INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Erin Corwin, Christopher Lee Profiled On ‘Dateline’: Pregnant Millitary Wife’s Dead Body Found In Desert Mine Shaft After Sexual Affair With Marine

By Traciy Reyes
Published on: 05:49 PST, Dec 1, 2016

Erin Corwin, the pregnant military wife of a Marine, was found dead in a California desert two years ago. Dateline NBC will air the case on their episode “The Last Day” this Friday. Detectives say Erin Corwin was having an extramarital affair with her neighbor and fellow Marine Christopher Lee, who ended up killing her and throwing her dead body down a mine shaft, investigators say.

On Dateline’s show, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s detectives will relay the story as it happened with details on how they finally solved the case, and viewers will also get to hear about Erin Corwin’s love of horses and her life before she married.

Marine’s Pregnant Wife Missing On Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC’s “The Last Day” episode begins with the disappearance of 19-year-old Erin Corwin, who was last seen leaving her home in her 2013 Toyota Corolla in the summer of 2014. According to her husband, Jonathan Corwin, she was headed to the Joshua Tree National Park to hike and find a beautiful place to photograph in preparation for an upcoming visit with her mother. When she failed to return home that evening as planned, family members contacted police, according to People.

“Jon kept trying to call her, and figured there was no cell service at the park. By the evening, he started to get worried and started calling around.”

California detectives were told that the missing woman was pregnant. A search ensued to find Erin Corwin in the desert, but nothing turned up. The investigation took a different turn when Erin Corwin’s car was finally located. It was then that police believed that foul play was involved.

A Deserted Affair

Police took a close look into Erin Corwin’s background, and it wasn’t long before talk of an affair caught their attention. It seemed that several people knew or suspected that Erin Corwin was having an affair with her neighbor Christopher Lee, who was married.

Dateline’s coverage will confirm that Erin Corwin and Christopher Lee met each other on base at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, where they caught each other’s eye. From there, a passionate affair began. But if Erin Corwin thought for a minute that things would work out with Christopher Lee, she was sadly mistaken since Lee was planning on deserting her and leaving the state before his wife could find out about the affair and the pregnancy.

The Press Enterprise explains in detail.

“The Corwins lived next door to Lee in an apartment complex on the Twentynine Palms Marine base, and the young couple was friends with Lee, as well as Conor and Aisling Malakie, who lived in an apartment downstairs.

“The secret lovers were exposed after Aisling Malakie caught Lee kissing Erin Corwin on her living room couch on Valentine’s Day 2014.

“The affair caused a rift between the Malakies, Lee and Erin Corwin.”

Sources say that Erin Corwin had plans to spend the day with her lover, believing that Christopher Lee was going to ask her to marry him that day during the excursion to the desert. Instead, her lover took her life and almost made her vanish forever without her family ever knowing what happened to her.

Christopher Lee vehemently denied having anything to do with his pregnant lover’s death, but he later admitted to strangling her before dropping her body down a mine shaft near the Joshua Tree National Park. According to Lee, he did it because Erin allegedly admitted to molesting his daughter. Prosecutors believed that Christopher Lee was making up lies to cover his tracks, according to the Daily Mail.

Dental records confirmed what police already knew — that the body was that of missing wife Erin Corwin. The autopsy report was unable to determine if she was indeed pregnant. However, police theorized that the baby belonged to Lee.

Christopher Lee was sentenced to life in prison for Erin Corwin’s murder. Watch Dateline NBC this Friday, December 2 at 9/8 p.m. Central for the rest of the story. A previous Dateline episode dealt with another case of a sex affair that led to murder.

[Featured Image by kasha_malasha/Shutterstock]

Share this article: Erin Corwin, Christopher Lee Profiled On ‘Dateline’: Pregnant Millitary Wife’s Dead Body Found In Desert Mine Shaft After Sexual Affair With Marine
More from Inquisitr