So then what ultimately allowed investigators to build their case against Milner?

Well, it really came down to, you know, the good detective work, as we talked about, and following the maroon minivan trail.

So Steven Milner usually drove a white Toyota SUV, and once they seized the car, investigators were able to analyze the data on the computer within the car, and they noticed that he had been going to an Oregon City Home Depot.

Um, he had been there in, in fact, on the day of the murder.

So once, uh, detectives Rego and Winter went to that Home Depot, they asked, uh, security there if there had been any suspicious activity on the parking lots.

Turns out the security did notice there had been a couple of cars that had been parking and had gone in and out of the parking lot a couple of times.

Local law enforcement was called, and local law enforcement then saw these vehicles.

They did everything that they were supposed to do, and they, they still were not protected.

Yeah, it is.

Also, I mean, in my very formative favorite movies of my life, um, it's so good.

It's so, so good.

Um, I just watched it again, uh, like, a few days ago, and I mean, I, I watched that movie...

I don't think I saw it in the movie theaters when it first came out.

I have seen it since in a movie theater, but the, um...

I saw it, where did I see it? At one of the, um...

[laughs]

I did not know that, uh, you were an equestrian yourself, and the horses are pretty interesting as well.

Yes.

Oh my gosh, the horses are incredible creatures.

They are, uh, I think both of them were wi- wild mustangs that had been, um, you know, tamed or broken, and the horse that Matt Scribner was riding, his name was Astro.

And they were so amazing to, to be on, but also so relaxed and chill, surprisingly, given that we had camera crews all around them.

And also, we used drones, and we were a little concerned using the drones, because I don't know if you know this, but when they round up wild mustangs, they, they fly helicopters over them.

And so there was some, some concern that the drone and that sound that they make, you know, that buzzing noise Might freak the horses out a little bit.

Brandon, uh, was said to have a website that sort of ranked levels of violence, and based on the, you know, the witness accounts of what they had seen, it was pretty startling, disturbing stuff.

Why?

Well, this is a case of two different police departments at the time.

You know, there was the City of Tumwater Police Department and Lakewood.

And so Gloria and Rickman, where they were living was Tumwater, and that's where, you know, Gloria reported that Rickman refused to give back her truck.

It was the Tumwater police officer who recognized that Rickman seemed to be a danger to Gloria, and so he asked the judge to issue a domestic violence no-contact order.

Gloria then moved.

She switched jobs to the Holiday Inn Express.

He pleaded not guilty, and the prosecution argued that Rickman had stalked and harassed Gloria in the days leading up to the murder.So I have to say, I found the map that showed Rickman's GPS coordinates from his cellphone and his pickup truck's system really convincing.

So then what ultimately allowed investigators to build their case against Milner?

Well, it really came down to, you know, the good detective work, as we talked about, and following the maroon minivan trail.

So Stephen Milner usually drove a white Toyota SUV, and once they seized the car, investigators were able to analyze the data on the computer within the car, and they noticed that he had been going to an Oregon City Home Depot, um, he had been there, in, in fact, on the day of the murder.

So once, uh, Detectives Rigo and Winter went to that Home Depot, they asked, uh, security there if there had been any suspicious activity on the parking lots.

Turns out, the security did notice there had been a couple of cars that had been parking and had got in and out of the parking lot a couple of times.

Local law enforcement was called, and local law enforcement then saw these vehicles, they were able to get the VIN numbers off of them, these so-called burner cars that Stephen Milner was using.

Detectives Rigo and Winter were able to then track down that maroon minivan to a scrapyard, which, as you saw on The Hour-

They did everything that they were supposed to do and they, they still were not protected.

What was their impression of Ecker when they spoke to him?

You know, I think that's what was so fascinating is that we had so much of that body cam footage.

First responders were with him for about an hour, and that's what everybody was looking at and analyzing, and it's not just the amount of footage, but it's also that it's minutes right after Alex was shot.

I think people enter a situation and look at things and say, "Okay, does it seem genuine? Does it not seem genuine?" And I think first responders analyzed all the evidence in front of them as he was very distraught and grieving and trying to process the trauma in that moment.

It was interesting, when we questioned them about what they thought, they thought he was not producing real tears, and they questioned how he was responding to what they perceive as real grief versus, you know, not grieving.

And I think, you know, throughout the course of our reporting, we looked back at that footage so much, right, Betsy? And we just analyzed and over-analyzed, and we thought of all the different scenarios, and it was, it's really hard to decipher how somebody processes grief is what we've come down to.

What was your impression of him?

Well, I have to tell you, first of all, he was very reluctant, uh, to do the interview with us, and he was hesitant.

How difficult would it have been to find that area without Russell's help?

It was a good 20 miles, or about 30 minutes' drive from the Medford Police Department headquarters, so it was a difficult area to get to, because it was sort of a hilly, remote, wooded area.

But it, it wasn't really, you know, something that they thought out.

Investigators said they drove around for quite some time trying to figure out what to do.

They had the, you know, Aaron's body in the back of the car wrapped up in tarp, but finally, they, they figured it out.

Detective Ford, he says Russell led him right there, and then he said, "Okay, stop." He's like, "Okay, he's right down there over the ravine." And sure enough, the police look down, they see a tarp wrapped up.

And, and once they knew they had a body, once they knew they had located Aaron Fryer, um, they were able to take that picture of that crime scene, and they showed Gavin, "Look, we know, you know, where Aaron is now.

All these notes.

Uh, did you get any pushback? Was it hard to get it done? Like, was it hard to get it made?

No, it wasn't hard to get it made. Uh, what was shocking, uh, but maybe shouldn't have been as shocking, was when we were promoting the film and when I was doing press for it, which I did a lot of press for it, journalists, many, many, many journalists were like, "So, um, you know, this is a movie about them getting the abortion pill." And I was like, "Nope, it's Plan B." And they were like, "So the abortion pill?" And I'm like, "Nope, it's contraception. It's contraception. It's not that." And like, so many people don't know that.

Yeah.

Which is shocking. And I, and I knew that ahead of time, so I made sure that in the movie, so many times we say what it is, what it does, contraception, that you can't, that it doesn't work if you're already pregnant, that it won't kill a baby, that you can't get pregnant immediately after having sex, that it takes a few days, which is why Plan B works. And like, but it's insane that, like, the sex education is America, in America is such that people have no idea. Grown people that are doing news and interviewing people, like, don't know that.