274. The Red Flag Romance - Kelly Dwyer
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Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. You know, you just, like, it's just... Okay, should we just...

Sorry, no episode today. We're not recording. Everyone have a great day. Sometimes it's just something that I don't think about. It just comes out. I just let it naturally come out. So you have those moments where you're like, it's like when you say a word a little too much and then you're like, does that sound right? Is that how you actually say it? Yeah.

i get that because it's not something i really think about it just happens yeah hope everyone is having a great monday it's really hot outside right now where we are those who live in arizona and other places are probably like oh poor you well i didn't move to arizona for that reason because i don't want it to be that hot but it's currently 103 degrees outside hot day but i think it's just a heat wave um it's supposed to cool down tomorrow

Even Daisy goes outside and she's like, where in the world are we right now? How do you feel about the heat, babe? Not a fan. I would like some rain. Here's the problem. I grew up in California, so I am unfortunately very spoiled when it comes to weather. Year round, it was usually pretty good. But honestly, I don't mind the weather in Utah. I like the seasons. I like a little bit cold sometimes. I like the heat in the summer.

People used to complain about Arizona and they'd be like, oh, it's just unbearable in the summer. And I was like, it can't be that bad. It's hot. I don't know how you guys do it. I will say I went and I will never go back in the summertime because it feels genuinely like the gates of hell. It's so hot. I don't know. It is. It feels like, you know, when you're standing next to a fire and you can like feel the heat on your face, it feels like that. Yeah.

I know. But you're just outside. Like you step out. You walk from your car 10 steps into a restaurant. You're like, oh my gosh. And it is like unbearable. Yeah. It's kind of impressive that you guys do it. But I mean, I guess it's just like, yeah, I don't know. People don't think that about the cold. I don't know how the air conditioners survive in the summer. I like feel bad for the cars and the roofs. I'm like, that's so sad. Like they're just so hot. Daisy. Daisy.

What do you want? One second. Hold on. Daisy's barking at us because she needs to go outside. This has been long. So I will... That can kind of be my 10 seconds. And we will skip to something important because my 10 seconds is a merch drop item. It is a hat. It is amazing. It's a strange-y, dang-y hat. Every single one of you need it. Honestly, it's... Tell me the design isn't amazing. Well, I think I need to preface here that...

When Garrett does something, this little hat has been his little thing. And when he does something, he goes all out. So he tested 800 different hats before he found the one that he wanted to print on. I just, I wanted a good blank. I don't like bad blanks. I will say that this isn't a blank you can go and like jump in the water with. It's not like one of those melon waterproof hats, but the blank is amazing. It's cool enough to wear in the heat.

Just saying. And it is a cute hat. It's extreme. It's super cool. You might be thinking like, oh, a merch hat. No. It's not really like a merch hat. It's a custom blank. They're not just merch hats that you get. It's a custom blank. It's a high quality hat. Go check it out. I'll have some pictures of me wearing it. There's some other pictures on there. It's live now.

We don't have a ton of them. So I don't know if they're going to sell out. Maybe no one buys it. If no one buys it, then I'll buy all of them. So then it looks like everyone bought them.

And that's what I got. So go check it out. The links are going to be everywhere to our normal merch site. We love you guys. And let's hop into today's episode. All right. Our sources for this episode are TMJ4.com, WIHomicide.com, ChillingCrimes.com, MilwaukeeMag.com, Medium.com, CBS58.com, Fox6Now.com, WISN.com, and CBSNews.com.

So oftentimes when we find ourselves in a new relationship with someone, we only look for the good in that person. Reasons why we should keep moving forward with them. Why they might be the one we spend forever with. That's part of romance, a part of lust or love. Visualizing the perfect future together. But sometimes in a brand new relationship, that means ignoring the red flags too.

We tend to bury the parts that maybe should be warnings, that should tell us to turn, run, and get out of this before we find ourselves in too deep. Maybe they're not over their ex. Maybe they have anger issues or violent tendencies. Okay. Sorry. You said in too deep and I was like, because I'm in too deep. Anyways. I just saw you headbanging over there. Yeah, I know. That was...

Yeah. Anyways, keep going. Maybe there's some dark secret on their computer you stumble upon one afternoon. But when we're in the state of love or lust, whatever you want to call it, it's easy to ignore the circumstantial evidence and just follow your feelings instead. Which is why today's story is not just a cautionary tale. It's proof that when we ignore red flags, they could lead to something far more deadly than heartbreak.

So for today's case, we are headed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And Milwaukee is where 27-year-old Kelly Dwyer calls home in the year 2013. But Kelly isn't a Wisconsin native. She actually grew up in a suburb of Chicago. And while her high school years were difficult in Chicago as her parents worked through a challenging divorce, she

Kelly managed to keep her head above water, focusing on tennis, the high school newspaper, and yearbook clubs.

But in the trauma of her parents' divorce, Kelly kind of seemed to lose a sense of herself too. Instead of going right to college after graduation, Kelly did her own thing for the next few years, working odd jobs, just kind of finding her place in the world. But four years later, she was ready to get the heck out of Illinois and start fresh somewhere new. She wanted to create a new identity for herself and finally put her past behind her.

And this is why she decided to move to Milwaukee. The city suited Kelly. She made new friends. She found a community of yogis and began teaching yoga classes herself.

She also got a job at Lululemon while nannying part-time. So Kelly moved here and was definitely hustling, but she also loved letting loose. Kelly loved the nightlife scene in Milwaukee and was always spotted out with her friends and coworkers at all the trendy new spots.

McKellie also wanted a lot more for herself. She wanted a bright future. She wanted love. She wanted happiness. And when she finally celebrated her 27th birthday in September of 2013, she believed that this future she envisioned for herself was right around the corner. She told her friend Ryan on this birthday, quote,

Something big is going to happen. I can feel it. It feels really important to me. And Ryan, her friend, was excited for her because Kelly was really coming into herself. This was something her father, Tony, had noticed too when he visited her in Milwaukee shortly after.

Toni, her dad, was relieved to see how happy Kelly was and how much she was thriving in this new environment. And Kelly seemed to attribute a lot of that happiness to a guy she had been seeing for about a year now.

someone she met through a mutual friend. His name was Chris Zacco. Now, Chris was 11 years older than Kelly. So at 38, he had already built quite a life for himself. He was a successful IT executive who had graduated from Boston University with a degree in international business. He was now making pretty decent money by 38.

The kind of guy who got up early to golf on the weekends, even if he was out late partying the night before. He also traveled a lot for work, which meant he and Kelly didn't get to see each other as much as she may have liked. But to her, him leaving...

Out of town a lot was worth it because it paid for his beautiful condo in a nice Milwaukee neighborhood and fancy sports cars that he could pick Kelly up in for dates. Okay. Random question. Not for you, babe. For our listeners. Okay. You had all the money in the world. Would you choose city or would you choose...

I guess suburbs, but not suburbs like country. Like, okay. So extremes on both sides. Yes. Extremes on both sides. What would that be like? Rural, but not really rural. Like you can still find like farm towns where it's still close to everything. I'm saying, yeah. What would you choose?

All the money. That's not for me. That's just for our listeners. You don't think they want to know what you feel? I can tell them next week. This is for them. Oh, okay. Okay. You always be making promises, bro. I mean, I don't know what I would choose. That's why I don't know the answer to that. I don't know either. I know I kind of interrupted the case. I think there's, if you had all the money in the world, there's amazing things you could get on both ends of the spectrum.

Yeah, but think if you had all the money in a city. That's what I mean. Shows every night, five-star restaurants. But if you had all the money and like you had a huge ranch somewhere, like you could have. That's true too. You could have cows. Well, yes, but a lot more than that. You could have a boat. You have any horse you want.

but honestly if you have all the money in the world you could have both yeah but you gotta pick one okay anyway sorry interruption let's continue all right guys we are jumping into an ad it is olipop my drink that's my olipop all right can i have a drink of your olipop i guess so did it look good tastes good too no in reality we love olipop i love olipop almost every american look even daisy's trying to get olipop

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at TakeLean.com. Again, that's CodeHusband at TakeLean.com, TakeLean.com. Results vary. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease and is not a substitute for care from a healthcare provider. Okay, so he has money. And their relationship, like it kind of worked because Kelly and Chris had a few things in common despite their 11-year age gap.

Both came from divorced households and could understand each other's pain there, but they also both liked to indulge in recreational drugs. They also both loved to party. That detail wasn't something Kelly shared with her dad when he came to visit, though, for obvious reasons. Instead, she just glowed about her new relationship, thinking it would only be a matter of time before she actually got to introduce Chris to her father in person.

But what neither Tony, her dad, nor Kelly knew when he came to visit was that day would never come.

Just a few weeks later, on October 10th, 2013, Kelly and Chris had a little date night planned. Kelly went over to Chris's apartment and hung out there for a bit before the two went out for some drinks at one of their favorite spots in town. It was a place right across the street from Chris's apartment called Aaliyah.

Now there, Kelly ran into her friend, Chanel. They had a good conversation. They're just out hanging out for the night in the year 2013. Chanel says that Kelly seemed to be in a good mood that night. Kelly told her she has the day off tomorrow. She was looking forward to just getting up, going to yoga, doing a little laundry, just kind of having an easy day the next day.

Then, after a few drinks, Kelly and Chris closed their tab and went to this pizza spot that was a few blocks away called Ian's. I love pizza. Now, at Ian's, they grabbed some slices and then actually went back to Chris's apartment around 2.37 a.m. on what is now the morning of October 11th. But the day after that, October 12th,

Kelly was supposed to work a shift at Lululemon. So remember, they are out partying on October 10th. The entire day of October 11th goes by. And then the morning of October 12th, Kelly no-shows to her job. So her co-workers, who are also her good friends, start calling her. They're like, hey, you have a shift. Are you coming in?

But there's no answer. So they figure it's 2013. Let's check her social media. Kelly was the kind of person who posts and updates her followers pretty consistently. So when they noticed that she also hasn't posted on social media since two days prior, the night she went out with Chris,

things start to get more alarming and so that's when her friends actually get the police involved because they're like she hasn't posted she's not answering her phone she would never not show up to work we're going to call the police now knowing that they have a missing persons case on their hands investigators hear about this and start with the basics they start investigating and realize that Kelly's debit cards all

also haven't been used since. And later that day on October 12th, it seems like her phone is either now dead or turned off because it's going straight to voicemail. And between the time that her friends realize she hasn't posted and then alert authorities and then authorities go on to check her social media, her social media account seemingly gets deleted.

So she's missing. She hasn't been heard from, but in between this time, her social media gets deleted. Huge red flag. Yes. Huge red flag. That's crazy. But they also find Kelly has profiles for a few different dating apps and she has been talking to a few different people on them. The,

Though nothing stands out as much as this one tip that they receive from her friend who saw her two nights ago at a Liam. If you remember the friend who said that she was in good spirits, she didn't have work the next day. So this friend talks to police and they say the last person she was with that they know of was Chris, her boyfriend. Yeah.

So on Monday the 14th, detectives go knocking on Chris's door because they now have realized Kelly has no family here. She only has friends and then Chris, who's basically the closest person to her. Now, remember, this is the same place Kelly was presumably last seen in the early morning hours of Friday, October 11th, three days earlier when they returned to his apartment.

And when detectives show up there to say, hey, your girlfriend's missing, Chris is pretty welcoming. He lets them into his apartment. He sits down with them and has no problem telling them what he and Kelly got into the night he last saw her. He admits, yes, I know Kelly, but he doesn't say that she's his girlfriend. He says Kelly is just someone he parties with, someone he hangs out with.

Claims that earlier that night, the night she went missing before going out to the bar, the two of them had actually drove around trying to get cocaine. And then after the bar, they came back to his apartment, did some lines, had a couple more drinks. They had sex on his couch and then both passed out there. He says the next morning, Kelly left at around 9 a.m. And he hadn't seen or heard from her since. Now,

Chris is leaning pretty hard into this narrative that Kelly is a wild party girl who did a lot of drugs. This is who he's portraying to the cops. And he also is insisting that they weren't exclusive. She was sleeping with other people. She met online, but as police are having this conversation with Chris, they're,

One of the detectives gets a text message. It's from one of her colleagues who is downstairs sitting with security going over the footage from the apartment building that the night Kelly went missing. Yeah. And he says, hey, I see Kelly on security going into the apartment around 2.30 a.m. just like Chris has described. She never comes out, huh? Yeah.

He says, yes, they seem to be chatting totally fine. But as we're like combing through this security footage, I cannot find Kelly ever leaving the apartment building.

So the police are like, okay, we're sitting here in front of him getting texts from our colleagues that her leaving at 9 a.m., like Chris has said, isn't actually caught on camera. They need to keep looking into this guy. Right now, this is obviously not enough to arrest him on, but they do have something they can now use to get a search warrant. That video and the fact that Chris said he had cocaine in the apartment basically means detectives, um,

leave to go get all of this sorted out. And in the meantime, they keep digging into Chris. It's kind of hard because as a detective, you leave, he already knows he's under suspicion and probably is trying to figure things out. You confront him and you say, hey, we just checked the cameras and she didn't leave.

Like what? I don't know which option's better. You're playing with fire because it's like you confront him. Both ways you're kind of playing with fire. Hope he cracks and confesses because you've just confronted him with big news or he lawyers up and then you don't ever get to interview him without a bunch of pressure. But also...

If he already knows he's on the radar. Yeah. And it's almost like you might as well just go for it. But here's the thing. They bring him in. This is not enough to arrest him. No. So then you have to let him go if he doesn't confess. Yeah. I don't know what you do. I mean, I think either way he knows he's under suspicion. So I feel like you just try to get him the. I mean, I think there's a right way or wrong way. It's just interesting because I was thinking about it.

I mean, they have to leave. They don't have a search warrant. They have to go get all that sorted. Now he just has time to do whatever he wants. Right. Because police have come in. So now he's going to double check that everything's good. If you know, if there's evidence, yeah. I mean, they are actively working this investigation. They are digging into Chris trying to get this warrant. And they discover that Chris had removed this SIM card from his cell phone and

making it impossible to track its movements from October 11th at 7 43 PM until 2 41 PM on October 12th. So come on, man, his SIM card is out of his phone. So they have no idea. They have no way to track what his phone did during that time. Well, police are back at Chris's house just later that day. They leave, get the warrant and come back.

And they find a lot more than a little cocaine in this apartment. They find canisters of marijuana in the fridge. They find painkillers, unidentified pills. So Chris is actually arrested on the spot for drug possession, which is good for them because they can now hold him. But while they have him under arrest, they also get a warrant to search his cell phone. And what they find on this phone is pretty disturbing.

It's a video of Kelly and Chris taking about three weeks before she went missing. And in this video, they are engaged in a sex act, but Kelly looks to be in a lot of distress in this video. Whatever is happening, she is struggling to breathe.

Like with what's going on. And this isn't the end of it. They also find pictures on this phone of Kelly and,

And she appears to be unconscious on Chris's bed and he's taking pictures of her. Okay. So he's taking pictures of her unconscious body. Got it. On the bed. Not legal, by the way. So none of this looks good for Chris, especially because police don't stop searching his apartment once they find drugs. They're also looking for any signs of Kelly and they notice one very suspicious detail. Okay.

The shower curtain in Chris's guest bathroom has been torn down. Like the hooks still have pieces of fabric on it, but someone has just ripped it right off. They also bring in a police cadaver dog named Molly and she picks up a scent called

In a lot of places, the hallway outside of Chris's door, the parking garage on the same level where Chris parks his car, a dumpster on the 18th floor where Chris lives, the trash chute on his floor. This is all just outside of his apartment. Inside, she hits on the hallway, the guest bedroom and the guest bathroom, and she finishes her search on top of Chris's bed.

In fact, that's where she seems to be triggering the most. Like she goes crazy on this bed. So police are pretty confident that Kelly most likely died in the apartment on Chris's bed, which is why the dog is alerting. And then he eventually tried to get rid of her body. Yet, despite all of this, police still don't feel like this is enough to press charges on Chris for murder. I mean, it's obvious suspect. Like they have an obvious suspect. It's pretty strong.

but it's just not enough to take him to trial.

So right now they do have enough to hold him on drug charges, which is definitely helpful, but they feel confident that if they can just find Kelly or Kelly's body, this will be a sealed deal. So they don't want to pounce too soon. Instead, they keep digging into Chris to build their case. And honestly, the more they learn about Chris, the more they investigate him, the worst things get because also in his apartment, they find a bunch of old hard drives and Kelly,

There is a bunch of child pornography on these drives. Now that's insane to me. Insane child pornography to me blows my mind that people actually watch child pornography. I can't like it. I can't, I don't like talking about it because go to children, like children, like, come on. I don't know if there's a bigger sign to yourself that there's clearly something wrong. It's crazy. Yeah.

The police confront him with this. They're like, hey, we found these hard drives. There's child pornography on these. And he says, oh, that was a hard drive from an old job I worked at. It's not actually mine. Like, I didn't put that on there. I just collected them from an old job and had them in my house. But police aren't buying it. In fact, they think this is just more evidence that Chris Zacco is capable of some pretty unimaginable things.

Still, for now, they are only able to charge him with drug possession and child pornography. And by early November 2013, they shockingly let him out on bail, even though he's also the number one suspect in a murder investigation. But still, the D.A. hasn't filed murder charges yet because they think there's a lot more on this guy that they'll uncover in due time.

And the more witnesses they speak to, the more incriminating evidence they find. So some of Kelly's friends told the police that when Kelly started dating Chris and

It wasn't unusual for her to show up to work with pretty big bruises on her wrists or her neck, places that looked pretty alarming. But whenever she was asked about it, Kelly would kind of shrug it off saying it was nothing. Now, between that and the violent sex videos that they found on Chris's phone,

police start to form a theory about what they think happened to Kelly the night she went missing. They believe that Kelly might have been killed during a pretty violent sex act, and based on surveillance videos they find, they think Chris found a way to move Kelly's body out to his car, and at some point while his SIM card was removed from his cell phone, he likely drove somewhere to get rid of her remains.

but they don't have any concrete details or evidence at this point. They are finding more things that validate this theory, like five other women who come forward that dated Chris in the past and basically testify to police that he exhibited violent sexual behaviors towards them as well. One said she actually was even sexually assaulted by Chris. Another said she got a restraining order from him after she broke up with him in 2005.

But what really took detectives by surprise was there was a reason that when they initially talked to Chris that he wasn't calling Kelly his girlfriend. Like he was like, no, no, no, this is just someone I party with.

And that's because police uncovered that Chris already had a girlfriend at this time. A woman named Megan Pollack, who he had been in a very serious relationship with for four years. Apparently not that serious. A woman that he was talking about marrying and who Kelly apparently had no idea even existed.

Though the same seemed to be true for Megan also. She had no idea about Kelly until news broke that Chris was the number one suspect in her disappearance. Could you imagine dating someone and then find out that not only are they dating other people, but...

That they probably murdered somebody? Yeah, like a girl's missing that they were dating. How? Well, and then also there were hard drives, the child pornography in his house, which is another reason he's looking sus. That would just hurt. That would be like unbelievable at first. Yeah. Like what? Well, as you're saying...

When she discovers all this, she is more than happy to come in and talk to police about it. Whether I'm searching for my next place to buy or rent, or I just want to scroll through some dream homes, we use the Redfin app. And Peyton and I have actually...

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So Megan, the girlfriend of four years, said that on the night of October 11th, hours after Kelly was last seen, she and Chris had dinner plans for 7.30 p.m. So this is the next day. And according to her, Chris showed up an hour late to dinner. And over the course of the night, he was acting very weird and nervous. And then he came back to her house and

And he was actually sweating so much that she had to change her sheets the next morning because he was so sweaty. And in the days that followed, she just noticed a few odd things around Chris's apartment, like the fact that the shower curtain, a small rug and a few decorative hand towels were all missing from his guest bathroom.

This is the same guest bathroom that the cadaver dog Molly would hit on a few days later. And then she also realized that Chris's travel golf bag, which was always annoyingly sitting in Chris's living room, was now gone. This is something she remembered very clearly since this stupid bag was something she had to basically climb over anytime she wanted to go to the guest bathroom. Like it was an annoyance to her and their relationship and now it's gone.

But there was another strange detail, she told police. She says that she and Chris had been having their problems and they'd been arguing about a job opportunity she wanted to take back in Denver, Colorado. But Chris was very adamant that there was nothing she could do to convince him to move west. So basically he said, it's me or the job. So inevitably, Megan turned down the job and chose to stay with Chris instead. And then he

Ends up being a murderer. And that's crazy. But on the morning of October 12th, when the two went to brunch, Chris told her something strange. Again, this is literally days after Kelly went missing.

he asks her, Hey, is that job in Colorado still on the table? Maybe we should just move there. Maybe we should just move there together. I'll go with you. You can take the job. Like I'll sacrifice for you. We can move there. So once Megan learns about all of this, she's like, Oh, he wasn't being nice. He killed someone. This is even more suspicious. And,

And since detectives have been wondering how Chris got Kelly out of the apartment after he killed her, once they talked to Megan, they're like, we think it was the missing golf bag. So investigators go back through all the footage from the apartment complex to see if they can catch Chris moving that bag in the hours after her disappearance. But again,

They can't. And that's because apparently there are not a lot of cameras in this apartment complex. There is none in Chris's hallway, none in the elevators going down to the parking garage. There are cameras inside the garage, but none of them caught Chris on film with this golf bag. Now, whether Chris knew this or he just got lucky is unclear, but detectives start to piece together a timeline through all of their witnesses and evidence gathered so far.

So on Friday morning, October 11th at 10.06 a.m., they see Chris standing by the driver's side door of his vehicle. Again, no golf bag. But he then leaves the building at 10.08 a.m. And it's around that exact time that Kelly's phone goes dead.

though probably turned off. Now, just 16 minutes after that, Chris is back in the parking garage. His car is parked and he's standing behind his trunk. And this trunk is open. And detectives think they can spot a gray or silver object lying inside the trunk. One that looks like the golf bag. The videos go on to show Chris coming and going a bunch of other times that day. Remember, these are just like

Not a perfect surveillance video of this. They're trying to have kind of having to piece it together with different images. They can basically just tell that he's loading things into his car and leaving, loading things in and leaving. And then at 6, 16 PM, he leaves and he doesn't come back for the night. As we know, two hours later, he shows up an hour late to dinner with Megan, his girlfriend. And the reason police think he was so nervous and sweaty that night was because they believe that he,

He still hadn't found a place to dump Kelly's body. They think it was sitting in the trunk of his car outside Megan's apartment. Okay. So he's with his girlfriend because he needs an alibi. He can't just like no show. And he has a body in the car. But he's so nervous because he needs to go get rid of this body.

So when he wakes up the next day, he's got to do something about it. That's when he tells Megan a story. He says there's this little cheese shop that he loves. It's called the Mouse House and it's 80 miles away from Milwaukee. He says, I have to go pick up this specific cheese before your parents come into town because I want them to try it.

Mind you, this place is a bit of a tourist trap. There's way better cheese in Milwaukee that sell the same kind of cheese he's looking for. So this doesn't really make sense to detectives. We're just talking crap on the mouse trap shop. Well, I'm just... Detectives are like, if you wanted the specific cheese, there was no reason to drive 80 miles. Yeah, like right next door. Like this is more a tourist thing, not like someone who lives here type thing. Yeah, yeah.

So they think this was Chris's excuse to get out of town and find a place to dump the body. And while he does get half a pound of cheese, Chris makes another stop along that drive to to a sports authority where he buys some new sneakers. Now, police are able to map all of this out because Chris had used his credit card that day, which told them exactly where he was and at what time.

And they realize all those timestamps add up to the time he was gone aside from about 90 minutes where they don't know where he was, which is plenty of time to get rid of a body and then go buy some cheese for your alibi, get some new sneakers because your old ones are probably covered in evidence. So now they have an area to at least search for Kelly's body. Like they have an area where they're like,

However far you can drive in 90 minutes, this is where we need to be searching. - Where the body is, which that's a large area. - It's a big area. It's gonna take some time.

Now, meanwhile, Chris stands trial for those other charges, the child pornography and the drug possession in November 2014. So time is moving on. It's very obvious that police and prosecutors are waiting for a body. They do not want to charge Chris until they find Kelly's body. So they are waiting, which is taking years. Years? Yeah.

So 2014 goes by. He's sentenced to 19 years in jail for the drug and child pornography charges, but they still haven't charged him for murder. But then in May 2015, everything changes. You got 19 years for the drugs or is it mainly the child pornography? I'm going to assume they're hoping they can put him in jail and find the body in 19 years and hopefully charge him for murder. So,

Yes. Does he deserve 19 years for having child pornography? In my opinion, a hundred percent. But is that normal? No, I don't think so. Cause I don't think that's the usual. Cause I feel like usually, unfortunately there's many cases where it's like one to three years for child pornography. Yeah. I'm guessing the judge was like, Oh, well we think he killed someone. I'll work with the DA on this. Let's go maximum sentence. Yeah, we'll go max. Until we see if we can find anything. Right. So in May, 2015 there, I,

I mean, I'm alleged plan what I'm assuming was happening changes. I mean, if you're the number one suspect in a murder charge, I don't think it's that crazy that they're like, well, we're going to give you the maximum on another sentence. I wish they actually did that for everyone who is a suspect in a murder case. Yeah. Because oftentimes we see killers who only serve one to two years for a crime and then kill again because they're let out. So oftentimes,

On May 1st, a man named Christopher Fountain is out for a walk in an area about 45 miles west of Milwaukee. And he's strolling along an embankment on this dead end road when he spots something he thinks looks like a deer's leg bone. So he's like, he's just a curious little adventurer. He goes over to see this bone and.

When he gets closer, he realizes that there is actually a human skull. Oh, my God. Lying next to this bone. That's crazy to stumble upon. If I saw a human skull, honestly, I think that the first thought would be this is fake.

I'm like, no way. Like, this is a Halloween skull. Like, I wouldn't think it was real. Well, here's the thing. Most of the skeletal remains are intact. It's basically a human skeletal body. Oh, my gosh. There's no clothing around these bones. Now, of course, this guy calls local authorities who rush out. They collect the remains. And six days later, they ran them against a set of dental records because obviously they know that this is in the area where Kelly could have been buried.

Dumped. I just, unfortunately, I don't like saying that. It's a horrible word, but I mean, she's a real person and like how horrible that her body was just dumped somewhere. I know it's gross. Um, but they know that this is within their area. They've been looking. So they run Kelly's dental records and it's a match. Now, unfortunately it has been over a year and a half since Kelly was last seen, um,

So you're not going to get a whole lot out of an autopsy. They aren't able to conclusively say how Kelly died. And unfortunately as well, there's no physical evidence found at the scene either. There's no golf bag, no shower curtain, no hand towels, like nothing from the apartment is found with the remains.

But there is one clue they are able to work off of, and that is the position in which Kelly's body was found.

Her right leg was sort of rotated inward and her left arm strangely kind of was tangled around her back, which to detectives tells them something. It looks like Kelly's body was stuffed into some kind of container and then got stiff like that. Yeah, the golf bag. Like a golf bag. The biggest kicker, Kelly was found near the area that Chris went shopping for shoes and cheese that day.

which means their theory that Chris had used this trip as an excuse to get rid of Kelly's body, meaning that Kelly's body actually did probably sit in his car in an apartment complex, that theory was likely correct. Now that there is a body to add to the list of evidence against Chris, the district attorney feels ready to move forward with the case. But remember Chris is behind bars already serving time for those child pornography and drug possession charges.

So there's not really a huge rush to get him off the streets because at the moment, he's not really a danger to society, which is why instead of charging him immediately, the DA actually takes their time putting this case against him together, trying to make it airtight. They're like, we are going to take time to investigate, find as much evidence as possible, make sure our case is airtight, charge him and prosecute him. So, again,

They re-interview all the witnesses. They take a second, third, fourth look at all of the evidence. They speak to all of the women they can from Chris's past. And that process takes them another two years before they officially charge Chris Zacco with first degree reckless homicide, hiding a body. And they also seem to have found a likely cause of death.

Because they also charge him with strangulation and suffocation. So there's evidence the public doesn't know about at this point. But it won't be another year and a half after this. Oh my gosh, dude. Before he goes to trial. Now, meanwhile, Chris is having a hard time staying out of trouble, even behind bars. As he's awaiting trial, one of Chris's cellmates speaks up saying, Chris came to him and asked for help with getting rid of another ex-girlfriend online.

On the outside. So question, do you think that cellmates speak up because they get something from it? Yes, this is actually like a huge problem. I feel like I would only speak up if it was like,

You'll get out of jail today. Well, people think that they actually need to stop doing this, letting informants get things because then informants just lie to get things. They're like, oh, you're on trial for murder. Let me go over here. That's a good point. And say, oh, he actually said this to me. I'll testify to it as long as I get moved up to a better prison or I get this or I get that. Yeah, because how do you know if they're lying or not? And they're all in prison. So, I mean, no offense, but. The informant system is actually like,

It's also a big issue in getting false convictions because informants will come in and say, oh yeah, someone said he did it. And that person is actually innocent. So it's not, I think it's actually something we should kind of get rid of in my personal opinion. I never thought about it that way. Trials. Yeah. But, or just as long as they're not promised anything, like if they just come forward and aren't given anything for it, then that's great. You're just another eyewitness at that point.

Yeah, but then they won't come forward because why come forward? For the goodness of their heart. Oh, yeah.

Yep. Yep. Yep. So his inmates like, yeah, he's trying to hire a hit man to murder an ex-girlfriend on the outside. And they think it's Megan because Megan's actually planning on testifying. So the girlfriend of four years is going to testify against him. So the inmates like, I'm pretty sure that's who he's trying to get rid of. He even goes as far as to talk prices with this guy. Says, I'll pay you $2,500 to $5,000. So Chris gets another charge added to his already long list, felony intimidation of a witness charges.

But that's not the only thing this former cellmate had to tell police. Apparently, Chris had told him exactly why he was behind bars. The inmate's like, he told me exactly what happened to Kelly. Like, the murder. Every detail. Everything. So here's what this inmate tells police. Chris claimed that before Kelly died, the two of them were having rough sex in his apartment and eventually he took things too far and ended up killing Kelly by accident.

He panicked when he realized Kelly was no longer breathing, so he carried her to the bathroom and tried to resuscitate her. But when he realized Kelly was already dead, he tried to do something with her body. He wrapped her in the guest bathroom shower curtain and used the garbage chute to get her body to the first level unnoticed.

You heard that correctly. Which makes sense because the cadaver dog did catch a scent at the garbage chute and it could explain why Chris was never seen carrying the golf bag out of the building. Now, we should take this with a grain of salt for obvious reasons, but I do think this is maybe the closest to the truth we'll ever get when it comes to how Kelly died. I will say though, those charges of felony intimidation are later dropped because of lack of evidence. So this informant...

I don't know. They don't trust him enough to come forward and testify. But I think it is important to include that Chris is not only trying to buy a hitman from prison, allegedly. He's also caught trying to buy pornographic materials, which are off limits in prison. And he was specifically asking for choking pornography and younger ones. Okay.

So he's asking for the same thing he was caught with. Those hard drives that weren't his, he's asking for those again. This guy deserves to. So even behind bars, Chris has not been able to control his issues or his urges. And he definitely has something with choking and, uh,

I do think, I mean, even the state thinks it's possible that she was killed accidentally during choking because of the videos they have. I think it's definitely possible. What's interesting too, if he would have just called the cops, he probably would have just gotten manslaughter, which is like five to 10 years. He could have. Yeah.

I mean, not saying that's what should have happened. Cause he obviously sounds like a horrible person. He killed her. I mean, you took it too far. This isn't supposed to happen, but it's just interesting that if it didn't go through this and he called the cops, he might've been able to get lesser charges for sure. Probably would have. Yeah. I'm still glad they come for the child pornography. For sure.

So the trial comes. And while there is no smoking gun in this case, like they didn't find anything with the body, there are a lot of little things that obviously point in his direction. And the defense tries to call a lot of these little things into question. They're like, listen,

There's no solid evidence here. They question the cadaver dog. They also point to the fact that Kelly was said to have had other partners while she was with Chris and why didn't police look into any of them? Now in the end, the jury didn't buy it. On October 5th, 2018, they find Chris guilty on all counts. He was sentenced to an additional 31 years behind bars with no credit for time served.

So to this day, Chris denies having anything to do with Kelly's death. And while he does plan to appeal his conviction, as it stands, he won't be eligible for release until 2065 when he is 90 years old. So if there is anything we can learn from a man like Chris, it is to always trust those red flags, whether that's a new relationship or even one you have been in for years, trust

When you see a warning sign, go with your gut. And I am not blaming Kelly. I am saying that people do tend to show their true self eventually. Yeah. Because sometimes it is hard to know the real person you're sleeping next to.

And if Kelly's story has moved you, you can actually make a donation to the Sojourner Family Peace Center where her family had previously set up a fundraiser for women impacted by violence, which we will be donating to. So I want to include it for you guys as well. You can visit the site at www.familypeacecenter.org to help women impacted by violence. And her family has kind of advocated around this project.

um i do think it's amazing i've said this before and i'll say it again when there is little pieces of light that come out of such a dark thing that happens in the world but yeah that is the case of kelly dwyer you know i'm sick of people dying i know i'm sick of people getting killed it's just it's so it's not even yeah frustrating it's just like

Because here's the thing. I will never not be an eye for an eye type of person. I want to be like, I mean, I don't even want to do this, but I think if I'm playing devil's advocate, it's like, oh, it could have been an accident. But I'm like, I don't know, bro. Like you had child pornography on hard drives in your house. Not just like on dark websites. Like you had it on hard drives in your house. I low key just think,

you're a dangerous person. Yeah. Like, I don't, I don't know. I think you're just a dangerous person. I don't think it's that shocking that you ended up hurting someone. Yeah, I agree. All right, you guys, that is our episode for this week and we will see you next time with another one. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.