and investigators are left waiting. Thanksgiving passes and the messages continue. Despite investigators' efforts to trail the stalker, they come up empty just as they expected. No one seems to be following Kristiel or Daniel Krueg and they still haven't gotten the data they requested. As the digital harassment persists into early December, the Krueg's marital turmoil escalates. Messages between Kristiel and her parents reveal that Daniel asked her to move out. Then on the morning of December 14th, Kristiel goes dark. At 8.56 a.m., Kristiel sends a text message to her husband asking him to pick up their daughter from school that day so she could meet with detectives. Daniel sends multiple text messages in response, one at 9.17, another at 10.03, and a third message at 11.47. They all go unanswered. Daniel also sends two text messages to the lead investigator on Kristiel's stalker case, Detective Martinez, one at 10.33, and the other he sent just before noon. Then Daniel asks a neighbor to go to his home to check on Kristiel. Around the same time, he places a call to the Broomefield Police Department. - From Phil, dispense it. - Hi there. My name is Dan Krueg. I don't think this is an emergency, but this feels really weird. - Okay. - We've had threats against us. She was supposed to meet with Detective Martinez today, but I can't get a hold of him. Can I get a, maybe, a wellness check at the house and nervous that she's not answering me? - Yeah, understandable, for sure. - Hello. - Oh, I was just on their neighbor, and they called me when I came close to your show answer. - Oh, yeah, he sent us as well, so. - Great, well, you got this. - All right, man, appreciate it. - There's nothing missing and no sign of an intruder. Kristiel has decorated the house for Christmas. The tree is up, the lights have been strong. The home is quiet, maybe too quiet. - 151, send medical, and 110, I need a four-centre. I got a female down in the garage. - Inside the garage, the responding officer sees Kristiel Krug lying on the cement floor, dead from a stab wound to the chest, and clear signs of blunt force trauma to her head. Kristiel Krug had been on her way out of the house when she was attacked, likely from behind with a blunt object. Her purse is found on the ground, just feet from her body. Blood spatter on top indicates she was wearing it at the time she was attacked. Just outside the door, where Kristiel would have walk through to enter the garage, the wall is stained with blood. It's clear now that Kristiel Krug wasn't falsifying her claims of being stalked. - It's not like that, but now four. - It's a four. - It's a four. - It's a four. - It's a four. - She had to be pretty tough for her to make it. - Okay, it's damn, damn much more. Damn, I need to debris three of those. Not damn. - So we found it. - She broke out, she was a losing person. - It's not like that. - I was a losing person. - One state over, law enforcement agents rushed to a home in Utah. The home of Kristiel's ex-boyfriend from 20 years ago, armed with a warrant for his arrest. - Okay, thank you for your patience and your cooperation. I really appreciate it. Are you okay if we talk for a moment? You can say seated, six-year. - Yeah. - Here's your traffic license back then. - I'm gonna ask you a couple of names to see if you recognize any names. - Okay. - Do you ever heard of the name Kristiel Krug? She may have been a Grimsrod when you knew her? - Yeah. - And you know what Daniel Krug? - No. - No? How do you know Kristiel? - She was an ex-girlfriend. - She an ex-girlfriend? How long's ex? How long ago? - Um, 1999. - Oh, so like a long while ago? - She was my very first girlfriend ever. - Oh, okay. One last time you talked to Kristiel, has it been a minute? - Um, it's been, yeah. - Like since you moved from, from Granco? - Yeah. - Yeah. So that would have been what, back in 2014? - Yeah. - If you had any contact with anybody in that area, since anybody, or have they contacted you at any time? - No. - Back in Brumfield, investigators walked Daniel Krug into an interview room. The same interview room he sat in just weeks ago, as he asked investigators to prevent this very crime from taking place. Now he tells them what he knows about the last morning of his wife's life. - She was in the kitchen. She was in the kitchen. She asked us, working from home. I said, no, I was just late and leaving. Dan, what did you think of the house? - I did. - Yes. - I think it's a proximate, a 20, it's, it's, it's up to count. - You say a 20, and you left it in which vehicle? - Mine. - Which is a black monster. - Okay. - A 24-some rate. - Um, okay. You left out of the garage? - Always. - That leaves about three hours. Between the time Daniel Krug says he left the house, and the moment his wife's body was discovered. She texted me like, I don't know, three-ish hours ago. And I've asked her multiple questions since then, and she's not responding. - With no signs of forced entry into the home, police think that Kristiel Krug's killer must have been someone she knew. Maybe someone she's known for a long time. - Martinez knows all of this. We have both been targeted by a stalker. - When was the last time you had any contact with somebody from that area? - 2014. - 2014. - Okay. - Oh, I asked her maybe a little after my buddy Steve lived there, but he moved from there too. - What did Steve move? - Um, I'm not sure. - Okay. - He lives in Alaska now. - Oh, cool. - That's cool. - He was my friend going up when I was 16. - Okay. - All right, so Steve moved to Alaska about the same time you moved, or a little after? - No, why do we after? - We after? - Yeah. - Okay. contact with anybody since from that area? No. Okay, I'm going to give you a phone number. And it's to a sergeant with the Brumsfield Police Department. You do have an active warrant out of Brumsfield Police Department. And they were debating on if they were going to have us arrest you or not. They are not going to have us arrest you on it. I'm going to advise you the fact that you do have a warrant out of Colorado. I'm going to talk to this sergeant about the details of it. Does that make sense? Yeah, I don't know why they have it. So that's because you got that active warrant. I don't know the details of the stocking warrant. It's the stocking warrant. You can talk to him about that as well. Brumsfield Police want to speak with Holland, but they don't need to put him in the back of a patrol car. After discovering Kristiel's body, Brumsfield Police follow up with Google Verizon and TextNow about their request to get the data to try to figure out where these text messages were coming from. Now given the severity of the situation, the response is immediate. The data shows that for months, the threatening and sexually explicit messages that were being constantly sent to Kristiel Krueb weren't coming from out of state, but from right there in Colorado. Each contact can be linked to an IP address similar to a government building in Brumsfield. A building that Daniel Krueb walked into the very morning of his wife's murder, just as he did nearly every morning, except on December 14th, he arrived late. I just want to be a safe place for my children. I need to know where I can take them. I don't know if I can move back to my house, but I have to get their things. Again, one step at a time. Okay. Right now, defectives are connecting the investigation over at your home. Okay, so getting their items right now is like going to be a possibility. Okay. Okay. That seems to help my energy operate face. Can't imagine how hard that was. It seems that Detective Martinez and his team doubted the wrong spouse. They spent weeks investigating the victims instead of the real perpetrator. Now, armed with the data to fill the gaps, investigators hope they finally can catch a killer who's been hiding in plain sight all along. Would you be willing to give us the password and all that stuff to the online camera so we can look at this? Daniel Krug has security cameras installed all over his house. He made sure to do so after he allegedly saw a man jumping over his fence weeks ago. I'm going home. Okay. Yeah, just to be safe. But on the morning of December 14, the cameras that should have a direct view of the garage are powered off. Daniel's dashed camera is also turned off, similar to how it failed to pick up a view of anyone suspicious outside his vehicle back in October. Can I just ask what do you think happened? Today with Kristia. What do you think? What's your theory? I don't know. Well, you've got to have one. I'm sure a million different dots that I had left. She was in a kitchen. She would have had whatever meetings that she had. And then she said she was meeting with you. But you know nothing about that. So I know you with the f*** that is. What's his name? The other detective said that the cameras were turned off. That shouldn't happen. The only way that the cameras we turned off is through the app. One of us has to hit the button. And one of them looks like it has something on it. So, in my brain I'm thinking someone made a move against her. The doorbell camera was covered with a piece of painter's tape. Whoever placed it there probably hoped it would stop the camera from picking up any video from that morning. But they probably never suspected it would lead investigators to another key piece of evidence. Crime scene investigators are able to match the edge of the painter's tape to a roll of tape inside a kitchen drawer in the crew home. A roll of tape that Daniel Krueg purchased during one of his many trips to the hardware store where he was supposed to be buying home security items to protect his wife, not his alibi. So, in my brain, the story that I have is someone came to the door. Maybe she went outside to get a package and they must have come in. And she's a fighter. She's strong. She would have fought. That's why I warned them when I was at the house and I asked, did she get any shots off? She has a gun. She just went through the concealed carry class. She has an appointment to get her license. She had to have been surprised but without a doubt, she fought. So, I mean, who do you think he killed her? Okay. If not him, I have. What if I told you that we had already spoken with Anthony and there's no way that he was in town today? I have not here. I'm terrified to put in my children home. What are you terrified of? If it wasn't him, what was I? Christel Cruz-Killer could not have been her ex. On several of the dates in November when she received these alarming messages and emails from her stalker, the real Anthony was at work in Utah. And on the day of the murder, he couldn't have been in Bloomfield because he was out Christmas shopping in Utah and he had the receipts to prove it. So, one of the things that we really started looking into today and effort to find Anthony was the Gmail. What was the other? Text now numbers. Text now numbers and things like that. It's like an app that you can get fake phone numbers and contact people through Wi-Fi. That's a Wi-Fi only. Spoofing. Yeah, not really spoofing. But if I wanted to text somebody, let's say it was buying someone a Craigslist and I didn't want them to know my real phone number because I don't want them coming back to me or whatever, I would just get a text down the count. Almost like a Google voice, whatever. But because somebody was murdered today, we have the ability to tell them that and then they will generally provide us with information immediately. That's what extra-censorship circumstances means. Because we're trying to find the killer. So, some of that information that we've been able to receive today is a little bit, I don't know, concerning, I guess. The Gmail account that you can speak more specifically. And that text now number we were talking about, the number that he initially texted to steal from. The Gmail account that you guys initially received with the photo of you in it, and the phone number, those originated through their IP addresses at your office. Doesn't make any sense. Well, he took the photo of me to have my office. Right. But I'm also those accounts originated from IP addresses that list back to your office. I don't know what to do with that. The timing of the emails and text messages sent to Kristiel, all line up with the hours that her husband was at work. It's clear to Detective Martinez and his team that Daniel Krueck has spent the last 10 weeks terrorizing his wife and framing an innocent man who lived an entire state away. Investigators also know that the emails and messages that also came from a stalker aren't the only messages Daniel Krueck is behind. The text that Kristiel Krueck sent her husband at 8.56am on the morning of her death was also from Daniel. Data shows that the message was scheduled the night before. Kristiel's phone had not actually been used since 8.22am on December 14. Just two minutes before security footage captures Daniel Krueck leaving the home through the garage. After speaking with people close to Kristiel, investigators discovered that it was her who wanted to end their marriage and Daniel Krueck was willing to do anything to stop her from leaving. "When you're telling this story, I drew that conclusion that a lot of this stocking stuff has brought you closer and they've given a little bit of hope in your relationship that you can accomplish something together." "I'm kind of using this circumstance to bring you guys closer together, knew yourself," said that. "Have you the common goal of jumping the wax and something along the lines that it felt like we were in your team work?" "Right. I think there's a big gap between teamwork and recandling of problems." "My conversations with Kristiel, she was not putting you in the most masculine light, and when your buttons are pushed far enough, people break, people snap, people act out, people do things that they might regret without thinking, and it could be just a little list but in the end, it causes that." Even Kristiel and her final days had suspected her own husband of being her stalker. She told loved ones that she feared the man who had been threatening her for weeks was living under the same roof. Internet searches from the evening of December 13 confirm her worst fear. Perhaps the fear of finally being caught was enough to push Daniel Krueck into committing the crime he had been planning for more than two months and finalizing just the night before. "What would you think or what would you say if we told you that other people you talked to that are close to your wife expressed that she had maybe told them that she suspected you of having she said that right to my face, that she wanted to know if it was me." "My daughter is six and a half hour drive from here. There's no way he could have made that drive. If he flew, we would have record of that that doesn't show up on it, should have fled the record to the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, anything like that. All this time we've been looking for him for the protection and you just fell to him today like that. Because I've been looking at you, but I've been waiting for these records to come back. We've been chasing the rock out. It might have been a arrest, but it sounds like you're accusing me. We have a lot of information that points you direction, and we're hoping that you could provide a legitimate explanation other than it wasn't me." But there is only one explanation for why Kristiel Krueg was murdered in her own home. And if Daniel Krueg shares it with investigators, he knows he'll never walk through his front door again. And if you're tired, you don't want to do this, but I want to be here, I want to hug you, my children, and I want to know that they're safe, and I need to figure out where to help their sleeping tonight. And I want to know that you're not going to be here. I think we saw a lot of them answer questions, but I'd like to know what happened this morning. I'd like to know what caused you to get so upset to hurt your life, because I believe that's what happened. I believe that you've been, because there's no other logical explanation. What happened to her, did she find it, did she get shot on, where was she in that house? I have f---ed. You said that you were doing CPR in the garage, and that's all I know. Two days later, on December 16, Kristiel Krueger's husband is arrested for her murder. On December 21, 2023, the 17th Judicial District Attorney's Office charges 43-year-old Daniel Krueger with first-degree murder, two counts of stalking and criminal impersonation. Despite the charges and all the evidence against him, Daniel Krueger continues to lie to the faces of law enforcement and proclaim his innocence. Despite being the only person who knows exactly what happened to Kristiel Krueger, there's one question Daniel can't seem to stop thinking about. A question he's asked police over and over, since his wife's murder. I don't know what I told my kids, because that was the first thing I f---ed as it did not be fun. I told you, I'm not going to tell you what I told you. From what I know of Kristiel, she's in love with Iyer. [MUSIC]