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In 2021, police in Salt Lake City, Utah discovered a strange video on someone's phone.
Now this video, which at first glance seems kind of playful, is actually extremely disturbing and distressing once you realize what it's about.
Fair warning.
We're going to play a portion of the audio from that video towards the end of today's episode.
And also fair warning.
The ending to this story is just plain heartbreaking and brutal.
So listener discretion is advised.
Today's story is the remastered audio from This Shopper Got Caught Doing Something Evil, which is a very popular video on our main YouTube channel.
The link to the original YouTube video is in the description.
But before we get into today's 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 move in to the room directly above the amazon music follow buttons apartment and then start hosting tap dance lessons out of your apartment.
Okay, let's get into today's story.
It begins here.
From the director of It comes It.
Welcome to Derry, the chilling new HBO original series exploring one of horror's biggest terrors, Pennywise the Clown.
Set in 1960s Derry, Maine, the new HBO original series is streaming Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO Max.
Also, you can listen to the official It Welcome to Dairy podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Reese's peanut butter cups.
They go perfectly with music.
Podcasts.
And welcome back to the show.
Even nature sounds.
Oh, and the thing where someone crinkles tissue and whispers at you.
Hello.
Look, I'm not here to judge what you listen to.
I'm here to judge you for not eating Reese's while you listen to it.
Reese's.
Actually, go back to the nature sounds.
Nice.
That's really nice.
On January 28 1976, Daniel Halseth was born in a small town in Oregon called Estacada, which is located about 30 miles southeast of Portland.
Daniel's family owned a farm, and so from a young age Daniel became accustomed to getting up super early and helping out with daily chores.
This childhood experience on the farm instilled in Daniel a strong work ethic, and it also taught Daniel to really appreciate family, because the family he had grown up in spent all their time together and they all struggled and worked together every day to make ends meet.
In high school, Daniel really began to blossom.
He had this wonderful energy and huge radiant smile that drew people to him.
And he was just one of those people that was just naturally gifted at everything he did.
And it seemed totally effortless.
During his high school years, he picked up playing the piano as well as the drums, and his classmates affectionately nicknamed him Drummer Dan.
Daniel was also amazing with anything to do with computers or technology.
And Daniel was just very handsome and very athletic and fit.
And so he was really the guy that everybody wanted to be.
But despite having all of these things going for him, Daniel was dealt a major blow in 1994, when he was in his junior year of high school.
That year his father, who he was quite close with, died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm.
This was a crushing blow for a young man that still very much leaned on his father for guidance and support.
But Daniel, like the rest of his family, found a way to just keep on going despite this immense heartbreak.
In 1995, so a year after his father's death Daniel would graduate high school and he would head to Salem Oregon, where he would go to school and earn his bachelor's degree in music, and then he would stick around in Salem at another university and he would earn his master's in business.
And it was during those years that he was in Salem that Daniel would meet a young woman named Elizabeth Swarack, who had grown up in Salem.
She, like Daniel, was incredibly hardworking and was just naturally good at everything she tried.
She was also a model, and so when she and Daniel began dating, they genuinely looked like this beautiful Hollywood couple.
In 2001, which was shortly after Daniel had earned his master's degree, he and Elizabeth got married.
Five years later, the couple, who now were the proud parents of three young children, two girls and a boy.
They moved to Las Vegas because Daniel had found work there.
Daniel had founded this computer IT company because he was so skilled with computers and it was really starting to thrive and many of his clients were in or around Las Vegas.
But just a few years after getting settled in Las Vegas, it would be Elizabeth's career ambitions that would take center stage in the family.
Elizabeth had always wanted to get into politics and in 2010 she decided she would run for a state senate seat in Nevada.
But in order to do that, she would need to campaign really aggressively, which would mean she'd be gone a lot of the time.
And so Daniel, who was working full time with this computer company.
He would need to keep doing that because that paid the bills.
But he would also have to become the primary parent for their three children.
Are you willing to do this?
Daniel was completely supportive and actually really excited at the idea.
He had no problems whatsoever.
And so very soon, Elizabeth would be out on the road campaigning and trying to win the state Senate seat.
And Daniel would be home goofing around with the kids and taking them hiking and going to playgrounds and parks.
And then, after he would put the kids to bed at night, he would stay up super late and run his computer business out of their dining room.
And all this additional hard work and sacrifice that Daniel was making for his wife paid off when, later that year, on November 2nd Elizabeth, who had run this incredible campaign that was built on family values and wholesomeness and morality morality she would win the state senate seat, which shocked the state of Nevada.
And, even more impressive, she would become the youngest woman to ever be elected to Nevada legislature, at just 27 years old.
So it was clear to everyone in Nevada, and also outside of Nevada, that Elizabeth was destined for greatness.
She was going to be the next big political superstar.
And anyone who was close to the Halseth family knew Daniel was her number one cheerleader.
He was so, so proud of her.
But soon, the Halseth's perfect life would come crumbling down.
It was not long after Elizabeth had won her election that Daniel began to notice she was becoming suspiciously close with another man named Tiger Helgelian, who was a former golf pro and fellow rising political star.
After noticing his wife constantly texting with Tiger.
Daniel would actually reach out to Tiger directly and beg him to stop messaging his wife and to just leave his family alone, but the texting and the calling and the interactions between those two would not stop.
And then finally, in October of 2011 so less than a year into Elizabeth's first term as a state senator Daniel would find out that his wife and Tiger had been away together alone, on this long, extended work trip.
And so Daniel realized that almost certainly his wife was having an affair.
And so when his wife came home from this trip and she was unpacking in their bedroom, Daniel walked into the room and he accused her of being unfaithful.
And the argument that ensued got very heated, but it did not become physically violent.
Basically, Daniel just screamed and yelled at Elizabeth, swearing at her and kind of losing his temper completely.
But at some point, Elizabeth just said, Daniel, stop.
And Daniel would actually stop.
And in fact both Elizabeth and Daniel, when they were called this night, would say as soon as she said stop, Daniel stopped yelling and he left the room.
Over the next couple of days, Daniel and Elizabeth would go to therapy sessions at their church, indicating that they both were making a concerted effort to try to salvage their marriage.
But on October 21st, five days after this big blow-up fight about the affair, Elizabeth would go to police and she would claim Daniel had touched her inappropriately during the fight they had over the affair.
And so Daniel, much to his shock, was arrested and charged with something called open and gross lewdness, which is effectively unwanted touching of another person.
This accusation is quite common, especially amongst people at bars who are drinking.
You know, there's lots of unwanted touching that can happen there.
But interestingly this particular charge is cited as being one of the more frequently falsely accused offenses, because the police do not require any physical proof to actually arrest someone.
Basically, people are, in theory, able to get other people arrested simply by claiming they inappropriately touched them, even if there is not a shred of proof.
It's basically one person's word against the other.
After being found guilty of open and gross lewdness, Daniel was sentenced to six months of probation, anger management and he had to register as a sex offender.
Shortly after he was found guilty, Daniel filed for divorce.
Their divorce, which was heavily centered on who gets custody of their three kids, was very contentious, it was very bitter and it was very public.
Because Elizabeth was a state senator, she was in the public eye and because her campaign that she had run on to get elected was built entirely on wholesomeness and family values and having good moral character.
That when rumors started to fly that she had had this affair with Tiger Helgelian and that had blasted own up her family and her husband is being charged with open and gross lewdness.
It was just so salacious that, despite her denying that she ever had this affair and acting like she was in the right, she was still forced to resign from her state senate seat in February of 2012.
The divorce would finalize later that year, and most likely because of Daniel's new sex offender status from the open and gross lewdness charge, he was denied custody of the three children, despite the fact that for the last several years he had been the everyday primary parent.
So Elizabeth, she gets custody of all three kids and she promptly leaves Nevada to go to Alaska with her three kids to live with Tiger Helgelian, the man she denied having an affair with.
And shortly after arriving in Alaska, she married Tiger Helgelian.
We've all been there.
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Daniel was heartbroken.
It was like his life had blown up in a matter of seconds.
But most devastating of all was that his kids, who he called his three little angels, were now so far away from him he couldn't even see them if he wanted to.
But just like he had done back in 1994 when his father passed away, Daniel just found a way to keep on going, despite this horrible pain he was feeling.
Over the next few years, Daniel would pour himself into his computer business and really make that his full-time effort.
And he would make every effort to see his children any chance he got.
But because his relationship with his ex-wife Elizabeth, was not good.
It was really difficult to see his kids.
Eventually, Daniel would meet another woman named Bogdana, and they would actually get married.
And when that happened it seemed like in the eyes of Daniel's family he was starting to kind of finally get his life back on track.
Around this time, Daniel began sharing more and more of his life on his social media channels.
And every post he made and he made lots of them nearly every day were so overwhelmingly positive and optimistic and it really showcased his wonderful personality.
That was all about lifting up your fellow person and just being a good human being.
And he also posted loads of videos of him goofing around with his three kids, because he adored his kids.
They were the most important thing to him by far.
But despite having this very cheerful outward presence on social media privately, Daniel was dealt yet another very difficult blow in 2019 when his marriage to Bogdana, his second wife, fell apart.
And so once again, Daniel was all alone.
His social media posts around the time of the second divorce remained positive and very optimistic for the most part.
But anytime you saw an image of Daniel actually facing the camera, you could just see a distinct sadness in his eyes.
But just as quickly as it seemed like once again Daniel's life was just going to crumble, something truly amazing happened for Daniel.
Daniel's first ex-wife Elizabeth, and their three kids decided to leave Alaska and come back to Nevada and resettle in Las Vegas.
This was not because Elizabeth wanted to rekindle with Daniel.
It was just because she and the kids liked living in Las Vegas and wanted to come back.
And as soon as they were back, Daniel suddenly got to see his kids all the time.
He was so excited and so happy.
In fact, by late 2020, Daniel's youngest daughter Sierra, who was 16.
She had basically just moved in with Daniel, even though, legally speaking, she was not supposed to be doing that, and her mom Elizabeth, was totally unhappy about it.
But regardless, that was just how it was.
She was living with Daniel.
In August of that year, so around the time that Sierra had basically moved back in with Daniel, Daniel decided to take his ex-wife, Elizabeth, back to court to see if he could get custody of Sierra.
Because Sierra was the only minor of their three children.
She was still 16 and at that point Sierra was already living with him.
During the recorded video sessions between Daniel, Elizabeth and the judge, Daniel would tell the judge that life in Elizabeth's home was totally toxic and not good for his children and certainly not good for Sierra.
Daniel would explain to the judge that sierra was really struggling with some mental health issues and what she needed right now was professional therapy, something he had already enrolled her in since she had moved back in with him.
Daniel also presented to the judge a letter that he said Sierra wrote, that basically backed up the idea that she is better off living with her father.
Elizabeth would generally respond to all of these things that Daniel was saying by saying Daniel was a liar and that he was not fit to be a parent.
And that letter that he claims Sierra wrote doesn't sound like her insinuating that the letter was forged.
The judge who, at regular intervals, would get very frustrated with both Daniel and Elizabeth, finally would just say look, you've got all sorts of issues between the two of you and it's creating a horrible environment for your kids.
And if you don't find a way to come to some sort of compromise, the people that are going to suffer are your kids, specifically Sierra.
Finally, in early 2021, when Daniel and Elizabeth still had not come to terms, the judge just ordered that Daniel return Sierra to her mother's residence because, legally speaking, Sierra was supposed to be in her mother's care.
And so begrudgingly, Daniel would take Sierra and he would bring her back to her mother's house and he would say okay, you know, go see your mother, and then he would drive off.
But later that night Sierra would sneak out of her mother's house and just run back to be with her dad.
Needless to say, Daniel was not unhappy about that turn of events.
The custody battle over Sierra continued to rage for the next several months, with Sierra opting to still remain at her father's place, despite the court order, despite her mother pleading with her to come home.
And then in April of 2021, something very odd happened.
On the morning of April 8th, several hundred dollars was withdrawn from Daniel's bank account from a few different ATMs around Las Vegas.
This particular bank account was shared between Daniel and his second ex-wife, Bogdana.
They just hadn't gotten around to relinquishing control to one or the other.
And so these particular withdrawals were kind of uncharacteristic for Daniel or for Bogdana, and so they were flagged as potentially fraudulent, and so the banks sent notifications to both Daniel and Bogdana saying as much.
And so Bogdana, she gets the messages that there's been these potentially fraudulent charges.
She knows it wasn't her.
And so she calls Daniel, but Daniel doesn't pick up.
And so she texts Daniel, but again, silence from Daniel.
Thinking this was a little bit odd.
Bogdana reached out to Daniel's mother Christine, knowing that Daniel and his mom spoke nearly every day.
And so she filled the mother in about what was going, And after getting all the information from Bogdana, Christine would try calling and texting Daniel, but still got nothing.
And so she reached out to her granddaughter, Sierra.
And so she calls Sierra.
Sierra doesn't pick up.
She texts Sierra, asking to speak to Daniel.
And Sierra doesn't get back right away.
But eventually, she responds to Christine.
And the response just said, his phone has been acting up, but he's okay.
It should be fixed by tomorrow night.
No worries.
Now, Christine was relieved to read that her son and her granddaughter were just fine, but at the same time there was just something odd about the fact that she could not get in touch with her son and that Sierra was kind of acting a little bit cagey, not answering her phone which was unlike her and then sending a message that didn't quite sound like her.
But either way, Christine just let it go and figured she would be in touch with her son over the next 24 hours.
But the next day, by 10 am, when Christine and Bogdana had not heard or seen Daniel, Christine again reached out to her granddaughter Sierra.
She called her, but she didn't pick up.
And so she texted Sierra, this time demanding that she put her father on the phone.
But Sierra did not put her father on the phone.
Instead, after a few minutes, Christine just got another text message that said something to the effect of Christine.
At this point it was like her radar was up and she knew there was a real problem.
She didn't know what it was, but there was a problem and someone needed to go over to Daniel's house and make sure he and Sierra were okay.
And so Christine contacted a woman named Peggy Newman, who was Daniel's landlord and a close friend of Daniel, And she asked Peggy, would you mind going and doing a welfare check at Daniel's house?
And Peggy would say, of course, no problem, but I won't be able to get over there for at least several hours.
So Christine said no problem.
But as soon as she hung up, Christine just was so anxious waiting to find out what was going on with her son that at 146 pm, when still Peggy was out running errands and had not done the welfare check yet, Christine just called the police and asked them to do a welfare check.
Yeah, I need a welfare check.
On who are we doing a welfare check?
For my son.
He's been missing for two days.
His work's called.
His family's called.
I've called.
His ex-wife's called.
And there's nobody answering the phone and nobody is...
There's nothing.
Nobody can get a hold of him.
And then his work called and they can't get a hold of him.
And it's really, really, he just doesn't act like this.
But, as it would happen, just a few minutes after Christine placed that 911 call, Peggy Newman and a friend of hers actually arrived at Daniel's residence ahead of the police.
And so when they got there, they hopped out of their car, they walked up to the front door.
And as they're knocking on the front door, they look over into the driveway and they see Daniel's car, which was a blue Nissan Altima, is not there.
And so they're knocking, they're seeing the car's not there, it's totally silent in the house.
And so Peggy, she reaches down and she tries the doorknob and she finds it's unlocked.
So she twists the knob, she opens the door, and she and her friend step inside.
Just minutes later, Peggy and her friend would come running out of the house and Peggy would call 911 because the police weren't there yet, and she would frantically try to describe to the dispatcher what she had just seen.
24 hours earlier, a man and a woman were spotted on surveillance camera withdrawing cash from several Las Vegas ATMs using Daniel's debit card.
Those were the withdrawals that had been flagged as fraudulent and tipped Bogdana off that something could be wrong here.
After those withdrawals, the man and the woman were spotted again on camera going into a Las Vegas supermarket called WinCo and inside they would purchase a few items using Daniel's debit card.
And then they would leave and they would head to a Las Vegas Home Depot where, once again, they'd be caught on camera purchasing a few items using Daniel's debit card.
After these purchases, the man and the woman would make their way to Daniel's residence, where they would spend the night.
The following morning, Daniel's blue Nissan Altima car was spotted leaving Las Vegas at around 1020 in the morning.
That was about three and a half hours before Peggy Newman and her friend went into Daniel's residence and then quickly turned around and ran out and called 911.
When police finally did arrive at Daniel's residence on April 9th and they pulled up and they saw Peggy Newman and her friend totally ashen-faced and pacing on the sidewalk, The police would get out, they would talk to those two, they would go inside of Daniel's residence and they would see the horrible thing that Peggy and her friend had also seen.
But the police could not make sense of what they were seeing.
It really just did not add up.
Then, four days later, on April 13th, police in Salt Lake City Utah, just happened to find the man and the woman that were seen on camera on April 8th using Daniel's debit card and going to the WinCo and the Home Depot.
The police, they just happened to find these people on a bus in Salt Lake City.
And after going through the man and the woman's belongings, including their phones, the police would discover a video that these two had taken of themselves in the last couple of days that explained what was inside of Daniel's house.
Welcome back to our YouTube channel.
Day three.
Day three after marrying somebody.
Whoa!
Don't put that on the camera.
It was worth it.
The young man and young woman you just heard joking about having murdered someone was 18-year-old Aaron Guerrero and his 16-year-old girlfriend Sierra Halseth, Daniel's youngest daughter.
Allegedly, on the morning of April 8th, after Aaron and Sierra had pulled all that money out of all those different ATMs, they had gone to the Winco and purchased disposable gloves and bleach and drop cloths and they had gone to the Home Depot and purchased a circular saw and saw blades and lighter fluid.
And then they headed for Daniel's house.
It's not been made public what actually occurred inside of Daniel's residence, but we can make a few assumptions.
Daniel adored his children.
There was no act there.
He truly loved his children.
And so it would never cross his mind that one of his children or one of their significant others would ever want to hurt him.
And so when Sierra and Aaron went inside of Daniel's house, it would have been extremely easy to sneak up on Daniel or just kind of catch him off guard because he's not looking to put up a fight.
He thinks he's around people that love him and respect him because he loves and respects them.
But however the young couple did it, they would inflict up to 70 stab wounds in Daniel's body, most of which were in the back of his head.
And at some point during this vicious attack, they stuffed Daniel into a sleeping bag and, right in the middle of the living room of his house, they doused him in lighter fluid and lit him on fire.
It's unclear what exactly killed Daniel or for how long he was actually conscious and aware of what was happening before he died.
But it's very possible that Daniel had at least a small moment in time where he recognized his beloved little angel.
Sierra was actively trying to kill him.
After Daniel was either dead or incapacitated, the young couple tossed their pocket knives into the sink, and then they retrieved their circular saw, as well as a chainsaw, and began attempting to dismember Daniel's body.
But they were unable to do it, and so they just kind of set the saws down in the middle of Daniel's home, with bits of Daniel stuck on the grooves of the saw.
At that point, Aaron and Sierra attempted to destroy evidence inside of the house by scrubbing everything down with bleach, but it was totally ineffective.
And so at that point the couple decided they would just burn the entire house down and that would destroy all the evidence.
And so, around the time that Christine texted Sierra and demanded to speak to Daniel and Sierra wrote back oh, he's in the shower.
He can't talk to you right now.
That was probably around the time that Sierra and Aaron were actively trying to burn the house down.
But the fire they set was just not very big and it kind of smoldered out.
And so they would just kind of leave all of the evidence all over Daniel's house.
And they would leave Daniel's destroyed and burned body kind of propped up against the door leading into the garage.
And they would just leave the house, hop in Daniel's blue Nissan Altima and at around 10 20 in the morning they would leave las vegas.
The only reason police were able to apprehend Aaron and Sierra in Salt Lake City a few days later was because the couple had made their way to Salt Lake City and hopped on a bus and Aaron had not paid the fare.
He had just snuck onto the bus.
And so at some point, the transit authority had come through the bus and they were asking people to show their tickets, and Aaron didn't have one.
And so when they discovered this, they asked for his name.
And when they entered his name into their system, it popped up that the Las Vegas PD were actively searching for him.
While only Sierra knows why she turned on the one man who would forever love her and would forever support her.
What we do know is around the time that Daniel and Elizabeth had gone back to court and they were having those virtual meetings with the judge to decide who was going to have custody over Sierra.
Sierra had begun dating Aaron and she had fallen totally in love with him.
And it seemed very much like Aaron had totally fallen in love with her.
And somehow Daniel caught wind of the fact that Aaron and Sierra were planning to run away secretly and go move to Los Angeles.
And so when Daniel heard this, he told his ex-wife Elizabeth, and then they would go and talk to Aaron's parents and they would tell them about this plan to run away.
And both sets of parents talked and decided it was in both child's best interest if they stopped seeing each other.
And so, starting in early 2021, the parents forbade their child from seeing each other, and that was it.
But even though all the parents were involved in this decision because Sierra was at the time living with Daniel it seemed like she focused her rage about this decision on Daniel because he was the one kind of enforcing the rule.
And so it's believed.
In April of that year, Sierra decided she would just have to kill her father in order to get her boyfriend back.
In Daniel's obituary, his family very conspicuously left Sierra out saying that Daniel was survived by two loving children, not three.
On October 20, 2022, Aaron Guerrero and Sierra Halseth were sentenced to life in prison.
While Sierra showed no signs of remorse in the courtroom, Aaron would make a statement apologizing to Daniel's family, saying quote, end quote.
Aaron and Ciara will be eligible for parole in 2044.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Fallon podcast.
If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already, please move into the room directly above the Amazon Music Follow Buttons apartment and then start hosting tap dance lessons out of your apartment.
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Until next time, see ya.
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