Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
an ex firefighter was found in the garage of his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. When the detectives began to investigate, they found chilling footage of what appeared to be a mysterious figure lying in wait outside his home.
What followed would be an investigation with more twists and turns than any of them could have ever expected. Who was this mysterious figure and how would they catch him?
on december 29th 2016 two women in in Albuquerque new mexico made a frantic 911 call after making a discovery so terrifying , it would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
within minutes, officers responded to the scene.
they found the women waiting outside the residence,both appared to be in shock from what they had seen.
as they moved with cauthion towards the garage where the women had said their friend had been,nothing could prepare them for the gruseome sight they were about to see.
there were no longer any doubts, this was now a murder investigation.
the officer began by taping off the garage,and then moved to interview the two friends who had called them to the scene.
the distraught coworkers could barely manage to get out words but they were able to identify the deceased; his name was don fluit.
then they revealed the heartbreaking reason behind their visit to check on don.
the truth hit home hard,this little girl would now be growing up without her father.
the women too could barely fathom the inhumane nature of what they had just witnessed.
but the officers knew that this information was crucial . so they carfully steered the convesation forward.
the coworkers helped the officers understand a little more about don and his background, and during this time more unites began to respond to the scene.
the lead investigator detective matt caplan from the Alburqurque PD also arrived at the scene and set about learning all he could about don.
as forensic examiners began to flood the house,they started collecting evidence to aid in building the investigation.
when they looked in the garage, they noticed something missing which was about to lead them to their first big clue.
it seemed that the killer had tried to cover up their tr tracks,when they tested the house with luminol ,the examiners found numerous traces of blood that appeared to have been cleaned up hastily.
in addition to this, don’s injuries included multiple blunt force imapcts to his head ,a vicious slash across the throat, and scratches on his arms and hands.
the latter in particular indicating that he had put up a fight against his attacker.
with this in mind , his fingernail clippings were collected , and after testing them,it was confirmed that they bore foreign DNA that did not belong to don.
in all likelihood , it waas the killer’s, which gave the detectives a huge boost in their investigation.
from examining the house,it appeared that nothing was missing , and there was no signf of forced entry.
this had not been a failed robbery, all signs seemed to point towards something far more menacing.
with this in mind , the investigators began to canvs the neighborhood in the hopes that someone who knew Don might stand out to them.
they also hoped that someone may have seen or heard something suspicious the night before.
when they questioned Don’s next door neighbor,she gave them an intriguing piece of information.
this women had seen Don leave and return the night before, and had even spoken to him.
but then she dropped another bombshell that had the potential to flip the entire investigation on its head.
she had two security cameras on her property, and both of them recorded a portion of Don’s driveway.
they planned to now use this to reconstruct the timeline of the murder, but they could never have anticipated what they were going to find in this footage.
in the footage ,the garage door opened,and Don could be seen leaving to drop off his daughter at around 8 p.m.
but then after a few minutes, a mysterious figure appeared.
this hooded individual walked across Dons driveway and intentionally knocked over Don’s trash can,then disappeared into the shadows.
when Don returned he parked his truck in the garage, but then stepped out again to pick up the knocked over trash can .
but as he entered the garage again , it did not appeart to shut fully.
insteadl it opened up momentarily and a bright light blinked on and off multiple times from the inside before the garage door closed for the final time that night.
the detectives were stunned.not only did they have their culprit caught on camera,they could also see that this individual had carefully planned out the murder, setting a trap to ensure that Don gave them an opportunity to enter the garage.
it seemed like whoever the killer was ,they knew Don and his habits well enough to ensnare him.
it was time for the detectives to look into Don’s family and background to leatn if anyone held a grudge against him.
but first they had the heartbreaking task of informing his mother that her son had been murdered.
Don’s mother’s resolve shattered on hearing the news that she had lost her second child in the past few weeks .
but even in her devastated condition, she was able to enlighten the detectives regarding who she believed may be responsible for this senseless crime.
the answer lay in Don’s past….
Don fluitt was born on september 15, 1962 in los angeles to his parents, james and sharon fluitt.
those who knew him described him as a dedicated father and firefighter, and a devout christian who went out of his way to help those in need.
in his twenties ,he married his first wife ,and had two children josh and tiffany fluitt.
even after his separation from their mother,he always made an effort to be a part of their lives despite the fact he lived many states away.
in his thirties, he decided to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a firefighter .
it was around this time that he met christine an X-ray technician who lived next door to his brother Dennis.
christine and Don quicky hit ff and were soon married,they were then overjoyed to weclome a daughter , whom they named siena.
siena was the apple of his eye and Don doted on her endlessly.
when siena was 4 , after eight years as a firefighter , Don lost his job.
the financial strain led to him and christine getting a divorce,but Don remained an active presence in siena’s life.
still to committed to helping people,he found a new job working with people with disabilities.
he and siena even began a heartwarming weekly tradition.
it seemed clear that Don was a pillar of his community, and someone beloved by all who knew him.
but the detectives knew that something or someone must have turned against him forhim to have been murdered in such a brutal manner.
as it often is in cases such as this ,the police were led to look into those closest to Don.
his mother pointed them in only one ominous direction, his ex wife, chirstine white.
detective caplan learned from Don’s mother sharon that christine and Don were involved in a nasty custody dispute over their daughter siena that had been going on for quite some time.
in addition to this , he learned of another involved individual who also bore animosity toward Don.
the new husband, terry, that was involved with the ex-wife ,there had been some early tension between Don and terry.
detective caplan visited christine and terry’s home to question them regarding the ongoing custody dispute with Don.
he spoke to christine first, who was honet and forthcoming,providing him with her alibi which was found to be true.
but then, she gave him a chilling piece of information that Don had revealed to her just before his death when he had dropped off siena.
had someone been in Don’s house while he was out of town?
was this the mysterious figure the police had seen on the CCTV footage fromhis neighbor?
this seemed like the obvious avenue to investigate,but the detectives also asked christine if she knew of anyone else who may have held some ill will towardds Don, and she was able to give them another troubling angle to look into.
she revealed that Don had a history of road rage and had been a part of heated incidents in the past.
detective caplan now had to consider that maybe someone he had fought with while driving home had followed him to unleash a fatal act of revenge.
but before looking into the new angles christine had provided them , he needed to speak to her new husband, terry white.
to try and gauge whether terry had a motive to take Don’s life,detective caplan quetioned him about his relationship with Don.
terry ageed that there had been tension between him and Don,but stated that it was merely surrounding the custody dispute and that he had never even been inside Don’s house.
but detective caplan pushed for more, asking for his whereabouts at the time of the murder, to see whether he had any sort of valid alibi.
terry provided them with a clear timeline of what he had been doing on the night of the murder and his alibi seemed to cover the entire fimeframe the police believed the murder had taken place in.
they would still need to very terry’s story with his employer, but detecive caplan did not have much reason to doubt the couple’s alibis.
next they ran a forensic analysis on Don’s cellphone to look for any possible leads it could provide them with.
they were looking to see if don had any arguments with anyone recently or planned to meet with someone on the night of the murder and immediately , one contact stood out.
it seemed Don had been in frequent contact with a woman which raised red flags for the investigators as they had not heard about her yet in their investigation.
detective caplan immediately moved to learn more about her and question her about Don but what she revealed only left him with more questions than answers…
the women initially seemed reluctant to share details with the officers but they could tell that she definitely knew more than she was letting on
so they gently tried to push her to reveal more,not knowing that she was about to drop another suspect’s name that they had never even heard of or considered.
she pointed them at benny ruiz, Don’s landlord and told the police that the two of them had fought over an issue with Don’s home which benny refused to address.
but then, when they least expected it, she gave them the name of another suspect,one whose possible involvement made the murder far more heinous.
Don’s own brother, dennis fluitt.
she had found that odd,because dennis just showed up out of the blue and now dennis was very involved in Don’s affairs,since he’s been deceased.
the detectives were floored by tthis revelation.they had now two new suspects whom they knew virtually nothing about to look into.
their investigation seemed like it was beginning to heat up ,but little did they know there were more twists and turns lying in wait than they could ever have expected.
detective caplan began with who he believed was the stronger of the two suspects, Don’s brother , Dennis, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere to take care of Don’s affairs after his passing.
after asking around with Don’s family they learned more about dennis and his possible motive to take his own brother’s life.
dennis and Don had a falling out over their father’s old truck which had been left to both of them in his will,but which Don had decided to keep, without ever consulting his brother.
he ended up moving to arizona for a year after their fight and had only moved back to albuquerque a couple of months prior to Don’s death.
with all this in mind , they moved to interview dennis and brought him into the station.
in the interrogation room, dennis was clearly frustrated at the lack of progress in the investigation.
though dennis’ concern seemed genuine enough ,detective caplan still needed to know more about his possible motive, so he questioned dennis about his dispute with Don.
dennis was open about the dispute, addmitting he had been ngry at Don for taking their father’s belongings,buthe insisted that no matter how angry he had been, he would never have hurt his brother, and he was not the only person who stated this fact.- sharon fluitt ,the mother.
since they had no physical evidence against dennis , they collected a DNA swap from him to test against the DNA found under Don’s fingernails.
dennis was very willing to give the police’s DNA and seemed sure that it would serve once and for all to clear him of any suspicion.
but then before his interview ended, he gave detective caplan a name, one that was chillingly familiar to him.- benny ruiz , the landlord.
this name was all too familiar to the detectives and this wasn’t the first time someon who knew don had mentioned the tension between them.
infact , dennis had given them even more information regarding the conflict between the pair.
it now seemed all the more necessary for detective caplan to speak to benny.a few days later he was brought in for an interview and detective caplan began by questioning him about the dispute between him and Don.
benny was honest about the dispute,stating that the tension on his part stemmed from Don being several months behind on his rent.
it seem like avery plausible motive to the detectives, but jus t when they were beginning to seruously consider benny as their prime suspect he turned the tables on them.
benny pointed right back at the man who had accused him , dennis fluitt, Don’s brother.
he also mentioned how after the death when he had checked in on Don’s he had found dennis living there , and even wearing Don’s clothes, which he found strange.
the police were now on edge, both their suspects were accusing each other and they ad no physical evidence to tie either to the crime scene just yet.
they collected a DNA swab from benny as well to test against Don’s fingernail clippings.
but had to let him go as they had nothing they could hold him for but had to let himgo as they had nothing they could hold him for.
until the test results for benny and dennis returned the police had no other leads to follow.
as this time , they returned to Don’s garage, to test the door and see if they could recreate the flashing light that was visible in the CCTV footage.
it was clear that this flashing only tool place when someone or something tried to cross under the garage door as it was already closing.
this meant that Don’s attacker hadd slipped under the door shortly after Don had entered, triggering the light.
detective caplan was sure they had the murderer’s plan all figured out, but just when they were sure they were on the right track.
they received some information that promised to flip their entire invetigation on its head.
terry white’s workplade had finally sent over their security footage for the night of Don’s murder.
and in it ,clear as day was the slip up the detectives had been searching for all along.
terry had stated in his interview that he had arrived at work ata little past 10 .p.m. and then napped in his car till 11 when hi shift started.
but in the footage it was abundantly evident that terry had entered his workplace, parked the car and immediately entered the office.
it seemed terry had lied about his alibi.
the detectives now had a completely different direction to funnel their investigation in, away from dennis and benny.
it was time to bring in terry white for a second interview,but little did they know just how twisted a plot they were about to untangle.
on february 1st 2017, over 2 months after Don’s body was discovered terry was brought into the station for a second interview with the investigators.
detective caplan asked terry to go over his alibi once again,without revealing that they already had the footage from his workplace that refuted his earlier claim.
but there was no need to keep this information hidden.terry,not the smartest tool in the shed, was about to disprove it himself without any prompting fro mthe detective.
initially he had gone to a fast food resturant and then drove into the parking lot where he fell asleep.
this time around , it was much different, he had gone to a fast food resturant ,he had also gone to a departement store to buy clothing.
then he had gone to the work.but instead of parking in the parking lot, which he estimated the first time, he went to a very dark lit,unrelated business and fell asleep there.
he just failed to mention it the first time around so the story had changed fairly substantially from the first time.
terry had changed his story completely.perhaps he realised that the detectives could check the security footage at his workplace and this in turn had frced him to try and cover his tracks.
whatever it was , he was now the prime suspect to the detectives, so they made sre to take a DNA swab from him as well.
but then , since the change in story was not enough for an arrest, terry was allowed to leave.
the solution the detectives were yearning for was still a little way down the road but its conclusion was noitt going to be as satisfactory as they hoped, now that terry’s DNA had been collected, the detectives had nothing to do but wait.
they sent the three samples from dennis , benny and terry to be tested against the killer’s DNA found beneath Don’s fingernails.
then they waited for the results to return,hoping against hope that one of the three would turn up as a match.
and after weeks of painstaking anticipation , on march 31 , 2017 the results came back.
dennis and sharon were overjoyed at the news,justice was finally going to be served, with th evidence confirming his involvement the police moved to arrest terry.
but as they were preparing to make their move , they got a concerning call from christine.- terry was missing.
the detectives were now livid as it was looking likely that all their efforts had been for nothing.
they put out an APB on terry and his vehicle and also got a search warrrant for christine’s home and car as she was unwilling to cooperate and they feared she was withholding information regaridng where terry had gone.
but when they searched her car, what they found left them barffled beyond belief.
interesting enough ,thy found her cell phone in the glove compartment, and there’s a last will and testament.it’s terry white’s.
the detective’s frustration now turned to fear.
could terry have taken his own life, leaving them no opportunity of bringing him to justice?
they were just beginning to lose hope when a few days later, at an arizona rest stop 200 miles from alburqueque, terry was found in a sickening state.
terry was arrested before his attempt to take his own life was succesfuul.
detective caplan rushed to arizona to interview terry hoping that he could get a confession and close the case once and for all .
but terry had other ideas.
terry had finally realised he could not lie his way out of this situation, he was arrested and put in jail , as the detectives and prosecutors moved to gather evidence and take him to trial .
but terry had one last foolish mistake to make,one that would help the prosecutors a great deal once the case moved to trial.
on june 8th 2017 ,dennis received a text from a woman who claimed that her boyfriend was terry’s cellmate in jail.
dennis communicated the information to the detectives, who deccided to bring the inmate,roderick white for an interview, and what he would reveal would leave them floored.
it seemed the confines of the jail ell had pushed terry to make a full confession.
roderick continued telling them how terry had mentioned that Don liked using the garage to smoke, so he knew that all he had to do was to wait for him.
then rod revealed how terry had described the entire murder to him in gruesome detail.
he says,” i got up, and i was waiting there by the door,he’s a truck driver , so he has a tire thumper. you know, one of those bats you … check the tires with.
he said … as soon as he came out,he said, i hit him as hard as hard as i could with that fucking tire thumper…he said , ” i hit him so hard, it split the tire thumper in three pieces. he said . I’ll give him this: he’s ***** he fought for his life.”
after Don was finally down ,terry returned to finsih the job, but then rod would reveal a horrific detail that he had heard, that confirmed everything he had said was the truth.
he said , ” i went inside the house, and i got a steak knife and he said something about slitting the side of his throat.i had a plan B he said there was a an axe on the wall of the garage. he said that t was plan B.
the mention of the axe sealed the deal.
it confirmed that what rod was telling them was the truth as these details had never been released to the public.
the only person who could have known such unformation was the killler themselves,but rod was not done,he even told the detectives about the exact moment when terry’s DNA had gotten under Don’s fingernails.
and he said,”and i know exactly when it happened,he goes, when i was raining down on the ****** .he reached up ,and his finger caught the inside lip.”
everything in rod’s story was lining up with the evidence, with his testimony and the DNA evidence,the case against terry was beginning to look quite strong.
but rod had another massive revelation to offer and this was something the detectives could never have anticipated.
terry told me several times , on several occsions,that he did it for her.that’ she’s the one that told him”we ‘ve got to do this now.you’ve got to do this for your family .”
yeas, they have been looking for an opportunity for a while.
this was a bombshell that no one had seen coming.if what rod was saying wa true then the true mastermind behind the crime was actually christine, who had manipulated terry into doing her dirty work.
rod went on to elaborate on terry’s attempted suicide.
according to him the reason for it was so christine and siena could collect the large lfie insurance policy on terry’s name.
but when terry’s plan was foiled, christine wasn’t exactly thrilled.
what the fuck? why are you still here?basically ” why have you not killed yourself?”
but rod’s tale was about to reach its extremely strange conclusion.
he said after getting out of jail he contacted christine and made her an offer that he would smuggle in pills to terry in prison so he could succefully take his own life like christine wanted.
and i said ,” i need to buy the pills and i just don’t have money, we went to hre bank and got out $200.she was crying and she grabbed my hand,she like , was patting my hand . and she said ,” we all have our dirty little part in this”
it seemed chritine had been determined to collect the life insurance payout , even with terry in jail,but rod had no intention of helping her with this , and had taken the money and spent it on himself.
but the detectives had heard enough, a few days after the interview they arrested christine and charged her with first degree murder and conspiracy.
terry’s case was set to go to trial in june 2018 but before this the detectives faced a heartbreaking result.
the case against christine was dismissed as the evidence against her,which was largely based on rod’s testimony , was not enough to take her to trial.
as terry’s trial began ..
the prosecution’s star witness was none other than roderick white.
but even he a career criminal ,could not fathom the absolutely inhumane reason behind the murder.
at the end of the trial , it took the jury only six hours to review the evidence and deliberate,before they reached a verdict.
guilty off first degree murder.
Don’s family was overjoyed at the verdict.
on agust 16 ,2018 ,terry white was sentenced to 42 years in prison notably during the trial and sentencing, christine never once showed up to support her husband in court when he was sentenced.
his refusal to accept his guilt and apologize was bittersweet for the fluitt family .
after terry’s imprisonment, he reach out to christine for help in prison but what she said on the call spoke volumes.
christine showed absolutely no sympathy towards her husband who had seemingly taken the fall for her,but as the court continued ,her callous behavior towards him would only worsen .
as terry reached out for support, she flat out denied him , focusing only on hr own problems.
she would only continue to shoot down his hopes.
and there it was.christine had completely used terry for her own purposes and had now discarded him as he was of no use to her anymore.
though the trial ended and terry was imprisoned,the case is not over for Don’s family.
they believe the true mastermind still roams free, andeven worse, she now has sole custody of Don’s beloved siena.
the prosecutors statedthat the investigation into christine is still open and they hope that they will one day be able to build a case against christine nd take her to trial.
but they don’t know when , or if this will ever take place.
for Don’s mother , the pain of losing her son never truly faded.but despite all his loved ones mourning his passing, thay all acknowledged that the greatest loss was felt by someone who they may never see again and it is here that we will end this tragic tale.