All language subtitles for The.Real.Murders.on.Elm.Street.S01E02.720p.AMZN.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

A citizen was driving
on Elm and Highway 2,

where he saw smoke coming
from the house.

Local fire department
responded in their engine.

They arrived on scene.

The house is fully ablaze.

They kicked the door in.

A firefighter entered
the living room,

and, through the heavy smoke,
crawled on the living room

floor, looking for people
in the house.

As he got to the hallway
between the bedrooms,

he bumped into something.

He went to throw the blanket
off so he could see.

It was clear from
what he saw there

that something heinous
had happened.

And he came out to me
and took me aside and said,

"It looks
really weird in there."

Yeah, it was
a gruesome scene.

February 28th of 2008,

I was the lead detective
working for the Spokane County

Sheriff's Department at that
time, I got a call at home

about 5:30 in the morning,
calling me out to an incident

that happened on
Elm Street.

It was completely unusual,
so I wasn't really entirely sure

what to expect.

This was my, probably, fifth
month as a homicide detective.

I was really new,

so it was daunting.

When I first got there,
the house was smoking still.

There was firemen
coming in and out.

I went in through
the front door.

There was just a haze
through the house,

which kind of gave it a little
bit of a haunted house effect.

Once I got in there,
the whole scene, the way it was

laid out, I said, "Yeah,
I don't care who you are."

It's something that
you don't forget.

All of the pictures had been
removed from the wall

and purposely placed face down
on top of the couch, which led

us to believe that it might be
some ritualistic thing.

There was blood
everywhere in the hallway,

bloodstains all over the wall.

It was impossible to get into
the hallway without stepping in

some form of blood pool.

Once I came around the corner,

I saw the body of a male there,

partially covered still
with a blanket,

with a big huge sword
sticking out of him.

I have seen cases of knives
and swords even,

but I don't know
that I've ever seen

a broadsword like that--
it was--

it was a pretty big
piece of work.

He was laying on top of
a guitar in the hallway.

He was covered in blood,
the blood was all dried out

from the fire.

Clearly visible to me at
the time, was a huge incised

wound to the side of the head
right here, and a huge incised

wound right to the side
of the neck.

I wasn't sure the sword was
the murder weapon, but it was

clearly some kind of sharp
implement like a knife.

Just past the body of the male
is an open doorway with

the door standing open
into a small bedroom.

And literally shoved between
the bed and the nightstand

table is the body of
a young female.

She had been stabbed repeatedly
many, many, many times...

...a minimum number of 26.

She was on the floor, kind of
like she was on her knees,

leaning forward with
her head towards the wall.

And it looked like there was
a samurai sword stuck

completely through her neck.

But it turns out, it's
actually just propped in there.

Whoever put it there
tried several times

to make it stick
out of her neck.

It was disturbing that somebody
would brutalize them so badly.

But part of me thought it was
just, uh, "Look at me.

"Look what I did.

Look what I can do."

It just seemed violent
and unnecessary and excessive

and just plain mean,

and I felt really bad for her.

Who might have been capable of
committing such a crime?

It seemed, at once,
both personal

and that they knew them,
and totally antisocial.

They knew them, but they just
didn't give a [bleep], so...

I had become
fairly proficient at
compartmentalizing.

I don't connect myself to what
happened there

because I wouldn't be able
to do my job.

People don't call the police
because they want them to come

and cry with them--
that's not why I'm there.

I've got a job to do.

Number one, try to do
an identification of the bodies,

because we didn't know
who they were.

The nature of the posing,
the nature of the injuries just

seemed to have a bizarre
feel to them.

I've had training on
ritualistic killings before,

and some of the things that
you saw in this scene were

similar to what
they teach us.

Just actions
for action's sake, no--

no purpose behind them other
than to just gratify the doer.

The supervisor of the
forensic unit came out and said,

"Boy, we have gold."
I said, "Oh, do tell."

She said, "There is a bloody
fingerprint on the inside of

the back door."

I said, "I want to find
whose print that is."

That leads me to a suspect.
That is what we call a clue.

We're just gonna take
the whole door down to

the forensic unit for
fingerprint processing to swab

the blood samples and all of
that stuff that we needed to do

to process that door.

We're gonna
do it right away.

So as we finished examining
the scene in the house,

the homeowner
showed up, Laurie.

She's standing out in front of
the house that's clearly burnt.

She was clearly upset.

So I ran up, and I think
my daughter was there.

And we ran up to the line.

It was creepy.
It was eerie.

There was cops everywhere.

One of the detectives came over

and asked to talk to my mom.

It was just so weird.

Like, it was such
a weird thing to hear.

He said, "Did you have any
weapons in the house?"

"Do you own any...

knives and swords?"

I go, "Why?"

He said, "Well,
we just need to know."

I go, "Well, yeah.

"My other son kind of
collects them.

He's got a display on his wall."
And he goes, "OK."

And they left.

And then we're sitting there
just freaking out.

Why would they ask me that?

My phone rang early in
the morning, and I believe it

was my son-in-law,
Ian, and said, "The house is on

fire on Elm Street--
you need to come now."

My daughter, Katie,
she goes, "Mom,

"there's someone in there.

There's a deceased
person inside."

And of course, we were counting
people down that we knew could

have been there,
but they were OK.

We knew from talking to Laurie

that Laurie lived in the house,
it was her house.

Her son, Tanner,
lived there, as well.

There was a lady who lived
downstairs who was

the approximate age of
the woman who was

in the bedroom.

I got a call from an unknown
number, I believe, and it was

the police to make sure
that I was alive,

which was weird.

I asked if someone had died,
and they said there

was somebody.

Well, I only knew it could be
one person,

my youngest son, Tanner.

I'm standing, like, five feet
behind my mom,

and she just collapsed
into a pile on the ground.

It was really hard to
watch, you know?

I remember just, like,

like embracing, and I felt like
I kind of held her up at

the beginning and just, like...

Not... not Tanner,
not Tanner,

not Tanner.

I could not
make sense of it.

That shift from harmony
and happiness to horror was

such a dramatic...

I couldn't register it.

When they were asking us,
"Did he have any enemies?"

We were like,
"He doesn't have an enemy."

Trying to even fathom
that somehow

he was in that house dead,

and we didn't even know
who could be mad at him.

Then they finally told us
there was a female too,

And they eventually came out
and said, "She has

dark black hair,
short hair."

We had no idea
who that other person was.

So I'm racking my brain.

It was just a lot of questions
and a lot of fear.

Well, I couldn't imagine
who else would be in the house.

Who else could there be?

Spokane is located in
the eastern part

of the state of Washington.

Spokane City is
the largest metropolitan area

really on this side of
the state,

this side of
the Cascade Mountains.

It's pretty,

but we have our fair share of,

uh, serial killers, so we've had
lots of those over time.

Green River Killer in Seattle,

Yates here,

and several others.

So, it's beautiful,

and we have serial killers.

One thing we do often
that I don't necessarily

agree with is we tell people,
"Hey, we had this murder,

and there's nothing for anybody
to be concerned about."

Somebody was murdered.
We don't know who did it.

They're walking around
the community just like

everybody else.

Maybe they had a reason
to kill this person.

Maybe they didn't.

Maybe they have
a reason to kill you.

The part of the whole
experience that was the worst

for me, was the police officer
saying, nonchalantly, mind you,

"You're gonna have people coming
in here, like, knowing

"it's a murder scene, like,
kids, and they're gonna rummage

"through stuff and be like,
uh, cool.

"You better board the house up
and take anything

"out of there that
you want,

"and here's a card

for the cleanup crew,"
because they don't clean

anything in the house.

The violence that was there
is untouched.

It's a Halloween murder show
scene in there.

So we came back to the crime
scene as it was getting dark.

There was no power
in the house.

I saw it go from

my mom's house

to the scariest place in
the whole world.

I remember just, like,
having light kind of flash over

certain areas and just being
like, oh my gosh.

I mean, there was
blood everywhere.

I remember standing
where Tanner died, looking at

the huge pile of blood
that was there.

And the streaks on the wall,
I kept thinking to myself,

this is like something
from "Halloween."

It was dark.
It was horrible.

It was one of the worst
experiences of my whole life.

We went down into that
basement, but now it was

pitch black,
and I heard a sound.

It was like a donk,
doink, doink.

And I couldn't tell
what it was.

And I'm looking around
with my flashlight.

And I go back
to this little nook,

and my mother's exercise ball
was on the ground, and it was

right below where Tanner
had been murdered.

His blood had saturated all
the levels of the floor

and were coming down, and they
were dripping from the ceiling,

and they were hitting that ball

like candle wax.

It's just...

...surreal.

And the whole house smelled
burnt like a campfire.

And four years after that,

I couldn't camp,

because
I couldn't smell that smell

of a campfire for
four years,

you know.

Tanner was our youngest child.

He was just a great son.

There's a lot of memories
of Tanner.

The road...

- Road, yes, on the road.
He's steering
right now.

We were coming out of
my parents' driveway

where I was raised out in
the country, and he always

wanted to get on my lap
when we would drive that

big Suburban.

Put your hand down.
See the road?

You gotta just hold it still,
go straight ahead.

And I said, "OK, Tanner,"
he was only, like,

two and a half
or something.

Hands! Watch the road!
Yeah, watch that road.

The funniest part was how
the brothers and sisters were

reacting in the back seat,

- Drive us on the bridge.

Katie especially, she was just
kind of freaking out, you know.

Little bit of concern
there from our girl.

Priceless,
watching that every time.

The first part of
figuring out who killed somebody

is figuring out who they killed.

We still had no idea
who the young girl was.

When we searched the bedroom
near the body of the female,

we found a credit card with
a name on it.

for a lady who was roughly
the same physical makeup

as the girl who was deceased.

I wanted to know if she was
the unidentified victim.

I also could tell that whoever
committed both crimes had more

violent tendencies
to the female.

The female had been stabbed way
more, so I thought they would

probably be
more closely associated

with the female
than the male.

So we had
a name of somebody,

and we started
following that up.

That's a lead.

Laurie wasn't able
to give us any information

on who the female
might be,

and she didn't know the person
whose card was on the table.

She'd never heard
of that lady either.

In the process of trying to
find the lady whose name was on

the card, we ended up calling
some numbers and spoke to a guy

who identified himself
as her husband.

The detective just wanted to
know where she might be

and how they might
get ahold of her.

And he was less than
cooperative with any of

that information.

He said that he was
a long-haul trucker,

and he was driving
across the state,

and they'd been having
some marital issues.

He wouldn't confirm
any information about her.

And then he hung up
on the investigators.

That was weird.

But later, the lady,

she actually called us.

She was fine.

I guess she heard from
her husband

we were looking for her.

She didn't know anybody
at the house.

She has no idea how
her card ended up there.

So we could rule her out as
the decedent and consequently

her husband out
as the suspect.

As to who this girl was,
just from physical

appearance alone,

she was quite disfigured
so it's hard to say for sure.

She didn't have fingerprints on
file, so we couldn't identify

her with fingerprints, which is
generally how we do it.

We needed to find out who
this person was pretty quickly.

It was clear from what we saw
that that person was likely

gonna re-offend.

I did have to question,
is this a serial killer?

Is this somebody that
I need to be afraid of?

Is he still out?

Is he going to come after me
because I didn't come home,

or come after Laurie,

because we were the survivors?

If you have any information on
this case, the Sheriff's Office

is asking that you call
the tip line.

That number, of course,
242...

At the time, we were so
overwhelmed with losing our son

to such a horrific thing

that I don't know if
we even thought about

what the community was thinking.

I'm sure the community in that
Spokane area was really wanting

to know, because it must have
been one of the worst murders

in a long time.

We received information that

Tanner had
an ex-girlfriend that had been

making statements that
she wanted to hurt him.

Tanner had this girl in
his life that he was really

close with at that time
in his life.

It was very clear that she had
a lot of feelings for him.

I know it wasn't reciprocated,
because he told me himself.

It would have been consistent
with what we saw that if it

were a crime of passion,
that she could have done it.

We knew that
they had known each other.

We knew she had
access to the place,

and she'd made threats.

So it fit a lot of
the different aspects

of the case.

If I had to pick one
person, just something toxic,

like if I can't have you, no one
can, you know, one of those

scenarios, she'd fit the bill.

Yes, I completely was able to
see that scenario.

We wanted to find
Tanner Pehl's ex-girlfriend

and talk to her and figure out
where she was,

and try to alibi her out,
or include her as a suspect.

On February 26th,
I came home.

Tanner that evening had brought
a couple of his friends over,

and I didn't know any of them,
and it was just like Tanner to

bring new people in.

I think this gentleman had only
been in town for a week or so.

He was working at the same
restaurant that Tanner was

working at--
Tanner introduced him as Justin.

It was two nights
before the murders,

and he walked in
and said, "Mom,

I met a guy at work who moved
out from Las Vegas,"

and he said,

"I'd kind of like to
help him make some friends,"

and I felt OK about it,
because I couldn't imagine--

I've never
met one of his friends that

I just didn't fall in love with,
that didn't end up

calling me "Mama Laurie."

And so I did give
the police

Justin's name very early on.

And that's only because
I didn't know him well enough,

because everyone else
Tanner had brought around,

we had seen
several times.

So he ended up calling us
and saying, "Hey, I'm here.

You guys want to talk to me?"

So they drove right up there
to talk to him.

Sarah was just lovely and kind.

She was kind of
in the background.

She wasn't really a part of
a lot of the discussions,

because she didn't
know everybody.

I also understood
her relationship with Justin to

be just very casually dating.

I didn't have any impression
that there was anything serious

or anything like
that happening.

I was interested in finding her
because I wanted to know if

that was her, to see if she was
the unidentified victim.

Well, it could be.
It might not be.

But at a bare minimum,
that person

has some questions
to answer.

I thought perhaps,
if that's who that was,

that the person
who did the murder

might be more associated
with her than with Tanner.

We found the car in Camelot,
which is a little housing

development north on
the Newport Highway,

a couple of miles away,

and they found blood
on the inside.

So we were comfortable,
once we saw that,

this is definitely
who it is,

and the medical
examiner determined

that it was Sarah Clark.

If people could know

just the travail that's going
on in my house right now,

it's just uncomprehendable.

She was beautiful.

She had a beautiful smile

with these huge dimples.

We loved her so much.

It was horrible.

Felt so sad
for Sarah's family.

Sarah's car
was found in Camelot,

where the Camelot Park is.

Justin Crenshaw lived with
his sister in that same

housing development,

five, six blocks away or so,
I would guess.

The point is to find out
who has the opportunity,

what does the evidence tell
you, where does it lead you,

and go that way.

At that point, we were
able to rule out Tanner Pehl's

ex-girlfriend, because she had
nothing to do with it.

There was no evidence that
pointed to her there,

which left us with
Justin Crenshaw.

So I sent a couple of
detectives up to talk to him.

They made contact with Justin.

Then the detectives
talked to the sister.

She was concerned because
he didn't seem very concerned

at all about what might have
happened at the house.

It just seemed odd to her.

And she knew he had violent
tendencies, and she knew

he'd been in trouble with
the police before.

She was concerned
that he might

have had something
to do with it.

Tanner had said, "I know he's
been in some kind of trouble

before," but you know,
he was just a kid that

looked like Tanner.

You know, you just think,
he might not be a great kid.

But when I went to sleep,
I'll never forget it.

I had a bad feeling,
no doubt about it.

I'm racking
my brain trying to figure out,

should there have
been a red flag?

Is there something
that I missed?

I definitely went back to that
evening and thought about all

the different conversations
and all the different dynamics

and things that I maybe blew
off that I didn't--

I should have
given more thought to.

Like when Justin was telling me
about his gunshot wound, or that

he was not gonna take any of
his organs with him when

he died, just some of
those weird, weird things.

Running his history,
you could see that he'd been

arrested in Las Vegas.

He had stabbed a guy or cut
a guy or something when

he was younger.

So we contacted Las Vegas.

As it turns out, he had prints
on file, and they, in fact,

did fax a set of
prints up to us.

But they did not compare to the
one we had on the back door.

We knew he had
a pair of black shoes.

Justin's family all described
that he was wearing black shoes

when he left--
he had a pair of black Nikes.

But he said,
"I don't have any black Nikes."

And also, while
they were talking to Justin,

they saw a small injury here,
a cut on the back

of the finger,

and a cut on the back of
the palm here.

Almost every brutal,
violent stabbing that

I've investigated,

that knife becomes covered in
blood, and blood is very

viscous and very slippery.

So it isn't unusual for them,
as they stab, to start to slip

off the knife
and cut themselves.

The problem was,

his fingerprints weren't quite
clear enough on the fax to

make a direct comparison with.

So then we thought, OK,
we need to get

the prints from him.

So we decided that we would
detain him and take him

downtown, get a set of prints,
do a search warrant

for his DNA,
his clothes,

fingernail clippings,

photographs,
all of that stuff.

And then we would have a good
fingerprint to compare to

the print on the inside
of the door.

So that's what we did.

While we were waiting,
he needed to go to the bathroom,

and then he washed his hands
like his life depended on it...

...twice, which I don't
mind a guy--

I think it's appropriate to
wash your hands after you go to

the bathroom,
but that was really serious.

He was washing his hands like
he was going into surgery.

Once we got the processing
done, it was a matter of just

waiting for the results.

We thought that Crenshaw
was the killer, but he might not

have been,
and if he wasn't,

that person was likely
gonna re-offend.

We got the results back from
the forensic unit supervisor.

And she said,
that bloody fingerprint is...

...is Justin's
left little finger.

Yeah, there it is.
That's what I'm looking for.

I told him, "You're under arrest
for the first-degree murder of

Tanner Pehl and Sarah Clark."

I found it powerful to
use their names.

He was the scariest guy
I've ever been in a room with,

and I've known lots
of psychopaths.

He was matter-of-fact,
and I had seen what

he had done,
so it was a relief to be able

to tell him he was
under arrest.

The truth is, though, that when
we got the fingerprint match,

what we got was enough to
arrest him for it.

That's when the work starts.

The deputy
found a knife out on the road,

maybe a mile away.

It was right between where
the murders occurred and where

he ended up in Camelot.

And it had blood on it,
and it was

believed to actually be
the murder weapon,

which was pretty remarkable.

Which turned out to be
Tanner's favorite chef knife.

We also sent a couple of guys
up to go through

his aunt's house,

looking for where
the black Nike shoes were,

which we found.

He said,
"I don't have any black Nikes,"

because it turns out...

they were covered in blood.

That is...

pretty much
the gotcha moment.

Good evening, he's been in
Spokane for just two weeks.

But tonight, Justin Crenshaw is
in jail, accused of killing

two people in North Spokane.

Both victims had
apparently been killed with

a cutting instrument.

Justin Crenshaw had little
to no response as the judge read

the graphic details of
the accusations against him.

The judge gave
Crenshaw four chances to speak.

- He declined.
- No thank you.

I don't want to take anything
away from any of the families.

While we don't know
exactly what happened,

it appears that Justin Crenshaw

was alone in the bedroom
with Sarah Clark,

and some argument
broke out in there.

Justin accessed Tanner's
favorite chef knife,

and began stabbing Sarah there.

Tanner, who was most likely
playing guitar,

heard the commotion and came to
the bedroom to assist,

at which point...

he was attacked
by Justin Crenshaw,

who stabbed him several times,
killing him right there.

And then he went back

to finish killing Sarah Clark,

then spent lots of time in
the house, putting

the pictures down,

taking items that
he found in the house

and stabbing
their bodies with it,

doing things that made no sense
except just to be...

...brutal.

And just to enjoy himself
simply for gratification,

and trying to burn the house
down, because he knew there was

lots of evidence
that pointed to him there.

When I talked to him about what
I had seen him do, he was as

casual as talking
about football.

He basically cut the head off
his girlfriend and killed

his best friend and then stuck
stuff in him for no reason

other than to be cruel
and didn't give a [bleep].

He will kill you
and not even care.

Part of me
was absolutely shocked

when I learned it was him,

because he didn't give off
killer vibes, I guess.

But one of the things that
the police told me very quickly

is that because Justin was

so violent and so evil,
and there just wasn't

a reason for what he did
that they could establish,

that it was very good that
I didn't go home that night,

because I very likely would
have been killed, as well.

We didn't see him
officially until the trial.

Being in that courtroom with
him, and you're so close,

I hated seeing him.

He was smirking
a lot, like,

often those kind of people do,

and I just kept looking at
his hands on the stand.

And I just kept thinking,
those hands were here.

I just couldn't
stop looking at 'em.

And I just think, man,
those hands took that

life away.

As we were leaving one day,

and we had to walk down
the same court hallway

as Crenshaw,

he darted towards me,
and got this close to my face

and did, like, the wink-wink
and [kissing noise] to my face.

He goes [clicks tongue],
.

Like-- he, like-- they, like,
took him to the ground.

Mind you I was...

like 5 months
pregnant with my son,

so I couldn't
do anything to...

the trial was awful,

and I ended up running into
the men's bathroom

and just puking.

Justin Crenshaw was convicted
of first-degree premeditated,

aggravated murder of
Sarah Clark and Tanner Pehl,

and his only available
sentence, since we don't really

use the death penalty here in
Washington anymore, is

life without the possibility
of parole.

So he's incarcerated
until he dies.

A year after
it happened,

I moved back to my house,
and nobody wanted me to,

but I wanted to be
close to him.

I want him to be here.

I want to talk to him
every day.

Everybody has their way of
remembering, and I think how

they want him to be remembered
is, and me too, is the only way

he can be,
as beautiful.

Mom, I love you so much.

Have a wonderful day.