Heidt Family Murders - The Case of Craig Heidt

**Episode Transcription

Welcome to Love and Murder, your weekly true crime podcast where we discuss relationships that turned to murder and our motto is “You’re either someone’s last love or their first murder.” I’m your host Ky and this show discusses true crime cases told in the form of a story with mystery and suspense.

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In today’s episode, I’ll tell you about a case of a prominent real estate developer and his son who were found shot dead and the wife was gravely injured. Who could have committed such a crime. As we go further into the case, we’ll uncover a dark family secret involving the incident. So grab your apple juice and hold on to your butts.

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In the meantime, let’s get into some Love and Murder

Phillip Heidt was born on September 24, 1948. He grew up being very involved in church and even when he graduated from high school he began serving on the church council. He was described as being very likable and pleasant.

In the 60s, he met a young lady at a Savannah County Fair. Her name was Linda. Linda says that Phillip “stole her heart” right away and they got into a relationship pretty quickly. After a very short relationship, they were married and started a family – 3 boys Phillip (but he was called Craig), Chris, and Carey – who was the baby, born on June 10, 1976.

Around 1967, he enlisted in the GA national guard and served for 20 years until he retired in 1987. After he retired, he then moved onto working in real estate. In his community, he became a very respected person; someone that people looked up to. The family was the 3 well behaved kids, white picket fence, and a loving husband and with – something that you only read about in some books.

Phillip’s real estate business was very important to him. It had become a success to the point that he was known for being a multi-million-dollar mogul in his field. In addition to his family and his business, he also raised cattle on the family farm, was a member of multiple associations, and was the president of the chamber of commerce.

“They are a family that loved their family and I think you can see that throughout the whole Heidt clan. There’s a lot of love that goes through them.”

Carey was known to be Phillips favorite son, maybe it was because they shared the same interests and had very similar habits. Carey even met and married a woman, Robin, very quickly just like his father. Carey met Robin in high school and was married soon after graduation. The two went on to have 3 kids as well.

“We had a good, prosperous living. He was a very good husband. When he was there, he was a very good father, a wonderful father.”

He was also the only son to follow in his father’s footsteps of going into real estate. Being that he had the backing of his father, as well as similar habits, Carey ended up being very successful in the field and him and his father went into business together which proved a strong and formidable partnership from 1984 to 2004.

In 2008, when the recession hit, it hit the family business kidna hard.

And then another family tragedy struck; the family had found out that older brother Craig, was having an affair with Carey’s wife Robin. DAMN! Who would to that to their own family?! At this time, Craig had had 2 children and was divorced. He was also on disability due to a really bad back injury and living in one of his family’s cabins on a hunting club near Oliver.

The affair started in April 2008 and after 2 weeks, in May by this time, Robin told her husband. They then began marriage counseling. “He said he wished it would have been anyone else except his brother. He said he wasn’t going to allow this to happen. He said we were going to work this out. He said Craig would never be a part of the children’s lives.” However, even though Carey now knew, Robin kept going with the affair. As a matter of fact, Robin and Craigs slept together about 20 times before the affair actually ended.

Robin admitted that, although she loved Carey, his work had kept him away more days and nights than not and she’d been feeling lonely for a long time – “At the time, I felt Craig was giving me attention Carey wasn’t giving to me,” Robin said. Not an excuse.

She also said that her relationship with Linda also became distant during this time. But, through all of this, Robin’s affair with Craig continued. What’s wrong with this woman? This isn’t about being lonely.

This pissed Phillip off, “The most important thing to him was his family; He always wanted his family to be close to each other, he always wanted his family to love each other.” Phillip was pissed at Robin, “Look around you. These are things Carey can give you. Craig can’t. You don’t understand him. You don’t know how he is.” Robin responded with, “It’s not about these things.”

But Carey still loved Robin and was working hard to find a way to fix this and make his family whole again. Carey, dear, this isn’t your fault. SHE should be working on a way to fix her mistake and make her family whole again.

Phillip then had a stern conversation with his son, Craig. He told him that if he didn’t stop the affair, he would cut him out of the will and he would inherit nothing. That right dad! This still didn’t stop the affair to the point that Carey took Robin off of his life insurance as the beneficiary, worth 3.5 million, and instead put it in a trust for his children. How much you want a bet that dad was the catalyst in this step.

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On Saturday, August 23, 2008 Robin got ready to go to a night out with some teachers from Buyton Elementary School where she was a teacher’s assistant. After she left, she found out that the night out had been cancelled. Instead of taking her ass back home, she b-lined it to Craig’s place and they spent a “romantic” night together. The next morning, they woke up to a low hanging helicopter outside of the cabin. Instead of it moving on, it just kept flying around the cabin in very low circles. LaMs, what the ffff is going on?! After awhile, the helicopter flew away leaving Robin and Craig confused and annoyed. “It’s probably someone Mr. Philip had hired to fly over and see if I was here,” Robin said. They then proceed to discuss the situation and how annoyed they were about Phillip butting into business that wasn’t his.

The next day, Robin went home to make lunch for her family and Carey left to sleep at his parent’s house. He planned to come back the next day to take the kids to school. This would have been the first time during their 13 year marriage that he spent the night away from his wife.

Robin, being the awesome wife that she is, called Craig to tell him that Carey had left the house for the night.

At 5am on August 25, 2008, Linda woke up to 3 police officers knocking on her door. When she answered it, offices informed her that Carey and Phillip had been murdered and that Linda was still alive but badly hurt. She’d been taken to Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah, GA.

When officers had gotten to Phillip’s house, they found Linda conscious and on the floor. She was behind the kitchen table with her cellphone in her hand and a cloth, that was soaked in blood, covering the gaping wond on her face and neck. Phillip was in the master bedroom, shot in the face with the bedsheet pulled over his head. It appeared that he’d done this himself in an instinctual effort to protect his head with something. Carey was still in bed, under the covers in a spare bedroom, shot in the face.

The weapon of choice seemed to be a 12 gauge shotgun.

Investigators also smelled gas everywhere, even before they came into the house, as if someone had poured gas all over the house, but no match had been struck. This had to have happened after the murders as with this much gas, if a gunshot had gone off, the entire house would have gone up in flames. It seemed like the perp was going to burn the house down with the bodies in it, but had gotten interrupted.

Everyone had been shot from close range; around a 2’ distance. The only thing that saved Linda was that it appears that she turned her head at the last moment and, instead of dying, was in very critical condition. The bullet had gone through the lower left hand side of her face and through her right shoulder.

Police were wondering who did this and they did ask Robin if her husband had any enemies to which she said he didn’t.

Later that afternoon, she ran to Craig, “I walked right up to him and I said, ‘Did you do this?’ and he said, ‘I can’t believe you would ask me that.’ I said, ‘I need a yes or no. Did you do this?’ And he said, ‘No.'”

Linda was in a coma and was the only witness police had.

Police still had to conduct an investigation though. Without anything to go on, they turned to the evidence at the crime scene. There were no fingerprints that didn’t belong to the family, there were no shell casings, but they did find a key, still in the door, that had opened the back door. The only ones who know about that key, that was usually hidden in a storage room in the family’s carport, was family members.

“After looking at the scene, it became obvious that the scene was staged. It was meant to look like a robbery, however, nothing was taken of note. There was money left, keys left.”

Investigators considered if Philip’s business connections could be a motive for murder.

“Every time Philip had had an argument with somebody, you know, we had to go and investigate and talk to those folks…see what was going on with it.” A quote from Sherrif McDuffie.

They also considered the neighbors, who were suspected of cooking meth.

In the end, they found nothing; no motive and no suspect

Sheriff McDuffie got a thought; he remembered a converstaton that he’d had with Carey a month ago,

“…he knew that his wife was runnin’ around on him. But he did not tell me who it was with.”

Then, at around noon on Tuesday, Robin admitted to investigators that she was in fact having an affiar with Craig.

GBI Special Agent John Barry interviewed Craig and Chris Heidt to see if they had any information. The interview with Craig lasted an hour and a half at the Effingham County Sheriff’s Office.

In the interview, Agent Barry asked Craig about his affair with Robin. Craig said he would never betray his brother like that. But about her being at his place that Saturday? Well she needed to take a shower to go to some baby shower or something. Really? That’s the best you could come up with?

Craig: “I know it looks bad. But I’m going to tell you something – I could never do that to my brother. I could not do to that my brother.”

Agent Barry: Have you ever pulled a weapon at your brother over Robin?

“No, sir! No, sir!”

Agent Barry: “What if I said Robin said you’ve been having sex with her?”

“That’s not true, sir. I’m being truthful with you. I have not had sex with Robin!”

“She’s a liar?”

“No, sir.”

“In your heart, do you think Robin had Carey killed?”

“No, sir. … There is no way – there is no way Robin had anything to do with that.”

Agent Barry: What should happen to whoever killed your father and brother.

“They ought to be executed. I mean put them away – put them away.”

Agent Barry: And where were you on the night of the murder.

Craig: I was at home alone watching some fishing and hunting and a rodeo on TV

A month later, Linda woke up from her coma, but her jaw was wired shut, which made communicating to investigators difficult and slow. Of course, investigators were hoping that she would be able to identify the shooter so they were patient.

Painstakinly slowly, Linda’s story came out. The night was like every other except that Carey had come over and asked to sleep at their home due to a fight with Robin, which, of course they let him stay.

Linda went to her bedroom and was doing a word search, and had just gone to the bathroom when she suddenly heard a loud noise. At first she thought that lightening had struck Phillip’s sleep apnea machine so she ran out to check. That’s when she saw that Phillip was in a pool of blood and realized that the noise was a gun, but before she could do anything, she was shot too. She then heard the shooter leave the room, so obviously he didn’t realize she was still alive.

The phone in the bedroom had no dialtone – the line had been cut. At this point, Linda passed out but she didn’t know for how long. When she regained consciousness she remembered looking down and seeing her teeth on the floor by her side, she also realized that her shirt was wet with something that wasn’t just blood. She made her way down to the kitchen, slowly and painfully, and called 911 on her cell. That’s why the police found her like they did.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t provide any information on the shooter other than that it was a man and he was of slender build.

Linda: “I didn’t see a face or anything. …I did not see Craig in that room. …I did not see anyone in there. The blast was what I saw.”

“Can you be absolutely certain that it was not Craig?”

“Yes, I can. I know my child. I know the man he is. I know the heart he has. He does not have a cold blooded heart. I can be certain that Craig did not do this to our family.”

“Have you ever looked him in the eye, and said, ‘Craig, son, did you do this?”

“Yes, I have. And he’s looked me right straight in the eye, and said, ‘No, momma, I did not do this. I couldn’t do this.'”

The investigation went on, but they started looking at Craig. A colleague of Agent Howard mentioned that with a gun of caliber, the shooter’s arm should be bruised up.

“Investigator John Bradley with the sheriff’s department mentioned, ‘I wonder how his arm looks. Typically that type of ammo shot from that weapon will leave a bruise.”

So Agent Howard asked Craig back to the precinct and asked him to take off his shirt.

“There was two bruises on his right biceps and one on his left. There were three shots at the home that night…one that killed Carey, one that killed Philip and the one that wounded Linda. So those bruises were significant.

With the type of pressure from this kind of gun – 48 to 50 pounds on your recoil shoulder – there’s no question that the shoulder would be bruised.”

Craig said – oh these bruises? Of course they’re not from a shotgun! I mean come on. I know yall are experts and everything, but hear me out. I sliplled in the shower and fell headfirst over the toilet and got these bruises.

Now, honestly, I don’t know how investigators keep straight faces when they hear such bs!

Now, everything is pointing to Craig: lying to police for no reason, the affair, and now the bruises. Not to mention, he was the only suspect they’d spoken to who had no verifiable alibi. However, this was still just circumstantial evidencce, so to build a stronger case, the GBI kept a watch over Craig and Robin.

“It was very, very difficult,” Robin said. “He was being, you know, basically treated as the murderer… And me as a conspirator right there along with him.”

In the meantime, in December, Robin and Craig restarted their relationship; first spending time at each other’s respective homes but then in January 2009 – only 4 months after the murder, Craig just moved in with Robin. Now, keep in mind that Robin still lives in Carey’s house – and Craig just moved in with his brother’s widow, in his house. What a piece of trash.

Here’s a quote from Robin, “We had each other. I lost … I lost a lot more than Carey. I lost probably every friend I had because of my relationship with Craig. I had a best friend for 15 years and she stayed with me for another month and then she left. It was very stressful. My family wanted to be there for me, but they didn’t approve of the relationship.” At this point, Robin’s mother didn’t live close.

“Craig offered to help with the children and the horses.” Dude, you could have done that without moving in with her or sleeping with her.

Now tell me in the comments below, if you had a friend who was acting like Robin, would you stop being friends with her?

Although she said she needed help, remember that Carey had left money for his children through his life insurance policy. The kids would be fine; Robin is the one with no money, which I guess she now found out that she’d been written out of the will.

They did everything as a family, but the kids were unaware of the relationship between Robin and Craig. At this point, Robin said she was constantly heavily medicated, “I just didn’t deal with anything. I didn’t want to deal with the public. I was having a hard time dealing with the guilt I had with Carey dying so hurt.” Yea I could tell that you’re so guilt ridden, so guilty to the point of still dealing with Craig.

However, the one thing that did come out of all of this; prosecutors now had their motive. What they came up with is that Craig wanted his brother’s life, the $3.5 million from the insurance, his brother’s wife, and he wasn’t above murdering to get it.

“He is livin’ in his dead brother’s house, sleepin’ in his dead brother’s bed next to his dead brother’s wife. He is taking his dead brother’s children to school. And he’s drivin’ his dead brother’s truck. …he has become, for all practical purposes, Carey Heidt.”

And Robin had so much guilt that 9 months after the murders, her and Craig discussed marriage, bought rings, and planned to move to Charleston when school was out for the summer.

“We did look like a family. We did act like everything was fine. But it was wrong.”

On the last day of the 2008- 2009 school year, Craig was arrested.

On December 1, 2010, the trial of Craig began in the Effingham County Courthouse.

Craig pleaded – what LaMs? NOT GUILTY!

His mother was convinced that her son was innocent and denied any suspicions that she knew anything about the incident. In an interview, Linda stated, “As a mother, I could not sacrifice the son that was killed and my husband that was killed to protect another son if I really thought that that son did that.” Even Craig’s brother, Chris, believed that Craig was not responsible for the crime. Chris believed that walking into a dark home and doing what was done to their family took a coward. Craig, according to Chris, was not a murderer. However, the prosecutors believed that a jury would find Craig guilty.

District Attorney Michael Muldrew said in his opening statement, “When you sit down and dispassionately look at the evidence, it couldn’t be anybody but him.”

Craig’s lawyer, Dow Bonds (I mean with a name like that, could he have been anything else? LOL) anyway, Attorney Bonds’ opening statement went like this, “What shocked me was just the clear lack of physical evidence linking him to the murders. There’s no DNA. There was no fingerprints. There were no eyewitnesses. There are no confessions…”

His stance was that his client was a genuine person and a gentleman and that there was no clear physical evidence linking him to the murders. “The first thing I noticed about Craig when I first met him was what a genuine person he was and what a gentleman he was.” He also stated that what the public thought, that Craig wanted to be Carey, was wrong.

Prosecutor Muldrew countered that argument with one of his own stating that the murders made sense to someone like Craig, if you thought about it like Craig did, “‘The only way I’m gonna have Robin Heidt and have peace is Momma, Daddy, and Carey have to be eliminated from the equation.’ He wanted the big house. He wanted the kids that adored him. He wanted to drive around in the nice truck and the life of leisure of a southern gentleman so to speak.”

Then they began talking about the evidence they’d put together – namely the bruises on Craig’s arms. Craig said he got it from falling, but the trained medical examiner, Dr. James Downs, testified, “I think they are very consistent with someone who has fired a shotgun.”

They then played a video of Criag reenacting his version of events in how he got the bruises. This video was taken before he’d lawyered up. “If I had been representing him at that time, I would have said…’You know, don’t. A reenactment is not a good idea…’ But if you look at what Craig was thinking at the time he did that, he was trying to assist them in their investigation…he was cooperating with them.”

After showing the video, Prosecutor Muldrew said, “To have happened like that is truly impossible. Most people that saw it literally laughed at this reenactment he did. …it was silly.”

Craig’s brother, Chris, said “The position of the bruises on Craig’s body were actually impossible to make from a shotgun.”

However, firearms expert Ed Myrick counters saying that in a high stress and fast paced situation, the gun could slip without you noticing. “If this gun slips at all, it will fall toward your arm and it will definitely tear you alive.”

Prosecutor Muldrew brought up another piece of evidence – the key. “He knew somethin’ that very few people knew and that is the location and presence of another key…an outside key…which people commonly have.” In his theory, Craig smashed the a pane of glass to make it look like a robbery, but used the key to open the door and come in. On his quick escape – because remember it smelled of gas but no fire was set, leading us to believe the perp got interrupted – so anyway, in his haste, he forgot to stop and take the key out of the door. This is why cops on the scene found the door as is, with the key in it.

In a shocking turn of events – but not so shocking to me giving the background of this person – Robin testified AGAINST Craig. That woman is all types of piece of trash. She doesn’t stand by anyone but herself. Anyway she said, “When I looked at him, I just felt disgust, disgust at the affair, disgust at just him period. I wasn’t comfortable with the relationship anymore.” How were you not comfortable with the relationship? 7 months ago you were about to marry him!

Robin told the court that at one point in time, Craig told her, “He said if his father were on fire, he would not urinate on him. He made a comment that if Philip and Carey were not careful, he would go old school on them.”

She testified that she didn’t really want to Craig to move to Charleston with her and the children. She told others in the community, but she hadn’t told Craig yet because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

She also testified that she hasn’t been in contact with him since two months after the trial started – February.

Another person to take the stand was a family friend who testified that one day Craig had come into his parent’s home one day with a gun and confronted Carey. They then showed the jury pictures of the damage to the home when the two brothers had fought for the gun.

And remember the helicopter incident? Well that was the weekend of the murder and it came out that Carey and Phillip had gotten a friend, Ellis Wood, to fly over the cabin.

Ellis took the stand and testified that Phillip had confided in him that something was ruining his family. He said Phillip didn’t go into detail, but that he could see that Phillip was distressed. They asked him to fly over the cabin and take pictures of what he saw. He’d seen Craig’s and Robin’s car in the driveway, took pictures, and gave them to Phillip.

After that incident, Craig had told his mother that his father was sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong and “if he wanted Robin, he would have her.”

Prosecutor Muldrew also told the jury that Craig didn’t have an alibi for that night.

“Actually, he was the only one that did not have an alibi. He lied about things he didn’t even need to lie about. It’s just his character.”

He also pointed out that Craig lied through the entire interview and when he took a lie detector test. For instance, a question he failed was, “It was somethin’ to the effect of.’Were you holdin’ a shotgun when your parents were killed.”

And when asked if he had killed his brother and father and shot his mom in the face, Criag’s answer was “I don’t know.” What?!

Finally, another important detail to note is that when Linda was still in the hospital, and Craig came to visit her, her blood pressure went from 98 to around 140, she started shaking, and her eyes got really wide.

However, Linda interprets that a different way. She says maybe her reaction was due to what she was hearing people say around her but it wasn’t that she was afraid of her son.

Of course the defense was that there was no concrete eveidence, and they relied on the families’ testimony to back them up.

So LaM – I want to hear from you. What do you think of everything you’ve heard so far. Was there any hard evidence? No, all circumstantial, but what are your thoughts so far? Let me know in the comments.

Initially the jury was split for not guilty – 8 to 4, but after 6 hours of deliberation, that changed to guilty. He was convicted on 11 counts – those included two counts of murder, burglary, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, three counts of possession of a firearm in a felony, and attempted arson. Craig received two life sentences for each death and the judge added 85 years the attempted murder of his mother and for other crimes as the cherry on top.

By the way, the trial only lasted two weeks.

Craig was sent to a maximum-security State Prision in Ridsville, GA.

Robin was arrested in 2010 and charged with threatening a key witness in the trial. She was granted $15,000 bond with the stipulation that she had to move. So she moved to Charleston, SC.

The court granted both Robin and Linda shared, joint custody the children.

In November 2011 she remarried and now goes by Robin Heidt Cave.

In December of 2011 she was arreested again for not giving her children’s Social Security payment to Linda – who had temporary custody of them at the time. So basically, I don’t know if it’s like that everywhere, but here in the US, if a parent dies, their children who are under the age of 18 get paid social security checks from the deceased parent. So Robin spent 2 days in jail for this.

Craig appealed his conviction, but the judge told him to eff off in 2013 – well in terms of the law, what was actually said was that his convictions were upheld.

The Heidt family still believe Craig is innocent.

And that’s the case of Craig Heidt. What do you think about this case. Do you think Craig is innocent or guilty? Do you think there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him? And what do you think of Robin. I’d love to hear your thoughts and you have 3 ways of sharing them with me:

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