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Download the Amazon Music app today. At around 9 p.m. on September 13, 2006, a college student walked toward her friend's apartment in the small town of Valley City, North Dakota.
She walked up the steps and was about to knock on her friend's door when she was hit with this really powerful chemical smell, like cleaning chemicals.
She looked around, wondering where the smell was coming from, and that's when she realized it was coming from her friend's apartment.
More confused than worried, the friend knocked on the door, but there was no answer.
So she reached down and tried the handle, and it was unlocked, so she opened it up.
And when she looked inside, she began to scream.
But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
So if that's of interest to you, please go to the Amazon Music Follow Button's wedding and make sure to sneakily replace their first dance song with episode number one of our brand new show, Run Full.
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Go to audible.com slash richgirlsummer. On a bright, cool afternoon in early September of 2006, 22-year-old college senior Mindy Morgenstern walked out of her one-bedroom apartment in the small college town of Valley City, North Dakota.
Mindy was tall and athletic with curly black hair that came down to her shoulders.
She wore a tank top, sweatpants, and running shoes.
Mindy felt the sun beat down on her face as she carried her two empty laundry baskets down the steps outside of her second-floor apartment to the apartment complex's laundry room on the first floor.
As Mindy got close to the laundry room, she heard two of the dryers buzzing.
Mindy smiled. She'd clearly timed her trip perfectly.
Mindy stepped into the cramped laundry room, pulled her clothes out of each dryer, and piled them into the baskets.
Then she headed back towards her apartment.
Mindy passed a young couple on the steps, and so she said hello and smiled.
It was a pretty small apartment complex, and so Mindy made sure to be friendly to everyone she ran into there.
In fact, most of her neighbors knew Mindy as the young woman who always had a smile on her face and a kind word to say.
The couple said hello back to Mindy and smiled as well, and then Mindy continued the walk back up to her apartment.
Mindy grabbed her key from her pocket, and she tried to unlock the door, but she was really struggling to balance the laundry baskets in her arms as she tried to do this.
At the same time, Mindy heard a voice behind her, and her neighbor, Mo Gibbs, swooped in and grabbed one of the baskets before it fell out of Mindy's arms.
Mindy laughed at herself and then got the door open.
She took the basket from Mo, thanked him for his help, and she went inside.
Mindy put the baskets on the floor and pushed them up against the wall in the entryway.
She knew she should probably just put her clothes away now, but she had some studying she wanted to finish first.
So Mindy walked into the living room and sat down on the couch.
She reached over and grabbed a pen and a notebook from the coffee table, leaned back on the couch, and started reading through some notes on sports medicine that she'd taken for her class.
In high school, Mindy had been a basketball star and she had dreamed of playing in college and maybe even professionally in the WNBA someday.
But not long after her high school graduation, Mindy had unfortunately been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Multiple sclerosis, or MS for short, is a chronic disease of the central nervous system that can affect a person's vision and movement and can cause fatigue and loss of balance.
Since her diagnosis, Mindy had been doing well with treatment and medication, but the disease had forced her to give up playing basketball competitively.
But as crushing as that was, Mindy had never let it get her down.
She was a religious person who believed God had a plan for everybody, and so she had told herself that being a professional athlete just wasn't part of God's plan for her.
But still, Mindy did love sports, and so she wanted to find another way to connect with athletics without actually participating in them.
So she had spent her time in college studying to become a physical therapist someday, and she had also started working as an assistant coach for a high school basketball team in the area.
In her living room, Mindy was going over her notes when her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She put her notes down, grabbed her flip phone, and looked at the caller's number on the small digital display.
Mindy took a deep breath. She really didn't want to talk to the person who was calling, but she thought it was rude not to answer.
So, feeling resigned, she flipped open the phone and said hello, and she heard the voice of a man in his mid-fifties on the other line.
And before Mindy could get a word in after saying hello, the man said how excited he was that he'd caught her when she wasn't busy.
The man on the other line was Rodney Kuznia, the father of Mindy's ex-boyfriend.
Mindy and Rodney's son had broken up over a year ago, but when they were together, it had been very serious.
Mindy had even thought they'd get married someday.
But her boyfriend had moved to another city for college, and he had gotten tired of being in a long-distance relationship.
So he had broken up with Mindy and stopped talking to her.
But his father, Rodney, had stayed in Mindy's life.
After the breakup, Rodney had called occasionally just to check in on Mindy.
Mindy and Rodney had gotten to know each other pretty well when she was dating Rodney's son, so at first, Mindy thought the calls were kind of nice, a father figure just making sure she was okay.
But after a short time, it all kind of changed.
Rodney had started calling several times a week, and Mindy just didn't really like it.
Mindy's friends had told her she needed to cut Rodney off completely, just tell him to never call again.
And if he did call, she needed to ignore it.
Mindy hadn't gone that far, but she had told Rodney that he really needed to back off and that it wasn't right that he kept calling her all the time.
But Rodney clearly had not gotten the message.
On this particular phone call, Rodney asked if maybe Mindy would want to get together for dinner sometime.
When Mindy heard this, she just sighed. She could hear her friend's voices in her head.
You can't do this. Tell him to go away. Then, in a very calm, polite voice, Mindy told Rodney that she did not think that was a good idea.
And she told him again that he really needed to stop calling her so much.
Mindy then said goodbye, hung up, and slipped her phone back into her pocket.
She hoped Rodney would finally take the hint this time and actually leave her alone.
Mindy picked up her notes again, but she couldn't focus.
The phone call had totally thrown her off.
She thought about calling her ex-boyfriend to let him know what was going on, but things hadn't ended well between them and she didn't feel like stirring up any bad feelings.
So she stood up, stretched, and headed outside to take a walk.
Even though multiple sclerosis had kept Mindy from pursuing her basketball career, she still stayed very active.
And as much as she loved being around other people, she was almost never happier than when she was outside by herself going for a walk, feeling the sun beat down on her with the wind at her back.
And that day, going for a walk outside did the trick.
By the time she got back to her apartment, she'd put the stress of the phone call with Rodney behind her.
Once she was back inside her apartment, Mindy carried the laundry baskets to her room and she put her clean clothes away.
Then she took a shower, got dressed, and went out to meet her two best friends for dinner.
Later that night, when she got back from dinner, Mindy parked her car, stepped outside, and headed up the steps to her apartment.
After her walk earlier that day, and now after hanging out with her best friends for the night, Mindy was in a great mood and smiling ear to ear.
But then something strange happened when Mindy got to her door.
She felt the hair on her neck stand up. It felt like someone was watching her.
She turned around, but she just saw the cars in the parking lot and the outline of the trees in the moonlight across the street.
But Mindy still felt uneasy, so she got inside her apartment as fast as she could and she closed and locked the door.
She sat down on the couch and tried to calm herself down.
Mindy's friends often made fun of her and said she was afraid of her own shadow, so Mindy told herself her friends must be right, that she was just making things up in her head and getting scared for no reason and that everything was actually just fine.
At around 12.45 p.m. on September 13th, 2006, so over a week after the phone call from Rodney, Mindy walked down the steps outside her apartment carrying an empty laundry basket in her hands like she'd done a week earlier.
Mindy didn't understand how it was already time for her to do laundry again, but she and her two best friends had plans to go out that night and she hadn't found anything clean that she wanted to wear.
So Mindy made her way to the laundry room, took her clean clothes out of the dryer, and piled them high inside of her basket.
She was excited to go out that night. She and her friends were always busy with school, with work, or with guys they were dating, but they always made time for each other.
And for Mindy, who had grown up in a small town and been really close with her family, having good friends like that made all the difference in the world.
Mindy had been nervous when she first moved away from home to go to school, but now she couldn't imagine living somewhere without her two best friends right nearby.
Mindy carried the basket out of the laundry room, walked up the steps to her apartment, got her key out of her pocket, and unlocked the door.
This time it was a bit easier because she only had the one laundry basket in her arms.
Once inside the apartment, Mindy put the laundry basket down and pushed it up against the wall in the entryway.
But when she turned around to close her door, she saw someone standing there.
Mindy smiled politely and was about to reach out and still just close the door on this person.
But before she could, this person just stepped right inside of her apartment and slammed the door behind them.
Over an hour later, so at about 2pm that day, Mindy's neighbor, Mo Gibbs, the guy who had helped her get inside of her apartment the week earlier, he stepped out of his apartment carrying a large moving box in his arms.
He was going to load up his car downstairs because he, his fiancée, and her younger daughter were in the process of moving to another apartment complex.
But when Mo walked past Mindy's apartment, he stopped.
The scent of a cleaning product or disinfectant hit him really hard, like somebody had poured out a bunch of Pine Sol nearby.
But regardless, Mo just walked past her door and made its way downstairs to the parking lot.
And for the rest of the day, other residents of this complex noticed that same really intense chemical smell coming out of Mindy's apartment, but nobody thought it was anything to worry about.
Then at about 9 p.m., so roughly seven hours after Mo had passed by the door and first noticed that smell, Mindy's two best friends pulled into the parking lot of Mindy's apartment complex.
They had been trying to get a hold of Mindy for a while because they had thought she was going to meet them at a bar that night.
But when Mindy never showed and when she didn't answer her phone, they started to get worried because Mindy always answered her phone.
One of Mindy's friends opened the passenger side door, stepped outside, walked through the parking lot, and went up the steps towards Mindy's apartment.
But she stopped cold about halfway up because she was hit with that really intense smell that smelled like pine saw.
Mindy's friend figured the apartment management must be cleaning the floors or something, so she just kind of shook off the smell and continued walking up to Mindy's door.
When she got there, she knocked, but Mindy didn't answer.
So the friend banged harder on the door, but still no one came to the door.
Then she grabbed the doorknob and she felt it turn in her hand.
The door was unlocked. And that seemed really weird because as a young woman living alone, Mindy was hypervigilant and always made sure to lock her door.
And so with a lot of apprehension, Mindy's friend opened the door and stepped inside, but immediately they stopped because there was something on the ground that made them scream.
The friend fumbled for their phone, pulled it out, dialed 911, and then they turned around to run back outside, go downstairs, and tell their friend in the car what they had just seen, but the friend was blocked by a man standing in Mindy's doorway, and suddenly Mindy's friend was screaming even louder.
Minutes after Mindy's friend had called 911, Sergeant Dave Swenson of the Valley City Police Department was sitting on his couch watching TV when his phone rang.
Swenson glanced down and saw it was the police dispatch.
He turned off the TV and answered the phone.
On the other line, the dispatcher said they'd just gotten a call from a young woman who was screaming and very upset about something that had happened to her friend.
She was so upset that the dispatcher wasn't exactly sure what had even taken place, but the young woman had said something about a strangling.
The dispatcher gave Swenson the address of the incident, and he checked and saw it was an apartment complex only about a block from Swenson's house.
So he said he'd be over there in a minute and hung up the phone.
Swenson was young and was an active part of the small Valley City community.
So as he made the short drive down the street, he worried about the young woman who had made the 911 call.
It was pretty rare in Valley City for the police to get distraught calls like that.
Swenson pulled his car into the apartment parking lot and he saw two women in their early 20s running towards him and a man pacing back and forth a few feet behind them.
Swenson parked his car and stepped outside.
The lot was pretty dark, but he could still tell that both women coming towards him had obviously been crying.
When the women reached him, Swenson introduced himself and then one of the women told him something terrible had happened up in her friend's apartment.
Swenson told the women to wait right there.
And then he rushed past them and the man who was pacing back and forth.
And he went up the steps to Mindy's apartment.
He walked inside and immediately he was hit with that smell of Pine Sol.
Then Swenson looked down at the floor and he saw Mindy's body.
And for a second, he almost wanted to cry.
Swenson knew Mindy. He had spent time on the college campus where she went to school, and he was a big supporter of the college and high school sports teams in the area, and he had often met Mindy at games.
Swenson thought Mindy was one of the kindest, brightest young people he knew, and he couldn't believe what he was now looking at.
Mindy was lying on her side just a few feet from the apartment's entryway.
Blood covered her shirt, there was a cloth belt wrapped around her throat, and there was a knife with the handle broken off sticking out of her neck.
Swenson also saw an empty Pine Sol bottle laying right next to her.
Swenson grabbed his phone out of his pocket and called the station.
He knew the small Valley City Police Department was going to need help with a violent crime like this.
About 15 minutes later, special agents Mark Saylor and Calvin Dupree from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation pulled into the parking lot outside of Mindy's apartment.
The Bureau of Criminal Investigation is a state law enforcement agency in North Dakota that aids local police departments with certain cases.
Sailor and Dupree stepped out of the car and saw the flashing lights from local police cruisers that had already arrived at the scene.
And they saw an officer standing with two young women and a man in the parking lot.
Sailor and Dupree waved to that officer and then walked over to the group.
Both of the agents were tall with broad shoulders and they both looked very intimidating.
Saylor told Mindy's two friends and the man that was with them that he and Dupree would need to ask them some questions, but it might still be a little while, so we thanked them in advance for their patience.
Saylor's voice was soft and calm, a contrast to his physical appearance.
Saylor and Dupree left the group and walked across the parking lot and up the steps to Mindy's apartment.
They put on their gloves and went inside with the few other local officers that were already in there.
Like everyone else who had been near Mindy's apartment that day, the first thing Saylor and Dupree noticed beyond Mindy's body was the strong smell of Pine Sol.
The agents approached Mindy's body and crouched down to get a closer look.
It was immediately evident to them that whoever had done this had poured Pine Sol all over Mindy's body and then tossed the empty bottle to the ground.
They figured that the killer must have done that to try to get rid of any physical evidence they might have left behind on Mindy's body.
After spending a few minutes examining the victim, Saylor and Dupree did a sweep of the small apartment.
In Mindy's bedroom, they saw photos of her and her parents, and of her goofing around with her friends, there were sports trophies and ribbons, and suddenly it just hit both of the agents how young Mindy was and how happy she looked in every picture they had taken of her.
It didn't take long for Saylor and Dupree to notice that really nothing in any of the rooms seemed out of place, and there was no sign of forced entry, so this did not look like a robbery to them.
Not long after the agents had walked through the apartment, state forensics officers arrived.
They got right to work examining blood spatter on the floor and on Mindy's body.
Then, Saylor and Dupree watched as one of the forensics officers examined Mindy's hands and fingers.
And at some point, that officer turned and said he'd found something.
Parts of Mindy's fingernails had broken and she had scratches on her hands.
The officer said that indicated that Mindy had put up a fight against her attacker.
The forensics officer examined Mindy's fingernails even closer, and he was convinced there would be DNA material from the killer under Mindy's nails.
So the officer ordered that Mindy's hands be treated as vital evidence from that moment moving forward.
So another forensics officer approached Mindy's body with two evidence bags, and Saylor and Dupree watched as the forensics officers worked together to painstakingly slide these evidence bags over each of Mindy's hands, and then once they were over, they tied the bags off to keep Mindy's hands from being corrupted until an autopsy could be performed.
While the forensics team continued working in the apartment, Saylor and Dupree headed back outside to the parking lot.
Once there, they approached Mindy's two friends and that man, who were all still standing with a local officer.
Mindy's friend, who had actually discovered the body, told the agents that she and her other friend had wanted to meet Mindy at a bar that night, but Mindy never showed up, so they came here to check on her.
Then, Agent Saylor asked the man who was there if he was a friend too, but the man shook his head.
He said his name was Robert Lins, and he was one of Mindy's neighbors.
He said he'd heard screaming outside of his apartment, so he'd run out to see what was going on.
Then Robert said he saw Mindy's friend in the apartment, and he walked in to make sure she was okay, and that's when he saw Mindy lying on the ground.
Saylor and Dupree thanked Mindy's two friends as well as the neighbor, Robert, and the agent said they would probably need to follow up with all of them soon.
Then Saylor and Dupree walked through the parking lot to go back to Mindy's apartment.
But as they walked, they talked about Mindy's neighbor, Robert.
The guy was wiry and covered in tattoos, which was really not a typical look for people who lived in Valley City.
But Saylor and Dupree didn't really care about Robert's tattoos.
What they cared about was they had noticed multiple cuts on one of Robert's hands.
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Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
Listen now on the Medical Mysteries or Redacted feeds, or search A Redacted Medical Mystery wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, Redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light, and it's called Lawless Planet.
Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, My show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now. or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery+.
In the early morning of September 14th, so several hours after Mindy's body had been discovered, Special Agents Saylor and Dupree stepped outside of Mindy's apartment after a long night of combing the place for evidence.
The sun was starting to rise and the morning was quiet, but Saylor and Dupree knew that would change as soon as the news about Mindy's murder began to spread through this small town.
The agents had worked enough cases in tight-knit communities to know that panic and fear can easily rip through a place like a virus whenever a horrible crime has been committed.
As the state crime lab ran tests on blood and DNA evidence found at the scene, Saylor and Dupree wanted to get a jump on the investigation, and they wanted to start with Mindy's tattooed neighbor, Robert.
Saylor and Dupree had enough experience to know that some killers would come right back to the scene of the crime when their victim had been discovered.
Killers often did this to monitor police activity or to try to alter evidence before police arrived.
The agents did not think Mindy's two girlfriends had anything to do with her murder, but Robert seemed like a legitimate suspect.
Forensics officers had said they believed Mindy put up a fight and Robert had those fresh cuts all over his hand.
So, Saylor and Dupree began by running a quick background check on Robert.
The check revealed that Robert had moved to North Dakota from California, and when he was still in California, he had served over two years in prison for stealing a car at gunpoint.
Later that morning, Saylor and Dupree interviewed Robert in a small interrogation room at the local police station.
Robert was very jittery like he couldn't sit still during this interview, but he was polite and respectful when he answered the agent's questions.
Robert told them again that he had just heard a woman screaming outside of his apartment, so he had gone out to see what was wrong.
Then he said he actually stood in the doorway of Mindy's apartment, which initially scared the friend.
Then he had actually gone in and checked for Mindy's pulse with the back of his hand, but he couldn't find one, and so that was when he knew she was dead.
Sailor and Dupree looked at each other almost like they weren't sure what they had just heard.
Dupree asked Robert why he would check Mindy's pulse with the back of his hand and not the tips of his fingers.
And without hesitating, Robert said he did that because he did not want to leave his fingerprints on the body.
The agents just stared at Robert for a second.
For him to be more concerned about leaving fingerprints on the body than just simply finding a pulse in this critical time-sensitive moment, it just seemed off.
It frankly seemed like the actions of a criminal or of a killer.
But Saylor and Dupree knew this guy had done time in prison, so there was a chance he understood if fingerprints were found on a dead body, he would automatically become a primary suspect, and the cops might not give him the benefit of the doubt.
So Saylor and Dupree were not going to proclaim Robert's guilt right away, no matter how strange and suspicious his actions were.
Then the agents asked Robert how he got the cuts on his hand, and Robert said he had gotten them the day before at the steel manufacturing plant where he worked.
He said getting cuts like this was just part of the job.
Saylor asked Robert if he would submit samples for a DNA test, and Robert said he would.
Shortly after, an officer stepped into the interrogation room and swabbed the inside of Robert's mouth for the DNA sample.
Then Dupree and Saylor let Robert go, but they told him not to leave Valley City because they might want to speak to him again.
Later that day, officers followed up on Robert's alibi that he had been at work, and multiple people at the steel manufacturing plant said, yep, Robert had been working at the time Mindy had supposedly been murdered.
But Saylor and Dupree weren't ready to write off Robert as a suspect quite yet.
It was possible his friends could be lying for him, or that they simply had not seen him leave work at some point during the day.
Still, Saylor and Dupree did not want to fixate on just one suspect while they were still waiting on test results from DNA samples found under Mindy's fingernails.
And because there had been no sign of forced entry into Mindy's apartment, the agents thought there was a good chance Mindy had known her killer.
So they focused their investigation on two groups, Mindy's friends and her neighbors.
A couple of days into the investigation, and Agent Sailor and Dupree returned to Mindy's apartment complex to interview as many of her neighbors as possible.
The agents were accompanied by a local officer, and when they all got to the parking lot, that officer immediately recognized someone.
Mindy's neighbor, Mo Gibbs, the man who had helped Mindy hold her laundry while she unlocked her door a couple of weeks earlier, was loading more moving boxes into his car.
Mo was a jailer at the county jail and so he knew most of the officers at the Valley City Police Department.
The officer waved hello to Mo and said that they'd love to talk to him to see if maybe he could help them with their investigation.
Mo said he'd be happy to help and he slid a moving box into the backseat of his car and then walked over to that officer and the two agents.
Mo was this really tall, huge guy who was built kind of like a tank and he had a big smile and bright eyes.
Agent Saylor said to Moe that because he worked in law enforcement, he might have noticed something on the day of Mindy's murder that the other people in the apartment complex who did not work in law enforcement might have missed.
Moe nodded and thought about it for a second, and then he said the one thing he had noticed was the smell of disinfectant on the second floor of the apartment complex on the day Mindy died, but he had just figured somebody was going overboard with their cleaning.
Then Saylor asked if Moe could give them any other information about Mindy that could possibly point them in the right direction.
Moe said he didn't know Mindy well, but everybody at that complex knew Mindy was like this unbelievably nice person who was kind to everyone.
And so Moe said, you know, he couldn't imagine anyone who actually lived in the apartments doing this to her.
That maybe it was somebody who did not live in this complex.
The special agents and the local officer thanked Moe for his insight and then they began making their way towards the complex to begin doing interviews with other neighbors.
And throughout the day, as Sailor and Dupree talked to more of Mindy's neighbors, they almost all told the same story as Moe.
Mindy was nice to everybody and she always seemed happy and so they couldn't understand how anyone from this complex or really anywhere would have wanted to hurt her.
That day, investigators were able to take DNA samples from a number of Mindy's neighbors, but the tests would take time, and investigators couldn't automatically rule anyone out yet.
So, Saylor and Dupree shifted their focus from the people at the apartment complex to Mindy's friends.
And right away, several of Mindy's friends all said the same thing.
The police needed to look into Mindy's ex-boyfriend.
He and Mindy's breakup had been pretty bad, and most of her friends thought Mindy still had feelings for him, but he didn't feel the same way.
So there was a chance that maybe they had gotten into a fight and things maybe turned violent.
The following day, Sailor and Dupree met with Mindy's ex-boyfriend, who went to college in a different city.
And they discovered pretty quickly that he had been on his own college campus at the time they believed Mindy had been killed.
But Mindy's ex-boyfriend told Saylor and Dupree this story that seemed so bizarre to them that they almost immediately changed the focus of their entire investigation.
Mindy's ex-boyfriend said that his own father, Rodney Kuznia, was obsessed with Mindy.
And no matter how many times he had asked his dad to stop calling Mindy and to please leave her alone, his dad had refused.
Rodney would tell his son that he and everybody else didn't understand the powerful connection he shared with Mindy.
Soon after talking to Mindy's ex-boyfriend, Saylor and Dupree were able to search Mindy's cell phone records and they discovered that Rodney had called Mindy several days in a row leading up to the murder.
Then they also saw that he had left Mindy multiple voicemails after she had been killed.
And when they listened to those voicemails, they heard Rodney crying and saying he knew what had happened to Mindy and how he couldn't believe he had been robbed of having her in his life.
And so based on those voicemails and the conversation they'd had with Mindy's ex-boyfriend, Saylor and Dupree were convinced that Rodney did have a very unhealthy obsession with the 22-year-old Mindy.
They also believed Rodney was ultimately interested in having a full-blown romantic relationship with Mindy, or at the very minimum, a sexual relationship with her.
And they thought, you know, maybe if Rodney had shown up to Mindy's apartment to try to act on those desires, but Mindy denied him, that Rodney might have snapped and killed her.
A few days after Mindy's murder, Agent Saylor and Dupree sat across a small table from Rodney inside of a police station interrogation room.
Rodney had white hair and a white mustache that went down to his chin and looked like a horseshoe.
He wore jeans, a t-shirt, and a camouflage trucker hat.
From the minute Rodney sat down, he had tears in his eyes.
Saylor began by asking Rodney to explain his relationship with Mindy.
Rodney said he was like a father to her, but then he immediately followed that up by saying he actually loved Mindy because she reminded him so much of his wife when his wife was young.
Rodney said his family did not really understand his feelings for Mindy and they didn't really know how often he talked to her.
He said if they did, they would be even angrier with him than they already were.
Saylor and Dupree just sat there with stunned looks on their faces.
They had seen plenty of older men who were interested in younger women, but there was something about Rodney that just seemed totally different to them.
And neither of them could tell if this guy was putting on some elaborate act to cover up what he did, or if he was really paralyzed with grief.
Then Rodney looked up at the agents with his red eyes and said, quote, God picked a beautiful flower, end quote.
And then Rodney started crying even more.
Sailor and Dupree kept looking over at each other, wondering if maybe one of them should step forward and kind of calm Rodney down and get him to talk again.
But neither of them wanted to stop Rodney in fear he might suddenly admit something because of how upset he was.
And so Sailor and Dupree just kind of sat there and let Rodney cry.
Finally, Rodney would collect himself and he would sit up straight and wipe the tears from his eyes, and then Saylor asked him where he had been on the day of Mindy's murder, and Rodney said he had been working on his farm with one of his sons.
Saylor asked Rodney if he would submit a DNA sample for testing, and Rodney said he would.
So, after an officer had swabbed Rodney's mouth for samples, Saylor and Dupree decided to let him go, at least until they got the DNA test results back and they had looked into his alibi.
Rodney stood up in the interrogation room, he hugged the agents, and walked out.
The interview with Rodney proved to be one of the strangest that Saylor and Dupree had ever conducted.
But despite being totally unsure if Rodney really was just sad or was involved, he now was the leading suspect along with Mindy's neighbor, Robert, who had checked Mindy's pulse with the back of his hand.
But the investigators wanted the results of both men's DNA tests before they'd be willing to make an arrest.
So in the meantime, they continued to dig into their suspect's alibis to see if they could find any flaws and maybe catch a clear break in the case.
On September 19th, 2006, so six days after Mindy's murder, almost 500 people gathered in a local high school gym for Mindy's memorial service.
Mindy's parents had planned to have the service in their church where Mindy had spent so much time when she was younger, but there had been such a large public outpouring for Mindy that her parents knew the church would not be big enough to hold everyone who wanted to pay their respects.
In the high school gym, Mindy's friends talked about what a light in the world Mindy had been, how she was that rare kind of person who dedicated herself to spreading joy and making other people's lives better. and Mindy's parents urged people to remember Mindy as the happy, kind, beautiful young woman she had been.
It was still less than a week after Mindy's murder, but in the days leading up to the memorial service, pressure had really started to mount on the investigation.
Local residents called into the police station wanting to know if it was safe for them to leave their houses and just walk the streets of Valley City.
Sailor and Dupree understood their concerns.
An unsolved murder in a small town often convinced people that they could be the next victim.
But Sailor and Dupree felt like they were getting close to finding Mindy's killer.
Mindy's ex-boyfriend's father, Rodney, had been obsessed with her and obsession was definitely a viable motive.
Then there was her neighbor, Robert, who had gone out of his way not to leave fingerprints at the scene.
And so Saylor and Dupree were almost certain that when the DNA test results came in, those results would lead them right to Rodney or Robert.
On September 20th, the day after Mindy's memorial service, Agent Saylor received a call while he and Dupree were meeting with the investigative team at the Valley City Police Station.
Saylor picked up his phone and someone from the state crime lab told him that they had the results back from several of the DNA tests that were taken during the investigation.
And one of those samples matched the DNA samples taken from under Mindy's fingernails.
And it turned out those DNA samples belonged to someone who already had a criminal record.
Saylor hung up the phone and told Dupree what he'd just heard.
Then the agents thanked the local officers on the investigative team for all their hard work, and Saylor said they now knew who had killed Mindy.
Based on DNA test results, evidence found at the scene of the crime and on the victim's body, and interviews conducted throughout the investigation, here is a reconstruction of what investigators believe happened on September 13, 2006, the day someone murdered 22-year-old Mindy Morgenstern.
At 12.45pm that day, the killer watched Mindy pull her clean clothes out of the dryer inside of her apartment complex's laundry room.
The killer thought about going up and speaking to Mindy, but ultimately they decided it would be better if they surprised her.
So the killer stepped away from the laundry room and quickly walked across the first floor of the apartment complex.
Then they ran up the steps to the second floor, they eyed Mindy's apartment, and then walked around a corner so they could see her apartment without being seen themselves.
Then the killer waited for a couple of minutes, but it felt like an eternity.
Finally, the killer saw Mindy reach the top of the steps and walk towards her apartment door.
Then they watched as Mindy reached into her pocket and took out her key.
At this point, the killer quickly moved from their hiding spot around the corner and walked toward Mindy's front door.
And they were only a few feet away when Mindy stepped inside and pushed the laundry basket up against the wall.
The killer stepped right into Mindy's doorway, and when Mindy turned around to close and lock the door, the killer just stood there smiling.
Mindy smiled back, but before Mindy could say anything, the killer grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her back into the entryway.
Then the killer stepped inside her apartment and slammed the door, trapping both of them inside.
The killer moved in on Mindy, but Mindy lunged at the killer.
Mindy was fast and strong and she thrashed at the killer, but the killer was able to get ahold of Mindy and wrap their arms around her and throw her hard to the floor.
Mindy lay there for a second stunned and as she did, the killer glanced around the room and saw a cloth belt near the pile of clothes in the laundry basket.
Without thinking, the killer grabbed the belt and then crouched over Mindy and before Mindy could try to get to her feet, the killer began wrapping the belt around Mindy's throat and they began tightening their grip.
Mindy scratched and clawed at the killer's hands, but they held on tight and kept pulling harder and harder on that belt.
Mindy gasped for air over and over again until she couldn't anymore.
And then finally the killer loosened their grip and Mindy collapsed fully on the floor and stopped fighting.
But the killer could still hear Mindy wheezing, she was alive.
And the killer knew they had already been in the apartment much longer than they had planned.
So the killer left Mindy struggling to catch her breath on the floor with the belt still wrapped around her neck and they rushed into the kitchen.
They began pulling open all the drawers until they found a large, sharp kitchen knife.
Then the killer took that knife and marched back to where Mindy was still on the floor.
The killer crouched down again, grabbed Mindy by the hair, tilted her head back, put the blade just above where the belt was wrapped around her, and slit Mindy's throat.
Afterwards, the killer jabbed the knife deep into Mindy's neck.
Blood poured down Mindy's neck and onto her shirt and arms, and then Mindy died.
The killer stood up and looked down at Mindy's body.
Suddenly they started to panic. There was so much blood and Mindy had really fought back.
The killer knew they must have left physical evidence on her body and there were definitely fingerprints on the knife.
So the killer darted back into the kitchen and threw open the cabinets under the sink.
And there they found a pair of rubber cleaning gloves and a bottle of Pine Sol.
The killer put on the gloves, grabbed the bottle that was almost full and went back to Mindy's body.
The killer put the bottle down on the floor, then they gripped the knife handle sticking out of Mindy's neck in one hand and then braced the other hand against Mindy's shoulder and they broke off the knife handle.
Then they pocketed the handle and grabbed the bottle of Pine Sol.
They opened it up and poured it all over Mindy's face, shirt, arms, and legs.
When the bottle was empty, the killer just dropped it on the floor next to Mindy.
They stood up and walked to the door. The killer cracked open the door and looked out into the hallway to make sure nobody was close by.
Then they stepped out into the hall, shutting the door behind them.
They turned, they walked down the hall, they turned the corner and went into their own apartment.
Once inside, the killer got rid of the knife handle in the trash and rinsed off their hands and face in the sink.
Not long after that, the killer stepped out of their apartment like nothing had happened, and they began heading down to the parking lot to load their car with moving boxes.
It would turn out Mo Gibbs, who was Mindy's neighbor and a county jailer, murdered Mindy Morgenstern.
Mo had often seen Mindy around the apartment complex, and at times, he had even watched her from the shadows.
Then, a little over a week before the murder, Mo had helped her hold her laundry while she was able to unlock her door and get inside of her apartment, and it was during that brief interaction that Mo decided he had to have sex with her.
But Mo and his fiancé were moving out of the apartment complex soon, and he felt like he had to move fast.
So, on May 13th, when he saw Mindy doing laundry again, he decided it was time to act.
After the murder, Mo had just gone about his business like normal, loading up his car and texting his fiancée.
But when he had smelled the strong scent of Pine Sol, he worried that he might have gone too far and that the smell might draw attention to the scene.
But hours passed without anybody going into Mindy's apartment, and even when Mindy's friend found her body later that night, Mo didn't panic.
He just kept going to work, spending time with his fiancée and his daughter, and getting ready to move like everything was fine.
But when the DNA test results came in, they pointed investigators directly to Moe.
And so Agent Saylor and Dupree started digging into Moe's history, and they discovered he was not the man he said he was.
Years before Mindy's murder, he had changed his name to Mo Gibbs, come to Valley City, and taken up an entirely new identity.
This had allowed Mo to hide the fact that he had prior convictions when he applied for his job at the county jail.
But Mo's past came out when the DNA under Mindy's fingernails matched the samples he had provided. because it also turned out that Moe's DNA samples matched DNA samples found in an unsolved rape case that had taken place years earlier in Fargo, North Dakota.
And so police came to believe that Moe had attacked Mindy in her apartment with the intention of ultimately raping her, but when Mindy had fought back so fiercely, Moe abandoned that plan and just killed her.
Police arrested Mo and following his arrest, six women came forward and accused him of sexually assaulting them while they were prisoners in the county jail where he worked.
And one of those women actually said Mo had sexually assaulted her just hours before Mindy was murdered.
Mo Gibbs was found guilty of Mindy's murder, and he pled guilty to six counts of rape stemming from the accusations made by the women who had come forward.
He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support.
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