the case of candace hiltz

hey everyone its Bella and welcome back to another mystery video I hope you're all having an incredible day so jumping straight in today we're gonna be talking about the disappearance of Candis held she was born on the 22nd of December in 1988 in Canon City in Colorado her mother Dolores said that the day she was brought home from the hospital she and her husband put her under the Christmas tree so that when her siblings woke up they'd find her new sister or their new sister as a little Christmas gift for taking us so sweet unfortunately when Candace was just five years old her father passed away so she only had really vague memories of him but despite that she was really smart from a really young age she was described as a child prodigy she was actively performing or doing calculus from age 11 she grew up around a lot of brothers so she was a bit of a tomboy she even did some buddy building and she did have a feminine side though she loved jewelry especially necklaces she had these necklaces which she called bull necklaces and they were just like necklaces with a bunch of beads on them and she was described as intelligent and funny and headstrong and fierce and she also was really passionate about justice and doing the right thing and everything being fair for everybody she would always stand up for school bullies and it was actually her dream to not only go to Stanford Law but become a Supreme Court justice and she was well on her way to going she was in her third year of Birmingham Young University when she was just 17 years old and she actually did later get accepted into Stanford but she ended up falling pregnant when she was 17 and so she decided to transfer her schooling to online schooling so that she could stay home and raise her child in September of 2015 she gave birth to her daughter Paige who was born with hydrocephaly which is a normal buildup of cerebral spinal fluid in the acentric holes of the brain which can lead to a developmental delays brain damage and unfortunately even death so Candace was definitely determined to make the most of with Paige she just wanted to make every moment with her daughter count because she knew that her time was limited due to her illness unfortunately so she would celebrate every milestone and cherish every memory and every week was like a birthday and unfortunately her daughter Paige would actually end up out living her her mother Delores raised her until she was 7 years old when Paige unfortunately passed away due to her illness Candace also had an older brother named James and he had severe psychological issues he was extremely paranoid around other people to the point where it could be described as a phobia and it was so bad that he couldn't even be around his own family he couldn't work a normal job and he actually lived in a tent by himself in the woods behind his family home and Candace was extremely defensive of him okay um I apologize if you can hear that in the background my neighbor has been power washing for the past five hours the same spot I'm not sure if he's just shutting fixes his neighbor's up or if it takes five hours to power wash and entre but I'm sorry for the background noise so on the 10th of August in 2006 Fremont County sheriff's deputy Robert Dodd stop in the name of Claude does anyone remember that show he arrived at the hilts home which was in a remote wooded location in the copper Gulch area and he came home looking for James to question him in regards to a trespassing incident that had happened instead he ended up talking to Candace and her mother Delores and at some point in the conversation Candace ended up getting really angry at dogs line of questioning and his demeanor and the way that he was speaking to her mother eventually she started yelling at him and he told her that if she couldn't contain her anger he would have to arrest her now in response apparently Candace held her wrists at and told him to just arrest her and she also said that if he were to arrest her that she'd seen him around town accepting some envelopes from some known drug dealers around if he wanted to arrest her she would just go and tell the other sheriff's deputies and he apparently got really annoyed with what she was saying and then angrily stormed away several days after this conversation the hilts family's dog went missing and Catherine Ava which was Candace's cousin said that they lived in the country so when the dog went missing they just assumed it was like a mountain lion or something according to Kathleen after that dog went missing Candace went down to the Sheriff's Department and got into a bit of an altercation with another sheriff's deputy which I think was dog but this was unconfirmed on the 15th of August in 2006 Dolores had to go and run some errands and she was a little bit worried about leaving Kansas home alarm just because the dog who'd gone missing which I read that it like it wasn't that big of a concern when a dog went missing cuz I thought it was like a mountain lion or that maybe it would come back they did live in the wilderness but they just had a really bad feeling about that and they also had the altercation of dogs so she was just a little worried I'm feeling like the altercation must have been a lot bigger than what I was picking up on in my research because she was really concerned to leave her home alone and she decided to leave a home with Paige who was 11 months old at the time and the first time she still canis that day was at noon and because she just had this uneasy feeling she got her neighbor or asked her neighbor to be able to go and check in on Candace while she was out for the day now from here the timeline of events splits into two different timelines there is a timeline of Dolores and then there is the timeline of the Fremont County Sheriff's Department sir according to one timeline the family friend who was the son of their neighbor went over to check on Candace and he found a completely empty house except for the baby who was in her crib crying and screaming apparently he took the baby to his house to try and calm her down because he couldn't find Candace anywhere and he waited that width page until Dolores got home at around 3:30 p.m. Dolores claims than when she got home she could hear Paige crying and screaming and she saw blood splatter everywhere as well as pools of blood but initially she didn't see any signs of Candice she rushed to the bedroom where Paige was where her crib was and when she got in there she saw under the main bed Candace's bed like a rolled-up green comforter she approached the comforter and when she did she found Candice and she said that Candice had been shot so many times that about 75% of her head was gone and the trauma was so bad through her head that it was described as severe decapitation and Candice just slumped to the ground and was crying of course like she just found her daughter totally mutilated the Sheriff's Department was then contacted in the two deputies that were put on the case were deputy Fisker and deputy dog now according to witnesses and according to Dolores the investigation was shitty just from the start it was a shitty investigation they didn't cross it off as a crime scene they ordered the family to get out of the house but they didn't cut it off as a crime scene so people were free to come and go as they pleased almost immediately for unknown reasons the deputies decided that Candice had been murdered by her brother James and sir there was an official manhunt for James Hills during the initial stages of the investigation they searched the wooded area for any signs that somebody had been there and a lot of people said that the investigation was more about finding James than it was about finding clues as to her mad at Candice they just immediately said this was probably James let's find him like they didn't decide like they just had tunnel vision basically and they weren't looking for other players or who else it may be they just decided he was their guy dream that such efforts for James I also found the helps family dog and he was tied up to a tree with rope and was butchered using a hatchet or a small axe and immediately this raised questions because some people thought that whoever murdered Candice had premeditated it and they had murdered the dog so that they could quietly get in and out with that dog making any noise or making any making there murder and candles more difficult for them in following up their theory of the case they decided to question the family on James's we're about to any known associates but because of his psychological issues he didn't have any you know known associates they also wouldn't know where he is most of the time because he doesn't like to be around other people and they started to worry about the direction that the investigation was going and James also had no history of violence now Dolores obviously tried to explain the mental illness to the officers she said that he had been in and out of the Colorado mental health institute due to his issues she said he suffered from severe issues and that he didn't even come inside the house he doesn't pull to the family he doesn't think she's his mother and that some other woman has replaced her and the back door of the home was pried open with a breaker bar but James would only come into the house when no one else was there and there was a butter knife which they hid under the front doorstep which he would use to open the front door now the conversation between Delores and investigators lost over four hours it didn't change the course of their investigation of all it didn't change their minds whatsoever even there she told them that he didn't have a firearm he hadn't her means to be able to get a firearm he had no history of violence anything like that but they were just kind of stuck in that way so this was a guy after they examine the crime scene the family was allowed back home and this is when Delores realized how shitty of a job these deputies and these officers had done when they got home the back door was wide open there was no crime scene tape she found a shotgun shell inside pages crib as well as shotgun shells around their fireplace like there was just so much evidence that they have missed the blood-soaked comforter which Candice was wrapped in was left there there was also towels that looked like they'd been handled by the killer they had some blood on them and they were just left outside the house as well they even found a blood search show which Candice have been wearing that day sir apparently they really didn't take a lot of evidence with them at all she was just shocked - all of the evidence that they had left behind and one of her sons was actually in friends at class so they decided to take matters into their own hands and they got some rubber gloves and they photographed it and filed it and you know put it in bags and everything like that that you were meant to do at a crime scene and then they took it to the place and she was just demanding answers as to why that was so much left behind she asked to speak to deputies Dodd and brisker and apparently neither of them wanted to speak to her they said they were too busy so she said she would sit there and she would wait which is when a young man came out to talk to her and she left she told him what had happened and then she left and everybody called her back and then eventually brisker ended up showing up at the house with a search more demanding the container evidence after he said he was too busy police ended up issuing a statement saying that they were on a manhunt for James hilts that he could be armed and dangerous either with a rifle or a 22 caliber handgun and then three days later on the 15th of August they found him he was camping in the cup of Gulch Iron Mountain area west of KM city and despite the belief that he was involved in the meta he was charged with first and second degree burglary and criminal trespassing both of which are felonies in addition he was also charged with theft and criminal mischief and according to the Sheriff's Department they believe James broke into a home where he stole hatchets and flashlights he was held on a five hundred thousand dollar bond and despite the fact that he has never been charged with anything to do with Candace's murder he's still listed as the prime suspect when he was taken into custody he had no firearms like they said that they believed he possessed even their Delores told him he didn't have one he didn't have any access to any and his child just world dropped by reason of insanity and he was taken to the corral Colorado and Mental Health Institute and Dolores claims that every time he comes up for a review deputies from the Fremont County Sheriff's Office arrive and speak out against his release stating he remains a suspect in the murder of his sister it just seems like they really don't like this guy an 11-page autopsy was released for Candace's murder she was shot seven times six in the head and one in the chest and she was shot by three different guns a shotgun a medium caliber gun and a small caliber gun it was also noted that she had been shot from both the front and the back and that she had been shot from the back once with a shotgun and from the front five times with the small caliber gun she was also shot once in the chest with the medium caliber gun according to the blood spatter analysis she was shot by at least two people but at most three people now in the family's minds this completely real James out because he doesn't like people so he wouldn't have been with somebody else to have shot her like even if he was to shoot her which the family thinks it's very unlikely he wouldn't have been with anybody else so in their minds he was completely innocent and there was no way that he did that so while the report says that there were three different weapons dolar says that sharing leaf and shell casings for two different weapons a 22 caliber gun and a shotgun she believes that one of the killers stood in front of Candace and wanted stood behind her on a loveseat so he was like a bit above her all day we're a bit above her and that is hard they shot her from a bit of a downward trajectory but I couldn't find anywhere if there was only two bullets if maybe they had taken the third like shell casings with them and not taken the other two shell casings and so that's why Dilara suddenly found two I think it's a possibility but I'm not sure in addition to this it's been suggested that Candace received two blows to the head with the gunshots and then multiple small caliber gun shots to the back of her head and then with the medium caliber gun she was shot from the side including on her hand she had around - ten twenty two caliber shotguns in her sides and Dolores believes that this was from two people who was shooting her simultaneously she said that when they were dragging her buddy down the stairs she believes she had death tremors and that's why there are like some wavy blood markings on the walls there were also some towels and some laundry which was sitting on top of her dryer which apparently the killer had taken to clean himself off they put them in a garbage bag and then they dumped them at a nearby trail which Dolores found and identified as Hearn and she also said that when the towels were tested for DNA they found that there was DNA on there from an unknown male so not from anybody in her family the disagreements between the hilts family and the Sheriff's Department continued for years there wasn't much of an investigation they still believe that James was a hunch person Vaigai despite the fact that there was evidence that more than one person had to have been there to shoot her so Dolores ended up filing a formal complaint against the Sheriff's Department with the Attorney General and also put forward the theory that one of the deputies might even be involved in the murder now for the next ten years there wasn't a lot in times investigation there wasn't a lot of leads until December of 2016 on December 17th there was a Dawson ranch mini storage which is a storage unit facility where they were conducting auctions on units whose owners had fallen behind on payments and there was a guy named Rick rats lab and he was a former street car racer he also had some bad run-ins and had a bad reputation with the Fremont sheriff's deputies department that was one option on one of the unit's in particular and you weren't allowed to go inside them but you're allowed to look from the outside and make a bid then and there was one unit that rats I had seen and he saw some police lights in there so he decided to make a bid for $50 for the unit which he won now when he got in there he started to notice that there were envelopes with evidence writ there were little boxes with like shell casings and Buddy bloody clothes and evidence in this storage locker he also found a bloody piece of rope - blood saying soft socks and a chrome axe which was also covered in blood he also found a Fremont County Sheriff's Department yeah like that uniforms there sirens and their lights from their vehicles now he immediately contact the Fremont Sheriff's Department and he got in contact with Jim Baker who was the sheriff and he said that he believed that evidence was in relation to the canvass hilts murder case Rob's lab also said that in his conversation with Myka that it sounded like he was threatening him and he was telling him that his life could be in danger because of the contents that he had found in the storage locker which to me it seems like maybe you should have kept paying for your storage locker so this didn't happen it wasn't because storage locker there now sometime after this conversation with Becca detective Dodd and his family started contacting ratzlaf because it was Dodd storage locker they started contacting him to try and buy the contents of the storage locker back saying that I had childhood memories in it and it's like if it had childhood memories in it why didn't you just continue paying for the storage locker or why didn't you take the stuff out of it and then stop paying for it it kind of seems like you're bad they were contacting him on Facebook apparently he didn't use Facebook much so then he started getting harassed by the Sheriff's Department sir eventually he invited sheriff mica to come down and have a look at the contents of the storage locker but he just had a really sketchy feeling about it especially because he had like been threatening him on the phone earlier and they've been harassing him so he got his wife to secretly record it sheriff mica said that following his examination of the storage locker that he handed all of the contents I rod to the Colorado Bureau of Investigations and that he photographed and examined all of the evidence before handing it over to the CBI who would be taking over the case from now on and a deputy dog was also placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation now the work and the acts were actually what was used to murder the hilts family's dog and the bloody socks that were found what canvases and according to Dolores they were the ones that she was wearing when she was murdered but the family didn't find out about the evidence from the sheriff's department all from the CBI they had to find out through the media now it's pretty obvious that Dodd had to have stolen this evidence from the sheriff's departments evidence locker and he either would have had to do that to hide evidence to protect himself or to protect somebody else so it just kind of reinforced her believes that somebody from the sheriff's department was involved in her daughter's murder in February of the next year in 2017 to take deputy Brisco was also placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the CBI who had determined or were investigating some claims that he had had an inappropriate relationship with an underaged woman when he was working as a drug abuse resistance officer in 1999 however the woman that he apparently had this affair or had this relationship with us inappropriate relationship with decided not to press charges and so he was reinstated and still works for the department on April 23rd Dodd decided to retire and move to Texas and then less than a month later on the 4th of May he was charged with two counts of second degree misconduct and abuse of public records now these charges stemmed from not only all of the items are found in the storage locker but also another incident where he changed public records that he didn't have the authority to change on the 17th of May new evidence was found in the Phantom landfill in Penrose a man named Robert proton who was a bragger at the landfill called Rick Ralph's lab and stated that they picked up a dump stop from Dogg's private residence in the landfill is required to check for hazmat items and all dumpsters they retrieve and inside of dogs they found a fat envelope with what looked to be a criminal investigation paperwork a videotape relating to a sexual offense investigation and a computer Orton said that he did try and contact the DA's office but when he didn't get a response for them and he couldn't get through to them he contacted ratzlaf who then contacted tracey harmon who was a reporter for the pew blow Chaffetz and I think I'm not very good at pronunciation hum and then arrived at the landfill and they tried to contact the DEA but once again couldn't get through so they started going through the evidence themselves so they found an envelope and this envelope had a DVD inside and it also had a videotape which is March that it was to do with a sexual assault case and they also found a tackle box which was marked FCS our crime scene unit forensic lights and the DA eventually called Harmon and instructed the DA's investigator Richard when to come and collect the evidence that they found on June 6 in 2017 Dodd was supposed to appear before the court but instead he had his attorney Randy Jorgenson appear before the court who set a date for a pre-trial conference on the 17th of July on the 8th of June the DA announced that they were launching a second insect investigation into the incident and the evidence that was found inside the landfill then on Wednesday the 30th of August Dodd had a pre-trial that he was meant to go to but only appeared via a telephone and at this time his attorney said that the DA had offered a plea bargain and that he was going to discuss it with his client now the alleged corruption of the Fremont Sheriff's Department was huge and it it ended up in this massive public outcry gene bika who was the sheriff was apparently the most corrupt guy of them all and everybody seemed to have known it there was also a petition raised to have him removed as sheriff for these reasons give me a second for the impounding of Rick's Ratliff's vehicles failure to follow up on investigative crimes reported the murder of Candace hilts the 2004 case of gene fish a missing a federal agent under Doug's control the death of inmate John Patrick Walter in which Becca is named as a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit the case of Christine Humphrey a daycare worker who was charged with neglect resulting in death sir he was a corrupt guy the whole like Fremont County Sheriff's Department seemed like a corrupt place so incredibly suss that they had all of this stuff in evidence and I mean to me I just can't really see another option other than the detective was involved in this crime it's just like nothing else points to anybody else sir in saying that let's talk about some theories sir the first bit so the first area of something that I don't find very likely and that is that she was murdered by somebody that nobody even would think about it's just some random person it was like a home invasion or a robbery that had gone wrong but it just it seems really unlikely because the dog was murdered which seems like they must because I don't know if you guys knew this but this there's this huge statistic that if you have a dog you are less likely to be broken into because rubbers tend to avoid houses with dogs because it'll cause more of a fuss and it'll be harder for them to just get in from you and get out so it seems really soft so that the dog was killed the day before it seems like that was something that was done maliciously that it was premeditated so that they wouldn't have any troubles getting in and out and nobody would hear them you know the dog wouldn't alert anybody and I also find it really sucks the amount of just like shitty police work done you know the amount of evidence that was left behind all of that kind of stuff it just it definitely seems like this was something that was premeditated it definitely seems like this wasn't just a robbery that had gone wrong and I think you guys can probably agree with me on that the second theory is that it may have been Paige's father I couldn't really find a lot of information on pages father there but you know some theories think that maybe he didn't want the child in the first place and and me he decided to take his anger on the situation out on Candace but again I don't know it seems unlikely especially if it was about having a child that he didn't want because Paige was already 11 months old at the time the next theory again I don't think it's very likely and it's that it was James hilt I just don't see any evidence towards this all from all of the evidence that was gathered it seems like there had to have been at least two perpetrators and at most three perpetrators and there's just no way he would have done that I mean first of all he doesn't like being in the house I mean I can see that maybe he would have shot her because he was in the house and maybe she was there and he didn't like that and this paranoia led him to kill her but I just don't see that especially considering it seems like that had to have been more than one person involved in the murder and it seems like they had some sort of agreement going on where he would enter the house when he knew nobody was this or it just doesn't really seem like he had any reason to murder her now of course the last theory is the one that I believe and it is the fact that this could have been one of the Sheriff's Department it could have been specifically Dodd maybe Briscoe maybe both of them maybe they had some mates come and help them maybe they sent somebody to go and do it for them but either way I just think too much lack looks too shady for it not to have been them I know that it doesn't seem like much that they had this little fight and whatever but you know the fight could have been a lot bigger than it's being portrayed and it seems like maybe that's why they are so persistent that James is the lead suspect and they don't want him to get out because just immediately they didn't look into any other possibilities they were like James James is the guy that's it like it that's they just beeline for him they had tunnel vision for him and it was almost immediate and to me that just seems like they were looking to pin it on somebody else because it was then you know and what other reason would he have to hide all of this evidence in the storage locker it just doesn't make any unless he had something to do with it sir in my personal opinion that's the theory I believe but I would love to know your thoughts on the case what there you believe if maybe you believe a theory I didn't mention as always thank you guys for watching and hopefully I will see you in my next video bye guys

Channel: Bella Fiori

Views: 1,049,164

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Id: m14K3LfSLm8

Length: 28min 16sec (1696 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 28 2020