the story begins here around the finger lakes, a stunning part of upstate new york. this is where the carlson family put down its roots. all right carl. and it s here that carl carlson brought his bride christina to meet his family in 1986. his brother mike took to her right away. she was small, tiny little girl, not very tall at all. very simple, sweetheart of a kid. christina and karl had met in north dakota where carl was stationed in the air force. he was discharged, they came to his home to make a life. was she a good fit to the carlson family? absolutely, yeah. she would give it out and take it.
i think it was over seven figures. seven figures, a lot of murders committed for a lot less than that. absolutely. who got that money in the event of her death? the beneficiaries were her two children. and the detective noticed something about the whereabouts of deede s two children, mike and julie at the time of deede s disappearance. they re both out of town at the time that their mother went missing. why is that significant? why would the reverse be more true? i thought if the mother goes missing and it just so happens that mike is gone in san jose, and julie is down in a resort, and it s been my experience that sometimes people dissipate stress after they commit a crime in different ways. some people drink. some people take drugs. and some people leave the area, just to dissipate stress. and there was strangely, one more person who just happened to have been traveling near the time of deede s disappearance. her ex husband, erwin howard, had just flown to his hom
business trip to the san francisco area. when i called her cell phone, the voicemail was full and that had never happened with my mom. she prided herself on being responsive. so, you you go over to your mom s house. so, i went in the back gate and instantly it was clear that she had not been there for a while. what made that clear? the dog s water dish was bone dry. my mom would die of thirst before her dogs went without water. mike s first call was to cindy. and he said, cindy, where is my mom? and i just instantly knew, in that moment, that something had happened. i just knew. and i just said, michael, call the police, i m on my way. where was deede keller? not only was there no water left outside for deede s beloved dogs, but detectives notice lots of other things wrongs inside the house. her purse was there but her wallet was missing. and this was a woman with money, a lot of it. was deede s hefty bank account the factor in her disappearance? investigators fo
everyone that came into her path. deede s best friends, mortgage executive cindy ertman and real estate saleswoman linda dondero. she was good at her job? i love working with deede. everybody did. she was just so easy to like and wanted the best for everybody. and her clients were very loyal over the years. deede was loyal, too. not only to our clients but as a divorce mom to her children, mike and julie. i remember my mom explaining to me when is about ten years old that, as you get older, we probably not going to be as close, or you won t like me tweak quite as much. and it never happened. if anything, we just got closer.
for a loop when he found out that my mom, you know, had met somebody else. that is when things started getting scary. scary because erwin, detectives learned, had started doing things that pointed to an obsession with deede. and how did they know that? in one of those only in a small town coincidences, deede s son, mike, lived just down the block from deede s new boyfriend, bobby lowe. one night he was sitting in his living room when he saw familiar car drive by, inside, was erwin. as the evening went on he continued to drive by the house. did you call your mom and say, by the way, erwin is driving around the house while you re with bobby lowe? no, i didn t put two and two together. but the very next day just ten days before her murder, deede would call her friend cindy, in a state of panic. she was crying hysterically.