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Speaker 1: Hey, it's Payshett. Wanted to let you know that the Exactly Right Store is having an end-of-summer sale. From September 3rd through September 7th, use code SUMMERSALE to save up to 30% off storewide, including merch from The Knife. Spend $ 50 and save 20%, $ 75 and save 25%, or $ 100 and save 30%. Head to exactlyrightstore.com to shop. Some exclusions apply.
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Speaker 2: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to The Knife Off Record. I'm Hannah Smith.
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Speaker 1: I'm Pasha Eaton. And Hannah, today I have a story for you that came from actually a call I was making, like so many of these do, for a different episode. And I got in touch with a detective who had been working on the case I'm going to talk about. And he couldn't speak to me about it because everything was still pending. And it's no longer pending. I had a call with him and I'm going to.
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Speaker 2: No longer pending. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So I'm going to be able to talk about the phone call, but we weren't able to schedule an interview. Okay. I was able to put this together with body cam footage and court records.
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Speaker 2: Wow.
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Speaker 1: So news articles plus a call with the detective who I think played an instrumental role in the case. Wow. It's so dark, but I think that it was really great police work. And I think this case is a really good lesson in trusting your instincts if you know something is wrong.
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Speaker 2: Cool.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'll just get right into it then. Let's do it.
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Speaker 2: And quick reminder that we do post updates on our social media accounts, so feel free to follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky at The Knife Podcast.
00:01:56
Speaker 1: So on May 12th, 2025, a call comes in to the non-emergency line at the Otero County Sheriff's Office saying, Otero County is in southern New Mexico.
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Speaker 2: Okay.
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Speaker 1: So it's a very rural area. And the man calling is actually from Texas. He sounds very concerned and with a lot of urgency, but he also sounds really frustrated. I mean, he sounds like no one's been listening to him. I don't know if it was the first call he'd made, but it's pretty clear that he's been trying to reach someone and he can't reach them.
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Speaker 2: And is he calling from Texas or he's a Texan who's in Texas?
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Speaker 1: He's calling from Texas.
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Speaker 2: Okay.
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Speaker 1: And he asks the dispatcher, who can I talk to about a wellness check for someone who lives in Otero County?
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Speaker 2: Okay.
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Speaker 1: And the man he's interested in doing a wellness check on is Craig Thetford. And Craig is from the same town in Texas. He's from Breckenridge, Texas, but he's been living in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, with his wife, Dina.
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Speaker 2: Where is Breckenridge? I've never heard of that town in Texas.
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Speaker 1: I think it's in West Texas. I think it's like 90 minutes from Dallas, maybe.
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Speaker 2: Okay.
00:03:06
Speaker 1: Maybe two hours from Dallas.
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Speaker 2: Gotcha.
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Speaker 1: So this man is really concerned because... Craig has not been reachable to him for two months. He had been able to exchange some text messages with him, but that was it. And Craig was usually someone who was really easy to get on the phone. Now, this call that he's making for a wellness check is in mid-May 2025. And he hasn't had a text from Craig in two months. He's really concerned. And adding to his concern, really compounding his sort of frustration in my interpretation of his call, is that he also now can't reach Dina, Craig's wife. So he's really concerned. And the dispatcher's like, OK, we'll send someone out to the house. And he's happy with that. They get off the phone. Now, this 911 caller is actually Craig's longtime friend and business partner. So he knows him really well.
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Speaker 2: Are they still business partners at the time or like retired?
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Speaker 1: Actually, Craig had retired. He had a roofing business and it was really successful. The roofing business was in Texas, where he's from. And he just decided to retire in New Mexico. They just found a place they really loved up in Cloudcroft. It's like a very rural place. tight-knit community, a mountain town. Sounds nice. Yeah. And they had been loving life up there. They lived in a three-story home. They had a lot of recreational vehicles, did a lot of outdoorsy fun trips together. By all accounts, his life was going really well. Like he was really reaping the benefits of a lot of hard work in his life. Okay. Yeah. So Craig and Dina had both been married before. They both had children from earlier relationships and they met over 10 years ago. They seem to really enjoy a lot of the same things, like being outdoors and hiking and fishing, all of those kinds of activities, maybe motorcycles. I saw some pictures of them with helmets on. I don't know if it was like ATVs or motorcycles, but that was like the vibe of the pictures on their Facebook page. And they look really happy. And so everyone's really confused. Like, why haven't we heard from Craig? Why haven't we heard from Dina? They're living in this little town by themselves. They're both from Texas. She's from Seymour or her family lives there.
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Speaker 2: And I'm guessing their kids don't live in that same area.
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Speaker 1: It's just them. It's just this like post-retirement chapter that they've started.
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Speaker 2: It sounds like they're like young and healthy for retirees, still active, living their lives. There was no medical reason why people should be concerned about them. Yeah. That we know of. Exactly.
00:05:33
Speaker 1: And Cloudcroft, like I mentioned, is a small town. And so people do notice when you're coming and going or if you're not there. A lot of people live there year round, even though it's, you know, maybe there's not like this booming economy. So you could have a second home there. But they're quick to notice police presence. And so on the evening of May 12th, 2025, following this 911 call, Two officers arrived at the mountainside home belonging to Craig Thetford and his wife, Dina. And watching the body cam footage, it's late in the evening. I think it's around 8 p.m. The sun is like mostly going down, but it's the summertime. And the police get out of the car. They immediately start announcing themselves sheriff's office sheriff's office no response most of the bottom level is the garage area and then there's like a back part that they'll go into later but their vehicles look like they're in there there's some lights on at the house They look inside the window and see some boxes. So they're thinking maybe they went on a trip or maybe they're packing to move again. But nothing concerning. It's not like they're seeing a bunch of like blood on the wall, lamps knocked over. And these are adults like they can come and go as they please. So. They knock on the door. There's no answer. And it's rural, but you can still like walk to your neighbor's house. So that's what they do. They just decide, OK, we're going to walk to the nearest house and see if they can tell us anything. And something about Otero County is that only 10 percent of it is privately owned. So that's how small it is. The rest of the county is made up of sovereign tribal land, federal land, which is, you know, military installations and state land. So the houses aren't squished together, but you know who lives around you. And so before this officer can even get to the front door of the neighbor's house, he's walking out to greet him. And he knows why he's there. He's like, I'm really worried. He's like, I haven't seen or heard from Craig in a long time.
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Speaker 2: Wow.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, like, so now the officer, you can tell, is a little bit like, okay, well, tell me more. And this guy says that he is actually a volunteer firefighter for the James Canyon Volunteer Fire Department. And when he stopped hearing from Craig, it was January of 2025.
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Speaker 2: And had they been in contact regularly before that?
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Speaker 1: All the time. He said they were great friends. Really? They were volunteer firefighters together, that they were super passionate about doing that.
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Speaker 2: And in five months, he hadn't like... Hadn't heard from him. And hadn't thought to call the police or anything? Yeah, I wondered about that. But I also wonder if.
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Speaker 1: It's like sort of a, you know, like it would suck to be wrong about that. And then it's like.
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Speaker 2: Then you're invasive. You're being invasive in your neighbor's life.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. And because they did travel a lot, I wonder if that played into it. Like, well, they go on a lot of trips and he doesn't need to tell me where he's going. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, he said that they were in constant contact. They saw each other all the time on calls for the volunteer fire department and hung out a lot because they're neighbors and then just nothing except for a few text messages. And he's like, but he wouldn't get on the phone. So the texts kind of fizzle out anyway.
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Speaker 2: Had he seen Dina?
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Speaker 1: He had seen Dina a little bit, but she didn't seem like she was acting abnormally at all. So the sheriff's office is just sort of like they're taking some notes. This is all on body cam. And this neighbor says that actually Craig had been sick briefly in January and that he had been sick as well. So maybe something's going around. And that was kind of the last time they saw each other. It's like they were both sick out and then just didn't see each other again. So. Craig and Dina did live in Cloudcroft year-round, but like I said, they traveled a lot. So the officers are taking all of this with a grain of salt. They continue down the road to talk to another neighbor. And just like the last one, these people are very nervous. These neighbors are actually a little more forward with their concerns. They're like, something weird is going on over there. We don't know what. We haven't seen Craig. We haven't heard from Craig. And they also say that Dina has been at the house as recently as three weeks ago.
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Speaker 2: Interesting.
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Speaker 1: Interesting. Craig, they haven't seen or heard from him, at least verifiably, since January. Dina's been at the house as recently as mid-April.
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Speaker 2: Did they talk with Dina?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and they said that she just, you know, would kind of come and go and wave and she's friendly. But that was that. So officers try to call Dina, get some information. and they're unable to reach her. But you can tell that the officers who are talking to the neighbors are like, OK, this is not good. It's not going somewhere good. And they finally get another call where they're able to learn a little bit more about Dina and what's going on. And it's from Craig's grandson. Now, separate from Craig's longtime business partner and friend who made that initial call, Craig's grandson calls. And he's like, my grandfather, Craig, did not call his mother on Mother's Day. And that's how we know something is wrong. And he's like, he would never, ever do that. Okay.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And so the whole family now back in Texas is like, what is going on? But they can't reach Dina. She's pretty much stopped communicating with them. Wow.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Except for Dina did go visit Craig's mother on Mother's Day. So they're like, what is happening here? Where is Craig? Because they didn't know she's going over there. They would all be like, what's going on with Craig? So weird. So Dina ends up calling the sheriff's department back and they're like, yeah, we're just, you know, people are a little worried about Craig. Do you know anything? And she's like, well, not really. We're separated. He met someone.
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Speaker 2: Wow.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. And she's like, you know, those boxes, he's packing up and leaving. And they're like, okay, well, where is he? And she said that he was in Mexico. And they're like, oh, well, what was he doing there? And she said he was trophy fishing and that he was out with all these other, she said youngsters, like multiple young women. Oh, okay. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: He's fishing with young women. Right.
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Speaker 1: You know, young women, they love to fish. They love to fish. Yeah. And so this callback from Dina is not reassuring, but, you know, what else can they say? These people are going through a divorce. So Dina agrees, like, yeah, it's weird that he hasn't been in touch, but I don't know what to tell you because I can't reach him either. So listening to this phone call, I'm like, if I'm Dina in that moment, I'm irritated. I'm like, OK, you're leaving me. You're with these other women. You're out in Mexico. But can you just put your family's worries to rest and call them? Like, what's that have to do with us?
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Speaker 2: Right. Right.
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Speaker 1: Because now I have this like thorn in my side of investigators showing up wondering where you are. Yeah. And I have to air all of our dirty laundry to the sheriff's office. Totally.
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Speaker 2: I'm dealing with enough here. Now I'm having to deal with all of this.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. But there's none of that. She doesn't ask. You know, they're like, we're going to have to report him missing. She says, well, I don't think he's missing. I think he's in Mexico. And they're like, well, we can't reach him.
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Speaker 2: This whole thing sounds suspicious.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: Very suspicious.
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Speaker 2: And the fact that he's in Mexico, sort of conveniently out of the country.
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Speaker 1: A little harder to get to. It's very vague. Like, okay, Mexico.
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Speaker 2: Could be true.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:12:44
Speaker 2: But like, yeah. Raises some red flags.
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Speaker 1: Definitely raises red flags. So the officer gets this story from Dina and she's like, I know he's in Mexico because he's using our credit cards.
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Speaker 2: Oh, OK.
00:12:58
Speaker 1: And he's like, oh, OK, well, that could be that's like maybe the first moment of maybe he is in Mexico. Yeah. She can see what he's spending money on. But she said she last saw him a couple of weeks earlier. So that would be early May, late April, which is a very different timeline from the neighbors. And she said he came to the house in Cloudcroft to pack up his things and then he was leaving again. So the officer is like, well, what was he wearing the last time you saw him? And she said he was wearing a big dog shirt. I don't know what that is.
00:13:31
Speaker 2: Is that a brand?
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Speaker 1: She didn't go into detail, but some sort of like big dog shirt.
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Speaker 2: Big dog? Wait, I gotta look this up real quick. I mean, it does look like there's a clothing brand called BigDogs.com.
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Speaker 1: Okay, wow.
00:13:45
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is really it. It's like t-shirts with pictures of large dogs on them.
00:13:51
Speaker 1: I mean, it may have been the only morsel of truth that she tells officers this entire time. So... Dina hangs up on the officer. She gets kind of irritated. And I don't know if she like outwardly is like, I'm done with this conversation. But she hangs up. He calls back. She doesn't answer. Now, that conversation with Dina took place three days after that initial wellness check.
00:14:17
Speaker 2: And then the.
00:14:18
Speaker 1: Sheriff's office does something really smart. They call in Deputy Roger Schoolcraft. And this is the person that I spoke with briefly before this all had come to be resolved. But Dina's back in town. A neighbor tips them off. Dina's back from Texas. She'd been in Seymour with her mom. And so he goes over to the house. And Roger on the body cam footage, I mean, he just sounds so disarming and unassuming and like approachable. It's a small town. Dina's like, I recognize you. We met at a football game. And Roger's like, oh, that sounds right. And he's like, you know, can we sit down for a second? First of all, she answers the door like wrapped in a blanket. she just seems ultra relaxed. And she's, you know, she's not done up or anything. She's like, yeah, come on in. They sit down and Roger's just kind of asking her the same questions this initial officer did on this phone call. And she's just talking and talking and talking. It's like she had no concern, you can tell, during this conversation that anyone suspected anything. And he's just letting her talk.
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Speaker 2: Does he suspect that she's involved in something at this point?
00:15:31
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if he did when he initially went to the house, but it doesn't take long for her story to start not making sense with what she previously told people.
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Speaker 2: Okay.
00:15:42
Speaker 1: You know, she had mentioned that she last saw him three weeks ago. Right. Which would be, I guess, the end of April.
00:15:48
Speaker 2: Because he came back to the house to pack up all of his things.
00:15:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. And she gives a date that's like a week after that.
00:15:54
Speaker 2: Interesting.
00:15:55
Speaker 1: And so Roger does something that's like It's so smooth the way he does it in this conversation. He's like, well, a little bit about me is I was actually retired for a couple of years and I just got so, you know, stir crazy. I decided to come back to work. And I used to be a homicide detective in Albuquerque and just sort of leaves it hanging. And she just kind of looks at him like, oh, OK. So there's a homicide detective sitting in her living room like she knows now.
00:16:25
Speaker 2: Does her demeanor change at that point?
00:16:27
Speaker 1: She kind of takes a breath and goes right back into like cool, calm, collected. But because like I know what I'm watching, it's like you can see it on her face that she's a little bit like, oh, this is not good for me.
00:16:40
Speaker 2: Right.
00:16:41
Speaker 1: But she just keeps talking and he asks her some questions like, how long have you guys been together? It's, you know, well over 10 years they've been together. She also tells Roger that Craig is her fourth husband. Okay. And she said something interesting in that conversation. She's like, oh, I just make a joke of it, but I eventually realized I'm the common denominator. So he's just like, oh, yeah, like laughing it off. And he just starts talking about his police work and kind of like, okay, I'm going to mirror her and like share because she's sharing and really make her feel comfortable.
00:17:13
Speaker 2: So this is body cam footage that you've watched?
00:17:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay.
00:17:16
Speaker 2: And what does she look like?
00:17:18
Speaker 1: She is petite, blonde, very blonde, and... She just looks like, you know, your average, like, youngish grandma.
00:17:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:17:29
Speaker 1: And she seems very approachable and charismatic.
00:17:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, when I hear that she's from West Texas, I'm like, yeah, of course she's like, come on in, and like chatting with him and very friendly. That feels very culturally aligned with West Texas.
00:17:46
Speaker 1: She offered him coffee. She's like, I was just about to make some coffee, and Roger's like, I would love some coffee.
00:17:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: And by all accounts, like she was someone people liked to be around until they got to know her.
00:17:58
Speaker 2: Oh, really?
00:17:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Roger immediately clocks some inconsistencies in the timeline that she's giving him. He then is like, well, how are you paying for things? Because she's like, I don't have access to the money. He kept all the money in a safe and it's all cash. Then she mentions that she is paying the utility bills online. So it's like, OK, so you do have access to accounts. but you don't have access to this safe. The timeline you're giving me is a little off. So he's just not buying it. But still, they don't really have enough to say, we're going to take you down to the station. At this point, it's still way better for them to just keep building this relationship and this rapport and try to get information. And then Dina brings over something that she clearly thinks is like... Her, I don't know what the right word is, almost like an alibi or something. She brings over a whiteboard. Okay. And she's like, this is where we would leave notes for each other to communicate. And on the whiteboard and scratchy handwriting, it's like, I'm in El Salto. Maybe we can talk when I get back. And that's, you know, the place where she says he's fishing in Mexico. And she's like, your family's really worried about you. And the handwriting is really different. And he's like, so that's Craig and that's you. And she's like, mm-hmm, yep. And he's like, OK. You know, he's like, well, it's just a whiteboard. But I thought it was funny, too, because she goes up and gets the whiteboard off the wall and brings it to him. And I know that a little whiteboard isn't it's not like a heavy, cumbersome thing to do. But if I would just think you'd bring someone to a whiteboard.
00:19:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's very clearly like, look at this evidence.
00:19:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like, let me present this to you. And, you know, you get the sense looking back, Roger probably feels the same way. So now we know that neighbors haven't seen or heard from Craig since January. And also Dina said he left that message on the whiteboard on March 28th. But then she had also said maybe he was there a few weeks ago getting more clothing. So nothing is adding up. And Roger now knows, well, she's on her fourth husband. We should probably find out why.
00:20:02
Speaker 2: Do they look into the three other husbands and make sure that they're you know, alive and well and driving.
00:20:09
Speaker 1: And they are all alive.
00:20:10
Speaker 2: Okay, great.
00:20:11
Speaker 1: But it sounds like narrowly.
00:20:13
Speaker 2: What? Yeah.
00:20:15
Speaker 1: One said that she tried to stab him with a kitchen knife. Another one said that she tried to run him over with a car. Another one said that she tried to shoot him, but the gun wasn't loaded. It was his gun in the nightstand. He's like, I never kept it loaded because I didn't trust her.
00:20:29
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.
00:20:30
Speaker 1: And apparently she is extremely volatile and violent when she's drinking. which is often.
00:20:37
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:20:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so before Roger leaves that day, she's also said, well, those boxes, that was him packing up all of his clothes because he's moving out because we're separating. She's talking about, I want to get the house. I'm going to ask him for the house. So kind of making it sound like That's maybe why he's avoiding me is because he's avoiding this process because he knows he's going to have to give some stuff up.
00:20:57
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:20:58
Speaker 1: Which, you know, I've never been through a divorce, but, like, we've all heard that story a million times. Like, some people drag these things out because they're unpleasant and they can or whatever. Then she says, can I say something off the record? Which, like, if you're talking to a cop about your missing husband, like, it's.
00:21:16
Speaker 2: Not off the record. This is not a reporter.
00:21:17
Speaker 1: But he's like, yes, yes, you can.
00:21:19
Speaker 2: And so.
00:21:21
Speaker 1: She's like, there's a bunch of cash in our safe because he doesn't like to keep money in the bank. I don't have the code, but I don't know if that's something you guys are looking into because he's missing, if he took all this cash or not. And he's like, you don't have the code anywhere? And she's like, no. And Roger's like, well, I don't know that we can get into that today, but I can make a note of it. But of course, he's like, we need to get into the safe. But he does ask her to show him the safe. And they walk downstairs and it's this big, big it's a very serious safe I think Roger said it would be an act of God to break into it okay there's a hot tub next to it and she's like oh Craig got me that as a present but now I don't know if I'll get to keep it and he's like you know these people have some money like they're enjoying their life this isn't making sense so Roger leaves keeps digging talks to the ex-husbands and then learns through their investigation that she's been spending a lot of money and she's been spending cash. And one of the things she bought was a house in Texas where she's from in Seymour. She also bought a blue Mustang and she's paying cash. So where is it coming from if you don't have the code to the safe? So five days later, Roger goes back to the house again. Dina's still there. And when he walks up, because, you know, his body cam is recording from the moment he gets out of the car. He turns, and you can see he's looking at, I mean, what's it called? I'm just hearing that blippy excavator song. It looks like a tractor with a scooper on it. Is that an excavator? But it's like, okay, you're trying to dig a big hole in the ground. Like, this is a piece of equipment that she would have had to rent somewhere. And she is, in fact, digging a big hole in the ground. She's not physically on it in that moment, but there's, you can see, a hole in progress.
00:23:07
Speaker 2: In the front yard? In the backyard?
00:23:09
Speaker 1: In the front yard, next to a shed. And so Roger goes in and just to keep it light, he's like, so what are you burying? What are you putting in the ground? And she's like, oh, nothing. I'm going to put rocks down and then it's going to be a gardening bed. And he's like, okay. But like you're, you know, in the process of a divorce, you don't know who's going to get this house. Like what?
00:23:30
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:23:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so in regards to the safe, they now know she's spending a lot of money, but they don't know where she's getting it because she said she can't access the safe. And They're continuing to have conversations with the neighbors. And the neighbor who was a volunteer firefighter with Craig said that Craig knew it was a dangerous job. And he mentioned at one point that he had a lot of cash stored so that Dina would have it and she had access to it if anything ever happened to him.
00:23:57
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:23:58
Speaker 1: So directly contradicting. She can get into that safe. She can get into the safe. Another neighbor says that Dina and Craig had explosive fights, especially if Dina was drinking. You know, we know that her ex-husbands don't have nice things to say about her. It's just, it's not looking good.
00:24:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:24:16
Speaker 1: But the real bombshell comes from Dina's own close family member who calls in two crime stoppers with really damning information. She tells the story of a Dina who is abusive to her children. Oof. And said that Dina told her that she got into a fight with Craig. This was Dina's story. We don't know what happened. She said Craig pushed her down the stairs and so Dina shot him three times. and then moved his body from their home to the carport. And then shortly after that, another friend of Dina's, a longtime friend back in Texas, calls and says the same thing. So she's now said the same story to two people.
00:25:03
Speaker 2: So she's told people, I shot him, I killed him, I moved his body. To the carport. The carport is like an open.
00:25:11
Speaker 1: Theirs is like, it's closed. I don't know. It's like a big work garage, but they're calling it the carport. And in that very first call, when officers arrived at the house for the wellness check, one of them notes a strange smell. Okay. But there's wildlife everywhere. Right. They don't know what the smell is.
00:25:31
Speaker 2: And it had been a long time.
00:25:33
Speaker 1: Had been a long time. Yeah.
00:25:34
Speaker 2: When did she reveal this to two people in her life?
00:25:38
Speaker 1: I'm guessing it happened in the spring because no one had heard from Craig since January. And in both instances, I suspect she'd been drinking when she was talking about it.
00:25:49
Speaker 2: Okay. But then maybe they weren't sure if she was telling the truth because they waited a few months to call.
00:25:57
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, I think there was also a fear of her and wronging her.
00:26:03
Speaker 2: Also, it sounds like she's this little lady and she moved... A dead body?
00:26:09
Speaker 1: She told them that she rolled it up in a carpet and drug it across to the carport. Yeah. And so it's a good question, right? Because if someone tells me that story, and I know they have a history of violence and drinking, why am I waiting to call? But people like that can also have probably conditioned you to be scared of them. And so it's just hard to say what anyone would do in that situation. Because if you're wrong, then you've really angered someone who you think is dangerous. Yeah.
00:26:37
Speaker 2: And they're your family member. You're going to see them. They know where you live.
00:26:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I'm not using this person's name because I know they made the tip anonymously to Crimestoppers, but their name is now everywhere. And their relationship to her is now everywhere. Yeah. Same with this friend of hers. And I just, I don't know how to feel about that. It's like, we'll get more into it, but... So investigators, their suspicions are all but confirmed. Like, Dina has done something to Craig, and she's not telling us the full story here. But they don't have anything to charge her with yet because they haven't found Craig.
00:27:11
Speaker 2: Nobody. Nobody. No crime.
00:27:12
Speaker 1: Right. And so they could charge her theoretically and try to make a case out of it. But, you know, here's a guy who keeps a lot of money in cash. He could probably just disappear if he wants to.
00:27:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's another version of this story where she's... been volatile and he's finally had enough and he does peace out and go to Mexico and is like, I don't want to talk to you or be around you.
00:27:35
Speaker 1: Right. Like you're scary.
00:27:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:27:37
Speaker 1: I mean, think about all the things she did to her exes. Like what must she have done to him? So yeah, it's not like this impossible theory, even though it didn't fit his character at all to go out of contact with people. Right. So things then take another turn because Dina goes back to Texas where she's staying with her mother and she attempts to end her life.
00:27:58
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
00:27:59
Speaker 1: And so they're like, we need to charge her because if she does end up dying, like, we may never find out what happened. Yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker 2: And we need to get into the carport. They haven't searched the carport yet?
00:28:09
Speaker 1: No, it's locked up and they want to do it the right way so they can use everything. So they're trying to get a search warrant.
00:28:14
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:28:15
Speaker 1: Well, this makes it so time is really of the essence and they get the search warrant. He's in the carport. The remains are in the carport. Oh. He's covered in a tarp and like mothballs. And she clearly had plans to do something else with his remains. But I mean, for months.
00:28:32
Speaker 2: That's horrible.
00:28:33
Speaker 1: That's horrible to think about. It's actually like so bizarre, too, because just sleeping in the house alone in the woods, I'm like. Yeah, I'm an adult. I don't lay awake at night worried about ghosts. But like, come on, are you not scared of anything? There's a body in your carport and you're just going to sleep at night? Like, that's just so scary and strange.
00:28:55
Speaker 2: It seems like she probably thought it was safer to just leave his body there. But then once the detective started to come around, she immediately went out and rented this industrial digger and started digging up the backyard or front yard, which is Quite brazen. Yeah. Such bad planning. Yeah.
00:29:13
Speaker 1: Very confident person to do that. I mean, police are regularly visiting her house. Yeah. Like, what? And so once they find Craig's remains, it's very clear he has been dead since January, which is the last time his friends and family had really verifiably seen or heard from him. They are able to then break into the safe and they find $ 84, 000 in cash. They find guns and they find a lot of cleaning supplies.
00:29:39
Speaker 2: So.
00:29:40
Speaker 1: They're pretty confident that this story that she told her friend and family member is probably some version of what actually happened. And through their forensic investigation with their finances, they determined that she spent $ 1. 5 million since January 2025 to June. purchasing cars and homes. She told law enforcement and family that he was in Mexico, but he actually hadn't gone to Mexico since 2023.
00:30:07
Speaker 2: Wow. So there had been much more money in that safe. She'd spent $ 1. 5 million of it.
00:30:13
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:30:14
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay.
00:30:15
Speaker 1: Very quickly. And so Dina was, of course, then the person behind all these text messages to friends and family who thought they were communicating with Craig until months later when they're like, something is up. And so she's arrested and she pleads not guilty. She's like, I'm going to get a lawyer and fight this. Well, she's arrested and booked in jail on July 8th, 2025. And it takes a year for her to decide, maybe I'm not going to be able to fight this. And she ends up pleading guilty to second degree murder, tampering with evidence and forgery. I saw two ages for her at the time, 60 or 61 years old. And she was sentenced to 18 years.
00:30:59
Speaker 2: Okay. So that was just recently that she got guilty.
00:31:23
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think I agree. The more we work on these kinds of stories and learn about different sentences, it actually made me, I'm going to get back to the Craig Thetford case in a minute, but, or Dina Thetford case, but it made me think of Brian Barker, who I talked about a while ago, but he's that police officer who burglarized homes and businesses in Illinois, I think it was. He was sentenced to 40 years. Yeah.
00:31:50
Speaker 2: And no one got hurt.
00:31:51
Speaker 1: And no one got hurt. And he actually had a very traumatic life leading up to that, that, you know, I can't diagnose him, but I don't know. I think it's pretty clear that he was a troubled person who was conditioned to steal from people.
00:32:07
Speaker 2: Which, like, doesn't always come into play when it comes to sentencing, because You could argue that anyone that murders their spouse is a pretty troubled person who's had, you know, probably some trauma in their life, too.
00:32:18
Speaker 1: Totally.
00:32:18
Speaker 2: But, you know, you commit a crime and you gotta, like, serve time for it. But it's weird how varied those sentences can be. Like, she took a human life. And Brian Barker didn't.
00:32:32
Speaker 1: He stole things and he stole money, but he did not kill someone.
00:32:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:32:36
Speaker 1: And he's serving 40 years where she's got 18.
00:32:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wonder, I guess it's maybe because she pled guilty. They gave her some deal. But, you know, so if she's 60, she'll be 78 when she gets out. You can still live a long life. And if she's a healthy 78, she could also still be a dangerous person at that point. So it doesn't seem like a very long time, to be honest.
00:33:00
Speaker 1: No. I mean, 18 years for what she did, I think, feels like a lightweight sentence. And I know that these, especially probably in a smaller county, you have more limited resources. Are you going to spend all of your time getting your prosecutor ready for a trial? Or are you going to? Take a plea deal and put those resources elsewhere because you never know what could happen at trial.
00:33:21
Speaker 2: Right.
00:33:21
Speaker 1: So pretty nuts. But Craig Thetford's estate and family was also awarded a $ 143 million judgment from Dina Thetford for the wrongful death of Craig Thetford. I don't know how much of that they'll receive, right?
00:33:36
Speaker 2: How is she going to— does she have money to pay that?
00:33:38
Speaker 1: I think the reason for this lawsuit, this wrongful death lawsuit, was to prevent her from maintaining any assets that she would have acquired in the marriage or inheriting those. It's like, no.
00:33:51
Speaker 2: Everything that's left of theirs goes toward his family members.
00:33:55
Speaker 1: Right, right. Okay. Yeah, and so, you know, I would assume also she'll have to pay them a portion of any earnings she ever makes again. In his obituary, Craig Thetford, his date that he passed is listed as June 17, 2025, which is when his remains were found. He was born in 1964 in Ranger, Texas, and who's a son, brother, uncle, father, grandfather, and friend. And after retiring from his successful roofing business, he worked just as hard as a volunteer firefighter. protecting the wilderness that he loved.
00:34:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow.
00:34:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even Dina in her conversations with detectives, they were always suspicious of Dina, but they're like, does he have any enemies? And she's like, no, everyone loves him. He'd give everyone the shirt off his back. He's the most well-liked, hardworking person and treats everyone so well. And yeah, it's just, it's sad when someone goes missing or is murdered and the spouse is like, immediately questioned, but it's so often the case that something close to home happened that I understand it. It's like, it probably wouldn't have taken much for her to get away with this for even longer than she did.
00:35:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, she got away with it for a long time, honestly.
00:35:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:35:10
Speaker 2: I'm glad that she was caught.
00:35:11
Speaker 1: Definitely. So Roger was great and he's still working in Otero County.
00:35:16
Speaker 2: So you've been in contact with him and then was he able to speak to you once she pled guilty?
00:35:20
Speaker 1: I haven't spoken to him since. I just had that initial phone call with him when I was first poking around when I read about this case. And then I saw that it had been wrapped up and I was like, oh, I'm going to talk about this. Oh, okay.
00:35:32
Speaker 2: I see. I see.
00:35:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't think we would be able to schedule an interview because he's a very busy person. Right.
00:35:38
Speaker 2: Well, that's, yeah, that's an interesting story. Yeah. I've never heard of it.
00:35:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. Maybe we'll be hearing more as now that it's wrapped up and I would expect there to be something about it. But I also have a recommendation.
00:35:52
Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
00:35:53
Speaker 1: I just watched it actually on Hulu.
00:35:55
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:35:56
Speaker 1: It's a true crime documentary. It's by Investigation Discovery and it's a three-part docuseries called Big Girls Wanted Escaping Paradise. Paradise is spelled like the fruit, like P-E-A-R, paradise.
00:36:10
Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
00:36:11
Speaker 1: But It's an interesting documentary in that it explores the world of feeders, which I had never heard of. Basically, there's this man in Las Vegas who created Paradise, and it's a house, his house, where he just, he really loves what he describes as big women. And the story is told largely by a journalist and photojournalist who... Never felt like she fit in in the world because of her weight or never felt like she was fully accepted because of her weight. And so she went to explore it both as a journalist and as someone who resonated with like wanting to feel accepted and not judged by your body. Yeah. But when she got in there, she realized something else was happening. There was a lot of control with food, a lot of manipulation from her perspective and the perspective of other former members of Paradise. I don't know if they call themselves members, I guess. Cult vibes. Very much, to me, cult vibes and... A lot of death, like not a lot, but at least one death that a lot of the people in the documentary felt like was, you know, something that contributed to this person's death was the way that they were treated in the house. And there, I don't know if it would be classified as like something to do with a food addiction or not, but basically a lot of control. And there's a website that they talk about a lot in this documentary. I think it's called Phoebe. Let me look it up, actually. But it's people who are, yeah, Phoebe, obsessed with or fetishize eating. And for a lot of these women, their health was already at risk. And it was honestly bizarre. The man at the center of this, he participates in the documentary.
00:38:05
Speaker 2: Interesting.
00:38:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. But there's also a lot of footage of him eating. just saying and doing really awful things. So I don't know if it's just like, it's extremely confident. Wow. But I wonder.
00:38:17
Speaker 2: Do they interview people who like lived in this house previously and got out?
00:38:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. And people who still do and love being there.
00:38:25
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. How'd you find this?
00:38:28
Speaker 1: It was just on Hulu. And I was like, oh, my husband's traveling for work. I don't have to watch a golf tournament this weekend. No offense to golf. Yeah. And so I watched the whole thing and yeah, I would recommend it. I mean, look, it's a sad documentary, but I thought it was exposure to a world I hadn't seen before, was not familiar with. And I think also we're more inclusive now than we were before and our generation and certainly generations younger than us, especially are working toward like more inclusive language and Like we all grew up in the 90s, like Weight Watchers and just everything about being skinny.
00:39:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and just like trying to date. And if you fall into a category, a person who's being fetishized, like I have heard about this from some of my friends, some of my curvier friends, where like they'll get creepy messages from guys on dating apps who are just like, I want to feed you. And they're like, okay.
00:39:32
Speaker 1: That's so strange.
00:39:34
Speaker 2: Like, you're not seeing me as a person.
00:39:36
Speaker 1: Right.
00:39:36
Speaker 2: I'm just a fetish to you. And there's obviously a lot of different versions of that, right? But certain people in certain demographics have to field that a lot more than others. And I think there's probably just a lot of frustration and exhaustion that comes with that.
00:39:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a young woman in the documentary who talked about this being the first time in her life she ever felt like wanted by someone. And it's like heartbreaking because, you know, not to say that two things can't coexist, but if there's an exercise of control or maybe doing something that is not healthy, it's not a good balance. But yeah, it's called Big Girls Wanted, and it's on Hulu if you want to watch it.
00:40:19
Speaker 2: Cool. I do not have a recommendation for you today.
00:40:23
Speaker 1: You haven't just been watching or listening to things all weekend?
00:40:26
Speaker 2: I have watched stuff, but I feel like it's stuff that people already have heard of. You know, I watched the Crash documentary on Hulu, Mackenzie Shurella. But pretty much, if you're into true crime, I feel like you've probably watched that already.
00:40:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:40:41
Speaker 2: I thought it was well done. I thought it was interesting. Wait, did you watch it yet?
00:40:44
Speaker 1: No, I haven't watched it yet, but I need to. I feel like I did a lot of reading about that case when it first came out, but I definitely would like to watch it. I think that, and maybe this is answered in the documentary, I'm always shocked by teenagers driving and getting in wrecks that have done things before that are questionable because I feel like my parents would take my car away if I looked at them.
00:41:06
Speaker 2: The wrong way. Like, her parents basically gave her a lot of leeway. She was 17 living with her 19- or 20-year-old boyfriend, and they were like, great, you know.
00:41:17
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that wouldn't have flown in my household.
00:41:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think it was just, like, a very different— I mean, her dad has gotten a lot of flack. I read somewhere that he was let go from his job after this.
00:41:29
Speaker 1: Oh.
00:41:30
Speaker 2: And I have not confirmed that, so I don't know for sure, but there was, like, a lot of people that got mad at him because he's wearing a T-shirt— In the interview that says, like, in sort of, like, cartoon-y characters, it says, like, boom. Like, if you were to watch a cartoon of, whatever, Bugs Bunny running around, and then there's, like, a TNT, and it's like, boom.
00:41:48
Speaker 1: It's just in really bad taste.
00:41:50
Speaker 2: It's just in bad taste. And it's like, that probably doesn't mean anything, but it kind of, like, blew up on the internet. People were like, what the heck? How could he do that?
00:41:57
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
00:41:58
Speaker 2: And I don't know if there was other reasons, but.
00:42:00
Speaker 1: Because it's one thing to feel like you have to defend your child no matter what. Like, I think that's probably just this primal instinct that you have when you're a parent. But it's another to be insensitive to the harm that they've caused so blatantly.
00:42:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was interesting. I recommend it. And I like that it was just one. It was like an hour or something long. It was it wasn't like a three parter. If there's enough content for a three-parter, I'm all for it. But I sometimes feel like it's a little stretched out. Yeah, definitely. And it was nice that this was just like a one, sit down and watch it. I thought they did a really good job. We had talked about this case before. And then a few months before the documentary came out, I was revisiting it. I'm like, oh, I wonder if we could get more information about it now. And so I was doing a lot of outreach and research. called some of the victims' family members. They never answered, probably because they were like, hey, we already did this documentary. Yeah, we're not going to talk on your little podcast. Yeah. So anyway, it was a good watch. So I guess that is my recommendation. If you haven't seen it, check it out.
00:43:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, thanks for listening. We'll be back next week. If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it. Our email is thenife at exactlyrightmedia.com. Or you can follow us on Instagram at The Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at The Knife Podcast.
00:43:18
Speaker 2: This has been an Exactly Right production. Hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith.
00:43:22
Speaker 1: And me, Patia Eaton. Our producers are Tom Breifogel and Alexa Samorosi.
00:43:27
Speaker 2: This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.
00:43:29
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
00:43:32
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
00:43:34
Speaker 1: Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
00:43:36
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1: Hey, it's Payshett. Wanted to let you know that the Exactly Right Store is having an end-of-summer sale. From September 3rd through September 7th, use code SUMMERSALE to save up to 30% off storewide, including merch from The Knife. Spend $ 50 and save 20%, $ 75 and save 25%, or $ 100 and save 30%. Head to exactlyrightstore.com to shop. Some exclusions apply.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to The Knife Off Record. I'm Hannah Smith.
00:00:50
Speaker 1: I'm Pasha Eaton. And Hannah, today I have a story for you that came from actually a call I was making, like so many of these do, for a different episode. And I got in touch with a detective who had been working on the case I'm going to talk about. And he couldn't speak to me about it because everything was still pending. And it's no longer pending. I had a call with him and I'm going to.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: No longer pending. Yeah.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: So I'm going to be able to talk about the phone call, but we weren't able to schedule an interview. Okay. I was able to put this together with body cam footage and court records.
00:01:25
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:01:26
Speaker 1: So news articles plus a call with the detective who I think played an instrumental role in the case. Wow. It's so dark, but I think that it was really great police work. And I think this case is a really good lesson in trusting your instincts if you know something is wrong.
00:01:43
Speaker 2: Cool.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'll just get right into it then. Let's do it.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: And quick reminder that we do post updates on our social media accounts, so feel free to follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky at The Knife Podcast.
00:01:56
Speaker 1: So on May 12th, 2025, a call comes in to the non-emergency line at the Otero County Sheriff's Office saying, Otero County is in southern New Mexico.
00:02:08
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:02:08
Speaker 1: So it's a very rural area. And the man calling is actually from Texas. He sounds very concerned and with a lot of urgency, but he also sounds really frustrated. I mean, he sounds like no one's been listening to him. I don't know if it was the first call he'd made, but it's pretty clear that he's been trying to reach someone and he can't reach them.
00:02:29
Speaker 2: And is he calling from Texas or he's a Texan who's in Texas?
00:02:33
Speaker 1: He's calling from Texas.
00:02:35
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:02:35
Speaker 1: And he asks the dispatcher, who can I talk to about a wellness check for someone who lives in Otero County?
00:02:43
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: And the man he's interested in doing a wellness check on is Craig Thetford. And Craig is from the same town in Texas. He's from Breckenridge, Texas, but he's been living in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, with his wife, Dina.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: Where is Breckenridge? I've never heard of that town in Texas.
00:03:00
Speaker 1: I think it's in West Texas. I think it's like 90 minutes from Dallas, maybe.
00:03:05
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:03:06
Speaker 1: Maybe two hours from Dallas.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: Gotcha.
00:03:08
Speaker 1: So this man is really concerned because... Craig has not been reachable to him for two months. He had been able to exchange some text messages with him, but that was it. And Craig was usually someone who was really easy to get on the phone. Now, this call that he's making for a wellness check is in mid-May 2025. And he hasn't had a text from Craig in two months. He's really concerned. And adding to his concern, really compounding his sort of frustration in my interpretation of his call, is that he also now can't reach Dina, Craig's wife. So he's really concerned. And the dispatcher's like, OK, we'll send someone out to the house. And he's happy with that. They get off the phone. Now, this 911 caller is actually Craig's longtime friend and business partner. So he knows him really well.
00:03:59
Speaker 2: Are they still business partners at the time or like retired?
00:04:03
Speaker 1: Actually, Craig had retired. He had a roofing business and it was really successful. The roofing business was in Texas, where he's from. And he just decided to retire in New Mexico. They just found a place they really loved up in Cloudcroft. It's like a very rural place. tight-knit community, a mountain town. Sounds nice. Yeah. And they had been loving life up there. They lived in a three-story home. They had a lot of recreational vehicles, did a lot of outdoorsy fun trips together. By all accounts, his life was going really well. Like he was really reaping the benefits of a lot of hard work in his life. Okay. Yeah. So Craig and Dina had both been married before. They both had children from earlier relationships and they met over 10 years ago. They seem to really enjoy a lot of the same things, like being outdoors and hiking and fishing, all of those kinds of activities, maybe motorcycles. I saw some pictures of them with helmets on. I don't know if it was like ATVs or motorcycles, but that was like the vibe of the pictures on their Facebook page. And they look really happy. And so everyone's really confused. Like, why haven't we heard from Craig? Why haven't we heard from Dina? They're living in this little town by themselves. They're both from Texas. She's from Seymour or her family lives there.
00:05:14
Speaker 2: And I'm guessing their kids don't live in that same area.
00:05:17
Speaker 1: It's just them. It's just this like post-retirement chapter that they've started.
00:05:21
Speaker 2: It sounds like they're like young and healthy for retirees, still active, living their lives. There was no medical reason why people should be concerned about them. Yeah. That we know of. Exactly.
00:05:33
Speaker 1: And Cloudcroft, like I mentioned, is a small town. And so people do notice when you're coming and going or if you're not there. A lot of people live there year round, even though it's, you know, maybe there's not like this booming economy. So you could have a second home there. But they're quick to notice police presence. And so on the evening of May 12th, 2025, following this 911 call, Two officers arrived at the mountainside home belonging to Craig Thetford and his wife, Dina. And watching the body cam footage, it's late in the evening. I think it's around 8 p.m. The sun is like mostly going down, but it's the summertime. And the police get out of the car. They immediately start announcing themselves sheriff's office sheriff's office no response most of the bottom level is the garage area and then there's like a back part that they'll go into later but their vehicles look like they're in there there's some lights on at the house They look inside the window and see some boxes. So they're thinking maybe they went on a trip or maybe they're packing to move again. But nothing concerning. It's not like they're seeing a bunch of like blood on the wall, lamps knocked over. And these are adults like they can come and go as they please. So. They knock on the door. There's no answer. And it's rural, but you can still like walk to your neighbor's house. So that's what they do. They just decide, OK, we're going to walk to the nearest house and see if they can tell us anything. And something about Otero County is that only 10 percent of it is privately owned. So that's how small it is. The rest of the county is made up of sovereign tribal land, federal land, which is, you know, military installations and state land. So the houses aren't squished together, but you know who lives around you. And so before this officer can even get to the front door of the neighbor's house, he's walking out to greet him. And he knows why he's there. He's like, I'm really worried. He's like, I haven't seen or heard from Craig in a long time.
00:07:27
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:07:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, so now the officer, you can tell, is a little bit like, okay, well, tell me more. And this guy says that he is actually a volunteer firefighter for the James Canyon Volunteer Fire Department. And when he stopped hearing from Craig, it was January of 2025.
00:07:46
Speaker 2: And had they been in contact regularly before that?
00:07:49
Speaker 1: All the time. He said they were great friends. Really? They were volunteer firefighters together, that they were super passionate about doing that.
00:07:57
Speaker 2: And in five months, he hadn't like... Hadn't heard from him. And hadn't thought to call the police or anything? Yeah, I wondered about that. But I also wonder if.
00:08:06
Speaker 1: It's like sort of a, you know, like it would suck to be wrong about that. And then it's like.
00:08:12
Speaker 2: Then you're invasive. You're being invasive in your neighbor's life.
00:08:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. And because they did travel a lot, I wonder if that played into it. Like, well, they go on a lot of trips and he doesn't need to tell me where he's going. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, he said that they were in constant contact. They saw each other all the time on calls for the volunteer fire department and hung out a lot because they're neighbors and then just nothing except for a few text messages. And he's like, but he wouldn't get on the phone. So the texts kind of fizzle out anyway.
00:08:42
Speaker 2: Had he seen Dina?
00:08:43
Speaker 1: He had seen Dina a little bit, but she didn't seem like she was acting abnormally at all. So the sheriff's office is just sort of like they're taking some notes. This is all on body cam. And this neighbor says that actually Craig had been sick briefly in January and that he had been sick as well. So maybe something's going around. And that was kind of the last time they saw each other. It's like they were both sick out and then just didn't see each other again. So. Craig and Dina did live in Cloudcroft year-round, but like I said, they traveled a lot. So the officers are taking all of this with a grain of salt. They continue down the road to talk to another neighbor. And just like the last one, these people are very nervous. These neighbors are actually a little more forward with their concerns. They're like, something weird is going on over there. We don't know what. We haven't seen Craig. We haven't heard from Craig. And they also say that Dina has been at the house as recently as three weeks ago.
00:09:38
Speaker 2: Interesting.
00:09:39
Speaker 1: Interesting. Craig, they haven't seen or heard from him, at least verifiably, since January. Dina's been at the house as recently as mid-April.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: Did they talk with Dina?
00:09:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they said that she just, you know, would kind of come and go and wave and she's friendly. But that was that. So officers try to call Dina, get some information. and they're unable to reach her. But you can tell that the officers who are talking to the neighbors are like, OK, this is not good. It's not going somewhere good. And they finally get another call where they're able to learn a little bit more about Dina and what's going on. And it's from Craig's grandson. Now, separate from Craig's longtime business partner and friend who made that initial call, Craig's grandson calls. And he's like, my grandfather, Craig, did not call his mother on Mother's Day. And that's how we know something is wrong. And he's like, he would never, ever do that. Okay.
00:10:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:10:39
Speaker 1: And so the whole family now back in Texas is like, what is going on? But they can't reach Dina. She's pretty much stopped communicating with them. Wow.
00:10:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: Except for Dina did go visit Craig's mother on Mother's Day. So they're like, what is happening here? Where is Craig? Because they didn't know she's going over there. They would all be like, what's going on with Craig? So weird. So Dina ends up calling the sheriff's department back and they're like, yeah, we're just, you know, people are a little worried about Craig. Do you know anything? And she's like, well, not really. We're separated. He met someone.
00:11:12
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:11:13
Speaker 1: Yeah. And she's like, you know, those boxes, he's packing up and leaving. And they're like, okay, well, where is he? And she said that he was in Mexico. And they're like, oh, well, what was he doing there? And she said he was trophy fishing and that he was out with all these other, she said youngsters, like multiple young women. Oh, okay. Yeah.
00:11:39
Speaker 2: He's fishing with young women. Right.
00:11:41
Speaker 1: You know, young women, they love to fish. They love to fish. Yeah. And so this callback from Dina is not reassuring, but, you know, what else can they say? These people are going through a divorce. So Dina agrees, like, yeah, it's weird that he hasn't been in touch, but I don't know what to tell you because I can't reach him either. So listening to this phone call, I'm like, if I'm Dina in that moment, I'm irritated. I'm like, OK, you're leaving me. You're with these other women. You're out in Mexico. But can you just put your family's worries to rest and call them? Like, what's that have to do with us?
00:12:14
Speaker 2: Right. Right.
00:12:15
Speaker 1: Because now I have this like thorn in my side of investigators showing up wondering where you are. Yeah. And I have to air all of our dirty laundry to the sheriff's office. Totally.
00:12:23
Speaker 2: I'm dealing with enough here. Now I'm having to deal with all of this.
00:12:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. But there's none of that. She doesn't ask. You know, they're like, we're going to have to report him missing. She says, well, I don't think he's missing. I think he's in Mexico. And they're like, well, we can't reach him.
00:12:34
Speaker 2: This whole thing sounds suspicious.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: Very suspicious.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: And the fact that he's in Mexico, sort of conveniently out of the country.
00:12:40
Speaker 1: A little harder to get to. It's very vague. Like, okay, Mexico.
00:12:43
Speaker 2: Could be true.
00:12:44
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:12:44
Speaker 2: But like, yeah. Raises some red flags.
00:12:48
Speaker 1: Definitely raises red flags. So the officer gets this story from Dina and she's like, I know he's in Mexico because he's using our credit cards.
00:12:57
Speaker 2: Oh, OK.
00:12:58
Speaker 1: And he's like, oh, OK, well, that could be that's like maybe the first moment of maybe he is in Mexico. Yeah. She can see what he's spending money on. But she said she last saw him a couple of weeks earlier. So that would be early May, late April, which is a very different timeline from the neighbors. And she said he came to the house in Cloudcroft to pack up his things and then he was leaving again. So the officer is like, well, what was he wearing the last time you saw him? And she said he was wearing a big dog shirt. I don't know what that is.
00:13:31
Speaker 2: Is that a brand?
00:13:33
Speaker 1: She didn't go into detail, but some sort of like big dog shirt.
00:13:36
Speaker 2: Big dog? Wait, I gotta look this up real quick. I mean, it does look like there's a clothing brand called BigDogs.com.
00:13:44
Speaker 1: Okay, wow.
00:13:45
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is really it. It's like t-shirts with pictures of large dogs on them.
00:13:51
Speaker 1: I mean, it may have been the only morsel of truth that she tells officers this entire time. So... Dina hangs up on the officer. She gets kind of irritated. And I don't know if she like outwardly is like, I'm done with this conversation. But she hangs up. He calls back. She doesn't answer. Now, that conversation with Dina took place three days after that initial wellness check.
00:14:17
Speaker 2: And then the.
00:14:18
Speaker 1: Sheriff's office does something really smart. They call in Deputy Roger Schoolcraft. And this is the person that I spoke with briefly before this all had come to be resolved. But Dina's back in town. A neighbor tips them off. Dina's back from Texas. She'd been in Seymour with her mom. And so he goes over to the house. And Roger on the body cam footage, I mean, he just sounds so disarming and unassuming and like approachable. It's a small town. Dina's like, I recognize you. We met at a football game. And Roger's like, oh, that sounds right. And he's like, you know, can we sit down for a second? First of all, she answers the door like wrapped in a blanket. she just seems ultra relaxed. And she's, you know, she's not done up or anything. She's like, yeah, come on in. They sit down and Roger's just kind of asking her the same questions this initial officer did on this phone call. And she's just talking and talking and talking. It's like she had no concern, you can tell, during this conversation that anyone suspected anything. And he's just letting her talk.
00:15:26
Speaker 2: Does he suspect that she's involved in something at this point?
00:15:31
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if he did when he initially went to the house, but it doesn't take long for her story to start not making sense with what she previously told people.
00:15:41
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:15:42
Speaker 1: You know, she had mentioned that she last saw him three weeks ago. Right. Which would be, I guess, the end of April.
00:15:48
Speaker 2: Because he came back to the house to pack up all of his things.
00:15:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. And she gives a date that's like a week after that.
00:15:54
Speaker 2: Interesting.
00:15:55
Speaker 1: And so Roger does something that's like It's so smooth the way he does it in this conversation. He's like, well, a little bit about me is I was actually retired for a couple of years and I just got so, you know, stir crazy. I decided to come back to work. And I used to be a homicide detective in Albuquerque and just sort of leaves it hanging. And she just kind of looks at him like, oh, OK. So there's a homicide detective sitting in her living room like she knows now.
00:16:25
Speaker 2: Does her demeanor change at that point?
00:16:27
Speaker 1: She kind of takes a breath and goes right back into like cool, calm, collected. But because like I know what I'm watching, it's like you can see it on her face that she's a little bit like, oh, this is not good for me.
00:16:40
Speaker 2: Right.
00:16:41
Speaker 1: But she just keeps talking and he asks her some questions like, how long have you guys been together? It's, you know, well over 10 years they've been together. She also tells Roger that Craig is her fourth husband. Okay. And she said something interesting in that conversation. She's like, oh, I just make a joke of it, but I eventually realized I'm the common denominator. So he's just like, oh, yeah, like laughing it off. And he just starts talking about his police work and kind of like, okay, I'm going to mirror her and like share because she's sharing and really make her feel comfortable.
00:17:13
Speaker 2: So this is body cam footage that you've watched?
00:17:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay.
00:17:16
Speaker 2: And what does she look like?
00:17:18
Speaker 1: She is petite, blonde, very blonde, and... She just looks like, you know, your average, like, youngish grandma.
00:17:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:17:29
Speaker 1: And she seems very approachable and charismatic.
00:17:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, when I hear that she's from West Texas, I'm like, yeah, of course she's like, come on in, and like chatting with him and very friendly. That feels very culturally aligned with West Texas.
00:17:46
Speaker 1: She offered him coffee. She's like, I was just about to make some coffee, and Roger's like, I would love some coffee.
00:17:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: And by all accounts, like she was someone people liked to be around until they got to know her.
00:17:58
Speaker 2: Oh, really?
00:17:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Roger immediately clocks some inconsistencies in the timeline that she's giving him. He then is like, well, how are you paying for things? Because she's like, I don't have access to the money. He kept all the money in a safe and it's all cash. Then she mentions that she is paying the utility bills online. So it's like, OK, so you do have access to accounts. but you don't have access to this safe. The timeline you're giving me is a little off. So he's just not buying it. But still, they don't really have enough to say, we're going to take you down to the station. At this point, it's still way better for them to just keep building this relationship and this rapport and try to get information. And then Dina brings over something that she clearly thinks is like... Her, I don't know what the right word is, almost like an alibi or something. She brings over a whiteboard. Okay. And she's like, this is where we would leave notes for each other to communicate. And on the whiteboard and scratchy handwriting, it's like, I'm in El Salto. Maybe we can talk when I get back. And that's, you know, the place where she says he's fishing in Mexico. And she's like, your family's really worried about you. And the handwriting is really different. And he's like, so that's Craig and that's you. And she's like, mm-hmm, yep. And he's like, OK. You know, he's like, well, it's just a whiteboard. But I thought it was funny, too, because she goes up and gets the whiteboard off the wall and brings it to him. And I know that a little whiteboard isn't it's not like a heavy, cumbersome thing to do. But if I would just think you'd bring someone to a whiteboard.
00:19:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's very clearly like, look at this evidence.
00:19:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like, let me present this to you. And, you know, you get the sense looking back, Roger probably feels the same way. So now we know that neighbors haven't seen or heard from Craig since January. And also Dina said he left that message on the whiteboard on March 28th. But then she had also said maybe he was there a few weeks ago getting more clothing. So nothing is adding up. And Roger now knows, well, she's on her fourth husband. We should probably find out why.
00:20:02
Speaker 2: Do they look into the three other husbands and make sure that they're you know, alive and well and driving.
00:20:09
Speaker 1: And they are all alive.
00:20:10
Speaker 2: Okay, great.
00:20:11
Speaker 1: But it sounds like narrowly.
00:20:13
Speaker 2: What? Yeah.
00:20:15
Speaker 1: One said that she tried to stab him with a kitchen knife. Another one said that she tried to run him over with a car. Another one said that she tried to shoot him, but the gun wasn't loaded. It was his gun in the nightstand. He's like, I never kept it loaded because I didn't trust her.
00:20:29
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.
00:20:30
Speaker 1: And apparently she is extremely volatile and violent when she's drinking. which is often.
00:20:37
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:20:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so before Roger leaves that day, she's also said, well, those boxes, that was him packing up all of his clothes because he's moving out because we're separating. She's talking about, I want to get the house. I'm going to ask him for the house. So kind of making it sound like That's maybe why he's avoiding me is because he's avoiding this process because he knows he's going to have to give some stuff up.
00:20:57
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:20:58
Speaker 1: Which, you know, I've never been through a divorce, but, like, we've all heard that story a million times. Like, some people drag these things out because they're unpleasant and they can or whatever. Then she says, can I say something off the record? Which, like, if you're talking to a cop about your missing husband, like, it's.
00:21:16
Speaker 2: Not off the record. This is not a reporter.
00:21:17
Speaker 1: But he's like, yes, yes, you can.
00:21:19
Speaker 2: And so.
00:21:21
Speaker 1: She's like, there's a bunch of cash in our safe because he doesn't like to keep money in the bank. I don't have the code, but I don't know if that's something you guys are looking into because he's missing, if he took all this cash or not. And he's like, you don't have the code anywhere? And she's like, no. And Roger's like, well, I don't know that we can get into that today, but I can make a note of it. But of course, he's like, we need to get into the safe. But he does ask her to show him the safe. And they walk downstairs and it's this big, big it's a very serious safe I think Roger said it would be an act of God to break into it okay there's a hot tub next to it and she's like oh Craig got me that as a present but now I don't know if I'll get to keep it and he's like you know these people have some money like they're enjoying their life this isn't making sense so Roger leaves keeps digging talks to the ex-husbands and then learns through their investigation that she's been spending a lot of money and she's been spending cash. And one of the things she bought was a house in Texas where she's from in Seymour. She also bought a blue Mustang and she's paying cash. So where is it coming from if you don't have the code to the safe? So five days later, Roger goes back to the house again. Dina's still there. And when he walks up, because, you know, his body cam is recording from the moment he gets out of the car. He turns, and you can see he's looking at, I mean, what's it called? I'm just hearing that blippy excavator song. It looks like a tractor with a scooper on it. Is that an excavator? But it's like, okay, you're trying to dig a big hole in the ground. Like, this is a piece of equipment that she would have had to rent somewhere. And she is, in fact, digging a big hole in the ground. She's not physically on it in that moment, but there's, you can see, a hole in progress.
00:23:07
Speaker 2: In the front yard? In the backyard?
00:23:09
Speaker 1: In the front yard, next to a shed. And so Roger goes in and just to keep it light, he's like, so what are you burying? What are you putting in the ground? And she's like, oh, nothing. I'm going to put rocks down and then it's going to be a gardening bed. And he's like, okay. But like you're, you know, in the process of a divorce, you don't know who's going to get this house. Like what?
00:23:30
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:23:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so in regards to the safe, they now know she's spending a lot of money, but they don't know where she's getting it because she said she can't access the safe. And They're continuing to have conversations with the neighbors. And the neighbor who was a volunteer firefighter with Craig said that Craig knew it was a dangerous job. And he mentioned at one point that he had a lot of cash stored so that Dina would have it and she had access to it if anything ever happened to him.
00:23:57
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:23:58
Speaker 1: So directly contradicting. She can get into that safe. She can get into the safe. Another neighbor says that Dina and Craig had explosive fights, especially if Dina was drinking. You know, we know that her ex-husbands don't have nice things to say about her. It's just, it's not looking good.
00:24:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:24:16
Speaker 1: But the real bombshell comes from Dina's own close family member who calls in two crime stoppers with really damning information. She tells the story of a Dina who is abusive to her children. Oof. And said that Dina told her that she got into a fight with Craig. This was Dina's story. We don't know what happened. She said Craig pushed her down the stairs and so Dina shot him three times. and then moved his body from their home to the carport. And then shortly after that, another friend of Dina's, a longtime friend back in Texas, calls and says the same thing. So she's now said the same story to two people.
00:25:03
Speaker 2: So she's told people, I shot him, I killed him, I moved his body. To the carport. The carport is like an open.
00:25:11
Speaker 1: Theirs is like, it's closed. I don't know. It's like a big work garage, but they're calling it the carport. And in that very first call, when officers arrived at the house for the wellness check, one of them notes a strange smell. Okay. But there's wildlife everywhere. Right. They don't know what the smell is.
00:25:31
Speaker 2: And it had been a long time.
00:25:33
Speaker 1: Had been a long time. Yeah.
00:25:34
Speaker 2: When did she reveal this to two people in her life?
00:25:38
Speaker 1: I'm guessing it happened in the spring because no one had heard from Craig since January. And in both instances, I suspect she'd been drinking when she was talking about it.
00:25:49
Speaker 2: Okay. But then maybe they weren't sure if she was telling the truth because they waited a few months to call.
00:25:57
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, I think there was also a fear of her and wronging her.
00:26:03
Speaker 2: Also, it sounds like she's this little lady and she moved... A dead body?
00:26:09
Speaker 1: She told them that she rolled it up in a carpet and drug it across to the carport. Yeah. And so it's a good question, right? Because if someone tells me that story, and I know they have a history of violence and drinking, why am I waiting to call? But people like that can also have probably conditioned you to be scared of them. And so it's just hard to say what anyone would do in that situation. Because if you're wrong, then you've really angered someone who you think is dangerous. Yeah.
00:26:37
Speaker 2: And they're your family member. You're going to see them. They know where you live.
00:26:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I'm not using this person's name because I know they made the tip anonymously to Crimestoppers, but their name is now everywhere. And their relationship to her is now everywhere. Yeah. Same with this friend of hers. And I just, I don't know how to feel about that. It's like, we'll get more into it, but... So investigators, their suspicions are all but confirmed. Like, Dina has done something to Craig, and she's not telling us the full story here. But they don't have anything to charge her with yet because they haven't found Craig.
00:27:11
Speaker 2: Nobody. Nobody. No crime.
00:27:12
Speaker 1: Right. And so they could charge her theoretically and try to make a case out of it. But, you know, here's a guy who keeps a lot of money in cash. He could probably just disappear if he wants to.
00:27:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's another version of this story where she's... been volatile and he's finally had enough and he does peace out and go to Mexico and is like, I don't want to talk to you or be around you.
00:27:35
Speaker 1: Right. Like you're scary.
00:27:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:27:37
Speaker 1: I mean, think about all the things she did to her exes. Like what must she have done to him? So yeah, it's not like this impossible theory, even though it didn't fit his character at all to go out of contact with people. Right. So things then take another turn because Dina goes back to Texas where she's staying with her mother and she attempts to end her life.
00:27:58
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
00:27:59
Speaker 1: And so they're like, we need to charge her because if she does end up dying, like, we may never find out what happened. Yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker 2: And we need to get into the carport. They haven't searched the carport yet?
00:28:09
Speaker 1: No, it's locked up and they want to do it the right way so they can use everything. So they're trying to get a search warrant.
00:28:14
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:28:15
Speaker 1: Well, this makes it so time is really of the essence and they get the search warrant. He's in the carport. The remains are in the carport. Oh. He's covered in a tarp and like mothballs. And she clearly had plans to do something else with his remains. But I mean, for months.
00:28:32
Speaker 2: That's horrible.
00:28:33
Speaker 1: That's horrible to think about. It's actually like so bizarre, too, because just sleeping in the house alone in the woods, I'm like. Yeah, I'm an adult. I don't lay awake at night worried about ghosts. But like, come on, are you not scared of anything? There's a body in your carport and you're just going to sleep at night? Like, that's just so scary and strange.
00:28:55
Speaker 2: It seems like she probably thought it was safer to just leave his body there. But then once the detective started to come around, she immediately went out and rented this industrial digger and started digging up the backyard or front yard, which is Quite brazen. Yeah. Such bad planning. Yeah.
00:29:13
Speaker 1: Very confident person to do that. I mean, police are regularly visiting her house. Yeah. Like, what? And so once they find Craig's remains, it's very clear he has been dead since January, which is the last time his friends and family had really verifiably seen or heard from him. They are able to then break into the safe and they find $ 84, 000 in cash. They find guns and they find a lot of cleaning supplies.
00:29:39
Speaker 2: So.
00:29:40
Speaker 1: They're pretty confident that this story that she told her friend and family member is probably some version of what actually happened. And through their forensic investigation with their finances, they determined that she spent $ 1. 5 million since January 2025 to June. purchasing cars and homes. She told law enforcement and family that he was in Mexico, but he actually hadn't gone to Mexico since 2023.
00:30:07
Speaker 2: Wow. So there had been much more money in that safe. She'd spent $ 1. 5 million of it.
00:30:13
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:30:14
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay.
00:30:15
Speaker 1: Very quickly. And so Dina was, of course, then the person behind all these text messages to friends and family who thought they were communicating with Craig until months later when they're like, something is up. And so she's arrested and she pleads not guilty. She's like, I'm going to get a lawyer and fight this. Well, she's arrested and booked in jail on July 8th, 2025. And it takes a year for her to decide, maybe I'm not going to be able to fight this. And she ends up pleading guilty to second degree murder, tampering with evidence and forgery. I saw two ages for her at the time, 60 or 61 years old. And she was sentenced to 18 years.
00:30:59
Speaker 2: Okay. So that was just recently that she got guilty.
00:31:23
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think I agree. The more we work on these kinds of stories and learn about different sentences, it actually made me, I'm going to get back to the Craig Thetford case in a minute, but, or Dina Thetford case, but it made me think of Brian Barker, who I talked about a while ago, but he's that police officer who burglarized homes and businesses in Illinois, I think it was. He was sentenced to 40 years. Yeah.
00:31:50
Speaker 2: And no one got hurt.
00:31:51
Speaker 1: And no one got hurt. And he actually had a very traumatic life leading up to that, that, you know, I can't diagnose him, but I don't know. I think it's pretty clear that he was a troubled person who was conditioned to steal from people.
00:32:07
Speaker 2: Which, like, doesn't always come into play when it comes to sentencing, because You could argue that anyone that murders their spouse is a pretty troubled person who's had, you know, probably some trauma in their life, too.
00:32:18
Speaker 1: Totally.
00:32:18
Speaker 2: But, you know, you commit a crime and you gotta, like, serve time for it. But it's weird how varied those sentences can be. Like, she took a human life. And Brian Barker didn't.
00:32:32
Speaker 1: He stole things and he stole money, but he did not kill someone.
00:32:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:32:36
Speaker 1: And he's serving 40 years where she's got 18.
00:32:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wonder, I guess it's maybe because she pled guilty. They gave her some deal. But, you know, so if she's 60, she'll be 78 when she gets out. You can still live a long life. And if she's a healthy 78, she could also still be a dangerous person at that point. So it doesn't seem like a very long time, to be honest.
00:33:00
Speaker 1: No. I mean, 18 years for what she did, I think, feels like a lightweight sentence. And I know that these, especially probably in a smaller county, you have more limited resources. Are you going to spend all of your time getting your prosecutor ready for a trial? Or are you going to? Take a plea deal and put those resources elsewhere because you never know what could happen at trial.
00:33:21
Speaker 2: Right.
00:33:21
Speaker 1: So pretty nuts. But Craig Thetford's estate and family was also awarded a $ 143 million judgment from Dina Thetford for the wrongful death of Craig Thetford. I don't know how much of that they'll receive, right?
00:33:36
Speaker 2: How is she going to— does she have money to pay that?
00:33:38
Speaker 1: I think the reason for this lawsuit, this wrongful death lawsuit, was to prevent her from maintaining any assets that she would have acquired in the marriage or inheriting those. It's like, no.
00:33:51
Speaker 2: Everything that's left of theirs goes toward his family members.
00:33:55
Speaker 1: Right, right. Okay. Yeah, and so, you know, I would assume also she'll have to pay them a portion of any earnings she ever makes again. In his obituary, Craig Thetford, his date that he passed is listed as June 17, 2025, which is when his remains were found. He was born in 1964 in Ranger, Texas, and who's a son, brother, uncle, father, grandfather, and friend. And after retiring from his successful roofing business, he worked just as hard as a volunteer firefighter. protecting the wilderness that he loved.
00:34:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow.
00:34:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even Dina in her conversations with detectives, they were always suspicious of Dina, but they're like, does he have any enemies? And she's like, no, everyone loves him. He'd give everyone the shirt off his back. He's the most well-liked, hardworking person and treats everyone so well. And yeah, it's just, it's sad when someone goes missing or is murdered and the spouse is like, immediately questioned, but it's so often the case that something close to home happened that I understand it. It's like, it probably wouldn't have taken much for her to get away with this for even longer than she did.
00:35:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, she got away with it for a long time, honestly.
00:35:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:35:10
Speaker 2: I'm glad that she was caught.
00:35:11
Speaker 1: Definitely. So Roger was great and he's still working in Otero County.
00:35:16
Speaker 2: So you've been in contact with him and then was he able to speak to you once she pled guilty?
00:35:20
Speaker 1: I haven't spoken to him since. I just had that initial phone call with him when I was first poking around when I read about this case. And then I saw that it had been wrapped up and I was like, oh, I'm going to talk about this. Oh, okay.
00:35:32
Speaker 2: I see. I see.
00:35:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't think we would be able to schedule an interview because he's a very busy person. Right.
00:35:38
Speaker 2: Well, that's, yeah, that's an interesting story. Yeah. I've never heard of it.
00:35:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. Maybe we'll be hearing more as now that it's wrapped up and I would expect there to be something about it. But I also have a recommendation.
00:35:52
Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
00:35:53
Speaker 1: I just watched it actually on Hulu.
00:35:55
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:35:56
Speaker 1: It's a true crime documentary. It's by Investigation Discovery and it's a three-part docuseries called Big Girls Wanted Escaping Paradise. Paradise is spelled like the fruit, like P-E-A-R, paradise.
00:36:10
Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
00:36:11
Speaker 1: But It's an interesting documentary in that it explores the world of feeders, which I had never heard of. Basically, there's this man in Las Vegas who created Paradise, and it's a house, his house, where he just, he really loves what he describes as big women. And the story is told largely by a journalist and photojournalist who... Never felt like she fit in in the world because of her weight or never felt like she was fully accepted because of her weight. And so she went to explore it both as a journalist and as someone who resonated with like wanting to feel accepted and not judged by your body. Yeah. But when she got in there, she realized something else was happening. There was a lot of control with food, a lot of manipulation from her perspective and the perspective of other former members of Paradise. I don't know if they call themselves members, I guess. Cult vibes. Very much, to me, cult vibes and... A lot of death, like not a lot, but at least one death that a lot of the people in the documentary felt like was, you know, something that contributed to this person's death was the way that they were treated in the house. And there, I don't know if it would be classified as like something to do with a food addiction or not, but basically a lot of control. And there's a website that they talk about a lot in this documentary. I think it's called Phoebe. Let me look it up, actually. But it's people who are, yeah, Phoebe, obsessed with or fetishize eating. And for a lot of these women, their health was already at risk. And it was honestly bizarre. The man at the center of this, he participates in the documentary.
00:38:05
Speaker 2: Interesting.
00:38:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. But there's also a lot of footage of him eating. just saying and doing really awful things. So I don't know if it's just like, it's extremely confident. Wow. But I wonder.
00:38:17
Speaker 2: Do they interview people who like lived in this house previously and got out?
00:38:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. And people who still do and love being there.
00:38:25
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. How'd you find this?
00:38:28
Speaker 1: It was just on Hulu. And I was like, oh, my husband's traveling for work. I don't have to watch a golf tournament this weekend. No offense to golf. Yeah. And so I watched the whole thing and yeah, I would recommend it. I mean, look, it's a sad documentary, but I thought it was exposure to a world I hadn't seen before, was not familiar with. And I think also we're more inclusive now than we were before and our generation and certainly generations younger than us, especially are working toward like more inclusive language and Like we all grew up in the 90s, like Weight Watchers and just everything about being skinny.
00:39:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and just like trying to date. And if you fall into a category, a person who's being fetishized, like I have heard about this from some of my friends, some of my curvier friends, where like they'll get creepy messages from guys on dating apps who are just like, I want to feed you. And they're like, okay.
00:39:32
Speaker 1: That's so strange.
00:39:34
Speaker 2: Like, you're not seeing me as a person.
00:39:36
Speaker 1: Right.
00:39:36
Speaker 2: I'm just a fetish to you. And there's obviously a lot of different versions of that, right? But certain people in certain demographics have to field that a lot more than others. And I think there's probably just a lot of frustration and exhaustion that comes with that.
00:39:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a young woman in the documentary who talked about this being the first time in her life she ever felt like wanted by someone. And it's like heartbreaking because, you know, not to say that two things can't coexist, but if there's an exercise of control or maybe doing something that is not healthy, it's not a good balance. But yeah, it's called Big Girls Wanted, and it's on Hulu if you want to watch it.
00:40:19
Speaker 2: Cool. I do not have a recommendation for you today.
00:40:23
Speaker 1: You haven't just been watching or listening to things all weekend?
00:40:26
Speaker 2: I have watched stuff, but I feel like it's stuff that people already have heard of. You know, I watched the Crash documentary on Hulu, Mackenzie Shurella. But pretty much, if you're into true crime, I feel like you've probably watched that already.
00:40:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:40:41
Speaker 2: I thought it was well done. I thought it was interesting. Wait, did you watch it yet?
00:40:44
Speaker 1: No, I haven't watched it yet, but I need to. I feel like I did a lot of reading about that case when it first came out, but I definitely would like to watch it. I think that, and maybe this is answered in the documentary, I'm always shocked by teenagers driving and getting in wrecks that have done things before that are questionable because I feel like my parents would take my car away if I looked at them.
00:41:06
Speaker 2: The wrong way. Like, her parents basically gave her a lot of leeway. She was 17 living with her 19- or 20-year-old boyfriend, and they were like, great, you know.
00:41:17
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that wouldn't have flown in my household.
00:41:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think it was just, like, a very different— I mean, her dad has gotten a lot of flack. I read somewhere that he was let go from his job after this.
00:41:29
Speaker 1: Oh.
00:41:30
Speaker 2: And I have not confirmed that, so I don't know for sure, but there was, like, a lot of people that got mad at him because he's wearing a T-shirt— In the interview that says, like, in sort of, like, cartoon-y characters, it says, like, boom. Like, if you were to watch a cartoon of, whatever, Bugs Bunny running around, and then there's, like, a TNT, and it's like, boom.
00:41:48
Speaker 1: It's just in really bad taste.
00:41:50
Speaker 2: It's just in bad taste. And it's like, that probably doesn't mean anything, but it kind of, like, blew up on the internet. People were like, what the heck? How could he do that?
00:41:57
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
00:41:58
Speaker 2: And I don't know if there was other reasons, but.
00:42:00
Speaker 1: Because it's one thing to feel like you have to defend your child no matter what. Like, I think that's probably just this primal instinct that you have when you're a parent. But it's another to be insensitive to the harm that they've caused so blatantly.
00:42:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was interesting. I recommend it. And I like that it was just one. It was like an hour or something long. It was it wasn't like a three parter. If there's enough content for a three-parter, I'm all for it. But I sometimes feel like it's a little stretched out. Yeah, definitely. And it was nice that this was just like a one, sit down and watch it. I thought they did a really good job. We had talked about this case before. And then a few months before the documentary came out, I was revisiting it. I'm like, oh, I wonder if we could get more information about it now. And so I was doing a lot of outreach and research. called some of the victims' family members. They never answered, probably because they were like, hey, we already did this documentary. Yeah, we're not going to talk on your little podcast. Yeah. So anyway, it was a good watch. So I guess that is my recommendation. If you haven't seen it, check it out.
00:43:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, thanks for listening. We'll be back next week. If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it. Our email is thenife at exactlyrightmedia.com. Or you can follow us on Instagram at The Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at The Knife Podcast.
00:43:18
Speaker 2: This has been an Exactly Right production. Hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith.
00:43:22
Speaker 1: And me, Patia Eaton. Our producers are Tom Breifogel and Alexa Samorosi.
00:43:27
Speaker 2: This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.
00:43:29
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
00:43:32
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
00:43:34
Speaker 1: Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
00:43:36
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.
