Murder in Minot
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What happened to Anita Knutson?
Your mind just goes everywhere. Like, who could do this?
Tyler Schmaltz was kind of infatuated with her.
She kind of friend-zoned him pretty quickly.
Yes. Nicole Rice's name came up.
I overheard Nicole's mom asking, how could you think my daughter did this? It wasn't me.
We were dispatched to a call of someone entering an apartment. There was a male. He had a knife.
If there's a chance that you crawled in the window and killed this girl, you know I can't, bro.
There were many possible suspects.
If someone told you you were at a party and you said you killed him, would they be lying?
We've been reliving this every single day for 18 years.
It's really scary not knowing how that's going to turn out.
A popular college student murdered. A case that dragged on for years. Could revelations during a party finally solve the mystery? I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Blaine Alexander with Murder in Minot.
The town is mostly quiet now. Just a few stores line the streets. But ride through this small North Dakota community and you'll see them. These weather-worn pink ribbons and a faded photograph of a young woman no one here can forget. Reminders of what this place has been through, of a mystery that spanned nearly two decades. You talk to police? All the time. All the time? For the whole 18 years. This story is about a young student away at college, killed in her own bedroom, and about the family and friends who never stopped pressing for answers.
We're not forgetting about this. We weren't going to give up. She wouldn't have. We weren't going to.
Tell me about Butte, North Dakota.
Butte is a tiny little town. It's, I mean, eight streets. Eight streets. Eight streets, 50 people. Tiny, tiny. Tiny, yeah.
It's where Anna Knutson spent much of her late childhood, raised with her brother Daniel and their older sister, Anita. What was it like living there in a place that small?
Quiet.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's kind of all I can say. It's so quiet. My dad was a mayor for 12 years in Butte. My friends would come over and have sleepovers, and my dad, the mayor, would wake us up to go hang up the holiday decorations on Main Street. It wasn't that fun.
That's what you do when you're the mayor's kids. Yep, yep. Anna's big sister, Anita, left for college in nearby Minot, a bustling big city by North Dakota standards. Anita's aunt, Karen Lear, lived there too. How excited was she for college?
Very much so. And, you know, she also worked a couple jobs up here in Minot, too. Some of the weekends, she would go back to Butte and help her mom in the store.
She and my mom talked like every single day on the phone. Even when she went to college? Yeah, even when she went to college, she was always, yeah, calling my mom. She was such a hard worker, but she still made time for her friends and for her family.
So when Anita's family didn't hear from her one weekend in June 2007, they figured she was at work, at least at first. Saturday passed, then Sunday. Was it out of character for them to not hear from Anita? Very much so, absolutely. By Monday, with no word from Anita, her dad Gordon made the hour-long drive to his daughter's apartment to check on her. When he peered through Anita's window, he saw her lying face down in her bed. The apartment manager let him inside and immediately called 911. Is this a police department?
Yes, it is. I had a father come to my apartment here to check on his daughter. We just came in the apartment. I think she's dead. And what makes you think that, or is she moving? No, she isn't. We came into the apartment, her dad went over to her and he goes, oh my God, she's cold and there's blood. That's what her father said. I didn't touch her, but I see there's blood on the blankets.
Right away, Anita's dad called his sister, Karen. He said, you've got to come here. He must have said she's dead. When she arrived, police were already on the scene. So you drive up to the apartment, and the only thing that you know is... That she's gone. Anita's gone. Right. I can't imagine, Karen, him coming to check on Anita and being the one to discover that she had been killed.
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Chapters
2 chaptersSpeakers
29 identified
Investigator 38 min
Sergeant Goodman 7 min
Anna Knutson 6 min
Unnamed Friend 3 min
Defense Attorney 2 min
Nicole's Mom 2 min
Detective Connor O'Donnell 2 min
Tyler Schmoltz 1 min
Family Member 1 min
Prosecutor 1 min
Michael Vann 1 min
Witness 1 min
Lester Holt 1 min
Unnamed Juror 1 min
Kim Fundingsland 1 min
Nicole Cochran
Male Peer
Peer
Police Officer
Brenda Glintz
Gordon Knutson
Anita Knutson
Legal Consultant
News Reporter
Judge
William May
Apartment Manager
Maintenance Man
Court Clerk
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