'Divine Intervention': How a Bible led to justice for murdered farmer Earl Olander

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A special '20/20' looks into the 2015 murder of Earl Olander, who was found dead inside his Minnesota farm.

On May 9, 2015, investigators received a tip from someone cleaning an apartment in St. Paul, Minnesota, claiming he found a Bible containing two $1,000 bonds with Earl Olander's name and address.When 90-year-old farmer Earl Olander was found murdered in his rural Minnesota home in 2015, investigators had very little evidence and no leads for weeks.

Olander was found dead inside his house on his farm in Carver County, Minnesota, on April 11, 2015, with his hands and feet bound by tape. The 90-year-old had been a farmer on the property all of his life and was still baling hay even in his old age, according to his friends and neighbors.

Detectives had little evidence left at the scene, with shoe prints left by the suspects as the only major clues. Benitez would eventually come clean and admit that the Bible was stolen. He told detectives that his friend Reinol Vergara called him up a few days before Olander's murder because he needed help with something. Vergara was a painter who worked on Olander's house, and knew the farmer had a lot of money, Benitez told investigators.

Twenty minutes later, Benitez said Vergara returned to the car and asked him to come inside and help look for the money. Benitez said when he got inside he saw a man with his face covered with a blanket and hands and feet tied with duct tape.The man was struggling on the ground when Vergara struck the man with the gun, Benitez told investigators."Yeah, 'You're going to die," Benitez said.

 

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'Divine Intervention': How a Bible led to justice for a murdered farmer'You're always looking for that one nugget, that one thing that comes in that allows you to solve the case.' Your I mean he was still murdered.
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