True Crime with Kendall Rae - MLM Mom with a Secret Life – The Murder of Paige Birgfeld

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

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Plus free shipping with the code Soldagenero10. Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. Let's go ahead and get into this case. So this is a local case to me, I guess. This is a Colorado case. Today we're going to be talking about Paige Bergfeld. So in her early life, Paige lived in Denver, Colorado. Paige was known as someone who was incredibly kind, genuine, loving, caring, a very family-oriented person was all about family first. And her favorite thing to do was have family get together

and just spend time around the people that she loved. Since she was born, Paige was one of those girls who always knew that she was going to be a mom. She just had that instinct and she had this really warm and caring, motherly personality. So everyone always knew that she would be a great mom. So Paige ended up going to school for nursing

on a scholarship at the University of Florida in Gainesville. And while she was in school, she met this man named Ron Bigler, and the two of them fell in love. The relationship kept progressing through college, things were going really well, and eventually Paige decided to move back to Colorado with Ron after they graduated. And shortly after this,

they ended up getting married as well. Like I mentioned earlier, Paige really wanted to be a mother. This was just super important to her. And she knew it had to be part of her life. However, Ron wasn't quite ready to make that commitment, didn't know if he wanted to be a dad, just didn't have that following the instinct like she did. He did not want to commit to wanting to have kids.

He didn't want to promise her that. And this drove quite a wedge between them. I mean, this was something that is like fundamentally different and Paige just knew that she could not compromise on this. And so they decided to end their relationship. And it was a pretty mutual, you know, friendly breakup. They just decided, clearly we're not the best fit for each other. So it would probably be better for us both if we just got divorced and moved on. So at this time in her life, Paige was newly single and she decided to work at a strip club. And this is actually where she met her second husband, who is named Ron Dixon.

And Ron and Paige really hit it off fast. Paige was really attracted to Ron for, you know, a couple different reasons, but also because he had a lot of money. He came from family wealth. He was totally set up. And not only that, Rob and his family seemed to love helping people, love to help their community, and we're always giving back. And she was really attracted to that.

And not only that, Rob wanted to have kids, and that was something that Paige just really loved about him. He was gonna be a family man and fit that, you know, need in her life. So in 1998, Paige and Rob moved to Grand Junction together, which is a beautiful area in Colorado. It's kind of desert-like. It's over on the western border.

I guess it's kind of a smaller town you could say. So they moved there into a really nice house, a really nice house, and they started having kids right away. By 2001, so only three years later, they had already had three kids together. Paige was super, super happy. She loved being a mom, loved her children.

She never wanted to spend any time without her kids. She was with them constantly. Paige and Rob seemed to be living the perfect life. I mean, they lived in a really nice place. Their mortgage actually was like $6,000. It was a nice house out in Grand Junction, which isn't a super expensive area. So you know that had to be a super, super nice interior.

Not only that, Rob loved cars. So they had all these fancy exotic sports cars, like a lemon yellow, a Lamborghini, I believe. I don't know, Jack should about cars, honestly, but they had a bunch of different colorful, really expensive cars. However, eventually things started to take a turn for them. A lot of Rob's business deals started to fall through

and he had actually invested millions of dollars of his family money into this project that ended up failing and he lost all of it. It wasn't long before they were struggling to pay their mortgage and this put a serious strain onto their relationship. In 2004, Paige ended up having to call 911 on Rob. My husband and I were in a fight and he was supposed to watch my children as well and have to work so they're supposed to be okay so I said, I was just going to take the children with me. But he wanted the children to stay with him.

And he said that I would come home and find them all murdered. But when police showed up, Paige and Rob claimed that they had worked through this issue, and they were no longer fighting. There was no reason for the place to be there. So they left. And there were no charges ever made. Now, Rob actually claims that this never happened, that he never threatened his kids and that instead

Paige was just calling 911 to set it up and make him look like the bad guy for some reason. So then one year later in 2005 Paige ended up calling 911 again. This time she said that Rob had hit her while she was holding their youngest child. Paige had been secretly going out and doing some type of sex work and this was really pissing off Rob. She claims that he found some type of lingerie set in her car and just freaked out on her. And Paige claimed that she had no choice. They needed money. They were financially struggling. So she did what she had to do to keep the money rolling in for her family. Keep those cars paid for and that house paid for. Rob claims that he was always really supportive

of her work. Never judged her for it, but Paige seemed to think otherwise. But this time that she had called 911, Rob was arrested. He was arrested for domestic violence, misdemeanor child abuse, and third degree assault. Rob ended up taking a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to the harassment. After this, he had to do some court-ordered anger management courses, and then eventually his charges were dropped. However, to this day, Rob claims he never put his hands on page. Rob and his lawyer, believe that page, was doing all this to set him up that he was a bad guy just in case they had to go to court and fight over the kids. The kids were

the most important thing in the world to her and thought that she would fight for full custody of them. So eventually Rob's finances got so bad that he had to file for bankruptcy and has really hurt his reputation. Grand Junction is a super small town and when he first got there he was known as this really smart rich man who was super successful. However, as time went on people started to hear about how badly he had messed up his finances and how he had to file for bankruptcy. And you know how it works in a small town, people were gossiping about him and his reputation just went to shit. Rob was known in the community for making donations to various places and one of the things that he would do is donate equipment to first responders. However, this stuff started to get repossessed

because he wasn't paying for it. He didn't pay for them in full, he had everything like leased out and so they were literally taking equipment away from the first responders in Rob's name. So clearly his reputation was not doing well around the town. So their perfect little life really burned up and eventually Paige and Rob also got divorced in 2006. And this was really hard for Paige. It was hard for her to accept that her perfect little family was not so perfect. Rob ended up moving out of grand junction to the east coast and Paige stayed in grand junction with the kids. So now Paige is in a situation where she is suddenly a single mom of three kids and

is the sole provider for them because Rob is kind of a deadbeat at this point. So in order to make money but also still have enough quality time when her kids, Paige had to get creative. She ended up opening a dance classes business. She would run several dance classes at different locations around grand junction and hold a big recital. She would make all of their costumes. She got really into it. She loved working with kids so it was the perfect fit for her. Okay, for Sam and I'm going to be waiting for you to dance a clap. We're going to be 20 and this is our next move. These are the dance moves.

We're going to wipe out the dance. And in addition to that, she also got started with a company called Pampered Chef. Some of you may be familiar with it, but for those of you who don't know, it's an MLM, which stands for multi-level marketing something. Basically, it's a pyramid business. I myself was suckered into an MLM a long time ago. I was a married cake consultant for like a month or two. Lost a bunch of money, don't recommend.

But anyway, it's a stay-at-home kind of job. They really do market to people like Paige, who want to have the freedom and you know be your own boss and have time with your family and be able to kind of prioritize your family first. That's the whole like pitch that MLMs kind of make to people. Hello, Panther Chef! You know when people have like purse parties or lipstick parties or whatever like little get together Where you go somewhere and you buy stuff that is an MLM party

So page was constantly hosting these dinner parties selling pampered chef products and you really do well in those businesses If you really know how to sell and like people really like your personality people who are really charming Charming charismatic do well in those, and in sales in general, because they know how to kind of work people. And Paige was just so well loved. People really liked being around Paige, and she was so good at it that she was known as one of their top salespeople, and she actually got a free trip to the Caribbean because of it. Not only that, but she also sold these slings for nursing mothers to kind of cradle their babies. So things seemed to be going pretty good for Paige.

She had totally bounced back. She was a super independent woman and proved that she didn't need Rob to take care of her kids and was working her ass off to give them the best possible life. But things started to get weird in 2007. On Friday, June 22nd, 2007, Paige was at a friend's house at a pool party. And at this pool party, she mentioned to her friend that she was really concerned for her safety. And her friend kind of just brushed this off. She figured it was because Paige was recently single,

wasn't used to being alone, and maybe she was afraid of Rob considering their history. She comforted Paige and told her, you know, Rob lives far away from grand junction. She tried to tell Paige that he's not going to come mess with you. He's really far away. Now Paige actually was worried about Rob possibly hurting her. There was this forum for pampered chef consultants to kind of bounce ideas off each other and talk, but it kind of was like a social media for them in a way, you know, before everything else really came up. Remember this is 2007. Now MLM's mostly communicate through like Instagram and Facebook and social media like

that, but back then page was really building kind of a community on this forum. And she started sharing really personal things on there to other consultants. She explained on one of the posts that she was worried for her safety and she was worried that her ex-husband might hurt her. One of her posts even stated that her kids were worried that Rob might hurt her and that he might even go as far as to kill her. So four days later on Tuesday, June 26, 2007, Paige went to this mom's group that was in Grand Junction. It was called the Grand Junction Mom's Club and they went out with about 20 of them one

night. They all met up at this ale house bar and right away Paige's friend said that they noticed something was off with her and that she was acting a little strange. She wasn't her normal happy self and she seemed like she was feeling sad. Paige's friend from that pool party realized maybe this is a little more serious than I thought, since she's still so upset about it and so worried. A lot of the other women at this mom's night out also commented that Paige just seemed a little off. So then on Thursday June 28th, Paige ended up calling one of her friends named Andrea. Andrea said that when she talked to Paige, she seemed a little better than she was at the mom's night out. She said she could tell something was

kind of bothering her, but she seemed like she was in a lot better of a mood. And she said that she was acting really excited that day in particular because she was going to be meeting up with her first husband, Ron. Right around this time, she had just started talking to Ron again. She told her friend Andrea that she was really excited to see Ron, that she felt like she was still in love with him after all of these years, and she had a really good feeling that maybe they were soulmates and that this would work out. That day, she was going to be meeting Ron halfway between Grand Junction and Denver, and she was really excited about

being able to see him again. They ended up meeting up in Eagle Colorado, which is about two hours away from Grand Junction and they ended up having a really nice picnic along the river and enjoying each other's company. After this she went back to Grand Junction, he went back to Denver and when Ron got back to Denver, he called Paige just to check on her and at that point she was almost back to Grand Junction. Paige told Ron that she would call him that point she was almost back to Grand Junction. Paige told Ron that she would call him when she actually made it back to Grand Junction. However, he never heard from her. So the next morning rolls around and Ron is nervously calling Paige because he's worried that he still hasn't heard from her.

And every time he called her phone just went straight to voicemail. And immediately Ron thought this was really strange and just out of character for her because this means that her phone just went straight to voicemail. And immediately, Ron thought this was really strange and just out of character for her because this means that her phone was off. And he just knew that she would never have her phone off because if her kids ever needed to get in touch with her, she always made herself available. So Ron kept calling her throughout the day,

but never got a hold of her and was extremely worried. So he waited and the next day, Saturday, he continues to call and still hasn't heard from her. So he decides to call the house phone. And this is one of Paige's kids picked up who was only eight years old at the time and they told him that Paige never came home that night. That was Thursday night.

This is Saturday morning that he's hearing this. So a lot of time has passed, precious time. And by the way, the kids were not alone. I didn't clarify this, but they had to live in Nanny with them. So they were taking care of. So immediately Ron gets off the phone with the kids and calls the police right away. So as I mentioned earlier, Paige was a stripper at one point in her life. And most people either didn't know about this or she had told them she had kind of left this in her past. But Ron ended up telling police that Paige was still working in adult entertainment. Now Paige's family had no idea about this. She was actually very successful in the sex work industry. Paige had been advertising

herself as an escort, and this was extremely important for police to know because Thursday night after Paige was spending time with Ron, he said that she had plans to go meet up with some clients afterwards. Now obviously the police aren't here to judge her in any way, but this is extremely important information as this industry can be dangerous.

Right away, investigators felt like it had something to do with her going missing. And it seemed that way. Online page went by the name Carrie. She advertised that she was willing to go to people's homes or they could come to an office base that she had rented out. And she actually had told the landlord

of the place that she had rented out that she was doing acupuncture in there but it was really obvious that she wasn't because she just had a like a pin cushion on the table which is not how you store acupuncture needles. They're all like to stuck into this little pin cushion so it was pretty obvious that this was a setup. So please start looking into her personal cell phone records, everything that she's doing with pampered chef,

everything with her dance business, but also with her escort business and those clients. They were able to find some of her most recent clients and interview them and try to put the pieces together. But they had also talked to Paige's friend, who mentioned that Paige was really concerned about her ex-husband Rob and said, you know, maybe it's not one of her clients, maybe Rob has something to do

with this. So they contacted Rob and he was still living in Pennsylvania at this time and he had no idea that something happened to Paige and he was really upset to hear the news. Once he heard the news, he flew right out to Colorado to be with their children. Eventually it was proven that Rob was not in town when this happened. There was no way that he could have had any involvement in Paige's disappearance and was cleared as a suspect. Her first husband was also considered a suspect because he was with her the day that she went missing. However, he was extremely distrught that she

was gone. He was so worried about her constantly calling and checking up to see if there was any new information. He was really involved in the search effort and everything and he was just devastated. Pages friends and family just felt like he was not the type to do this and felt like he was genuinely upset that she was gone. Some of them said that he was the last person they think would do anything to page. Pages family was extremely upset, especially her father. She was very close with her father. Of course, investigators had to consider the idea that maybe Paige just left. You're allowed to just disappear if you want to. Maybe Paige wanted to start a new life, and she left. But it was pretty obvious that this just didn't add up for Paige. I mean she loved her children more than anything in the world

She would never never never leave them. Also, she had just had a good day. She was reconnecting with Ron I mean if you're about to disappear where would she like reconnect with Yarax husband? Doesn't make a lot of sense. Plus police went and searched Paige's house and there was no evidence of her like rummaging through stuff or packing No sign that she was gonna plan to leave in any way. They even brought bloodhounds into the house in case anything bad had happened there, but they didn't pick up anything and it seemed like Paige never even made it home that night just like the kids had said. So the search continued the next day on Sunday. They decided to have helicopters circle the area and see if they could maybe even find her car or any other traces of page. And people were super upset that she was gone. So that day, July 1st, around 9 p.m. a call came into dispatch and it was someone saying that they saw a car on fire.

I'm on one where Sherm Mergency. Hi, I'm at the corner of 23 and logos and there is a car on fire in the parking lot. You see planes? They're small? Yeah, there's a lot of planes, but there's nobody around that I could see. By the time they got there, the car was completely burnt to shit. This is when they realized that this was a crime. That page didn't leave on purpose. Someone had done something to her.

When they found her car, they were able to determine that she did make it back to grand junction from meeting up with Ron and Eagle. They also discovered that the driver's seat was pushed really far back, indicating that someone a lot taller than Paige had driven the car at some point. Also, the fire was started on the passenger side. So now they have Paige's car, they know that foul play is involved, but they still don't know where Paige is. So in July 14th, a massive search went all throughout Grand Junction to look for Paige. There was like 150 volunteers of people in Grand Junction that knew about Paige and really liked her. And people that didn't know Paige and

just felt so bad for her as a mother. And they're out searching and they know at this point that they're not searching for her alive. It's not like they're trying to actually find her. If they find her they know that she's not going to be alive. They didn't find page however some items of interest were found and these items were found about 15 miles from where Paige's car was found burnt. It was her blockbuster rental card, her checkbook, and some credit cards. And what was really weird is the items were found on the opposite side of town from where she lived and from where she would be coming if she was returning from Egold. Like, didn't make any sense. She had no reason to be in this

area. And because these items were pretty close to the Colorado River, investigators ended up searching in the river, thinking that maybe someone threw her in there after throwing her items and then let her car in fire. So a few weeks passed with no leads in the case, no clear suspects, and no real idea of what could have happened. But soon there was a crack in the case.

Investigators ended up bringing more canines out to Paige's car to see if they could smell anything and give them any leads. And the dogs ended up alerting police to an RV store that was across the street from where the car had burned. And at this RV store, there was a man working there named Lester Jones, who was a mechanic. Now, they're actually were already rumors going around at the time that Paige and Lester knew each other that Lester wanted to be one of Paige's clients

But she was really creeped out by him got bad vibes from him and refused to work with him in any way According to her friends Paige found Lester Disgusting and was scared of him. She wanted nothing to do with him and refused to give him any of her business. So as police look a little more into Lester, they realize that he had a bit of a record. Previously charged with some acts of violence on his ex-wife. According to police records, Lester had chased his ex-wife in a car up a mountain so fast that her airbags apparently went off. And I guess she had a friend with her at the time

and he jumped out of the car and I guess luster shot at him. He didn't hit him, he just hit his hat, but still. And he ended up getting multiple charges for this and served multiple years in prison. So this guy looks like he possibly could have done something here so they end up searching his house. Several items of interest But wouldn't talk about what they found when they investigated his workplace

They found several handwritten notes about different escorts Had some other things written down about sex work and he also had some biographer pills But despite this evidence and then thinking that maybe he could have something to do with page of disappearance They couldn't press charges or really do anything because Paige's body still had it been found and there was no evidence. So meanwhile, while all this is happening, Paige's family is just devastated. Her kids are super heartbroken. They loved their mother. Now luckily Paige has a brother named Craig who is totally stepped up and is like a father to those three kids. He and his wife immediately took them in and are trying to make their lives feel as normal as possible without Paige.

You know, they've grown up quite a bit now. I think they'd be, I think they're teenagers now, yeah. But it's so awesome that they have their aunt and uncle who have been like parents to them since they lost their mother. So investigators ended up looking at Paige's phone records and they realized that one of the last conversations that she had was with someone who had a burner phone.

And then they found footage of Lester Jones had a burner phone and then they found footage of Lester Jones buying a burner phone at a Walmart. When they got ahold of his burner phone, they realized that he had only made five calls and they were all two pages phone. So it wasn't long until Lester became the main suspect in Pages Disappearance. However, again, they couldn't charge him with anything yet until they found the body. So years went by and it wasn't until 2012 that Pages' body was finally found by a hiker. They were able to confirm that it was Pages' the Adental Records.

Developing news tonight, missing for five years and finally a break in the case of 34-year-old Pagesberg fell. A single mother of three vanished in 2007. Her remains found yesterday in Delta County by a hiker of Highway 51 Mile Up Wells Gulch Road. And after looking at her remains, it was clear that she was possibly beaten to death because her job bone was severely fractured.

They also found duct tape on her skull, suggesting that she was probably tied up and kidnapped. This would make sense because her items were found on the side of the road. Maybe someone had her in the car and made her throw everything out, or they themselves threw everything out as they were taking her up to where they were going to leave her. Or as possible, that page actually was the one who threw everything out the window, and that maybe she did this to leave investigators clues because she had

a feeling of what was going to happen to her. I can one human being treat another human being so badly. I mean, what a what a bad person. What an evil person. Investigators called this man Lester Ralph Jones a suspect then and still do today.

There are reports he was a client of her escort service. So the next step for police is to take both of Lester's cars and search them and see if they can find anything related to Paige. So they took his cars, they searched them, and after they were searched, the police called the blester and told him, hey, you can come, get your cars now. However, during this phone call,

Lester starts throwing himself under the bus without them even bringing anything up about Paige. I don't know if he was drunk or something, but he started telling the police. You asked me where I buried the body and they're like, uh, what? But Lester just kept repeating. You asked me where I buried the body. This was enough for the police to go ahead and take action. So That's your girl, that's your girl. This was enough for the police to go ahead and take action. So in November of 2014, seven years after Page had gone missing, Lester was arrested and charged with kidnapping and murder of Page.

Police said that when they showed up with the arrest warrant for Lester, that he acted totally not surprised. It seemed like guilt had really gotten to him and he was just ready to go ahead and take the punishment for what he did. He didn't even ask what the warrant was for. He knew exactly why he was in trouble. He was brought in and his bail was set at two million dollars and Paige's family was so happy that there was finally someone that was going to be hopefully held responsible for Paige's death. So it wasn't till July 2016. That Lester finally went on trial for Paige's murder and this is nine years after she first disappeared. And developing now a high profile murder trial is

underway in grand junction. Lester Jones is accused of killing Paige Bergfeld in 2007. Lester Ralph Jones, that man sitting right there, The first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was

the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was

the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was the first time that was to page with a burner phone from Lester. Also, they were able to point out that page was afraid of Lester and had denied him services several times.

However, after the trial, the jury was unable to make a unanimous decision. They didn't know if there was enough evidence here. So they had a missed trial, and eventually they started another trial. And it was until December of 2016 that the final trial came to a close. The jury ended up

finding Lester Jones guilty of first-degree murder of Paige Berkfeld. And Lester Jones was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. We the jury find the defendant Lester Ralph Jones guilty of count one murder in the first-degree felony murder. Jury board at count number two charge of murder in the second degree, felony murder. Jury Board at count number two, charge of murder in the second degree. We the jury find the defendant, Lester Ralph Jones, guilty of count two, murder in the second degree that is signed by our four person. Jury Board at count number three, charge of second degree kidnapping.

We the jury find the defendant, Lester Ralph Jones, guilty of count three charge of second degree kidnapping, and that is signed by the four person. Paige's family was happy to finally have closure after all of this, and you know, closure for her kids to move on feeling like there was justice for their mother, but they're obviously still just heartbroken over what happened to her and miss her so much to this day. And I really, really hope that I don't see a lot of judgy-ass comments from people on this video saying that Paige somehow deserved this because of

the field work that she was in. That is some ignorant ass shit. No one ever deserves to be murdered for any reason, unless you're a murderer yourself, you know. But you know what I'm saying. It's not Paige's fault what happened to her. And I don't want to see any comments shaming her. Paige seemed like a lovely person. She seemed like a wonderful mother and a really good friend. And it's a shame that people have to miss out on her because this selfish fuck named Lester Jones. Paige's kids eventually moved in with their father on the east coast and they live with him to this day. They're still heartbroken about it happened to their mother. They loved their mother But it does help now having justice because it's really hard to go, you know, forever without answer so at least they have that

That is gonna be it for me today guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. It's all too obvious. We're being let down by the institutions we used to trust. American families are talking about a future of food shortages, banks failing, society

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