[3] Helle met with a divorce attorney and hired a private investigator, Keith Mayo, who snapped photos of Richard kissing another flight attendant outside her New Jersey residence.

[3] On November 18, 1986, friends dropped Helle off at the couple's Newtown residence after she had worked a long flight from Frankfurt, West Germany.

[1] Richard's credit card records showed several unusual purchases around the time Helle vanished, including a freezer that was not found in the house, bed sheets, a comforter, and the rental of a woodchipper.

On the night of November 18, hours after Helle had been last seen, Hine was plowing the roads during the snowstorm when he noticed a rental truck, with a woodchipper attached, parked close to the shore of Lake Zoar.

He led detectives to the location, where they examined the water's edge and found many small pieces of metal and some 3 ounces (85 g) of human tissue, including the crown of a tooth, a fingernail covered in pink nail polish, bone chips, 2,660 bleached blonde human hairs, and O type blood, which was the same type as that of Helle Crafts.

[9][10] Investigators concluded that Richard struck Helle in the head with something blunt at least twice, staining the carpet with blood, then kept her body in the freezer for hours until she was frozen solid.

A prosecution for homicide requires an official determination of the death of the alleged victim; typically, this is done by identification of a body, which was not available in this case.

With the help of a forensic dentist, the tooth crown found on the water's edge was positively matched to Helle's dental records.

On this evidence, the Connecticut State Medical Examiner's Office issued a death certificate on January 13, 1987; Richard was immediately arrested.

In preparation for trial, state medical examiner H. Wayne Carver obtained a pig carcass fed through a woodchipper.