today we're diving into the case of helicraphs a shocking murder that takes place in a small Connecticut town that's supposed to be a Haven from the chaos of the outside world it's November 1986. hella's disappearance sets off a chain of events that unravels a gruesome crime the discovery of her dismembered body the bizarre evidence found at the scene and the arrest of her husband Richard krafts is known in True Crime lore as the wood chipper murder this is the case that inspired that Unforgettable scene in the movie Fargo let's recap [Music] hey I'm Amy and
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November 1986 a cold front dropped a massive blanket of thick wet snow across New England hundreds of thousands of people lost power including the crafts family in Newtown Connecticut Richard crafts woke his living Nanny Don Thomas up early 6 a.m and told her to get the kids together they weren't about to freeze to death in their home they were going to go to his sister's house since she still had power but where was Mrs Kraft's hella was a flight attendant and she had just gotten home from Germany the night before so maybe she was sleeping
in after the long flight but no Richard said that she had already left and they'd meet up with her later without further question Don and the kids got in Richard's car and he drove them to his sister's place about 20 miles south but hella wasn't there which was strange since she supposedly left before them so did she have car trouble somewhere I mean the roads are covered with sheets of ice from the storm so did she get in an accident but Richard didn't seem all that concerned about the whereabouts of his wife he dropped Don
and the kids off at his sisters and left hours passed and hella still hadn't shown up Richard returned around 7pm and Don asked where Mrs crafts was but Richard said he didn't know he hadn't seen her since she left really early that morning the next day there's still no sign of hella when Don asked Richard about it again he all of a sudden had news to share hella had flown home to Denmark to be with her sick mother he said Don lived in the Craft's house she'd seen hella the night before so when did the
woman find the time to fly to Denmark why didn't she say anything was there even an airline operating during this big snowstorm I mean Richard's story was not adding up then Don noticed something strange in the master bedroom pieces of the carpet were missing like someone had cut them out with a knife when she asked what happened Richard said that he'd spilled kerosene on the rug and he had to cut the stains out oh Don wasn't the only person who suspected that something was up hella had a secret she had hired a private investigator Keith
Mayo to follow Richard around and get proof that he was cheating on her because Keith had been watching Richard for the last few months he knew the crafts family up and down he knew their schedules their habits and all of their marital issues he also knew all of hella's friends and he knew that hella had told them if anything happens to me don't assume it was an accident hella grew up in a small village in Northern Denmark she was a a popular girl who loves School more than all the other kids she was especially good
at languages though her love of culture Drew hella toward the travel industry in the 1960s flight attendants were some of the most beautiful women in the world Pilots were cooler than rock stars and air travel was all the Raves and hella fit right in though she landed a gig working for Pan Am Airways out of Copenhagen hundreds applied for the job but only a handful were picked hella's love of languages her big smile her natural beauty and some previous experience she had as a flight attendant while she was a shoe-in she was exactly what they
were looking for the new girls flew to Miami to train and live in a co-ed motel with other Airline employees can you imagine that scene the pilots and flight attendants intermingled like college kids at a frat party it was at that motel in 1969 the summer of love when a 21 year old hella first spotted an alluring young pilot named Richard krafts he was a scruffy 31 year old who didn't really fit the pilot mold While most pilot that's where these chiseled well-kept clean-cut guys Richard was a little rough around the edges but his Edge
made him extra Charmaine to the ladies he always had a woman hanging off of his arm in fact he was already engaged when he met hella and that girl really missed a bullet at first their relationship was just a fling hella didn't mind being The Other Woman Richard Charmed her with stories about being in the CIA working as a combat pilot in East Asia the man loved exaggerating and telling sort of half-truths he joined the Marines in the mid 50s and he fell in love with Aviation he worked his way up to flying planes for
air America which is you know not so secret part of the CIA he allegedly flew several missions over southeast Asia in the early 60s of course the way that Richard tells it he's practically James Bond and the pretty young flight attendants ate it up and hella is no exception she falls hard for Richard's charms they kept seeing each other on and off through the early 70s but it's not all hearts and chocolates they fought all the time sometimes in public though hella's friends didn't really get it I mean the pretty blonde could have had any
man she wanted she could have been with a Kennedy why was she so attracted to Richard crafts but the Heart Wants What It Wants and in the fall of 1975 hella got pregnant with their their first child and Richard agreed to marry her and they settled down in the affluent town of Newtown Connecticut while her friends did not get her relationship with Richard they were happy that hella was at least doing well financially because Richard was making a great living as a pilot and hella was an in-demand flight attendant together they brought in more than
a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a year which is like basically seven hundred thousand dollars today so all that money could buy anything that they wanted you know within reason but Richard hoarded it for himself he took complete control of the family's finances and used the money to buy guns lots and lots of guns the Craft's basement looked more like a doomsday bunker revolvers Magnums high-profiled rifles shotguns you name it he had it and not just guns he also collected semi-automatic weapons hand grenades crossbows thousands of rounds of ammunition the man could have armed
a small platoon if he wanted to instead he spent hours and hours down in his basement admiring and polishing his collection if there was a gun show within 100 miles you can bet that Richard was there he also liked spend money on heavy machinery their yard looked more like an abandoned Farm is covered in rusted tractors mowers and other landscaping equipment he even bought a 25 000 backhoe that he never used basically the van was setting their money on fire buying all sorts of frivolous things meanwhile hella's salary had to stretch to cover the family
expenses you know food bills Child Care shelter and medical care because in 1984 Richard was diagnosed with colon cancer doctors didn't like his chances for survival but with his wife's loving care and chemotherapy he managed to beat the odds and survive while hella was struggling to take all the work she could get just to support them Richard decided to use his new lease on life to explore a career in law enforcement so he signed up to be a volunteer police officer with the Newtown PD he took the job very seriously he spent hours down at
the station hanging around in full uniform even when he wasn't supposed to be on duty if you trying to dress for the job he wanted it worked the Southbury Police Department hired him to be a part-time cop for around seven dollars an hour it was pennies compared to his pilot salary but Richard liked it the badge went straight to his head he'd always been controlling but now he was downright aggressive and in his behavior started to become erratic bruises started to appear on hella's face her friends begged her to go to the police but hella
Shrugged them off with the heartbreaking slip and fall excuse every time things got worse after their third child was born Richard began disappearing for days he just packed his bags and leave without saying a word now hella knew damn well he is cheating on her he had been since the day they got married and she put up with it for the children's sake but the violence at home was the final straw she spoke with a divorce lawyer and hired Keith Mayo a former Connecticut police officer to follow Richard and help her get proof that he
was cheating oh in Connecticut you don't have to have proof of faults like adultery to get a divorce but the court would take something like that into consideration when they look at custody child support dividing up assets and hell it wasn't going to have any trouble getting what she needed Richard was sleeping with not one but at least two other flight attendants hella wanted out she could not spend another winter with Richard and she didn't a few days had passed since Connecticut was covered in this thick sheet of snow it had also been a few
days since anyone had seen hella crafts one town over a local man named Joe Hein was in charge of salting and plowing the streets he and some other public workers hadn't stopped since the storm passed so it's around 3 30 a.m on November 21st 1986 when Joe notices something strange near Lake zor up ahead he sees a U-Haul with an industrial grade wood chipper attached to the back it's pulled over on the side of the road and a man is standing by the driver's side door the guy motions him to drive by so Joe Maneuvers
around and he keeps going but about two hours later Joe has now turned around and he's making his way back when he passes the U-Haul again the back is open this time but the man is nowhere in sight and Joe notices wood chips in the truck and near the roadside oh who the hell chops wood at 5am after a snowstorm murderers murderers do well hella's friends worried for her her private investigator was worried for her the Newtown Police asked Richard where his wife was but they didn't seem too worried for her Richard was one of
them if he says he doesn't know where hella is then he doesn't know where hella is it's probably nothing anyway I mean they found hella's car in the Pan Am employee parking lot at Kennedy Airport Richard's story about her flying to Denmark I was starting to make some sense but things changed over the next few days many of hella's friends and extended family told police the same story she would never abandon her children she would never fly off to Denmark without telling anybody and they told Newtown cops about Richard's Affairs and the abuse and the
cops also learned about all the different excuses that Richard gave for hella's disappearance he told one neighbor she was in Germany he told another she was in the Canary Islands and on November 29th her friend decided to get to the bottom of it and she managed to get a hold of hella's mother in Denmark now hella's Mom was fine she wasn't sick and she hadn't seen her daughter in months so that was it the Newtown Police could not let this slide they called Richard in for a lie detector and he passed but there's something about
a pilot who wanted to play part-time cop that didn't sit right with some of the detectives so they called Richard back in for more questions he had an answer for everything he sounded like a seasoned politician he never outright lied he just LED them in circles with a bunch of half-truths they ended the interview by asking if hella had gotten any mail since she'd been gone and Richard said no public outrage forced the A's hand he transferred the case to the state police maybe they could find the missing link well the stadies dug into Richard's
credit card purchases around the time hella disappeared on November 17th he bought a brand new 375 dollar freezer then on November 20th he rented a piece of heavy machinery for nine hundred dollars unfortunately the credit card statement didn't say what he rented only where he got it Darien rentals the odd purchases were enough to get a search warrant for Richard's home he he taken his kids to Florida for the holidays it was the perfect time to tear the house apart but when the forensic team arrived they found the Craft's home in complete disarray it looked
like a tornado had come through there were dirty dishes and clothes everywhere they found Richard's arsenal of weapons he could have used any one of them to kill hella Dr Lee did a luminal test around the house and he found blood in more than one spot it was O positive the same as Hellas another team followed up on the equipment rental it was a wood chipper Richard picked it up on November 20th and brought it back two days later detectives began to think the unimaginable did Richard kill his wife and send her body through a
wood chipper if he did her remains were likely buried in the snowstorm but they figured one of the plows could have come by and move them all around town maybe one of the plow drivers would know something more so when they questioned them they found their way to Joseph Heim and he told detectives about the U-Haul and wood chipper he saw by Lake zor he remembered it well and he took them to the exact location he'd seen it and sure enough there was still a pile of wood clippings near the side of the road where
he'd seen it detectives sifted through looking for anything that might not belong and just as they were starting to lose feeling in their fingertips from the cold one of them found a piece of mail through the tiny cellophane window on the envelope he could see what was left of the address Miss helicraft's Newtown Connecticut lakes or was crawling with police and forensics within the hour as they carefully searched the area they found more pieces of mail addressed to hella along with her mail they found tiny pieces of cloth plastic and blonde hair they also found
69 slivers of human bone five droplets of blood two teeth a piece of human skull three ounces of tissue and a few pieces of her fingernails they also found a chainsaw at the bottom of the lake but most importantly they had found helicraphs the evidence painted a horrifying picture of how Richard killed his wife and it all began when the power went out hella was in the bedroom when Richard came up from behind and bludgeoned her to death he carried her body to the basement and stuffed her in his brand new freezer then he rallied
dawn of the kids and drove them to his sister's house 20 miles away he came back and waited for his wife's body to freeze so that he could easily use his chainsaw to cut her into tiny pieces he then wrapped those pieces in plastic and put them back in the freezer and then he waited then a couple of nights later in the middle of the night Richard drove that wood chipper out to Lake zor and fed hella's body through it piece by piece he aimed the other end toward the lake and watched bits of his
wife fly Richard wasn't lying when he said he didn't know where hella was that's how he passed the lie detector because she was in a million pieces she could have been anywhere he sincerely did not know where she was before fleeing the scene he sent a bunch of wood through the chipper to clean it and make it look normal if anyone asked he was just a guy cutting some wood he was arrested in January 1987 but there was still a massive Monkey Wrench in the process the police had bits and pieces but not enough to
call it a body historically it's hard to convict someone of murder without a physical body instead they had to rely on the expert opinion of several dentists who examined the pieces of teeth they recovered from the lake soar in their expert opinions those teeth belonged to hella crafts was it enough to call it a body that was going to be up to the jury the trial lasted 53 grueling days lawyers brought 650 pieces of evidence to the table and questioned 100 Witnesses they had Richard dead to rights but one member of the jury held out
according to the other jurors it was like reasoning with a child this one holdout refused to join the others in a guilty verdict they argued for two weeks until the judge finally declared a mistrial so did Richard just get away with murdering his wife and sending her body through a wood chipper don't worry he did not get off that easy he spent about 15 minutes as a free man and the next trial was a carbon copy of the first only this time the jury reached a unanimous decision in eight hours in January 1990 Richard was
found guilty of first-degree murder and sent off to prison it was the first murder conviction in Connecticut history without a body setting a precedent for murderers to come but Richard didn't stay behind bars for Life Richard was released at the age of 82 in 2020. today he is a free man so and that's your recap thanks for hanging out with us today if you like getting all the crime in half the time go ahead and tap that subscribe button and the Bell so you never miss a story we're here Wednesdays Saturdays and Sundays but don't
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