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Dateline NBC

Talking Dateline: Murder in Minot

Dateline NBC

NBC News

True Crime, Culture, Social, Society & Culture, News

4.438K Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Blayne Alexander and Josh Mankiewicz sit down to talk about Blayne’s episode "Murder in Minot.” When college student Anita Knutson was found fatally stabbed in her off-campus apartment, investigators struggled to find a killer due to the lack of physical evidence. Eventually investigators turned their attention to Anita’s former roommate, Nichole Rice, who stood trial and was acquitted of the crime. Blayne and Josh discuss their experiences reporting on acquittals and Blayne shares a podcast-exclusive clip of her interview with Anita’s sister on grief and moving on. Plus, they answer viewer and listener questions. If you have a question for Talking Dateline, send us an audio message on social @datelinenbc or leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252. Listen to the full episode of “Murder in Minot” on Apple: https://apple.co/43gVGmK Listen to the full episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5X2MzLrmE77HGB2wV2zMQO

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, everybody. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and we are talking Dateline today with Blaine Alexander. Hi.

0:12.2

Hello. So we're here to talk about Blaine's episode called Murder in MyNot. Now, if you haven't

0:19.4

seen it, it's the episode right below this one on your

0:22.0

Dateline podcast feed. So go there, listen to it, stream it on Peacock, or go to your DVR and watch it

0:31.4

because you record it every single week, which is what you ought to be doing, and then come back

0:35.9

here. Now, to recap, college student Anita

0:39.9

Knutzen was found stabbed to death in her North Dakota apartment in 2007, and it took

0:45.1

nearly 15 years for investigators to make an arrest in that murder. And then that turned out to be

0:51.9

one of the first people they spoke with at the crime scene,

0:55.2

which was Anita's roommate, Nicole.

0:57.8

Now, she maintained her innocence.

0:59.5

And as you saw or heard in the episode, she was acquitted after a week-long trial.

1:06.3

So for this talking dayline, we have an extra clip for Blaine's interview,

1:10.0

a really great interview I thought, with Anita's sister Anna

1:12.7

and how she talks about that long fight for justice for her sister,

1:17.0

which ultimately did not lead where the family wanted it to lead.

1:21.0

So let's talk to Aeline.

1:22.9

Let's do it.

1:25.2

A couple of things I loved about this episode.

1:27.3

One, like, it wasn't clear until pretty close to the end who police thought the guilty party was. A lot of times you have a pretty good idea earlier on. There were a lot of sort of equally rated suspects as you sort of ticked them off through the

1:47.3

investigation. And then, of course, this great twist in which the person that gets arrested

1:52.6

that everybody thinks did it, at least at that point, is acquitted. So let me, let's talk a little

...

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