Utah server Anthony Holland had just bought a new Adidas sweatshirt at Kohl’s and was relaxing at home after a late shift at Texas Roadhouse the night before when cops showed up at his door.
It was December 14, 2023, and he was unaware that Kristil Krug, his first teenage love who he had broken up with more than 20 years earlier, had been murdered in her suburban Denver, Colorado home earlier that day.
He told a jury on Wednesday that detectives asked him upon arrival if he knew Krug. At the time, he said, he had ‘no idea what was going on’ when they came to his house.
Kristil, a 43-year-old engineer, had been found fatally bludgeoned and stabbed in the garage of the home she shared with her husband Daniel and three children in Broomfield, about halfway between Denver and Boulder.
Holland was testifying in the trial of Kristil’s spouse, 44, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, stalking and criminal impersonation.
Prosecutors allege that Krug, knowing Holland had made occasional attempts to reconnect with Kristil since their 2000 breakup, executed a campaign of stalking and harassment of his wife while pretending to be the Utah server.
He set up email addresses using elements of Holland’s name and sent threats to kidnap Kristil and ‘get rid’ of her husband, according to prosecutors.
Kritsil Krug’s ex-boyfriend Anthony Holland told a jury on Friday how cops showed up on the door on the day she was murdered, even though he hadn’t seen her in 20 years
Jurors were shown video evidence earlier in the week from when Broomfield detectives, in the hours after his wife’s murder, confronted Krug with the fact that the ‘stalker’s’ email had been linked to the wifi at his own workplace. They also told him Holland had been ruled out by alibi.
But Krug continued to insist that either his wife’s ex or ‘somebody else’ had killed her.
Holland, who traveled from his home in Eagle Mountain, Utah to testify, said Wednesday that he told officers on December 14, 2023 that he and Kristil had dated more than 20 years previously. He confirmed in court that she had been his first love.
The pair had met when Holland was 17 and Kristil was 18, he said, but he hadn’t seen her since they broke up around the end of 2000.
He did email her in 2004 ‘just checking in and seeing how she was doing, and she told me that she couldn’t talk because her boyfriend would get mad at her,’ Holland testified Wednesday, wearing a suit, tie and tie clip.
He contacted her again ‘several years later’ through Facebook and they became friends over the platform, he said.
But she ‘stopped being my friend’ and blocked him after he sent a message he couldn’t clearly recall on Wednesday.
When asked by the prosecutor whether the message told Kristil that Holland still loved her, he testified: ‘Probably.’
While he was uncertain of the date, he said that had been the their last communication – and Kristil told authorities before her death, while reporting the stalking she attributed to Holland, that she’d last interacted with him in 2016.
By December 2023, Holland testified, he ‘had no idea how to get ahold of her.’
He told the court that, following initial contact with Utah officers who turned up at his door in December 2023, Colorado detectives traveled to interview him at his home on January 2, 2024.
He said he’d only learned of Kristil’s death a few days before that, when a mutual friend who’d gone to school with her ‘alerted me and told me what was going on.’
Holland’s sister also testified Wednesday and verified photos that showed her brother had been with her and other relatives in Idaho and Utah on many of the dates the ‘stalker’ had sent photos and surveillance purportedly from Colorado.
Earlier on Wednesday, Kristil’s family stifled sobs and dabbed away tears as they watched the moment a Broomfield officer discovered the Colorado mother’s bloody and unconscious body in the garage of the family home.
The body camera footage was shown amidst testimony from Broomfield Officer John O’Hayre, who was dispatched to the house on December 14, 2023 in response to a wellness check called in by Kristil’s husband.
Krug called police to say he’d been unable to reach his wife for three hours and she wasn’t answering messages.
Daniel Krug has been charged with murdering his wife Kristil. Prosecutors say he posed as her stalker and bombarded her with terrifying messages before bludgeoning her to death
Kristil Krug was found murdered in the garage of her suburban Denver home on December 14, 2023
O’Hayre’s body cam also showed how, as he called for backup and began CPR on Kristil, her mother arrived at the open garage door.
Linda Grimsrud testified on Monday that Krug had called her to ask that she also check in Kristil because he was alarmed that his wife hadn’t answered his messages.
The court on Wednesday also witnessed Krug’s arrival on scene in the immediate aftermath of the discovery of Kristil’s body.
Panting and distraught, Krug – who’d driven home from work following his calls for wellness checks – ran across the street after parking and sobbed into the arms of waiting loved ones.
When asked by police for permission for searches of the home, he distractedly exclaimed, ‘Go, go go!’
As other family members comforted themselves in the street, Krug staggered to the curb, rocking back and forth and later falling to his knees with his head in his hands.
Red-faced and mumbling, much of what he said was barely audible.
Jurors also heard testimony Wednesday from witnesses involved in the investigation and at Krug’s workplace.
The trial continues on Thursday.
