(intense music)
- [Narrator] A beloved \hteacher gunned down.
- Whoever shot her, \hwanted her dead.
- [Narrator] Her husband \hfacing tough questions.
- Why not go in the house and make sure she’s okay?
- ’Cause I was afraid.
- [Narrator] Intimate secrets.
- We were finding out there was
some type of a love triangle.
- [Narrator] Investigators \h\h\hsearching for answers
in the interrogation room.
- [Detective] Did you \hever offer to kill
Desiree Sunford for Paige?
- I didn’t kill anyone.
\h\hShe (beep) pin this (beep) on me.
\h\h\h\h- [Narrator] Every suspect accused of a crime
has the right to remain silent.
\h\hMany agree to be interrogated anyway,
\h\hbut they can stop the interview at any moment,
making it a race against time.
Justice hangs in the balance.
(phone rings)
(intense music) (police radio)
- When I rolled up \hto the residence,
I saw somebody had their \hspotlight on the house
and he had a pistol drawn.
\h\h\h\hThat person was later identified as Scott Sunford.
\hAnd I asked him, what was going on?
Why didn’t you go in?
\h\h\hHe said, "I don’t know what’s in there."
It was a very odd \hanswer to give.
I entered the house
and I remember walking \h\h\hdown the hallway
in the first room to my left
and there were bullet casings on the floor.
\h\hTo the left. I could see the body of Desiree Sunford.
She was partially dressed.
I believe she was \hin a nightgown.
Pretty bloody, I could see \hbullet holes in her body.
She had been shot \hnumerous times.
It wasn’t a burglary \hthat had gone bad.
Whoever shot her, wanted her dead.
At that point when ahead \h\hand exited the house
and walked over to Mr. \hSunford and told him
that there was a deceased \h\h\hwoman in the house.
We believe it’s your wife.
I remember telling him, \h\hI’m terrible sorry.
I’m terribly sorry.
He had a stone cold \hlook on his face.
\h\hIt seemed like it meant nothing to him.
And I told this to detectives \hwhen they arrived on scene,
I think this guy knows \hsomething about this.
\hEither he did it, or he knew who did.
- [Woman] Deputies are still \htrying to paint the picture
of what led to the shooting \h\h\h\hof Desiree Sunford.
- [Woman] The life of the beloved art teacher gone.
- Desiree Sunford was a 30 year old
\hmiddle school art teacher who had a wonderful smile,
she had a great personality.
Desiree was a very \h\hbubbly person.
She liked comedy,
she loved to laugh.
She loved music.
Everything about her was that upbeat personality.
She had very specific traits that made her
highly qualified as a teacher.
\h\h\h\hShe seemed to make connections with the kids.
Like she was one of them.
- She was well liked \h\hby her coworkers,
\h\hthe kids in the school district, just a very good,
very nice, genuine person.
- She was smart, she was outgoing
and she loved her motorcycle.
(motorbike engine roars)
\h\h\h\hWe don’t get that many teachers that wanna ride bikes.
She was into it instantly,
almost like the first big ride \h\hwould be 20, 30 mile ride.
\hWe went on, she, where we going now?
She really liked it.
- [Woman] Desiree Sanford’s \hdeath is being felt here
at Wapato Middle School.
- I couldn’t imagine \h\h\h\hwhat somebody
would’ve wanted to kill her for.
What purpose there \h\hwas behind it.
I was dumbfounded.
- It kind of didn’t make any sense because where we lived,
might hear of a robbery or \hsomething here and there,
or a break in, but nothing like that.
\h\h\hI think everybody was wondering what was going on
and nobody really knew.
\h\h\hI mean they were getting bits and pieces
and nobody really wanted \h\h\hto assume anything.
(intense music)
(timer ticks)
- Scott Sunford was a big guy.
About 6’5", very neatly groomed.
\h\h\h\h- He was a 31 year old veteran in the National Guard.
\h\hHe actually worked at the local training center
\hfor the military base here in Yakima county.
\h\h- I’ve never seen that in any of the cases I’ve worked
\hwhere they’re trying to psych themselves up
\h\hor calm themselves down to prepare them for an interview.
- All right, got you some clothes
brought over from the house
so that you can change.
- We want him to feel comfortable
\h\hand see what we can start locking him into,
some kind of a story.
- Scott informed us that he had \hgone down to the Tri-Cities,
\hwhich is about an hour and a half, two hours South of Yakima
to a attend a funeral.
\h\h\h\hAnd he attended the funeral Saturday afternoon
and then he had called Desiree,
said he was gonna spend \hthe night down there.
\h\h- He received texts from the alarm company
saying something had gone wrong
or something tripped the alarm.
- It didn’t make sense that a husband would stand back
\hand not go into the house to see
if his wife’s hurt or injured.
(intense music)
- In my 30 year career,
\hI have never seen anything like this.
For a guy his size stature \h\h\hand armed with the 45
to wait for a police \hofficer to show up,
\h\h\hto check on the welfare of his wife.
And then his reaction
\hafter finding out that she had been shot multiple times,
who was dead on the floor.
Things were not adding up.
\hWhat he was telling us it just, it stunk.
Something was wrong here.
- Hello, everyone.
The timeline might be the \hkey to solving a murder
of a local art teacher.
- [Woman] They found her shot to death in her home
on North St. Haler Road Sunday night.
Deputies only went there \h\hafter getting a call
from her husband.
He told them he was out of town
and he was worried after not \h\hhearing anything from her
in more than a day.
(intense music)
- He’s not like he’s in shock.
\h\h\h\hHe’s understanding everything we have to say,
\h\hbut he’s just not showing any emotion.
No anger, no sorrow.
It just not right.
\h\h\h\h- [Johnson] We’re in the beginning of this investigation.
As we learn more and more,
we were finding out there was some type of a love triangle.
\h\hPaige Blades was a 23 year old mistress to Scott Sunford.
- We felt that we were not \h\hgetting the full story.
It’s a relationship between a mistress and a and gentleman
and his wife is dead.
Okay, how much is he involved \h\hor how much she involved
or are they both involved?
(timer ticks)
- I do plenty of searches \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hmyself...
(intense music)
\h- The team drove to interview Paige
\h\hand to get any type of background
\h\hshe could tell us about her relationship with Scott
and the activities from that weekend.
- She was very cooperative, \h\h\h\h\hvery forthright,
\h\h\h\h\hdidn’t seem to be concerned about us knowing
about her relationship \h\h\h\h\h\hwith Scott.
- Paige blades became a person of interest
after the interview.
(intense music)
The crime lab determined \h\h\hthat the shoe sizes
were between a 12 and a 14 man size
and also a Dr. Scholl’s tread.
We did look at a number of shoes that we found
in the Sunford residence
\h\h\h\hand none of those matched the type of shoe
and a size and the print \h\hthat it would leave.
We still felt that Scott was involved
but without any physical \h\h\h\hor hard evidence,
it’s gonna be hard to put \hhim at the crime scene.
So we started collecting \h\h\h\h\hcell phone data
and as much information on \hScott that we could find.
We suspected that Paige maybe \h\hwas giving him an alibi,
that he maybe was not \hthere that evening.
But his phone was not any \hwere near the residence
at the time of the homicide.
\h\hEven though he’s still our number one person of interest,
\h\hit just wasn’t connecting him to the crime at the time.
We looked at all sorts \hof the relationship,
financial, personal, \h\h\hrelationships,
friends, neighbors,
\h\hwe were coming up with nothing that would indicate
\h\h\hthere was a major problem in the marriage
\h\h\h\hto a point where someone would be killed.
(calm music)
\h- What I want for Christmas is an end to this nightmare.
\h\h\h\h- [Woman] That was Connie Kast’s Christmas wish last year.
Her daughter dead, her \h\hdaughter’s murderer
nowhere to be found.
- [Connie] Somebody out there knows something.
\h\h- A tip came through the local crime stoppers
telephone network and \hthe person told us
\h\h\hthat the name of the shooter was a Marty Grismer
and that he had killed \h\h\hDesiree Sunford.
\h\hWe had not heard that name anywhere in the investigation.
We needed to confirm how this \hperson that was calling us
knew about this stuff
and it turned out that it was \hPaige Blade’s phone number.
If she knew this information,
why didn’t she call us directly?
Things are just not adding up.
- [Woman] This blue house on North St. Hilaire Road
turned from a married couple’s \h\h\hhome into a crime scene.
And now, an empty reminder
of the murder of Desiree Sunford.
\h\h\h\h- Desiree was a wonderful young woman.
She had a lot to look forward to.
\h\h\hShe was so kind to everyone and openly warm
that this world needed her.
(intense music)
- Hi Paige. \h\h\h- Hi.
- [David] Long time, no see.
- Long time, no see. - We’re trying to get
Paige to open up.
We’re trying to help get this \h\hweight off her shoulders.
(timer ticks)
(Paige sobs)
- [Johnson] Paige told us that \h\hMarty is a friend of hers,
that they work together
\h\hand he kind of takes care of her.
- [Johnson] At one point, \h\hI believe she told us
\hthat he just worshiped the ground she walks on.
Like he was obsessed with her.
(intense music)
- We were skeptical about what type of information
she was providing.
\hIs she throwing him under the bus
\h\h\hor is she directing it differently for us to follow?
- We continued to \htalk with Paige
and see if we could get her to meet with Marty
\hand get him to tell the same story again,
how he killed Desiree.
But this time, it \hwould be taped.
\h\h\h\h- It’s getting more complicated as we go along.
We’re not sure did Scott \h\h\hget a hold of Marty
to kill his wife?
Did Paige get a hold of \hMarty to kill Desiree
so she could have Scott
\hor did Marty just do this on his own?
- Information coming out about the murder
of Desiree Sunford might only scratch the surface
of this case.
Police believe Sunford’s \hhusband had a mistress.
(intense music)
- Marty wouldn’t cooperate.
She’d try to lead him a little bit
\h\hwithout putting words in his mouth,
but he seemed to be very nervous,
\h\h\h\h\hvery cautious in his conversation with her that day
\h\h\hand we did not get any information that was usable.
(intense music)
The Sheriff’s office received a phone call
from one of the other managers.
\hWas cleaning where Marty had his office
and found a bag of gun parts.
So our team immediately \hdrove to Moses Lake,
recovered the gun parts
and took them directly \h\h\hto the crime lab
to have them examined.
\h\hIt was determined that this barrel was on the gun
used to kill Desiree Sunford.
\h\h\h\hThe bullets that we recovered from her autopsy
came from that barrel.
(date clanks)
(timer clicks)
\hWe had evidence in our hands that gave us enough
to arrest him on the spot,
but we’d really like to have a confession.
And so we started off just \h\ha general conversation.
How he knows Paige,
how he knows Desiree
or does he knows the \h\hSunford’s at all?
- We’re not gonna drop the \hhammer on him right away.
We’re building up that relationship with him,
\h\h\htrying to get him to feel comfortable in talking with us
and to see what he’ll admit to.
- He told us that he dealt \h\hwith guns quite often,
\h\hfixing ’em, repairing ’em, trading guns with other people.
\hHe was also telling us that he very rarely loans the guns
or any of his parts to anybody.
He always keeps ’em himself.
\h\hWe’re trying to get him to open up.
We’re not giving him all the \hfacts we have in our hand,
\hbut we wanna see his reaction as we come up
\h\hwith these little nuggets we call ’em.
- The color just drained \h\h\h\hout of his face.
\h\h\h\hI thought he was actually gonna get sick.
(intense music)
- We were confronting him
\hwith some pretty heavy information.
And you know, as he was thinking,
his eyes are wandering around.
He’s trying to figure out what he’s gonna say next.
(intense music)
- He’s changing his story.
He said, he’d never loaned \h\hthe gun out to anybody.
Now he knows that the gun \hwas used in the murder,
he’s gotta find somebody \hthat he gave the gun to
and Paige is a likely person.
- I asked him when he got the \hgun back and he says March.
He says that twice.
And all of a sudden he realize
the murder happened in April.
He’s not thinking fast enough,
or he’s got the dates wrong.
Otherwise he’s the \hone with the gun
at the time of the murder.
(timer ticks)
(intense music)
(timer ticks)
\h\h\h- We were hoping if there was any connection
between Scott’s involvement
\hor Paige’s involvement in the death of Desiree,
that Marty wouldn’t go alone.
\h\hI mean, why take the rap by yourself?
- In Yakima County,
\h\hDeputies say the murder investigation
took a turn last month
\hwhen a man called to say he found gun parts
in the office of a former worker.
That worker was Marty Grismer.
(intense music)
\h\h- You can see that he is getting really antsy,
color in his face is draining.
That’s something you don’t \h\hhave any control over.
He’s showing us enough body \hlanguage that he’s lying.
\h\hWe’re still thinking Paige is involved somehow
\hand he’s not doing this all by himself.
(timer ticks)
\h- The interview lasted a little over two hours.
\hWe’re getting to a point where there’s nothing else
we could push ’em with.
And so the interview \h\h\hwas terminated
and he was taken into custody \hand brought back to Yakima.
\h\h- [Woman] This case was set to go to a jury trial,
\hbut the state offered a plea deal to Grismer
at the last minute
\h\hdue to uncertainty in some of their witnesses.
\h- And Alford plea is he’s not admitting to the crime,
he’s not confessing \h\h\hto the crime,
he’s just saying that the state,
which would be the prosecution,
\hhas enough evidence to get a conviction.
- A Yakima Superior Court \h\hJudge accepted a plea
to send Marty Grismer to prison for killing
\h\h\hWapato art teacher, Desiree Sunford in 2013.
\h\h\hDesiree’s mother Connie Kast spoke at the sentencing
\hand asked the judge to send Grismer away for a long time.
- People, they tell me \hthey know how I feel.
You have no idea how I feel.
\hI don’t want you to know how I feel
because no one should have to deal with this type of pain.
\h\h- Court is going to go along with the resolution.
\hIn this case, I will sentence you to a term
of 15 years with the State Department of Corrections.
If I had the authority,
I would make sure that you went to the harshest prison
in the state of Washington.
(sad music)
- Desiree wasn’t any \h\htype of a threat.
\h\hYou would think if Marty wanted Paige all to himself,
just eliminate Scott.
It just didn’t make sense.
There’s gotta be other \h\h\hreasons than just
he did this all on his own \h\hfor his love for Paige.
- You know unfortunately,
it’s not what you know,
it’s what you can prove.
\hThese cases will follow a detective,
\ha deputy, a police officer for the rest of their lives.
There’s a lot of relief that comes along with solving them
because you know, we want justice for the families.
\h- [Johnson] Desiree’s mother passed away a few years later,
but we were able to let her know that we caught
her daughter’s killer and that \h\hhe was sentenced to prison.