Transcription
[eerie music] I can see a body laying there. I'm advised that this victim is related to another homicide. What is going on in this place?
Very nice kid, well-behaved. That evil that he carried, where did that come from? Why did he have that?
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): She'd pull his hair. She'd kick him. She'd call him a stupid bitch. Frustrations just built up in him. And where are they gonna go? Who are you gonna take it out on? He was having psychotic thoughts about kidnapping police officers and blowing up churches. He's pulling one of the fish hooks into his skin right through his finger. If he doesn't start treating me better, I will kill him.
DET. PAT WALSH (VOICEOVER): Larry Streeter was a local businessman. And he had a restaurant and gas station there. He'd been very successful with his businesses as. He was a very well-known person in the community, a big personality and a very warm, welcoming air about him.
DET. PAT WALSH (VOICEOVER): I received a call. It was 5 something in the morning. Larry Streeter's wife was disturbed, because he hadn't come home. She tried to call him. He didn't answer. Her son-in-law found the body and he called 911. I remember seeing in the paper that Larry Streeter was found dead in the driveway, shot. How could this happen? Who did this? It was very unnerving.
Bigfork is kind of a resort community, high dollar homes that belong to people who live out of the area and vacation there in the summertime. We have a very conservative community, very Christian community. You'll see the Ten Commandments posted on businesses.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): It's a tight community. There are people who grew up here. People know one another. Debbie met Ed and they got married when Debbie was 18. Ed might've been 18 or 19, not much older. So very young parents who then moved out and moved on their own and started having kids right away.
NARRATOR: Debbie and Ed Ernst thought that Bigfork might be a good place to raise their children. Once settled, the Ernsts quickly became very involved in a local church. Ed was the associate pastor at the Baptist church in Bigfork. They were very deeply involved in their church. They didn't associate with anybody outside of their religious group.
BOB KEENAN (VOICEOVER): They kept to themselves. They lived in the woods. They lived tucked away. Their circle was small.
NARRATOR: Debbie and Ed have two boys. Their oldest son is Ted. Ted was born with spina bifida.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): Spina bifida is a neural tube defect, where, in Ted's case, I think a portion of his spine was exposed. He had to have his neck fused when he was four, so that he could no longer turn his neck.
NARRATOR: But Ted refused to be diminished by his handicap.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): Ted was a very determined, smart little boy. He ran races. He ran with his dad every day. He and Ed, that was something that they shared. Ted was delightful to be around, absolutely delightful, full of energy. I thoroughly enjoyed being around Ted.
NARRATOR: While Ted thrived on many levels, his younger brother Jesse struggled.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): He was developmentally delayed. His speech was delayed. He didn't reach his milestones as a baby. But he was happy. He smiled all the time. He was just a cheerful little boy.
NARRATOR: The boys had plenty of room to play in the Montana woods and, like all young boys, loved to push the limits. The boys had gotten into trouble and Debbie said "Wait til your dad gets home." And so they went out and they climbed a tree, so that they could spot Ed coming and get to him before Debbie could get to him, so that they could explain their side of the story.
NARRATOR: At the time, Ted was 11 and Jesse was 9. You know, to people from a city, I mean, it probably sounds weird that these two little boys were alone, unsupervised, you know, and they were quite high. Jesse was holding on to the tree trunk looking for his dad. While they were up there, they were bouncing around in the limbs, trying to break them off. Jesse couldn't break the branches. So Ted said, "Come back. Let me try." Jesse heard a crack and Ted was gone. And then, he just heard this cracking sound going down the tree, like firecrackers or gunshots. He then saw Ted 65 feet below on the ground, seemingly lifeless. Jesse ran home screaming. They didn't think Ted would survive. When he fell, he hit one branch that severed his spine.
NARRATOR: After hours of surgery, Ted miraculously survives the 65-foot fall from the tree. But with this good news comes bad. Ted has lost all function in his lower body. He's paralyzed from the waist down.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): He came home, I think two or three months after the accident. Jesse jumped on the branch moments before that sort of set the stage for Ted's injury and fall. What is Jesse going through? He idolized Ted.
DR. MICHAEL WETTER (VOICEOVER): Feeling guilty for perhaps ruining the life of Ted, such tremendous guilt and such tremendous pain.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): Never once did Ted cry. He never cried about it. It was just devastating for this family. I mean, that 60 seconds just changed everything, for everybody, forever. His parents and community members tried to tell Jesse that he was not responsible, you know, that this-- this was an accident. But he still felt very guilty about it. It led to a lowered self-esteem, a lowered sense of self-worth. Jesse really did not think much of himself at all. He developed a lot of anxiety and depression. He couldn't function in school. Other kids made fun of him. Finally, he cried so much at school, because he couldn't function, that Debbie pulled him out and decided to homeschool him. Homeschooling does require a completely different level of skill set. And quite frankly, I don't believe she had those skills.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): She tried to do the right thing. But then, when he didn't learn at home, Debbie would-- would hit him. She would-- she would beat him with a hairbrush. She'd pull his hair. She'd kick him. She'd call him a stupid bitch, because he was slow and he couldn't catch on. Debbie had a mental health issue. She was completely out of control. Everybody in the family knew it was out of control, but nobody did anything about it. Jesse was the-- the punching bag. He was the one she would call a loser. All the disgorgement she felt, for all the anger she felt, he was the outlet.
NARRATOR: As Jesse's life seems to be slowly falling apart in the wake of his brother's accident, against all odds and despite being in a wheelchair, Ted's life seems to be on an upswing. When a young person goes through a trauma, such as Ted, like losing a limb or the ability to walk, one of the most prevalent features that they'll experience is going through a grieving process. Ted's recovery from the trauma was an exception to the rule. His quote was "If you can't stand up, stand out," which really is a tremendous statement, but not something you would expect someone to say right after they incurred such a traumatic injury. He worked out all the time, incredibly strong. He could walk on his hands all the way down to their lake to the pond, with Jesse holding up his legs, like the wheelbarrow.
NARRATOR: As they become teenagers, Ted and Jesse remain very close. As Jesse's world becomes more troubled, Ted seems to go just the other way.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): They got Ted involved in wheelchair racing and he excelled at that. And so they spent a lot of time going around the country to wheelchair races and they-- they really rallied around Ted. Ted started doing charity races. He was playing wheelchair basketball with police officers. Ted had brought home three gold medals from the National Paralympics from his wheelchair racing. He was on the way to going to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
BOB KEENAN (VOICEOVER): He worked for me. And I used to stop by the office now and then. And I'd visit with him. So we became somewhat friendly. I invited him over to my house. I don't have a wheelchair accessible home. And I wasn't comfortable with "How am I gonna get him up the three, four steps and into my house?" And I must've overlooked it. He pulled into the driveway. He didn't sit out there waiting for somebody to help him up the stairs. The doorbell rang. I kinda panicked and I went to the door. And there he was. He was in his wheelchair on the-- the top step, at the doorway. And I was totally mystified. How did he do that? Well, he can grab a banister, swing his wheelchair around. And like Tarzan, he got himself up. He was agile. He was hugely strong, upper body of course. And he was an incredible person. I really did look to him as being a role model for my kids on what can happen in life un-- unexpectedly and how you recover from that.
DR. MICHAEL WETTER (VOICEOVER): Ted was the guy who did everything right. Ted was the son who was the hero. Ted could overcome everything. Ted was respected and he was a hero to a small town. Jesse was kinda lost in all of this notoriety.
DR. MICHAEL WETTER (VOICEOVER): Jesse was sort of treated like a doormat. Here we have Jesse who can't read very well, who can't even be in school, who's a burden to us now, because we have to homeschool. It's Jesse that's the failure. Sometimes you need the help of others and you need that support. And sometimes if you don't have that support, it can lead to bigger problems. Now, I want to be heard. It's important enough and the only way that I'm gonna get people's attention is by doing something bigger.
NARRATOR: Bigfork, Montana. This normally sleepy community was about to be turned on its ear by a crime spree. From around October through December, this string of burglaries that were taking place in the Bigfork area. And people that live in remote areas, seasonal homes, need to be concerned.
DET. PAT WALSH (VOICEOVER): There'd been a series of break-ins to storage units. There were a lot of guns taken. There were art objects taken. They were just things that sometimes just didn't make sense. We weren't able to tie everything together.
NARRATOR: Unknown to the police, the burglar was not a master criminal, but local Bigfork teenager Jesse Ernst. Over time, Jesse has graduated from petty crime to a full-blown burglary spree. The way that he started was he took a toaster. He took a shovel, a real estate sign here and there. Jesse stole from about 30 different homes or storage units. He wanted to say, "This is what I was able to accomplish. This is what I was able to get away with, that nobody caught." That was the true motivation. That was the thrill.
NARRATOR: On a snowy Christmas night in 1997, Jesse breaks into a house, not far from his own. Jesse sees a car coming up. And he starts running around in circles, because he's in complete panic. And he leaves a footprint pattern that is multiple circles going in and out. So Jesse hides behind a tree. He hears what he thinks are firecrackers. [gunshots]
NARRATOR: Several hours pass before police receive a 911 call. I was called out to respond early one morning to a homicide scene in the Bigfork area. I'm driving into the driveway. I can see a body laying there.
NARRATOR: Lying dead in the snow was 59-year-old Larry Streeter, well-known in the Bigfork community. Streeter had been shot multiple times. Underneath Larry's body were shoe tracks in blood. And it was frozen solid under his body. The snow was all disturbed. And that tells you that somebody had come back. Blood had time to freeze and his body had been turned over. We knew it had been an interrupted burglary. There was a window that was open on the side of the house. We could see scuff marks where somebody had rubbed their shoe against the siding of the house as they'd gone in. And all the drawers were turned upside down and their contents all emptied out on the ground. We had one set of very small shoe tracks, which would be about a size 5. And we had the large tracks were approximately 10 and 1/2 hiking boot. I thought I had two people on foot. Because of the small size of the other tracks, I thought we either had a child with this person or we had a female with this person.
NARRATOR: For months, police look for two suspects, a male and possibly a female.
DET. PAT WALSH (VOICEOVER): We started looking through photos from other cases and found what appeared to be the same type of tire tracks and the same type of shoe prints I had seen at the scene. So I tied it for sure to one other burglary that had happened about five miles south of where this one happened. We were basically looking for burglars. We turned up no one who admitted knowing anything about this. This case did run cold. Other detectives all dropped off. Periodically, would get leads and they may follow those leads up, but it was pretty much just me.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): No one had any idea who shot this man to death. I mean, here he is, he's just a good Samaritan. He goes over to a neighbor's house. It's in quiet Bigfork. It's Christmas night. People were afraid. For the first time, I think, they were really afraid.
NARRATOR: As the months pass by, winter turns to summer, but Bigfork residents remain on edge. Somebody has to know who murdered Streeter. Jesse went to a youth group event for church and he talked to a friend of his, who was 14. And she was a friend of his little sister Carrie's. He told her that he had reconnected with God that night. And he had to tell her something, but she couldn't tell anybody. He told her that I watched a killing. And she said, "Was it Larry Streeter?" And he said "Yes, but you can't tell anybody." For Jesse, who could turn, really, to no one at any given time, I think, religion meant a sense of unconditional love. He couldn't go on with a guilty conscience from the one source of unconditional love that he could always turn to. Ultimately, that is what led him to confess. So she told her dad, who called his friend, who was a lawyer here in town, who called the sheriff's department and talked to Pat Walsh, who was the detective. Jesse was carrying a string of fish and his fishing pole. And while I'm talking to him, I noticed something's really strange. He's pulling one of the fish hooks into his skin, right through his finger. I had to stop him. I said, "Can we look in the house?" The father gave permission. We walked in the front door of the house and right at the entrance were the shoes that I was looking for. And I said, "Can I have these?" "You bet." I picked them up. I seized those. And I put Jesse into the car and drive him to the sheriff's office. And first, he denies and he denies and he denies. Finally, he admits that, yes, he did witness this. I ask him "Who was the person that fired the shots?" He could not bring himself to say that. And this went on for a long time.
DR. MICHAEL WETTER (VOICEOVER): I think it was torturous. And he had to let it out. It's almost like letting pressure out of the balloon. Otherwise, it was going to pop.
NARRATOR: But what Jesse tells the police is not at all what they expect to hear. For six months, the town of Bigfork has been on edge. The murder of Larry Streeter, a popular local businessman, has remained unsolved. A killer is still on the loose. When police receive a tip that local teen Jesse Ernst witnessed the shooting, they bring him in for questioning. What he tells them is hard for them to believe. Jesse says, "It's my bro." What? And he said, "It's my brother."
NARRATOR: How could the hero of Bigfork, a person confined to a wheelchair, be a murderer? He was the most unlikely suspect you could imagine for doing homicide, for even doing burglaries. I mean, he's paralyzed. No one had any inclination that Ted Ernst was the culprit of this murder.
BOB KEENAN (VOICEOVER): He was at work, in front of his computer screens. The detective went in and confronted Ted. He didn't resist arrest. He was just pulled out of the office. Right away, I said "Your brother is next door and he's told us what happened." And he confesses. He just wanted to make sure that I had all the details. He described everything.
NARRATOR: On Christmas night, 1997, Jesse breaks into a house that was only a few miles from their home. It was one of a series of crimes the brothers committed against their Bigfork neighbors. Ted was the mastermind. Ted was very, very bright. Every possible risk, every possible facet of the crime was planned out before they even step foot in the property. He would construct blueprints of the interior of a house they were breaking into, in order to know exactly where to go and what to take. There would be an earpiece in Jesse's ear. And Ted would walk him through. "Turn left, turn right. This is what I want you to grab." That night, Larry Streeter was coming home from a Christmas party and he saw the chain and the padlock lying in the snow and the gate open. He knew something was wrong. Nobody was supposed to be in there.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): Ted now sees a car coming up. Streeter blocks Ted's car. He comes over to the passenger window and says to Ted, "What are you doing here?" And Ted says, "Just messing around." Mr. Streeter says, "I think you're burglarizing this house." Larry sees a revolver, reaches in, takes that revolver, asks Ted for his identification. Jesse, in the meantime, is sitting behind this tree, watching this. Larry looks at Ted's license and says, "I know you." Ted's very well known in Bigfork.
DET. PAT WALSH (VOICEOVER): He calls 911. There's a little problem. No cell reception right there. Ted reaches down, picks up a .22 revolver and shoots Larry six times in the chest. Larry drops to the ground and is laying flat on his back. [gunshots]
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): Jesse hears what he thinks are firecrackers. And he then, all of a sudden, realizes that Ted has shot this man. So Jesse runs up to the car and he's crying. And he's saying "Oh my God, Ted. What have you done? What have you done? What have you done?" And Ted hands Jesse a gun and says "Finish it." Jesse says, "No." Ted threatens to kill him. Only after Jesse was unable to or unwilling to shoot him in the head, Ted went back to, quote, unquote, "finish the job."
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): Ted fires a final execution shot. They race off, leaving Mr. Streeter. Jesse is frozen paralyzed. He can't move now. He's not talking. Ted managed to get him in the house. He got his wet shoes off. He got his wet clothes off, wrapped him in a blanket. He very methodically takes the crime clothes, he puts them in the washer, he puts them in the dryer. He's feeling pretty good that he's gotten away with this. And he starts to count the guns. He realizes that there's one gun missing. It's the gun that Streeter took out of his car. He doesn't know what happened to the gun. That gun could be used to identify him, perhaps your fingerprints.
NARRATOR: In a panic, Ted forces Jesse to accompany him back to the crime scene, where they retrieve the other revolver. While they are there, mastermind Ted has one final trick to throw the police off his trail. Ted takes off his small size-- I believe its size 5. There were really small. --boat shoes that he wears. And Jessie puts those shoes on and walks in the snow. And that accounted for the small tracks.
NARRATOR: Police now have both brothers' confessions to the burglaries and the murder. Jesse was sentenced to 100 years with the possibility of parole, for which he would've been eligible after 25 years. Ted was sentenced to 100 years with no possibility of parole, which is a death sentence. Ted didn't just kill Mr. Streeter. He massacred Mr. Streeter.
NARRATOR: But despite their life sentences, the Ernst brothers wouldn't find themselves in prison for long. On February 25th, 1999, a little over a year after the violent murder of local businessman Larry Streeter, Ted and Jesse Ernst are each sentenced to 100 years in prison. Ted shot Streeter six times in the chest and once in the head, as the boys were finishing burglarizing a house in Bigfork, Montana. The two boys, especially Ted, were well-known in the town. Bigfork was stunned.
GAY MODDRELL (VOICEOVER): It just could not be Ted. They've made a huge mistake. Ted was this great young person who was a friend, a great athlete, a role model to a lot of people who use wheelchairs. It couldn't be Ted. That evil that he carried, where did that come from?
NARRATOR: Looking back on his behavior after the fall, those who knew Ted were surprised that he didn't show any signs of depression or sadness. For someone to experience no grief, no depression, no anger to a very catastrophic event, it brings about more concern than it does reassurance. He was like, "Fine. I'm just gonna do better. I'm gonna be an athlete. And not only am I gonna be an athlete, I'm gonna be the best athlete. I'm just as good, if not better, than other people." I think that fits very nicely into the world of the sociopath. His abilities, especially as an athlete, fed the ego. And it provided him with the thrill of winning. He was entering into competitions at ages 11 and 12 and winning. At what point in time does that no longer become a thrill. Especially when you have a mind like Ted, what's next? Ted
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): Was about 16. He realized he was not going to be a fireman or a fighter pilot or a police officer, because he was paralyzed. Something changed in his brain. And he decided that he wanted to be a criminal. He was gonna be a badass, an outlaw.
NARRATOR: After their murder convictions, another lawyer took up Jesse's case. Almost immediately, she found a medical reason to explain his delays in learning issues. Klinefelter syndrome is a sex chromosome condition. These boys have an extra X chromosome. They tend to be delayed development. But mainly, it affects these boys' frontal lobes. And that's where all your ability to make decisions, your ability to strategize, your ability to foresee consequences.
NARRATOR: Based on this new diagnosis, Jesse receives a new trial. Experts testify that because Jesse's Klinefelter's syndrome was never treated, he could not make good judgments.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): Jury found him not guilty of 24 counts of burglary. They did find him not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect on the homicide.
NARRATOR: After one year of treatment, Jesse is released from prison. I think Jesse's a lot more culpable in this than his attorney seems to believe. I believe that he started to enjoy it. However, I still don't think that he would've even violated the law had his brother not been involved.
NARRATOR: As for Ted, the Montana prison system placed him in minimum security, presumably because he wasn't seen as a flight risk. It was a decision they'd come to regret. He left his wheelchair and he climbed into a laundry bag and got put into a truck and he got out of the prison. Ted was down in the city of Deer Lodge when they found him in the laundry truck. He had escaped without his wheelchair, without legs.
BOB KEENAN (VOICEOVER): He wants to beat the system. And they have to keep an eye on him and treat him just like everybody else.
NARRATOR: Looking deeper into the mind of Ted Ernst, some disturbing details emerge. Jesse told police that Ted would often speak about doing violent, crazy things. Kidnapping police officers and assassinating them and stealing big barrels of fuel from farms and taking them into churches and blowing the churches up. In the bedroom, beside Ted's bed, is a book that's hollowed out. And in that was Larry Streeter's driver's license and six .22 caliber casings and a .357 caliber casing. That is a really bizarre trophy to keep. And he kept it right by his bed. Serial killers will take a trophy from the victim and they will store it. People are always astonished. "How is it that you thought that you can keep this, when it's going to tie you directly to the crime scene?" There is a sense of entitlement, a sense of narcissism that goes in with this idea of being able to do whatever you want without consequences.
BOB KEENAN (VOICEOVER): The warden told me that "I have dealt with a lot of evil. I put Ted Ernst near the top of the list."
NARRATOR: Less than 48 hours after the arrest of the Ernst brothers for the murder of Larry Streeter, Bigfork Police are blindsided by reports of another homicide. While I'm still processing the evidence that was recovered from Ted and Jesse, I am dispatched to another homicide in the Bigfork area. There was no sign of struggle. The victim appears to have been asleep when it happened. And when he was shot, he doesn't seem to have moved at all.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): We had two different murders. And my-- my reaction was just like "Holy crow. What is going on in this place?" People were just shocked. Just doesn't happen. I learned that the person who committed this is the cousin of the two guys who we just put in jail.
NARRATOR: Less than 48 hours after arresting Ted and Jesse Ernst for the murder of Larry Streeter, police get a call from dispatch. The town of Bigfork has been rattled by a second homicide. John Olson has been found shot to death.
DON VERNEY (VOICEOVER): John was-- he was a really good man. He was generous. He was just really, really, really a nice person.
NARRATOR: Brothers Jay and Terry Olson grew up in Bigfork, raised by their single father, John. In this family, there was an extreme amount of dysfunction. The mother, she was not part of their lives at all. Mom is out of the picture. And then, Mr. Olson, of course, is left with raising two sons on his own and trying to make a living and provide a livelihood for the entire family. John Olson, he had a job earning six figures. He used to repair printing presses. He would travel all over the country. And so that would keep him away from home lot.
DR. NATALIE SMITH (VOICEOVER): John could be a responsible person, in terms of bringing home money. But it doesn't necessarily mean that he's accountable on an emotional level. Grandmother lived here, locally, and so was available to assist Mr. Olson with care of his family when he needed her help. I dealt with-- a lot more with Grandma, with Terry and Jay both. And Grandma's concerned about making them get to school and-- you know, and get a good education and stuff.
NARRATOR: Jay is the older of the Olson brothers. He wasn't gonna let any other body push him around. So Jay did get in a few tussles. Jay had problems and John would confide in me. Jay was-- was an out of control kid.
NARRATOR: Jay's behavior shows no sign of improvement. And John has a hard time disciplining him, as he's always traveling for work. Jay also has a younger brother, Terry. Terry and Jay seem to have little in common. Nice kid, very nice kid, well-groomed, well-behaved. Terry was just a-- he was a great young man, quiet, typical junior high kid.
DON VERNEY (VOICEOVER): There was a bit of an age difference between Terry and Jay. I didn't sense that they were really that close.
NARRATOR: While Terry and his brother aren't very close, he and his father are. John and Terry were avid dirt bikers. They were extremely close. In fact, for me, not having had a very close relationship with my father, I almost-- I was kind of envious of the things that the two of them did together.
NARRATOR: The bond John and Terry share doesn't extend to the older brother.
DON VERNEY (VOICEOVER): Jay was a bit of a problem for John. He had behavior issues. He was a problem kid. John left his job to stay at home and try to keep the family together. The relationship between him and Jay deteriorated even more with John being home, trying to be that parent. Now, to go from earning six figures to chopping wood for a living and trying to pay the bills and everything like that, those frustrations just built up in him. And where are they gonna go? Who are you gonna take it out on? Who is the closest thing? This young kid.
NARRATOR: Disturbing accounts from Jay's school do nothing to ease the tension. He did make some comments and stuff that he didn't like his dad and wish he was dead and "If he doesn't start treating me better, I will kill him."
NARRATOR: John is desperate to pull Jay back onto the straight and narrow. The troubles I witnessed from Jay were drugs.
DR. NATALIE SMITH (VOICEOVER): Jay was skipping school. Perhaps he did not know how to verbalize his feelings. At the time I last saw John and Jay, they were-- they were having real problems. After 20 years, these are the words that stick in my mind, because John said to Jay "Get out of here. Get off this property. And if I see you again on this property, I'll kill you."
DR. NATALIE SMITH (VOICEOVER): Terry observed his older brother and father in a lot of friction and turmoil. Perhaps he was taking this in, subconsciously thinking, "I've got to survive. What can I do to keep myself under the radar?"
NARRATOR: Terry is not the only one concerned. His father, John, is also terrified of what is out of control his son might do next. John kept the gun by his bed, because of-- of Jay.
NARRATOR: In the early morning hours of May 20th, 1998, someone enters John Olson's bedroom and picks up the very gun he hoped would protect him. The police find no forced entry at the residence and almost no evidence. A little after 8:00 AM, a school official notices John Olson's truck leaving school grounds and a search begins. That's when we started to track down the truck and notified law enforcement.
NARRATOR: Then, word comes that the truck has been sighted at a local mall. When John Olson is found shot to death in his own home, police are dismayed to learn that both his truck and his revolver are missing. After the last visit with John and seeing John and Jay and the hostility between them, first thing jumped to my mind that it was Jay.
NARRATOR: Hours later, police find John's missing truck at the Kalispell Mall and make an arrest. The gun was found in the truck. I'm advised that they had picked up John's son and they were questioning him.
NARRATOR: But it wasn't Jay Olson they were interrogating. When I heard it was Terry, number one, obviously, shocked, a little bit of disbelief, because they were so close.
DR. NATALIE SMITH (VOICEOVER): "Oh, look at them. They're so close. Oh, they're so good together." But deep inside, the emotions were quite turbulent. When you learn to fly under the radar to get along with a parent, all of those feelings get very much repressed.
NARRATOR: Under police questioning, Terry Olson confesses to murdering his father. Apparently, once Jay was gone from the house, their relationship changed dramatically. John became more of a disciplinarian with Terry and just came down on him very hard.
JUDGE KITTY CURTIS (VOICEOVER): Terry was not a very good student. And there was information about Terry's perspective on his relationship with his father. He suffered significant physical and mental abuse from his father, because of his poor performance in school.
DON VERNEY (VOICEOVER): John was Terry's-- was Terry's world. And he worshipped his father. The loss of that bond between the two of them, the trauma must've been phenomenal.
JUDGE KITTY CURTIS (VOICEOVER): He walks into his father's bedroom, where his father is asleep and retrieves the gun. This was not a planned kind of murder.
DR. NATALIE SMITH (VOICEOVER): When people are acting out impulsively, the ability to have the power of choice, I believe, remains questionable. When you're in a very impulsive zone-like state, you are not in your right mind. Your brain is not working accurately. Your perceptions are skewed. Had that gun not been by John's bed that morning, this never would've happened. He was given 40 years with 10 years suspended.
DON VERNEY (VOICEOVER): When I went to first see him in the juvenile portion of jail, Terry was numb. It's like he was in another world. I just got a sense of seeing this kid harden. And it really freaked me out. But you know, sooner or later, these kids get out. It's gonna happen.
NARRATOR: On appeal, Terry's sentence was significantly reduced by the judge. Just over 10 years after murdering his father, in June 2009, Terry walked out of prison a free man. Terry gets out of prison. And within about a year, he gets rearrested for a domestic violence situation with his girlfriend. And then, he goes back to prison. It still tears my heart out, you know? And-- and-- seeing that after the kid that I knew, personally-- I mean, it just breaks your heart.
NARRATOR: Terry Olsen and his cousin Ted Ernst are unlikely killers. How is it possible that Ted, who was a local hero, an achiever, an accomplished person, how could that be true? Terry, as well, was the unlikely murder suspect. He was very quiet. He was very well-behaved. In the case of Terry, his murder seemed very impulsive, whereas with Ted, his behavior seemed very calculated. So Ted's mom and Terry's dad were both abusers in their own families.
PHYLLIS QUATMAN (VOICEOVER): Ted had a very tough upbringing. He was hit. He was beaten quite a bit at home. There was somebody who came upon the house, a delivery man, when Ted was five. And Debbie was beating him so badly that this delivery person told her that if he ever caught her doing that again, he would turn her into the police. Yeah, Terry did talk to us, you know, about abuse in the home, especially from his dad. You know, it-- that he'd get hit and different things. If Terry had gotten some help, if Ted had gotten some help, some therapy, some counseling, something, that could've made a difference. When you've got a child who got a lot of repressed emotions, who's misunderstood, there's abandonment, there's neglect, there's abuse, you are talking about a time bomb. Anybody can only take so much of that.