Detective Chris Wagner

The church was packed, and there was a lot of people that were coming and going.

We had put our officer at the entrance to the church so he could catch everybody that came in.

He did see Bill Boecker, and he did start up a conversation with him regarding Earl.

I think we had close to 90 pieces of evidence.

We didn't find one positive connection to DNA or fingerprints.

We didn't know who killed Merle Olander.

We really needed a good break in this case.

The Bible gave us the leads that we needed to solve this case and bring Earl's death to justice.

It sent chills down my spine.

We've got a break.

We've got something we can go on.

Everybody on the sheriff's office wanted to solve this.

Earl was like everybody's grandfather.

He was just a nice, older guy.

There is a misperception the public has from watching these television shows that a crime is solved within hours or within days.

From a forensic standpoint, the shoe prints were the only evidence that we had.

Someone had pulled out all the drawers and just ransacked the kitchen looking for money or valuables.

It was rather dusty in the kitchen, and so they got an excellent print inside this drawer, which you can read C-R-O-C-S, Crocs.

so we knew somebody was wearing Crocs.

After our detectives saw that, we needed to have some more conversation with him.