The disappearance of Sasha Krause
in january of 2020 27 year old sasha krauss lived in the mennonite community located at farmington new mexico she was a devoted member of the church and had been for most of her life being baptized at the age of 12. if you are someone such as myself who had not heard of the mennonites prior to researching this case i'll provide a brief summary now mennonites are a christian religious group that originated in the netherlands and switzerland during the early 1500s and since have grown to be present around the world some mennonite communities are more conservative in their religious views than others and these people tend to have a noticeable dress code well the scripture says that we are to be modestly apparel and we have particularly taken a style that covers the body and is not a flashy type style we've also heard some talk about technology and how mennonite culture views that can you comment on that at all it will vary from church to church but primarily your conservative churches are looking at use of technology that does not compromise biblical values so this is why television is not in their homes because of the potential to well the filthy brings in with regards to i guess violence or non-violence what is the mennonite church stance on that our stance is we call it non-resistance and our beliefs go back to the the founding of our church in 1525 in zurich switzerland that is a a bible doctrine that we've held to um very closely if someone were to attack you or to impose violence on you what would your reaction be then in that situation according to these beliefs according to these beliefs we would not want to cause physical harm to anyone non-resistance is more than just not reacting in a violent way to someone that's assailing us it is a way of life would a mennonite participate in in the military in the united states no all right and would they would that fall under a religious objection a conscientious objector uh situation how does that work it would be conscientious objector you mentioned law enforcement generally they would not participate in that because of the need for force correct what about if if somebody needed to to defend themselves against an aggressor what would be the mennonite response tradition it will vary a little bit but we would feel is to use um to resist to the point of killing an aggressor and that person if they're not saved and ready to meet their maker we've condemned them to hell and that you know it's better my life to be sacrificed and be ready to meet my maker and to have someone die and be condemned to hell with my hands mennonites reject infant baptism believing that a person must be of an age where they can fully understand what they are saying when they profess their faith in god they are pacifists and believe in non-violence they are opposed to war and are often referred to as peacemakers some mennonites do use modern technologies but in a limited way conveniences such as electricity and automobiles are used only when necessary whereas more conservative mennonites prefer to withdraw from all technology these people choose the simplistic and modest clothing that has been mentioned and women are required to wear a head covering the community in which sasha lived is considered to be more on the conservative side of the mennonite beliefs but they didn't completely reject all technology sasha did own a phone but it was an older model cellular device with only calling and texting capabilities and she also owned a vehicle which would be used to drive around town or to visit her family who lived in texas sasha came from a large family who lived in grandview texas she had only moved to farmington about a year and a half prior to january of 2020 so that she could work in a mennonite publishing facility called the lamp and light publishers over her time at the lamp and light she would become a cherished member of the team for not only her work as she spoke three languages spanish english and french and would translate many works from one language to another but for her positive and loving personality sasha was living with a group of three other young women in a share house titled the lighthouse and as she intended to stay in the community for the foreseeable future she was preparing to move into her own trailer this way she could continue to do the work that she loved within a community that she felt connected to the trailer was going to be her very own space and she was said to have been quite excited for this change the mennonite community at farmington where she lived is tight-knit and rather small with many people who attend the church living all within the neighborhood around it or a short drive close by how many folks are there in that mennonite community i'd say it's less than a hundred okay and and the main uh i guess structures in that area would be the gingrich home right and the lamp and the lamp and light is the publishing house right those two and then of course you have the church right yes the brown building right here is the church house and the rest of the the houses where different ones lived this right here would be a pathway up to where we lived okay so this blue house here in the corner that's where you live that's right from our house we could see the church house all right walking distance yes okay what are we looking at here that was the trailer where sasha was planning to move into we've heard the this community being described as a compound that is a word and i do not know where that originated with and that's that's a common way to describe the church community the the buildings those who live around the the church building lamp and light but yeah it's not a compound there's no wall or fence right yes people are free to come into the community and leave the community that's correct is there also do you encourage visitors to the community as well we encourage people to come to to visit a sunday morning at church that is visit visitors are welcome on the day of january 18 2020 sasha would go shopping with one of her roommates to purchase a bed for her new space uh we unloaded the bed and then um i helped her put the bed together okay in the trailer itself that's right when she and lily were putting her her new little bed together i just went up to her trailer for a minute or two and um just saw what they were doing and chatted a bit and went back to my house all right and so that was the trailer just to up the hill correct um do you recall what time that was that afternoon no all right um did you ever have any other contact with sasha later that evening the main thing i remember is the last time she left the house at any point during that day did sasha indicate to you that she intended to go to the church later that's right and what was the reason for that to pick up some sunday school material okay sunday being the next day that's right was she a sunday school teacher she was um substituting for someone all right you don't recall her coming back from a church or showing you she got books is that right no i do not did you ever see sasha again after you had dinner with her that night i did not did sasha ever appeared to you to be unhappy on january 18th 2020. she did not sasha leaves her house just before 7pm and even though the church is within walking distance she chooses to drive there because it was dark and cold her roommate lucinda leaves some lights on so that when sasha comes home later on she will be able to navigate her way through the house this occurs at around 11 pm 10 30 is when we're expected to be in our rooms and quiet and so i should have gotten concerned because it was a little bit on the late side but sometimes if one of us girls goes to a friend's house close by and get to talking you know it can get a little late so i really wasn't worried i just thought well as long as i leave this light on and her bedroom lights on she can see to get through the living room back to her bedroom and i just went to bed at 1 30 i just woke up and i don't remember any noise or anything i just i just woke up and i noticed that the same lights were still on and that made me feel kind of strange because obviously sasha had never never come back i texted lily i said where is sasha i'm scared i got up and said she's in her bedroom and then i went and looked and she was not so then we went down to the church house i tried to call her soon after lucinda had texted me but she did not respond just as quick as we could we just headed down to the church house we walked in it was all dark there wasn't anything really to see it just looked like a church house would look at night it was just dark and we went through the whole thing just looking for her and nothing seemed unusual we just didn't find her did you see her car yes where was that parked right close to the sidewalk like right in the front you could call it the front of the church house sasha's friends cannot find her anywhere which leads them to contact a number of people who live in the community nearby by 3am there is a small group of mennonite people all searching for sasha around her home trailer the church and the publisher where she works not only can they not find her but they can't find any signs of where she may have gone there are no indications of struggle and important belongings such as her wallet are left behind everyone that knows sasha says that she would never have run away and if she had it would have been highly out of character the only thing seemingly out of place is that a small sum of money from the church donations box was missing 9-1-1 is contacted and law enforcement begin their search hello i'm san juan county sheriff shane ferrari with an update on the sasha kraus investigation on january 18 2020 sasha krauss was reported as missing from near her home on crouch mesa the san juan county sheriff's office then began our investigation into her suspicious disappearance with limited scene information it was difficult to determine whether sasha was voluntarily missing or we were working at kidnapping so our investigation looked at both of these possibilities over the last four weeks we conducted ground searches aerial searches canine search and entered sasha's information to federal databases that would alert us if law enforcement had contact with her the search goes on for four gruelling weeks and in this period law enforcement follow every lead that is presented to them one of the steps taken was to interview many people from the community one of which whom at around 7pm on that very day did see a strange car parked down by the church as she walked home from work i saw a vehicle sitting down below by the church by the school doors okay and what was that vehicle what did it look like it was a darker i couldn't see much it was a darker vehicle all right um do you know whose car that was i mean like now no i don't i didn't know whose it was didn't know who it was in addition to the interviews conducted surveillance footage was recovered from a nearby storage building and this camera was able to see one of the only roads leading in and out of town on this footage detectives point out two vehicles of interest what you'll notice is right up here you'll see these reflectors right there there's a dip in the road if you watch this vehicle this vehicle is traveling right through the dip what you don't observe until after the dip in the road is a brake light indicating that someone would be attempting to slow down keep in mind approximately maybe 30 yards past that dip is the stop sign to county road 350. they highlight this vehicle right here just in front of it there is a dip in the road and all other vehicles slow down before coming to it whereas this one seems to travel through it at a high speed and also another which looks as though it may have been traveling down the road for a period of time with no lights on and it appears that the headlights flick on with no lead up to them coming into visual range like all of the other vehicles headlights do the window of time the detectives say sasha went missing there were a total of 10 vehicles that passed through this camera's range six vehicles entering town and four exiting unfortunately due to the camera quality black and white footage and time of night that the video was captured detectives are unable to make any identifications as to what these vehicles are or who they may belong to sasha's cellular data records are obtained and police discover that her cell phone had pinged off a tower which services the farmington area at the time of her disappearance then about 90 minutes later it pinged off of another tower west of farmington because these two towers were close together and operate as hand-off towers for a major highway it was impossible to find any other devices that might show similar tower activity as there would have been hundreds of other devices pinging at the same times in the same areas police eventually come to a dead end yes at one point time after we had gathered as much information surveillance statements and so on took the time to follow up on that information to the best that we could with what we were what we had under the circumstances uh we did come to the point where investigation efforts were exhausted with what we had to work with and at that point time we had no further leads to follow up on we got to the point where we had exhausted what we were able to work on at the time and and that was kind of kind of the end of the the bulk of the investigation if you will on february 21st 2020 cynthia marie schultz a camper who is a regular in the sunset crater area a location which is in arizona 260 miles away about a four-hour drive from farmington new mexico cynthia is setting up her camp and preparing for a storm which is rolling in i have been collecting wood and then i came up around the back of my camp and i saw in the distance like something white and um and they collect garbage around there so first thought was like i'll come back here and like it's a white plastic bag or something and i could tell it was a bubbly and and it was like face down the sun was still up and it was early afternoon and i you know i think i was hoping that the person was sleeping okay so what did you do and i just looked looked at the body and they said man ma'am really loudly a couple times ma'am and there was no movement i knew it was not good we were contacted by the coconino county sheriff's office in reference to the body of a female that was found just outside of flagstaff the body of the female descriptors were that similar to that of sasha our detectives were dispatched to that area to meet with their investigators in determining a positive identification and to share our investigation with them now during this time there was a lot of information over social media claiming that we had in fact found the body of sasha krauss however without an autopsy we could not confirm arms and hands were in front of her body and they were there was duct tape that was kind of wrapped around the hands kind of wrap holding them together she was wearing a a gray dress a white sweatshirt with a hooded sweatshirt a pair of black blink black black shoes and black socks her hair was kind of fashioned in this bun with uh there was some clips in like a mesh type of thing to hold her this bun in place she did not have uh she had a bra but i don't yeah she did not have underwear on so she had um kind of on the right side of her head kind of near the top of kind of a little bit to the right there was about a two inch laceration we noticed in the hood of the sweatshirt there was a small defect that had a little bit of grey discoloration around it it raised the possibility of could there be a gunshot wound so before we went too much really any further we did an x-ray to look to see if there was any signs of that there had been a gunshot wound and and on the x-ray we did see that there was a uh there was a bullet and some small fragments of a bullet within the head that autopsy has been conducted and it's with a heavy heart that i now report that the body of sasha krauss has been identified and located i want to thank everybody in our community that helped us disseminate the information about sasha hoping for her safe return to sasha's family i give my heartfelt condolences on behalf of not only myself but the san juan county sheriff's office our investigation now transitions to a criminal investigation we have partnered with the coconino county sheriff's office and federal authorities in trying to identify and apprehend the individual that's responsible for sasha's kidnap and murder we are fully committed in capturing this individual sasha was recovered in an area where the environment at this time of year is ideal for body preservation the medical examiner would say that the dry air and cold temperatures led to very little signs of decomposition and because of this her time of death was easily placed within the period of her abduction she was found with her head covering missing something that her friends and family said that she would have never left home without and as you heard from the medical examiner her underwear was also missing despite this there were no signs of sexual assault no dna under her fingernails and no bruising on her arms and legs indicating a struggle now that sasha's body had been recovered detectives get a warrant for a cell phone tower record which services the area of sunset crater so the concept is dump the cell sites where she's abducted dump the cell sites the last place we saw her phone and then however much time later they're going to discover the victim's body in arizona and distance wise we're really getting out there now it's all the way down just north of flagstaff significant distance that's the third area dump that area as well do we have on any provider to be clear do we have what we refer to as a common device and what i mean by that is after i look at all the unique devices around farmington and all the unique devices around the four corners area and then all the unique devices around north of flagstaff when we look at those how many devices do we have for any provider that were in all three locations farmington four corners flagstaff do we see across any provider a device that we also see in those same locations where we see the victims and that's what they that's the records that i was provided how many devices were hitting off those towers at that time for for all three locations on verizon and t-mobile none and for att there's only one device that hits all three of those locations and corresponds with those time periods the device in question is a cell phone belonging to 20 year old mark gooch mark gooch was a military man in the air force working as a mechanic he was stationed at the luke air force base in phoenix which is hundreds of miles away from farmington the youngest of seven siblings mark had grown up in a mennonite family and when he was young the family had lived on a dairy farm in a place called gleason mark would say that because his family wasn't born into the mennonite religion that they had joined at an older age he felt as though his family were always treated like outcasts a sentiment that was shared by two of his brothers as well as mark grew into his teenage years he chose to not be baptized into the mennonite faith despite this though he would still attend church with his family and live under his parents rules he would tell a friend that he had found a living life as a mennonite to be difficult sheltered and restricted and that life on the dairy farm he found to be depressing he wanted to live like other people at some point in his teenage years the gooch family would move away from gleason due to trouble between their family and the town following their move away from gleason mark would find himself in a bit of trouble the youth had become very antagonistic towards the church and was implicated several times in burglaries against mennonites one of his friends would say that he had joined mark on at least five separate occasions where they would target and rob mennonite people when these robberies were being committed the pair would always wear gloves to not leave fingerprints and were very careful about leaving behind hair or dna his friend says that they would always be looking for money when they engaged in these crimes january 10th of 2018 it is documented that a robbery was committed against the business and during the invasion a memory card is stolen from a security camera there later it is found that images taken by that camera were present on mark's phone and one of the images shows his car a dark colored vw jetta parked outside of the premises whilst a hooded and gloved individual appears to be entering the building when mark turned 18 years old he would turn his back on the mennonite religion by going against his parents wishes and joining the air force the effort to persuade him not to join the military was religious based yes i know that you have another son that was a law enforcement officer is that also true that is correct that okay from your perspective no all right um so uh once in the in the air force did you embrace mark's decision i never it's like this everyone has to make their own way in life um he'd made the decision he had to fulfill his obligation at that point we no longer discussed it in in that regard because he was there he couldn't he couldn't he'd already signed the papers he had he had to be there for the four years after mark's cellular data was obtained by law enforcement using a technology called nilos network event location system detectives are able to see quite precise location data of that device and its movements so to orient everybody we're looking at that arizona new mexico region and we're starting on the 18th of january we're zooming into the phoenix area and we're going to continue to zoom in to the western edge of phoenix down close to luke air force base so there is luke air force base kind of the edge of it the last time we see the device in that vicinity is at 8 39 a.m the morning of the 18th january 2020 by 904 the device has moved to the east this is still on luke air force base the significance of this is that at 904 we see clear movement of the beginning of what's going to be a route that this device is going to travel all right let's go to the next slide and tell us what we're looking at so as the device departs luke air force base we're going to see clear travel to the north we'll travel through the peoria phoenix area and then north on i-17 and we're going to zoom in right here 10 o'clock 1001 the device that we're tracking 3215 took a picture and we're seeing that picture right here this photo was taken at 1001 on the morning of the 18th january 2020 if we zoom in i can see a sign up ahead of those two cars i can make out the word horse and wreck and we can confirm this picture because google earth and google maps offers a street view there's horse in this case it's not blocked so we can say it says horse thief basin we could see wreck in the picture its recreational area exit 248 this is the very within meters of the location of where that picture was taken so this nilos is now corroborated to be in this location at the same time when that picture was taken right so from here we're going to continue to go north on i-17 just follow the trail up to the next location and i'm going to get a second photo in this area from the same device the photo itself is as you're driving you're south of flagstaff driving north and you get a picture of the san francisco peaks we do get an exit sign there and when we zoom in we can see that that's exit three three kachina boulevard mountain air road it is at 11 09 a.m on the 18th of january and in street view we find there's exit 333 kachina boulevard mountain air road and we have the same mountains in the background even the trees in the background match so same location both photo and the nilos data in close vicinity to each other from here we're going to continue to see movement to the north very short period of time on i-40 but then the device is going to go north on highway 89 get off onto 160 and we are going to see that device now up in up on the navajo reservation in the area of kyenta arizona and we're going to get a gap here the time period is 13.25 that's where we lose these hits but we see it again
past kyente at 13.55 so 1325 to 1355. it doesn't take that long to drive straight through that area there is time enough here to have a stop to address that so do we have any corroborating evidence that shows that maybe there was a stop in kyente there's a mcdonald's there in that town there's only one and it's at the intersection of 160 and 163. what we're going to find is that there is a bank statement that shows that the device stopped at this mcdonald's and made a purchase there's the receipt itself and you can see cayenneta arizona with a date and time of january 18th at 1 42 p.m which falls in the middle of our nilos times so that's right in the middle plus highlighted on there is an excerpt from the bank from the credit card statement after the stop at mcdonald's the device is going to continue across the reservation and enter new mexico and we're next time we're going to see it it's in the location of farmington and what we're going to see is we do get a sign of stagnant activity there's multiple hits here but they're all piling up on the same lat long so we know that the device was in this area and that the records match that there was a stop for 31 dollars at that particular store with the speedway and the address matches the records from here we're going to go through farmington to the eastern side kind of move up a little bit to the north and the very first time that we see this device in this neighborhood is going to be at 16 14 and 40 seconds and stop that's the car 4 18 pm on 118 at 20 20 yes sir let me back that up a little bit all right now it is it's small on the screen but can you identify some of those features you recognize when you saw the defendant's car in the parking lot there is um as you move it through the frames of the of the video it clears up just like that emblem does but there's the small little bit of differentiating line here as opposed to this line here there's a sunroof cover right here on the top of this of mr gooch's car right there all right so this was one of the initial hits on the way in and then once in the neighborhood all that stagnant activity is going to be in one of three locations so it kind of does some bouncing around between these three areas we get a device several multiple hits there multiple hits over here and some hits down here that yellow pin that's near where the church is is that right uh that was the area i was given as the last known location for salsa that's being referred to as the abduction site let's visit that that last grouping over there about as close as i can get to it right there the church itself right here we do get three outgoing connections during this time period so there's three examples within that window that three hour and thirty one minute window of outgoing activity 4 55 pm and we have an outgoing voice call this voice call lasts for over 25 minutes and it's going to the third most contacted person in these records how many calls on january 18. six calls six six calls okay when was the first phone call 10 58 am 1206 pm for 8 minutes and 32 seconds 8 minutes and 42 seconds at 12 17 pm for 3 minutes and 42 seconds 1 19 pm missed call no zero minutes who is calling whom i was calling mark grouch 1 25 pm how long 30 minutes and 33 seconds uh at 4 55 pm for 25 minutes and 44 seconds mark gucci was calling myself so if we were to add up all that time we're talking about over 90 minutes of phone conversation that day is that right that seems correct okay you don't remember anything from those conversations something would have stood out i believe i would recall that do you know where he was when he made those calls i did not recall where he was did he say anything about taking a trip that day not that i can remember do you have any perception that on january 18th the conversations you were having with mark that he was traveling i believe we may have lost cell service or call dropped that would have been made my only perception of he was traveling cancel i asked you about your memory of that trip on january 18 i'm calling it trip sorry the conversation you had on january 18th um and you do remember that called dropping at some point yes but you don't remember anything about the content not that i can recall is it fair to say you don't have any memory about any conversation you have with mara gooch on the 18th of january i would say that's fair would also be fair to say that you had the most conversation you'd ever had during that year and a half period with him on the 18th of january only in the context of phone calls not in the context of other forms of communication other forms being walking over the computer we would talk quite extensively for hours a week all right so fair to say he wasn't on the computer during that day right based on the phone calls correct all right so this would have been the next morning am and what did you ask where are you at by now question mark where are you at by now what were you talking about i can't remember the circumstances surrounding that text i can only take it at face value do you have a phone conversation with him in reference to where he might be not that i can recall okay the last time we will see this device in the area will be just prior to 1945 close to 746 and it has left the area of stagnant activity and from here the device is going to move to the west so after three hours and 31 minutes in this area against stagnant activity where does it go next from here now we're gonna i'm gonna put a lot on the map we got some stuff to talk about so now for the first time we're seeing some activity from our victim's phone so from sasha's phone and the last time we have a connection to an a t cell site from her phone in this area is at 1952. now we're well to the west of of um farmington and what we're seeing is data activity both devices hit the same cell site up here up to the north barely more than a minute difference and they travel all the way across farmington together and now they're getting ready to enter into the area of the navajo reservation in the same speed in the same locations and in a general vicinity with each other just before the 9 pm time period this time they're perfectly matched same cell site same sector they're both are right on top of each other that will be the last time that we see our victims phone we will in the records we never see that phone again we're going to go back to watching the nilos and it's going to take the exact same route that came into farmington it's going to take that route back our nilos is going to travel through the navajo reservation but instead of continuing on to flagstaff we're going to see a deviation off the known normal pattern that a navigation app would take you through this area on the way back this device is going to exit highway 89 onto a road called loop road this is the road that would take you through the sunset crater area right that is correct if you entered from the northern section that would be this turn off so this device came down to the intersection and then boom it's going to move off to the east 16 minutes after midnight it is definitely off of highway 89 and we're gonna get to continue to see movement on this on this loop road which is the only route available through this area but we get and i'm gonna pause it right there we get a big gap through here we get this section where we're going to lose nilos the only way to get from this location to this location in the time that the device goes from this location to this location is continuous movement on loop road there is no other option what was interesting is the device passed sunset crater then it turns around and it comes back and now it's 1 13 am this device goes stagnant somewhere in this area in the vicinity to the east of sunset crater for two hours and 20 minutes the pin over to the right is going to be where the the victim's body will be recovered later from there the device will continue to travel to the west by 3 41 a.m is back in the vicinity of highway 89
just over three hours of total time kind of in this area the device is going to get back on highway 89 and we'll see it take the normal route that we would expect to see for travel to the area back through flagstaff and south on i-17 and the device will continue to move down and take the normal route we would expect to see as it returns to luke air force base 6 49 a.m the gate that that this device will drive through that gate to enter luke air force base and in the records for the gate has the defense name and the last four social security number the local time that that card was scanned is at 653 so last nilos is at 6 49 and then scanning the car the car driving into the base at 6 53 if we did like a google maps travel time to take into account the deviation to follow loop road would be approximately 7 hours and 30 34 minutes the total time for return in this case based off the nilos is 11 hour and four minutes two days after mark returns from this trip on january 21st at 5 43 pm he unexpectedly makes another trip out to sunset crater the nila starter once again places him right next to the location of sasha's body and he stays there for around 20 minutes before driving back to the air force base there are no other stops made on this trip after reviewing this cell phone tower information the lead detective meets with mark at the air force base on april 21st 2020 and an interview with him is conducted so there were a few things and you mentioned this in the interview inconsistencies uh let me ask you about some of those he mentioned in that interview that he attends church quite a bit anything you found in this investigation that would corroborate that statement i found nothing during the investigation that cooperated he thought he went to church often all right he he also mentioned the interview that you asked him if he had driven anywhere outside of arizona in the last six months what was his response on that he told me no there are a large amount of inconsistencies between what mark tells the detective during their interview and what the evidence she has gathered says a few of these are as follows once he admits to the detective that he was in new mexico on january 18th he states that the trip had slipped his mind that's why he hadn't disclosed it earlier on he mentions that he went to the area to check out a ski resort but when he got there it was closed due to covert police later learned that the ski resort was never closed on january 18th and the closest to being closed it was was that one of their many ski lifts was out of service for the day mark says that he had been recently looking for fellowship at a mennonite church as he had been feeling like he wanted to rejoin the faith and was lonely he'd been wanting to find a church to attend and because the ski resort was so close to the farmington mennonite community he decided to drive over there and check it out he mentions that he had learned about this community from a friend or family member who once attended the church there although he couldn't remember who that person was upon getting there he says at 2pm he swung by the church checked out a sign out the front which indicated service times and then quickly headed back to the air force base as he wanted to get home before dark he says he had hiking plans with a friend the next day and didn't want to get home too late the trip home he indicates was a direct drive with no stops maybe one short one for fuel and that he got back to the base at about 9pm when asked if he could have gotten home later than nine he says quite possibly it could have been between one or two am the investigation shows that he arrived at farmington at 4pm and not 2 that there has never been signage for service times outside of the church that he left well after dark that he had a three-hour stop at sunset crater on the way home and that his friend whom he said he was going hiking with was unaware of these plans finally he arrived back at base at around 7am not 9pm his reason for this was that he pulled over to have a sleep and mustn't have realized how late it got throughout this interview the detective notes three points of behavioral interest one was when she was talking about his mennonite upbringing he appeared to show some form of emotion and it seems to be a rather sensitive topic for him at another point he tells the detective it is kind of boring and when she asks him what is he says the interview when he learns that he may be a suspect for sasha cross's murder his demeanor is calm as he states that he had nothing to do with it as the detective begins to put some heat on and confronts him about his inconsistencies mark becomes rather agitated and asks if all people are subject to this sort of questioning at the conclusion of this interview mark is arrested for the murder of sasha krauss i would have preferred to have included audio from that interview rather than narrate it but unfortunately the quality was so bad that i found it not possible following mark's arrest his phone is analyzed and a number of other details are uncovered which raises the detective's eyebrow a week prior to the disappearance of sasha mark's cell phone is tracked to another mennonite church in the phoenix area whilst he is in this area he adopts positions around the church in a similar fashion to what was seen in farmington creating a triangular-like position with the church somewhere in the center during this visit to the phoenix mennonite church he is texting with his brother sam gooch to sam from mark it says wyd today making some breakfast might do some cleaning bored as [ __ ] hmm same for some reason even this morning's surveillance was boring also from mark a bunch of old people without much left to live for also from mark and clearly not the mennonite people we grew up with sad to say another disappointment did you know that marguche was surveilling mennonites i'm assuming you're basing that on the text message in exchange between us so yes or no question did you know i'll sustain the objection if you want to ask another foundation question mr barker absolutely uh let's say early of last year based on that text message which i took face value yes okay and a text message you're talking about this is a message margaret sent to you about surveillance of mennonites correct outside of that text message did he talk to you about surveilling mennonites no he had expressed interest in a looking for a church close by or attending a service but never anything regarding surveillance the word surveil is being used suggested or sounds like being used in a sinister negative way do you perceive it that way i did not perceive that text message in that way your brother is a military guy could that be simply him using a military word yes it was not unusual for k words like that would it surprise you to learn that he never used the word surveillance anywhere else in that tax record no it would not there is another string of text messages which would come under scrutiny in regards to this case this time these messages were between mark his brother sam and their other brother jake jake being the police officer who also rejected mennonite faith this police officer had pulled a mennonite over whilst they were driving to a wedding and following the traffic stop these messages were exchanged between the brothers this was on march 14th 2020 at beginning at 8 48 am this one is from jake just gave him meta knight a ticket [ __ ] yes also from mark i hope you treated him like [ __ ] it's from sam haha hell yeah tell them the va state police doesn't like cultists from jake i did lol from mark haha [ __ ] yeah from jake i coughed on him so he would spread corona to the wedding they were going to lo haha that's [ __ ] hilarious is it a ticket that he has to appear in court from jake yep it's reckless mark responds hell yes jake says i told his gf there's freedom outside of colts and they look so weirded out did mark gooch hold any grudges against the mennonites i can't necessarily speak to what mark's feelings might have been well that's what you told police right that he had a grudge against the community at the time that's what i said what do you mean at the time when that interview was uh done are you changing your opinion now at the time that was opinion and speculation i can't 100 speak to how mark may feel or think why would you say that he had a grudge at that time don't recall my mindset at the time that is what i said based on transcripts but i can't necessarily know what i was thinking on why i would have said that at the time would you tell him to let it go let that grudge go if that were the case yes well that's what you told the police you told him right i believe so did you tell him you can't blame them the mennonites for how you grew up that sounds correct and why would you say that if he hadn't told you he had a grudge the way we grew up was as you know different from many people it wasn't always easy for all of us each of us had different experiences and we took it different ways and is it your understanding that mark gooch did not have a positive experience in the mennonite church you could say that i'm asking you what you could say that would be a question from our gooch did you have a positive experience with the mennonites i held no ill will towards the mennonite group that is part of my upbringing and i accept it for what it is but as i grew up i made my own decisions in life and choose to chose to move on towards from that wasn't there a feeling that this mennonite community pushed you out or didn't accept your family you could say that yes where did you grow up sir most of my growing up years were spent in gleason wisconsin leasing consisted of a gas station and a grocery store at a bar and that was about it i worked as a pharmacist and still do and we also dairy farmed i was in the process of doing both trying to pay off the debt on the farm and my children were highly involved in the farm work both milking cows and cropping you and your family left the church in gleason and it wasn't on good terms was it there was some there were some issues basically um we left because they were expecting me well basically take an economic loss of over eighty thousand dollars and get rid of my herd uh immediately i sold them the following spring and we had left to move to another community i i didn't catch the last part and left what we left to move to another community because of that what would you call it a rift a grudge no not a grudge uh what i would call it is they were they were asking things of me that were not economically sound and i did not feel at that time was uh six months made much difference but that's not the way they saw it it was easy to feel that that we were less accepted into that culture and since we were not necessarily born into it not a multi-generational family that had been in that in the mennonites for decades all right so there wasn't a feeling of acceptance is that fair i think that's fair right did that generate some negative feelings it could have it's a yes or no question for you for myself it did at the time okay the evidence continues to pile on as on the 28th and 29th of january police learn that prior to sasha's body being found mark had searched for the farmington police facebook page and on the 2nd of february he searches the farmington facebook page specifically for an article relating to the missing person sasha krauss there were also three occasions which saw mark delete his google account location history the first time occurred directly after he returned from the first trip to farmington on the 19th of january the second occurred directly after he returned from the drive to sunset crater on the 21st of january and the third happened a day after sasha's body was discovered looking deeper into this third event of a location data deletion it is learned that he had taken his car to get fully detailed and financial records indicate that after the car was completely washed inside and out he had made a purchase of liquid bleach after his car is cleaned and detailed and the bleach is purchased his google location history is deleted once more mark then messages a friend and asks if he can store his rifle in their gun safe the friend agrees and the gun is dropped off furthermore after mark's arrest he would contact his brother and request something of him after his arrest did mark ask you to remotely wipe his phone yes i believe so and not just his phone but the sd cards as well based on the transcripts that is correct you remember when that conversation occurred i believe it was shortly or within a few days of his arrest did you also attempt to clean out uh margu's google account no i did not there's no conversation about deleting anything from google not that and recall our conversation was about accessing his accounts i was going to do so with the tension of cancelling any auto payments and bills and so forth he may have had all right and that was in the same conversation where he asked you to remotely wipe his phone i believe so that's all i have thank you it was not discussed during this trial i believe because a felony conviction charge is pending for sam gooch but another thing that mark requested of his brother post arrest was if sam could travel from wisconsin to arizona to collect the rifle stored at his friend's house sam agrees to do this and unknown to him law enforcement have intercepted those communications police get to the friend's house first and obtain the rifle swapping it for a replica and after sam collects the replica rifle he is arrested and charged with facilitation to commit hindering prosecution sam is offered a plea deal of three years probation no prison time if he testifies against his brother in this very trial and this leads me to what is probably the most critical evidence in the trial which also made it subject to the most debate the bullet that was recovered from sasha's neck would be sent to a ballistics expert for the state to try and identify whether it had come from mark's rifle or not their expert takes the stand and for a number of hours she details the process of her work based on my examination and using the comparison microscope i was able to determine that the rifle item 44 did fire the bullet item 32. the defense for mark gooch would not go down without a fight and had hired their own ballistics expert a third party who performs bullet identification services would have a differing conclusion and because of this as expected cross-examination of the state's witness was aggressive the witness states that in her 26 years of experience no other expert has questioned her work a statement that the defense attorney picks apart as he uncovers that she actually worked on a case in 2015. two of her peers did not agree with her opinion this is but one of the many paths that the defense attorney would take and the cross-examination is tense as it brings into question the possibility that the state's witness was overworked and did not put the care into her examination as she could have that without any sort of photographic presentation of her work the jury is just meant to trust her word because she said so when this concludes the defenses expert takes the stand and unlike his peer he does have photographs to assist with his testimony i will say typically it's not common to show photographs from a microscope like this i felt it was pertinent in this case because of the drastic difference between what i saw with test fires and what i saw with the evidence and i'll show that as we move forward there's some scratches that go from from my test fire onto their test fire and match up these things line up inside of that land impression and so i'm going to do the same thing and walk you around this bullet so if we rotate back to plus one again you see lots of nice agreement right there as i would expect because these are test fires from the same rifle eleven test fires were used to verify that the rifle could produce a bullet which was eligible for identification all of these eleven bullets matched with each other once the images of the fatal bullet are presented the witness outlines how they do support his findings findings that differ from the state starting here on the left hand side is the fatal bullet it's my exhibit 2a and so what i'm showing is this is the absolute best correspondence that i could get of my bullet to the evidence bullet best case scenario there's maybe one scratch that carries over from here to here however if i rotate if i leave the fatal bullet as it is on that red index and now rotate my bullet four land impressions further so now i'm looking at the same spot on the fatal bullet again there's also some correspondence right there and maybe a little there so that tells me that that amount of correspondence that i'm seeing is random in nature after showing the jury what he believed to be the images which show the most agreement between test fire and fatal bullet he proceeds to go on to show images that in his opinion do not match up at all i want to point out that there's i get the class characteristics do tend to match up you see that the widths of the big lanes and grooves are correct but based on our general rifling characteristics list there's something like 50 different models of marlin rifle and about three or four other brands so we're talking millions of other firearms hundreds of millions would have those exact same widths but again when looking past that at the individual characteristics i'm unable to really point out any clear correspondence in these two photos in these photos that's going around the evidence bullet with both my test fires and those from arizona and at the conclusion i'm showing again basically due to randomness there might be one or two of these straya or scratches that match but in general there are overwhelmingly more differences than similarities and so the conclusion that i have to reach is that the rifle at least in its current condition that was given to me did not produce the same striat to match that of the evidence bullet let's just be clear about your conclusion it's inconclusive is your conclusion right that is correct it would be what's called by afd as an inconclusive you're not eliminating this bullet from being fired from item 44 right correct only because i do not know what condition this firearm would have been in if it were the correct firearm at the time it was fired much like the attorney for mark gooch did the day prior the d.a cross-examines this expert extensively ranging from the possible misleading way that things are written in his report the fact that he's had more than double the experts disagree with him in a time period of less than half of the state's witness's tenure and even questioning him about the wording of one of the emails that he had sent to defence counsel essentially making him look like a hired gun willing to alter reports for money wouldn't it show some level of bias if the examiner were to tweak a report to satisfy the requesting agency yes but that's what you did in this case right or you offered to do in this case um no sir you emailed defense counsel and said i'm happy to tweak and change it to your liking the report is not what you said yes and that was referring to typos or anything like that that's not what you said you said i'm happy to tweak and change it to your liking yes period i mean at that point my conclusions were already solidified the only thing that would need to be tweaked or changed is any type of typographical error um or anything like that that's not what you said right yes this now brings us to the closing statements for each side throughout this video we've seen a lot of the state's evidence so focusing more on the defense here mark's attorney bruce griffin would argue that there is not enough hard evidence here for a guilty verdict he highlights the fact that none of mark's dna was found anywhere on sasha or at the church and none of hers was found on any of his belongings he points out that in addition to mark's presence at farmington there were at least nine other unidentified vehicles at the time of her abduction he vouches for mark's character saying that the man is peaceful and follows non-violence like how he was brought up and overall he says although the state's evidence is compelling it's not enough to prove motive saying that unfortunately mark was just in the wrong place at the wrong time the state's worked hard to try to suggest to you that there is motive in this case because of two text message scenarios over a four year period that have some relationship to a mennonite topic wouldn't you think it would be just the opposite that there would be bunches and bunches and bunches of references to mennonites and hate and mennonites and spew in vile and making plans if that was the intent here that's not the situation he's looking for churches and he's lonely out in arizona and he's looking for fellowship and so is he looking for an elder a an elderly populated church that's not happening the way he would like to have some young people no and he makes a statement about it's not lively here essentially that's his that's the expression he's using it's older people it's not what i'm looking for the second only other reference out of four years of looking at all this data is the traffic ticket bravado bunch of boys talking tough about being stupid and saying offending things i don't know about you i suspect many of us have said stuff over the phone to our buddies to our pals wrong time at the wrong place that we probably if it was posted up on a billboard somewhere would horribly regret but it doesn't mean that that's motive to kill so careful of how we take things out of context to demonstrate motive i want to talk last and finally about the burden of proof doubt that is established by reason from the evidence well it's reasonable doubt the problem with the rifle that the rifle doesn't match that creates reasonable doubt the burden is now yours to decide how you're going to deal with established reasonable doubt lack of objective forensic evidence linking mr gooch to the crime in the sea of circumstantial stuff that the state has presented the jury would not take to mr griffin's argument and found mark guilty on all charges before the judge sentences him he is given the opportunity to speak mr gooch on your own behalf today before sentence is pronounced good afternoon your honor firstly i'd like to express my sincere condolences to the deceased family i'd also like to my thankfulness for the love and support of my own family in this difficult situation thank you the court does believe that the defendant's conduct shown in this case with this horrific abduction and murder shows he is a very serious danger to the community when the court weighs the aggravating and mitigating factors it is this court sentence on count one first degree murder that the defendant is sentenced to prison for natural life and that of course is 100 sentence just to make a record on that i'd like to make a note that at this stage of the video i've transitioned away from research and caught testimony and now speak from my own thoughts and feelings on this case early on in the trial there was a moment right after the cross-examination of one of sasha's friends had concluded a cross that in my opinion was fairly rough and confrontational as her memory was coming under scrutiny she would be questioned by the da during redirect and this would occur even someone in your own community uh you weren't keeping tabs on what everyone's driving is that fair yeah all right and just regarding that white truck or suv whatever you would describe it i'm sorry are you you're right yes i'll be fine go ahead okay you take a minute just let us know i'm sorry it's okay go ahead is there something upsetting you that i asked esther no you're fine is it about sasha it's just the whole scenario of everything probably all right i understand i appreciate it what just a couple more questions thank you just regarding the uh the white truck that wasn't in the church area was it no being on the stand with all those eyes on you and feeling the crushing weight of what can be
2022-06-22 08:12
