[tense music]
[sirens wailing]
- [Kurt] This is probably a suicide.
- [Jess] And where the (bleep) is the gun?
- [Doug] Yeah, there's the entrance.
So, then we've got a bullet in the floor under him.
Gun's gotta be underneath him,
- [Jess] But I still don't see a gun.
There's no gun under here.
- Something's not right.
- [Jess] There's no way he (bleep) killed himself
if there's no gun.
- Whoa, this just got unexpected.
[tense music]
[dramatic music] [sirens wailing]
- I responded urgent status, which means lights and sirens.
I was familiar with the house.
Anne was one of our former dispatchers
at our communication center,
but there was a handgun involved.
So, I asked dispatcher to have the reporting party
step out to the front porch and I wanted to see her hands.
- [Jess] Once I saw her hands, I exited the vehicle.
I ask her where her son is, I can see him on the couch.
You just stay there with Mama. Okay, buddy?
[dogs barking]
When I walk in the doorway to the master bedroom,
I can see a body laying on the floor
partially covered with blankets.
[tense music]
I could tell that he was the deceased,
just due to discoloration on his limbs,
the lividity, like the blood pooling.
- [Jess] S-T-E-V-E-N? - [Anne] Yes.
- [Jess] Last name? - [Anne] Olson.
- If he's sleeping and someone else shot him,
that's a weird position for his arm to be in.
He was located on the ground
with his head laying on a body pillow,
shot in the head.
He was laying down in a face-down posture.
His right arm was kinked up in a chicken wing fashion,
his palm facing straight up.
- There was brain matter
that was outside of his head.
He wasn't moving, he was cold,
kind of stiffening up to the touch.
- We treat every death as a suspicious death,
until proven thuswise.
So, with this case, it's either suicide or murder.
- [Jess] His name's Steven Olson, that's all I know.
And I mean, he's got a flashlight.
- [Doug] He got a knife on his boot.
Is that a holster? - Yeah, I bet you're right.
- [Doug] Okay. - But the holster's empty.
- [Doug] This is weird.
- The holster wasn't like a duty holster like I'm wearing,
but he's wearing a brand of pant
that are very common among law enforcement.
- Is he a (bleep) cop?
- And so, that made all of us think, okay,
well, is he a police officer or what?
What's he doing?
And so, as I'm looking at the body
and I'm assuming that this is a suicide,
he put the gun to his head,
and I'm assuming that the gun then fell
and his body fell over the top of it.
[tense music]
- You wanna try and roll? - Yes.
Yeah. - Would this be the entry?
- [Jess] That looks like the exit to me.
- Hold on, there's a hole right there.
Oh, you know what?
That pillow was over his head.
- Oh. - Yep.
I see what you're saying.
- [Kurt] Yeah, there's the entrance.
- [Doug] Oh, yep.
- There was a large opening
on the backside of the pillow.
When you move the backside of the pillow down, there was
blood spattering on a much smaller hole.
I think in this particular situation,
the pillow was wrapped up over his head
and used for sound suppression.
- So then, we've got a bullet
somewhere in the floor under him.
- If he was laying on the floor when he did it.
- Right. - And where the (bleep) the gun?
- [Kurt] Gun's gotta be underneath him.
- [Jess] There's a shell casing.
- Yep.
There is a shell casing found near Steve Olson
with a stamp on it for a FC 32 Auto.
It's difficult to make any conclusions
based on the placement of any shell casings.
We needed the firearm.
- [Jess] We still don't see a gun.
There's no gun under here.
Well, if there's no (bleep) gun,
then it's not... - Something's not right.
- At that moment,
there's a exclamation point that goes off in my head.
Oh, all right, well, this is a problem.
We need to find the gun to fill in the blanks
and help us understand what happened there.
- What do we have on tabletops?
Anything interesting?
- [Doug] No, I didn't see...
If there was, I mean...
- Nothing on the night stands, or?
- Bathroom over here.
Do we know where the gun is?
- Nope, we might as well wait for pictures.
- Did she cover him with the towel?
- [Jess] I'll ask her if she covered him with the blanket.
[dogs barking]
- [Jess] Did you find him with the blanket on him
or did you put the blanket on him?
- I'm sorry.
- Was the blanket on him or did you put it there?
- It was, okay.
Can we put the dogs in the basement?
The house was chaotic, and the dogs are barking so loudly,
and Anne was calm.
Like, if I had just found a loved one shot in my bedroom,
I would be hysterical.
You last saw him about... - About one-ish, I went bed.
We were watching a movie and...
- [Child] I didn't hear anything through the night.
- [Jess] How old are you now? - [Child] I'm 10.
- [Jess] 10?
- [Child] I didn't hear anything through the night
until Mom woke me up.
- [Jess] Okay. - I didn't hear anything,
but I take all my meds at night.
- [Jess] Were you sleeping in there?
- [Anne] I was sleeping right next to him in my bed.
- [Jess] In your bed?
- [Anne] Yeah, and again, I take a handful of meds.
- So, all three of you slept in that room last night?
- [Anne] Yeah. - Okay.
- [Anne] We were having movie night,
but we crashed out before he did.
- [Jess] Okay, well, just sit tight here.
[tense music]
She's saying that all three of them
slept in this room last night.
- So, she woke up and what?
- You don't just walk by that. - No.
[tense music]
- No.
- [Doug] 'Cause the blanket was covering him.
- [Jess] We still don't have a gun.
- [Kurt] You wanna come get some pictures?
- Okay. - Yep.
[tense music]
We might wanna close that door.
We don't want her to see this.
- [Jess] I don't want her son to see it either.
Shut it. - No, no.
[indistinct chatter]
- [Jess] She's saying that they all,
they were having a movie night,
they were all cuddled in here in this room.
They fell asleep before he did,
but she's, "Oh, I take lots of meds,
so I didn't hear anything,"
but there's no way he (bleep) killed himself
if there's no gun.
I think she hid the gun somewhere.
- Whoa.
This just got unexpected.
- There was no gun located within reach.
Either he died by suicide
and somebody moved the gun,
or somebody shot him.
- Speaking with Anne was a high priority.
She's gonna be the best one to tell us
what actually did happen there.
- [Officer] Nope, nice lady picked up the phone
within the first ring.
- We found out that Steve Olson had some involvement
with law enforcement down in Des Moines
and he was a security guard up at Nebraska Medical Center.
He worked double shifts
in order to provide extra financial support to the family.
- This officer came down
and she told me that Steve was gone.
My first thought was, I want him back.
I want him back, I want my Steve,
and was hard to accept that he's gone.
Steve grew up on the farm
and he graduated from high school
and enlisted in the army.
He was a helicopter crew chief.
A lot of his coworkers spoke about Steve
and how friendly he was
and how helpful he was,
how courageous he was
and that reminds me every day of who he was
and what he did.
[birds chirping]
- [Radio] You understanding- - Initially,
when I approach Anne Valgora,
I retrieved her as the reporting party.
At the same time, being reporting party,
yeah, she's also a potentially grieving widow
that just lost her husband,
and so there's a lot of delicate questions that are asked
in order to figure out as far as what had happened
or what was going on.
- No. We were just trying to
put things back together,
deciding whether he was gonna keep
his lease to his apartment
or be, 'cause he was here most of the time anyway.
- We had separated just because...
He was drinking.
He drank heavily.
I said, "Look, if you're gonna have a drink,
I get it," and I said,
"But you can't drink to intoxication every time."
- Were you guys ever involved in any sort
of physical altercation?
- [Anne] No.
- [Doug] Did he ever threaten violence,
anything like that?
- No. Not towards himself.
- [Doug] What about just fights in general?
- We argued about how much money
he spent on alcohol,
considering there's other things
and that ties into the loony bit,
about the whole thing.
- The loony bit?
He would accuse you of being loony or?
- Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I don't think he accused me of being loony.
I mean, he knew I was in that, but I'm a night,
it's not that I'm a nut.
I'm a night shifter.
- Oh, okay. - And I did have
acute anxiety.
[laughs]
Yes.
Last year, they were telling me I was absolutely loony,
that I was, and the bottom line was, I have anxiety,
acute anxiety disorder.
- Anne was very willing to offer up a bunch of information
about her ailments and numerous other things,
but not necessarily any grief that took place
in regards to Steve dying in the room
that we were sitting next to.
Obviously, we became more and more suspicious
in regards to what had actually occurred in the bedroom.
- You have three people in a room,
two people walk out.
So, there is that external possibility
that there was an intruder that came into the home,
and then the only other possibility
that Anne was responsible for it.
[tense music]
- Mm-hmm. - And then where was Steven
at that time? - Steve was,
he probably laid down to go to bed,
I would imagine, at some point.
I came out this morning
and found the front door open
and the screen door and the alarm was not set.
- And then about what time did you get up?
- About 2:15.
- [Doug] About 2:15 today?
- Yeah. - Or 2:15 this afternoon
or 2:15- - 2:15 today,
this afternoon. - Okay.
- I didn't know whether Steve had work at 3:30 or 4:00
and that's when I found the disaster.
[tense music]
- Yes.
- I can't, I just...
- She did not provide any names in regards to,
"I think Steve had a grief with this person and
I think you guys might wanna go look at them right away."
I found that extremely odd.
The fact that she was not willing
to come up with any sort of theory
is obviously suspicious.
[tense music]
- [Doug] So, you have the alarm system.
Do you have any, like, I have a Ring doorbell
that takes video and stuff.
Do you guys have anything like that?
- So, we put like a little one at the top of the steps.
- Okay. - And so, I mean,
it's just kind of an indoor camera, but...
- [Doug] Okay.
- [Anne] But I don't know if he had it on or not.
- [Doug] Oh, okay.
When you found him today,
was there a gun laying near him?
- I didn't see it.
I just, I immediately looked over.
I said, I was like...
- [Doug] Would you have like grabbed the gun
and thrown it in a drawer, so that he wouldn't see it?
- No. - [Doug] Okay.
- I didn't even see the gun. I saw the head.
- [Doug] Right.
I said, "Well, you don't wanna see this."
I said, "You don't need to see this."
- [Officer] And that was smart thinking.
- Dispatcher for 10 years.
- My police brain
is just trying to fill in the blanks
and come up with a story that makes sense.
If he did it himself,
since the gun is not underneath him,
then Anne must have moved the gun somewhere
and there's probably a motivation for that.
She's trying to protect her son from the gun
or that she hid the gun,
because she's afraid that if this is a suicide,
that life insurance may not pay out.
[tense music]
- We were trying to get the son interviewed
by a juvenile forensic interviewer.
It's tragic for someone who's at such a young age
to be able to now have to process that
and compartmentalize that for the rest of his life.
- Would it be able going in there with someone
to get some clothes out of the closet
for him to put on?
- I'll go in my car and get McClannan
and we'll see if we can find those for you.
- Okay.
- Just thought we can at least get that done.
- Okay. - Okay?
- [Kurt] And they have all their mirrors covered.
- [Kurt] What's the deal?
Yeah, that's crazy.
- [Kurt] Yeah.
- Douglas County crime lab was also responding to the scene
in order to search the rest of the house.
[camera clicking]
There wasn't necessarily anything
that we had concrete at that time,
and so we're hoping to preserve
any evidence that may be at the scene
and at least collect a gunshot residue kit on Anne.
- Do the same thing with your left.
- So, left palm? - Yeah.
[tense music]
- [Jess] You wanna have one last cigarette
before we go to the police department?
- [Anne] Can I smoke out here? - [Jess] Yeah.
- Thank you. - Yep, and we'll see you
in a little bit, okay? - [Anne] Okay.
- [Jess] She's gonna have a cigarette quick.
- [Officer] Okay.
- [Jess] Sorry, I have a ton of stuff in here,
so obviously, I'm not gonna like handcuff you,
but I will have you sit in back. - [Anne] Okay.
- And we're about the only people that fit comfortably.
Little short girls. - Oh my God, no kidding.
Okay.
[tense music]
- When we arrived at the police department,
I viewed Anne in a different light
from when we initially responded to the call.
Now, she's a possible suspect.
I thought I had a chance to confront her
with a much harder accusation
in order to elicit a response from that.
[tense music]
I just wanna make you aware, it's a voluntary interview.
You don't have to answer any questions I have.
You're free to leave at any point in time, okay?
- [Anne] Okay.
- So, with these general investigations,
we go through a standard set of questions
that we ask everybody.
- [Anne] Okay.
- So, the first question we always ask is,
did you have any part,
have any involvement in Steven's death?
[gentle music]
[tractor engine revving]
- Steve was very protective.
Mm, sorry.
All through grade school, up to high school,
if he found out somebody was picking on me
on the bus or anywhere,
he was there, you know.
"Just leave her alone. That's my sister."
He was there always,
just, he was a great brother.
- [Anne] I didn't do anything.
- [Doug] Okay. What occurred last night?
- [Anne] Yesterday, he worked evening shift.
My son likes to wait up for Steve,
so we can have movie time and whatnot,
and we were sitting in there
and we were almost done watching the next one
and I'm just dead to the world.
- [Doug] Mm-hmm.
- But I'm taking medication at night,
'cause I don't sleep well.
That's why I've gotta make sure
everything is done in the house.
- Okay. - Before I take my meds.
- There's definitely an example of her taking one question
and turning it into three or four different answers.
I could see it as an attempt
in order to list out the laundry list
of everything else that's going on
in order to avoid the actual investigation.
- [Anne] So, I've got quite a few medical issues.
- So, where was your son sitting during these movies?
- [Anne] Next to me most of the time,
but I'm sure I fell asleep before he did,
because when I woke up,
he just kinda snuggled and I was like,
"Oh, okay, well, I gotta get up."
I was gonna look at the calendar
and see what time I needed to wake Steve up.
I'm like, "Honey.
Honey, are you in there?"
[laughs] You know. - Mm-hmm.
- And moved the pillow.
The blue and white pillow was like folded over his head,
which was,
it had never,
it would never be like that.
I'd never seen it like that way before.
So, I kinda flipped it back
and gave him room and of course,
let out this gush of, [gasps]
and that's when I called and I'm like, you know,
I called Mom, I said, "Start down this way.
I need you down here right away."
I said, "I'm calling the police right now."
I said, "Apparently, something happened last night.
Steve's been shot in the head."
- She called her mom first.
With her history of being a dispatcher,
also an EMT,
that struck us as very unique, very odd,
very inconsistent with what most people would do
if they just found their spouse, you know,
dead on the floor in front of their bed.
- [Anne] I said, "I felt for a carotid, got no pulse."
I said, "It appears that rigor is setting in,"
and I said, I said,
"At this point," I said, "Mom, he's gone."
I said, "There's no way."
And she goes, "Okay, let me grab your sister,"
da da da, and, "We already, we'll head that way."
And at that point, I hung up with them and I called 911.
- Do you mind if I look at your phone
just to see what the timeframe was on that call?
- [Anne] Absolutely, oh, here.
And obviously, you can see I'm not a loon.
I'm upset and I'm sorry if I'm scattered a little.
I think I'm just a little in shock.
I don't get it, I don't understand.
- Tell me more about the rigor.
- Rigor? - Yep, as far as
what you observed that led you to believe that.
- I'm an EMT, but rigor, when it gets hard,
when the body gets hard and stiff.
- Yeah, I know what it is. - Yeah.
- But what did you observe on him
that you observed as rigor?
- Well, so I tried to move him
and I, of course, touched his neck.
There's nothing there
and I'm trying to see if there's anything,
and he was just stiff,
and hate to put it in a ambulance code,
but, you know, DOA,
but he was.
- I've never heard anyone discuss
a loved one's state of rigor
when they'd been found deceased.
So, the fact that she was using those terms
to describe her husband is rather bizarre.
- This situation, we have to kinda decipher on the spot.
Is she trying to process,
is she trying to compartmentalize right now,
or is she just straight out lying to us?
- [Doug] Do you and Steven have any disputes?
- We had problems
and we were
doing so well with our problems.
- Mm-hmm.
- We were, our finances are a little bit FUBARed right now.
That's because I'm not working, obviously,
and he is.
He's the only income
and he's got two places he's paying for, basically,
and I don't even know.
I know he's got an insurance policy somewhere.
[tense music]
But I'd have to dig it up and dig it out
and find out what it is.
I don't know what it is and I don't know who it's with.
- She volunteers that there was a life insurance policy,
and so you kind of start piecing together, okay,
if she was getting a financial benefit,
that pointed the finger more towards Anne,
that she was involved in it.
- It was a leap forward in that process,
down that path that established
that Anne might have shot and killed Steve Olson.
[tense music]
- I wanna go ahead and backtrack, as far as
what occurred there and how did you find the doors
when you exited the room this morning,
or this afternoon, I should say?
- [Anne] I came out and the alarm was not on.
I thought, well, that's odd,
and I noticed that the front door was open
like that far, about an inch,
and the clicker for the screen on the door was open,
in the open position.
I wouldn't leave my house like that.
- The clicker was open?
- [Anne] The screen, the screen lock.
- Oh, okay. So, for the storm door?
- [Anne] Yeah. - Out front.
- [Anne] Yeah. It was unlocked, as well.
- Outside of Anne's statements of the door was found open
when she woke up in the morning
and the storm door was unlocked,
there was no indication in the house
that somebody had entered the house
or got involved in any sort of struggle.
It becomes more and more likely that
Anne was essentially covering up any involvement in it.
What happened after that?
- [Anne] So, then I go in and I'm like,
okay, it's time for you guys to get up.
As I walked over, I'm like, "Hey, loser.
[laughs]
You're not supposed to sleep on the floor.
Get up." [laughs]
And I said, "It's almost 2:30 and I don't know when you work,
so you need to get up."
- Anne's behavior was just so odd.
You kinda go, okay,
is this somebody who's behavior and their speech
and the manner that they're presenting themselves
consistent with someone who just came upon
their husband shot in the head?
- [Anne] And there was just no response at all.
I just freaked out.
I just thought...
And I couldn't go back in and look myself, even.
I didn't want to.
- As far as he had a holster that was on him,
does he normally always carry a gun?
Did he have a gun on him last night?
- [Anne] He...
Has a gun.
Yeah, he usually carries.
- Where would he have stored the gun?
Where does he typically store the gun when he sleeps?
- At night? - Yeah.
- He sleeps with it.
It could be here, it could be there,
it could be in his holster.
I've seen him sleep with it
laying right next to his hand.
I've seen him laying on top of it.
There's a smaller one that he leaves at home.
It's a little Beretta that's his.
That's for in case of emergencies
and I don't know,
you want me to shoot an intruder if there's ever an intruder,
but I said, "I've taken that oath to heal."
I said, "I'm an EMT." - Mm-hmm.
- [Anne] I'm an EMT instructor.
I said, "I don't really want one,"
and I said, "If you wanna leave one up there,
that's fine, or leave it in the case or whatever.
Make sure it's got a gun lock on it."
I said, "I don't care."
It's nice to know that there's a weapon there,
that if any harm was to come to the child,
but I told him, "I can't."
I said, "I couldn't do that."
- What else do you know about his other guns?
- [Anne] That's really all I know about his gun stuff,
because I don't like 'em.
I've seen what they can do.
So, I'm a really kind of an anti-gun person.
- As far as her never being able to shoot an intruder,
not having much contact with guns in the house.
That clearly shows that she just wanted to
really kinda distance herself from it.
There was enough oddities in the conversation
that we had already had
that anything that Anne had told me during that interview,
I would've been extremely skeptical of.
And what do you think happened to the handgun?
- [Anne] I have no idea.
I have no... [stammers]
I have no idea, from the time I fell asleep
to the time I got up,
and started running around and doing my thing,
that anything had happened.
- Mm-hmm.
- So, it's kind of...
I don't know what else to tell you.
- Okay. - [Anne] I mean, I just don't.
Because like I said, I take these meds.
[indistinct chatter] [tense music]
- So, did you know of anybody
that he was having disputes with?
Anything along those lines?
- [Anne] He had disputes on a daily basis
when he worked in the ER.
Stuff like that with people.
- Anything that would've followed him home, though?
- [Anne] A couple.
There were a few.
There were a few, especially with one particular one,
you know, and he says,
"I'll find where you live and I'll kill your family.
First, I'll kill your family,
and then I'll make you, and then I'll kill you,
and you're gonna watch."
[tense music]
- [Anne] He had recent altercations that made threats,
and so it's kind of one of those things of...
I said, "Is there gonna be a problem?"
But obviously, that didn't take place.
- Mm-hmm. - So I don't know.
May he have made some friends or acquaintances?
I would assume so.
I have heard stories of...
- Anybody he was in a business deal with?
Anything along those lines?
- [Anne] Not that I'm aware of.
- Were going down the road of looking at a possible suspect,
but there was nobody she suspected
that broke into her house.
There was just very little information
that was offered up through that.
I felt that we were going around in circles.
Would there be any reason why gunshot residue
would show up on your hand?
- [Anne] No, unless it comes off on, like,
the pillow or blanket that I lifted up
or checked him, checked him for vitals.
- Mm-hmm. - That would be the only reason.
- Okay.
- [Anne] I don't know how that's transferred exactly.
So, I don't know if that counts or not.
- Okay.
I do have our forensic,
our computer forensics guy coming down.
Would you consent for us doing an extraction
on your cell phone?
Just extraction, just look through it,
make sure that everything matches up.
See if there's any clues on that.
- [Anne] Oh, I don't care.
- Okay. - [Anne] Have it.
- Okay. - [laughs] It's a piece of crap.
- Let me go and fill out that form.
- [Anne] Okay.
- So that we can get started on that,
and then I'll be back in to check on you, okay?
- [Anne] Okay.
- She was not in custody at the time
and we had kinda reached a point
where it was now important for us to find out
what her son said during his interview,
and then also find out what exists
in the form of physical evidence at the home.
[tense music]
We had contacted ADT,
which was the security company
that operated the security system
within Anne Valgora's home.
Anytime that that front door was opened even an inch,
the chimes for the doors announcing someone's arrival
would've gone off
and also logged their entrance onto the security system logs.
[door squeaking]
[alarm chiming]
The security system had showed that
the front door was closed all night
and was not opened until Anne reported
that she had woke the next day,
which was contradictory to her statement
that the door was open when she first awoke.
It also showed that the security system
had lost connectivity via the internet
that had supported it for communication,
but even if she were to unplug the internet
to disable the security system,
it's still gonna communicate with ADT via cell signal.
- Also, Anne told us there was a motion camera
that was sitting up
in the hallway of the second floor of the residence.
It was an infrared camera that was motion-activated.
We were able to forensically examine that camera.
- Later on that night,
Steve is seen upstairs along with Anne's child,
appears to be checking the upstairs
and they walk through.
At that point in time,
Steve has a large handgun that's on his hip.
Also, the camera scans across
and shows a laundry pile that's located
at the end of the hallway in front of the linen closet.
- Hours later,
when it activated itself again based on motion,
it showed that Anne walked through the camera,
nude from the waist up, and we were able to discern that
the laundry on the south end of the hallway
had been moved and displaced.
[tense music]
- Anne claimed that she had taken her nightly medication
and that when she takes that, she's "dead to the world,"
and she was sound asleep.
She didn't hear anything.
So, that there's camera footage
and with Anne moving about through the upstairs
indicates that wasn't true.
- We were starting to dig through
every single room upstairs.
We were looking for any weapon that was capable
of firing a .32
and every aspect of where we believe a gun could fit,
and then in the laundry room,
we were able to locate a .32 caliber Beretta
upside down in the dryer.
The same markings that were on the shell casings
that were in the magazine of that Beretta
was consistent to this casing that had already been fired.
As soon as we found it,
we deemed that this is the murder weapon.
[tense music]
Finding the gun was a turning point.
I believe that Anne took that upstairs
after she took her clothes off,
because she was washing her clothes.
I think that she washed the gun, as well.
Later in that day, we were able to find a Colt .45
in the upstairs laundry pile.
- [Doug] Comparison of that Colt .45 Commander,
along with the video of Steve upstairs at 1:30 a.m.,
it appears to be the handgun that he had on his hip
when he was walking around the house that night.
- I believe that she took that weapon off of him,
and then hid it, just possibly to throw us off.
[crickets chirping]
- Those interviewers are trained to make sure that
they're not leading that child witness to an answer
and really give them an opportunity to tell
their side of the story and what they heard.
- Anne's son stated the night before,
while Steve had fallen asleep,
the gun that was located on Steve's hip
had fallen out and onto the floor at about 4:00 a.m,
and that's when he had said that everything
had gotten really weird.
[tense music]
- He said Steven is kind of asleep on the floor
at some point and snoring,
and then her son reports that he heard a thud,
kind of what he calls as a silent gunshot.
[tense music]
- And his mom told him that that was nothing,
and he should go back to bed.
- He also observed that Steve had stopped snoring.
Based on everything that's happened up to this point,
we came to the conclusion
that Anne Valgora got up in the middle of the night,
took a firearm out, went to the end of the bed,
and killed Steve Olson.
[tense music]
- The way everything appeared in the house,
and then if you add that to the things that
Anne's son said during his interview, at that point,
I think law enforcement felt pretty confident
that they had their suspect.
[tense music]
- Anne had gone to her mother's house
to stay for the evening,
and so we had went out to the residence
in order to make contact with her,
informing her that we needed to talk to her
back at the police department to finish up some stuff.
- No, no, no, just... [laughing]
- [Malone] We'll go over to this side, Anne.
- [Malone] Can hop in there.
Put that seatbelt on for me, that'd be great.
- [Doug] All right. Your passenger seat empty?
- [Malone] Yes, ready for you.
[tense music]
- You didn't happen to pick up my medication, did you?
- [Doug] We did. - Oh, thank God.
Now my head is pounding.
- Anne seemed nonchalant.
Not necessarily worried, not asking questions,
not saying, "Hey, did you get any more information?
Did you find out who did it?"
- We ended up having a 20-minute conversation
about the Burmese mountain dogs
that she was breeding in her home,
and I definitely felt that she was avoiding anything
that had to do with the case
or what we were looking to discuss
once we were back down at the police department.
If you wanna have a seat in there again for me.
Can I get you a water or anything?
You got that? Okay.
Give me a bit and I'll be right in.
- [Anne] Okay.
- This interview would include much more directed questions.
We just need to understand the why
and give her an opportunity to explain
what caused her to do anything.
Okay.
So, obviously, we went out to the house
and we did a search warrant.
I definitely think we have a better idea
or a better picture as far as what happened.
- [Anne] Okay.
- So, after seeing everything, I'm just gonna tell you,
we found that you were responsible for Steven's death.
[tense music]
- [Anne] Okay, I'd like an attorney.
- Okay.
You wanna stand up?
- How could I, I'm just asking,
in what way would I be responsible for it?
- Well, we can't...
You know we can't have a further discussion with you
if you've invoked your right
and you'd like to speak with an attorney.
So, we've-- - Okay.
- It stops our interview, Anne. - Okay.
- When anyone requests a lawyer when you're in that situation,
you take it as a hit, but that evening,
Anne was booked for second degree murder,
and then lodged at the Sarpy County Jail.
[tense music]
- A Papillion woman is in jail
this evening, charged with murder.
- And police just released
the first details in the case this afternoon,
and Sharon Chen is on the live desk with more.
- Well, John and Lauren, we've learned
that it was about 3:30 yesterday
when Papillion police officers
found Steven Douglas Olson
with a gunshot wound to the head.
Officers arrested 49 year old, Anne Valgora.
She is accused of second degree murder
with the use of a deadly weapon
to commit a felony,
and also tampering with evidence.
Valgora's set to appear before a judge tomorrow morning.
- However, based on the nature
and circumstance of the offense, Miss Valgora...
[tense music]
- There was a jail call that she had made
to a family member
explaining that there was a life insurance policy on Steve,
contrary to what she had explained
to us in her interview.
- The life insurance policy was located in
the black tote within the bedroom.
- And what was discovered is that
Steven's life insurance policy had Anne
as the 100% beneficiary of that.
Also, in text messages,
she was kind of pressing Steven to make sure
that payments were made on his premium
for that life insurance policy.
Their finances were in a bad place.
Their relationship, in general,
just seemed to be so volatile.
I don't know that the life insurance was the sole reason,
but it does appear that,
and might have motivated her, as well.
[tense music]
She ultimately pled to first degree assault,
which sounds like a huge step down
from first degree murder,
but in Nebraska,
the potential sentence for first degree assault is 50 years.
So, we knew that if she was willing to plead guilty
to that, at her age,
she'd be serving some pretty significant jail time.
She was sentenced to 40 to 50 years in jail.
[tense music]
- Obviously, it's important to seek justice for Steve Olson,
because at some level, he trusted Anne
and at some point in his life,
he loved Anne enough that they got married,
and she betrayed that trust
in the most egregious way that someone can do that.
[tense music]
- Steve was always so good.
When I'd talk to him on the phone and I'd call him
and talk to him for a while, and when we'd say goodbye,
he'd always say, "Love you."
[chuckles] You know?
- It's been hard, but I still...
[gentle music]
I still talk to Steve.
That's a lot of his friends, and coworkers, and everybody.
They're like,
"Talk to him. He's still there.
He's listening."
[gentle music]