BROOMFIELD, Colo. — A Broomfield man has been found guilty of murdering his wife in a case where he impersonated her ex-boyfriend to make it seem like the ex was stalking her and sending her threatening messages.
On Thursday, a jury in Broomfield County found Daniel Bartholomew Krug, 44, guilty of first-degree murder after deliberation, stalking (extreme emotional distress), stalking (credible threat), and criminal impersonation.
Daniel Krug was arrested on Dec. 16, 2023 in connection with the homicide of his wife Kristil Krug, 43. They had married in 2007, but family members said she was preparing to divorce him and was working toward full custody of their children.
The jury began their deliberations just after 11 a.m. on Wednesday. They reached a verdict shortly before 2 p.m. Thursday. Sentencing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Friday.
Fate of Broomfield man accused of killing wife in 2023 in the hands of the jury
According to the arrest affidavit for Daniel Krug, he had purchased a phone and created new email accounts to impersonate his wife’s ex-boyfriend and make it seem like the ex was sending her threatening messages. When she reported it to police in October 2023 and then they began an investigation, which included search warrants of the digital devices sending the messages, Daniel Krug began planning her death, the documents reads. Kristil Krug was found on the floor of her garage with a crushed skull, multiple fractures and a stab wound.
During closing arguments on Wednesday morning, Kate Armstrong with the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office said Daniel Krug played “puppet master over his wife and children,” and as mid-December neared, he was realizing it was more than likely that authorities — as well as the rest of his family and his friends — would soon discover he was at the center of it all.
So, he violently killed her in her garage on Dec. 14 and staged a trail of digital elements, Armstrong told the court.
David Zalubowski/AP
It started with the purchase of a phone from Walmart, which he used to text his wife, pretending to be her ex-boyfriend. The first text that appeared to be from the ex-boyfriend that referenced Daniel Krug came on Oct. 31, 2023. Armstrong said investigators learned this text came through the Wi-Fi at his workplace. The text included a picture of Daniel Krug near his car at his work, with a threatening message. However, Armstrong argued that Daniel Krug had taken the photo, as it was on selfie mode, about four feet away from Daniel Krug, and propped on another car, so it was “unreasonable” to think somebody else had taken the photo without his knowledge.
According to Daniel Krug’s arrest affidavit, detectives had reached out to authorities in Utah, where Kristil Krug’s ex-boyfriend lived, and a sergeant at the Utah County Sheriff’s Office confirmed — via his shopping receipts, license plate readers and lack of his name on any flight records — that the man had been in Utah at the time of the crime. This caused the detectives to feel skeptical if he had ever been involved.
Armstrong brought up two alternate theories. One is that Kristil Krug was indeed being stalked but it was somebody other than her husband. The prosecutor said this is simply not true, and noted that Daniel Krug’s previous romantic partner experienced the same thing that Kristil Krug had before that woman had ended her relationship with Daniel Krug. A second theory is that Kristil Krug was having an affair, but there was also zero evidence of that, Armstrong said.
“There are loads of evidence of the deliberation, the planning, the calculated nature of this murder,” she said. “Anything less than that is not what happened in this case, and there’s ample evidence that that was the case…. He didn’t love her. He hated her. Think about what he did to her. You don’t do that to somebody you love. Think about the absolute nightmare and hell that he made the last few months of her life. His resentment for her, the fact that she wouldn’t be with him — this was about Dan losing control.”
Defense attorney Phillip Geigle then took his turn for closing arguments.
“The evidence in this case says something far different than what the prosecution has told you,” he said.
He went into detail about a Broomfield detective on the case, noting inconsistencies and saying he was “deliberately untruthful” in some of his statements.
He also questioned the work that was done at the crime scene, and mentioned a bloody footprint in one of the prosecution’s exhibits.
“This was present when law enforcement and EMT arrived,” he said. “I’ll tell you who it doesn’t belong to.”
Geigle said Daniel Krug also had no physical evidence on his clothing and evidence indicated that Kristil Krug’s body was moved, but not dragged, from where she had hit the ground. He questioned how Daniel Krug did not have blood on his clothing if he was accused of moving her body.
“And I will look at each and every one of you, and I’m telling you, Mr. Krug did not kill his wife,” he said. “He did not commit these crimes. Period.”
Lastly, Stephanie Fritts with the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office addressed the jury. She asked who had stalked Kristil Krug for months before her death, who had the motive and who had the opportunity. It was her husband, she said.
Just 17 hours before the murder, Daniel Krug was searching online for how hard to hit somebody to cause unconsciousness on his work computer, she said.
Fritts argued that it was easy for Daniel Krug to flip over his wife without getting blood on him because the blood was in a concentrated area near her head. She also argued this is why there was no bloody footprint when he left the scene, and why he did not have any blood on his clothing or in his car.
“You think this man who’s been planning and stalking his wife for months is going to be so sloppy on the crime scene?” Fritts asked the jury.
She also said that Kristil Krug always accessed her home’s Nest cameras from the web browser, and did not have the app. However at 8:14 a.m. that morning, the app was downloaded onto her phone and all of the cameras except the one over the garage were turned off to serve as his alibi, Fritts said. He had also used her phone to text his cell phone a question, also to create an alibi, she said.
When he left the scene, he went north on Sheridan, where his phone data showed he did not move for five minutes — plenty of time to dispose of evidence, Fritts said — before heading to Java Island for a coffee, where he turns his car’s dash camera, which had been off, back on. She argued that he wanted people to see him acting normal, but questioned why he had told authorities that he left his house late for work that morning because of diarrhea, but then ordered coffee.
She concluded by saying that his decision to kill his wife was not hasty or impulsive, but was rather deliberate and had a cover-up planned as well.
The jury was then let out of the courtroom to begin their deliberations at 11:10 a.m. Wednesday.
