Parents vanish after the Fourth of July weekend
A location-sharing tool on Snapchat proved pivotal in unravelling a gruesome double homicide in Wisconsin, where a 23-year-old man murdered and dismembered his parents to cover up a web of lies about college and a fake job at SpaceX.
The case began on July 7, 2021, when Chandler Halderson of Windsor, Wisconsin, reported his parents, Bart and Krista Halderson, missing. He told investigators they had gone to the family’s remote cabin for the Fourth of July weekend and never returned. But discrepancies in Chandler’s story raised red flags.
“Out of character” claims spark suspicion
Dane County Sheriff’s Detective Sabrina Sims told ABC’s 20/20 that Chandler claimed his parents may have also visited a casino. Investigators quickly found that unlikely. “We learned that it’s out of character for them to go gambling and that the Haldersons, especially Bart, were pretty frugal with money,” Sims said.
A check of the family’s home revealed both parents’ cars still parked in the garage. At the cabin in Wolf River, police found no signs of recent activity — no fresh footprints, no used supplies, no indication the couple had ever been there.
Witness tip leads to grisly discovery
The first major breakthrough came from a woman in Cottage Grove, a village near Windsor, who noticed Chandler backing up his car near a wooded property on July 5, just two days after the holiday.
“She watched him walking from the wooded area… and found that to be unusual,” Sims noted.
When investigators searched the site — a rural farm owned by the family of Chandler’s girlfriend, Cathryn Mellender — they discovered a male torso later identified as Bart Halderson’s. Inside a nearby oil drum were tools used in the dismemberment: scissors, a saw blade, and bolt cutters. An autopsy confirmed Bart had been shot before being mutilated.
Snapchat reveals a critical location
The most damning evidence came days later, courtesy of Cathryn Mellender’s phone. Investigators learned she had used Snapchat’s location-sharing feature to track Chandler’s movements on July 3.
She noticed his Bitmoji avatar appear at a remote site near the Wisconsin River, nearly 25 miles from his home. Police searched the location and found human remains, later confirmed to be those of Krista Halderson.
Trial and conviction
As the evidence mounted, Chandler was arrested first for providing false information, then on a tentative homicide charge. His girlfriend voluntarily cooperated with authorities and provided digital data that proved crucial to the investigation.
In January 2022, Chandler Halderson stood trial and was convicted on eight charges, including two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse, and lying to police about his parents’ disappearance.
The case sent shockwaves through Wisconsin and beyond, serving as a grim reminder of how modern technology, including social media, can play a vital role in solving crimes that might otherwise remain hidden in plain sight.
