In 2012, Harold Henthorne was arrested for the murder of his wife Toni, and investigators made another surprising discovery that his first wife, Lynn, also died unexpectedly, and there are striking similarities.
△ In September 2000, Harold and Toni's wedding
To outsiders, Harold Henthorn and his wife, Toni, seem to have the ideal marriage.
Toni is a successful ophthalmologist, while Harold has a job helping nonprofits and church fundraisers.
Shortly after they married in 2000, they moved to a mountain house in Denver, Colorado, and welcomed a beautiful daughter in 2005.
But in 2012, tragedy happened, and Toni "accidentally" fell off a cliff and died.
Harold initially claimed that Toni accidentally fell off a cliff while hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. However, when the police found a suspicious map while searching Harold's car, they realized that it was not that simple.
When investigators delved into Harold's background, they made another startling discovery.
Harold's first wife, Lynn, also died unexpectedly.
In the marriage of Harold and Tony Henthorne
In 1999, Harold met Dr. Toni of Mississippi through a dating site called Christian Dating. Toni had just come out of a previous failed marriage, and Harold's ex-wife had died in a traffic accident four years earlier.
The two married in September 2000 and moved to Denver, Colorado, where they soon had a daughter named Hayley.
△ Toni and her daughter Hailey
Although their marriage seemed very successful to outsiders, Toni's friends and family began to notice some of her unusual behavior.
Toni's brother, Barry, found that he would never be able to talk to Toni alone. Every time I called Toni, it was always Harold who answered. If he asks to talk to Toni or his niece Hailey alone, Harold turns on the speakerphone.
A colleague in Toni's eye clinic office noted that Harold made her uncomfortable, "He was very controlling... All of Toni's things must be done with Harold's consent. ”
△ On the day of Tony's murder, Tony and Harold Henthorne were hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park
But that skepticism has become more worrisome since 2011. Toni was seriously injured at the time, and it was long after Toni mentioned the incident to her mother.
Harold and Toni were renovating their cabin in the mountains. Harold asked Toni to come to the porch and help him get something. Just as Toni walked under the porch, a heavy beam suddenly fell from above, hitting her neck and breaking her vertebrae.
△ Moved to the mountains shortly after marriage
When Toni later told her mother about her hunger, she said: As she walked toward Harold, she saw something on the ground and bent down to pick it up. Toni said in fear:
"If I walk out the door and don't bend down ... That pillar will smash me to death. “
After Toni's death a year later, her family began to look back and wonder if the "Crossbeam Incident" was really an accident.
The tragic "accidental" death of Toni Henthorn
In September 2012, Harold decided to take Toni on a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park to celebrate their 12th wedding anniversary. It was a very unusual trip as Toni was 50 years old at the time. Due to perennial knee pain, she usually does not participate in strenuous hiking.
Still, Harold insisted on hiking. Just two weeks before their wedding anniversary, Harold told a friend that he had scouted 6 different hiking trails before setting out, and that he had chosen the quietest path. He said
"Every minute of this trip, I carefully planned and it will be a trip of a lifetime."
On September 29, 2012, the couple set off for Lushan in the national park.
△ Rocky Mountain National Park - Deer Mountain
They hiked two miles and took a lot of photos along the way.
△ Photographed during hiking
Later that afternoon, Toni's brother Barry received a text message from Harold:
"Barry... Urgent...... Tony was injured... In Estes Park... Falling off the rocks. This was followed by another simple text, "She's gone." ”
Harold texts Toni's brother, Barry
Toni fell to his death from a 42-meter-high cliff on the side of Deer Mountain. Toni's family couldn't believe this fact. "How could such a thing happen?"
△ Where Toni Henthorn fell to her death from a height of 140 feet (42 meters).
According to Barry's recollection, Harold first told him that Toni was always behind. When he turned around to find that she was no longer behind him, he said he began looking for her and found her body at the bottom of the cliff.
Then, Harold's story began to differ from the previous version. He claimed to have received a text message, and when he looked up after reading it, Toni was gone. So he didn't see what was going on.
In a third version, Harold claims that Toni was photographing him and accidentally fell off a cliff while retreating.
In the fourth version of the story, Harold reportedly said he was checking Toni's phone for office calls when he fell. However, it was later confirmed that the story was also fictional. Because according to Toni's colleague, her phone had been in the office, and Harley's went to the office to retrieve it on the second day after the incident.
Several versions of Harold's story raise suspicions, and police investigators are ready to begin a careful investigation into Toni's "accidental death."
Investigation of murder cases
Days after Toni's death, agents found a suspicious map in Harold's car, according to news reports.
It was a map of Rocky Mountain National Park, and hiking trails on the day of the incident were marked in pink. It doesn't sound strange, maybe Harold is just marking which route they want to hike.
However, near where Toni fell to his death, there is also a scrawled "X".
Toni Henthorn, 50, just before she was pushed down Deer Mountain by her husband, Harold
When a national park agent asked Harold about the markings on the map, Harold seemed speechless and told him it was his previous map, not the one he used for the trip on September 29, 2012.
Harold later told an agent that the map was for his nephew, Daniel. Later, the American news magazine People also interviewed Daniel, who told reporters: Harold came to talk to Toni at his funeral and mentioned the map to him for the first time. Daniel recalls:
"Harold rushed up and said, 'Federal agents are investigating the map I'm going to give you.'" He said, 'I was going to give it to you, but I forgot.' ”
Harold told investigators it took him about 45 minutes to reach the bottom of the cliff after finding Toni unconscious and said he "had to drag her body from a rocky position to a flatter place and wait for helicopter rescue".
△ Photo taken by Harold on his last hike
Investigators later learned that Harold had bought Toni a huge amount of life insurance before the incident. If Toni is judged to have died by accident, Harold could receive at least more than $1.5 million in compensation and manage another trust fund owned by Toni for more than $3 million.
The police seem to be becoming more suspicious of Harold. They believe Toni was pushed off a cliff by her husband and died.
The first accidental death
Meanwhile, then-investigative journalist Ryan Maas received an anonymous email from an audience member saying that the death of Harold's first wife was also very strange.
After receiving the email, the reporter also began to wonder: Who was Harold's first wife? Why are his two wives so unlucky? Both incidents occurred in remote areas and Harold was the only witness, and both deceased had bought large insurance policies during their lifetimes, and Harold was the sole beneficiary.
The police then intervened and investigated the cause of death of Harold's first wife, Lynn.
△ Wedding photo of Harold and Lynn (first wife).
On May 6, 1995, Harold and Lynn were driving on a highway in Grass County, Colorado, when the jeep's tire suddenly burst and they parked on the side of the road.
When Lynn got out of the car to help Harold change the tire, she dropped a nut, and then she was ready to bend down and crawl under the car to retrieve the nut. Just as she bent over, the jeep got off the jack and Lynn was crushed to death.
△ An outing between Harold and Lynn before the incident
According to the investigation, after receiving the news, Lynn's family immediately became suspicious. They said Lynn had arthritis and couldn't bend down to pick up the nuts. They also said that Lynn was a very cautious person who knew that crawling under a car was a very dangerous thing to do. In addition, the road surface of the incident was gravel, and the nuts on the wheels would not roll into the jeep as Harold described.
△ Vehicle of the incident
In any case, Lynn's death was ruled to be an accidental death. Presumably, after Lynn's death, Harold lived on Lynn's insurance indemnity.
△ After the investigation, Lynn autopsy report was changed from "Accident" to "Undetermined"
Court decision
On November 6, 2014, two years after Toni's fall off a cliff, Harold was arrested by federal authorities and charged with first-degree murder.
△ Arrest warrant for the District Court of Colorado, United States
During the 10-day trial, jurors listened to Harold's before and after behavior at the time of the 2012 incident.
A 911 operator at the trial said she was on the phone to instruct him on how to administer first aid, but Harold did not appear to have performed CPR on Toni. Harris quickly hung up on 911, saying he had to save power. But police investigative evidence proved that he then made two more phone calls and sent more than 100 text messages.
During the trial, prosecutors also claimed that Harold killed his first wife, Lynn, in 1995, but that the case was accompanied by an accidental death.
Prosecutors also noted that Harold received more than $600,000 in life insurance benefits from the first case.
Similarly, before Toni's death, Harold bought a life insurance policy for her. If Toni dies unexpectedly, he would have received more than $4.7 million. In fact, police said, Harold never worked. By the time of Toni's death, he had not worked for 20 years.
Harold is preparing to enter the courtroom
All this information gave the jury a common point, Harold murdered Toni.
On September 21, 2015, a jury convicted Harold Henthorne of murdering his wife, Toni.
In his final arguments, prosecutors described Harold as:
"A man who has already killed twice, although he is only tried for one death".
Harold was eventually convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
△ Toni's mother: After the trial
postscript
After the first judgment came into effect, Harold appealed three times, but all of them were rejected.
When Toni died that year, the couple's daughter was only 7 years old. Toni's brother Barry regained custody of the child in 2015 after an appeal. Hayley now lives with Barry and his wife.
△ Toni's daughters Hailey and Barry
Harold Henthorne is a killer who creates creepy "business models": marry someone, buy life insurance, and then find the next victim.
In another creepy detail in the report, Harold cremated both of their bodies and scattered their ashes in the same place immediately after Toni and Lynn were unexpectedly killed.
If the case is also judged to be an accident, will the ashes of the next victim also be scattered here?
△ Lynn and Toni's final resting place
Resources:
Case 1:14-cr-00448-RBJ Document 189 Filed 06/23/22 USDC Colorado
“Harold Henthorn”, Chilling Crimes, 2020/12/09
“Where is Harold Henthorn now? He will likely remain in federal prison for life”, The Netline, 2020/01/19
“Husband seeks new trial in hiker’s fatal fall from Colorado cliff”, Th Mercury News, 2022/05/24
"The Unusual Deaths of hte two Mrs. Henthorns", CBS News, 2018/06/09