For the Dateline episode “Silent Witness,” Andrea Canning travels to Green Bay, Wisconsin to investigate the 2016 murder of Nicole “Nikki” VanderHeyden. The body of the 31-year-old mother of three was found in a farm field on the outskirts of town. She had been strangled and hit on the head. Two men were arrested. One was Douglass Detrie, the father of Nikki’s third child, with whom she lived and had “a drunken fight” in the hours before she died. The other was 40-year-old, 6’7”, 250-lb. George Burch who was seen at a bar with Nikki the night she was murdered. Detrie was arrested but never charged with VanderHeyden’s murder. Due to a lack of evidence, Detrie was released 18 days after his arrest. Burch was charged with the murder of VanderHeyden.
At his trial in February 2018, Burch said he gave VanderHeyden a ride home from the bar. Burch accused Detrie of killing VanderHeyden while he and VanderHeyden were having sex outside her home. Burch claims Detrie knocked him out, killed VanderHeyden and then forced Burch at gunpoint to dump VanderHeyden’s body in a field about three miles away from her home. Burch says he did not report the crime to the police because he was afraid of going back to jail. (He was on probation after serving time for Grand Larceny in Virginia and wasn’t supposed to be in Wisconsin.)
Prosecutors say Burch gave VanderHeyden a ride home from the bar and then got angry when she turned down his sexual advances, which Burch denies. (Burch’s DNA was found on VanderHeyden’s body; Detrie’s was not.) Prosecutors also claim “it’s unlikely Detrie would be able to overpower the 6-foot-7, 250-pound Burch without bringing any visible injuries to himself.” Plus, data from Detrie’s Fitbit, which has him asleep at home during the hours of VanderHeyden’s murder, was provided as his alibi. On March 1, 2018, Burch was found guilty of VanderHeyden’s murder. In May, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Dateline airs Fridays at 9pm on NBC.
