Deborah Roberts talks with ABC News contributor Ryan Smith about a heartbreaking story out of Wisconsin where a couple go missing and suspicion falls on their younger son. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened to Bart and Krista Halderson?
There's a little basement area that's kind of quiet where kids can play, and there's a family room where there's a fireplace, and I'm looking at that fireplace with detectives, and all of us are just standing in this really small room, maybe no bigger than eight by 10, and to think,
that Chandler killed his parents and, according to investigators and what came out in this case, burned their remains in the fireplace. Just standing there, it's like, I can't believe this would happen in a slice of suburban America.
Yeah, so the father, Bart, was an accountant, his wife an administrative assistant, just kind of normal people. Investigators noticed that there was something off with that fireplace, right? When you go back and look at when they were trying to look at this case, I mean, of course, nobody is going to immediately suspect their son. So they noticed something with that fireplace.
That's right. Chandler calls them and says, my parents are missing. So detectives come by and they notice the glass door was broken. And Chandler tells this story about a dog breaking it. Now, that's not... totally out of the question, but okay, you hear that. Then they pick up on a smoky smell in the house. Now keep in mind, this is July. So a smoky smell using a fireplace, why would that happen?
So they're keeping this all in their mind as they sort of start investigating this case. Then security cameras pick up a nighttime glow of the fireplace being used and sort of a popping glow at one point where it gets brighter than ever. For them, as they start putting the pieces together, they start saying, hey, was that a time?
where remains were being burned after they start suspecting that Chandler had something to do with this and then Chandler as they piece this together they sort of come up with a theory of all of it once they really feel like Chandler's the person who did it that he shot his parents in the basement and I hate to say this but then he he dismembered them he gets blood all over the house and he tries to cover up his crimes by burning them in the fireplace all this happening in that idyllic home
You did such a great job with this story and it gets stranger as he tries to hide the rest of their remains. And law enforcement, of course, are on this case now and they're kind of quickly putting the clues together. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, Ryan, I want to talk about your interview with the detectives and how this case was overwhelming even for them at times.
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Chapter 2: Who is Chandler Halderson and what was his story?
Exactly.
Just the story.
And it wasn't only the body language, it was what he was doing as well. He was going around the neighborhood asking what people could see on their security cameras. And this was something police were already doing as part of their own investigation. So for police, it's kind of like, we're doing this. Why are you doing this? We didn't ask you to do that. What are you worried that was seen here?
So they were very suspicious. Well, of course, they came to... The awful, awful conclusion that these two people had been dismembered. And once body parts were showing up, I mean, this was hard for even the detectives to cope with. We're going to play an extended clip from our program where you ask Detective Sabrina Sims about that.
So you find Krista Halderson dismembered, her body parts in a couple of different areas dismembered. What's it like to have this realization that Krista was killed in this heinous way?
Yeah, I think, I mean, again, for me, just as a human, as a daughter, as you know, aside from being a law enforcement officer, it's just like incomprehensible that somebody could do that to somebody, especially if it's your own son. And it's just so graphic. I don't really have words for it, to be honest.
Yeah.
I see you thinking about it and it's kind of, it's almost brings about some emotion in you. For sure. Tell me about that.
Yeah. It's just, um, yeah, I don't know. It just is, um, I just don't know how somebody could do that to somebody else, especially if it's their parents, right? We go to homicides all the time. We go to murders all the time. And a lot of that stuff is in the heat of the moment, domestic related, what have you, gang related. This is just a whole nother level of emotion.
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