In 2017, This Preschool Teacher Was Found Shot In The Head And Burned Beyond Recognition In Her Home, But Authorities Still Have Not Made Any Arrests
Preschool teacher Nanette Krentel of Lacombe, Louisiana, was known as a kind and caring woman who loved living life to the fullest. But, on July 14, 2017, months of paranoia tragically came to a head– and she was murdered.
It began as a typical Friday morning. Nanette prepared her husband Steve’s lunch before he went to work. At the time, Steve was the fire chief of St. Tammany Parish’s Fire District 12.
Then, at about 7:45 a.m., she traveled to McDonald’s to get her own breakfast before arriving back home just after 9:00 a.m.
By 10:00 a.m., Nanette phoned her local pharmacy about a prescription refill, and at about 1:30 p.m., she placed her last call ever.
A neighbor called the police about an hour later and reported that Nanette’s home was ablaze. The fire department quickly arrived on scene and tried to extinguish the flames. But, the fire engulfed and decimated the home.
Nanette was found face up on her bedroom floor and tragically burned beyond recognition. Her two cats and her dog that she loved dearly, also sadly passed away in the fire. And at first, authorities ruled Nanette’s death a suicide.
However, one week later, they discovered Nanette also had a bullet wound above her right temple. Moreover, her lungs showed no signs of soot– meaning that she was not alive when the fire began.
So, investigators then believed that the house fire had been started intentionally– and Nanette was murdered.
Facebook; pictured above is Nanette
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Another driving part of this theory involved Nanette and Steve’s nine security cameras. The couple lived on a one hundred-acre wooded property and had set up a dedicated network of cameras for protection.
But, authorities discovered the cameras doused with an accelerant and burnt to a crisp. Not even the FBI could recover any of the security network’s footage.
This prompted officials to initially turn to Nanette’s husband, Steve, as a prime suspect– especially because it had recently been discovered that Steve was having an affair with a coworker.
However, Steve’s whereabouts were heavily accounted for on his fire department’s own security cameras. And the only time he left work that day– to attend a lunch at Outback– was corroborated.
In turn, police ultimately dropped Steve as a suspect and have not named another suspect or person of interest in Nanette’s case since.
Nonetheless, more recent inquiries into Nanette’s state of mind at the time were very telling. Emails between Nanette and her family revealed that she had been highly paranoid about her brother-in-law, Bryan, beginning six years before her death.
“Bryan is capable of anything and someone that has nothing to lose, is full of hate, uses drugs, makes threats, is a loose cannon,” Nanette said in an email to her father, Dan Watson, on March 4, 2011.
Bryan was a repeat offender with a record of at least fifteen convictions. His crimes ranged from DWI to the battery of a police officer.
And apparently, he blamed Nanette and Steve for not helping him evade arrest after he got into an accident under the influence.
“Nan was scared to death of him,” Dan said in an interview with 4WWL.
Other emails from March 4, 2011, also revealed the threats Bryan allegedly made to Nanette.
“When he says I will start your house on fire and kill you when you come out, that’s a serious threat to me!” she wrote to her father again.
“He threatened to set the house on fire, rape me and kill us.”
Nonetheless, even though authorities have questioned Bryan and placed him under a lie detector test, he has never been formally named a suspect.
Moreover, Nanette’s case has remained without justice for just over five years now. Her friends and family members have created a Facebook page entitled Justice for Nanette, where they have described their frustration with “tight-lipped” investigators.
“We have started this page to keep her name at the top of mind and to keep pressure on investigators who have been tight-lipped about the cause and manner of her violent death,” the page reads. “We just hope someone who knows something will come out and say it,” said Lori Rando, Nanette’s best friend, last month in an interview with WDSU.
If you have any information regarding Nanette’s case, you are urged to contact the City of New Orleans Crime Stoppers at (877) 903-7867. There is currently a ten thousand dollar reward for anyone with information that leads to an arrest and conviction.
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