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00:00:16I don't know what you want.
00:00:18What's my money?
00:00:19Well, what's the money for?
00:00:22For drugs.
00:00:24The next time the shots are not going to be warning shots.
00:00:33They would say that at first he was very charming.
00:00:38But then he was very possessive.
00:00:43He put one woman in the hospital.
00:00:46He beat her so badly.
00:00:50I walked inside.
00:00:53Tables were overturned.
00:00:56Bloods battered all over the refrigerator.
00:01:01It was a poor attempt to make it look like a robbery had occurred.
00:01:06We had another victim.
00:01:11He was marked there at the point of a gun, then shot.
00:01:16And buried in the snow in Deep Gap, North Carolina.
00:01:20There was an international connection.
00:01:28I stepped right into a murder investigation.
00:01:33We had a murder of a prime minister.
00:01:37He escaped into the shadows in old Stockholm.
00:01:41Perhaps Swedish hitman came.
00:01:44That gave us the final piece of the puzzle we needed.
00:01:50I'm going to tell you something.
00:01:52You're going to quit spreading these damn lies and rumors that you've been spreading about me.
00:01:56You've tried to ruin me in this damn town.
00:02:00Dammit.
00:02:01I'm tired of it.
00:02:04And I'm going to put a stop to it.
00:02:24Watauga County is in the northwest corner of North Carolina in the Appalachian Mountains.
00:02:29It's a very rural area, very mountainous, and the winters are very treacherous.
00:02:36The temperatures range from sub-zero to a little above freezing.
00:02:48On the morning of January 7, 1994, the roses already started getting bad because it was snowing
00:02:54and there were freezing temperatures.
00:02:59We received a phone call into our dispatch center.
00:03:07The survey crew with the Department of Transportation had been out in the Deep Gap area surveying some land
00:03:14and had stumbled across a pair of bare feet sticking up out of the snow on the ground.
00:03:24The surveyor believed it to be a human body.
00:03:32We went to the intersection of U.S. Highway 421 and the Blue Ridge Parkway there in Deep Gap.
00:03:38There were no houses in the area.
00:03:40It was very remote.
00:03:42The deputies that were first on the scene had set up boundaries to protect evidence of the crime scene.
00:03:51The surveyor appeared visibly shaken by what he had discovered.
00:03:59He led me in the snow and the wind.
00:04:02Into a wooded area with thick pine trees and thick underbrush.
00:04:07Up a hill to the base of a fallen tree where the body was discovered.
00:04:18There was lots of snow on the ground and there were no footprints around anywhere.
00:04:24No vehicle tracks.
00:04:30All that was visible when I arrived were two bare feet that were sticking up out of the snow.
00:04:37No shoes, no socks.
00:04:40Some of the skin and the toes were missing off of one foot.
00:04:46We could see the outline of the body underneath a blanket of snow.
00:04:50It was evident that the body had been there for some time.
00:04:57Near the feet of the body was a length of tape, maybe 18 inches long.
00:05:03There was hair and small dots of blood spatter on the back of the tape.
00:05:12It wasn't until we started removing a little bit of that snow that we were able to get a better
00:05:18look at what we had.
00:05:21The body was nude.
00:05:25It was an adult male and he was not wearing anything with the exception of a signet ring and a
00:05:32watch.
00:05:35There was a gunshot wound to the left temple, also to the right side of the neck.
00:05:43This scene is very bizarre.
00:05:45At this point, we're trying to figure out how this nude adult male ended up in the cab, North Carolina,
00:05:54buried in the snow.
00:06:19Salisbury, North Carolina, is about 40 miles from Charlotte along Interstate 85.
00:06:28The town has a lot of history in it, a lot of historic homes and parks.
00:06:35Salisbury was pretty laid back.
00:06:37Small town, local owned stores, charming downtown.
00:06:43It was really safe.
00:06:50My friend, Victor Gunnarsson, moved to Salisbury, North Carolina, from Sweden.
00:06:58By 1993, he's been traveling all over the world.
00:07:03The globetrotter.
00:07:04And Victor liked the United States.
00:07:08I think he saw America like the land of opportunities.
00:07:12He wanted to live the American dream.
00:07:14I think he adapted very easily.
00:07:18I always had a dream.
00:07:20I wanted to come over to the United States.
00:07:22This would be a good opportunity.
00:07:24On October 25th, I flew over.
00:07:27It was my first time out of Europe.
00:07:29It was wonderful.
00:07:31Victor introduced me to many of his friends in Salisbury.
00:07:35He didn't consider people strangers.
00:07:38It was just like friends that you didn't know.
00:07:44Victor knew everybody in Salisbury.
00:07:46He really loved it.
00:07:48He said that that felt more like home to him than Sweden did.
00:08:00He was an extremely smart person.
00:08:03He was probably the sharpest one I've ever met.
00:08:05He was a genius when it came to languages.
00:08:08He knew the Scandinavian languages.
00:08:10And English, German, Spanish, Italian, and French.
00:08:15He worked as a language tutor.
00:08:18And he enjoyed it.
00:08:21Victor had a good life in Salisbury.
00:08:28I worked at West Rowan High School.
00:08:31I taught English and theater.
00:08:34My mother lived in Salisbury.
00:08:38I had decided to come back after my divorce.
00:08:43And I wanted to raise my son, Jason, in a small-town value system.
00:08:53My friend, Tana, and I went to a cafe.
00:08:57Victor Gunnarsson and his friend, Daniel Johansson, were there.
00:09:02Tana was a very social person.
00:09:04And she had met Victor before through some friends.
00:09:09And I thought Victor was the best-looking thing I'd ever seen.
00:09:13He had dark hair and beautiful blue eyes.
00:09:17So charismatic.
00:09:19We talked, and I just thought, what a delightful person.
00:09:23He just was nice and somebody so entirely different.
00:09:29When I saw Victor and Kay together, I mean, I knew there was instant attraction.
00:09:36It was mutual.
00:09:37On the ride back to his apartment, he said he really liked her and everything felt really good with her.
00:09:43And he hoped that they could get involved more seriously.
00:09:50The following week, we spent almost every day together.
00:09:54I introduced him to my son, Jason.
00:09:59Victor helped him with his math homework.
00:10:02Jason felt very comfortable with Victor.
00:10:04He just liked him immediately.
00:10:07I had got this strong feeling that this relationship with Kay was going to turn out to be something really
00:10:13good.
00:10:20After about a week, it was time for me to go home to Sweden.
00:10:25Victor woke me up in the morning, and we drive to the airport.
00:10:29I said, thank you.
00:10:30I had the time of my life.
00:10:31It's been amazing.
00:10:33And he thanked me, too.
00:10:35And he said, we'll meet when I get back to Sweden in March.
00:10:38I'll see you then.
00:10:39We said goodbye.
00:10:42And I see him walking down that long corridor.
00:10:44And he turned around, smiled at me, and waved one time.
00:10:49So that's my last memory of Victor.
00:10:56That night of December 3rd, we were going to go to Blue Bay Seafood.
00:11:02I asked my mother if she wanted to go so that she could meet Victor, because I just thought so
00:11:07much of him.
00:11:08And when my mother met Victor, she thought he was such a nice-looking man and so kind.
00:11:13It just was a really nice, nice time.
00:11:21The date ended, and I asked Victor if he was interested in going to find a Christmas tree
00:11:31and maybe cut it down and bring it back to the house and decorate it.
00:11:36And, of course, with his agreeable nature, yeah, let's do it.
00:11:42Let's do it.
00:11:43I think we both felt something, and it just was starting to grow.
00:12:03I got back to Sweden on an early morning on December 4th, and I called Victor, and I left the
00:12:10message.
00:12:11He said, hey, I made it safe.
00:12:13I'm back home now, and you can call me back.
00:12:18So when he didn't call me back, I thought it was a bit strange, because we talked to him all
00:12:24the time.
00:12:28I never heard from Victor.
00:12:31We were going to go find a Christmas tree.
00:12:34And so I started calling him and saying, hey, did you forget?
00:12:38So we went and got the tree by ourselves.
00:12:42After that, Tana and I went to Victor's apartment, because I was starting to get concerned.
00:12:50The door was open about four or five inches.
00:12:54It was winter and very cold outside, and you don't leave your door ajar.
00:13:00It was very strange.
00:13:01I just felt something was not right.
00:13:08Inside, it was disheveled.
00:13:12Items strewn about.
00:13:15Blood on the floor.
00:13:18Blood spatter all over the ceiling.
00:13:23It was scary.
00:13:44I never heard from Victor after our date.
00:13:46On December 3rd, I called, and I never could get him.
00:13:52My friend Tana and I went to Victor's apartment.
00:14:00The door was ajar, but he wasn't home.
00:14:05I walked inside and saw that everything was just like he had been there.
00:14:11But there was a blinking flash on the voice machine, and I thought, well, he hasn't even picked up his
00:14:17voicemail.
00:14:19So where could he be?
00:14:21I walked right back out, thinking that maybe he was downstairs, maybe he was visiting friends, but he wasn't anywhere.
00:14:30And I see his cars outside.
00:14:33I thought, does he not want to see me anymore?
00:14:39What have I done?
00:14:40My feelings were hurt.
00:14:42I thought it was over.
00:14:55When I got home to Sweden, I tried to call Victor quite a few times.
00:15:00He didn't respond to any of my phone calls.
00:15:04I was worried.
00:15:08This is not like him to not call you back.
00:15:13I was thinking, well, maybe he's out doing some stuff.
00:15:18Maybe he was with Kay.
00:15:34On December 9th, 1993, I woke up, did my usual thing, went to school teaching my classes, and they called
00:15:43me to the office.
00:15:44And I went to the office, and I saw my mother's boss.
00:15:50He told me that my mother didn't come to work.
00:15:54He was concerned, because she was a widow who lived alone.
00:16:03He drove me from West Rowan High School to my mother's house.
00:16:08Her car was in the driveway.
00:16:11My mother didn't come to the door.
00:16:14I had the wrong key.
00:16:16As much as I tried, I could not get in.
00:16:19Something had happened to my mom.
00:16:22I was afraid.
00:16:25My mother's boss called the police.
00:16:29Kay was prevented from going in the house.
00:16:32The officers who had responded to Catherine Miller's home had to force entry.
00:16:40As an investigator for the State Bureau of Investigation, I was immediately called in for assistance.
00:16:48When I entered the Catherine Miller residence, Mrs. Miller was propped up against her refrigerator inside of her kitchen.
00:17:08She was covered with blood.
00:17:13There was blood on the floor.
00:17:14There was blood spatter all over the refrigerator and her ceiling above her.
00:17:23A brief examination showed two apparent gunshot wounds to the head.
00:17:30She was fully clothed.
00:17:32Her legs were in front of her.
00:17:35The glasses that she wore were still on her head.
00:17:40There was a pot of beans on her kitchen stove as if she was about to prepare some dinner when
00:17:48she was killed.
00:17:49There was no question that Catherine Miller had been murdered in her own residence.
00:17:58I was standing in the driveway.
00:18:01After a few minutes, a detective came to me and he said, she's gone.
00:18:11Some kind of scream came out of my throat that I had never heard before.
00:18:19I remember not knowing what to do.
00:18:22I felt nothing and then everything.
00:18:26It's almost like time stops.
00:18:32My mother and I had a love for each other that every mother and daughter should share.
00:18:42At that moment, I felt so all by myself.
00:18:49This is a 77-year-old, defenseless, older person.
00:18:55Whoever did this is just filled with evil.
00:19:01Who would do this to my mother?
00:19:19On December the 9th, 1993, I responded to the murder scene of 77-year-old Catherine Miller.
00:19:32It was scary.
00:19:34I stood out there on the street with neighbors, police cars everywhere for hours and hours.
00:19:45While they conducted their investigation to see what had happened to Mrs. Miller.
00:19:55There did not appear to be any evidence of her residence being broken into.
00:20:03The alarm system was not set.
00:20:05It had been turned off.
00:20:07Inside the house.
00:20:09Inside the house, it was disheveled.
00:20:11There were items strewn about.
00:20:16There were magazines thrown across the floor.
00:20:20Tables were overturned.
00:20:21But there were jewelry in jewelry boxes.
00:20:27There were firearms in the residence, in closets.
00:20:31As we examined the scene, we believed it was a poor attempt to make it look like a robbery had
00:20:39occurred.
00:20:39But all kinds of valuable things remained in the property.
00:20:44So she hadn't been robbed.
00:20:49There was a Salisbury Post newspaper inside her residence, an evening newspaper.
00:20:58This was on Thursday, December the 9th.
00:21:01But the newspaper was dated December the 8th.
00:21:05We knew she collected her newspaper.
00:21:08So there was no question she was murdered on December the 8th.
00:21:16Kay Whedon was the closest person in Katherine Miller's life.
00:21:26She was completely devastated and in no state to be interviewed.
00:21:33We started interviewing Katherine Miller's grandson, Jason Whedon.
00:21:39He was visibly upset that she had been murdered.
00:21:43And he had no idea why this happened.
00:21:50Katherine Miller did not have enemies that we could determine.
00:21:55Or any people who even disliked her.
00:22:09Fall Spring has lots of drug activity that creates violent crimes, robbery, shootings.
00:22:17So we had a lot of work cut out for us to try to determine how and why this happened.
00:22:31The autopsy showed Katherine Miller was murdered by .238 caliber gunshot wounds directly into her head.
00:22:59The 13th of December.
00:23:01I was back home in Sweden.
00:23:03It's been 10 days since I last heard from my friend, Victor Gunnarsson.
00:23:09His dad had called.
00:23:11And his parents were worried because they haven't heard anything either.
00:23:15He was very close to his parents.
00:23:17They had a very good relationship.
00:23:20And I was thinking that was strange.
00:23:23So I called him, but he didn't call back.
00:23:28I had a beginning to get a strong feeling that something just isn't right.
00:23:33So I called Bonnie Whitley, Victor's landlord, liquid apartments in Salisbury.
00:23:40She went to his apartment.
00:23:42And his car hadn't been moving.
00:23:46Victor loved his car.
00:23:47And that's also confirming that it might be something wrong.
00:23:52The door was unlocked.
00:23:55So she went in.
00:23:57She found his keys in there.
00:24:01That was about the time that Bonnie found the missing persons report on him with the Salisbury Police Department.
00:24:10I had a strong feeling that something just isn't right, something really bad may have happened to him.
00:24:17It was a nightmare.
00:24:22She had received several anonymous threatening letters and also telephone calls.
00:24:31I thought, when is it going to stop?
00:24:34Bad things were happening to Kay and Jason Whedon.
00:25:02A few days after the murder of Catherine Miller, the department office manager,
00:25:08where Victor Gunnarsson lived, filed a missing persons report with the Salisbury Police Department.
00:25:18Victor Gunnarsson was a Swedish national who had relocated to Salisbury, North Carolina.
00:25:26His family in Sweden were very concerned.
00:25:30The missing persons report was put out all across North Carolina.
00:25:35But we received no leads.
00:25:44My mother was murdered.
00:25:47I was in shock.
00:25:48I didn't think about Victor until there was something in the newspaper that showed a picture of him.
00:25:54They were looking for Victor as a missing person.
00:25:59I really thought something had happened to him.
00:26:02This isn't right.
00:26:04And then Daniel called me.
00:26:08Kay told me that she hadn't heard from Victor.
00:26:11We just prayed and hoped for the best, that somewhere there might be some kind of logic answer.
00:26:19When the local Salisbury police went to Victor's apartment, Victor's car was there covered in snow.
00:26:28Inside there was a dirty skillet on top of his stove.
00:26:33His brown bomber jacket was inside the apartment.
00:26:36And they also were able to see Victor's car keys and his wallet inside the apartment.
00:26:46There was no indication of violence or what happened to Victor Gunnarsson.
00:26:53At this point, he was just missing.
00:26:58At the time, I was with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation working on a different case.
00:27:06We were trying to determine who would want to kill 77-year-old Catherine Miller.
00:27:14A neighbor came forward and stated that the day before her body was discovered, she had seen a red Oldsmobile
00:27:24parked at Catherine Miller's house sometime on December 8, 1993.
00:27:30The neighbor had seen a white male get out of that red Oldsmobile and walk around Catherine's house.
00:27:38We brought in a sketch artist who sat down with that neighbor and created a composite drawing, which we had
00:27:47hoped would help us lead to the identification of this person.
00:27:54We released the composite to the media, but it did not lead to anything.
00:28:05The next day, we interviewed Kay Whedon.
00:28:10We learned Kay and her mother, Catherine Miller, were very close.
00:28:16She didn't know anyone who would harm her mother.
00:28:21But then she revealed that earlier in 1993, she had received several anonymous threatening letters and also telephone calls implicating
00:28:34her son Jason as owing drug money to different people.
00:28:40Some of those letters threatened Jason physically.
00:28:47I told the detective that Jason wasn't a troublemaker.
00:28:52He was just a kid that walked to the edge.
00:28:55A letter that I got was, roses are red, violets are blue.
00:28:59We're going to up Jason in your house, too.
00:29:02And then there was something about burning it down.
00:29:05And that really scared me.
00:29:09And then one day, I discovered on the garage wall, written in red paint, Jason.
00:29:15I called the police.
00:29:17I told the detective, I thought maybe Jason had made somebody mad at his own school.
00:29:24But I just, I didn't know.
00:29:28Also, I got a series of phone calls about Jason and drugs and breaking both of his legs.
00:29:35I didn't recognize the voice.
00:29:37It was very gravelly.
00:29:39I don't know what you want.
00:29:41And I don't know.
00:29:42I want my money.
00:29:43Well, what's the money for?
00:29:44For drugs.
00:29:45It's not about $2,000.
00:29:47Tell her the next time the shots are not going to be warning shots.
00:29:52Well, let me ask you a question.
00:30:00And then one night in March, it was late.
00:30:06And we were in bed, and Jason woke me from a sound sleep.
00:30:13He heard something.
00:30:17We went outside to look.
00:30:20I saw a hole.
00:30:23The wood had sort of splintered off of it.
00:30:27Somebody had shot at the house.
00:30:29I called the police.
00:30:30When the detectives came out, we found the bullet in the sock drawer inside a sock.
00:30:38I was really terrified that something was going to happen to me or to my child.
00:30:44I would never sit in front of a window anymore.
00:30:47You're always looking over your shoulder.
00:30:51I thought, when is it going to stop?
00:30:54Those letters were personal.
00:30:56The telephone calls were personal.
00:30:59That being the case, it's someone close to the family who's involved in this.
00:31:08The case had not been resolved.
00:31:11At that point, the State Bureau of Investigation began investigating the threats and Kay's house shooting as part of the
00:31:20ongoing homicide investigation of Catherine Miller.
00:31:24All of this clearly indicated that Jason and or Kay were being targeted.
00:31:48On Thursday, December the 9th, 1993, Catherine Miller had been found murdered in her own residence.
00:31:57shot in the head.
00:32:08We interviewed her grandson, Jason, several times at great length and in great detail.
00:32:18He didn't know who sent threatening letters or shot at the house.
00:32:26Jason admitted using marijuana, but he said that he did not owe anyone any money for drugs.
00:32:33He was always forthcoming with his information.
00:32:38Jason and Kay Whedon, their alibi completely checked out.
00:32:43They were not suspects in the murder of Catherine Miller.
00:32:49But there is no doubt bad things were happening to Kay and Jason Whedon.
00:32:58I interviewed Kay about her past relationships to learn about any incidents that may have occurred.
00:33:06I learned that she was the former fiance of police officer L.C. Underwood with the Salisbury Police Department.
00:33:20I told the detectives, I met L.C. through my next door neighbor.
00:33:27He was a police officer.
00:33:30He said all the right things.
00:33:33He was handsome.
00:33:35I thought he was wonderful.
00:33:38After a few months, he took me to Boone for a weekend and he proposed to me there.
00:33:49It seemed like too good to be true, which it was.
00:33:55Soon L.C. started questioning my every move.
00:34:00It seemed like he was trying to isolate me.
00:34:03I refused to let that happen.
00:34:06I just couldn't take this behavior.
00:34:09I ended the relationship at the end of summer of 92.
00:34:19L.C. Underwood did agree to talk with S.B.I. agents early on in the investigation.
00:34:26He was willing to cooperate.
00:34:28He said that he was at home the night of Catherine Miller's murder.
00:34:33He had no problem with Kay Whedon or her mother.
00:35:00The murder of Catherine Miller was a difficult case.
00:35:05It was not easily or quickly solved.
00:35:08And then on January 7, 1994, a man discovered a body buried in the snow in Deep Gap, North Carolina.
00:35:30I met the other deputies on the scene.
00:35:32I was directed into a wooded area up an incline, completely out of sight from either road.
00:35:41We could see the outline of the body.
00:35:44Two bare feet were sticking up out of the snow.
00:35:48We started removing snow.
00:35:54We saw the gunshot wound to the left temple of the victim's head and also to the right side of
00:36:00the neck.
00:36:02An animal had chewed on one of the toes.
00:36:10It had been there for some time and was in the process of decomposition.
00:36:17It was difficult to look at it and to give any recognition based on facial or body appearance.
00:36:26But when law enforcement removed the snow, they discovered the body was nude.
00:36:36He was not wearing anything with the exception of a signet ring and a watch.
00:36:44Immediately that made us think, well, robbery wasn't a motive here.
00:36:48There was no weapon found at the crime scene.
00:36:51There was no clothing in the area.
00:36:54But near the feet of the body was a length of tape with hair stuck to the back and small
00:37:02dots of blood spatter.
00:37:09They photographed the body and sent it to the North Carolina Chief Medical Examiner for autopsy.
00:37:24The victim had been shot twice about the head with a .22 caliber weapon.
00:37:30The bullets were found inside the body, extracted, and sent up to the lab for analysis.
00:37:36We reached out to law enforcement agencies across the state.
00:37:44I received a telephone call from Detective Paula May that a body had been found in Watauga County, buried in
00:37:54the snow.
00:37:55Based on his description, she gave tall, dark hair, mustache.
00:38:01We thought it was Victor Gunnarsson, but it wasn't official.
00:38:05From that point forward, we were working together as one unit.
00:38:10We did not have dental records or fingerprints.
00:38:15We had to request them from Sweden because this was a foreign citizen.
00:38:19When the documents arrived, the records confirmed, the man buried in the snow was Victor Gunnarsson.
00:38:33His family in Sweden was notified.
00:38:38Victor's dad called me and just said, sit down.
00:38:43They found him.
00:38:44He was murdered.
00:38:45And, uh, it was awful.
00:38:56I can still feel the pain.
00:39:00Daniel called and they had found Victor Gunnarsson's body in deep gap.
00:39:07My mom had only been dead for a month.
00:39:09I didn't connect Victor with the death of my mother.
00:39:14I was thinking, how can anybody do this?
00:39:19Kay did not tell us initially about missing person Victor Gunnarsson.
00:39:25It's completely understandable.
00:39:27She was so extremely upset about her mother's death.
00:39:32She only dated Victor for a few days.
00:39:36Two victims from the same town found 90 miles away from each other.
00:39:43We didn't know if there was any link between these cases.
00:39:53On January 11th, the investigative team and I went back to the crime scene there in deep gap, North Carolina,
00:40:00where the body was found.
00:40:01At that point, the State Bureau of Investigation performed a luminol test.
00:40:06The whole place lit up, indicating the presence of a lot of blood that made us believe that he was
00:40:12murdered there and bled out on the scene.
00:40:24At that point, we went to Victor's apartment looking for evidence of what happened.
00:40:31We inventoried everything.
00:40:33His passport and ID were present, his wallet.
00:40:37He had dirty dishes in the sink.
00:40:39He had mail stacked up.
00:40:41We needed to learn more about his nature and what was going on with him in order to figure out
00:40:46who killed Victor Gunnarsson.
00:40:49Earlier that month, Victor's parents called my newspaper and asked if he could help them find out where Victor was.
00:40:58I know the Gunnarsson family in Sweden.
00:41:01Victor Gunnarsson's parents were worried because they had not heard from Victor in a long time.
00:41:06I had been the U.S. correspondent for the Swedish newspaper Express.
00:41:12I had been traveling for most of that week to Salisbury.
00:41:16That day, I arrived at Gunnarsson's place.
00:41:19I stepped right into a murder investigation.
00:41:23There were detectives working there.
00:41:25They had a bunch of newspaper clippings and letters in Swedish that they were looking at.
00:41:32Then they realized that I could be of help with translations.
00:41:35We learned that Victor Gunnarsson had actually been arrested and charged with the assassination of Olaf Palme.
00:41:43He was Sweden's prime minister.
00:41:50February 28th, 1986, Wolf Palme was murdered in the old city of Stockholm.
00:41:57And Victor had been a suspect. He was one of the Palme haters.
00:42:05Some of the policemen working on the case quickly came to the conclusion that Victor Gunnarsson was their man.
00:42:12They were going to get him.
00:42:14We thought perhaps he had political enemies that we were not aware of.
00:42:19There were so many possibilities.
00:42:24Perhaps Swedish hitmen came and murdered Victor.
00:42:35He moved to Salisbury, North Carolina. Just turned the page.
00:42:39We have two homicide victims.
00:42:43It was a city in shock. The country in shock.
00:42:46They opened his mail. They listened to his phone.
00:42:51Couldn't feel safe. He was looking over his shoulder all the time.
00:42:55They're setting up their tripods in the street, waiting for me to come out.
00:43:01It was, it was a madhouse.
00:43:04He showed anger. He showed volatility.
00:43:10You wanna f***ing fight, come get it!
00:43:14And he had guns.
00:43:44The body of a nude adult male has been found murdered and buried in the snow in a rural area
00:43:51of Deep Gap, North Carolina.
00:43:54It's very bizarre.
00:43:57We believe that our victim's body belonged to Victor Gunnarsson, a language tutor.
00:44:04He moved to Salisbury, North Carolina early in 1993, several months before he was killed.
00:44:12When we found the body, we learned that Victor was a Swedish citizen who had been formally charged with the
00:44:18assassination of Sweden's prime minister, Olaf Palme.
00:44:24The Swedish authorities' charges were never carried out against Victor, but the prime minister.
00:44:31He was very controversial.
00:44:33Most people either loved him or hated him.
00:44:36It was a huge group of Palme supporters and Palme haters in Sweden at the time.
00:44:42Victor was one of the Palme haters.
00:44:44But the government posted a big reward about many millions of dollars to find the murder of the prime minister.
00:44:52When we learned that, I thought perhaps Swedish hitmen came and murdered Victor.
00:45:04February 28th, 1986, Olaf Palme and his wife went to the cinema, late night performance, 9 o'clock, to meet
00:45:13their son and his girlfriend.
00:45:17When we left the cinema in the old city of Stockholm, a man came running up.
00:45:23He shot two shots, one for the wife and one for Palme.
00:45:28The prime minister's wife was only two, three meters from the shooter.
00:45:33She was wounded slightly.
00:45:35The prime minister was shot.
00:45:37There's a lot of blood.
00:45:38He was a lone gunman.
00:45:40He escaped into the shadows, up the stairs.
00:45:49There was a taxi cab on the other side of the street.
00:45:52The taxi cab called the police, say there's a shooting.
00:45:56The alarm went off in the police headquarters.
00:46:01The ambulance brought Palme to the hospital and soon after declared him dead.
00:46:16We had a murder of a prime minister.
00:46:18It's big news.
00:46:20Such things were not supposed to happen in a country like Sweden.
00:46:27It was a city in shock, a country in shock.
00:46:32That's the kind of news that changes everything.
00:46:37To compare it with the American experience, it was like the Kennedy murder.
00:46:48There's a ton of interrogations with people who had been close to the murder scene.
00:46:54Thousands of phone calls, tips, information regarding the murder.
00:47:00Victor Gunnarsson was one of those that was mentioning those tips.
00:47:07We call him the 33-year-old.
00:47:15Witnesses saw him sitting at the cafe a few hundred meters from the crime scene about the time of the
00:47:22murder.
00:47:25The police investigated his apartment.
00:47:28Police found documents anti-Olof Palme's propaganda material in his zoo.
00:47:36We arrested him.
00:47:41He was questioned several hours without any lawyer.
00:47:49The prosecutors let him go after the first 24 hours.
00:47:53That enraged the policemen working the case.
00:47:57They opened his mail, they listened to his phone, to his friends with telephones.
00:48:04And they went all over the place to find something about him.
00:48:11Victor's name was everywhere over in the media.
00:48:16It was terrible.
00:48:17It was like a prison in his own home.
00:48:26It took like three years before they finally realized he had an alibi for the crucial hour of that murder
00:48:33night.
00:48:43The government's lawyer paid Gunnarsson damages for the time he had had been arrested.
00:48:51What really happened, nobody knows.
00:48:54Victor being accused of a suspect of killing our prime minister, that was devastating for him.
00:49:01He was innocent.
00:49:04Victor's name was everywhere in the media.
00:49:07And he lived in such a small village so everybody knew.
00:49:12People could see him everywhere and he couldn't feel safe.
00:49:14He was looking over his shoulder all the time.
00:49:17He felt like he wanted to get away from Sweden.
00:49:21Victor had a friend.
00:49:22He lived in Salisbury.
00:49:24He said that it was the perfect place.
00:49:27He moved to Salisbury, North Carolina.
00:49:31He just turned the page.
00:49:33It's all from scratch somewhere else.
00:49:36It felt like a safe little town.
00:49:39But it turned out not to be for him.
00:49:44Four years later, Victor Gunnarsson's body was found buried in the snow in a rural area of Big Gap, North
00:49:51Carolina.
00:49:58The fingerprints of Victor Gunnarsson arrived from Sweden on January 14th.
00:50:04Following the identification of Victor Gunnarsson, several media outlets began contacting us.
00:50:14Victor's murder was huge news once this information got back to Sweden.
00:50:21And it attracted a lot of international attention.
00:50:24The international press was really speculating about maybe this was a payback killing.
00:50:36Victor Gunnarsson had been vocal about his opposition to the Prime Minister Palme.
00:50:43And we thought he could have been targeted.
00:50:47We also spoke with Victor's friend, Daniel Johansson,
00:50:51who had been in Salisbury a few days before Victor was murdered.
00:50:56The detectives wanted to know who would want Victor dead.
00:51:00I just knew that someone did it.
00:51:03But who it was, I had no clue.
00:51:06It wasn't real.
00:51:12Now we're trying to play catch up.
00:51:15Victor was last seen on the night of December 3rd.
00:51:19We didn't find his body until January 7th.
00:51:21We're about 34 days behind in our investigation.
00:51:26Dawn Gale was the assisting agent from the State Bureau of Investigation.
00:51:30It was, at that time, Watauga County Sheriff's Department learned that officials in Salisbury
00:51:36had been investigating the murder of Catherine Miller for the past three weeks.
00:51:40Catherine Miller was Kay Wheaton's mother.
00:51:44We very quickly began sharing information.
00:51:47I told him Catherine Miller was the 77-year-old woman shot in the head inside of her kitchen.
00:51:58At the time of his death, Victor Gunnarsson had become friends with Kay Wheaton, and they had begun a romantic
00:52:05relationship.
00:52:09They were together the last night that Victor Gunnarsson was ever seen alive.
00:52:15We had a clear relationship with Victor Gunnarsson and Kay Wheaton and Catherine Miller and Kay Wheaton.
00:52:25It could have been why both of them had been killed.
00:52:30We immediately thought there was an instant and very strong connection there.
00:52:38We just could not rest until we solved both the murder of Catherine Miller and Victor Gunnarsson.
00:52:58But we are happy to be the Setscond of the time in the week.
00:53:00We are happy to go with the HayΔ±r and the Setscond of the time in the night.
00:53:08We are happy to be the most when the Lord was together.
00:53:09But we are happy to not rest until we settle down the day.
00:53:11We have two hundred thousand soldiers!
00:53:13Homicide victims, Swedish national, Victor Gunnarsson,
00:53:17Salisbury native, Catherine Miller,
00:53:19and one common denominator, and that is Kay Whedon.
00:53:23Victor Gunnarsson was in a romantic relationship with Kay Whedon.
00:53:27Catherine Miller was Kay Whedon's mother.
00:53:30There was an instant and very strong, important connection there.
00:53:34With all that was going on, we certainly did not want to overlook
00:53:37even the smallest detail.
00:53:41We began with the apartment.
00:53:44Victor had been reported missing by his apartment manager in Salisbury on December 15.
00:53:50We learned from the apartment manager that a few days after Victor went missing
00:53:55that his apartment door was left ajar.
00:53:58But when we went there with a search warrant,
00:54:00the apartment door had been locked and secured by the apartment manager.
00:54:05His car was in the same place in the parking lot,
00:54:09still covered with a little snow and ice.
00:54:13Victor Gunnarsson was found murdered in Deep Gap,
00:54:1690 miles away from Salisbury.
00:54:20You start thinking about potential scenarios.
00:54:25We also learned that Victor had lots of female friends.
00:54:31Because many of them had been intimate with Victor
00:54:34and had shared some kind of relationship with him.
00:54:38We didn't know if we were going to end up
00:54:41with a jealous husband or a jealous boyfriend.
00:54:47On January the 18th of 1994,
00:54:50we began a follow-up interview with Kay Whedon.
00:54:57I learned from Kay,
00:54:59she and her mother, Catherine Miller,
00:55:01and Victor had all gone to dinner together
00:55:03on the night of December 3.
00:55:06After dinner,
00:55:07they had then gone home to Kay's house.
00:55:11Victor and Kay were sitting outside
00:55:14around a fire with her son,
00:55:16Jason, and some of Jason's friends.
00:55:19And she saw Elsie Underwood
00:55:22drive by her home.
00:55:26Underwood was a Salisbury police officer.
00:55:29Kay had been through a terrible relationship
00:55:31with Elsie Underwood.
00:55:32She said that her relationship with Underwood
00:55:35was super dysfunctional and unhealthy.
00:55:39He wanted to get back together,
00:55:40and she did not want anything to do with him.
00:55:44She said that he was extremely jealous.
00:55:48Months before,
00:55:49she went to a restaurant
00:55:50to have dinner with one man.
00:55:52Underwood shows up,
00:55:54causing a scene,
00:55:55dumps a glass of tea in her lap
00:55:57that got Underwood temporarily suspended
00:56:00from the Salisbury Police Department.
00:56:04What really unnerved me about Underwood
00:56:07is that not only did he go by her house,
00:56:10but Victor Gunnarsson's car
00:56:12was parked there in Kay Weed's driveway.
00:56:14It was the last night
00:56:16that Victor Gunnarsson was ever seen alive.
00:56:20Elsie would have seen Victor and Kay together
00:56:25at Kay's residence.
00:56:27We thought that Underwood
00:56:29could have been bad and bitter
00:56:30that Victor Gunnarsson
00:56:32was in a dating relationship with Kay Weed.
00:56:34We were also aware that Kay's mother
00:56:37had a very strong feeling about Underwood.
00:56:40I learned from Kay that her mother advised her
00:56:43to get a restraining order against Elsie Underwood.
00:56:47And the magistrate talked them out
00:56:49of applying for the restraining order,
00:56:51saying that,
00:56:52did they really want to end
00:56:54a man's law enforcement career?
00:56:57Kay had gone for help,
00:56:59but she did not receive the support
00:57:01that she should have received.
00:57:06Kay Weedon said that during that weekend
00:57:09of December 3rd and 4th and 5th,
00:57:11when Victor went missing,
00:57:13Underwood was really reaching out to Kay,
00:57:16but Kay is still not interested
00:57:18in a relationship with him.
00:57:22A couple of days later,
00:57:23Catherine Miller's body is found.
00:57:28He wasn't jealous,
00:57:30but he was also law enforcement
00:57:32in North Carolina for 19 and a half years.
00:57:35We didn't know.
00:57:37Was he capable of murdering two people?
00:57:42He was found
00:57:43and taken there against his will.
00:57:47The husband said,
00:57:49I'm not letting nobody miss my wife.
00:57:52He obviously is very dangerous.
00:58:14At this point in the investigation,
00:58:18Catherine Miller and Swedish national Victor Gunnarsson
00:58:22had both been violently murdered.
00:58:29The one common link
00:58:32between both of these homicides
00:58:35turned out to be Elsie Underwood.
00:58:39He was the former fiancΓ© of Kay Weedon.
00:58:45The other detectives and I
00:58:47delve into Underwood's background.
00:58:53We learned that he was married three times.
00:58:56All three marriages failed.
00:58:58We interviewed those women.
00:59:02They would say that at first
00:59:03he was very charming,
00:59:05but then he was very possessive,
00:59:07very jealous,
00:59:08and he would become very controlling
00:59:11and very violent.
00:59:13He put one woman in the hospital
00:59:15in intensive care.
00:59:17He beat her so badly.
00:59:25Mr. Underwood was interviewed
00:59:28by detectives again.
00:59:31He nodded very vigorously
00:59:33that he was involved in the murders.
00:59:36He showed anger.
00:59:38He showed volatility.
00:59:41When Underwood was questioned
00:59:43about the night of Friday, December 3rd,
00:59:45and he said that he had a date
00:59:47with another Salisbury woman,
00:59:49Shirley Twitty,
00:59:49and he was in the neighborhood.
00:59:53We went to Shirley Twitty,
00:59:55and she was able to tell us
00:59:57everything that happened.
00:59:59She told us that the night
01:00:00that Victor Gunnarsson
01:00:01was having dinner
01:00:02with Catherine Miller and Kay,
01:00:04Underwood had told Shirley
01:00:06that he was going to take her to dinner.
01:00:09Then on the way, he said,
01:00:10I'm really not hungry.
01:00:12He said, I need to drive
01:00:13by my buddy's house
01:00:14because he thinks his wife
01:00:15is cheating on him.
01:00:17And they drive by.
01:00:18She says he gets very interested
01:00:20when he sees there's a car
01:00:21in the driveway.
01:00:23Shirley said that Underwood called
01:00:24and had his buddy
01:00:25with Salisbury Police
01:00:26run the tag number
01:00:27and then ended up going home
01:00:29early that evening.
01:00:32After the interview,
01:00:34detectives took her,
01:00:35put her in the car,
01:00:36and said,
01:00:36lead us to that house
01:00:38that Underwood had you drive by.
01:00:40She took them right
01:00:41to Kay Whedon's house.
01:00:49We believe he was stalking Kay.
01:00:52We had confirmed
01:00:53that Underwood obtained
01:00:55Victor Gunnarsson's name
01:00:57and address
01:00:57from his license plate number.
01:00:59But at that point,
01:01:01we didn't have
01:01:01any physical evidence.
01:01:03We did not have
01:01:03his fingerprints
01:01:04or any DNA
01:01:05at the crime scene
01:01:06at Catherine Miller's house.
01:01:09Catherine Miller
01:01:10had been murdered
01:01:11with a .38 caliber
01:01:12and Mr. Gunnarsson
01:01:14had been killed
01:01:14with a .22 caliber.
01:01:17A search warrant
01:01:18was necessary
01:01:19to see if the weapons
01:01:21were there
01:01:22in L.C. Underwood's home.
01:01:25On February 1st, 1994,
01:01:28we conducted
01:01:28a search warrant
01:01:29of L.C. Underwood's house.
01:01:34He was super OCD.
01:01:37Everything was in its place.
01:01:40The fringe
01:01:40on his throw rugs
01:01:42had been ironed.
01:01:43His canned goods
01:01:45were alphabetized,
01:01:46and all the labels
01:01:48turned facing forward.
01:01:50He had six, eight
01:01:51pair of the same chute
01:01:52on his walls
01:01:53where most people
01:01:54have photos
01:01:55of their family.
01:01:56He had professionally
01:01:58framed letters
01:01:59from his time
01:02:00in law enforcement
01:02:01for him directing traffic
01:02:03at a funeral.
01:02:05I'd never seen
01:02:06anything like this.
01:02:07These were all things
01:02:08that he apparently
01:02:09had to control.
01:02:11Because we thought
01:02:13that Victor
01:02:14was kidnapped
01:02:14and taken
01:02:15to Deep Gap,
01:02:17we searched
01:02:18his vehicles
01:02:19as well.
01:02:21Both trunk mats
01:02:22were seized
01:02:23from L.C. Underwood's
01:02:25red Monte Carlo
01:02:27as potential evidence.
01:02:32A neighbor
01:02:33had stated
01:02:34that she had seen
01:02:36a red Oldsmobile
01:02:37parked
01:02:38at Catherine Miller's house
01:02:40sometime
01:02:41on December 8th, 1993.
01:02:44She had seen
01:02:45a white male
01:02:46get out of that
01:02:47red Oldsmobile.
01:02:49We could not confirm
01:02:51that it was,
01:02:51in fact,
01:02:52L.C. Underwood
01:02:53last seen
01:02:54in the driveway.
01:02:57But we did not
01:02:59find any weapons.
01:03:02Both trunk mats
01:03:03were processed
01:03:04extensively
01:03:05with no results
01:03:08at all.
01:03:10We knew
01:03:11he was very jealous,
01:03:12but there was
01:03:13no physical evidence
01:03:14to connect
01:03:15L.C. Underwood.
01:03:16It was really
01:03:17important to me
01:03:18that we all remain
01:03:19open-minded,
01:03:20not zero in
01:03:21on one suspect.
01:03:23There were so many
01:03:24possibilities
01:03:25of the murder
01:03:26to Victor Gunnarsson.
01:03:30The Swedish news
01:03:31organizations
01:03:32were curators
01:03:34because Victor Gunnarsson
01:03:35had become
01:03:36infamous
01:03:37as a suspect
01:03:38in the assassination
01:03:40of the Swedish
01:03:42prime minister,
01:03:43Palma.
01:03:45One theory
01:03:46was that
01:03:47hitmen from Sweden
01:03:48had come
01:03:49and murdered
01:03:50Victor Gunnarsson.
01:03:51We tried
01:03:52a number of tactics
01:03:53to develop
01:03:54information
01:03:55on this.
01:03:57I spent
01:03:58a lot of time
01:03:59talking with
01:03:59the investigating
01:04:00officials
01:04:01in Sweden,
01:04:02but there was
01:04:03no evidence
01:04:04to confirm
01:04:05the Swedish
01:04:06hitmen theory.
01:04:09It became
01:04:10a whirlwind
01:04:11of investigations.
01:04:12Who killed
01:04:13Victor?
01:04:14Who killed
01:04:15Miss Miller?
01:04:16Everywhere,
01:04:17internationally,
01:04:18worldwide,
01:04:20Salisbury
01:04:20became the focus.
01:04:22The Swedish
01:04:23press came
01:04:24to Salisbury
01:04:25and used
01:04:25our newsroom.
01:04:27I had been
01:04:28trying to figure
01:04:29out what happened.
01:04:30I had to get
01:04:31the story home
01:04:31to Sweden now.
01:04:33They're calling me.
01:04:35They're showing up
01:04:36outside my house.
01:04:37They're setting up
01:04:38their tripods
01:04:39in the street
01:04:40waiting for
01:04:42me to come out.
01:04:43It was,
01:04:44it was a madhouse.
01:04:50with no one
01:04:51arrested
01:04:52and the interest
01:04:54internationally
01:04:55into Victor's
01:04:56homicide
01:04:56growing.
01:04:57We felt
01:04:58the pressure
01:04:58on the investigators
01:04:59intensify.
01:05:01We have
01:05:01two homicide
01:05:02victims
01:05:03and the killer
01:05:04was still at large.
01:05:25in early 1994.
01:05:28In the months
01:05:28following the murder
01:05:29of Victor Gunnarsson,
01:05:30we still have
01:05:31no physical evidence
01:05:33to connect
01:05:33a suspect
01:05:34to Victor Gunnarsson
01:05:35and his murder
01:05:36or Catherine Miller's murder.
01:05:45We felt like
01:05:45we had
01:05:46plenty of reasoning
01:05:47that L.C.
01:05:48Underwood
01:05:48could be
01:05:49involved.
01:05:53We got
01:05:55a court order
01:05:55for a mail cover
01:05:56to make a copy
01:05:57of all the
01:05:58incoming mail
01:05:58that Underwood
01:05:59received.
01:06:07Salisbury
01:06:08was a very,
01:06:09very small town
01:06:10and the only thing
01:06:11people were talking
01:06:12about
01:06:12was this case.
01:06:17I had known
01:06:19L.C.
01:06:19since the late 80s
01:06:22and
01:06:23one day
01:06:24L.C.
01:06:25started calling me
01:06:26at night
01:06:28telling me
01:06:29about how
01:06:30they were
01:06:30zooming in
01:06:31on him,
01:06:32that they had
01:06:32tunnel vision,
01:06:33that he didn't
01:06:35do it.
01:06:37L.C.
01:06:38Underwood
01:06:39had talked
01:06:40to the press.
01:06:41He was telling
01:06:42friends with
01:06:43the Salisbury
01:06:44Police Department.
01:06:44We were trying
01:06:45to frame him
01:06:46and this was
01:06:47all a setup.
01:06:54In May
01:06:55of 1994,
01:06:57we decided
01:06:58to request
01:06:59a court order
01:07:00to trap
01:07:01and trace
01:07:01Underwood's
01:07:02phone call.
01:07:04Trap and trace
01:07:06does not allow
01:07:07you to hear
01:07:07the contents
01:07:08of the call,
01:07:09but it
01:07:09identifies
01:07:10the caller.
01:07:17In July,
01:07:18four of us
01:07:19were interviewing
01:07:20the people
01:07:21that were
01:07:22identified
01:07:22by the trap
01:07:23and trace.
01:07:24One of the
01:07:25people identified
01:07:26happened to be
01:07:28the girl
01:07:28that L.C.
01:07:30Underwood
01:07:30was dating
01:07:31at that time
01:07:33in Charlotte,
01:07:35North Carolina.
01:07:38I went to
01:07:39that person's
01:07:40duplex apartment
01:07:41in Charlotte,
01:07:42knocked on
01:07:43the door.
01:07:45The door
01:07:46was opened.
01:07:47I identified
01:07:48myself.
01:07:49She stepped
01:07:49outside of
01:07:50her door
01:07:51and told me,
01:07:53I know
01:07:53all about you,
01:07:54I know
01:07:55everything I need
01:07:56to know,
01:07:57and I don't
01:07:58have a thing
01:07:58to say
01:07:58to you.
01:08:02Instead of
01:08:02just walking
01:08:03away politely,
01:08:04what I said
01:08:05was,
01:08:06well,
01:08:06really,
01:08:07all I wanted
01:08:08to know
01:08:08was that,
01:08:10was he beating
01:08:11you like he did
01:08:12his other
01:08:12girlfriends?
01:08:14And then
01:08:15I left.
01:08:17I knew
01:08:18that he was
01:08:19very hot-tempered,
01:08:20but we needed
01:08:21to tell her
01:08:22who the real
01:08:23L.C.
01:08:24Underwood
01:08:24was.
01:08:27Later
01:08:27that same
01:08:28evening,
01:08:29my pager
01:08:30started vibrating,
01:08:32and I looked
01:08:34at the number,
01:08:35and I recognized
01:08:36it as
01:08:37L.C.
01:08:39Underwood's
01:08:39residence,
01:08:42and it just
01:08:43kept going off.
01:08:46We went
01:08:46to the sheriff's
01:08:47department,
01:08:47set up a recording
01:08:48device,
01:08:49and Don
01:08:51made the call
01:08:52to Underwood's
01:08:52number.
01:09:00L.C.,
01:09:01this is Don
01:09:01Gale.
01:09:02I'm going to
01:09:02tell you
01:09:02something,
01:09:03Don Gale.
01:09:03You're going
01:09:03to quit
01:09:04spreading these
01:09:04damn lies
01:09:05and rumors
01:09:05that you've
01:09:06been spreading
01:09:06about me.
01:09:07I'm going
01:09:08to guarantee
01:09:08you that.
01:09:09I'm tired
01:09:09of it,
01:09:10and I ain't
01:09:10taking you
01:09:10no more,
01:09:11Don.
01:09:12You're trying
01:09:13to ruin me
01:09:14in this
01:09:14damn town.
01:09:15You're not
01:09:16going to do
01:09:16it anymore.
01:09:17Now,
01:09:18damn it.
01:09:18I'm tired
01:09:19of it,
01:09:19and I'm
01:09:20going to put
01:09:20a stop to
01:09:21it.
01:09:23I was able
01:09:24to say
01:09:25very,
01:09:25very little.
01:09:27L.C.,
01:09:28L.C.,
01:09:29hello?
01:09:29He just
01:09:30goes ballistic
01:09:30on me.
01:09:31I'm hurt.
01:09:32You ain't
01:09:33taking
01:09:33any
01:09:33damn
01:09:34no more,
01:09:34you mother
01:09:35.
01:09:35What I
01:09:36was hoping
01:09:37for was
01:09:39that he
01:09:40would threaten
01:09:41me.
01:09:42You
01:09:42backstabbing
01:09:43son of a
01:09:44so that
01:09:45we could
01:09:46arrest him
01:09:47for that
01:09:48and put
01:09:48him in
01:09:48jail.
01:09:49You
01:09:49want to
01:09:49fight?
01:09:50Come
01:09:50to it.
01:09:57Even
01:09:57though he
01:09:58was raging,
01:09:59he still
01:09:59never crossed
01:10:00that line.
01:10:02Unfortunately,
01:10:03there was
01:10:04not enough
01:10:04evidence
01:10:05to make
01:10:05an arrest
01:10:06of L.C.
01:10:07Underwood.
01:10:10Because this
01:10:11was such
01:10:11a high
01:10:11profile case,
01:10:12we had
01:10:13not one
01:10:13but two
01:10:14homicide
01:10:14victims.
01:10:16The governor
01:10:17of North
01:10:17Carolina
01:10:18did issue
01:10:18a reward
01:10:19of $50,000
01:10:20for anyone
01:10:21with information.
01:10:28Calls began
01:10:29to come
01:10:29into our
01:10:30dispatch center.
01:10:32We did
01:10:33receive information
01:10:34from a person
01:10:34who said
01:10:35that their
01:10:36male friend
01:10:36told him
01:10:37that in
01:10:37November
01:10:38of 1993,
01:10:40his friend
01:10:40caught Victor
01:10:41Gunnarsson
01:10:42in bed
01:10:42with his
01:10:43wife.
01:10:44In a hotel
01:10:45room,
01:10:46he had
01:10:47made Victor
01:10:48leave nude
01:10:49from the hotel
01:10:50room at
01:10:51gunpoint.
01:10:52And then
01:10:53the husband
01:10:54had,
01:10:55in a jealous
01:10:56rage,
01:10:57gone and
01:10:58murdered
01:10:59Victor Gunnarsson.
01:11:15killed Victor
01:11:16In the fall
01:11:17of 1994,
01:11:18the investigation
01:11:19of the murder
01:11:20of Victor
01:11:21Gunnarsson
01:11:21and Catherine
01:11:21Miller,
01:11:23we did
01:11:24receive information
01:11:24from a person
01:11:25who said
01:11:26that their
01:11:26friend had
01:11:27confessed to
01:11:28them that
01:11:28he had
01:11:29caught Victor
01:11:30Gunnarsson
01:11:30in bed
01:11:31with his
01:11:31wife
01:11:33in a hotel
01:11:34room.
01:11:35and in
01:11:36a jealous
01:11:37rage,
01:11:38he had
01:11:38killed
01:11:38Victor
01:11:39Gunnarsson.
01:11:40So,
01:11:41of course,
01:11:42we jumped
01:11:42all over
01:11:43that lead
01:11:43and we
01:11:44interviewed
01:11:44the people
01:11:44involved.
01:11:46We learned
01:11:47there was
01:11:48a man
01:11:48who was
01:11:48jealous
01:11:49over his
01:11:49wife.
01:11:51He'd been
01:11:51seeing all
01:11:52these things
01:11:52about Victor
01:11:52Gunnarsson's
01:11:53murder
01:11:53in the
01:11:54newspaper.
01:11:55The husband
01:11:56said,
01:11:57look,
01:11:57not letting
01:11:58nobody
01:11:58miss
01:11:58my wife.
01:12:00They're in
01:12:00a bar
01:12:01when he
01:12:01tells them.
01:12:02But none
01:12:03of that
01:12:03ever happened.
01:12:05It's just
01:12:06bragging.
01:12:06And through
01:12:07that interview,
01:12:08he admitted
01:12:08that he had
01:12:09just made
01:12:09the whole
01:12:10thing up.
01:12:14At that
01:12:15point,
01:12:16we refocused
01:12:17the investigation.
01:12:18As we kept
01:12:19building this
01:12:20puzzle,
01:12:21it just
01:12:22became
01:12:22apparent
01:12:23that the
01:12:25only suspect
01:12:25with the
01:12:26motive for
01:12:27the two
01:12:28murders
01:12:29was Elsie
01:12:30Underwood.
01:12:36We had
01:12:37placed a
01:12:39trap-and-trace
01:12:40device on
01:12:41Elsie Underwood's
01:12:42telephone.
01:12:43So it was
01:12:45recording both
01:12:46the numbers
01:12:48of people
01:12:49who were
01:12:50calling him
01:12:51and the numbers
01:12:52of people
01:12:53he was calling.
01:12:55We did that
01:12:56for months.
01:13:03We found
01:13:04multiple calls
01:13:05from person
01:13:07identified as
01:13:08Cherry Mac.
01:13:09We learned
01:13:10Cherry Mac
01:13:11lived on
01:13:12Hoorah Street.
01:13:17When
01:13:17Catherine Miller
01:13:18was murdered,
01:13:19one thing
01:13:20that was
01:13:20taken was
01:13:21her wallet.
01:13:22Its contents
01:13:23were found
01:13:24on Hoorah Street
01:13:25in Salisbury.
01:13:28Cherry told
01:13:29us that
01:13:29somebody probably
01:13:30used her phone,
01:13:32but we weren't
01:13:33sure what it
01:13:33meant yet.
01:13:41On the
01:13:42first anniversary
01:13:42of Catherine
01:13:43Miller's murder,
01:13:44Agent Gale
01:13:45suggested that
01:13:45we would ask
01:13:46the public
01:13:46for help.
01:13:47We decided
01:13:48to play
01:13:49one of the
01:13:50recordings
01:13:51of the
01:13:51anonymous caller
01:13:52who made
01:13:53threatening calls
01:13:54to Kay
01:13:54Whedon.
01:13:56In March
01:13:56of 1993,
01:13:58we believe
01:13:59there is a
01:13:59connection there
01:14:00to the murder
01:14:01of Kay's
01:14:02mother,
01:14:02Catherine Miller.
01:14:07So the
01:14:08local TV
01:14:08station plays
01:14:09the recording
01:14:10of this
01:14:11threatening call
01:14:20call.
01:14:23If you know
01:14:23who this
01:14:24person is,
01:14:25please give us
01:14:26a call.
01:14:27And it worked.
01:14:29A federal
01:14:30probation officer
01:14:31contacts the
01:14:32news station
01:14:32and he says,
01:14:33I know exactly
01:14:34whose voice that
01:14:34is.
01:14:35In fact,
01:14:35I have him
01:14:35on federal
01:14:36probation.
01:14:37that person
01:14:38who was making
01:14:39those calls
01:14:40was a man
01:14:41by the name
01:14:41of Rex Keller.
01:14:50Once we had
01:14:51Rex Keller
01:14:51identified,
01:14:53we learned
01:14:53he was
01:14:54Cherry Mac's
01:14:54boyfriend.
01:14:55We interviewed
01:14:56him and we
01:14:57confronted him
01:14:58with the calls
01:14:59that were made
01:14:59to Kay Whedon.
01:15:00Keller said
01:15:02that at the
01:15:03time he had
01:15:04been running
01:15:05a convenience
01:15:05store in
01:15:06South Salisbury.
01:15:08He said he
01:15:09didn't know
01:15:10about any
01:15:11phone calls
01:15:12or Catherine
01:15:13Miller or
01:15:14Victor Gunnarsen,
01:15:15but he was
01:15:17on probation
01:15:18and was not
01:15:18looking forward
01:15:19to any more
01:15:21prison time.
01:15:24Rex Keller
01:15:25finally confessed
01:15:27that Elsie
01:15:28Underwood
01:15:28had asked
01:15:29him to
01:15:30make threatening
01:15:31calls about
01:15:32Jason Whedon,
01:15:33the son of Kay.
01:15:36At that point,
01:15:37we had
01:15:37circumstantial
01:15:38evidence,
01:15:39but we needed
01:15:40something even
01:15:41more tangible
01:15:42that would
01:15:43give us probable
01:15:44cause to arrest
01:15:44Elsie Underwood.
01:15:47We just
01:15:49could not
01:15:49prove beyond
01:15:50a reasonable
01:15:51doubt
01:15:51that Elsie
01:15:52Underwood
01:15:53committed
01:15:53these two
01:15:54homicides.
01:15:54He's still
01:15:56living in
01:15:56Salisbury,
01:15:57North Carolina.
01:15:58He's a free
01:15:58man.
01:16:00It was
01:16:00extremely
01:16:01frustrating,
01:16:02to say the
01:16:02least.
01:16:05In October
01:16:06of 1995,
01:16:08almost two
01:16:09years after
01:16:10these homicides
01:16:11occurred,
01:16:13State Bureau
01:16:13of Investigation
01:16:14looked at
01:16:15the trunk
01:16:15mat evidence
01:16:16of Elsie
01:16:18Underwood's
01:16:19red
01:16:20Monte Carlo.
01:16:21and we
01:16:23didn't get
01:16:23any positive
01:16:24results.
01:16:26But the lab
01:16:28analyst examined
01:16:30both trunk mats
01:16:31one last time.
01:16:33The light
01:16:34hit just
01:16:35right,
01:16:35and then
01:16:36he saw
01:16:37deeply embedded
01:16:39hairs
01:16:39in that trunk
01:16:41mat.
01:16:42He then
01:16:44analyzed those
01:16:45microscopically
01:16:46with known
01:16:47head hairs
01:16:48of Victor
01:16:49Gunnarsen,
01:16:49and they
01:16:51were the
01:16:51match.
01:16:53That gave
01:16:55us the
01:16:55final piece
01:16:56of the puzzle
01:16:57we needed
01:16:58to arrest
01:16:59Elsie Underwood
01:17:00for Victor
01:17:01Gunnarsen's
01:17:02homicide.
01:17:06after Victor
01:17:07Gunnarsen's hair
01:17:08was found
01:17:09in Elsie
01:17:10Underwood's
01:17:11car,
01:17:12we submitted
01:17:12to the
01:17:13grand jury
01:17:14of Watshawker
01:17:14County
01:17:15an indictment
01:17:16charging
01:17:17first-degree
01:17:18murder
01:17:18and first-degree
01:17:20kidnapping.
01:17:24I put
01:17:25together
01:17:26a
01:17:26multi-faceted
01:17:28plan of
01:17:29action
01:17:29to make
01:17:30the arrest
01:17:31involving
01:17:32multiple
01:17:33police
01:17:33agencies.
01:17:35We didn't
01:17:36want
01:17:36Underwood
01:17:36to barricade
01:17:37himself
01:17:37inside his
01:17:38home.
01:17:38We were
01:17:39conducting
01:17:40surveillance.
01:17:41If at some
01:17:42point Underwood
01:17:42left his
01:17:43residence,
01:17:43they were
01:17:44going to
01:17:44stop him
01:17:45in a
01:17:45car.
01:17:48Elsie
01:17:48Underwood
01:17:49was a
01:17:50police
01:17:50officer
01:17:52and he
01:17:53had
01:17:53guns.
01:17:55He was
01:17:56a very
01:17:56dangerous
01:17:57and
01:17:58volatile
01:17:58person.
01:18:00Finally,
01:18:00he left
01:18:01his house.
01:18:03We were
01:18:04holding our
01:18:05breath,
01:18:05waiting to
01:18:06see what
01:18:06would happen.
01:18:20him.
01:18:25Prosecutor
01:18:26District
01:18:26Attorney
01:18:27Tom
01:18:27Ruscher
01:18:27gave the
01:18:28go-ahead
01:18:29to arrest
01:18:30Elsie
01:18:31Underwood
01:18:32for the
01:18:32murder of
01:18:33Victor
01:18:33Gunnarsson.
01:18:36They stopped
01:18:37him in a
01:18:38felony vehicle
01:18:38stop,
01:18:39made the
01:18:40arrest.
01:18:42We took
01:18:43custody of
01:18:44Underwood
01:18:44and brought
01:18:45him back
01:18:45to the
01:18:46Sheriff's
01:18:46Department.
01:18:47I was at
01:18:48school,
01:18:49teaching,
01:18:50when they
01:18:50called me.
01:18:51Don said,
01:18:53we have
01:18:54arrested him.
01:18:55I was so
01:18:56excited,
01:18:57I just
01:18:58fell out of
01:18:59the chair,
01:19:01crying.
01:19:02I was so
01:19:03relieved.
01:19:09This case
01:19:10also involved
01:19:12a second
01:19:13capital
01:19:14offense.
01:19:15Elsie
01:19:16Underwood
01:19:16murdered
01:19:17Victor
01:19:17Gunnarsson
01:19:18first,
01:19:19and then
01:19:19we thanked
01:19:20the letter
01:19:20to Catherine
01:19:21Miller.
01:19:22So,
01:19:23we announced
01:19:24that we were
01:19:25seeking the
01:19:25death penalty.
01:19:27It was
01:19:28a tense
01:19:28time.
01:19:30There was
01:19:31no direct
01:19:32evidence
01:19:33that positively
01:19:34pointed to
01:19:35him.
01:19:36Underwood
01:19:36was the
01:19:37killer
01:19:37to Catherine
01:19:38Miller.
01:19:40In 1997,
01:19:42the state
01:19:42put Underwood
01:19:43on trial
01:19:44for the
01:19:45murder of
01:19:46Victor Gunnarsson.
01:19:49We felt
01:19:50that Elsie
01:19:51Underwood
01:19:52could not
01:19:52accept the
01:19:53breakup of
01:19:54the relationship
01:19:54with Kay
01:19:55Whedon,
01:19:56and he was
01:19:57insanely jealous
01:19:58of Victor
01:19:59Gunnarsson.
01:20:01He felt
01:20:02that Catherine
01:20:03Miller was
01:20:04an impediment.
01:20:05He felt
01:20:06that Victor
01:20:07Gunnarsson
01:20:07was an
01:20:08impediment.
01:20:09Therefore,
01:20:09they had
01:20:10to be
01:20:10destroyed.
01:20:15We believe
01:20:16that Friday
01:20:17night,
01:20:17December 3rd,
01:20:181993,
01:20:20Underwood
01:20:20left his
01:20:21home and
01:20:22went to
01:20:22Victor
01:20:22Gunnarsson's
01:20:23apartment.
01:20:33Gunnarsson was
01:20:34kidnapped and
01:20:35transported in
01:20:36the trunk of
01:20:37a Monte Carlo
01:20:38owned by
01:20:39Mr. Underwood.
01:20:41Victor was
01:20:43bound and
01:20:44taken there
01:20:45against his
01:20:45will.
01:20:48Gunnarsson was
01:20:49probably
01:20:50marked there
01:20:50at the point
01:20:51of a gun
01:20:52and shot.
01:20:57Underwood was
01:20:58a police officer.
01:21:00He had been
01:21:01trained in
01:21:01forensic work.
01:21:03We think he
01:21:04removed all the
01:21:05clothing to
01:21:06eliminate any
01:21:07possible trace
01:21:08evidence.
01:21:12we believe
01:21:14that on
01:21:14December 8th,
01:21:16he murdered
01:21:17Catherine Miller
01:21:18and her
01:21:19house.
01:21:23Both
01:21:24victims had
01:21:25been shot
01:21:25twice in the
01:21:26head.
01:21:31L.C.
01:21:32Underwood
01:21:33wanted to
01:21:33be with
01:21:34Kay Whedon.
01:21:35His motive
01:21:36was jealousy
01:21:36and control.
01:21:38And that
01:21:40was it.
01:21:46A jury
01:21:47can do
01:21:48whatever they
01:21:49want.
01:21:49You never
01:21:50know.
01:21:51But it
01:21:52did not
01:21:53take them
01:21:53long to
01:21:55come back
01:21:55with the
01:21:56verdicts.
01:21:59Mr. Underwood
01:22:01was found
01:22:01guilty of
01:22:02the first
01:22:02degree
01:22:03kidnapping
01:22:03of Victor
01:22:05Gunnarsson.
01:22:07Underwood
01:22:08was found
01:22:08guilty of
01:22:09first-degree
01:22:10murder of
01:22:11the death
01:22:12of Victor
01:22:12Gunnarsson.
01:22:23I was never
01:22:24so happy
01:22:25the day that
01:22:26he was
01:22:27convicted.
01:22:31and the
01:22:31sentencing
01:22:32here.
01:22:33The jury
01:22:33came back
01:22:3411 to
01:22:341 in
01:22:35favor of
01:22:35the death
01:22:35penalty.
01:22:37And because
01:22:38of that
01:22:38one hold
01:22:39out, he
01:22:40was given
01:22:40a life
01:22:40sentence
01:22:41for the
01:22:41first-degree
01:22:41murder.
01:22:44For the
01:22:44first-degree
01:22:45kidnapping, he
01:22:46was sentenced
01:22:46to 40
01:22:47years to
01:22:48be served
01:22:49consecutively
01:22:50rather than
01:22:51concurrently.
01:22:53unfortunately, we
01:22:54didn't have any
01:22:55physical evidence
01:22:56against him
01:22:57regarding
01:22:57Catherine Miller.
01:22:58And that's a
01:23:00tough hurdle
01:23:01to overcome.
01:23:03It's not fair,
01:23:05but Elsie was
01:23:07locked up.
01:23:08Hope he
01:23:08suffered.
01:23:09It kept him
01:23:10away from me
01:23:11and I think
01:23:11kept my family
01:23:12out of harm.
01:23:15I spoke to
01:23:16Kay the
01:23:18same day.
01:23:21Kay was
01:23:22crying and I
01:23:23was crying and
01:23:24we were happy
01:23:24at the same
01:23:25time, knowing
01:23:26that now he
01:23:30is where he
01:23:30belongs.
01:23:50my mother, who
01:23:53was a working
01:23:54mother and
01:23:57made herself
01:23:58somebody.
01:23:59She was
01:24:00Catherine, she
01:24:01was mom, she
01:24:02never skipped
01:24:03a beat.
01:24:04My mother was
01:24:05beautiful.
01:24:08I always
01:24:09remember Victor
01:24:10as a happy
01:24:12humble, warm
01:24:16hearted, genuinely
01:24:19friendly person.
01:24:23Victor was
01:24:25just so kind.
01:24:26I just admired
01:24:27that so much
01:24:28about him.
01:24:31What an amazing
01:24:32person he was.
01:24:33I love you,
01:24:34brother.
01:24:45I love you,
01:24:47I love you.
01:24:48I love you,
01:24:48I love you.
01:24:56Transcription by CastingWords
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