See No Evil (2014–…): Season 8, Episode 8 - Silent Screams - full transcript
In 2013, Kira Steger goes missing after a date night with her husband at the Mall of America. After a shocking discovery in a parking lot, investigators fear foul play. They turn to mall security footage in the hopes of solving th...
To prove murder, you have to
prove that somebody is dead.
And we didn't have the body.
30-year-old Kira Steger
is finishing up
her shift as manager
at Delia's clothing store.
Great choice.
I love this dress.
Kira was
just very self-motivated.
She loved her job. She really
took a lot of pride in it.
The receipt's in the bag.
- Have a wonderful night.
- You, too.
Bye.
A lot of the people enjoyed
coming to work and working with her.
She'd always somehow
find the way to say
the perfect thing to help
make you feel better.
By the way,
you handled that customer
really well yesterday.
- Well done.
- Thank you, Kira.
Kira had this gift.
She could see
strengths in people
that they couldn't
see in themselves.
So? Any plans for tonight?
- I'm meeting Jeff.
- Nice.
- Date night.
- Right.
- Have a great night.
- You too.
Kira is planning
an evening out at the mall...
Oh, you look nice.
With her husband
of three years, Jeff Trevino.
Let's go.
Kira had met Jeff
where Kira was working
as a bartender at the time.
She moved
to Minnesota with Jeff.
They would spend time
watching movies together,
going to the mall, maybe
having a couple of drinks,
talking.
She seemed to be happy
with where she was at
at the time, so,
I was happy for her.
Let me guess. Sushi?
- Yes.
- Let's do it.
Hey, Kira.
Just me, Jasmine.
Can you let us know
if you're all right?
We're worried. Okay. Bye.
Kira was expected
at work on Saturday,
and she didn't show up.
And that was very unusual
for Kira.
Her coworker said
that she was always on time,
she never missed a shift.
Hello?
Hi, this is Jasmine, um,
I work with Kira.
One of the coworkers reached out
to Kira's husband, Jeff Trevino,
to try to figure out
if he knew where she could be.
She hasn't been home
since yesterday morning.
Jeff didn't know where Kira was,
and it wasn't unusual
for Kira to kind of disappear
from Jeff for a day or so.
And she had been staying
with some friends
from time to time.
The weather was bad,
there'd been a lot of snow.
Was she in some sort
of an accident?
I'm worried maybe
she got stuck somewhere?
Maybe her phone is dead?
Oh...
Well, I'll just call you
if I hear anything.
Jeff files
a missing person's report
and contacts Kira's family.
Hello?
I get a call and it was Jeff.
And he said,
"Are you sitting down?"
And I said, "Yeah, what's up?"
And he said,
um... "Kira is missing."
What?
He goes, "I just...
She didn't come home,
I filled out
a missing person's report."
She's not answering her phone,
she's not answering any texts.
It's beyond worry.
There's nothing
that prepares you
for that in any way.
Detectives speak
with Jeff at the house
he and Kira share with
their roommate, Matt Roff.
Jeff tells detectives
that Kira left home around
8:30 a.m. Friday morning
to run some errands at the mall.
This wasn't
something particularly unusual
from his perspective,
that there were times when
she just went off the radar,
and he didn't know
where she was.
Jeff said they had been
having problems
in their marriage
for a couple of months.
Investigators
put out an APB for Kira
and her missing vehicle
and head to the Mall of America.
The investigators
wanted to confirm
or refute Jeff's story.
The Mall of America
is the largest mall
in the United States,
so it's huge.
Do you have any other cameras
that might be closer to Delia's Clothing?
It was a painstaking
process, there are a lot of cameras
at the Mall of America,
there's a lot of video
to go through.
Can you queue it up
to 6:00 p.m., please?
When Kira left work?
So, the goal is to find Kira,
when was Kira last at the mall,
who was around her,
anybody acting suspicious,
uh, a disgruntled customer...
We're not ruling anything out.
There.
Coming in from the
left side of the escalators,
we see a couple,
the male appears to be
carrying a yellow bag
and he tends to swing it
in an obvious fashion.
That's Kira and Jeff.
And they are walking towards
the exit of the mall.
Let's see
if you can follow them.
The video showed them leaving
and heading towards
the parking area.
Pretty much at the time
that Jeff had described.
Wait, play that back.
Three men are walking
towards the mall,
one of them does turn
and notice Kira.
You're looking
for people who are giving her
any kind of special attention.
Stay with Kira and Jeff.
Please switch to
the parking lot cameras.
There.
Yeah.
Play it again.
They were walking together,
there didn't seem to be
anybody following them.
That particular individual,
they ruled him out.
It's just Jeff and Kira.
The couple
approached the parking ramp.
Switch cameras.
According to Jeff,
Kira drove home from the mall
in her white Chevy Cobalt.
But we can't see
who is driving the car
or the license plate of the car.
We do know based on the time
and the location
of the camera that this is
most likely Kira's car.
This is corroborating
Jeff's story,
matches up with them returning
home from the mall.
Jeff told
detectives that after their date,
he and Kira went back to
theirs to watch a movie,
and that their roommate,
Matt Roff, was at home.
Matt had a living
area and a bedroom down
in the basement of the house.
So, the investigators spoke
to Matt Roff to find out
if Matt had heard anything
or seen any interaction
between Jeff and Kira
that wasn't consistent
with what Jeff said.
Matt said that he saw Jeff
and Kira sitting on the couch,
watching a movie, then he went
to the basement to go to bed,
and he woke up the next
morning and left
and didn't notice
anything unusual at all.
At that point,
what he's telling us
is consistent with what
Jeff is telling us.
With no word from Kira,
her family traveled
to the Twin Cities.
This is my daughter,
she's missing.
Please, could you take one?
We were just trying to get
missing person flyers to
as many places as we could,
and that helped us feel like,
at least, we're trying
to do something,
trying to find her even if...
she's not alive.
Um...
For Kira to not talk
to anybody for days
just with how social she was
and having, like,
nobody hear from her
was very hard
to understand and accept.
One of the things
the investigators did early on
was canvasing the neighborhood.
Hello, ma'am.
One of the neighbors suggested,
"Well, you might want to check
the next block over,
because there's a guy over
there that's got a camera."
On the front of his house
was a camera
that panned back and forth,
and it faced the street
that Jeff and Kira lived on.
Investigators take the footage
to the police department
to download.
Meantime, Kira's cellphone
records throw up a new lead.
Ryan Wendt
again... Ryan...
It became clear
that there was somebody else
in Kira's life besides Jeff.
Yeah.
We found out
that she had been talking,
communicating and texting
with the regional manager
from the store
that she worked at.
So, from there they want
to talk to that guy,
where has he been,
and does he know anything
about where Kira is?
Really, he's out of state?
The police learned
he was in his car,
driving through a snowstorm
on his way to Colorado.
This was a pretty important
person of interest.
This is someone that was
romantically involved
with Kira,
that had left the state
around the time
that she disappeared.
Hello?
Ryan Wendt agrees
to come in for an interview.
He said that the
last he had heard from her
was when he was on
his way to Colorado
and he had texted
with Kira back and forth.
When you read
the text messages from
the night she disappeared,
she's talking to the boyfriend
while she's at dinner
with her husband.
It's pretty clear
that Kira was checked out
of the relationship with Jeff.
The investigators
checked cell tower locations,
they checked credit card charges
the night that Kira disappeared.
He was in Colorado.
So, from that,
they ruled him out.
Phone records show
Kira's texts to Ryan continue
after she gets home...
but stop at 11:44 p.m.
Here's the footage
from Kira's neighbor.
Thank you.
Investigators
load up the neighbor's camera
footage from that night.
We want to know
when did she leave.
Because that's the next time
we'll potentially
be seeing her alive.
What the hell?
It's moving too fast.
Yeah, I don't know.
This camera is
capturing a large portion
of the street
by a panning motion.
If you do locate something
that is of interest,
moments later the camera is
pointing somewhere else,
which makes you very frustrated.
You only get a glimpse
of Jeff and Kira's house.
At the very end
of the pan, to the right.
Watching of this video
is time-consuming,
because you have to really
watch frame by frame,
you don't know when something
might be important.
In the driveway, is that a car?
Freeze.
After two o'clock
in the morning,
you see a vehicle
and there's a lot
of reflection of light
off the snow.
Those are the headlights.
That's strange.
Why is it reversing?
The car appears
to be Kira's car.
And it's backing up
into the driveway.
We didn't know what was
going on at that point,
but we had a lot of concerns.
So, we're looking
for Kira's vehicle leaving,
and because of the swing
in the camera,
we know there's a possibility
that we may miss it.
Investigators
continue to watch the footage
from the following morning.
Go back again.
That looks like Kira's Chevy.
Approximately 09:21,
we see the vehicle leave.
This matches
what Jeff has told us.
The first question that comes
to mind is "who's driving?"
We can't tell.
Early Monday,
the Bloomington Police
Department got lucky.
The Mall of America
has these huge parking ramps.
They noticed that
this particular vehicle
had been there too long,
they called for a tow truck.
And the tow truck
driver looked at the car,
he was about to hook it up...
and he saw what appeared
to be blood.
So, the Bloomington Police got
a hold of the St. Paul Police
and the investigators
headed for Bloomington.
They saw it was Kira's car
at the Mall of America.
It appeared to be blood on
the outside of the car,
not a lot of blood,
but just some smudges.
Behind the car
was this grass area
that just sort of went downhill.
Laying in the grass was
this piece of material.
It looked like a trunk liner.
What have you got?
They turned it over,
there was a red liquid
that was on this.
They did a DNA test and
confirmed that it was Kira's blood.
At that point, we were
probably dealing with a homicide.
Right down
the hallway here, please.
We were called to meet
with the Homicide Commander.
We have some news for you.
And he told us not to
put out anymore flyers,
because she...
was... she was dead.
And I just started crying.
And then your mind
goes a million places.
How did she die?
Did she suffer?
Without having the body,
it was pretty devastating.
We wanted to have
a funeral and be able to,
like, have her back in...
some form or another
and be able to say goodbye.
Once the
investigators found the car
at the Mall of America,
the next step
is to figure out
when did it get there
and who put it there.
There's no footage
from the parking lot
where Kira's car was found.
So, investigators search
the mall's exterior cameras.
Hey, is that it?
At about 9:45,
we do see a vehicle matching
Kira's vehicle description
turn and head towards
the parking area.
Switch
to the next camera, please.
Let's keep watching.
Detectives continue
to monitor the camera
on the exterior of the ramp.
Play it again.
Shortly after the car arrived,
there was this figure
that walked away
from where the car was parked
and around the side of the mall.
You can't really tell
very much about this figure.
Stay on him.
Investigators
track the man to the north
entrance of the mall.
Look.
This guy walking, there.
This person comes
into the frame in the lower
right-hand corner,
and then does cross
to the left-hand
side of the screen.
It's very hard to see
exactly what's going on
when you first look at it.
That's him, that cab.
The person is headed
towards the taxi cab stand.
We do see that individual
talk to one taxi driver.
We see that same individual
get into a second taxi
and leave the mall area.
We need to trace that cab.
Any information that we can get
from the taxi drivers,
that information is
going to be huge.
Okay, thanks.
Detectives identify
the taxi company
that operates outside the mall.
This cab company were equipped
with GPS tracking devices.
And they tracked it not
Jeff and Kira's block,
but the next block over.
Investigators
return to the moving camera
from Jeff and Kira's neighbor,
hoping to spot the taxi.
So, let's queue it up
to 10:40.
We're holding our breath
watching that camera
turn and turn.
Look.
And when we finally
do see the taxi,
we know we're on to something.
The taxi comes in,
past the Trevino household.
It drove right in front of it.
Have we lost it?
I don't know.
Doesn't stop in camera frame.
We don't really know where
or what is happening.
So, we kind of have
to keep watching
what's going to happen next.
Freeze.
There he is.
You couldn't see
the person get out of the cab,
but then, all of the sudden,
there's this person on foot
that is walking consistent
from where the cab stopped.
This was within a block
of Jeff and Kira's house.
Hard to see who it is.
We want to know
where does this person go,
who is it,
what can we tell about
this person from the video.
This is impossible.
Can we piece together
the freeze frames?
We can try.
You're so close and you know
something's happening.
You have to take the little
bits of information
and piece them together.
Analysts compile freeze frames
from the moving camera.
It allows them to track
the man's path.
Stop it there.
You can't see the face,
you can't see too much.
But this person was
wearing sort of a grey
sweatshirt with the hood up.
Look at that.
There's a pattern on it.
And it's not clear, but you
can tell that there's colors,
you can generally tell
the size of the pattern.
Let's see what he does next.
You can sort
of track this person
that walks towards
Jeff and Kira's house.
All of a sudden, for one moment,
there's a figure
walking up the driveway.
This is the suspect.
Why did this person
put Kira's vehicle with blood
in it at the Mall of America?
We gotta know
who this person is.
They were suspicious of Jeff,
but they really didn't have
anything to prove
that he had done anything.
So, the investigators
did the next logical step,
which was to draft a search
warrant for the house
to see what evidence could
be found in the house.
It was just a regular
small three-bedroom house.
It was only when the crime
scene team sort of started
looking more closely
that they saw something
that really concerned them.
Right next to the end
of the bed,
there was a spot of some
type of dirt liquid.
It looked like it could
be blood.
There were all these spots
of blood on the mattress,
and then they used the luminol,
which you spray on and then
you use an ultraviolet light.
And the whole carpet
just lit up.
There were all kind of spots
they weren't visible
to the naked eye.
These spots left the bedroom
and went out towards
the rest of the house.
The carpet cleaner had been
used to clean up blood.
And this was Kira's blood.
Police also
execute a search of Jeff's SUV.
There was no blood,
there was no indication
of a struggle,
but there was a receipt.
The receipt shows a transaction
at a local gas station.
One hour and 40 minutes
before Kira's car
was left at the mall.
Why would he go to the
gas station at 8:00 in the morning,
and more importantly,
why didn't he tell
the investigators about it?
Okay,
let's see what we got here.
Investigators
went to the gas station,
there was video.
There he is.
The video shows Jeff
putting gas in his car.
Jeff apparently gets cash
from the ATM machine...
What's he drawing money out for?
And then, walks back out.
And the video is pretty good,
I mean, you can see
Jeff's face, you can see
what he's wearing.
Zoom in.
It matches.
It appeared to be
the same sweatshirt
that was on the neighbor's
video of the person walking
from the cab, who put Kira's
car at the Mall of America.
Now Jeff is looking
like a pretty good suspect
for having done
something to Kira.
Jeff Trevino is
brought in for questioning
on suspicion of murdering Kira.
We didn't have a body,
we didn't know where Kira was.
We feared that she was dead,
but we needed more.
In the end,
he chose not to speak.
So, it was disappointing
and frustrating.
We don't have as
much evidence as we want,
but we have enough to charge him
and hope that we would
be able to find
additional evidence.
To prove murder,
you have to prove
that somebody is dead.
We didn't have Kira or her body.
And it was a huge problem.
The body is identified
using dental records
as Kira Steger.
Kira had been put
in the river without any clothes.
There was an injury
on Kira's forehead.
And then, on her right hand,
her pointer finger
had been snapped.
And it was a fresh break,
there was no healing,
so that happened
before she died.
The investigators
now piece together
a theory of the events
that led to Kira's death.
What I believe
happened that night is that,
during the date night,
Kira was texting
her boyfriend a lot.
When they got home,
she's still texting,
and it is very difficult
to believe
that Jeff didn't notice that.
And, to Jeff,
this was supposed to be
the big night
to reconcile with Kira.
He was getting increasingly
angry through the night.
Hey.
Who have you been texting?
Let me see it.
Just let me know.
- No.
- Let me know.
- You don't need to see it.
- Give me the phone!
- Why do you need to see it?
- I need to see it because you're my wife!
Probably grabbed it,
twisted to get it
from her,
broke her finger.
He hit her with something,
which would have caused
the injury on the forehead.
And then I think
he took a pillow...
and smothered her,
and then she died that way.
He backed Kira's car
up the driveway,
and he put Kira's
body in the trunk.
He drove to the Mississippi,
then he dumped her there.
The next morning, he got cash
because he knew he was going
to need to take a taxi.
He took the car to the Mall
of America, dumped it there.
Walked to the taxi stand,
and then was dropped off
near his house.
He wanted to create the illusion
that she left
and she was alive and well.
He finally spent
the rest of the day
cleaning up from his crime.
On November 25th, 2013,
Jeff Trevino is convicted
of the second-degree
murder of Kira Steger
and is sentenced to 27
and a half years in prison.
The various security
cameras that we had
were hugely important.
Frankly, I'm not sure
what we would have done
if we didn't have
that neighbor's camera.
If there's probably
something I'd want people
to remember about Kira, I would
probably say her selflessness,
and just the... uh...
pure joy
that she would always have
when she would interact
with people or, like, go...
Go out her way out
to help somebody else.
What Jeff took away,
he took away Kira's life.
This daughter who just thinks
that you're
the coolest mom ever.
I don't know if I will ever
feel that loved ever again.
prove that somebody is dead.
And we didn't have the body.
30-year-old Kira Steger
is finishing up
her shift as manager
at Delia's clothing store.
Great choice.
I love this dress.
Kira was
just very self-motivated.
She loved her job. She really
took a lot of pride in it.
The receipt's in the bag.
- Have a wonderful night.
- You, too.
Bye.
A lot of the people enjoyed
coming to work and working with her.
She'd always somehow
find the way to say
the perfect thing to help
make you feel better.
By the way,
you handled that customer
really well yesterday.
- Well done.
- Thank you, Kira.
Kira had this gift.
She could see
strengths in people
that they couldn't
see in themselves.
So? Any plans for tonight?
- I'm meeting Jeff.
- Nice.
- Date night.
- Right.
- Have a great night.
- You too.
Kira is planning
an evening out at the mall...
Oh, you look nice.
With her husband
of three years, Jeff Trevino.
Let's go.
Kira had met Jeff
where Kira was working
as a bartender at the time.
She moved
to Minnesota with Jeff.
They would spend time
watching movies together,
going to the mall, maybe
having a couple of drinks,
talking.
She seemed to be happy
with where she was at
at the time, so,
I was happy for her.
Let me guess. Sushi?
- Yes.
- Let's do it.
Hey, Kira.
Just me, Jasmine.
Can you let us know
if you're all right?
We're worried. Okay. Bye.
Kira was expected
at work on Saturday,
and she didn't show up.
And that was very unusual
for Kira.
Her coworker said
that she was always on time,
she never missed a shift.
Hello?
Hi, this is Jasmine, um,
I work with Kira.
One of the coworkers reached out
to Kira's husband, Jeff Trevino,
to try to figure out
if he knew where she could be.
She hasn't been home
since yesterday morning.
Jeff didn't know where Kira was,
and it wasn't unusual
for Kira to kind of disappear
from Jeff for a day or so.
And she had been staying
with some friends
from time to time.
The weather was bad,
there'd been a lot of snow.
Was she in some sort
of an accident?
I'm worried maybe
she got stuck somewhere?
Maybe her phone is dead?
Oh...
Well, I'll just call you
if I hear anything.
Jeff files
a missing person's report
and contacts Kira's family.
Hello?
I get a call and it was Jeff.
And he said,
"Are you sitting down?"
And I said, "Yeah, what's up?"
And he said,
um... "Kira is missing."
What?
He goes, "I just...
She didn't come home,
I filled out
a missing person's report."
She's not answering her phone,
she's not answering any texts.
It's beyond worry.
There's nothing
that prepares you
for that in any way.
Detectives speak
with Jeff at the house
he and Kira share with
their roommate, Matt Roff.
Jeff tells detectives
that Kira left home around
8:30 a.m. Friday morning
to run some errands at the mall.
This wasn't
something particularly unusual
from his perspective,
that there were times when
she just went off the radar,
and he didn't know
where she was.
Jeff said they had been
having problems
in their marriage
for a couple of months.
Investigators
put out an APB for Kira
and her missing vehicle
and head to the Mall of America.
The investigators
wanted to confirm
or refute Jeff's story.
The Mall of America
is the largest mall
in the United States,
so it's huge.
Do you have any other cameras
that might be closer to Delia's Clothing?
It was a painstaking
process, there are a lot of cameras
at the Mall of America,
there's a lot of video
to go through.
Can you queue it up
to 6:00 p.m., please?
When Kira left work?
So, the goal is to find Kira,
when was Kira last at the mall,
who was around her,
anybody acting suspicious,
uh, a disgruntled customer...
We're not ruling anything out.
There.
Coming in from the
left side of the escalators,
we see a couple,
the male appears to be
carrying a yellow bag
and he tends to swing it
in an obvious fashion.
That's Kira and Jeff.
And they are walking towards
the exit of the mall.
Let's see
if you can follow them.
The video showed them leaving
and heading towards
the parking area.
Pretty much at the time
that Jeff had described.
Wait, play that back.
Three men are walking
towards the mall,
one of them does turn
and notice Kira.
You're looking
for people who are giving her
any kind of special attention.
Stay with Kira and Jeff.
Please switch to
the parking lot cameras.
There.
Yeah.
Play it again.
They were walking together,
there didn't seem to be
anybody following them.
That particular individual,
they ruled him out.
It's just Jeff and Kira.
The couple
approached the parking ramp.
Switch cameras.
According to Jeff,
Kira drove home from the mall
in her white Chevy Cobalt.
But we can't see
who is driving the car
or the license plate of the car.
We do know based on the time
and the location
of the camera that this is
most likely Kira's car.
This is corroborating
Jeff's story,
matches up with them returning
home from the mall.
Jeff told
detectives that after their date,
he and Kira went back to
theirs to watch a movie,
and that their roommate,
Matt Roff, was at home.
Matt had a living
area and a bedroom down
in the basement of the house.
So, the investigators spoke
to Matt Roff to find out
if Matt had heard anything
or seen any interaction
between Jeff and Kira
that wasn't consistent
with what Jeff said.
Matt said that he saw Jeff
and Kira sitting on the couch,
watching a movie, then he went
to the basement to go to bed,
and he woke up the next
morning and left
and didn't notice
anything unusual at all.
At that point,
what he's telling us
is consistent with what
Jeff is telling us.
With no word from Kira,
her family traveled
to the Twin Cities.
This is my daughter,
she's missing.
Please, could you take one?
We were just trying to get
missing person flyers to
as many places as we could,
and that helped us feel like,
at least, we're trying
to do something,
trying to find her even if...
she's not alive.
Um...
For Kira to not talk
to anybody for days
just with how social she was
and having, like,
nobody hear from her
was very hard
to understand and accept.
One of the things
the investigators did early on
was canvasing the neighborhood.
Hello, ma'am.
One of the neighbors suggested,
"Well, you might want to check
the next block over,
because there's a guy over
there that's got a camera."
On the front of his house
was a camera
that panned back and forth,
and it faced the street
that Jeff and Kira lived on.
Investigators take the footage
to the police department
to download.
Meantime, Kira's cellphone
records throw up a new lead.
Ryan Wendt
again... Ryan...
It became clear
that there was somebody else
in Kira's life besides Jeff.
Yeah.
We found out
that she had been talking,
communicating and texting
with the regional manager
from the store
that she worked at.
So, from there they want
to talk to that guy,
where has he been,
and does he know anything
about where Kira is?
Really, he's out of state?
The police learned
he was in his car,
driving through a snowstorm
on his way to Colorado.
This was a pretty important
person of interest.
This is someone that was
romantically involved
with Kira,
that had left the state
around the time
that she disappeared.
Hello?
Ryan Wendt agrees
to come in for an interview.
He said that the
last he had heard from her
was when he was on
his way to Colorado
and he had texted
with Kira back and forth.
When you read
the text messages from
the night she disappeared,
she's talking to the boyfriend
while she's at dinner
with her husband.
It's pretty clear
that Kira was checked out
of the relationship with Jeff.
The investigators
checked cell tower locations,
they checked credit card charges
the night that Kira disappeared.
He was in Colorado.
So, from that,
they ruled him out.
Phone records show
Kira's texts to Ryan continue
after she gets home...
but stop at 11:44 p.m.
Here's the footage
from Kira's neighbor.
Thank you.
Investigators
load up the neighbor's camera
footage from that night.
We want to know
when did she leave.
Because that's the next time
we'll potentially
be seeing her alive.
What the hell?
It's moving too fast.
Yeah, I don't know.
This camera is
capturing a large portion
of the street
by a panning motion.
If you do locate something
that is of interest,
moments later the camera is
pointing somewhere else,
which makes you very frustrated.
You only get a glimpse
of Jeff and Kira's house.
At the very end
of the pan, to the right.
Watching of this video
is time-consuming,
because you have to really
watch frame by frame,
you don't know when something
might be important.
In the driveway, is that a car?
Freeze.
After two o'clock
in the morning,
you see a vehicle
and there's a lot
of reflection of light
off the snow.
Those are the headlights.
That's strange.
Why is it reversing?
The car appears
to be Kira's car.
And it's backing up
into the driveway.
We didn't know what was
going on at that point,
but we had a lot of concerns.
So, we're looking
for Kira's vehicle leaving,
and because of the swing
in the camera,
we know there's a possibility
that we may miss it.
Investigators
continue to watch the footage
from the following morning.
Go back again.
That looks like Kira's Chevy.
Approximately 09:21,
we see the vehicle leave.
This matches
what Jeff has told us.
The first question that comes
to mind is "who's driving?"
We can't tell.
Early Monday,
the Bloomington Police
Department got lucky.
The Mall of America
has these huge parking ramps.
They noticed that
this particular vehicle
had been there too long,
they called for a tow truck.
And the tow truck
driver looked at the car,
he was about to hook it up...
and he saw what appeared
to be blood.
So, the Bloomington Police got
a hold of the St. Paul Police
and the investigators
headed for Bloomington.
They saw it was Kira's car
at the Mall of America.
It appeared to be blood on
the outside of the car,
not a lot of blood,
but just some smudges.
Behind the car
was this grass area
that just sort of went downhill.
Laying in the grass was
this piece of material.
It looked like a trunk liner.
What have you got?
They turned it over,
there was a red liquid
that was on this.
They did a DNA test and
confirmed that it was Kira's blood.
At that point, we were
probably dealing with a homicide.
Right down
the hallway here, please.
We were called to meet
with the Homicide Commander.
We have some news for you.
And he told us not to
put out anymore flyers,
because she...
was... she was dead.
And I just started crying.
And then your mind
goes a million places.
How did she die?
Did she suffer?
Without having the body,
it was pretty devastating.
We wanted to have
a funeral and be able to,
like, have her back in...
some form or another
and be able to say goodbye.
Once the
investigators found the car
at the Mall of America,
the next step
is to figure out
when did it get there
and who put it there.
There's no footage
from the parking lot
where Kira's car was found.
So, investigators search
the mall's exterior cameras.
Hey, is that it?
At about 9:45,
we do see a vehicle matching
Kira's vehicle description
turn and head towards
the parking area.
Switch
to the next camera, please.
Let's keep watching.
Detectives continue
to monitor the camera
on the exterior of the ramp.
Play it again.
Shortly after the car arrived,
there was this figure
that walked away
from where the car was parked
and around the side of the mall.
You can't really tell
very much about this figure.
Stay on him.
Investigators
track the man to the north
entrance of the mall.
Look.
This guy walking, there.
This person comes
into the frame in the lower
right-hand corner,
and then does cross
to the left-hand
side of the screen.
It's very hard to see
exactly what's going on
when you first look at it.
That's him, that cab.
The person is headed
towards the taxi cab stand.
We do see that individual
talk to one taxi driver.
We see that same individual
get into a second taxi
and leave the mall area.
We need to trace that cab.
Any information that we can get
from the taxi drivers,
that information is
going to be huge.
Okay, thanks.
Detectives identify
the taxi company
that operates outside the mall.
This cab company were equipped
with GPS tracking devices.
And they tracked it not
Jeff and Kira's block,
but the next block over.
Investigators
return to the moving camera
from Jeff and Kira's neighbor,
hoping to spot the taxi.
So, let's queue it up
to 10:40.
We're holding our breath
watching that camera
turn and turn.
Look.
And when we finally
do see the taxi,
we know we're on to something.
The taxi comes in,
past the Trevino household.
It drove right in front of it.
Have we lost it?
I don't know.
Doesn't stop in camera frame.
We don't really know where
or what is happening.
So, we kind of have
to keep watching
what's going to happen next.
Freeze.
There he is.
You couldn't see
the person get out of the cab,
but then, all of the sudden,
there's this person on foot
that is walking consistent
from where the cab stopped.
This was within a block
of Jeff and Kira's house.
Hard to see who it is.
We want to know
where does this person go,
who is it,
what can we tell about
this person from the video.
This is impossible.
Can we piece together
the freeze frames?
We can try.
You're so close and you know
something's happening.
You have to take the little
bits of information
and piece them together.
Analysts compile freeze frames
from the moving camera.
It allows them to track
the man's path.
Stop it there.
You can't see the face,
you can't see too much.
But this person was
wearing sort of a grey
sweatshirt with the hood up.
Look at that.
There's a pattern on it.
And it's not clear, but you
can tell that there's colors,
you can generally tell
the size of the pattern.
Let's see what he does next.
You can sort
of track this person
that walks towards
Jeff and Kira's house.
All of a sudden, for one moment,
there's a figure
walking up the driveway.
This is the suspect.
Why did this person
put Kira's vehicle with blood
in it at the Mall of America?
We gotta know
who this person is.
They were suspicious of Jeff,
but they really didn't have
anything to prove
that he had done anything.
So, the investigators
did the next logical step,
which was to draft a search
warrant for the house
to see what evidence could
be found in the house.
It was just a regular
small three-bedroom house.
It was only when the crime
scene team sort of started
looking more closely
that they saw something
that really concerned them.
Right next to the end
of the bed,
there was a spot of some
type of dirt liquid.
It looked like it could
be blood.
There were all these spots
of blood on the mattress,
and then they used the luminol,
which you spray on and then
you use an ultraviolet light.
And the whole carpet
just lit up.
There were all kind of spots
they weren't visible
to the naked eye.
These spots left the bedroom
and went out towards
the rest of the house.
The carpet cleaner had been
used to clean up blood.
And this was Kira's blood.
Police also
execute a search of Jeff's SUV.
There was no blood,
there was no indication
of a struggle,
but there was a receipt.
The receipt shows a transaction
at a local gas station.
One hour and 40 minutes
before Kira's car
was left at the mall.
Why would he go to the
gas station at 8:00 in the morning,
and more importantly,
why didn't he tell
the investigators about it?
Okay,
let's see what we got here.
Investigators
went to the gas station,
there was video.
There he is.
The video shows Jeff
putting gas in his car.
Jeff apparently gets cash
from the ATM machine...
What's he drawing money out for?
And then, walks back out.
And the video is pretty good,
I mean, you can see
Jeff's face, you can see
what he's wearing.
Zoom in.
It matches.
It appeared to be
the same sweatshirt
that was on the neighbor's
video of the person walking
from the cab, who put Kira's
car at the Mall of America.
Now Jeff is looking
like a pretty good suspect
for having done
something to Kira.
Jeff Trevino is
brought in for questioning
on suspicion of murdering Kira.
We didn't have a body,
we didn't know where Kira was.
We feared that she was dead,
but we needed more.
In the end,
he chose not to speak.
So, it was disappointing
and frustrating.
We don't have as
much evidence as we want,
but we have enough to charge him
and hope that we would
be able to find
additional evidence.
To prove murder,
you have to prove
that somebody is dead.
We didn't have Kira or her body.
And it was a huge problem.
The body is identified
using dental records
as Kira Steger.
Kira had been put
in the river without any clothes.
There was an injury
on Kira's forehead.
And then, on her right hand,
her pointer finger
had been snapped.
And it was a fresh break,
there was no healing,
so that happened
before she died.
The investigators
now piece together
a theory of the events
that led to Kira's death.
What I believe
happened that night is that,
during the date night,
Kira was texting
her boyfriend a lot.
When they got home,
she's still texting,
and it is very difficult
to believe
that Jeff didn't notice that.
And, to Jeff,
this was supposed to be
the big night
to reconcile with Kira.
He was getting increasingly
angry through the night.
Hey.
Who have you been texting?
Let me see it.
Just let me know.
- No.
- Let me know.
- You don't need to see it.
- Give me the phone!
- Why do you need to see it?
- I need to see it because you're my wife!
Probably grabbed it,
twisted to get it
from her,
broke her finger.
He hit her with something,
which would have caused
the injury on the forehead.
And then I think
he took a pillow...
and smothered her,
and then she died that way.
He backed Kira's car
up the driveway,
and he put Kira's
body in the trunk.
He drove to the Mississippi,
then he dumped her there.
The next morning, he got cash
because he knew he was going
to need to take a taxi.
He took the car to the Mall
of America, dumped it there.
Walked to the taxi stand,
and then was dropped off
near his house.
He wanted to create the illusion
that she left
and she was alive and well.
He finally spent
the rest of the day
cleaning up from his crime.
On November 25th, 2013,
Jeff Trevino is convicted
of the second-degree
murder of Kira Steger
and is sentenced to 27
and a half years in prison.
The various security
cameras that we had
were hugely important.
Frankly, I'm not sure
what we would have done
if we didn't have
that neighbor's camera.
If there's probably
something I'd want people
to remember about Kira, I would
probably say her selflessness,
and just the... uh...
pure joy
that she would always have
when she would interact
with people or, like, go...
Go out her way out
to help somebody else.
What Jeff took away,
he took away Kira's life.
This daughter who just thinks
that you're
the coolest mom ever.
I don't know if I will ever
feel that loved ever again.