343. The Monster In The Woods - The Murder of Danielle Houchins

You're listening to an ONO media podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Well, do we have some news for you? It is the last time that we will be recording until we have a little munchkin with us. We're having the baby soon. I have a lot of DMs. I'm sure Peyton has a lot of DMs as well. People asking if we've had the baby yet as of this recording on Saturday, October. What is the date? 17? No idea. 17? Yes. There's no baby, but there will be a baby this week. This week. Yep. She's coming. It's been like, honestly, I don't know if any other parent can relate to this or first time parent. Maybe I just have too much time in my head, but it's been a really weird, there's just going to be a baby soon. Like last night, Garrett and I were just sitting watching a show. And I was like, in a couple days, we're going to have a baby while doing this. Like, I don't know. It's just so life-changing in a second, and obviously, yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know what else to say. We're going to have a baby. Like, you have nine months to wrap your head around it. My head is nowhere near-wrapped. Yeah, I feel like that's pretty normal. I feel like until you take the baby home, it's like, oh, dang. Even then, she comes home and I'm just like, all right, hey, what's up? It was kind of like that, like on a really small, yeah, for sure with Daisy, where it was just like one second, we had a dog or one second, we didn't have a dog in the next we did. That's why I feel like it'll be somewhat similar, but just keeping everyone updated. We will keep everyone updated as time goes on with everything. Stay up today on our socials. That's where we're going to be posting any updates on anything, kind of all in due time. I'm assuming everything goes well and so forth. But yeah, I think everything's going to go great. Everything seems good. Baby seems healthy. That's kind of all I got. My 10 seconds, that's kind of our life right now, we've just been preparing 24/7 for the baby. So yeah, I don't know anything else. I kind of said this over on into the dark, my solo show, but thank you guys for being just patient and understanding as we navigate this change because, you know, episodes might look a little different, adds might look a little different, as in like, Garrett might be here, it might just be me, as we tried to like kind of figure out, we'll probably throw in some old episodes, some bonus episodes. So just thank you for going through this journey with us and understanding that we're trying to keep putting content out, but it might look a little different for a couple months as we adjust. Yeah. Like Payne said, there still will be content coming out. It just might look different for the next 48 weeks or two eight weeks, 48 weeks depending on how Payne's feeling, how everything's going, but we're really trying to give her, I'm really trying to give her like a month off or two months off, depending on how things look. So yeah, the next four weeks are going to look a little different and then it should be back to normal, but yeah, that's what we got. So on that note, let's, let's hop into it. Let's do it. Our sources for this episode are the independent dot com NBC Montana dot com medium dot com forensic mag dot com Y P radio dot com ABC news dot com the express dot com K B Z K dot com ABC news CBS news Montana right now Montana free press NBC news legacy dot com people dot com bell great news dot com and find a grave dot com a disclaimer. This episode includes discussions of suicide. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the suicide and crisis lifeline by texting or dialing 988, you can also go to 988 lifeline dot org. And as always, please listen with care. When a loved one is taken unexpectedly, the family is already left dealing with the unthinkable, the grief, the funeral arrangements, the impossible task of figuring out how to keep going when someone you love is suddenly gone, but loss is even harder to process when the most important questions go unanswered. How did this happen? Was it an accident or was something else at play? And that's why families turn to law enforcement to help them through those big unanswered questions to try and get some closure, maybe justice, some sense of resolution. So when people go to these resources, looking for hope and critical truths are withheld from them. It doesn't ease the pain. It prolongs it because sometimes what keeps a family stuck isn't just the loss itself, but it's simply living in the unknown. So today we are dialing back the clock to 1996. I was being born and we are heading to the state of Montana. To a fast-growing residential community outside of Bozeman, Montana called Belgrade and is here in 1996 that we meet a 15-year-old girl who has her entire life ahead of her. Her name is Danielle Houchins. Now Danielle was born on November 11th back in 1980, but at the time of our story she and her family had actually just moved to Belgrade, Montana about two years earlier. So in 1994, they moved from Alexandria, Minnesota to Belgrade, Montana. But Danielle really seemed to be falling in love with her new town, even as a young teenager. She and her little sister Stephanie and younger brother Jake were all pretty into outdoor activities. Dani, as her family called her, loved hiking, rock climbing, river rafting, fishing, skiing. You name it, Dani had probably tried it. It was almost like she was actually born to be out there in the Montana wilderness, connecting and learning from nature in every way that she could. And even though she only had been at her new school for two years now, Dani had already made a lot of close friends. Michelle, who described her as incredibly down to earth and friendly, she was also very involved in school. She made sure to keep her grades up as high as she could. In fact, she had recently been recognized in a publication as a who's who of American high school students primarily for her achievement in her honors studies. And unlike most 15-year-olds, Dani already had an idea of what she wanted to study once she graduated. She really wanted to become a biological engineer. She was always super interested in science. She had a deep fascination with how the world worked around her. Plus it tied in well with her love for the great outdoors. But if there's one thing that stood out to everyone about Dani, it was how witty and funny she was. How she had no problem cracking a joke at her own expense. She was also super excited about one recent development in her life, getting her driver's license, which in the state of Montana, you get when you turn 15. For Dani, it meant a taste of freedom she didn't have before. A method of escape when things got a bit tense in the Houchens household. A way for her to cruise out into the wilderness, go off on her own adventure when the situation called for it. Which is exactly what happened on the afternoon of September 21, 1996. That morning, Dani, like most teenagers, got into a bit of an argument with some members of her family. Her sister, 12-year-old Stephanie, didn't say what the argument was about, but Dani found the perfect way out of it. Like the good and respectful kid she was, Dani asked her mom's permission to go down to the Cameron Bridge Fishing Access site about three miles away from their home just to hang out, be alone on the river. Now her mom Cheryl was probably a bit hesitant about it at first, not because Dani wasn't responsible, but because she was actually in a knee brace at the time. Dani had just injured it a few weeks ago, dancing at a street fair. She was still on the mend. But Cheryl, her mother, trusted that Dani knew her limits. She wouldn't push herself beyond what she was comfortable with at the river. So she gave her her blessing and watched as Dani and her blue jeans and gray sweatshirt used her brand new driver's license, got into her Chevy pickup truck, and drove away. Now, this was at 11 a.m. in September, but hours passed, and Dani still didn't come home from just like going to the river and taking a breather. Now Cheryl, her mother, and Stephanie, her little sister, knew Dani was upset, but being gone this long fell out of character for her. So by mid afternoon, Cheryl and a friend drove over to the access point to go look for her. And when they got to the parking lot, they do see Danny's truck sitting there. So they get out, they pull on the door handles, but it's locked. And they can clearly see that Danny is not inside the truck. So they continue searching around the area, heading up and down between the parking lot and the water a few times. And eventually, they discovered Danny's water bottle and her car keys. But there's still no sign of Danny herself, which I think to any mom would be worrisome. But when you add in the fact that there's like a large body of water right near where her truck and car keys are found, it's a lot more worrisome. So by 5 p.m., Cheryl and her friend decide it's time to call the local authorities. And within the hour, police were down at the Cameron Bridge access site searching for Danny with her family. They waited through the marshy wooded area for Danny. But once the sun began to set and it was getting dark too dark for the teams to make progress. They decided they would return the next morning to keep searching for her. Now, obviously not everyone is ready to call it quits for the night like her family. They're like, what do you mean you're going home? When Danny's friend got wind of her disappearance, she recruited her father and uncle to head out and search for her. It made sense both of them lived nearby. They were pretty familiar with the area and the terrain. So wielding flashlights, they continue down one of the paths well after the sun had set. And eventually around 9 p.m., Danny's friend and her family stumble upon something. Just before a small bridge in this area was a body based down in a shallow muddy pool of water. To say this discovery was heartbreaking was an understatement. Here was a teenage girl so excited about her future who was just looking to escape. Have a moment to herself and instead she ended up here out in the woods all alone. Dead based down in this small pool of water. Word of Danny's death and her body being discovered had reached everyone in Belgrade by the following morning. I can't imagine that it's a very big town or city. I mean, it was definitely on the rise in the 90s. Yeah, but I mean, I think any I guess I don't know the statistics, but I can't imagine more than 30,000 people. So it reaches the next morning, everyone's like, oh my gosh, Danny Hutchins was found in the woods. And the story that's being told is that she drowned. They were like, oh, she went to, you know, she went to the river and she drowned. But as we know, she was just found in a small pool of water. That doesn't really make sense to most people. But maybe I would assume nearby there's like a river. So maybe other people have drowned there. So it's like maybe. Now, Danny was a tough young woman. She knew how to handle herself in the outdoors. She was athletic, strong, well equipped. Like I said, she did a lot of outdoor activities. Yes, she did have a knee brace on at the time. But it wasn't anything that should have like weighed her down or caused her to drown in shallow pool of water. So for most people, the situation just isn't making much sense. Which was when they start asking, okay, did something else happen? Did she really go out here, go to this spot in the woods and end up drowning? Or something else happened or rather someone else? Could Danny have been a victim of foul play? It certainly seemed like a possibility to the Houchins. They did not believe this was an accident. But unfortunately, with not much evidence left behind at the crime scene and no eyewitnesses, Danny's autopsy was the only way to fill in the gaps. Which obviously like, I think any parent would be like, you absolutely need to do an autopsy so we can make sure this wasn't accident. I'm curious how the autopsy comes back. Well, it begged more questions than it answered. On September 23rd, just two days after Danny was found dead, officials did perform her autopsy. Her cause of death, a drowning. And while her manner of death was listed as undetermined, which means they didn't list it as an accident, authorities indicated, although we can't like officially rule an accident, we think it was an accident. Isn't it pretty impossible? I wrote an article on it one time like what the human body will do, but it's fairly nearly impossible to drown yourself. To depending on what you're doing. Right. Like just jumping in a pool and trying to drown yourself. With no ways. Yeah, with no current. Correct. Like it's fairly impossible. Oh, what article is that I read on it? It was really interesting though, but it talked about how the human basically, it just takes over you and the bill to survive kind of kicks in. But anyways, now the Gallatin County Sheriff at the time, Dan named Bill slaughter, told the media, okay, we've done the autopsy. There were no signs of any cuts or bruising on Danny. Like she simply drowned. There was no indications of foul play. Bill told the local paper, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle straight up quote, I think we've got to be prepared for the fact that this may have been an accidental drowning. Yeah, but in that shallow of water, it seems hard. Right. Now, what many people didn't know was there actually were a few tiny pieces of evidence gathered at the crime scene that wasn't necessarily public information. Four hairs were found on Danny's body that didn't belong to her. Police sent those off to a forensic lab for further analysis, but nothing came of it. There was no match in any database. And as days turned to weeks and then weeks to months, the Houchins family got no closer to the answers they were looking for. Because there begins to be a divide because they felt for sure, whatever happened to their daughter wasn't an accident. They are adamant that there's more to this story. For Stephanie, she said her sister's death was the single most impactful event of her life. It left her with many sleepless nights. And as they came upon the first anniversary of Danny's death, they were no closer to any answers. Because even even the authorities couldn't exactly tell the family how she drowned. Yeah, you know, I think and not even with death with anything, not having closure is very difficult. It's hard for the human brain to grieve and process something correctly when there's no closure or answers. Very difficult. And in this case, that's exactly what's happening, right? There's not really any closure. There's no answers. And I think when you have a situation that doesn't necessarily scream accident, like if she was found in a huge pool of water or in a car accident with another car, you would be like, okay, this was an accident. But when someone is found in a situation where would have been hard to drown or their car was just found abandoned on the side of the road or a one car accident, it is a lot harder. I think to swallow the possibility that this was an accident versus did something else happen here. Police said they had looked into everyone that was close to the family and ruled out any potential suspects. But with no other evidence to go off of outside of those four hairs, the case ran cold. But it wasn't just the family that had issues with the investigation. It was also some members of the police force themselves, specifically a patrolman named Keith Barquard. He had spent a lot of time working with the detectives who were assigned to Danny's case. And he too felt like something was off, especially after he spoke with Danny's personal physician. So this detective is taking a little bit more interest in the case because he's just doesn't seem like it acts like an accident. And when he talked to her doctors, they tell him, okay, if this was in fact an accident where she fell into this pool of water, there was nothing in her medical files that showed she shouldn't have just been able to roll over in a few inches of water. Even if she broke her legs, which isn't what her autopsy showed, there was no reason she shouldn't have been able to just pop over. So Keith goes back to his supervisors and he tries to make a case. He's like, listen, the doctors claims are a good reason to keep up the search for a possible attacker that maybe this wasn't an accident. But they don't agree. Instead, he said he felt ridiculed, especially by the sheriff at the time, Bill slaughter. Keith said he remembered the words he used to something along the lines of what the F does the doctor know. It was something that affected Keith so much he actually resigned from the force just three months after Danny's death. crazy to me that people like that even get leadership positions. - I know. - Well, I can't stand it, it's, yeah. - Well, 'cause also I'm like, well, if you have one detective who's like, "Hey, this isn't sitting right with me." Tell him to look into it. - No, cares. - Who cares? And with Danny's now one true advocate in the Sheriff's Office resigned, the case stalled entirely. The Houchins were left to live in the unknown for years, thinking how did our daughter drown in inches of water? What was her final moments of life like? And they eventually spread her ashes on a nearby mountain, bridge a range on Sacajawea Peak, and then 24 years later. - 24 years is crazy. - Everything changed. - Oh, gosh. - So it is now 2019. Okay, again, this happened in 1996. 35-year-old Stephanie Houchins has gotten married, started a family of her own. She's now going by Stephanie Molet. Again, this is her sister. And while she's moved forward on the path of time, she hasn't gone a day without thinking about her sister's death and the answers that she still wanted. But luckily in 2019, she catches a break. Danny's case is officially reopened. - Okay. - This is thanks in big part to the family's persistence over the years. They never stopped applying pressure to the Galaton County Sheriff's Office to just look into it a little bit harder. But also because of a man named Matt Boxmeyer. He is now the sheriff's captain in Galaton in 2019, and he too fills the case needs a second look. He's surprised by how little investigation was actually done back in '96. And he also realizes that the department has made some effort to get those four hairs reanalyzed over the years by the Montana State Crime Lab. They never got a usable DNA profile. So in February of 2020, he reaches out to Stephanie to tell her, "Hey, we're gonna dig back into your sister's case." And that's when the family learns something about Danny's case for the very first time. And again, these are things that were discovered back in '96 that weren't communicated to the family. It turns out the family's suspicions of foul play were more valid than we thought. Because when Stephanie finally gets her hands on the actual autopsy report, she learns her sister didn't just drown in inches of water. She had mud in her lungs and her stomach. I just don't understand why. Like swallowed mud. Why is that kept from the family? Which suggests obviously that she had been forcibly held down into mud and was inhaling it, not just sitting on top of it. Now, if you remember, the Gallatin Sheriff's Department also originally stated Danny had no cuts or bruises found on her body, but this is a blatant lie. According to the autopsy, she had bruises all along the back of her neck. As if someone had held her neck down. I don't know, in a pile of mud and water. And she suffocated and drowned. They also found that her gold elastic watch had been pulled up over her hand. Like kind of slid up over her hand. Maybe like someone was dragging her by her wrist. And her bra was pulled up over her breasts. Her underwear was rolled to the side. And she had vaginal injuries that were indicative of sexual assault. This was all found in her autopsy back in '96. This is crazy. And the sheriff's office was like, nope, it's an accident, sorry, family. It was an accidental drowning and they moved on. Her bra was pulled up. No, this isn't, that's insane. I can't imagine how I rate the family must have been in 2020 when they live into this. I would have gone absolutely ballistic. Also props to the sheriff's captain for being like, this case deserves a second look. And it's because my predecessors literally botched the investigation. Like I find it nice when there's someone in law enforcement who's willing to come forward and be like, it doesn't matter if the people who worked before me botched this eye care about justice and eye care about. Well, he's not gonna get in trouble, it wasn't him. But I want to know who the people before were because they still alive. Mr. Slaughter. 'Cause that's insane. So if you remember, the medical examiner said they couldn't determine the manner of death and the police were like, they said it's undetermined, but it's definitely an accident. This is not indicating an accident at all to me. The fact that there was bruising on the back of her neck that she had mud in her lungs, suggesting her face had literally been shoved into mud and held there for her to suffocate her ground. And then that there was signs of sexual assault. And yet that was the narrative that had been pushing publicly back in '96 when they could have been gathering tips, they could have been looking for witnesses, they could have been investigating a homicide. Better late than never, I guess. And luckily, come 2021, there's a new sheriff in town. A man named Dan Springer, who actually remembers Danny's case well 'cause he was a rookie deputy with the department when Danny died back in '96. In fact, he had only been on the job five days when Danny's body was found. So when Boxmeyer, this is our captain, goes to him with the case, he's willing to offer whatever resources are necessary to finally solve it. And he promises Stephanie that this time they will leave no stone unturned. Springer even calls on outside help. He recruits a retired Los Angeles detective named Tom Elfmont to provide a fresh shot of eyes to the case. Now Elfmont had since moved to Bozeman after retiring in LA. And he was now running his own global security firm. But everyone knew that he was a bulldog. He was not gonna let it go. So it didn't take much for them to go to him and be like, hey, you wanna work this old case? Now once Springer met him for lunch, told him about Danny's case. He was willing to put his detective hat back on for one more job. So he spends every free moment going through the evidence and taking a second look. And one thing fills undeniable to him. And that was the state of Danny's body and clothing. And this is when he learns about another detail that had been kept from the family that's literally going to make you even more angry when you hear that this has been basically ruled in accident by every person who's looked at this case for this long. There was Seaman found in Danny's underwear. They have DNA. - Okay. It's gotta be, I don't know. There's gotta be a read like, there's a reason. Not saying it's a good reason I'm saying there's something they're hiding. Like there's something going on. - So when all of this is basically unearthed, they decide to try to officially have her manner of death changed from undetermined to homicide. They're like, let's get this reclassified. Let's make this official. It's a step in the right direction, but the suspects still aren't there. But they did have something else. Those four rootless hairs that never found their match. So they send those samples to a state of the art private lab called Australia Forensics. And basically have them use their latest technologies on these hairs. They can't get anything usable off the first three hairs, but the fourth is a winner. They're able to create a detailed genetic profile. Problem is, after running it through the FBI's combined DNA index system. - No hits. - Cotus, they still don't find a match, but it doesn't deter them. Instead, they reach out to a woman named CC Moore and investigative genealogist to see what she can find, which is so cool that like, this has now become a profession, like an investigative genealogist. CC had started working with law enforcement back in 2018, just a few years before getting assigned to Danny's case. And by this point in 2024, she had helped solve 325 cases. So like, this girl knows what she's doing when it comes to genealogies. She's good at reading these charts. She's gonna find our guy. She begins by comparing the sample to those that are submitted to user-based genealogy websites, ancestry.com, so forth. And by the spring of that year, she is ready to start building out a family tree. 'Cause again, it's not like she's gonna find the match. - Yeah, no, it's a whole process. - But she's gonna take the time to build out a family tree. She soon finds the great-grandparents on both sides. - Oh my gosh, that's great. - Of this suspect's family tree. So she doesn't know who they are, but she works it all the way down to their great-grandparents. And eventually, she zeroes in on one couple who had three sons. However, that family lived in New Hampshire. - That's nowhere near the crime scene. So CC digs deeper. She's looking at marriage birth certificates, public registries. I mean, in order for her to do her job, she's on Facebook. She's looking at everything she can to try to figure out who belongs to who. And finally, she finds the couple's youngest son on Facebook and on his page. On his Facebook page publicly, It says that on July 1st. 1996, he updated his Facebook profile to say that he had moved abosman, Montana three months before Danny was killed, the youngest son of this family tree that she has, you know, made admits to moving to the area. So on May 1st, 2024, CC calls Sheriff's Springer with the good news. She's like, I think I have your suspect, his name 55 year old Paul Hutchinson, who lived at this point just over 100 miles away in Dylan, Montana. Now, when Stephanie, the sister, here's the news, her first reaction is a sigh of relief. They have been living all of these years with this unsettling feeling that not only was this not an accident, but that it also could have been someone they knew who then continued to be in their life. That it could have been someone close to the family, but Paul's name is not one that she knew or her family knew he's a complete stranger. And yet she has this gut feeling that this is the guy, something inside her screaming, not only is everyone now admitting that this wasn't an accident, like we finally made progress that way. I think we're getting pretty close. The thing is on paper, Paul doesn't seem like a very likely candidate. He has no criminal history. He's married with two adult children, a son and a daughter. He works for the government, specifically the Bureau of Land Management for the last 22 years as a biologist. One thing that does stand out is Paul had always been big on the outdoors. He loves hunting, fishing, trapping. He's someone Danny could have easily cross paths with that day, near the river. So investigators dig deeper, they're like, is there some type of connection here? They learn in 1996, when Paul was 27 years old, he had just finished serving with the Marine Corps and moved to Bozeman to be a grad student at Montana State University. This is about 10 miles from where Danny's body was found. At the time, he was doing a work study for the Fish and Wildlife Service, which meant he literally worked along the waterways near Belgrade. Can you imagine getting caught because of a couple of hairs? One hair. Hey, yeah, one generally one hair. So that's pretty mind blowing. He does this. He ends up going on in life. He moves to Dylan. He meets his wife, Christine on match.com in 2000, four years after the murder. I, this happens a lot in our cases. I don't understand how like someone will kill someone and then just go live a completely quote, and quotations normal life. Yeah, they separate. I was impossible. How's that? I don't know. I don't know if it's possible. He's separated. They separate it. Oh, easy. Yeah, let me just separate me killing somebody real quick. So by Christmas 2001, he's engaged. He's later married back in his home state of New Hampshire. But here he is, a match for the hairs on Danny's body. So detect his figure. He's been hiding this dark secret from his family this entire time when they likely had no idea about, but that's about to change. What's interesting is that while the Houchins had never heard his name before, there were other people in their circles that had Stephanie's childhood friend, Rochelle Shrewt, actually knew Paul pretty well. By 2024, Rochelle's working as an editor for the hunt and fish section of gear junky, it's an online media outlet. She's also an avid hunter and former guy at Yellowstone National Park. She said she met Paul around the early 2000s, considered him a mentor. They went on fishing trips together, just the two of them out in the middle of nowhere. And now she's getting news that this guy possibly killed her friend. And she's like, just years later, I was going on trips alone with him. Yeah, that's what I mean though, like normal. Well, and she says, I never question that Paul was a good guy. He never rubbed me the wrong way. She's still understand. I considered him a friend someone I trusted. She never he never made me feel unsafe. So can you just imagine the shock when she learns he's the primary suspect in her friend's sister's case. Now, there's just one catch, obviously, they need more, they need to prove that Paul's DNA matched what was found at the crime scene. The tree CC built was incredible. But again, it's just a theory. Yeah. So on July 23rd, 2024, Elfmont and another detective from the Sheriff's Department, go down to Paul's office and Dylan at the Bureau of Land Management. They don't want to spook him away. So they approach him getting out of his truck, they say, Hey, we just want to chat about cases going on around local rivers, we could use an expert opinion. So Paul invites them into the office to chat and they sit down in a conference room. And while they don't quite ask about Danny's case, they can tell Paul is uncomfortable, which obviously if you have this secret, like if this is real, and you know, police show up and they're like, Oh, we just want to talk to you about some were homicide detectives. We don't talk to you about just some cases. We need, you know, advice. You would still sweat 1000%. You would sense that something's up. Oh, crap. And eventually he asks, Hey, can I step out and just go look for a coworker who can help us? But once he comes back, they turn up the heat. They start showing him pictures from other cases, they're like, you know, this woman died on the river, this woman died on the river. And then they bring out a picture of Danny, how chance? And they're like, she died, along the river. And they're like, have you ever been to this area where her body was found Galatin River, specifically the Cameron bridge access? And he says, yeah, probably it's along a street called Jack Rabbit Lane, right? They start zaring in they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, if you ever gone fishing or trapping in this area, actually, Danny spent some time here, did you ever see her? Do you recognize her? And while he denies it, they know that he's uncomfortable. He's shaking, he's sweating, he's scratching at his face, he's chewing his fingernails. And that's how he spends most of this two hour interview. Now, they don't drop the ball. They don't arrest him that day. They don't have a warrant. I'm not sure if they ask him for a DNA sample or not, but I know they do tell him we already have DNA of the suspect in the case, we're just trying to learn more about the area. So they let him know that they have a DNA profile of the person who did it. And after the two hour interview, they let him go, they place him under surveillance, they catch him driving like a maniac later that day, showing that he's unwell. And meanwhile, Stephanie's already bracing herself for the next phase. She's emotionally preparing for a lengthy trial for a road to justice. She knows she's getting closer until the day after Paul's interview. Yeah, he 100% off some self doesn't he? Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, this is no dig to the detectives because just uncovering and working this case good for them and doing all they did, I would have just tried to collect DNA and compare like they've done in other cases. I don't know if I really, but I think they were hoping for a confession. I think they were hoping because of the type of profile he was, because he never reoffended in their eyes that they would, you know, confront him and he would just confess. I think he was going to do it no matter what less than 12 hours later on July 24th, they get a call. Deputy's arrive along a roadway just outside of Dylan. And there they find Paul Hutchinson dead from a self-inflicted gun wound. They didn't suspect it would end this way. Stephanie didn't, but it led to another development in the case. They now are able to collect his DNA just to close Danny's case. It's a 100% match. Yeah. Paul's death also means though, they'll never get answers. They were hoping for what happened that day? How did they stumble upon each other? How did this even happen? Yeah, which I what was going through his head? That's what I was going to ask is how why like what like what's going on? Did they just he's a coward. So here we are. They're assuming he just acted on impulse. He came across her alone out there. He sexually assaulted her and then drowned her. It was purely a crime of opportunity. In the first few days after Paul's death, his family posts his obituary. It's then pulled down and replaced with a message from his wife. It reads in part, quote, in 24 years of marriage, there was never any hint that something like this could be lurking in the background. Paul was an exceptional husband and father. This latest news makes our grieving so much more complicated, which would have to be true. Like you find out that your husband took his life. And then you find out the reason they think he took his life is because cops had just confronted him about a murder he committed where his DNA is 100% the match. Yeah. Oh, it's really hard because the psychology behind that like being the wife and the kids and then being like, well, that's my dad. And he's never done anything to us. And that now, but when he was in his 20s, he killed someone like, I don't even know the twist that does to your brain. Like you're grieving. I don't know. The father you knew, you're grieving the person that you knew. But then you're also trying to fathom the idea of a person you don't know. But it's real, right? Yeah, I don't it's hard. Stephanie, then 39 years old gives an eviction. them in pack statement to the press, she says the following, "Even though this man will not face a jury of his peers, I have no doubt he was the one who forcefully and violently sexually assaulted my sister and then held her head down in a marsh until she choked to death on mud." But the questions surrounding Paul aren't the only ones going on answer. To this day, Stephanie and the rest of the Houchens family still don't understand why the sheriff's department initially lied to them about the autopsy, lied about Danny's death, like it's so blatantly screened homicide, why lie about it, especially because there was no tie to the department. They weren't protecting anyone they knew. Yeah. I said earlier, like, yeah, there's no, what's the reason? There's zero reason. I'm very confused. There's just another aspect to this case. I don't know. Maybe someone knew him. There's also questions we're probably never find out. Well, people find Bill Slotter the sheriff back at the time and they're like, Hey, this case came out of cold case and was turned to a homicide and then they ended up fighting the person and all this information came out. So why did you lie? Yeah. Like, why did you lie back then about this case? He says he's in retirement now. He says publicly, he admitted to withholding some information about the autopsy. Some information, bro, but he says I didn't lie to the family. I thought this was an accident. I guess it depends how you define a lie because he literally told them there were no bruises or cuts. It's just people trying to justify their actions, annoying and omission of the truth is just damaging. In this case, not only did it leave a family questioning for longer than necessary, it also bought Paul Hutchinson time to build a life, time to walk away from his past, time to think he was getting away with something he never should have gotten away with, time to then go on and victimize even more people like his wife and children who then would have to discover this one day. And those facts are just as painful as if that's insane. The sheriff's department had just released the truth back in 1990. Just killed a 15 year old girl, 15 years old of Danny Houchins. No one knows why no one knows how like, okay, I'm of opportunity is what their heart is. Absolutely insanity. It's like, it's hard because I feel like sometimes the human psyche wants to feel bad for someone like this in a sense where it's like, well, he was a dad and he had a kid and he was a husband and it's like he killed a 15 year old girl. And just hurt even more people now, the psychological torment that so many people now have to live with when his actions came to light, like, sorry, dude, I don't think you get a kill of 15 year old to go get married, then have kids and then potentially mess them up as well because of all this. Yeah. Well, and also then to just kill yourself and not even leave a note to the family explaining what happened at least, at least you could have done is just answer some questions. They've been living with this unknown huge part of their lives for this long. All right, you guys, that was our episode and we will see you next time with another one. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.