How (Not) to Get Rid of a Body (2024) s01e01 Episode Script

[eerie churning]
[door creaking]
[rattling music]
I got the feeling in my heart
that I knew Nick was gone.
We have to hand it
to the criminal.
A conscious effort was made to
conceal this crime
from everyone.
Little did we know how
gruesome, how terrifying,
how sinister, and dark this case
was going to become.
[Paula] I can't even believe
that somebody
could do this
to a human being.
[Jamie] I don't know
if they thought
they were outsmarting us.
You start questioning,
is he really here?
He was a control freak,
master manipulator.
This case never gets solved if
it's not for incredible
outside-the-box thinking.
[Paula] Nick was missing
for a year.
That's a lot of time to
get rid of a body.
[ominous music]
[Shaun] On February 9 of 2017,
the Massillon Police Department
was contacted by the Barberton
Police Department that is
located just northwest of us.
and they advised that
a Nick Stein,
a 25-year-old male,
was possibly missing,
and they wanted us to do
a welfare check in our area.
A woman named Paula Cline
called the Barberton Police
Department almost in
an emergency state,
believing that Nicholas Stein
was missing
and possibly harmed.
It's very hard to convince
a police officer or even
a detective that
a 25-year-old boy is gone.
Not that he's ran away.
Not that he's missing because
he wants to be.
I'm like, no,
you don't understand.
I can show you
text messages every day.
I can show you
phone calls every day.
Nick was just like
my second son.
When my son Gunner got sick
with brain cancer,
most children, they just walk
away because they fear
the sick child.
But Nick was his biggest fan.
Nick kept him laughing,
playing video games,
hung out with him like he was
just a normal kid.
He never gave up on Gunner,
who is still alive today
and he's 31 years old.
Nick had a heart of gold,
would do anything for anybody.
[Shaun] We learned Nick came
from a challenged background
in regards to his family.
That being said,
probably resilient,
looking to do more.
[Paula] I kept in touch
constantly with him,
in text messages, on social
media, the telephone.
He, um, would always call me
for advice.
Then he struggled with just
trying to even find a job
in the area.
[Shaun] So as an investigator,
you'll first turn
to social media, bank accounts,
records, phones.
All activity had stopped in
regards to Nick Stein
and his personal life.
Nick just disappeared.
But we learned
he came to Massillon
as he met
a man named Bryan Gentry.
Nick believed that
he could better his future
by working with Bryan.
Nick told me he wasn't making
any money, and he said,
"Bryan's giving me some work."
I said, "Oh, I know this guy,
you know, I don't trust him."
But he believed everything
Bryan told him.
So we decide we want to
interview Bryan Gentry.
Bryan Gentry was renting
a house on 8th Street.
He was a decorated war veteran
who fought four tours in
Afghanistan before he was
ultimately discharged from
the military after suffering
a severe injury.
[Jamie] Him and his girlfriend,
Kristen Lain,
they decided they wanted to
start a tree trimming business
with Nick to cut trees in
the summer and to plow snow
in the winter.
And with it being seasonal
work, they decided it would be
best to save gas money,
and to save time,
that Nick just move in
with them.
[Shaun] The couple had
three small children living in
the house with them, and then
also another roommate,
Carl Spencer,
an old friend of Bryan Gentry's
from middle school.
Bryan took charge of the house.
He was the ringmaster.
They were very cooperative,
invited us in,
answered our questions.
When we first arrived at
the location,
everything looked normal.
When interviewed,
the occupants of the house
stated that Nick Stein had left
on Wednesday, February 1,
and had not been seen since.
They had been the last people
that were known to have seen
Nick Stein before he was
reported missing on February 9.
[Jamie] The residents there
were worried about Nick
and his whereabouts.
But Bryan said that one of
the reasons why Nick may have
wanted to leave Massillon
was because
he possibly owed some
people money.
[Shaun] Carl Spencer had stated
that he remembered Nick Stein
had left the house
and was going downtown to
a local restaurant,
and was getting a ride
back to Barberton.
We did spend hours looking for
video footage from local
residents, business,
and ultimately
there was no video located.
This information provided by
Carl Spencer ultimately
leads you to question, was he
trying to be deceptive
and mislead investigators?
So Carl was asked to
come to the station
for further interview.
During our interviews,
we're looking for potential
signs that he already
attempting to deceive us.
And that deception
can run very deep.
As a detective,
you're digging deeper
into that individual.
You're always looking to get to
the truth as fast as you can.
[Shaun]
Through Carl's interview,
investigators found out that
the 8th Street address was not
your typical residence.
There was a lot going on
behind the scenes.
Apparently, there was
an argument, and Nick got upset
and left that evening.
Carl Spencer said that
Bryan would allow
Nick to have sex with Kristen,
but only if
they would ask Bryan first
before they did so.
[Paula] Bryan was well aware of
the sex triangle,
but Nick was such
a kind-hearted, lovable person.
He wanted to find a girlfriend
to love him and get married
and have a family.
He probably treated her better
than she'd ever been treated.
[Jamie]
Once we found out about this
love triangle, we didn't know
what dark alleys this was going
to take us into.
[Shaun] We looked back on those
first interviews.
A lot of details weren't given.
And that's why it was
imperative that we return
to the residence.
And upon further conversation
with Kristen Lain,
she did state that she was in
a relationship with Nick Stein
and also Bryan.
And she said that Nick wanted
to have an exclusive
relationship with her,
and there was an argument.
Kristen stated that she was not
interested in being in
an exclusive relationship,
and that Nick got upset
and left that evening.
Once we hear this,
we started wondering, there is
way more going on here than
just a missing person.
When the two guys are sexually
active with a single female,
then somebody lets
their feelings get involved,
bad things tend to happen.
[Shaun] So during questioning,
the occupants invited us into
the home to have
a further look.
[door creaking]
[Jamie] When we went into
the basement,
we had to climb down a ladder.
The stairs were missing.
I asked Bryan about the stairs,
and he said that due to
his injuries in the Army,
the VA recommended that
he replace the stairs.
So he took them out,
and they were going to be
replaced shortly.
While we're interviewing them,
there was a mattress down in
the basement that had a stain.
So I asked Kristen about
this stain.
And she said, "Oh, no,
I spilled cola on the mattress."
But if something bad did happen
to Nick, I thought to myself,
is this evidence?
We decided that
we were gonna swab this spot
and send it off to be tested.
After we left
that house on 8th Street,
Detective Dadisman and I,
we looked at each other
and thought, where's Nick?
I'm going to find Nick
one way or another.
Little did we know how horrific
this case was going to get.
[Shaun]
The Massillon Police Department
was advised that Nick Stein,
a 25-year-old male,
was possibly missing from
his residence on 8th Street.
After we interviewed
the occupants of the house,
We began to think this was
a cat and mouse game.
Are these individuals trying to
steer you in
the wrong direction?
And seeing that stain on
the mattress certainly
sparked interest
that it potentially could yield
DNA of a victim.
If it was blood,
whose blood is it?
About a week later,
we get the information back
that it was not human blood,
that it was, in fact,
soda that Kristen had spilled
on the mattress,
just like she told us.
It's certainly
a letdown emotionally,
and sometimes
you feel like you have to
start over at square one.
Without a body, we're like,
man, where do we go from here?
If, in fact, Bryan or Kristen
or Carl did do something to
Nick Stein, these people went
to great extents to conceal
any kind of evidence.
At that time,
Paula Cline is calling.
And I felt motivated by wanting
to give her answers.
Calling Detective Slutz,
he's probably thinking
I'm crazy.
But I was Nick's voice.
I was the only voice Nick had.
Nick's father passed away
in 2008.
And then after that,
his mother struggled to get on
her feet and make it because she
hadn't worked for a few years.
It was just him
and his brother.
So I was like
Nick's second mom.
My main goal was to find Nick,
and I was adamant about it.
I just wouldn't let
Detective Slutz stop.
So in the spring, I get a phone
call from Nick's brother.
He believes Nick made it
back home to Barberton.
[Shaun]
And he believes that
Nick's mother's boyfriend, Andy,
was somehow involved
with the disappearance.
Nick wanted to take close care
and watch over his mother.
He wanted to get a job,
and he wanted to
take care of her.
Her boyfriend wouldn't
allow it.
He just,
he was so jealous of Nick.
When the search was going on
for Nick, you would think that
her boyfriend would be
out looking.
Well, he never left the house.
And he wouldn't allow Nick's
mom to leave the house.
He was a very sneaky
and conniving person.
That's what made me
more curious that
he might be behind it.
[Jamie] I asked Nick's brother
to meet me at
a local ice cream shop
in Massillon.
He hands me three pieces of
paper he just found
that he claims that
his mom's boyfriend wrote out.
And it had some
very disturbing comments.
There was one passage that was
very disturbing,
and it was quoted,
"My name will be spoken of
and feared for generations.
I will bury this bloody crime
deep within the earth."
[suspenseful tones]
Nick's brother stated that
he believed, based on those
deranged writings, that it was
possible that Nick was buried
in a wooded area
near Nick's mother's home.
We then decided to speak to
the boyfriend, Andy.
And he just said he had a lot
going on in his life.
He was a dark person
and just put things to paper.
But those writings were
unrelated to the incident that
we were investigating.
[Jamie]
Even so, we wanted to
focus more on mom's boyfriend.
[rattling music]
[ominous tones]
Next, we contacted
Barberton Police Department.
And they sent out officers to
check the area and to look for
any disturbances in the dirt
or possibly any shallow graves,
any kind of sign that there was
a body buried in these woods.
It's months
since anybody's heard
from Nick.
About this time,
we start looking into
Nick's disappearance of
not being a missing person,
but more of a possible homicide.
We try to determine,
where is he buried?
Whoever was responsible,
they're trying to
get away with murder.
-[crickets chirping]
-[owl hooting]
[Shaun] So at this point,
we're coming up on four months
in the investigation.
And we had a true victim,
Nick Stein.
Friends and family
wanted answers.
If Nick's mother's boyfriend,
Andy, had committed a crime,
It's our job to figure out what
his involvement was.
We felt like maybe there could
be something in those woods in
Barberton that could help us
resolve this case.
But you have a lot of ground
to cover.
You have foliage.
You have a lack of
witnesses in that area.
So it was very difficult to
certainly find what
you were looking for.
Barberton Police Department
sent out officers to
check the area, and they were
unable to find anything.
So that's another dead end.
It was emotional when Detective
Slutz would call and tell me
that, you know, we looked in
the woods, we didn't find him.
It would send me downwards,
but that's what made me
push stronger,
and never to give up on him.
I even asked my mother,
who was 72 years old,
if she would go around
and look in the wooded areas
around Barberton.
My mother would look and find
stuff and send me up pictures
and ask me if that was
Nick's clothing, Nick's shirts,
Nick's shoes,
and, um, it never was.
[Jamie] As a police officer,
you hit those lows that you go,
"Am I looking in
the right direction?"
If this is a homicide,
the people responsible for this
went to great lengths
to cover this up.
[Justin] So in the law,
there's a concept called
corpus delecti, and it means
body of the crime.
Ultimately, what that means is
you have to have more than
just words itself,
or just the claim itself.
You have to have tangible
evidence that is found,
whether it be circumstantial,
concrete, or testimonial.
And we just didn't have that.
[Jamie] So now,
we're in the middle of summer.
We're not finding any
information on Nick.
As a detective, you try to
separate your personal life
from your work,
and this one lingered with me.
I would stay up at night
thinking about who I need to
talk to, what can
we do different --
I didn't want it to end up in
the cold case files.
[Shaun]
Then we were made aware that
Nick's roommate, Bryan Gentry,
was arrested for receiving
stolen property,
and sent to prison.
Although Bryan Gentry was
incarcerated, Carl Spencer
and Kristen Lain are still
living in that house together.
And she was pregnant.
Carl Spencer was the father.
Now, there was more than just
a love triangle.
Carl Spencer was involved with
these individuals as well.
[Justin] Matters of the heart
certainly can be
a motive for murder.
It's one of the oldest ones.
If not for greed and money,
then love, lust,
revenge, or hate.
But at this stage in the case,
we knew that there was no proof
that a crime had been committed
without a body.
[Jamie] At the end of January,
we get a call of some
abuse or neglect of
the children at the house.
We did an investigation and got
a warrant for Kristen's arrest
for child neglect.
So she gets arrested, and is in
the Stark County jail.
[Shaun] And then a confidential
informant contacted me.
This confidential informant was
someone that I had worked with
for several months,
and he was reliable.
[Jamie]
Once Bryan went to prison,
Kristen has other people over
to the house
to continue to party.
Kristen had our confidential
informant at her house.
So this confidential informant
stated that he'd heard
that Nick Stein was buried
somewhere in Massillon.
However, he was unsure
of the location.
[ominous tones]
[Shaun] There are certainly
moments as an investigator
where you feel that
what you've been working on
has changed.
The mood has changed.
It is sinister, and you want to
reveal what that is.
We knew that we had to go back
to that common ground,
and that common ground
was 8th Street
on the southwest side of
Massillon.
[Jamie]
We go to the house.
Carl's moved out.
The homeowner is at this house,
and we explain to him that
there's an investigation going
on, and nobody's heard from
Nick Stein for a year.
While speaking with
the landlord, his son emerged
with a black box.
As we opened that black box,
we found the ashes
of a human body.
So I look at this box,
and I think,
where's the name at
on this box?
Could this be Nick?
[Shaun]
Based on the information
provided, and Nick's last
whereabouts being the 8th
Street residence, when given
the ashes and remains of
a human body, at the time,
the obvious question was,
who was this?
Where did these come from?
We later found out through
Paula Cline that those ashes,
in fact, belonged to
Nick Stein's father.
[Paula] Nick's father
tragically took his own life
when Nick was 17 years of age.
And from then on,
Nick struggled with trying to
find the man that he wanted to
grow up to be.
His father guidance was
no longer there.
I knew at that point
that Nick was
no longer with us,
here on Earth.
I knew that Nick would never
leave his father's ashes behind.
But I kept saying, "Keep up
the fight, never give up."
[Jamie]
Throughout this entire
investigation, Kristen has
danced around questions
pertaining to Nick.
And we know that Kristen is
in jail at this time.
It could be a big break
in the case.
So I told Detective Dadisman
we need to go over and talk to
Kristen at the county jail.
I felt like it was
the right time because
she wanted her three kids back.
Now is your time
to help yourself and help us.
The challenge of being
a detective is obviously
working with individuals
who are trying to deceive you.
They want to take
you down that wrong path.
[Shaun] This was a long,
drawn-out interview.
She was sending us in circles,
but she continued to mention
Carl Spencer.
She shined light onto Carl.
She still would not give
specific information.
So after interviewing Kristen,
there was certainly a pause
or a moment for detectives to
wonder if it's possible that
Nick Stein was, in fact,
buried on that property
this entire time.
We thought, boy,
if he's buried in the backyard,
this is pretty bold.
[Shaun]
There was never any signs
of disturbed earth or anything
that would give us a motive to
believe that there could be
potentially a body
buried in that yard.
We started thinking, what tools
would they need to bury Nick?
Are they going to use
just a shovel?
That would take a lot of work
and a lot of strength to dig
a hole deep enough to bury
a body in the backyard.
I thought to myself,
well, maybe
they rented an excavator.
[Shaun] We contacted
a local business in Massillon,
and they did dig through
their files, and they were able
to locate a receipt.
And there was
a rental agreement
on February 2nd of 2017
of a Kubota backhoe.
And the name
on that rental agreement
was very familiar to us.
And I about had a heart attack.
[Shaun] The receipt provided
to us by the manager
did, in fact, say Bryan Gentry.
And he then provided us
a driver's license.
And on that driver's license,
the picture was Carl Spencer.
Our prime suspects in Nick's
disappearance clearly become
Carl Spencer and Bryan Gentry.
We reached out to BCI --
the Bureau of Criminal
Investigation,
and they were asked to provide
cadaver dogs at that time.
We arrived at the residence to
ultimately start digging in
that backyard.
[dog barks]
[Jamie] It's the first day of
February in Northeast Ohio.
It's cold.
The dogs start hitting in
this area,
and we dig for hours.
And we're not able to
find Nick.
It was very disappointing.
Took a lot of wind out
of our sails.
You start questioning,
is he really here?
I told Detective Dadisman,
we need to go back over
and talk to Kristen again.
It was an audio interview at
the Stark County Jail.
We show her this picture
of us digging in her backyard.
And I ask her,
"What's this picture of?"
[Shaun]
We proceeded to show her the
receipt from the rental place.
And we just let
all this build up,
so that way,
she could tell us her story.
We thought, OK,
you're not telling us the truth.
So I take out this piece
of notepaper,
and I draw a diagram
of their backyard.
And I slide it over
in front of Kristen,
and I slam my pen down.
And I say
And she looks at me.
She picks up the pen,
and she hesitates,
and she circles
right near this cement pad.
After she draws this circle,
I tell her, I want you to write,
in that circle, what's there.
And she looks at me,
and she looks down,
and she proceeds.
And it's like darn near in slow
motion because of
the excitement that
I'm feeling inside.
So she writes the N,
she writes the I,
she makes the C.
And I'm thinking,
hurry up and write that K.
And she makes the K.
And it was just silence
in this interview room.
And inside I'm thinking,
holy [bleep], she just told us
where Nick is.
[Shaun] Kristen Lain circled
a location in the backyard
where Nick's body was.
She knows that, hey,
we're caught now.
It's time to save my own butt.
[Shaun] We had enough
probable cause to take
a second dig
in the backyard.
As we dug further into
the ground, there was a point
where an odor had rised into
the air, and there was a black
box that was barely visible
that had been cracked
by the excavator.
Their coroner investigator jumps
down and looks in this hole,
and he goes, "There's skeletal
remains in there."
We were also able to determine
that they encased his body in
cement within that box,
which hampered
our investigation the day
before with the cadaver dogs.
Being encased in cement,
this odor of a decomposing body
isn't as strong.
It was a feeling of great
relief that we had found
what we were looking for,
although we had not confirmed
that it was Nick Stein yet.
Well, police have not released
his name at this point,
but we can tell you
the remains were taken to
the Stark County
Coroner's Office.
For the second day in a row,
BCI agents and police
were out here.
They were digging up this
backyard, and this morning
a body was found stuffed in
a container right in that area
that you're looking at.
[Jamie]
The next day, Detective Dadisman
and I went to the autopsy.
Seeing this body folded up,
basically,
and encased in this
cube of cement,
It was horrifying to see.
As the coroner's chiseling
the cement away from the body,
I thought to myself
nobody deserves to
die like this.
I mean, there's no other way
to describe it
except for pure evil.
Through fingerprint analysis
and dental records,
we were able to determine that
the remains in that box were
the remains of Nick Stein.
When Detective Slutz called me
the morning before they were
going in for the last dig,
and
I knew that
I couldn't be there.
And I knew that Nick's family
wouldn't be there.
But that was probably
my lowest point, where
I couldn't be there when
they finally found him.
[Jamie]
Even though we had closure for
the family, we still didn't end
our investigation there.
We had information that
Carl Spencer might be in
the Marlboro Township area,
located east of us,
about 30 minutes.
And detectives located Carl
and advised him we had
a warrant for murder
for his arrest.
And then Carl Spencer
told us how the murder of
Nick Stein happened.
[Justin] Ultimately, the three
individuals pled guilty as
opposed to having trials for
their guilt or innocence.
Kristen Lain pled guilty to
abuse of a corpse,
obstructing official business,
and tampering with evidence,
and received
a four-year sentence.
In his connection with
his testimony against Bryan,
Carl takes a plea deal and is
sentenced to 11 years.
Bryan Gentry was sentenced to
life in prison
with parole at 15 years for
the murder of Nicholas Stein.
Sometimes in our profession,
we have to hand it
to the criminal.
Where Nick was buried was not
corroborated by the dogs,
and particularly because
he was encased in cement
and eight feet below
in February.
And Bryan Gentry has
a background in landscaping
and heavy machinery.
And he hid Nick in
an unwitting neighborhood
in an unwitting town.
He'd made a conscious effort to
hide this body in plain sight.
Quite honestly, he may never
have been found if but for
some incredible
outside-the-box thinking.
[Jamie]
Bryan Gentry was very smug.
I felt like, he felt like he was
a little more intelligent
than detectives were.
You know, it motivated me more.
It's like, OK,
I'm going to figure this out,
and you're going
to prison for it.
They released
Nick's body to me.
At one point, there was
a little talk from some friends
that they thought Nick's body
needed to be buried.
And I put my foot down to 'em
and told 'em absolutely not.
Nick would not be buried in
the ground again.
And I was able to have
him cremated.
It's when we took the move to
buy two Tree of Life urns
and we put Nick in one
and his father in the other
and they match.
Then I decided to have
a memorial for Nick.
I set his urn box on my lap
and I cried like a baby.
[man] Kid comes up missing.
You're scared, you're worried.
[man 2] No one would've believed
that anyone would have gone to
such lengths to hide a body.
There are no words
that can describe that feeling.
[man 3] He took my wife,
my child.
I lost everything.
Her killer thought
he was gonna get away with it.
[man 4] Like some sort
of Vegas magic act,
he made the body disappear.
Well, what better way to hide
a body than in a cemetery?
[man 5]
Then we came to the sewer drain.
There were her remains,
18 years later.
In one barrel was the torso, in
the other barrel was the head.
She was located
encased in cement
in a remote desert area.
He's thrown her into
the mine shaft, too.
[man 6] The come to Jesus moment
is when everything
is on the table,
and you really have to wonder
what happened.