The House, the Hole & Buried Secrets: The Boy Who Saw the Unthinkable | The Case Of Aaron Fraser | UNSEEN

This killer thinks he got away, but he has no idea this little boy saw everything. I do not want my dad to kill other people. This is 6-year-old Aaron Frazier. In 1995, Aaron met with a social worker after he shared the most disturbing details about his father. Every word he said was written inside this notebook. I think this is your thoughts exactly. Am I right? Well, I'm wondering since you obviously are such a smarty pants. Can you read this? Would you like me to read it? What the social worker doesn't know is that Aaron is in witness protection because he's the only one who saw what happened to his mom. About three years before this footage was recorded, Aaron's mother, Bonnie, disappeared without a trace after her car was found abandoned at the airport. Aaron's father, Michael, told police his wife stormed out after an argument. Basically, she just wasn't happy and she wanted to leave and I couldn't really stop her from leaving. His son, Aaron, however, tells a different story. My dad killed my mom. Then he threw the pocketbook away in a different place, somewhere near our house in a dumpster. He buried my mom. We digged it, the hole. The problem is, Aaron can't remember where his mom was buried and without her body, his father, Michael, can never be charged. For the next 20 years, the circumstances in which Bonnie Heim disappeared will remain a mystery until Aaron, who has never stopped searching for his mother, finds that the truth has been hiding in plain sight. Christmas Day, 1992. Three-year-old Aaron, opens his presents while his father, Michael, captures the moment on camera. The little boy is excited and happy and there's not a trace of worry on his face. Tell me, Dad, Mom! Yes! We're going to watch that later. You like that? Yeah! His mother, Bonnie, made sure this would be a special day for him. She really adored everything about Aaron. Some parents, really revolve around their children. That's not a cliche with Bonnie. Aaron made Bonnie very happy. But behind that loving smile, Bonnie hides a heartbreaking secret. Her relationship with Michael is making her miserable. And just days before this video was filmed, Bonnie told her sister, Liz, she's made up her mind. Bonnie and I went shopping together and she said, this is it, I'm leaving. Her sister learns that Bonnie has put down a deposit, on a new apartment. And that she's already found a new school for Aaron. Her plan is to take Aaron and leave, one month from now, when Michael is out of town. But, just two weeks later, something terrible happens. On January 7th, 1993, at around 3 o'clock in the morning, Bonnie's sister, Liz, wakes up from a terrifying dream. In it, she saw Bonnie. In this dream, Bonnie and I were at the cathedral on St. George Street. She looked at me, and I just felt this overwhelming feeling. She said, "Take care of Aaron." The next morning, Liz receives the worst phone call of her entire life. Bonnie has gone missing. I knew, then, that wasn't just a random dream. That dream meant something. So I knew I had to take care of Aaron. I knew I had to take care of Aaron. Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the save. Join for just $20 at BJs.com/Mosquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's Home of the Save. At around 8:00 AM, police respond to a call at the Red Roof Inn in Jacksonville, Florida, after a maintenance worker found a purse in a dumpster belonging to a 23-year-old Bonnie Heim. Michael is quickly notified and arrives shortly after. When questioned, he tells police he and his wife had an argument the night before and that she stormed out at around 11:00 PM. Later that night, he went out looking for her and drove by her mother's house, but saw her car wasn't there. Michael hasn't heard from her since. Police now know they have a missing persons case on their hands. However, the purse still contains money and credit cards, which quickly rules out robbery. They start to wonder if foul play is involved. That morning, homicide detective Robbie Hinson from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is assigned the missing persons case. His first thought is to try and find Bonnie's car. He immediately scours the Jacksonville International Airport's long-term parking lot. This is where he finds Bonnie's Toyota Camry, less than two miles from where her purse was discovered. Detective Hinson wonders, is it possible Bonnie simply decided to catch a plane and skip town? That theory is disproven when he finds out Bonnie's name is not on any of the flight manifests and no one, not even security footage, can prove that Bonnie was ever even at the airport. That evening, friends and family go on the 11 o'clock news to beg the public for help. When asked where her mother is, Bonnie says, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know where she is. Without a body, prosecutors would have a hard time convincing a jury to convict Michael, and if they do go to trial and Michael is acquitted, they will never be able to try him again. Because of this, Michael is never charged. However, because of what he said he witnessed, Detective Hinson feels Aaron would be in danger if he stayed in his father's care. The state removes Aaron from Michael's custody and places him with his Aunt Liz. There's just one caveat: his father Michael is allowed to see his son twice a week, which means Liz has to let the man whom she believes killed her sister into her house. Before every visitation, Aaron starts acting out, throwing tantrums, because he knows his dad is coming. "I would always have to scoop him up and hold him as he fell apart. Every visitation." "During some of the visits, Mike will go to his father's house and say, 'You know what? Mike will get Aaron really close and help whisper in his ear the look of terror on Aaron's face.'" Liz promised her sister Bonnie she would take care of her son, but as long as Michael is allowed into her home, Aaron won't be safe. The only way to really protect him is to place him in foster care, because then the visitations would stop. "I would have loved to have him continue to be my son. I just couldn't bear it." "I never wanted to see him in that pain anymore. I had to make that decision." Aaron is five years old when he goes to live with the Foster family. Because his aunt Liz successfully petitioned to have Aaron declared a protected witness, no one, not even Liz, knows where he is. And Aaron's new parents, Jean and Ronnie Fraser, are never told anything about the boy's past. It's the perfect scenario for Aaron to start moving on and put his past behind him, but, just six months after he moved in, Aaron starts to share a disturbing story with his foster mom Jean. "He started talking occasionally about his dad shooting his mom." At first, Aaron is hesitant to give too many details, but as time passes, he becomes more and more comfortable to share. "He got to where he would say so much I would have to write it down." Aaron's foster mom Jean writes down every word he says in a notebook and shows it to the psychologist caring for Aaron. The footage you're about to see was recorded during one of the sessions. "Something else about this is special. Because I think this is your thoughts exactly, am I right? Is this what you think? Well, I wonder, since you obviously are such a smarty pants, can you read this? Would you like me to read it?" "I do not want to read it." "Okay. Here you go." "Okay. Here you go." "Okay. Here you go." "Okay. Here you go." this house is already messing with his mind. Two weeks later, he rents a small excavator and asks his brother-in-law to help out. But as they start digging, removing the structures around the pool, they hit a pipe near the outdoor shower, which causes a leak. Both of them grab their shovels and start digging to find where the water is coming from, but nothing could have prepared Aaron for what he's about to uncover. "We start digging up against the house, so I see a piece of plastic." Aaron finds a plastic bag that appears to have been buried under the concrete slab. "I think when I was digging with the shovel, I broke the bag, and I was like, 'Oh, that's weird. There's a coconut in here. Why would somebody bury a coconut in a bag right here?' I picked it up, and we looked back in the hole, and we could see some teeth, and everything kind of clicked." "I saw a missed call from him, so I called him back, and he said, 'I found her.'" "I found my mom." "It's a possible break in a cold case, the disappearance of this young mother more than two decades ago." DNA testing will later confirm the remains are in fact those of Bonnie Heim. When looking at pictures taken by the evidence technicians back in 1993, there's one key difference: there was no shower pad back then. Instead, chlorine containers were stacked above the location where Bonnie's body was buried. In hindsight, this was a different story. It was a diversion. You wouldn't expect to see grass where someone keeps their chlorine bottles, and the strong chlorine smell would have covered up the stench of a shallow grave. Twenty-one years later, at the old house on Dolphin Avenue, a crime scene is finally revealed. After digging up the remains, investigators also find Bonnie's ring, the acrylic fingernails she wore, and her clothes, as well as a shotgun shell casing that matches a gun owned by Michael. As it turns out, Erin was telling the story to the police, and the police stopped her from going to jail. Erin was telling the truth all those years ago. At three years old, he saw his dad shoot his mom, and was then forced by his dad to dig her grave. "When Erin said that he found mom, I was happy all this time, struggling, trying to figure out where Bonnie is. We finally found her. How could Mike live with himself? How could Mike live in that house with her right there?" In August of 2015, Michael Heim is charged with murder and rape. Michael Heim is charged with murder and charged with second-degree murder, and taken into custody in North Carolina. "Do you think of anything from Jacksonville that would come back to you?" "Yeah, my wife. My new wife. That's why we're here. She was recovered." "We'd like to go over, if we can, just the circumstances where she disappeared." "I will not make any statements, no." "Nothing at all, or nothing about that?" "Nothing about it, no." "Okay." April 8, 2019. Michael Heim's trial for the 1993 trial is still pending. April 8, 2019. Michael Heim's trial for the 1993 murder of his wife Bonnie begins. Unfortunately, the prosecution faces an uphill battle. The biggest problem is that the key witness, Erin, no longer remembers anything about the crime itself, and therefore won't be able to answer any questions on the stand. The evidence is mostly circumstantial, and even with the victim's DNA at the scene, the defense will argue that a tenant has lived in the house for years, and that at any time the killer could have come back to bury her there. That argument, however, is quickly shut down when the prosecution provides evidence that Michael forced his tenant to sign an agreement that she would not allow her dog to tear up the backyard or to ever dig it up herself. What's more, the court rules that the child protection service worker who interviewed Erin two days after his mom died can testify. Did Erin indicate that his mother had been hurt? Yes, he did. Did he identify her? Yes, he did. And who did he say? His daddy. His father. Upon hearing Erin's testimony, the room falls silent. The prosecution asks him, "Do you remember as a child the touch of your mother?" And Erin answers, "No, I have no memory of my mother Bonnie." He is then asked, "So the only memory you have of your mother is when you were holding her skull in your hands?" And Erin says, "Yes." April 12th. After an emotional trial that lasted five days, it only takes 90 minutes for the jury to deliberate. We, the jury, have found the defendant guilty of murder in the second degree. Michael Heim is found guilty of murdering his wife Bonnie. He's also found guilty of committing the crime in front of their three-year-old boy. The crime was committed in the presence of a victim's family member to wit her son, Erin. It will take another month to finally know his sentence. But for Erin, the fight is not over. He has one last important request to make to the court. After the verdict is read, Erin is allowed to read his statement. And for the first time, everyone in the room understands the true impact this crime has had on his life. People have repeatedly asked me how I feel. Isn't it great that Michael was found guilty? That's not at all how I feel. My mother is still dead. I am forever scarred. Scarred by the trauma of witnessing her murder. And the subsequent abuse. I spent many years sleeping with a brick under my pillow. Feeling the need to protect myself if someone came in the middle of the night. Anytime there's been a turbulent time in my life, I have a burning desire to try to resolve where my mother was buried. One of these times was when I was 18. I drove to a place in Nassau County, a place where it was suspected I was trying to describe when I was younger. I drove there alone with a shovel. Obviously, this was to no avail. I have searched for my mom my entire life. I have no active memory of the events of January 6, 1993. It seems that my brain has locked out my ability to access these memories. I have never wavered in my belief that Bonnie was killed by Michael Haine that night. I drew pictures of my mom in a hole, curled in the same position she was found on Dauphin Avenue when I found her. I said she had been shot. I said she had been buried. I said that Michael killed her. Today, we know all this to be true. I do not know what a fair sentence would be. I do know that every day Michael Haine was free, I lived in fear that he may come and get me like he said he would. Once Michael was arrested on August 24, 2015, there was a sense of relief. I would ask that Michael get a sentence that would ensure that I do not have to be concerned about running into him ever again. Most importantly, I do not want to have to worry about him doing harm to me or any of my family members. The only way to achieve this is for him to spend the rest of his life in prison. On May 21, 2019, Aaron gets his wish. Michael Haine is sentenced to life in prison. It was just a sense of relief. You know, after all this time, it's finally going to be the end of the story. It wasn't cops who solved Bonnie's murder, but her own son who, through all those years, never stopped thinking about her. Yeah, I think, I mean, God had a… I was ready to do it, to be able to find her after all these years. After the trial, Bonnie's sisters organize a celebration of her life in a garden dedicated to her. Tomorrow is her 50th birthday, although she probably wouldn't want me to say that. Aaron is there and hears stories about the mother he never got to know. Still, Aaron is grateful for the love he got from the Frazier family, who welcomed him as their own son. They're just special people, people of incredible character, opened their home to me, loved me like their own son. I never had to ask for anything. They gave me unconditional love. If I needed something, they were always there. I never wanted to take Bonnie's place at all. I just wanted him to have the best life he could. Aaron is now turning the page of a new chapter in his life and hopes that others can learn from his story. That victims of childhood trauma can get through it. He urges anyone with children who are in an abusive relationship to remember the children are watching and they see everything, no matter how young. They call me? The Road Warrior. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com/mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the Save.