You should know in the next 24 hours which charges the man accused of killing a 5-year-old girl could face. The Cass County Attorney says he will meet with law enforcement and plans to have charges by noon tomorrow. The BCA is releasing information from an autopsy. Susan Elizabeth, that’s right, Ally.
And the official cause of death from that preliminary autopsy, homicidal violence. Now, I asked the BCA exactly what that means. They told me that the autopsy shows that this was quote an intentional death by violent means. They’ve been very private so far. They have not spoken publicly. A family friend who visited the home, though tells us that Elena’s mom, as you can imagine, is so deeply, deeply upset.
We A little girl goes to sleep in her own bed, in her own home in a small town Minnesota neighborhood where everybody knows everybody. It is 2:00 in the morning on August 20th, 2016. Her mother has just tucked her in, pulled her favorite blanket up to her chin, and kissed her good night. The house is quiet. Everything feels normal.
By morning, she is gone. No broken windows, no forced entry, no screaming in the night, just gone. And here is the part that will make your stomach drop. The person responsible was not a stranger lurking in the shadows. He was not some unknown face from the outside world. He was already inside that house, already sleeping under the same roof.
A man her father called a friend. A man her family trusted so completely that having him spend the night felt like the most normal thing in the world. This is the kind of true crime case that does not just shake a community. It rewires the way you think about every single person sitting at your dinner table. Because in this documentary, we are going to walk through every hour, every minute, every bone chilling moment that led to one of the most devastating cases in Minnesota history.
A case that started in a quiet bedroom on a warm August night in a town of a thousand people and ended in a way that nobody, not the investigators, not the neighbors, not even the people who knew this man, ever saw coming. Some of what you are about to hear will stay with you long after you stop watching. To truly understand how devastating this case was, you have to first understand where it happened. Watkins, Minnesota.
Population just under a thousand people. Sitting quietly in the heart of central Minnesota. The kind of small town where people leave their doors unlocked. Where neighbors wave from their front porches. And where everybody not only knows your name, but knows your whole family going back two generations.
There are no big city headlines here. No major crimes making the evening. News. just a tight-knit community built on trust, familiarity, and the kind of comfort that comes from knowing every face on every street. But just one month before this true crime case unfolded in July of 2016, Watkins had already been hit hard. A tornado tore through the town without warning, ripping apart homes, pulling up trees, and leaving behind a community that was still in the middle of picking up the pieces. People were exhausted.
They were hurting. But the way small town Americans always do, they were rebuilding. And right in the middle of all that rebuilding was a family called the Hurtles. Matt and Kayla Erdle were raising their children in Watkins, living the kind of life this town was built for. And at the very center of their world was a 5-year-old girl named Elena.
If you want to understand why this case hit the entire state of Minnesota like a freight train, you need to understand who Elena was. Because she was not just a name in a case file. She was a force. At only 5 years old, she had already left a mark on every single person who crossed her path. She loved pink. She loved purple. She loved dressing up.
But in the same breath, she would follow her dad out to the barn, climb up on the roof without hesitating, and get her hands dirty without a second thought. Her mother, Kayla, once said that if Elena missed even one day of school, people noticed right away. Her absence felt loud. And on October 31st, just two months away from that August night, Elena was supposed to turn 6 years old.
Halloween was going to be her birthday. costumes, candy, laughter, and cake. A milestone her family had been looking forward to all summer long. Nobody had any idea that the celebration they were planning would never happen. That is the world this case shattered. And that is why what happened next cut so deep into the heart of everyone who heard it.
Now, let us go back to the night it all started. August 19th, 2016, a Friday night in Watkins, Minnesota. Matt Erdle and his friend and co-orker Zachary Anderson had just finished up a local softball game. Nothing unusual about that. They played together on the same team regularly. After the game, the way most guys in smalltown America do after a Friday night on the field, they headed out together to unwind.
First stop was Riverside Tavern, a local bar where the rest of the team had gathered, normal, relaxed, just a group of friends ending a summer night the way summer nights in the Midwest are supposed to end. Around 1:00 in the morning, the bar closed and the two men moved on to a second spot called Gordes, just a couple of blocks from the Erdal family home.
Meanwhile, back at the house, Kayla was awake with the kids. And at 2:00 in the morning on August 20th, little Elena had fallen asleep in the living room. Kayla picked her up, carried her gently down the hallway, laid her in her bed, and pulled her favorite Elsa blanket over her small shoulders.
The same blanket she slept with every single night. The same blanket that would later become one of the most heartbreaking details in this entire documentary. Matt got home around 2:30 in the morning. Zachary Anderson arrived shortly after, somewhere between 3:30 and 3:45. The two men talked for a while, the way friends do, and by around 4 in the morning, they both settled in for the night.
Zachary staying over at the le home was not unusual at all. It had happened before. He was comfortable there. He was welcome there. The family had absolutely no reason to think twice about it. But at some point between 4:00 in the morning and 8:30 in the morning, something happened inside that house that would change this family forever.
And nobody heard a single thing. 8:30 in the morning, August 20th, 2016. Matt and Kayla wake up and immediately something feels deeply wrong. They go to check on Elena and her bed is empty. They check the bedroom. They check the bathroom. They search every single room in that house. She is not there.
But it is not just Elena who is missing. Matt’s 2002 GMC Sierra, his work pickup truck, is gone from the driveway. His personal cell phone has disappeared. And Zachary Anderson, the man who fell asleep under their roof just hours earlier, is nowhere to be found. The panic that set in for that family in those moments is something no parent in America should ever have to experience.
Matt and Kayla searched everywhere. The yard, the property, every inch of the surrounding area. And when it became painfully clear this was something far beyond what they could handle alone, they made the call. At 9:56 in the morning, law enforcement was contacted. Officers arrived and within minutes it was obvious.
This was not a child who wandered off. This was not an accident. This had every marking of a deliberate abduction. Investigators immediately began working every available angle. They tracked cell signals. They contacted phone providers. [snorts] And what came back sent a chill through the entire investigation. Around 6:30 in the morning, Matt’s phone had been pinging off a cell tower in Todd County.
roughly 80 miles north of Watkins. The final signal came in at 9 in the morning, still in Todd County. And then, just like that, the phone went completely dark. At 1:12 in the afternoon, with a 5-year-old girl missing and a suspect in the wind, authorities made it official. An Amber Alert was issued across the state of Minnesota.
And in the small, tight-knit community of Watkins, where everybody knows everybody, the news spread like wildfire. People could not process it. A child was gone and the man believed to have taken her was someone this town had seen on the softball field just the night before. Then came the break investigators desperately needed.
Dares could come down tomorrow for a man accused of kidnapping and killing a 5-year-old Watkins girl. 25-year-old Zach Anderson remains in jail in connection with the death of Elena Erdle. Authorities found the girl’s body and Anderson in Cass County over the weekend after issuing an Amber Alert when the two disappeared.
Yeah, I just let them know I’m praying for them. Saturday, 8 a.m. Elena Erdle’s parents realize she’s missing from her home along with their house guest, Zachary Anderson. Their truck was also stolen. 10:00 a.m. the Mer County Sheriff’s Office receives a report of a missing child.
Deputies canvas the neighborhood and nearby businesses looking for video leads into the disappearance. At 1:12, authorities issue an Amber Alert. Hours later, a tip sends authorities to a property in Cass County owned by the power of a woman. I mean, they’re doing as well as can be expected. Tom Erle, a distant family member and owner of the local funeral home, is now helping to plan Elena’s burial.
A difficult task at any age made much harder when it’s a young life. Quite a shock and senseless. Now, the BCA did release some insight into the autopsy report on Elena. According to the medical medical examiner, she died of homicidal violence. A call came into the Cass County Sheriff’s Office from someone completely unexpected.
It was Zachary Anderson’s own father. He told investigators that earlier that morning, his son had called asking for permission to drive out to the family cabin near Mley in rural Cass County, about 90 miles north of Watkins. And then he said something that every investigator on that case needed to hear.
He told them he believed his son was connected to the Amber Alert. He gave police full permission to search the property immediately. Within minutes, deputies were in their vehicles heading north. Every single one of them hoping and praying that somewhere on that property, Elena was still alive. When deputies arrived near Wilderness Park Estates in rural Cass County, they hit their first major break almost immediately.
Matt Erdle’s stolen pickup truck was found tucked down in a ravine on the Anderson family property. The way it had been positioned made everything clear. It had not rolled there by accident. Someone had made a deliberate choice to hide it. Deputies moved to the cabin and began clearing it room by room. What they found inside stopped them cold.
firearms, ammunition, and a handwritten note believed to have been written by Zachary Anderson. A note that pointed toward deeply troubling intentions. There was evidence of distress throughout, but Zachary was not in that cabin, and neither was Elena. The search pushed immediately outward into the surrounding woods and swampland.
Deputy William Connor and his canine partner, Yankee, began tracking near the hidden truck. Yankee picked up a scent and started pulling Deputy Connor forward through thick brush and into the marsh. Every step deeper into that swamp felt heavier than the last. [snorts] And then at exactly 4:24 in the afternoon, about a quarter of a mile from that cabin, they found him, Zachary Todd Anderson, standing knee deep in the water, silent. He did not run.
He did not resist. He just stood there. And one of the deputies looked him directly in the eye and asked the only question that mattered. Where is the little girl? And what came out of Zachary Anderson’s mouth next is something that will send a chill straight down your spine. Zachary Anderson looked at the deputy and said, “What little girl?” Investigators immediately read him his rights.
He invoked them three times. He made it absolutely clear he did not want to speak. But somewhere out in that swamp, there was still a chance, however small, that a 5-year-old girl from Watkins, Minnesota, was still alive. And every deputy standing in that water knew it. So they kept pressing.
Not aggressively, not recklessly, but with the kind of quiet, desperate focus that only comes when a child’s life may still be hanging in the balance. They told him straight. We need to bring her home. We need to bring her back to her family. You can help make that happen right now. Silence, they asked again. Is she here in the swamp or do we need to go somewhere else to find her? A long pause settled over the marsh.
And then, barely above a whisper, he answered, “In the swamp.” Investigators asked him two more times to confirm what he had just said. Then they asked if he could show them exactly where she was. He asked for a cigarette and then he started walking. He led them through the water, through the debris, through the thick marshy ground of rural Cass County.
And then he stopped. He pointed to a specific location in the swamp. That is where investigators found Elena hidden in the water beneath debris. In the southern section of Wilderness Park Estates, a short distance away, roughly 75 ft, a K-9 unit followed a second scent trail and led officers to another location. That is where they found her Elsa blanket.
The same blanket her mother had wrapped around her small shoulders just hours before. At exactly 6:02 in the evening on August 20th, 2016, Sheriff Brian Cruz made it official. The Amber Alert was cancelled. Elena Erdle was not coming home. And in that single devastating moment, the quiet little town of Watkins, Minnesota, would never feel the same again.
In the hours that followed, the investigation shifted into a different gear entirely. The medical examiner’s findings confirmed what investigators had feared from the moment they found Elena in that swamp. The details of those findings were deeply troubling and painted a picture of a crime so serious, so deliberate, and so calculated that it left seasoned law enforcement professionals struggling to find words.
The full weight of what had been done to a 5-year-old girl who had known this man, who had no reason to be afraid of him, landed on the entire state of Minnesota like something impossible to fully absorb. Gathered in Watkins today to pay their final respects to a 5-year-old girl. Elena Erle was kidnapped from her home last Saturday by a family friend who was spending the night there.
Elena’s disappearance triggered a statewide Amber Alert that sadly ended in a swampy area north of Mley. A tip led police to a family cabin where they discovered the girl’s body and her alleged killer. 25-year-old Zachary Todd Anderson is now charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, and killing.
And we’re also learning more about Anderson’s behavior from the time that he was a teenager, including his targeting of a former Monosel neighbor. Today, Bill Hudson spoke with a young woman, and he is in the newsroom now with more. He says it’s hard to believe that Anderson didn’t target other women or children possibly in the last 10 years between her incident and the kidnapping of Elena Erle.
Zachary Todd Anderson, 25 years old, was charged with 19 felony counts. The charges included first-degree murder, seconddegree murder, criminal conduct involving a minor, two counts of kidnapping, interference with a deceased person, and theft. The court set bail at $1 million with conditions or $2 million without.
But the charges were only the beginning. Because once investigators started digging deeper into Zachary Anderson’s background, what surfaced raised a question that the people of Watkins simply could not let go of? Were there warning signs? Had the system seen something years earlier and failed to act on it in a way that could have prevented all of this? The answer to that question is more unsettling than most people are prepared for.
To find those warning signs, you have to go back a full decade. Back to 2006. Back to a quiet neighborhood in Wright County, Minnesota, where a teenage Zachary Anderson was living next door to a single mother raising two young children on her own. From the outside, everything appeared completely normal. A residential street in the Midwest where neighbors recognized each other and nothing seemed out of place.
But the woman later told investigators that Zachary’s behavior had begun making her deeply uncomfortable early on. He would leave notes on the windshield of her car. Short notes, persistent notes, notes telling her he thought she was beautiful, leaving his phone number, asking her to call him.
She was a grown woman. He was a teenager. and every single note felt less like a harmless crush and more like something she could not ignore. Then in December of 2006, everything escalated in a way that genuinely terrified her. At 1:30 in the morning, she was jolted awake by loud, aggressive banging on her front door. Zachary was standing outside demanding she open the door.
His voice was not confused or uncertain. It was aggressive and insistent. He grabbed the door handle and tried to force his way in. He only backed down when her boyfriend came to the door. But even that confrontation was not the end of it. In June of 2007, while the woman was upstairs with her children, Zachary Anderson quietly removed a screen from a firstf floor window and slipped inside her home in complete silence.
He moved through the living room, took her phone from the coffee table, and disappeared back into the night. He was charged with burglary and ultimately pleaded guilty to a reduced charge. The court gave him community service and ordered him to write a letter of apology. Because he was a juvenile at the time, the case never became public record.
A troubled young man who at the age of 16 tried forcing himself on his neighbor. He’d eventually be caught and convicted after breaking into her home as she slept upstairs. you know that the notes would be on my truck window. We’re not revealing her name, but this is the young woman targeted by Zachary Anderson 10 years before his arrest in the kidnapped, rape, and killing, the 5-year-old Elena.
Um, would you want a boyfriend? Um, and would and left a phone number. She was 31 at the time and living next door to Anderson and his mother. At first, she just laughed it off as behavior of a stupid teenager. And I just kind of, you know, would show people. I’m like, “Look at this. I got a secret admirer.
” You know, just it was a joke, you know, so I didn’t do anything. But there was no joke as Anderson grew more aggressive. From stealing her cigarettes to showing up one December night dressed only in boxer shorts. And I was like, “What are you doing?” Anderson was demanding to have sex with her and tried forcing his way through her front door and said, “And you know you want to.
” And I’m like, “No, nope. No, I don’t.” Then months later, while she and her kids slept upstairs, Anderson removed a window screen and climbed in, stealing her cell phone. He plead guilty to burglary and theft. And as part of his sentence, he was ordered to write an apology letter. What it boiled down to, it was about two sentences that said um that he was sorry for scaring me.
And like so many, she’s now in disbelief. Like I felt sick. I felt like shocked and sad and never thinking Anderson’s behavior a decade ago would end in such a horrendous act. The family in Watkins who trusted him with their home and their children had absolutely no way of knowing any of it ever happened.
The woman was so frightened of him that she eventually left her home entirely just to feel safe again. And when she heard the news about Zachary Anderson in August of 2016, she said it felt like the ground had dropped out from under her. She chose to speak publicly, not for attention, but because she wanted her story to serve as a warning, a signal to others, a reminder that troubling behavior left unressed does not simply disappear.
The people of Watkins were left sitting with a question that had no easy answer. If the system had responded differently back in 2006, would a little girl in a small Minnesota town still be alive 10 years later? Now, let us talk about what happened inside the courtroom. Because the legal battle that followed added yet another powerful layer to this true crime documentary, one that tested constitutional boundaries, challenged the integrity of the investigation, and forced prosecutors to fight on multiple fronts simultaneously.
Zachary Anderson entered a plea of not guilty to all 19 charges. His defense team moved quickly. Their first major effort was a suppression motion arguing that his constitutional rights had been violated during the investigation. That despite invoking his right to remain silent multiple times out in that swamp, questioning had continued.
Cass County District Court Judge Jana Ostad agreed. She ruled that certain statements obtained from Zachary Anderson after he had invoked his rights could not be used against him in court. Even the act of him leading officers to the location where Elena was found was ruled inadmissible. The defense pushed further.
Public defender Scott Collins filed a motion asking the court to dismiss the entire 19count indictment, arguing there were insufficient grounds to proceed. The judge denied that motion without hesitation. All 19 charges stayed firmly in place. Prosecutors then made their most important argument. They told the court that Elena would have been found regardless.
The search operation was already fully mobilized. Resources were already converging on that location. And all of the physical evidence, the most critical pieces of the entire case, was ruled completely admissible. The case was airtight and Zachary Anderson knew it. On March 2nd, 2018, in a Cass County courtroom, Zachary Todd Anderson stood before the court and entered a guilty plea to the most serious charge on the indictment, firstderee murder.
In open court, he admitted to taking Elena from her bed and to leaving her in Cass County. The remaining 18 charges were dismissed as part of the agreement. The court then delivered its sentence. life in prison without the possibility of parole, no early release, no path back to freedom ever.
Minnesota abolished its ultimate penalty back in 1911, making life without parole the absolute maximum the state could impose. And that is exactly what Zachary Todd Anderson received. Cass County Attorney Benjamin Lindstöm stood before the cameras and said our goal was to secure the maximum punishment allowed under Minnesota law, life in prison without release.
And that is exactly what we achieved. There was no celebration in those words, no triumph, just the quiet and heavy finality of a case that should never have had to exist. But justice in a courtroom, as necessary as it is, does not rebuild what gets destroyed. It does not fill an empty bedroom. It does not bring back a laugh or a little girl climbing up on a barn roof just to help her dad with something.
And the community of Watkins, Minnesota, understood that better than anyone. In the days following the tragedy, the town did what small town America always does when faced with the unthinkable. People came together. Candlelight vigils were held across Watkins. Neighbors standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the late summer heat, holding small flames in the dark as a quiet act of refusal to let grief have the final word.
A fundraising effort was launched to help the family. The initial goal of $15,000 was reached in just 15 hours. 15 hours. Because that is what real community looks like when it shows up. Nearly two months later, a memorial continues to grow outside their Watkins home. The home to a family sorely missing its youngest member.
She was very loving. Elena was known for her friendliness and versatile personality. From her love of My Little Ponies to the time she spent hunting with her dad. She’d come in our room every morning and give us a kiss good morning and, you know, made sure everybody else was okay. Kayla and Matt Erdle hold memories and many tokens close as they try not to concentrate on the evil that took Elena away.
She’s an innocent little girl that did nothing wrong. Matt had worked with Zack Anderson at a utility line company for 4 years. Anderson lived in [ __ ] Rapids, so when they’d play softball in the summer, he’d sleep over. On that Saturday morning in August, the family woke up to find Anderson and Elena missing along with Matt’s pickup.
3 hours after an Amber Alert was issued, K-9 officers found Anderson near his family’s cabin by Mley. Elena’s body was found nearby. Investigators say she’d been sexually assaulted before Anderson killed her. people that you think that you know that you trust and become your friend and you have in your home and turn your back on you and you understand it.
The hurdles admit they will struggle trusting new friends moving forward. Still they are continuously reminded of the good that remains. The support has been overwhelming. Yeah. Gifts and cards from so many touched by Elena’s life. This one too was a journal or a day by day.
Even strangers from states away pledging to be more patient parents and not taking the time they have with their own kids for granted. He’ll make comments of certain shows or different things he did that made her laugh. The LE are pushing on for their son Carter and for their small community that created a public space to heal.
look outside and there’d be four or five kids just sitting around the sitting there reading books and it’s cool to see. It’s where they find comfort in the words they are certain Elena would want them to hear. When it rains, watch for rainbows. When it’s dark, watch for stars. Perhaps the most powerful response to this tragedy did not come from the town.
It came from one woman, Elena’s mother, Kayla. 2 months after losing her daughter on October 31st, 2016, the day Elena was supposed to turn 6 years old, the day meant for Halloween costumes and birthday cake, and the kind of pure joy only a child turning six on Halloween can bring.
Kayla made a decision that most people in her position would not have had the strength to make. She threw her daughter a birthday party anyway, not in denial, not in avoidance, but as an act of love. so fierce and so intentional that it became the seed of something far bigger. That birthday party grew into a charitable movement called Sharing Elena’s love.
Built entirely around the spirit of who Elena was, donating toys to children in local hospitals, putting together care packages for families navigating hard times, quiet acts of kindness carried out without fanfare, without speeches, without any need for recognition. Just love distributed freely exactly the way Elena had always given it.
Kayla once told her daughter that a sunset was like someone looking down on you from heaven. Simple words spoken without any sense of the weight they would one day carry. A family still struggling with the loss of their little girl is helping other families fighting their own heartache.
A family friend is charged with kidnapping 5-year-old Elena Erdle from her Watkins home last August. Investigators say Zach Anderson then killed Elena near his cabin in Mley. Today, the Herle family held a fundraiser called Sharing Elena’s love. Proceeds went to a family whose daughter is fighting cancer. Alexis Vawson was diagnosed with a rare type of bone cancer last September.
I’ve been putting on wristbands. I’ve helped do some stuff around for the silence auction and it’s been really fun. Alexa’s dad says that after surgery, his daughter is cancer-free. The Ir family tells us they’ve received so much support since their daughter passed away.
They are grateful for, and it’s events like this that keep Alena’s memory alive. They rode motorcycles today, also in honor of Elena. But after August 20th, 2016, those words became something else entirely. From that day forward, Kayla began to see her daughter in every sunset, in the colors that stretched across the Minnesota sky at the close of every day.
In that quiet moment between light and dark, when the whole world seems to pause and hold its breath for just a few seconds. And in 2023, the community of Watkins made sure that pause would be permanent. A statue memorial was unveiled in McCarthy Park. A lasting tribute to a little girl who in just five short years of life left a mark so deep that an entire town still carries it nearly a decade later.
Zachary Todd Anderson remains behind bars at the Minnesota Correctional Facility. No appeal has overturned his plea. No legal effort has loosened the grip of that sentence. He will spend the rest of his life inside those walls. And somewhere in Watkins, Minnesota, at the end of every single day, when the sky turns pink and purple, the colors Elena loved most, a mother looks up and finds her daughter there.
Some true crime cases changed the way investigators work. Some changed the laws. But the case of Elena changed something far deeper than procedure or policy. It changed the way an entire community understood trust and what it truly means to protect the people we love. There are no perfect endings in stories like this. There are only the pieces we choose to pick up, the names we refuse to let fade, and the quiet decision we make every single day to keep going.
Elena Jean Erdle, born October 31st, 2010. Loved every single day forever.
