Those who knew him as either Baker's husband of 10 years—or Medley's white knight of almost two—say Bullinger showed no sign of a double life. "He was a pilot, so it could have been easy. But there was nothing secretive... he seemed great," says Medley's friend Rebecca Lorenz. For Medley, a massage therapist who had lost a baby in 2011 and her husband, Todd Medley, to a heart attack in '14, meeting Bullinger when he walked into the spa where she worked had seemed like a dream come true. "Mike was the first time I saw Nadja smile. He was a new start," says Lorenz. "Payton would call him Dad?" Friends say she had no idea that when she moved from Ogden to Idaho to live with Bullinger that he was also living with Baker in Ogden. And Baker— who had retired from a 33-year teaching career, mostly with blind and deaf students, just a week before she was killed—seemed to have no idea her husband was having an affair. "She just thought her marriage was perfect," says her brother Lyle Baker.
有人認為他是貝克結婚10年的丈夫，有人認為他做了麥德利近2年的白馬王子，他們表示布林格沒有表現出雙重生活的跡象。“他是個飛行員，所以這很容易。但沒有什么秘密……他看起來挺好的。”麥德利的朋友麗貝卡·洛倫茨說。麥德利是一名按摩治療師，她在2011年失去了一個孩子，她的丈夫托德·麥德利(Todd Medley)在14年因心臟病發作去世。她看到布林格走進她工作的水療中心時，就像美夢成真一樣。遇到邁克后我第一次看到納迪亞微笑。他是一個新的開始。“佩頓會叫他爸爸嗎？”朋友們說，當她從奧格登搬到愛達荷州與布林格同居時，她并不知道他也和貝克在奧格登同住。貝克從前主要是為盲人和聾啞學生服務。被殺害一周前，她剛結束33年的教學生涯退休，這是她似乎不知道她的丈夫有外遇。“她只是覺得自己的婚姻很完美，”她的哥哥萊爾·貝克(Lyle Baker)說。
But in June 2017, when Baker decided to surprise her husband at the Idaho house they'd bought together, Bullinger's two worlds crashed into each other. "She shows up unexpected, and there's a confrontation," Donahue surmises, based on the evidence he's seen. "It was a spur-of-the-moment crime." Baker's other brother Byron still doesn't understand. "Just pick one and tell the other to go home," he says. "You don't kill them. He didn't show any signs of being a mass murderer."
但在2017年6月，貝克決定在他們共同購買的愛達荷別墅給她的丈夫一個驚喜，此時布林格的兩個世界撞到了一起。“她出乎意料地出現了，而且發生了沖突，”多納休根據他看到的證據推測。“這是一時沖動的犯罪。”貝克的另一個哥哥拜倫仍然不明白。他說:“選擇一個，然后讓另一個回家。”“你不會殺他們的。他沒有表現出任何大屠殺的跡象。”
But Bullinger's first wife, Jacqui Garcia, with whom he has two grown sons and a grand-daughter, saw a darker side. Her marriage to Bullinger ended after years of infidelity, she told the Idaho Statesman. And his second marriage ended when he started the relationship with Baker. Throughout, she says, he was a master manipulator: Mormon when he met Garcia in college, he later attended a Hindu temple with Baker and told Medley he was an atheist, as she was. As Garcia told the Statesman, "He was whatever somebody needed him to be." Which is exactly what haunts Donahue, as the sheriff believes Bullinger could still be alive. "This guy was slick," says Donahue. "He obviously had charisma with these women. It's very possible he could've reinvented himself again, and there are some compassionate people who take him in. It keeps me up at night. I want this guy to be found."
但布林格的第一任妻子雅基·加西亞(Jacqui Garcia)看到了布林格的陰暗面。兩人育有兩個已成年的兒子，還有一個孫女。她告訴《愛達荷政治家》，在多年的不忠之后，她和布林格的婚姻結束了。當他和貝克開始交往時，他的第二次婚姻就結束了。她說，從始至終，他都是一個操縱大師：在大學里遇到加西亞時，他是摩門教徒，后來他和貝克一起信了印度教，又告訴邁德利，他和她一樣都是無神論者。正如加西亞告訴《政治家》的那樣，“別人需要他是什么，他就是什么。”這正是讓多納休經常擔憂的地方，因為警長相信布林格可能還活著。“這家伙很狡猾，”多納休說。“他顯然對這些女人很有魅力。他很有可能改頭換面，有一些富有同情心的人接納了他。這使我夜不能寐。我希望找到這個人。”
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