True Crime with Kendall Rae
A Fitbit Helped Solve This Murder?! The Case of Nicole VanderHeyden
Thu, 09 Jan 2025
In May 2016, 31 year-old Nicole VanderHeyden, a mom of three, was found dead in a field. Initially, her boyfriend was suspected as they had been in a fight, but his FitBit data showed that he was elsewhere during the murder. That's when they realized someone else's DNA was on Nicole's body. -- This episode is sponsored by: Rocket Money SKIMS - select “podcast” in the survey and select our show in the dropdown menu that follows! Nutrafol - promo code: KENDALLRAE Check out my foundation: Higher Hope Foundation: https://www.higherhope.org/ Watch my documentaries: 530 Days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjUWkmOjNLk Apartment 801: https://bit.ly/2RJ9XXr True Crime with Kendall Rae podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3rks84o Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3jC66pr Shop my Merch! https://kendallrae.shop Check out my other podcasts: Mile Higher (True Crime) @milehigherpod YouTube: https://bit.ly/2ROzJcw Instagram: http://instagram.com/milehigherpod The Sesh (Current events, a little true crime, pop culture, and commentary) https://bit.ly/3Mtoz4X @the_seshpodcast Instagram: https://bit.ly/3a9t6Xr *Follow My Social!* @KendallRaeOnyt Instagram: http://instagram.com/kendallraeonyt Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kar4NK True Crime TikTok: https://bit.ly/3VDbc77 Personal TikTok: https://bit.ly/41hmRKg REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://zfrmz.com/yg9cuiWjUe2QY3hSC2V0 Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://zfrmz.com/HGu2hZso42aHxARt1i67 Join my discord to chat with other viewers about this video, it’s free! https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN C O N T A C T: For Business Inquiries - [email protected] Send me mail: Kendall Rae 8547 E Arapahoe Rd Ste J #233 Greenwood Village, CO 80112
Chapter 1: What happened to Nicole VanderHeyden?
Yes. How do I go about, I guess, missing persons?
Okay, and who's missing?
It's my girlfriend, and she does live with me, and she's never done this before. What's her name? Nicole. Nicole?
Now, a few hours before Doug made that call, another older gentleman who lived just down the road from them had placed a call to 911 himself. And he called 911 because it turns out his grandson and his grandson's friends were helping him remove some stones from his field when they stumbled upon what no person, especially children, should ever have to see.
What is the address of your emergency?
We just found a human body laying in some weeds.
Okay, person beyond help? Or do I need to give instructions for CPR?
No, it's beyond help.
It's starting to decay. Is it a male or female?
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Chapter 2: Who was Nicole VanderHeyden?
And what was even harder to understand was the fact that weeks started going by and it didn't seem like anything was happening with the case. But there was. Earlier in this episode, I told you guys how Nikki was found only wearing her socks and a pink bracelet, like the event bracelet. And it turns out that there was some DNA found on her socks.
And when they ran this DNA through CODIS, it came back as being a match to 38-year-old piece of shit George Stephen Birch. And it turns out his DNA would end up being a match to all other DNA found on Nikki and the murder weapon. But who was this guy?
Well, when investigators first looked into him, they could see that he was from Virginia and didn't appear to have any connection to Nikki whatsoever. So how did this random dude's DNA end up on her sock? Well, if you haven't already figured it out, it's because this good-for-nothing shitbag murdered her. It turns out that George was new to the Green Bay area.
He had just moved there a few months earlier after going through a divorce. He ended up moving in with his buddy Ed Jackson and Ed's wife, Linda, who he had been friends with for over 20 years. And the thing that interested investigators the most about him was the fact that on his record, It showed that he had already been arrested for murder.
Back in 1998, he was arrested for the murder of a man named Joey White, who was supposedly a rival gang member. A jury did end up acquitting George, but investigators felt like this wasn't a coincidence, so they kept looking into him, and this is what they found out.
George, whose nickname is actually Big Country because he's six foot eight, was a regular at this bar called Richard Cranium's, which happens to be a half mile away from the sardine can. Investigators also learned that he had recently been associated with a hit and run incident. I'm talking like right after the murder. And what happened was the Jacksons had let George borrow their Chevy Blazer.
And one night that vehicle was involved in a hit and run. And on top of being super banged up, whoever was driving the car also decided to torch it. And naturally, the police suspected George was involved since he was the person known to drive the vehicle. But of course, he said it wasn't him and that someone else had stolen it.
Now, they didn't end up charging him with anything since they couldn't prove that he did it. But the whole ordeal ended up really being a golden ticket in Nikki's murder investigation. It turns out when police brought him in for questioning over that whole ordeal, he ended up giving them written permission to download the data from his phone.
And he did this because he thought it would prove that he wasn't near the area where the hit and run took place. But what big dummy dumbs didn't even factor in was the fact that now police had access to everything. And so to make a long story short, investigators got a hold of the data and it proved that George was at every single location associated with Nikki's murder on the night it happened.
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