Dan Mason says his wife screamed twice after she slipped off the edge of a 10-foot cliff while fishing and plunged into a roaring stream.

Yet Chaffee County Sheriff's Office officials say an autopsy showed Nancy Mason's neck was broken and she couldn't have screamed.

It is one of many reasons that Chaffee County sheriff's investigators believe Nancy Ann Mason's death on May 30, 2004, was not accidental.

A coroner's inquest or a grand jury may soon be convened to determine whether Nancy Mason was the victim of foul play, Chaffee County Sheriff's Lt. Rob Martellaro said.

"The death is very suspicious," he said.

In a phone interview with The Denver Post, Dan Mason said that what he thought he heard may actually have been a "paranormal" manifestation.

"I told them an angel pulled me out of the water," he said. "That angel was as real to me as my children. Maybe the angel screamed."

Chaffee County authorities began investigating Nancy Mason's death as a homicide after they were contacted by Nancy Mason's ex-husband, disbarred attorney Todd Linville, who is serving a 32-year prison term for bilking clients out of $3.3 million. Linville was convicted in 2005.

Son's name misspelled in will

In the months after divorcing Linville, Nancy met Dan Mason in 2002 at a support group for divorced people.

Not long after Nancy started dating Dan Mason, he moved into her Highlands Ranch home along with his friend, Efren Gallegos. Dan married Nancy in November 2003 in Las Vegas.

"The will mysteriously changed weeks before her death," Martellaro said.

But Dan Mason said the idea for the will was his wife's. They both wrote wills, he said.

But Nancy's will misspells the name of one of her sons, which indicates she didn't write it, said Miriam Gaede, Nancy's mother.

In the weeks before her death, Nancy Mason grew tired of Gallegos and demanded that he leave, Gaede said.

"She was so sick of him," she said.

Dan Mason said he also was tired of having Gallegos around and they decided to go to St. Elmo, a ghost town near Salida in Chaffee County where Nancy Mason had previously scoped out a fishing hole, as a going-away trip for Gallegos.

"That doesn't make any sense because after this happened he and Efren moved away together," said Nancy's son Matt Linville.

The campground where the Masons and Gallegos went is not a good fishing spot that time of year because of how fast the water rushes through narrow, rocky canyon walls, Martellaro said.

Nancy walked alone upstream along rocky wooded cliffs to cast her line off a ledge overlooking a pool she had found herself, her husband said. Dan said he couldn't see her upstream.

Authorities later found her fishing pole beneath the spot with no bait on the hook. There was no bait or gear near the ledge where she was fishing, Martellaro said.

"I would almost bet she had salmon eggs, but I can't swear to what she had," Dan Mason said.

Dan Mason was fishing downstream when he heard Nancy yell for help twice, he later told a deputy.

Doctors who reviewed evidence of Nancy Mason's death said it would be nearly impossible for her to scream with a broken neck, Martellaro said.

Dan Mason said he jumped in the fast-moving water to save his wife, nearly drowning himself. He grabbed his wife and an angel grabbed him, he said. Then Gallegos helped pull him out, he said.

"That angel was as real to me as the scream, but probably neither one is true," he said.

Chaffee County authorities did a re-enactment on Memorial Day this year involving a fit firefighter and using dummies as props. They concluded Gallegos' explanation of how he lifted both of the Masons out of the water was a highly improbable physical feat, Martellaro said.

Dan Mason said he did not know how to perform CPR so he and Gallegos left his wife and went for help.

Instead of driving an eighth of a mile to a store to call for help, the two headed in the opposite direction on a winding dirt road, he said.

Dan Mason said he is unsure why he went the direction he did. "I was in shock."

The people Mason and Gallegos flagged down for help told deputies they thought it odd that the two were wet only from the knees down after their struggle in the water.

But an autopsy concluded the death was "consistent with an accident," Martellaro said. That doesn't mean her death couldn't have been intentional, he said.

Dan Mason got an initial life insurance payment of about $50,000 and all together received about $100,000 from Nancy Mason's estate.

He could have received more, police say, but he wouldn't talk with insurance investigators about his wife's death.

"It meant nothing to me," Dan Mason said. "I just blew it."

Months later, sheriff's investigators tried to interview Gallegos and Dan Mason, who again refused to talk.

Shortly after Nancy's death, Dan Mason and Gallegos moved together to Texas, where they still live.

Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com