[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
[caller speaking]
HALSETH: Daniel loved family.
He always wanted to be a dad.
But even as a little girl,
Sierra was pretty self-centered and pretty selfish.
What she wants, she gets,
and nobody's gonna stand in the way.
It's just stunning -- honestly, it's one of the most
stunning things I've seen in my career.
WENDT: What evil resides in a soulless person to do that
is unfathomable to me.
[theme music playing]
NARRATOR: Twenty-five-year-old Elizabeth Halseth
and her 32-year-old husband,
Daniel, are driving their three children from their home
in Las Vegas to Disneyland.
They're the happy little campers
on their way to Disneyland.
Uh-oh. Wow.
She's not happy at all.
NARRATOR: It should be every child's dream come true.
But three-year-old Sierra, the youngest, doesn't
seem convinced.
HALSETH: I think it really kind of is typical of her.
Everybody else is happy. Why not her?
She has the puppy. She's so unhappy.
She's angry, mad.
Who knows what about.
WENDT: There is everybody in Disneyland.
There's Sierra right there, now having a good time.
There was that crabby little girl to begin with,
and now laughing,
and there is Dan.
That's what he was able to do with her every time.
[Daniel speaking]
[Elizabeth speaking]
[Daniel speaking]
[Elizabeth speaking]
HALSETH: Daniel loved family.
He loved the idea of family.
He loved being a part of a family.
He always wanted to be a dad, even when he was little.
[Daniel speaking]
HALSETH: Yeah, this is typical Daniel.
Daniel loved being around the kids.
It was wonderful.
NARRATOR: The story of Daniel's family begins in 2000,
when he meets Elizabeth Schworak,
a high school senior, from Salem, Oregon.
HALSETH: At the time, Daniel was at
Western Oregon University.
He got his Bachelor of Music degree.
When Daniel first met Elizabeth, he was very excited.
She came up to the house,
and we were all excited, because she seemed
to just be happy and good for him.
But she made Daniel feel like he was her protector, and that
fed him, that he wanted to be able to look after somebody.
[man speaking]
[Daniel speaking]
NARRATOR: The couple marry in Salem on July 2nd, 2001,
after Elizabeth graduates from high school.
Yeah, whatever you...
They were very much in love. Our family was very excited.
They all showed up for the wedding.
Well, it was a beautiful wedding and ceremony.
WENDT: There's myself, and there's my sister,
and typical how we do things,
we're giving tips to each other, what we should --
[laughing] how life should be.
We're acting eloquent. Oh, it was my sister.
She was so happy, so happy for her boy getting married.
NARRATOR: The newlyweds start a family within
a year of tying the knot.
[Daniel speaking]
[whistles]
Their daughter, Lucy, was born in 2002 and their son, Connor,
in 2003.
Daniel absolutely loved little babies.
He loved fatherhood.
He was so excited.
NARRATOR: A year later, on December 16th, 2004,
Elizabeth gives birth to her second daughter, Sierra.
He was so tickled to have Sierra, to be a dad to Sierra.
Well, Sierra was a cute baby but
was always kind of a mystery.
She was just, you know, a difficult child.
NARRATOR: In 2006, Daniel is offered
an IT job in Las Vegas.
The family relocates to Nevada.
He was elated -- it was a very good paying job, and it
was in the line of what he wanted to do,
and so they moved.
Hi. Hi.
WENDT: And the job potential in Vegas seemed to work well for them.
I think a plus side in the --
in the move to Vegas for them is they had themselves as
a unit family to kind of get to know each other.
HALSETH: He had a great time living in
Las Vegas, and they loved it there.
They really did love it there.
WENDT: Daniel and Elizabeth were both interested in politics,
and they started getting involved in the politics
in Vegas, and Elizabeth seemed to really like it, and she
really wanted to get more involved,
and she found politics as a potential
way for her to be her own person.
There was a possibility for an opening for
a senate position in the State of Nevada.
NARRATOR: Elizabeth decides to run in the 2010 election.
WENDT: When we heard the news
that not only did she run, but she won,
we were amazed, and we were so excited for her and for Daniel.
She was ecstatic. Everybody was just so happy.
He was so excited for her.
He goes, "This is going to be great.
"This is perfect, because I can stay
at home and be with the kids."
He had an opportunity of working at home with his
children and building that bond that he wanted to have.
[Daniel speaking]
WENDT: His cohorts would tease him and call him Mr. Mom.
Dan, at his core, was a storyteller,
and he would share his stories with us through video
and music, and he wanted us to feel as if we were in the room
with him.
So one way of reaching us as family was
to share those videos that he would do with them.
He'd always send videos -- he'd post them on
Facebook and invite the family to see these.
HALSETH: Elizabeth's political career took off.
She had meetings to go to, and she had to go to Carson City,
which was quite a ways away.
WENDT: Daniel was really concerned, but she said,
"You know, I've got a lot to do. I've never done this before,
"and I really want to -- I want to do a good job.
And so I'm just trying really hard."
But any time you have a separation,
you have that beginning of differences.
And so what seemed to happen,
this world of politics was a dividing place that seemed to
get bigger and bigger.
It puts a strain on relationships.
So that was the beginning of the end for those two.
It wasn't a good situation.
What I remember is that he called me one time,
and he was angry, which he hardly ever got.
Daniel really wanted to save the marriage.
So they went to counseling, and it didn't go very well.
So it was clear from what was happening that there was gonna
be no future to the marriage, and Dan filed for divorce.
The family was really concerned about what was going
to happen with the family, with Daniel.
HALSETH: You know, so Daniel moves into
an apartment, and they set up a visitation.
Divorces are hard on children,
but especially, it seemed different with Sierra.
HALSETH: Daniel was concerned about Sierra.
And so when they would get together,
he would take extra care.
It was kind of obvious that she had this withdrawn
personality, into her own little world.
She was kind of standoffish, and he was always trying to
bring her in to the fold,
but she was a troubled kid.
How troubled, we had no idea.
HALSETH: When Daniel would get the kids,
he tried to make it special.
He'd always have something planned or else, you know,
the week before, they'd say,
what do you want to do next time?
So they always had something to look forward to,
and, of course, it really helped him
to have something to look forward to also.
[Daniel speaking]
[all yelling excitedly]
So when he had that time with the children,
he wanted to make sure they had the best time ever,
and especially Sierra.
HALSETH: 'Cause Sierra was actually
a very difficult child.
I mean, really that's the only way to
describe her.
Sierra was, you know, pretty self-centered
and pretty selfish, wanting her own way all the time.
Sierra would warm up.
It would take Daniel half the time he spent to break
the wall.
WENDT: It was the one thing that he found is that music worked,
dance worked.
Sarah loved to be in the moment and dancing,
but that was a special thing that he had, he could do.
HALSETH: 2012, Elizabeth moved to Alaska with the kids.
It devastated my son,
and he went from stay-at-home dad to
now the kids are up in Alaska,
and he might get to see them once or twice a year.
NARRATOR: Daniel throws himself into his work.
His business as an IT consultant takes off.
And in 2013, he moves to Texas.
After the divorce, Daniel got a great job,
an IT job in Texas, and it worked out really well.
NARRATOR: By 2020, Elizabeth and the kids, together with
her new husband, have moved back to Las Vegas.
HALSETH: So in March of 2020,
Daniel had some business in Las Vegas,
and he came to Vegas and stayed with Peggy.
Daniel had a client here, and he still resided in Texas,
but he was staying all the time in Las Vegas.
And I had known him about 10 years prior.
I was his bookkeeper, did his payroll for his company,
but basically he wasn't very much a friend.
He's the same age as my youngest child.
I felt like he was almost like another son.
NARRATOR: In March 2020,
the COVID pandemic hits Nevada.
All flights are canceled,
and the entire state goes into lockdown.
NEWMAN: Daniel asked if he could stay at my house for
a little while, and a little while turned into
a little while longer.
And he asked if he could move in at that point.
That's the first time I had
heard that Sierra had begun texting him.
He was starting to explain these strange messages.
She was telling him, communicating that she was
in trouble. -[cellphone notification]
She was texting him things that were making him concerned,
such as, "I'm not comfortable here.
I'm fearful."
It was very vague, though.
It wasn't anything -- nothing specific,
but he was worried about his little girl.
NARRATOR: Despite Sierra's claims, there's no evidence
that she suffered any mistreatment
in her mother's home.
[Lucy speaking]
NEWMAN: In early June, the kids came to my house,
and they stayed with Daniel in my house,
and he had them all to himself.
He was absolutely elated and thrilled.
He planned a trip back to Oregon so they could
be with grandma and cousins and so forth,
and I lent Daniel my car.
So he took the kids in my car up to Oregon,
and I know they had a good time up there.
And we were all so excited. The cousins are excited.
I'm excited. Everybody is excited.
It was June.
It was summery, it was fun.
We'd get together and just have a good time,
have a barbecue, go on hikes.
But Sierra was just odd behavior.
There was this whole other side of Sierra that she didn't
want known, but it would pop out.
So at one of the barbecues, all the cousins
got together, and sitting there,
we're roasting marshmallows and stuff.
The kids were sitting around, whining about their parents
or whatever, just talking the way
teenage kids do, and my younger grandkids,
they were like seven and nine.
You know, "What do you do when you don't get your way?"
And the other one says, "Well, I get mad or whatever," and
Sierra just says, "Well, you just get rid of them."
And they all looked at her like what?
Daniel wanted us to really love Sierra,
to not think anything was wrong.
What I noticed about Sierra after they moved
to Alaska and then moved back to Nevada,
she did this very odd behavior where she would see you,
and she wouldn't act friendly at all.
And then all of a sudden, she'd come up, put her arms around
you, and hang,
let the weight off her feet and hang around your neck,
and she would just stay there, like stay hanging there.
It was this weird behavior.
There was no love behind it, is the odd part about this.
There wasn't love, I'm glad to see you.
It was, I'm gonna hang on you
and make you feel really uncomfortable,
and then I'm gonna be kind of in charge.
It worked, because now she's the center of attention.
When it was time for the three children
to return to their mother's care,
it was toward the end of June.
It was an arranged drop off, a fast food restaurant.
That's where he would pick up the children,
and that's where he would drop them off,
and he never dropped them off or picked him up without
the mother being there.
When they got there, the two children
got out of the car, but not Sierra.
Sierra chose, at that point, not to join her mother.
And with Daniel's permission,
she chose to come back to my house with Daniel.
I knew about all the phone calls and all the --
"I'm not happy at home. I'm afraid," all those things
she was telling her dad.
NARRATOR: Daniel petitions the court for custody of Sierra.
Daniel thought, you know, she was in trouble.
I thought she was in trouble.
We all fell for that line, and we believed her.
She was able to manipulate the situation pretty good
and she knew how
to get to her dad, and she did a good job of it.
She'd do -- she knew how to get to him.
Daniel knew that he was not gonna
succeed in getting custody of Sierra
if he didn't live in Sierra's school district.
And I was purchasing a house anyway in that school district.
So we decided that would be an opportunity for he
and Sierra to move into the house and rent it.
During that time, Daniel met Kari.
Kari probably saw things more firsthand than most of us.
SOMMERVILLE: I met Daniel on social media.
Um, we both were living in Vegas, and we decided to
meet up.
Daniel was really easy to talk to.
He became my best friend.
The first time I met Sierra was at the house.
She was really quiet.
She didn't really say much.
When Daniel introduced us,
he was like, "I think you guys will be good for each other,
and for Kari to show you a few things," and just
lighten -- lighten her up a little bit.
NARRATOR: Daniel and Elizabeth fight for
custody of Sierra in court.
All right, we are on today.
Daniel was ordered by the judge to return Sierra to
her mother's, and Daniel did return Sierra to her mother's,
but she ran away from her mother's
and went back to her dad's.
SOMMERVILLE: I honestly think that Sierra was
putting up the front -- at her mom's,
there was two parents, so she couldn't really do what
she wanted to do,
as opposed to being at her dad's, where he was lenient.
And, you know, I think he had
a little bit of the guilty dad syndrome.
Sierra said she wanted to live with my son
to really get to know her dad again.
She wanted to rekindle,
but it was totally manipulative.
In October 2020, Daniel was going out of town.
So I was gonna spend a week,
and the first night, Sierra starts leaving the house.
She thought I was asleep.
And I said, "Sierra, where are you going?"
She says, "I'm gonna take a walk,"
and it was like, I don't know, nine at night.
And so I called Daniel, and I said, you know,
"She's sleeping all day, and then she takes off
at night," and he did not know that.
She was totally lying to him.
So the first time I heard about
Aaron Guerrero was in October of 2020
when I went to visit Sierra.
I said, "Does your dad know about this?"
And she says, "Oh, no, but he will."
NEWMAN: She'd met Aaron online,
and Daniel was very concerned about his 15-year-old
daughter dating an 18-year-old young man.
SOMMERVILLE: He was concerned about
the impression that Aaron made on Sierra.
He just simply didn't think that it was
a good idea for them to be together.
And, you know, he had every right to.
He had discovered that they were planning
to rob his parents and run away together.
So he reached out to Aaron's parents, and his parents
also agreed that they weren't to see each other anymore.
Her not being able to see Aaron
I'm pretty sure initially was hard for the both of them,
but Sierra said that she didn't miss him.
She didn't care anymore, and it was history to her.
When you're a teenager,
you know, your attention span is only so much.
So I believed her.
NARRATOR: In December 2020, Daniel and Sierra celebrate
her 16th birthday.
Things were definitely looking up.
Compared from when I first got there,
how depressed and withdrawn she was,
she was coming out of her shell
and just doing more normal teenage girl things,
and then she just withdrew out of nowhere.
For the most part,
she was wearing a mask, because she just didn't want
us to catch on to what was actually going on.
She was so good at hiding
the fact that she was still talking to Aaron.
NARRATOR: On March 2nd, 2021,
Daniel and Elizabeth attend Sierra's latest custody hearing.
NARRATOR: Which parent Sierra will live with
remains undecided.
Sierra did not want to go back to her mom's, like point blank
period, like, she always expressed that she did not want
to go back.
NARRATOR: Three weeks later, Kari leaves Vegas for a trip
to Texas.
Daniel flies to Boston on business at the same time.
Sierra will be alone at the house.
SOMMERVILLE: I won't say that we felt 100 percent comfortable
about leaving Sierra alone,
but he had to do what he had to do to provide,
you know, that is what his job called him to do.
And he wanted to trust Sierra.
NARRATOR: Daniel returns to Las Vegas
on Wednesday, April 7th.
On his way home from the airport,
he posts this photograph of a billboard.
SOMMERVILLE: You know, every day was a new day to him.
Daniel was very optimistic and trusting.
Daniel really wanted to believe that Sierra could
be trusted -- he definitely never would have imagined
that it would turn out like this,
that anything would happen to that magnitude.
[phone ringing]
NARRATOR: Daniel's mom, Christine,
calls her son's phone. -[phone ringing]
-No answer. -phone ringing]
HALSETH: So I can't get a hold of Daniel.
I texted Sierra, and Sierra says,
"Well, his phone's not working."
I texted Sierra back.
"This isn't making any sense.
"Where is your dad?
"Either get him on the phone, or I'm gonna
to send somebody to check."
So I call Peggy.
NEWMAN: On April 8th, Thursday evening,
I get a call from Christine,
and she's very frantic and concerned,
because she can't reach Daniel, and that's real unusual,
that he didn't answer his phone. -[phone ringing]
Daniel's very communicative.
NARRATOR: Peggy promises Christine that she
and her friend, Joey Buelich,
will check on Daniel the following day.
NEWMAN: Joey lived with me.
He had a room in the garage.
Friday morning, I'm on my way over there, and I call Joey,
because I'm concerned about showing up at
Daniel's house alone.
HALSETH: I'm still not hearing from Daniel.
And so I sent Sierra another text.
"He's in the shower," and it
was like a weird time of day, and I said, "No,
he's not in the shower, Sierra."
I say,
"Do I need to call the police?
Joey and Peggy are on their way,"
and no response.
NEWMAN: I'm in the driveway.
Joey's van pulls up in the -- in the back.
We start walking up to the house.
He's ahead of me, finds the door's open, not locked.
He opened the door,
and the whole house is full of smoke.
We both run upstairs, and were yelling
"Daniel," and no response.
We both come downstairs.
And around the corner, he opens the garage door,
and he gasped.
He was visibly very upset, and I peek in,
and I see what appears to be a body on the floor.
[phone ringing]
WOMAN: 425.
NEWMAN: Joey actually thought it was Sierra.
I think Joey was still on the phone with 911
when the first policeman got there.
The fire department shows up, too.
[officer over radio]
On April 9th, 2021, police arrived over in Dunphy Court.
This is a single family residence,
the house of Daniel Halseth and his daughter, Sierra.
And when the police arrive, they find a body in the garage.
It was terribly burned.
[man speaking]
-MAN: Pretty toxic in there. -[coughing]
[woman speaking]
[first responder speaking]
-WOMAN: Okay. -But if you look...
[woman speaking]
-[first responder speaking] -WOMAN: No.
It was difficult for first responders and police to
determine exactly,
you know, whether it's a male or a female.
Detectives go to the Clark County
Medical Examiner's Office and attend the autopsy.
You know, at the time, the body is unknown.
But ultimately, the medical examiner's office
confirmed that it is Daniel Halseth.
The the cause of death is sharp force injuries.
There are approximately 70 sharp force
and incise wounds to Daniel's body,
which is an enormous amount of stab wounds.
Approximately 42 of them are located
on around the head, neck, upper shoulder areas.
One of his wrists appears as if it was partially dismembered,
as if someone tried to literally
saw through Daniel to take him apart.
There was no soot found inside Daniel's lungs.
What that means is when that fire was started,
Daniel was not alive,
or he would have been breathing in
the smoke, and it would have been inside his lungs.
Daniel is dead, and the arson is an effort to conceal
the crime.
HALSETH: It was a detective who called me.
At the end, the detective said he'd been murdered,
and all I could think of was...
was it fast?
Did he suffer?
I was sitting at my kitchen table, and my boys were there,
[sobs] and then I hung up the phone,
[sobs] and...
my boys...
were crying,
and they hugged me, and we all just held each other,
and it was horrible.
The evidence in the home tends to suggest that Daniel
was, in all likelihood, on his couch in his living room.
There were absolutely no signs of forced entry.
In fact, in this case, the front door actually had
a key in it.
There are mops sitting on the side to the wall.
There are bottles of bleach and cleaning agents everywhere.
You additionally had a saw.
A table saw.
In addition, there actually was a chainsaw, as well,
and it appeared brand-new, not used.
There are saw blades and all these random items kind of
strewn about, and it really just
looks like a very hurried, panicked attempt to clean up
and potentially burn down the whole house
that is, for some reason, getting cut short.
Whoever was in there doing this essentially just
drops what they're doing and takes off and leaves.
The police also locate a series of bank receipts.
One of the receipts was a Bank of America receipt.
Police locate that particular branch here in Las Vegas,
and they acquire video surveillance.
That angle shows Sierra Halseth very clearly driving
up in what appears to be Daniel's car,
and she is the one that, in fact, withdraws $600
at about 9:59 in the morning on April 8th.
One of the things that investigators notice
from the footage is that she's not alone.
Someone else sitting in the front passenger seat of
the car, and that person
is wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt that is pink
or light red in color.
NARRATOR: Investigators discover store receipts,
also from April 8th.
One came from a Home Depot,
and the second one came from a WinCo.
When they go to that particular
Home Depot to collect video footage,
it's very clear that Aaron Guerrero
is buying a number of items that are found inside
that house -- that circular saw, the extra saw blades for it,
he's purchasing it.
He's purchasing drop cloths, disposable gloves.
What's also significant is exactly what Aaron is wearing,
a light red, pink T-shirt,
just like the figure that's sitting in the front
passenger seat when
Sierra is making her way to the Bank of America.
The police also end up going to a WinCo.
it's very clear that Sierra pulls up at approximately 2:50
in the morning, close to 3 a.m. in the morning on the 8th.
She walks in, she buys the bleach,
and she drives away, and she leaves.
Do we have a definitive match that either one
of them struck a killing blow at this stage?
No, but when we look at the significance of all of those
receipts, plus the video footage, at this point,
it's very clear that these are the two main suspects that are
responsible for Daniel's murder.
On April 9th, the detectives in this case prepare
arrest warrants, not only for Sierra Halseth,
but Aaron Guerrero, as well.
And that warrant issued into a national database that
alert all law enforcement agencies
to let authorities from an outside jurisdiction know,
hey, Aaron and Sierra are actually wanted for murder.
Let's not let them go.
NARRATOR: Five days after Daniel's murder, CCTV records
Aaron and Sierra in Salt Lake City.
About 8:35 in the morning on the 13th,
transit police encounter Aaron and Sierra using a tram.
They're making out, they're just kind of living
their best life on the tram in Utah.
What happens essentially is they're asked for their tickets,
and they don't have any tickets.
The transit authority asked them for their name
or identification, and Aaron and Sierra provide it.
They run a name check, up pops the warrant.
And so Aaron and Sierra are taken into custody
by Utah Transit Authority for the murder of Daniel
and are promptly then ultimately brought back to
Las Vegas.
They get caught by just simply giving over
their names and not paying for a tram ticket.
When Aaron and Sierra are taken into custody,
one of the things that's in their possession
is a cellphone.
That phone is forensically downloaded by the police.
HAMNER: There is videos on that phone.
There are photographs taken by Aaron and Sierra, just kind of
chronicling their little trip through Utah, you know,
taking pictures of each other, little videos of them
kissing and giggling and just having the best time.
[coughing]
But the most stunning part about what's
found on the phone is a particular video.
[indistinct] [clears throat]
HAMNER: It's shocking.
I mean, there wasn't an ounce of remorse in Sierra's face.
It's just stunning.
Honestly, it's one of the most stunning things I've seen
in my career, because she just --
they are just laughing.
-[laughing] -[indistinct noises]
NARRATOR: Investigators piece together
the sequence of events from when Daniel returns home from
his business trip in Boston on Wednesday,
April 7th.
We believe that Daniel is on that couch.
He's asleep when they attack.
Daniel is stabbed approximately 70 times by
Sierra and Aaron.
Two of the items among a vast number of other things
that were collected and ultimately tested for DNA
were the two folding knives -- on one knife,
Sierra Halseth's DNA is found -- on the other knife,
Aaron Guerrero's DNA is found.
By three o'clock in the morning,
Sierra is going out to a WinCo, and she's buying bleach.
That suggests to us that, at this point,
she's trying to clean up what's happening.
By the morning time,
it appears they've come up with a different plan.
And part of that plan involves dismembering Daniel, because
that's when they are purchasing
circular saws and additional things,
when they're picking up drop cloths and disposable gloves.
And that's what Aaron's doing over at the Home Depot.
It's very clear, though, that whatever they were planning
to do, all of that abruptly comes to a halt by
10:42 in the morning on the 9th,
because that is the point where Christine sends
text messages to Sierra saying, "Do I need to call the police?"
And with that essential threat being made by Christine,
that is what prompts them to drop everything,
dousing him with lighter fluid in the garage,
and trying to burn Daniel in a sleeping bag.
And ultimately, they make off with Daniel's car.
They make off with some chunks of money
out of his bank account,
and they head off on a road trip to Utah.
Killing Daniel was unnecessary.
If Sierra and Aaron simply wanted to go run away together,
like Romeo and Juliet,
they could have simply taken the car keys and taken Daniel's
car and driven away.
But for some reason, they chose not to do that.
They waited for Daniel to come back home,
and then they killed him.
You know, someone who knew Dan well said
even now, Daniel would forgive her.
He loved her -- he would forgive her.
NEWMAN: He was such a wonderful,
wonderful person, and she's spending the rest of her life,
hopefully, in prison.
What a horrible thing she did.
She took away my Danny boy, she took away
my oldest son, my sons' brother.
She took away
so much joy and so much light.
He was like a light.
She took away a big chunk of
my heart that will never be returned.
I just have to learn to go on...
without him.