Hi, Crime Junkies.
I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Britt.
And the story I have for you today is one that has been keeping me up at night, because it shows you just how quickly a case can be closed when on paper it looks open and shut, even when nothing about the details add up.
Because when a mom of two is found in the Puget Sound in Washington at the start of the pandemic, investigators were quick to rule her death a suicide.
But that didn't make sense to her loved ones. or to me.
So we started asking questions about how a devoted mom could vanish in the dead of night, about the witness who never told the same story twice, and about the husband, whose answers only raised more questions.
But once we started pulling at those threads, we realized that nothing about this story is simple, and it unraveled into something far more chilling than we expected.
This is the story of Gwen Hasselquist.
All right, let me take you back to a time that we all wish we could forget.
It is March 20th, 2020.
The global COVID pandemic had finally gripped the US and we couldn't just drink bleach to make it go away, despite previous advice from a president.
Now where our story takes place, in none other than Washington state, schools are closed, grocery shelves are empty and stay at home orders are just about to take hold.
But while most people are hunkered down inside Washington State, Trooper Daniel Knox is out on his regular patrol in Pierce County.
The streets are quieter than normal, but not yet completely free of traffic or traffic calls.
And just after midnight dispatch radios him about a minivan stopped on the shoulder of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which is like this mile-long suspension bridge that crosses over the Puget Sound from Gig Harbor to Tacoma.
Now, Trooper Knox drives over and he spots it right away.
A Chrysler minivan pulled over against the guardrail with all four doors wide open.
And it's not just stopped.
It's clearly been in an accident.
Like the passenger side is wrecked, like scraped and dented all the way down.
And all three windows on that side have been broken.
The glass is shattered and scattered all over the road.
When Truber Knox gets close, he also notices a guy reaching into the van through the driver's side door.
And the guy is holding an open beer, kind of talking to himself and just like...
Not making a ton of sense.
So Trooper Knox is probably thinking that this is a pretty straightforward drunk driving accident.
But the second that this man with the beer starts talking, he realizes that nothing about this is going to be straightforward.
Now he learns that this guy's name is Demetrius Jackson, and Demetrius tells him a truly wild story.
It turns out the van isn't his, and he wasn't driving it either.
Demetrius claims that he was walking to his mom's house in Tacoma from his girlfriend's place.
And if we found the right girlfriend, her house would have been on the Gig Harbor side of the bridge, about a mile from the on-ramp.
And so he says he is walking and all of a sudden this woman pulls over in the van and offers him a ride.
Didn't matter.
He was happy for the ride.
So he got into the van and the woman started driving down the bridge.
But then, out of nowhere, she just stopped midway, gets out of the van and started wandering off toward the safety railing.
Now it doesn't explicitly say in the police reports that Demetrius followed her, but he must have because he says when they got back to the van like together, he saw that the side of the van was damaged.
He's just noticing it now?
Yeah.
So super weird to me.
I don't know if he's claiming he maybe got in on the driver's side of the van before and therefore didn't notice it.
But it's not like the car could have been sideswiped while they were out of it, because all the damage is on the side closest to the guardrail.
Okay.
And actually, to Trooper Knox, it kind of looks like it hit the guardrail.
But Demetrius also isn't saying anything about there being a crash while he was in the car.
He says he has no idea how the damage happened.
But he says the woman had been acting weird.
Like the only thing she said to him was something like it's nice to meet you or it's nice to talk to you.
But they didn't actually do any talking, according to him at least, not more than her offering him the ride.
Demetrius said that all of it was just like too weird, so he decided to just leave.
And he starts walking back down the bridge on foot to get to his mom's house.
But as he was walking, he said he got this weird feeling and decided to turn around.
And as he got closer to the van, he swears that he saw what he describes as a dark figure standing by the railing.
One minute that dark figure is there and then the next it's just gone.
And by the time he got back to the van there was no sign of the woman or whoever was in the van with her.
Where did the beer he was holding come into all of this?
And why was he reaching back into the car when the trooper pulled up?
It sounds like he just stole the van and now he's trying to cover his tracks.
I know.
There is no mention of the beer in the first report.
But as for why he's reaching back into the van, well, there is a story about that.
So...
He says that now that no one was near the vehicle, I guess he just decided the van was his at that point, because he tells Trooper Knox that he thought the woman gave it to him.
Not sure that's how that works.
I know.
He says he was trying to like Him reaching in.
Was him trying to like push it down the road because he didn't have the keys?
Which doesn't exactly track with her giving him the van.
The keys would need to come with it.
And...
No surprise.
Like, of course he doesn't have any papers proving that she gave it to him either, since he just showed up and decided she did.
But Demetrius tells Trooper Knox he just assumed that she wanted him to have it.
Okay.
His story is all over the place.
And unfortunately, at this time of night, at this time of the pandemic, there are no other witnesses to back him up or even to refute his story.
But either way, Trooper Knox isn't buying it.
So he runs the registration on the minivan and it comes back to a man named Eric Hasselquist who lives about 20 minutes away.
But the van hasn't been reported stolen or anything, so they can't actually arrest Demetrius.
So to figure out what's what, another officer who had made it to the scene by that point leaves Trooper Knox with Demetrius, and then this officer heads over to the address on file to check if Eric knows what's going on with his van.
Now, by the time the officer knocks on Eric's door, it's around 1 o'clock in the morning.
So it's not surprising when no one answers right away.
Except through a window.
He sees that two kids are inside, a young boy and a young girl, like both elementary school age.
So through the window, he's like, hey, are your parents home?
The little girl just like shrugs.
But then the kids do go and open the door to tell him that their parents are sleeping.
And eventually their dad Eric, hears them talking to the officer and he doesn't like come out, which I think is a little bit strange.
He just kind of yells from another room asking what's going on.
Obviously, the officer tells him they're trying to figure out who has their minivan.
And that's when Eric finally comes to the door.
He tells the officer no one is supposed to have the van.
The whole family is home.
So he and the officer go and take a look outside where the van is usually parked.
And of course, it's not there.
But the family's other car is there, parked in the driveway, with the lights on and the door open.
Now there's nothing in the officer's report about the other car looking broken into or damaged, just lights on doors open.
So maybe whoever stole the van, if it was stolen, did that too.
Maybe.
But Eric tells the officer that he last saw the van at around 10 p.m.
Now weirdly, there's no mention about whether they asked him if there was any damage to the van before this.
I'm assuming, if it was already wrecked, that...
Like that would have come up somehow.
As like a description of like my van is this color.
Also, there's a scrape all the way down the passenger side.
Windows are blown out.
But again, remember that glass was like on the thing.
So I think they're really focusing on the accident happening there at the time.
So whoever took the van had likely gotten into an accident and made it onto the bridge all within a couple of hours.
Maybe they'll have the thief on tape.
And this can all be wrapped up before shift change.
So he asks if he can take a look at the footage.
And Eric shows him a screenshot from the ring cam that shows his wife Gwen leaving the house at around 1019 pm.
Wait, like, he just whipped out the screenshot all ready to go?
Or he had to, like, go through the footage and then took the screenshot with the timecode?
Unclear.
I know if you have a Ring camera, you can see the full recording history in the app.
But it only shows what looks like a screenshot unless you, like, click in to play the full video.
So...
I assume that first screenshot is what Eric is showing the officer.
Now, he doesn't push Eric for more, though.
He's just like, OK, great.
Well, if she left at 1019.
Did she come back?
Right.
Like, did she have the van?
Maybe she was the woman Demetrius said he met on the bridge.
Right.
Or are we looking for someone else who stole your van?
Right.
So Eric says, yes, she came back.
She's inside right now resting because she just got tested for COVID and he was pretty sure that it was going to come back positive.
Does he show him a video or screenshot of that?
No.
The report just says that there is no video of anything else, not of Gwen coming home, not of anyone in the driveway, at least that he sees.
And Eric tells the officer that's because the ring camera sensors don't like always trip.
And look, I don't know about you if you have one of these but, like my camera at home catches everything.
Like a squirrel crossing my.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm like a little bit side eyeing this.
Yeah.
I mean, I think you can adjust sensors on your cameras to make them like less sensitive or whatever.
Like, I don't know.
In this situation, just go talk to Gwen.
Wake her up.
Well, ask her what happened when she got home.
All of it.
She's right there.
Well, this is where the complexities of the time come in, because because of social distancing protocols, the officer doesn't go inside to talk to her about where she went and what time she got back, or anything.
And listen like.
What makes this all even stranger to me is that Eric doesn't seem that concerned about the van.
I mean, it's about to be towed away after sitting wrecked on a bridge in the middle of the night.
But according to the report, he's like, whatever, like no big deal.
Which like, I'm also thinking it's a minivan.
They have two kids.
Like this is probably like the primary family vehicle and it's just like gone and he doesn't care.
Yeah.
And even though police like note his reaction and it's a little bit odd, they seem far more interested in and suspicious of Demetrius, the man they found with the wrecked van.
So the officer writes a stolen vehicle report and just kind of goes on his way.
He notifies Trooper Knox back at the bridge that he should arrest Demetrius for possession of a stolen vehicle.
And that's that.
Case closed for about an hour.
Then around 2 a.m., Eric calls 911 to report his wife Gwen missing.
The same wife that he had just told the officer was home in bed sleeping.
She's now gone.
Eric tells police that after the officer left his house, he went to go check on Gwen.
And that's when he says he realized she was actually not home.
Why did he say she came back then?
He doesn't actually mention why he says that.
But if Gwen was self-isolating, maybe he thought that she just kind of slipped back in at some point to keep away from him and the kids.
Okay, but if my van was gone and found in a wreck and I had found footage of my husband Justin leaving but not coming back, even if I had a glitchy camera?
I think I'd be worried enough to check right away when the officer was like they are looking for him, unless I was absolutely sure had laid eyes on him, knew he was home.
Yeah, I hear you.
Maybe he didn't want to wake her up because she was sick or I don't know.
I don't know.
But she went out at 10 p.m.
Like, I'm kind of questioning how sick can she be?
Also, where is she even going at that time of night if she's sick sick and i think she has?
Covid eric didn't know.
He doesn't know where she would have been going.
All he knows is that he says she didn't take her phone or her wallet with her, like that's back at the house.
But he did notice something else, something unsettling, when he was looking around the house for her.
He says that her bottle of clonazepam, which she takes for anxiety, was gone.
Eric found three loose pills on the floor, but the bottle itself, which he thinks would have had like 60 pills in it, was nowhere to be found.
So he thinks she was suicidal?
I guess what is he saying with this?
I mean he's not saying that outright, but he does tell police that before she went missing, Gwen was convinced that she had COVID.
She had been tested for it the day before and she was like beside herself upset about it.
Now Gwen is immunocompromised and some of the autoimmune disorders she had, like Sjogren's disease and interstitial lung disease, can affect the lungs, which would make her more vulnerable to COVID specifically.
And Eric said that, even though her tests hadn't come back yet, Gwen was like scared and overwhelmed by just the possibility that she had it.
So he doesn't say that she had a history of suicidal ideation or anything like that.
But I think when police put all these pieces that he's been giving them together, they begin to worry that maybe Gwen is out there and may be in danger of hurting herself.
So right after police finished talking to Eric, like still in the early morning hours of March 20th, same day, they found the van.
They go back to Demetrius who is in jail now.
They show him Gwen's license photo and he's like, yeah, that's the woman who was with the van.
That's the woman from his story which, by the way, just before seeing this picture, that story changed a bit.
So when he was in the back of Trooper Knox's patrol car, he gave a slightly different version of what happened on the bridge.
This time Demetrius says that he's walking across the bridge.
When the van pulled over and when he tried to tell the woman inside, you know now that we know it was Gwen.
He's like, she just didn't respond.
Now, he says there is still a mystery person in the back of the van.
And that whole thing just, like, weirded him out.
So in this version, he never even got in.
He just walked away to like go have a beer.
But curiosity got the best of him so he went back to the van and this is where the story stayed consistent.
On the way back, he says he sees this dark figure on the bridge by the safety railing on the side closest to the water.
And as he got closer he realized that the figure was just gone.
So now with this new story, I mean, which is kind of the same as the old story, like at least the part that matters.
And with everything that Eric told them about Gwen's state of mind.
Police asked Demetrius directly like did you see anyone jump off the bridge?
And he says he assumed that she did.
So he figured maybe giving him the van was the woman's, quote, dying wish.
Dude really wants that van.
We're still back to this.
I know.
But if he thinks Gwen jumped, there's still another person.
Like who was that mystery person in the car?
Right.
And where are they now?
Like where'd they go?
Right.
Eric told the officer that no one else was supposed to have access to the van.
So I assume, in an effort to make sure Eric wasn't that mystery man in the van they show they do show Demetrius Eric's photo.
But Demetrius says, no, like I've never seen Eric before.
Seems like they take him at his word, because they don't even end up charging Demetrius with anything, not even trying to steal the van after he found it, which is a little odd to me.
But they just let him go.
And Gwen is entered into the system as a missing person that night.
If everyone's stories are true and she did jump, police are racing against the clock to try and find her before it's too late.
So they call the Coast Guard out to help them search the Puget Sound below the bridge.
The search goes on for hours without any sign of her.
And Eric does his own form of searching for his wife as well.
Just before 6 am, police see that Eric has posted the full ring cam footage of Gwen leaving the house on Facebook.
Not just the screenshot this time.
And he's asking people to help find her.
Now, we actually got that video from police.
And here is the entire clip that he posted online.
OK, so you can see like it's super dark out.
You can just see like the stoop of their house.
Gwen leaves.
It looks like she's, like, about to lock up.
She's getting her keys ready.
But she's, like... Like, stop?
Like... Like, she's in, like, the bolt lock.
And she can't quite get the key in or, like, isn't finding the keyhole.
And now she's down at the handle with the same key.
She's missing the handle.
Like, she's not even... But it's not even, like, full fumbling.
It's, like, she's, like, staggering a little.
Yeah.
And she's almost...
When she's not getting it, she's not correcting herself right away.
She's like pausing, pausing.
Like, wait, let me focus.
Like, yeah, really hard to try to do this.
She's finally like leaning into the door.
I can't.
She's blocking her hands.
I assume she's like trying to lock it some more.
She's not in pajamas or anything.
She's in like, it looks like workout clothes.
And that's pretty much it.
Then it just cuts off.
Yeah.
Police's interpretation of that video is that she looks really out of it.
Like maybe the clonazepam that was missing.
She took it and it was already kicking in when she left, which is just adding to the suicide theory.
And I mean watching that footage.
You can't help but wonder what happened after Gwen walked out that door.
Now, the footage doesn't show her getting into the van or driving away.
It just like cuts off while she's at the door.
Yeah.
And did they ever request the full video?
Not that I can tell.
If they did, if they got it.
They have not shared that with us, but they might not have thought to because of what happened next.
At 219pm, a kayaker paddling in the Puget Sound, about seven miles from the bridge where the van was found, finds Gwen's lifeless body.
When authorities pull her out, they can tell that it's her because she's wearing the same clothes that she had on in that ring camera video.
They can also tell that her arm is broken.
And one detective on the scene noted that there was a one to two inch tear on the back of Gwen's left hand and cuts on her left wrist that weren't consistent with self-harm.
I wasn't looking for that when I was watching the video, but did she have that on her hand in the ring video?
I don't see anything big that stands out.
But I also don't know what it is they're looking at when they say that.
Like, they didn't share the autopsy pictures.
Now they say that she had tiny shards of broken safety glass stuck to her clothes and even inside her bra.
The same kind of glass that was scattered around the bridge by the van and the guardrail.
And in her pockets are the van's keys.
None of the police reports come right out and say this yet.
But when you look at the conversations with Eric and Demetrius and the details police document here, everything points to them treating this like Gwen crashed the van and then jumped into the water.
But a medical examiner will make the final call.
When the autopsy report comes back.
The ME does note those cuts and the broken arm that they saw at the scene.
And x-rays show multiple rib fractures.
She has faint bruising on her neck, deeper bruises on her leg, and her chest had been flattened.
Now, she's missing a front tooth.
There's a small scratch-like mark inside her mouth from her upper to lower lip, from what seems like blunt force trauma.
And the ME thinks that all of these injuries are consistent with a jump from the bridge into the water 195 feet below.
When toxicology reports come back, they show that clonazepam is in her system about 25 nanograms per milliliter, plus a high level of its metabolite.
Which is enough to indicate a possible overdose.
And if she overdosed, even given how she was in that video, would she have even been able to drive?
Not well.
I mean, the drive is still a question for the ME's office, too.
In an investigative report, it's noted that how Gwen made it to the Puget Sound isn't clear.
But maybe that explains the accident.
But if she already overdosed, why would she drive out to a bridge and jump?
Well, overdose doesn't mean that it's fatal.
I guess like clonazepam, even in large doses... actually usually isn't fatal.
Maybe she didn't know that and she realized it wasn't doing what she intended.
Maybe she didn't want to be in the house where her kids might find her.
Listen, the autopsy will tell you what, not why.
And the what is enough for the ME to rule Gwen's death a suicide from multiple traumatic injuries consistent with jumping from a height.
Gwen police send a chaplain to notify Eric that Gwen's body has been found.
They expect shock, grief, anything.
But the chaplain says he shows almost no emotion.
He's just like unfazed.
And though earlier he claimed that she had no previous suicidal ideation, he is just like really quick to accept Gwen's death for what it is.
Like on social media.
He posts that Gwen was depressed about having COVID and that she just lost her will to live.
But Gwen's loved ones don't believe that for a second.
They tell police that she was doing well leading up to her death.
I mean, she was in therapy and she had just started reconnecting with her family, but she was making plans for the future.
Anything there that would play into this?
With the therapy?
Yeah.
Maybe.
So she was in therapy for this childhood trauma and she had distanced herself from some family members.
And I did get a little more from her family on what exactly it was and how serious it was.
I could see it being a factor.
But A, her family told us that she was never suicidal over the issue.
B, Eric never once brings this up as a reason that he thinks she would have taken her own life.
He only ever points to COVID.
And also, see, her family says that she would never, ever abandon her kids.
She loved them more than anything.
And they claim that ever since her death, Eric had started like isolating the kids from like the rest of the family.
So over the next few months, they beg police to just take a closer look at Eric.
And they point out an old domestic violence allegation made by Gwen against him from when he was stationed at a nearby military base between 2011 and 2014, which police do find a record of.
The record says that he allegedly assaulted Gwen after threatening to take his own life.
And her loved ones also show police some of the strange things that Eric had been posting online since Gwen died.
Like, just days after her death, Eric posted that the family's dog died of COVID too?
But the timing felt super off to Gwen's friends and family, like... almost too quick.
Wait, were pets dying from COVID too?
Okay, thank you.
I did a double take on that too.
I had to do some Googling.
It's possible.
Per the Mayo Clinic, it's more likely to spread from person to animal than like animal to person.
And you would need to have close contact with the pet while infected.
Okay.
So if Gwen had COVID, she could have spread it to her dog.
But the weird part to me is that the Mayo Clinic website says, quote, End quote.
Okay, that's great information, but I also have to think like when this is happening, we don't know a lot about COVID.
You're reading this today in 2025, where there's been a lot more research.
How would he in 2020 have known that, on the other hand?
Rarely is not never.
So like, like the Mayo Clinic said, it's possible.
But like, yeah, it still seems wildly unlikely to me.
Yeah, I don't know.
So make of the dog what you will.
The thing that really pushed her family over the edge and made them suspicious was a Facebook post that Eric made on May 30th, barely two months after Gwen's death.
That's when he posted that his kids were pushing him to meet someone new and that he was ready to date again.
His kids that are like elementary school age, just to be clear.
And like in the middle of a pandemic, just to be clear.
Right.
So not even two weeks later.
After that post, on June 12th, he uploaded a video to YouTube of his wedding to a woman from Kenya that he had just met a couple of weeks earlier.
What?
But even though Eric's behavior definitely raises some eyebrows... My eyebrows are raised.
I can see.
None of it directly proves that he had anything to do with Gwen's death.
So...
Police are sticking to their thought process.
This was a suicide.
Case closed.
Not case closed.
It feels like there are so many open questions here.
Like, I get this is the easy answer, maybe even like the likely answer based on what they have.
But I don't feel like they have.
Everything.
Like, how can you just write it off as her taking her own life without making sure?
Like, Ashley, the video footage.
I need to see... the rest of it.
And like how did she drive 20 minutes away to this bridge with this toxic dose of clonazepam in her system?
I know they ruled out Demetrius.
I still have questions about his story too.
I know.
Also, did we even confirm that she did in fact have COVID?
Like that's the whole premise of her being in this state, right?
So that's one of the things that is so odd to me.
Okay, so hospital records confirmed that Gwen was tested on March 19th, like Eric said she was.
But the ME's office didn't test for it during the autopsy.
And listen, I don't know what the situation was with tests at that point in Washington.
I mean, again, it's like... early days.
Right.
We didn't have like rapid tests.
There was like a lot of like scarcity.
Right.
So there there's no telling if she actually had COVID.
Which, to your point, I think is like a critical piece of information.
And so, for all the reasons, above all the ones that you just mentioned, Gwen's loved ones have not been able to accept her death as a suicide.
So that's when we came in and we started digging ourselves, requesting records, talking to everyone we could, including Eric.
And what we found just left us with a lot more questions.
So earlier this year, five years after Gwen's death, we picked up where police left off, with the case closed as a suicide.
And we started from the beginning by trying to retrace Gwen's last known steps on the night that she died.
But as soon as we did, the cracks in the official ruling started to show.
Because when we talked to Gwen's best friend she did not buy that Gwen could even have made that drive to the bridge alone.
And not necessarily just because of the clonazepam, though.
Which, like, just quick side tangent here, even how much she took is, like, hard to pin down.
What do you mean?
Well, we actually asked a toxicologist, Dr. Heather Clintworth, to review this one.
And she told us the clonazepam in Gwen's blood worked was within therapeutic range, like a normal dose.
But the metabolite, which is like the byproduct of the drug breaking down that was at a level edging into toxic in her system.
According to Dr. Clintworth, that means Gwen likely took a heavy dose before leaving the house.
But she also told us that the science is kind of messy here.
Postmortem changes can affect those levels.
And the report doesn't include stomach content analysis, so it's hard to pin down.
Yeah, which would show you maybe how many pills there actually were.
Yeah, like the residual of the pills.
So we really don't know.
But even though Dr Clintworth said that Gwen likely took a large dose, she doesn't think that the tox test showed high enough levels for her to have taken 60 pills.
So maybe she did take them with her, but only took some?
TBD?
Either way, clonazepam aside, Gwen's best friend told us that Gwen needed glasses to drive.
Like she could barely see without them.
And we know from the ring footage she wasn't wearing those glasses.
Right.
I mean, maybe one explains the other in this situation.
Maybe she's in an altered state, doesn't even think about taking her glasses with her.
Or, I mean, I don't know, like, the terrain or the roads.
Like, maybe it was a straight shot drive.
Oh, it's definitely not that.
Gwen's stepsister actually did the hard part for us.
She retraced the whole route from Gwen's house and filmed it to like where the van was on the bridge.
And when I watched it, I agree with her.
Like there is no way Gwen got all the way to the bridge.
Or at least it doesn't feel likely to me.
Because this drive is about 15 miles of curving tree-line road to the bridge.
Not a ton of streetlights that I could see.
And it would have been really dark when Gwen left the house.
But I do kind of wonder if there's a third option.
Doesn't necessarily...
Address the clonazepam.
But what if she kept a pair of glasses in the van or even in the car?
Maybe that explains why the other car door was open.
The light was on.
She was looking for them.
We know she isn't wearing her glasses in the ring footage.
That doesn't completely rule out any idea of her putting them on at some point.
But as far as I can tell from the police reports, police don't really run this down.
I would have loved if police would ask Demetrius about this or even if, like someone, could have like drilled in on Eric about where she kept glasses, because from what I pieced together, I think she had two pairs.
But here's the really frustrating thing.
There might even have been an image of her or whoever was driving in the van that night.
You see, to get onto the bridge, you have to pass through a toll booth.
So we were thinking, like, if Gwen drove through, there should be a record.
The thing is, when we filed FOIAs for the traffic and bridge cam footage, we were told that the traffic cam was just a live feed, so nothing was saved.
The tollbooth footage is not considered public record, so we couldn't get it.
And I don't think police ever requested that, because it wasn't mentioned or listed anywhere in the documents that we FOIAed.
But why not?
Yeah.
It could prove whether or not she was the one driving the van to the bridge that night.
At the very least, it could give you a timestamp so you would have like another like known sighting of her confirmed.
Like so even the simplest things.
This is why I think it's so important, because there is something about the crash that doesn't add up to me.
Why is Gwen covered in glass?
What do you mean?
I mean, when they find her, right?
She's got glass stuck to her jacket, even in her bra.
They took that as proof that she was in the car when the accident happened and therefore must have drove there, crashed and jumped.
That doesn't line up for me.
Yes, she had to have been in the car for the accident.
All the windows that were shattered were on the passenger side of the van, which...
Feels like to me that she would have been in the, In the passenger side, when the accident happened, aka not driving.
Right.
But question number two, did the accident even happen on the bridge?
Wait, is there a question about that?
I thought we knew that like as fact.
So hear me out.
I had heard that there was wood chips found in the van.
And with all the other weirdness, I'm like, okay, what if the crash happened before the bridge?
What proof do we have that it actually hit the guardrail?
Surely they had proof, right?
Because that's what we're going with.
It hit the guardrail.
That's why it scraped all the way down the side.
The windows are blown out, etc., etc., etc.
So I'm looking through the pictures that we got of the van through our FOIA request.
And we only have a few.
And the few that we have are just of the van.
What I keep looking for is the guardrail.
There should be paint transfer where she hid it.
There should be some sign of wood anywhere.
Yeah.
Why is everyone sure that it happened on the bridge?
I mean, you said they found glass there on the bridge, right?
Well, yeah, but how much glass?
None of the pictures I saw were of the glass on the ground, so...
Did all the glass shatter right there or did the glass shatter somewhere else, and then just come out as the doors were open and like when people got out of the van.
And listen, we actually got to talk to Trooper Knox about all of this.
And guess what?
He told us that the damage on the van looked like more than what you would expect from a single scrape against a guardrail.
And there was wood debris stuck in it which he thinks could have come from the van hitting a sign or something at some point.
And some of the damage to the van was even higher than the guardrail itself.
So it couldn't have been the guardrail.
Yeah, so Trooper Knox thinks that whatever happened to the van happened before the van ever made it onto the bridge.
So is he saying someone tried to make it look like Gwen hit the guardrail?
No.
I mean, he said the accident didn't look staged.
And he thinks that the glass was blown out on the passenger side, which would be consistent with hitting a guardrail or part of the bridge.
The thing is, he's like, no, I never found the exact spot or the exact point of impact.
Which is...
Weird, right?
To me, yeah.
I mean, it's not like the van had time to move a ton.
He said that Gwen's van would have caught attention.
I guess suicide was common on this bridge.
And when those occur, he usually gets calls after the fact about people who were seen walking the pedestrian path or a car spotted.
And with the fact that all the doors on this van were open, he doesn't think that it would have been very long between when the van stopped and when he arrived on the scene.
And here's where the video footage from the toll booth could have confirmed this, because that's something else that doesn't line up.
Because if the screenshot that Eric showed the police is correct and she left the house at 1019 and it's a 20 minute drive to the bridge that doesn't totally line up for me.
Trooper Knox doesn't find her or get called out there until 1220.
Where was she for the, like, hour and 20 minutes in between?
I mean, maybe the missing time helps explain how she got there without her glasses and with the clonazepam in her system.
Like, she could have been driving really, really slowly.
She gets into an accident somewhere else.
I mean, that's the only thing that makes sense to me.
But where?
And does that tell us anything else about what happened?
But maybe finding out what happened in the missing two hours isn't even the right question, because we're basing all of that off of a screenshot on Eric's phone.
And I don't think it was even the video that was timestamped.
So I think Eric's screenshot might have just shown his whole screen.
Which has like the time that it actually is.
Yeah, in our FOIA, we didn't actually get to see the screenshot.
So if we're just seeing like a screen, like if we're just getting it from him, we're just getting the screenshot at the top of his phone.
Mm-hmm.
That one that we got from Pierce County Sheriff's Office that doesn't have a timestamp anywhere on it.
I couldn't even pull one from the metadata.
So all we have to go off of about when Gwen was last seen are police records where they mention the time but not a timestamp specifically.
And the only thing I see where they're getting the time is from Eric.
Which means we can't even be sure if, honestly, if the footage is from that night.
Right.
I mean the thing I will say is Gwen's clothes that she's found in do match what she's wearing in that footage.
But I mean, like I know, I wore the same outfit for like a week straight, more often than I like to admit, during the pandemic.
Oh, for sure.
So that's not enough for me.
And I wanted to know if the footage could have been cropped or manipulated somehow.
So we actually reached out to Ring and they told us that downloaded footage doesn't always show a timestamp like the video we got, although the file name does.
So we asked Eric if we could just get the original file, because even the one that police got, they like downloaded from Facebook.
Right.
Right.
And more than anything, I just wanted to see the rest of the footage.
Like, how and when does the other car door get open?
If she left and this was a suicide...
Did she do that?
Why?
Was she in the driver's seat when she left?
Did anyone in the family come in and out of the house in all of that time?
Because I don't know about you, but the fact that the kids were awake when police showed up at 1am is wild to me.
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, I know schools were closed, whatever.
It was a wild time.
We were all trying to figure out our new normal, a new routine.
But, like, these kids, when I say they were elementary age, they were 8 and 10.
And, like, 8 and 10 awake by themselves.
Like, their dad wasn't even out, like...
It wasn't even like they were trying to get them back to bed or anything.
It seems it does seem completely bizarre.
But I have to ask, did the police interview the kids?
I don't think so.
There is nothing in the police reports about that.
Like their investigation pretty much ends after Gwen's death is ruled a suicide, which is bonkers to me, because they were awake when the officer showed up to notify Eric.
Which again, alone, is a huge standout to me.
So the ring footage is everything here.
But we reached out to Eric and he says he thinks he deleted it.
Thinks?
I mean, can he check?
We asked him, but he said that he couldn't find it.
Here's what's even weirder to me.
The image, the footage that he put on Facebook, it looks cropped compared to my doorbell cam.
Okay.
Not trying to make assumptions, like maybe we have different kinds of cameras, models, whatever.
So when our reporter talked to Eric, we specifically asked him what his camera covered.
What could you see?
Like what all you could see.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm going to play that clip for you.
Mm-hmm. on the driveway and it's totally covered by the camera.
So I always liked that.
It felt really secure in that house.
Like anybody comes in to the house or, you know, comes down to the house or gets out of the house.
It's all captured on that one camera.
Ashley, I watched the video.
We watched the video.
I saw the front door, again, like the stoop, not really the whole front of the house.
Yeah.
And listen, police have never said that the footage was manipulated or cropped.
And everything that we've gotten from them seems to indicate that they believe the 1019 time that Eric gave or showed them on the screenshot.
This all feels like something they could have pretty easily verified if they had gotten like a warrant for the ring footage.
Or just asked Eric for the whole thing.
Right.
Because like I'm not trying to make the guy look extra shady.
Police don't even seem to ever ask him for it.
So.
Did she actually drive away alone?
Even if she did, was she alone the whole time?
Did she stop somewhere in the missing two hours?
Did she at any point end up in the passenger seat before the crash?
The only person who would know what happened on the bridge for sure, at least to me, is Demetrius.
Now, we couldn't talk to him ourselves.
He died in 2024.
But we looked into him and found a few criminal convictions, like some DWI shoplifting assaults.
And so we requested his full records and found some concerning details.
In 2017, he was charged with fourth degree assault.
And then, in May of 2020 this is weeks after Gwen's death he was arrested again for fourth degree assault and for violating a domestic violence.
No contact order.
Now, the victim in those cases was his ex-girlfriend, likely the woman whose house he was walking home from the night that Gwen died.
And the records show that that woman filed a restraining order against Demetrius before the assault and filed another after, but Demetrius broke them.
And eventually the charges were dismissed, not because the evidence wasn't there, but because a judge ruled him incompetent to stand trial.
Hmm.
Now, as far as we know, he had no connections to Gwen.
But I also don't know if police even checked any of this out.
Because to me, I'm like, why did we just take this guy's word about what happened?
Right, like who's to say she didn't leave Solo and then came in contact with Demetrius like somewhere else along the way.
Maybe she was even passed out in her car and he took the van from her with her in it.
Maybe he tried to steal the van and things like took a...
This is why I'm saying it would be real nice to have that toll booth footage right about now.
Yeah.
Did we ask Eric if police told him anything about Demetrius?
Dude.
This is the other thing.
Eric told our reporters he didn't even know Demetrius existed.
What?
Because police never mentioned him.
And Eric has never tried to look at Gwen's case file.
I'm sorry.
What do you mean they never even mentioned Demetrius?
Just never came up, according to Eric.
Okay, back up.
How do we know he had no connection to Gwen, or even to Eric, for that matter?
Like, Trooper Knox told us that he never found a connection.
Well, it's real easy to not find a connection if you don't ask a question.
Of course.
We cannot know for sure without talking to Demetrius.
The thing Trooper Knox will say is he's like, listen, Demetrius was very cooperative.
So he just didn't think he had anything to do with Gwen's disappearance or her death.
Okay, follow-up question.
That just never gets brought up again.
And maybe he made this third person up to take the heat off himself.
I don't know.
Listen, Trooper Knox obviously didn't work the investigation part of this.
But even he says it's weird.
Like he's like, listen, one minute it's this stolen van.
And then within an hour, this case is something else entirely.
And he says he still has a lot of questions about it.
But Eric doesn't.
He still believes that Gwen was distraught over possibly having COVID and died by suicide.
OK, so if Gwen did jump, I guess I'm still not getting the why.
Like having COVID is scary and definitely incredibly scarier.
March 20th.
Yeah.
And like for Gwen especially.
But this still feels like a really big risk. reaction to that.
Especially in my mind because she didn't even know for sure if she had it yet.
But again, I try to keep reminding myself.
Beginning of the pandemic COVID.
We knew nothing, you guys.
Like, everyone was scared.
Everyone was confused.
So, however unbelievable that sounds to us now, it might have felt possible to police and to Eric and to people back then.
But it never felt possible to Gwen's loved ones.
They just don't believe she would have spiraled the way that Eric claimed she did if she even had COVID.
And I don't know if I mentioned this, Gwen was actually a nurse.
So, I mean, she'd seen illness up close her whole career.
And her stepsister shared texts that Gwen sent her, where she never once seemed terrified or even like super anxious about having COVID.
She just said that she was going to take it easy while she waits for her results to come back.
So she wasn't even like spiraling in those conversations.
Yeah, not in those text messages.
But I know those are just texts.
They don't prove her state of mind one way or another.
So I was like, oh, I have an idea.
I know the ME didn't see if she had COVID, but she took that test.
So we went and asked Eric, can you clear this up for us?
Did Gwen have COVID or not?
Like, did the results come back?
And he told us that it was confirmed she did have COVID.
But of course we can't verify that without her medical records, which we can't get without his permission.
And when we asked Eric if he'd be willing to share her test results with us, to put this question to bed once and for all.
He said no.
A source also sent us screenshots of Eric's Facebook posts from the time that Gwen was missing.
The night that the van was reported stolen, he posted that a nice officer told him his van was found on the bridge and Gwen was missing.
He was hoping for answers in the morning.
But he didn't ask in the post if anyone had heard from her or knew where she was.
That day he also posted, And Britt, that's before Gwen was even found in the water.
Right.
And Gwen's stepsister was actually with Eric at the house all day March 20th while Gwen was missing.
And she told us that, instead of going out to search for Gwen with the search teams, he stayed home which, for her, raised red flags.
Again, I don't know pandemic things, whatever, or how they were isolating.
But she says at the time she kept asking him why he wasn't doing more to help find Gwen.
Like in her mind, she's with the kids.
Like they're safe.
He had the space to focus on the search.
Right.
But then Eric got a call.
Search and Rescue that had been combing the water looking for Gwen all day was ending the search.
They even sent a PowerPoint showing where they looked and what resources they used.
And after that call, Gwen's stepsister said Eric offered her a shot.
She took a sip, he finished his, and then she watched him pass out multiple times.
At the table and then again on the couch.
And that made her wonder whether he struggled with alcoholism.
And in our reporting, we found that Eric had actually been described as an alcoholic to police.
And that could explain all the weirdness.
Maybe.
Which, like I can see the lack of response when he's first notified about Gwen's death, maybe being attributed to him being like drunk or numb or Out of it, yeah.
Ever.
And, like, again, maybe, like, even some of his weird reactions or the things he said...
I don't know.
And Gwen's stepsister actually remembers the moment that the chaplain told Eric that Gwen was gone, the one we talked about earlier.
And she said his reaction just stuck with her.
She claims that he went into the house afterwards and did something strange.
He like kissed his fingers and then touched them to Gwen's photo, like one by one, and whispered 'Why'.
And then turned each picture face down.
Until eventually he just laid on the floor repeating why why, why.
And to Gwen's stepsister, it felt just very performative.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, and before this, a former co-worker of Eric's showed us text that Eric sent her after the search was called off, but hours before Gwen was officially confirmed dead, where he said quote Again before they found her.
Right.
Then they said that within about a week, Eric burned Gwen's clothes and photos in the backyard fire, with his kids there.
Oh, my God.
And then pretty soon, we know he met his second wife.
This woman from Kenya married her less than three months later.
And met online, I'm assuming.
Eric was clear that they met after Gwen's death.
And when our reporter asked him about moving on and marrying again so quickly, he quoted what he claims Gwen always told him.
Life is for the living.
But it's like the way he went about living is what I think people have problems with, because a source close to Gwen told us that Eric made the kids call his new wife mom and told them to start calling Gwen their own mother who had just passed away by her first name, like just Gwen or Gwendolyn.
So the dog is so sick from COVID that it just drops dead, but in the middle of a walk that it was healthy enough to go on.
Well, when we talked to Eric, he said the dog was never diagnosed with COVID.
Okay.
He said, quote, And the day after Gwen's death, the dog got sick.
And then by the end of the day, the dog was just gone.
Now, our source claims that Eric told them he threw the dog's body in the woods after it died.
What?
I can't confirm what happened to the dog and what Eric did with the dog after, because we didn't get another chance.
Like by the time we learned this, we didn't get another chance to talk to Eric.
But to me, it just feels like this dog's death just it has another layer.
You got Gwen's clothes, her photos, now even her dog all gone.
And from there, Eric appeared to be trying just to move forward.
You know, life is for the living and all.
Right.
And Eric may have needed some distance to heal, because he also told us starting in March of 2021, so a year later.
He and his new wife spent long stretches in Kenya, where she was from like three to six months at a time.
And then they would come, like for a month or two, back to the States, while the kids stayed with his parents.
And at some point, while he was living in Kenya, he texted that former co-worker that I mentioned and let them know that his wife gave him the go-ahead to take another wife, which he claims is common there.
And yes, polygamy is legal in Kenya.
But that might have been a point of contention for Eric and his parents, because in June of 2024, while he was back in the US, Eric got arrested at his parents' home after a drunken fight with his dad.
According to a criminal complaint, Eric's parents learned about an affair that he had in Kenya that resulted in a pregnancy, and they asked him to leave the house.
Apparently, he agreed.
But by the end of the day, Eric hadn't left.
So his dad checked on him, found him drunk.
And when his dad told him he had to go, Eric got angry and attacked him.
Police were called.
They gave Eric a breathalyzer.
He blew a .244, three times the legal limit.
Yeah.
He gets charged with disorderly conduct and domestic abuse.
That case is still open, and Eric pled not guilty.
But this behavior from Eric doesn't seem new based on what we heard from loved ones.
And her best friend told us that they'd had conversations, her and Gwen, about Eric drinking again, about him threatening suicide and having been violent in the past, including that incident in the military when he was living on the base which she says Gwen claimed led to him being discharged.
Now we asked Eric if he'd be willing to share his military records with us.
He said no.
We tried to FOIA them, but we were denied.
Still, Gwen's friend claimed that her relationship with Eric had gotten so bad by the end that she even worried it would end in a murder-suicide.
But Eric didn't paint that same picture in an email to our reporter.
He insisted that he didn't hurt Gwen.
Now, when we tried to talk to him, like I said a second time, about these allegations, he declined our request for a follow-up conversation.
He told our reporter that he wanted to stop talking about Gwen's death so he can focus on healing.
But I do want to leave you with one last piece of information, straight from Eric.
I want to be open with you, Rachel.
I'm not trying to hide anything.
The only thing I ask is, as you're making your podcast or whatever you're putting together, I just really ask that you be respectful for Gwen and for her memory.
I think maybe the reason this turned into a story is because I tried to hide the fact that she had committed suicide.
Oh, really?
Because you feel like you tried to hide that?
What do you mean?
I did.
Oh, I absolutely did.
I didn't want people to know that.
Is that why you said the COVID stuff?
Or what do you mean you tried to hide it?
Like, if you look at the old bit that I wrote, you know, it doesn't mention suicide.
And I didn't want that for her.
I mean, he posted about her taking her own life on socials.
It does feel contradictory.
We gave Eric the opportunity to respond to all of these allegations against him.
And he told us he already said everything there is to say.
That this was the worst day of his life and he wants the opportunity to move on.
And I mean, maybe this whole case is exactly what Eric says it is.
A tragic death, but not a suspicious one.
The problem is like every path we went down, nothing feels like it adds up.
We tried reaching out to Eric's parents too, but they didn't respond to us.
I was really hoping for the opportunity to understand what their kids are going through.
I mean, what do they believe?
What do they remember?
But those kids deserve to move on and heal more than anyone.
So I'm not going to push there.
And maybe one day they'll have some of the same questions we do.
The unfortunate thing is that I don't think they'll be able to go to law enforcement for answers.
Because more wasn't done on the front end of this investigation.
I think that will forever leave this case open to questions.
Even if police were right in their conclusion.
And I think I've said this a lot but it can't be stressed enough, because I know we have a lot of current and potential law enforcement people that listen to our show.
So I want to hammer it home.
Good investigators tell me each case should be treated as a homicide investigation until you can prove it's not.
So if you're listening and you have any information about Gwen Hasselquist or her death or her movements the night of March 19th or early on March 20th, we would love to hear from you.
Law enforcement considers this case closed, but you can email me, tips at audiochuck.com.
And if you or a loved one is struggling with thoughts of suicide or self harm, you can call or text the Crisis and Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, or visit 988lifelineorg.
You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkie.com.
And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode, but stick around for a little bit of good.
Thank you.
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Okay, Ashley, this one is so incredible.
This month is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
And I think this is like so timely and such an incredible picture of the impact of crime junkie and crime junkies.
My name is Chase and I'm a family law attorney in California.
As you can imagine, I handle a lot of domestic violence and child abuse cases.
But I want to take a moment to share with you how your podcast has not only saved a life, but also become an integral part of my work.
For confidentiality's sake, I'll keep some details vague, but please know that this case was as dire and as severe as they come.
My client had endured repeated abuse, each incident escalating with horrifying intensity.
Eventually she found her way to my office, where she filed for a domestic violence restraining order.
But here's where things took a turn that I'll never forget.
A month or two later, she came to me with the decision to go back to him.
As we all know, this happens far too often in abuse cases.
But I knew with chilling certainty that one more escalation in the pattern would likely end in death.
After pleading with her, trying to show her the reality of what she was risking, she was determined to return.
And that's what I said in a moment of pure desperation.
Before I write your eulogy, I'm asking you for one favor.
She agreed.
I asked her to go home, turn on crime junkie and listen to as many episodes as she could over the next week, specifically those about domestic violence.
I told her to reflect on those stories and come back to me with her final decision.
Here's where your podcast worked its magic.
As you can probably guess, she came back with a changed heart.
The decision she made was not to go back.
Your podcast, with all its raw truth and compassion, opened her eyes to the reality of her situation in a way that nothing else could.
Now she's a lifelong crime junkie listener, as am I, and I can't thank you enough for the role you played in changing her life.
I share your podcast with every one of my clients who's experiencing domestic abuse because it helps them understand they're not alone and that the first step to leaving their abuser by walking into my office is the most courageous and life-affirming choice they can make.
Thank you, truly, for what you do.
Your podcast is not just informative, it's life-saving.
And for that, I'm forever grateful.
Yeah.
Wow.
It's like it's such an incredible reminder to us and, I think, to our listeners too that these aren't just And we talk about it all the time how the best stories are the ones that we don't tell.
Yeah.
Um, I'm grateful to like though, like it's it's terrible that we have to tell the stories, but it's like when I think about the like legacy of the people who came before, who didn't didn't get the chance to save themselves or didn't get the help that they need.
They're saving someone else's life.
So that's good.
Yeah, that's really good.
Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production.
I think Chuck would approve.
