By all accounts, Natalie Bollinger was a regular teenager. She had highs and lows, and she was fairly active on social media. And when she suddenly went radio silent, it concerned a significant amount of her followers.
In December of 2017, Natalie was 19, and attending college in Broomfield, Colorado. She was living with her boyfriend, and studying to be a nurse, having earned a scholarship. And as many young women do, Natalie often took to Facebook to update friends, family, and followers on her day-to-day life.
It was through her posts that she informed her followers that she was being stalked by a man named Shawn Schwartz. Natalie had given him rides, and had befriended him over their shared history of substance abuse, and their struggles with mental health. Where Natalie had meant to be kind, Schwartz had grown an obsession.
Natalie had sought legal intervention, and had been awarded an order of protection against Schwartz. She informed her followers not to engage with him, as he was also known for posting vehemently to Facebook. She wrote that Schwartz had been following her for two years, even going so far as to follow her to the state of Virginia when she’d moved there.
The post angered Schwartz, and he denied ever having stalked Natalie. But Schwartz’s problems with Natalie were far from over.
On December 28th, 2017, Natalie’s boyfriend called the Broomfield police, and reported Natalie as a missing person.
He told police that he was extremely worried about her. She’d been expressing symptoms of depression lately, as well as vague notions of suicidal ideation. He informed them that she’d left their home at around noon that day, but she’d left her phone behind, so that he’d have no way of getting in touch with her.
Natalie’s Facebook followers were also very concerned. Natalie was an avid poster, updating her followers fairly regularly on a daily basis. When she stopped posting, her followers immediately threw suspicions at Shaun Schwartz.
Internet sleuths took to social media and public forums, urging investigators to look into Schwartz as the prime suspect. They threw wrenches into the investigation with their constant pleas and accusations. They firmly believed that they had the case all wrapped up. But investigators knew that they couldn’t get tunnel vision – a young woman was missing, and they had to do their due diligence, and investigate thoroughly.
Schwartz himself was distraught upon hearing that Natalie had gone missing. He took to Facebook multiple times, using the platform’s “Live” feature to beg Natalie to come home, and express his frustrations over being accused of hurting the person he considered his best friend. He repeatedly begged his accusers to focus on finding Natalie, and to stop pointing fingers – whether those fingers pointed at him or not.
In an attempt to mitigate the accusations, Schwartz posted screenshots of conversations he’d had with Natalie in 2016 on Facebook. In those conversations, he expressed concerns over the state of her mental health, and her struggle with substance abuse. However, other conversations found between Natalie and another friend told a different story.
In these conversations, shown to investigators by a friend, Natalie expressed fear at Schwartz’s infatuation with her. She told her friend that if anything ever happened to her, she was sure it would be due to Schwartz.
Despite his constant rebuttals to the accusations, things were not looking good for Shaun Schwartz.
The following day, a hiker found a body in the woods near a dairy farm. The body was confirmed to be Natalie’s through positive identification of the distinctive tattoos she had.
Initial examination determined that Natalie had been shot in the head. A 9mm bullet casing was found near her body, though there was no sign of the weapon.
Natalie’s autopsy also reported that she had a very likely lethal dose of heroin in her system. It was estimated that her time of death was around 12:30 PM on the day she went missing.
With Natalie having been found, Shaun Schwartz once again found himself being accused – this time, of Natalie’s murder.
Internet sleuths, and Natalie’s followers, used their shared history of mental illness and substance abuse against him, and felt this was proof positive he’d murdered Natalie.
As the accusations grew more fierce, Schwartz once again took to Facebook to try to clear his name, and maintain his innocence. However, Schwartz had gone radio silent for a number of hours between the time Natalie had gone missing, and before she was discovered. If anything, this made her followers and defenders even more suspicious.
As the toll of the accusations wore on him, he began posting about his suicidal ideations, prompting police to perform a wellness check on him at his last known location.
After being found in a state of mania, Schwartz was then taken in for treatment in Boulder, Colorado, where he became belligerent towards police officers, and staff.
On January 6th, 2018, Shaun Schwartz was arrested for causing the disruption.
Internet sleuths rejoiced, believing that the case was finally closed. However, investigators were still missing a few pieces of the puzzle – namely, Natalie’s full phone records.
While investigators had been able to see pieces of Natalie’s communications by interviewing her friends and family, they were still waiting on her mobile service provider to provide them with her phone records. The warrant law enforcement had served gave the service provider 30 days to provide the records. It seems they decided to use every single one of those days to make investigators wait.
As they waited, they were also able to fully clear Shaun Schwartz of Natalie’s murder. They were able to discover that Schwartz hadn’t been in the state of Colorado during the estimated time of Natalie’s murder. This was more than enough for investigators to explain his absence on social media during that time.
Just as investigators thought they’d have to go back to square one, they were given access to Natalie’s phone records.They saw familiar communications to her friends, and some warnings about Schwartz, but they also found over 100 messages to and from her phone to an unknown number.
Further investigation of the messages, and the contact number, led investigators to a 23-year-old pizza delivery driver named Joseph Michael Lopez. In short order, they found Lopez, and brought him in for questioning.
It seemed that Lopez was a talker, and he had some interesting stories to tell.
Initially, he told investigators that he had seen an ad on Craigslist in the ‘women seeking men’ section. He said the title of the stated: “I want to put a hit on myself”, from a woman asking for assistance in ending her own life.
Concerned, Lopez engaged with the ad, and messaged Natalie. He then picked her up from her home after exchanging a few messages back and forth.
They drove around, apparently scouting locations where her death was to take place. However, Lopez wasn’t intent on taking her life – he just wanted to talk to her. She told him that she’d been having issues with her boyfriend, and was struggling with her mental health.
The more they drove, he said, the more Natalie was dissatisfied with the locations they were driving to. Lopez drove Natalie home, and he said that was the last he saw of her.
However, investigators were able to negate Lopez’s claims easily. They found that the history on his car’s GPS system matched the location where Natalie was found.
Faced with this, Lopez changed his story.
The second telling of the story seemed to have the same beginning – Lopez finding the Craigslist ad, and interacting with Natalie. However, in this version, he claimed that when they arrived at the wooded area near the dairy farm, Natalie didn’t waste any time.
Instead, she took the gun that she had brought with her, and shot herself in the dead. Lopez then stated that he left her there, and did not report the incident to police.
This version was also flawed. The autopsy had already established that Natalie had been shot in the back of the head. There was no way she could have inflicted the gunshot on herself.
In a third version of events, Lopez told investigators that his intentions on interacting with Natalie’s ad was to try to talk her out of ending her life. Once he realized that this had failed, he followed through with her request. He told investigators that he was shaking uncontrollably the entire time.
This was the closest version to the truth that investigators were able to hear from Lopez.
As they looked into his stories – all versions of them – the found that he had kept copious journals and diaries from the time he was a teenager. The journals depicted fantasies Lopez had detailed, describing wanting to kidnap, torture, and murder people.
Investigators were also able to contact Craigslist directly, and found that Natalie had, indeed, put out the ad herself. Within 2 minutes of the ad being live, Lopez had made contact. 2 minutes later, the ad was flagged, and then removed.
With this, investigators decided there was enough information, and probable cause, to arrest Joseph Michael Lopez for the first-degree murder of Natalie Bollinger.
Joseph Michael Lopez ended up pleading guilty to second-degree murder in a plea deal made with prosecutors. He was sentenced to 48 years in prison, avoiding a life sentence had he taken the chance on a trial.
Assuming he remains incarcerated for the entirety of his sentence, he will not be released until he is 71 years old.
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Sources:
The Strange Murder of Natalie Bollinger – True Crime Edition
Man pleads guilty to murdering Broomfield teen; he told police his victim hired him on Craigslist to kill her – Elise Schmelzer – The Denver Post
Of Stalking, Craigslist and Social Media — The Case of Natalie Bollinger – Rebekah Schroeder – Medium
Craigslist killing: Colorado man pleads guilty to shooting teen Natalie Bollinger – CBS News
True Crime Garage – Natalie Bollinger – Episodes 643 & 644