Pod Insights Criminology Harold Henthorn About this episode By 2012, Harold and Toni Henthorn had been together for twelve years. They celebrated their anniversary by going camping and hiking at Rocky Mountain National Park. Toni's family and friends grieved after learning that, while on the trip, Toni plummeted 140 feet off a cliff to her death. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Harold Henthorn. Harold became a suspect after he gave many different accounts of what happened to Toni that day. As evidence against him mounted, it came to light that Harold's first wife had also died in what he called a terrible accident.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
0:37 Speaker 01 Hello everyone and welcome to episode 352 of the Criminology Podcast. This is Mike Ferguson.
0:44 Speaker 02 And this is Mike Morford.
0:46 Speaker 01 Mr. Morford, what you got going on this week?
0:49 Speaker 02 Not a whole lot, just trying to catch up on some extra work. How about you?
0:52 Speaker 01 I'm, you know, really following the tournament. My Kentucky Wildcats made it to the Sweet 16. I know you're not a huge college basketball guy, but you know, I'm just really into the tournament this year and I haven't been for quite a few years because my team keeps getting knocked out early.
1:11 Speaker 02 Well, then that's something to be excited about if your team's there and you got something to root for.
1:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, it definitely makes a difference. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had one new Patreon and that was Laura Holcomb Duke. So we really appreciate that new support.
1:29 Speaker 02 Thank you so much. That really helps out the show and for anyone else that would like to support us, you can head over to patreon.com/criminology to get started.
1:38 Speaker 01 All right, it's time to jump into this week's case. And, you know, in this episode, we're starting with a question for our listeners. What would you do if you got away with murder? Not the kind of murder where the authorities are still searching for the killer and you're always looking over your shoulder, but one that investigators never even thought was a murder. You're not on the run and you're completely in the clear. Would you consider yourself lucky and lay low so that your past couldn't come back to haunt you? Or would you maybe think it was something you could easily do again? While a man named Harold Henthorn maintains his innocence,
2:21 Speaker 01 in this episode, we'll discuss why investigators believe he picked the second option, treating murder as something he now knew he could get away with. They also have reason to believe he would have chosen option B as many times as he could, and that he may have killed over and over if they didn't eventually catch on to him.
2:42 Speaker 02 In 1999, Harold Henthorn met Toni Burtlet on the online dating service, Christian Matchmakers. They bonded over their shared Christian faith and similarities in their lives, like having previously been married, though Toni was divorced and Harold was a widower. His first wife, Sandra Lynn Henthorn, passed away in 1995. He was open about the fact that he had been married and Toni's family learned that Sandra Lynn had been in an awful car accident, so her death was very sudden and unexpected. It was such a difficult topic that no one ever asked him for any details. Toni's sister-in-law, Paula, told CBS News, "We just took it for face value." Everyone knew how hard that must have been for Harold to go through,
3:27 Speaker 02 and they were just happy that he was able to be open to love again because he found Toni.
3:32 Speaker 01 It seemed like Harold and Toni were absolutely perfect for each other. According to CBS News, Toni had described Harold to friends and family as very kind, very romantic, and very smart. Toni's family believed that she found her true love, and her brother Barry remembered being extraordinarily happy for Toni. Toni's father, Bob, agreed, telling CBS, "He seemed like a good match for her." Her and her mother, Yvonne, remembered Harold telling her, "I was just smitten by Toni." As a surgeon and an eye doctor, Toni was a very successful person in her professional life, and now she finally had a partner who fulfilled her in her personal life.
4:16 Speaker 01 It seemed that Harold felt that Toni was as special and wonderful as the rest of her loved ones did. What more could they ask for?
4:25 Speaker 02 About a year after they met, Harold and Tony got married and moved from the Jackson, Mississippi area to Denver, Colorado. Having lived there in the past, Harold had more ties there for his job, and Tony easily found work at an ophthalmology practice. After a few years living together as a married couple and trying for a baby, they had a daughter named Haley. Tony fit right in while living in Denver and quickly made plenty of friends. She also taught Sunday School at Cherry Hills Community Church and became a partner at her practice called Associates in Eye Care. Despite things going good for Tony and her new community, over time, the relationship between her and Harold began to deteriorate.
5:06 Speaker 02 Although Tony liked her new city, she still missed her old one, but she never really visited back home because Harold didn't want to fly to Mississippi. Despite having friends in the Denver area, Tony was pretty isolated because she was never really able to be on her own or have a conversation on her own. Every single time anyone called to talk to Tony, Harold would answer the phone. He would then put the call on speakerphone, and it usually sounded like he was much closer to the phone than Tony was. Barry told CBS that the only one-on-one conversation I ever had was with Harold. If I tried to talk to Tony or Haley, it was always on speakerphone.
5:45 Speaker 01 And I think more of, you know, anytime you start to hear things like this in a true crime story, it's a very bad sign. You know, someone is being isolated. One person in the relationship is showing very controlling type behavior. That oftentimes doesn't work out well and leads to, you know, some really bad things happening.
6:12 Speaker 02 It seems common in a lot of the cases that we talk about, these relationships that start out pretty well, and then over time, you see there's different cracks in the foundation of that relationship. Sometimes it's, it's a controlling partner or an untrusting partner or paranoid. They won't let their partner go out by themselves, or even in this case, Really talk on the phone by themselves. So it seems like a troubling development in this relationship.
6:42 Speaker 01 And the question that I always have is whether the person who is the controlling partner, did they have that in them all along? And then it just kind of came up slowly over time? Or did something happen in their life that that kind of made them that way or caused them to be that way?
7:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, it seems as if there was anything like that there in a relationship, Toni didn't tell her family about it, at least early on.
7:13 Speaker 01 Well, and let's face it, in the beginning, people put their best foot forward, right? You know, you can't let all of the demons out in the very beginning, or the person that that you like wouldn't like you back. They wouldn't go out with you. They wouldn't marry you. So I don't know if it was there all along with Harold, and he was just that good at hiding it. I don't know. But there's no doubt Harold was controlling, and he was always in Toni's business, even when she was at work. Tammy Abriscado, the office manager at Toni's practice, explained that no one really liked Harold, even though they absolutely
7:56 Speaker 01 loved Toni. She told CBS, he made us uncomfortable. There was something creepy about him. And Tammy indicated that coworkers noticed that Harold was overbearing, saying of Toni, she was not able to schedule anything outside of her normal schedule without first consulting with Harold. Despite the friction in the relationship, the Henthorns marked their 12th year together in 2012. To celebrate their actual wedding anniversary, September 30th, Harold planned a surprise hiking and camping trip at Rocky Mountain National Park for just the two of them. It would prove to be a fateful trip. They set off for the park
8:39 Speaker 01 the day before their anniversary and began their hike up Deer Mountain. After about two miles. They had a picnic. They took photos together. Once they finished lunch, they left the Walmart trail and headed down the cliff. Looking back, this detail seemed very odd to Tony's brother, Barry. Navigating established trails was hard enough, but going off the trail would mean additional work and effort. Barry said that while his sister Tony did like to hike, she had to have multiple knee surgeries in the past and was not a well person to go hiking in such a rugged terrain.
9:21 Speaker 02 Harold would tell a couple of different versions of what happened that day. What we do know without a doubt is that Tony ended up 140 feet below Harold on Deer Mountain, where she died from her injuries from what appeared to be from a fall. It's believed that this happened around 5:15 PM, just half an hour after they finished eating a meal. 911 was not called until just before 6:00 PM. Harold claimed that it took him time to get down to Tony, assess her injuries, and then get to an area with cell phone service. After hanging up with 911, which he claimed was due to a low cell phone battery, Harold began to text Tony's brother Barry. According to CBS, the text read in part, Barry, urgent,
10:05 Speaker 02 Tony is injured, critical, requested flight for life. Another text read, please come to Denver next flight. Eventually, he texted Barry, she's gone. Harold would also claim that he desperately tried to perform CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Tony, but apparently Tony's lipstick was not even smeared from the alleged mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a detail that would be troubling later on. Dispatchers trying to guide Harold through the steps of CPR also doubted whether he was doing what he claimed that he was doing on the other end of the phone.
10:39 Speaker 01 So more of, obviously, this is a terrible situation. 140 feet fall. I mean, I can only imagine what type of injuries someone would sustain from that type of fall, but there are a few things that jumped out at me here in, you know, what Harold was claiming. Number one, he's able to call 911. It was definitely delayed by perhaps, you know, as much as 45 minutes. And then all of a sudden, the call ends, according to him, due to a low battery, but he's able to send all these texts. I mean, it just kind of that
11:20 Speaker 01 in and of itself seems a little strange. But the idea that he's trying to perform CPR and mouth to mouth, you have dispatchers not believing that he's doing that, I'm assuming, based on what they're hearing on the other end of the phone. And then also Tony's lipstick, not even being smeared. And things don't seem to be adding up.
11:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, I don't know what I would do in this situation if somebody that I was with fell, but I'd like to think the very first thing I would do would be to take out the phone and try and call 911, knowing that if they've fallen a great distance, they're going to need help. So before I even tried to get down there, I would be calling 911. He says that he had to take time and assess their injuries. Then he had to move to a spot where there was good reception. To me, it doesn't sound believable because I would have been trying 911 immediately. And if I didn't have reception, then I would have tried to move.
12:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that's a great point. I mean, yes, at some point, you're going to want to assess injuries, but you know, there's going to be catastrophic injuries in that type of fall. So why not just make the call right away and then try to get down to them? Help arrived around 8pm, but it was already far too late. Authorities believe that Tony was already dead by the time Harold was texting her brother. Harold first distanced himself from what happened to his wife. He said that Tony had been having a hard time keeping up with him because of her knee problems. So he ended up quite a ways ahead of her. He turned around
13:01 Speaker 01 to check on her and realized he couldn't see her anymore. So he turned back. Eventually, he saw her body far below the edge of the cliff. In another verse, Harold claimed that he had received the text message and he was reading it when Tony fell. He didn't realize what was happening until it was too late because he was looking at his phone. But if two versions of what happened weren't enough, there was actually a third. In this third version, Harold would go on to tell people that Tony was taking a photo of him. When she stepped too far backwards and fell to her death. He would have seen everything as it happened.
13:40 Speaker 01 If that was the truth, this is probably starting to sound to most listeners like something isn't adding up here. Just wait because we get a fourth version from Harold. In this fourth scenario, Harold said that for some reason, when Tony fell, he was using Tony's cellphone, making sure that she hadn't missed any calls from work. This fourth version was clearly a lie because Tony had forgotten her cellphone at work. And two days after Tony died, Harold showed up to collect it. So by my way of thinking, the authorities were going to be suspicious of Harold. No matter what, right?
14:22 Speaker 01 Your wife falls to her death and it's only the two of you out there. They're going to look at you. You're going to be on the radar as a potential suspect. But I think as in any true crime story, when a person tells two, three, and in this case, four different versions of events. I mean, it just makes police look at them even harder.
14:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, when there's only one story that you're telling, it's the truth. It should always be the same. And I know there are some people out there probably that will elaborate when they're telling you a story, add details to make the story that much more interesting or compelling. But why would he do that about his wife's death? You know, it's not like he's telling some tall tale and trying to add details. He's talking about the death of his wife. So why would he need to embellish on it, change things and, and make it sound more interesting? It just sounds like he's lying and telling different people, different things.
15:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, he's not talking about his golf game or catching a fish or, or something like that. Right? You might exaggerate the size of the fish in, in a story that you're telling to people. But. Exaggerating or, you know, telling different versions of how your wife died. That's, that's not going to be good.
15:49 Speaker 02 Investigators might not have given the case a second look if there had been only one version of what happened to Tony, but with multiple stories, they had to look closely. One thing police noticed was that the fall that killed Tony hadn't done any damage to her hands or fingers, but despite that, the $30,000 diamond that was once part of her wedding ring was missing. Investigators could not find it at the scene. Now, to be fair, trying to find a small diamond in a wooded hiking area is probably the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack. Not finding the diamond was odd, but it didn't prove anything either way.
16:24 Speaker 01 After Tony died, her family looked back at something that had happened to her a year before with suspicion. In 2011, Tony was hit in the back of the head by a 20-foot wooden beam that fell from the roof of their cabin near Grand Lake, Colorado. It happened during construction, which Harold just happened to be doing at night. After Haley had been put to bed, Harold had yelled to his wife, asking her to come out and help him before proceeding to throw things down to the deck without checking to see if Tony had come outside after he called her. Looking back, Toni's family wondered, was this truly an
17:05 Speaker 01 accident or was it an earlier attempt by Harold to kill Tony? The beam that struck Tony fractured one of the vertebrae in her neck and caused her to lose some feeling in her hands, but it could have been a lot worse. According to CBS, Toni's family recalled her saying to them after the accident, "If I hadn't been down after I walked outside, the beam would have killed me."
17:30 Speaker 02 Harold had described multiple versions of this accident too. First, he said Tony was holding the flashlight for him when he dropped a beam and it hit her. He also said that he was on a ladder when he slipped, dropping the beam and hitting Tony. In a third version, Harold said that he threw a beam and didn't realize that Tony was there. And in yet a fourth version, he said the beam fell on its own, striking Tony. It was weird at the time, but everyone was just happy Tony was okay. But now, looking back at it after Tony's death, her family felt certain that this was her first attempt by Harold to kill Tony.
18:07 Speaker 01 And what is it with this guy morph and having four stories? Four different versions of the same event? Like, that's his lucky number or something? He has to tell four different versions?
18:20 Speaker 02 I think it just demonstrates a pattern that he's not someone you can take what he says seriously because he might just change that what he tells you the next day.
18:31 Speaker 01 Well, the other thing that crossed my mind was, you know, things happen. You hear about something, an event. And in this case, you know, Toni's family hears about her being hit by this beam. I mean, is your first thought, oh, well, obviously her husband is trying to kill her? No, probably not. But after she dies, then some of these things that you didn't look at sideways before, you start to look at a little differently. You know, there's probably a goal weight in your head and getting there on your own is the hard part. Weight loss by Hers offers access to a range of FDA-approved GLP-1 medications,
19:15 Speaker 01 including the Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen, plus support along the way. With Wegovy, you can lose up to 20% of your body weight. People lost an average of 14% body weight in 64 weeks in a clinical trial of Wegovy, alongside diet and exercise. To get started with Wegovy, just go to forhers.com and complete an online consultation with a licensed provider who will determine if Prescription is appropriate and hers doesn't stop there. Nutrition and lifestyle guidance are part of the plan along with access to 24/7 messaging with your care team. So support is always in reach. Ready to reach your goals?
19:54 Speaker 01 Visit forhers.com/criminology to access personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair, menopause, and more. Individual results may vary and stopping treatment may result in weight regain. Weight loss by hers is not available in all 50 states. Wegovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wegovy clinical study information and restrictions, visit forhers.com. Apparently 16 different people called authorities after Tony's death to request a thorough investigation. It seemed like to the overwhelming majority of friends and family of the Henthorns that there was more than meets the eye.
20:38 Speaker 01 At the same time investigative reporter Brian Moss received the tip that made him dig into the deaths of not only Tony, but also Harold's first wife, Sandra Lynn. According to CBS, the tip he got was that Harold's first wife died in a freak accident as well. As Brian would uncover, in both cases, the accidents were freakish or bizarre and both wives had a lot of insurance money on them. Harold had collected almost $645,000. Thanks to Lynn's life insurance policy payout, just months before her death, Harold selected
21:20 Speaker 01 the option to double the payout of her $300,000 policy in the event of an accidental death. He managed to live off of that money for quite a while. Investigators discovered that by the time of Tony's death, Harold had not worked at all in at least 20 years. Now, having, you know, done as many cases and researched as much true crime as we have and as many cases as listeners have heard about, I mean, how many of them involve money? You know, a lot. They really do. People do things for money. They kill for money. It's shocking to us still.
22:02 Speaker 01 Every time I hear it, it's shocking, but to think that a husband would kill his wife. So that he can collect life insurance money and not have to work. Well, heck, nobody wants to work, but are you willing to kill not to have to? And kill your wife for that matter?
22:24 Speaker 02 Well, it seems like he treated Sandra Lynn's death like a, like a lottery win. That he had won the lottery, didn't have to work and had money for all those years. And, you know, it's not always nefarious that somebody has a high insurance policy or doubles it for accident. You know, my wife and I have policies like that, but it's mainly to protect, you know, loss of income, especially if you have children, you need to provide for their college for things like that. So sometimes there is a need for that, but it's also suspicious when they double an insurance policy and then they happen to die in an accident not
23:09 Speaker 02 too long after.
23:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think the changing it weeks before, right? Obviously means something a little different than if it was 10 years after.
23:20 Speaker 02 For his part, Harold never admitted that he was just coasting off his dead wife and their life insurance. He claimed to be very well off financially. A little over a year before Sandra Lynn's death, Harold was arrested for shoplifting a $40 pack of underwear from JCPenney. So there does seem to be evidence he needed money. When Harold told people that his first wife had died in a car accident, it brought up the image of getting into a wreck while driving, maybe colliding with another car. He'd never really mentioned that in reality, it was a freak accident involving a car. According to what Harold told investigators at the time, on May 6, 1995, he and Sandra Lynn were driving to Sedalia, Colorado for
24:02 Speaker 02 dinner and to enjoy the scenery as they drove. At some point, one of the tires on their Jeep started to go flat. So Harold pulled over onto the shoulder of Highway 67 so he could fix the flat. He decided to change the tire because it was dark outside. Sandra Lynn was helping him. She held a flashlight and as he removed the lug nuts, he handed them to her to hold. But she dropped one and it ended up just out of reach onto the car. It wasn't immediately needed, so Harold didn't try to grab it. Instead, he took the flat tire to the back of the car. He lifted it into the trunk, not knowing that Sandra Lynn was at that exact time under the Jeep, trying to retrieve the lug nut. According to Harold, when he threw the tire in the trunk,
24:46 Speaker 02 the weight of the tire knocked the car off the jack and the car fell on top of Sandra Lynn, and she was trapped.
24:53 Speaker 01 A passerby who stopped to help after the Jeep fell on Sandra Lynn was one of the people who called in a tip about her death possibly being a homicide. She recalled seeing no lug nut under the Jeep and was unnerved by Harold and his behavior. She explained to the Denver Post, "The whole thing was creepy. You remember things like that. It was one of the creepiest things that I had ever come upon in my life." The passerby's husband and her brother-in-law got the Jeep back up on the jack and were going to pull Sandra Lynn out from underneath it when Harold began to yell at them not to touch her. He also told them not to perform CPR after they attempted to
25:36 Speaker 01 because it was so cold outside and Sandra Lynn was only wearing a light sweater. They all put their jackets on her body, but Harold refused to give up hit to cushion her head. He searched the roadside ditch for something to put under her head instead. The next day, the woman who stopped called the police station to see if she could pick up the jacket she left behind. And according to Rolling Stone Magazine, she also asked, "Did you arrest the husband yet?" A note of her call was made and placed in the file, but less than a week later, the case was classified as accidental and closed. Sandra Lynn was airlifted to Swedish Medical Center in Inglewood, Colorado,
26:21 Speaker 01 and rushed into surgery, but despite the efforts of the medical team, she passed away.
26:27 Speaker 02 So one thing I'm getting out of this is that if you're married to this guy, you better keep your head on a swivel because it doesn't seem like his wives are safe and they both wind up in these quote unquote accidents.
26:44 Speaker 01 Well, and again, is it shocking that it took less than a week for authorities to, you know, close the case and classify it accidental? And we talk about this all the time. Determination of death or cause of death is a big thing. Obviously, if it's an accident, then there's really nothing to investigate. But if it's undetermined, well, maybe they continue to look into it a little bit. You would think his behavior alone and what these people said, you know, he did at the scene would be enough to look into this guy.
27:26 Speaker 01 I mean, what kind of person is unwilling to remove their jacket or their coat to make their wife, who has just been in an accident, feel better? Who says, don't touch her? Don't try to help her. I mean, all of that stuff is very suspicious to me. And you would think it would be to the police as well.
27:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, especially if they looked and found out that he had just doubled that, that life insurance for an accident.
27:55 Speaker 01 But here's the thing, Mor, they're not going to probably find that out because they don't have time to really get into it and they're not going to pursue it once it's determined to be accident.
28:08 Speaker 02 No one within Sandra Lynn Henthorne's family really questioned whether her death was anything other than a shocking and tragic accident. Her sister, Lizanne, told CBS, "This was a man we vacationed with and spent hundreds of hours with, and we just didn't allow ourselves to go there." However, just like Toni's family, Sandra Lynn's family felt like the circumstances around their loved one's death didn't sound much like them. Sandra Lynn had arthritis and was still recovering from surgery two weeks before she died. Even if the lug nut had managed to roll on the flat gravel shoulder, she likely never would have tried to crawl underneath the Jeep, especially in the dark and in such a precarious location to try and grab it.
28:50 Speaker 02 But once the second wife of Harold's died under mysterious circumstances, Her family started to wonder. Sandra Lynn's sister, Lizanne, said to CBS, "He's either the unluckiest husband in the world or a psychopath." She added, "He killed them both because the law of averages doesn't work that way in life." Their brother Kevin agreed, telling CBS, "This isn't going to happen twice to the same guy. He killed my sister."
29:16 Speaker 01 Just like Toni's family, Lynn's family were overjoyed that she found what seemed like a great man. Her sister Lizanne recalled for CBS that Harold was charming, adding that "he was a fun guy to be around." Sandra Lynn's brother Eric said to CBS that when he met Harold, he remembers that he thought, "This is good. My sister needs a good man like this. I thought Harold was a great guy." The whole family felt that way. Sandra Lynn's sister-in-law Grace added, "He began to be like this wonderful big brother to me."
29:51 Speaker 02 Looking closer at Harold's actions after the supposed Jeep accident that killed Sandra Lynn, it's very similar to how he acted after Tony's death, too. He told several different stories, depending on who he was talking to, whether they were on their way to or from the restaurant, which side of the highway they were on when he pulled over, the time they left their home, and who pulled Sandra Lynn out from under the Jeep. All differed as he spoke to more people. According to CBS, in one version, she only died because of the efforts of the first responders, who, according to him, didn't know what they were doing, and they actually crushed her. In another version, probably the most common one Harold told, was that she had been in a head-on collision.
30:34 Speaker 01 And we've talked about it, right? There's a pattern here of Harold telling multiple versions of an event, and some of them are small. When you're talking about, were they on the way to the restaurant? Were they leaving? Which side of the highway were they on? Okay, those are not the biggest details in the world. But then when you start telling people that first responders actually killed her, they didn't know what they were doing. Or she died in a head-on collision. I mean, those are big differences from what actually happened.
31:12 Speaker 02 And again, I go back to why change the story at all? Why elaborate? And how do you go from a car falling on top of her to her being killed in some kind of head on collision? It just doesn't, doesn't make sense. And it's sort of sets off my BS meter. But for some reason, it didn't seem to do that with the police.
31:34 Speaker 01 But again, did they know about all of these different stories? Because they're not investigating here. The police report from Sandra Lynn's death mentions a partial footprint on the wheel well of the Jeep right above the tire that had been removed. This placed the footprint pretty much directly above the jack. This points to someone likely Harold kicking the Jeep and knocking it off the jack right onto his wife. Despite the photo of the partial print and investigators taking pictures of the bottom of a pair of sperry topsider shoes. The brand Harold was wearing that night, no one ever actually compared the two.
32:18 Speaker 01 It could have been a perfect match, but no one even checked. Investigators also learned that another car had passed while they were changing the tire. And when the driver offered to park so that they could use the light from his headlights, Harold turned them away. He apparently preferred to change a tire on the side of the highway in nearly complete darkness.
32:41 Speaker 02 Authorities believe that Harold chose that dark and forested location where there was no cell phone service as a perfect place to get away with killing Sandra Lynn and have no witnesses. They believe he planned the perfect spot for Tony's murder too. Cell phone records would show that Harold visited the area of the national park at least nine different times. But he told investigators that he had only been to the park once before the anniversary hike. This was proven without the cell records when Harold described an area of the park that had been accurate earlier, but not on the day that Tony died. He said there was a white sheet on one of the cliffs, but park rangers had removed it a week earlier.
33:21 Speaker 01 In 2013, Detective Dave Weaver examined a Jeep Cherokee, the same kind of car Harold was driving the night that Sandra Lynn died, trying to get it to fall off the jacks like Harold had claimed happened. He did everything Harold said he did, like throwing the tire into the trunk and roughly closing the tailgate. The car remained squarely on the jacks, leaving no explanation for how Lynn was killed. Then Detective Weaver kicked the car right above the wheel well, where the partial footprint was, it fell right off the jacks. Detective Weaver was zeroed out in his mind, told Rolling Stone Magazine, "I know he killed."
34:04 Speaker 02 According to CBS, after Harold's second wife, Toni, died, his first wife, Sander Lynn's family, released a statement explaining their stance. It read, "Our family has known Harold Henthorn for 40 years, first as a college friend, then as her sister Sander Lynn's husband. When we learned of Toni's death two years ago, we were shocked and saddened. At the same time, however, the baffling circumstances surrounding Toni's death gave us a strong sense of deja vu. As the investigation into Toni's death progressed, it became clear that Harold Henthorn was not the man we thought we knew and that he had in fact been lying to us for many years. After she died, Sander Lynn's family was against cremation,
34:48 Speaker 02 but Harold wanted it done quickly. Toni's family also wanted her to be buried so they could visit her burial site. But just as he had done with Sandra Lynn, he rushed to have Toni cremated. Harold spread Toni's ashes in the same place that he had spread Sander Lynn's ashes 17 years earlier, an area of Red Mountain near Ouray, Colorado."
35:09 Speaker 01 And more if I know a lot of people, you know, choose to be cremated, right? It's a choice. But in a lot of these cases where, you know, the husband goes against either what the family knows the wife's wishes to be, or let's say the wife goes against what the family's husband knows his wishes were to be. And cremates the person very quickly. Again, it's another red flag.
35:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's easy to see that that's a, the possible motive is you want to get rid of any kind of evidence that could come back to haunt you. So getting rid of the body eliminates any chance that they're going to find a clue with the body that will indict you.
35:57 Speaker 01 Because Tony died in a national park. The investigation involved federal officers. Harold wasn't concocting a story for small town cops. He was lying to agents, working a federal investigation. Mark Magnuson, Rocky Mountain National Park Chief Ranger cited a release from the US District Attorney's Office that read in part, "When a violent crime such as this occurs in a national park, one of our nation's most treasured places, we work hard to ensure that those responsible are held accountable and the victim and the victim's family are afforded justice."
36:38 Speaker 02 There was a lot more pressure this time around in Tony's death investigation. Investigators believe it got to Harold and he changed some of his plans, like giving up the diamond from Tony's ring that he likely was planning to sell. Eight months after Tony's death, investigators went back to the crime scene and discovered the missing diamond from her wedding ring. They had scoured that area eight months earlier and found no diamond. This time they found it easily. Inside of Harold's car, investigators found a map of Rocky Mountain National Park. The trail on Deer Mountain, which he and Tony hiked, was highlighted, but what detectives found suspicious was an X marking the very spot that Tony had supposedly fallen off the edge of the cliff.
37:21 Speaker 01 So, you know, if all the different stories weren't enough, if the rush to cremate, to what? There was just all these details that, you know, didn't add up. And then, you know, these ones that you talked about more seemed very damning. All of a sudden, the wedding ring is just like there when they go to look for it. To me, this, this map with the X on it is very telling. You know, add that to the fact that it was known, he had been to that spot, you know, nine times prior, according to cell phone records.
38:04 Speaker 01 I mean, I don't think you have to be a genius to put this one together.
38:09 Speaker 02 And sometimes when people that commit these kinds of crimes start getting a sense that they're being suspected and there's heat on them, they start making mistakes or trying to do things that might help to cover their path. In this instance, maybe it was his plan to sell that diamond from that ring. But then he realized if he got caught doing that, that would look, make him look very guilty. So he decided the only thing to do was put it back in the area where she died and hope that if it was ever found, they would just tie it to her falling off the edge of the cliff.
38:47 Speaker 01 Finally, on November 6th, 2014, 58-year-old Harold Henthorn was arrested on suspicion of the murder of his second wife, Toni. A month later, Coroner Laura Thomas changed the manner of Sandra Lynn's death from accidental to undetermined. They day trial for Harold and Toni's case began in September of 2015, almost exactly three years after Toni's death. The only possible sentence for his charge, if he was found guilty, was life in federal prison without the possibility of parole. So no doubt the stakes for Harold were incredibly high.
39:31 Speaker 02 One big clue that came out in court was that Harold was planning on Tony being out of the picture. Just two days before she died, a bank account that she recently opened had been emptied. It's likely that Harold withdrew the $6,800 in cash without Tony's knowledge. Tammy Abriscado, one of Tony's coworkers, told People Magazine, "I've seen her signature a zillion times, and that clearly was not her signature on that check. That man wanted every single dime he could capture." One juror later told CBS, "I wanted to hear from Harold. I would have loved to see him get on the stand and give another account to the jury of what happened that night." But after the state rested, the defense put on no witnesses, as the burden of proof lies
40:14 Speaker 02 with the prosecution. The jury heard from no one on Harold's behalf, let alone from Harold himself. This choice would stick with at least one juror who explained to CBS, "I just remember the defense attorney saying, 'I don't have to prove anything.'"
40:29 Speaker 01 Which is a true statement, right? The, the burden lies solely with the prosecution. I think one of the, the things though, Morph, is that sometimes juries, they want to hear some things from the defense. They might want to hear from the defendant themselves. Now defendants don't often testify in murder trials. Most of the time, defense attorneys caution against that, but there are some jurors that say, "Hey, you know, we want to hear from at least somebody who knew the person. Give us something," even though technically the defense doesn't have to.
41:13 Speaker 02 Well, I think in this case, his attorney was smart not to put him on the stand because the prosecution probably would have brought up, "How come you had four different stories in each of your dead wife's cases as to what happened to them?" And that he probably would have turned into a mess on the stand, and it would have been very bad for his defense. I think his attorney made the right call.
41:38 Speaker 01 Oh, absolutely. Right? And that's oftentimes why defense attorneys caution their clients against taking the stand, because it opens them up. To questions about things that maybe haven't been introduced at trial. And the only way that they could come up is if the defendant takes the stand. But he's not going to be a good witness anyway. This guy was a pathological liar. It took 10 hours, but the jury unanimously agreed. Harold Henthorn was guilty of murdering Toni. After the verdict, one juror rushed to Toni's mother, Yvonne, and hugged her. Following the verdict, Sandra Lynn's brother, Kevin, told CBS,
42:23 Speaker 01 "We grieve for the bird of lechwe because had we come forward at that time with more suspicions, then maybe Toni would be alive today." Harold was sentenced to life in prison in December 2015. At sentencing, Harold said, "I did not kill Toni or anyone else."
42:43 Speaker 02 I think it's important to detail just how horrible the injuries to Toni were as a result of her murder. This is from a court document. Toni's fall was broken by a tree at the cliff's base, which scalped hair and tissue from her skull. Her brain was hemorrhaging. Her neck was fractured. She had blunt force trauma to the chest, abdomen, and pelvis. Her ribs were broken and her chest deformed with her liver and lungs lacerated and bleeding, and her skin was pale from blood loss. In comparison, Sandra Lynn died from internal injuries consistent with traumatic asphyxiation. These were both extremely cruel ways to kill someone you promised to care for forever.
43:25 Speaker 01 Now, they haven't convicted Harold of killing Sandra Lynn, but it's hard not to believe he did, right? More if when everything comes out, and especially when a second wife dies.
43:41 Speaker 01 And it's proven to be murder, pretty hard not to think that he murdered Sandra Lynn, and why he did it, for the insurance money. Tony's coworkers and family believe that she was preparing to leave Harold. There are multiple signs that she was taking back her independence and keeping things separate from him. According to her brother Barry, she had a new email address, under a different name, Jay Salvo, and a new bank account. She started one for herself in June of 2012, just months before she was killed. Barry also said to People Magazine that when work was done, Tony was hanging out at
44:24 Speaker 01 the office, not wanting to go home. And he also explained that at the time of her death, they were sleeping in separate bedrooms.
44:33 Speaker 02 During an interview with the FBI, Sandra Lynn's former sister-in-law Grace learned about a life insurance policy that Harold had taken out on her, naming himself as the beneficiary. It was a $400,000 policy that she knew nothing about, despite having her name in the signature box. When she found out and wanted to cancel the policy, Harold basically hijacked her policy. Harold continued to make policy payments for the next two years. In 2013, the policy was canceled when it was determined that as the brother-in-law, and in no way her next of kin, Harold had no actual reason to have a life insurance policy on Grace. Grace told CBS, "I think it's logical to conclude that he was planning on taking my
45:17 Speaker 02 life at some point."
45:19 Speaker 01 And there's a lot of scary things about this story involving Harold Henthorn. I mean, any person who can kill their spouse, and most likely more if, let's say, two spouses the way Harold did, that's a scary thought. But then you have a sister-in-law.
45:42 Speaker 01 No blood relation, finding out later on that Harold had taken a policy out on her. And obviously knowing that he had designs on killing her.
45:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think anytime you find out that somebody has taken out a life insurance policy on you and you haven't been part of the process, that's got to be alarming. I know there's instances where if you're a partner of a company or CEO of a company, what have you, that they insist on insuring you through your employment. But usually that even that's done with your consent and knowledge. Here, this is just somebody opening up a policy for somebody else in their family that they, that person has no idea that they've done that. So you have to wonder what his reason for doing that was.
46:32 Speaker 01 This entire story could have ended differently with Tony alive and Harold deceased. If it hadn't been for Tony's brother Barry. In 2006, when Haley was only a year old, Barry Bertollet, who is a doctor, received the new CAT scan machine. He decided to test the machine out on Harold. And while looking at the results, according to CBS, Barry saw that Harold was in the throes of the beginnings of a heart attack. He almost immediately underwent emergency surgery. This undoubtedly saved Harold's life. Looking back on it, Barry feels conflicted. He told CBS, I think as a physician, you know, you have this oath,
47:15 Speaker 01 an obligation to do that before tearfully admitting, but I'd like to have my sister back. And that's a very strange position for a doctor to be in. Looking back on it, knowing what their oath is and what the requirements are. But then thinking, ah, if I hadn't done that, maybe my sister would still be alive.
47:40 Speaker 02 Yeah. And what a fateful event to go out and get this machine and then decide to test it out on your brother-in-law and find out that he's having a heart attack. You save his life and then later on he kills your sister. Just, I'm sure he deals with some kind of guilt over that, even though it wasn't his fault. Barry and his wife Paula were hopeful that they would be able to gain legal guardianship or adopt Haley, who was just 10 years old when her father was found guilty. In December 2015, it finally happened. Paula told ABC, "When Haley came to us, she was almost afraid to do anything without permission." Barbara Cashman, Haley's guardian, Ad Lightum, believed that Haley was being manipulated by
48:24 Speaker 02 her father. She told the Denver Post, "I knew she was at risk of serious emotional harm." She also explained that Haley does not wish to refer to Harold anymore as her father, but only as Mr. Henthorn. She was actually afraid that she might grow up to be like her father, strengthening her decision to distance herself from him.
48:43 Speaker 01 And we talked about it more of how controlling Harold was with Tony. We don't have all the details of the controlling nature, but it was there. It's hard not to believe that he was similarly controlling with his daughter Haley.
49:00 Speaker 02 And it's hard not to think that down the road, when the money ran out, who's to say he might not have put an insurance policy on his daughter and, you know, the next thing you know, she's dead under mysterious circumstances and he's cashing in on it.
49:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's hard to think like that, but I think with people like Harold Henthorn, you can't put anything past them. A judge denied Harold's request for a new trial in 2022. Harold filed a motion for post-conviction relief on the grounds of ineffective counsel that year. In the motion, Harold wrote in part, "Craig Truman acted in his own self-interest and put his personal financial gain ahead of conducting a solid defense for me," adding, "his employ- With me was all about him taking as much money from me and my immediate family as possible, extorting as much money from me as he could.
50:00 Speaker 01 Tony's brother, Todd Burtlet, told CBS, appeals by Harold Henthorn as to the actual merits of the case have been denied and exhausted. This latest motion is yet another example of Harold Henthorn blaming others for his failures and shortcomings. The motion for post conviction relief was denied in 2023.
50:24 Speaker 02 Harold has still not been charged in his first wife, Sandra Lynn's murder, though the circumstances of her death were used to help ensure conviction for Tony's murder. Tony's father, Bob, passed away in April 2023 at the age of 89. Both of Sandra Lynn's parents have passed too. Her father, known as Rish, passed away in 2011 at the age of 83, and her mom, Marilyn, died in 2022. She was 92. Neither of them got to see Harold tried in their daughter's case. In the end, two women are dead, likely killed by the same man that was supposed to love and protect both of them, Harold Henthorn.
51:01 Speaker 01 And as we wrap this one up, Mor, you know, it is always sad to me when parents die without ever seeing resolution in their, their child's death. I'm sure they, they knew in their heart that after Tony was murdered, Harold most likely murdered their daughter as well, but there's a difference in knowing it and, and actually getting the conviction, right? Getting the finality. I think the, the silver lining would have been that he's probably never going to see, you know, the outside of a, a prison.
51:45 Speaker 01 So he is going to pay for what he did, just not specifically for the murder of Sandra Lynn.
51:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think you're right. There's definitely some satisfaction knowing that the person that took your loved one's life is paying for it. And I think, you know, maybe their family has to take whatever comfort in that they can in knowing that he is locked away and can't do this to someone else, because it definitely seems like he would have kept going with this scheme that he had of killing off people, making it look like accidents and cashing life insurance money.
52:25 Speaker 01 You know, it's hard for me to imagine killing anyone. Hopefully, everyone listening also has a hard time imagining that. But killing your spouse specifically is very hard to imagine. I mean, this is the person who you decided you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. Now, I get it. Not all marriages work. Sometimes they they fall apart, but making the decision to kill that person, it's just, it's mind blowing to me. And I can't help but think of how, you know, it was for Tony up on that cliff. We don't know all of the details. You
53:09 Speaker 01 know, did he push her? Did he incapacitate her and then throw her off the cliff? It could have happened a number of different ways. I was struck by them coming out and saying that, you know, she didn't have any like injuries to her hands. But, you know, maybe that's just because she was taken by surprise, or she was incapacitated. I don't know.
53:38 Speaker 02 Yeah. And if you're her family, maybe you take comfort in hoping that she was unconscious and didn't know what was happening to her when she went over that cliff, because that has to be a horrifying. Situation to be standing there. Maybe he's showing her a view off a cliff and she's, you know, thinking that he's celebrating his anniversary, looking at this nice view and all of a sudden she's getting shoved. That would be a terrible experience. And then even for his first wife, however, she got into that car, whether she was there willingly, maybe she too could have been incapacitated and he put her under the car before kicking
54:18 Speaker 02 the jack out. But either way, it just shows a complete ice coldness to him where he could do this, you know, not this once, but twice to people that he, you know, supposedly loved.
54:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, I don't, I don't think there's any doubt. This guy was an absolute monster, plain and simple. But that's it for our episode on Harold Henthorn. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, you know, take a minute, go out, leave a review, give us a rating, but also keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way.
54:55 Speaker 02 If you want to find us on social media, run X with the handle at criminology pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com/criminologypodcast and you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans.
55:11 Speaker 01 So that's it for another episode of criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then for Mike.
55:21 Speaker 02 And Morph.
55:22 Speaker 01 We'll talk to you next week.
55:23 Speaker 02 Take care everyone.
Previous Lucille Johnson Next Presenting: CRIME HOUSE TRUE CRIME STORIES Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated