I'm craig melvin
And this is "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
- My poor baby. How could this happen to her?
- He came upon her suddenly in the dead of night.
- Maybe 20 yards away.
I realized it was actually
Somebody actually laying in the road.
- A young woman unconscious, covered in blood.
- What possibly happened to this girl
And why she was out there
In such a strange place all alone.
- We don't know if it's attempted murder
Or if it's just a bad accident.
- Soon, they found a name, a loving family.
- I just remember praying
Like I'd never prayed before in my life.
- But still no answers.
- Somebody did that to her and is not coming forward.
- There was a boyfriend.
- My first impressions were
That he knew exactly what happened.
- But he said he didn't know. Only she could tell them
But her memory of that night was gone.
- There's no words to describe how horrible it was.
♪♪
- Hello and welcome to "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
Kristen grindley was a charmer, adored by family and friends.
Then she was found nearly dead in the middle of the road.
Someone had left her there covered in dirt and blood.
But who? And why?
Detectives knew kristen held the secret
To solving what happened that night.
If only she could remember.
Here's josh mankiewicz with "the mystery on albion road".
- How would it feel to have brutal life-altering injuries
But to have the memories of how you got those injuries
Wiped out the instant you receive them?
How would it feel to have a gulf in your mind
That stands between you and justice?
November 11, 2009, 1:30 a.M., a moonless night
Over the wheat fields outside pullman, washington.
As bob cady drove home from the bar he owns,
Albion road was pitch black and dead quiet.
- As I came up the road,
Initially what I thought I saw in the road
Was somebody's mcdonald's bag
And their drink that they'd thrown out the window.
- Just trash in the road.
- I thought it was trash in the road.
I wasn't going to pull off to the side of the road
And drive around garbage,
I was just going to drive over it.
- But as bob drove closer, he saw the object in the road
Wasn't garbage at all.
- As I got maybe 20 yards away, I realized it was actually
Somebody laying in the road. - A young woman.
She couldn't have been more than 20 or 25 years old,
Bleeding, barefoot, and unconscious.
Bob cady parked his truck sideways in the road
To shield the woman from oncoming cars.
Then he ran down the hill a few hundred yards
Until he could get a cellphone signal.
- I had a pretty strong feeling that she wasn't going to
Be able to lay in the road for very long.
- Speeding up the hill
Were three emergency medical technicians.
- You look at the situation and it almost looks unreal.
Um, she was pretty much covered from head to toe
In dirt, blood.
- She had a very -- very irregular pulse.
It was there, but it was very weak.
- And as they loaded her into an ambulance,
They were full of questions.
- What possibly happened to this girl
And why she was out there in such a strange place
At such a strange time all alone.
- She was only wearing a shirt --
A tee shirt, jeans, and no shoes.
- Sheriff brett myers and his deputies
Arrived on the scene to find a mystery.
- What was the temperature that night?
- Temperature was probably about 35,
Maybe 40 degrees.
So, anybody walking around out there without shoes or a coat,
I mean, that doesn't make sense.
- Doesn't make sense. No.
But we don't know if it's an attempted murder
Or if it's just a bad accident.
All we know is that we have an injured female
In the middle of the road and we have very little evidence.
- But soon, they had her name
Courtesy of a bank card they found in her pocket.
It was issued to kristen grindley
And investigators soon learned there was a recent graduate
Of nearby washington state university
By that name.
They got a phone number for her parents
Rick and pat grindley across the state
In woodinville, washington.
- He said, I'm calling about your daughter
That was in the accident.
- Pat grindley bolted awake. What had happened to kristen?
How badly was she hurt?
- And I just remember screaming, "is she alive?"
- They handed the phone to me and it was a chaplain
With the police department and saying that, you know,
Your daughter's been airlifted to spokane.
And I just remember just, you know,
Praying like I've never prayed before in my life
That, you know, "kristen, hang on,
We're coming." you know, to hang on.
- When the terrified parents finally arrived
At sacred heart hospital,
They were ushered into intensive care.
- It's just shocking.
I mean, you just, I mean, kristen is a very beautiful girl
And then to see her, you know, her hair all cut
And matted with blood.
You know, just seeing your own child
Go through what that pain must have been like was just --
Is impossible for us to-to take.
- I felt like I was going to collapse.
- What was your initial prognosis when kristen came in?
- Pretty guarded.
- Dr. Benjamin ling was the neurosurgeon
Assigned to kristen's case.
- She was in a fairly deep coma.
On her cat scan she did have bruising of her brain.
- And how serious a brain injury is that?
- On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say probably like a 7.
- As kristen lay unconscious in the icu,
Family gathered at her bedside.
Brother patrick, sisters kelly and shannon.
- We got in there and she was --
There was like one inch on her body
That you could touch, like on her arm.
The rest of her body was in bandages.
Bandages... Um...
Blood, cuts, tubes.
- It was just so hard to see her,
But-but overall, more reassuring to see
That she was okay, that she was still breathing.
And, um...
- Every member of the family spent hours
Watching over kristen in those early days.
But one of them never left kristen's side, her mom pat.
- My poor baby.
You know, how could this happen to her?
- Exactly what did happen here is a question
That would consume not just kristen's family
But investigators and prosecutors, as well.
Together, the road rash on her body
And a long trail of blood on the asphalt
Suggest kristen might have been hit by a car
Or fallen from a car or been thrown from a car.
But when kristen was found, there wasn't a vehicle in sight.
If anyone else was involved, they were gone.
- Real simply put,
We knew that somebody else knew what happened.
- I just remember like clinching my fist
Every time I went in there
Because just seeing her like that
And knowing that somebody did that to her
And is not coming forward and is hiding.
- The grindleys were going to do all they could
To make sure whoever hurt kristen
Was found and brought to justice.
- Coming up...
The investigation's key witness, kristen herself,
Was still unconscious and fighting for her life.
- I'd say, "kristen, I just need you to get up
One more time."
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
The grindleys are a close-knit family
Accustomed to gathering for vacations
At their lake house and at concerts
By family favorite jimmy buffett.
Now, they banded together
Around 23-year-old kristen's hospital bed
Praying for a word, even a twitch,
Any sign that she might wake up and pull through.
- There's no words to describe how horrible it was.
You know, all those -- from the time she was born,
It just was flashing through my head.
You know, everything, you know, everything she had done and...
- Kristen elizabeth grindley,
Pat and rick grindley's second child,
Had been a handful from the start.
- When she first started to walk,
She would get up on her - on her feet
And then she would just run.
- The determined toddler grew into a confident young woman.
- Upbeat, friendly, outgoing. - Vivacious.
- Uh, charismatic. - Positive.
- Hilarious.
- Kristen was always at the center
Of a big group of friends,
Always up for fun and on top of the trends.
- And when "twilight" came out, we had, like,
This obsession with it.
- We all got into "twilight" face
With myspace because of kristen.
- In her senior year at washington state,
Kristen started dating a fellow student
Named richard pasma.
He was her first steady boyfriend
And kristen fell hard.
- What was she saying about this guy?
- Um, that, you know, how great he was
And that she really liked him and, um...
- It was nice to hear her that excited about a guy.
- It was.
- They were attached at the hip from the very beginning.
She wanted to marry him and have kids with him
And they started planning their future,
Like talked about getting married right away.
- Now, just a year later, this once lively,
Loving young woman lay motionless
In a hospital bed.
Rick grindley thought back to his daughter
As a strong-willed toddler.
- That's all I remember is like telling her,
As I stood over her, saying,
"kristen, I just need you to get up,
You know, one more time."
- Family and friends started a facebook page for kristen,
Hoping she would somehow feel the love
They poured onto the screen.
In the hospital gift shop,
Her sisters bought a stuffed panda bear,
One of kristen's favorite animals.
But kristen didn't notice the toy,
So they clutched it themselves
On the nights when it was their turn
To watch over their sister's bedside.
- You could tell that it was like
When she'd go through, like, spurts of pain or something,
She would -- it sounded like
She'd hold her breath or something.
- About a week into kristen's hospital stay,
Rick first saw a glimmer of life on his daughter's face.
- And, you know, I bent over really closely
And I said, "kristen, what was that?"
And she just said, "hurts."
- Gradually, painfully, kristen grindley
Was fighting her way back to consciousness.
- And kristen turned her head around to me
And she was like, "hi, sissy", and smiled.
- She goes, "I love you, mommy."
And I just -- I started to cry.
It was-it was an amazing feeling.
- Soon, kristen could utter a few more phrases.
It became clear to the grindleys that her memory was shaky.
She remembered who she was but not too much else.
In those early days, they didn't press it.
The important thing was kristen's palpable determination
To get better.
- Kristen's swift recovery was surprising to her doctors
Here at sacred heart
And thrilling to her family and friends.
But sheriff's investigators
Were also keeping track of her progress,
Waiting for a sign that kristen's memory was returning.
They knew the truth about what happened
Out on albion road that night
Remained locked somewhere inside her mind.
- We want her to pull through and we would love to
Have her information, if she has it.
- But as kristen regained her strength
And her voice,
The gaps in her memory became more noticeable.
- And I remember, you know, talking with her
And saying, "kristen, do you know where you are?"
And she'd say, "no."
And then I'd say, "you're in spokane."
And she'd say -- I'd say, "repeat it."
And she'd repeat it.
And I'd go out for a cup of coffee
And come back 10 minutes later and say,
"kristen, do you know where you are?"
And she'd say, "no."
- How would sheriff myers ever piece together
What had happened that night on albion road,
Considering that kristen couldn't even remember
Where she was from one minute to the next?
It makes your job, what, 10 times more difficult
When the actual victim doesn't remember
Anything about the crime?
- It made this case very difficult.
- Kristen's family and friends prayed her memory would heal
But with all the support for her
In the hospital room and online,
There was one person who hadn't visited, called,
Or posted on the facebook page.
Someone you might expect to be there at her bedside,
Kristen's boyfriend richard pasma.
Did he know anything about what had happened
The night kristen was found bruised, bleeding, and alone
In the middle of albion road?
- Who was the man in kristen's life?
Family and friends shared troubling secrets
About her boyfriend and their rocky relationship.
Coming up...
- One time he locked her out.
And I remember her just crying and telling me about it.
And so, she didn't want me to tell our parents.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Twenty-three-year-old kristen grindley
Was inching her way back to health
After a mysterious accident in the dead of night.
But all her memories of that event
Had been wiped away
By the serious brain injury she'd suffered.
Richard pasma, the young man with whom
Kristen had once shared her heart,
Hadn't come to see her in the hospital.
And now, those close to kristen
Wanted to know if the man kristen had once called
The love of her life had something to do with
What was almost the end of her life.
- Like, I had like a gut, like, I can't explain it.
I don't know why, just this gut feeling
In my stomach that, like, something wasn't okay.
- Richard had become the center of kristen's world
Almost from the moment they met at a popular campus bar.
He was a tall, slim engineering student
With an interest in politics
And big ambitions for the future.
For kristen, his intensity sparked a powerful attraction.
- They started dating and we never saw her.
- Kaitlyn, kristen's college roommate
And best friend, says that as soon as
The romance started, kristen pulled away
From everyone except richard.
- None of our best friends that were there, like,
Every year through college,
None of us really were friends with her
Because she never wanted to leave him.
- Retreating from the world to spend time
With a new love isn't unusual, of course,
But kristen's friends say her boyfriend
Was unusually possessive.
- He was upset with pictures on her facebook page
And he sat her down and made her go through
And delete pictures with her
That had other men in the picture,
Other boys in the picture, because he didn't like that.
- In the fall of 2008,
About six weeks into the relationship,
Kristen's dad came to visit the new couple
For dad's weekend.
- Friday night party, he didn't show up.
Breakfast the next day, he didn't show up.
We then tracked him down before the football game
And he decided,
"no, I don't really want to go to the game."
So-so, it was, you know, he came across to me
As a bit immature.
- Kristen's mom pat says her daughter
Called home devastated.
- Crying on the phone, very upset
That she didn't understand why he wouldn't want to meet,
You know, her dad.
And-and I said,
"it doesn't sound like he's the person for you."
- And she said you're right or you don't understand him?
- I don't remember what she said, but, um,
I just got the feeling
That she liked him enough to continue.
- Part of being a parent is watching your kids grow up
And-and watching them make choices that
Maybe you wouldn't have made. - Absolutely.
- So, you grit your teeth and say, okay,
She's dating richard. - Right.
- But it may have been worse than pat knew.
Kristen started to confide
Alarming details of her relationship
To her sister shannon.
- One time, he locked her out of his house
And she ended up having to walk
All the way back to her apartment.
And I remember her just calling me the next morning
And just like crying and telling me about it
As if she didn't want me to tell our parents.
- Shannon kept her sister's confidence
And kristen and richard seemed to grow closer.
In the spring of 2009, they moved in together
To a small home just off campus.
Around that same time,
During a visit with the grindley family,
Pat says richard once lost his temper
When she and rick wouldn't let him drive
After an afternoon of drinking.
- He pretty much blew up at --
There were four of us adults there
And my friends were just floored.
- Clearly, kristen's family and friends had disliked
And mistrusted her boyfriend from the start.
Could that be the reason he hadn't come to visit her
In the hospital? Or was there something more?
Was it possible that richard pasma
Had something to do with the events of November 11, 2009,
The night kristen was found on albion road?
That question fell to sheriff brett myers.
From that first night, the sheriff knew
The first person he needed to talk with
Was richard pasma.
- So, you get to the house. - Um-hmm.
- And you meet richard pasma? - We did meet richard pasma.
- The sheriff's conversation with kristen's boyfriend
Would start at the couple's home
And continue in an interrogation room.
- Coming up...
- The boyfriend's version of the events
Of that horrific night. - Where did he say he was?
- He said he had been out on albion road.
- Albion road where kristen was found?
- Right.
- But was he the one who left her there?
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
I'm craig melvin.
Kristen grindley could not remember
How she wound up unconscious in the middle of the road.
Loved ones wondered if her boyfriend richard pasma
Was involved.
Police were about to talk to him and also someone else
Who had their own version of events.
Here again is josh mankiewicz
With "the mystery on albion road".
- From the time kristen opened her eyes
And uttered her first words, her progress was astounding.
Here she is just six week after
She arrived at the hospital unconscious.
She's smiling, moving, answering questions.
- What's today? - The 31st on a Thursday.
- All right.
- Things most of us take for granted.
But for kristen grindley, each felt like a little miracle.
By now, kristen was recuperating at st. Luke's,
An inpatient rehabilitation facility.
Videos posted on facebook chronicled her progress.
Kristen exercising,
Playing games to strengthen eye/hand coordination.
Simple tasks, but with kristen's injuries,
They required grueling effort.
- You're doing great, honey. - Thanks, pops.
Love ya. - Love you, too.
- January just seemed like a cloud lifted off of her
And all of a sudden, she was --
Started asking questions like, "why am I here?"
- Now, when kristen searched for the life she had lived,
She had only shards of memories seen through a haze.
She asked her family for reminders,
Seeking out treasured pieces of the past.
They brought her dog, coda, to st. Luke's
For an enthusiastic reunion.
There was one part of the past
Kristen seemed much less excited about,
Her old boyfriend, richard pasma.
The love kristen had felt for him so strongly
Now seemed to have vanished along with her memory.
- She said, "yeah, I'm gonna break up with that guy.
I don't like that guy. I'm gonna break up with him."
- She kept saying,
"I need to break up with that dude."
Finally, I said, "honey, who's --
"who are you talking about?"
And she said, "richard.
"I hate him, I need to break up with him."
That was the very first time
That she even mentioned his name.
- But richard pasma's name
Had been at the center of the investigation
By whitman county sheriff brett myers
Ever since the night of November 11.
Just a few hours after kristen was found,
The sheriff was in the doorway of the couple's home
Sizing up her live-in boyfriend.
- First impressions of richard pasma.
- First impressions are big in law enforcement.
And my first impressions were that, uh,
He knew exactly what happened.
- He didn't say that he knew what happened.
- No, he didn't.
- In fact, richard told the sheriff
He'd been out searching for kristen.
He said he had no clue where she was.
And so, the sheriff broke the news
That kristen had been airlifted to a hospital
In critical condition.
- He was overly concerned about kristen
But yet his emotions didn't really match
The level of concern that he was presenting.
It was almost like a really poor acting job.
- Not possible that this was just richard's way of reacting
To some bad news?
- That's always possible,
But we knew we needed to speak with him.
- Sheriff myers brought richard back to the station
For questioning.
He says he smelled alcohol on richard's breath.
Richard acknowledged right off
That he and kristen had been arguing that day.
- They had kind of this argumentative relationship.
- Stormy? - And-- yeah,
It was stormy at times.
- That evening, richard said they'd gone out separately.
When he came back home, he said,
Kristen started to fight again.
So, at 1:30 a.M.,
He got in his truck and left the house alone.
- He indicated he had reached over
And locked the car and looked over his shoulder.
And as he pulled away, he said she was in that doorway.
- Richard said he went out four-wheeling,
Driving fasts on rural roads to blow off some steam.
- Where did he say he was?
- He said he had been out on albion road.
- Albion road where kristen was found?
- Right.
- Dashboard video from police cars in the area
Backed up that part of the story.
Here's richard's truck driving right past the spot
Where kristen was found minutes after
The ambulance had taken her away.
And richard told the sheriff something odd happened
When he returned home after 2 a.M.
Richard said he had heard someone throwing around
The recycling bins in his front yard,
And he went downstairs, he says, to tell kristen.
He said it was only then that he realized she wasn't home.
He woke her friend kaitlyn who was staying over that night,
And the two of them went searching in vain for kristen.
Had vandals really been in the yard that night?
The sheriff sent deputies back to richard's house
To check it out.
- The recycling bins did not appear to have been moved.
Still covered with leaves,
Did not appear to have been moved again.
- Why tell a story that could be so easily disproven?
- I think he's just trying to explain why it couldn't be him
And why he, in the middle of the night,
Decided to start looking for kristen.
- It was the first solid clue backing up the sheriff's hunch
That richard pasma knew more than he was telling.
An even bigger clue came from kristen's friend kaitlyn.
She told sheriff's deputies
That while she and richard searched for kristen that night,
He told her over and over he was scared
Kristen could have been in the bed of his truck.
It was a very different story
Than the one he was telling the cops.
- An hour before we interviewed him,
He's telling kaitlyn that he's afraid
She fell out of the back of the vehicle.
- And then when you interview him, he's saying
There's no way she could have been in the vehicle.
- Doesn't even bring it up.
Absolutely never even mentions that there's a possibility
That she could have fallen out while he was four-wheeling.
When we offered that up to him as a plausible explanation,
He refuted it and said there's no way.
- After about 40 minutes of questioning,
Richard asked to speak to a lawyer.
The interview was over.
But the criminal investigation was just beginning.
That same night, the sheriff ran a routine check
On kristen grindley's name on a police database.
- Anything interesting about kristen's previous contacts
With law enforcement?
- There was one contact
That she had had with campus police.
She had, uh, been the victim
In a domestic violence situation.
- University police made an arrest in that case,
Kristen's boyfriend richard pasma.
According to the April 2009 report,
An officer in a university parking lot
Had heard a couple screaming at each other on a stairway.
"I saw pasma strike grindley with a fully-extended right arm
And open hand across her face,"
The officer wrote.
"grindley recoiled in shock.
"I heard the sound of his hand hitting her face
From approximately 20 feet."
Kristen's mom hadn't known a thing about that incident.
But looking back, she says
It confirmed suspicions she'd had all along,
Suspicions she had asked kristen about
In the months before she was injured.
- I came right out and asked her numerous times,
"does he hit you?"
- And she would say... - No.
- And you believed her.
- Um, no.
I-I just had a feeling.
- For sheriff myers,
The report that richard had been arrested
For slapping kristen was a jarring discovery.
But it didn't prove a thing.
- Just because someone has been arrested
For domestic violence prior
Doesn't necessarily mean that, uh, they're guilty
Of a heinous crime.
- Had richard committed a heinous crime
On the night of November 11, 2009?
Or was there some other explanation
For how kristen ended up unconscious on albion road?
And without her memories to add to the case,
Would the sheriff be able to piece together the answers
And find justice for kristen?
A dramatically different theory
About what happened that night.
- Unfortunately,
The person that caused kristen grindley's injuries
Was kristen grindley.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Two and a half months after kristen grindley was found
Clinging to life on albion road,
She finally moved out of a medical facility
And back to her parent's house in woodinville, washington.
- Oh, my gosh! [cheering]
- Having her home was, of course, a blessing,
But kristen's parents wouldn't rest easy
Until someone was held accountable for her injuries.
To the grindley family,
Everything pointed to richard pasma:
Their old suspicions about his behavior
During the romance,
The domestic violence arrest back in April 2009,
And his evasive answers in that interview with the sheriff
The night kristen was hurt.
- Oh, my god, what did he do to her?
- What did he do to her? - Um-hmm.
- Couldn't have been an accident.
- Never.
- The grindleys suspected
Richard had thrown kristen from his pickup truck
Or even injured her elsewhere
And then dumped her on albion road.
They waited anxiously for the results
Of the sheriff's investigation,
Hoping for a charge they considered tough enough.
- What would be enough?
- Uh, attempted murder.
- But tim esser, the prominent local attorney
Richard hired the night he was first questioned
Says there was no reason
To charge his client with anything.
And you might be surprised where he does place the blame.
- Unfortunately,
The person that caused kristen grindley's injuries
Was kristen grindley.
- To understand what happened the night of November 11, 2009,
Esser says you need to know a side of this couple
That you haven't heard from kristen's friends and family.
- Do you think richard loves kristen?
- I kind of think he does.
- He says it wasn't by choice that richard stayed away
From his injured girlfriend's bedside.
- He wanted to contact her.
The sheriff told him not to.
His parents contacted, uh, them
And, uh, mr. Grindley told them
Don't ever contact us again.
- Esser says the claims richard was controlling,
Even violent, are way off base.
He says kristen was the one
Who couldn't walk away from a fight.
And sheriff myers says some of the couple's friends
Said the same thing.
- If you'd interview friends on one side, of course,
The friends would say that, uh, that the other one
In the relationship was difficult
And liked to fight
And would be jealous and accusatory.
- His friends said that about her and her friends...
- His friends... - And her friends
Said that about him. - Exactly.
- But what about that April 2009 incident
When a police officer in the campus parking lot
Saw richard slap kristen on the face hard?
Esser says there's another side to that story too.
- An arrest is different then a charge.
That arrest never led to a charge.
- In fact, it was kristen
Who asked to have the charges dropped
Saying she had started the fight.
- Kristen blamed herself
And said she actually hit richard first.
- Absolutely.
- And so, what? Therefore, it's okay to hit--
For him to hit her back? - No, I-I'm not saying it's--
Of course it's not okay to slap someone back.
But, uh, you know, it's presented that
There's an abusive relationship and he's the abuser.
I don't think that's accurate.
- As for the events of November 11,
Esser says again it was kristen who provoked a conflict.
He says she was being unreasonable that day,
Objecting to richard's father coming to stay with them,
Even though he owned the house they were living in.
After the couple parted around noon,
Esser says kristen wouldn't let it drop.
- From about 12 noon
Until about 1 a.M. The next morning,
12, 13-hour period,
She made I think something like 113 phone calls and...
- She called richard 113 times?
- Yeah.
- Characterize somebody who calls their boyfriend
113 times in one day.
- How would you characterize her?
- I'm not the attorney in this case.
- I-I think it's pretty obvious.
- It sounds frantic.
It sounds immature.
It sounds like the kind of thing kids do.
It also, I guess, could sound obsessive.
- I wouldn't disagree with that.
- Esser's focus on kristen's behavior
Isn't, he says, meant as character assassination.
It's at the heart of his theory
Of what caused her injuries.
She was so obsessive, esser says,
That when richard came home late at night,
She started the argument for a third time.
So obsessive that when he tried to go for a drive in his pickup,
She sneaked into the back without him knowing it.
- She somehow managed to climb into to back of that pickup,
The bed, and somehow managed to fall out.
- She must have fallen out, esser says,
While richard was coasting along albion road,
Still not realizing she was in the truck.
He says perhaps she fell because she tried to stand
And was unsteady on her feet.
Kristen's blood alcohol level,
Tested when she arrived at the hospital,
Showed she had been drinking that evening.
Her family says that played no role in her injury.
Esser says it did play a role.
The attorney acknowledges
His version of what happened that night is unusual.
- We're trying to show that something happened
That is pretty bizarre.
- And to support that,
Esser had a powerful piece of evidence,
A letter kristen wrote to richard
Shortly before she was hurt.
"I know I have a problem", kristen wrote.
"I need to control my alcohol consumption,
And I need to learn to walk away from a fight."
She promises to fix a list of things:
Her drinking, her temper, yelling, and fighting.
- We thought it was pretty significant.
- Even more significant, esser says,
Is the lack of physical evidence against his client.
The sheriff and his team had spent months
Combing through richard's truck,
The house he shared with kristen,
And the scene on albion road,
But they'd come up with no blood spatters,
No marks on her clothing, nothing at all to show
That kristen had been in the back of the truck that night
Or that richard had hurt kristen in any way.
- There's no evidence that he caused, uh, the occurrence.
- No evidence that he caused her to fall from the truck
Or that he threw her out of the truck
Or that he did anything overtly to her at all.
- Correct.
- Despite all that,
Sheriff brett myers wasn't calling off
His investigation of richard pasma.
A few months after kristen returned home,
Myers told her family he was prepared
To bring charges against kristen's former boyfriend.
- But what could those charges be?
And what does kristen herself say about that night?
- You want to remember what happened that night.
- I do.
- Even though it might end up being
A pretty unpleasant memory.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
While rick and pat grindley waited to see
Whether richard pasma would stand trial
For playing a role in their daughter's severe injuries,
Kristen was facing daily trials of her own...
- Have you been doing some cooking at home?
I know that's been a goal of yours.
- Um, I've just been helping.
- ...Relearning the everyday tasks
That can overwhelm someone with brain damage.
At that time, kristen didn't have the cognitive skills
To drive or hold down a job,
And her emotions were sometimes muted.
- And it's just so great to have kristen healthy
And back with us.
- But in July 2010,
Eight months after the accident,
She and her parents felt kristen was well enough
To sit down with me and talk about what she did
And didn't remember.
How are you? - I'm doing great.
I'm doing good.
- Kristen was alert and engaged, though there were clearly
Pieces of her past she couldn't recall.
What's the first thing you remember
After the night of November 11 of last year?
- I remember, like, waking up, and I was talking to my dad
About, um, like where I was and what I was doing.
- Just like a movie when you wake up and say,
Where am I or what happened?
- The first thing I asked him was, um,
I believe, like, where am I?
You know, like, why am I here?
- All that time later, kristen could only remember
Fragments of her life in the weeks and months
Leading up to November 11, 2009.
- And I kept thinking I didn't graduate.
And I kept telling my parents I have to go back to school
To, um, complete it.
And they're like, no, you graduated.
I was like, how did I forget that?
- Some of kristen's memories of her year-long relationship
With richard pasma were fuzzy too.
- What did you like about him?
- Um...
I actually can't remember that really. Um...
- Kristen said she did remember richard hitting her
In that school parking lot in April 2009.
But what about richard's claim,
Which she backed up at the time, that she hit him first?
- Do you still think that's true,
What you told police at the time, that--
That richard hit you because you had hit him?
- Um, like I-- I do think that happened,
And I don't think that happened. But I think we were arguing.
So, I think that's kind of, like, what led to the slap.
- As for November 11, 2009,
The night that left a hole in kristen grindley's life,
She told me she couldn't remember a thing.
You want to remember what happened that night.
- I do.
- Even though it might end up
Being a pretty unpleasant memory.
- Yeah. I mean, it would stink, but, um, I would--
I would, like, just so I can, like,
Remem-- I mean, just remember it.
I think would...
- You want to know. - Just to know, yeah.
- By now, sheriff myers had spent months
On his investigation.
But with kristen's memory of the event gone,
Seemingly forever,
And with no physical evidence to show richard had hurt her,
The sheriff had reached a dead end.
However, as he reviewed his files,
The sheriff kept coming back
To richard's two inconsistent stories,
His puzzling statement to kristen's friend kaitlyn
That just maybe kristen had climbed
Into the back of his pickup without him realizing it
And his claim to the sheriff that he'd watched kristen
Standing in the doorway as he pulled away.
So, for richard's stories to both be true,
He would have had to be able to look at her,
See her in the doorway,
Then the minute he looks away she runs forward
And secretly hides in the bed of his truck.
- Somehow, she's got to be able
To jump in the back of that truck,
Crouch down without being detected.
Just doesn't fit.
- She'd have to know how to fly.
- She pretty much would have to, yeah.
- The sheriff and his team studied that truck
And richard's story from every angle.
They concluded
That kristen must have been in the truck that night,
That richard knew she was there,
And that he knew she hit the pavement
With his truck cruising at high speed.
They were convinced he left her lying there
Hovering near death without so much as tapping his finger
Three times to call 911.
Maybe richard fled the scene
Because he'd somehow pushed her from the truck.
Or maybe he was driving drunk when she tumbled out of the back
And he feared a blood alcohol test.
Investigators and prosecutors weren't sure
Exactly how their victim had been hurt
But they didn't need a definitive answer
To make their next move.
- Criminal charges have been filed in the case
Of a wsu graduate injured and left for dead last year.
- In the summer of 2010,
After an eight-month investigation,
Richard pasma was booked, fingerprinted,
And charged with a felony.
It was a very long way from the attempted murder charge
Once contemplated by kristen's family.
Richard stood accused
Of leaving the scene of an injury accident,
Punishable by up to five years in prison.
- What did you think when richard was charged?
- I started crying, and I thought
That the charges weren't enough.
- Still, the grindleys hoped that during a trial
They might learn more details
Of what happened to their daughter.
But that's not how things unfolded.
Just ten days before the trial date,
Richard pasma came into the courtroom
Not to face a jury of his peers but to enter a plea.
In washington state it's called an alford plea.
And under that agreement,
Richard did not admit wrongdoing.
In fact, he once again maintains
That as far as he knew,
Kristen was never in his truck that night.
But he acknowledged there was sufficient evidence
For a jury to find him guilty of knowing kristen was injured
And not calling for help.
- She was not conscious at the time.
She was bleeding from her head and other injuries.
- As part of their plea deal, the prosecution dropped
Their request for the exceptional sentence
Of five years.
The sentencing hearing in November 2010
Was the first time kristen grindley
And richard pasma were in the same room
Since the night a year earlier
When their romance came to an abrupt,
Terrifying, and violent end.
- I hope someday richard confronts what he did to me
And gets help.
Until he admits that he has to change
And get his anger under control,
I fear that he will hurt others as he did to me.
- Richard pasma was the last to speak at sentencing.
He had never talked publicly about the case,
And he declined "dateline's" request for an interview.
Because he was taking the alford plea,
Essentially pleading no contest rather than guilty,
He didn't take responsibility
For what happened on albion road.
And if the grindleys had been hoping to hear
Words of remorse, they were disappointed.
- Richard was sentenced to nine months in jail.
Kristen grindley will likely be dealing
With the injuries she suffered on November 11, 2009,
For the rest of her life.
But she keeps her focus on the good things ahead.
Do you think of yourself as lucky?
- Um-hmm.
- Because you're here.
- Yeah.
I'm just very happy that I'm okay.
- And that's all for this edition
Of "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
I'm craig melvin. Thank you for watching.