TX - Shanna, 36, & Diederik Vandewege, 3 mos, slain, Fort Worth, 15 Dec 2016 *GUILTY*

[dizzychick]

Affidavit: Accused husband heard voices, told co-worker he wanted to kill his wife

http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/affi...o-worker-he-wanted-to-kill-his-wife/377299653

I call BS on him claiming he was taking a new medication that was making him hear voices. I think he wanted to kill his wife and child for awhile, and was trying to set himself up for an insanity defense.

well, there we have it, the devil and pills made him do it... ba bye CV your gonna be in for a shock in the Texas prison system... toodle-doo

 

[Oregonmama]

I wonder how they purchased a house in Texas before selling the Colorado house.


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It's not hard to do. We bought a house while our other house in another state was on the market. its not fun having two mortgages coming out of a bank account but it worked out

 

[EntreNous]

I wonder how they purchased a house in Texas before selling the Colorado house.


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They probably did a bridge loan.

 

[DexterMorgan]

I agree, if CV slit his wife and baby's throats (and I believe he did), he's a selfish, vile and heartless piece of shyyte alright. No matter his motives, that won't change.

I think CV wanted the life of a single man; money may have played a role in how he chose to go about getting it.

Here's a limited financial picture of their known assets/financials:
--Their 4 bedroom Fort Worth, TX house was purchased on 5/3/16 for $193,000. (I don't know if the Vandeweges bought it or were renting it, but assume they bought it.)
http://www.zillow.com/homes/8517-Cactus-Flower-DR-Fort-Worth-TX-76131_rb/?fromHomePage=true

--Their 4 bedroom Fort Lupton, CO house sold for $280,000 on 12/7/16. (I don't know how much was owed on it or if it was instead paid off.)https://www.trulia.com/homes/Colorado/Fort_Lupton/sold/305120-1807-Aspen-St-Fort-Lupton-CO-80621

--If Craig was an Optical Manager at Costco, he probably made around $65k a year base salary. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Costco-Wholesale-Optical-Manager-Salaries-E2590_D_KO17,32.htm

-If Shanna was able to return to work, she probably would have been making around the same amount, $62k a year. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/dallas-registered-nurse-salary-SRCH_IL.0,6_IM218_KO7,23.htm

It sounds like a comfortable situation for the family, IMO.

But, we don't know yet if CV had run up a bunch of debt, had bad (and expensive) habits, whether the cost of the baby was fully covered by insurance, if Shanna was going to be able to return to work soon, if CV resented the thought of paying child support or splitting the proceeds from the Colorado house which sold exactly one week prior to the murders...

Did he take out a huge equity loan before selling the CO house. Maybe his wife didn't know that there would be no net profit after the house sold. Idk

Btw he had condoms? Wth. Sex on the brain a week after your family was slaughtered?

 

[DexterMorgan]

They probably did a bridge loan.

They could have done a contingency or something. Or his income was 3x the amount of both mortgages. Plus he may have had 6 months worth of payments on the side for just in case purposes at least until the other house sold? Idk

 

[BeesInMyBonnet]

They probably did a bridge loan.

Of course.[emoji15] I mustn't post before cup of coffee #2. We did the same thing when we moved to Fort Worth.


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[EntreNous]

I don't buy the schizophrenia number he's trying to pull one bit. For starters, it's all after the fact. He was mindful enough to have condoms in his pocket. He simply wanted to eliminate his family because he didn't want one.

 

[yllek]

This info from the new affidavit reminded me of @Mendara's post #101 from 12/20.

The co-worker told investigators that Craig Vandewege wished he could kill his then-pregnant wife by pushing her down the stairs.
http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/affi...o-worker-he-wanted-to-kill-his-wife/377299653

I too am curious about the three previous miscarriages to which Shanna's dad alluded. Was there a history of domestic violence which Shanna was hiding?

 

[Elainera]

Just did a quick google search on causes for dilated pupils. Apparently cocaine as well as meth can have this effect, but also certain medications, some as harmless as cough syrup. Further, medical conditions such as a stroke or a brain tumor can cause pupils to dilate. My opinion, he was high on cocaine or meth when they picked him up.

 

[Elainera]

This info from the new affidavit reminded me of @Mendara's post #101 from 12/20.

The co-worker told investigators that Craig Vandewege wished he could kill his then-pregnant wife by pushing her down the stairs.
http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/affi...o-worker-he-wanted-to-kill-his-wife/377299653

I too am curious about the three previous miscarriages to which Shanna's dad alluded. Was there a history of domestic violence which Shanna was hiding?

I was also wondering about the miscarriages, but that was before the arrest, so I didn't mention it. But yes, now this should maybe be looked at again.

Very heartbreaking that the co-worker did not alert anyone

 

[bluevioletfour]

It will be interesting to see what new medicine he might have been taking. Maybe Chantix? I've read articles stating seemingly similar effects as this is telling others he's had. Setting up an alibi? I can't fathom anyone being able to murder the way he did. He is pure evil.

 

[katydid23]

UGH. I knew he was going to go with the 'insanity' defense. GRRRR

 

[strawberry]

From ^ Elise's link:

Bizarre.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit obtained by the Star-Telegram, Vandewege told a witness prior to his arrest in Colorado that the government was trying to conspire against him by saying that he had killed his family.

“Craig Vandewege said he was headed to Las Vegas to see Donald Trump to work it out with him,” homicide Detective Matt Barron wrote in an arrest warrant affidavit.
-----------------------
Man, I wish the co-worker had called police when CV allegedly told him he was fantasizing about butchering his family.

Why would he think Trump was in Vegas? Or was Trump there on his "thank you" tour? And he had a rifle? [emoji848]


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[dyannaON]

Sorry but if a coworker told me they wanted to kill their pregnant wife by pushing them down the stairs I would be contacting someone for help. Jmo.


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[Jazz]

According to the affidavit, investigators suspect Vandewege cut the throats of his wife and 3-month-old son prior to going to work on the morning of Dec. 15, then staged the crime scene to look like a burglary. Police found evidence that someone had cleaned up blood from the sinks in the master bedroom and kitchen, the affidavit states.
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article122647359.html

 

[gitana1]

Right. It will be interesting to see how CV and his attorney react to LE's statements now, or if they react at all.

There is such a PR aspect to high-profile murder cases. If this attorney is savvy, she will recognize the need to counter that damaging Star-Telegram article that managed to get "stalled" and "lawyered up" into one headline. Very biased, IMHO, and could taint a potential jury pool down the road.

So if I were the attorney, I would schedule a press conference. I would read from a prepared statement with CV standing beside me, silent and grieving. I would not take questions.

My statement would say, "First of all, CV wants me to convey how deeply grateful he is for the outpouring of support from so many in this community and also back home in Colorado. He feels your love and thanks you for the help that has been offered and given."

"My client is grieving the loss of his family. He is completely innocent and wants whoever did this to be brought to justice swiftly. Right now he is concentrating on funeral arrangements and the logistics of getting his wife and son returned to Colorado in order to lay them to rest."

"It isn't easy to deal with these practical matters while at the same time dealing with his own very fresh grief and shock. Yet he has nonetheless been as cooperative with police as he can be - meeting once for x hours and then again a second time before retaining my firm to assist him."

"I am aware, as I'm sure you all are, of certain statements made by law enforcement that CV is stalling them. I want to assure the police that this is NOT the case. My client needs to bury his family. It's that simple. He will return to Texas as soon as is possible after next Tuesday to help the police in any way he can."

"But let me be clear. My client did NOT harm his family. If the police aren't looking anywhere but at him and waiting for him to be available, then they are the ones who are stalling the investigation, not CV. We want them to do their jobs and find who did this, quickly. Now my client will not be taking questions today, and he would like you all as well as the public to respect his family's privacy at this difficult time. Thank you."


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You would make a fabulous criminal defense attorney or PR person!

I don't understand objecting to answering the same questions twice if you're telling the truth, or to answering unprepared verbal questions that arise from answers and new information gleaned during the interview process, Dexter Morgan.

How is that a waste of time when you're trying to help LE find the killer(s) who slit the throats of your spouse and newborn in the family home?

Setting such limited self-serving conditions on cooperation from the get-go would be more suspicious, to me, than refusing to answer further questions without counsel present once questioning became contentious.

Bingo. I'm an attorney. If someone killed my spouse and child I would be interviewed over and over and over. I wouldn't hire counsel to act as gate keeper or refuse to answer questions or think about the need to hire an attorney at all until I was arrested. Period.

The raw truth is that a normal, innocent, grieving person couldn't care less about their own rights or the possibility of being arrested or going to prison for a murder they didn't commit. They don't assume the police are wasting their time looking at them. All they feel is desperate, white hot grief and the need to do whatever is possible to assist LE. John Walsh and Marc Klaas repeat this often. Because they know. The moment a parent or spouse stops talking, lawyers up, refuses to give DNA of whatever, it's a brilliantly red flag.

And it doesn't matter if that that may be a stupid thing to do or that hundreds of innocent people have been prosecuted as a result of not getting an attorney during criminal investigations, etc. It has to do with typical human behavior. It has to do with how normal humans behave during personal crisis and how guilty people tend to act.

Frankly, even with my years of experience as an attorney, if that was my precious baby and spouse lying there with their throats slit, I wouldn't give a flying F about anything but shooting myself in the head and secondly, cooperation with those trying to figure it all out.

 

[Jazz]

“It appeared that she was either asleep or unconscious when the wound was inflicted,” Barron wrote.

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/lo...122647359.html

 

[Elise]

Sorry but if a coworker told me they wanted to kill their pregnant wife by pushing them down the stairs I would be contacting someone for help. Jmo.


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Yes, thank you! I would, too, and I'm about as "mind your own business" as a person can be. That stops when someone else is in danger, though. It amazes me that some people just shrug stuff like that off. I can see it in certain situations, but when a grown man is telling you he wants to push his pregnant wife down the stairs in an attempt to kill her and their unborn child, you should take that seriously. It's obviously not the co-workers fault, I just don't get it.

Then again, had they told someone, could something actually have been done? People say they want to do stuff all the time, and I don't know if the police can really do anything about it unless it's said directly to the person they want to harm, or it's a murder for hire type of thing.

This guy screwed himself trying to build a history of "insanity", though. He told a coworker that while his wife was pregnant, so that was at least 3 months ago. If he truly felt that way, why didn't he go to his doctor and get different meds? Why didn't he tell his wife that she should probably go stay with her parents or something until he could get it all sorted out? Of course, we all know he's full of it, but he obviously thought he was smart enough to get away with this. Not so, and he's going to pay dearly now.

 

[Oregonmama]

“It appeared that she was either asleep or unconscious when the wound was inflicted,” Barron wrote.

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/lo...122647359.html

So sad. She had no way of defending herself

 

[DexterMorgan]

Sorry but if a coworker told me they wanted to kill their pregnant wife by pushing them down the stairs I would be contacting someone for help. Jmo.


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Oh snap. A Trillion % agree. Wth.

I wonder if the coworker was just not smart enough to tell police that this guy wants his pregnant wife dead?

Wth.