Hell and Gone Murder Line: Natalie Bollinger

around the holidays in twenty seventeen. It's also a case with the wildest twist I've ever seen, and I'm not saying that lightly because I've seen a lot. The person who committed the murder is not anyone that the public suspected at all. Most importantly, I'm sharing this because I think it contains an incredibly important cautionary tale about the dangers of social media the impact it can have on crime stories, both for the victims and the victims' families,

and for the people reporting on these cases. By the way, I am still working on the Christina Pipkin case. I'm doing interviews. I've had a huge response. We've had hundreds of calls. The people in Hickory Ridge and around Arkansas and actually around the country have been super helpful and we're making a lot of progress in that case. I'm going to be doing another episode on Christina's case, my final one for now, when we come back in January after a break next week. So back to this week's case.

It all started in Broomfield, Colorado, on December twenty eighth, twenty seventeen, nineteen year old Natalie Bollinger was at home in her apartment. Natalie lived with her boyfriend, Joseph Joey Marino. She had moved to Colorado the year before to be near her dad, Ted and her twin sister Alicia, and some other family members. Natalie's mother, Roe's self lived in Virginia. According to her a Bitchctuary, Natalie was, for the most part,

a normal teenage girl. She loved animals and nature, and had recently enrolled in college with the goal of becoming a registered nurse. All of her friends and family described her as kind and loving, the kind of person who would do anything to help a friend in need. But Natalie Bollinger had also had a tough year. She had been suffering from depression and going through a lot of stress.

Natalie missing. He also called Natalie's mom Rose. He told her he was worried because Natalie's phone was at the house, her coat was there, her shoes were there, and remember this is the middle of winter and she was just gone.

Police said at the time that at first they weren't overly worried because Natalie was nineteen years old, she had the right to disappear or not contact people, and she and Joey had gotten into some arguments like normal couples, but family members let police know it was very unlike Natalie not to be on social media at all, and also family members let police know that Natalie had been dealing with depression and other issues. By the next day, Friday,

December twenty eighth, police were seriously concerned. Over the next few days, the search for Natalie Bollinger made local and then national news. Missing posters of Natalie with her distinctive look, the tattoo of a three eyed cat on the nape of her neck, and purple hair were posted everywhere in town.

right after she went missing. I was working with Investigation Discovery, and when I wrote the article about it, I called this case a social media murder mystery because social media was involved at every single stage, and at every single stage, in my opinion, it both helped and hurt the case. It started early when Natalie's father, Ted Ballinger, posted a message on a TV news station's Facebook page. It read, just left the sheriff, my daughter was murdered.

there's not a threat to the community. End quote now. Even though police did not say much more about the murder investigation, if you listen to this podcast or any other true crime podcast, you know that when police want to convey that they believe that the murder was personal and not, for example, something a random stranger did, this

is often what they'll say. After that, people started to speculate that Natalie had some sort of relationship with her killer was someone that she knew, and that's when all hell broke loose on social media. First of all, you had Natalie's family and they were arguing amongst themselves. Natalie's father, Ted, had started to gofund me, but there was some controversy about that. People made allegations that the money wasn't being

used properly. On January eighth, Ted said that the funeral would be the following day, but later he said the services were canceled due to what he called issues with funding. And then on January eleven, the other side of the family, her mom, Rose, and some others said they were having memorial services for Natalie in Virginia. Eventually, Natalie's funeral was held at the Church of Saint Teres in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Since Natalie's social media was public, a lot of people went to her Facebook page and they found very detailed descriptions of what she had been going through in the days and months before her death. Very quickly they saw she had been dealing with a guy, someone she was scared of, and the final update on her Facebook page was a post about Natalie being stalked. Natalie's life had a dark side, a dark side that she wrote about

on social media. Yet she talked about her problems at home with some family members, about depression, and about her experimentation with drugs, and of course, social media sleuics immediately started looking up information on anyone who was even tangentially connected to Natalie, including her father Ted. Ted had a criminal record that included arrest for burglary, car theft, some

drug charges, and felony assault. This is all, by the way, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation court records.

it seems like his fixation increased pretty dramatically throughout twenty seventeen. Later, he posted long text messages and social media message exchanges between him and Natalie where they shared the details of their lives and supported each other. But at some point it seemed like Natalie started to become afraid of Sean. Natalie claimed that Sean was obsessed with her, and she claimed he had driven across the country to see her

and slept behind her work for weeks. She wrote quote he sent emails for over a year close to every day, harassing me, making numerous different accounts until I'll block him again, threatening my family, telling me he'll kill himself in front of me, and sending my friends and family threatening messages as well.

being arrested. Meanwhile, Sean said he wasn't even in Colorado at the time Natalie disappeared. He said he had nothing to do with her disappearance, and he said he could prove where he was because he had receipts. Sean's social media showed videos of him posting these long rants against the system and sometimes against Natalie's family. Some of these videos seem pretty scary, but at the same time, Shawn

also seemed like a vulnerable person. According to his own description of himself, he had mental health issues and nowhere to live.

had been a mixed blessing in this case. The sheriff said, quote, Facebook gets to put out that information before we can go through our official steps to make sure that we get it right. In today's day and age, it's kind of fascinating how much information we can gain from that. On the other hand, there is a lot of information that is absolutely untrue, false accusations. Our goal is to make sure that we're not headed down a rabbit trail

that we don't need to go down end quote. And I think the sheriff's statement really epitomizes the reality of social media in these cases.

that he really was having issues. In the beginning of twenty eighteen, I was worried that this whole situation was building towards something bad, that something very bad was going to happen. People were literally messaging Sean and trying to figure out where he was. By this point, he had gone to Boulder. He said he couldn't stay with family and was basically staying between motels in the street. I found myself getting very concerned for him. Also, some of

his posts seemed very irrational and rambling. I started to wonder would he do something to someone else, would someone do something to him. The way that everything was playing out uncontrolled, in this really public and frankly terrifying way, seemed like it was spiraling toward some type of terrifying conclusion. On January fifth, Sean posted on Facebook basically challenging the police to come find him and, in his words, put me in the ground.

ended up leaving. Now, the police claimed they were trying to help Sean by taking him to the hospital, but that Sean became uncooperative and started kicking and fighting with them. They say that's why he ended up with the assault charge. Whatever the reality of all that, you have a situation where in January you have this incident with Sean and the police. You have headlines saying that a person of

interest in Natalie's case was arrested. And even though the articles did say that Sean was arrested on an unrelated charge, let's be real, a lot of people don't read that fine print.

Sean posted a Facebook live video which has now been deleted, of himself in a motel where he said he had been driven to take his own life. The video showed him taking pills from a pudding cup. Several people who saw the video managed to contact emergency services. Paramedics rushed to the scene and they treated him. Sean made a

full recovery. And while this whole thing with Sean was playing out so publicly on social media, in the background, other people were talking about Natalie's boyfriend and trying to figure out his timeline. The boyfriend, Joey, by the way, was completely cleared by police early in the investigation.

her password and get to her text messages. This happens a lot in cases because sometimes police have to get a search warrant from the provider, so there was a delay, but once they saw those text messages, they got a shock.

It became very clear there was a very obvious suspect in this case, and it wasn't Sean, and it wasn't anyone in Natalie's family or her boyfriend, or anyone who the public expected, because the man who police suspected of killing Natalie Bollinger was in fact a twenty three year old Domino's pizza delivery guy named Joseph Lopez. Up until a few days before her murder, he had been a

complete stranger to Natalie. Once police saw the text messages between Natalie and Joseph Lopez, which I'll explain in a minute, they went to the pizza place where he worked, and according to the arrest affidavit, he was cooperative. He realized he was caught and he immediately told police what happened. And the story that Joseph Lopez told was wild. In fact, it's one of the most unbelievable things I've actually ever heard. If it was a movie, I'm not sure I would

find it believable. But like I always say, sadly, this is real life, not a movie.

police went through the digital forensics very carefully. They went through natalie cell phone. They went through Joseph's cell phone. They figured out not only had he responded to this ad, but that after he did, Joseph and Natalie swapped contact details and they started texting. In the end, they texted over one hundred times. They talked a lot in detail about the fact that Natalie wanted to end her life and she wanted help to do it.

of money, but it's not clear how much money. So then, again, according to this document, they came up with a plan Joseph would pick Natalie up from her apartment on December twenty eighth, and after her boyfriend left for work. That's exactly what happened. Joseph drove over and picked Natalie up. According to Joseph, they talked for a while and they drove around. Natalie talked about the problems she'd been having in her life, her relationship with her boyfriend, and some

other stuff, just her general depression. Then at some point they started to drive toward the area where her body was found. Natalie had brought her boyfriend's gun with her, which she had said she would do. This is where the story diverges a little bit. Because Joseph Lopez initially told investigators that he didn't kill Natalie. He said, yes, he did pick her up. They talked for a while and then he said, of course, trying to paint himself in the best possible light, which many suspects do.

Facebook groups. Because I'll join any group that I can, I will do anything to find information that could close the case. I communicated with some people there. I let them know that i'd written a story for the Investigation Discovery blog and that the autopsy report was part of that story. It was really strange though, because a lot of people said it was fake news. Later, a lot of people were very supportive and thanked me for trying to provide original documents in a case where there was

so much speculation. But I think it's really important in cases like this to be able to find those documents, things that came directly from the medical examiner's office or from the police in the case file. Whenever possible, I always try to find the original source documents. And what that autopsy report showed was that Natalie was killed by gunshot wound to the head. She also had a potentially lethal amount of heroin in her system at the time

of her death. I talked to a forensic pathologist and asked them to weigh in on that autopsy report. I asked the question that a lot of people were asking, which is would the drugs in her system have eventually killed her?

but again he said he didn't do it. But police knew that Joseph Lopez was lying because what he didn't know was that police had his car GPS data and that data showed that Joseph Lopez, or at least his car, had driven to the area near that dairy farm where Natalie's body was found. So then he changed his story that he did go out there with her, but he said Natalie shot herself in the head.

a downward trajectory from several feet away. The story Joseph Lopez was spinning was literally impossible. Finally, Joseph Lopez knew that he was caught. He told police, yes, he did shoot her, but he said Natalie begged him to shoot her.

they found was seriously disturbing. Joseph Lopez told police that he kept a journal in high school, a journal where he wrote stories about kidnapping people, torturing them, and executing them. According to the Denver Post, now, there's nothing illegal or necessarily even alarming about writing horror stories, but he told investigators he had had fantasies about doing these things to

people for real for a long time. So at this point people were asking a lot of questions that I think are very interesting, Like we talk a lot about the right to die, but we're talking about people who are older or in pain. What about when it's a mental health issue? What about when it's a young person. There's a lot about this case that we still don't know, because of course we'll never get the full truth from

Joseph Lopez, Like did Natalie take the drugs herself? Or could Joseph Lopez have injected her with those drugs.

her his victim. Joseph Lopez was charged with first murder, and it later came out that Facebook had even played a role in helping catch him.

in prison. That means that he will be in prison until he's at least seventy years old, but technically it does mean he will be eligible for parole at some point during his life. Ted Ballinger, Natalie's father, told the local news channel Denver seven, he was very upset about the DA's decision to offer Joseph that deal. Ted said, quote, there's no justice in this and for Adams County to have enough evidence to convict him and then make him

an offer is a spit in my family's face. She was vulnerable and drugged.

this is only an opinion. But I can really see both sides of that argument, because on the one hand, yes, they did have a tremendous amount of evidence, this was a premeditated murder, and they had a confession. But on the flip side, there were some complications. For example, the defense was trying to have some of Natalie's text messages excluded and without going super in depth into their arguments.

If that had happened, I think that could have been catastrophic. Also, it's always a throw of the dice when you're dealing with a jury and human emotions, and this is such a strange story. I would worry that even if technically Joseph Lopez was totally guilty, that maybe there'd be one juror who might think she wanted to end her life and therefore they might want to let him off more lightly.

So I do think that there was some risk there, and in the end, even though he will be eligible for parole, he will be an old man by the time that happens. But I can also totally respect and appreciate the feelings of some of Natalie's family members who feel like they were betrayed. Eventually, Natalie's family tried to move on, so did Sean Schwartz. By the way, again, he was never charged with anything to do with Natalie's

disappearance or death. He was completely cleared, but he continued to experience fallout from a lot of this social media stuff. Now some of it one could argue he fed into himself because he was also posting, but the whole thing just seemed to get more and more toxic. Eventually he started feuding with Natalie's twin sister, Alisha. Eventually, Alisha took out her own restraining order against Sean, and then in

October of twenty nineteen, Alicia disappeared. The Kansas Highway Patrol confirmed that there was a vehicle that was involved in a police pursuit. Alicia was a passenger in that vehicle. After police stopped the car, they took Alisha to a hotel where they dropped her off, and after that she vanished. Fortunately, Alicia was found a few days later. She was safe and well. After the drama between Sean and Alicia, some other members of Natalie's family were saying they didn't feel

safe either. They feel like Natalie's fear of Sean was part of the stresses that she was experiencing during the last days of her life. I can certainly appreciate their perspective. For me, this whole case has exposed the fact that you have vulnerable people. These are not public people, and when they feel like they're being stalked or targeted online, or their families are being stalked at times, online sleuthing

can be really dangerous. I think about this every single day in my job, because there's no doubt that Facebook and other social media can be very powerful tools. They can give us information about what was inside of victim's mind before they disappeared or murdered. They can put you in touch with people they can make people feel comfortable about reaching out to me and others. But I think

we have to be very careful with social media. We should be polite and courteous, back everything up with solid facts, and not succumb to what I call this kind of mob mentality.

about some of the darkest times in my own life. Luckily, for me, I've had wonderful friends and family who have been there for me at my darkest times. But even with that, depression can be fatal. Sometimes in the depths of depression, people do feel more comfortable talking.

each other. I truly believe that the best way to try to find answers and justice is about all of us coming together, helping each other, being curious, and always being polite and kind, because in the end, that's how we're going to find these answers.