The first time the police knocked on their door, Bri Turner told them her husband had pushed her against the wall and thrown her to the floor. “My husband wants to take my daughter,” she told the dispatcher earlier. “Please, don’t hang up. I don’t want him to take her.
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Colin and Bri lived in Gulf Breeze, Florida, with their two young children, ages three and four. Colin, a retired Marine with a traumatic brain injury, was a stay-at-home dad about to start a master’s degree. Bri was a chief petty officer in the Navy, the breadwinner. By the time deputies arrived, the couple had calmed down.
Colin explained they’d argued over something petty: she’d washed his $2,500 laptop in the dishwasher because he turned off the Wi-Fi. He claimed she’d gotten physical when he tried to take their daughter to Georgia for a break. “I backed off,” he said. “That kind of allegation is the last thing I need.
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Bri admitted she had borderline personality disorder and had tried to kill herself in March. She seemed less concerned about the alleged assault than about Colin’s plan to take the kids to Georgia. The deputies found no marks or bruises. Without evidence, there was nothing they could do.
They left. Hours later, Colin called 911 again. His wife had locked the doors and taken his ID, his money, and the kids, leaving him outside with their screaming daughter. “It’s a continuation of years,” he told the deputy.
Bri told police they were discussing divorce. “I’m not letting him in if he’s going to start arguing,” she said. Again, no one had injuries. The deputies reasoned with them, told them to stop nitpicking, and left.
Forty-five minutes later, the third call came in. It wasn’t Colin or Bri. It was a neighbor who heard four gunshots. When police arrived, they found Bri next door, in shock.
The firearm was hidden behind a toaster in the kitchen. Colin’s body was in the garage. “He’s dead,” Bri told the officer. “I saw him.
I tried to help, but he was dead. My kids don’t have a dad or a mom now. And this is my fault. ”
She said it herself: “You should arrest me.
I killed my husband. ”
At the station, Bri claimed self-defense. She said Colin kicked her foot and tried to push through the garage door. But the evidence told a different story.
A 911 call from Colin was still on record. He was in the garage, on the phone with dispatch, when she shot him. “She locked the door behind me,” Colin told the dispatcher. “And out of nowhere, there’s a gunshot.
He just shot me. ”
The first bullet hit him in the back. Three more followed as he lay on the ground. He never saw it coming.
Bri had locked him in the garage and the kids were safely inside. He wasn’t a threat to anyone. When she realized the police had the recording, Bri stopped answering questions. She was charged with premeditated murder.
Her defense planned to argue years of abuse, but at the last moment, she declined to testify. After four days of trial, the jury found her guilty. She was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Colin’s family remembered a good man, a devoted father.
The body camera footage showed him holding his daughter, a moment everyone knew would be the last time she ever saw her father. In Akron, Ohio, another case began with a missing person. Mary Kay “Katie” Wolfarth, a 68-year-old antique dealer beloved by her friends, had vanished. She hadn’t fed her cats.
She hadn’t shown up to work. Patrol Officer Ryan McDow took the report. Katie’s friends said she was one of the most well-liked people they’d ever known. The only clue was a message she’d left her sister about a handyman who could do work for her.
She never gave a name. Then the owners of her storage unit called. Someone else had entered her unit, and they had it on camera. The footage showed Katie moving things in and out of her unit.
A man across the drive approached. They talked. They high-fived. But then the man began ducking and hiding around cars, circling her like prey.
Katie walked out of view. He entered her storage unit. She returned with an empty box and went back inside. The garage door came down.
Two people went in. One person came out, covered in a sheet, and ran back to the other unit. Inside Katie’s unit, officers found blood everywhere. They emptied the unit, but there was no sign of her.
The man had driven her van off the property, then returned in his truck. The man was Michael Olsen, in his mid-30s, the son of a man who rented the unit across from Katie’s. He had no serious criminal history. Then surveillance showed him the next day pushing a trash can from Katie’s unit, with a sheet draped over it to hide what was inside.
They found Katie’s body in the trash can, on Michael’s father’s unit. She had been beaten, choked, and sexually assaulted. Michael had turned off his phone. But by chance, officers found him trying to break into his father’s duplex.
He was arrested for burglary. In the interview room, Michael acted strange, performing for the camera, talking about his ex-girlfriend, playing the victim. The detective built rapport, keeping the focus on the burglary. Then he switched the subject to Katie.
Michael denied being at the storage unit that day. The detective laid out the evidence. “The video doesn’t lie,” he said. Finally, Michael cracked.
“I snapped, man. I snapped. ”
He blamed his ex-girlfriend, claiming she made him a different person. He said Katie made a comment about his breakup, and he lost control.
It was just an excuse. He was calm, no argument, no aggression. The video showed him stalking her, waiting for his chance. At first, the prosecution sought the death penalty.
Michael pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, rape, grand theft, and abuse of a corpse. He was sentenced to life without parole. Katie’s friends remembered her as generous and fiercely independent. One friend told the story of the night they heard a car crash outside an auction house.
Katie threw her her purse and ran out to help flip the car back over. “I just stood there holding her purse,” the friend said. “I look up to strong women. Katie will be remembered as lovely, independent, generous, and kind.
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