Killer Cases: Confessions of a Controlling Husband

case number one and it has t to it m m m she came here first as an exchange student and get started out as a great love she was having an online relationship with a gentleman in China I all her as a missing person until we hear otherwise from her hear from her or can prove that she went somewhere Joe was verbally abusive and that it was escalating over time you want me to you want me to hurt somebody we thought that maybe she was in a suitcase had been waited down or something like that investigators believe skeletal remains found in a state park are those of a missing Colombia woman m g did you suffocate her no did you strangle her causing her to urinate on the bed no you killed her on that bed no okay your wife is in a bar and said she understand this is what he's going to tell you how to get out of that situation and I grabbed the gun trying to find the first place to put a body no sir the only thing they could do was kill him you want to say anything read the jury and find the defendant join may I help you hi uh I need to follow a mission person report or okay I can help you with that what's your name uh Joe elage okay and tell me exactly what happened um well uh yesterday morning I woke up and my wife was gone she left her her wedding ring and her phone her card how old is the person um she is 28 uh she's Asian uh Chinese what's her name uh Mony G elage she came here first as an exchange student in 2012 they worked at the same place she was a few years older he was a graduate student it started out as a great love I think both of them were interested in the others culture obviously there was different cultures but he wanted to learn the culture he went to China met her parents Hey Joe hi hey it's officer Joseph officer Joseph I was just going to come over here and get some details from when police first responded to the missing person's report Joe ellich pointed the officer to mun's computer and iPad and a message he discovered from a man in China I think this is her Secret Love or something probably back in China I suppose I think he and an online Journal his wife left behind that journal article talks about uh this guy she she's like in love with him or something and that she's not interested in her husband um but that but that she's married and she has a baby so she has to stop like doing this Ming think yeah yeah she was having at least an online relationship with a gentleman in China some pictures being exchanged and her talking in a way that she didn't talk with him things of that nature I mean just hurtful things to read it as a husband I think there's been about four times where she's gone out and she's been out for like an un reasonably long the time yeah pretty much munchie's purse was missing but left behind was her phone her passport her car keys and the couple's one-year-old daughter Anna the family photo album showing her Devotion to the little girl Anna was the light of munchie's life I don't think there was anything that munchie was more excited about than bringing this child into the world munchie was breastfeeding her baby at the time that she went missing no no mother leaves their baby while they're breastfeeding and just disappears number7 repeating 1707 um so I'll enter I'll enter as a missing person until we hear otherwise from her hear from her or can prove that she went somewhere um obviously the best thing for to do her to be to be to call and say hey this is where I'm at you know for everybody so everybody knows yeah um and then you guys can try to figure work out whatever you need to do yeah but as far as like issues between you and her is it just I mean anything she just kind of nitpick is that kind of the deal or yeah anything yeah there was no like big uh large arguments recently just disagreements about yeah Small Things yeah a search began for munie across the University campus and all around Colombia as police asked the Public's help in finding her and her parents headed to Missouri from China K Ren munchie mother spoke to her daughter every single day she knew immediately when they didn't have that phone call that something was not right and when they went to the apartment they were not allowed in neither Joe nor his mother would let them in they didn't welcome them they didn't say we don't know where munchie is they were very Cy talk to me about men that M that's how you pronounce her name it's actually M and it has tone to it m his story publicly was that she was missing that she had become involved with another man and that he thought that she had possibly disappeared with that other man what do you think about the fact that she left behind her wallet and everything I me her not her wallet her passport and her phone so that stuff is very weird to me um I know she was talking to somebody else um on the side and I didn't know that until after she had left but uh you know whatever whatever she's doing I just hope she's safe and I really hope that she can you know find herself and come back to me and Anna and we can just have a big long talk and that's all we need um but we can work things out um I think she's she's just confused and maybe scared and I don't know if she felt alone but I just really want her to come back and it it does worry me um that she doesn't have any of that stuff I I just really yeah I just hope that she's safe I hope that she's with at least with somebody who who cares for her you know enough to keep her safe and he was hurt but he was a little bit awkward especially when dealing with um the news media he had some weird Smiles I have absolutely no idea where she might be it's just all so strange she just disappeared I don't know I just really don't know she hasn't contacted anybody she talked to her mom I think probably two or three times every single day and the fact that she hasn't heard from her really worries me it's very surprising I I just it's just hard to think about what's going on in the majority of those cases people will somehow will turn up and find them but then it was um detectives who brought this to to my attention that this was uh likely much more than a missing person's case what's going on at the moment say you have a seat right there be back with right there okay be back with you in just a moment okay yeah 5 days after he first reported his wife missing police decided to bring Joe EG downtown for questioning how old are you uh 23 years old to see if they could either corroborate or check challenge his story uh do you have your cell phone on you here yes okay and do you mind if we take that and we do a download of it that's fine fine okay okay we'll do that real quick um he gave consent to the police to download the contents of his telephone you could tell that he was racked with [Music] nerves Columbia is a midsize college town it's home to University of Missouri Columbia a lot of uh students from China somewhere around 3,000 um people of Chinese Des sent a lot of people in the Chinese Community had gathered around and they were actively searching for munchie as a missing person and that night it was just shocking but I was thinking that anything was possible like why would she leave home um did she have some unhappy moments or like or just to get away her parents thanked the Searchers but they were growing increasingly frustrated their daughter's missing and they can't see their granddaughter and they don't know what's going on and they're not getting the answers that they're wanting from the police but the police were very much on the case we're going to go ahead and get started so we can try and get you out of here uh we're just going to go over everything all over again okay as detectives increasingly thought something was just not right about Joe El's account of mun's last night at home she kind of told me I know during that time she she had told me that she had to get up early in the morning uh to go somewhere and and I asked her where where she's going who she's mean and uh I asked her about three times who is she mean and her answer was just quote me so um she wouldn't tell me who she was meeting or or where she was going what she was doing and then later in the night about 5:00 a.m. is when uh I woke up to Anna crying and she was crying really loud and so I really sat up in bed and then I I normally put my hand over to where M she is but I put my hand over there and she wasn't there and I looked over and I didn't see her and I looked around the room and I didn't see her I I went out of the room and I searched the rest of the apartment for my and I just didn't see her anywhere um I noticed that her keys were here uh I notic that her bone and her ring were next to the bed and it was early and I was really tired so I just went back to sleep later that day Ellen told police he left his apartment complex to take a drive around the area with his daughter Anna admitted that he'd been driving all over the place the day after she quote unquote disappeared which is highly suspicious it was a really nice day I cracked the windows and uh I noce Anna was was watching outside the whole time she was very silent and just watching outside and so that was I thought that was kind of nice it was almost word for word rendition of what we found later on in the apartment the statement that he made to the police so he had scripted it all out I got to relax and at the same time you wait a minute you got to relax your wife is missing you're now the sole caregiver of a one-year-old child and you went on a relax in drive I got to tell you I you know that strikes me a strange and I don't think I'm alone in that I I think Allen here would probably agree with that I think 99 out of a 100 people on the street would say that's not the time to relax I mean you haven't even told anybody I don't know where my wife is yeah you got I'm asking you to look at this from my standpoint right yeah cuz I have a job to do my job is Def find meni right I understand yep for good or for bad is to find her that's right if she left on her own and she wants to stay gone that's her right but boy if she didn't we got a whole different situation doesn't we yeah if somebody did something to her or she accidentally did something to herself yeah we absolutely cannot stop until we find her you understand that right yep yep I want to help you got as much as I can and that I will not apologize for doing my job and asking difficult questions you understand that too right yeah did you kill your wife no I did not do you know what happened to her no I do not we had on the ball detectives and a very good question that was asked by detective John Voss was did you lock her door when you left the apartment yeah if she comes home how's she going to get back in you've got her keys in her car or phones in the house she can't even call anybody yeah I don't know I mean did you leave her a note you didn't leave her a note ially said hey don't worry about Anna and me cuz we're out for a drive didn't do that right I didn't why not I I didn't think about it you knew she wasn't coming back right I didn't know I honestly I just thought that she had left on her own accord and I didn't know where she might be and the detectives continued to push El on his route of travel the day munie disappeared you go driving all over the countryside to and the places you go are interesting to me because they are places where there are the Missouri River and you go driving around through the Wilderness to include after dark but you say that you're wanting to relax but when I hear that I hear that somebody has a lot of anxiety about something that's just happened a lot of it that you cannot sit there in your apartment for another minute because you're going out of your mind that's what it looks like to me does that make sense to you am I crazy no but so how do we explain that Joe I mean M and I have been really distant the past couple months that I didn't I really didn't think a lot about it that she left like that she's been acting weird recently and she wouldn't tell me where where she's been I am really confused about all this I didn't know what to think I just wanted to go for drive and that was it his story did not change and the detectives had no choice but to let him go no evidence to charge him with a crime but convinced he was not telling them them the whole story he was the prime suspect he didn't confess but he admitted um a number of different things in line with the script that he had prepared eventually the police were able to obtain cell phone information from his cell phone that tracked his his whereabouts and where he went on those two drives everything matched up with the exception of one critical thing his phone had put him at an area near the mean River a location he had left out of his detailed account in the interview with detectives So based on that information law enforcement believed that Mon's body could have been dumped in the lamine river that was a big focus of this investigation swinging him and then munchie's parents were able to add another critical piece of information they initially did not want to believe that it could be Joe they did not want want to believe that about their son-in-law and so the police upon further questioning of munchie's parents started asking them about the relationship between Joe and munchie and Anna there were pictures and munchie had shared them with her mother of the physical abuse of Anna it was discovered that there was a bruising to his daughter's buttocks and so he was questioned about that [Music] it was more than enough for prosecutors to send police to arrest Joe EG on charges of child abuse and on October 25th when they showed up to arrest Joe car was packed his mother was there they were leaving [Music] town I'm Mr assistant chief Jeremiah Hunter with the Columbia Police Department this video is a brief update Columbia Missouri police spent some 5 months searching for the body of bungi focused on a remote area near this overpass along the lamine river working with a human remains detection canine positive indicators were identified that human decomposition was present the police did a huge recovery efforts out there we were so hopeful that she could be found it was like a roller coaster and it seemed highly likely that there was going to be a body there were cell phone records that seemed to indicate that Joe was there they even brought in heavy equipment to build a levy to lower the water level of the river we had divers all over the place diving in November and December very cold thought that maybe she was in a suitcase had been weighted down or something like that uh Mr Knight kept calling me saying I think we're going to have a body I think we're going to have a body prepare your clients make sure they know that we think we're going to have a body at the same time detectives were doing their own deep dive into any problems in the relationship between Joe and munchie they were living in a very small apartment there were times that things were good there were times that things were bad you know there were a lot of name calling and putting her down and things started to evolve to where he didn't appreciate her culture any longer they were able to obtain her phone her iPad and her computer but it wasn't until her uh password was discovered and and the code was broken that they were able to actually gain access to her phone with hours of recordings munie had secretly made of Joe Bering her I don't like being married to you I don't like living with you and hours more of recordings found on the phone that Joe had turned over to the police I want to divorce you okay I want that to happen during this semester I want it to happen soon soon or better okay those recordings tell me that Joe was verbally abusive and that it was escalating over time you find all those stories about men and or women out of their spouse killed them whatever because you weren't trying to live peacefully with me you want me to you want me to hurt somebody there's one recording where he threatens to put munchie under the dirt you know what next time you dig a hole just just I'm just going to let you jump in and I'm GNA bury the dirt over you in one recording Joe told his mother about the rage he felt about munie do I just smack her do I just beat her down you wanted to I have that craving it I'll admit that yes I'm not going go there he threatens to have her deported he threatens to take custody of their only child he tells munchie she can just leave you'll probably get deported and it's mine so I don't know are you going to play nice you going try and play good obviously I'm not going to represent you to stay in America anymore but is not leaving America I can't tell you that anyone who sat down and listens to the 14 hours of recorded conversations they had between the two it was completely one-sided severely emotionally abusing Mony gaslighting her insulting her nonstop all that information was very powerful very very powerful evidence in this case but there was still no body despite the extensive search along the leaine river I felt so so bad for them that we weren't able to locate Moni I actually went with M's mother and had um a memorial service she wanted closure but she you know not having a body there's no way to say goodbye they put munchie's mother in the boat took her to the exact spot where they thought maybe the body was and she laid out her belongings and the things that she wanted munchie to [Music] have it wasn't until February of 2020 that I decided to go ahead and file murder charges without having her body it would have been challenging for sure to do that because not only did we not have her remains we didn't have anybody who saw her killed we didn't have DNA evidence we didn't have have a confession there was no blood found in El's car nor in the apartment where detectives took his clothing and a pair of mudcake boots for further examination and so there were a lot of obstacles but I thought even though this is a circumstantial evidence case I thought that this was a case that we could prove Beyond a reasonable [Music] doubt now Joe Ellen faced first-degree murder along with the child abuse charges but the trials were both delayed for more than than a year as the covid-19 pandemic swept the country so then the investigation just took a completely different direction from there just 3 months before the trial was scheduled to start a hiker in the Rockbridge State Park miles away from the original search site was following a deer trail and he looked over and he saw some kind of a purse and he went over just to investigate because I'd be out of the ordinary and then he saw a skull there investigators believe skeletal remains found in a state park are those of a missing Columbia woman m g was reported missing in October 2019 by her husband Joseph eleg it was a huge day um for this case it was it was it was it was just a breakthrough in the investigation I knew that she had been killed and I thought that this was going to bring us closer to securing [Music] Justice and now the theory of what happened to mun's body came into Focus he drove all over the place in his car looking for a place to dispose of her body she was in the trunk of the vehicle he didn't have much time but it was raining and it raining very hard that morning when he tried to bury her and that's when detectives remembered the boots they had seized at El's apartment These boots were were always suspicious because there were soil embedded in the soils and and those the soil that was embedded in the soils was compared to so from the grave site um and that was determined to be a match so we went from a case having hardly any forensic evidence to having this extremely powerful yet rarely used type of of physical evidence connecting him um irrefutably to the crime so now that there was a body and evidence that eleg had been at the burial site his lawyer Scott Rosenblum concluded he could not win the case without putting his client on the stand he was going to own what he had to own the trial of the murder of a Chinese exchange student received coverage around the [Music] world this case had some really bad Optics fact that Mr ell uh told a lot of lies and fact that he you know had his wife in his trunk for 2 days driving around looking for a place to bury her that that was not a good fact for me especially when they're when your daughter's in the car with you the evidence in this case is going to be that Moni was a great mother she loved Anna with everything she had after she gave birth to Anna the defendant you're going to hear multiple recordings where the defendant would threaten her and abuse her call her names things like this and this went on for about a year all the way up until the time the defendant killed monshi on October 8th of 2019 when Anna was Oney old and the jury was told they would see and hear other tapes of Joe EG 2 his TV interview with the big smile and the police interrogation video with EG's repeated denials did you kill your wife no I did not and there would be damning forensic evidence from the place where mun's body was found testing was later done on the soil and the vegetation from the defendant's boots compared to the soil and vegetation at the exact spot where Moni was buried and they both matched the soil and the vegetation find that offended guilty of murder in the first degree and only murderer in the first degree thank you very much for your time okay thank you state All Eyes now were on El's lawyer Scott Rosenblum I definitely expected um the defense to come up with something other than the story that Joe had originally told which was that Mony had run off ran away because we could now put Joe down at her grave with the help of these boots so yes you will hear that he lied to the police because he said he wasn't aware of what happened she walked away he lied to his family and he's not proud of it he lied to the press and he's not proud of it and he lied to men's family and he's certainly not proud of that and he's going to tell you and he's going to tell you that he's not proud and he's going to tell you what he was thinking but he's not charged with any of that that's not what you're here to decide you're here to decide what happened to menji and what's the state's proof what happened on October 8th 2019 between these two young people and the evidence that you will hear is that it was an unattend event that caused an accident that he had no intent not certainly not murder that's not even close it was an accident that is the defense of a Missouri man accused of killing his wife I thought it was unbel able I was stunned that that would be that would be their story in an opening argument I was stunned the prosecution proceeded with its plan the expert who compared the DNA of soil and trees at the grave site to that found on El's boots so they were a match an autopsy showed munie died with four broken ribs but the medical experts were less definitive about what that meant you rued the manner of death in this case to be a homicide correct I do and then also um you cannot say at all what the cause of death in this case was correct I can't say for certain at at all no that was the biggest weakness of the state's case there was four fractured ribs that wasn't going to be the cause of death it set the stage for Joe EG to take the stand do you solemly swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God I do both sides knew it would all come down to whether the jury would believe El's version of events that it was an accident after a heated shoving match she pushed me once or twice and before I pushed her back when you say you pushed her back was it just a general push no it was it was hard how hard tell the jury how hard you pushed your back uh it was it was very hard uh I was she did you remember she ran into like the kitchen um counter and when she hit the kitchen counter did you know whether she was hurt uh she she kind of like screamed about it did she come back at you yes she did very quickly very quickly so this is happening in what a blink of an eye yes were you Cor graphing it were you figuring out every move or was it just happening in the blink of an eye it was just happening and when she was hit on the counter and she came at you again what was your reaction then I pushed her again hard hard what happened probably even harder she fell down your her hit anything she she fell she fell uh in the kitchen and she her head hit with a big thud I felt it but Ellen said M seemed okay and they both went to bed I woke up I I checked my phone to see what time it was it was 5:00 a.m. I reached over and touched mie on the arm and I said that I'm that I'll get Anna uh did you get any response no did you find any signs of life no realize that she was dead pretty much yes I thought he was terrible be just because he didn't show any emotion I think it was fabricated I think Joe cared about himself Joe was in it to save himself the million-dollar question is what is going on in your mind where you wouldn't call 911 uh it was it looked so weird and so unusual uh it it looked bad I was afraid and uh my mind was like going a million miles per hour were you in a state of panic yes that you were scared yeah scared because of of what I mean you said minutes ago that you didn't intentionally harm your wife it looked bad though I I I I knew that people would suspect me and then his description of driving around the area with his wife's body in the trunk for two full days before finding a place to bury her how'd you lay her in the grave Joe I might bent down I put her on her side in the grave what are you feeling that's your wife tell the jury they want to know they have to want to know what you were feeling I just felt empty so did you in any way intent try to harm your wife no try to kill her no no and then Elis defense lawyer had one final question to deal with what he knew would be coming on cross-examination I've seen a lot of times prosecutors try to suggest well you just came up with this and you know I wanted to make sure that it was not the case when did you tell what happened and and to whom no I told it to you and that's right after I hired you are you telling the truth to this jury yes thank you okay thank you all you Mr um El it's been you were here yesterday I'm going to swear you in again prosecutor Dan Knight had a huge problem for his cross-examination he could not challenge Joe El testimony that he had told his lawyer months earlier that what happened was an accident timing was everything when it came to this story because it looked like well he came clean before Mony was found rather than coming clean after she got caught I was not able to question Joe about it because of attorney client privilege I was handcuffed when it came to that so Knight's goal was to show El's story did not add up how hard did you push her demonstrate let's see it do it with your hands I I don't know I push your hard demonstrate like that that's for so then what happened after that uh then she came back to me and she pushed me and I pushed her again wait wait wait wait she she she hit the island real hard right she she going oh her voice didn't she say anything like that no so she came back you right that's you're saying yes what happened then uh we pushed each other again okay now who push who pushed you first uh kind at the same time Mutual push like this is that what you're talking about yeah he claimed that at one point he and mon she pushed each other at the same time that would have been impossible because Joe's arms were much longer than monies and I pointed that out so you both push each other at the same time correct yes wouldn't it be a little bit hard because her arms were way shorter than yours Joe correct it pretty tough I saw that she was coming and I was I just pushed her back this time I would object and let him finish his answer suain Joe claimed that he gave Mony a massage and he said it was a long massage he was on top of her back she had four broken ribs so um I believe strongly that right there on that bed Joe killed Mony did you hit her with a toolbox real hard just come down straight on that back no did you maybe stand up on top of her and jump on top of her back no did you suffocate her no did you strangle her causing her to urinate on the bed no you admitted there was urine on that bed correct yes you killed her on that bed AR of your honor overruled no closing argument for the state you're honor me at please of course counil ladies and gentlemen the truth is on our side the evidence in this case clearly overwhelmingly and unequivocally proves Beyond any doubt whatsoever that this defendant Joseph ell is guilty of murder in the first degree and only murder in the first degree under Missouri law first-degree murder requires deliberation to kill everywhere we look there is evidence of the defendant extreme hatred of Moni proving deliberation hatred proves The Liberation this man is twice as big as our tiny little victim in this Cas a craving to smack her and beat her down murder one all the way closing argument for the defense thank you your honor may I please the court council members of the jury there's no doubt he pushed her hard in that moment but did he push her thinking at that moment I want to hurt you no he pushed her to said get off me I'm going to Siana what was his intent at that time certainly not to kill him his intent wasn't even a her intent was a weak and then El's defense lawyer Scott Rosenblum launched an unusual personal attack on the tactics of prosecutor Dan Knight and if you don't have the facts and you don't have the law guess what you do you scream and you yell and you shout and you stomp around the courtroom and that's what you've seen that's what you've seen all week Joe eleg took the witness stand and he was cross-examined for eight hours and what you saw was basically this prosecutor being a bully and making fun and being sarcastic I me bully if I said it I meant it we don't convict people of Murder By conjecture we don't convict people of murder Mur because a prosecutor tells you to you follow the evidence and the evidence isn't there the jury was out for 7 hours considering a range of verdicts from first deegree murder second degree murder voluntary manslaughter involuntary manslaughter or not guilty I was shooting for involuntary manslaughter okay um everyone may be seated members of the were you able to reach a verdict okay please hand that to the Marshall [Music] there okay Mr ell would you please stand to receive the verdict verdict we the jury find the defendant Joseph Dwayne [Music] eleg guilty of murder in the second degree well they obviously acquitted him of Murder in the First Degree didn't fully buy the accident but they didn't buy that it was murder in the first degree I think that was hard for munchie's parents to process because um he did it and I think in their mind Justice would have been first-degree murder on the other hand the primary concern has always been how can we make sure that Joe is locked up and never has the chance to raise his daughter Anna mun's parents could not be at the sentencing but one of her friends Louise Hall spoke of her pain and anger I'm still can't hear her laughing her voice her lovely face like still can see that so um this is is really painful to me he he told he want us to he cannot play with us he told us M was gone because she was a bad mother she left her baby away she he wanted us to think mon is a bad person so this really hurt us a lot and especially what he did to m ell did not speak nor did anyone else on his behalf I am going to sentence you to 28 years in the Department of Corrections uh the jury recommended 28 years uh at this point that's the maximum that I can do and I do think that's appropriate in this case it's pretty obvious to me that they settled on 28 because that was how old men she was when she died he's going to have to serve 28 years in the penitentiary so we came a lot closer to getting the result we wanted the state did than the defense came to getting the result they wanted in this case eleg later pleaded guilty to three counts of child abuse left undecided was who will raise the couple's daughter Anna and where Missouri or China it's an international child custody dispute my biggest concern is that Anna will grow up and she will believe this false narrative about it being an accident or that she will believe that it was her mother's fault that she was killed mie's not here and Joe is in prison right I'm sorry how is she going to face things up when she grows up like knowing that her mom's dead and her her dad is the Killer [Music] a

Channel: Law&Crime Network

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Length: 43min 0sec (2580 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2024