Stay updated with breaking news from Min minot. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Those tapes with the confidential informant, matt walters. like if it was me, i would have gone back in color fingers off. i would ve burned them. i want to let the house on fire. what did you think when you heard that, knowing there was a two-year-old child in the house at the time? i thought, well, those are strong words, that is a lot of hay. but was it? or was it something else altogether? a few days before that scene in court hello? yes, hi. this is cynthia wilder. we interviewed cindy by phone from the ward county jail in minot. how would she how could she explain all those terrible things that she said to matt, on tape? her answer was also her legal defense. i mean, i m lonely, and i was trying to see if there could be any sort of relationship, and i was kind of trying to impress him. you are trying to impress him, did you say? yeah, because i know he has it a criminal history to, so i thought, you know, that would ....
reporter: the wind on the prairie is a fickle thing, like people sometimes are. is that why angila wilder s fiance, chris, was so angry? richie is probably the piece of who did it. reporter: there was a history to this. long before that november morning in 2015, and far away from minot, north dakota in alabama. angila met richie at church. they were the best of friends as kids. and, after angila had a baby as a teenager, it was richie who scooped her up. married her. adopted her little girl. and before long they had a boy of their own. all witnessed by angila s sister, crystal. she tended to date guys that were funny, that were gentle, that were intelligent. and really, richie was all those things. reporter: richie was in the air force. that s why they moved to minot, big airbase there. and it s where angila pursued her dream of becoming a nurse. she took classes whenever she could. ....
She could have up to two jobs at a time, still attend her classes and take care of her kids. reporter: why did richie and angila s lifelong bond rupture? who really knows, but theirs curdled into a corrosive, toxic anger. richie was court martialed. convicted of domestic abuse. drummed out of the military. a divorce followed. and then, like the prairie wind, their affections shifted. richie re-married. a small town north dakota girl named cyndi who d moved to minot and become a kindergarten teacher. and soon cyndi and richie had a baby of their own. and angila got engaged to chris. and she had another baby too. and these two new families all settled down again. or they might have, except for richie and angila s nasty custody battle. she said, he s just fightin me all the time, y know. and it s just been really hard ....
Or was it something else altogether? a few days before that scene in court reporter: hello? hello? reporter: yes, hi. this is cynthia wilder. reporter: we interviewed cyndi by phone from the ward county jail in minot. how would she how could she explain all those terrible things she said to matt, on tape? her answer was also her legal defense. i mean, i m lonely, and i was trying to see if there could be any sort of relationship. and i was kind of, well, trying to impress him because i reporter: you were trying to impress him, did you say? yeah, cause i know he has had a criminal history too. so i thought, you know, that would kind of be like our connection, our, like, common thing. reporter: so you said, i did all these terrible things, when you didn t really do them? i mean, a handful of things in that conversation are somewhat true, but for the most part, it s false and extremely ....
My son s inside with her and everything. i m about to go in and see what the is going on. okay, why don t you just wait for officers, i ll get em over there. reporter: so the fiance stayed outside. the officers went in. the house was neat, tidy. they found the 2 year old. unharmed. they went down the hall. looked in the next bedroom. and there she was. very dead. i didn t know at the time exactly how many times she was stabbed. but i knew that it was vicious. reporter: minot police detective sergeant dave goodman. how many eventually did you how many stab wounds? somewhere near 40. and there was the fiance. and you ve got a crime that looks like a crime of passion. what story did he tell about coming home? he reported that he had been at work all night when he arrived home and found the back door to the residence kicked open. said that he was obviously concerned about that. if that was me, i think i would ve rushed in there to see what was going on with my ....