[phone ringing] MARTY WONDERLIN: A female at an
address out on Fox Hills Road wasn't breathing and
needed first responders. I looked, and I saw
a guy on the porch. And it took me a
second, but it just clicked that that
was someone that was an intern with our
sheriff's office, Seth Techel. And I see him doubled over. Looks like he's sobbing. NARRATOR: 21-year-old
Seth Techel tells Deputy Wonderlin
that his wife, Lisa Techel, has been shot. MARTY WONDERLIN: Lisa was a
reserve deputy with our office, and it was very surreal. I go into the trailer, just
straight inside to a bedroom. And I could see a
paramedic in there. He's working on Lisa, so I
asked the paramedic, like, should I start CPR again? But he said, just
very slowly, no. She's dead. NARRATOR: 23-year-old
Lisa Techel is pronounced dead
from a gunshot wound to the left side
of her upper body. MARTY WONDERLIN: Lisa
was pregnant at the time. And I remember telling
one of the paramedics, maybe there is
something they can do. Maybe the baby's not dead. I was grasping at
straws at that moment. NARRATOR: At only 17 weeks,
Lisa and Seth's unborn daughter is lost. MARTY WONDERLIN: I don't
know what to say to Seth. I don't know how to console him. I mean, what do
you say or can you say when you know your wife,
who's pregnant with your child, is murdered? NARRATOR: Within minutes, Deputy
Wonderlin's fellow officers show up at the scene. As a reserve deputy officer,
Lisa was one of their own. TODD CALDWELL: Lisa
was my best friend. If somebody was to say,
how can I hurt you worse than anything in
the whole world-- I would have said,
take Lisa from me. She was everything. She was my world. DON PHILLIPS: We're
a small department. We know each other's
husbands, each other's kids. Here's a violent
act that occurred, resulting in the death
of Lisa and her baby. Who's our suspect now? Who did this? MARTY WONDERLIN: I went
out and talked to Seth. So I started asking him,
you know, what happened? TODD CALDWELL: Actually, I could
remember when Lisa came home and was kind of talking about
a boy, Seth, whose dad owned the bowling alley at the time. That kind of evolved
into them dating and eventually, him asking
me if he could marry her. For a couple of
months prior to this, Seth has been talking
about this neighbor, Brian Tate, who's
just weird and maybe somebody to be cautious of. DON PHILLIPS: Just a
couple of weeks prior, there was this argument
on things being tossed over the fence, back
and forth, between Seth Techel and Brian Tate. I remember Todd
saying he thought that Brian may be responsible. NARRATOR: Seth makes a list
of five guns in the house-- two pistols and three rifles-- that are accounted
for in the home. CHRIS THOMAS: When I
spoke to Seth about Tate, he would describe Tate as
somebody that was mentally unstable, that carried
around a loaded firearm, and would stay up all
night, and was hallucinating about people terrorizing him. NARRATOR: While Seth
gives a statement, investigators in the
field talk to Brian Tate. DON PHILLIPS: His mom
verified his story, said that she was up at 5:00. Brian was in bed. She never saw Brian
come out of the house or come back to the house. NARRATOR: Brian
Tate has an alibi. But his history of bad
blood with the Techels still makes him
a viable suspect. CHRIS THOMAS: When we started
to unravel everything, things started to
change drastically. SCOTT BROWN: Colton Millard
was a friend of Seth Techel. He had provided information
to law enforcement, concerning Seth's
interest in a young woman by the name of Rachel
McFarland, who he worked with. CHRIS THOMAS: When
we pushed a bit more, it went from I just hugged
her to I kissed her. His story started
to somewhat unravel. CHRIS THOMAS: When
we started to unravel everything about his
lies involving Rachel, he was a bit defensive. CHRIS THOMAS: At
that point, Seth decided that he didn't want to
talk to me anymore and left. NARRATOR: Seth Techel is free
to go but unable to return home until the sheriff's
office concludes its search of his property. One of the people
investigators had interviewed was a former roommate of Lisa
and Seth's, named Lucas Howell. DON PHILLIPS: We had
learned that Lucas had a gun that was at the residence-- a Mossberg 500 shotgun. NARRATOR: The shotgun
was not on Seth's list of guns at the house. And the crime
scene people said, we never located a Mossberg
500 in the residence. That was concerning
to us because there's supposed to be this
gun here, and we don't know where it's at. We made the decision
that the next day, we'd search the property,
see if we can locate it. MARTY WONDERLIN: The
plan was to search the exterior better than we
were able to do the day before. The shotgun was ultimately
discovered in some tall grass north of the property. SCOTT BROWN: In our mind,
it's certainly, theoretically possible that it was a gun that
was used to kill Lisa Techel. MARTY WONDERLIN: One
of our reserve deputies had the idea that when
we released the scene, we should put a camera
pointing where the gun was. See what happens. SCOTT BROWN: He made
almost a direct beeline to that location. NARRATOR: Investigators
believe that Seth is searching for the Mossberg 500 shotgun. DON PHILLIPS: He wasn't
just a witness anymore. He became a suspect
at that point. NARRATOR: Investigators get
results from Lisa's autopsy. The report confirms that she
was killed with a shotgun. Fragments of the projectile
are collected for testing. SCOTT BROWN:
According to Rachel, at the time of Lisa's death,
it had not become sexual. She had drawn the line. He would have to leave Lisa
Techel before she would allow it to go any further. NARRATOR: Rachel also
mentions that she started to date someone else, and Seth
found out about the other man two weeks ago. CHRIS THOMAS: One of
the glaring things that really struck us
was that Seth told Rachel to just give him two weeks. And two weeks later, she's dead. That was pretty
powerful evidence. NARRATOR: To help secure the
case against Seth, the DA's office asks investigators
to rule out the only other person of interest. DON PHILLIPS: We needed
another interview with Mr. Tate to look at his guns,
look at his ammunition, which he allowed us to do. And none of that stuff
was similar to the shotgun behind the residence. So when we left there, we
were convinced he had nothing to do with what happened. TODD CALDWELL: The deputies,
they just come in there and got Seth. I had found out later that
they used my daughter's handcuffs to arrest him. [sobs] SCOTT BROWN: The first
day of the trial, the opening statement lays
out the evidence in the case. We have to prove premeditation,
specific intent to kill. NARRATOR: Among the
most incriminating evidence is the shotgun that
Seth omitted from his list. Ballistics testing reveals
that the round that killed Lisa likely came from the same gun. SCOTT BROWN: The gun was
pretty critical to our case and, in our mind, pointed
directly at Seth Techel. CHRIS THOMAS: We also presented
evidence about the secret phone that Seth had. DON PHILLIPS: There
was a cell phone that was found in his vehicle
that nobody knew about. And we discovered that there
were some text messages Seth had sent to Rachel the
night before the shooting, stating that we were done, and
Lisa's leaving in the morning. It was a countdown
to Lisa's death. CHRIS THOMAS: We knew
that the defense was going to hone in on this argument that
Mr. Brian Tate was responsible. Unfortunately, Mr. Tate passed
before the trial could start. SCOTT BROWN: I believe
he died in September. He had some very
significant health issues. The defense's tact
was to sort of portray him as this mentally
unstable person that didn't like Seth Techel. CHRIS THOMAS:
Basically, the argument was that Brian Tate broke into
their house with the intent to kill Lisa without
carrying a gun, hoping that he would
find a loaded gun, then shoot her, and
then be able to run away from Seth without being seen. SCOTT BROWN: The jury
found Seth Techel guilty of murder
in the first degree and guilty of
non-consensual termination of a human pregnancy. TODD CALDWELL: He
was going to be held accountable for
murdering my daughter.
