Cable network to feature eastern Idaho killings

A national cable network will be looking back at a serial killer who haunted eastern Idaho over two decades ago. Investigation Discovery is re-enacting the murders of Paul Ezra Rhoades. Rhoades was executed by injection in 2011. He was convicted of the 1987 kidnappings and murders of Susan Michelbacher and Stacy Baldwin. He was also convicted of second degree murder in the death of Nolan Haddon.

20-year-old Haddon was working at Buck’s convenience store in Idaho Falls when he was gunned down by Rhoades. Prior to that, Rhoades was in Blackfoot where he shot another convenience store worker, Stacy Baldwin. Nolan’s older brother, Clay, stopped to see him at work that night.

“This is like 10, 10:30 at night and he went behind the counter and I started grabbing cigarettes and lighters and start putting them in my pocket. I was just messing with him. I got the phone call the next morning,” Clay said.

Clay said about an hour after he left, Rhoades came into the store and shot Haddon five times. One of the bullets hit his spinal cord.

“We drove to Idaho Falls and I was so confused. I had to stop and ask the police officer where the hospital was and I knew where it was, but that is just how mentally confused I really was,” Clay said.

Nolan died later that morning after having open heart surgery. Clay remembered how his parents reacted to the tragic news.

“The hardest thing, Christina, was watching your mom and dad trying to pick up their son off the table with five bullet holes and they’re trying to bring him back to life. It was horrible,” said Haddon.

Clay Haddon said Nolan was studying to be a radiation technician. He was working part-time at the Idaho National Laboratory site and convenience store.

“He was the kind of guy he would take off at 4 a.m. and drive up to West Yellowstone,” said Clay.

More details of what happened to Haddon that night will be featured on the upcoming crime TV show “Ice Cold Killers.” The episode will feature interviews with Clay Haddon and former Bingham County prosecutor Thomas Moss.

“In any of these investigations, sometimes you have to have some pretty good luck and the police were looking for Paul Rhoades and wanted to talk to him. There were three different murders that had happened and in the three murders the perpetrator had used the same handgun,” Moss said.

Moss had successfully argued that Rhoades was guilty in the murder of Stacy Baldwin.

“She had a wound in her left arm above the elbow, but it was not like a bullet wound. It was an inch long and it was wide and there was a lump on the other side of the arm. I had assumed that she had a broken arm, but it turned out that it was a bullet and it was the only bullet we had,” Moss said.

Clay Haddon said it is hard to relive the tragic events of the night, but he is talking about it to remember his brother’s legacy. He also wants a chance to thank the community for their support throughout the years.

“People came to my folks’ house for a solid week. My folks lived on a very long road and it was packed with cars from 6 a.m. to midnight for 3 or 4 days in a row,” Clay said.

The show will air Feb. 3 at 6 p.m. on the Investigation Discovery channel. If you have Cable One, head to channel 112. DIRECTV users can go to channel 285. If you have Dish, head to channel 192.