Kristil Krug was a young mother who began receiving menacing, persistent messages from a stalker before she was found murdered. The case that followed did not unfold as a straightforward act of violence: investigators discovered evidence suggesting the killing was the product of a calculated, sinister setup.
What started as harassment escalated to tragedy. Law enforcement collected digital records, messages and other physical evidence while family and friends searched for answers. As detectives pieced together timelines and motive, inconsistencies emerged that pointed beyond a lone predator. The investigation uncovered signs that someone manipulated circumstances and people, creating a dangerous environment that ultimately led to Kristil’s death.
The story raises difficult questions about stalking, online threats and how easily digital lives intersect with real-world danger. It highlights how investigations now depend as much on cyber forensics — message logs, metadata, and digital footprints — as on traditional detective work. Those who knew Kristil describe a devoted mother whose life was upended by escalating threats; those leading the probe describe painstaking evidence-gathering to determine who engineered the setup and why.
“48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant reports on the case, tracing the discovery, the investigation’s turning points and the search for accountability. The coverage examines how obsession, manipulation and technology can combine to create a lethal trap, and it follows the people closest to the victim as they seek justice and try to make sense of an outcome that began with harassment and ended in a deadly, orchestrated scheme.
