all night the bitter cold licked the windows and came in under the door frames. hardly a night to take a walk. certainly not an all-night walk. had she hurt herself or had someone else hurt her? it wasn t like stephanie roller-bruner to just disappear. seemed mo of like a stranger might be involved or stephanie herself might have run off into despair and maybe hurt herself. stephanie s friends and family poured over those last few weeks, so full of change, secrecy, turmoil. were there clues? some knew about stephanie s relationship with her new man and how upset she was about losing her job. still, she seemed to be holding the trouble at bay. six weeks before she disappeared, as dale recalled, she suggested a little family holiday. she said let s go to glennwood springs for the
nor, in fact, was there any sign that stephanie had ever lived there. there wasn t a single photograph of her. every trace of her had been scrubbed from the house. it also seemed suspicious, said the detective, that dale changed his story a bit. first time he called the police, he said they had an argument before she left to go out walking. later he said there was no argument. was there an argument of any kind? no, we never had an argument. there was no argument. it was just the facts were on the table. what were you talking about that she needed to clear her head? we were just talking about us. within a few weeks of stephanie s murder, the state ramped up the pressure on dale. social services sent the bruner children to live with stephanie s brother in california. i m in a fight with mike tyson with no gloves. and they re taking my kids away, too. dale wasn t completely alone, mind you. some family stayed around, reported back to her sister, ramona, dale was truly gr
coming? no, not until she told me she was in love with somebody. helplessly in love, she told him. the other man dancing with the mountain stars i go back to the day that i asked steph if i should shoot that wedding or not and i didn t go to that event with her. i wasn t going to be dancing with her on a big, important night for her. it was a curiously old-fashioned affair, apparently. stephanie told her friends her feelings were not so much physical as much as pure and emotional. she made it clear to dale that even though she still loved him, she had no choice but to follow these powerful feelings and make a life with that new man. i said if this is what you want, this is what you want. they would share the children, of course. dale at the family house. stephanie, in a rented condo. the weekend before she disappeared, he helped her move out. why in heaven s name did you do that? she asked me to help out. isn t that what you do?
little world where i was the bad guy. was stephanie ever worried dale might get violent? hardly said the defense. why else would she ask the judge to delay the order until after their little family holiday? the judge said he had never seen someone have a restraining order but then have someone say don t enact it yet, not until next week. why would she go away on a yoga retreat and decline this friend s offer to babysit? can i take care of the kids? she said no, they re fine with dale. that s because she knew that dale wasn t a threat to her. he wasn t a threat to those children. remember how the detective found the house unusually spotless two weeks after the murder? it was, turned out, family and friends who cleaned up. apparently because dale was paralyzed by grief. dale walks into his walk-in closet and half of the stuff is stephanie s. he comes out and he s just crying. he s like, i ve got to get this stuff out of here.
different photographers working. stephanie got a job in government, environmental planning department. they raised their three young children. awesome children. the best. how about a smile? and life for the bruner family was it was fantastic. we traveled. we vacationed. but it was in her spare moments and hours that stephanie was truly transformed, a ball room dancer. dancing was probably to her what photography is to me. my guest star, bill. it was her passion, said her old friend, bill. he knows flamenco. stephanie loved to dance. dancing was her life. she was alive when she danced. hardly surprising stephanie and jennifer were close, too. we started a ball room dancing at my studio. she had me doing back flips with but it was dance that led off the whole cascade of trouble.