Nov 15, 201911 min read

Episode 3: The Three Acts of Mike Bullinger

Updated: Jan 9, 2020

Act 1 Jacqui Garcia

Mike Bullinger was a dimpled young man when Jacqui Garcia’s beauty caught his eyes in 1970. They were both freshmen at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho. This college is now known as Brigham Young University Idaho.

Bullinger was a fellow Latter Day Saints member, and served his mission in Manila in 1976. He married Jacqui at the Salt Lake City LDS temple in 1978. Their 10-year marriage was not a happy one, however, and Mike was described as selfish, dishonest, violent, and sociopathic, which ultimately led Jacqui to fear that he may kill her one day. Jacqui said in an interview reported by the Idaho Statesman that, “you could catch him red-handed, God could be pointing at him, and he’d still lie all over the place”. Jacqui sought help from the LDS church in Billings, Montana because Mike had been hitting her during arguments. She honestly did the best that she could in her situation by seeking couples counseling, therapy, and help from Mike’s family, but it seemed like no one could believe that Mike would be so violent. One of their 2 children later told Jacqui that his dad had abused him at least on one occasion. Mike cheated, he lied, abused, and he manipulated through his 1st marriage. After his marriage to Jacqui ended in 1988, he married his 2nd wife. I could not gather any information on his second wife, and Jacqui is the only one that can give any information about Mike’s marital history. His second marriage was to the woman he had an affair with while married to Jacqui, and according to Jacqui, his 2nd marriage was an abusive repeat of theirs. To no one’s surprise, that second marriage ended as well, and he later married his 3rd wife, Cheryl Baker.[5] Mike was a serial cheater and Cheryl was the mistress he had while married to his second wife. See a pattern here? From gathering info on Cheryl and discovering how kind and caring she was, I don’t think she had any idea that she was a mistress and the same could be said about his 2nd anonymous wife.

Act 2 Cheryl Baker

Before I get into their marriage, let’s back up and talk about Cheryl’s background.

Cheryl Baker was born On September 6th, 1960 in Detroit, Michigan to Harold LeRoy and Doris Marguerite Baker. Both her parents were teachers, so it was no surprise that Cheryl would follow in their footsteps. Cheryl had two brothers; Byron, Lyle, and sister, Joy. When Cheryl got older, she rode in a Michigan statewide bicycle tour with her father, and made it a family tradition. Some of Cheryl’s experiences growing up included swimming with dolphins in the Bahamas, swimming with turtles in Florida, rafting the Grand Canyon, summer trips to India, and a cruise to Alaska. Cheryl was a lifeguard as a teenager, and based on her experiences, she loved water. I can imagine that moving from Michigan to Utah after college was not difficult for her, and she quickly made friends. While in Utah, her lifeguard training helped in various situations, such as; saving a drowning puppy from a river, and performing CPR on a coworker until the paramedics arrived.[9]

After graduating college in 1984, Cheryl started working for the Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind. During those years of teaching, Cheryl went back to college to get her Master’s degree in Education. She later retired in 2016 to teach art at Greenwood Charter School in Huntsville, which is close to Ogden, Utah. I visited Utah in the summer back in 2004, and the landscape is beyond breathtaking. For those of you who don’t know, Ogden is about 40 miles North of Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s easy to get around Utah, and there is hardly any traffic, so 40 miles is a lot quicker than you would imagine.

She had been working for the Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind when she met a contract pilot, Mike Bullinger, on a plane headed for Alaska. His charming ways got her attention, and they later married in Park City with this being Cheryl’s first marriage. For the most part, they had a happy and content marriage for 10 years despite their differences. There was no indication of abuse from Mike and Cheryl seemed to be very happy with their marriage.

Cheryl was very eclectic, with hobbies like meditation and crochet. Mike, on the other hand, liked riding his motorcycle, shooting and collecting guns, and flying planes. Even though they had their differences, they both loved the outdoors, and camping. Some other articles say their marriage was 6 years, but a majority of the other articles I found says 10, so maybe they dated for 4 years and married for 6.[4][8] Either way, their relationship seemed to last about as long as Mike’s previous ones. Cheryl’s colleague, Michelle Tanner, described her as a devoted teacher who would get her students what they needed to succeed, and even went the extra step to becoming President of the school’s teachers association for a few years. Another teacher at the school, and personal friend, Nancy Powers, recalls the happy marriage between Cheryl and Mike. Powers describes Cheryl as so creative and artistic that she made her own wedding dress, and sought help from Powers with hemming the dress the night before their wedding. [4] Cheryl was also a practicing Hindu, and Mike learned Sanskrit with her and took an interest in her faith practices. They were both members of the Sri Ganesha Temple in South Jordan, Utah. [5] A lot of the information I got on Cheryl was from an Investigation Discovery show called, “In Pursuit with John Walsh” which aired this episode on February 20th, of this year.

In March of 2014, the couple purchased a farmhouse near Caldwell, Idaho under Cheryl’s name. This house was just 8 miles away from the next woman I will get into shortly named Nadja. [8]

Cheryl and Mike had plans to join the Valkerie Riders rally in Montana on June 26th but that will never come to fruition. [1]

Act 3: Nadja & Payton Medley

Nadja Sassin was born on December 5th 1969 in Germany. Not much is known of her time in Germany, but she moved to the United States, while her parents stayed behind. Nadja’s life didn’t seem to start until she became a mom, and a wonderful mother she would become. She Married Todd Medley, and together they had Payton in 2002 while living in Ogden, Utah. Todd and Nadja worked together at a pet store until his untimely death in 2014 due to health complications. Nadja was an extremely hard worker, and very independent. After Todd’s passing, she continued to work as a massage therapist to provide for Payton, and her many hobbies.[5]

A lot of my understanding of Nadja and Payton come from both their Facebook pages, which are still up and available for people to look at and comment on. I have to say that it is a little weird looking at their Facebook, because they were so open about their lives, that I feel like I got to know them a little bit beyond the surface. It is actually hard to read how wonderful these two people were knowing what happened to them.

Both Mother and daughter loved horses, dogs, and any animal in need that was lucky to cross their path. Payton was a gifted writer, and excelled in school making the Honors Role in Middle School. Some of Payton’s writings were published in her school’s yearbook, and she had a youtube channel that highlighted the daily thoughts of a down to earth teen. I watched some of her Youtube videos, and she seemed like a really sweet, funny, and introspective young woman. She was very open in her videos, and shared a lot of her emotions unfiltered. I saw a lot of Nadja’s personality in Payton, and these similarities made their relationship very strong. Not the typical mother and daughter arguments you see in the teenage years. Nadja and Payton joked frequently on Facebook, and Nadja expressed her support, and love for her daughter constantly. I think sometimes Payton would get a little embarrassed by how much her mom was outwardly devoted to her, but moms can’t help it, and I am sure Payton knew that.

In 2015, Nadja met Mike at her job working as a massage therapist, and the two hit it off instantly. Mike’s stability, and charismatic personality drew Nadja to start a relationship with him, not knowing that he was currently married. Mike told Nadja that he had been divorced for 10 years, and is a Mormon from Montana.[8] I find their connection interesting because Nadja was an outspoken atheist, so there must have been enough good things about Mike for her to overlook these differences. I have a feeling that Mike told Nadja that he was Mormon, and not Hindu, because she probably would have found that interesting and would have wanted to attend temple with him. Mike wasn’t a stupid guy, and he had gotten away with cheating in the past, so I think what he told people was very thought out and meticulous.

It wasn’t long before Payton was brought into the picture as a daughter figure for Mike, and the two went on various trips documented on Nadja’s and Payton’s Facebook. These activities included hiking, rodeos, concerts, sports games, etc. To friends, and family, the 3 were happy and Mike spoiled Nadja and Payton lovingly.

Conclusion

There are no articles that definitely state why Cheryl decided to drive to the Idaho house around June 8th unannounced, but It’s possible that she assumed something weird was going on, and maybe Mike’s behavior lead her to believe that he wasn’t being entirely honest with her. The theory is that Cheryl went to the property, and was met by Nadja and Payton. There were no disturbance calls by neighbors on that day so it may be possible that the two women could have had a civil conversation and trying to sort things out. I can only imagine that Nadja and Cheryl were both equally shocked, since neither of them knew about the other, and maybe Payton was able to convince Cheryl that Mike had been lying to everyone. No one knows if Mike was home at the time Cheryl dropped by, or if he came home to them all demanding answers from him. Whatever happened, Mike was caught, and something set him off to do something unforgivable.

Payton’s friend Sydney Call was one of the first people to know something wasn’t right when Payton failed to respond to her text on June 6th, 2017. Nadja was planning to drive to Odgen, Utah on June 9th to pick up her horses, and move them to the farmhouse property, but she never showed. It was Sydney’s mom who was the one that called the police for a welfare check on 216 South Kcid Road on June 19th, 2017. I don’t know exactly how this street name is pronounced and if it is “skid” or “sid”, but I am sticking with sid.

When officers arrived on the scene, they were met with a foul odor outside which got stronger as they moved closer to the shed. When they opened the door to the shed, they found 3 bodies covered with a blue tarp. The officers also noted that 3 dogs were also found murdered, and these dogs are likely Nadja’s and Payton’s dogs that they rescued. [8] I don’t understand what the purpose was for the dogs to die. Maybe they got aggressive with Mike, or maybe they were making too much noise. Surprisingly, there were no calls to the police about noise, gunshots, or that anyone saw something unusual. I find this weird because although it was a farmhouse, they still had neighbors all around them. I am going to assume that gunshots are common in the area, and maybe to hear gunshots could mean that people are just target shooting. Mike liked guns, so maybe his neighbors knew he did this, and didn’t see it as out of the ordinary for his house during the day. Also, the google maps photos of the house, which were taken in October 2016 showed the front yard completely overgrown with walnut trees. It is so overgrown, that you can’t even see the house from the street, so there is a lot of privacy that would allow Mike to get away with moving bodies without being seen.

The three victims were Cheryl, 56; Nadja, 48; and Peyton, 14. [2] Each victim had an execution-style gunshot wound to the head [7], and Officials estimated that the victims had been dead for more than a week when they were found. [5] The responding officers to the scene described that the decomposition was so bad that the bodies were unrecognizable, and that sex, or race could not be determined at the time. [8] Police also could not find Mike anywhere, and so the search was called to find if he was also a victim, or the suspect.

I had some fact issues with this particular case because the time line varies from one article to the next. I decided to piece together the timeline of events, and I think I was able to get it as accurately as possible.

On June 10th, Mike has breakfast in Nampa, Idaho. He then drove his truck to Utah to pick up the Ford Focus that was being serviced by a mechanic, and left his truck in Utah. [8]

On June 11th (some articles say July 12th), Mike was last seen on a camera recording in the Swan Valley area in Idaho, and again on a camera entering a Wyoming campground the next day. [6][8]

On July 12th, Mike's Ford Focus was found abandoned in the Bridge-Teton National Forest in a remote Wyoming campground. [6]

Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue said, in an interview with CBS 2 News, that he is 99% convinced that Mike Bullinger is deceased. He continued to say that the case is 100% solved.[2] Not everyone agrees with this theory that Mike is dead, and the idea of suicide is implausible to those who knew him. An interview done by the Idaho Statesman talked with a few people who knew Mike. A friend of Nadja’s named Christine Roppel was quoted saying, “People have said he probably went out into the woods and shot himself. I think he’s too egotistical for that,” An anonymous person was also quoted saying, “If you know about sociopaths, you know they’re unlikely to kill themselves. He would have to feel guilty, and he doesn’t have a conscience,”. Police have received hundreds of tips over the years, and have been able to follow all of them, but unfortunately none of them led to the whereabouts of Mike Bullinger. [5] Police received a tip on June 28th that he may have been spotted driving on Interstate 15 Southbound near Salt Lake City, and another tip thought they spotted him near Pocatello[1]. Police followed up with these tips, but could not find a trail that lead to conclusive whereabouts.

In July and August, many memorial events were held for Cheryl by the school she worked at. Greenwood Elementary held a vigil, and planted a maple tree in her honor on July 13th. The Utah School for the Deaf held a memorial service on August 10th. [9][6] So many people were affected by the sudden death of these 3 amazing women, and their loved ones have a hard time healing from such a tragedy. Sydney Call was quoted saying,“When I lost Payton, it wasn’t just losing a best friend. It was losing part of my family and it was losing part of myself. I can’t get her voice out of my head,” Nancy Powers was quoted as saying,“Mike took my dear friend…. You know I miss Cheryl. I can’t call her. I can’t see her at book club and, he took … he took all of that away,”.[8]

Mike’s whereabouts are still unknown to this day. He is around 6 ft with gray hair, and brown eyes. The last known weight of Bullinger was 240 but this could have changed over time. Stress and being on the run can have massive changes to a person’s original appearance. Mike maybe using an alias and since he can fly a plane, this is a possibility that he could have left the country. His car was found in the mountains, but that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t get out of the Bridge-Teton National Forest without it. He easily could have hitched a ride out of the forest to the nearest town, and from there he could have either rented or bought either a car or plane. To my knowledge, there was no financial paper trail that indicated Mike withdrew money from a bank account, but he could have been the type of guy to keep his own personal bank account in his house with stashed cash to help live out his double life. Mike is also a very, and I hate to say it, but normal looking guy. He could blend in with a crowd with ease. He has no real distinctive characteristics that would make you look twice if you passed him on the street. I think his biggest distinguishing feature is that he can fly planes, and that’s something I would assume he would still be doing if he is still alive today. He definitely won’t be flying large commercial planes, but he could be in an area far away on an island flying small propeller planes.

He is assumed to be armed and dangerous so if you think you see him, then notify police, and do not try to make contact.