This was the most horrific crime in Lewis County’s history.
[Det. Bruce Kimsey] Ed and Minnie Maurin were treasures of the community.
It’s not normal for them to go and disappear.
[William Halstead] Law enforcement gets into the car
and they discover a large amount of blood.
They were both the victims of a cold-blooded,
execution-style double homicide.
Everybody’s calling in saying, "It looks like this person, it looks like that person."
They were maybe 300 suspects.
Minnie and Ed’s grandson fit the bill for a suspect in this case.
[Halstead] She had a criminal history and extreme drug use.
[Kimsey] They were known for fighting, abuse, domestic assaults.
[Det. David Neiser] He had been bragging about how he had killed them.
[gun fires]
This is the tip. This is everything we’ve been waiting for.
[Keira Stockdale] This blows the case wide open.
[narrator] Every day, in North America, dozens of people are murdered.
The key to solving the toughest of these homicides
lies in the final 24 hours of the victim’s life.
To crack the case,
detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline.
The minutes and hours containing evidence
that can help unlock the mystery and catch the killer.
Lewis County, Washington.
A rough and tumble logging community
built up around the small town haven of Chehalis.
[Neiser] Lewis County is a rural county
which is located almost exactly halfway between Seattle and Portland.
It’s primarily agriculture, timber, farming, that type of thing.
[Halstead] Chehalis is a small tight-knit community
specially back in the 80s, where most people knew each other.
But the outskirts of Chehalis was more of the wild west.
There wasn’t a lot of law enforcement out in those areas.
And so, I think, people tended to take
matters into their own hands a little bit more.
[Neiser] Lewis County itself didn’t have that many violent crimes.
And when we did, it was a major thing to us,
and we would all concentrate on it.
[narrator] As the townsfolk prepare to usher in another holiday season,
a mysterious disappearance shakes Chehalis.
-[phone ringing] -[Kimsey] On December 19th, 1985, 10:30 am,
Shirley Hadaller gets a phone call about her parents Ed and Minnie Maurin.
Ed is 81 years old at the time and Minnie is 83 years old.
Ed and Minnie, every year, hosted a Christmas social
with all their friends from church.
And on this particular day,
people were showing up and nobody could find Ed and Minnie Maurin.
[Neiser] This is not like them at all.
They were very conservative, they were very punctual.
[Kimsey] Shirley and some other family members go over to the house.
They notice that the curtains are shut, doors were locked.
Ed and Minnie’s 1969 green Chrysler Newport is not in the driveway.
When the family members gain entry and they start looking around,
they notice that things were definitely not correct.
They can see the purse that was covered with newspapers.
It looked like someone actually hid the purse
because of something going on.
[Halstead] Shirley and the family members are obviously worried.
because they know their parents
and they know something’s amiss.
They began to call friends,
they’d drive the roads around the house and other areas.
And after they’ve exhausted all their resources,
Shirley makes the decision to call 911 at 6:05 pm that evening.
[narrator] The missing couple are prominent, hard-working seniors,
Ed and Minnie Maurin.
Ed and Minnie Maurin were an elderly, retired couple.
Very well-known in the community,
they loved playing cards with friends, going to church.
Just good, wholesome people.
Ed and Minnie Maurin owned a large piece of property next to their house.
And that they had allowed that to be leased for Christmas tree farming.
They were extremely kind, helped people all the time.
They sounded like everybody’s ideal grandparents.
[narrator] Working Ed and Minnie Maurin’s suspicious disappearance
is Lewis County detective, David Neiser.
[Neiser] The family called them in as missing people.
When that happened in Lewis County,
the entire resources of the sheriff’s office
were immediately focused on this case.
[Michael Arntfield] When a person goes missing, much less two people,
and of a more senior age,
one of the things you’re gonna look for at the residence is,
obviously, signs of a struggle.
Valuables missing,
evidence of some kind of disruption
in what would otherwise be a pretty predictable day-to-day life.
Detectives start coming,
and they know once they get there, there’s a problem.
They saw a shoebox with a bunch of bank statements and invoices
that were laying on the bathroom floor.
When deputies were seeing the purse with the newspaper over it,
and shoebox with bank statements,
they’re thinking that something went bad here.
[Halstead] And then, their car is missing.
Not to mention, the fact that they didn’t notify any of their family members
that they would’ve left for some reason.
All led law enforcement to believe that they’ve got what appears to be a burglary
or possible kidnapping.
[narrator] With the house offering few clues as to the Maurins’ whereabouts,
investigators turn to the family.
They begin with the Maurins’ daughter, Hazel.
[Halstead] Hazel spoke with her mom on December 18th at about 6:30 in the evening.
Had quite a long discussion with her.
[Kimsey] Hazel told the detectives that
her mom was excited about the Christmas social they’re having the next day.
And she didn’t seem like anything was wrong,
or if there was a problem at the time.
On December 19th, the guests for the party arrived around 10:30 am.
When the guests arrive, the house is empty.
Nobody is answering the door.
[Kimsey] When the family members gain entry in the home,
that’s about noon,
and they call 911 about 6:05 pm.
They report that Ed and Minnie Maurin were missing.
[Halstead] So, in any kidnapping case, the longer the event goes on,
the more likely something bad is going to happen
to the individual who’s been taken.
[Kimsey] You only have so much time.
You gotta find these people as quickly as possible.
The next morning, on December 20th about 7:30 in the morning,
a person called to report that a 1969 Chrysler Newport
was parked in one of the corners of the Yard Birds parking lot.
Back in 1980s,
Yard Birds was like the big monster box store.
[Neiser] It’s found in the middle of a vacant parking lot.
Pretty obvious, someone placed the vehicle there and left it,
where it wouldn’t be noticed by a lot of people.
That was suspicious.
[Halstead] Law enforcement gets into the car,
and they discover a large amount of what appears to be blood
on the front seat,
as well as little pellets that are consistent with shotgun shell pellets.
[Neiser] We then began to think the worst.
It was obvious something very bad had happened in that vehicle.
We didn’t know where the Maurins were.
They had not been found yet.
Just their car.
And if there’s blood in the vehicle and this is their car,
this is not good.
[narrator] To solve the suspected kidnapping and murder
of Ed and Minnie Maurin,
detectives will need to unravel the 24 hours before they were last seen.
They begin by asking employees at Yard Birds shopping center
if they witnessed anything unusual in the parking lot on December 19th.
When employees were on their lunch break around noon, on the 19th,
they had seen a white male with brownish colored hair, long hair,
and described this individual walking away from the area
where the Maurins’ vehicle was located,
carrying what appeared to be a long rifle
that was covered up by some sort of a small blanket.
[Kimsey] The witnesses said he in his 20s,
and he’s about 5’10", thin,
looks like he’s wearing a green army jacket, a stocking cap,
blue jeans, logger boots.
[Neiser] This person came from the vicinity of the car,
and he was out of place, and carrying a firearm.
So we had to think that he could be involved.
So we had a sketch done with an artist,
hoping that someone might recognize the sketch.
[narrator] With a sketch of the Maurins’ possible killer in hand,
the sheriff’s department leads a search for Minnie and Ed.
[Halstead] They were searching everywhere.
All the roads, the ditches, it was extensive.
It went on for days
with the hope that they would find the Maurins.
[Kimsey] The terrain is difficult.
It takes a lot of people to cover this kinda ground in searching.
Unfortunately, it’s a needle in the haystack.
[narrator] Then, at 9:00 am on Christmas Eve,
five days after Minnie and Ed were taken,
a call comes in that turns the Maurin case on its head.
[Kimsey] A man was driving around on a logging route.
Comes across, what he thinks at the time,
is one of those store mannequins.
And so, he approaches it,
and gets up closer and notices that this is a body.
He immediately reports it to the first house that he comes across.
[Neiser] Detectives immediately responded
and found the body of Minnie Maurin.
Across from where her body was found
was the body of Ed Maurin.
They appeared to have been shot in the back and the neck area.
That’s what killed both of them.
[Kimsey] The victims were shot with a double buckshot
It does cause severe damage to the tissue.
And this would cause a lot of bleeding.
And really, a horrific thing for the detectives to see as well.
[Neiser] It’s just such a senseless crime.
Defenseless old people are murdered,
and then dumped like garbage along the road.
This was the most horrific crime in Lewis County’s history.
[Arntfield] They were both the victims of a cold-blooded,
execution-style double homicide.
When police realized it was a double-aught buckshot shell
they know they’re dealing with a 12-gauge shotgun.
Considering the rural logging community, where these murders occurred,
that would actually not be an unusual weapon for many people to possess,
which makes narrowing down who owned that weapon
and who used it on Ed and Minnie
all the more difficult.
Who would want to target and murder this beloved couple?
[narrator] Five days after Minnie and Ed Maurin were kidnapped from their home,
their bodies have been found on a quiet logging route
on the edge of the small town of Chehalis, Washington.
[gunshots fires]
[Kimsey] When the detectives are processing the scene of Ed and Minnie,
they’re coming up with some theories of what occurred.
[Halstead] It’s believed, based upon the evidence
with regard to the blood in the vehicle,
as well as the pellets that were found in the vehicle,
that both Ed and Minnie were shot in their own car,
and then pulled out of the car.
The detectives go through Ed’s clothing,
they find a blood-soaked bank receipt.
The withdrawal statement has the date of December 19th in the amount of $8,500.
[Kimsey] The detectives started to theorize what occurred.
It looks like a home invasion.
The suspects involved in this case
would assume that Ed and Minnie Maurin were wealthy
because they had a beautiful, little farmhouse on a hundred-and-something acres.
[Halstead] It’s a reasonably safe assumption that they were kidnapped
and taken to the bank, and forced to withdraw this cash.
And then eventually, killed as a result of it.
[Kimsey] Detectives believed the murders occurred
in the morning hours of December 19th
because the Maurins’ car was dropped off on the 19th.
[Arntfield] They seem to have been kidnapped and then killed
in service to some financially motivated murder scheme.
Police are now looking for a man in his 20s, desperate for cash.
Given the nature of this tough town,
this killer may already be known to police.
[narrator] Armed with the theory of the murder,
detectives questioned the bank teller who helped Ed on December 19th,
the day the Maurins were kidnapped.
[Halstead] The bank teller informs law enforcement
that Ed called the bank on December 19th
between 9:30 and 10:00 in the morning
requesting $8,500 be ready for him when he was going to come in and pick it up.
So, Ed arrived at the bank at approximately 10:30 am on December 19th.
[Kimsey] The bank teller not accustomed to seeing Ed do the financials
starts questioning Mr. Maurin about where’s his wife, Minnie.
Ed said, "Well, she’s out in the car. She’s not feeling well."
[Halstead] When Ed leaves the bank
the teller went outside to say hi to Minnie.
Ed had parked quite always from the front doors to the bank.
The teller can see what she thought was another individual
other than Minnie, in the vehicle.
But the windows were a little fogged up,
so she couldn’t tell who it was.
[narrator] Realizing the suspect was in the car with the Maurins,
detectives begin processing the vehicle,
hoping forensic evidence will help them identify the mystery passenger.
When the processed the vehicle forensically,
they found a lot of fingerprints.
They found Ed and Minnie Maurin’s fingerprints.
And then, they found some other family members’.
Well, when they found other family members’,
they had to follow up on these fingerprints.
[Neiser] When a homicide occurs,
a decent percentage of the time,
the victim and the suspect know each other.
So, in this case, we had to think about,
"Okay, could it be a family member?"
[narrator] Detectives call the Maurin family down to the station,
interviewing them one at a time.
[Neiser] We looked at all the family members
who had any kind of prior history of illegal activity,
and young Mike was one of those.
He was a bit of a rabble-rouser.
Young Mike liked to fight.
Law enforcement knew him.
And because we knew him,
he had to be considered one of many possible suspects at the time.
[Kimsey] And he wasn’t that fond of law enforcement.
And so, he’s taking it personally we’re spending time on him.
[Stockdale] So Michael, Minnie and Ed’s grandson,
is known to be a heavy drinker.
It possible that maybe he was using drugs,
and needed some money.
And this way, he might fit the bill for a suspect in this case.
He checks the boxes of the profile.
[narrator] Having set their sights on Michael,
detectives begin questioning him about his whereabouts on December 19th.
Michael said that he left for work with his father, Dennis, around 5:00 am.
He said the pair then got to work around 5:30 am.
He then worked the day at his father’s logging company
until his father told him that Ed and Minnie had gone missing.
The foreman who was supervising Michael’s work on December 19th,
did confirm that he arrived as scheduled that morning.
Based on Michael’s timeline and the timeline of the murder,
it’s physically impossible for him to have been in two places at once,
and he could not have committed those murders.
[narrator] In search of leads that will point them in the direction of a suspect,
police reach out to the community.
[Roots Gadhia] When you’re dealing with a small town, it’ll be easier to get tips.
That’s because everyone knows one another.
If the Maurins or their car had actually passed someone,
people would have recognized them.
[Kimsey] With the hundreds of tips that are coming in,
detectives are starting to piece together a timeline.
[Halstead] Neighbors reported seeing a white vehicle in the Maurin driveway.
On December 19th, between 7:30 and 8:00 am in the morning,
a male was seen standing next to the white vehicle.
Lucy Shriver was driving her son, Jason Shriver, to the dentist.
Lucy and Jason passed the Maurins in their vehicle.
They could see both of the Maurins.
But neither one of them could say who else may have been in the Maurins’ car with them.
Around 10:45 on December 19th,
one of the tips saw Ed and Minnie Maurin
in the front seat of the vehicle,
and a man in the backseat, that was kinda hunched over the front seat.
Looked like he was talking to them.
At 11:30, the vehicle’s seen with only one person driving the vehicle,
coming back in town.
Giving the detectives a pretty good idea when this murder occurred,
between 10:45 am and 11:30 am.
[gunshot fires]
[Neiser] Then, the man drove the car
to the Yard Birds parking lot somewhere around noon.
where he was actually seen walking away from the car.
[narrator] Despite the hundreds of tips,
detectives still can’t identify the man that was seen in the Maurins’ car,
and later, in the Yard Birds parking lot.
[Kimsey] It was like, everybody’s calling in
saying, "My ex-husband, my neighbor,"
you know, "it looks like this person, looks like that person."
Detectives are running down leads all day and night long.
The community is getting very upset.
There’s a lot of pressure on the sheriff’s office,
the investigators that are working on this case.
Unfortunately, there’s just not a lot of new information that’s coming in
that leads to any strong suspects.
[narrator] With no clear suspect,
the case stalls for the next five years.
[Halstead] This was a community before,
where people would leave their doors unlocked,
their kids could play without having to worry about that.
After this happened, everything changed
because they didn’t know who had committed these crimes.
[narrator] Determined to get justice
for beloved grandparents and town fixtures, Minnie and Ed Maurin,
Detective Neiser goes back to the drawing board,
looking for new clues.
[Neiser] I remember there was a lead involving a white vehicle.
We realized that there was a fellow named Frank Swan
who was associated with a white vehicle.
[Kimsey] Frank lived about a mile or two from the Yard Birds parking lot.
He was related somehow by marriage to the family of the Maurins.
Frank, like a lot of the suspects in the case,
were involved in drugs, and constantly in and out of jail.
So, police focused their attention on Frank Swan.
[Halstead] A tip comes in that Frank Swan had been bragging about
how he had stolen the Maurins’ money and had killed them.
[Kimsey] And when this tip came in,
it gave the detectives, you know, a new drive.
It rejuvenated them.
[Arntfield] Here’s a case that was beyond cold.
I mean, it was in deep freeze.
And all of a sudden, you have this crazy new lead
that materializes out of nowhere.
and you go from zero to a thousand like that.
[narrator] After five years without a solid suspect
into Minnie and Ed Maurin’s cold-blooded execution,
investigators have learned that Chehalis local Frank Swan
has bragged about committing the murders.
[Neiser] Frank met several of the criteria for being a suspect.
Number one, he was associated with the white vehicle.
Number two, he had married into the Maurin family.
Number three, he was known to us to be a bit of a doper.
When detectives looked into Frank Swan’s criminal history,
one of his booking photographs also gave a resemblance
of the sketch that was provided from the witnesses on December 19th.
[Neiser] He was the best suspect we had at that time.
And we didn’t have enough that we felt to go talk to him directly.
We could go talk to him,
and he’d just say, "I didn’t have anything to do with it,"
and that’s the end of it.
[Kimsey] They had to come up with a plan, some kind of idea.
How are they going to get this guy to talk?
They come up with this plan of...
basically staging a whole mafia role-playing scene.
They concoct and then execute something’s that commonly known as a "Mr. Big Sting."
It basically is an elaborate production whereby
the suspect is prepared to prove their street cred
by confessing to their most serious crime they’ve ever committed
to earn the trust of some shadowy criminal organization.
And in this case, it’s his confessing to the murders of Ed and Minnie.
[narrator] As part of the sting operation,
Detective Neiser sets himself up as the criminal organization’s pilot
and Frank’s primary contact.
[Neiser] We asked him if he wanted to make a little money
just by showing up,
delivering a package across town, he’d get $100.
He was not to mess with the package in any way.
Deliver the package, keep you mouth shut,
and you’ll make lots of money.
[Kimsey] They set up a phone, a business and everything else.
They’d even go to car rental companies and get Cadillacs and fancy cars
to put on the whole storyline of the mafia.
It was very well-developed,
and a very interesting out-of-the-box plan.
[Neiser] I told him, "I’ll buy you lunch when you’re done."
So he came back to the airport and met with me.
And I looked up and there is a car.
And inside that car was John Fraze, our Chief Civil Deputy.
He was to play the part of Mr. B.
And I said, "Holy Smokes, Frank! That is... That’s Mr. B!"
I said, "Well, come on up and meet them.
Just relax and be yourself.
Everything will be fine."
And I said, "Okay, well, Mr. B, I’d like you to meet Frank Swan."
And Frank Swan stuck his hand out to shake Mr. B’s hand,
and I realized Frank Swan was shaking.
He was nervous.
That’s when I realized, "Oh, yeah. He’s in. He’s in on the whole thing."
I told Frank we could offer him a large sum of money to do a specific task for us.
"But you’d need to offer insurance.
You tell us ’bout something you’ve done,
that we will hold over your head,
so that you don’t dare talk about us.
You go anything like that?"
[Kimsey] Well, Frank comes up with a storyline of how he killed two elderly people
in Lewis County back in the 80s.
[Neiser] I told him, "We’ll meet with the insurance man
and you can give him your insurance."
[narrator] Convinced they are about to break the case wide open,
Detective Neiser, a trained pilot,
flies Frank to Tacoma for the meeting with the insurance man.
I parked the plane,
and Frank and I met the insurance man.
And I said, "Well, tell him what kind of gun did you use?"
He wanted to be so bad,
that he started making stuff up.
Like, telling us it was a handgun, when it wasn’t.
Saying that he shot the Maurins in the parking lot,
but they weren’t shot there.
And he flat did not have the information.
[Kimsey] When Frank, basically, tells the detectives
a complete opposite of how Ed and Minnie Maurin were murdered,
it was a huge blow to them.
They got the wrong guy.
It’s not him.
[Stockdale] At first glance, it would seem implausible
that somebody would admit to a double homicide that they didn’t commit.
But there’s many example of this.
I mean, we have killers giving confessions of hundreds of homicides,
purely because they want the attention or notoriety of doing so.
[Gadhia] Inserting yourself is purely about seeking some sort of self-gratification,
some sense of being famous,
getting their 15 minutes of fame.
[narrator] With the discovery that Frank Swan did not kill the Maurins,
detectives, once again, have no suspects.
The only lead they have to go on is the mystery man seen with the Maurins at 10:45 am,
and walking away from their car at the parking lot at noon
on December 19th, 1985, the day of the murders.
[Halstead] But then, law enforcement received a tip from Chuck Burke,
that he had been at a party on December 11th of 1985
that both Rick and Greg Riffe were at.
And he overheard them planning the murder of the Maurins.
Now, law enforcement has some information
that this is now not just a crime of chance or opportunity,
but one that was actually premeditated.
And premeditated murder is the most serious offence you can commit.
[Arntfield] The fact that police may now be dealing with a set of teen killers
changes the narrative entirely,
and that creates a lot of new possibilities
in terms of where to take the investigation.
[Kimsey] Rick Riffe, early 20s. Greg Riffe, same thing.
They were brothers. Very close-knit brothers.
Very well-known in the east end of Lewis County.
They were known for fighting, crimes, abuse, domestic assault.
[Neiser] They were also known as people who took illegal drugs.
They wouldn’t have had major money,
because as people who were members of a criminal underworld,
you don’t qualify for a good-paying job.
[narrator] With both brothers fitting the profile of the Maurins’ killer,
investigators shift their focus to Rick and Greg Riffe.
[Halstead] Law enforcement receives a tip from a Lonnie Scott
who knows Rick and Greg.
[Kimsey] Back in December 1985,
he is in the same vehicle with Rick and Greg Riffe.
These three ran around together, were using drugs.
Rick’s trying to come up with a plan for a robbery, make some money,
so they get some dope.
They drive by Ed and Minnie Maurins’ house,
and Lonnie makes a statement out loud,
"Hey! If you’re looking for some money,
those people right there have a lot of it."
[Halstead] And Lonnie Scott had purchased a shotgun and gave it to Rick.
This was before December 19th of 1985.
And he gave Rick the shotgun to let him cut it off, shorten it down,
because Lonnie was a long-haul truck driver,
and back in this period of time,
they liked to have weapons to protect themselves in their rigs
when they would drive.
[Kimsey] Lonnie eventually finds out that Ed and Minnie Maurin
were taken from the house, murdered.
And he’s starting to put two and two together.
[narrator] Worried his shotgun is connected to the Maurins’ murders,
Lonnie threw it into a nearby lake in December 1985,
days after receiving it back from Rick Riffe.
Police brought in several divers.
Some of the most specialized equipment
used by Navy Seals to dive that water and look for that shotgun.
But it is a true needle in a haystack trying to find that shotgun in the water.
So therefore, the shotgun was never found.
[Neiser] We discovered the two brothers made
a major drug purchase of several thousand dollars right after the murders.
They would not have had that kind of money
without committing some type of major crime.
And the fact that they had thousands of dollars
right after the Maurins were murdered,
was very conspicuous.
[narrator] While they continued to chase down
more information on the Riffe brothers,
investigators hear about a promising new source.
One of the old leads said, "You guys should contact Robin Riffe."
[Halstead] Robin Riffe had been married to Rick Riffe
during the timeframe that the Maurins were murdered,
and that she may have some information.
[Neiser] We ran a record check on her and found out that lo and behold,
she was serving time in an Arizona prison.
We tell Robin, "We want to talk to you about
a double homicide up here in Chehalis."
She said, "You mean the two old people?"
That wasn’t too abnormal,
because when she lived here,
everybody knew about the two old people that had been murdered.
But her next statement sent chills up and down my spine.
She said, "Well, I just dropped them off at the store."
[Kimsey] On December 18th, 1985,
her husband, Rick, wanted her to drop him off,
him and his brother, Greg Riffe,
and drive around while they do some sort of a robbery
or burglary to a grocery store
that was only a couple of miles from the victims’ residence.
[Halstead] She drops them off,
and she’s supposed to come back and pick them up later the same day.
She does,
but neither Rick nor Greg are there.
And she doesn’t have contact with them until the next day.
[Arntfield] During that period,
they could’ve very easily kidnapped and killed both Ed and Minnie,
and taken steps to cover their tracks.
When you’re talking about 14 hours,
as is the case, sky’s the limit.
It is a huge break in the case.
This blows the case wide open.
[narrator] Six year after the brutal kidnapping
and double homicide of Minnie and Ed Maurin,
investigators finally have two suspects:
Brothers Rick and Greg Riffe.
[Neiser] Robin Riffe says she had dropped off her husband, Rick Riffe
at the store, along with his little brother, Greg Riffe,
the night before Ed and Minnie Maurin were kidnapped.
[Kimsey] The next day, December 19th,
she gets a phone call from Greg Riffe
giving her directions where to come pick him up.
Then Greg has her drive to where Rick was on this logging route.
[Arntfield] In terms of investigative timelines,
now we’re talking about the possibility that they were in there for hours.
even overnight, the night before, and held them hostage.
This is a planned premeditated crime that’s financially driven.
This tells us we have some very goal-oriented, callous individuals,
if they’re willing to do this for money.
[Kimsey] The detectives knew this is the tip,
this is everything we’ve been waiting for.
But they want some more details before they make arrests.
[Halstead] Robin, her credibility was always in questions
for a number of reasons.
She had a criminal history,
she had extreme drug use,
and there was potentially some bad blood between her and Rick and Greg.
And so, there was always that issue thereof,
you know, is she telling us the truth?
[narrator] Needing to question the Riffe brothers as soon as possible,
investigators search for them,
discovering they’ve moved to King Salmon, Alaska.
[Kimsey] When detectives go and contact Rick Riffe,
they get him to go to a local Alaska police station.
He is cold as ice.
He’s pretty abrupt,
uh, very strong-minded,
and he’s not really saying anything.
They specifically ask him where he was on December 19th of 1985
between 10:45 and 11:30.
and Rick won’t answer the question.
He stonewalls law enforcement.
[narrator] With Rick refusing to open up,
detectives turn their attention to his brother, Greg.
[Kimsey] Now everybody’s talked about Greg was the younger brother,
little bit softer,
totally different than Rick,
but still, a violent man.
So they’re interviewing Greg, and he’s saying things like,
"I don’t know. I used a lot of drugs back then."
At some point, Greg’s breaking down a little bit.
[Halstead] Greg was asked where he was on December 19th, 1985,
and his response is he doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know if he’s involved, and he needs time to think.
And so law enforcement actually feels that they’re getting to Greg
because he is feeling some guilt.
[narrator] With no forensic evidence tying the Riffe brothers to the crime,
investigators focus on trying to get them to confess.
[Kimsey] Rick had taken a polygraph on a separate unrelated sex crime
and he passed it.
So he had some history of taking a polygraph,
that he felt he could pass another one.
Rick volunteers to take a polygraph examination,
which is administered and he fails.
Greg is asked if he would be willing to take one and he agrees,
and he fails it as well.
[narrator] Despite failing the polygraph test,
police don’t have enough evidence
connecting the Riffe brothers to the Maurins’ murder,
and are forced to let them go.
[Neiser] We’ve got Robin, who would testify for the prosecution.
But she wasn’t there when the murders actually occurred.
We only have a 50/50 chance of them being convicted,
and if we take a shot now and we lose,
we can’t try them again.
We’re done for forever.
[Halstead] As law enforcement is building their case,
they receive some devastating news.
Robin has passed away.
So now, law enforcement is missing their most material witness.
And so, the case comes to a standstill after that.
[Neiser] We now had nothing.
I lost a lot of hope.
I figured, this case was almost as dead as the Maurins were.
[narrator] After a 19 year investigation,
the execution-style double homicide of Minnie and Ed Maurin
remains unsolved.
But in 2004, the case is revitalized
when a young investigator with the Lewis County’s Sheriff’s Office,
Detective Bruce Kimsey,
decides to look into the murders.
[Kimsey] 1985, I was about 10 years old.
Ed and Minnie Maurin were treasures of the community.
So, after getting out of the army,
I was hired at the sheriff’s office at 22 years old.
So I write out my goals,
and one of them is, "I want to solve the murder of Ed and Minnie Maurin."
There were hundreds of statements.
And so, I had to go back and read all these statements,
and figure out who’s alive still, who’s not alive,
and who’s a pertinent witness.
[Arntfield] At the time of the original investigation,
people may have been reluctant, fearful.
But 20 years later, allegiances may have eroded.
People may be in a different point in their lives
where things that used to worry them
and people who used to scare them, no longer do.
[narrator] Then Detective Kimsey gets an unexpected visit
from one of the original tipsters
who saw the Maurins’ in their car, the day of the murder.
[Halstead] Jason Shriver comes to law enforcement
and he says he saw Rick and Greg in the Maurins’ car
when his mother was driving him to the dentist.
On December 19th, he saw Ed driving,
he saw Rick Riffe in the front passenger seat,
he saw Minnie sitting behind Ed,
and he saw Greg Riffe in the right rear passenger seat.
And he actually waved to Greg,
and Greg kinda gave him a little head nod.
And so... he was 17 then.
And he was in his 30s when he finally came forward
to report what he knew.
[Neiser] I was amazed!
Even Robin could not place the Riffe brothers in Ed and Minnie’s car with them.
My hopes that we’ll be able to prosecute this case,
took a jump about five feet up in the air.
[Halstead] A couple days after the 19th,
Jason is downtown and Rick and Greg show up,
and they threaten him and basically say,
"If you tell anybody what you saw,
then we’re gonna go after your family."
So Jason is afraid for him family’s life.
But his mom passed away from cancer,
so he doesn’t have to worry about his mom being harmed by the Riffe brothers.
So that’s why he eventually comes forward.
[Neiser] As Detective Kimsey continued to put this together,
other people began coming forward.
They hadn’t spoken up when we were initially investigating the case.
So I was encouraged that, hey, we might get this case after all.
[Halstead] The timeline was extremely important for us.
because we had Jason
who obviously could place the Riffe brothers with the Maurins.
But then, we had individuals that were able to identify the Maurin vehicle
all throughout Lewis County,
as it was driving up to the bank,
and then, from the bank out to the logging road.
And without that, I don’t know if we would have been able to explain
everything as well as we were able to do.
[narrator] After 19 years,
police finally have enough evidence to place the Riffe brothers with the Maurins
during the window of their murders.
[Halstead] When the prosecutor’s office made a decision
to file charges against the Riffe brothers,
we received word that Greg Riffe had passed away.
So, everything turned on to Rick Riffe at the point of time.
[Kimsey] We get up to King Salmon, Alaska.
We are going to Rick Riffe’s house.
So we go in there, introduce ourselves to Rick Riffe.
We must have sat there for about an hour,
and we’re asking him a lot of questions.
And he’s doing a lot of denials.
Same thing he did with the detectives back in the early 90s.
It doesn’t matter this time ’cause we have enough evidence against him to go to trial.
Eventually, a statement’s made to Rick,
"Stand up. You’re under arrest..."
and only thing he says back to us is,
"Well, gonna need my medications."
[narrator] Detectives are now able to piece together
Ed and Minnie Maurin’s final 24 hours.
On December 18th, Robin drops off Rick and Greg Riffe
for what she believes is a robbery to a local grocery store.
However, instead of robbing the grocery store,
Rick and Greg Riffe went to Ed and Minnie Maurin’s house,
gaining entry and holding them hostage.
The next morning, Rick and Greg made Ed Maurin call the bank
between 9:30 and 10:00 am.
to withdraw funds from their bank account.
The Riffe brothers forced Ed and Minnie Maurin into their own car,
made them drive to the bank to withdraw funds at 10:30 am.
When Ed goes inside the bank,
the brothers were staying with Minnie in the car, holding her hostage.
At 10:40 am, the bank teller gives Ed Maurin the $8,500.
[Halstead] And at approximately 10:45,
the Maurins are observed by other individuals
as they drive out of town.
When Ed and Minnie drive to the logging road,
they come to a stop.
Minnie is then shot in her neck.
And then Ed is shot and he is killed instantly.
[narrator] The Riffe Brothers then drag the bodies out of the car
and dump them on the side of the road.
[Neiser] Greg drove the car to the Yard Birds parking lot somewhere around noon.
Greg calls Robin asking for her to come and pick him up.
Robin leaves the home, and comes to pick up Greg Riffe.
Greg Riffe then drives to the scene somewhere after noon.
Rick had attended a Christmas gathering with some other family.
Rick and all the kids and Robin were wearing new clothes.
And Rick had also purchased a large amount of cocaine
just days after the Maurins were murdered.
He had no source of income.
so how is he going to pay for all these things if he didn’t commit the murder?
[Arntfield] In the end, what we’ve got is
two brothers with an almost shared sociopathy,
who were envious of a working class, hard-working life,
and this couple that had amassed about $8,000.
And that was enough for these brothers to mark them for death
and have no second thoughts about it.
[narrator] 28 years after the Maurins’ deaths,
Rick Riffe is charged and eventually convicted of the first-degree murders
of Minnie and Ed Maurin.
He is sentenced to 103 years in prison.
[Kimsey] Rick’s trial was six weeks,
and I’m in there every single day.
And I’d constantly look over.
I never saw an emotion or any sign of remorse or anything from him.
He was the same as the day that I saw him at his house...
to the day he was found guilty by the jurors.
We had people come up to us during the trial
and thank us for taking on the case.
I didn’t realize the impact that it had on the community.
I’m just happy that we were able to bring some closure to the Maurin family
and the community.
[narrator] Even today,
the tragedy of the Maurin murders
continues to affect the townsfolk of Chehalis.
[Neiser] You had two people who did nothing to deserve this.
They did exactly what they were instructed to do
by the people who kidnapped them.
They were defenseless.
They could never have fought back.
And yet, they were murdered anyway.
[Kimsey] Ed and Minnie Maurin were treasures of the community.
They were loved by family members, friends, people from their church.
They were really a sparkle in the community.
And they had a beautiful family.
And I think that they should be remembered for what wonderful people they were.