Episode 149: Amanda Vangrinsven

When a woman goes missing after a night at the bar, investigators and community members must work together to find justice. What happened to Amanda?

Episode Media

Richard “Rick” Peterson *(Isanti County Sheriff’s Office)*

Route Rick and Amanda traveled on Aug 5, 2021 *(Google Maps)*

Episode Sources

Episode Transcript

Welcome back to Bite-Sized Crime. This week I’m bringing you a case with a lot of moving pieces, one that shows how a dedicated team of investigators and a caring community can work together to find justice. This episode discusses sensitive topics, so listener discretion is advised.

Amanda Jo Vangrinsven grew up in the town of Isanti, Minnesota, about 40 miles north of downtown Minneapolis. One of four siblings, Amanda loved spending time with her family. She also loved being outdoors, especially during hunting season. After graduating from Cambridge-Isanti High School in the mid-aughts, Amanda decided to stay in Isanti. She worked various jobs, including food service and working for a local technology company.

In the fall of 2021, 32-year-old Amanda was working as a bartender and server at the Isanti VFW – a local chapter of the United States Veterans of Foreign Wars organization. The VFW was a popular spot in town, and Amanda was well-loved by its patrons.

Amanda was a dependable worker, never missing a shift, so when she failed to show up for work on the morning of August 6th, it was an immediate red flag. Amanda was scheduled to open the VFW at 7am, but when a coworker arrived a few hours later and found the bar still closed, they were surprised. Amanda’s car was parked in the lot, but she was nowhere to be found. The coworker contacted the VFW’s manager, Richelle, and let her know what was going on. Richelle began texting and calling Amanda, but there was no response. Every call went straight to voicemail.

Pretty soon, the VFW employees had a group chat going, trying to figure out what had happened to Amanda. One coworker drove to Amanda’s house where she lived with her mom, but her mom said that Amanda hadn’t come home the night before. She assumed Amanda had stayed at a friend’s house, but in reality, no one had heard from her.

Several of Amanda’s coworkers recalled seeing her at the VFW on Wednesday the 5th. Amanda hadn’t been scheduled to work that day, but she came in around 12:30 in the afternoon to hang out, have some drinks, and buy some scratch-off lottery tickets. Her friend Jennifer was tending bar and recalled that by 4pm, Amanda was very intoxicated, so much so that Jennifer had to cut her off, serving her only water from that point on. As the evening progressed, Jennifer tried to find someone to give Amanda a ride home, afraid of letting her friend get behind the wheel. Richard Peterson, the Vice Commander of the VFW, volunteered to take Amanda home, and they left the bar around 9:30. Everyone had assumed she got home safely. Now, they weren’t so sure.

Richelle started calling and texting Richard – who went by Rick – but got no response. When Rick finally called Richelle back nearly an hour later, he said he hadn’t seen her messages because he was out on his tractor. He told Richelle that he had tried to take Amanda home the night before, but she was too drunk to remember her address, so he had brought her back to the VFW and dropped her off at the park on the corner around 11pm. He hadn’t seen her since.

But Richelle wasn’t buying Rick’s story. In anger, she hung up on him, later texting him that she was going to contact the police if he didn’t tell her the truth about where Amanda was. In response, Rick sent her a random string of nonsensical emojis, which just angered Richelle even more. She knew Rick was lying to her. Something was very wrong.

Amanda was officially reported missing later that day, and the Isanti Police Department immediately opened an investigation into her disappearance. They spoke with Amanda’s friends and coworkers, trying to piece together a timeline of the last 24 hours. Everyone agreed that Amanda had been very drunk at the VFW, and that Rick had given her a ride home. It was clear to investigators that they needed to speak with Rick Peterson.

Rick told investigators that he had entered the VFW around 6pm on Wednesday the 5th. Amanda had been intoxicated, and Jennifer had been asking for someone to give her a ride home. Rick had volunteered, so he drove Amanda in her car while another man followed behind to give Rick a ride back to the VFW. But Amanda had been so drunk that she couldn’t tell Rick where she lived. Eventually they just gave up and circled back to the VFW. They spent another few hours there before finally leaving around 9:30. Rick said that they had driven to another bar in Bethel, about 10 minutes south. They had a few more drinks, then Rick drove Amanda back to the VFW and dropped her off in the park before heading home. He didn’t know what happened to her after that.

While investigators worked to retrace Amanda’s steps, her family and friends organized search parties to scour the area around the VFW. They hung missing flyers in local businesses and spread the word on social media that Amanda was missing. Using Amanda’s Google account, they were able to determine that her phone had last pinged in an area south of town near a wildlife management area. Teams of volunteers on ATV and horseback searched hundreds of acres of land, looking for any clues, no matter how small.

Amanda’s mother Kim spoke to FOX 9 about the community effort to find her, about how difficult it was not knowing what happened. “I honestly feel numb. I just keep looking around, moving place to place just to keep going. I can’t sit still.”

Amanda’s sister Jennifer agreed, stating, “We just want her home. We want her safe. We want her here.”

Isanti police reached out to the county sheriff’s office and the FBI for support, knowing that they would need more resources to find Amanda. With additional investigators on board, they were able to cover more ground and move more quickly.

With a basic timeline of Amanda’s activities on August 5th, investigators set out to find evidence to either confirm it or contradict it. They spoke to the owners of the Dugout Bar & Grill where Amanda and Rick had gone after leaving the VFW. They were able to view the surveillance footage from that night, which showed Rick’s white pickup truck pulling into the parking lot around 9:45pm. He and Amanda entered the building, where they ordered drinks and spent the next 45 minutes kissing at the bar. At 10:35, they went outside to smoke, but when they came back in, their behavior was different. They weren’t touching at all, and Rick kept looking at his phone. Investigators could see from the video that Rick had been looking at Google Maps, though they couldn’t tell what area he was focused on. At 11:06, Amanda and Rick left the bar, the white truck turning left on Main Street and disappearing out of sight.

Investigators were struck by the fact that Amanda and Rick had been so physically affectionate in public, especially because Rick was married. Several of Amanda’s coworkers had told investigators that when Rick was drinking, he was known to stare at the VFW’s female servers, something that made all of them uncomfortable. The drunker he got, the more his mood would swing like a pendulum, and he had been drinking a lot that night. Amanda’s friend Jennifer told investigators that Rick and Amanda had been all over each other at the VFW as well, and she was worried when they left together. Amanda’s speech had been slurred and her gait unsteady. Jennifer worried that she wasn’t making good choices, and Rick wasn’t exactly the right person to help her. But Amanda had insisted on going with Rick that night, and Jennifer hadn’t been able to stop her.

Investigators began to focus more intently on Rick Peterson. According to Jennifer, on the morning of August 6th, while everyone had been looking for Amanda, she had seen Rick return to the VFW. He had dropped off a set of keys, then walked toward the park on the corner. Jennifer saw him looking around the portable toilets in the park; he then left in a gray SUV with a woman she assumed to be his wife. Investigators learned that the keys Rick had left at the VFW belonged to a food truck that Rick was supposed to be taking to a local festival that day. He had apparently texted another VFW member that morning and told him he couldn’t volunteer at the festival – something had come up. This behavior was uncharacteristic of Rick, another strange piece of the puzzle.

On August 8th, investigators executed a search warrant at Rick’s property, specifically to collect the clothes Rick had been wearing the night of August 5th and to recover his white pickup truck. Rick and his wife were very cooperative with investigators, allowing them to search the property. Investigators noticed several spots where the earth had been disturbed, as well as some holes that appeared to have been dug recently. Rick said he had been out on his tractor moving a load of bricks, but strangely, the bricks were nowhere to be seen.

Rick willingly turned over his cell phone and agreed to show investigators the route he and Amanda had taken the night of August 5th. But as they drove around town, it became clear that Rick’s recollection of events didn’t match what he had originally told investigators. Where he first claimed to go east, now he said he drove west. His timing was all off, and he seemed to contradict himself as he talked. However, Rick was sticking to the version of events where he dropped Amanda off at the VFW park on the corner of Palomino Rd. But surveillance footage from that night didn’t show any vehicles near the park, not even Rick’s white pickup.

When investigators told Rick that his timeline didn’t make sense, Rick suddenly said he couldn’t remember any of it. He claimed to have taken Ambien that day, and when he mixed it with alcohol, he would lose memories.

Investigators then asked Rick about the location where Amanda’s phone had last pinged – near the Bethel Wildlife Management Area at Xeon Street, just 2 miles from his property. Rick became noticeably uncomfortable and claimed he hadn’t gone that direction at all. He said he had gotten home at 11:20pm and had gone to bed, assuming Amanda had driven herself home.

Meanwhile, the FBI had taken possession of Amanda’s and Rick’s cell phones and were extracting the data. With federal resources, they were able to get more specific information about their movements on the night of the 5th. Both cell phones had traveled west from the Dugout Bar, stayed at the spot where 245th Ave turns into Xeon Street, then continued north toward Rick’s property. The last place Amanda’s phone pinged was on Rick’s property at 11:36pm. It had not returned to the VFW like Rick had claimed.

With this new information, investigators were able to get a second search warrant for Rick’s property, this time to specifically look for Amanda.

On August 9th, investigators returned to Rick’s home. They separated Rick and his wife for questioning, and his wife admitted that she was starting to second guess her husband. She didn’t know if she was safe, but she was also concerned that Rick wasn’t safe from himself. He had been acting strangely and she worried that he might harm himself.

Rick and his wife were allowed to gather some personal items and leave the property while it was being searched. As they were leaving, Rick surprised everyone by saying that he believed a logical person would put a body in the pond. He told investigators several times that they should check the pond. After Rick and his wife left, he checked himself into a mental health facility.

Investigators began searching the entire 20-acre property, photographing anything that could provide evidentiary value. A cadaver dog was brought in, and on the second day of searching, the dog led its handler to the only pond on the property. A second dog was brought in, this time a bloodhound that had also helped in the initial search for Amanda. The bloodhound indicated on several locations, including the front steps of Rick’s house, an area behind Rick’s boat, and near the spot where Rick had supposedly been moving bricks. The dog continued on, leading its handler to one of the small holes, which was now covered with leaves. Then, the dog ran toward the pond, jumping into the water, something its handler said was extremely unusual.

While the search was going on, an FBI agent arrived at the scene with new information: Amanda’s phone had pinged near the pond right before turning off. With all this evidence, investigators were able to get the warrant amended so that they could drain the pond.

Investigators decided to speak with Rick’s wife again. She told them that on the night of August 5th, she had tried to call Rick’s cell phone, but he hadn’t answered. He finally came home around 11:20 and got undressed in the laundry room. He was agitated and began threatening to harm himself, pointing a gun at his head. His wife managed to calm him down and get him to bed. The next morning, she saw him riding his tractor on the far southern end of their property, moving dirt around with the backhoe. Later, Rick told her that he had fallen in the pond. At the time, she hadn’t thought much of it. Now, she wondered what Rick had really been doing.

As investigators continued to search the property, they came across an area where the ground appeared to be discolored and spongy, more so than other areas. When they started moving some of the dirt, they uncovered a pair of white shoes. They immediately stopped digging and contacted the crime lab for further instructions, not wanting to contaminate whatever evidence they had found. With permission from the lab, they used Rick’s backhoe to excavate the area around the shoes. It was then that they discovered the body of Amanda Vangrinsven.

Amanda’s body was transported to the medical examiner’s office. An autopsy revealed that she had been shot once in the back of the head.

Investigators seized all of the firearms in Rick’s house, but none of them matched the bullet that killed Amanda. However, a friend of Rick’s came forward and told them that Rick had given him two guns on August 6th, the same day Amanda had been reported missing. One of the guns was a match to the bullet found in Amanda’s skull.

The news that Amanda’s body had been found was devastating to her loved ones. One friend told WCCO, “There’s no words to describe how this whole community has felt. This is definitely not the outcome we were looking for… I don’t know what is harder: that they found her and that this is the outcome or just not knowing.”

Amanda’s sister Jennifer told FOX 9, “I just really want justice for her. No matter what happened, I want justice for her.”

On August 13th, Amanda’s friends and family gathered outside the VFW for a candlelight vigil to honor her memory. Her sister spoke to the crowd, saying, “Our world is destroyed and we will have to every day try to make sense of life without Amanda. We are sad, we are heartbroken. We are confused, we are angry, and so much more.”

On August 17th, after being released from the mental health facility, Richard Peterson was arrested for the murder of Amanda Vangrinsven. He was charged with one count of second-degree murder and booked into the Isanti County Adult Detention Center on a $1 million conditional bond.

After the arrest, Amanda’s family issued a statement to the media. “There is no way to know the correct way to navigate such unexpected and horrific events. The grief is overwhelming and the unanswered questions and influx of information even more so… We want answers. We want justice. We want the person who did this to Amanda to be held to the highest level of accountability. While we grieve, while we give strength to each other and get strength from the community, we will continue to remain cautious and quietly, but passionately, continue to advocate for answers, accountability, and justice. Please keep Amanda in your prayers and hearts.”

In February of 2023, Richard Peterson pleaded guilty to second-degree intentional murder. He agreed to take an Alford plea, in which he claimed his innocence but acknowledged that the evidence against him was enough to convict. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison and must serve a minimum of 16 years.

Amanda Jo Vangrinsven was a bright light in her community. She loved her family and her friends, and she would do anything for them. We may never know why her life was taken so suddenly, but we can hope that her family takes some comfort in finding justice. May her memory live on in them.