keith morrison: chris kruse had buried his wife of 20 years, along with their dream of owning a lakeside resort. now, he sat in an interview room in the county

sheriff's office facing questions from agent derek woodford. chris said he was lying right beside his wife when she was shot. and, as woodford knew, jan bled rapidly and profusely, yet somehow, there was surprisingly little blood on chris. it didn't make any sense to woodford. derek woodford: we believe with the amount of blood at the scene, we felt there should have been blood on kruse. keith morrison: especially because chris said he wasn't just lying beside jan. he actually laid her down flat on the bed after she was shot. i want to say my left hand was just--

keith morrison: no blood on his hands, but an odd mark on the front of his shirt. from how he describes being in bed with jan, we were trying to figure out where that mark came from because it didn't make sense from just by laying next to her in bed. more like something was imprinted on the shirt not like it was blood spatter or anything-- right keith morrison: --like that. right.

keith morrison: despite what some people like to claim, it can be quite hard to tell if the stranger sitting in front of you is lying or telling the truth. but in this case, said the investigators, what chris was telling them wasn't adding up. it's easy to remember when you tell the truth. i've interviewed thousands of people and the statements that i get from people that are being honest are pretty-- pretty clear. and when you go back to them and talk to them a second time, their story is accurate from the first time. and this wasn't the case.

keith morrison: they hooked up chris to a polygraph. the test revealed deception, they told him. and then, chris offered up a possible suspect. keith morrison: lisa? who was lisa? coming up-- derek woodford: we had gotten further information that she had maybe had some friction with jan. keith morrison: a possible lead.

keith morrison: and jeremy says this was not a happy family-- bailey had told him they had mentioned the word divorce. keith morrison: --when "dateline" continues. you might wonder, john legend, how do you keep your voice sounding so... ...legendary? honey! and how do i keep my protection against covid-19 up to date? with a covid shot this season, designed for recent variants. you can get your covid-19 shot when getting your flu shot, if you're due for both, as recommended by the cdc. ♪the fresher, the better.♪ ask your healthcare provider about getting this season's covid-19 shot when getting your flu shot. with bugs, the struggle—is—real. that's why you need zevo traps. zevo attracts and traps bugs 24/7 using a blue and uv light

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love the love, people talk. and in a town like brewster, everybody knew about the murder of jan kruse. everybody had opinions. and one the investigators heard about was that one of jan's neighbors, a woman who lived just down the block, might have been nursing a grudge. we had gotten further information that she had maybe had some friction with jan. keith morrison: this woman, lisa, had apparently been upset about jan shutting down the daycare center she'd been running because her son went there. keith morrison: and it wasn't like she and her husband didn't have access. keith morrison: so of course, the investigators talked to lisa.

they found her at work. keith morrison: anyway, the daycare incident was practically ancient history. didn't make sense. she was not involved. keith morrison: they looked at other people, too. other possible suspects. derek woodford: we had interviewed over 40 people. some people multiple times. keith morrison: they even took a hard look at two of chris's own brothers, but they and all the others were cleared. and so we talked about some of the dogs. keith morrison: all, but one. almost a year after the murder, investigators went back to jeremy majerus, the not quite boyfriend. possible motive. as old as first love. chris, jeremy had told them, was really the one stopping him from dating bailey. so the investigators had to consider, maybe

jeremy tried to take revenge on chris and shot jan by mistake? jeremy had already admitted he sneaked in to see bailey in her house many times that summer, unbeknownst to her parents. and he knew if they bought the spider lake resort, they'd be taking bailey hundreds of miles away from him. so where was he night of the murder? initially, he had told investigators that he did not leave his house that night. keith morrison: but that was a lie. derek woodford: and then, in further talking with jeremy, he had admitted to us that he did leave the house to go check on bailey and was concerned about her. keith morrison: his story? bailey had texted him after she heard those two shots. and there was, indeed, a text. one word, "jeremy." that alarmed him, he said. so he drove to brewster, texting her along the way. asking her what was wrong. but when he arrived, bailey's street was filled

with emergency vehicles. so he returned home. keith morrison: kind of something he should have told you right off the bat. yes. and we had-- how did he explain that? what he had indicated to us is that based on everything that had been going on at the kruse residence, his dad had told him that he thought he should stay out of it and not get involved. thus, not telling us that he left to go to brewster that night after bailey had texted him. keith morrison: jeremy took a polygraph. he, also, showed deception. but not about where he was, jeremy swore. no, the deception he told them was something else. he didn't tell them earlier, he said, because bailey swore him to secrecy. it was about the state of her parents' marriage. which was what? which was that bailey had told him, they had mentioned the word "divorce."

keith morrison: divorce? chris never mentioned that. in fact, he said he and jan got along well. keith morrison: and he told him something else about bailey. keith morrison: that's because bailey had told him--

keith morrison: was he making all this up to protect himself? or was this devastating evidence against chris? coming up, chris points his finger at jeremy. keith morrison: but then a discovery that points right at chris-- keith morrison: --when "dateline" continues. my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis held me back... now with skyrizi, i'm all in with clearer skin. ♪ things are getting clearer ♪

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prescribed biologic in psoriasis. the letters turned up a year and a half after the murder. it was chris kruse who found them, offered them up to investigators. disturbing letters said chris. sent, purportedly, by jeremy majerus to bailey. but chris had an idea, it might have been creepier than that, given this phrase in one of them, "love you, daughter." derek woodford: chris had a concern

that maybe jeremy's dad had been writing some of these letters to bailey. i followed up on that and that was not the case. keith morrison: they were simply, jeremy's love letters, said woodford. nothing more. but chris was not satisfied. might jeremy be jan's killer? he wondered. keith morrison: but did he, himself, really think jeremy killed jan?

keith morrison: no. and after four interviews with jeremy, agent woodford came to the same conclusion. lies or no, jeremy didn't do it. that conclusion was bolstered by jeremy's father, who said he was up watching tv with his son when jan was shot 25 miles away. he saw that "jeremy" text just after it came in. but if jeremy was out of the picture, chris wasn't. in fact, the day chris turned in those jeremy letters, agent woodford steered the conversation back to a question he had not been able to resolve. keith morrison: the implication was impossible to miss, especially after they found the murder weapon in chris's own construction

company shop. a minutes drive from the house. bailey, remember, had said she heard gunshots, quote, "at like 2:30." and chris called 911 at 2:39. was nine minutes enough time to stash the gun? derek woodford: i actually drove that at speed limit to the shop and back. and taking account, it would take a minute to go into the shop, it was only three minutes. keith morrison: woodford broke the gun news to chris.

keith morrison: but his mind may not have raced for long. even though they were clearly suspicious of him, they still had more investigating to do. so chris was free to go. and nothing happened for months, for years. the whole family tried to let it go as they settled into the hard business of learning to live without jan. and without knowing who killed her, except that they were sure it wasn't chris. there is nothing to think that chris had any involvement in this. nobody could fake anything that much and not slip up. keith morrison: what's more, they all said they never saw chris get violent or be mean to jan ever. i mean, they truly loved each other. and he never had a harsh word about jan ever. and the same with jan towards chris. keith morrison: so maybe, they'd just never know who killed jan. did you have an expectation that this was just going to go away and they'd

never find out who did it? yes. we were emotionally set that this-- no one would be brought to justice in this world. it would have to be by god that they'd have to answer to. it wouldn't happen here. keith morrison: and then, in march 2019, three and a half years after the murder, something did happen. the county attorney's office decided to take the case to a grand jury, and that grand jury indicted chris kruse for first-degree murder, to his family's utter dismay. and insult to injury-- they could have simply asked him to come down to the police station and arrested him there, but they made a big scene. it was actually about a block from where i work. guns drawn. and it was just totally blown. i mean, i didn't understand that at all. once he got arrested, i mean, we all came together as a family

and figured out what we had to do to help get an attorney lined up. keith morrison: that would be tom hagen and steven groschen. this would be their first-ever first-degree murder trial. i got a call, i believe, on a friday night late. chris just got arrested. he didn't know what was going on. he didn't understand how this happened. our expert's not finding a match there. keith morrison: and they couldn't understand it, either. they went through the evidence, looking for an answer, but couldn't find one. steven groschen: painstakingly going through the videos. painstakingly going through the interviews. when he spoke to law enforcement, he seemed to be, to me, very truthful and just trying to be extremely helpful. and his stories were fairly consistent all the way throughout. keith morrison: but braden hoefert-- then the assistant county attorney-- said chris was not only not consistent, there were serious problems with the stories he told. the thing that i remember sticking out to me the most upon watching the version of events as described by mr. kruse was the difficulty that i was having making sense of exactly how this would have occurred

without him seeing or being able to offer any description of the supposed perpetrator. so in other words, did his stories make sense? as a prosecutor, you always think about how it's going to make sense to a jury. and it's not necessarily important what i think or even what the investigator thinks, but what is the average person in nobles county going to think about this? the impression i walked away with it was that i didn't believe it would make a lot of sense to the average person in nobles county. keith morrison: would it? a jury of those average people was impaneled in late january 2020. but what's an average person, anyway? can you ever really know what average people will do? coming up, the prosecution's case--

the word "divorce" being thrown around. he either is killed by the first shotgun blast, or he's covered in blood, and mr. kruse was neither. this was clearly, a premeditated murder. keith morrison: --when "dateline" continues.

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help keep our community safe and healthy at dea's take back day, october 26th. hi, richard lui with a news update . kamala harris headed to michigan where she made a stop in lansing, promising to fight for union jobs and contrasted herself with donald trump, who she said was challenging america's labor movement. donald trump also campaigning in michigan friday. this time also in detroit. his second trip in a short amount of time underlining the issues of immigration and illegal immigration and its effects on the labor market. now back to dateline. dateline.

prosecutor braden hoefert had a story for the jury in the trial of chris kruse. a true story, he told them. and pretty simple. the killing of jan kruse was an inside job. nothing had been missing from the house. and so this was clearly, a premeditated murder. keith morrison: committed by the one person in a position to do it said the prosecutor, the husband, chris kruse. the evidence? well, for one thing, he told the jury, there were all those hours of police interviews full of, he said, inconsistencies. he played them for the jury. the version of events changes over time. and it, also, does not appear to be possible based off of the physical evidence. so break that down a little bit. he gave a similar version in the first two interviews. jan was asleep or lying down when she is shot.