“I tested positive for coronavirus early this morning. That's the bad news, but I'm at a CDC/Coronavirus center where they only treat COVID cases (...) For safety reasons, they strongly recommend that you maintain contact only with close family members..."
When Jeff Dreier received that message, it sounded a little strange. It wasn't the way his ex-wife, Gretchen, usually expressed herself. The same thing happened to her friend Dawn Paris who, after trying to locate her without success, decided to report it to the police. When the entire world was stuck at home due to quarantine, Gretchen seemed to have disappeared. Nobody could locate her, but her cell phone didn't stop traveling.
David Ethan Anthony was the son of Susan Warnet, a single mother who raised the little boy in Palm Beach Gardens (Florida). Since his childhood, the boy was the object of ridicule, mainly in high school, where he suffered the burden of bullying due to his being overweight. This led him to fall into depression and undergo pharmacological treatment. Over the years, the young man focused his efforts on losing weight and toning his body, and focused on basketball.
Sports marked a change of direction in his life: he was awarded a scholarship in high school and finished his studies at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. After graduating, he began working as a physical trainer and therapeutic masseuse in some gyms in the area, and becoming successful with his clients. His muscular and attractive presence attracted future partners.
It was in one of these gyms, Orangetheory, where David met Gretchen Crain, a 46-year-old divorced woman, mother of a girl, with a teaching degree who, shortly before the state of alarm was declared due to Covid-19, worked as manager in the human resources department for the company Viking Utility.
Gretchen was a successful woman and came to the gym with the intention of getting in shape after separating from her first husband Jeff Dreier, with whom she had a cordial relationship. In fact, both shared custody of their daughter together. However, David's arrival into his life changed everything.
Trainer and client began a passionate relationship, which culminated in a wedding in Las Vegas in 2015. “They seemed like the happiest couple I had ever seen,” recalled Kelly Halla, one of Gretchen's close friends.
Nothing in David's character suggested anything unusual at that time: “He was intelligent, he spoke well. He was very charismatic. Nobody had to say it, it was very clear that there was a lot of attraction, magic between them.”
The next two years, the marriage was going smoothly, but not the last three. As Gretchen's inner circle explained, these were true hell. David had gone from being the perfect man to a violent and verbally abusive being. Gretchen had become a battered woman. Added to this were the coach's conspiratorial thoughts. She even prepared for the end of the world in 2018.
“I wish I could help him with his mental problems, I wish him the best… but I feel like I can't help anymore and that he needs to learn how to love himself first so he can love someone else,” Gretchen wrote to a friend a year before. die murdered
Such was the fear that the woman felt towards her husband, that she usually locked herself in her bedroom. The situation worsened with the death of David's idol, NBA player Kobe Bryant, in January 2020. This upset him so much that his behavior became angry and erratic, which cost him his job and career. marriage.
Gretchen left him on February 28, 2020, days before the coronavirus pandemic was declared, and asked for a divorce. David took it very badly, got furious and moved to his mother's house. “Stay away from him,” David’s former boss warned her.
To feel safer, the woman put security cameras in the house and they captured him hanging around outside. One night, Gretchen wrote to her friend Dawn about her and told her that she was scared and that she had decided to take a knife and place it under her pillow to sleep more peacefully. On March 23, already in full quarantine, everything changed. Jeff, Gretchen's ex-husband, received a strange message that precipitated everything.
Jeff didn't like Gretchen's way of writing, nor did Dawn, with whom Gretchen had allegedly spoken more extensively by text about her stay in the emergency room and her state of health. The complications reached such a point that Gretchen even told her that she would end up being sedated at a certain medical center.
Faced with such alarming information, Dawn decided to call her, but Gretchen didn't pick up. Her friend notified the family, but no one could find the woman. It was impossible for them and no one understood what was happening. Even less so in the midst of a pandemic when citizens had to remain locked up at home.
Two days later, Dawn called the police to report what had happened and a patrol approached the home. Nobody answered. Then, they called the center where Gretchen had supposedly been admitted, but no one had that name. From there, an investigation began to clarify the facts.
A couple of agents took statements from the neighbors in case they had heard something strange, and one of them stated that, on Saturday, March 21, around six in the morning, he heard “the screams of a woman… she was screaming, as if was being attacked. Then I heard her say, 'No, no. And, immediately, something like: 'It hurts, stop!'” Another neighbor reported seeing a soapy substance coming out from under the garage door. It was as if someone had been cleaning thoroughly.
The investigation focused on two points: obtaining images from security cameras in the area to see when Gretchen had left her house, in addition to searching the home, mainly the garage, to find out what was inside.
As soon as they entered the parking lot, whose lock was forced, the police noticed a strong smell of chlorine and that the cameras installed, both outside and inside, had been torn off. They also found a broken picture frame, shards of glass on Gretchen's bed and a stained towel. In addition, there were small splashes on the wall and inside the washing machine, some towels that had been washed, but had rust stains.
Regarding the hospital admission records, the police confirmed that no Gretchen Anthony had passed through there and that the medical center about which she had informed her friend did not even exist.
Next, they focused their efforts on analyzing the security images, the result of which showed a black Nissan Frontier pickup truck with the rear part covered by a tarp.
It was the same truck that neighbors had recently seen in the area, also that Saturday, and that belonged to the victim's ex-husband. The investigators went to look for him at his mother's house, but he was not there.
According to his mother, her son had sent her a message telling her that Gretchen had been infected and that since they had been in direct contact, he was going to Costa Rica to avoid passing on the Covid-19 virus.
That set off all the alarms and, immediately, a search and capture alert was activated against David Anthony. In the security videos collected, at no time is Gretchen seen, but rather the coach: at the wheel of his truck, in a medical center, in a jewelry store to sell his ex-wife's jewelry...
In fact, David left numerous clues during his escape. One of the most striking: Gretchen's cell phone was still operational and, therefore, its location could be triangulated. On March 27, David tried to enter New Mexico through the border when he was stopped. U.S. authorities knew where the suspect was headed and informed border agents.
“The last time I heard from her she was in a CDC being treated for coronavirus,” he declared when asked about his ex-wife. However, despite having two cell phones on her, hers and Gretchen's, they couldn't hold him. Three days later, when the police recovered the deleted images from the security cameras of the woman's home, they watched the moment of the crime in horror.
David stalking Gretchen, covering her mouth and pushing her into the garage, the woman screaming and asking for help, even asking Alexa to call the emergency services. However, the virtual system only does this if it is programmed to do so, and it wasn't. The image of the murderer was completely recorded: he was wearing sports clothing, sneakers with fluorescent green laces, a cap and white gloves.
On March 31, David Anthony was located and arrested in New Mexico while walking his dog. At first, the coach denied the facts, even though the police cynological service smelled Gretchen's trace inside the truck. He justified this by claiming that they had traveled together to El Paso. But his surreal theories did not hold up.
“She is alive,” he repeated at least 35 times. The assassin did not collapse. Until, with the help of a lawyer, they got him to point out where the body was in exchange for an agreement on the sentence. He alone would serve 38 years in prison. After extraditing him to Florida, David pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and described in detail where he had buried Gretchen. It was December 21, 2020.
The body was located a few kilometers from the victim's house, behind a supermarket and close to a nursing home. Once her remains were recovered, the autopsy ruled that Gretchen had been stabbed in the neck and torso, in addition to having defensive wounds on her hands.
In January 2021, the trial against David Anthony for the murder of his ex-wife Gretchen Anthony began. In the room, and for the first time, the coach was face to face with part of the victim's family.
“You killed Gretchen in the same garage where she saved your life [some time before, the truck was about to crush the murderer]. You are pure evil. You stole a mother from her daughter, a daughter from her mother... You are a monster. A coward. You can never be forgiven,” said Sarah Carey, Gretchen’s sister, on the stand.
When it was David's turn, the accused broke down when referring to his wife: “She was beautiful, kind, intelligent, supportive and knew how to love with all her heart. She was someone who brought light to the darkness of the world. She tried a lot to help me and get me out of my darkness to see the beautiful things in life. Her life had value, her life had meaning and I stole that life from her.” His tears did not move anyone present.
David Anthony was sentenced to 38 years in prison, as the agreement said, and could be released in the year 2058, when he turns 81. Meanwhile, there are many who remember Gretchen and her last message posted on social media. It seemed like a death foretold.
“When chaos surrounds you, the smartest choice is to create peace within yourself. Your peace will shine and help the creation of a new harmony,” she wrote. He never got it. Regarding the murderer, he also left a phrase signed on his Facebook wall: “Let your love speak, not your fear.” Now this makes complete sense, it was directed at his victim. He had her terrified.
