True Crime Vault: Divine Intervention
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This show is sponsored by Killer Ken, a podcast from i-D. Family dynamics can be tricky, and sometimes even the people closest to you can become the most dangerous. Killer Ken from i-D explores real cases about how family life can fall deep into manipulation, obsession, and murder. Unpack what happens when rivalry and desire for control lead investigators and relatives questioning what fueled some of the darkest crimes ever committed. Does evil run in the family? Listen to Killer Ken wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back to the 2020 True Crime Vault.
The sheriff's office received a call of a body that had been found in rural Carver County. The murder of Earl Olander was a brutal, horrific crime.
Earl Olander was a thriving, independent, 90-year-old farmer. Earl spent his entire life reaping corn. Clearly, they were looking for something.
Earl was in the living room. His hands were tied behind his back with duct tape.
The house was in extreme disarray.
They left him there to die.
I think we had close to 90 pieces of evidence.
There was a freshly baked blueberry pie on the counter. That sticks with me.
We assumed that it was somebody from the area or somebody that Earl knew that had killed him.
Earl's closest friends were put under the microscope. It's upsetting to you, obviously. For someone to say that my husband is the murderer, I mean, come on.
I said, do you think we're ever going to get this figured out? And he said, yes. They always leave something behind.
You felt like you needed a miracle. We needed a miracle. I absolutely believe in divine intervention. It all happened the way that it should have. And it all happened to identify Earl's killers.
I've had a 35-year career telling stories, and that's a lot of stories with a lot of heartache, a lot of triumph, things that make you smile and things that make you cry. When I first heard about what happened on this modest farm here in rural Minnesota, I just had to come here and see it for myself. What I've discovered is a remarkable story of terror, tragedy, and transcendence. Kerber County has a population of about 100,000 people in it. It's southwest of Minneapolis, about 30 miles. It's the Swedish community it started out as.
We're in the Minnesota River Valley, so it's very beautiful, quite hilly.
There's soybeans, there's corn crops. It's God's country is what it is.
It's quiet out where we are.
What was the brutal murder of Earl Olander about?
So when you hear police cars coming with sirens going, you know something's wrong.
There are cases that you will remember over 32 years, and this is certainly one of those. The sheriff's office received a call on April 11, 2015, about 7 o'clock at night, of a body that had been found in rural Carver County, and that it appeared to be a homicide. I went down there as soon as I found out about what had happened.
The body had been found inside a home on the farm of Earl Olander. I've spent years covering crime in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. This is nowhere where you would ever expect a murder.
As we're looking at Earl's house, in the middle is a large picture window. That's the living room. And the living room is where we found Earl, laying on the floor on his stomach.
I was coming in on the road, and there were flashing lights everywhere like I had never seen before.
His hands were bound with duct tape. His feet had been bound with duct tape as well, but they had kind of worked that loose a little bit. There was a circular pattern of blood around Earl that was on the carpeting. It appeared that Earl had been alive for a while and had been trying to get up.
Earl Lowlander was born on this property in 1925. He spent his entire life here, planting and growing mainly soybean and corn.
Earl Olander was a thriving, independent, 90-year-old farmer, and he was beloved by people that knew him, his community. He was a bachelor and lived on that farm for, I think, almost his entire life and still lived alone in that home, was self-sufficient. In the kitchen, there was a freshly baked blueberry pie on the counter, and that sticks with you.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:28
2
What was the brutal murder of Earl Olander about?
3:28–8:36
3
What evidence was found at Earl's crime scene?
8:36–11:22
4
What role did divine intervention play in solving the case?
11:22–12:38
5
How did investigators initially approach the case?
12:38–18:48
6
How did the community react to Earl's murder?
18:48–24:36
7
What surprising revelations came from the investigation?
24:36–32:28
8
Who were the suspects in Earl Olander's murder?
32:28–1:22:02