Minnesota’s Amy Allwine case: Preacher stages wife’s death

9-1-1 what's the address of the emergency i think my wife shot herself there's blood all over shot herself with a gun a gut-wrenching scene plays out during the 9-1-1 call a young boy is the first to find his mother shot to death inside their home does she still have the weapon i don't know did she shoot herself i don't know i just saw her in blood busy trying to console his son stephen alwyn has little information for the operator okay do you see her right now no i'm with my son third you know she was breathing at all i don't i would get back from dinner okay would you like to check on her and see if she is or do you believe that she's beyond help stay there for just a second they want me to go check on her hang on stephen quickly returns to the phone with the tragic news okay she's not breathing i can't tell where she's shot i don't know by now the nine-year-old boy has figured out his mother is dead the gun lying near her body i i don't know i don't know but he wonders what will happen to him and his father are we gonna remarry i don't know bud when you first walk in this looks like a suicide yes but a closer look reveals something sinister a killer hell bent on taking the life of a preacher's wife stephen and amy allwine have been married for 20 years the couple met in college and were immediately bonded by their deep christian faith what's the name of the church they attended the united church of god i believe they weren't just members of the church stephen was also a preacher he was initially a deacon and then he became a church elder when you are an elder in the church you are invited to preach give sermons he traveled to do that the couple each ran a business out of their home in cottage grove minnesota stephen an i.t specialist amy a dog trainer anyone from the outside looking in would say what about this family typical american loving church-going family but on a sunday night in november the image of their happy family is shattered by that single gunshot are there any other weapons in the residence there yes there's a shotgun in the room and uh two rifles downstairs okay is the shotgun the one she has no she had a handgun just a few hours earlier amy alwyn had been steaming pumpkins to make a dessert but after lunch steven says she wasn't feeling well so she went to lie down around 5 30 he left her alone while he and his son had dinner when they returned about 90 minutes later she was dead is it just you and your son home right now yeah okay even are you able to just step out of the step out of the home with your son so my officers can see when they pull up sergeant randy mcallister of the cottage grove police department was the first detective on the scene you questioned the suicide theory right off the bat yeah i i hadn't completely discarded it yet because some weird weird things can happen with physical evidence and and blood splatter and and physics but it was enough for me to at least put the brakes on what stuck out to you she was sort of laid out with her arms out to 45 degrees that's not a normal position for somebody who's just shot themselves in the head another red flag blood drops around the bedroom there were some what we call satellite blood drops outside of the main blood pool itself which suggests that there is something suspended above that area and dripping blood down also the position of the gun on amy's left side her family who's outside by this time says she's right-handed so there are three red flags immediately sticking out to you right fred fink is the criminal division chief for washington county minnesota so at this point is the case ruled a suicide was ruled undetermined by the medical examiner the ruling leads to search warrants and a closer look by crime scene investigators who soon make some disturbing discoveries blood had been cleaned up in multiple areas in the crime scene so we know if someone's committing suicide they're not coming back from the dead to clean up the crime scene correct so there's this huge pool of wiped up blood outside of the master bedroom as well as then footprints down the hall into the bathroom into the laundry room and back the blood wasn't visible to the naked eye only when detectives use a chemical known as luminol we see that on television all the time and wonder if any of that's true but they sprayed it with luminol turned off the lights and it just luminesced even before the blood was spotted using luminol detectives say it was obvious someone had been doing some cleaning up in the hallway the floor is very dirty a lot of dog hair but then we step on the hallway onto the wood floor and all the way up to the master bedroom the wood floor is very clean so at this point the suicide theory is pretty much off the table it's looking more and more suspicious and less and less like suicide but at this point a sunday night ends tragically for stephen alwin and his young son the two return home for dinner to find their wife and mother shot to death we believe that the son was the first one to find amy amy all wine had been shot one time in the head a handgun was lying next to her body at first stephen believes his wife had committed suicide i think my wife shot herself there's blood all over but cops quickly determined the crime scene says otherwise so you think the killer once he killed her staged the crime scene then this person went into a cleanup process yes who would want to murder the preacher's wife by all accounts she had no enemies amy was well liked at her church and by the clients of her very popular dog training business her friends and her customers with the dog world too loved her they absolutely loved her but very few of those people knew amy had actually been holding a terrible secret and living in grave fear for her life for six months ever since the day the fbi showed up on her doorstep [Music] they had come across a threat to amy's life on the internet in early 2016 hackers broke into a hitman for hire website known as basa mafia those hackers turned their information to the fbi a list of people being targeted for murder by basa mafia one of the names on that list amy allwine law enforcement learned that a individual with the username dog day god posed the question to base the mafia will you kill this person fbi agents were certain this was no case of mistaken identity dog day god had made it very clear who was to be killed there was a series of emails back and forth between basic mafia and dog day god some of which include instructions on on where amy was going to be going for a dog competition the place she was staying at that location uploaded a picture of amy to basa mafia so the so-called hitman would know precisely who to who to kill dog day god also handed over plenty of money to ensure getting the job done dog day god ultimately paid this amount for about twelve thousand dollars in bitcoin sergeant mcallister explains why bitcoins were used instead of cash it's a electronic currency that's essentially anonymous you can sell them exchange them and it's really really difficult to track so it's sort of the currency of choice on the dark web assistant county attorney jamie cruzer says because basa mafia was on the dark web the fbi had no way to identify dog day god by being on the dark web you cannot be monitored what you are looking at what you are typing in what you are trying to do buy sell it is unmonitored fortunately for amy allwine the hitman for hire website was a fraud basa mafia was taking people's money but not carrying out any killings they were defrauding would-be criminals if you will but though basa mafia may not have been real the threat to amy alwyn's life was amy had to be terrified yeah she was absolutely terrified terrified and confused steve and amy had no idea who would want her dead and the only thing the fbi could tell them whomever was dog day god was intent on having amy outlined killed but identifying that person would be nearly impossible that's when the all wines take drastic steps to protect themselves so stephen goes out and he buys a handgun what type of gun a nine millimeter pistol they install an extensive security system at their home which sits on 26 acres off a rural road they installed some security cameras a security system from xfinity they also installed one of those ring video doorbells they even left the country for a couple weeks only telling the people who were traveling with them they went to germany and it was part of their church and we did learn that amy actually rested as well as she had rested all summer she knew being in germany that any potential killer probably wasn't going to be able to track her there but when she returned home the threats continued this time in the form of a couple of cryptic emails in the email it basically said you need to commit suicide otherwise we're going to harm the rest of your family then the reason why someone using the name jane alleges amy ruined her life by having an affair with her husband saying quote i do not know how a fat expletive like you got to my husband but because of you he left and my life has become expletive commit suicide if you do not then you will slowly see things taken away from you and each time you will know that you could have stopped it which will eat you apart from the inside the center even provided amy with a list of best ways to kill herself shotgun to the head cyanide inhaling gas slitting wrist also in the email were identifiers if you will i know where your your gas meter is and identifying certain people and their addresses that would be harmed if she didn't commit suicide jane even mentioned specifics about the all wine's young son saying quote i saw last friday he was wearing a bright pink shirt and made it appear that she'd been watching amy i see that you moved the rv all the emails were coming in as anonymous emails and they were used through an email anonymizer virtually untraceable in closing the sender warned unless you are heartless selfish expletive then i expect to see your obituary in the paper in the next couple weeks are you thinking this jane woman could be responsible for this and staging the scene yeah i mean that's part of the mix when amy alwyn was found shot to death inside her home in cottage grove minnesota everyone in the small town was stunned especially her next door neighbors the crime lab van was in the driveway for three days and nobody would talk to us about it and detectives would come and interview us and i would say what what gene and league coaches say they couldn't get any answers from cops and suddenly felt unsafe in their own home like you know if somebody dies you say oh they had a heart attack they you know they wouldn't tell us anything they just said no there's more going on cops quickly determined amy's death wasn't a suicide like her husband first suspected she was murdered this was really a classic whodunit in the months leading up to her killing there were threats on amy's life prosecutor fred fink says someone using the name dog day god paid 12 thousand dollars to a fake hitman for hire website called visa mafia do you think that they realized this website was a fraud at some point ultimately after after they paid twelve thousand dollars yes a few months later the preacher's wife received emails from someone using the name jane the email began by accusing amy of having an affair with this sender's husband ruining her life she was going to make sure that she ruined amy's if amy did not kill herself but as they dug deep to find the identity of the possible killer detective randy mcallister says they couldn't find any evidence that amy had ever cheated on her husband you went through her phone her emails her social media all of her transactions her computers everything there was zero indication she would step out on her husband or was stepping on him washington county detectives believe jane and dog day god are the same person but who is it and why did they want amy all dead so badly i appreciate you coming in this is a vexing situation i know it's hard for you a couple days after his wife's death stephen alwin meets with detectives for more than two hours we certainly weren't zeroing in on on stephen cops just wanted to know more about the threats on amy's life because prior to her death the case had been handled by the fbi when she received these emails was there a gut feeling or somebody you attributed these to stevens said he had no clue who'd want to kill his wife the idea that somebody who just out of the blue want to kill somebody out of our family it's just it's obscene and as for the emails alleging she was having an affair did you guys discuss that wait did she what cops didn't tell stephen initially is that they no longer believed his wife committed suicide what do you think happened to amy stephen claims the day his wife died she hadn't been feeling well he says it got so bad her father came to pick up their son so he could take amy to urgent care but she decided not to go every time i'd asked her she was okay she'd say yes shortly after five o'clock he checked on her one last time before heading out to pick up their son i broke my head and she was kneeling next to the bed at that point which is the position she's normally in she was praying so i feared she was busy i said go pick up steven says he left around 5 30 and when he returned 90 minutes later amy was dead i saw her on the floor towards the end of the interview cops drop a little truth bomb on stephen investigators found blood throughout his house using luminol blood that someone had obviously tried to clean up you could see that it looked like blood in on the wood floor just outside the bedroom that had been cleaned do you have any information about that no detectives even offer possible explanations for how the blood may have gotten there any injuries by anyone in the house when you checked on amy do you recall getting blood on you in any way but in addition to the cleaned up pool of blood in the hallway luminol also revealed bloody footprints throughout the house stephen's shoe size is what 12. he's a 12 and the bare feet on the floor the one that was illuminated was what size approximately it was measured to be around a 12 as well again detectives try to help steven come up with an explanation for the seemingly incriminating evidence do you call off your socks not had any blood on them any visual memory of that doesn't seem at this point that intruder would be taking his or her shoes off and walking around a house well not just that but coming into the house taking taking their shoes off locating the homeowner's gun and shooting and killing amy allwine and then cleaning up afterwards even though all three doors to the almins home are monitored 24 hours a day with surveillance cameras stephen did have an explanation for how an intruder might have gotten inside undetected there are only two that are recorded though a couple of reasons for that one is it's an extra fee each month to record them and we figure with the one in the back the dogs moving around back factory we'd be sending a bunch of useless information not only did the camera on the sliding glass door not record stevens said the door didn't lock properly it seems if you were in fear for your life you would number one get the door fixed and number two make sure that that area is covered well we thought so but aside from the entry points cleaned up blood and bloody footprints the lack of blood elsewhere also raised suspicions there wasn't any on the comforter on the bed which to me says that the comforter was changed that the one that was on the bed when she was killed there was not the one that we were looking at once we got there do you think it's possible the killer burned a lot of the evidence that's that's our theory yes that's because despite it being an unseasonably warm november day cops found a big fire burning in the stove that heats the all wine's home it's such a high temperature it would get rid of anything before wrapping up comp said one very important question for stephen the preacher who counsels couples at his church was about to make a bombshell admission one he'd never told anyone a couple of years ago the preacher confesses to having an affair with a woman he met online named michelle you can share that with the fbi when they were doing these threat evaluations he says it was brief but couldn't remember exactly when it began or when it ended first besides michelle uh there are many romantic relationships dating back 20 years ago okay so that's the one infidelity question if steven's ex-lover perhaps wanted his wife out of the picture your estimation is does michelle have the capacity to have any detectives were done asking questions but their investigation of stephen alwin was just starting i know the fbi you don't have any objection to us looking into that in the days following the murder of amy alwyn cops in cottage grove minnesota quickly realized they don't need to look far to find a suspect as evidence started coming in there was a lot of information that we found out about steve that started to focus our attention strictly at steve ironically much of that evidence was found on the it specialists own computers you seized more than 60 pieces of electronics multiple cell phones computers hard drives thumb drives all sorts of electronic prosecutor fred fink says stephen alwin lied to cops during his interrogation when he said he only had one affair remember this you found at least three other affairs yes despite the pastor's role as a couple's counselor at his church prosecutors say stephen alwin spent lots of time searching for women online and not just on any ordinary dating website steven allwine went on a website called ashley madison and he began communicating with women this continued throughout the time that amy alwyn was in fact killed ashley madison is designed specifically for married people looking to have an affair detectives say stephen had affairs with at least two women he met on the site did he meet them on multiple occasions the one female yes he had a significant relationship with her over the course of many months they took trips together they also found a woman steven met on backpage.com who he paid for sex was it alarming to you when you found out this man of god this christian marriage counselor was having so many affairs it certainly speaks to his character i think and possibly that speaks a little motivation as well for the murder stephen himself told cops his church doesn't condone divorce we believe that marriage is a covenant not just between the man the woman but with god as well and so unless you know you break that covenant instead of divorce sergeant randy mcallister believes steven chose murder as a way out of their marriage i think it's safe to say he was nationally known within the denomination maybe internationally known so he was kind of a big deal in the church too and we kind of think that maybe he didn't want to lose that standing because that was really important to him coughs were quickly closing in on stephen albine when they suddenly stumbled upon their biggest break in the case yet the bitcoin wallet address that that was found in december was key prosecutors say a 34-digit code found on stephen alwin's computer matches a bitcoin code and proves that he is dog day god the person who tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill amy alwyn a computer forensics expert says the code was first typed in the notes app on steven's iphone 20 seconds after that note was created on stephen allwine's password protected iphone it was posted by dog day god on the basi mafia website the message said help i posted the wrong bitcoin code this is the one that i meant to use less than a minute later the code was deleted from steven's iphone but it was too late it had already been uploaded to his computer through the cloud apparently when you sync itunes between your computer and your phone the cloud just sucks everything out of your phone what stephen should have known as an i.t specialist delete does not always mean delete investigators soon find evidence they say proves stephen was also behind the emails to his wife demanding she commit suicide the day before amy got the first email from so-called jane threatening her the defendant had been on his computer and had accessed raderas.com and received the various addresses of amy's relatives the addresses not only appear in the email the sender even admits to using the roderis website to find them you think he had any idea you were finding all of this against him i don't think so i think stevens thinks he's smarter than most people detectives then discover what they believe was the first attempt to kill amy allwine that day one that nearly went unnoticed we had found an internet posting just doing an open source search from this dog day god looking for a drug called scopalamine detective lancamer says when taken in large doses the drug causes a person to hallucinate and become disoriented down in colombia it's pretty prevalent as a date rape drug a test for the drug and amy system turned up an obscene amount it was about 45 times the normal 45 times the normal yeah somewhere around there based on her blood levels and they found huge amounts of capalmi in their stomach detectives allege steven put the drug in his wife's lunch the day she was murdered which would explain the symptoms she was experiencing because those symptoms match scopolamine not poisoning detective landkamer believes stephen was hoping the drug would kill his wife and if she would have died of poisoning that would have been the way out i think so it's such an obscure drug that it's not normal to test for that when the poisoning didn't work cops allege he shot her in the head instead staging the scene as a suicide and allowing his son to find his mom's body what kind of father allows something like this to happen that's certainly the question that all of us asked it's a disgusting move it really is two months after his wife's murder stephen alwyn was arrested and charged with second-degree murder where was he arrested we waited until he dropped his son off at school and we conducted a traffic stop and do you think he was surprised he didn't show it steven made bail and returned home his neighbors were terrified the police kept telling me you don't have to worry about anything he's not going to go after anybody he just hated his wife two months later stephen alwin was back behind bars after being indicted on one count of first degree premeditated murder he remained there until his trial in january kevin devore was steven's attorney were you confident going into this trial i was confident but i've tried enough cases to know that i had some some obstacles his biggest obstacle was the bitcoin code found on stephen alwin's computer the same code that was used to hire a hitman to kill amy how did you explain that well there was evidence that the all-whines computer system had been compromised i would say hacked would be the right word for it kevin devore argued there was no physical proof that stephen himself actually typed that code into his iphone it's all proof by way of computer records and so it was the opinion of the forensic scientists that as their expert testified in the trial any phone could be labeled as all wine iphone but jurors didn't buy the explanation after just eight hours of deliberations they found stephen allwine guilty of murdering his wife what's one of the biggest mistakes stephen made in all of this he thought with his internet knowledge and his smarts that he was covering all his tracks he didn't two days after the verdict was handed down stephen was sentenced to life in prison and addressed the court for the first time there was no remorse for his actions he stated that he loved his wife he also said his wife's killer is still out there you do not believe an unknown intruder entered that house and killed amy not as much as a green martian came down from saturn and did it absolutely not a family life shatter before being led away in handcuffs the preacher turned convicted killer promised to continue spreading his faith he said that he has changed lives while being held at our local jail and that as he was processed into prison he would be bringing his bible and continuing his ministry

Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 1,655,235

Keywords: Stephen Allwine, Cottage Grove Minnesota, Amy Allwine, Crime Watch Daily, True Crime Daily, Minnesota true crime

Id: 0DMxEbeipSs

Length: 31min 1sec (1861 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 16 2020