Going West: True Crime - Harold Henthorn // 48

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

In 2012, a woman and her husband were hiking in the Rocky Mountains when she had a fatal fall off a cliff. It took 2 hours for life support to arrive. But when they finally did, she was pronounced dead. Before the investigation began, her husband's story wasn't quite lining up, and an anonymous letter to police would turn this "accidental death" on its head. **Case Sources** https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/how-this-man-tried-to-get-away-with-murdering-both-of-his-wives/ https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-10th-circuit/1868895.html https://localtvkdvr.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/henthorn-affidavit-warrant.pdf https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/22/lethal-love-harold-henthorn-had-two-wives-both-died-in-bizarre-brutal-ways/ https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/harold-henthorn-convicted-of-murder-of-his-second-wife--but-did-he-also-kill-his-first-wife/news-story/6dd6e94040225f76151f7416b32d737c https://pix11.com/2014/11/09/man-charged-with-2nd-wifes-fatal-fall-now-investigated-in-1st-wifes-death/ https://denver.cbslocal.com/2014/11/12/despite-claims-government-says-henthorn-had-no-job/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-accidental-husband-48-hours-investigates-unusual-deaths-of-harold-henthorns-wives/ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Heath, and I'm your other host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Today's case is crazy, it's like nothing I've ever read, but before we get into it, big announcement, we now have merch. So head over to goingwestpodcast.com and hit the shop button. We've got mugs, t-shirts, sweatshirts, a bunch of great stuff, and if you buy now, you'll be able to get stuff in time for Christmas. So head over.

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couple weeks so make sure to subscribe. All right guys, this is episode 48 of Going West, so let's get into it. A romantic weekend away for a Denver couple ends in a suspicious tragedy a deadly fall raises new questions about a man who already lost one wife 17 years earlier. In 2012, Harold and Tony Hentorn celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary with a hiking trip to scenic Rocky Mountain National Park. But everything changed when that hike ended tragically as Tony fell 140 feet to her death. Denver's CBS 4 investigative reporter Brian Moss got an anonymous tip that made Tony's death look much more suspicious. This is either the un luckiest guy in the world, or perhaps it's something far more sinister.

It could be murder. Harold Henthorne was born on November 14, 1955 in Washington, D.C. He was raised alongside his brother Rob and the two were very close, and Harold always had a very charming and witty personality, so he attracted people pretty easily and he made a lot of friends. He went on to study geology at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and then continued his education at the University of Kentucky where he studied geology and business. While he was traveling, he ended up visiting Denver, Colorado, and obviously fell in love with the beautiful mountains and the scenery because it's so amazing, and he decided that he wanted to move there. So now we're going to jump ahead a little bit to 1999, which is when Harold was the age of 46,

and he met a woman named Tony Bertlet. Tony Bertlet was born on January 10, 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi to Yvonne and Bob Bertlet, and she also had two brothers Barry and Todd. The family was pretty well off after Tony's father Bob purchased a piece of land that ended up being full of oil, so she had a nice and comfortable upbringing. After graduating high school in 1980, she began attending the University of Mississippi Medical School, where she studied ophthalmology, aka the treatment and diagnosis of eye disorders. Once she had her medical degree, she began working in Jackson, Mississippi, and absolutely loved her work.

Everyone who knew her or was a patient of hers adored her. She was married for a time, but she and her husband grew apart, and the marriage just didn't last. She was a very busy surgeon and didn't have much time to focus on a relationship. She was raised in a Christian household and even taught Sunday school, so church was a big part of her life. So much so that in late 1999, when she wanted to start dating again, she signed up for ChristianMingle.com, which is a Christian dating website.

On ChristianMingle, Tony stumbled upon the profile of Harold Henthorne. He was a little bit older than her, again, he was 46 and she was 37. Here's a look into Harold's dating profile. The profile prompt says, Describe your personality and physique. His response states, I'm an outgoing, fun, caring, sincere, growing man of God. One who is very young at heart is passionate about life, has a great sense of humor, and who communicates well.

Friends would also probably add that I'm active, adventurous, trustworthy, sensitive man. One who has a heart for others, especially children, and is a good listener. Even though I've never had any children, I'm a dedicated uncle to many. 15, yes, can you believe it? Nese's and nephews. I'm also usually described as being tall, dark, athletic, and attractive, and then back when I was 15 I was an equal-scout smiley face. The prompt also says, tell us about your sports, hobbies, musical abilities, and pets. Do you have any memorable moments associated with any of these?

Harold's response states, I pretty much enjoy most things, including sports and outdoor activities, especially if they involve connecting with others. I love spending time with good friends, enjoying great conversations, and fun activities. Example, driving, hiking, biking, sailing in the mountains, working out, playing tennis, or just taking long walks on secluded beaches. What is sailing in the mountains? I don't know what sailing in the mountains is. That's really tough. I really don't know.

Maybe he meant sailing on a lake? I enjoy traveling to interesting places to explore new areas and do fun things such as snorkeling, scuba diving, hiking through the mountains and camping. And since I grew up on the east coast near the ocean, I really love anything that involves the water, including swimming, canoeing, and especially sailing. Especially mountain sailing. Sailing through the mountains. Harold and Tony met for a date and they really hit it off so the two started dating consistently.

And just nine months later, on September 30, 2000, Tony and Harold were married and they had a huge southern wedding. Tony was a successful eye surgeon in Mississippi with her very own business, but Harold didn't want to stay in Mississippi. He also made a lot of promises. So at this time, Harold told Tony and her family that his line of work involved raising money for nonprofit organizations and that he was very successful. He also told Tony that he was so wealthy that Tony would never have to work again. And this really didn't phase her at all because she was already making good money from her ophthalmology career and she even had a stake in her parents' oil business.

Harold just asked that Tony please move with him to Denver, Colorado. And this was a really tough decision for Tony because she loved Harold and wanted to make him happy, but she also loved living in Mississippi because she had her own business and all of her family were there. And they were very close. Her mom was one of her best friends, but she reluctantly decided to take the leap and start a new adventure.

Once they settled in Denver, they tried for a baby. Tony really wanted a child, but she was also busy with work. When they moved, she joined an ophthalmology practice in Denver and was enjoying her new coworkers. She and Harold tried to have a baby on and off for a few years until 2005 when they had a daughter named Haley. So at this point, she's about 42 so you know it's a lot harder to have a child when you're a little bit older, you know after 30 it gets a little bit harder so that's probably why it took them almost five

years to conceive. So after Haley was born, Tony would ask to visit home, both because her family wants to spend time with Haley and because Tony wanted to be in Mississippi, and Harold refused to go and visit with her. He also refused to let her take Haley. At the time, Tony's parents weren't in the best of health, so getting on a plane to visit wasn't an easy task for them, but Harold didn't make an exception. That's just so rude. This is just the beginning. Yvonne and Bob, Tony's parents, generally liked Harold. They said he had a consistently happy and kind personality, but a lot changed in their daughter when she married him. He took away a lot of her independence, and he didn't even let Tony talk on the phone to her

parents without being in the room. So if they called, he would answer and put it on speaker so he could hear their conversations. He was very controlling in that way. He would tell Tony what she couldn't do. He was also a very in charge father when it came to Haley. While Tony worked, he was the stay at home dad who decided what Haley did, who she spent her time with, and what she ate. He didn't even let Tony put her to bed. That was his job.

So like we mentioned, Harrell said that he was a fundraiser, and so he worked remotely and he had his own business. So when Tony would go to work, he would watch Haley and when she would come home, he would often go away on business trips for a day, but he wouldn't bring luggage and stuff like that. A lot of Tony's friends actually thought that he was cheating on her because he was really weird about his job. Tony also caught him lying on many occasions. So like we said, Harold told Tony that he was very rich and stated that he made over a million

dollars a year. But he didn't let Tony look at their bank account. She caught a glimpse once and noticed that they had nowhere near as much money as Harold made it seem. But Tony made good money and it just didn't seem like Harold really made all that much. So she ended up telling this to a friend, but other than that, Tony was doing good and she was really happy to be a new mom. But about a year after Haley was born, Tony's brother Barry was trying out his new cat scan machine

because he was also a doctor. He was trying it out on Harold when he noticed that Harold had extremely clogged arteries. And it was because of this random discovery that Barry ended up saving Harold's life and he was rushed to surgery immediately. So a few years later in 2011, Tony was involved in a freak accident while she and Harold were at their mountain cabin. She had gone outside in the backyard to help Harold with something,

and as soon as she stepped outside, a massive wooden beam fell on her. And it would have killed her. The only reason it didn't was because in that moment, she saw a piece of broken glass on the ground and decided to lean over and pick it up. The beam hit the back of her neck and fractured a vertebrae, otherwise, it would have hit her in the head. After this accident, Tony had a lot of health issues.

It caused her to lose feeling in her hand and her knees got into pretty poor shape. And I don't think she lost feeling in her hand permanently, I think it was just in the beginning, but I'm not sure on that. But Harold didn't act like any of this was a big deal. Since he didn't let her call her parents without him present, he told Tony that he would tell her family what happened,

but they didn't find out until way later. Harold just never ended up telling anyone in her family that she had a near-death experience. Everyone at Tony's work also thought Harald's controlling attitude was really odd. He had to be present at all of her work meetings, even though he had nothing to do with her job. And this just kind of rubbed her co-workers the wrong way. Yeah, that's really weird just showing up to your wife's work meetings. I mean, if you look at all this, he doesn't let her talk to her parents,

he doesn't let her put her own daughter to bed, he doesn't let her have a work meeting without him, just all these things, he's just so controlling. Like, I wonder if she felt like he was really controlling or if she didn't care, I wish I knew. I'm sure she probably thought he was a bit controlling. It seems like his controlling nature is way way over the top. Well actually it's also important to mention that within two years of their daughter being born,

Tony and Harold didn't even sleep in the same room, so it was very clear that their relationship was not going well. Harold liked to play the loving husband, but he didn't act that way in private. A friend of Tony's recalls a conversation where Tony mentioned this and said but he didn't act that way in private. A friend of Tony's recalls a conversation where Tony mentioned this and said that she didn't want to divorce him because they had a child together. But clearly, they were not head over heels and love anymore. In September 2012, their 12th wedding anniversary was nearing and Harold decided that he wanted to surprise Tony with a weekend trip to the mountains. As we discuss in Harold's dating profile, he was very outdoorsy and he loved hiking, etc.

But Tony wasn't the biggest fan, especially since her knees were bad, and this was just a year after that accident where she got hit in the neck, so she just wasn't doing that well. But Harold had arranged this with Tony's assistant so that they would clear her schedule for the weekend. So when Harold surprised her at work with the details of the trip, she was seemingly happy about it. So on Saturday, September 29, 2012, Tony and Harold went to Rocky Mountain National Park for a hike. They were staying at the Stanley Hotel and Estes Park, Colorado, which a lot of you may know was the inspiration for the movie The Shining.

And that night, they had a dinner reservation at Nikki's Steakhouse at 7 p.m. At this time, Harold was 56 and Tony was 50 years old. And I just want to explain a little bit about Estus Park. It is one of the cutest and just most quaint mountain towns I've ever been to. When I lived in Colorado, I had to work up in Estes Park, so I would go to the Stanley sometimes, and I even took a ghost tour there once. Yeah, it looks like a really beautiful area. I haven't been there.

I'd love to visit, but I definitely understand why they would want to go and do this for their anniversary, because it just is beautiful. At 5.54pm, so less than an hour before sunset, Harold called police stating that his wife, Tony Henthorne had fallen off a cliff while taking a photo, and that she was in critical condition and he needed an alpine rescue team sent immediately. Music Music So, after about two miles of hiking, Harold led his wife, Tony, off the trail and threw more rugged terrain. The day was turning into night and Harold and Tony supposedly stopped to take some photos.

Before Harold knew it, Tony was plummeting down a cliff where she landed on a rock and endured severe injuries. Here's the call that Harold placed to 9-1-1. Hi, my mom with your dressing majesty. Hello, I'm in the Carol's headboard. I'm in the Rocky Mountain Eschar. Okay. I'm in Alpine, Mount Presky, in the middle east.

Okay, what is your example of Cation? My example of Cation is Dear Mountain. Okay. I did an outpring, not rescued immediately. Okay. What is your example of Cation? My example of Cation is Dear Mountain. Okay. From it. One mile south of the Visor Center. Okay. I'm going to transfer you to the park.

So, hey, on the line, you'll hear some, you're going to hear some clicking. Right now, I'm pulling up your latin' your long. Okay. On my phone here, let me try it one more time before I transfer you. They don't have this technology. Sure you know where I am. Okay. Yep, I have one moment.

Okay. Hang on. We can't wait where I am. And I'll introduce who we are when they get the phone. Thank you, Mr. National Park and me. This is Esther and we have a gentleman on beer mouth. Go ahead, sir. Thank you.

My wife has flown over Boston on the north summit of beer mouth and on the beer mouth trail when she's in really critical condition. She's a bad-fold. How far are these? 30, 40 feet. 30, 40 feet. 3040 feet. I think 30 feet. I'm going to be sure that you will not have to take some first.

I have really bad cell coverage. I'm in beer mountains near the summit. Not the normal regular northern summit from the southern outcrops. Southern outcrops? If you look at from up south from the Fall Mountain Pitcher Center, there are two very large outcrops. We are not on either one of those two, we are between the two. You can see from the two outcrops that you can see from the FRA outcrop. We are approximately 98 number feet.

I'm going to cover two. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off.

We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off.

We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. We're going to let them off. I'll add a few 35 minutes, approximately 20 seconds. I'll say again, we are not on the two large steep outcrops. We're in the area between them. Okay, who am I talking to? My name is Harold, I'm from Hinton, we're in.

Are you with the patient? Yes, I am. I already have rangers getting ready to come up there. So here at the FIRI looking at Dear Mountain, you're looking at two outcrops of this person's between the two out crops. Yes, if you're looking from the visitor center directly south, magnetic south, you'll see two large outcrops about 90% of her feet. We are not on those two. We are between the two about two and a feet, also the crest of the hill. And tell me about the patient. She is a white female 50-year-old great health.

She has respiration to approximately 5 to 8 feet a minute. Her pulse is about 15 to 80 feet a minute. Okay, what's your main injury? Head injuries. Head injury. Okay, any other injuries? The internal, I don't know. Is she conscious of breathing?

No, she's not conscious, she is breathing. She's in between five and eight feet a minute now. Okay, hold on just a second. Okay. If there's any way that you could bring a helicopter in a flight to life, is it clearing about 200 meters south of me, this clearing where you could easily, easily drop on the radio. Are you a paramedic?

No, no, no. I've followed work with silver patrol. So let me be sure that you know exactly where you're in first of all, because trying to get a ranger here can take you at least an hour, come up that trail. What are you doing? What are you doing? They're talking to me on the radio.

I think that's one of my favorite cool books. Is this technical rock climbing? We're not coming in. We're not coming in. We're not coming in. We're going to need an Alpine Mountain rescue team. Now, any questions? There is a clearing about 200 meters south of me. You could do it. Sir, I am sorry to go into the bus in here today, so we are kind of switching you back at the course, but I know what is going on. All right, here is a thing.

I will thank any of you in all expenses for helicopter. I don't think it is private, I don't care if it is commercial, it wouldn't matter if I am a cosmetic bag. I will, I will play any of you in all expenses right now. Okay. If you drop a pair of medical here. I understand that it's really on the safety of everybody involved, so that would be a key to the range of cards.

What is good is there's no window whatsoever right now. What is excellent is at least 5-8 miles. I'm not a pair of medical, but I'm going to be a lot to do. You can safely drop a care minute from a 10th of a rope. You can easily do that. I understand that, sir, but they definitely need to probably get someone on the scene. They do have hate teams, and those are the teams that are going to want to be there. It's possible and get to your location. Our car is parked at the intersection of 3436,

our green sheep, but it's going to be an hour to get here from the location. We have people that can be long, taking a couple hours, so we definitely have people that are really fast on the trail and they're very great shape. Now, if you talk me through, how did you get to that location?

We were just having lunch and outcropping, not the two really steep ones, but I really, I felt proud. And we'd come down a little further and you're trying to hear the perfect picture, I think, and fell, and I came around and then she was on the process. I came down, I came down, and here's. Okay. You went in the deer mountain, were you in deer rich junction, right? That's where you parked.

You started deer rich junction, the intersection of 34, 36. Okay, and how far? How far? The trail of the year's next you went. We went to the actual summit by Tech at Campo State. If you have to hold summit? No, not to the summit on the south side of the hill. If you look at the ridge, deer rich at Campo State, you'll see a 90, 912 foot summit.

And we crossed around there, came up the switchbacks, came up to where the gear mountain trail levels off. Okay, so you went to the switchbacks and were gear mountain trail levels off? No, we turned directly into North. Turned to the orce, okay? When the bell may be, you know, several hundred yards, and there you reach the more foul crops. We didn't go to the really steep one that you can see from the visitor center or the quarter one to the left of that.

We were between the two. Okay. And I'm not saying. I have to ask you some questions. I'll ask you to have a peek. Do you think you are? We ask you to help with peak. Do you think you are? We didn't actually go to peak.

We were at the peak and then the outcrop. And then you go west and you go to the other people's outcrop. And we're not at those two areas. We were at the saddle between the two. And we came on down and we were out. And this lady is rock outcroping. I can see the saddle there. And if you look up towards the peak, how far do you think you are from the peak?

I'm 200, maybe 200 feet from the top. 200 feet from the peak. Yeah, from where they can see me, but they're not going to see the the pine tree here growing up. I'm not sure how long it felt. How much battery power do you have left? It's not great. What I can do is I can imagine it being here with an hour if they're heightened from

gearage and charging there. In worst case, it's an area where we lose complete contact here. I've got a whistle from place. I'll blow that whistle. I'll blow the whistle every 15, starting to top over the hour. Okay, so. Starting to pay 70 bucks, there's no way you'll be here before you have in the mid. Okay.

If you walk in, now again, if there's any chance I can persuade you to think about a chopper, and it's like when I'm usually in the park, it's just blow a crazy, but not OK. I think it's good. Okay, there, ask can you to put as many bright items out as possible to see if they can't see you. They can't see you. They can't see you. OK. OK.

Let me see if I can get a mirror or something. Is there anybody near you, sir? No. No. Not. OK. I'm looking at the window. It's going to be right now.

You're looking at me. It's a flash in mirror. But I can't see the sun. So it's just in the middle of the stage. And you can get in the stage. Because you're in some fine trees there. Yeah, fine trees. Yeah.

And you're not going to see anyone in mirror. It looks too dark. And it's the sun's around the corner. And I am thinking, I'm definitely now in view of the visitor center. You're looking at ignore. Are you? Is there somebody at the center? You don't know where they're where they're going to be.

They're purple back in. I'm moving the purple back right now. I'm in the shadow. They're driving to the junction. They're on the first. I'm not sure if they're there yet because I'm working on a distance by the start. Are you back with your wife now? I'm not here yet, I'm not here.

Okay, how is she doing? Her respiration is weaker. Her respiration is weaker? Yeah, five beats a minute. Five beats a minute? Yeah. Okay, do you know how to perform with your... I do, I do.

Okay, and more about this sponsor. Is it like a flying ball or did you fall directly? I didn't say the graphic, I was mess with one camera, she was messing with the other one. I didn't actually see a full motion, then. Okay, flashlight. Yes I do, I do have one. How much battery power do you have on your cell phone? No much, do you see?

Half power. Half power? Half power. Half power. Okay, I'm going to give you another number, just in case we do. You just connect it. Okay. If you call, um, can you have something to write with or we remember? Or you can have a call 911 and they'll transfer you back to it.

I'll do that in a good way. Your name please. My name is Kelly. Take Kelly. Thanks for your help. And there's also an Elizabeth in here. Okay. And just another thing, so I can want you to know, most of our helicopters are metabac helicopters.

I understand. So it's not really string-new technical type things they do, like, land in certain areas that are have... You wouldn't need textiles, you would not need textiles to get to me. Okay, but they can't drop somebody out of the helicopter. From a 10th of a road. No, for that. That has not been done in my experience. No place to land up here.

No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here.

No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. No place to land up here. and what is your health role? Let him handle the board. In your way, stay. Her name is Tony, he's on the eye. Okay, and does she have any other health issues? No, none of all.

You're staying at the same hotel. She has no health issues at all. Okay, so I'm going to hang up with you. If you want to leave your phone on, then make sure you feel better. Definitely do that. You can call us if anything changes with her. I will call you exactly 630. Exactly 630? So we know Harold is an outdoorsy guy, but what's interesting to me is how much he knows about rescue teams, her pulse and respiratory status, etc.

I mean, he seems so knowledgeable that even the woman on the other line asked if he was a paramedic and he did respond saying no something as if this is where I this how I know all this stuff, but I didn't hear what he said It's really hard to make it out, but he worked as a fundraiser like we said So he had nothing to do with anything medical or the outdoors. I mean, he could just be a really avid hiker. I'm just kind of surprised at how much he knew. Yeah, I'm very surprised about that as well.

I know that Colorado is very, very hike heavy. When I live there, people hiked all the time everywhere. It was very big for hiking and biking and things like that. So very big in the outdoor world. I mean maybe he's just very interested in that. I don't really know. So it turns out that Tony had fallen almost 140 feet. Despite Harold's claims of it being around 30 to 40 feet. So automatically this whole situation is tough because Harold is by himself. There's no witnesses around to confirm his story, and there's no one around to help. They're deep in a secluded trail with no space to land a helicopter nearby.

And after Harold got off the phone, he immediately texted his brother-in-law Barry, who is Tony's brother, the one who found out that Harold's arteries were clogged and saved his life. And so he texted him saying that he had low battery and couldn't talk, but that Tony was in critical condition after falling from a rock. He was texting Barry updates regarding Tony's pulse, which I'm sure was very stressful and upsetting to Barry since he was helpless in Mississippi. But Harold asked him to get on the next flight to Denver. At 7.25 pm, as the sun was set, Harold texted Barry,

can't find Poles, 45 minutes later at 8.09 pm, so just over two hours after Harold originally called 911, a medical technician and law enforcement ranger arrived at the scene. They also saw Tony laying face up and her head was on an angle. This confused them right away because with all the medical experience herald seemed to have, he didn't keep her head elevated. But it's pretty much common knowledge that if you have a head injury, you need to elevate your head.

Three minutes later, the law enforcement ranger reported that Tony Henthorne was dead. Coroners were able to determine that Tony died from multiple blunt-force trauma injuries after falling face-first off the cliff, and face-first is more consistent with pushing or jumping rather than slipping, which is pretty obvious, I think. So Tony had 13 broken ribs, a punctured lung, brain hemorrhaging, a fractured neck, a 2-inch gash in her liver, and a head injury that scalped her. The corner determined that with all these injuries, she would have become critical within just 30 minutes of falling, meaning that the corner is almost certain that Tony would have

died by 6.15 pm. But Harold told 911 dispatchers at 6.32pm that Tony's breathing was getting shallow and he was going to perform CPR. And as you heard, Harold didn't explain to the Dispatchers what Tony's physical condition was at all and he didn't make any comments regarding it. He just said that she was critical. But from hearing what happened to her, I can't imagine not commenting on her appearance or explaining it to Dispatchers so that they knew just how severe the situation was, because that is a laundry list of injuries. Yeah, it kind of seems like Harold is not making it as big of a deal.

He's more worried about the latitude and longitude and the alpine rescuers finding them, rather than saying, hey, this is what's going on with her, her head is gashed open, what should I do? Well, also because that's important information for them to know so that they bring the proper materials to help save her life. Also, another thing, he said that she fell 30 to 40 feet, making it seem like maybe it wasn't that big of an injury. He just said she was critical, but she fell 140 feet and had all those injuries. And the police had no idea that it was this severe. Yeah, and for him to be able to explain the latitude and longitude and the meters

and the distance between this and that, but to not be able to know that she had fallen 130 to 40 feet, that doesn't make sense. That's actually a really good point, I didn't think about that. But yeah, I'm just confused at why he wasn't more clear about what the actual important details were. The Latin Lodge is important because that's how they're going to be found, but the other information is equally as important. Yeah, and trust me, we totally understand that people are going through adrenaline rush when they make 911 calls, but there's just something that's clearly off about this call. And here's something to note. When asked how she fell on the phone, Harold said he thought she was trying to take the perfect picture, but that he couldn't see her

because he was messing with one camera and she was messing with another, but when police arrived to take his statement, he told him that he had been checking Tony's cell phone at the time of her fall to see if her work had called. Although we know Harold is very controlling, it seems odd that he would check her phone while they're on their anniversary trip to see if her work had called. Even weirder, it turns out Tony had left her cell phone at work for the trip, so over the weekend her cell phone was at work the trip, so over the weekend her cell phone was at work. So it would have been impossible for him to check it.

Two days after Tony's death on Monday, October 1, Harold went to Tony's office to pick up her phone. And while all her co-workers were asking what happened to Tony, because they were obviously really concerned, all he could talk about was getting that phone. The same day, Harold had an interview with the officer who had reported to the scene two days earlier. When he arrived at the Henthorne home, Harold excused himself and before leaving the room, he put on a slideshow on the computer that had music and photos of him and Tony and their

daughter Haley. And this struck the officer as odd that he would come up with this video montage the day after his wife died rather than grieve and be with family. So by the way, this was the video that he made for her funeral. And he did it the day after she died. So hours after she died. And so you know on that Sunday when he made the video, she was still on the cliff. They hadn't moved her body yet, and he's making this video montage.

Right. It's kind of like a priorities guy. I mean, you wouldn't just go and make a montage of your wife who's deceased unless you're trying to get away with something. That's like the least important thing on your to-do list. Right. You know, the first thing you should do is maybe see your family, a grieve, grieve, grieve counseling. I mean, all of these things over making a montage. The police also noted that Harold didn't cry or show very much emotion from the moment that they arrived to the peak and on.

When Harold returned to the room, he told the officer that he had taken Tony to the Rocky Mountain National Park for their 12th anniversary. They were originally going to take a different trail that led them to the Bear Lake area, but Harold thought it was too busy so they hiked the deer mountain trail instead. They started hiking around 130 pm and went on for a couple hours before they started looking for a romantic spot to take in the view. That's when they reached the top of the ridge, around 3.30 pm, and stopped to have lunch. About an hour later, at 4.45 pm, Tony spotted a deer and turkeys with her binoculars, so they hiked down a bit to take photos of them. But there were no binoculars found during

police's initial search of her belongings. Also, Tony had such bad knees that she wouldn't even ski, yet she's going to go hike down a mountain to take photos of some turkeys. Harold then stated that they were taking pictures and passing the camera back and forth. Then Harold received a text from Haley's babysitter, since at this time Haley was 7 years old, stating that Haley's socceritter since at this time Haley was 7 years old stating that Haley's soccer team won 5-1. When Harold looked up, he realized Tony was gone.

That's when he looked over the ledge to see that Tony had fallen off the cliff. So now Harold has told three different stories regarding what he was doing when Tony fell. He told 911 that she was messing with one camera and I was messing with another, then he told police that when they arrived, that he was checking Tony's phone to see if her work called her, which we know isn't true because Tony's phone was at work, and now he's saying that he was texting the babysitter. It took Harold 45 minutes to hike to the bottom of the cliff where Tony had fallen to. At this time, she was supposedly alive but unconscious.

He told police that he dragged her body to a flatter area and then called 911 at 5.54 pm. Harold stated that he had hiked that trail 2-3 months prior to find the perfect place to take his wife, but one of Harold's friends later told police that Harold told her he took six different hikes at Rocky Mountain National Park just two weeks before their anniversary trip. Yet another inconsistency in Harold's story was proven by phone records. The text regarding Haley's soccer game from the babysitter was sent at 3pm, an hour and 45 minutes before Tony's fall. But Verizon text records show that it didn't get to Harold's phone until 5.54pm, right

when he first called police, meaning he wasn't reading a text from the babysitter at the time of Tony's fatal fall. Like Heath mentioned, it took Harold 45 minutes to get down to where Tony was, so I also just wonder why it took him until he got to Tony to call the police because her life could have potentially been saved if he had called immediately because obviously if you fall off a huge cliff, you're either in critical condition or you're dead. Right? So I mean, the fact that he didn't immediately call 911 while he was hiking down to her body is really weird and he never even explained this and said,

I didn't have service at the top or anything like that. Because obviously he did because he was talking about getting text messages, but it's just weird to me that he didn't call police until he got to her body, which again took 45 minutes. Harold owned a 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee and had driven it to the Rocky Mountain National Park for their trip. Police took it into their custody so they can do an inventory of contents, and during their search, they found a National Park Service Map of the Rocky Mountain National Park. In Pink Highlighter, there was an ex marked very close to where Tony had supposedly fallen.

Next to that was the word hike highlighted, but Harold had told police that hiking deer mountain was a last minute decision and that they had originally wanted to go to bear lake, but that it was too crowded. When police asked Harold why there was an ex in that spot on his map, he was at a complete loss for words. He didn't have an answer for them. All he said was that it wasn't for their anniversary trip. Now this is also really suspicious because if you have a marked spot to hike, you would

probably know when and why you did that. But to have no idea why it was there when it's yours in your car and to have no explanation at all is super fishy. Because he also said he didn't know why that map was in his car and why there was an ex on it at all is super fishy because he also said he didn't know why that map was in his car and why there was an ex on it at all. And then he came up with, oh it may have been for my nephew when he stayed with us a couple years ago. Like what? Three days after Tony's death. On October 2nd 2012, the Larimer County Corners Office received an anonymous letter saying, Harold Henthorne's wife from 17 years ago died in a suspicious accident where Harold was the only one to witness it. Please thoroughly investigate the death of Dr. Tony Henthorne. Sadly, there are many similarities to these two accidents.

In 1995, just four years before Tony and Harold met, Harold's first wife died after being pinned under their jeep Cherokee in a supposed freak accident. Harold had previously told Tony and her family that his ex-wife died in a head-on collision, but they never pressed him for more information, so they left it at that never knowing exactly what happened. Sandra Lynn Rischel, who went by Lynn, was born on August 5th, 1957. She met Harold in college in Virginia and was very charmed by him. All of her family loved him as well because they thought he was a great guy. Lynn became a social worker and the two went to Colorado where they got

married when she was 26 and he was 28. But 12 years into their marriage, it all came to a tragic end. Really quick note, it's really odd that they were both married to Harold for 12 years. On the night of May 7, 1995, she and Harold went out for dinner and then for a drive in a pretty remote area in Colorado called Sidelia, which was close to where they were living at the time. While Harold and Lynn were driving, Harold apparently stated that he was getting a flat tire and needed to pull over, so he pulled off the highway and onto the shoulder to change

his tire. By this time, it was very dark and there were no people for miles. Harold put his car on a jack as Lynn helped him change the tire. Apparently she dropped a lug nut and crawled onto the Jeep to get it. And that moment, Harold threw the flat tire in the back which knocked the Jeep off the jack and onto Lynn's body. which knocked the Jeep off the jack and onto Lynn's body. This story immediately seemed far-fetched to Lynn's family, and they weren't suspicious of Harold doing anything because they didn't think he was ever capable of doing that

and as far as they were concerned, he loved her very much, but they still thought it was really weird. Lynn was strangely careful about everything. She didn't do anything that would put herself in danger and she just kind of played everything safe. So to think that Lynn would ever do something so careless as to crawl under a propped up car seemed outlandish. On top of that, the car had been on gravel.

So a lug nut virtually couldn't have rolled under the car, like Harold said, as it probably wouldn't have even moved in the gravel at all. Investigators chalked this up to an accident and tell Tony's death when they looked into the details again. When investigators checked the flat tire, they noticed that it wasn't flat at all. In fact, it was completely drivable. So the fact that Harold replaced it made virtually no sense. Then they studied the Jack that had been used to change the tire, which was an unconventional kind of Jack for him to have. But experts state that that kind of Jack wouldn't just fail

and cause the card of fall like this. The issue is that, at the time, police just took Harold's word. They didn't test the Jack or check the tire at all. Investigators later also discovered a shoe print on the wheel of the tire, which could indicate that someone kicked the car off the jack.

While Lynn was under the car, another car had stopped to help. Harold told the family that stop that his wife was being crushed by their 4,000 pound Jeep, and they could see her legs hanging out. Since Harold had a jack, the family didn't understand why Harold hadn't attempted to get the Jeep off his wife, so they were actually the ones to get it off her. Once they did that, they carefully moved her body and started performing CPR, but Harold

was yelling at them to stop and not to touch his wife, even though they were literally trying to save her life. It was a chilly night, so the family all took off their jackets and placed them on Lynn's body to make sure that she stayed warm while the ambulance came, and Harold didn't take off his coat. That family is so incredibly generous to do all of that, and for them to say that Harold was acting extremely strange and didn't seem like he was trying to save his wife at all while they were as complete strangers, it says a lot. I can't believe that fucker didn't even take off his coats when this passer by family

trying to save his wife did. It's just, oh god, it makes me so angry. While police were investigating both Lynn and Tony's deaths in 2012, there was something else they discovered. Harold Henthorne didn't have a job at all. He maintained for years and years that he worked as a fundraiser and that he helped with non-profit organizations. When in reality, he was unemployed.

He had been living off the $496,000 that he received from his wife Lynn's death in 1995. This raised a lot of concerns for investigators, and that's when they found something else. In 2001, shortly after Tony and Harold married, Harold requested to start a $4.7 million life insurance policy on Tony. He later told her that all the money would go to any children that they had, not him, but he listed himself as the beneficiary, and there was never an insurance policy done for Harold. I think the policy started at 1.7 or something like that, 1.4, and then once Haley was born, he bumped it up to 4.7 and said that it would go to Haley,

but yeah, like you said, his name was as the beneficiary not Haley at all. And I don't think that Tony knew this. Police also found that Harold had taken a $400,000 life insurance policy on Lynn's sister, Grace. He forged her signature and made himself the sole beneficiary, even though she had children. And Grace had no idea that this even happened until the FBI brought it up to her. She told them she never authorized such a thing, and then she started thinking that maybe his whole plan was to kill her too, so he could collect. And Harold was actually

also texting Grace when Tony had fallen, just like he was texting Barry, and he said that Tony fell using critical condition, and Grace said, we're praying for you, and then eventually Harold texted her back saying, my bride is gone. And so it seems to me like they stayed in contact over the years, because like I said, Lynn's family really loved Harold. But after Grace found out about this whole insurance thing, she was furious. On October 17, 2012, so just a few weeks after Tony's death, a woman named Ginger Wilson was interviewed by police.

She worked with Tony in Mississippi. Harold had told her previously that he created financial profiles of three different women he was dating, including Tony in the late 1990s. He asked his friends which woman he should marry based on income and he eventually decided on Tony. I don't know why he would tell Tony's co-worker this? Maybe he said it as a joke and then actually meant it, but what a weird fucking thing to do. Yeah, that is extremely strange. This just goes to show you even more that Harold only cared about money. Yeah, I mean literally setting up profiles of different women so that you can see which

one was the most wealthy so that you could take that money. It's just very, very evil. Police continued to search the evidence found on Tony the day she died. The camera she had on her had been smashed, but they were able to recover the SD card from inside. The last photo on the camera had a timestamp of exactly 5pm, and it was a photo of Harold's standing near the edge of the cliff. But there were no photos of Tony or the turkeys like Harold had mentioned were taken.

So it's unclear if this photo was taken by Harold since it was at 5pm which was just about the time that Tony would have fallen off the cliff, so I don't know if this was the last photo Tony took, or if Harold took it trying to stage something, I have no idea, but that was the last photo. Within days of Tony's death, Harold called one of his friends named Jack Baker and asked him if he could move data off one of his computers. He then went into Tony's computer and showed Harold how to move files, but he didn't know what they were.

He didn't delete anything because he was a little hesitant about his request in the first place. Remember earlier when we mentioned that Tony had been struck by a heavy wooden beam and fractured a vertebrae? Many people believe that this wasn't an accident at all, and that this was Harold's first attempt at killing her. Harold had been the one to call Tony outside and drop the beam on her, and just a year later, she died after the mountainfall, so it would definitely make sense that this was just

Harold trying to make it seem like she died in a freak accident at home. It took about two years for the investigators to collect all of this information and determine that Harold Handhorn was guilty of murder. On November 5, 2014, Harold Handhorn was arrested for first degree murder relating to the death of his wife. The trial didn't begin for nearly a year in September 2015, so three years after Tony's death, and it only lasted about two and a half weeks. The jury deliberated for 10 and a half hours

before deciding to convict Harold of murdering Tony. Although Harold maintained his innocence and love for his wife, he was sentenced to life in prison. In 2017, he appealed his case, but it was denied. Earlier this year, in January 2019, Harold requested a new trial claiming that his lawyer committed fraud and that he lied. He wrote a five-page explanation stating that he paid his attorney more than a million dollars, and that the attorney didn't care about creating a solid defense for him, but instead just wanted to pay out. Sounds familiar. So based on all the evidence and statements we've showed throughout this episode, I think it's pretty clear that the state had a lot on him.

So it's not at all surprising that a jury gave him a life sentence. So it's not the all surprising that a jury gave him a life sentence. So it's not the defense attorney's fault. It's Harold's for committing the crimes. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode and next week we'll have an all-new episode for you guys to dive into. Remember we have episodes on Tuesdays now, not Mondays, that's our new day from here on out. And we've also got merch, so make sure you go check out our merch at

our shop on our website goingwestpodcast.com. We've got mugs, t-shirts, sweatshirts, bunch of great stuff, so go check that out and get in time for Christmas. Also make sure to check us out on Instagram at GoingWestPodcast and Heathover on Twitter at GoingWestPod. And we also have a discussion group going on on Facebook, you can find us at GoingWest True Crime.

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