Dateline: Fred and Leslie Mueller

Did you catch Dateline NBC this week? They profiled the story of Fred and Leslie Mueller. Leslie Mueller, according to Fred, slipped and fell to her death into a mountain stream. 48 Hours ran the same story in a one-hour show earlier in the year and now we got to see more with Dateline.

I absolutely do not find one element that supports Fred is being truthful. I don’t believe a word he says, in fact. I didn’t when I watched 48 Hours and now after seeing the two-hour Dateline episode, nothing has changed. I’m only more confident.

But I have to say I was stunned by the jury–most notably the second jury. They said that they didn’t believe Fred was telling the truth, and did in fact, believe he WAS lying. They got that right, but after that, their logic escaped me.

They said that lying doesn’t equate to murder. Then why would Fred lie? Can anyone answer that? Give me a plausible reason. Please.

Leslie’s injuries did not support a fall onto a granite slab so we know that didn’t happen, and Fred’s lie involved that aspect of the story. The falling element of Fred’s story was told to make people believe that is why Leslie died. Since we have evidence that Leslie didn’t fall onto granite as Fred said, and she died–then why else would Fred lie, but to cover murder?

I was also taken aback by the juror who said that the jury was perplexed that Leslie didn’t have any defensive wounds. There was clearly a struggle when Fred’s glasses got knocked off (and he didn’t even remember to pick them up–which shows a struggle that Fred never acknowledged and which is extremely hot and supportive of another lie). But would there be defensive wounds when Leslie was wearing winter clothing and gloves? Her body was covered and protected and so likely was Fred’s.

So if they were grabbing each others clothes, you would not see any defensive injuries, if one is padded, right? And then, it is likely that Leslie ran for her life and tried to get away from Fred, and Fred caught her. It appears that he caught up with her, in or at the water, and pushed her under. In this situation, it would make absolute sense there are no defensive wounds.

And I am not sure there aren’t any defensive wounds. I don’t buy Fred’s story that his face was scratched by bushes. His attempt to describe what happened was littered with clues to his deception here, too. I believe the scratches on Fred’s face were the marks of Leslie struggling to get away from Fred.  That was all she could do–was scratch his face.

If you look at the last photos taken of Leslie, in photo number 6, the expression that Leslie makes gives me the following feelings:  Its like Fred was saying, “Backup, Leslie…it will be a better picture….come on, you can go close to the edge…chicken!!!” and it appears she is thinking, “Come on, Fred, knock it off. Are you happy now?  Can we just get this over with?”

I think he did that to Leslie multiple times and it appears she tried to please him to a degree and hoped he’d get over his weirdness. You can see it in her face.  When it didn’t work, he had her pose with the dog hoping the “damn dog” would spook.  For all we know, he tried to spook the dog after that, and that cause the situation to escalate between them because clearly Fred did not like “her dog”.  The way he talked of the dog was of dislike and disdain. And it was then Fred’s glasses got knocked off and crushed in a struggle.

I hope Fred Mueller is tried again.