[tense music] NARRATOR: One hot
Colorado evening in June 2007,
34-year-old mother Paige Birgfeld failed to return home
to her three waiting children. My biggest fear was that
she was missing by force. Someone had to
have kidnapped her or, worse, absolute
worst case, murdered her. NARRATOR: Nothing more
was heard about Paige. There was no trace at all
for another five years. An agony, a time of
agony for her parents and her friends, and indeed
for the three children that she bore. NARRATOR: The investigation
was complicated by the discovery of a
side to Paige Birgfeld that few people knew about. She was running what we would
describe as an escort business. NARRATOR: One of Paige's clients
was local mechanic Lester Jones, a man with a dark past. He kidnapped his
wife at gunpoint and then threatened to kill
her almost in the same way as he ended up killing Paige. Lester Jones
killed Paige Birgfeld after she refused to continue
to provide him services that he wanted. NARRATOR: Lester Jones's
desire to dominate women had cemented his place as one of
the world's most evil killers. [theme music] The disappearance of 34-year-old
soccer mom Paige Birgfeld sent shockwaves through
the isolated city of Grand Junction, Colorado. MATT KROSCHEL: Mesa County is
rural Colorado at its roots. It's beautiful from
canyons to rivers. It's wide open spaces. It's good folks that really
care about each other. And they're hard-working people. NARRATOR: Local
journalist Matt Kroschel began following
the story in 2007 and would still be covering
the case at its conclusion almost a decade later. Stories about Paige
Birgfeld and the disappearance were routinely on
the local news. It was a story that everyone was
talking about, and so not just the anniversaries
of her birthday or when she was last
seen because they were uncovering possible sightings. Or there would be
information that remains were being discovered
throughout the years. ANCHOR: --is focusing
on an escort business Birgfeld was involved in. NARRATOR: As the
news stories swirled, the man everyone believed had
taken Paige Birgfeld continued to live alongside the
friends and family of the woman he'd killed. Lester Jones worked
in the community. He was a quiet man that kept to
himself and a bit mysterious. NARRATOR: Prosecutors
were certain Lester Jones had murdered Paige,
but they had to prove it. And that would take
nine long years. This killer's story begins
on March the 4th, 1951, 200 miles from Grand Junction. Lester Jones has
very little known about him from his early years. But what we do
know is that he was born in Westcliffe, Colorado. He had a brother and sister. We know that he got married
quite early, in his early 20s, and he had two sons. And the marriage-- that marriage
lasted for about 20 years. NARRATOR: By 1996, Jones was
running a car repair workshop in Hotchkiss, Colorado. That's where he first met a
young woman called Lisa Nance. Jones first met Lisa when
she stopped in his car shop. And she was about 28 years old. He was 45. She was a single
stay-at-home mother. She had two children of her own. And when she first met him,
he was recently divorced. They had almost like
a whirlwind romance. GEOFFREY WANSELL: She was, I
suppose, swept off her feet. This was an amiable, cheerful,
handsome, tall, big man who represented a little security. And she called him gentle and
funny and good with her kids. NARRATOR: Within just six
months of meeting him, Lisa married Jones. People like Lester Jones
tend to try and speed things up when they first
meet somebody. They want to get that commitment
from them really quickly. They kind of tie them into that,
and then they're trapped in it. And that's when
the trouble starts. Lisa reported that Jones was
asking her frequently who she was with, who she was
talking to on the phone, looking at her mail
and bank statements, checking her phone
records and logs and asking her if
she didn't report speaking to somebody that day. He was increasingly jealous
and controlling and then angry at her if she didn't report
the right thing to him. JANE MONCKTON-SMITH: If
you get into a relationship with somebody who
is very jealous, there's the biggest red flag. You mustn't talk to other men. You mustn't dress like this. I don't even like it
when you see your friends or you go out without me these
are massive, massive red flags that this person
thinks they own you and they need to control you. And we definitely did see those
behaviors in Lester Jones. NARRATOR: As time went on,
Jones was not just controlling. He also became more and more
untrustworthy and dishonest. BRYANNA FOX: Jones
was a private pilot. He had his own license and would
use planes from time to time, and he would just be
gone without notice and without telling
Lisa where he went. So he would disappear
for days on end. Lisa reported that he
was a pathological liar and would have an
answer for everything whenever she asked him where he
was, where money was going to. Her wedding ring went missing,
and she thought no one else could have possibly taken it. And yet he was the only
suspect, and he denied it. So she was increasingly
distrustful of him. NARRATOR: Lisa began
to suspect that Jones was stealing her money
to pay for sex workers. What we don't know is how
he was with those sex workers. He may have been controlling,
abusive, violent. We don't know. But he was seeing
them regularly. I think he was probably quite
obsessive about that as well. So Lisa takes her
courage in her hands and asks him to leave. But that doesn't put an
end to his manipulation of his now estranged wife. He starts to stalk her. JANE MONCKTON-SMITH:
Stalking is very, very common after a relationship breakdown. The worst thing is if the
stalking moves on to what we call reconnaissance. So then they're looking for
opportunities for an attack. NARRATOR: One day in 1999,
Jones took the opportunity he'd been waiting for. One night, Lisa decided to
invite a male friend over, and they were going to
watch movies together. They were inside all
night, just watching TV. And at 4:00 in the
morning, he had to leave, and Lisa was going
to go with him. And at that point, when
they were driving away, Jones followed. Lisa and her friend
are in the car, and they're being trailed
by Jones in his truck. They must have been terrified. I mean, headlights in
the rear-view mirror, the whole scenario is dark. It's late at night, early
in the morning, crikey. And Jones increasingly
gets closer to them. So he forces the
car off the road. Lisa was actually
trapped in the vehicle, and only her friend
was able to get out. And so he tried to free
himself and then get Lisa out. And as he was trying to do
this, Jones pulls out a gun. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Her friend
starts to run off to get help. Jones fires two shots at him,
one of which grazes his head. He then points the gun
at Lisa and effectively demands she get out
of the car on his side and get into his car. It's a full-scale abduction. NARRATOR: Despite
being in fear, Lisa somehow managed
to calm Jones down and convinced him to pull over. As they were
leaving, she said she would stop and ask for a tow
or service of her vehicle. And instead of calling
car repair shop, she called the police. And incredibly, police
were able to respond quickly and rescue Lisa from
Jones, who they arrested. NARRATOR: But the
stalking didn't stop. Jones was bailed
the following day. And just a few weeks later,
he returned to try and finish the job once and for all. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
Lisa is asleep. And she wakes up to
find Jones sitting on the sofa in her living room. He was staring
at her with such a menacing, frightening
look that she thought she was going to die. At this point, Jones forced Lisa
into his vehicle at gunpoint. NARRATOR: For the
second time in a month, Jones had pressured Lisa
into a car against her will. But this time, he wouldn't
be tricked into pulling over. Instead, Lester Jones brutally
beat his estranged wife before driving her into
the remote mountains, further and further from
civilization and any chance of rescue for Lisa. This is him now in almost-- we could call it a panic. I have got to get control back. I am not accepting this. I cannot take rejection. Lester Jones actually took
her out into a very rural part of Western Colorado
and threatened to kill her and bury her in a lake. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
She must literally have thought that her life
was going to end that night. Imagine what it
must have been like. You've been
threatened with a gun. He's been arrested. He's turned up again. He's threatening you again. He's going to kill you. He's going to dump
you in a lake. But yet again, Lisa demonstrates
an extraordinary ability to survive, to get
out of the situation. At this point, she said, but
I still love you, essentially as a way to try to
get him not to do this horrific thing to her. NARRATOR: Jones
responded, prove it, and wanted to essentially
have her have sex with him to show that she
still loved him. Lisa managed to convince
Jones to go to a local motel. And as he went inside
to get them a room, she again thought
quickly and decided to jump in the front
seat and take the car and speed off and basically
save her own life. She was able to
escape, and Lester Jones was actually charged and sent
to prison for that event. Lisa heaves a sigh of
relief because, finally, the nightmare of a
stalker-stroke husband is gone. And she doesn't hear anything
for some considerable time. In fact, Jones is
released after serving half his 10-year sentence. NARRATOR: By 2006, 55-year-old
mechanic Lester Jones had been released from prison
for the kidnap and assault of his ex-wife, Lisa Nance. Now 60 pounds heavier and
sporting a full beard, Jones had remarried
and was living in Grand Junction, Colorado,
working as a mechanic at a local car dealership. On June the 30th,
2007, the city was stunned when local
mother of three Paige Birgfeld was
reported missing. Her friend of four
years, Barbara Campbell, knew it was out of character. BARBARA CAMPBELL: I was
a good friend of Paige. Our kids were about the same
ages and played together. So it made it easy for us
to hang out, even though we were both busy all the time. Paige had a wonderful
relationship with her kids. She just loved to be with
her kids all the time. And she was just
completely devoted. When Paige went missing,
I was completely shocked. Saturday, June 28, she had
driven from Grand Junction into the mountains, about
two hours into the mountains to meet her ex-husband. NARRATOR: District
Attorney Pete Hautzinger was central to the investigation
into Paige's disappearance. She and ex-husband Ron
Beigler had recently rekindled their romance and had
spent the day together just before she vanished. PETE HAUTZINGER: He was the
last one to have seen her. She was last known to
have been driving back from the central mountains
towards Grand Junction when she disappeared. When Paige went
missing, she left her children with a live-in nanny. And it was the
nanny and, indeed, her eight-year-old
daughter who eventually reported her missing. They walked to the
police station together. It must have been an
extraordinary sight, the nanny and this little girl
reporting to the police that mummy had gone. Heartbreaking, really. Ron Beigler, her
first husband, also rang 911 to report her missing. Paige first went missing. The first thing that the
police would consider, is this normal behavior? Would we expect this
person to go missing? And Paige did not fall
into that bracket at all. She had never gone
missing before. Paige would never
leave without her kids. Like, she wouldn't
just take off. So instantly, I knew something
had to have happened. NARRATOR: Just one day
later, Paige's friends and family were given
even more reason to panic. Her car was found burning
in a lot out west of town. I mean, what was pretty
clearly right off the bat, an arson situation,
where the car had been intentionally burned. Knowing that
the car was burned was a really bad
sign that she was probably not alive,
that we weren't ever going to get her back. The most logical reason from
a law enforcement perspective that someone would try
to set fire to a vehicle is to destroy
evidence, to eliminate the potential of DNA or
hairs or other evidence being recovered from that vehicle. GEOFFREY WANSELL: The
two interesting things about the car when
it was discovered, one is that the driver's seat
was pushed all the way back. She herself was only 5 foot 4". So it would not have been her
who had pushed that seat back. Secondly, in the boot
of the burnt-out car, her day planner is found with
significant days torn out, including the day in
which she disappeared, clearly with an
attempt at designed to conceal who she might or
might not have been seeing. NARRATOR: Finding the
missing mother's car was a breakthrough of sorts. But there was still
no sign of Paige Birgfeld and no indication
if she was dead or alive. There were search
parties both organized by the sheriff's office and
with the civilian volunteers. BARBARA CAMPBELL:
It was really hot in Grand Junction in the
summer, going over 100 degrees. I volunteered to
do the searches, as many wonderful people did. And we walked and-- miles a day, just
looking for any clue. And day after day,
doing searches, and we're not finding her. It-- it just really kind of
slowly trickled in that reality that we knew what we were
looking for on the searches. We're looking for a dead body. NARRATOR: If she was
dead, Paige had seemingly tried to give detectives
a clue about what had led to her tragic fate. Before long, a number of items
were found along Highway 50, and it was sort of a
trail of her belongings found more or less random places
along the highway heading south towards Delta, items
from her checkbook and then items that
seemed to be torn out of a notebook, business cards,
which at least suggested that she had been actively
trying to throw stuff out a window or something
along those lines, maybe trying to leave a trail
for people to be able to track. NARRATOR: While the
search continued, detectives compiled a
list of all the people who might want to harm Paige. Investigators
immediately zeroed in on Paige Birgfeld's
ex-husband, Rob Dixon. He was the father of her kids. Statistically speaking,
it is likely to be somebody she knows. And statistically
speaking, it's likely to be a partner or an ex-partner. So those people
would most definitely be in the lens of
the police as they started their investigation. NARRATOR: Paige had previously
made allegations of violence against her second husband. But when Grand Junction
detectives checked his alibi, he was quickly in the clear. Also under scrutiny was
Paige's first husband, the man who dialed 911 to
report her missing, Ron Beigler. Investigators were also
looking into Ron Beigler because he and Paige had met up
hours before she was last seen. Those men were
immediately questioned to figure out where they
were and just how close they still were with Paige. Were there motives there? Investigators
cleared Ron Beigler right away because they could
see on the cell phone tracking data that he actually
headed back towards Denver, the opposite direction
from Grand Junction, while Paige's cell
phone was headed towards the western slope. NARRATOR: Two suspects had
immediately been ruled out. Then detectives
uncovered a secret life that had brought many more
men to Paige Birgfeld's door. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Paige
had a double life. She was, yes,
stay-at-home mother of three, hard-working
entrepreneur with little businesses. But she was also an escort. She ran an agency
called Models Inc. And she rented
herself out as well. She was known as
Carrie to the agency. She was expensive. I mean, $2,500 for a night. PETE HAUTZINGER: So you had
advertisements in papers and on the internet
offering massage services to people who wanted
to hire her or her co-workers. And as the investigators
dug into it, it turned out there were
quite a few customers, and she was considered
in that world to be highly desirable and
successful as an escort, a very attractive young woman,
well groomed, and pretty. BARBARA CAMPBELL: She
was just very scrappy. I mean, she would do
whatever and just try to make ends meet any way she could. And it wasn't until much
closer to when she disappeared the first time that I had
a conversation with her and she revealed that,
well, I'm also doing this escort service thing. Once investigators
started to figure out the other businesses, the side
hustles that Paige Birgfeld had going, it complicated
this entire case because now we know that Paige
was having correspondence and messages and meeting
with a lot of different guys that probably didn't want anyone
to know they were meeting. NARRATOR: Many of
Paige's clients had left voice messages
on a cell phone she used exclusively
for business, including a man calling himself Jim. Then there were at
least one, if not more, calls from an
unidentified track phone. NARRATOR: Jim had been the
last person to call Paige on the night she disappeared. When detectives got hold
of her phone records, they discovered that Jim
was not his real name. The investigators were able
to identify that phone, identify when and where
it had been purchased, and identify
security film footage of Lester Jones purchasing
that specific phone on that specific day. NARRATOR: Standing
tall at 6 foot 4", local mechanic Lester Jones
had not only been identified as the man on the footage. The 56-year-old was
also well acquainted with the part of town where
Paige's car was discovered. The place where Paige's
car had been found, having been set
afire and burning, was within 100 and 150
yards from Lester's workshop there at Bob Scott RV. NARRATOR: Jones, the man
known to Paige as Jim, was suddenly the prime
suspect in her disappearance. He was the last person known to
have spoken to Paige Birgfeld. And Jones's home life
was far from perfect. He was married and had, I
guess, a somewhat interesting relationship with his wife. It wasn't all flowers and roses. They certainly seemed
to go through good times and bad times. And his wife told
investigators there were times when he
would disappear, and she didn't
know where he was. NARRATOR: Just as he had
with his ex-wife Lisa Nance, Lester Jones was disappearing
to spend time with sex workers and escorts. One of the escorts he'd
been seeing regularly was missing mother of
three Paige Birgfeld. Jones had used the name Jim
when contacting the 34-year-old. NARRATOR: Jones had developed
an obsessive interest in Paige. Before her disappearance,
she'd become concerned about his behavior. One of her co-workers
or friends had told the investigators
that she was kind of creeped out or
worried about this particular one of her clients. NARRATOR: Paige had told her
friend of a white truck that would show up late at night
when she was leaving work, circling the car park. On one occasion, the driver
had even tried to block her in. JANE MONCKTON-SMITH: There
are things about escort work that are inherently dangerous. You know, if somebody
wants to kill a woman, they've got to get
that woman on her own with them somewhere where
there's no witnesses. That is an incredibly
difficult thing to do. But if you go and see an
escort, that is what they do. They have to do that. These people, these predators
have instant access to them. Sometimes people feel
empowered to treat women horribly because they think
they'll never go to the police and report it. And unfortunately,
that does make sex work a riskier endeavor
than other types of professions. NARRATOR: It was
work that brought women like Paige
into close contact with men like Lester Jones. I think he was obsessed
with Paige Birgfeld. I think Paige was,
by far, the most desirable and
attractive escort he'd ever been lucky enough to hire. NARRATOR: The feeling
was not mutual. One of the times
that he had tried to hire her not long
before her disappearance, she had tried to send-- direct that business in
another direction to one of her co-workers
because she didn't want to have anything more
to do with the person who was driving that white truck. NARRATOR: As
investigators uncovered Jones's criminal history of
abducting and assaulting women, they began to wonder if
history was repeating itself. They needed to find
out if Jones had arranged to meet Paige Birgfeld
the night she disappeared. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Jones is
arrested and interrogated. He simply says, yes, of
course, help yourself. Here's my DNA. I'm happy to give you
fingerprints, not a problem. He did not deny that he'd
been a client of Paige's and had had contact with her,
knew who she was, and used escort services. NARRATOR: Lester Jones
confirmed to investigators that on the night
Paige vanished, he was in the Grand
Junction area. PETE HAUTZINGER: He was in town,
and his wife was out of town, as I recall, at the time. He was in the area. He didn't have an alibi. He couldn't establish that
he was out of the vicinity or couldn't have
committed the crime. When investigators
got a search warrant, they went to Lester
Jones' workplace. And at his workstation, they
found some really weird stuff. They found some wigs. They found a wrapper
for a track phone. Track phone or these
other types of, you know, burner phones are ones where
you can purchase it with cash. There's no long-term
plan associated with it. And so you can have it and
not have any details of who owns it, who's paying for it. NARRATOR: As the search at
Lester Jones's workplace continued, more evidence linking
him to Paige's disappearance was discovered. Some accelerants,
some things that could have been
used in a kidnapping or could have been used in
potentially burning the car. NARRATOR: Detectives also
found a notebook detailing all of the escorts
Jones had met with, describing them by height,
weight, and cup size. In other words, they
reveal that this apparently normal, superficially
charming man is actually obsessed with sex workers. Lester had an active
interest in pornography. His wife told us about that. He had a lot of
pornography on his computer at work, as I recall, but
also on their home computer. It's one more thing
that makes you think, jeez, this
is somebody who could commit a crime like this. NARRATOR: Jones
denied meeting Paige the night she disappeared. But the last calls to her
cell were from the phone he'd been seen buying. And he had left messages
under his fake name. NARRATOR: Investigators were
convinced that Jones had tricked the young
mother into meeting him before Paige had vanished. But armed with only
circumstantial evidence, getting justice for Paige
was not going to be easy. There was a ton of pressure
on investigators in Mesa County to press charges. Within, I want to say, months
of Paige's disappearance, we had largely honed
in on Lester Jones as the most likely
person to be responsible for her disappearance. The problem that I
saw from that time right up through the
end of the investigation was the fact that A, there were
other clients of hers who it was hard to absolutely
eliminate as potential suspects in her disappearance, and,
B, we didn't have a body. A defense attorney
can argue, at least a reasonable doubt
level, that there wasn't even a murder that took place. Because of her double
life, because of the fact that all the people who
loved her and knew her well knew nothing about this double
life and her secret business as an escort, I thought that was
just too big a hole in the case to ever be able to prove Lester
Jones's guilt or anyone else's beyond a reasonable doubt. NARRATOR: Paige Birgfeld
remained missing, and investigators
had no evidence to prove she had been murdered. No suspect would be charged
with any crime relating to her. The news was a bitter
pill to swallow for Paige's friends and family. I was devastated
after finding out that she was missing
and realizing, as much as I wanted
to believe maybe she could be found alive,
that the reality was she probably wouldn't be. There's a lot of numbness to
it because there was no answer. We didn't know that
she was murdered. And that's a really
difficult place to be in. JANE MONCKTON-SMITH:
It was long. It was drawn out. And the family
must have suffered dreadfully over those years. They must have felt at
times that they were never ever going to get the
answers that they needed, that they wanted. And it was very difficult
for the police, I think, who would be wanting to
give them those answers. NARRATOR: Paige's
father, Frank Birgfeld, had made regular repeated trips
to Grand Junction in an effort to find the missing daughter
but without any success. Every father and
mother's worst nightmare that their daughter should
disappear into thin air and no body be found. It's-- it's heartbreaking. NARRATOR: Five long years
passed with no closure for Paige's loved ones. And all the time,
Lester Jones continued to live and work alongside
the innocent people of Grand Junction. NARRATOR: By probably 2011-- 2010, 2011, the investigation
had somewhat ground to a halt, much to the
frustration of Paige's family and loved ones,
particularly her father, Frank Birgfeld. MATT KROSCHEL: Frank Birgfeld
was just a really great guy. He was positive
and always seemed to believe that the truth would
come out, whatever that was. He wanted closure
for their family. NARRATOR: When closure
came, it was in the most heartbreaking of circumstances. MATT KROSCHEL: In March of 2012,
a hiker in kind of a canyon area out in the desert
stumbles across what the hiker believes to be human remains. And within a couple
of hours, there were dozens of investigators
from the state of Colorado and local jurisdictions
scouring this desert area in remote parts
of Western Colorado. I remember to this day getting
the call from the sheriff's office saying we found
skeletal remains in the desert out by Delta. We think it may be Paige's,
and thinking that could be the break that the case needed. NARRATOR: A skull
was found at first. Then as crime scene officers
investigated further, they unearthed more
and more bones. NARRATOR: Forensic
analysis established, yes, that was in fact Paige
Birgfeld's remains. NARRATOR: The bones, buried
in a creek bed for years before being washed out by the
rain, told a horrifying story. The skull had duct
tape wrapped around it, clearly as though she'd been-- her mouth had been taped shut. PETE HAUTZINGER: I
don't think the coroner was able to absolutely
determine a cause of death. Simply, cause of
death was homicide. And the most significant
findings from her remains that I recall were the
fact that there was a fracture to her skull that appeared to
be contemporaneous with the time of death and some duct tape
remains that appeared to be consistent with her
having been restrained, which is consistent with
having been kidnapped. NARRATOR: The news
was a devastating blow to Paige's family and friends. Finding her remains really
was an element of sadness. It just crushed all hope
that she could come back. It-- you know, it just
brought it all back up, all of that devastation. Like, but this time, it
was-- she really is dead. There is no hope now. NARRATOR: Though
incredibly tragic, the discovery of Paige's remains
brought District Attorney Pete Hautzinger one step
closer to charging Lester Jones with her murder. Of particular interest
in Lester Jones's case were the facts surrounding
his prior conviction for having kidnapped his second
wife, that I think the fact that Mr. Jones went to
the time and trouble to buy a track phone,
that Paige, when she got a call from that track phone,
wouldn't know that it was the same client that
she'd been troubled by in the past shows the level
of premeditation and planning. The fact that when Paige's
remains were found, there were traces of
duct tape attached to the skeletal remains also
is evidence of premeditation and planning because he came
equipped with what he needed to tie her up and
restrain her and enable him to take her away. NARRATOR: In November 2014,
Grand Junction detectives were finally ready
to make an arrest. It was breaking huge
news in Western Colorado and, really, across the country. So many people were following
this story when investigators finally made an arrest and
they arrested Lester Jones and charged him with murder. NARRATOR: In July 2016, nine
years after Paige Birgfeld went missing, Lester Jones went
on trial for her murder at Mesa County District Court. Lester Jones entered
a plea of not guilty, meaning that the obligation
to the district attorney is to prove the
case to 12 jurors beyond a reasonable doubt. It was a circumstantial
case where layer upon layer upon layer
had to be proven to the jury, including the track phone
evidence, the evidence from the burned vehicle,
the evidence from Paige's belongings being found along
the highway headed down south towards Delta, towards
the site where she was actually found buried years later. NARRATOR: Despite the
evidence against him, Jones appeared stoic
in the courtroom. Lester Jones didn't
show much emotion. He sat on the defense side. He would look straight ahead. The courtroom was the
first time I actually set eyes on Lester Jones. And it was staggering
to know that there was a very high
likelihood that he killed one of my best friends. I've watched courtroom shows,
and there was just nothing like sitting there, knowing
that this man that I'm in the same room with
is someone capable of such a terrible thing. NARRATOR: Jones may
have seemed confident, but investigators had
an ace up their sleeve. NARRATOR: The
prosecution's star witness in this case
against Lester Jones is actually Lester Jones'
ex-wife, Lisa Nance. PETE HAUTZINGER: You know, she
was scared of Lester Jones, and testifying against him had
to have been difficult for her. It was really sobering to
think that a person who killed my best friend was
married and, you know, had been married before. It seemed that, at least at some
points in the relationships, he was a pretty awful husband. He just seemed to not
be a very nice guy. NARRATOR: Despite the brave
testimony of Lisa Nance and the compelling
evidence against him, there was still a chance Jones
could get away with murder. After dozens of witnesses,
the jury got this case. But they could not come
back with a verdict. They were deadlocked at 11 to 1. According to the people
that were in the room, they were just unable
to convince one member of the jury to find Lester
Jones guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So the judge had
to call a mistrial. It was just really
devastating that he could potentially walk free. Like, that was-- it was
really scary to know that we have a killer on the stand. And so when he got off,
it was like a gut punch. NARRATOR: Just three
months later, prosecutors had the opportunity to make
their case against Lester Jones once again. I 100% feared that
he was going to get off with no punishment, and he
would get to walk the streets while my friend who was a
fabulous, vibrant, you know, positive contribution to
society, who bent over backwards to do things for
her kids and her friends, she was dead. And he would get to continue. And I know life's
not fair, but that-- I completely feared that that
was going to be the outcome. PETE HAUTZINGER: You know, I've
been doing this for 35 years. And I will never
guarantee anybody what a jury is going to do. So I was certainly
relieved and gratified when the second jury
came back guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt and unanimous. NARRATOR: On the 27th
of December 2016, District Judge Brian Flynn
sentenced Lester Jones to life in prison without parole. It's like you're just
holding your breath for years, waiting to find out. Like, is somebody going
to be punished for this? Because it doesn't
bring Paige back. And that's the worst thing. But, you know, a killer
was punished, you know? There's just got to be
something good in that. NARRATOR: It took nine years
for the family of Paige Birgfeld to finally get justice
for her murder. All the while, Lester
Jones remains silent. I'm not sure if we'll
ever figure out exactly what happened to Paige Birgfeld. It would take the person
convicted in her death to decide to start
talking before we get any more information about
what happened that night. I remember Paige for
how just profoundly kind and energetic and fun she was. She just-- she was
always laughing, always having a good time,
like, tried to always see the bright side of things. And I just hope everyone
can know her for that. NARRATOR: The disappearance
of Paige Birgfeld shocked and terrified the people
of Western Colorado for nine long years. The tragic mystery was finally
solved when Lester Jones was convicted of her murder. But his brutal actions would
have come as no surprise to the other women who had
the misfortune to cross paths with Lester Jones, a man
who violently refused to take no for an answer
and one of the world's most evil killers. [theme music]
