[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
[Craig sobbing]
[Craig speaking]
With Craig, Shanna felt that she found the love of her life.
Shanna had wanted to be a mom since we were in the 5th grade.
[Shanna speaking]
They looked like a normal family.
But I feel like it was more resentment
Craig felt towards DJ.
[Craig speaking]
Craig paid more attention and took better care of their dogs.
[detective speaking]
I couldn't believe somebody could
turn and do something like that.
It was just the ultimate betrayal.
Craig Vandewege -- he has evil inside of him.
[Craig speaking]
[baby cooing]
[theme music playing]
[mellow music playing]
NARRATOR: 35-year-old Shanna Vandewege and husband, Craig,
have bought their first home together in Fort Worth, Texas.
Shanna's home alone.
This is my daughter, Shanna, and she
had just moved into her new house.
She was so thrilled.
She got a full-size walk-in closet
with storage that she'd never had before.
[Shanna speaking]
They moved to Texas because Craig --
Craig got a job promotion with Costco.
He worked in the optical department.
Shanna was excited to try and give him
this opportunity to advance in his career.
[Shanna speaking]
VANCE: I laughed really hard when she said, "And his side."
I assured her that would be
adequate space for any man's clothing.
Shanna and Craig first met around November of 2012.
VANCE: Shanna was excited to
get along with someone who was
mature enough to carry on a relationship.
He was very kind.
He took her places. He bought her things.
She was impressed that he seemed
financially solvent and responsible.
Craig proposed to Shanna.
There was a picture on Facebook
with her holding out her hand.
RIDDLE: Shanna was very happy.
I was very pleased that she had that in her life.
ONEY: Shanna felt that she'd found the love of her life
who wanted to have a family with her.
And so she -- she was very excited.
This is Shanna and Craig on their wedding day.
RIDDLE: She thought she was finally going to where
she needed to be in her stage of life.
Possibility of children,
and, uh, she was very, very happy.
ONEY: Shanna was a registered nurse.
She never spoke about doing anything different other
than being a nurse and being a mom.
Shanna had wanted to be a mom
since we were in the fifth grade.
Shanna was the only young kid I've ever been around
that had 20 names already picked out for her children.
She intended to be a mama at some point.
2015 -- I remember the first time Shanna
called and told me that she was pregnant.
She's ecstatic.
I was ecstatic.
I may finally be a grandpa, you know?
That pregnancy didn't last three months,
and she lost the child, so...
And then a few months later, she got pregnant again,
and she lost this child.
She was
losing all hope of becoming a mama.
NARRATOR: In December 2015,
Shanna and Craig are expecting again.
Shanna waits until she is
three months pregnant before she announces the news.
VANCE: I remember the first time she felt the baby move.
She's like, "I can't believe this.
It feels so amazing."
You could tell that she was excited
to have the ultrasound picture to prove
the baby was okay.
She was happy, and she had said Craig
was excited to become a parent, as well.
NARRATOR: A few weeks later, Monica helped Shanna
prepare for the big move to Texas,
but something seems off about Craig.
We had spent
the last week packing boxes,
but he wouldn't let us touch anything that was his.
He came out screaming at us.
He was...acting erratic.
That day was the first time I realized his personality,
it was changing.
He definitely had a short temper,
and I knew at that point something was wrong.
This is Shanna and Craig on moving day to Texas.
The drive from Denver to Fort Worth,
he drove a U-Haul truck.
They were on the road for 16 hours,
so they would have to make
frequent stops, because she was pregnant.
Craig, he wasn't happy that they had to
make as many stops as they had to.
NARRATOR: Craig berates his wife throughout the journey.
ONEY: He was very rude to her.
You just can't believe that a person could say
such horrible things about a person
that they supposedly love.
I was angry at him for not taking
into consideration his wife, pregnant with his child.
NARRATOR: Two weeks after the move,
Shanna sends a video to her parents back in Colorado.
Again, she's home alone.
RIDDLE: Her house, she was proud of it,
and she was happy.
[Shanna speaking]
NARRATOR: But Shanna's updates leave out the fact that Craig
is failing to pull his weight around their new home.
She confides in her best friend, Monica.
VANCE: She was alone. She was also isolated.
Craig would go to work, and he would come home,
and he would drink up to a 12-pack of beer.
He would play his video games
and express his disappointment that
the house wasn't put together yet.
I feel like Craig expected the world to revolve around him,
and it shocked me, because Shanna had
never accepted this kind of behavior from anybody.
NARRATOR: On September 5, 2016,
Shanna achieves her dream of motherhood.
[baby crying distantly]
The couple name their new son Diederik Jonas, or DJ.
Having that moment finally arrive
was probably the happiest I've ever heard her.
RIDDLE: I was bouncing off the walls being a grandpa.
I would have thought Craig would have been as excited,
but I just didn't see the emotion from him.
VANCE: It really felt weird to me,
because everybody finds joy in a baby.
That day was the first time I realized
I didn't know much about his personality.
What happened afterwards was just the ultimate betrayal.
[Shanna speaking]
Shanna loved to share her life, particularly
in photo and video.
VANCE: Craig didn't like social media.
He was very adamant that it was unsafe
to post pictures of yourself or of your children.
[Craig speaking]
VANCE: But one day, Craig posted this video.
[Craig speaking]
I was kind of shocked, because I've never
seen him post anything about DJ.
[Craig speaking]
I don't feel like the things that were
being shown on social media were untrue.
They just definitely weren't the whole story.
Shanna wanted to be an amazing mother,
but Craig didn't do anything to help with the baby.
Shanna was having a really hard time getting up
in the middle of the night for nursing DJ.
Craig didn't want her co-sleeping,
but he was okay with the dogs rolling all over the bed.
I think Craig paid more attention and took
better care of their dogs than he did DJ.
Craig didn't do a whole lot of diaper changing.
Shanna was expected to keep up on making dinners.
[baby crying]
She called me in tears once because
she needed Craig to watch the baby.
So he propped the baby in the car seat and put
the baby on the floor and started playing video games
and drinking beer.
[baby crying]
[crying continues]
And even if the baby was crying and wet,
Craig didn't do anything.
NARRATOR: Shanna's parents visit their daughter
in September 2016.
They worry that Shanna isn't herself.
She may have been a bit lonely being there
at the house, doing things pretty much on her own.
[cheers and applause]
Shanna was more feisty before she met Craig.
In high school, she attended the Miss Colorado pageant.
VANCE: She was vibrant, passionate, vivacious.
That girl could not sit still.
RIDDLE: But Shanna toned down quite a bit
after her marriage to Craig.
They took the family selfies.
They looked like a normal family.
But it may have just been a front for
what may have been happening behind the scenes.
When we were up there visiting,
I decided to take the liberty to,
uh, put some shelves up in his garage.
I was afraid with all that mess in there,
something was gonna happen.
Somebody was gonna fall over something.
Craig was sitting there holding the DJ,
and he said, "Never step foot in my garage again."
And I was like, "What? What's going on?"
And Craig says,
"My garage.
My garage."
That was it. I left.
Went back to my room, packed up my bags,
and the next morning, we left.
Some reason, he just seemed a little bit scary.
NARRATOR: Shanna posts photos
and videos on Facebook
to celebrate DJ's one-month birthday.
[Shanna speaking]
VANCE: I would follow Shanna on Facebook to see videos.
[Shanna speaking]
Shanna's excitement at being a mom
blossomed with every milestone that DJ hit.
[Shanna speaking]
[DJ cooing]
I think by this point in their marriage,
DJ was the only thing that brought joy for her.
[Shanna laughing]
SHANNA: Uh-huh.
NARRATOR: Craig, Shanna, and 11-week-old
DJ visit Shanna's family in Colorado.
RIDDLE: I was very happy.
He'd spend his first Thanksgiving
at our house with us.
Shanna seemed happy to be there.
But Craig spent more time in front of the TV.
He brought his own beer, I remember that.
Craig just seemed to me
like just a total different personality.
Shanna was very upset with Craig.
Their relationship,
it didn't feel right at that -- from that moment on, so...
[Craig speaking]
Mmm-wah!
NARRATOR: Three weeks later, Craig records a video
of DJ while Shanna prepares for bed.
[Craig speaking]
I remember getting this video.
[Craig speaking]
It seemed to me like he was trying to show here,
look, I'm playing with my son. I'm a good dad.
[Shanna speaking]
[Craig speaking]
But I see the pictures, the actions.
It's not true. That wasn't his true nature.
[Craig speaking]
[DJ cooing]
The video was almost like a...
just a show.
[Craig speaking]
[DJ cooing]
There was definitely a dichotomy between what
you could see on social media
and what was actually happening.
[Craig speaking]
The light bulb finally popped, and he lied to
all of us about who he was as a person.
[Craig speaking]
[DJ cooing]
[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
At approximately 9:23 p.m.,
the communications center for 911
received an emergency phone call.
[Craig speaking]
[operator speaking]
[Craig speaking]
[operator speaking]
[Craig speaking]
[operator speaking]
-[Craig sobbing] -[operator speaking]
[Craig speaking]
[phone receiver clicks]
[siren wailing]
BARRON: Right around 9:30 p.m.,
the patrol officers confirmed that we do
have two deceased people at this scene,
one being an infant and the other being an adult female.
GALLOWAY: The medical examiner pronounced Shanna
and the baby deceased at 9:50 p.m.
This appeared to be a targeted attack on Shanna and her child.
Both of the victims had cut wounds
on their neck that were extremely deep.
It appeared that it was a very sharp cutting instrument,
cutting from the front to the back of the neck.
BARRON: It was hard for me to initially accept that
somebody could do that to a three-month-old.
This is just evil, and, um...
you just don't see things like that on a regular basis.
RIDDLE: Detective Barron called my cellphone.
You know, I was...
deep state of shock.
First thought, you know, I mean this is
a very, very bad joke.
You know, I just talked to her last night.
VANCE: He told me Shanna and DJ are gone.
I lost it.
ONEY: It was just so hard, how she must have
felt in those -- what last few seconds she had of life.
She should never have felt that way.
BARRON: The 911 call from Craig suggested an intruder
had broken into this home
during the day while he was at work
and that this intruder must have been
in the process of burglarizing the home,
and at some point, decided to
kill Shanna and the baby.
GALLOWAY: Burglars by nature are typically very,
very non-confrontational.
So everything about this particular crime was -- was off.
All of the cabinets and drawers were open in
the kitchen, but on top of
one of the open drawers that was there was
Shanna's purse, which was undisturbed.
There was no murder weapon located,
but there was a closet adjacent to
the bedroom that had guns in it.
If you had a burglar in the house
and he felt compelled to kill those two individuals,
why wouldn't he do it with a gun?
GALLOWAY: Added to that,
we saw what I thought was blood underneath
the countertop on the master bedroom sink.
The presence of those droplets made us believe
that somebody had made an effort to clean up.
And it -- it didn't add up.
[detective speaking]
[Craig speaking]
BARRON: We started to interview Craig shortly after midnight.
I wanted him to give me
some information that could help me
make sense of what had happened.
Who would want to do this?
[detective speaking]
[Craig speaking]
[detective speaking]
I don't remember him expressing a lot
of concern about who could have done this.
Who could have done this to -- to my family.
[detective speaking]
DETECTIVE: Okay.
It seemed odd.
He really wasn't showing any sense of emotion.
[detective speaking]
[Craig speaking]
Craig said that it was just a fairly normal day,
like any other day.
And he had to be at work, I believe, around 11.
[detective speaking]
Um...
[Craig speaking]
DETECTIVE: Uh-huh.
Craig did seem fairly certain of what had happened
that morning, and he was very deliberate in what he told us.
[detective speaking]
And then we ran through a second time.
[detective speaking]
Um...
Craig makes a change in the story that morning
about Shanna.
The first time, he initially said she was asleep,
and then
he does, in fact, say that she's awake
and that she actually engaged him in some degree
of conversation.
[detective speaking]
BARRON: Sometimes people, when they're not being honest,
they'll think about things they said the first time,
and they'll think, "Hm, that didn't sound very good.
Maybe I ought to fix that to this way this time."
Changes in stories are -- are definitely flags.
[detective speaking]
-[Craig speaking] -[detective speaking]
[Craig speaking]
We asked Craig about the relationship
that he had with his wife.
[Craig speaking]
DETECTIVE: Mm-hmm.
BARRON: Craig was trying to sell me on
the fact that, "Our relationship is good.
There's no problems here."
DETECTIVE: Mm-hmm.
GALLOWAY: As we continued to ask Craig kind of about
his relationship, he indicated
there were some concerns over money.
[Craig speaking]
[detective speaking]
CRAIG: Mm-hmm.
DETECTIVE: Okay.
I go a little deeper into his finances.
CRAIG: Umm...
DETECTIVE: Mm-hmm.
BARRON: But contrary to what he told me in the interview,
we find out later, Craig had recently significantly
increased the life insurance.
I believe it was somewhere for a total of around 718,000.
That's a big difference.
GALLOWAY: It was evident after we found out that number
that he was going to financially benefit
from the death of his family.
That certainly contributed as a possible motive to this.
BARRON: The other part that got me suspicious,
in the 911 call,
he does make what I felt like was a very weak attempt
to try to show some emotion.
[Craig speaking]
And then he's right back on task with making sure that it's
understood that he's not there, hasn't been there.
He just came home to this.
[detective speaking]
-CRAIG: Unh-uh. -[detective speaking]
[Craig speaking]
GALLOWAY: We asked Craig if we could have his phone.
We wanted to get a download of his phone to corroborate
what he was saying.
-[detective speaking] -[Craig speaking]
I rarely see someone who has lost a child that will
not give you anything you need to help with
your investigation.
-[Craig speaking] -[detective speaking]
Craig came across kind of egotistical, I think,
um, almost -- very self-centered.
He was more concerned about him than...
anything else that had gone on or was happening at that time...
...to the point where he goes to sleep and starts snoring.
[snores loudly]
So I let him sleep,
[snores loudly]
because we were conducting our search warrant at the time.
I had every available crime scene person in that house.
We had written our search warrant
that morning to include all the vehicles.
One of the things he found in the center console,
there was a latex glove.
It appeared to have been used.
Um, there was...
some degree of some staining of some sort on it.
We ultimately had that tested.
GALLOWAY: But DNA, it takes time to process.
We were obviously very anxious to
see what that was going to reveal.
BARRON: I had requested a full content
search on Craig's phone.
I was interested in his social media accounts.
There was nothing really unusual,
but one of the things that my forensic examiner
was able to tell me was that
the phone had been used to access different dating apps.
He named four or five.
What we found was that he had
been communicating with an ex-girlfriend of his.
BARRON: There was an exchange where he's asking her about
having sex with him or at least trying to make that happen.
GALLOWAY: He was saying that he was unhappy in his marriage.
At one point, he indicated that he had intentions of
serving Shanna with divorce papers
and ending his relationship with her.
BARRON: That image
that he had tried to portray
as them having this great wholesome relationship,
well, now we're starting to see cracks in that.
GALLOWAY: We felt like it was necessary to speak to
the people that worked for Craig and around Craig
at Costco.
They shared a lot of information
that was crucial to the investigation.
Craig said things like he had to drink alcohol
to self medicate and was looking
for a way out of his marriage.
And also, he was very verbal in describing how
he was to receive a large amount of insurance money
if something terrible were to happen to his family.
If he were to stage something like that,
he could become a very wealthy man.
And also, we found out he was 45 minutes late for work
that day -- he showed up about 11:45.
In the course of being late,
he had stopped and I think picked up coffee and bagels
for his employees.
GALLOWAY: And then we found out he parked his vehicle
under a camera.
He made it very evident and had proof to show that
he'd never left the building once he got to work that day.
NARRATOR: At 9:29 p.m.,
Craig comes home from work and calls 911.
BARRON: The significance of that was that,
from our cellphone examinations,
we were able to determine during that time,
Craig's at home.
His phone is never more than 100 meters away
from where this event took place.
By that time, I was pretty well content that he's --
he is, uh, my suspect.
[detective speaking]
[Craig speaking]
NARRATOR: Four days after the murders,
Detective Barron interviews Craig again.
BARRON: I'm fairly focused on Craig at this point.
We know where this is going.
GALLOWAY: But the evidence was proving to be circumstantial.
There wasn't what we call a smoking gun.
-[detective speaking] -[Craig speaking]
And so I wanted Craig to take a polygraph test.
[detective speaking]
-[detective speaking] -[Craig speaking]
[detective speaking]
CRAIG: Uhh...
Umm...
Craig was furious that he was,
uh, in his mind lured up there.
[Craig speaking]
-[Detective speaking] -[Craig speaking]
[Detective speaking]
[Craig speaking]
DETECTIVE: Okay.
And he goes outside, and I watch, and he never comes back.
NARRATOR: Six days after Shanna's murder,
a stranger approaches a clerk at a 7-Eleven in
Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
BARRON: He starts telling the guy how
the government is after him, and that
he's being framed for trying to -- for killing his family.
GALLOWAY: The clerk, he could tell that there was
something very, very strange about this person.
That clerk called 911 to let police know what was going on.
BARRON: Police officers that arrive on scene,
they see the man driving off.
[sirens wailing]
They begin to follow.
[sirens chirp]
He was driving a vehicle without license plates on it.
Officers approached the vehicle.
He was, in fact, uh, Craig Vandewege.
He told officers he was driving to Colorado,
and at one point, he stopped at a convenience store there.
BARRON: I don't know what his intentions were.
I don't know if he felt like
maybe the walls were closing in on him.
The officers, they were suspicious, because there was
a visible AR-15 rifle next to him in the seat.
When he did ultimately get out of the car,
I believe that on his person, he had two additional firearms.
Craig ended up being arrested off of
that particular incident and was taken into custody.
Glenwood Springs, they had enough forethought
to look into what he was saying and said, "Hey,
maybe we ought to let the guys in Fort Worth know about this."
The on-call homicide detective that night,
he called me.
He says, "He's in our jail.
Are y'all wanting him for anything?"
At that point,
I made my decision to act, because I think there's
a chance that,
given his behavior, he could hurt somebody else.
NARRATOR: Craig is extradited to Fort Worth
and charged with two counts of capital murder.
BARRON: At the crime scene, we had searched Craig's vehicle.
One of the things that was
noticed in there was a latex glove.
GALLOWAY: It was tested for DNA evidence.
We had his DNA on the inside of the glove, letting you know
he had worn that glove,
and then we had a blood profile from
the baby on the outside.
GALLOWAY: That was crucial to the investigation.
This proved Craig was responsible
for the murder of his family.
I believe that Craig wanted a lifestyle
that was beyond what he was living.
Money was probably the primary driver
and what he would get out of insurance money.
I think he probably stayed up late that night drinking.
He made the decision
that he would kill her.
If he wanted to be this independent guy out there,
just living the life without a family,
then it's easier to understand why he would
have to kill the child, too.
The child would just weigh him down.
That would be a permanent attachment
to her for the rest of his life.
And so I think the determination
was made then that, well,
I just have to kill them both.
I think he cleaned himself up.
He drove to work -- he was late simply because
he was getting rid of evidence on the way to work.
GALLOWAY: Craig was found guilty of capital murder,
and the sentence that was imposed was
life in prison without the chance of parole.
RIDDLE: When the judge
told him, first emotion I seen out of him...
he finally broke down and actually cried -- for himself.
Self pity.
I would describe Craig Vandewege as a person
who's lacking of any type of moral compass.
He's a narcissist, and he's very determined
to do things that make Craig happy.
He has evil inside of him.
He -- he's an evil man.
RIDDLE: Shanna and Diederik, still got their pictures
on my walls at home.
Still got their pictures at my work.
Birthdays, I'll post a little
something on Facebook in their memory, and...
I think often about the anticipation
of what they could have become.
VANCE: I expected to have a future with her.
It's still really hard when I realize
that future is not even an option anymore.
There are so many things that I miss --
her vibrancy and her hugs.
Shanna didn't give a gentle pat on the back.
You got a bone-crushing...
hug that you could feel down to your soul,
and I'll never get to do that again.