Naman Shrestha
When Christie Fleming didn’t join her mother and sister for breakfast, they did not have a good feeling about it. Soon, Christie was found murdered in her own condo, to the dismay of her family and friends. In the episode titled ‘When the Smoke Clears’ of ‘Dateline Mystery,’ the details surrounding the death of Christie are explored, including the events that led to the tragedy as well as the investigation that followed. The detectives had their suspicions but did not have enough evidence until more than a decade later. If you are curious to learn more about the case and find out who the culprit was, we have gathered all the required information related to the case!
How Did Christie Fleming Die?
Christie Lee Fleming was born on January 22, 1964, in Los Angeles County, California, to Bryan Robert Fleming and Sharon Joyce Crary Wood. Growing up, she was accompanied by her loving sister Rhonda Fleming in a supposedly loving household with supportive parents. As per the show, since her early days, Christie has been very social and loved interacting with other people. So, as she grew up, she had lots of friends, especially guy friends, in school and college.
When it comes to her dating life, Christie was seemingly involved in a long-term relationship since high school with a guy named Arturo Gutierrez. As per the show, she even got pregnant with his child, after which she allegedly had an abortion. When he joined the military, the couple broke up and went their separate ways. However, a few years down the line, Christie began going out with him again, even though he was married to someone else at the time, as per Rhonda’s account. Given her talents and knowledge, Christie blossomed into a beautiful and successful woman who was doing quite well for herself as she worked for a big aerospace company.
Not only did she have a new car to her name, but the 25-year-old also owned her own condominium in the city of Whittier in California. On May 13, 1989, Christie and her sister Rhonda had planned to meet at their mother’s house for breakfast. When Rhonda called her to check in with her, the line was busy. Even though she couldn’t get in touch with her sister via phone call, which remained busy all morning, she decided to go to her mother’s house, thinking that Christie would eventually show up there. But when there was no sign of her, Rhonda began panicking and called her father, who had divorced their mother.
Rhonda and Bryan went over to Christie’s house only to find the young woman lying dead on the kitchen floor. When the homicide detectives arrived at the crime scene, they found the victim naked, bleeding from the head, and blood on the kitchen floor, suggesting that some sort of struggle had taken place. The cause of her death was determined to be suffocation as a blouse was stuffed in her mouth. Moreover, the authorities even discovered blood on upstairs and downstairs walls, the contents of her purse and drawers scattered across the floor, five cigarette butts, and an empty beer bottle. After gathering all the evidence they could, the police began the interrogation process.
Arturo Gutierrez: The Killer of Christie Fleming
As the detectives started questioning Christie’s family and friends, they made a list of four possible suspects, which were the men whom she had dated. They questioned and checked each one of the exes’ movements and alibis around the time of the crime, and one by one, eliminated off the list. However, the police found out about her relationship with Arturo, her high school sweetheart, from her father. He told them that he had gotten in touch with him and his daughter after several years, just a few months before Christie was found dead.
The detectives even discovered details about Christie and Arturo’s affair after the latter’s marriage. They found out that he lived with his wife and their children at his mother-in-law’s house, which was in close proximity to Christie’s house. Moreover, according to the show, he used to show up during late hours to her apartment, which she mentioned to her friends time and again. All these aspects of their relationship, and their secret affair, made Arturo one of the prime suspects in the eyes of the police.
When the authorities brought Arturo for questioning, he told them that they had broken off their affair two or three months prior to the murder. He even had an air-tight alibi, which was backed up by his wife, for the night Christie was murdered. Still, the detectives took his saliva sample to test it against the DNA found on the cigarettes at the crime scene. Since there were insufficient technological advancements at the time, his DNA was of no use. Thus, with nothing sufficiently incriminating against anybody, the case went cold.
However, about eight years later, the case was reopened by a new detective in charge. When new technology became available, the authorities tested the DNA sample and got a match. This was enough to put handcuffs on Arturo’s hands. So, in December 2003, the 41-year-old Arturo Johannas Gutierrez was arrested by the police at his Perris home after the DNA analysis connected him to the evidence, that is, the cigarette butts, they found at the crime scene 13 years ago. He was held up in prison in lieu of $1-million bail before getting sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison in March 2004 for the murder of Christie Fleming in 1989.
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