Nanette Krentel: Murder Beneath the Bayou Smoke

Some crimes are so shocking, they don't just make headlines, they forever change our society. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Infamous Crimes. Each week, I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases, whether it's unfolding now or etched into American history. Serial killers who terrorize cities, unsolved mysteries that kept detectives up at night, and investigations that change the way we think about justice. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes, released every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first time that something was wrong, to the moment the truth came out or didn't. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. This is Crime House. Nanette Crentel had just retired and was living her dream life in a beautiful home on a hundred acres of Louisiana Bayou with her husband, a local fire chief, when one day, her house burned to the ground with Nanette inside. At first, it looked like a tragic house fire, but evidence quickly said otherwise. Today, we are sifting through the ashes and all of the clues amongst them to figure out what actually happened to Nanette Crentel. Hi guys, welcome to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases. I'm Kayla Moore, and I'll be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the back stories, and the court files released for these cases. And I'm your internet detective Morgan Absher. I'm the one diving into anything I can find online to find those lesser known details and see what is or isn't adding up. And don't forget to share your thoughts on social, want ad-free listening and early access? Subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. And make sure to go back and listen to all of our previous episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Now, let's dive into Nanette Crentel's case and the clues that defined it. Can I shout out a comment we got on our last video? Oh, literally? I was watching? Yes, I have one too. I'm wondering if it's the same one. Okay, I saw someone say something like, oh, thank God you guys posted. I was getting the clues blues. Isn't that the cutest? That was really cute. I saw that, but I also saw someone that posted on our last episode that Beerenbaum was their doctor. Oh, yeah. Oh, but I missed that. Wait, what did they say? I literally just got chills. Yeah, whoa. What did they say about him? So I did a case on Heart Starts Pounding where I talked about a dentist and someone said, because it was the dentist that poisoned his wife. It was horrible. In Denver or Colorado somewhere? The Colorado dentist and a listener reached out and said, he was my dentist. He seemed super like typical guy, but he got really mean when he pulled out one of my teeth. It was like really aggressive with it. She's like, I felt like something was weird about him after that. So this is coming from Prof Wattu. And they said, Dr. Beerenbaum was my doctor. I guess he was hiding out pretty successfully during that time. After he was in prison, he was actually released to perform surgery on a friend of mine who was his patient because she needed an extremely difficult facial reconstruction after an accident. I remember him as a caring doctor, but really intense. His dedication saved my friend's life, but also he is still this guy too. Wow. You know what that reminds me of real quick? I just saw a video on TikTok that was this woman. She's getting arrested, but she's a hairdresser and she's bleaching a woman's hair. And she tells the cops, you can't arrest me just now. I have to go wash the bleach out of my client's hair. And the cops are like, no, no, no, we have to arrest you. And this woman stands her ground and she's like, give me 30 minutes to wash this woman's hair out. And then I will come to jail with you. You can take me. Literally. And I was like, oh, I wonder because obviously it was going to damage that woman's hair. Oh, you would over process and then it literally would fall out. It breaks. Amazed with this hairdresser. That's the hairdresser you want. But with doctors. Maybe not going to jail. I know. Well, listen, like if my hair looks good, commit the crimes on your off time. But for doctors, like if you're the only doctor in the world that can perform a certain surgery and you go to prison, what happens to your patients? I wonder if this is more common than we even realize where people get these exemptions to leave to perform insane surgeries. This is going to be my rabbit hole tonight. I'm going to, this is my deep dive that I'm doing next. I know. And that didn't come up in any of the research I did. And I was like, I'm really getting into obscure stuff about him. Yeah. So that to me is really crazy. So thank you so, so much for sharing. Yeah, you guys are the best. If you guys ever have any crazy comments, relations to any of the cases or like one that you want us to put out there, put it in the comments so we can find it and get to it. And then maybe even reach out to you to be like, hey, like, want to hop on a zoom? Give us your first hand experience. Literally. So we're always down, but let's get into today's case. Yes. And as a reminder, if you are watching the episode on YouTube, you're going to see some videos, some pictures that's going to help you visualize the case. And if you are listening, you can find all those same pictures and videos on our social media. That's at clues podcast on Instagram, which you should follow anyways. Yeah, we share a lot of fun stuff over there. And just a warning before we begin this episode, this episode does contain discussions of suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis or having thoughts of suicide, you can reach out to 988 and it's the suicide in crisis lifeline. You can call, you can text, it's 988 for free and confidential support 24 seven. This episode also contains discussions about animal harm. So again, please listen with care. This case starts on Friday morning, July 14, 2017. The sun rises over the small town of LaCôme, Louisiana, about 50 miles north of New Orleans on 100 acres of wooded property is a home belonging to 49 year old Nanette Crentel and her 48 year old husband, Steve. It sits down a long driveway. It's a pretty isolated home. It's just how this couple likes it. That morning was like any other day for the Crentels. Nanette laid out Steve's clothes for him while he was in the shower. She went and she packed him his lunch. And at 740 a.m. Steve gathered his bag and his keys and he walked out to his work truck with Nanette who kissed him. Goodbye. Now Steve is the fire chief of the St. Tammany Parish, which is basically a county in Louisiana. As he drives, Steve calls his widowed mother Maureen to check in on her. She lives about 15 minutes away from them with Steve's younger brother, Brian. Now Steve's father died this past January. The wound is still pretty fresh for his mom. The family is definitely still healing from this. And after talking to his mom, Steve said that he called Nanette to report how Maureen was doing. And then he went to the fire station at around 8 in the morning. Meanwhile, Nanette spent some time around the house with her pets like she always did now that she's retired. She loved her cats. They were named Baby Kitty and Smokey. I'm obsessed with that. She also had a little Chihuahua named Harley. But around 8.30 in the morning, her red SUV rolls down the driveway and heads towards the nearby town of Slidel. About 10 miles away. And 15 minutes after that, her SUV turns into a McDonald's drive-thru. The cashier takes the payment and hands her a coffee and a breakfast bag. And then the SUV heads back in the direction of Nanette and Steve's house. Just after 9 in the morning, the garage door opens, the SUV pulls in and the door shuts behind it. For a couple hours, the streets pretty quiet. But shortly after 2 p.m., there's a kid from next door who's riding her bike down Nanette and Steve's street. And she sees that there's smoke coming from the Crentals house. So she runs home to call 911. And at 2.30 p.m., Steve gets a separate call from his cousin who happens to live right next door to them. And when he hears his cousin say that his house is on fire, he actually thinks that it's a joke. There's no way that that's happening to his house. Because remember, Steve's a fire chief. So this whole thing seems ironic. But once he realizes it's not funny, this isn't a joke, he alerts the rest of the station. He jumps in a department vehicle and races towards his very own house. On the way there, he tries to call Nanette, but no one answers on the landline. And her cell phone goes straight to voicemail. It's 2.43 p.m. by the time he pulls up and he sees that his house is fully engulfed in flames. Around the same time, the other firefighters arrive and reports conflict on whether Steve got there first or if the other firefighters got there first. But either way, when everyone arrives, they immediately start tackling this blaze. He said that the scariest part was that he couldn't tell whether or not Nanette was home at the time of this fire. But moments later, the garage walls start to buckle and soon they just collapse in on themselves, revealing something awful to Steve. And that's Nanette's red SUV. It's in the garage, so he gets the sense that she was home. Now, she wasn't really the kind of person who would just go for a jog or a bike ride. So, like I said, Steve knew that she was inside when he saw that. Firefighters carefully make their way to the house and when they get to the master bathroom, that's when they find something even worse. And it's Nanette's burned body. She's lying face up on the floor. And nearby her are the remains of her dog Harley. Firefighters go and they share this heartbreaking news with Steve, who's being consoled by other family members in the driveway. And then later that night, at about 6.30, Steve has to share the unfortunate news with Nanette's father, Dan Watson, who lives in Iowa. And on this call when he tells Dan what happened, he says that he believes that this was a tragic accident. That once the house caught fire, Nanette tried to find and rescue her pets, but she was probably overcome by the smoke. But what nobody knew at the time was there was a lot more to this story. Before we return to that July day, let's talk a little bit more about who Nanette was, though. Nanette was born on July 26, 1967, and she grew up along the bayous of New Orleans. She came from a really big family. She had four sisters and one brother, and she graduated high school in 1985. People described her as witty. She had this really infectious laugh. People also said she was always the life of the party. And at her very core, though, Nanette was above all an animal lover. Her friend said, quote, her pets were her kids. And I really love this story that I heard about Nanette because it really encapsulates who she was. But on a hot summer day, she and her father stopped at a post office once, and a man had left his dog in a parked car with the windows rolled up. My biggest, I hate when I say that, it's horrible. But Nanette goes inside to speak with the guy, even though her father sort of discouraged her from getting involved. And a few minutes later, Nanette and the guy came out of the post office and they were smiling. The man thanked her. He promised he would never leave his dog in a parked car again. And it seemed like not only was Nanette willing to fight for what she believed in, but she did it with a lot of patience and respect. She was very respectful in the way she talked to people. She was not accusatory. So it's no wonder that Nanette had built a lot of strong friendships over the years. But one of these stood out among the rest. And that's in 1994, 27-year-old Nanette walked into a picture frame store looking for a job, and she met the owner there, 26-year-old Steve Krentel. He hired her and they immediately clicked. But at the time, Steve was married and he also had a young son. But regardless, the friendship eventually turned into a relationship. By 1995, Steve had divorced his wife and he married Nanette. She became stepmother to Steve's son, Justin, who was just two years old at the time. And while they shared custody with Steve's ex-wife, Nanette did her best to love and support Justin like he was her own. And then in 1997, Steve sold this store and he joined the fire department. He spent years working there until he eventually climbed the ladder and became the fire chief. Meanwhile, after the store closed, Nanette found work as a preschool teacher. She absolutely loved working with kids. She became one of the most sought-after teachers in the area. And then in 2000, when Nanette was 33 and Steve was 32, they finally had enough money to start building their dream house. They bought 100 acres of land and as someone who lives in a city, that seems like an outrageous amount of property. I can't even visualize 100 acres in my head. And in this area, there was a ton of wildlife, which was great for Nanette because she loved animals. So she had all of this in her backyard. And then the couple settled in. What they believed was their forever home. And for years, their life followed a pretty steady routine. Nanette filled her days with teaching, with tending to the house, with caring for her animals and helping to raise Justin part-time. And then after 14 years at her job, Nanette retired from the preschool. And now her days were spent making pies and brownies and bringing them to Steve at the fire station. She even made ceramic plates and she would auction those off for cystic fibrosis. Eventually, Justin did grow up and he moved out. He started a life on his own. And Nanette and Steve were looking forward to a life of retirement together. But that was until July 14th, 2017, which was just 12 days before her 50th birthday. Today's episode is brought to you by Alma. It can be challenging to find the right therapist. Someone that gets you, teaches you strategies that are actually going to work for you and your needs. And it can sometimes be costly. Well, Alma is on a mission to change all that. They want to simplify access to high quality, affordable mental health care. And they have over 20,000 diverse therapists and an easy to use platform. One thing I love about Alma is that you can do consultations with a therapist. It's almost like an interview and you can make sure you guys match each other's vibes before you really jump in and get started. 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Sugar warning for this next section, friends. It does contain some graphic descriptions of Nanette's autopsy. Now Nanette had been very, very badly burned, honestly, to the point of not really being recognized, which is why they did use their in-house DNA lab to confirm her identity. And this was obviously going to make the autopsy a lot more challenging for Dr. Preston. Now, extreme heat can split the skin, tissue can be altered, a lot of injuries can be masked. And while Dr. Preston may have had to work a lot harder than usual to unravel the truth, it did not take long to find some critical discoveries, which brings us to our first and maybe the most revealing clue of this case. As he examines Nanette, Dr. Preston finds a single gunshot wound on her right temple. There's no exit wound, which means the bullet is still in her skull. And so he carefully retrieves it and determines that it's from a small caliber weapon, probably a handgun. But he's going to have to send it out for more testing before really knowing anything else. Here's where things get a little interesting for us, though. To the average bear, we're probably sitting here and we're like, gunshot wound to the head, a fire. Immediately our alarm bells are kind of ringing with suspicion or what happened. Yeah. Despite the findings from that autopsy, the crime scene ends up being released that same night, July 15, 2017. And explain to the viewers what you mean by released. So typically crime scenes are cordoned off, they're, you know, taped up. They're not allowed to be accessed by anyone but investigators, not family, not homeowners, no one. A crime scene should only, in theory, be released after investigators are absolutely certain. All evidence has been gathered, nothing else can be contaminated. They want to make sure they've got everything they need. Of course. Really evaluate. This is an investigation. This is not what happened. So it's our first mark on this. Hit it on the botch. On this botched board. There's one for us. So they released it. Steve ends up hiring his own private fire investigator who examines the house two days after Nanette's death on the 16th. But this is when they actually find some of the bodies of her cats along with a shotgun, which is actually our second clue, which just goes to show again why this is on the botched board. Like you released a scene before even gathering all the evidence. Yeah. You're finding family and another PI is finding guns in the rubble. Yeah. Yeah. And as I mentioned, Nanette's family is also there. Family, not even investigators. Family. And they're strolling through, seeing again, totally unsecured, and they also spot an assault rifle in the rubble. So there's, I mean, there's guns everywhere. Yeah. Steve and Nanette did have a pretty vast gun collection. I believe they had 30 guns. A lot of those were locked in the case. And early firefighters on the scene could see that safe, the gun safe, in the fire. So to find all these other guns kind of scattered around, it's very unusual. Right. And you would think that that's really important evidence that they would want to test. Exactly. There's also something that has been missed and left behind after recovering Nanette's body. And it wasn't until two more days after that that the fire marshal and the sheriff's office actually re-secured the scene. It just begs the question of like, why did we release it in the first place? Exactly. Without thoroughly investigating. Huge question lingering over everything right now. Especially after the autopsy results. And Steve even tells investigators Nanette and him were very experienced with firearms. They collected them. Nanette knew how to shoot. She practiced all the time. She was actually so comfortable with guns that she had five or six that she used regularly just herself. She even texted her sister Kim at one point and said, quote, I have one in my purse, my car, on my nightstand and in each room. She was a gun enthusiast. Yeah, wow. She loved a gun. And her family even knew that she never left the house without one. But again, it's not until almost a week later that investigators really start treating this like a potential crime scene. And at this point, they do finally discover Nanette's 40 caliber handgun. It's the same one that she carried with her everywhere. It's the gun they're thinking that Nanette might have used. And so the lead investigators start coming up with another theory. Could Nanette have lit the fire and then died by suicide? It's just a hunch at this moment. Obviously, they have to start collecting all these weapons so they can really try and test them. In the meantime, investigators turn to Nanette's friends and family to try to understand her behavior and maybe her mindset before she died. And some of them, like her friend, Lori Randall, tell detectives that Nanette had actually been pulling away from people over the last few months. She said that Nanette's family had seen less of her and she had actually been cutting off contact, it seemed like. They said that she seemed a bit down and potentially depressed. Steve provided a possible reason. He said that Nanette had always wanted kids, but despite seeking medical help over the years, she and Steve were never able to conceive. It had gotten even harder lately as they started to see their friends have grandchildren. But Steve, as well as other members of her family, agree they didn't think that Nanette would die by suicide. There wasn't anything about her that indicated that was a possibility at least. Especially not now and not over that if that was the reason. He insisted that Nanette had found an outlet by working at a preschool. He said that she had a lot of things going on in her life to look forward to and there were so many things that she took pride in. And she would have not destroyed their home and everything in it. And also, the big thing that he brought up was she certainly would not have taken the lives of her beloved pets. Absolutely not. I mean, she was a huge animal lover and this was baby kitty, smoky and Harley. There's no way. He really did not think that that was even a possibility that she would do that to them. Still, police figured that there was a way to get to the bottom of the suicide theory quickly and that was by revisiting Nanette's autopsy. So at this point, investigators need to evaluate if Nanette could have indeed started the fire and then taken her own life. And they knew that if Nanette was alive while the fire was burning, there would be signs of that in her air passages. And that brings us to our third clue. Dr. Preston examined Nanette's throat and lungs during the initial autopsy and he found no soot or particulate matter anywhere in her airways. Immediate red flag. Immediate. I mean, huge. I had an initial thought though and I was like, okay, could she have had a mask on? Could she have started this fire and gotten further enough away from it quickly enough? Yeah, I mean, it's wild to think. Like maybe she had a mask and still was able to start it and do that. There's also another test that could have been performed where they actually could have checked the carbon dioxide levels in the blood. And I know a lot of you out there are like after the fire and the way in which she was found, like my first thought was like, would there even be blood in her body still given the severity of this fire? And yes, you can still have blood in a burned body. Obviously fire causes extreme dehydration, destroys tissues, but you can often still find fluid blood in vessels of the heart. Even in significantly burned cases, intense heat can also cause blood to boil and create heat induced hematomas, particularly within the skull. So they could have potentially performed that carbon dioxide level test. However, in all of the research I went through, like I wasn't able to find out if that test was performed on the net. Yeah. Dr. Preston might have just seen, hey, no soot, no particulate matter and been like, we're good here. There's no signs that she was alive when this fire was started. Right, right. Dr. Preston did also look for signs of assault on the net, thinking if this was a homicide, maybe there would be more physical evidence. But again, her remains were too badly burned to tell. He also sent his report off to the Louisiana office of the state fire marshal and the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Department, who at this point are now both working on this case. But he doesn't release his findings publicly yet. Even so, one thing is now super clear. Nanette Crentel was, according to Dr. Preston, killed before the fire started. And whoever set that blaze is likely the same person that pulled the trigger. So on July 21, 2017, the family hosted a memorial service for Nanette Crentel at St. Michael's Episcopal Church, which was about 20 miles from their home. This is where Nanette taught preschool for 14 years. It was incredibly sentimental. It held a lot of special value to everyone. Her body was still in the custody of the coroner, so Steve carried an empty box into the service, which makes me want to cry just reading about. But then towards the end of the memorial, guests started receiving news alerts on their phones. The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office had just put out a press release containing the results of Nanette's autopsy. And right then and there, at her service, her friends and family learned that she did not die in the fire. Remember, everyone at this point thought that the fire was the thing that killed her. They learned that she died from a gunshot wound to the head. Botched. I mean, family should not ever find out crucial, sensitive information on their loved ones from a news alert, and especially not while they're at that loved one's funeral service. So that's another mark on our botched board. We're up to two at this point. Around the same time, the results come back on the bullet that was found in Nanette's skull, and it did not match a single gun found at the site. None of the guns that were found in the rubble. It was not a match. As mentioned, by now, both the Sheriff's Department and the Fire Department are running their own investigations into Nanette's death. But when Nanette's family asked which department was in charge of the scene, the Fire Department said that it was the Sheriff's Department, and the Sheriff's Department said that it was the Fire Department. The whole thing was a mess. No one was taking ownership of this. No, and like even from when Steve hired his private fire investigator, they have drone footage, and it just shows the change in the scene from initial, when they released it, to even a couple days later, the scene was so vastly different. How much did they miss? Of course. And when you miss something at that level too, you're not going to be able to rediscover it. No. This left Nanette's family feeling very frustrated, rightly so. Meanwhile, a publication called The Louisiana Voice was looking into other cases that were handled by the Fire Department, and they claimed that the Fire Department had history of mishandling investigations. They said, quote, State Fire Marshal's office was slacking big time, and they enlisted the botches that were committed during the first week of the investigation, which we have, I guess, too, but it really encompasses all of the botches in that first part of the investigation. For example, they said a perimeter was not set up to secure the crime scene around Nanette's house, botched. That the Fire Marshal investigators lacked proper equipment and experience to handle such a complex scene, botched. That the lead investigator had no experience and was not comfortable handling a death investigation botched. And they also mentioned how Henry Rayborn, one of the State Fire Marshal investigators on the scene, resigned after confronting Fire Chief Brant Thompson on the issue of lack of training, experience, etc. botched. I know. What does that put us up to? Five? I don't know. At that point, that was at least three or four. So apparently Henry Rayburn, the inspector assigned to the lead fire investigation, told the Fire Chief Brant Thompson that he was in over his head. He had no experience with the death investigation and he wanted to bring in someone more qualified. As you should. Yeah, that's great. Exactly. Always admit your knowledge gaps and bring in an expert. But the Fire Chief Thompson objected and then the discussion got pretty heated and eventually Rayburn got so fed up that he said he was resigning and just hung up the phone. Honestly, go on him. Put your foot in the sand. And apparently at that point, the State Fire Marshal, Butch Browning, started to worry that Rayburn would begin talking to the media. So Browning called Rayburn and he asked him to reconsider his resignation, but Rayburn refused. And it was this series of events, at least partially, that forced the Sheriff's Department to release the autopsy results earlier than they wanted, resulting in everyone learning at the funeral what was going on. Luckily, the bad press wasn't going to stop them from trying to solve this mystery. They did end up bringing in a team of dogs to try to sniff out how and where the fire started. These dogs were actually trained to spot ignitable liquids like gasoline, kerosene, lighter fluid, and even in very small amounts that electronic detectors can actually miss. Again, the dogs, they are locked in. Yeah. And one of those dogs found our fourth clue. There was gasoline throughout the living room and the primary bedroom. And again, trigger warning for mention of animals, you guys. Like again, please skip if you can't hear this. But to tell you how dire this was, there was accelerant that was even put on some of the animals. It was everywhere. I mean, at this point, it is so clear that this fire was very intentionally set. Whether the accelerant came from somewhere in the house or if it was brought there by the killer, that is a whole mystery. They have no idea. Wow. I remember when I was in college, I took a forensics class and we had a fire investigator, a forensics investigator come in. And I remember them saying to, you know, a lot of people set fires because they think that all the evidence burns away, but fires are one of the easier things to figure out where they started, how they started, who started it. He was like, if you light a fire, we will find you. We know exactly what you used, where you set it. It's incredible how they're just able to figure out, like to map an entire crime scene and figure out where all the accelerant was. And you think it all burned away. It's absolutely mind blowing. And they did figure out a lot based on their scene. Even, you know, when you see pictures of the home and the wreckage, like this was catastrophic. And the dogs actually ended up leading to something even more interesting. The dogs led to a DVR player in the primary bedroom, which according to the dogs, reeked of gasoline. That DVR is our fifth clue. The device had been hooked up to a 42 inch monitor and it played feeds from multiple cameras that were set up around the property. There were nine cameras to be exact. And it basically showed a 360 degree view around the home. No one could approach this home without being captured on that system. Plus, it set off an alert. I mean, it was a very high tech system. And these cameras all fed in to a digital video recorder, a.k.a. the DVR, where the footage was then stored locally, rather than on the internet, up in a cloud, all right there in that little box. So if the DVR was ruined, it meant there was no backup, no way to find that footage anywhere else gone. Ann Annette trusted this system. She even told her father on multiple different occasions, quote, as long as I have my guns and the cameras and I'm at home, I'm safe. So whoever entered the house that day, one was likely captured on those cameras. Two, the footage probably went then to the DVR and was recorded. And three, they knew exactly where that DVR was located to then pour accelerant all over it and make sure it was destroyed. And I will tell you another part of our botched, this DVR was left behind on the initial search. Oh, God, they did not grab that DVR upon initial search. It really hurts. Despite the damage, the sheriff's department sent the DVR off to the FBI to see if they could recover any data. Unfortunately, the FBI didn't offer much help. There was nothing useful that could be recovered. Regardless, it's kind of looking like an inside job or someone with very intimate knowledge of this house and where things were located. So naturally, the police are always going to look at those closest to the suspect first. And in this case, that person happened to have a lot of experience with fire and that was Nanette's husband, Steve. Before he was fully investigated, detectives wanted to take a closer look into Nanette's final hours to make sure that nothing was missed. She was a creature of habit. She usually drove to the same McDonald's and ordered the same thing for breakfast every morning. It seemed like she did that on the morning of her death too. Surveillance video from a property near that McDonald's in Slidle showed a red 2011 GLK Mercedes 350 SUV rolling through the drive-thru that morning. The footage was grainy so they couldn't confirm for sure if it was actually Nanette behind the wheel. But a small dog appeared to be inside the vehicle and this could have been her dog Harley, who she took with her everywhere. Plus her cell phone data and credit card activity also pleased her at that McDonald's at the time. It's unclear if anyone working at the McDonald's was able to confirm that they helped her. Investigators told the family that they were planning to release the video to the public, but they wanted to wait until they had tried to locate other people from the drive-thru line. The video has never been released to the public though, which did astonish some of her family. Yeah, it feels like that honestly could be a bit of a botched too. We've seen in so many cases how much the public can help and how much releasing a video can jog people's memories. Well also too, I'm like with someone at that drive-thru and followed her home. I'm like, we really… Why hasn't that footage? We gotta look more into the McDonald's. Yeah, they should have done more of that footage. Exactly. I know if someone went through the line behind her, why are we not looking at other transactions? It's interesting. There was also confirmation of Nanette coming home. One of their neighbor's security cameras recorded the SUV heading back to the Crentel house at approximately 9-11 that morning. After that, phone records show two outgoing calls from Nanette's cell phone later that day. One was at 10.03 a.m. to a local Kmart. And when authorities contacted the Kmart, they learned that this call was a request to refill a prescription. Future plans. Planning in the future to pick up medication and take that medication. The Kmart employee who took that call did not know Nanette's voice, so they couldn't confirm for sure that it was her. But there was another call placed from Nanette's phone at 1.30 p.m. to an unknown number. And that call went unanswered. This was just an hour before a neighbor saw smoke coming from her house. Police tracked down that number to see who it was, but the woman said that she actually didn't know Nanette or Steve. So police just assumed that this was a mistyle. Around September 2017, the coroner's office and sheriff's office had a bit of a stalemate. Quote, a Louisiana coroner says somebody killed a fire chief's wife before her house burned down. The sheriff says his investigation doesn't necessarily confirm that Nanette Crentel's death was a homicide. This is a quote from one of the local papers, and it's just showing how disconnected they are. You have the coroner saying, this is not a suicide. This is a homicide. You have the police publicly saying, nope, coroner's wrong. We still think suicide. Wild. As a result, Dr. Preston said Nanette's remains were sent to the forensic anthropology and computer enhancement services lab at Louisiana State University after his initial autopsy. Its report arrived in early September, which leads us to our sixth clue, the additional autopsies. Preston said that he asked a second pathologist to conduct an autopsy, and a pathologist hired by Crentel's father and sisters conducted one as well. He said that the independent pathologist didn't disclose his findings, but did agree to send his report to Preston's office. So everyone's corroborating. He's getting all of the details. There's now three different autopsies that have been completed. And this is a quote from Dr. Preston, quote, even before the second and third autopsies and the FACES lab report, there was adequate evidence to rule the death of homicide. Because of the complexity and sensitivity of the investigation, however, we wanted to give this case the utmost attention and thoroughness. The victims' remains have now undergone three autopsies and a forensic reconstruction. Based on information I have received from FACES anthropologists, the State Fire Marshal, and our two pathologists, I am entirely comfortable in declaring this death a homicide. Wow. Wow. Three autopsies. Reconstruction. I mean science-backed. And then, of course, Sheriff Randy Smith does his own press conference and says, quote, At this time, the Sheriff's Office investigation does not necessarily support the coroner's conclusion in this case. I'm going to hit it on the botch board again. This is, it's so frustrating to hear. To be publicly outwardly, I mean. I just keep thinking of the family. Like I keep thinking of her family. To hear from the coroner, this was absolutely a homicide. And then to have the Sheriff come forward and say, we don't necessarily agree with that. It's just, it's emotional torture for them. It is psychological warfare. I mean, you're getting hope that maybe there's an answer. Maybe there's justice to be served. Oh my God. That there's someone out there who needs to be caught and brought to justice for this. And then the Sheriff is like, actually, we're not really going to investigate this anymore. What's to investigate? We know exactly what happened. Yet the science is pointing you a different direction. So at this point, I mean, it's very unclear what the Sheriff's Office is investigating. If anything, but regardless, like at least they start digging a little. And that brings us to Nanette and Steve's relationship. As detectives looked closer into the couple, they discovered our seventh clue. Marriage troubles. It turns out Steve had been having at least one affair and they didn't have to dig very hard to learn about it. I guess on Steve's first day back to work after Nanette's death, someone complained that he had been having a relationship with a subordinate and had done other quote, unethical things around the station, like destroying and stealing work property and even intimidating other employees. Yikes. Now Nanette knew that this affair was going on and that the person worked with Steve at the firehouse. In fact, she had actually seen the two of them getting a little too close for comfort while she was visiting the station. Maybe one of the times she brought him baked desserts pies that she had spent all day baking for him. She told her best friend, Lori Rando, that she didn't know what she was going to do, but that she was definitely planning on talking him about it. Many of Nanette's family were aware that she was actually thinking of leaving the marriage. Steve now did acknowledge to the police, you know, this is true, but insisted that it had had nothing to do with Nanette's death. He actually fessed up to two relationships one 10 years ago and the other two years ago. But as this is all coming out, it reminds Nanette's friend, Lori, of something strange that happened the night before Nanette died. On July 13th, 2017, Lori says that she was chatting on Facebook with Nanette. They talked for a couple of hours and then at around 10.30pm, Nanette's Facebook messages abruptly stopped. This kind of makes police wonder if something happened to Nanette the night before she was discovered in her burning home. Keep in mind, Nanette's time of death has not been confirmed, making them think it was possible for her to be killed the night before and then the fire to be set the following day. And we don't have proof that she was the one driving the car the following day. It could have been someone else. It could have been someone else and family in interviews and other sources I've heard from do kind of question that they're like, the video was so grainy. How do we know? They haven't confirmed it was her. So there is some, I don't know, reasonable doubt, at least in their minds there. And as they dive further, they're starting to learn even more about Steve and his past behaviors that feel super alarming. For example, there's actually another firefighter named Tom Williamson that had complained about Steve a year before the murder. Allegedly, when Tom had returned to his truck one day, there was a bullet casing left right beside it. And to him, he felt like this was sending a message. Someone's trying to send him a message. He admitted he couldn't prove it was Steve. But the fact that the department didn't take any of Tom's complaints or the threats seriously kind of made him think it had to be Steve since he was senior ranking. Now, again, hearing all of this, investigators can no longer ignore Steve as a person of interest. Steve knew it too. So he did something surprising. He actually asked to take a polygraph test. Again, we've talked at length about how these can be unreliable. So take it with a grain of salt, but according to them, he passed. On top of this, we know the timeline of Nanette's final hours, and they seemed to prove that she was alive after he left for work. Not to mention his alibi checks out. Steve's co-workers confirmed that he was at the station by 8am that morning. And there's cameras at the fire station that proved his alibi all day. The St. Tammany Parif Sheriffs detective told Nanette's family in August 2018 during an update on the investigation the following quote, His cell phone was plotted by the FBI. He goes to the fire station. He's around the fire station. Several people at the fire station accounted for him throughout the day, went and met some people at Outback and was plotted back to the fire station before he got the call that his house was on fire. End quote. Seemingly airtight. Now, assuming Nanette was the one who drove her car and made those calls, she had to have been alive until at least 1.30pm when she called that mystery number. So, on September 14th, 2017, two months after the murder, police announced that Steve is no longer a suspect in Nanette's murder. So, where do they go from here? Well, with Steve having his name cleared, he is more ready than ever to get justice for his wife. But as police look closer into Nanette's own messages, they find another clue. Clue number 8 for us, a potential stalker. Roughly two and a half weeks before her death, Nanette emailed her dad saying that she was afraid she was being followed. Nanette then actually sent her dad a picture of an unknown man near their gate to their driveway. In the email, Nanette wrote, quote, This was the day I got out to get the mail and looked up and this man was walking towards me. He just looks creepy. Nanette also told her father that she found items suggesting that someone had been on the property. She found a knife and a cigarette, but none of her family smokes. So very concerning. And again, this is a 100 acre property. And there's just a knife too. A knife? She, according to friends and family, had mentioned these items to Steve. He essentially told her, like, hey, don't worry about it. But Nanette wasn't so sure. She actually kept those items on hand somewhere, just in case. But again, with the fire and not knowing where she hid them, those items were never recovered. But it is enough for police to wonder, did someone have it out for Nanette? Are there enemies that they didn't know of that could be potential suspects? And there was a big one that ended up standing out to them. Nanette's friend, Lori Randall, said she received multiple emails from Nanette over the years about how she was afraid of her stepson, Justin, which is our ninth clue. Steve's first marriage was rocky. I mean, he left his wife for Nanette. And because of that, Nanette and Justin didn't exactly get off on the best foot. Allegedly, Justin also had some behavioral problems. And while Nanette did her best to nurture him, it wasn't something Justin really wanted. I mean, I think we all know out there, even maybe hearing a Reddit story from Tuatakes, family relationships can be strained. And when they start on this foot, it's going to be tumultuous, likely. And so as they're going through, they see messages from Nanette saying how Justin was going to go join the Navy, how he had been doing some target practice at the shooting range. And she wrote, quote, scary to me on so many levels. Woof. Like all caps on that end part. Yeah, so many levels, all caps. In my experience, just like kind of growing up in a small town when people are afraid of someone wanting to join the military. That's usually a huge red flag. Yeah. Like this person should not be trusted with guns. It's a position of power. Yeah. You worry. Justin also had a nine millimeter in his possession and was able to get a concealed weapons permit. Now, while Justin did eventually grow up, move out of the house, according to Nanette, Justin was not welcome at the home unless Steve was there. That was a rule of hers. And Steve did admit that there was tension with his son, mainly because he met Nanette when he was still with his ex-wife. But he says that there were no major red flags to him. He didn't see them. He even went on to say that a lot of these issues had been resolved before Nanette's death. This wasn't a recent issue. So whatever she said to Lori, it's not really relevant now. Of course, police still had to rule Justin out as a suspect. They did find he had a solid alibi. The now 23 year old Justin was working in Virginia at the time of Nanette's death. He and his wife even drove down to Louisiana after hearing about the fire. Because of this, police no longer considered him a person of interest. But again, they keep looking and they find another suspect. And that is Steve's brother, Brian. And that is our 10th and final clue. It turns out, Brian had been to jail quite a few times. He had been arrested at least 36 times, had 15 convictions, many of them for violent crimes, including the assault of a police officer, and multiple DWIs, among other things. And it was no secret that there maybe was some strained relations between Brian, Stephen and Nanette. Steve had his dream wife, house job, life. Brian didn't really have any of that. But despite that, whenever Brian would get in trouble, Stephen and Nanette kept helping him out. And Brian kept reaching out to them. So there was still some sort of relationship there. But that kind of changed on November 2, 2015, about a year and a half before Nanette's death. That night, Brian had been drinking and driving and his car got stuck in a ditch. So he called Steve and Nanette and asked them, hey, can you come pull me out? But police arrived on the scene before they could get there. And they found drug paraphernalia in Brian's car. Brian, at that point, already being on probation, was charged with his fourth DWI. Brian went to jail for two years after that. And he mostly blamed Nanette. He said that she was the one who ratted him out to police. So from prison, Brian is sending Nanette letters. And just a trigger warning, there is a mention of essay here. In the letter, he talked about sexually assaulting Nanette, killing her and Steve, and burning their house down. Clearly a deranged individual. Clearly. Now Nanette and Steve did everything in their power to keep Brian behind bars after this, even going as far as begging the prison itself. But in November 2016, around nine months before Nanette's death, Brian was released on good behavior. He finished serving his sentence on house arrest at his parents' home, only 15 miles from Steve and Nanette's place. And Steve was actually so worried for his parents that he even put up cameras in and around their house. And Nanette's fear of Brian was actually a big reason that she carried a firearm for protection. The reason she kept a pistol next to her bed. In an email, Nanette wrote, quote, Brian is capable of anything and someone that has nothing to lose is full of hate, uses drugs, makes threats, is a loose cannon. Now at this time, Brian did have to wear a location and alcohol monitoring bracelet. And this bracelet actually had geofencing technology. So if Brian came within a thousand feet of their property, the police would be notified. So Nanette, she at least felt better about that. There's some peace of mind knowing that if he tried to come on site, they would get an alert. But once she discovered that cigarette butt and that knife on her property, she didn't really have that peace of mind anymore. And again, that's so weird to have pop up. And that wasn't the only weird thing happening on their property. There was actually a transformer on their property that had gone out twice in just a few weeks. And the repair person who came out and fixed it said that it appeared to have been intentionally broken. And then as Steve is looking into his brother's bracelet, just a few months after Nanette's death, he discovers something terrifying. The alcohol monitor on Brian's bracelet worked, but the location tracking feature had never been activated. Huge botched. Never been turned on. Huge, huge botched. Meaning he could have easily been on their property without the police ever knowing. Now remember the cameras Steve installed at his parents' house before Nanette's death to keep an eye on Brian. Brian was seen on those cameras at his parents' house at the time of the fire. However, Nanette's family has serious questions about those cameras. Nanette's family was extremely concerned about whether the fact that that camera footage showing Brian at the house that day was ever authenticated. How do we know that the timestamp wasn't changed? How do we know it's not old? How do we know the date's not set? Was it verified? Is it real? And this is what one of the detectives told the family during a meeting in August 2018. Quote, the time displayed on the DVR corresponds with the current time. What does that even mean? Like it's right? I mean it's set? Again, we all know in this present day how much we can hack things, how much you can manipulate things. Was it authenticated? Did it get sent to the FBI? The ones with all the tools. Who verified this? I know and we already know how horribly this investigation is going and how lazy everyone involved this being. Yeah. And they really tried to grill down and try to verify during this meeting whether the DVR was forensically examined to see if the date was changed, if the video had been edited. And at the time of the meeting, detectives said that the FBI had not examined it. Wow. But whether they ended up submitting it for further testing is unknown. Sheriff Smith did decline to answer the questions when they were asked. And at this point, the detective is basically telling anyone that'll ask family journalists, you know, at this point in time, we've decided to refrain from answering any further questions or making further comments as this is still an open, active investigation. Both Steve and Brian at this point have taken polygraph tests and there is something to note that at the time of the Ned's death, at the time of this fire, Brian didn't have a car. So a lot of people are pointing to that being like, he didn't have a car. But despite not having a car, Brian did show up at the fire scene. I mean, there's cars you can borrow. His parents' car, he has friends. Like that doesn't to me at least say anything. No. Despite all of this, everything we have, Brian was cleared of suspicion. And after this, Nanette's case really hits a wall. But her family did everything they could over the years to get her justice. Nanette's sister, Kim Watson, is a criminal prosecutor in Iowa and her boyfriend, Randy, was a volunteer firefighter. So they enlisted their strong connections to keep her case alive. They had to fight every step of the way. It was not easy even just to get her remains back. They learned secondhand that her body had been released still with no official cause of death. So Kim and her dad had their own private investigator and medical examiner sent to Louisiana to examine Nanette's remains and obtain a court injunction to stop her cremation. They were just going to cremate her. Which obviously not a lawyer. I say that quite a bit. And I love you lawyers chiming in the comments. I have seen you. You're teaching me so much. I really appreciate it. But it does seem so wild that a county, a medical examiner could control or determine the potential outcome of a body like it wouldn't even go to next of kin. Right. And maybe that's case by case, county by county, but it's pretty baffling. Really upsetting. Really, really upsetting for the family. And they're dealing with the loss of their loved one and now have to get an injunction. Just every little step of this whole process has been so traumatizing for her family. I cannot help but think of them in this entire case. It's horrible. And I mean, the private autopsy that they had conducted confirmed what they already suspected and what the medical examiners had been saying this entire time. And that's that Nanette had been murdered. But as of today, her case remains open. Officials haven't named any other suspects or persons of interest in her case since Brian. And professionally, Steve's had a bit of a hard time since Nanette's passing. In May of 2018, he was demoted from his position of fire chief and suspended without pay for 60 days. This was after the board met for three hours on how to discipline Steve for his inappropriate relationship with a coworker amongst other things like taking department equipment. He was also ordered to reimburse the district for two air conditioning units that he stole. A month later, Steve announced his retirement. Yeah, he kind of resigned to kind of just put it all behind him. Let's move. Let's move past this. This was just two days after the St. Tammany Sheriff's Office requested documents from the fire department on their ongoing investigation into Nanette's death. But there are so many loose ends and lingering questions that have us wondering and the families and a lot of people involved in this wondering. Steve hired two private investigators to look into Nanette's death. One for the fire, another for the homicide. He declined to share the information that they gathered saying he has shared the homicide investigators report with the STPSO. One interesting thing about this case is how many investigators have gotten fired over it. Yeah. Let us explain that part. Let's get into this. So there was one federal agent who actually reached out to the family to try and help. His name was Jerry Rogers. He also happened to be a former STPSO detective. He emailed the family anonymously to say that some of the investigators on the case were a little too close for comfort. Yeah. And he sent these emails to family with an anonymous Yahoo mail address. It was like justice for Nanette at yahoo.com. And he behind the scenes is anonymously reached out to the family like this. Yes. And being like, hey, actually ask detectives why they haven't looked this way. Yeah. Ask them why they haven't done this test or this exam. So he told Kim, Nanette's sister, a couple of things that she should ask the police in connection with this case. Yes. Like he wanted her to ask why had Steve and his brother Brian been giving lie detector tests so early in the case before all of the evidence was obtained. And what's wild is after this, Jerry was found out and arrested for sending emails about the investigation. Yeah. It gets really, really messy for Detective Rogers. So from what I've read, and this is very like it's so convoluted from what I've read, Nanette's family was confused how they were getting these emails. They shared them with Sheriff Smith, who then tracked the email address, found out it was coming from Rogers, went through all the other emails. And so this sheriff position is an elected position. It turns out that Rogers was emailing the competition for the upcoming sheriff reelection in this justice for Nanette email. Sheriff Smith is pissed. Yeah. And he goes after Rogers ends up going against legal counsel from my understanding and arresting him against his rights because free speech does a strip search. Kind of just like dehumanizing him. And the case actually went to court. Wow. They settled for an unspecified amount. Sheriff Smith's insurance paid the settlement. Yeah. It said he was never formally prosecuted for this. They settled. Oh my God. But still, like what? And that's not even where it ends in this case too. Nanette's sister is actually facing trespassing charges after trying to go see a memorial on the property that Steve had put up. Yeah. This ended up in a high speed chase. That's right. Wait, explain it to everyone who's listening. Okay. So Nanette's sister goes back to the property. It's now like locked off, gated, and she brings a friend and she just wanted to see a memorial that Steve had apparently set up for Nanette. Yeah. It said here they were there for like 12 minutes. 12 minutes. Yeah. So the cameras now monitoring. So they're there short amount of time. They leave as they're leaving. Steve intercepts them. So clearly saw on the camera feed that they were there, goes to intercept them. And whether there's now such distrust between the family and Steve, they end up just trying to get out of there. Leave. And it ends up with them basically getting chased by Steve at a high speed down the highway. Oh my God. Again, for what? Yeah, just trying to see a little memorial for their sister and it's every step of this is just so upsetting. I'm just like also like for what? Like hasn't all the evidence been collected at this point? Like why such? Yeah. Well, she later called a contact at the Sheriff's office to report the event because it's very upsetting. Obviously she was chased. Traumatized by this. By not a cop Steve. He told her that she had to go down to the St. Tammany parish station to sign a misdemeanor summons for trespassing or she would be facing a warrant for her arrest. So they just, yeah. For just trying to see a memorial. She tried to report him and they were like, why don't you come down here and we'll arrest you for that. Yeah. How does that sound? Actually he's pressing trespassing charges on you. Horrible. So yeah. Insane to me. And okay, so that's essentially all that we have on the case. That's where it stands today. We have a little bit for our activism section. There are resources for families who have lost loved ones to violent crime that we wanted to highlight. So cases like this definitely don't just affect the victim. I mean, as we've seen with the Nenets family this entire time, it's really, really traumatized them. One organization that provides advocacy, information and support is the National Center for Victims of Crime. So this is actually something that some listeners might find useful as well. They help families navigate the criminal justice system and access trauma informed services. Their helpline is 1-800-FYICALL and their website is victimsofcrime.org. There's also another organization called Parents of Murdered Children. They provide peer support, educational resources and community for families who have lost someone to violent crime. You can call them at 1-888-818-POMC. Lastly, for this episode, if you have any information related to this case that could help investigators, please consider reporting it through the appropriate law enforcement channels, including the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office, which we've given such a glowing review to this entire episode. But they can be reached at 985-898-2338 or Crime Stoppers, a fantastic organization where tips can be submitted anonymously. Crime Stoppers still has a $10,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction in this case, and the number that you can call is 504-822-1111. This is a tough one. I'm sure we're all kind of reeling. I'm sure you're going to put your hunches in the comments. And I'm curious if anyone out there is local to this case, is connected in some way. I know I went down the rabbit hole on Reddit and a lot of people that live in the same town comment on Nanette's case on Unsolved Mysteries and other subreddits. Well, it feels like one that has that small town element where it's the fire chief and he's having affairs and probably people in the town know what's going on. And it feels like people in the community maybe know a lot more than anyone who's just casually researching this case. Yeah, and this is according to Reddit. Allegedly, obviously we can't verify this, but a lot of the comments from multiple people talk about how Steve, previous fire chief and the sheriff are actually very good friends. Yeah. According to Reddit. Yeah. You know, like... No, so I'm so curious to hear from you guys. Yeah, so please comment what you think about this case, and I really hope we do get justice for Nanette. Yes. And now we want to highlight another missing person. This week we're going to highlight Daniel Lee Neuville. Daniel's been missing since August 1st of 2002. He went missing in New London, Minnesota. He is described as being male white. He would be 41 today, born in 1984. He was 18 years old at the time of his disappearance, and he was about 58 or 59 and 135 to 145 pounds. Daniel was last seen leaving a party in New London, Minnesota in the early morning hours of August 1st. He decided to go to another residence about a mile or two away. He was offered a ride there, but refused. He never arrived at the other address and has never been heard from again. Although his father says he informed the police about his son's disappearance within 10 days, no missing person's report was filed for a month and a half. His parents believe that he was met with foul play. They stated that he sometimes got into trouble, but didn't instigate it. Instead, he just hung around with the wrong people. His case remains unsolved, and we know that he was wearing a light-colored shirt and dark-colored full-length pants at the time of his death. That is all that we have for this episode of Clues, and now we turn it over to you guys. Your thoughts, theories, questions, comments all are what make this community so special. Absolutely. Please comment any missing person cases you want us to highlight. Any cases local to you that you might have a connection to. At Crime House, we really value your support. Share your thoughts on social media, and remember to rate, review, follow, and subscribe to Clues. Definitely subscribe. To help others discover our show. That's all we got for this week. So until next time, bye guys.