In BROOMFIELD, Colo., during the final weeks of her life, Kristil Krug received threatening and lewd messages from someone she believed was her ex-boyfriend, leading her to feel like she was under surveillance. The individual had knowledge of the expiration of the registration stickers on her license plates and even details about her dental appointments as revealed by investigators.
As the marriage of Kristil Krug was unraveling, culminating in her impending divorce, she began suspecting her husband, Daniel Krug, could be the sender of the ominous communications. This was disclosed by a prosecutor during the commencement of the trial, while also pointing out that Kristil Krug was ultimately discovered assaulted and fatally stabbed in her residence in suburban Denver.
According to Senior Deputy District Attorney Kate Armstrong, it is alleged that Daniel Krug meticulously orchestrated the attack, waiting in the garage for his wife upon her return from dropping off two of their children at school on December 14, 2023. Subsequently, he supposedly employed Kristil Krug’s phone to send misleading texts, including one fabricating an extramarital affair, before proceeding to his workplace at the state health department, as outlined by Armstrong.
But defense lawyer Joe Morales said there was no physical evidence linking Daniel Krug, 44, to the violent killing, noting that there was no blood found in his car or his clothes, which his daughter said were the same he was wearing when he drove her to the bus stop that morning. None of Daniel Krug’s DNA was found at the scene, though partial DNA from an unknown person was found on her neck, he said.
Morales alleged that sloppy police work had failed to keep Kristil Krug, a biochemical engineer, safe and then bungled the investigation into her death. The detective who investigated the stalking that Kristil Krug had first reported in October 2023 was lazy and incompetent, he said. He also said that police failed to test Kristil Krug’s phone for fingerprints even though they allege that Daniel Krug sent texts from it after killing her.
Morales urged jurors to find Daniel Krug not guilty of first-degree murder, stalking and criminal impersonation and serve as a “barrier” against an unjust conviction.
“You’re the last link in this awful train for this family,” he said.
According to investigators, the email account that was used to send messages to Kristil Krug was created on the computer network at Daniel Krug’s workplace. A burner phone that was used to send some of the texts, purchased with a gift card registered to Daniel Krug, was often found to have been in the same general location as his phone, Armstrong said.
Three of the home’s surveillance camera. which Kristil Krug’s mother said she installed because of the recent stalking, were not recording when she was found, according to Daniel Krug’s arrest affidavit. The one in the garage was covered with tape. Morales said the tape also had DNA from an unknown source.
Prosecutors say Daniel Krug told police that he thought the ex-boyfriend was to blame for her killing. But after police confirmed that man was at home in Utah, an eight-hour drive away, when his wife was killed, he said maybe Kristil Krug was having affairs, Armstrong said.
“It’s always the husband,” Armstrong quoted Daniel Krug as telling detectives as she said he rolled his eyes.
The ex-boyfriend is set to testify during the trial, which is expected to last two more weeks.
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