It was a quiet spring evening in Green Bay, Wisconsin — the kind of night where laughter from bars drifts through open windows, and the hum of small-town life feels peaceful.
But for 31-year-old Nicole Vanderhyden, mother of three and beloved local teacher, that peace would shatter forever.

On May 21, 2016, Nicole disappeared after a night out with friends. She’d been drinking, texting her boyfriend Doug Detrie, and arguing — the kind of fight every couple has, but this one ended in silence.

By dawn, she was gone. By afternoon, a farmer’s sons stumbled upon something in a nearby field that would stun the entire community — and ignite one of Wisconsin’s most haunting murder investigations in recent memory.

It started out ordinary.
Nicole and Doug had just welcomed their baby boy, Dylan, six months earlier. Life had been stressful — sleepless nights, financial worries, and the weight of new parenthood. So when friends invited them to see the band Steel Panther at The Watering Hole, the couple decided to let loose for one night.

According to friends, they laughed, drank, danced. Everything seemed fine.
But as the night wore on, something changed. Doug drifted off to talk to old friends. Nicole felt ignored. Tensions rose.

Around midnight, Nicole left The Watering Hole and joined friends at another bar — The Sardine Can. She tried calling Doug. No answer.
She called again. Still nothing. When he finally picked up — on another friend’s phone — she was furious.

Witnesses say she stormed out of the bar barefoot, clutching her phone, tears streaming down her face. “She just wanted to go home,” one friend later said. “But she never made it.”

Hours later, Doug texted her:

“LOL, stop. Be good. I’ll see you at the Sardine Can.”
She never replied.

By the next afternoon, Nicole was officially a missing person.

Across town, two teenage farmhands clearing rocks in a field spotted what they thought was a deer.
It wasn’t.

Within hours, police confirmed the worst — the body of a woman, partially clothed, with a wristband from The Watering Hole concert the night before.
It was Nicole Vanderhyden.

The discovery sent shockwaves through Green Bay. And when detectives learned about the couple’s argument, they had their first suspect: Doug Detrie.

He looked distraught but calm when officers arrived. “She’s never done this before,” he told them. “I just want her home.”

Still — blood had been found in a neighbor’s yard, a charging cord nearby, and a trail that led too close to his house.
Police arrested Doug within 48 hours.
The town turned on him.

But then — everything changed.

DNA from the scene didn’t match Doug.
In fact, it matched a complete stranger — a 6’7” drifter from Virginia named George Steven Burch.

And the timeline from Doug’s Fitbit — yes, his Fitbit — proved he’d barely moved during the hours Nicole was killed.

The wrong man had been behind bars. The real killer was still out there.

George Burch was new in town, crashing with a friend after a failed marriage and a string of criminal charges back East.
He was big, charming — and dangerous.

Police found his phone data showed he’d been at Richard Cranium’s Bar that same night, just blocks away from The Sardine Can.
At 3:01 a.m., his GPS placed him near Nicole’s house.
By 4:00, it tracked him to the rural road where her body was found.

When confronted, Burch spun a wild story:
He claimed he’d met Nicole at the bar, that she’d flirted with him, that they had consensual sex in his car — and that Doug, her boyfriend, suddenly appeared with a gun and forced him to dump the body.

But investigators weren’t buying it. The DNA on the murder weapon — a phone charging cord — was his.
Not Doug’s. Not anyone else’s.

And Burch’s history?
Violent outbursts. Prior arrests. A fugitive warrant from Virginia.

The prosecution painted a chilling picture:
A drunk, upset young mother. A predator watching from the shadows. A violent rage when she said “no.”

In March 2018, the courtroom was silent as the jury heard both stories:
Doug’s heartbreak.
Burch’s excuses.
And the hard science in between.

The prosecution used the Fitbit data, phone pings, and DNA to weave a timeline tighter than any alibi Burch could invent.
Jurors gasped when they learned that after killing Nicole, Burch had gone fishing with his friend the next day — as if nothing had happened.

During cross-examination, when pressed about how he carried Nicole’s body, Burch snapped at the prosecutor:

“I told you before — I was carrying her!”
His rage sealed his fate.

After just three hours, the jury returned.
Guilty.

The judge called it “the most brutal murder ever committed by one man in Brown County history.”
Burch was sentenced to life without parole.

Doug Detrie was freed after 16 days in jail — but his life was never the same.
He’d lost the mother of his child, endured public suspicion, and faced scrutiny that would haunt him for years.

Nicole’s family still mourns the daughter, sister, and mother who lit up every room she entered. Her mom once said,

“Nicole wanted more from life — and she deserved it.”

Today, Doug raises their son Dylan, now a bright young boy who bears his mother’s smile.
He keeps her photo in the living room — the same smile from that spring night, frozen in time before everything went wrong.

And in Green Bay, a quiet roadside memorial still marks where Nicole’s journey ended — and where her story began echoing through true crime podcasts, headlines, and hearts across America.

Because in the end, this wasn’t just a story about a murder.
It was a story about love, loss — and the thin line between trust and tragedy.