Megan's Law

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections and combine with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, Kelly Jennings here back for another episode of Unspeakable. How are you doing? I'm so glad to have you listening in My God, the growth, my goodness, y'all.

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3:29 But my daughter, my youngest daughter, she's seven, she came home yesterday and told me that her friend told her that she thinks that her boyfriend Jamie, maybe using her just for smoothie money. And I'm like, oh my god, here we go now. I just I can't have anyone in second grade treating my daughter this way. What I'm gonna do, Oh my goodness. But my little girl looked me in my face and she's snapped me right back into and she said, Mama, you don't know Jamie like I do, and he ain't no gold digger. So I just thought i'd let y'all know, y'all be on the lookout watch the news, because if Jamie's using my baby for her smoothie money, we might have a problem at the elementary school. I'm just playing, but anyway, that's the drama in my life. I hope that your drama is as not serious as mine is.

4:19 But we're going to jump into a pretty serious story today, and you know, I got to think him, Okay, a lot of laws that we have in terms of crime, right, my brain's always just going off out down rabbit holes and try and thinking about things. And I was like, you know, a lot of laws come about and I don't think that people know where they originated from. And so I thought to myself self, you maybe you should do an episode on some of these laws that people are familiar with or maybe they're not, but where did it come from? And what's the story behind the law that came to be? And so today's episode is going to be about Megan's Law. If you've never heard of it, well I'm going to teach you all about it. But this case was kind of one that kind of hit me in the gut because, you know, it interests me why where they come from. But it also is part of the reason that we have broad sweeping changes in our society when it comes to crime.

5:18 And I thought that this one would be an important one to share because there are people in our society that pay a mighty cost, and that cost that they pay may result, you know, in the loss of their lives and the loss of their children, and they pay a huge cost for the changes that are made to benefit you and me. And so this episode is obviously going to be dedicated to Megan's law. So where does it start. So this takes place in nineteen ninety four, and Megan Kenka was seven years old in nineteen ninety four, and she lived at thirty two Barbara Lee Drive in Hamilton Township, New Jersey with her parents, and their names were Maureen and Richard Kenka, and she also had two other siblings. Now, Megan, y'all, was this feisty little thing. She loved to play outside.

6:04 She was an outdoorsy kid, and she was always outside riding her bike or playing or just you know, having fun in the sunshine. And she loved the color pink. She was just your typical, bubbly little seven year old girl that had not a care in the world. She had this long brown hair and the biggest chubby cheeks and these sweet little eyes, and she was just a cute little thing and she was just always wanting to have fun and wanting to play. Now, one of her favorite things to do though, it was to ride her bike. And she really liked to chat with the people, like in her neighborhood. She was a friendly little kid and she would she would talk to people as she rode her bike. And this neighborhood was an average neighborhood. It was like one that probably most of us live in. And like most of us, the Kinkas did not know every single person in their neighborhood, and a lot of people don't. I'm lucky I live in a neighborhood where I actually do know everyone, at least their names.

7:02 I don't know that we hang out or anything, but I know most of the people in my neighborhood. And this neighborhood, though, was one where that everyone didn't quite know everyone really well. But mainly it was just waving hello or nodding and you know, how are you doing as you walk by, you walk your dog, you ride your bike, and just a nice neighborhood. Well as people went on and just live their everyday lives. And they lived in a house. Across the street there was an elderly lady. Her name was Miss Chiffeli and she was seventy two years old, so an older lady. And then down the street, Megan had a friend that she loved to play with. Her name was Courtney and she would you ride her bike down there and she would play from time to time. Now, remember this is in nineteen ninety four, so this is before you know, the huge scary events that have been done against kids that have made the news in huge proportion, like they were like you know, the Columbines of the world, or the sex trafficking. You know, in the nineties, this wasn't something that was really broadcast all over the internet or the news, And I think that people lived in a much more an environment where they didn't quite realize the dangers that were out there everywhere, especially at home. Right, you go home and you live there, and it should be a safe place.

8:20 And I don't think that these parents quite understood the threats that are out there constantly. And that's not their fault. It was the nineties. Things were just a little bit different. And in the nineties, I think those were probably the last generation of kids to jump on our bikes and go ride off and be gone all day long. We drank from the water hose. And then things started changing in our society. But back then, you know, little bubbly Megan, she was always out and about doing her thing, and she was so bubbly even that even their mailman, their longtime mailman. His name was Frank Ratkowis. He had delivered mail to that neighborhood and to that house for twenty four years and little Megan's only seven, so he has delivered mail her entire life. And even he knew Megan because since he had been delivering the mail so long, he had been talking to Megan when he would deliver the mail. And she had recently let mister Frank in on a secret, okay, and that secret was that she was waiting for a letter.

9:22 It was going to come in the mail, and she was super excited about this letter. And he was said, who is going to write you this letter? Who is mailing you a letter? And she said, it's my friend, and I cannot wait to get it. You know, think about that excitement as a child, when you were a little and you got something in the mail. I can remember that, and that was like the ultimate. That was the coolest, right because we didn't have text message in and all that. Back then, you were getting a letter in the mail and she was checking the mail religiously and she kept asking for it, and he said that excitedly she had for a week straight said do you have my letter? Is my letter here? And he said, no, not yet, Megan, but it's coming and when I get it, I'm gonna give it to you girl, all right, mister Frank And she would just wait every day for that letter. Well, on July twenty ninth, nineteen ninety four, that is the day of this event when it would start, and Miss Kenka came home and she decided that she wanted to lay down and relax at the house right after work or whatever she did that day. So it was about six thirty pm and she went and she laid down to rest, and while she was resting, Megan asked, can I go out and play down the street with Courtney? And her mama said, sure, no problem, you can go play. I'll be here. So after a while, Miss Kenka rested and then she got up and she was going about her business and that's when she decided, you know, it's getting kind of late.

10:39 Megan hadn't come back in the house. Let me go find Megan. So she starts looking for Megan, as most parents would do, and she's calling for and Megan is not answering her. So she becomes a little nervous and so she goes outside and she starts asking the neighbors, hey, have you seen Megan? And nobody knew exactly the last minute that they had seen Megan, but most of them kept echoing the same sentiment that we saw Megan. She was just out here. We saw her. She was riding her bike, and a lot of neighbor neighbors, like a bunch of neighbors told miss Kanka that they had, you know, they had seen her in the neighborhood earlier a little while before, and that they verified, yep, she was on her bike and she was riding around the neighborhood and she was playing.

11:26 So as Megan's family went house to house to house to see where she was, neighbors started coming out to try to help her find her because they became more and more nervous whenever time was passing by and nobody could find Megan. So neighbors started coming out and helping to look for her. And another neighbor that was in the neighborhood said that he had seen Megan right before dinner, right before he went to go have dinner, and that whenever he saw her, she was going through the neighborhood with her friend Courtney, and so this neighbor's name was Jesse, and Jesse was talking about how he had just bought a new boat and the boat was in the driveway, and so he was cleaning up his boat, and the girls had stopped by and were, you know, just saying hey and talking about his boat. And his boat, by the name was called the Sun Station, and the Sun Station was outside of the house, and he was cleaning it and working on it, and so the kids were interested in the new boat, and we're talking to him about it. Now. His name, like I told you, was Jesse, Tim and day Quass, or Tim and day Quass, however you want to say it wherever you're from now. Jesse lived across the street. If you remember, I just told you there was a seventy two year old name Miss Chiffelli that lived across the street. Jesse lived with Miss Chifelli along with two other grown men in that house. And so whenever, you know, they were outside, the kids were used to seeing them and so they they would hit chat. It wasn't a big deal. Now. Shortly after Megan's

12:56 disappearance and after searching and Sir and Megan not turning up anywhere, and the neighbors are looking and nobody can find her. That's when Miss Kanka said, Okay, enough is enough. I've got to call the police. And so she went ahead and made a call into the police to say, oh my god, I cannot find my seven year old daughter. Please help me now. When the police arrived at Barbaraly Drive, she was ready. She had a photograph of Megan, and she also had a description of what Megan was wearing when she last saw her, when she went out to play. So she gave all that to the police. And she also gave the police a pair of shorts that were not the exact same, but we're very similar to the ones that Megan was wearing when she disappeared. And so I thought I would tell y'all this too. On a side note, it is always good to have a current photo of your child with you at all times on your phone or at the house, a picture you know that's current, because you never know when you're gonna need it, and it never fails at places, kind of like if you go to Disney World or you go on vacation, you're at the beach and your kid goes missing. Take a picture when y'all go on these trips so that you have literally what the kid is wearing and looks like at that exact moment to share with police, because it's a very helpful thing when you know exactly what they're wearing. Now, when the police got there, it was Hamilton Township Patrol Officer Paul Seats and Officer Mike Smith that arrived at their residence, and they got there at about eight forty nine pm. So Meghan's mom had said, yes, you can go out, and she had left the house around you know, six thirty. It's now

14:30 eight forty nine, so it really hasn't been that long in terms of, you know, a kid outside playing, but it's horrible, horribly long whenever it's your kids can't find where could they be? In two and a half hours, So, after searching the Kanka's house and property because the police wanted to make sure she wasn't hiding and under a bed or locked in a closet or something like that, they went out and said, yeah, we need to start talking to the neighbors. And they started questioning a lot of the neighbors, and Officer Seats spoke with that neighbor across the street. Jesse the one who had been cleaning his boat, and he asked him, hey, have you spoken to Megan? And he said, yeah, I did, and a lot of the other neighbors verified yeah, he was out cycleaning the boat he spoke to Megan. So they knew that she had been there and had an approximate timeline, and they said, okay, well when did you last see Megan? And he said he saw Megan riding her bike around two thirty pm that day. Well, that kind of conflicted with what everybody else was saying as far as the timeline goes, because the neighbors were giving a later timeline than what Jesse was giving. But people make mistakes, and so the police said, let me ask you again. Can you tell me again exactly when you last saw Megan? And he said that he had seen her at two thirty and then he said, oh, yeah, I also saw her riding her bike in front of her house and that was more around five thirty to six. So the police were kind of intrigued by that that he kind of got the last time he saw Megan. So they continued to question

16:03 Jesse, and you know, they didn't have too many red flags, but it just was a conflict in the timeline, and so they started asking about who else lived in the home with him, and that's when he said, oh, yeah, there's two other guys that live here with me and miss Chaffelli. So Jesse explained to the police officers it's me, and then it's miss Chaffelli's adult son. His name is Joseph Chaffelli. And then there's another guy named Brian Jennen and so all right, maybe it's kind of a different dynamic. Three adult men, one elderly woman, but hey, it's her older son, adult son, and two of his friends. You know, maybe they're helping around the house or whatever, and it's making her life easier.

16:44 So they started questioning about Joseph and Brian, the two friends, and said, well, where were they around this time? And Jesse actually had an alibi for him. He said, well, they were not here. They were actually out shopping together five thirty and seven. They were out, they weren't even here, and said the police were like, okay, so could they couldn't validate where Meghan was last seen and he's like, no, they wouldn't know because they weren't here. So the officer was like okay, well, you know that makes sense, but nothing else was really standing out to the police as something that they might need to go look at. So it now is about ten pm and there's four officers that approach the Chiffelli home and the reason that they went was that they wanted to try and obtain consent to search the house. So this is different than just like a warrant.

17:36 You got go cut a warrant, you know, it's your probable cause and all that. They walked up and said, hey, would you mind if we come and we look and search the house for Megan. Well, mister Chiffelli the sun was like, yeah, no problem, absolutely, no problem whatsoever. He let them in the house. He agreed and said you can search it. He said, you can also search my yard, you can search the boat, you can search anything on the property and look for Megan because you're not here. And they found that to be true. The police searched everything and they never found Megan. She wasn't there. They didn't even have like a hint of her being there. Now during that search, one of the officers, his name was Officer Nelson, which is taking note of things that he did notice around the home and he did notice that there was a big, heavy, brown blanket that was being washed in the washing machine, but I mean whatever, we all washed our blankets. And while he did think it was kind of unusual and it was like a big, big blanket that was being washed, none of the residents at the home were considered to be suspects and so the police kind of poopoed that idea and they kept on their search trying to find where Megan could possibly be. Now time goes on, it's now twelve thirty am and Megan has still not been found, and no one has had a hint of where she possibly could be. And two detectives on the case, their names were Detective O'Dwyer and Detective Keefer there came on the scene. And then there was another detective, Sergeant Stanley that

19:06 showed up. So they really were working this case hard because y'all, kids can't go missing. Adults have every right to not answer the phone and go missing, but anyone who's a child like this, who can't take care of themselves themselves, this is a big ordeal. We need to we need to make sure that they're found. And so all of these detectives show up and they did get Chiffelli to sign consent for them to look at the home again. They just felt like, almost in their gut, that they needed to go back to this house and look. So Jenin Chiffelli and Jesse Tim and Deequas were also at this point separated and they were questioned individually and in different areas to try to see what are their stories and do they line up.

19:55 So while they're being questioned, the house is being searched, and that O'Dwyer found what he said appeared to be four pairs of women's underwear and one of them had a Teddy Bear pattern on it. And where they found it was pretty suspicion because they found it under Chiffelli's bed. So they're like, oh god, you know, here's Teddy Bear underwear under his bed. Why does a grown man have underwear under his bed? Based on this discovery, the officer came out. He went ahead and read mister Chiffelli his Miranda rights and wanted to question him. So he comes out, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say, Kennon will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney if you cannot afford when one will be provided for you. Do you understand your rights? Well, Chiffelli not only agreed, yep, I understand my rights, he waived his rights to remain silent and said, I'll talk to you. I'll tell you anything you want to know. Extremely helpful, and he explained, Yeah, that underwear is under my bed. It belonged to an ex girlfriend of mine. It just was under the bed. There's nothing about that. It's not it's not even a kid's underwear. Well, O'Dwyer went back and looked, really really looked at the underwear really well and said, you know, actually, I think I do agree with him. This is adult sized and it doesn't seem to have any connection to Megan's disappearance. She's seven. These are big underwear. It wouldn't have fit her anyway. So Chiffelli also gave the officers an alibi and was even able to provide receipts proving that he and

21:30 Jennen were not at the home that the time that Megan disappeared. And receipts are pretty damning, you know, I mean, you can't be in two places at one time, you know. Now, again, it's the nineties, so I know someone's gonna say, well, why don't they just go check the cameras. It's the nineties, don't forget that. So I also wanted to explain this. So sometimes the word alibi sounds like you're lying, you know, in the film, well what was his alibi? You know, it sounds like what is your you know, what are you going to try to make up to say that you weren't where you were supposed to be. But I want to make sure everybody understands alibi does not mean a lie. It just means an explanation of what you were doing at the time in question, which makes it impossible for you to have been there. You know.

22:11 It's just basically offering an excuse, but one that can be either validated or not validated. Well, theirs was validated. They had their receipt. So then the officers moved on and they went and they interviewed Brian Jennen, the other man, and they did not read him his Miranda rights. And I know you're gonna be like, what they you know, they're breaking the law. Well, no, they didn't read him as miranda rights because according to those detectives, they didn't find anything suspicious in Jennen's room, there was nothing there to make them feel like he was going to be questioned in an accusatory you know, fashion or anything like that. They were just trying to obtain information from him. And Jennen's account also aligned with Chiffelli's that they did not divulge at any diverge at any point. They totally lined up with what the other one was saying. So after they questioned Chaffelli and Jennen, the officers then called Jesse into the room. He was not read his Miranda rights either, because, same as the other fella, they didn't find anything in his room that seemed suspicious, and there was nothing in the house that seemed suspicious, and they were just trying to get additional information that these guys might have in reference to where Megan could be, and the other two had no clue. Jesse explained that, look, I don't know where she is.

23:34 I had gone out that day with Jennin and Chaffelli and that's when we went to purchase the boat. Then when I got home, I parked the boat in the front of the house and I did speak to Megan. I'm not going to deny that they asked him, well, how did you even know Megan? He said, she was just a neighborhood child. She was. I knew her just from playing in the neighborhood and she and her friend Courtney, you know, both between five five thirty that day. We're talking to me while I was washing the boat. And that's about it. There's nothing more to it. Jennin and Chiffelli could not confirm or deny the claim, because again, they really were out running errands at the time that all of this would have occurred. So as the questioning continued, Officer A. Dwyer noticed something about Jesse that kind of raised his HM flag. You know what I'm talking about, hmm, that gut. And it has to do with body language. And I know, if you are new and you haven't listened to previous episodes, no worries, go back and listen to nineteen Day Devil, because I explained this. But body language is everything when you're questioning somebody, and when you're questioning somebody who has nothing to hide, body language should be open. Okay. I don't mean you're like splayed out in a chair necessarily with your legs open, you know what I mean. But you're comfortable, you're seated, you're talking. You might be leaning in and listening and absorbing the information and giving back, you might be recalling. But Jesse's behavior and body language was a little different because it was noticeable to Adwire that Jesse

25:07 was shaking. He was physically shaking while he was talking to the officer, and he also noticed that he was perspiring heavily during this questioning. It wasn't even like he was attacking him in the questioning. It was just like an interview, like where were you? What were you doing? And he is physically shaking and heavily perspiring. Now, in and of itself, that might not mean anything. Maybe you shake because you have Parkinson's. Maybe you sweat a lot because you're fat and overweight and sweating is something that happens to you. Or maybe you sweat because you're really skinny and you have a diabetic issue in your sugar is dropped. There's a million reasons why people of anybody's type might shake or they might perspire. But it is quite interesting that we're asking you about a missing child and you are shaking and sweating, and the other ones aren't right, Like, which one of these is different. So I spoke to a lot in that Dakota terrya case about his body language and how he behaved in that seat. Remember like the grooming behaviors and all of that.

26:11 And one thing that Jesse did that might sound familiar to you is that whenever the detective started questioning him a little bit more, and if you're watching me podcast right now, he crossed his arms like this if you're looking at me, so he crossed him across his chest and he was kind of holding himself, which, if you remember, that is a comfort that's a comforting, soothing behavior that people do, but it's also a barrier that people set up between themselves and the person and questioning them. Even though it's not necessarily a real barrier, it's still a barrier and it makes you feel like you're a little more safe. So the officer decides, or the detective decides to kind of close his proximity to Jesse. And remember Detective Awden did that too when he got into detective room. He kind of would lean in close, was off that space, not give you that, you know, personal space that people want. And whenever he sat down closer next to Jesse, Jesse not only had his arms crossed, but Jesse then crossed his legs and then turned his body away from the detective. And that is closing yourself off.

27:22 And it's kind of strange when someone's talking to you to turn your body away from them, right, Why would you turn away from someone who's talking to you. And we all know this if we are Unspeakable fans, And it's because you are trying to get away from the person asking you the questions. You're trying to create distance and close yourself off to what is being asked. And so that detective noted that, y'all, detective work is not just like a science. There is an art to it and you have to know what you're doing. And that's why experience is so necessary to become a detective. Right. Well, based on Jesse's account of what happened that day come by, with his level of nervousness and the confirmation that he himself gave that he was alone at the time of Megan's disappearance at the house, nobody else was there, the officers felt like, you know what, I think, maybe we need to question him just a little bit more. Everyone's pointing at Jesse, even his roommates weren't there, and he looks nervous, af right, something is up. So they say, you know what, Jesse, we'd really like to interview you some more. But y'all they wanted to do it on their own turf, okay, they wanted to raise that discomfort level.

28:34 And so they asked Jesse, hey, would you mind coming on down to headquarters with us. We would just like to interview you a little bit more in depth down at the station so that we can, you know, we can record it and have a record of everything that occurs. And Jesse says sure, no problem. So the officers are like, come on, come with us, we'll bring you. But then Jesse pipes up and says, no, I think I want to drive myself. I don't want to ride with you. Okay, no problem. Oh. So the officers said, we're going to follow you to, you know, to the questioning site so they can keep their eyes on him, right, So he says okay, and he does. He complies. He drives all the way to headquarters to speak with them, and at this point the officers really felt like they did not need to speak with Chiffeli or jenin the roommates anymore because just based on the way Jesse was reacting and behavior behaving, their red flag they're ding ding ding. Their flags were just raised, right, So they did not ask the other two to come and speak at the station. So when they get there, it's now approximately two fifty in the morning. When they get there, Jesse is read his Miranda warnings at this point because now it's a little more official. We want to make sure that you know that you have the right to remain silent and all that jazz. They followed all of the rules to a t and they even had Jesse sign a form willingly that stated he understood his rights, but he was going to completely and totally waive his right

30:04 to remain silent, which sounds good, right. He even said, I don't even want a lawyer. He said, I'll talk and I don't need a lawyer. I don't have anything to do with this. And he said, I want to help in any way that I possibly can. Now I want you to think about this too. It's two thirty in the morning. At two fifty in the morning, she has been missing. Little Megan has been gone since about six thirty the night before the gut wrenching horror that that family must have been feeling that their baby girl is missing and everyone saw her but no one can find her must have been the most sickening feeling ever.

30:45 A neighbors had been out looking for her. Hell, even Jesse was out there looking for her, and they could not find her. There was no trace of her anywhere. And I know my mind as a mom is like, oh my god, did someone pick her up in a car, throw her in a car and take off with her. The only thing that would make me think no at this point was that the parents did find her bicycle. But you know where they found the bicycle in their front lawn. It wasn't like she ditched it down at Courtney, her friend's house. She wasn't knocked off of it, and they found it a few blocks away. It was in their front yard. He was right there, so she must have laid it down and got off of it. And she didn't look like she was hit. So where did she go? Where could she have gotten to on her own two feet? So, like I said, it's two fifty in the morning, and the detectives decided to switch gears with Jesse at this point, and they say, look, we want you to give us a written statement, and we want to know all of your whereabouts on the twenty ninth, which was the night before the day before, we want to know all of your whereabouts. Where were you, what did you do? Just outline it for us, be as clear as possible. Give us times, approximate times if you can, and just give us anything and everything that you did that day so that we can you know, pretty much sclued you as having anything to do with this, and he says, no problem. Incredibly, he sat down and he wrote the statement, and when they got it, they're reviewing it and the detectives are like, wait a minute, the written statement is conflicting with what he previously had stated he did that day.

32:22 So something about that is this, if you're telling the truth. My dad always said this to me, If you're telling the truth, don't you never have to forget what you said because the truth is the truth is the truth. You may be awful a little bit on because of perception of things maybe, but if you're telling the truth, things should never change dramatically, correct like ours should not change, or what you were wearing shit and change. I mean, you know where you were and what you were doing within reason, And something in particular that caught their eye was that Jesse wrote that he had seen a victim a second time on the twenty ninth, which he remembered, did not originally state he had seen her a second time. He came back later and said it. But now he's saying, oh, I saw her at six thirty, but that was not the time he gave before.

33:13 Now it's even later than he said that he actually saw her. He had previously told the detectives he had only seen her once by his boat. Then he said, or riding her bike. Excuse me. Then he's like, oh, yeah, I spoke to her by my boat. And now all of a sudden, there's a four hour difference between when he originally said that he saw her and then when he last said that he saw her. And now it's starting to get a little too fuzzy. That's a big difference between two thirty and six thirty. You cannot be off that much in your timeframe. So they questioned him some more, and they're asking a little bit more, and it's now about four o'clock in the morning, and Jesse signs a form consenting to a search of his vehicle so they don't need a warrant if he's going to consent and say, sure, go ahead and search it.

34:05 There's nothing in my vehicle of any of importance. So Detective Dwyer goes and he starts looking through the car, and he's checking for latent fingerprints. By the way, if you don't know what latent means, it means it's not seen by the naked eye. A latent print has to be developed, okay. And he's looking for these fingerprints, and while he's looking in the car, he finds a brown toy chest and he finds a piece of a black belt in the back of the pickup truck. Now Jesse was standing there, he was present while they were searching the vehicle, and he's not even asked any questions. He just pipes up real quickly and immediately volunteers that, oh and by the way, I recently cut my hand on the curtain rod that hung in front of the glass that separated the passenger and the cap portion of the truck, So just know that. And the detectives kind of turned around and were like, okay, like why would you say that randomly? But was even stranger about it was that he did have an injury on the palm of his hand, but they did not find any blood or skin or anything on the curtain rod. So he's volunteering that he cut his hand on a curtain rod. But then there's absolutely zero DNA or blood or anything to verify what he is saying. It just seemed odd. But while it was strange,

35:38 again, it doesn't necessarily prove anything. I mean, after all, they found no blood, and he did cut his hand, and he showed that he cut his hand. So you know, it's four am, and y'all, the family still has no sign of Megan. They have looked feverishly for her. It's getting pretty sick in their household, and she simply had vanished. She was nowhere to be found. And the search of Jesse's vehicle was completed, and he was allowed at that point to leave headquarters, even though everything he's doing is kind of like going I don't know, man, it's kind of weird. They don't have anything to go off of, and you've got to have probable cause to go forward. And you are allowed to cut your hand in the United States of America in your car, you're allowed to cut it on a curtain rod. You're allowed to wash your boat, you're allowed to speak to children. Nothing he's done while his behavior is suspicious.

36:32 Nothing he's done is like saying, yes, you've done something to this little girl. But he did promise, hey, if you need me, I will return tomorrow for further questioning. So there's another detective, Martin Ingebrandt, and he was called into headquarters around five thirty that morning because they said, look, we want you to come in and see if you can help us with this can't cut investigation. This girl is gone and we don't have any leads. So about two hours later, it's about seven am, Inga Brandt was sent to Jesse's house and this time he wanted to go ahead and get the consent to search the boat in the yard. He specifically wanted to look at the boat. So Chiffelli, who owns the property, answers the door and he says, no problem, you can absolutely have consent and you can go check the boat. And so they head out there and they're looking for fingerprints to try to validate was Megan here or not. So Detective inga Brant walks over there and he's at the boat and he's starting to conduct his search. But just because he's searching the boat doesn't mean that he's not aware of his surroundings and things that are going on around him. And so he makes a note, a mental note at this time that he sees Jesse out and he's walking up and down the road and he is walking a puppy dog.

37:45 He has a little puppy with him and he's taking him for a walk. So a few minutes later, inga Brant again looks up and he notices that there are three garbage cans between the curb, between the curb and the side of the boat, and strangely, they weren't there when he first walked over to the boat. They had been placed there since he went to look at the boat, and that kind of peaked his interest. Why are three trash cans now all of a sudden out at the road. So the officers on scene again obtained Chaffelli's consent, and they wanted to search the garbage. They wanted to see what was in it. So about nine to fifteen that morning, the officers were turned to headquarters and that's when they started sorting through garbage. And wow, what a want a thing to get to do at nine thirty in the morning, is digged through somebody's garbage, right, But nothing was taken from the boat. They didn't find anything in the boat.

38:44 As they're looking through the garbage, the officers did come across three items that seemed a bit suspicion. Number one, they found a rope and it had some knots tied in it, like a several knots, and they had a substance on it that looked a whole lot like dried blood. M maybe we need to check that. They also found just the waistband of a small pair of pants that appeared to be for a child child size. And then they also found a piece of material in that trash bag that matched the material on the waistband of the shorts. And this was kind of like, oh gosh, right, why is this here. So a little more time has gone by. It's now twelve seventeen PM on thirtieth, so it's the next day.

39:37 It's only been not even twenty four hours yet, and detectives called Jesse in again and they say, look, we want to ask you some more questions. So they continue to question him. He does show up and they ask him again, look, I know you've told us this, but we want you to write your statement again detailing what you you did on the twenty ninth one more time. If you could just run through that for us one more time so that we can make sure that we haven't missed anything. And the detectives waited outside of the room while he wrote his statement, and to me, I'm adding that in just to let you know, there was no pressure on behalf of the police officers. They weren't standing over him, like making him sweat it out or anything. They said, here's some paper, here's a pen, take your time, write it all out for us so that we make sure you don't forget anything. And then they wanted to review the statement. Well he did, and then when they got the statement, there were more glaring differences between the first and the second statement. And again, y'all, the truth never changes, so it's super odd that he might make a mistake once, but now twice you're making timeline changes and issues with what's happened. Coincidences don't happen in police work, they just don't. So the detectives noticed that in his statements when they're comparing the two of them, that he is so focused on the time of six and six thirty. He just keeps going back to between six and six thirty, six and six thirty,

41:08 and he's almost like he's highlighting that period of time so much so that he mentions it three or four times in the statement, and detectives had not even asked him about that specifically, So why does he keep going back to this specific time frame? So, considering this as a flag, they start questioning him harder, and they got really direct with him in these questions, and at one point, a detective shows Jesse a photograph of the clothes that they pulled from the trash pile. I remember it was a waistband and a piece of cloth, and Jesse says, yeah, that was mine. He said, those are rags from my job. And that has nothing to do with Megan. It's rags from my job. We use torn up rags.

41:54 I don't know why you're making a big deal out of this, but there was only one problem Jesse about the rags from his work. The problem was that at ten am earlier that morning that same day, detectives had brought those pieces of clothing, those little pieces of it, from that trash to the Kenka's house, and Miss Kenka, with absolute horror in her heart, confirmed, oh my god, those are the shorts that Megan was wearing when she left the house. So Jesse now has himself in a bind because the police already know that they're megan shorts. And I don't know about you, but as a mother of girls, and as a girl myself, a man who can't get his timeline straight my missing seven year old, and now her undergarment or her shorts that cover her private areas are not only in your trash can, but cut to shreds. I don't know how you could possibly think anything other than what I'm thinking right now, which is, oh my god, he raped her. So the police continue to question Jesse until about six thirty five that evening. It has now been exactly twenty four hours since Megan was reported, or about twenty four hours since Megan was missing. Okay, all right, So police continued to question Jesse until about six thirty five PM,

43:31 which is almost twenty four hours since the last time that she was seen. They did give him and I want to be completely transparent here, they did give him two twenty to twenty five minute breaks during this questioning, so that he could. You know, no one can argue that he was just being pounded with questions and never given a chance to regroup or or you know, being emotionally toiled with. Here. They gave him two almost thirty minute breaks, but they did make him stay in the conference room the entire time. They didn't let him go out and catch a cigarette or anything like that. And towards the end of this period of the questioning, at about six thirty pm, six twenty pm, that's when randomly Jesse says, Hey, I'd like to speak to my roommate, Jennen. And they said, you want to speak to your roommate. Yeah, So they oblige him. They said, okay, fine, So they went and got Jennin and they brought him and they brought him into the room. Now there was also a detective in there as well. So Jennen spoke first, saying to Jesse, and this is a direct quote, they got you. They got you, bro, They got you. Now I want to I want to ask you something real quick. Why would you if you're someone's roommate and good friend, walk in and the first thing you say to your roommate is they got you. It makes me feel like he knew what type of roommate he had. That's the

45:05 first thing. He says. They got you, they got you, they got you. And then he says, you're going to need a friend on the outside, and I'll be that friend, which again I don't quite understand that, And in response, Jesse looks at him and then he drops his head. He just drops his head down. He looks back up, and he said she's in Mercer County Park. He admits he did get her and he dumped her in Mercer County Park. He then goes on and starts telling the detectives that Megan was dead and that he had put a bag over her head. Now, I'm gonna go ahead right now and call bullshit. You don't just be cleaning your boat and then randomly put a bag on a little girl's head and her dead. Something's not that'll make sense. So obviously what he's doing here is he's trying to self preserve self preservation. He's given up some information that he feels like we'll get them off of his back, but he is not giving the full details here. I just put a bag over her head. Why would you put a bag over her head? And how long did you have to put a bag over her head to kill her?

46:19 What are you talking about? But at that moment, they just wanted to know, Okay, where is she? So he made the confession and then he says, okay, yes, I'll show you where she is. So police put him in the car and they drive him to the park where he says that she is. And once they got there, he gets out of the car and he walks directly to little Megan's body and there she lay lifeless. She was lying in some tall weeds that were concealed from the view of the road, and she did actually indeed have a plastic bag over her head. He actually was telling the truth on that. So while they're riding back to head quarters, that's whenever the officers question him and say, tell us what happened. I need you to tell me exactly what happened. And so he starts talking to them and he does tell them what happened. But he gets back to headquarters and he gives a written statement again of what he says really happened. This time it was about seven thirty pm whenever he does this, and in that statement he says the following happened. He says it was the twenty ninth. Megan wanted to see Jesse's puppy, and so she came over to Jesse's house while the roommates were gone. He then said that he brought Megan into the bedroom and I'm going to tell you that this is this is difficult, okay, because I know this is a little girl, But

47:50 my job is to tell you the truth of what happened. Laws were changed because of what happened here. So Jesse says he brought Megan into the bedroom and he started to quote unquote touch her. Little Megan started screaming and immediately tried to get away from him. He says that he became afraid at that point that she was going to tell her mother, and so he grabbed her. And when he grabbed her because she was trying to get away, he said that was whenever he ripped her shorts. He said he then grabbed a belt and he put that belt around little seven year old Megan's neck and he started pulling her back into the room. And then he says that she fell and she started to bleed. So he said to stop the bleeding and to prevent the blood from getting on the carpet. That's why he placed the plastic bag over her head, he said. He then used a second plastic bag to tie off the first bag. And about this time is when he says that chaf fell and Jennen arrived home. So he figured, oh, well, Megan's dead now, and considering that he thought that she was dead, he then put her in that large toy box. He had converted this toy box into a toolbox that he was using, so he put her in his toy box slash toolbox, and then he carried her down the stairs. But

49:22 to his surprise, when he went to go put the box in his van, he said that he heard Megan cough and that she wasn't actually dead. He said that he was going to dump her body near some power lines, but he saw a police car there and so instead he decided to take her to Mercer County Park. As he was pulling her out of the box, he decided at that point that he would place his fingers in her vagina, and he just played with her a little and then he dumped her into the weeds. I want to tell you something, and right now at this point, he's pissing me the fuck off, because there is no way in hell that all you did was touched that little girl, her scream and run, and you what did you do? You magically just roped her with a belt that you just happened to have at hand to pull her back into that room.

50:16 I'm calling absolute bullshit. What I'm envisioning happening is he said, sure, come on in, you can see my puppy. She's in my bedroom. And that little, innocent little girl followed that grown man into his bedroom, at which point he slammed that door shut. He took that belt that he already had available, and he tied that around her neck, and he tried to make her submissive to him. The reason that her face was hurt and the fact that he says that she was bleeding is not because she fell and started bleeding. You don't just fall and start bleeding. You were choking the shit out of that little girl with a belt, and you were slamming her head into something. That's what happened. So the fact that he's sitting here and downplaying it. Oh, and then I just decided to touch her vagina when I was her vagina, whenever I was just dumping her body in the woods is an absolute lie. No way you there's no way that you were not sexually motivated by bringing that little girl into your home. You just what you just thought, you would just touch her privates when you were dumping her dead body like that somehow makes it not as bad. Give me a break, And this makes me sick about people that do this to anyone, but specifically children, because you're not even man enough to admit what you did.

51:36 It doesn't even make sense. Think about it. What he just randomly had a belt and he just happened to throw it around her throat. She's seven years old, y'all. A grown man can't grab a seven year old. I'm five foot four, I'm one hundred and fifty pounds. I have a seven year old. I don't need a damn belt to get ahold of her. This is what they do minimize. He then says he left the park and he went to a wah wah to one of those gas stations, and he said he bought a cigarette and a paper. I bet he did go by a damn cigarette. I bet he wanted that that come down from what he had just done, and that he was all excited about and then he returned home. He says. Then he got home and that's when he decided to rip up her shorts that were in his bedroom and to go outside.

52:22 Okay, real quick, he said. Originally that she went to run and he grabbed her shorts and that they ripped. Have you ever grabbed someone's clothes and their waist like it just ripped off of them. No, you were in an animalistic frenzy. You saw a little girl that you could dominate, You saw a sexual creature that you wanted control of, and you put a belt around her neck, and you sodomized and raped this little girl, and you ripped her clothes off in the process because you were having fun and you were excited. That's what happened, and just accidentally rip her shorts. And then when you came home, you found the shorts and you just decided then that you would rip them up. Bull shit, No, you did not. Why would you rip him up then? It doesn't even make sense.

53:13 Just throw them away. Why would you rip him up then? And then to add insult to injury, he says, that's when miss Kanka, the mother came and asked him, Hey, have you seen my daughter? Have you seen Megan? And that piece of shit not only told her no, she's not here, but he said that, oh, I did see her out by the neighbor's driveway. And then he went out there with that poor mother looking for her daughter and helped her look for her daughter that he knew he had just done that too, and went and dumped in a field at a park. What kind of animal are you? And the sickest part, guys, the sickest part is that his statement here still isn't completely true.

53:57 He's still not going to give all the facts. And after writing his statement, that's when they went ahead and they took his clothes. They removed his clothes and they fingerprinted him at about four o'clock am. That's whenever they took fingernail clippings from him. He allowed it. He was he consented they didn't have to go get a warrant or something for this. He said, sure, you can clip my fingernails. And whenever they clip, we're clipping his fingernails. That's when another officer, Officer Wilkins, looked at his palm and said, whoa, that looks like a bite mark on your hand. So he flips his hand over and he starts looking at it, and so he takes photographs and he measures the bite mark or what he believes to be a bite mark on her little hand. And I will let you know later on. They have a professional, a doctor Haskell Askin is his name, and they had him. He's a forensic odontologist, so which means he can look at bite marks and he can determine if it's someone's teeth or not that made impressions, and he would actually go look at this. He performed a bite marking analysis of the defendant's hand and he determined that Megan absolutely was the person that left that bite mark on his hand. Her teeth left the very wound on that man's hand. And I can just see this little girl fighting for her life, doing everything she can to get this man off of her, all the way down to biting her a biting him, and he still has absolute disregard for her. And even if he did do this to her

55:28 exactly like I've told you so far, why when you heard her costs, why didn't you open that box, have a hair a decency about you and go throw her in her in her yard? You know what I mean? Like just a shred of decency, something anything, but no, you went and dumped her dead body and then helped her mother search for her. I'm gonna have to stop right there, y'all were about an hour. I still have a lot more on this case, so we're all going to do a part two on this one. And you know what, whenever Jesse was being interviewed and he was nervous and he was sweating and all of that, it kind of makes me have almost like an evil smile about me because I hope he was having an absolute internal melt down. I hope his blood pressure was through the roof. I hope he was scared out of his mind, much like little Megan I'm sure was. But you know, you gotta remember, don't put yourself in these positions if you don't like them, because interrogations, y'all, they're a whole lot like eating taco bell. It's really hard to have fun when you're about to ship your pants