Evidence in Their Home Proves the Truth Behind Her Murder: Who Killed Heidi Firkus?

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of True Crime with Kendall Ray. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm happy to have you here and if you're new to the show, then welcome. Thanks for being here. So you guys, today we are going to be talking about a case that I have so much to say about. Oh my god. This is one I think you will also have a lot of opinions on. I think I know where the majority of you are going to fall when it comes to this case, but it does. It is one of those that has, you know, people divided, even though I think it's a very small amount of people that fall one way. Today, I'm going to be telling you about the devastating murder of 25 year old Heidi Furcus and her death was unbelievably shocking to everyone in her life, everyone in her community. And it took a long time for them to get justice. Like with many cases, this is one where we have two different versions of events. And I am very interested to see where you all fall, to see what you think, which version you believe after I present all the evidence to you, although like I said, I think I know where the majority of you are going to fall on this one. But with that being said, let's go ahead and get into this case. And I want to start out by telling you about Heidi, who was an amazing woman. So Heidi Marie Erickson was born on December 14, 1984, to her parents Linda and John. And she had two older brothers, Peter and Joel, who she always looked up to. She was a lifelong resident of Minnesota, first born in Roseville, but their family later moved down the road to Falcon Heights, where she and her brothers were raised. And as a little girl, Heidi was said to be very active. She loved playing basketball and tennis, but she also had a creative side about her. So she was always drawing and painting just anything that got her creative mind going. And that's something that really stayed true as she got older. Heidi's friends have said that she was always hand-making cards for people and gifts. And she was always trying to find ways to express her creativity. And they also say that she was very much a peacemaker that she didn't like any kind of tension. She liked to keep things light, fun and goofy. And Heidi was definitely someone who was more on the outgoing side, as well as confident and very comfortable in her own skin. Plus, she was very intentional in the way that she spent time with others. It's been said that you could feel that she was happy to be with you. And she made people feel heard and seen no matter who they were. And I love that description. I think that's such a unique and beautiful way to describe someone that you could feel that they were happy to be with you. So I think it says so much about her genuine character. Heidi was really someone who brought joy and a genuine love of life to really everything that she did. And one area of life that was very important to her was church. She grew up as a member of the Calvary Church. And her faith was just a huge part of who she was. So much so that she went from being a youth group member to a youth group leader as she got older. And her involvement in the church was something that was just always there. And the youth group is actually where she met her future husband, Nick Furcus. And they met when she was a freshman and he was a junior in high school. And then in 2005, when she was 20 and he was 22, they got married. Now Nick was also very devoted to his faith. He led youth group as well and people admired the two of them for their commitment to the church and to one another. They were the kind of couple that other couples often went to when they were seeking advice because despite their young age, people really viewed them as wise. But in terms of their reputation around their community, the two of them seem to be really seen as sort of the dream couple. And by their mid 20s, Nick worked for his family's carpet cleaning business and Heidi worked at a financial services company. And in 2007, they bought their first home together in St. Paul. And so for anyone who was on the outside looking in, it seemed like these two really had it all. And of course, nobody truly has it all. They had their health and they had their families and their friends and their church and they already had a house and they were, you know, so admired by people in their lives. So life seemed to be pretty good for the purposes. That is until April 25th, 2010, when Heidi was woken up just before 6.30 a.m. by Nick's frantic screams that an intruder was trying to break into their house. Not morning, according to Nick, he woke up around 6 a.m. and went to the bathroom to grab some water. But while he was laying there trying to fall back asleep, he said he heard someone jiggling the front door knob in addition to other sounds which made him believe that someone was trying to break in, which is obviously terrifying that is everyone's worst nightmare, right? Especially when you're startled and bad and not expecting something like that. So because of that, Nick said he ran to his closet and got his loaded shotgun and then he woke up Heidi and told her she needed to put shoes on, someone was breaking into the house and they needed to get out as quickly as possible. So of course she did and as she was running down the stairs in front of him, Heidi called 911 and reported that someone was breaking into her home. However, 38 seconds into that call, a loud gunshot rang out in the call cut off. What happened? What you just heard is the terrifying and heart-wrenching call of 25-year-old Heidi Furcus being shot in the back as she attempted to flee through the kitchen towards their garage. Then just 65 seconds later, a second 911 call was placed and this time it was from Nick Furcus and he is absolutely frantic and he is saying that both he and his wife had been shot. Okay, there will be a request. Yeah, hold on one second with me. 911. Okay, this is the one on the insane call. So we have to. No, it's the missing bird. No. Hello. You're an outside department. What's the problem? What's the shock? What's the shock? What's the shock? What's the shock? You've been shot? Yes. Okay, today on the phone with me, okay? What's your name? What is. Stay on the phone with me. Who shot you? Stay on the phone with me, okay? Do not hang up. So obviously Nick is just out of his mind with fear. He is terrified and he certainly sounds that way. And while he's on the phone, police officers and paramedics already started arriving at their hospitals and they were, oh my god, met with a truly horrific scene. Heidi was lying on the ground just in the entryway of their kitchen and, by that point, she was already gone. And Nick, on the other hand, was immediately rushed to Regent's hospital to be treated for a gunshot wound to his left thigh. Luckily, though, the bullet just grazed him, so his injuries were far less severe. And while he was there, he was able to provide a brief explanation for what had happened and obviously he was really shook up, which I partially explained just a second ago here, but in terms of the actual shooting, Nick added that as they were coming down from the stairs, Heidi managed to get past the front door, but he did not. He said that this intruder burst through the door and they had a life or death struggle over the shotgun, which was ultimately when his finger slipped and Heidi was accidentally hit, and then it happened a second time, which is when he said he was shot in the leg. And all in all, as you can imagine, this was very shocking to everyone, but especially because the Ferguson's lived in a neighborhood that was, you know, considered pretty safe. And violent crime like this didn't really happen. I mean, there had been some car break-ins and small, petty crime theft, things like that over the years, but nothing as violent as this. It's someone breaking into your house and shooting you and your wife. So while Nick was being treated for his injuries, investigators jumped right into processing the scene and speaking with neighbors to see if any more information could be learned. And there was one guy who thought he heard something. A man named Brandon was house sitting in the place next door, and through an open window, he recalled hearing someone screaming something along the lines of, "You shot her. You shot me." So the assumption was, you know, this must have been Nick shouting at the intruder, right? But the closer investigators looked at the scene, they were less convinced that this intruder even existed. I'm sure a lot of your minds were already going there, but that doubt only got bigger when Nick gave a more formal statement that afternoon. That evening, Nick hobbled into the police department on crutches, and for the next two hours, he sat with Sergeant Gray and recounted in much more detail. The events that transpired earlier that morning, take a listen. All right, so you're sleeping and then we're up until next time. Well, because I get up for work about six o'clock in the morning, I kind of got up, but we need to be up until about nine to be able to church. So I got up and went and got a glass of water from the bathroom. Okay, so you woke up a little more than about six a.m. So you're up around six a.m., go to the bathroom, get some water. Yep, go back to sleep, but just kind of fitfully sleep for 10 or 15 minutes, and I heard the screen door open. What I did is kind of let it go for a little while, but then I started hearing, feeling with our door knob. Now, the floor they do with them, they just go like this. Yeah. Kind of like that. And I just shake the knob and I can shove in the door. It is, how do you still sleep in it? Yeah. So what I did is I grabbed my shack in the closet. Okay. So you hear and these noises, you know, kind of monkey around the door and on the stairs. You go to the closet and grab the shack and then wake up high. Okay. She is a, when she is walking up from the sleep, she gets startled. Yeah. In general. She, somebody's spilling with her in the bathroom, trying to get into our house. Let's get your shoes out. Then let's go out to the garage. Let's get out of here. I go to the garage. Yeah. That's where our car is. And we just wanted, we didn't want to be in the house. There's somebody who was trying to get in the house. And so I said to call 911, and then let's head to the garage. Okay. She called 911. So you called 911. Okay. So after that part, though, things started to get much less believable. All right. Are you going first upstairs or is she behind you or is she in front of you or what? Um, she's in front because I'm kind of trying to move around quickly. Yeah. And then I'm right behind her. Yeah. And then she stops at the consult table to grab her wallet, which is sitting at the consult table. Helps him wear right in front, right by the front door. Okay. And what world would you send your unarmed wife down the stairs first when you're the one who supposedly has a shotgun in your hands? I actually scratched that in what world would you ever even send your spouse downstairs at all? Why wouldn't she have just stayed upstairs? And also who in the hell would think to grab their wallet in that situation? The whole thing is totally illogical and he was called out on it. It seems kind of odd to me that you guys are going to leave your bedroom. There's only one way and one way out to go downstairs and go up to a garage that's not secure and it just seems a lot odd to me. Well, we were going to get in our car and leave. Okay. It was the point. But we can lock it from the inside, then bolt it and everything in the garage, but the whole point was to get away from the house and get out. So what would it prevent you from just sit at the top of the stairs with the shotgun and wait for them to come upstairs at? Well, when the last time that it went away on the police game, I've been here and a half ago. Yeah. And we had a conversation about what do we do or something like that happens again, like you know, in that case it was the police, but what do we do. And that's just the plan that we came up with. I just go to the garage to just get in the car and leave. Okay. And just get out of there. Part of the reason we had that conversation is because I wasn't quick to act and be frustrated and happy. I just, you know, maybe it's just a copy of me thinking of them, you know, I'm simply thinking that if I'm in my house in my bedroom and someone was breaking into my place, you know, she's calling 911 out of the way to the top of the stairs and saying, hey, when he comes up here, you know, you come upstairs, you know, he'd tell you this. But my house, you know, I'm just a fight and killing you if you come breaking into my house. I'm here for my life. You know, that's another thing. You know. It wasn't super clear to me what Nick meant when he talked about the other time this happened with the cop or whatever, but either way, they're so called plan to get out of the house still makes no sense. But let's keep going because there's still a lot of bullshit ahead. All right. So you guys come down the stairs, because the stairs are through here, you're coming down this way. It's right in the left. Yep. She swipes her wallet off the console table. So like the house tables right here. Perfect. She grabs that and then he finds it to the, as soon as she grabs it, the door opens. OK. And so I have a gun on my left. Yep. And so I try to shut the door shut, but it gets forced open and the guy that was there, I think he saw it. Yeah. I think he grabbed the barrel and the down porch, the trigger more towards the top. So he's got, he's here. He's here. I mean, him and the trigger, he pushes it up against my chest, which I'm a pretty parallel to the console table. Yep. And I don't remember exactly when the game went off, so my finger's still down to the trigger. It goes off down. Yeah. I mean, I know I hit Heidi. I just, I know I did. OK. I know I did. I don't know what I hit her, but I know I hit her. Did he hit her in the chest? She was running away. So he definitely hit her in the back. Hit her in the back. Yeah. OK. Something that strikes me every time I see this footage, and I'm sure a lot of you are having the same thoughts is how unemotional, unfazed Nick is for having just been through what he has been through. He is literally describing someone coming into his home and shooting his wife in detail hours earlier. This is the same day, and he's describing it like he's talking about a football game. And also up until this point, Nick is claiming to be unaware that he knew his wife was dead, but still, how is there not even one ounce of worry in his tone? If you didn't know that information, if you were waiting to find out, you think you would really be able to tell that someone was highly stressed about, highly concerned, waiting for that information. But Nick, not at all. In fact, and this is mind blowing, OK, it took an hour and a half before he even asked about her at all. And when they finally told him that she didn't make it, you want to know what this mouth breather said? I figured that. He leans back. I'll show you the clip in a second, but he just goes, I figured that. Like he's talking about not being able to get a tuna sandwich or something. It is, I know we all grieve differently, but I think we all agree here. What the actual fuck? I just want to know the final answer, but the final answer I hate is, I don't know, I just want to know if you found anything yet. There's a couple parts of my job that I really hate, and this is where I go. She didn't make it. I figured that. It's interesting to look at footage of people lying in interrogations, you know, sometimes you have the people who try to act extremely upset and they overreact, and it's just ridiculous, and it seems fake. And then there's the people that don't even try it all. I mean, I've seen a lot of dumb shit in my day, but this guy definitely gave, I guess, an underperformance. And it really only got worse. So going back just a little bit in the interview, Sergeant Gray was trying to get a sense for why something like this could have happened, but of course, he couldn't just outright ask Nick for a motive, but he ends up with a pretty good idea after it was revealed that he and Heidi had been struggling financially. It turns out that they were being foreclosed on the next day, and the craziest part of it all is according to Nick, only he and Heidi knew about it, not another soul in their lives had any idea. You guys have any problems with it like that? Yeah, we were in, and this is our, it's our place for us, we were foreclosing, and we foreclosed in our house. Okay, we have to be out by Monday, tomorrow, one of the reasons I brought the band home was also because I had some trade order shows, and we go back to the office and grab a trailer. He had to be out by Monday, we developed by Monday, and we've been, this has been kind of a private struggle for us, so we were going to move as much of our stuff into the garage as we possibly could, and then start taking stuff to a storage place, and then either for crash at, we hadn't ran the fire folks that we were going to talk to everybody about it tomorrow, and crash at that place, we get a hotel, and a place to live. Well, that's kind of, I mean, kind of close, notice. It is, and I think the reason is because we're both kind of dealing with the shame of the whole thing, because we're embarrassed that we haven't been able to be honest with our friends about our struggles, both of us are too stubborn to admit that we're failing. Okay, well, so it's really a hard decision, we have a bunch of boxes, and we had a really good plan to efficiently start problems out of our house tomorrow, we feel like we can get it done. And look, I get that it's totally normal to feel a type of way about that, maybe feel embarrassed or shameful in a situation like that. And I'm not saying anyone should be embarrassed or feel shame about something like that happening, but I get that it would be a common feeling and understandable, but Nick's explanation is that they both decided not to tell anyone because of the embarrassment. And the evidence just doesn't support that. And when investigators were processing the scene that very day, it was clear to them that the focuses were not moving. They were not going anywhere. All of their furniture was still there. All their clothes were still in closet's hell. Even their refrigerator was full of food. There were a couple boxes in the dining room, but nothing crazy. There was truly no indication that they were leaving, let alone the next day. And of course, these boxes could be from anything, right? I mean, most of us have boxes lying around. I have several boxes lying around my house and just random places, and I'm not moving. So yeah, that was a huge red flag. Another big issue was the glaring fact that there were no signs of a struggle. Yet Nick said that there was a life or death struggle. Right there in front of the door, but the entryway table told a different story because nothing on it, not even a glass beer bottle, had been knocked over. Plus, there was no sign of forced entry. And the way Nick told the story, that intruder had burst through the door, but investigators didn't find any significant damage to it at all. I will note that there appeared to be some tool-like marks on the frame, but I'll explain later why this doesn't make his story true. Speaking of the door, though, investigators did something super smart. They decided to reenact to see if someone from the upstairs bedroom could actually hear if someone was downstairs jiggling the doorknob like Nick claims that he heard. And no, they couldn't, couldn't hear it at all, so that part didn't line up either. So clearly, at this point, their suspicion about him is pretty high. The problem, though, is Nick loitered up very quickly, just a day after Heidi's murder, his family got him an attorney, and the attorney advised him against speaking to the police at all, so he stopped cooperating, and he wouldn't even go speak with their sketch artist. And I've actually never heard of someone doing this, but he ends up hiring his own sketch artist, who drew a portrait of the person he said was responsible. And they brought that image to the police themselves. And when they released that image to the public, no viable tips came in, at least not right away. Even though investigators definitely had their strong suspicions that Nick was behind this, they didn't have proof. The case was very circumstantial. So from an investigative standpoint, the efforts to get justice stalled. And then in the weeks and months that followed, people in St. Paul were torn. Nick had his whole family and several friends who believed that he was a victim in all this. But Heidi's family and her friends couldn't shake the feeling that her husband, Nick himself, was responsible for her death. And what it really boiled down to for most people was money. The day after Heidi was murdered, Nick sat down with his parents and Heidi's parents as well, and he told them everything, or at least his version of everything. He explained that they were in a significant amount of debt, and that they hadn't paid their mortgage since September of 2008, and that they were served for closure documents in April of 2009. However, he was adamant that Heidi was aware of all of this. She told them that they were embarrassed in ashamed of their failings, which is why they decided not to tell anyone. But if there is one thing that I could stress in this episode, it's that Heidi's family and her friends do not believe for a single second that she would have kept this from them. This was not something that they believed she could have or would have kept to herself. That she is just not that type of person. And the insinuation that she was hiding it for over a year just did not align with her character at all, plus it's not like she ever came across as someone who was having financial trouble. She and Nick had gone to Hawaii the February before she was killed, and she told her mom that Nick had recently gotten a bonus at work. If Heidi knew about their troubles, her mom thinks that she would have never taken that trip. It just doesn't make sense. Also, just the idea that they were being foreclosed on the next day and none of their houses packed up, Heidi was way too organized of a person to leave something that monumental to the last minute like that. And then one more thing that I just had to mention, this is so bizarre and stupid Nick is such an idiot. But when he is talking to Heidi's father and telling him all of this information coming clean about everything, her dad was trying to stay positive and made a comment along the lines of "don't worry, the police are going to get this guy" and apparently Nick's response to that was, they'll never find him. Who says that? To someone whose daughter was just murdered, he's talking about his wife, they'll never get him, he's long gone, it's over. So yeah, her friends and family were very uneasy about Nick. They had their suspicions immediately and they questioned his story extensively, but others, you know, in their lives, remember, thought that they were the perfect couple and they thought, Nick just loved her way too much to even be capable of something so cruel. They could not wrap their minds around it and there was definitely a divide amongst people. And a lot of people also felt that during her funeral service, Nick really wasn't showing much emotion, that for what he had just been through in the way that he lost her, he was acting too normal. And they also find it very interesting how quickly Nick moved on and when I say quickly, I'm talking two months, you guys. Two months after Heidi's death, he moved out of their house and simultaneously started up a friendship with the sister of one of Heidi's best friends. Her name is Rachel and she had just moved to the St. Paul area after getting out of a bad marriage. She actually said that she felt like she and Nick had bonded over having something traumatic happen to them and their marriages. And one thing led to another and the two of them started dating. Then within a year, he proposed and the two of them got married only a few months after that. The nerve of this guy. And if I were, oh my god, if I were a friend or family member of Heidi, the rage I would be feeling, I can't even imagine. Now I don't want to put any hate towards Rachel. She seems to be very transparent about the whole thing. She says, you know, she fully acknowledges that it moved really, really fast, but at the time she said it just felt right and they had bonded over the trauma and yada yada yada. Yeah. And I do really appreciate this about Rachel. I guess her one request after they got married was that she wanted to go and visit Heidi's grave. She said that she was very aware that she could never replace her, but she wanted to pay her respects. And honestly, I feel like Rachel was really the only person in Nick's family or like from Nick's side who had interest in Heidi. When the two of them got married, she says that Nick's parents made it very clear to her that what happened to Heidi isn't something they talk about with other people. It was all just very hush hush and not to be mentioned. So for a few years, they lived their life. They had three kids and on the surface, much like his relationship with Heidi, everything seemed to be okay. And I've got to just say for a second here, I cannot believe that no one really seemed to be doing anything about Nick. It just seemed like they kind of put it on the shelf. I'm talking law enforcement and I know that they didn't have enough and it was all circumstantial, but with house suspicious, they were in house suspicious. He was acting and just the whole story not making sense. I can't believe he just went on living his life. But anyway, another similarity between his marriage with Heidi and his marriage with Rachel was that Nick was in charge of the finances. And that's actually why so many people believe that Heidi was unaware that they were in so much trouble. And you know, the two of them had a very traditional relationship. And money was part of his responsibility was the man's job. Well, anyway, the same went for his marriage with Rachel and he told her that he had paid off all his debt. That being said, though, they still didn't have enough good credit to take it alone for her house. His parents ended up taking one out for them. They put a house in their name and all Nick had to do was pay them the rent money. And the only thing he was responsible for paying directly was the property taxes. And Big Shocker here turns out he wasn't paying them. And Rachel found out about it. Rachel had her suspicions that he was lying to her about something. And then she found a letter from collections in his sock drawer. That's right, this dingus was keeping it in his sock drawer, round of applause for that. And she knew that he was lying about some small stuff, but a collections agency ended up calling her, which is why she was prompted to look for evidence in the first place and she must have thought. He would be dumb enough to keep it in the sock drawer. But anyway, on the real one, Rachel found this, you guys, she was absolutely terrified. It hit her in that moment that if he was capable of lying about that in their relationship, then he probably lied about hiding the finances from Heidi. And if he was lying about hiding the finances, he was probably also lying about not killing her, right? One plus one equals two. So she literally packed up her kids in the middle of the night and they left. And a little bit after that, she decided to confront him. And not only that, but she decided to record the conversation, which was very smart, and she really went at him. It's very powerful. I unfortunately cannot play it for you all, but I wanted to read a short part of it so you get an idea. So Rachel says, "Your actions have caused me to distrust you completely." And the fact that you're lying was so easy for you to do over and over and over makes me think. And then he cuts her off and says that I could murder my wife. And she says that you could be lying about something. And then he says more matter of fact that I could murder my wife. And Rachel just says, "Yes." She straight up just said that she thought he was capable of murder. And of course, Nick was not happy about that. He said that her saying that was just jarring to his soul and that he didn't have any words for her accusations. And then she said that he just put his head down and the conversation was essentially over. But it wasn't over for Rachel. Of course, she was not going to just let this go. So she decided to get his parents involved and decided to have a little conversation with them. And because Nick is a little bitch boy, he decided to let his dad do all of the talking. And I unfortunately don't have that audio either. But his dad essentially just backed down on Nick's original story about Heidi absolutely knowing about the financial troubles they were in. But Rachel had common sense and the more she thought about this, none of it added up. She couldn't get over the fact that if Heidi knew then why was their house not all packed up before they were going to be evicted the next day and why would they not tell anyone about it? It just didn't make any sense. And you want to know what Nick's dad said in response to these two points? For the house stuff, he said that they were packing it up. It was just the early stages of it, which of course makes a ton of sense, right? Everyone when they pack up to leave their house leaves it all for one day when they're moving the next day. You know, you always just do it last minute. And as for why they didn't tell anyone, his dad said that their lives weren't intertwined because there weren't grandchildren involved. I'm sorry, but how does not having grandchildren translate to not confiding in your parents about foreclosure? That's a big deal. I mean, the whole thing just sounded extremely off. But anyway, in 2018 Rachel decides that she's done with Nick and she divorced his ass as she should. And I'm very glad she got out of there before it was too late because I don't know. I feel like she could have ended up just like Heidi. And I really think that hindsight was 2020 in that situation for her because after leaving him, she was able to see how strange all this behavior, all this time truly was. For example, he never talked to her about wanting a resolution or justice for Heidi, literally ever. He never brought up like, "Man, I wonder who kills my wife." Never, not a single time to keep ever saying anything like that according to Rachel. And there was even a point during their marriage where investigators thought that maybe they caught this intruder and not once did Nick even reach out to them to try and get more information about that. In fact, he never, ever called police asking for updates in her case. He was fine just letting that go. Like he told her dad, "They're never going to catch him." And of course, I do have to say, I have a lot of sympathy for Rachel and everything that she's been through with Nick. But it does strike me as odd that that didn't strike her as odd. I just cannot imagine. I would be like, "Don't you want to know? Don't you at least want answers, aren't you pissed?" Like, that would just freak me out so bad. Being with someone whose wife was murdered and not once did they ever talk about it or didn't just drive the mad wondering what happened, who that was, they just got away with murdering his wife. Oh, it's so bizarre to me. But that brings me to a man named Michael Pie. I need to tell you about. So five years after Heidi's murder, a tip came in from someone who was able to identify the guy in Nick's sketch. Remember the one that he had custom made that he commissioned on his own from some random artist? That man was identified as Michael Pie, who was known in St. Paul for breaking and entering into homes, specifically in the early morning hours while people were still home. And he might be thinking, "Hmm, maybe Nick really didn't do it. Maybe this guy did." That sounds like a perfect match. Well, the problem with that is he was in jail when Heidi was murdered. So it wasn't even possible he couldn't have physically done it. He even spoke with investigators and was like, "Look, I know I've broken into some houses, but I would never kill anyone." He had actually really turned his life around and credits going to prison for helping him get on a better path. And of course, investigators and Michael Pie himself, and I feel like everyone feels that Nick was trying to frame him. And it's a tale as old as time, right? How many cases have I covered personally, just in the ones that I have covered where a white guy tries to blame a black man or a Hispanic man or just anyone of color, anyone who's not white for something that they did. And it really makes sense that that is exactly what he was trying to do because Michael had actually been in the news a lot. The winter before Heidi was killed. So it seems like Nick purposely described him while talking to the sketch artist. And again, it just still shocks me, I'm left feeling so confused about why no one really did anything. I mean, I think it was super obvious that it was Nick right from the first day, from the day Heidi was killed from that first interrogation footage. I don't know, but for whatever reason, nobody moved forward with charges against Nick. That is until a new bad ass detective took over the case and she was determined to finally get justice for Heidi. It was in 2019 right after Rachel divorce Nick. And this amazing woman is detective Nicole Sipes and she came in right in 2019 right after Rachel divorce Nick to look at the case with fresh eyes and thank God she did. Of course, they had never officially closed the case, but nothing was moving forward. And she went back through everything and brought in the FBI and together they discovered a lot, specifically as it related to their finances. They created a financial timeline and long story short, they felt like they could prove that Heidi had no idea that they were going to be foreclosed on. After going through all of their texts and emails, detective Sipes discovered that not once during the 22 months that they hadn't paid their mortgage did Heidi message Nick about their debt. She learned that Heidi's name wasn't on any of the paperwork associated with the foreclosure. And additionally, Heidi never went to the eviction hearing on March 8, 2010. But detective Sipes did see that Heidi might have been catching on. The closer it got to her death, she started getting emails directly from creditors and phone records show that after getting those emails, Heidi would immediately call Nick. So I do think she was catching on and I'm sure most of you agree and listen to this. The detective spoke with a friend of Heidi's who said that one day before she was killed, Heidi confided in her that Nick said they were the victims of identity theft and that upwards of $200,000 was stolen. So detective Sipes wheels really were turning at this point and she started theorizing that Nick ran out of time to find a solution so he killed her to avoid the truth being exposed. Plus when watching his interview back, everything that I mentioned to you guys really stood out to her like a sore thumb. Especially the part where they tell him that she didn't make it and he just goes, I figured that. Then when she found out that he'd done the same thing financially speaking to Rachel, that really just sealed the deal. So she decided to try to reach out to Rachel and that first Rachel was hesitant to talk about it. But she ended up sharing everything with detective Sipes, including a copy of that recorded audio that she was smart enough to get. And speaking of audio, through her investigation, they realized that when listening back to Heidi's 911 call, you literally can't hear anything in the background. Yet supposedly, this was a life or death struggle. Obviously, you would hear some other noises if someone else was there and if this had really happened, but clearly, it didn't. And not to mention, there was no foreign DNA found at the scene, which again I have to go back to. Why did no one do anything about this for so long? Why did they just let this one go? And you guys, when the FBI created a digital mock up of the scene and recreated the shooting, two big things were discovered. One, the shotgun was not fired from the height of Nick's chest. It was fired from shoulder level as if he had propped it up to get a clear shot. And two, that entryway space was far too small for a struggle to even have happened without anything being knocked over. There's just no way. And again, who sends their unarmed wife down the stairs first? Okay, I just cannot let that go. that is insane. So all in all, the evidence does not support Nick and his version of events. And it did support the notion that Heidi was unaware of their financial situation. And that was the motive in all of this. And so I'm so happy to say that 11 years that part does not make me happy. That part makes me really pissed off. But at least it came 11 years after her murder. On May 19, 2021, a SWAT team in St. Paul arrested Nick Furcus. And he was charged initially with second-ream murder. And then soon after this, his charges were upgraded to first and second-ream murder, which was the relief that Heidi's loved ones had been praying for for over a decade. Her poor family, oh my god, all they wanted was for the truth to be known. And now it was all finally gonna come out. Now Nick did post his bond so he spent a little under two years free on bail. But finally, in January of 2023, his trial began. And unfortunately, a judge ruled that Rachel couldn't testify so none of her story could be shared, which is really, really irritating. But thankfully, it didn't really matter. The other testimony was damning enough. And like you've heard throughout this episode, the prosecution obviously had a lot supporting their theory. But the defense really tried to counter their motive though. They said that Heidi 100% knew about their foreclosure and pointed to all the mail in the house from the bank. And according to them, how could someone be so unaware of their financial situation? But again, the prosecution pointed to the fact that Heidi and Nick just had a very traditional marriage. They were very religious and I don't know, she just was not involved in that side of things, which I think is the case for a lot of people. I don't think it's that weird. And you guys, she was literally planning to go to work on the day that they were supposed to move out of their house. I mean, you just cannot convince me that she had any idea this was happening. The defense also said that those tool marks on the door, which I mentioned earlier, is direct evidence of someone trying to break in. However, an expert locksmith testified that no intruder would have ever attempted to break the door that way. They would have tried to break the deadbolt lock, which was completely untouched. So yeah, my guess is those marks were made beforehand to try and make it look like someone tried to break in. That attempt. Now there was a lot of testimony from this neighbor guy who thought he heard Nick say, you shot her, you shot me, but that screaming could have easily been from Nick when he called 911 pretending that a intruder was there. I think I think that actually makes a lot of sense. And lastly, the timing of the 911 call was a big point of contention as well. The defense argued that Nick wouldn't have had the time to kill Heidi, then stage the scene, then shoot himself before calling 911 in the 65 second gap between calls. And of course, that does sound like a short amount of time, especially because he missed dial 911 two times before finally reaching the dispatcher. But prosecutors actually gave a demonstration in closing remarks that not only could he have, but he would have had time to spare, which was a brilliant move on their part. And so in the end, the jury thankfully sided with the prosecution. And it only took them five hours of deliberation before they came back with a guilty verdict for Nick Ferkis. Two months later, he was ultimately sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, despite pleading with the judge that he was in fact innocent. And he maintains his innocence to this day, which really doesn't surprise me. And it also doesn't surprise me to this day. There are people who believe him and maybe some of you do too. And of course, his friends and family do not believe that he would have been capable of doing this still. And they're very supportive of him and his efforts to appeal his conviction. They have made statements that they stand behind his innocence. And Heidi's loved ones on the other hand are incredibly relieved to know that the man who was responsible for her senseless murder is exactly where he deserves to be. And I agree her mom says that she's relieved knowing that the real narrative is out there. And I hope in sharing her case today, we can keep her memory alive and remember Heidi for all the joy that she brought to those around her. Now I need to know what you guys think about this case, especially if there are any of you out there who believe that Nick Ferkis is innocent. And that innocent man is in prison. I think I'll be really surprised if there are any of you who really think that. But if you do, I want to hear why. Tell me why. But yeah, let me know what you guys think. Just horrible how long her friends and family had to go without justice. That just would have driven me crazy. I can't even imagine. I mean, they are so strong the way that they handled it all that time. I still have so many questions about it, though. How did I don't understand why no one did anything for so long? Man, it's crazy. I'm just thankful at the end of the day that Heidi got justice. And it makes me, of course, and I've said this so many times, it cases like this always make me think about all the people out there who haven't gotten justice in a similar situation, whether it's a framed suicide or a framed break in or whatever it is. And their killer has gotten away scot-free and no one questions it to this day or not the right people question it. But yeah, I don't know. It's a crazy world we live in you guys. That is going to be it for me today guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendal Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.