On the Friday before Halloween, Dateline is airing the episode “The Halloween Party.” Keith Morrison reports from rural Monroe County in Michigan, where a beautiful 22-year-old woman named Chelsea Bruck disappeared after a Halloween party in 2014. She went to the big outdoor party dressed as Batman villainous, Poison Ivy, but never came home. She went missing for six months before her body was discovered. DNA collected at the scene of the crime led detectives to 26-year-old Daniel Clay.
Clay told investigators that he accidentally killed Bruck by choking her while having consensual sex in his car. He told them Bruck asked him to choke her. When she stopped breathing, Clay said he tried CPR. He then reportedly drove her body about 10 miles from the party and hid her in a wooded area. But the autopsy revealed Bruck was beaten to death with a blunt object. The day Clay was arrested for the murder of Bruck, he called the mother of his child, Jessica Pridyl, who testified that Clay left her two voicemails, in which he said he was “extremely sorry” and “that he f—– up big time” and was going to be “gone for a really long time.” In July 2017, Clay was sentenced to life in prison. At the sentencing he apologized, and Chelsea Bruck’s mother Leanndra Bruck gave Clay a Bible and said, “Today, with the strength from Jesus Christ, I forgive Daniel Clay. I do not want my Lord to ask why I could not offer forgiveness to Mr. Clay.” Dateline airs Fridays at 9pm on NBC.
