Pod Insights Casefile True Crime Case 312: Dustin Wehde About this episode *** Content warnings: Sexual assault ***
When first responders arrived at the Roberts family home in the small town of Early, Iowa, on December 13 2001, they found 20-year-old Dustin Wehde lying in a pool of his own blood. The homeowner, Tracey Roberts, claimed she’d shot Dustin in an act of self-defence after he and another unknown assailant broke in and threatened to kill her and her children. As investigators looked into possible suspects, several persons of interest emerged. But all was not as it seemed.
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Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/
Research & writing – Elsha McGill
Creative direction – Milly Raso
Production & music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/
Music – Andrew Joslyn
Audio editing – Anthony Telfer
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Transcript 13,277 words · 5 speakers
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1:57 Speaker 00 Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website.
2:23 Speaker 00 The evening of Thursday, December 13, 2001, started out like any other for married couple Ken Lee and Jane Showmaker. The two were relaxing at home in the rural town of Early, Iowa, when suddenly, at around 7:07 PM, their pagers started frantically beeping. The couple volunteered as emergency medical technicians for the Early Fire Department, and the page announced that there had just been a home invasion at a residential address a few doors down. Gunshots had been fired, and at least one intruder was injured, while another had fled the scene. The Showmakers were stunned.
3:08 Speaker 00 Such an incident was completely out of the ordinary for the small town of roughly 650 residents, where serious crimes were virtually nonexistent. They rushed to the property in question, a blue, two-story Victorian-style house that they knew was home to married couple Michael and Tracy Roberts and their three young children. The Roberts family had moved there from Chicago two years earlier, seeking a change of pace from the big city. Michael, an Australian expat, was a computer security expert who ran a computer business out of the property next door to their home.
3:48 Speaker 00 They were an upstanding Christian family who fit in well with the close-knit community. The Showmakers arrived before law enforcement did. As EMTs, they'd been taught never to enter a home until it had been cleared by police. So they waited across the street for several minutes until the first officer arrived. The officer approached cautiously, with their weapon raised, scouring the property for any sign of danger. The homeowner, 35-year-old Tracy Roberts, appeared on the back porch, telling the officer that two men had broken into her house and launched an attack.
4:31 Speaker 00 She'd managed to escape into her bedroom and grab one of her husband's guns, which she'd used to shoot one of the intruders. The other had fled on foot, though she wasn't sure in which direction.
4:46 Speaker 00 More officers arrived and cleared each room of the house before waving the EMTs inside.
4:53 Speaker 00 The showmakers raced upstairs to the main bedroom. Numerous empty shell casings were scattered near the doorway and the air reeked of gunpowder. On the floor at the bottom of the bed, a young man wearing a brown leather jacket lay slumped in a thick puddle of blood, his body resting in the fetal position. He'd been shot several times in the head, one of the bullets striking him directly through the eye socket. Blood spatter covered the northern wall of the bedroom.
5:27 Speaker 00 Kenley's showmaker checked for a pulse but found none. Declaring the man to be deceased, his next priority was to check on the Roberts family. Tracy and her three children were gathered in the downstairs dining room frantically trying to tell the officers what happened. While the kids were unharmed, there was a red mark about two to three inches thick running horizontally across Tracy's neck. She explained one of the intruders had tried to strangle her and she was having trouble swallowing. While Tracy had initially appeared relatively calm, she was becoming increasingly hysterical.
6:09 Speaker 00 Her husband, Michael, was away on a business trip, but Tracy said she was expecting him home any minute. It dawned on her that the man she'd shot could have been Michael. "Oh God, is it my husband?" she asked, her breathing becoming short and shallow as the panic in her voice grew. Tracy's 11-year-old son, Bert, chimed in. "No," he said, "I think it's Dustin Wehde."
7:04 Speaker 00 After being taken to the hospital for assessment, Tracy Roberts was given the all-clear to provide her full version of events to the police. Tracy explained that she'd been upstairs giving her one-year-old daughter a bath when she heard two men talking at the bottom of the stairs. Initially, Tracy thought it was her husband, Michael, and his business partner, as she was expecting them home from their business trip that evening.
7:32 Speaker 00 She bundled her daughter up and carried her out to say hello. That's when she realised the man climbing the stairs wasn't her husband, but a complete stranger.
7:44 Speaker 00 Terrified, Tracy yelled out to her eldest child, 11-year-old Bert: "Someone's in the house." She bolted towards Bert's room, where he and Tracy's three-year-old son were watching television. Tracy hurled the baby into the room, when suddenly, the man grabbed her from behind and yanked her into the hallway. Tracy yelled at Bert to shut his door and stay inside. She began fighting against the man with all her might, thrusting backwards so hard that she caused him to stumble into the wall. "You fucking bitch," he scowled, yelling out to the other man, "get her."
8:29 Speaker 00 At that point, Tracy felt something tighten around her neck, and she was yanked back by her ponytail. All she could think about was protecting her family. She managed to break free and race into her bedroom, where her husband kept a safe full of guns under the bed.
8:48 Speaker 00 Through the dark, she dove into the space between her bed and the dresser, got her hands on the safe, and pulled it out. She tried to enter the combination, but her glasses had been knocked off during the scuffle, and she couldn't see what she was doing. The safe wouldn't unlock. She tried again to no avail. Then, one of the men grabbed her by the neck from behind. Her hands still clutching the safe, she pushed in the numbers one more time. This time, it clicked open.
9:24 Speaker 00 Tracy grabbed onto the first gun that she touched, a nine-millimeter Beretta, aimed it over her right shoulder, and pulled the trigger. Something snapped, but it didn't fire. Desperately trying to remember how the gun worked, Tracy clocked the hammer back and aimed it over her shoulder a second time.
9:46 Speaker 00 This time, a loud "shot" rang out, but the man continued to struggle against her.
9:53 Speaker 00 Tracy got to her knees, turned as far as she could to her right, and pulled the trigger several more times.
10:01 Speaker 00 This time, the attacker stopped moving. Tracy couldn't see much through the dark. Terrified, she sat still and listened. The man was still breathing heavily, but she couldn't tell where exactly he was. Then, towards the doorway, Tracy saw a silhouette dart away, followed by the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. Tracy grabbed a second gun, a six-shot revolver, and tried to summon the courage to leave the bedroom. She saw something lying on her bedroom floor, but couldn't tell if it was the man or something else entirely, like a duffel bag.
10:47 Speaker 00 Eventually, she got the nerve to stand up. Both guns raised, she turned on the light.
10:56 Speaker 00 The man she'd shot was lying face down on the bedroom floor. Tracy carefully approached him, when suddenly, he moved.
11:07 Speaker 00 "Stay there," she warned.
11:10 Speaker 00 It looked like he was trying to either get up or roll over. He moved again. Tracy pulled the trigger on the Beretta, but it was empty. She pulled the trigger on the revolver instead.
11:26 Speaker 00 Several bullets shot into the back of the man's head, until the weapon clicked empty.
11:36 Speaker 00 Eleven-year-old Bert told police he'd been watching a movie with his little brother in his bedroom when Tracy thrust their baby sister at them and told them to stay inside. Bert did as he was told, grabbing a baseball bat from his bedroom locker and pressing his ear to the door. He could hear the commotion unfolding outside, along with the voices of two men. While he couldn't be sure exactly what the men were saying, Bert told the police it sounded like one of them said "Okay, boss", followed by something about an axe. Bert thought it was a prank. He yelled out to his mum, asking if she was okay.
12:21 Speaker 00 One of the men opened Bert's bedroom door and warned: "Shut up, or you're next."
12:28 Speaker 00 In the hallway, Bert heard the man discussing something about his dad being killed.
12:35 Speaker 00 He recognized one of their voices. It sounded like Dustin Wehde, a twenty-year-old friend of the family.
12:44 Speaker 00 Shortly after this, Bert heard a gunshot. A man's voice said "Holy fuck."
12:52 Speaker 00 Then, there were several more gunshots, followed by the sound of someone running. Tracy rushed into Bert's room and told him to take his siblings downstairs and call 911. Bert did as he was told, telling the operator: "My mum, somebody came into our house and they tied her up, and they were, they were choking her. My mum got the gun and shot the other one, and one ran off."
13:24 Speaker 00 Other than the injury to Tracy's neck, which was deemed to have been caused by a pair of pantyhose, and some slight bruising to her left arm, she and her children were unharmed. But Bert's assumption was correct. The intruder in Tracy's bedroom was confirmed to be twenty-year-old Dustin Wehde.
13:47 Speaker 00 When Tracy was informed of this, she was shocked. She told police she barely knew Dustin. His mother Mona worked part-time for the Roberts's computer business, and her husband Michael had taken Dustin under his wing.
14:04 Speaker 00 Dustin was socially awkward and didn't have many friends, so Michael had invited him out paintballing a few times to help build his confidence. Tracy told the police that Dustin had knocked on her door several hours before the home invasion, asking if she had any odd jobs he could do because he needed money.
14:26 Speaker 00 Tracy felt uncomfortable being around to Dustin alone, claiming Mona had told her that he'd been physically violent towards both her and her two daughters. Tracy told Dustin to come back once Michael had returned from his business trip the next day.
14:45 Speaker 00 She told the police she couldn't think of any reason why Dustin would want to hurt her. Robbery seemed an obvious motive, yet nothing of value had been stolen, despite there being expensive jewellery, cash, and firearms kept on the premises.
15:03 Speaker 00 The only item missing was an old computer, which had next to no monetary value. Police found the computer packed neatly into the back of Dustin's car, which was parked outside of the Roberts's business, and the hard drive contained nothing to indicate a motive.
15:23 Speaker 00 Tracy had never seen the other intruder before. She described him as being around thirty-five to forty years old, tall and of average build, with dark wavy hair. He wore a black leather jacket, was good-looking, and spoke with a Chicago accent.
15:43 Speaker 00 Searches of the property and surrounding areas turned up no sign of him, or any clue as to who he might be. But when the police asked if Tracy could think of anyone else who might wish her harm, one person immediately sprang to mind: her ex-husband, John Pittman.
16:07 Speaker 00 Tracy had met John when she was just twenty years old. At the time, she was working as a radiographer at a teaching hospital in Chicago, where thirty-year-old John was completing the fourth year of his medical degree. The two worked together before things took a romantic turn and they were married in 1988. But, as Tracy explained to the police, it didn't take long for John to reveal his controlling side. Tracy claimed John was abusive and domineering, and also had some strange sexual habits.
16:45 Speaker 00 Tracy said she put up with it because she was young and had lived a sheltered life, being raised to believe that kind of behaviour was normal.
16:55 Speaker 00 As time went by, Tracy gave birth to Bert, who was the couple's first and only child.
17:03 Speaker 00 Tracy was thrilled to be a mother, but she soon found out that John was cheating on her. She tried to make things work, but by 1992, she'd reached the end of her tether.
17:17 Speaker 00 The couple separated and began sharing custody of Bert, until the three-year-old disclosed a shocking revelation: his father had been touching him inappropriately.
17:30 Speaker 00 Tracy took Bert to see a doctor who suspected the toddler was being sexually abused. Tracy reported the allegations to authorities and social services got involved. But John firmly denied the claims and no formal charges were ever laid against him. A bitter divorce and custody battle ensued, which lasted for many years, even after both Tracy and John remarried and had other children.
18:00 Speaker 00 At the time of the home invasion, the custody battle was still ongoing. John Pittman lived with his second wife over a thousand miles away in the state of Virginia. But as far as Tracy was concerned, John had the motive to want her out of the picture and was capable of orchestrating an attack against her.
18:23 Speaker 00 When Tracy's husband, Michael Roberts, returned from his business trip to find his wife and kids being evaluated in the hospital, he agreed that John Pittman could be a potential suspect. It had been a constant source of disbelief for Michael that John was continuing to fight for custody of Bert despite the allegations against him. After one particularly heated day in court, John allegedly called Michael and warned that nothing would make him give up, saying: "I have very deep pockets."
19:00 Speaker 00 Yet, despite this, John Pittman wasn't the first person Michael thought of when it came to who might want to harm his wife.
19:13 Speaker 00 Four years earlier, Tracy had confided something to Michael that he hadn't been able to shake. It was an incident that had occurred just after he and Tracy had gotten married. Michael was still living in Australia at the time and was in the process of relocating to the United States, while Tracy was living in Chicago and working part-time as an assistant for an oral surgeon named Dr. Jonathan Spencer, not his real name. Tracy told Michael that Dr. Spencer agreed to treat her for jaw pain she'd been experiencing. He gave her some gas to sedate her for the procedure, but the mask slipped off halfway through and Tracy regained consciousness.
19:59 Speaker 00 She found Dr Spencer on top of her masturbating. Tracy's underwear had been removed and she'd been dressed in thigh-high stockings with a pair of high heels that were a size too small.
20:14 Speaker 00 Realising what was going on, Tracy kicked Dr Spencer in the genitals and jumped to her feet. After getting her bearings, she managed to grab her pepper spray and used it to incapacitate him. At this point, Tracy noticed several Polaroid photos on the counter. They were provocative images of her, taken while she was unconscious.
20:40 Speaker 00 Dr Spencer, who was married, begged Tracy not to tell anyone. He said he had friends in high places and it wouldn't end well for her if she attempted to press charges.
20:54 Speaker 00 Eventually, after some negotiations, the two came to a mutual agreement. In exchange for Tracy's silence, Dr Spencer would give her $150,000. He also agreed to pay for Tracy to attend an annual conference in Florida, as well as the return airfares for her and Michael to visit Australia that coming Christmas.
21:20 Speaker 00 Furthermore, Tracy would be excused from repaying $18,000 that she had recently borrowed from Dr Spencer to buy a new car after hers was in an accident.
21:33 Speaker 00 Tracy agreed, on the condition that Dr Spencer put all of this in writing. They put together a contract in which Dr Spencer admitted to duping Tracy into consenting to be sedated. He confessed that he, quote, "secretly intended to remove and replace articles of Tracy Roberts' clothing, fondle her breasts and genitals, take photographs of her, and make subliminal suggestions."
22:03 Speaker 00 He also admitted that he had a problem with the deviant sexual behaviour and pharmaceutical drugs, for which he agreed to seek help.
22:13 Speaker 00 Tracy didn't tell Michael about the assault or the contractual agreement until Dr Spencer failed to pay her as promised. She then filed a civil lawsuit against him for medical malpractice, but still he refused to uphold his end of the bargain. Dr Spencer disputed the civil suit, and eventually he and Tracy settled outside of court. Spencer agreed to pay Tracy just $6,000 in exchange for her dropping the civil lawsuit entirely. The settlement had been reached on Tuesday, December 9, 2001, just two days before the attack on Tracy.
22:59 Speaker 00 Police investigating the home invasion couldn't ignore the potential significance. They looked into Dr Jonathan Spencer's whereabouts at the time of the crime, but he had an airtight alibi. Furthermore, he was still located in Chicago, which was roughly 450 miles from Early, and they could find no link between him and Dustin Wehde. The same went for Tracy's ex-husband, John Pittman, who had been nowhere near Early on the night of the crime. John told the police he'd never met Dustin Wehde and had no connection to him whatsoever.
23:40 Speaker 00 But an item found in Dustin's vehicle suggested otherwise. On his front seat was a hot pink spiral-bound notebook that contained six pages of strangely worded and convoluted handwriting. It appeared to be Dustin's journal. The first, undated post began with the words: "One day about 20 years ago, a boy was born into a middle-class life."
24:11 Speaker 00 Directly underneath that was a series of numbered entries in which Dustin said that a mysterious fellow named John Pittman had offered him some work. Dustin wrote that he'd decided to start a journal so there was a record of this man, whom he henceforth referred to as JP.
24:33 Speaker 00 He went on to list several oddly worded facts about JP, including that he was a white male from Virginia who was aged in his 40s, and that he worked as some kind of doctor.
24:46 Speaker 00 Dustin wrote that JP, quote, "had a thing for strippers and hookers", and that he torches victims with household items from their homes.
24:58 Speaker 00 He claimed that JP had an obsessive hatred for both Tracy Roberts and his current wife, whom he wanted to divorce. Dustin wrote that while JP loved his son, he wanted him dead. He explained: "JP wants me to force his ex, Taya, to kill her son Bert and then commit suicide." If that plan failed, Dustin was to, quote, "make it appear as though Taya committed the murder of her son and then committed suicide."
25:36 Speaker 00 If the plan worked, Dustin wrote that JP would then hire him to kill JP's parents and frame his wife for the crime, in order to collect an insurance payout.
25:49 Speaker 00 The notebook also implicated JP's lawyer, a man named Stephen Comey, in the murder-for-hire plot, saying that he would facilitate the payment on JP's behalf.
26:04 Speaker 00 Unsure exactly what to make of the notebook, the police quickly decided not to tell anyone outside of the investigation about it.
26:14 Speaker 00 They simply showed a sample of the handwriting to Dustin's parents, Mona and Brett Wehde, who immediately recognised it as their son's distinct penmanship.
26:25 Speaker 00 However, the Wheaties refused to believe that their son could have entered the Roberts' home with any ill intent. While Dustin had a history of mental illness and had always struggled to fit in, his mother Mona described him as a "sweet boy with a huge heart".
26:44 Speaker 00 She felt he'd been misunderstood from a young age.
26:49 Speaker 00 Diagnoses for various conditions, including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, had led others to unfairly label him. Having been bullied throughout his childhood, Dustin had very few friends, and he was therefore thrilled when Tracey's husband, Michael Roberts, offered to take him under his wing. He looked forward to their paintballing trips immensely and was constantly asking Mona when he could go out with Michael again. It therefore made no sense to the Wheaties that Dustin would do anything to hurt Michael's family. If anything, they wondered whether Dustin had been in the house because he was actually
27:33 Speaker 00 trying to protect Tracey and her children. Perhaps he'd witnessed something sinister going down and tried to come to the rescue.
27:44 Speaker 00 Yet, a search of Dustin's room turned up another notebook. Inside it, Dustin had scrawled two words that appeared to read "I kill a Pittman".
27:57 Speaker 00 Given that Bert's last name was Pittman, they wondered whether this was further evidence of Dustin's intention to kill Bert or Tracey. They searched the Wheaties' home and ran forensic checks on Dustin's computer, but uncovered nothing to indicate a link between Dustin, John Pittman, or John's lawyer, Stephen Comey.
28:20 Speaker 00 There were no suspicious online searches, nor was there any evidence that Dustin had been corresponding with anyone, let alone planning the home invasion or any other crime.
28:32 Speaker 00 Police also checked the Wehde family's phone records from Thursday, December 13, 2001. At 4:34pm, a call had come through that hadn't been answered. Police traced it to a local man, 28-year-old Jeremy Collins. Jeremy was an army vet who'd been discharged from service after suffering a traumatic brain injury and being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. More recently, he worked as a delivery driver for a frozen food company.
29:08 Speaker 00 Jeremy Collins vaguely fit the suspect description of the second intruder, in that he was of similar age, height, and had dark hair.
29:19 Speaker 00 When confronted, Jeremy said he knew who Dustin Wehde was, but he denied that the two had ever spoken or spent any time together.
29:33 Speaker 00 Police canvassed the neighbours and local businesses, but nobody had witnessed anything suspicious on the evening of December 13. As days passed with no arrests or breakthroughs in the case, Tracy Roberts gave an interview to a local reporter from the Storm Lake Times, speaking at length about the attack.
29:55 Speaker 00 She rejected the possibility that Dustin Wehde could have entered her home with goodwill, saying: "It was Dustin who was pulling on me. That kid was not coming in my house to save me."
30:09 Speaker 00 Struggling to understand it all, Tracy told the reporter: "A lot of things don't make sense. Why were they there? They never asked for money or jewellery. Why me and why my family?"
30:25 Speaker 00 Despite the trauma of her ordeal, Tracy stated: "I want the Weedys to know that we care about them, that our heart goes out to them."
30:37 Speaker 00 That empathy was shared by the local community, with hundreds of residents gathering at the early United Methodist Church for Dustin's funeral. The Reverend told those in attendance: "There can be a moment of shock, disbelief, and even anger when we learn of the violent death of a loved one." Dustin enjoyed his short life. "This is such a tender, delicate hour, probably for the Roberts's too. It's time to acknowledge a fractured community, a town once known for its safety, that suddenly reels for answers."
31:18 Speaker 00 Early was the kind of place where residents trusted one another and rarely bothered to lock their doors. But, with the second intruder still on the loose, the tight-knit community was gripped by fear. They commended Tracy Roberts for her bravery, with many labelling her a hero for doing what she needed to protect herself and her family. The accolades did a little to quell Tracy's anxiety. Terrified that the second perpetrator would come after her again, she began wearing a panic button that was connected to an alarm system.
31:58 Speaker 00 To make sure investigators were doing their jobs, she drove past the county attorney's office in the evenings to check if the office light was still on.
32:08 Speaker 00 Tracy told the police that she couldn't stop thinking about who could have done this to her.
32:15 Speaker 00 "There's a hundred possibilities running through my head," she said, "and right now, I'm afraid of all of them."
32:24 Speaker 00 Tracy remained convinced that her ex-husband, John Pittman, had something to do with it. Her son, Bert, thought so too.
32:35 Speaker 00 According to a report released by Dateline in the weeks following the crime, Bert told a social worker that John didn't call in the wake of the attack to see how he was doing. Bert said: "If you were actually like, a good father, I think if you're worried, you'd call."
32:58 Speaker 00 While the police continued to search for any potential links between John Pittman and Dustin Wehde, Dustin's mother Mona contacted them, saying there was something she needed to get off her chest.
33:15 Speaker 00 Mona Wehde was tortured by her son's untimely death, and was willing to consider all possible explanations as to how he came to be in the Roberts home on the night he was killed. She therefore admitted to the police that she was having an affair with the Jeremy Collins, the 28-year-old who had called her home phone hours before Dustin was killed. However, Mona was perplexed by Jeremy's incoming call. She'd been out Christmas shopping on the Thursday, December 13, 2001, which Jeremy had been aware of. Why would he call her house at a time he knew she wouldn't be available?
33:59 Speaker 00 Just hours after Dustin was killed, Jeremy had called Mona to end their relationship. He'd also quit his job as a delivery driver days before the attack. Although Mona didn't think it was plausible, she told the police she was concerned Jeremy could have been the second intruder. Maybe he'd gotten involved with the Dustin somehow.
34:26 Speaker 00 Investigators agreed that the timings seemed suspicious. They spoke to Jeremy's wife, who said she'd been angry at Jeremy on the night of December 13 because he'd failed to show up for dinner. She called him several times and discovered he was drinking at a bar in downtown Ida Grove, a 30-minute drive south-west of Early. Jeremy invited his wife to meet him there, but she was so angry that she took their children to spend the night at her mother's house instead. On the drive there, she passed by the bar at around 7pm and saw his vehicle parked out the front.
35:11 Speaker 00 Phone records confirmed her story, giving Jeremy a solid alibi.
35:17 Speaker 00 Furthermore, police found nothing tying Jeremy Collins to John Pittman, nor was there any evidence that he was connected to Dustin Wehde beyond having an affair with his mother.
35:30 Speaker 00 As the days passed by with no developments in the case, Tracey's husband, Michael Roberts, plastered flyers around town. He was offering a $10,000 reward for anyone with information that led to the arrest and conviction of the second intruder, who he said had tried to "murder my wife and best friend, Tracey, by strangulation."
35:57 Speaker 00 Michael told local reporters that he thought the second intruder was the one behind the attack, while Dustin Wehde was just acting under their influence. With the custody battle over Burt continuing, Michael was now convinced that Tracey's ex, John Pittman, had something to do with the crime.
36:19 Speaker 00 Others in Early weren't so sure.
36:23 Speaker 00 While Michael claimed to be out of town on a business trip on the night of Thursday, December 13, one Early resident came forward to suggest otherwise.
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41:00 Speaker 00 In 1996, Australian businessman Michael Roberts began frequenting online dating sites and crossed paths with the recently divorced Tracy in a chatroom for Christian Singles. Online dating was a new concept at the time, and limited technology meant users couldn't instantly share photos and chat via video like they can today, but the two quickly hit it off.
41:27 Speaker 00 Tracy reassured Michael that she used to be a model and he would not be disappointed by her looks. They had been speaking regularly when Tracy suddenly announced that she was flying to Australia to visit Michael. Eighteen days after her arrival, they were married. Michael moved to Chicago to live with his new bride. The pair soon relocated to Early to raise their family and start Michael's computer business. On the outside, they presented as the perfect couple, living a successful and happy life. Behind closed doors, it was a different story.
42:10 Speaker 00 In December 2000, a year before the fatal home invasion, Tracy believed that her husband's business was doing well. She was therefore shocked to receive a call from the bank asking for her signature on a seventy-five thousand dollar business loan that Michael had applied for against their house. Furious, Tracy confronted Michael in his office, but he dismissed her concerns, saying the loan was none of her business.
42:41 Speaker 00 According to Tracy, she went into the office kitchen and took out her frustration by kicking a hole in the wall. Michael ran in and threw her onto the ground. He grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head into the drywall, yelling, "You fucking bitch."
43:00 Speaker 00 Tracy was so shaken by the incident that she called the police to lodge a report.
43:06 Speaker 00 When officers came to the Roberts' house to take Tracy's statement, young Bert alleged that he too had been a victim of Michael's physical abuse.
43:16 Speaker 00 Michael was subsequently charged with domestic violence and taken into custody for the night while Child Protective Services looked into Bert's allegations. But, when pressed further, Bert clarified that he hadn't been talking about Michael Roberts when he said his father abused him. He'd meant his biological father, John Pittman. The following day, Michael pleaded no contest to the lesser charge of disturbing the peace and was free to return home. Although the domestic incident was kept on the down-low, the following year, when news broke that Tracy had been the target of a potential murder plot, many townsfolk were quick to point the finger at Michael Roberts.
44:02 Speaker 00 Some felt there was simply something strange about him.
44:08 Speaker 00 It was a feeling shared by the police, who had been wary of Michael from the outset of their investigation. They thought it was odd that an Australian businessman would choose the small town of Early, Iowa, of all places, to relocate to. They wondered if Michael could be hiding from something.
44:29 Speaker 00 Police spoke to Tracy's friends, who described Michael as controlling. He was also the only person in the Roberts household who had a direct connection to Dustin Wehde. Given that Dustin didn't have many friends and wasn't close to his own father, police questioned whether Michael could have taken advantage of this. Perhaps he'd convinced Dustin to try and kill Tracy on his behalf, or had offered him money to do so. Tracy's life was insured for a million dollars. With Michael's business struggling financially, perhaps he saw her death as a way out of his problems.
45:12 Speaker 00 While Michael claimed that he was out of town on a business trip on Thursday, December 13, 2001, a local doctor came forward to report having seen him at a bank in Early that morning. He remembered it because Michael seemed to be in a hurry.
45:30 Speaker 00 Police questioned the bank teller who was working that day, but they didn't recall seeing Michael Roberts. Michael's alibi was double-checked, and police confirmed that he wasn't in Early when the home invasion took place. However, that didn't mean he couldn't have orchestrated the attack.
45:51 Speaker 00 Two months after the home invasion, the police summoned Michael Roberts to the station to sit a polygraph test.
45:59 Speaker 00 They asked him three simple questions. Did you hire anyone to kill your wife? Did you help or plan with anyone to break into your home on December 13, 2001? Do you really know for sure who the second person was who broke into your home?
46:18 Speaker 00 Michael answered each question with a firm "no".
46:23 Speaker 00 The results were inconclusive, with the polygraph report stating: "It is the opinion of the examiner that the subject is unresponsive to this technique, and no conclusion as to guilt or innocence can be made in this case at this time."
46:44 Speaker 00 By this point, Tracy had heard the whispers around town that Michael could have been involved. A friend told her that Michael had undergone a polygraph and failed, yet Michael hadn't told Tracy a single thing about it. Even Bert started to think that Michael could be behind it all.
47:05 Speaker 00 He later told Dateline that he was troubled by the way Michael reacted upon arriving at the hospital on the night Dustin was killed. To Bert, it seemed like Michael was surprised to find that his wife and children were still alive. Regardless of these suspicions, Tracy stood by Michael, and police uncovered no evidence linking him or anyone else to the botched home invasion. Within two months, the case went cold. As the crime was committed just two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks, police resources were stretched thin. With Tracy's actions deemed a justifiable self-defense,
47:49 Speaker 00 and one of the perpetrators already dead, figuring out the identity of the second perpetrator and who orchestrated the crime wasn't a priority.
48:00 Speaker 00 The detectives working Tracy's case were reassigned to the more pressing Joint Terrorism Task Force instead.
48:09 Speaker 00 For Dustin Wehde's mother, Mona, this wasn't good enough. Not only was she left reeling from the loss of her eldest child, but she and her husband, Brat, had since divorced. It pained Mona that everyone unequivocally accepted Tracy's version of events and was curious to know who masterminded the attack, while not seeming to care about what happened to her son.
48:36 Speaker 00 Mona had some serious questions about what transpired on December 13, 2001, starting with Tracy's claim that she didn't feel comfortable being left alone with Dustin.
48:49 Speaker 00 Tracy had told police that on the afternoon of the home invasion, Dustin stopped by asking for work, and she told him to come back when Michael was home later in the week. According to Mona, this wasn't the case at all.
49:07 Speaker 00 Just a few days before the shooting, one of Mona's daughters had been babysitting the Roberts' kids when Tracy mentioned she had some work for Dustin if he was interested. Dustin had recently lost his job at a local ethanol plant, and while Mona thought it was important that he kept himself busy, she didn't think he had the skills to work for the Roberts' computer business. During a phone call with Tracy a couple of days before the shooting, Mona voiced her reservations.
49:39 Speaker 00 Tracy assured Mona she just needed him to make some photocopies and perform other basic tasks, and they could give it a go on a trial basis. She told Mona to send Dustin over to their place in the next couple of days.
49:55 Speaker 00 For Mona, this explained why Dustin had visited the Roberts' home on December 13. After all, his car had been parked outside the office next door to their house, in full view of the neighbours.
50:10 Speaker 00 If he'd been intending to pull off an attack, she wondered why he would leave his car where anyone could see it. And why would he park at the office instead of right outside the house to facilitate a quicker getaway?
50:25 Speaker 00 Police had also found no signs of forced entry, which suggested to Mona that Dustin had been invited inside.
50:34 Speaker 00 Mona also thought it was incredibly strange that the one item Dustin allegedly stole from the Roberts was an old computer. It was an obsolete model packet bell, which Mona described as a piece of junk. Dustin had a strong interest in computers and electronics, so it didn't make sense that he would take this valueless item when the Roberts' home was filled with expensive, top-of-the-range machines. Tracy claimed the computer had been taken from her children's bedroom, but as far as Mona was concerned, there was no way Dustin could have gone upstairs to remove the computer,
51:13 Speaker 00 taken it down into his car, and then gone back upstairs to confront Tracy. Furthermore, when Dustin's body was found, he didn't have a single weapon on him. If he'd planned to hurt Tracy or anyone else in the house, Mona wondered how he intended to do it. Dustin wasn't particularly strong, and certainly not the intimidating figure Tracy made him out to be. While he'd had his fair share of struggles, Mona knew Dustin as a sweet boy who loved golf, computer games, snowmobiling, and entertaining his family with goofy impressions.
51:54 Speaker 00 He'd been so excited to have a friendly relationship with the Roberts' family, it simply didn't make sense that he would be part of any plan to kill them. Mona wasn't the only one reeling in the wake of Dustin's death. Seven months after the incident, Tracy Roberts told the Des Moines Register that she was constantly on edge. She refused to let anyone into their home and cringed whenever she heard a car drive by slowly. Simple pleasures like going to the movies became a thing of the past, with Tracy explaining: "I can't bear to see anybody getting attacked."
52:38 Speaker 00 You don't realise how much violence there is, even on TV, until you have been in the situation.
52:46 Speaker 00 She told another source she could no longer bring herself to wear pantyhose, nor could she stand the smell of leather as it reminded her of the jacket Dustin Wehde was wearing during the attack.
53:00 Speaker 00 Both Tracy and Michael appeared on the Montel Williams talk show to share Tracy's incredible story of survival with the national audience.
53:10 Speaker 00 Tracy credited her quick-thinking actions to her maternal instincts. While she was hurt that Dustin had died as a result, she explained: "I did what I had to do to protect my family."
53:26 Speaker 00 As the one-year anniversary of Dustin's death approached, his father Brett Wehde reached his breaking point.
53:35 Speaker 00 Brett was utterly tormented by Dustin's death and the accusations against him. Not a day had gone by since that night that Brett hadn't ended up in tears.
53:48 Speaker 00 On Thanksgiving in 2002, Brett wrote four letters and left them on his kitchen table. He then drove to the cemetery where Dustin was buried to visit his grave. Brett wrapped one arm around Dustin's marble headstone, took out a gun, then shot himself through the heart.
54:14 Speaker 00 Brett's suicide left Mona even more desperate for answers. She hired an attorney who began looking over the case for themselves. They quickly noticed that the version of events Tracy Roberts gave to various media outlets in the days after the crime varied significantly to what she told the police in the immediate aftermath.
54:36 Speaker 00 Further inconsistencies arose when she spoke to detectives a week later. Some were small, like whether the lights in the house were on or off, or when she first noticed the intruders. Others were more significant, such as how the altercation in the hallway played out.
54:57 Speaker 00 Tracy initially told police she didn't know what she'd been strangled with, but told reporters that she'd been strangled with a pair of pantyhose that had been hanging over the stair banister. While she told police she didn't know who the intruders were, she informed reporters she knew one of the men was Dustin.
55:18 Speaker 00 She also said to reporters that she'd blacked out during the struggle, while making no mention of this to the police. Furthermore, Tracy initially told the police there had been not two, but three intruders.
55:33 Speaker 00 Very early on, she dropped the mention of the third intruder, and police didn't question it any further.
55:41 Speaker 00 There were also some questions about eleven-year-old Bert's version of events. Most notably, Bert had told the police that when Tracy came into his room after shooting Dustin, her hands were tied with nylon. Not only had Tracy made no mention of this at all, it also raised the question: If Tracy's hands were bound, how had she managed to shoot not one but two guns, and with such accuracy?
56:14 Speaker 00 Mona didn't shy away from speaking to others about these inconsistencies. Her brother-in-law even wrote a letter to the editor of a local publication in which he raised several questions about the investigation. Rumours began circulating around town that Tracy could have been having an affair with the Dustin. In response, Tracy sent Mona a scathing five-page email in which she defended her actions and vilified Mona for spreading misinformation.
56:47 Speaker 00 As reported by true crime author M. William Phelps, Tracy claimed her version of events had been consistent from the get-go. She had no doubt that Dustin had acted with criminal intent, and even accused Mona of having romantic feelings for Tracy’s husband, Michael.
57:08 Speaker 00 If anything, Tracy believed Mona helped orchestrate the home invasion, either by convincing Dustin to murder Tracy, or by co-conspirating with her ex-husband, John Pittman.
57:22 Speaker 00 These accusations further convinced Mona that Tracy had something to hide. In a bid to get clear answers, Mona Wehde filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tracy Roberts in 2003. This required Tracy and Bert to give depositions under oath, during which their stories revealed even more inconsistencies.
57:47 Speaker 00 To finance Tracy’s defence, she and Michael lodged a claim with their insurance provider, claiming that Tracy’s self-defence efforts should be covered under their homeowner’s liability policy. This prompted yet another deposition, during which Tracy added even more contradictory details.
58:08 Speaker 00 Ultimately, the insurance provider denied the claim, arguing that Tracy’s actions were intentional, and therefore excluded under the terms of the policy.
58:20 Speaker 00 While Tracy fought the lawsuit, her marriage to Michael crumbled.
58:25 Speaker 00 In April 2004, Tracy filed a police report against Michael, claiming he was mentally ill. She said he’d become paranoid and was convinced that Tracy was out to get him.
58:39 Speaker 00 Nervous about what he was capable of, she turned in one of his guns and told police where they could find several other firearms on their property.
58:49 Speaker 00 Two weeks later, Michael filed for divorce, while Tracy filed for a protective order against him. She was ultimately granted primary custody of the children, and they moved interstate to Nebraska to start afresh.
59:05 Speaker 00 Meanwhile, the home invasion that resulted in Dustin Wehde's death sat untouched in the cold case files at Iowa's Division of Criminal Investigation, more or less forgotten about. Until 2008, when Special Agent Trent Villetta came along. Agent Villetta was relatively new to the DCI when he first started looking through the bungled home invasion case file. When he saw the crime scene photos, he was stunned. Tracy Roberts had fired 11 shots in total from two different guns, and nine of the bullets struck Dustin Wehde directly.
59:49 Speaker 00 Tracy claimed the shots from the first gun were fired over her shoulder while she tried to fight Dustin off. She claimed it had been dark at the time, and her glasses were knocked off during the struggle. If this was the case, Agent Villetta wondered how Tracy had managed to strike Dustin with such accuracy. Looking at the crime scene, Agent Villetta could see no other signs of a violent struggle. Tracy claimed she'd reached the gun safe while fighting Dustin off, yet nothing seemed to be out of place. Villetta found it hard to believe that Tracy could have made it to the gun safe at all
1:00:32 Speaker 00 under such circumstances, let alone opened it and retrieved not one, but two guns. Furthermore, firing a gun so close to her ear would have shattered her eardrum, or at the very least caused damage to her hearing. But Tracy reported no such thing. To Agent Villetta, it didn't look as though Dustin had been shot in self-defense. It looked like he'd been straight-up murdered.
1:01:03 Speaker 00 Then, there was the question of where the second perpetrator was while this was happening, and Bert's claims that Tracy's hands were tied up at the same time. The more Agent Villetta learned about the case, the more convinced he became that Tracy hadn't been telling the truth about what happened that night. When he discovered that Tracy and Michael were now divorced and in the middle of a bitter custody battle, Agent Villetta recognised his chance.
1:01:35 Speaker 00 If either of them knew more than they were letting on, this just might be their time to talk.
1:01:43 Speaker 00 Agent Villetta started corresponding with Tracy via email, and all it took was the mere mention of Michael's name to rile her up.
1:01:53 Speaker 00 In the years following their divorce, Michael had defaulted in his child support payments, and his relationship with Tracy had grown even more hostile.
1:02:03 Speaker 00 Tracy, who'd reverted to her maiden name of Richter, claimed Michael harassed her constantly. She was convinced he was the one who orchestrated the home invasion, telling Agent Villetta she'd heard whispers that Dustin Wehde and Michael were having an affair.
1:02:22 Speaker 00 But when investigators reached out to Michael Roberts, a very different story emerged.
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1:05:42 Speaker 00 According to Michael Roberts, he'd only been married to Tracy for a couple of months when the cracks began to show. Michael claimed that shortly after he moved from Australia to be with Tracy, he discovered that she was having an affair. Michael was a born-again Christian who didn't want to be yet another statistic in the divorce rates, so he decided to do his very best to make the marriage work.
1:06:09 Speaker 00 There were a few happy years as they settled down and had children, but Michael remained wary of Tracy's behaviour.
1:06:18 Speaker 00 Things came to a head in December 2000 after Tracy discovered that Michael had applied for a business loan against their house. At the time, Tracy told the police that after she'd kicked the wall in frustration, Michael had violently thrown her to the floor, slammed her head into the drywall, and verbally abused her. Speaking to Agent Villetta following their divorce, Michael claimed this was an outright lie. He said that Tracy had become so enraged that she'd kicked holes in the drywall, in turn damaging a 220-volt heater. Scared she was going to electrocute herself, Michael forced her to the floor.
1:07:04 Speaker 00 It was only after Tracy went home and had a bath that she decided to report him for domestic violence.
1:07:12 Speaker 00 According to Michael, things took a turn after the home invasion that resulted in Dustin Wehde's death.
1:07:20 Speaker 00 Michael became so convinced that Tracy was going to try and implicate him in coordinating the attack, that he eventually started mentally preparing himself for the prospect of facing prison time. When he later found out that Tracy had applied for several life insurance policies against him, he was certain that she was going to kill him. Then, in March 2004, with their marriage barely hanging on by a thread, Tracy suggested they participate in what she called a "trust-building exercise". Desperate to regain Tracy's trust, Michael agreed.
1:08:00 Speaker 00 Tracy instructed him to lay down on a king-sized bed sheet with his arms by his side. She then wrapped him in the sheet as tightly as she could, leaving only his head exposed. She secured the sheet with safety pins so that Michael couldn't move, and then covered his eyes with a blindfold.
1:08:22 Speaker 00 Tracy left Michael alone on the bed while she went about some chores. She returned about forty-five minutes later with a plastic bag and put it over Michael's head, pulling it tight around his neck and poking two small air holes near his mouth.
1:08:40 Speaker 00 Tracy encouraged Michael to take deep breaths, promising that she'd remove the bag just before he passed out. She claimed this would prove to Michael that she wouldn't kill him, even if she was given the chance.
1:08:56 Speaker 00 It didn't take long for Michael to panic. As he started seeing stars, he begged Tracy to take the bag off. She refused, telling him to remain calm.
1:09:11 Speaker 00 In a fit of desperation, Michael managed to break free of the bed sheet cocoon, but just as he went to rip off the bag, Tracy reached over and removed it first.
1:09:24 Speaker 00 Days later, Michael filed for divorce. He claimed Tracy had been trying to ruin his life ever since, taking custody of their children while painting him as the bad guy and sullowing his reputation.
1:09:44 Speaker 00 With this information coming to light, Agent Villetta also reached out to Dr. Jonathan Spencer, the oral surgeon whom Tracy accused of drugging and sexually assaulting her in 1997. According to Dr. Spencer, Tracy's allegations against him couldn't be further from the truth. He claimed the two had already had consensual sex a couple of times when Tracy showed up at his office one evening and asked him to go into one of the private rooms with her. She said she wanted to live out a fantasy of hers, which involved the two of them having sex while high on nitrous oxide, otherwise known as laughing gas.
1:10:29 Speaker 00 Dr Spencer agreed. He got into the chair first and started inhaling the gas, at which point Tracy suggested he inject some midazolam instead.
1:10:41 Speaker 00 Midazolam is a common sedative used in dental procedures to help patients relax, while also having a retro amnesic effect.
1:10:51 Speaker 00 Again, Dr Spencer agreed. The last thing he remembered was Tracy walking towards him with his bag of medical supplies, holding the handle with a napkin, presumably so she didn't leave any fingerprints.
1:11:07 Speaker 00 Dr Spencer woke up alone in the chair at 4am with a Band-Aid on his arm where an IV had been, and no signs of any sexual activity having taken place.
1:11:20 Speaker 00 The next day, he checked his mailbox and found a copy of the contractual agreement that he'd apparently made with Tracy, in which he admitted to drugging and sexually abusing her, and agreed to pay $150,000, as well as other expenses, in exchange for her silence. Dr Spencer was stunned. Not only was the entire contract full of lies, he'd never signed any such document.
1:11:49 Speaker 00 He then remembered that Tracy had previously convinced him to provide his signature on a blank piece of paper.
1:11:57 Speaker 00 She'd claimed she was going to scan it to his computer so that his assistants could send paperwork on his behalf.
1:12:06 Speaker 00 Dr Spencer was mortified by the entire experience. After seeking advice from his attorney, he refused to pay the money, but decided not to report Tracy's extortion attempt to the police.
1:12:21 Speaker 00 After Tracy filed a civil lawsuit against him, he eventually agreed to settle out of court for $6,000, eager to put the situation behind him.
1:12:33 Speaker 00 Dr Spencer was adamant about one thing: Tracy Richter was not the innocent victim she portrayed herself as.
1:12:47 Speaker 00 From the outset of the investigation, Tracy's ex-husband, John Pittman, had been named as a person of interest. But as Agent Trent Villetta read over the statement Tracy gave police immediately following Dustin Wehde's shooting, he noticed that she seemed very eager to bring up John's name. Without being asked, Tracy had gone into great detail about their marriage, including the allegations that John had sexually abused their son, Bert.
1:13:19 Speaker 00 This alone made Agent Villetta suspicious. Given everything Tracy had just gone through, why was she so eager to talk about John? Furthermore, since Tracy and Michael had divorced, Bert had gone to live with John in Virginia.
1:13:38 Speaker 00 It was hard to believe Tracy would willingly agree to such a thing if she genuinely believed John had been abusing their son.
1:13:48 Speaker 00 Agent Villetta picked up the phone and dialed John Pittman's number.
1:13:54 Speaker 00 Like Michael and Dr. Spencer, he was eager to set the record straight when it came to Tracy's allegations against him. According to John, he hadn't harassed and abused Tracy, it was the other way around.
1:14:10 Speaker 00 He claimed that Tracy had a history of acting erratically and that he'd long held concerns about her mental state. John claimed Tracy had cheated on him throughout their entire marriage, having one affair after another, while accusing John of being unfaithful. As well as lying constantly, she burnt through their money frivolously and without explanation. She once used John's credit card to buy expensive gifts for one of her secret boyfriends. When John confronted her about it, she claimed his credit card had been stolen.
1:14:50 Speaker 00 Every job she had ended in drama or controversy, with Tracy always claiming to be the victim.
1:14:59 Speaker 00 John recounted one story in which Tracy had accosted him one night in a fit of rage after he left a pair of dirty shoes in their house. She threatened to kill him and ordered that he leave the house. Scared of what she might do, John was walking out the door when he heard a gunshot. He went into the lounge room and found Tracy sitting calmly on the couch with a bullet hole in the ceiling. She told him, "I tried to kill myself, but I'm fine now." Worried about Tracy's mental health, John called 911.
1:15:41 Speaker 00 When paramedics arrived, Tracy begged them not to take her away. A social worker came out to do an evaluation and John agreed she could stay. After that, things calmed down for a while, but Tracy soon went back to her old ways. When John discovered that she'd taken out a life insurance policy on him without his approval, he hired a private investigator to follow her around. The PI confirmed that Tracy was dating several other men, including a bodybuilder. He also claimed that she had stolen one of John's prescription pads and used it to fraudulently
1:16:23 Speaker 00 obtain steroids which she then sold. The PI warned John that his life might be in danger and advised him to leave the marriage. John initiated divorce proceedings and that's when things got really ugly. As he and Tracy tried to reach a custody agreement, John noticed that Bert would often show up for visitations covered in bruises. One day, Bert arrived with a welt on his face and said Tracy had hit him. Concerned that Tracy was physically abusing and neglecting their son, John raised the alarm.
1:17:06 Speaker 00 It was only then that Tracy turned around and started accusing him of sexually abusing Bert. She took him to a doctor who supported her claims.
1:17:19 Speaker 00 Bert was questioned by social services and examined by an independent doctor, who found no evidence whatsoever to support Tracy's accusations. John filed a legal action against Tracy on the grounds that she was trying to interfere with his visitation rights. No charges were ever filed against John Pittman, and he was granted joint custody of Bert. When Tracy remarried and Bert went to live with her and Michael Roberts in Iowa, John began fighting for sole custody.
1:17:55 Speaker 00 At the time Dustin Wehde was killed, a custody hearing was looming, and Tracy stood to lose not only primary custody of Bert, but also $1,000 per month in child support payments from John.
1:18:10 Speaker 00 As far as John Pittman was concerned, Tracy framed him in the murder-for-hire plot so that he'd be arrested, and the custody hearing couldn't go ahead. John believed if anyone was capable of orchestrating the purported home invasion that resulted in Dustin Wehde's death, it was Tracy.
1:18:34 Speaker 00 While Agent Villetta dug deeper into the investigation, the custody battle between Tracy and Michael Roberts raged on. Tracy spoke to Agent Villetta often, casting suspicion on Michael as the mastermind behind the home invasion plot. In early 2009, Tracy called 911 to report that someone had broken into her car and left a disturbing photo of Dustin Wehde's dead body on the front seat. She accused Michael, telling officers on the scene that he was trying to terrorize her.
1:19:12 Speaker 00 Officers immediately suspected Tracy was lying. Not only was there no evidence of a break-in, Michael had recently been granted a protection order against Tracy, and in response, she'd filed one against him too.
1:19:29 Speaker 00 The hearing was scheduled to take place the following day, leading police to suspect she was trying to delay or influence proceedings. Suspicious raised, police were granted a search warrant for Tracy's apartment. On the hard drive of her computer, they discovered some disturbing finds, including what was described as bizarre pornography and pictures of dead bodies. They also found a passport that featured Tracy's photo, but was issued in the name of Sophie Edwards. She also had an Iowa driver's licence and a social security number in the same name.
1:20:11 Speaker 00 Police discovered that Tracy had obtained these items by providing the Iowa Department of Transportation with forged documents, which were also found in her home.
1:20:22 Speaker 00 Tracy claimed she'd changed her name to avoid ongoing harassment from Michael Roberts, but law enforcement suspected otherwise. Believing she was trying to flee the country to escape the heat of the Dustin Wehde investigation, they charged her with perjury and criminal impersonation, which was a felony offence.
1:20:48 Speaker 00 In late 2010, Special Agent Trent Villetta took everything he'd uncovered to the newly-appointed county prosecutor Ben Smith. After reviewing all the files, Ben agreed that the case had been poorly investigated the first time around, and that Tracy was lying about what transpired in her house the night Dustin was killed. The investigators agreed that Tracy had orchestrated the entire attack in the hopes of implicating John Pittman, thus giving her an advantage in their upcoming custody proceedings. She'd somehow convinced Burt to lie on her behalf.
1:21:30 Speaker 00 With that plan and her second marriage failing, she turned suspicion on to Michael Roberts instead.
1:21:38 Speaker 00 But as convinced as the investigators were, they lacked the evidence to prove it. If they were going to press charges against Tracy, they'd need something more concrete.
1:21:52 Speaker 00 Back in December 2001, the police had spoken to Tracy's friend Mary Higgins, who had defended Tracy. Knowing that loyalties change over time, in 2011, the new investigation team summoned Mary in for another interview.
1:22:11 Speaker 00 This time, Mary admitted she had many lingering questions of her own about the supposed home invasion.
1:22:19 Speaker 00 Tracy had told Mary that the second intruder had been wearing a ski mask. If this was the case, Mary wondered how Tracy had provided a description of his face.
1:22:33 Speaker 00 Mary had also been taken aback by the nonchalant, emotionless way that Tracy spoke about the shooting, as though she was reading items off a grocery list.
1:22:44 Speaker 00 Mary accused Tracy of being a terrible mother who was physically abusive towards Bert. She detailed one occasion when she and Tracy were discussing the home invasion and Bert entered the room. Mary claimed that Bert became extremely agitated and started banging his head on the table, saying: "Why did you go back up there? You didn't have to shoot him."
1:23:13 Speaker 00 Mary said that in the wake of the home invasion, Tracy had told her that police suspected her ex-husband John Pittman hired Dustin to murder her. Mary explained to the investigators:
1:23:28 Speaker 00 "Tracy told me all the stuff in the notebook showed that Dr. Pittman was behind it."
1:23:35 Speaker 00 At this, Agent Trent Villetar and Prosecutor Ben Smith exchanged a look.
1:23:42 Speaker 00 For all these years, the pink notebook found in Dustin Wehde's car had been concealed from anyone outside of law enforcement, including Tracy. The only way she could have known about the notebook was if she herself had something to do with it.
1:24:03 Speaker 00 By this point, Agent Villetar had amassed a number of emails between himself and Tracy Richter. Looking over them, he noted that Tracy had described her ex-husband, John Pittman, as enjoying playing mind games.
1:24:19 Speaker 00 She wrote that he'd wanted to be a psychiatrist, but his parents wouldn't allow it. Agent Villetar realised this sounded familiar.
1:24:30 Speaker 00 He looked over the pink notebook and noticed that when describing John, Dustin had not only written that he liked to play mind games, but also that he, quote, "wanted to be a shrink, family disapproved."
1:24:47 Speaker 00 Investigators were convinced that Tracy had dictated the contents of the notebook to Dustin, they just weren't sure how or when.
1:24:57 Speaker 00 There was no evidence of the pair ever speaking or spending time alone together. Yet, if Mona was correct in claiming that Tracy had offered Dustin some work for their business, then this provided a window where Tracy could have manipulated Dustin into writing in the notebook, possibly using money or sex.
1:25:19 Speaker 00 The police who first investigated the crime had found a notebook in Dustin's house, which they believed contained the words "I kill a Pittman."
1:25:30 Speaker 00 At the time, this had been deemed further evidence that Dustin had been part of a plot to kill Tracy and Bert. Prosecutor Ben Smith was flipping through Dustin Wehde's high school yearbook when he noticed a picture of a foreign exchange student named Ilka Ditma.
1:25:49 Speaker 00 Something about her name looked familiar.
1:25:53 Speaker 00 Ben compared her name to Dustin's distinct handwriting and thought the supposed "I kill a pitman" text could have just as easily read "Ilka Didma". He spoke to Mona Wehde, who confirmed that Dustin had a crush on Ilka and had once delivered flowers to her home.
1:26:15 Speaker 00 An independent medical examiner was tasked with reviewing the photos of Tracy's neck injuries. He determined that the marks on Tracy's neck weren't consistent with ligature marks, but friction burns. In some accounts, Tracy claimed she'd passed out from the strangulation attempt. Yet, the friction burns were positioned in such a way that they wouldn't have caused a loss of consciousness. As far as the medical examiner was concerned, it was entirely possible that Tracy had staged being choked.
1:26:53 Speaker 00 Ballistic experts and a blood spatter analyst returned to the scene of the crime to conduct a reconstruction.
1:27:01 Speaker 00 They determined that the first shots could have been fired from the space between Tracy's bed and the wall, but they weren't shot over her shoulder, as she claimed. They'd been fired while Tracy was either crouched down or kneeling, and it was possible that she'd been wearing earplugs at the time.
1:27:23 Speaker 00 Tracy had always claimed that she'd shot Dustin in the head with the second gun because he started moving and she thought he was trying to stand up.
1:27:33 Speaker 00 The blood spatter analysis determined that these shots had actually been fired into coagulated blood while Dustin's head was on the floor. This meant Dustin was already dead when Tracy stood above him and shot him in the head.
1:27:51 Speaker 00 Not only did this prove that Tracy lied about what happened, it also proved that Dustin was no longer a threat when she shot him again, thus debunking her claims of self-defense.
1:28:07 Speaker 00 The cold case team had spent three years diligently sifting through the cracks in Tracy Richter's story before they finally felt they had enough evidence to make their move. In late July 2011, Tracy was summoned to a Starbucks coffee shop under false pretenses, where members of law enforcement from both Iowa and Nebraska placed the now 45-year-old under arrest for the first-degree murder of Dustin Wehde.
1:28:37 Speaker 00 Tracy firmly denied the allegations, and the case went to trial in late October 2011. Tracy's defense team discounted the importance of the pink notebook recovered from Dustin's car, saying it didn't provide any information about what transpired inside the Roberts' home on the night that Dustin was killed. They argued that Tracy was a heroic mother who'd acted purely in self-defense during a terrifying home invasion. The failure to catch the second perpetrator and get to the bottom of the plot was blamed on incompetent police work in the early days of the investigation.
1:29:20 Speaker 00 The defense cast suspicion on Jeremy Collins, the man Mona Wehde had been having an affair with at the time, while describing Dustin as an unpredictable man with a history of mental health and behavioral issues.
1:29:35 Speaker 00 Bert Pittman took the stand as the star witness for his mother's defense. The now 21-year-old was as supportive of Tracy at the trial as he had been throughout the entire investigation. He told the court he had no doubt that Dustin Wehde had bad intentions when entering their home that night, testifying that Dustin looked angry and threatening.
1:30:02 Speaker 00 Bert said that he'd been "very, very, very scared" that night, and that he thought he and his siblings were going to die.
1:30:11 Speaker 00 Bert denied Mary Higgins' claims that he'd been upset with his mother for shooting Dustin, saying he had no doubt that Tracy's actions had saved the lives of herself and their family, stating: "If it wasn't for what my mum did, I wouldn't be sitting here today."
1:30:32 Speaker 00 Then, for the first time, Bert made a shocking admission. He claimed that he'd seen Dustin trying to stand up after Tracy had shot him the first time round, thus disputing the forensic evidence that Dustin was already dead when Tracy shot him in the head.
1:30:52 Speaker 00 For the prosecution, this just added further fuel to their belief that Bert was lying to protect his mother.
1:31:00 Speaker 00 Under cross-examination, they asked Bert which versions of events had been his most accurate. Bert agreed that the most accurate was the statement he'd given to police on the night of the shooting. The prosecution then presented him with all the inconsistencies he'd introduced since then. They questioned why he didn't mention any of those details during his initial statement. Bert's explanation was that he might have given those details, but the interviewing officer might not have written them down.
1:31:37 Speaker 00 After hearing all the evidence, it took the jury less than five hours to reach a unanimous decision.
1:31:45 Speaker 00 They declared Tracy Richter guilty of Dustin Wehde's murder.
1:31:51 Speaker 00 Tracy slumped forward as the verdict was delivered, bursting into tears, while her legal team appeared genuinely shocked. Bert sat stone-faced before starting to cry.
1:32:06 Speaker 00 The next day, Tracy's father, 69-year-old Bernard Richter, who wasn't present for the trial, collapsed from a heart attack at his home and died.
1:32:20 Speaker 00 For Dustin Wehde's family, Tracy's guilty verdict was a major relief. Ever since Dustin's death and his father's subsequent suicide, Mona had struggled with depression and alcohol abuse.
1:32:35 Speaker 00 It pained her to hear Dustin being described in court as someone capable of hurting others.
1:32:42 Speaker 00 While Dustin had his own unique set of challenges, Mona had never known him to be violent, and she resented Tracy's claims that Mona had been afraid of him.
1:32:53 Speaker 00 The guilty verdict brought some justice in restoring Dustin's good character, and the family were able to speak on his behalf at a subsequent sentencing hearing. The experience was too much for one of Dustin's sisters, who became too overwhelmed with emotion and was unable to deliver her victim impact statement. His other sister addressed Tracy directly, as she said:
1:33:20 Speaker 00 "The worst part of all this is that you cheated my brother Dustin out of his future. He never got to fall in love, he never got to get married or buy a car or a house, he never got to have kids. He missed everything because of you."
1:33:38 Speaker 00 Mona told the court about how much she'd struggled in the years since Dustin's murder, her hands shaking as she said: "There's not one day I don't envision my son's body, see his blood, or that I don't live with the horror of my son's death. I don't deserve to have to live my life with this pain, without my child."
1:34:04 Speaker 00 Addressing Tracy, Mona said: "I can only wish that when you hear the sound of your door closing in your cold cell, you're haunted by all the pain and misery you have caused to me, my family, and everyone else you have used and abused."
1:34:23 Speaker 00 Tracy, who had chosen not to testify at the trial, was also given the opportunity to speak at the hearing.
1:34:31 Speaker 00 She maintained that she'd killed Dustin in self-defense and expressed her sympathy for the Wehde family, saying she would rather spend the rest of her life behind bars for a crime she didn't commit than lose one of her children. She continued to cast suspicion on her ex-husband Michael Roberts and tried to introduce inadmissible evidence before the judge had to call her into line. With that, he sentenced Tracy Richter to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
1:35:09 Speaker 00 In the wake of Tracy's conviction, Michael Roberts feared for his life. He told television news programme 60 Minutes that members of Tracy's family harassed him relentlessly. Having been granted custody of his and Tracy's two children, Michael moved around constantly in an attempt to keep them away from Tracy's family. He wanted to take his children to live in Australia, but Tracy refused to sign their passport applications. He was also required by a court order to take the children to visit Tracy in prison.
1:35:48 Speaker 00 The entire situation left Tracy and Michael's oldest son feeling conflicted.
1:35:55 Speaker 00 He told 60 Minutes that all he wanted was to get on an aeroplane and leave, but he didn't want to leave his mother behind, regardless of what she'd done, remarking: "There's a war going on inside my head."
1:36:12 Speaker 00 Mona Wehde told 60 Minutes she supported Michael's campaign to move the children to Australia, saying: "Tracy's not coming back out. She has no rights to her children. She gave up her rights when she pulled the trigger on my son, as far as I'm concerned."
1:36:32 Speaker 00 Tracy Richter has a dedicated group of supporters who continue to protest her innocence. Among them is her son Bert, who maintains that he's telling the truth about what happened on the night of the home invasion. On Bert's torso, he has a large tattoo depicting the home invasion. Inked in grey wash, it shows a guardian angel with the head of a demon being embraced by a woman who is meant to be Tracy.
1:37:01 Speaker 00 Bert showed the tattoo to Dateline producers, saying: "I know for a fact that if my mum didn't do what she did, I would be dead."
1:37:14 Speaker 00 Until 2021, Bert ran a Facebook page called Free Tracy Richter, in which he petitioned for Tracy’s release from prison.
1:37:24 Speaker 00 The Facebook group has been temporarily paused, with Bert explaining that a new website is in the works. Whether that website will ever be launched is unknown.
1:37:36 Speaker 00 Mona Wehde has no doubt that Tracy killed Dustin to gain advantage in the custody battle over Bert.
1:37:44 Speaker 00 Through tears, Mona told 60 Minutes: “Finding out the true reason of why Tracy took my son’s life, to this day haunts me. Because in her process of trying to save her own son from her husband, she chose to take my son away. That’s just so hard. In my opinion, she killed my husband too. He didn’t just go out to our son’s gravesite and put a bullet in his heart because he had no pain. She did that to him. She drove him to that.”
1:38:22 Speaker 00 Brett Wehde was buried directly behind Dustin, his gravestone highlighted by a heart-shaped ornament on Dustin’s grave.
1:38:32 Speaker 00 Mona does her best to remember the good times. Speaking to author M. William Phelps for his comprehensive book on the case titled Beautifully Cruel, she relived a fond memory from Christmas morning when Dustin was just two years old. Mona and Brett had bought Dustin the most complicated transformer toy they could find, but when they opened it up, they realised just how difficult it would be to put together. Brett started reading the instructions to figure it out, when they looked over to find Dustin sitting quietly in the corner of the room.
1:39:12 Speaker 00 The toddler had somehow managed to assemble the entire transformer on his own.
1:39:19 Speaker 00 To Mona, this was just one moment that highlighted how intelligent Dustin was. She told Phelps, "People called my son slow and a special needs child, but he was not. He was just special."
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