Transcript of True Crime Vault: If I Can't Have You

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Hi, I'm at the corner of 23 and Logos, and there is Is a car on fire in the parking lot? That single fire would ignite a mystery that would destroy families and take almost 10 years to finally solve. I'm working to find any signs of the mother of three. Her car was found on fire. Mother of three has been missing for three weeks now. I knew then that something horrible had happened to her. No one was found inside the car. So the big question is, where is she? Did she up and leave for some unknown reason? I don't know when you give up. When do you say she's gone? I don't know. It appears she was just trying to leave us a trail of bread comes. We found out that she had a double life. I flat out told her, there's a danger. Does it make you nervous that we may think you did something? No. It should. Grand Junction is located in Western Colorado, just at the foot of the western side of the Rockies. It's right in between the Colorado National Monument on the west side. And then on the other side is the Grand Mesa.

It's a great place If you're looking for outdoor recreation, hiking trails, horseback riding trails, a lot of bikes. So this area is a mecca for outdoor adventures, a place where it's easy to get lost and hard to be found. People are very friendly. Everybody knows each other. Grand Junction, Colorado, really has that small town feel where the community comes together in a crisis. And it's here that in the summer of 2007, I came to report on a story about a young 34-year-old mom named Paige Bergfeld. She had simply vanished. Frank, how would How does she describe your daughter? I think the word is effervescent. She's the person when she comes in the room and meets you, always gives you a big smile. She is special, devoted, Very patient, very much everyone's friend, and reaching out to help everyone, and just very loving. I'm Barbara. I was one of Paige's close friends. Paige was very much a soccer mom. She had three kids. Paige was the most outgoing, independent, stubborn at times, just great sister and terrific mom. I'm Carole Linder Home, and I knew Paige Birgfield for three and a half years, and she was just a wonderful person.

I was just awestruck by her presence. I said, You're absolutely gorgeous. And she says, Oh, my gosh, I haven't been told that in so long. She always is the person that I think when you stand in front of her, you would feel that she thinks it's very special that you're here. I met her through Mom's Club at Grand Junction Chapter. I had heard a lot about her from the other members, and I hadn't met her yet. And so it was like, Oh, I get to meet the exciting Paige. She was just as wonderful as everybody said. The Mom's Group in Grand Junction was a way for mothers to get together, whether the kids were there or not. It was a community for them. It was a safe space so that they could be themselves. Paige would have him over for pool parties, entertainment, and she liked to host the group. Once a year, we had an official party, and this was for the moms. The last year, we had the Hollywood theme. We had the red carpet entrance, and we had a big backdrop printed, so we could stand and take pictures in front of it to document the evening.

There's actually home video that was taken of that mom's party, and Paige appears to be the star of the show. We're usually in our flip flops and shorts, and that night we were all in party wear. She just lit up the room. Very dressed up, very classy. She just exuded that personality that attracted people to her. Paige appears to have it all, a beautiful home and three loving children. But she's divorced from her husband of nine years, Rob Dixon. Well, Paige was very concerned about finances, about meeting the bills. She was working probably about four or five different jobs. She did She involved in the business of baby slings. She taught brain dance classes to little children. She really enjoyed that. It was a true honor of being able to work with your children. They had a lot of creative energy We have a kitchen. She would sell the Pampered Chef. Pampered Chef is a company that sells a line of kitchen supplies. In 2007, Paige was able to sell items out of her home to local customers and also be at home with the kids. The most important people in Paige's life, hands down, were her children.

Everything she did was to provide for her children. She was working all of these jobs, but still showed up at the PTA meeting and at the parents' playgroups and everything else. She's a really special person. On the morning of June 28th, Paige leaves the kids with her live-in nanny and promises her children that she would be back later that evening. I tried to get in touch with Paige, and she didn't return my phone calls, which I thought was rather odd. Hi, this is Carol. You can give me a call. I'm at the house. Anyway, I'll talk to you later. Bye-bye. I thought she was just really busy, and I would hear from her later. But as the day turns into night, Paige not only doesn't come home, she wasn't even in touch. And this was completely out of character for her. Hi, Mom, it's me. I was just wondering, when you get home, please answer the phone. Paige wouldn't be bad on her word. If she said she was coming home, she was coming home. I'm wondering what you're doing. Oh, my. End of message. I started to have a very sinking feeling that something just wasn't right.

You said you would be back when we were gone, and you haven't even been back. Please go back, please. Hi, Mom. I was just wondering when you're going to live. My understanding was that Paige's daughter couldn't get hold of her the night she disappeared, and the live-in nanny was the one who was there with the children. I knew something was wrong. It was a gut feeling. Her children were the priority, and she would never not follow up with letting them know she was on her way home. So after not hearing from her mom for two full days, Jessie, who's only eight years old, goes down to the police station with her nanny to let police know her mom has disappeared. Frank Burgfeld, Page's dad, who lived in Denver at the time, has also been calling Page, but he's getting no response. June 30th, you get the phone call. Yeah, I got a call that was the, he said, the Mesa County Sheriff's Department, and he said, I'm calling because your daughter's missing. And it was a strange moment. And I said, Missing since when? He said, Missing since Thursday night. And I remember saying, This is a problem.

There's a crime being committed here. We went ahead and threw some stuff in an overnight bag and came straight out. When my dad called me to tell me that Paige was missing, it's the first time I had heard him cry since I was a little kid. My heart dropped. Sometimes people leave on their own accord, so we obviously had to look into, did she up and leave for some unknown reason? On July first, at about 10: 00 PM, dispatch received a 911 call. 911, do we have an emergency? Hi, I'm at the corner of 23 and Logos, and there is a car on fire in the parking lot at the building right here. It's in the SMS Walker building parking lot. Do you see planes? They're small? Yeah, there's a lot of planes. But there's nobody around that I could see. When officers got there, they realized that that car belonged to Paige Birgefeld. Paige's car was found, but there's no sign of her. It was very clear that it was an arson because there was nothing else around it that was burned. It was just the car itself, and it was parked in a location that Page really had no association with.

Page's car was found less than five miles from her home. But keep in mind, this is an industrial neighborhood. There are warehouses and car mechanics, not residential at all, and not a place where you'd expect to see Page. She didn't frequent that area. When I first heard about finding the car on fire, I knew then that something horrible had happened to her. Prior to finding vehicle on fire. This was a missing person's case. And as soon as that happened, an immediate conversion over to that is foul play. Many people caused fires trying to destroy the evidence, and obviously can destroy fibers, hairs, DNA evidence, fingerprints, things of that sort. And so at that point, we at least suspected that she had been kidnapped and feared that she was also deceased. The hottest point of the burn was on the driver's side over here, and we could determine that from what we call V patterns. It was later tested, and we determined that there was petroleum type accelerants used. One of the key things that we found is that the driver's side front seat had been pushed all the way back. He But then, Page Birdfield is not a very tall person, and so therefore, that was unusual.

We took another female that was the same size as Page Birdfield, approximately 5'4, and put her in the car seat as it was, and she could not even reach the deep pedals of the vehicle. We knew that the last person that drove this car had to be tall and extremely tall. But there was one other major clue found in the wreckage of that car, which the fire, strangely, didn't destroy. Additionally, what was found was that there was a day planner. Everyone who knew Paige should have seen her day planner. That was just something that was part of her. She would always write stuff down. It's just super organized. Finding that day planner for investigators was huge because it should be able to tell them what Paige was doing and who she was doing it with. And as we looked at the day planner, four of the dates have been torn out of the day planner. They were June 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th. Those are the dates that Paige Burfield went missing. We immediately suspected that whoever was responsible her disappearance, ripped those pages out because they would have disclosed who she was meeting with.

So the car's burned. Someone very tall had last driven it. There are pages torn out of her day planner, and there are two questions now. Where is Paige? And who was she with the day she disappeared? As parents, we're absolutely crushed. This is any parent's worst nightmare. Right now, what we need to do is we need to find Page. From a father's viewpoint, I mean, how How hard is it? You know what occurred me? I hadn't cried in a long time. I've learned how to do that. Hi. This community came out in force to help search for her. A bunch of us just hoped we would find evidence that we could go, Oh, look, the police Department. Now you can figure out what happened to her, and it would have a happy ending. Mesa County is 3,300 square miles. We're looking down side dirt that lead to the river. It's like looking for a needle in the haystack. So this is an overall map of Mesa County. We had people searching in this area over here. We had people up on Grand Mesa following all along Highway 50. All of those people work long hours on horseback, on a TV, walking, all of those things, looking for pieces of evidence.

We came here from Seattle to support my parents, to take care of the kids, and to find Paige. We bought a one-way ticket, and we have been committed to stay here until we find Paige. Anytime a woman goes missing in a situation like this, the first people we're going to look at is exes, ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands. And so we started our investigation looking at Rob Dixon. So I didn't get to know Rob very well. I knew she had met him years before, and I knew that they'd had a really nice lifestyle with some family money that he had. Rob Dixon came into a fortune from his parents' business, which was the early days of cell phone technology. Rob was buying all kinds of things with his money. I mean, he had sports cars. They built this big 6,000-square-foot home. He was buying Paige, expensive jewelry. She had a $12,000 necklace But Dixon fell on some hard times and later would file for bankruptcy. When he lost all his money, it created a lot of strife in their relationship. It had become known that Rob had scared the children, that there had been that overly tense moments, that they didn't feel safe.

And it was after one of those tense moments that in October of 2004, Page calls the police. Where's your emergency? My My husband and I were in a fight, and he said that I would come home and find them all murdered. Have you been waiting for the perfect time to upgrade your tech? Good news, the wait is over. Dell Tech Day's annual sales event is here, and they're celebrating their best customers with fantastic deals on the latest PCs like the Dell 14 plus with Intel Core ultra processors. Dell's also got incredible perks like Dell rewards, fast free shipping, premium support, price match guarantee, and more. And while you're upgrading your PC, you may as well go all out because Dell is offering huge deals on its premium suite of monitors and accessories. You know what that means? That's right. You can get a whole new setup with amazing savings. Clearly, this is a sale you don't want to miss. Visit dell. Com/ /deals. That's dell. Com/deals. 2020 is partnering with Vyibes' open ear wireless headphones. That's V-Y-Y-B-Z. If you listen to a lot of true crime, you probably like to listen with a pair of headphones.

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From what I saw of Page and Rob's marriage, it was strained. So I started to question, what's their family dynamic like? I would describe the marriage as extremely volatile, not a loving situation. Her husband had been very wealthy because Rob's wealth toppled. He became under more and more pressure, and it bled out into the relationship. He wasn't bringing in enough money, and I'm not going to put that on him. They're both in a relationship. And I think that just started beating them down. A lot of couples fight when their marriage is drained. But one night in 2004, Page makes this 911 call to police. Where's your emergency? Where's your emergency? Where's your emergency? Where's your emergency? Where's your emergency? Where's your emergency? Where's your emergency? Where's your emergency? Where's your emergency? Where's your emergency? Where's your My husband and I were in a fight, and he was supposed to watch my children while we went to work, and he said that I would come home and find them all murdered. No charges are filed against Dixon that year. But 12 months later? In October 2005, he was accused of assaulting Page, punching her, slapping her.

Yeah, filed charges, and he had to answer. Although Dixon denies assaulting Page, he pleads guilty to misdemeanor harassment. The charge is later dismissed. But that incident marks the beginning of the end for their marriage. Page and Rob divorced in 2006. She ended up with the house, and that was her home. That was her kid's home, and that certainly was a big overhead. She was living in this very beautiful 6,000-square-foot home, and I think her mortgage was somewhere around $6,000 a month. Paige was very concerned about finances because she didn't want to lose the house. All she had to offer the kids was the safety of their home. To not change one thing in their life because they'd been through years of struggle. So she tried to hang on to the house. We're going to be tuning in because this is our first through. She was already doing so many little piecemeal things, but they weren't enough to keep the house. Even after the divorce, Paige's fear of Rob is still palpable. She specifically told me she was worried about Rob, that he was coming, he was going to do something bad. Then, in March of 2007, Page writes this bone-chilling post on an online message board.

My children would ask me if dad was going to kill me. I can't imagine what life would be like for them after he killed me. I would gladly sacrifice every penny of child support if he would stay away. That's one of the reasons why when Paige goes missing, her friends fear foul play. First person you thought might have done this? Rob was the first person that came to mind. My immediate thought, honestly, was Rob Dixon. Her friend, Carol Linder home even mentions Rob on a worried voicemail she leaves for Paige after she disappears. Paige, this is Carol. What's going on? I hope you're all right. I just saw the news that you've been missing. I hope you're all right. Oh, my God. I hope this isn't Rob. Oh, my God. Talk to you later. I hope. Oh, my God. We were, of course, very interested in Rob Dixon as a potential suspect because we knew about the volatility of the relationship. But he had moved to Philadelphia at that point, and we were quickly able to show that his phone was in Philadelphia at that time, and he couldn't have been in two places at once.

He came out immediately when he found out she was missing. I think that Rob is crushed, and he still loves Page, and he definitely loves his children. With Rob Dixon cleared, investigators started looking at Page's other ex, her first husband, Ron Begler, and they discover he still in her life. They were high school sweethearts. He was the love of her life initially. I liked everything about her. I liked who she was on the inside. They have this huge wedding set on a peak, overlooking the Denver skyline. But their youthful rush to the altar ends as quickly as it starts. It had come down to a kid issue, that she just really wanted a family, and he really didn't. And so that relationship didn't work. It might not have worked out back then, but the very day, Paige went missing. It turns out she'd spent time with Ron Begler. It seems Paige was rekindling her romance with her first love right before she disappeared. She reconnected with Ron. She would find herself driving up to Eagle to meet him halfway, and they'd have picnics. We just decided to meet that day just to be together and have a picnic and be in each other's company.

The Eagle was halfway point for both of us, so we left at the same time and arrived back in our towns at approximately the same time. And she called me to make sure I made it back into Denver, and that's the last I've heard of her. When you talk to about a missing person emergency. He had reported when he called 911 that he had been with her earlier that day. I saw her all day on Thursday, and then I talked to her when she got back to town. She's definitely missing because she would never her children. He remembers her getting into her car, getting on I-70 headed West. He got into his car and drove on I-70 headed East, and we could track his phone headed all the way back to the front range. He was ruled out almost immediately. There is still no sign of Page Birkfeld, the mother of three, has been missing for three weeks now in Grand Junction. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of searchers combing those deserts outside of Grand Junction, and then new clues emerge from someone who wasn't even looking. Perhaps the biggest clue came from the unlikeliest of sources.

A motorist with a flat tire pulls along the side of this road to fix it and then notices something strange. Page's checkbook. Investigators soon find Page's personal checks and business cards, other personal items dropped all along this road. One check was torn out at time. One card was thrown at a time. So it appears she was just trying to leave us a trail of breadcrumbs to show us where she was going to. The items that were thrown along the highway were very personal to her, and they identified her. I can come up with no other reason why she would have done that other than, Here's where you can find me. It's very heart-wrenching. If she was throwing stuff out of the how far she had been alive. All of us on the search team wanted to think she was still alive somewhere that she was being held. But still, no trace of Paige herself. What does surface is a very different profile of Paige Birgfeld, one very few knew about. We were walking along the highway, and there was a business card. We found out that she had a double life. It's been three days since Paige Birgfeld was last seen, and former husband, Rob Dixon, shares a secret with police.

He tells them what he says led to the couple's 2005 fight and the reason they ultimately got divorced. And it's a shocker. Paige had been working as an escort during their marriage. As the mystery into Page Bergfeld's disappearance grows, Colorado investigators dig into her background, and they dig deep. What they uncover are new names, new faces, and a suspect list that grows by the minute. In the mid '90s, there was a strip club in Denver called the Mile High Saloon, and in that strip club was a part-time dancer named Madison. Her long-term goal was to save enough money to get breast implants. Her husband at the time said stripping made her feel better about herself and more powerful. But it turns out Madison was just a stage name. It was, in fact, Page. Women may be coming into the commercial sex trade with a low self-esteem, and the compliments and the flattery can feel so good to somebody who feels insecure My name is Megan Lundstrom, and I am a survivor of domestic sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. As women, we generally feel insecure about our bodies. So having tons of men that are not only complimenting us, but willing to pay money can feed this illusion of self-worth and confidence.

Absolutely. So the chronology goes like this. When When Paige is dancing in Denver, she's still married to husband number one. They get divorced in 1997. A year later, Paige meets Rob Dixon, and they marry. And in 2005, the business savvy Paige finds herself literally at a crossroads. On the third floor of an office complex, and using the company name of Grand River Acupuncture, Paige Bergfeld is in business, and it's not the acupuncture business. Paige had a business, which she called Models Incorporated. Hello, you've reached Models Inc, Colorado's Premier Gentleman Service. Models Incorporated actually has no models, and it's not a Corporation. In fact, it's just Paige putting a new spin on the world's oldest profession. Although she makes it appear like Model Zinc has numerous women available to clients, Paige is essentially a one-woman show catering to all callers. We found out that she had a double life. She was a really talented business owner who had four different businesses going, three of them legitimate, and one of them was an escort business that only a very few people knew about. I didn't talk to Paige about being an escort beforehand, but it just came up when we'd had a mom's night out.

I was surprised. That's not the average thing a mom says, Hey, so I picked up this part-time job running an escort service. Paige used a different name for the escort service. She used the name Carrie. Women in the commercial sex trade use fake names for a couple of different reasons. First of all, to protect themselves from buyers. So making sure that buyers can't show up at their house, they can't show up at their kid's school. Page's online ads likened her erotic massage services to Filet Mignon, while referring to the competition as chopped meat. This is not to say everyone who called Model Zinc was looking for sexual services, but those who were were paying filet mignon prices. Page charged the most that I've ever heard, and that in some cases was up to $2,500. And for the most part, $1,000 to $1,200 for sex. Lots of people have secret lives, but I think with Paige, as you dug into her life, you found out that she had financial issues and that she had to make additional money. Even her parents had no idea that this was going on in her life. Selling sex, the end goal is to make money.

I feel like we shy away from talking about the financial component when the reality is that's a huge piece of it, is women need to make money, and for whatever combination of reasons, there aren't enough viable options. And so the sex trade starts to look like an attractive option. Paige talked to me about the massive mortgage that she needed to take care of. And of course, it's monthly, so it weighed on her. She couldn't find a one-time deal and solve her problems. Paige and I had conversations about her decisions carrying an element of danger. And when someone gets to a really difficult place in their life, you have to make a choice. Women in the commercial sex trade have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the average woman. So if that doesn't tell you something about how dangerous it is, I don't know what will. I flat out told her, there's danger. And I guess I just, again, put I was blinders up. I just live a normal soccer mom life. What could possibly happen? It's incredibly deadly, but I think most people generally think, It's not going to happen to me. I'm somehow going to be smarter, wiser, more informed.

I think you never know who you're going to run into in that business. Through the investigation, we quickly realized that she had a separate cell phone that she was using for escort business. We had obtained her cell phone records, and she had received numerous calls that day and determined that her last call had to happen around 9: 00 PM that night, June 28. We determined that many of them were clients for her adult service. Right at that point, we had at least seven suspects. I always knew this was a difficult case, and part of what made it so hard is there were so many little disconnected pieces that had to be put together to understand the full picture. Cops have been stymied on several fronts in the investigation that could have helped them pinpoint where Page was at certain times. Most notably, that day planner with its pages ripped out. So now they decide to follow another paper trail, her phone records. We had determined that she had had numerous phone calls made to her on the day of her disappearance, and those phone calls we had traced back to several different people. Specifically, they examine all the calls Paige made or received on the drive home after that long picnic with her former husband, Ron her.

When she finishes her meeting with Mr. Begler, early evening of the 28th, she starts heading back to Grand Junction. That's about a two-hour drive from Grand Junction to Eagle. And so you can see she starts making some phone calls. She had no plans to have any appointments after this until she got in her car. So it really narrowed the possible suspects to people who spoke to her between the time she got in her car in Eagle and the time she got back to Grand Junction. We had obtained her cell phone records, and from that, we had determined that she had received numerous calls that day and determined that her last call had to happen around 9: 00 PM. We determined who those people were. We determined that many of them were clients for her adult service. It makes logical sense if you are headed home and you're going to see some clients, you're going to schedule possible sessions with each of them. Obviously, some of those people were a little bit more seedy in character. They had criminal histories and backgrounds that some of them were violent, some of them were not. Tim Zotto was one such client.

He's on probation. He wears an ankle monitor, claims He hasn't been out in two weeks, but he says the reason he calls Model Inc. Is because he was checking to see how much it would cost to send an escort over. He says he never did meet anyone from Model Inc. John Livingston calls Page from a Motel 6. He tells investigators that he spends most nights sleeping in hotels or in his truck. And on the night, Page disappeared. He arranged for an escort to come to his room. At Motel 6, he was one of the last people to call her and kept on calling her to come and visit her. I was just checking to see if you had somebody coming out or not. John Livingston, of course, who was at the Motel 6 wondering why Page had never shown up, but he had had contact with her, and he at least could have known where she might be. Steven Heald claims he had sex with Paige numerous times, the last time a week before she disappeared. Mr. Heald did not actually visit her on the 28th, but had a prior relationship with her for several years, a sexual relationship.

Cops find out the married man was stealing company funds at his job to pay for the sex. Mr. Coraluzo, George Coraluzo here had visited with Paige Birkfield, had made several phone calls to her on the night of her disappearance. George is a heavy drinker and drug user with a criminal history for theft, burglary, and kidnapping. The information we had about George Coraluzo was that he was extremely intoxicated the day that she disappeared, that he had been using cocaine. We were trying to look at all different angles. And so first, was she kidnapped? We couldn't eliminate that right away. Second of all, was she murdered? We couldn't eliminate her right away. Mark Holcom repeat customer of Page. Cops say Holcom had a dispute with Page over money. He couldn't afford the amount that she was asking. Joseph Karruth knew Page because their kids played on the same soccer team. Imagine Karruth's surprise when Page showed up at the door after he called for a massage. Did they have an opportunity or means to do this? Were they in the area? Were they with her? Tried to either alibi them out, to try to determine that they couldn't have been in the locations to be around her.

Three of the men on the list drove a white truck. Now, that detail was of some interest to investigators after they spoke to Carol Lenderhol. Page was on her own, and she had leased an office space. She was looking for somebody who was supposed to show up, and the person never did. So she eventually closed her office, went downstairs to her car. As she was getting ready to leave, she sees this truck pull up right behind her to block it in. She was in her minivan, and as it was relayed to me by page, she just threw the car in reverse and just gunned it real hard. She was just going to back in to that car just to make space for her to get out. She didn't care what happened to the consequences of hitting the car or anything. She just wanted out of there. And the white pickup took off. Was she shaken by this? Oh, she He was extremely scared. She told me about it, and she says, I've never been so scared in my life. One by one, the suspects are cleared. Those people gave us the information. We were able to quickly and easily eliminate them.

Except for one. We pulled him in for an interview, and during the course of that interview, Investigator Norcross immediately identified him as a likely Does it make you nervous that he may think you did something? It should. Okay? It should. Sag mal, Nikola, hast du auch immer dieses Gefühl, bei der Steuererklärung mit einem Bein schon im Knast zu stehen? Boah, nee, gar nicht. Wieso Steuer ist so die Steuer-App, mit der ich wirklich nichts falsch machen kann? Wow. Das heißt, damit ist alles sicher? Ja, genau. Wieso Steuer ist die Steuer-App, die dich versteht. Weil Steuer betrifft ja dein ganzes Leben. Arbeit, Kinder, Partner. Du kannst nichts falsch machen. Stimmt. Nice. Fühlt sich gar nicht wie Steuern an. Steuern erledigt? Safe. Mit Wieso Steuer? Jetzt kostenlos testen. I'm R. J. Decker, a private investigator, uncovering the Sunshine State's Darkest Secrets. Tuesday, March third, it's the premiere of the ABC's hottest new crime show. R. J. Freaking Decker as I live and breathe. He He's a private eye. It's not a standard murder. Someone bigger. And a public mess. Trying to get them back to prison today. You go to prison one time, and suddenly it's all the jokes.

R. J. Decker, series premiere, Tuesday, March third on ABC and stream on Hulu. I'm pretty sure there's not a day that passes that I don't think about her. Mother of three has been missing for three weeks now in Grand Junction. When I first heard about finding the car on fire, I knew then that something horrible had happened to her. So that dog smelt the dead body in the back seat of this car? It didn't take any of us more than a couple of minutes to realize that that had to be Paige. She must have been so scared. It is hard to even imagine what would have been going through her head. The suspect list grows by the minute. It behavior of somebody who was obsessed. I looked at him and I said, We're not going to eat, are we? He said, No, I'm going to kill you. Who is the real killer? We don't know. It is not acceptable to convict people of murder just because they're a creepy guy. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, he did this. More than 90 days, still no Page Birkfeld, and still no arrest. And the search continues for Page Birgfeld.

Any signs of the mother of three. Weeks after the disappearance of Page Birgfeld, investigators have little to go on. Her burned-out Ford Focus, a monthly planner with missing pages, and the clues scattered like breadcrumbs along a barren Colorado highway. Where we found hundreds of pieces of items that belonged to Pacebrook, for your old business cars from her businesses, checks and clothing. At one point, we even found a driver's license. If I knew where she was, I'd go get her. She's out there somewhere, and I can't protect her. A terrible sense of helplessness. What do you feel? Oh, yeah, just a huge void. I mean, it's not a good feeling that I want anybody else to experience. Then the investigation takes a shocking left turn. We have a break of a Colorado mother who led a secret double life. It's discovered that Paige led a secret life as an escort, calling herself Carrie and advertising her own agency online called Models Inc. You have to talk to a lot of different people when you're talking to somebody who's running an escort business. So we start working through what I'll call a client list. When Lester Jones was one of them that had called her service.

Lester Ralph Jones is a 56-year-old local RV mechanic who calls Paige for a rendezvous just the day before she goes missing. It turns out that Jones had recognized her as being Rob Dixon's wife. Page said she had met him previously through the escort service, and it was uncomfortable because he knew her. Page instead asks her friend Carol Lender home, who occasionally gave massages for the escort agency to go in her place. That time when Lester Jones was calling and calling her, she asked me if I wanted to stop by over there, and she basically He talked me into it. What's your first impression when you walked in the door? Fear. Really? Yeah. He's a very large, overpowering person. What's the first thing he said to you? I want sex. I looked at him and I said, Then you should probably call another escort service because it's not going to happen with me. He says, I was told you give a massage. And I said, Well, that's probably the extent of what I would do. And I gave him a light one, but I didn't really want to touch him. But there's another reason police are suspicious of Lester Jones, the location where he works.

We check our name files and find that Mr. Jones actually works across the street at a RV repair shop and happens to be catty-corner to where the car was found on fire. One of the key things that we found is that the driver's side front seat had been pushed all the way back. We knew that the last person that drove this car had to be tall and extremely tall. And in this case, Lester Ralph Jones was 6'5. Lester was a very good employee, very honest, hardworking. He could very easily talk to customers and put them at ease about problems. Most everybody seemed to like him. So as we checked into the background of Lester Jones, we determined that he had been married twice prior to his wife, Elaine. He had couple of children before Elaine through other wives. Well, he was tall, he was handsome, he was a hard worker, and he was just all around good guy. I mean, he was. He was a nice guy. Lisa Nance was married to Jones for two years back in the '90s. We never fought. We never had any arguments or anything like that. It was good.

It was just after a year or so, I just didn't want to be married anymore. I never knew if he was into using escort or anything like that. No, I never knew of it. Never heard of it. Is he the guy? I don't know. Did he know Page? Not that I know of, but I don't know. I don't know. If he has any clues, indication for the police to follow, we hope that he'll do that. Have a seat. Thanks. We contacted Mr. Jones at work on July fifth and asked him if he'd be willing to talk with us, and he was. He voluntarily came down. I'm guessing you can probably guess as to what we're investigating. He just said he's investigating the disappearance of a young lady. Okay, right. We talked to him about this case and what he may or may not know. During the interrogation, Jones admits he visited Page's escort service a year before her disappearance. Who did you see that time? Well, I don't really know. I think they call her Blonde, and that's all I can tell you. Let's have some honesty. What happened during that one? How did it start?

Well, it starts with a massage. Okay. And what are you wearing? I had nothing on. Okay. And her? She had nothing on. Okay. We did not have sex. Okay. She tells me up front she doesn't do sex. Okay. After I question him further, he eventually admits that this is indeed the time he's talking about where he did recognize her as Paige Birkfeld, and he did know You knew when you saw her the first time that she was Rob Dixon's ex-wife? Yeah, I knew that. Okay. Her car has found a stone throw away from where you work. Does that bother you? No. It doesn't bother you at all? Mm-mm. Okay. Does it make you nervous that we may think you did something? No. It should. Okay? It should. I think that clip speaks for itself. I think he looks concerned. During the two and a half hours of questioning, Jones cooperates fully, letting them take his fingerprints, giving his DNA, and handing over the keys to his truck. What are you driving right now? It's a white Dodge pickup. White? Mm-mm. Now, that's an eye opener right there. Remember, Pagea told her friend, Carol, how a white pickup truck had frightened her outside of her office one night.

You know where Where she is? No. Do you know what happened to her? No. Now I have to be convinced of that. I can't convince you of it. I don't know what happened to her. I don't. When investigators served a search warrant at Lester Jones' home, they seized two vehicles and searched those. They also served a search warrant as his job at the RV shop and went to his mechanic station. We found some interesting items there. A list of different names and numbers, which correlated back to some massage services. We found a bra, men's wigs. We found a gas can. Again, that's concerning. That was nothing in comparison to what they would also find in that locker. Worker in that area, that led them to some video that was very telling and very incriminating. When you make a living as an escort and you go missing, it's clear that your phone calls are going to be critical to the investigation. We quickly realized that she had a separate cell phone that she was using for an escort business, and very few people knew about it. Before she disappeared, Page had received a series of calls from a mystery man who was phoning her from a disposable track phone.

That track phone only was responsible for five calls in the life of that phone. It was activated Wednesday morning, the same day that Ms. Linder Home had her appointment with Mr. Jones. When investigators sat Jones down, they asked him point blank, Do you own a track phone? Did you buy a track phone? No, sir. I haven't bought a track phone. Never. During the search of the RV garage where Jones worked, police uncover some curious items: wigs, condoms, Viagra, and a gas can. But they also find something else. In the trash can, we found a box to a track phone and it had distinct coloring on it. Through using that packaging, we were able to identify it was purchased at the Walmart on North Avenue in Grand Junction. So we contacted security there, and they were able to provide us video footage of the person buying that phone. Lo and behold to our surprise, right there, as clear as day, was Lester Ralph Jones. When Mr. Jones, he was interviewed later, a second time, and when he was shown the video, he adamantly denied that was him. I came on video buying a track phone at Walmart.

No, sir. Yes, sir. No, sir. We were asking you, how did the track phone get in your trash? How did that barcode relate to that number being purchased at Walmart at that time? So I mean, there's a chain of events that... I can't answer that. I do not know that. When we put a picture right in front of his face saying, Is this you? He said, Yes, it looks like me, but I did not buy a track phone. So we got 12 pictures of you in there? Wednesday night, on that date, on that time, that the video system's lying? Yes, it is lying. How? I don't know, but I was not in there Wednesday night. I did not buy a track phone. We had, again, provable lies, which tend to be as good as an admission. So we continued checking into Lester Jones. Determined to uncover However, more evidence against Jones, detectives bring in specially trained search dogs to do something that humans can't, to sniff out clues in Paige's torched car. The scent stays a long time. There are lipids and fats and things like that that don't necessarily get destroyed, even with fire.

Canine handler Julie Jones shows us with a different dog how she says they found the scent of death. So that dog smells a dead body in the back seat of this car? Yes, he smelled a dead body in the back of the car. That's correct. Who else did the dog find in this car? He was given the scent of Lester Jones, and he found the scent of Lester Jones in the driver's seat of this vehicle. How confident do you feel in the dog's ability to detect that Lester Jones was right there? I personally feel 100% sure because my dog has never been wrong doing this thing. While you have this seemingly overwhelming circumstantial evidence against Jones, no charges were filed in the disappearance of Paige Birkfeld. We really felt very confident that Lester Jones was the person. However, because of her lifestyle and that alternate business that she had, we really needed to have the body. The case went cold until an afternoon in March of 2012. A hiker hiking not far from the highway, just a short distance from where Paige's personal items were found, made an astonishing discovery. Down in this gulch in a dry stream bed, amid all of these rocks and weeds and brush were human remains.

Daughter that Frank and Susie had been searching for for five long years. It didn't take any of us more than a couple of minutes to realize that that had to be Page. And sure enough, fairly quickly through dental records and ultimately through DNA, we were able to verify that that was, in fact, the remains of Page Birkfeld. Part of the body was found. It was partially dressed, and there was duct tape on along the mouth. We can surmise that she was taken out to that area, tied up and duct-taped to keep silent. Dogs are able to pick up Page's scent leading to the location, along with that of none other than Lester Jones. Both of them alive coming down here? Yes. Okay. He's following Page's scent. He's following the scent. And we go as far as we can go. When he stopped here, I knew that her live sent had ended right here. And then afterwards, Lester Jones had the exact same path. What did that tell you? That he went the same place as she did. I can't say or speculate anything else other than his trail the same as hers. There were some new clues discovered near the remains.

Hopefully, perhaps results will answer the key question, who killed Page Birkfeld? How can one human being treat of the human being so badly. I mean, what a bad person. A lot of things that we figured out as a result of finding Page's remains were key to us putting the investigation together and realizing that we had evidence to charge. 2014, deputies went and arrested Mr. Jones, and at that point, he was arrested without incident and didn't have anything to say. Sheriff's office arrested Lester Jones this morning in connection to Page Burgfeld's death. Lester Jones was charged with first-degree murder, felony murder. Nine years after the disappearance of Page Burgfell, there will finally be a trial for her murder. But if prosecutors They think they've got a slam dunk case. They're in for quite a surprise. So let me talk to you about a few of the real killers in this case. I have lied about a lot of things to protect me. He told me that he killed Paige and that he could put my body in a woodchipper. Thank you. Mr. Jones is not guilty. From 30 for 30 podcast, Brian Pata, senior defensive lineman from Miami.

Gunned down. The key to this case, it's Brian. A hour before he died, he was on a phone arguing with somebody. This might be a hit. You want the truth. They just want a conviction. In place of arrest. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U. Listen now. It's the Paradise podcast. I am your host, Ryan Michelle Bethe, with my husband Sterling. What's up? Join us here on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus, where we'll discuss each episode with the cast and crew of Paradise. I'll be getting all the secrets from Dan Fogelman, James Marsden, Shaline Woodley, Julian Nicholson, and Sterling Calvi-Brown. Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming. And stream Paradise on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Today, a man accused of murdering a single mother is set to stand trial in Grand Junction. Lester Jones, charged with kidnapping and murdering Paige Birkfeld. So, Frank, it's been nine long years for you to get to this place, that courthouse right there. Do you think that you can get justice for Page? Listen, I don't know what the outcome of this is going to be. If that's the moment of justice, the prosecutor has to convince absolutely, positively 12 people that Jones is the murderer.

Trial lasted seven weeks. I believe we called 160 witnesses between the prosecution and the defense. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. People of the state of Colorado are going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lester Ralph Jones, that man sitting right there, that he committed first-degree murder and that he committed the kidnapping by taking her against her will. Right from the top, prosecutors started laying out a motive for Lester Jones to kill Paige Birgfeld. During the course of this investigation, they also found out that the defendant had had some prior incidents of efforts to control women by resorting to violence. We know that Jones had used Paige's escort services before, and now they say he seemed frustrated that he couldn't see her again. He had the desire to use her services again on the week that she disappeared. He called and he called. It was behavior of It was a behavior of somebody who was obsessed. It was a behavior of somebody who really just wanted nothing more than to see and be with Page. The calls show that the defendant called her on the track phone that day and that she called him back.

The cell phone records were critical as evidence. He only used it to make four phone calls all to Page, and then a fifth call only from Page. It was used for nothing else. It was bought right before she went missing, and then it was never used afterward and tossed. After that last call, which happens at about 9: 00 PM, prosecutors say Lester Jones now knows where Page is located, and he kidnaps and he kills her. The people's next witness. Prosecution star witness is Lester Jones' ex-wife, Lisa Nass. Good morning, ma'am. Hi. Remember, she's the one who told us what a nice guy he was during their marriage. He was a hard worker, and he was just an all-around good guy. But she also told us that as their marriage crumbled, she saw a very different side of Lester Jones, a dangerous one. Only whenever we were going to divorce did he ever get aggressive or mean or anything. And that's the Lester Mr. Jones, she's called in to testify about. Lisa had split up with him, and he was not willing to accept that. And she had taken up with a younger man named Joe Baer.

And ultimately, Mr. Jones had followed the two of them We're trying to get away. And so went down this dirt road, hit me, and knocked me over into a ditch, and then ran this really hard, which caused the airbags to go off. And Joe said, Oh, my God, he's got a gun. And Joe was trying to pull me out the window. He said, We have to get out of here. Joe got out, and he took off running. And that's when I heard, it's still dark, and I heard two gun shots over the top of the car. I ran to the train tracks, and a few moments later, heard a second one and felt it hit me, weren't it? It hit you in the back of the head. One shot grazes her boyfriend's head. Nance would later get a restraining order, but says Jones can't let her go. Less than a month later, he returns and forces her into a car. And I said, What are we going to do? And he looked at me. He said, I'm going to kill you. He told me he was going to put me in the bottom of the lake where no one would find me.

That was important to us because ultimately, when we found Page's remains, she was buried in a gulch. So it was very interesting to us that he might have this pattern of conduct. The evidence of Lisa Nance was fascinating and gave a lens into who Lester Jones was. During the trial, Jessica, Page's daughter, took the stand, and it was such an emotional, touching testimony. Tell me about your mom. She was pretty much a typical soccer mom. We did everything with her. She recalls the night when she was just eight years old and leaving those frantic voicemails after her mom hadn't returned home. Hi, Mom, it's me. I was just wondering, when you get home, please answer the phone. The prosecution put her on to show she was a loving mother who her daughter looked up to and needed who was taken away from her. So her not being there Friday morning was surprising to you? Yes. Normally, when she went out on those appointments at night, she'd be home a few minutes after the appointment. Is that right? Yes. And finally, Frank Bergfeld gets his day in court. Who is your daughter? My daughter is. Page Bergfeld.

When was your-My daughter will always be Page Bergfeld. I was. Do you recall when you learned that Page was missing? I remember exactly. It's etched in my memory, and it's just one of those moments that you remember every second. Man, it's like a dagger. When it was the defense's turn, their strategy was to say that, in essence, investigators had let everyone else slip through the cracks when it comes to Page's clients, that instead of focusing on Lester Jones, investigators should have been checking them out more thoroughly. The defense's strategy was pick on as many little things as they could. So let me talk to you about a few of the real killers in this case. These are men that the Sheriff's office let slip through their fingers while they were busy fixating on Mr. Jones, ignoring leads, and losing evidence. First, Wayne D'Amico. He's a used car salesman. The defense puts on a witness, a former escort by the name of Christie Steves, who testifies that D'Amico said he was responsible for Page's death. He told me that he killed Page, and then he told me what he could do to my body and that he could put my body in a wood tripper.

And when he said he did it, did he seem like he was joking? I believed him to my core. I got chills. The defense uses those comments to portray him as a potential killer. When D'Amico himself takes the stand, he tries to play them down. Believe me, if I could turn that page back right now, it would be turned back. It was totally out of context. It was my way of saying, There's absolutely no way I would have done that to her. I've used that many times. If my kids were bad, I would have put you as a wood chipper, and they're still alive. A parade of what the defense calls alternate suspects in Page's murder also includes Steven Heald. Good morning, Mr. Heald. Good morning. Now, he's the guy who's admitted stealing thousands of dollars from his boss to pay for his encounters with Page. Yeah, if you strongly swear-The prosecution hit back with, of all people, Heald's wife. She gives him an alibi saying they were together at the time of the murder, but she's clearly not thrilled to be helping him. When law enforcement got there and they told you about these things, a lot of stuff that was very disturbing to you.

Yes. Every reason at that point to basically throw him under the bus, wouldn't you say? Yes. Okay. And despite that-And I would have. And you would have. But the prosecution has got some potentially game-changing evidence. Good morning, Captain. Good morning. A groggy Lester Jones on this recording saying some very strange things. You ask me where I can bury a body. When Did I ask you that? Throughout this month-long trial, the jury never hears from Lester Jones. He never takes the stand. But there was one day the jury did hear him speak when prosecutors play a very cryptic recording. Hello. Mr. Jones? Yes, sir. It's a phone call police made to Jones the day after he'd gone through an intense five-hour interrogation. I called Mr. Jones to let him know that we were done processing their two vehicles, and they were available to be released to him. This is Art Smith with the Sheriff's office. Just calling to let you know that we have both your cars ready for you and your wife. So I can come and pick him up. Yeah, you bet. I don't think so. Mr. Jones, I'm not following you. You ask me where I would bury a body.

I'm sorry? You asked me where I could bury a body. When did I ask you that? Mr. Jones, are you there? And this is out of nowhere, and Jaws dropped in the courtroom. The jurors are like, What? So they didn't hear him But they heard him, and it didn't sound good. This is a couple of weeks after Ms. Bergfeld went missing. We hadn't found her remains until five years later. We had no idea whether she was buried. We had no idea where she was. So that raised a lot of red flags for us. And when Mr. Jones started to talk again, then Mrs. Jones got on the phone. This is the lady. Can I help you? Yeah. That was an odd conversation I'm not exactly sure what just transpired. I don't know what he's talking about either. I think he took some sleeping pills. You think he took some sleeping pills? Yeah. We're going to be on our way there. If he stops breathing or anything else. I think he's okay. Call 911, okay? He's okay. Just a minute. Are you okay? We were talking about weird things. I think he's okay. Don't know if he's trying to commit suicide or not.

Maybe just get some rest because everybody has been hounding him and the stress of it, probably he wasn't sleeping very good, but very strange phone call. Mr. Jones did attempt to overdose, and he left a note saying that he didn't do this to his wife. My dearest love, I've prayed all night, and this morning, I've asked for his forgiveness. Tell the cops to You get up. I never did it, but I can't be railroaded. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that-When Lester Jones' wife, Elaine, takes the stand, she describes her shock at fighting out just how often her husband was paying for prostitutes. How do you feel about all of this? I feel horrible. I'm crushed. It's horrible. Okay. Hard. You testified you're still married to him. Yes. Why? I'm still married to him because I'm a Christian and my faith asked me to to give him, and I feel like I need to give him another chance. What she wasn't able to give her husband was an alibi to explain where he was during the crucial hours when Paige went missing or when her car went up in flames. She even IDs him buying that track phone at Walmart.

Ms. Jones, do you recognize that man? My husband, Mr. Jones. And as Jones watches his wife, he appears to mouth the words, It wasn't me, standing by his denial. I'll now advise the lawyers to make their closing arguments, and we'll start with the prosecution. After 21 days of testimony, it's time for closing arguments. And prosecutor Dan Rubinstein paints an emotional picture of Page Birkfeld's last moments. Page must have been so scared. It is hard to even imagine what would have been going through her head. As she was laying either in the back of the vehicle or in the trunk. When she decided it was time to start throwing items out of the car for about 12 miles, those items were strewn about the highway. Her personal checks, her driver's license, her kid's medical card, leading in a trail of breadcrumbs to the area where she was killed and buried. We will continue with Mr. Colvin's closing argument. And the defense hits their biggest theme, that those alternate suspects just weren't looked at closely enough by investigators. But the investigation was deficient, and they have made the fact facts they have fit their hypothesis. That is the polar opposite of what you should do.

But prosecutors say they thoroughly looked at and cleared all of them. So who Is this the real killer? We don't know. It is not acceptable to convict people of murder just because they're creepy guys. Despite the fact that Mr. Jones has done bad things, there is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury deliberated for four days, and that is four agonizing days for a prosecutor. And in fact, jurors told us themselves what it was like in that deliberation room, how they wrestled with what they think may have happened. When the prosecution arrested, I was just stunned. I said, This is all you got? There's a lot on the fence. Some went towards the guilty side. I felt like the defense did a good job in displaying some shortcomings of the Sheriff's office. I just said, Yes, yes, there are holes in this case. There are. There are still three, four things here that make him a viable suspect and guilty. Hold hardly in my heart. I believed he was guilty. Please rise for our jury. We were told that it was 10: 2 at various times and 9, 3 at various times. I was disheartened.

The jury remains in the same position of being We're not able to reach a unanimous decision. So, ladies and gentlemen, at this time, I am declaring a mistrial on this matter. People were stunned by the home jury. I think everybody in that courtroom thought one way or another we were going to hear guilty or not guilty. So that's it, guys. It's all over for now. But maybe there'll be another shot. Before that second trial, new evidence comes out that could change everything. We had downloaded the surveillance video of her work site, and we pulled it up. Who is lurking behind the wheel of this car? The jury at this point has indicated that they are unable to reach a verdict. Our jury is now here, including the alternate. It had been a grueling seven weeks for the family of Page Birgfeld. They were hoping and praying for justice. All they had to show for it was a hung jury and a mistrial. So, ladies and gentlemen, at this time, I am declaring a mistrial in this matter. I was devastated when the jury was hung because I had seen the evidence. I didn't think Lester was guilty going in, but I was beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Coming out, he did this. I was disheartened. I had put my heart and soul into this case. I wondered, okay, did we not present enough? We had to make the decision on whether or not we were going to retry the case, and we made it quickly. We made it on the spot, and we let the judge know we want new trial dates. I was convinced that there was proof beyond a reasonable doubt. A man accused of kidnapping and killing a Grand Junction mom who also ran in an escort service. Well, he is set to go back on trial. Just 10 weeks after the first trial, jury selection begins at the Mesa County Courthouse for the second trial of Lester Jones, and prosecutor Dan Rubenstein is determined to win. Page Bergfeld was kidnapped and murdered on June 28, 2007. Lester Ralph Jones is the one who did this. My strategy really was I needed to listen to what the first jury told me about what was important to them and focus on the right things. The The result is that he caused the death of another, murdering her, duck-taping her, killing her, and burying her body.

The right thing seemed to be identifying where Lester Jones was at any given moment. He was on the computer around eight o'clock How can we rule out everybody other than Lester Jones and then add to that the mountain of evidence? So he stares at the track phones for a while, picks out the one he wants. The dog evidence. Defendant sent on the driver's seat of Ms. Bernfeld's car. The location of the fire right by his workspace. And this time, Rubenstein has an ace up his sleeve after making a startling new discovery that could upend this case. Between the first trial and the second trial, we had realized Lester Jones was trying on Monday to get a hold of Page. So we thought, I wonder if he's driving around by her work site. In evidence, we had downloaded a surveillance video of her work site, and we pulled it up. The prosecution team spends hours pouring over the surveillance video, looking for signs of Lester Jones. Page's vehicle is parked at the entrance to one of the buildings. This is a normal office, so you would not expect there would be much traffic there at nine o'clock in the evening on a Monday.

Well, this Chevy Impala circles the parking lot two or three times, and one of the times just drives right past Page's red Ford Focus. There are no signs of Lester Jones's white pickup truck, but the team knows that Jones's wife is out of town. What car does she own? A Chevy Impala. We're able to see that his wife's car, the Chevy Impala, is driving around right about the time he's on the phone, calling that phone number. The prosecution is feeling more confident this time around. But one of the witnesses almost jeopardizes the entire trial. Carol Linderholme. I was concerned about her safety because prior to that, somebody tried to kill her. I wasn't afraid of Lester. I was enraged. And what was that person's name that you met with? Lester Jones. I would stare him, and he tried to stare back as I was leaving the courtroom. I just said, a piece of crap. You were such a piece of crap for killing my friend. Witnesses are never supposed to have any interaction with the defendant in the court. It just has gotten to me. I don't know how her parents could sit through this and look at him.

I can't help myself when I see him. Tomorrow, we have to decide whether or not what you did is going to have an impact on this trial. The district attorney didn't hear it. I said, The only people that heard it were at the table. I wasn't talking to anybody but that piece of crap. The judge didn't declare a mistrial because he said the jurors couldn't hear her. Please rise for a jury. Just before Christmas Day, closing arguments wrap, and the jury goes into deliberations to decide the fate of Lester Jones. Right now, a jury is deciding the fate of the man accused of killing Paige Birgfeld in 2007. It was a very long four days of deliberation. And of course, my fear was that there would be another hung jury. The evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, Lester Ralph Jones, is the one who did this. The Birkfeld family has waited so long for this. Thank you. 9 years, 2 trials, and all the heartache and grief in between. Now it all comes down to Will they finally find justice for Page? We, the jury, find the defendant, Lester Ralph Jones, guilty of count one, murder in the first degree.

They came back guilty on all counts, first-degree murder, felony murder, second-degree murder for knowingly causing the death of Page and kidnapping. I thought, finally, and that the new jurors were able to perceive what was going on and how bad he was of a person. The only available sentence to the court is a sentence of life in the Department. The judge gave the only sentence that Colorado law allows, which is life without the possibility of parole for the murder charge. It was closure for her dad, for her family, and her friends. I can't even imagine how difficult that would be to go through the emotional ups and downs that they went through. Elaine Jones stood by her husband, Lester Jones, for years, from the time he was named a person of interest until his conviction in Page Birgeville's death. She died in late 2017, convinced of her husband's innocence. Frank Birdfeld was a guy who told the truth. He never shied away from the fact that Page was an escort. I will tell you one thing. During the trial, I would say more than half the time they referred to her as Page. It was very seldom the victim or the woman or something like that, and I thought that felt very human to me.

I feared that a lot of his identity became justice for Page. That took a lot out of him physically and emotionally. And I wonder if he was ever able to get past that being his identity. Frank died suddenly of a heart attack two years ago, perhaps brought on by the stress of losing his daughter. There's not a day that passes that I don't think about her. I think about her kids. I think about choices, and how we just don't ever know. Paige's story didn't have to end the way that it did. I hope that what happened to Paige is a part of a larger conversation of who the buyers are. They create this whole industry that women like her and I end up in, and the harms that happen to most of us at the hands of these men. To me, she's this little angel that is looking out over all of us, but particularly her three children. Despite what's been a traumatic childhood, Paige's kids are doing really well, and they're grown up. One of the difficult things of being a prosecutor in a town this size is after you've been here that long, you start to associate various parts of town with various crimes.

And it's difficult to drive past that area without thinking about Paige. You know a family we've followed for more than a decade, waiting all those years for justice. Lester Jones of course, remains in prison, but is appealing his conviction. You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9: 00 on ABC, you can also find all new broadcast episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening. Abc Wednesday, the Emmy-winning Comedy Scrubs returns. This is a whole new chapter for me. No more sad sac. That's what I'm talking about. I want both of our sacs to be fun. You two idiots are perfect for each other. From executive producers of Ted Lasso and Shrinking. We were all a part of this victory. Now get those nachos out of the premium warmer. Nachos. It feels like there's more applause for the nachos than my speech. The new season of Scrubs, Wednesday, 8: 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.