On the afternoon of Dec. 14, 2023, Anthony Holland was watching TV when law enforcement showed up to his home near Salt Lake City, Utah.
“I honestly thought I was going to jail for something,” Holland recalled during an interview with “48 Hours.” But he says he had no idea what crime he committed.
“Have you ever heard of the name Kristil Krug?” one of the investigators asked him. Holland said he once dated a woman named Kristil Krug. In fact, she was his first love. They broke up in the fall of 2000 and had not spoken in years.
Unbeknownst to Holland, 43-year-old Kristil Krug — a mother of three young children — had been murdered in the garage of her Broomfield, Colorado, home at around 8 a.m. that day.
Kristil Krug’s death and the investigation into who killed her is the subject of “The Setup Murder of Kristil Krug” an all-new “48 Hours” reported by correspondent Peter Van Sant. The episode is now streaming on Paramount+.
In the weeks before her death, Kristil Krug had told police she and her husband Dan Krug had received threatening texts and emails from a stalker, who she believed was Holland.
So within hours after Kristil Krug’s murder, investigators in Colorado asked police in Utah to pay Holland a visit at his home about 500 miles away from the crime scene.
But Holland had an airtight alibi. At 12:16 p.m. the day of the murder he was at a local department store buying a sweatshirt, making it impossible for him to have made the journey to Colorado and back. He showed police a time-dated stamped receipt. He was immediately cleared by police.
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Holland told “48 Hours” he believes Kristil’s “spirit” played an important role in establishing his sweatshirt alibi and exonerating him that day.
“What was it about that morning that you had to have this new sweatshirt?” Van Sant asked Holland. “I just got an urge. I need another one. I don’t have enough,” Holland replied.
Holland added his late mother also played a part in clearing his name.
“I do believe, like, either my mom or Kristil, because she was murdered before I went to the store, a little bit before … her spirit could have traveled, and I believe that they had some part of it because I just had an urge,” he said.
“It was just like go to the store. Go to the store. So, I went,” Holland explained. “And then I got home and I was hanging out, just laying on my bed, watching TV, and I heard a pounding at the door.”
Two days after Kristil Krug’s death, police arrested her husband Dan Krug and charged him with stalking and murder.
Holland still owns that sweatshirt. Its value to him extends beyond a piece of clothing, but as a symbol of justice for a woman he once loved.
