NYKKY: There was always that group of girls
that are just brutally mean in school.
She's like, "Who the [bleep] is this?"
And pointed at me.
Loyalty meant a lot to her.
They just welcomed her with open arms.
She felt like she belonged.
KAYLA: They would come up with a way to manipulate it.
They were mean girls.
[woman speaking]
It almost seemed like she was trying to get
out from behind it.
[detective speaking]
[theme music playing]
[music stops]
[distant train whistle blowing]
BRITTANY: Buffalo, Minnesota, is about 45 minutes
west of the Twin Cities.
You have a mix of people who have moved from
the outer suburbs to a little bit more
of a smaller town feel.
KAYLA: Growing up in Buffalo was difficult,
because everybody knew everybody.
So if you said something, that person found out.
If you did something that somebody didn't like,
they talked about it.
BRITTANY: Being a teen
in Buffalo, as a popular girl,
you had it more easy, because you had parents that were able
to provide everything for you.
So when it came to, like, their driver's license,
the majority of the girls got a brand-new spanking car that
was like a Mercedes.
KAYLA: In high school,
there are girls that play sports.
There's girls that like anime.
There's girls that party a lot.
BRITTANY: It depends what social class you were in
where you fit in,
if you were part of the popular group,
the kind of in-betweens or the geeks or the goths.
NARRATOR: And ruling from the top of Buffalo High's
social pyramid are the preppy girls.
The preppies, their parents had money.
So, you know, kids like me -- it was a struggle.
We were picked on for our clothes not being, like,
Hollister or Abercrombie.
You know, it was just the good old Miley Cyrus from Walmart
that were cute,
but they just weren't up to the social standards.
BRYANNA: If the popular clique passed you,
they would always be talking to themselves,
laughing about something, pointing.
You just kind of knew that they were making fun
of you, and there was nothing you could really do.
It was a very judgy place to be.
NARRATOR: Quirky 14-year-old Cheyenne Clough and her besties
are certainly not part of the preppy crowd.
BRITTANY: Personally, I think our friend group were just
kind of the middle men,
the we're good but not good enough,
and had a good mixture of people and personalities
that could fit in any of the social tiers.
I remember Cheyenne being more of a floater.
She made a lot of different friends from a lot of
different groups, and I remember
her being at a lot of parties I was at.
BRITTANY: She liked to be a social butterfly.
She wasn't like one of those people
that need to be the center of attention.
She was okay with, like, taking a step back.
But if she sees someone struggling with something
or someone getting bullied,
she's always gonna be the first one there to stand up
for them.
NARRATOR: But Cheyenne finds herself
a favorite target for the preppy squad.
BRITTANY: They would just make snide comments or remarks
about what she's wearing,
what's in her hair, what her hair looks like that day.
They would make rude, snide remarks about her weight,
because her jean size was not a size zero.
NYKKY: There's always that group of girls that are just
brutally mean in school, and she did get bullied a lot.
They would make fun of her for having eczema.
She had it really bad.
They called her "Hamburger Head" and "Snakeskin."
BRITTANY: It cut her deep.
It brought her down a dark hole,
but we all helped pull her out of it,
and she pulled herself out,
NARRATOR: Cheyenne stands her ground, refusing to be
bullied by a pack of mean girls.
She got to this point where she would
sometimes snap back and say something really smart,
and they didn't know how to respond to that,
because nobody would talk back to them like that.
BRITTANY: She'd be like, "If you really have a problem,
we can take this up after school gets out.
I don't think she actually ever beat 'em up,
but it would kind of take them by surprise.
They realized that she wasn't somebody
to pick on anymore.
NARRATOR: Cheyenne's battles with the mean preppy girls make
her especially devoted to her circle of friends.
Loyalty meant a lot to her.
And it was more if you can't be truthful and honest,
how can I trust you to have my back
when I need you to have my back?
NARRATOR: Then Cheyenne discovers boys,
which changes everything.
One day, Cheyenne came to me
and said she had something to tell me,
and she told me that she was pregnant,
and I was the first person that she had told.
She was 15, and that is
young to have a kid, and we were
worried about if she was ready for that or not.
And she was just super excited about it, because
it would be a big life-changing moment for her.
NARRATOR: But her pregnancy takes the bullying
to a whole new level.
BRITTANY: The preppies were whispering about it at school.
That caused her to bring it to social media and be like,
"Yes, I am pregnant,"
and then you had all the backlash of all the people
of like, "Are you kidding me?
You're gonna go nowhere with your life," and people would try
to speculate who the baby daddy was
and acted like it was the worst thing in the world.
NYKKY: Cheyenne was devastated
when her and her son's father broke up,
because she thought they were gonna get married and,
you know, live happily ever after and be a family.
BRYANNA: Cheyenne lived at her mom's.
She and her mom were trying to raise the baby, and I believe
they just had disagreements on how to raise him.
NYKKY: She just adored him,
but it got to a point where she decided that she should not
be the full-time caregiver for her son.
And Cheyenne kind of took it upon herself to leave
and just let her mom raise her son how she wants to raise him.
NARRATOR: But the high school dropout is determined
to build a better life for herself
and her young son.
She works retail and restaurant jobs
and finds a place to live
in small town Maple Lake, just outside Buffalo.
Her new housemates, two young women and their boyfriends,
include boy crazy
19-year-old Callie Anderson.
She thought she was super nice and super personable.
I know Callie didn't have a job.
And she craved
male attention.
BRYANNA: She lived there with her boyfriend, Shawn.
I think she was just trying to be who she wanted to be.
Things between Callie and Cheyenne were
going really good at the house.
I started seeing posts on Cheyenne's Facebook.
She would post pictures of herself and Callie.
BRYANNA: Cheyenne felt welcome,
and I think Callie had a lot to do with it.
NARRATOR: In the cozy house,
Cheyenne also grows close to another roommate,
33-year-old nurse, Natasha Brandenburger.
They all just kind of clicked.
Tasha was originally a nurse at the Buffalo Hospital,
but she was also someone that did tattoos, and Cheyenne was
wanting just a little tattoo that Natasha could do for her.
Was interesting, honestly, to watch the friendship bloom.
NARRATOR: For the first time since leaving high school,
18-year-old Cheyenne feels like she has a new
and devoted friend group.
They just welcomed her with open arms.
She felt like she belonged, she felt safe,
she felt supported.
NYKKY: They basically called themselves a family,
and they would all
look out for each other, and they said they would
always encourage each other to do good things in life,
and they would never turn their backs on each other.
[train whistle blows]
NARRATOR: There's only one problem -- since Natasha
and Callie's boyfriends also live at the house,
singleton Cheyenne feels a little left out.
So she finds her own man, a bad boy,
23-year-old Devon Boyles.
Devon had a troubled past with being in and out of jail.
I heard something about a stolen car.
BRYANNA: And I was told that he was in a gang also.
Some people thought it was a lie.
Some thought it was real.
Cheyenne never complained about it.
She was blinded by love.
Cheyenne did confide in me sometimes
about him being abusive to her.
BRYANNA: I think she just wanted to believe
that he was still a good guy.
But as -- as friends looking in,
we saw it the complete opposite way.
We were all worried about her ending up dead.
NARRATOR: After high school days plagued with mean girl moments,
Cheyenne Clough is enjoying a love fest with her housemates,
Callie Anderson and Natasha Brandenburger.
She just thought they were
the coolest people ever to hang out with.
I can understand why it would feel welcome for her, going
through a lot of the things that she did go through.
I can understand why that was so
important to her to feel like she belonged.
NARRATOR: But as the new girl, she needs
to remember her place in the household hierarchy,
with the oldest couple, Natasha's boyfriend,
and, by extension, Natasha, at the top.
BRYANNA: Justin's role in the house was the master,
I guess -- he just didn't like if you didn't listen.
So he just kind of had that leader aspect of the house.
And Natasha definitely got her power
from Justin,
and so she automatically inherited
the leadership role of the females.
So people would just fall in line with that.
NARRATOR: At first, Natasha and Justin approve of Cheyenne's
new relationship with bad boy, Devon Boyles.
But soon, they too begin to see some red flags.
Cheyenne and Devon were almost inseparable.
They had to do almost everything together.
He was protective, you know, over the things that she did.
And if, you know, there was something that he didn't like,
he, you know, would always go with her
to make sure that she was safe.
He didn't trust a lot of people.
Cheyenne also never introduced me to Devon, because she had
already confided in me about him being abusive to her,
and she knew how protective I was of her and she didn't,
you know, want me to do anything crazy to him,
because she just didn't want to have
a later argument with him over it.
So she did her best to make sure me and him never crossed paths.
BRYANNA: After a while, it kind of became clear to me
that he was more trying to control the things
that Cheyenne was doing versus
just being there for her.
There were certain things that she would want to do,
and he would basically, "No, you're not gonna do that."
I think it -- it could have went really south if
she didn't listen to what he wanted her to do.
NARRATOR: Devon may be dangerous,
but Cheyenne's new posse are keeping a close eye on her.
They all lived together like a family, and she, you know,
really felt in her heart that they would always look out for
her no matter what.
NARRATOR: They also keep each other's secrets.
And party girl, Callie, it turns out is full of those.
BRYANNA: Callie had a warrant out for her arrest for assault,
and she had gone to jail previously for it but
got out on bail, and she missed her bail hearing.
And from what she had told me,
there was a night that Cheyenne learned that Callie
was setting up, I would say dates
on a dating app.
But when she would meet up with these men,
she would take the money and run.
Callie tried to get Cheyenne
to do it too, but she didn't want any part of it.
NARRATOR: After refusing to catfish with her,
the dynamic in the house starts to shift, as Cheyenne
gets a dose of Callie's hidden mean girl.
NYKKY: Callie talked down on her or would say, you know,
"You're just here so you can do stuff for us."
Cheyenne would talk to me, you know, like, "Hey,
"they're mad at me because I didn't do something.
So now everyone's looking at me like I'm an outsider."
You know, it would really bother her.
NARRATOR: Complicating dynamics even further,
Cheyenne becomes jealous of the time
Callie and Queen Bee Natasha spend with each other.
BRYANNA: I think Callie got more of
Natasha's attention just because Callie was there
most of the time.
When Cheyenne was away to be with her son, not saying that
Cheyenne and Natasha didn't get along,
but Callie and Cheyenne would go hang out in one room
and be with each other.
And then later on, Natasha and Cheyenne would go hang out.
So it would almost be like they weren't
all hanging out at the same time, but separately.
NARRATOR: The girl drama prompts Cheyenne to spend even more
time with Devon, hanging out together at the house,
which angers the other two couples.
The whole dynamic was a recipe for disaster.
I do think something was bound to happen.
[indistinct radio chatter]
NARRATOR: Wright County paramedics arrive
at a disturbing scene.
They found a young female who was laying head down
in the park.
It appeared to the first responders
that she was deceased,
and then a Wright County sheriff's deputy was
able to determine that the female was still alive.
The injuries that she had,
that was a concern of law enforcement was what appeared
to be bullet holes
to her back and to the back of her head.
BRIAN: She was taken to Buffalo Hospital
and was later airlifted to an extreme trauma hospital.
JOE: I first got involved because it just didn't
sound like your typical kind of call
that you get in the morning in that area.
We don't normally have bodies being
reported as being found in parks.
BRIAN: With a canvass of the area,
we learned that approximately early morning hours,
somewhere between two and three o'clock,
some residents heard a female screaming and also heard what
they believed to be shots fired.
NARRATOR: The victim is soon identified as
19-year-old Cheyenne Clough.
I was at work like I would be on any normal day.
My mom had called me
and asked me to meet her
at North Memorial Hospital, and I asked her why,
what was going on, and she told me
Cheyenne had been shot.
I just remember I was going, like, 100 miles an hour
on the highway, trying to just hurry up and get there.
BRITTANY: I clicked on the news article.
It struck me, because it was so close to home.
And I literally said, "I hope it's somebody I don't know."
And then Kayla messaged me, and she goes,
"It's Chey," and I just kind of dropped my phone,
and all the memories over the years came in,
and I felt guilty, because she just messaged me, like,
a week and a half prior wanting to hang out,
and I couldn't hang out,
because I had to go to work the next day.
I remember thinking...
she had to make it.
She had to, 'cause...
she didn't deserve that.
NARRATOR: As doctors work to save her life,
police interview Cheyenne's family.
So Cheyenne's mom told us that, in the hours before we found
her in Crow Springs Park,
Cheyenne made a phone call to her at approximately 2:45 AM.
Her mom didn't answer the phone,
but she left a voicemail saying that
she's on her way home and gonna be there soon.
We didn't have any other real information
as to who was taking her home.
NYKKY: While I was in the hospital with Cheyenne,
the detectives were asking me questions,
like if I knew if Cheyenne had
any enemies or if I knew of anyone who would want to
hurt her.
I remember just trying to think who could have did this.
Why would they have done it?
My first thoughts were Devon.
So when the cops did show up,
I did say that she had been
spending a lot of time with Devon.
NYKKY: I told them I was wondering why I couldn't get
ahold of him, and I'm like, he has to know
something, because him and Cheyenne were inseparable.
NARRATOR: While police search for Devon Boyles,
family and friends point them
in the direction of another guy
Cheyenne dated about a year after her baby's father left
and until around the time she moved
into the house in Maple Lake.
BRYANNA: I told them that his name was Darrian Edwards.
He was a great person towards her and her son,
but, at one point, their relationship changed.
NYKKY: I did, like, mention this to the detectives.
I only met him a few times,
but I know Cheyenne really loved him, like, they were
together for quite a while and were really close.
They did have, you know, their arguments.
So when they did break up,
they were also not on great terms.
BRIAN: Darrian Edwards was brought in as a person
of interest, and they learned
he and Cheyenne had broken up approximately
a year ago and that he did not have any contact with her
and even blocked her from Facebook.
NARRATOR: But Edwards has an intriguing piece of
information to share about the whereabouts of Cheyenne's
current boyfriend.
BRIAN: He stated that he was working with
a bounty hunter who had arrested Devon Boyles.
The arrest was at the house in Maple Lake on May 31, 2016,
which was the day before Cheyenne was found.
We went down to the jail,
and we spoke with Devon Boyles.
I told him that Cheyenne had suffered
gunshot wounds, and she was in critical condition.
I asked him where he had been and when he was arrested.
BRIAN: The timing of Devon Boyles being arrested over at
the house in Maple Lake and taken to jail
removed him as a suspect in the shooting of Cheyenne,
because he was in custody at the time she was shot.
NARRATOR: Investigators race to the house in Maple Lake
to speak to Natasha and the other occupants.
We wanted to talk to the people that had
last seen Cheyenne before we found her
in Crow Springs Park, but there was nobody
in that place, it was vacant
and looked like it had been left in a hurry.
NARRATOR: The house in Maple Lake that Cheyenne shared with
Natasha Brandenburger
and Callie Anderson is deserted, but a thorough search
yields some troubling finds.
JOE: It was a complete disaster.
There were bullet holes in the wall.
We were finding shell casings for a .22 on the ground.
And the police were very interested in this,
because they knew that
Cheyenne had been shot with a firearm in the park.
JOE: In the back room,
there was an ID
for Natasha Brandenburger -- since there might have been
some ill will between her and Cheyenne,
she was one that we wanted to talk to.
So we ultimately put out a BOLO to
locate Natasha Brandenburger and her boyfriend,
Justin Jensen.
We asked Cheyenne's friends to see if there was any
issues between Cheyenne and the people living in the house.
NARRATOR: And her closest friends have a lot to say
about Cheyenne and her new not-so-nice besties.
I think Callie and Natasha
played with Cheyenne's emotions and feelings.
They were mean girls.
NARRATOR: Natasha once made her feel like a sister,
but now Cheyenne and her guests
feel unwelcome in her own home.
Natasha, I met her once.
I was hanging out with Cheyenne
and Justin, and Natasha walked in,
and she's like, "Who the [bleep] is this?"
And pointed at me.
And she's like, "What's this whore doing here?"
And they're like, "What?"
She said, "I don't want her here," and they're like,
"Why? You don't even know her."
And then she told them that she wanted me out.
And then after that, she slammed Justin's bedroom door.
I was just like, "Uh, okay. What the [bleep]?
I don't even know you, but all right, cool."
BRYANNA: Sometimes, Justin and Natasha
would be talking to Shawn and Callie,
and Cheyenne would be
coming back from being at her mom's with her son,
and Natasha would be saying some nasty comment
about Cheyenne, that she's a part-time mom,
with Cheyenne being within earshot.
Just not very nice.
And I think Cheyenne just felt
really hurt, because she thought she belonged.
BRIANNA: I think it affected Cheyenne,
because Natasha was two-faced, because, like --
because I'd be hanging out with, and she'd be showing me
text messages from Natasha,
and, like, her saying she has a big head and she's just
a bitch, but then, like, she tried to just be
best friends and act like nothing happened to Cheyenne.
NARRATOR: But being a bitch doesn't
mean you shot your friend.
Two days after Cheyenne was found in the park, police get
word that a vehicle associated with Natasha and her boyfriend,
Justin, was caught on camera north of Minneapolis.
JOE: We found out that there was video at a gas station
involving this Chrysler 300 that
we were looking for, where a white Honda pulls up next to
it at the gas pump.
The driver got out to speak
to the person driving the Chrysler 300.
BRIAN: He was identified as a man named Ed Zelko.
And the video from the gas station shows
Justin Jensen with Natasha Brandenburger walking a dog.
And then Zelko and Benson
and Callie Anderson were in Ed's Chrysler 300.
And that's when we knew that they
were now traveling in two different vehicles.
BRIAN: The police figured out where the suspects were going,
in part from a photo that
Justin Jensen sent via Facebook message to someone who
lived in the International Falls area,
with him sitting on a couch, holding a weapon in
one hand and a stack of cash in the other hand.
So the police suspected they were fleeing
to International Falls,
which is directly on the border with Canada.
[hospital monitor beeping]
NARRATOR: As authorities race to track down
her so-called friends,
Cheyenne has taken off life support.
NYKKY: June 4th really took a toll on my family.
We just stayed up all night,
talking about memories about Cheyenne
as we sat by her bedside, and...
you know, had a lot of laughs, had a lot of cries.
She just had so much life still ahead of her.
BRITTANY: I felt very disappointed, very, very angry,
because there was gonna be a little boy
who grew up without his mom, and...
the hole...
that was left from her.
And just knowing that I never get to talk to her again.
I'd never get to see her.
And...
[sniffles]
Thank you.
BRYANNA: I was devastated. I...
I -- there's no other word.
[voice breaking] I was devastated.
She made a bigger impact in my life than
I thought she ever would.
She was just one of those friends
that she always had your back.
The thoughts that were going through my mind
was who could have done this?
Why would they do it?
Because she just didn't have a mean bone in her body.
NARRATOR: As Cheyenne's friends and family struggle
to cope with their loss,
police now have a homicide on their hands.
They locate the house of
Justin's associate in International Falls.
JOE: The Kandiyohi County Sheriff's Office ended up
drafting a search warrant for that residence.
When they executed that warrant, they found at
that location Justin Jensen, Natasha Brandenburger,
Callie Anderson, and Shawn Benson.
NARRATOR: All four are arrested on suspicion
of murder and held for questioning,
but without concrete evidence connecting anyone to the crime,
Detective Adams and his partner rush upstate,
knowing that their case
depends on them getting a confession out of someone.
JOE: Detective Lindquist and I came up with
a game plan as to who we would talk to first.
And we figured Callie Anderson may have had the most
minimal involvement,
but she may have known what happened since she had been on
this road trip with them, thinking she would have
information that they had talked about.
So we interviewed her first.
NARRATOR: Callie says the last time she saw her close friend,
Cheyenne, was the night before they left for
International Falls,
Right after Cheyenne's boyfriend was arrested at the house.
Callie told us that there had been a disagreement at
the home in Maple Lake between Natasha Brandenburger
and Cheyenne.
She said that after Devon had been turned
in to the bounty hunters,
Cheyenne believed that Natasha had made that call.
So in turn, Cheyenne was pretty upset about this.
[buzzing noise]
JOE: But ultimately, she didn't have any other real
information as to who took Cheyenne home,
how she got home.
The second interview we conducted
was with Natasha Brandenburger.
We felt that it was important to figure out the nature
of what the argument was between her and Cheyenne
before the shooting.
She pretty much came out and said that she's done.
It seemed like she wanted to
tell the truth about what happened.
It almost seemed like she was trying to get out
from behind it.
NARRATOR: Queen Bee Natasha,
now a suspected killer bee, says that the day before
the murder, Cheyenne was at the house
with her boyfriend, Devon Boyles,
when suddenly a man stormed in and arrested him.
Natasha told us that after Devon had been turned into
the bounty hunters,
Cheyenne believed that she had made that call.
NARRATOR: Afraid that Cheyenne will throw her under
the bus for her outstanding assault warrant,
Callie joins the confrontation.
So the three of them are now all mad
at each other, and they start physically fighting.
And that's when Justin Jensen arrives home,
and he breaks up the fight between them.
Ultimately, the decision was made that Cheyenne needed to go.
So Justin asked Brandenburger to get the gun,
which was the .22 pistol.
He said it was sitting by the chair on the floor.
NARRATOR: Justin passes it on to Callie's boyfriend,
Shawn, who's with Eddie Zelko,
that third guy who had been spotted on that gas station
video talking to Justin.
On their way to taking Cheyenne home,
she made a phone call to her mom at approximately 2:45 AM.
She left a voicemail saying that she's
on her way and gonna be there soon.
NARRATOR: But Cheyenne never made it to her mom's.
[voice breaking] Shawn shot Cheyenne.
Natasha Brandenburger indicated that when Ed Zelko
and Shawn Benson returned to the Maple Lake home,
that Shawn Benson gave a signal to Justin Jensen indicating
that Cheyenne Clough had been shot.
JOE: They go into Justin's bedroom,
and Natasha overhears what they're talking about, and it
becomes quite apparent that Benson shot Cheyenne,
believed to be with the gun that she had picked up on
the floor of the house and given to Justin.
NARRATOR: In her story,
Natasha, perhaps through crocodile tears,
does everything she can
to remove herself from the murder scene.
Yes.
NARRATOR: Natasha Brandenburger sells out boyfriend Justin
and the rest of her so-called family
from the house to save her own skin.
During his interrogation, Justin confesses to his role in
the murder and tells police why Cheyenne was killed.
He talked about basically giving the order to
Ed Zelko and Shawn Benson to execute Cheyenne.
He said she was too much trouble, and she was threatening
Callie to be arrested,
which also angered Shawn Benson, who was Callie's boyfriend.
NARRATOR: The murder weapon is never recovered.
Justin Jensen, Shawn Benson, and Edward Zelko
plead guilty to second-degree intentional murder
and are sentenced with 30 to 40 years in prison.
Despite their ongoing bullying of Cheyenne
and their assault on her that night,
mean girls, Natasha and Callie, avoid charges in the murder.
We didn't have any overt acts or evidence
to charge Natasha Brandenburger or Callie Anderson,
and candidly, we needed witnesses to tell us
what happened,
and Natasha Brandenburger provided
the only statement that implicated Jensen.
So we had to make a choice, which was honestly
an easy choice, to use Natasha Brandenburger as a witness.
She appeared before the grand jury and testified.
The subsequent statement of Callie Anderson
was also used to implicate those individuals.
NARRATOR: For Cheyenne's family and friends, justice is served,
but only in part.
They feel the full truth about who really
wanted Cheyenne dead is a lot more complicated.
The way they had presented it is
that Justin was the mastermind behind it all.
And then I heard also that Natasha had taken
a plea deal.
I almost feel sometimes that she was more the mastermind,
because if it wasn't for her saying,
"Do something about her," Cheyenne could still be
here right now.
NARRATOR: While the men pulled the trigger,
the women may have pulled the strings.
I believe she could have
prevented this all 100 percent from happening.
Natasha, I hold her very responsible.
I would label her as the two-faced friend
and not somebody you could trust,
and I don't think you could ever trust her.
After she was released,
I ran into her, and I said,
"I can't believe you have the audacity or the guts to show
your face around this town when everybody knows what you did."
NYKKY: Natasha and Callie are worse than the mean girls
you would experience in school for
the simple fact that the mean girls,
they're honest with you for the fact that they don't like you.
Natasha and Callie are the complete opposite.
They lied, they manipulated Cheyenne,
and pretended to be somebody that they weren't.
NARRATOR: Cheyenne trusted the wrong women
and paid the ultimate price.
NYKKY: Cheyenne was my number one supporter
in anything I did in life.
She was always someone I could go to.
No matter what, she was, you know, my ride or die.
BRITTANY: Cheyenne was
the light in everybody's world,
so full of life that was cut short.
KAYLA: If I could talk to Cheyenne now,
I want her to know I'd be proud of her
for sticking up for herself till the very end....
and that I love and miss her.