The Disturbing Case of Natalie Bollinger

hey you and welcome my name is Mike and in this old video when a teen went missing right after right after Christmas people thought they had it figured out almost instantly 2 weeks before she disappeared she had posted on Facebook about a stalker who had simply not leave her alone so people pretty quickly put two and two together Natalie volunteers missing what investigators didn't know however was that a deeper look into her digital presence would would would reveal she had posted on Craigslist the post was titled I want to put a hit on myself did she before we get into it please click that dirty little subscribe button to see new videos every single week now let's give it a [Music] goo well AR story today takes place in Broomfield Colorado picturesque place if you will situated right smack dab between Denver and Boulder the population is pretty small if you can believe that just short of 73,000 people and 63 parks to boot it is home to a 911 memorial in which a piece of the steel beam from one of the twin Terrors is displayed and that is the home for today's story not the steel beam Natalie Ballinger and her twin sister Alicia were born on February 24th 1998 in Westminster Colorado Westminster is like the next city over from Broomfield Natalie was the daughter of rose and Ted Ballinger Rose was a young mother just 19 years old when she had the Twins and it seems like their upbringing um in Colorado was kind of like a little bit rough there was allegations of abuse drugs alcohol all that kind of stuff in fact when the when uh Natalie and her twin Alicia were quite young Rose couldn't hack it anymore she left she went to Rhode Island as to where her own family were from she had to just get away from Ted and everything she wouldn't even see her kids for for a couple of years it was reported that Rose only went back to Colorado when she learned Ted was in fact being being sent to prison and then she was granted custody and she took her two young daughters back to Rhode Island with her where they grew up for a few years and and the two twins uh Natalie and her sister Alicia actually learned that they had a new little brother too they grew up in Rhode Island in this whole Blended blended family type dealio thingy bob Natalie was described as just a kind loving girl who loved nature and animals and believed that everyone should be treated with kindness regardless if it was deserved she was a creative at heart and an artist too as soon as her toddler hands were able to hold a crown she completed her high school diploma through a blended learning program called Pathways in Colorado and she moved in with her grandparents in that state and she went on to enroll in college to become a registered nurse she had bright plans for the future now back when Natalie was just 17 years of age she was walking down the street one day when she came across a homeless person just lying kind of sitting on the curb and this homeless guy seemed like he needed help and was just being ignored by everybody and again you know going back to Natalie's kind of belief that everybody every single person person should be treated with kindness she went over she took pity on him and she just started you know yapping away with him shooting the [ __ ] Str up conversation they quickly became friends and she was just in awe of of his life story and and soon after they added other on good old Facebook she was able to offer this guy an ear and and a friend be a friend to somebody who was in need and you know she would help him out when she could take him out to lunch drive him to places he needed to go all that sort of thing this man was sha Schwarz Natalie was half his age yet this initial meeting led to an obsession for Shawn what seemingly started as a connection over mental health and just kindness quickly turned scary for Natalie over the course of the next 2 years they would continue to talk via Facebook Sean's comments and obsession with Natalie kind of continued to escalate and escalate and eventually Natalie just needed to get away from Colorado she went to Virginia where her mom Rose was now living cuz that's where she would go to her mom you know when things were getting tough and Sean followed her so he went from sweet to creep real fast he refused to leave even went so far as to like honking down on the horn non-stop to try and get her attention Rose would have to come out of the house be shaking fist ad him telling him to to get lost and the cops were even called on him and this was the pivotal event that Natalie decided to step back from the friendship and stopped conversing with Shawn to Shawn this was as pleasant as a wet fart and so he decided to take to social media she just trash Natalie and her character and kind of calling her all sorts he was basically just ranting to himself at some point the harassment and stalking forced Natalie to get a restraining order against them and she posted on Facebook on December 13th 2017 warning other friends and those close to her of the situation she was very open about threats to her family from Shawn and how he would forever sleep himself if she never spoke to him again and she wasn't planning on speaking to him again hey y'all I have a public announcement there is a man named Shawn Schwarz I met this man when I was young I ran into him about 2 years ago long story short I became friends with him he sent emails for over a year close to every day harassing me making numerous accounts until I block him again I'm sharing this because he's posting slander about me all over Facebook so if you receive a message I'm sincerely sorry please ignore him he's mentally ill and I'm trying to fix thises people being autistic it was Christmas 2017 that Natalie and her boyfriend Joey would go on to share the holidays with her family without issue no doubt hoping to put this whole sha Fiasco behind her unfortunately things would only get much much worse on December 28 2017 Natalie was at home all morning by herself her boyfriend Joey he was up and out to work like mad early about 6:00 a.m. he said he spoke to Natalie twice that day via text once at her at 9:00 a.m. once at about 1:00 p.m. he got home then to their apartment at around 3:18 p.m. and the apartment was empty and he reported her missing right then and there Natalie was nowhere to be seen which is all that concerning but what was concerning was the fact that Natalie had left her phone and for a young woman in this day and age your phone is practically glued to your hand but what really made him call the police his own 9mm Glock handgun was missing hey uh so just a little bit ago my girlfriend got a protection order against this man who's been stalking her for quite some time and like he home and she's missing and all of the stuff here I I don't understand it it's not like her she supposed to be waiting for me then that we have the protection order against Sean Schwarz and he's been threatening to come hunting for her and all this stuff he called Natalie's mom Rose to ask her if she had spoken to her and she said she hadn't but she did have a missed call from her daughter at around 2 p.m. I've been in contact with her all day until the last test I got from her at the door does now they have any mental health issues she's trying to Comm suicide times okay so she's sent you that text message saying somebody's at the front door you haven't been able to get a hold of her since so when police and Natalie's family got to the apartment fearing the worst with the knowledge of Natalie's stalker Shawn and just having put a restraining order in place less than a week ago everyone Figures it's an open un shut case Shawn is taking at some revenge on Natalie all fingers we're we're pointing at Sean right obviously stalker weird obsessed stalker yada yada yada she tries to get rid of him but when police picked up Shawn he is a pretty solid Alay he was on his friend's couch all morning did you leave the house at all for the rest of Wednesday no not people here okay so then you go to sleep at the apartment that night wake up Thursday morning at the apartment okay let's talk about Thursday what was on Thursday the same thing go anywhere stay at the apartment all day I was there all day okay I just wish you didn't have to waste your time on me and we're we're only looking to you for help that's why you're here so we don't thank you're a waste because you know her thank goodness he seemed genuinely concerned for Natalie's well-being and thought he in fact thought she was still out of town for the for the holidays he'd also been staying away because of the restraining order he had been obeying the the order the police had no reason to keep him and so he was released okay the Broomfield Police Department just got a hold of me um Natalie volunteers missing um if you know her uh the phone number for the Broomfield Police Department is 3034 64 5858 um I'm going to post up some pictures here uh please help find her please I I don't um please help however all hope to find Natalie safe and Alive were crushed the very next day when at around 1:43 p.m. police discovered a body in Adams County about an hour outside of Broomfield given it being just 24 hours since her disappearance it was quickly determined that the body was indeed Natalie Ballinger Corner confirms the body found last Friday is out of 19-year-old Natalie Ballinger just how she died is still under investigation but deputies want to talk to anyone who may have information on Bullinger whereabouts after 1 in the afternoon on December 28th her body was reportedly found in the bush by a dairy farm autopsy revealed she was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head and toxicity reports showed a lethal amount of heroin in her system at the time of her death no gun was found at the scene and Joey's gun was was still missing before police could even announce the discovery Natalie's Father Ted had put a public post on Facebook that his daughter had been murdered and it was clear who was responsible sha Schwarz of course I mean if we're honest here I'd be looking at Sean too I think everybody would be T Elation was a real clear present thing immediately as it would be who else would have done something to her other than the guy who was you know problems and is a stalker we don't have anybody who was either talking with her through social media or through text or in person or on the telephone family reported the teen missing on Thursday December 28th the following day a body was discovered off a rural road in Adams County we really didn't have a whole lot of information we were still actually even trying to come up with a name a way of trying to identify who she was a Facebook post Binger made just one week before her disappearance fueled a firestorm of speculation on social media the post was a public warning about a man she said had been stalking her for years we have talked to him um and again not ready to call anybody a suspect Shawn however maintained his innocence he may have some mental health issues but he but he swore he was no killer he took to his favorite pastime posting on social media for anyone to hear he said over and over again he had zero involvement and the continued suspicion of him was a Witch Hunt his online activity was an ongoing concern of many however the police had zero evidence against him to to arrest him so they did the next best thing they arrested him under a mental health act putting him on 72-hour surveillance during this time he resisted arrest and assaulted a police officer which led to him getting injured he was however released on January 10th with a pending court date for his assault on the officer but he would be cleared on all counts of any involvement in Natalie's murder lot about Natalie you're going to have to ask the police department CU that confident information for them also I've been instructed not to speak to y'all but I got a few more fingers for you well do you know what happened to her no you know who does tell me how would I know what happened to Natalie what do you guys know all I know is from Facebook messenger and I hate Facebook what did Facebook Messenger say it doesn't matter you need to get a hold of the police and talk to them well apparently you you were of interest of this uh of her case so why were you of a suspected interest in this case I was not a suspect I was a first Ved and I heard that I saw it on a news report I have not yet heard that from the police now if you guys would like to you can go contact the room field police department and you can ask them for whatever information that you feel is pertinent his obsession and rants continue online to this day but police were solid in the belief he was not the Killer I'm going to start with uh 2016 all right so I'd known uh who Natalie and Lisa were for well since they were about 13 I suppose um we hung out with which led them back to square one on January 17th 2018 almost three weeks after Natalie's murder the police then started going through all her uh internet activity social media activity text messages all of that stuff all of the Stu she had been doing in the days leading up um to her murder they found a number of texts messages going back and forth to a number she didn't have saved in her phone all from the same day the day she disappeared and all those messages had been deleted 111 of them enter in won Joseph Lopez not much could be found Joseph he was a 22-year-old father and a manager at the classic Italian eery dominoes co-workers said he was a kind compassionate person he managed the DS he munched on some zah however co-workers said Joseph Lopez he was thrown up at work he was puking his guts up in the bathroom on December 30th so he really must have been eating their Pizza this was just a day after Natalie's buddy was found and he ended up going home early seemed pretty upset about the news now it's not believed they knew each other or it wasn't at the time he was just a sensitive Soul he called in sick three days after that saying it's some kind of virus no one though seemed to think he was acting any differently or changed other than that so police track the messages between him and Natalie um around the time of her disappearance and they went and paid him a visit on February 8th they went and paid him a visit at his place at work when the police went in there he immediately said I know where are you here I I know Warrior here to see me he willingly went to the station the police station with with these officers and he said say it's about that girl on Craigslist isn't it why yes yes it is tell us more yes the girl on craigslists that thing why don't you go ahead and tell us your version of events my man what I'm thinking this is all about is um someone I was talking to over on Craigslist I was just on there looking for p pal as I said he brought up Natalie not the police so goes his first version of events he started by saying he would often scroll Craigs list and happened to be in the women seeking men section and came across a post that according to Lopez stated can you put a hit out on yourself I need someone to do this for me I'm not trying to be saved this is not a cry for help I've made this decision I don't need to be talked down I just want someone to do it for me I'm seriously asking this isn't the [ __ ] game I just need help doing it the post made by Natalie seemingly directly after her boyfriend left her work that morning as the post time has been stated at 6:25 a.m. this was where the start of the text conversation between Lopez and Natalie began What drew me to what she had posted was it was very uh weird you recall kind of what that said got your attention um well the title itself just said I'm thinking about putting a hit on myself so my first thought was if someone obviously needs help and hasn't been getting the help that they need being the type of person that I am I'm you know I will do anything to help someone at least stay alive you know my first thought was I really want to help this girl so after a little bit I was like you know I'm not getting anywhere you know let's see if I can convin her to um meet up with me and see what happen Joseph at first says he's a good guy he came across this post that morning and he's like oh boy I got to meet this person I got to talk him down off the ledge I I went along with the role is um I'm a very that me what Al I'm a very Avid role player online how do you go about taking a Persona of a Hitman how do you take that role out it really fascinates me as a writer I have a character that's for the horror genre his name is Aki he's also just a psycho you know like he'll lure you in and yeah all right she was asking me like um you know how do you want to do it where do you want to go and stuff and I didn't really give her an answer you know I it was just real General because you know I wasn't really thinking about it you know I convinced her to you know meet up with me so I went to her place and I picked her up and we went for a drive he went and he picked her up you know that afternoon was going to take her for a drive around beautiful brooms field show her life is worth living but what Natalie didn't know was that Joseph Lopez had a a sick and twisted mind and he had fantasized about killing somebody for a long ass time and then he was licking his chops at the idea of oh you want me to kill you winwin but that's not what Joseph said of course he said he picked up Natalie and they just drove around town just aimlessly and she confided in him all of the reasons as to why she's come to the conclusion that she needs to you know forever sleep according to Lopez it was boyfriend problems mental health and what we know now a traumatic childhood all played a part plus she she was known to be a drugs user Lopez said that atal got frustrated with him when he was sides skirting the actual reason for their Meetup which was killing her what did she think you were there for she thought I was responding to the in what in what way like um she thought I was going to be the one to do it did it take her out drove around for a little bit you know like two three hours I can't remember exactly and we just talked eventually I think she either got fed up with me you know cuz I guess she was pretty serious about was going on and you know she then demanded he drop her off at her apartment and she said or which he said he did willingly he thought he'd saved her and she said no just drop me off here that's um last time I saw her really it's that it turned out the way it did but the police were no Dum Dums they had done their homework they knew um that Joseph Lopez had been to the place where her buddy was found not near the dairy dairy farm tracking his phone signals you were at the murder scene what gives guy was full of sh and he just been found out we're here to try to figure out what happened to her all right and I think that you know there's some things I think you're leaving out for okay just ask right now that you just un and you get everything off your chest okay when they outed him he broke down now the story was yes he had been there but he had only watched her do it he had begged her not to but she ignored him and shot and killed ourselves anyway she shoots herself before I can try to reach and up she just sat down and she put it like this then she fired Joseph then fled with the gun which apparently was a payment agreement like you kill me you get the gun and then he also took her purse but then what Joseph Lopez also didn't know was that the autopsy and the medical examiner could confirm that Natalie had not shot herself they could tell she hadd been shot at from a distance somebody else had shot her so he comes back with his third and final story he's like all right guys listen I was joking around the previous two times that was me just plain you know now I'll tell you the actual truth when I said I was telling the truth before I wasn't now I am you can believe me this time okay he did it he pulled the trigger he begged her to change her mind but she insisted on being killed execution Style on her knees according to Lopez he obliged her request hands shaking and while not even looking he pulled the trigger he then said he fled with the with the person the gun and police could confirm this much as they were found in his trunk still he also told the police he had no idea about any drugs use and swore to the police he's he had no idea she'd gotten high and he did not witness it given the stories he's told so far who knows what what's true though I mean if you confess to murder what's little drugs use so why wouldn't he talk about that but remember she was found with a lethal Ament of heroin in her system since Natalie did have a history of drugs use and and selling it seemed no one questioned it any further the police also confirmed that the post he was claiming he saw the one the Craigslist post that Natalie posted um that did in fact exist he wasn't bullshitting she posted it looking for a killer to kill her and then deleted it within 2 minutes within 2 minutes she posted it and deleted it and in that time Joseph Lopez saw it he was quick enough to see it and to respond to it within 2 minutes at like 6:30 a.m. what was he do when BR at that time like what are chances that an actual wannabe killer somebody who had dreamt and and been obsessed with the idea of killing somebody had seen it within 2 minutes it's incredibly tragic and disturbing what if Natalie had had deleted it by the time he scrolled by a lot of w what ifs in this story Natalie she had a history of drugs use of depression and so in that 2 minutes she had posted this and probably just kind of almost lashing out the worst possible person in the world saw it and responded to it found arrest in the murder of a young woman Natalie bolinger's case is one that we have followed very closely deputies in Adams County accused Joseph Lopez of shooting her in the head and then leaving her in a ditch Joseph Lopez eventually confessed to killing Natalie but claims it was because she asked him to through a Craigslist ad that's what we're hearing right now and the affidavit says Lopez told detectives he found Natalie Natalie through a Craigslist ad titled something to the effect of I want to put a hit on myself the same day he was taken in for questioning he was also arrested for the murder of Natalie Ballinger he shortly accepted a plea deal and pled guilty to second in exchange for a lesser sentence and a chance for parole in December 2018 he was officially sentenced to 48 years it will be 2066 when his sentencing is up Joseph Lopez will be just over 70 years of age it was a very emotional morning here that courtroom was full of Natalie's friends and family now Natalie's Father Ted Binger was able to speak in court this morning while in custody for a parole violation Bullinger told the judge he did not not agree with the plea deal offered to Lopez because a deal was not Justice he also said that neither he nor his side of the family were told about the deal at the earliest date possible the judge denied his request to continue the hearing because the prosecution says they made several attempts to contact the Ballinger Family the Ballinger Family had no say in this deal this is no justice I look at this deal as a deal with the devil malie Marie Binger was a person she had a life her life mattered more than you will ever know after several emotional statements from Natalie's family the judge gave Lopez the maximum sentence under his plea deal 48 years in prison with 5 years [Music] parole Natalie somebody grew up with a lot of with a lot of trauma and she tried to find these different ways of trying to help and heal and in the end she just couldn't she just couldn't couldn't beat it um which makes it then just all the more tragic that like she probably she posted and then deleted it asking somebody to kill her within 2 minutes Shey posted it and regretted it immediately but a twisted killer saw it twisted wab be killer and actual killer turns out because it became one saw it responded to it they texted they had 111 text messages between them and eventually they met up and God only knows what happens well what happened is that Natalie ended up dead still so weird though that he of people saw that makes you wonder if you had Google Alerts setup or something thank you so much for watching uh really means a lot to me I hope you enjoyed this old video or found it interesting uh at the very least um if you're looking for some more that chapter please check out the that chapter podcast which is available on all podcast platforms the new episode out every single Monday uh and it's different stories uh to what I tell here on the channel so check it out if you're looking for some more tell with somebody else people won't stop texting me about Keith who's also on the podcast so give it a que but here listen until the next old episode video will be up in a couple of days so look forward to it if you please uh be know until then guess what I love you my [Music] go

Channel: That Chapter

Views: 774,700

Keywords: that chapter, natalie bollinger, shawn schwartz, joseph lopez, broomfield colorado, craigslist, solved mystery

Id: ha4s2R6Z_Po

Length: 26min 23sec (1583 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2024