He was well-spoken, charming, very good-looking.
She was a very vibrant, beautiful personality,
full of joy and laughter.
They were a perfect pairing,
bringing out the best in each other.
Gretchen and David were madly in love
and just living life to the fullest.
But when cracks in the marriage collide
head-on with a global pandemic--
They had just filed the divorce paperwork.
People were getting texts from her phone
saying that she had COVID.
She was texting that she was on a ventilator.
Pretty sure you can't text when you're on a ventilator.
The bond between two soulmates--
Where was Gretchen?
No one knew.
We found out he had a criminal past.
There were things that he didn't want people to know.
Turns into
a killer relationship.
This started to move fast,
from a missing persons case
to something a lot more sinister.
I'm Faith Jenkins, and in my experience,
both as a judge on "Divorce Court,"
and just observing my friends and family,
the catalyst for many relationships is simple,
an instant attraction between two people.
But love can be blind,
and love can often cause a person to overlook issues
and insecurities hiding below the surface
of their new partner's charm and good looks.
Take the case of Gretchen Crain,
a beautiful teacher from Jupiter, Florida,
and David Anthony,
a handsome and charismatic personal trainer.
When they first set eyes on each other
one early morning at the gym,
everyone around them can feel the electricity in the air.
Gretchen first met David
as we were both working out at the same time.
David ended up training her for a few sessions,
and you definitely watched the sparks fly
and you saw quite a bit unfolding.
Standing 6'7",
David is a former college basketball player
who idolizes Kobe Bryant.
As a kid, David struggled with self-esteem issues
and turned to physical fitness
and self-help to gain confidence,
eventually becoming a highly in-demand personal trainer.
He was an integral part of the success of my studio
in the beginning.
He was very caring, and members loved him.
David's a very charming individual,
a big smile with a dimple, and great sense of humor,
always very upbeat, high energy.
So he's a very magnetic personality,
and she was very drawn to that.
David is drawn to Gretchen too,
but there's just one problem.
When they got together,
Gretchen was actually married.
She was married to a man named Jeffrey.
Gretchen and Jeffrey married in 2007
So Jeff absolutely met David,
and I didn't have optics
on what was going on behind the scenes.
I know she was unhappy,
but she had a child with Jeff,
and they were doing their best to make it work,
but it ended up not working out,
and that's when her and David became a couple.
Gretchen's divorce from Jeffrey follows quickly,
and they share custody of their young daughter.
David Anthony steps up to become a bonus dad.
I believe that all of them worked very carefully
to focus on the daughter and making sure
that she was well-adjusted to the situation.
In 2015, three years after their first date,
Gretchen and David tie the knot.
Gretchen and David were madly in love
and a beautiful couple and just living life to the fullest.
David, the picture he painted,
is the perfect relationship with Gretchen.
He was healthy, happy.
Until I got to know him more,
you would think he was the ideal person.
But a few years into their marriage,
the passion that Gretchen and David feel for each other
begins to fade.
David's hidden insecurities,
stemming from low self-esteem as a kid,
have started creeping into the couple's everyday life.
David is also prone to big and unpredictable mood swings.
As I started to get to know David better,
his moods would change.
I could see there was a definite up and down.
He became challenging, I would say, difficult.
Thinking that a spiritual break
might help get David into a better place,
Gretchen arranges for a week-long trip together.
David and Gretchen attended a yoga retreat
in Maui, in Hawaii.
And during the course of the retreat,
David, at several times, had exhibited aberrant behavior,
almost bordering on a psychotic episode,
and at one point had to be separated
from the rest of the group so that the organizers
could both monitor him and individually counsel him.
Then, in the spring of 2017,
a sudden freak accident exacerbates
David's struggle to maintain his emotional balance.
David is home one day working on his truck
when the jack slips.
It was a traumatic brain injury,
and Gretchen was right by his side,
making sure that he was taken care of,
and he had to do a lot of rehabilitation
to get back to normal.
I believe David struggled for a while
because he was out of work due to the injury.
That probably pushes
those insecurity buttons again,
and that's when he starts to really be erratic
and his characteristics start to change
and make it hard on their relationship.
Gretchen was telling me about his mood swings.
I can relate to them.
She was telling me that she tried to help
manage his behaviors and she couldn't do it anymore.
David seems to always be searching
for some kind of spiritual anchor,
but his attempts keep backfiring
and serve only to alienate Gretchen even further.
David was involved with something
called gratitude training,
which was a sort of a self-help group.
And one night David was acting very erratically,
banging his head against the wall,
might've been having a psychotic episode ...
and he had a knife.
The police got there and they found him pacing
in the parking lot near his truck, saying,
"Where's my support now?
Where's my support now?"
And they actually had trouble subduing him
and getting the knife away from him,
before they finally detained him.
David was doing some self-exploration.
And when you start doing personal development
and you start peeling back the layers,
it can be a wobbly space for a person.
Gretchen, in texts with a friend,
said that David had had lots of episodes
of erratic behavior, short temper,
and that she actually would watch him
on the home security cameras
and she would take a knife
and put it under her pillow
so that she could get some sleep.
I think Gretchen tried to hold it together
because she did love him,
but enough is enough.
In the fall of 2019,
Gretchen files for a separation from David
and tells him to move out.
David moves in with his mother, who lives nearby ...
but he continues showing up at Gretchen's house.
I think David probably would've started
to potentially spiral at that point
because he was losing the only thing he had
that was propping him up.
A few months later, on January 26th, 2020,
the tragic death of David's sports hero
sends him even further into a dark place.
There's still smoke coming from the wreckage
in Calabasas, and already, here at the crash site,
fans outnumber first responders.
Kobe Bryant's death was definitely a trigger.
I've never seen David behave the way he did.
It was concerning.
I came into work and he actually was talking to the members
as if he was at a funeral, he was crying,
he was giving a speech in the lobby about Kobe Bryant.
On February 25th, I fired him,
and that is the last time I ever heard from David Anthony.
Tabitha Hopkins is concerned enough
about David's state of mind
that she immediately reaches out to Gretchen via text.
Three days later, on February 28th, 2020,
Gretchen files for divorce from David.
When I found out that Gretchen filed for divorce,
I even said to myself, "And I just fired him.
This is a really bad week for him."
As Gretchen and David
bitterly negotiate the end of their marriage,
news from the outside world is filled with stories
about a highly contagious new virus,
first reported in Wuhan, China.
Breaking news this morning,
the World Health Organization has just declared
coronavirus a global pandemic.
New information on the latest beach closures in our area,
beaches in Martin County closed to the public at sunset.
We're going through a pandemic.
There was complete chaos and panic.
I said, "This is just unbelievable."
Like, "It cannot get any worse."
Tragically, things are about to get much worse
for Gretchen Anthony.
People were getting texts from her phone
saying that she had COVID and that she was going
to an undisclosed COVID facility.
The most alarming part for me was,
she was texting that she was on a ventilator.
Pretty sure you can't text when you're on a ventilator.
I knew it was not good.
We are still in the very early days of this,
and so there are investigations that are evaluating
how individuals were infected.
Stay home, stay safe, to help prevent and stop
the spread of COVID-19.
We all remember the start of the pandemic,
the uncertainty,
fear, and chaos.
Now, put yourself in Gretchen Anthony's shoes.
On top of all of that,
she's going through a divorce
with her estranged husband, David,
after five years of what had once been a loving marriage.
If that isn't enough,
Gretchen's health seems to take
a frightful and sudden turn.
Her family and friends started to receive
these mysterious texts
that said that she had coronavirus
and that she had to self-quarantine.
This is something that is very real!
This is March 2020.
We know that this virus is deadly.
All city residents should stay in their homes
except to go out for essential activities.
At this point, there are only a few thousand cases
of COVID-19 in the U.S.,
but with so little understanding of the virus early on,
every positive case is terrifying.
Still, family and friends often have a sixth sense,
and something just doesn't feel right
about Gretchen's texts.
Immediately, the red flags were enormous.
People were getting texts from her phone
saying that she had COVID,
and none of the information
being put out there was accurate.
Her text messages had said that she was on a ventilator.
Several members of her family and her friends
did not think that the verbiage in the text message
sounded like her.
The text messages were reporting
that she had been taken to the Jupiter Medical Center,
where she was later transferred to a
CDC receiving facility out in Belle Glade.
Belle Glade is about an hour away from Jupiter,
and there is no CDC facility in Belle Glade.
These texts raised enough red flags
amongst her family and friends
that they started to reach out to law enforcement.
And now it's a missing persons case.
Detectives went to Jupiter Medical Center
in an effort to locate Gretchen Anthony.
Her MINI Cooper was found in the parking lot.
So folks reached out to the Jupiter Medical Center
and they found that there was no record
of Gretchen Anthony being there.
That vehicle was towed to our impound investigation area
for further investigation.
Law enforcement and those close to Gretchen
wonder if Gretchen is using the virus as a cover,
a way to escape the drama with her ex, David,
and just disappear for awhile.
But the fact that Gretchen
isn't in contact with her daughter
is extremely troubling.
The first place police will look in a missing persons case
is someone's husband or ex-husband.
We became very suspicious when we learned she was also
scheduled to receive her daughter for visitation,
and that never happened.
Contact was made with her ex-husband Jeff,
to confirm that their daughter was okay,
which she was, and in speaking with Jeff,
they learned that he, in fact, had also received
these odd text messages from Gretchen's phone.
Jeff went as far as calling the hospital,
and responded via text that,
"You are not at the hospital.
What is going on?"
And so as part of this investigation,
Jeff actually assisted with helping law enforcement.
With concern growing by the hour,
police arrive at Gretchen's Jupiter townhome
to do a welfare check.
So based upon those suspicious circumstances,
There was some rags that had
a blood-like substance on them in her washroom,
which is adjacent to her kitchen.
Even more disturbing,
detectives discover that someone has
ripped the security cameras
right off the walls.
But who?
And why?
While we didn't recover any cameras
because they had all been removed from the house,
the module receiver was left behind.
The wifi module gives detectives a ray of hope,
as it's possible the recordings were uploaded to the cloud
before the cameras were pulled down.
A warrant is obtained to try and access
the footage from the security company.
We believe this could be the key
to what happened at Gretchen's residence.
When was the last time she was there?
When did she leave?
Did she leave alone?
Was she with someone else?
Next, investigators send the physical evidence
collected from Gretchen's house out for testing,
and ask the medical center to pull surveillance footage
from the hospital parking lot.
While waiting for the video,
detectives reach out to Gretchen's estranged husband,
but he's not answering their calls.
We're still dealing with a situation
where we haven't spoken to David.
Could they have reconciled?
Could they be somewhere together?
Gretchen Anthony has been missing
for several days when detectives are able to access
the security cam footage from the hospital parking lot.
The video is dark and grainy,
but reveals some devastating information.
Gretchen's vehicle
pulls into the Jupiter Medical Center parking lot, east lot,
and parks in the space where it was later
found by investigators.
The surveillance camera footage
at the hospital parking lot showed
that she likely did not drive herself.
The person who put her car in the parking lot
of the Jupiter Medical Center
was not Gretchen Anthony.
Gretchen Anthony has been missing for three days,
and her friends and family are worried sick.
Then, Gretchen's car is found abandoned
in a hospital parking lot,
with no sign of her.
If I'm an investigator with Jupiter P.D., right about now,
I am all over the ex-husband, David Anthony,
and that's exactly where investigators wanna be.
But here's the deal,
they can't find him.
Where is David Anthony?
Detectives go to David's mother's residence
to speak with her, to see if she has any information
as to where David is.
He thought that everybody needed to pack up and leave,
and he had made several phone calls to family and friends,
trying to get them to move to Costa Rica with him,
because he was paranoid about the coronavirus.
There were a lot of unknowns at the time.
Trying to locate David
and prevent him from fleeing the country,
investigators put out a nationwide alert
with David's description.
Next, they run his name through their databases.
so he changed his name.
There were things that he didn't want people to know.
He was not the fun-loving, free-spirited,
charismatic trainer that people knew as David Anthony.
As David Deutsch,
he spent time in jail for holding up a video store
and for assaulting a police officer.
When I hired David, I did not know about his criminal past.
I did not know that wasn't his name.
Even doing a background check, it pulled up nothing.
Because he changed his name legally,
there was no record of anything.
It's as if I didn't know the real David.
Detectives uncover an arrest report
from an incident just seven days
before Gretchen went missing.
That night, police respond to calls about a man
acting suspiciously and approaching teenage girls
in a shopping mall parking lot.
When the cops arrive,
they find a man pacing back and forth
in an agitated state.
Get down! - Can I get up?
- No! Get down! - I'm just standing up!
Get down!
It's David Anthony.
- All right, all right -- - Get up, now!
- All right, all right- - Get out!
- All right- - Get out!
- Get outta the car! - Get-
Got in his hands.
Drop it! Drop it! Whatever it is, drop it!
All right, all right, all right!
- Drop it! - All right, all right!
Stop resisting me!
David was charged with resisting arrest,
but he posted bail and was released.
Seven days later,
Gretchen went missing.
And now, David is nowhere to be found.
Police waste no time and obtain a search warrant
for David's truck, his phone,
and Gretchen's phone.
At this point, investigators have no idea
if Gretchen is dead or alive,
but they are doing everything they can
to try and track her down.
And they believe that the key to finding Gretchen
is to first find David.
As we're tracking David,
we're able to see his travel path.
Interestingly enough,
Gretchen's cell phone is also pinging
on the same travel path as David's phone.
So we have evidence to suggest Gretchen,
or at the very least, her phone,
is with David.
The hunt is on for David Anthony,
and we are working days behind him.
He is very much so ahead of us.
Pings from David's phone
are traced to a pawn shop in Gulf Breeze, Florida,
600 miles north of Jupiter.
The pawn shop owner is able to identify David
as being there that day,
and there's surveillance video to prove it,
but there's no sign of Gretchen.
We interviewed the owner of the pawn shop.
In the video surveillance, you can see David
enter the store with his dog Kobe,
and he told them that he was selling jewelry
from a family member who had actually died from COVID-19.
As David gets rid of what detectives fear
are Gretchen's most valued possessions,
investigators ask themselves
"Did he get rid of Gretchen as well?"
You wanna be positive, you want to think
that everything really is okay.
Like maybe she's harmed, but she's going to be okay.
You still wanna think, well, maybe,
if we can find her,
we can save her.
He left a digital footprint,
and it was a chase to track down David Anthony.
Gretchen Anthony, a loving and devoted mom,
is missing from her Florida home,
and police suspect her estranged husband, David,
is responsible.
But they still can't be certain.
Could Gretchen still be alive?
Both David and Gretchen's cell phones
are being tracked and are on the move,
heading west across Texas in David's truck.
We know from speaking with his mother,
we were able to pinpoint an area where he was.
We were able to track their telephones to Pecos, Texas.
And we learned that after going from Pecos, Texas,
he then travels to New Mexico,
Las Cruces, New Mexico.
I then spoke to an investigator in Las Cruces,
asked for his assistance.
I made them aware of the circumstances of this case.
On March 28th,
a week after Gretchen Anthony is last seen alive,
David Anthony's truck is spotted in Las Cruces,
nearly 2,000 miles away from Gretchen's home
in Jupiter, Florida.
The police officers in New Mexico
We had issued a BOLO for his vehicle,
a Be on the Lookout.
And shortly after, patrol units located David
driving his truck on the highway,
and they conducted a felony stop on his car.
The officers had copies of our police reports,
so they were well-educated on what we were dealing with.
David said that he didn't have any information,
that he had not spoken to Gretchen
and he did not know her whereabouts.
With David's denials and no body found,
police don't have enough evidence
to charge David with any crime.
This was a difficult time because it was the first time
that somebody had actually laid eyes on David Anthony,
and we knew that he was the main suspect
in our investigation ...
but we didn't have quite enough information
for the arrest warrant yet,
so it was extremely hard to see
that law enforcement had him in custody,
but we had to let him go.
But they did have the lawful authority
to confiscate his vehicle
and all of the contents within.
At this point, we only have a search warrant for his vehicle.
All of his property was inside of the truck,
including all of the cell phones that he had been utilizing.
Back home in Florida,
Gretchen's family and friends are trying to stay positive,
exactly what happened to her.
I just knew in my gut something horrible had happened,
and so help me if he hurt her,
because she didn't deserve that.
I was determined that Detective Kenerson and I
were going to fly out to Las Cruces, New Mexico
to secure the truck and tow it back
to Jupiter Police Department as part of our case,
since it was needed as evidence.
It was a very eerie time.
We weren't sure how we were gonna get out to New Mexico.
The country was still being shut down because of COVID-19.
We weren't sure if we were gonna have to drive out there,
or if we were even gonna be able to find
a flight to take us there.
It was a very strange time in the country.
As Detectives Kenerson and Sanders,
back in Florida, scramble to figure out how to get
to New Mexico while David's trail is still warm,
Kenerson is flabbergasted when his phone lights up
with a call from none other than David Anthony.
He was calling me from New Mexico.
According to him, he's speaking on behalf of Gretchen.
Nine days,
that's how long it's been
since anyone has seen or heard from Gretchen Anthony,
except for some very strangely-worded text messages.
Her estranged husband David,
who was now the prime suspect in her disappearance,
has fled.
He's in New Mexico with her phone.
But on March 29th, 2020, he surprises detectives.
They're back in Jupiter, Florida,
and they receive an unexpected phone call,
and an even more unexpected accusation.
According to him, she uncovered information
about their business which was unfavorable to them,
and someone may be after her because of that.
He indicated during the interview
that he was trying to protect her,
but I wasn't buying that.
Detective Kenerson contacted the local state agencies
and found out that there was no complaint
ever filed by Gretchen Anthony.
So, is David an innocent man,
or a brazen killer playing games with the police?
Investigators actually get their answer the very next day.
They finally have access to the video
from Gretchen's security cameras.
You're able to see the tall, dark figure.
That person appears in Gretchen's porch
around 6:06 a.m.
He had had something in his hands
that we later determined was duct tape.
He was going from side to side in the porch,
until approximately 6:13,
Her screams are being muffled.
And then the next video clip I see,
I see that her blonde hair is now bloody.
We can clearly see that there is a
body on the floor that's not moving.
We now know for certain that Gretchen is dead.
And we see this person walk by,
and they turn around,
and they look directly into the camera.
And that person
was David Anthony.
The investigation quickly shifted to a homicide.
There's also chilling audio
of Gretchen's final words ...
a desperate plea to summon help.
We were able to get evidence of commands
that Gretchen made to her Alexa device.
And there were a couple of times
that Gretchen actually yelled out for Alexa to call 911.
But sadly, Gretchen never programmed
her device to raise the alarm.
At least now, though,
detectives have what they need
to apprehend David Anthony.
I think it was definitely a premeditated crime.
There was absolutely no reason
for David to be at Gretchen's residence.
And to see the way he lurked on her patio
before she came outside was chilling.
He went there with a purpose,
and he went there and he completed it.
We were able to obtain a warrant for his arrest
and for second-degree murder and kidnapping.
We were able to book a flight.
We flew out to New Mexico.
Our biggest fear, flying out to New Mexico,
was that we weren't gonna be able to find David Anthony.
We didn't know where he was staying.
He didn't have any money.
He didn't have his truck any longer.
Everybody was working nonstop,
just patrolling the streets,
checking all of the homeless camps,
all of the back alleys.
We were about to pack it up
when one of the investigators called me and said,
"Hey, we found him at a gas station."
Around midnight, he was spotted walking
into a convenience store with his dog, Kobe.
Detective Kenerson races to the location
where David was spotted
and pulls up to find David still in the parking lot.
Watching the interrogation video,
David seems almost believable,
but still, 11 days after Gretchen Anthony
was murdered in her garage,
David Anthony is taken into custody.
There was no responsibility, no remorse.
It was a guy who still thought he could get away with it.
He kept repeating over and over again
that Gretchen was still alive,
that there was nothing wrong with her,
that she was safe.
Detectives then present David
with something he had no idea was coming,
the surveillance footage from Gretchen's garage.
Did he take Gretchen with him on his travel path?
Did he bury her somewhere along the highway?
Did he find some desolate area to put her body?
Where was Gretchen?
No one knew ...
except for David.
I know the burden of proof is heavy for the death penalty,
which is what David Anthony faces
when he's extradited back to Florida
and charged with first-degree murder.
Without a body, though, it'll be a tough case.
I keep asking myself one question,
how could David Anthony have ended the life
of a woman who he'd once loved so deeply?
She was a radiant, beautiful human being,
and it's very hard to believe that somebody that you had
a decade-long relationship with
would kill you.
The family of Gretchen Anthony
wanted a proper burial for Gretchen,
they wanted closure.
And they wanted to know where her body was.
And the only person who knew that was David Anthony.
We were able to work out a deal
where he would serve 38 years in prison,
on the condition that he told us where Gretchen was.
On December 21st, 2020,
nine months to the day since Gretchen went missing,
David Anthony pleads guilty to second-degree murder.
And he finally reveals where Gretchen's body can be found.
He had buried Gretchen
at a assisted living facility on their grounds.
There was a large empty field,
and there was even a shovel
that was leaning against a tree.
It was hiding in plain sight.
It's a solemn day when Jupiter police
finally recover Gretchen's remains.
So the family was able to get their closure,
proper burial,
and a measure of justice in the end.
An autopsy reveals
how the mom with so much to live for
died fighting for her life.
Gretchen sustained multiple stab wounds.
She actually had some injuries
that were described as defensive wounds,
so she fought back.
At David Anthony's sentencing hearing,
Gretchen's sister Sarah is given the chance
to share the family's pain
and confront her sister's killer.
We don't know if his motive
was to steal her jewelry and her bank accounts
to support his traveling to Costa Rica,
or if it was a crime of passion.
I feel that Gretchen did everything
that she was supposed to do.
She did love him and she wanted to help him.
Gretchen was a fixer.
She wanted to make David better!
And I said to her, "You can't fix him,"
but she wanted to.
And it's heartbreaking,
it really is.
Gretchen Crain fell for David Anthony
pretty much the moment she set eyes on him,
and no doubt, he fell just as hard for her.
I've seen many couples in "Divorce Court"
whose first encounter was just like this,
and when it doesn't work out,
they're able to separate and move on.
But David hid crushing self-doubt
behind a facade of positive thinking
and a relentless pursuit of physical well-being.
And when he couldn't hide it any longer,
his smoldering rage turned him into a cold-blooded killer.
David's mind got so twisted that killing Gretchen
somehow became his solution to losing her.
It's hard for me to understand David's brutal actions,
and I'm sure it's still incomprehensible
for Gretchen's loved ones.
Still, there is some comfort knowing that David Anthony
will spend the rest of his life in prison,
and hope that Gretchen's positive spirit lives on
in those who knew and loved her.