Transcripts For KNTV Dateline NBC 20160104

Find out if you could get help paying for Health Insurance with just your age, income, zip code, and the number of people in your household. Information you probably know off the top of your head. Enroll by january 31st to avoid the irs tax penalty. Are you paiges dad . I said yep. Did you know shes missing . Barbara campbell got the call from her husband who told her paige is missing. What do you mean, shes missing . Andrea lan got the news in an email. It said paige is missing in the subject line. I knew something horrible had to have happened because it didnt make any sense that she would be missing. No way for even a best friend to prepare for such a thing. Nor any way to understand just how much of it was going to be a mystery. How much they did not, could not know. About the life and disappearance of paige bergfeld or what theyd be called on to do to bring her home. Stunningly beautiful. One of those women that was almost a little bit intimidating at first, if you were, you know, youre more average mom. Andrea land and the other Young Mothers of Grand Junction could have been forgiven for feeling a little envy. Paige had the look, the money, the big house on the hill, three attractive kids. But no, it wasnt like that. Not at all. The way she talked, the way she acted, the way she treated you, everything about her was just so wonderful. Taking care of kids now every day Barbara Campbell and andrea and paige were members of Grand Junctions moms club international, a kind of social and support group for young stayathome moms. Once a year, theyd throw a spring fling, a sort of puton prom for moms. But with fancy clothes, red carpet entry and a pretend reporter throwing fashion questions. Who are you wearing . Paige was always the star, of course. And this year, the party was held at her home. Which made it a very special event. Most of us did not live in a home that large. She was just so down to earth and humble about it that once you got over the artwork on the walls and how, you know, beautiful a home it was, you almost forgot that you were in this really very highend home. So the winner is drum roll, please paige bergfeld she was so comfortable hosting people that made it anybody there felt comfortable. Sometimes you meet someone, and you just instantly have a good feeling about them. Youre going to be friends with them. Its just going to be an instant match. Thats what i had with paige. And then, that call. The sheriff told the bergfelds that after meeting a friend on thursday afternoon, paige simply didnt come home. Leaving her three children alone with a babysitter. As they drove from denver to Grand Junction, paiges parents tried to understand what was happening. As we started out, i dont know what i was very tense or i thought of the worst. I guess gee, i wonder where she is. I hope shes but as the drive went on, it became more and more anxious, more and more tight, more and more and i would be calling the kids on the home phone, just saying, were going to be there, you know. And trying to sound reassuring. The kids were alone because their father was long gone by then. Rob dixon had once been an emergency medical technician but had stumbled into some sort of family fortune, whispered to be worth millions, drove a yellow ferrari. In a town full of pickup trucks. But money that comes easy can also lead that way. In robs case, according to paiges dad, made one bad investment after another. When youre a big deal, when youre flying high, when youre a big guy around town and you go from there, the drop is a long long way. And so money problems led to marriage problems, and paige and rob divorced, and he moved out of state and started working as an emt again. While paige did her best to maintain the status quo for the three kids, kept them in their huge house with the mortgage to match, close to 6,000 a month. It had a gigantic mortgage. And she was trying to hang on to keep the kids in that place. She would just sit and ponder, how can a single mom with three kids make enough money to stay in the house that her husband used to support . Paige launched several business, sold cooking products for a Company Called the pampered chef, and slings for carrying babies. And she taught dancing classes for little kids. Anything to turn a buck. I have to tell you, entrepreneurwise, she was innovative. She just tried to keep her mind open to anything that would allow her a flexible schedule, to still be with her kids and keep them at home. Divorced woman, three kids, a heavily mortgaged house. The first question, is there a chance paige bergfeld simply walked out on her life . We talked about, boy, sometimes i just want to run away. And she said, you know, i never feel that way. I never want to run away. Even if i did want to run away just to get away from here, i would want to take my kids with me. There was no way she would leave without her children. They were her life. If she needed to hide, she would have found a way to do it with them. So what, then . What happened to paige . Her friends, her parents didnt know what to do or where to look. And then it was the morning of the third day. Another phone call. Somebody found paiges car. And it clearly had been burned. The discovery of the torched car was a disturbing clue, but it hardly answered the question of what had happened to paige . When we return, one of the last to see paige was her first husband. Turns out their relationship was anything but ancient history. Women know when another woman is suddenly in love with somebody. You could tell. Sunday night, the 1st of july, the Grand Junction Fire Department was called to an industrial parking lot. A little red car was on fire. By the time they got there, whatever was inside was ash. Frank bergfeld heard about it next morning, roared over there, and it was hers. It was paiges car. That morning frank gave the first of what would be many, many interviews. Paige virtually vanished thursday night. Certainly this isnt a situation where paige left on her own volition. That never would have happened, and all her friends would quickly say that. So something has happened. Well, we dont know what. We were hopeful when we found the car things would fall into place, and maybe they will. This interview, though, was one frank just couldnt get through. You know, it occurred to me, i hadnt cried in a long time. Ive learned to do that. And it wouldnt be the last time. But it was the beginning of something, a fathers journey to bring his lost daughter home. The last person known to have seen paige the day she disappeared was a new Love Interest who was actually an old Love Interest, her first husband, ron biegler. He adored her. They had dated her last year of high school. She dropped out of college to marry him. And he wrote her poetry. If anyone wants to know the path to a womans heart, very sweet. Did you like him . What did you think of him . We did, but he was not a wage earner. He had made the statement somewhere along the line he thought he had married up. He probably did. Their marriage came undone pretty quickly. But now a decade later, after her divorce from the oncewealthy rob dixon, paige started seeing ron biegler again. Women know when another woman is suddenly in love with somebody. And you could tell that she was, you know, in love and giddy and happy. In fact, she was with ron biegler just hours before she vanished, with him all day. He spoke to us in 2007, soon after paiges disappearance. We were sitting outside down by the river. It was very familiar. I brought some pictures, you know, and we just sat there and relaxed and enjoyed the day and the weather. That night after their remantic picnic she called me before i got home to see if i made it back into denver. And then we had a brief conversation, you know, not too brief, but and i expected to hear from her later that night after she got home. Instead, silence. When he called her next morning, friday, his call went to voice mail. Hello, youve reached the home offices for pampered chef and baby slings. Please leave a message and ill get back to you within the next few days. He called again and again, he said. Ever more worried. Next morning, saturday, he called the sheriffs department. And four days after paige vanished, the search was on as volunteers turned to a familys chaotic tragedy into a community project. Paiges dad was there every day, greeting a small army of volunteers. Thanks for helping us. An outpouring of support that was for frank simply overwhelming. You know, its just really tough. You know, for people to give of themselves to that degree. Paiges 8yearold daughter, eager to help. Decorated ski pole walking sticks for volunteers like Barbara Campbells. When we were first told that we could help with the searches, it seemed strange. It just didnt make sense what we were doing. Was there a reality that we hadnt accepted, possibly . They were desperate to find her. And they dreaded what they might find. One of our moms was gone. And her kids needed her. And we needed our friend. And our kids needed to know that if someones mom is missing, that people are going to work hard to find her. Then days in and miles away, a driver pulled off the road on a lonely stretch of highway 50 south of Grand Junction to check his tire pressure. And as he stepped out of his truck, a piece of litter caught his eye. It was a blank check trapped in the roadside weeds. The name on it, paige bergfeld. Coming up as the search continues, the focus shifts to paiges second husband. She said that she had to call the police a few times and that she was afraid of him. When dateline continues. It was a pure fluke that the truck driver stopped to check his tires at the very spot paiges check just happened to be lying near an isolated stretch of highway. And the driver just happened to see it. No fluke what happened next, though. One of the sudden flock of searchers who descended along that road was paiges good friend andrea land. Making my way back west along the median, i saw a checkbook. One of paiges checkbooks. And it just hit us like a ton of bricks. It was an awful feeling of dread, thinking, how did this get here . Why is it here . What does it mean . So was paiges abductor just sloppily getting rid of evidence or was he trying to mislead searchers, or did paige herself toss the contents of her purse out the window like a trail of so many breadcrumbs . So the search continued on horseback, on atvs, on foot. They peered under bushes. They walked miles of desert brush in 100degree heat. They dragged the murky gunnyson river through the canyon floor. Nothing. During a short break in the search, frank showed us a little sanctuary paige had built in the cottonwoods near her house. This is kind of life where it just stopped. It just stopped, and she vanished. Then one day, said frank, he suddenly thought, there she is. He thought he had spotted paige. Shaded by the trees, playing with her children. And then i realized it was my daughterinlaw and her son. So you just all of a sudden plunge when you go from it was a dream to boom, shes not here. Paiges most recent exhusband, rob dixon, came back to town to look after the kids and help out with the search. His reappearance stopped volunteers in their tracks. Because of the stories paige told while they were married, many thought him the most obvious suspect. He was always screaming and yelling and using bad language. It was very psychologically demeaning and difficult for her. She said that she had to call the police a few times and that she was afraid of him. At one of the birthday parties, rob actually started to blow up on her. And just got really upset with her. Some problem with the internet. I said, if he gets that upset over something that minor in his life, i cant imagine how he gets if something actually really makes him mad. In the fall of 2004 during the dark days of the couples financial collapse, paige called 911. 911, wheres your emergency . My husband and i were in a fight, and he was supposed to watch my children while i went to work. And he said that i would come home and find them all murdered. Police were dispatched, but apparently found no crime had been committed because no charges were ever filed. Attorney Scott Robinson represented rob dixon in the months right after paiges disappearance. The physical evidence made clear that what paige said happened simply did not happen. But that is not what paiges friend Barbara Campbell believed. Not after this. She said that she knew that rob was coming back and that he was going to do something. And i was floored. It must have been very strange to hear that. It it was a staggering conversation. And a couple days later, she was missing. Phone records indicated dixon called paige at 7 42 p. M. The night she disappeared. It didnt look good to paiges friends. But whoever took paige could not have been rob dixon, couldnt have been. Because that phone call at 7 42 p. M. Pinged off a cell tower in philadelphia, 2,000 miles away. With rob dixon in the clear, what about paiges first husband, ron biegler . He was absolutely the last person who spoke to her. Dan rubenstein is a prosecutor with the mesa County District attorneys office. So obviously an exhusband you want to look at. But when he last spoke to paige at 8 57 p. M. , biegler was in denver, a fourhour drive away. We got a lot of information from him, and we were able to eliminate him as a suspect fairly early on. Bieglor told detectives everything he knew about paige. Including what she told him she was going to do after that picnic of theirs, a secret latenight business trip. Business trip . Well. Investigators couldnt find paige bergfeld, but they found her secrets. That business of hers was about to rock the whole town. Coming up a revelation that would blow the case and the suspect list wide open. Paige was living a double life. And then, investigators recover paiges date book and an unnerving clue. The four days surrounding her disappearance were pulled out of a day planner. A missing persons case can be a complicated affair, far more than a typical homicide investigation. All that speculation, conjecture, uncertainty. And so in the search for muchneeded clues, investigators pried open pages carefully guarded private life, sniffed out her secrets, asked very personal questions. And thats how paiges first husband, ron beigler, spilled the beans. That day they met for their picnic, when paige left, ron knew she was going to work. She told me she was going to go visit a client and maybe two. Client . What kind of client . It didnt take but a minute for the cops to find the evidence. Right there on the internet. A website called models inc. Where an attractive young woman named carrie advertised her services. Tired of chopped meat showing up when you ordered filet mignon, she wrote . Affluent clients are lavishing in delightful sessions. Carrie, of course, was a pseudonym. The woman in question was, in reality, a mother of three, a member of the moms club. Paige birgfeld. Paige was living a double life. Divorced from her oncehealthy husband with a house full of kids and a massive mormg payment, paige found another way to supplement her income. And after a latenight meeting of the moms club, she told her friend Barbara Campbell what she had in mind. She had decided to go into an escort business. Somehow, said barbara, paige made it seem normal. She was very smart. She had thought it out. So she kept it at the level that she was comfortable, that fit with her decisions and her lifestyle. But andrea land said she knew nothing about paiges night work. I felt like whatever escort circumstances were happening that they probably werent as lascivious as it was being made out to be. It was very hard for me to believe that she would want to have sex with men for money. But she did. According to this investigative report, paige would charge up to 1,000 a session. And heres an Online Review of her services by a client named dennis. Her picture does not do her justice. Shes a sexy goddess. Im in love and wish i could see her every day. Rating 4. 0 out of 5 stars. Carrie is simply a very gorgeous woman, a little bit pricey. If you have the money, shes worth every dime. That review was posted just three days before paige vanished. You can imagine how these revelations hit paiges mom and dad. They just couldnt believe it. If i had known about it, i definitely would have tried to use whatever persuasion i had to turn her away from it. I mean, if nothing else, quite obviously, its dangerous. But while paiges parents didnt condone her business, they said, they understood her motives. She was doing what she had to do to keep life as normal as possible for the children. The news spread, of course. Pretty soon most people in town knew. There were people who wrote to the paper and said horrible things like why are we spending all this time looking for a dead hooker . Dirt spread, said andrea, by those who didnt even know paige. We knew her heart. We knew who she was every day with us and with her kids. And if anything, it only put us into hypervigilant defend her mode and made us all want to get out there and talk about what a good person she was as much as possible. A much bigger problem, though, was that paiges secret life made an already complicated case far more difficult to solve. Thats the sort of Business People who are clients dont want to admit. They dont want to come forward because these are the sorts of things that are sensationalized in the media. They break up marriages. Besides, paiges former clients had to know they werent witnesses as much as potential suspects. One of the key pieces of evidence found in the vehicle was her day planner, one of the things that we figured out when we looked at that day planner was the four days surrounding her disappearance were pulled out of the day planner which told us that whoever it is that thought there was evidence in that car important enough to be burned also thought there might be also evidence in that day planner important enough to tear out. So investigators pulled paiges cell phone records for those days. And according to this investigative document, they put together a list of eight possible suspects. Both exhusbands were on that list. But investigators had already cleared them. So that left six of paiges clients. Three of whom she was planning on seeing the night she vanished. One of those on that list was a man named Lester Ralph Jones, a client of models inc. Thats him standing in the shadows by his front door. On july 7th, nine days after paige disappeared, the cops conducted a search of joness house. A week later, they were back. But they didnt arrest him. Not even a month later when Police Search dogs got a hit in the charred mess of paiges car. They found a cadaver scent in the back seat of the car. And in the front seat of that car, they found mr. Joness scent. And that was despite the car being set on fire. Interesting. Also, it so happened jones worked in a repair shop right across the street from the parking lot where paiges burning car was found. Then the dogs were taken out to that spot on highway 50 with the contents of paiges wallet were found. What weve referred to as the trail of breadup counters whecr and other information was scattered. They followed that to a turnout called bridgeport road and followed down bridgeport road where the dog kept repeatedly jumping in the river which indicated ms. Birgfelds scent was followed. That very well could have been the location where she was killed and then placed in the back seat of the car where she left a cadaver scent. Then the dogs were given Lester Ralph Joness scent. And they followed the same path exactly. A big break in the case like that was very hard to keep secret. At one point, i was told they had enough information that they would be able to convict ralph. But no arrest. And so summer slipped to fall. The volunteer search finally petered out. Command post was closed. Paiges parents rented an apartment in town so they could carry on the search alone. This is my life now. And i really wish i could get in a different line of work. Even offered a 15,000 reward. No questions asked. Its about 100 days, and if shes out there, we need to find her. And if this will help stimulate that, so be it. The reward produced no useful tips. Nonetheless, frank stayed on in Grand Junction for a whole fruitless year, searching. At some point you have to say, do i want to stay here doing this, or is it time to go back to denver . What was it like on the way back to denver as you realized you were leaving for good . I would say kind of a heaviness to it. That somewhere shes back there, and im leaving her. At least the police were still at it, though very slowly. Their problem, there was one other suspect, one they just couldnt clear. A man who, on the night Paige Birgfeld disappeared, seemed obsessed by her. Coming up investigators learn that paige called a disposable tracfone shortly before she disappeared. We were able to identify the precise store, time and register that that tracfone was purchased. Evidence that would tip the scales towards one of the two remaining suspects. When dateline a leading suspect in the disappearance since the early days of the investigation. Everybody in town knew that. But hardly anyone knew about another possible suspect in the case, another former client of paiges. George. He was that obsessive kind of person. He would have had the potential, if he was drinking or on drugs, to hurt somebody. Megan nappers exhusband was his friend and business partner. So megan got to know him. He was friendly and upbeat at first, said megan, but pretty soon you get to the point where you dont want to be around him because youre afraid that something could happen. Like jones, he had no solid alibi. He was in town when he called paige over and over again, 19 times the day she disappeared, last time at 8 13 p. M. Two days later, he suddenly showed up at megans doorstep. George came to our house in a panic and said that the reason why he hadnt talked to us recently and the reason why we hadnt seen him or been in contact was because his family had been beheaded on the turnpike in new jersey by a semi. Beheaded . Beheaded. The biggest story ever. This big, big, giant explosion of a story that was so catastrophic that he knew would get me. Sure. To jump in and just be, like, oh, what do you need . Ill do anything for you. So you helped him leave town . I did. He wanted to get right out of here. He did not want to be around. Then a few days later, megan was watching a local news report about paige. The first time i saw that newscast, i was, like, george did it. Im, like, in my head. Come on. No, instantly, just clicked. Mind you, george was in new jersey by the time paiges car was torched, said prosecutor rubenstein. We had good corroboration of that. But he was certainly in Grand Junction when paige went missing. And that beheading . That was a fullfledged lie. So police continued to investigate george as well as jones. Who couldnt account for his whereabouts the night paige disappeared. Nor when her car was set on fire across the road from where jones worked. Some other interesting things that were found in the car was the seat was pushed all the way back. And so we had one of our employees of the Sheriffs Office who is the same height as ms. Birgfeld sat in the seat in the position it was and was unable to touch the pedals. Mr. Jones was about 65. And jones had spent three years in prison for kidnapping and sexually assaulting an exwife. Who told investigators he took her out to the desert against her will and threatened to kill her. A scenario strikingly similar to how cops believed paige was murdered. Oh, and one more thing. One of the last calls paige made the night she disappeared was to a disposabletype tracfone. This tracfone made only five phone calls in its entire existence. And all five of those phone calls, four of them were made to ms. Birgfeld, and one of them was made from her back. The phones number wasnt registered to any specific person, making it difficult to trace. Difficult but not impossible. We were able to identify, through records of tracfone, the precise store, time and register that that tracfone was purchased. Which was at this walmart in Grand Junction where the store Security Cameras picked up a man believed to be mr. Jones purchasing that tracfone. We also found packaging from a tracfone with that same make and model in his trash at work which is about 500 yards from where the vehicle was found burning. Now, that was a preponderance of evidence that in any other case would have been enough to get an arrest warrant, but not in this case. Months and then years went by. No arrest. It was beyond a lot of people in town who still couldnt help but hear the rumors and wondered why the man was still free as a bird. In fact, said prosecutor rubenstein, the reason was quite simple. George. Try as they might, they simply couldnt rule him out. We still needed to figure out the alternate suspect issue with george. Anyway, there were other problems. Most other murder cases or missing person cases where you have evidence like this, we probably would have filed. But given the double life she was leading with this escort service, you know, this escort business that she had presented us a lot of problems in the investigation. The defense attorney might well ask how many men were there, really, in paiges life . The defense might also ask, how do we know there was even a murder . How do you go in front of a jury and say believe beyond a reasonable doubt not only that shes dead but that this particular person is responsible for it when you dont have a body . And for five long years, what happened to Paige Birgfeld remained an unsolved mystery. And then in 2012, some hikers walking in a dry creekbed spotted something odd. Coming up at last, the evidence that would push prosecutors to charge one of their two suspects. And thats when we finally made the decision that we think we had enough. Grand junction, colorado, has been a boomandbust sort of place over the years. Cattle were big here once. Then oil shale developers moved in and abruptly out again. Its wine country now. But what has remained constant is the rugged beauty. The rafters and bikers and hikers, like the group trekking through wells gulch on march 6th, 2012. And pretty soon, paiges dad got another one of those phone ca s calls. This time it was a local reporter. And he said, did you know they found paiges remains this morning . And he asked if anybody had called me. And i said, youre the first one. Truth be told, so many years had passed. Nobody could say for certain at the moment if the remains were paiges, but it was the right area. Just a few miles south from where the contents of her wallet were found. And paiges dad just knew. And we really think the searchers were here. To miss it, you know, its like darn, how did that happen . They soon confirmed what everybody had already suspected. It was indeed paiges body. Investigators believed she had more than likely been buried back in 2007 and only recently unearthed by a heavy spring runoff. Most of the larger bones were contained in one specific area. Her skull and mandible as well. And then the smaller bones had washed down where the primary part of her bones were found. There was some duct tape indicating that she was probably bound and gagged in some fashion. When we found her remains, the case sort of broke open again, and we decided to follow up, relook at the evidence. So with a fresh set of eyes, investigators once again tried to fashion a case against jones or george. But when detectives set out to question him, they discovered he was dead. Drowned the year before in a swimming accident. Still, for paiges murder to be solved, investigators still had to make a case for either his guilt or his innocence. But doing that without the ability to question him meant going back, slogging through seven years of reports and interviews and statements. Thousands and thousands of pages of discovery, watch videos, interviews and figure out what does this mean . What can we prove . And it was two years after paiges body was discovered, while wading through that mountain of material, an investigator stumbled on an overlooked piece of evidence that would change the whole case. It was Security Camera video showing george shopping at a local market right around the time paige disappeared. So they figured if he was shopping, he wasnt killing paige. Finally, evidence establishing georges alibi. And that really firms up the time line given by him and others as to how we know he couldnt have been involved. Meaning Lester Ralph Jones was the last suspect standing. We gathered at least six or seven prosecutors from this office. We had maybe 15 people from the Sheriffs Office. We had people from the Colorado Bureau of investigation that gathered, and everybody presented what they had. And thats when we finally made the decision that we think we had enough. Jones was arrested november 2014 for paiges murder. 7 1 2 years after she was first reported missing. But the story is still not fully told. The cause of death is unknown. We really dont know whether or not he strangled her. We dont know if he smothered her. We dont know if he drowned her. And we dont know if jones did it at all. He pleaded not guilty to the charges. His case has yet to go to trial. Hes innocent until proven guilty. These are only allegations at this point. And all the judge has found is that theres probable cause to allow us to present this to a jury. A jury that no doubt will hear from the defense team about that other suspect, george. May hear from megan napper. I have talked to the defense. Are you prepared to testify . Im prepared to testify. I feel for paiges father. I feel for her children. Even though they have evidence for Lester Ralph Jones, it would really disappoint me that they have the wrong guy. Paiges friends have a different concern. All the dirt thats bound to be unearthed at the trial. Its going to get ugly, and i know it will. But its up to the few of us that can do this to keep talking about who she really was and what a wonderful person she was. But until the trial this is just another turn the page for another chapter. This isnt you know, i keep hearing people say youll get closure. I havent seen that at the end of the tunnel. No. Because in spite of everything, what Frank Birgfeld wanted, what he still wants with all his might but cannot have is to take his daughter home. Weve never been able to get her remains back on the socalled belief that her remains are needed for evidence in the trial. And as far as i know, she resides right now in a Cardboard Box in the coroners office. So what could they do . They had a memorial service. And at the top of the service card, they pointedly stated, there has been no interment as she remains with the mesa county coroner. So added now to that swirl of emotions, bitterness. I think it stinks. Hard for parents to comprehend that the child they raised is, practically speaking, just one more item of evidence in a murder case. The defense has a right to contest the evidence. The defense has a right to check it out for themselves. I know the familys frustrated, but we were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Our choice was to give up the possibility of ever prosecuting somebody for murdering his daughter or to give the remains back, and we decided that it was just too important that we hang on to them. So while on a trip to Grand Junction to attend yet another pretrial hearing, the birgfelds made a detour under a hard gray sky to the place where paige was found. This is a hard spot for me. This is a hard spot. Some of the volunteers who searched for paige put together this little ad hoc memorial. And so their daughters place of remembrance is the burial plot her killer chose, a place where she was left all alone for so long. Thats all for now. Im lester holt. Thanks for joining us. Nbc bay area news starts now. Right now at 11 00, jim tomsula, the era of him at the 49ers is now over. Despite winning today, the team fired their head coach after just one season. Reaction as the team is now finished for the year. But first, the rain outside and the series of storms coming this week. A liveook at the Golden Gate Bridge for you right now. You can see the slick roads the drivers will have to deal with tomorrow. Good evening, everyone. Im terry mcsweeney. And im peggy bunker. Thank you for joining us tonight. After a dry weekend, windshield wiper and umbrellas will be needed tomorrow. The rain is already coming down in parts of the bay area. By tomorrow, everyone will be getting it. Live look at the radar right now. And that green,