Episode Details

On July 4, 1995, 38-year-old Sue Marshel and her 13-year-old daughter, Melinda “Mindy” Marshel, disappeared from Wayne City, Illinois, after failing to show up for a family Fourth of July celebration.

The following evening, Sue’s green Oldsmobile was discovered partially submerged in a rural pond. Inside was a horrifying scene: large amounts of blood, .32-caliber shell casings, and bloody handprints inside the trunk—as though someone had desperately tried to escape.

Then came an even more gruesome discovery.

On July 8, two boys fishing in another pond spotted a duffel bag floating in the water. Inside were the badly burned remains of Sue and Mindy. Dental records confirmed their identities. Sue had been shot twice in the head, while 13-year-old Mindy had been shot three times. Their bodies had then been burned before being dumped in the pond.

Investigators soon focused on Niels Nielsen, Sue’s much younger former husband. Their marriage had lasted only about ten days before Sue discovered Nielsen was wanted in Utah and reported him to authorities. By 1995, however, Nielsen was back in Illinois and had once again been spending time with Sue.

Evidence began piling up. Police found a .32-caliber handgun connected to the murders, wooden strips resembling the one used to hold down the accelerator of Sue’s car, and a burn pile containing human hair, blood, bone fragments, and personal belongings belonging to Sue and Mindy.

Nielsen initially denied knowing what happened. Then his story changed. He admitted helping dispose of the bodies but attempted to blame another of Sue’s former husbands—an allegation investigators determined was false.

Niels Nielsen was convicted of murdering both Sue and Mindy and sentenced to death. When Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the state’s death sentences in 2003, Nielsen’s sentence became life imprisonment.

This is the true crime story of Sue and Mindy Marshel—a Fourth of July disappearance, a blood-soaked car, a duffel bag in a pond, and the former husband whose lies could not outrun the evidence.

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