April 3, 2024

Part 2 | Silver MiniVan:The disappearance of Jessica Herringa

Part 2 | Silver MiniVan:The disappearance of Jessica Herringa

Kelly wraps up the mysterious journey surrounding the disappearance of Jessica Herringa, a gas station attendant who vanishes without a trace during her shift. Despite the absence of robbery signs and her personal items left behind, a faint trail of...

Apple Podcasts podcast player badge
Spotify podcast player badge
Castro podcast player badge
RSS Feed podcast player badge
Apple Podcasts podcast player iconSpotify podcast player iconCastro podcast player iconRSS Feed podcast player icon

Kelly wraps up the mysterious journey surrounding the disappearance of Jessica Herringa, a gas station attendant who vanishes without a trace during her shift. Despite the absence of robbery signs and her personal items left behind, a faint trail of blood outside the store sends shockwaves through the investigation.

The police delve into the investigation of Jessica's vanishing, drawing attention to a witness sighting a silver minivan at the gas station on the fateful night. As the probe deepens, revelations surface about Jessica's tumultuous relationships and struggles with substance abuse, notably involving a figure known as Jay-Z. Despite exhaustive search efforts, Jessica remains elusive, leaving a lingering sense of mystery.Part 1 | Silver MiniVan:The disappearance of Jessica Herringa

WEBVTT

1
00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:10.279
Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime
podcast where I tell stories of real crimes

2
00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:14.880
with real victims, whose cases are
so shocking that many are left wondering how

3
00:00:14.919 --> 00:00:25.320
is this even real? I use
my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and

4
00:00:25.399 --> 00:00:30.079
combined with my years as a criminal
justice educator, dig deep into complex cases

5
00:00:30.120 --> 00:00:51.119
of evil acts, some so evil
many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

6
00:00:51.479 --> 00:00:55.719
Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences.
If you are easily offended, then I'm

7
00:00:55.719 --> 00:00:59.240
not your girl. Listening discretion is
advised. Hey, y'all, it's me

8
00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:03.439
kJ for another episode of Unspeakable.
What's going on with y'all? We're gonna

9
00:01:03.479 --> 00:01:07.359
start part two of the Jessica heringa
story. Before I start, though,

10
00:01:07.799 --> 00:01:11.959
I have to give a special shout
out today to someone who reached out to

11
00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:15.519
me online, because if you follow
me on Facebook, you saw that I

12
00:01:15.599 --> 00:01:19.040
posted all the little crime scene dioramas, the little mini crime scenes from my

13
00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:21.799
class that my students did, and
I thought they were really cool. And

14
00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:25.959
so a teacher reached out to me, Miss Gina Smith, and she wants

15
00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:27.280
to try to incorporate it in her
classroom, and I thought that was really

16
00:01:27.319 --> 00:01:30.239
cool, So I wanted to say
hi, first of all to miss Gina

17
00:01:30.280 --> 00:01:34.480
Smith, but also to your students. I hear they are forensic students,

18
00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:37.480
I believe. So hey, guys, look y'all work hard, y'all pay

19
00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:40.040
attention, and you're gonna really like
this project. It's a lot of fun,

20
00:01:40.439 --> 00:01:42.319
all right now, Mss Smith turn
it off. Now, this is

21
00:01:42.359 --> 00:01:47.239
not for the children. But we're
gonna jump back in. So last episode,

22
00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:51.159
we left off with the believed abduction
and disappearance of Jessica Heringa, and

23
00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:57.000
I found this interview done by wood
TV eight, and I guess I'm just

24
00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:00.840
gonna start off quickly by breaking your
heart really early on in the episode.

25
00:02:01.239 --> 00:02:06.000
And this is just a little clip
of little Zevin. This is Jessica's son,

26
00:02:06.480 --> 00:02:09.599
And they went in and they asked
him a little bit about his mama

27
00:02:09.719 --> 00:02:15.159
because she was missing. And so
this is what Zevin had to say about

28
00:02:15.159 --> 00:02:23.800
his mama being missing at What did
you say, Your mama's at somewhere?

29
00:02:24.199 --> 00:02:30.520
Yeah, yeah, you can't find
here. You can't find her. If

30
00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:34.400
that doesn't just make your heart hurt, I don't know what will. But

31
00:02:35.039 --> 00:02:38.080
little man, his mama was missing, right, And so they desperately wanted

32
00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:40.680
to find her and bring her home
so she could love on her baby boy.

33
00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:45.560
Well. In the meantime, as
you know, Jeffrey Willis was believed

34
00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:49.840
to be responsible for her disappearance,
and when his van was searched, police

35
00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:53.439
found that toolbox I spoke of with
many questionable items, including insulin the chart

36
00:02:53.759 --> 00:02:59.280
of where to place the injections.
The toolbox also included like sex toys and

37
00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:04.120
lubricants. Now, if you want
more specific definitions or descriptions of the items

38
00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:07.960
in the toolbox, I can give
you that there were handcuffs and chains,

39
00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:13.080
the ballgag, and this other sex
toy that looked like a little small vibrating

40
00:03:13.159 --> 00:03:16.520
egg. There were also photos of
a man and a woman in their underwear,

41
00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:21.719
as well as leather gloves, the
rope, the metal bar with a

42
00:03:21.759 --> 00:03:24.599
metal box like restraints. And I
know I mentioned this in the last episode,

43
00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:30.639
but there was also this purple sex
toy that looked like a like a

44
00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:36.039
butt plug or something. But later
on they would refer to it as Okay,

45
00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:38.759
I'm live right now because Jim's laughing
at me in the studio. Okay,

46
00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:40.800
listen, I don't know what the
hell it was. I'm gonna shoot

47
00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:45.039
you straight I don't know. This
is what happened. Later on, it

48
00:03:45.080 --> 00:03:47.400
was referred to as a dildo,
so I'm not quite sure. But I

49
00:03:47.439 --> 00:03:51.280
started saying, you know what,
screw this, I'm limiting my search history

50
00:03:51.319 --> 00:03:53.879
on that one. I didn't go
any further. That's what I came up

51
00:03:53.879 --> 00:03:57.960
with. So apologies to my parents
who might or you know, may or

52
00:03:57.960 --> 00:04:00.800
may not be listening to this.
I don't know, but I quit search.

53
00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:02.560
And so when I get you knocked
off one day and they go look

54
00:04:02.560 --> 00:04:04.919
at my search history, everyone's gonna
think I'm a freak. I was just

55
00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:09.879
trying to figure out what that toy
was so I could understand it. But

56
00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:13.919
that was that was cut short,
okay, So I did my best to

57
00:04:13.960 --> 00:04:16.480
explain it to you. There was
also some lubricating jelly, as well as

58
00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:19.639
a typed letter that had some names
and some addresses on it, which to

59
00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:24.839
me was like, ooh, because
who those people were? Right? Who

60
00:04:24.879 --> 00:04:28.399
are these names? Why does he
have addresses tied to them? It's not

61
00:04:28.519 --> 00:04:32.399
a good look, right. So
he also wasn't very forthcoming with police during

62
00:04:32.399 --> 00:04:36.639
the questioning because he claimed that he
hadn't gone anywhere the day of Jessica's disappearance,

63
00:04:36.800 --> 00:04:42.600
but that oil change receipt I mentioned
completely would contradict that story. Now

64
00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:47.160
about that time, another witness would
come forward by the name of Christian van

65
00:04:47.199 --> 00:04:53.199
Antwerpin. And this person came forward
and claimed to have seen this creepy guy

66
00:04:53.319 --> 00:04:56.879
around the store at the time of
Jessica's disappearance, and so he gave an

67
00:04:56.879 --> 00:05:00.240
interview to ABC News about it,
and he I was so sure it had

68
00:05:00.279 --> 00:05:04.040
to be the guy responsible for her
disappearance. And so Christian said he had

69
00:05:04.040 --> 00:05:09.040
pulled up to get gas and he
saw Jessica come outside and it looked like

70
00:05:09.079 --> 00:05:13.639
she was going to refill the receipt
paper on the gas pump, right where

71
00:05:13.639 --> 00:05:17.000
it prints out your receipt. So
he saw the man kind of lingering around,

72
00:05:17.319 --> 00:05:21.000
and he thought that the guy may
have known Jessica because he was engaging

73
00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:25.399
her in conversation, and he was
like, it was like they knew each

74
00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:28.879
other. But it just struck him
as odd. It was just an odd

75
00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:31.480
exchange. So this is a direct
quote that he says, it just seemed

76
00:05:31.480 --> 00:05:34.759
to me that this was just another
guy hitting on her or whatever, because

77
00:05:34.759 --> 00:05:39.759
she was an attractive girl. It
was just an afterthought. I almost didn't

78
00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:44.319
think about mentioning it, but I
thought it was my responsibility to say something

79
00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:46.199
about it. He was just like, Hey, what are you doing over

80
00:05:46.199 --> 00:05:50.040
there? Aren't you supposed to be
inside? Just kind of being real flirty,

81
00:05:50.199 --> 00:05:55.319
weird about it. He said,
it was just bizarre that he seemed

82
00:05:55.360 --> 00:05:59.639
to be actively looking for her.
He knew her, and then he had

83
00:05:59.639 --> 00:06:03.199
this attitude that he wanted to have
a conversation with her and then conduct business.

84
00:06:03.480 --> 00:06:06.720
And that is what seemed really out
of place to me. That was

85
00:06:06.839 --> 00:06:13.000
that whole thing was the quote that
this Christian gave. That gut instinct that

86
00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:15.879
something was out of place is what
Christian was feeling. And he was right,

87
00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:19.160
guys, the instinct is there for
a reason, and we have to

88
00:06:19.279 --> 00:06:24.000
listen to it. I tell my
kids this, I tell teenagers, anyone

89
00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:27.079
who will listen to me, that
gut instinct is there for a reason.

90
00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:30.040
If something doesn't feel right, it's
not right. It was built into you

91
00:06:30.120 --> 00:06:36.720
to warn you listen to it.
Also, another witness would come forward eventually

92
00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:42.639
and she would say that she had
seen something the night Jessica went missing too.

93
00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:46.319
And this was a woman who had
frequented that store a lot. She

94
00:06:46.439 --> 00:06:50.920
was there often and so looking at
her, she's kind of a homely lady.

95
00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:57.279
I would say, you know,
middle a little older than middle aged,

96
00:06:58.199 --> 00:07:00.120
kind of seemed like, you know, she'd kind of lived maybe a

97
00:07:00.199 --> 00:07:03.360
rougher life, but kind, very
kind woman. And she would often go

98
00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:08.199
into the gas station to buy cigarettes
and to get gas. And she had

99
00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:12.720
created like a friendship that was like
a recognizable friendship is kind of what I

100
00:07:12.759 --> 00:07:15.560
would call it, where they absolutely
recognized each other when she walked in the

101
00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:19.079
store, and they did small talk
and all of that. And so she

102
00:07:19.160 --> 00:07:25.040
would have remembered things that would have
happened because she was invested in Jessica as

103
00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:30.319
a kind young girl behind the counter. So she said specifically, the night

104
00:07:30.360 --> 00:07:35.360
that Jessica went missing, she had
brought a friend. She being the woman,

105
00:07:35.560 --> 00:07:39.680
had brought a friend to play a
card game, which was something she

106
00:07:39.720 --> 00:07:44.199
had done often, and she saw
a man that was fitting jeff Willis's description

107
00:07:44.839 --> 00:07:49.240
driving a silver mini van, and
when she was in the store, that

108
00:07:49.399 --> 00:07:56.120
guy that matched Jeffrey Willis's description was
there too, And so this woman kind

109
00:07:56.120 --> 00:07:59.199
of brought up to Jessica, Hey, you know, I don't think it's

110
00:07:59.439 --> 00:08:01.000
a good idea. You know that
you're here alone, this late at night.

111
00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:07.040
Why didn't your boyfriend or fiance come
up here? And Jeffrey Willis piped

112
00:08:07.120 --> 00:08:09.519
up. The guy she says was
Jeffrey Willis. He piped up and looked

113
00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:13.519
at her and said, don't worry
about it. Her customers are watching her.

114
00:08:13.399 --> 00:08:20.959
Well, that's kind of kind of
literal there, right. So,

115
00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:26.959
speaking of Willis, police were still
actively investigating him, and they came across

116
00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:31.000
a second lock box in the van
during a search. Remember they found the

117
00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:33.440
first lock box with all those things
I've already mentioned to you, and now

118
00:08:33.480 --> 00:08:39.440
they found this second lock box which
was locked and inside it had handcuffs and

119
00:08:39.480 --> 00:08:43.440
a Walter P twenty two pistol.
Now, as I mentioned in the previous

120
00:08:43.480 --> 00:08:48.679
episode, a young teen girl was
attempted to be abducted, but she saved

121
00:08:48.679 --> 00:08:52.799
her own life by jumping from the
moving van. Jessica Hearinga is now missing,

122
00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:58.720
and both are believed to have been
abducted by jeff Willis. The best

123
00:08:58.799 --> 00:09:05.399
description given by the multiple witnesses at
both women's cases, according to the Norton

124
00:09:05.399 --> 00:09:09.600
Shores Police Department, was a white
male, age thirty to forty, about

125
00:09:09.639 --> 00:09:16.120
six feet tall, with center parted
light brown wavy hair, and the suspect

126
00:09:16.159 --> 00:09:20.080
is believed to have been driving the
silver mini van. Well, this description,

127
00:09:20.159 --> 00:09:22.039
y'all, was a dead ringer for
Jeff Willis if you're looking at him,

128
00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:28.080
so much so that even his hairstylist
of fourteen years, her name was

129
00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:33.360
Jenis Harton, confirmed the hairstyle he
always wanted, but she added that it

130
00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:37.120
had blonde highlights, and that he
always wanted to put these blonde highlights through

131
00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:39.720
the front and top of his hair. So the funny thing about this,

132
00:09:39.799 --> 00:09:45.559
and why I'm bringing it up,
is that women are funny eyewitnesses, right

133
00:09:45.679 --> 00:09:52.559
because they noticed the hair so much
so that remember that coworker that was riding

134
00:09:52.600 --> 00:09:56.840
the motorcycle that went by and happened
to see the guy with a silver minivan

135
00:09:56.879 --> 00:10:03.440
behind the store. She even mentioned
that he had pretty streaked hair. So

136
00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:07.480
suggestion, don't have really nice identifiable
hair when committing crimes, especially if women

137
00:10:07.519 --> 00:10:13.279
are your victims, because they're gonna
notice your hair. So again, circumstantial,

138
00:10:13.639 --> 00:10:18.600
but noted that that was the exact
hairstyle that he wore. Well,

139
00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:24.720
a homicide that had occurred years before
would suddenly become front page news again in

140
00:10:24.759 --> 00:10:28.919
relation to the team that jumped from
the vehicle. Okay, So that girl

141
00:10:28.919 --> 00:10:31.840
that jumped from the vehicle, and
I know that this case is going all

142
00:10:31.879 --> 00:10:35.960
over the place, but it has
to because this is how it went down.

143
00:10:35.080 --> 00:10:41.080
Okay, But the team that jumped
from that vehicle, it's this next

144
00:10:41.120 --> 00:10:43.960
case I'm gonna bring up is in
relation to that, and it had happened

145
00:10:43.960 --> 00:10:50.000
two years prior to the girl jumping
out of the van. So I'm gonna

146
00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.240
have to take you back to twenty
fourteen in Muskegon County, Michigan. So

147
00:10:54.279 --> 00:10:58.720
it was just after six pm on
June twenty ninth when some people that were

148
00:10:58.799 --> 00:11:05.240
dry having a long automobile road saw
a woman lying on the ground and horrified

149
00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:09.799
by what they saw, they called
nine one one as this middle aged woman

150
00:11:09.919 --> 00:11:13.159
with brown hair seemed to be hit
by a car and they thought, oh

151
00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:16.240
my god, this is a hit
and run. This woman is laying on

152
00:11:16.279 --> 00:11:20.639
the ground. We need help.
So police arrived. They responded to the

153
00:11:20.679 --> 00:11:24.279
scene and that's where they found thirty
six year old Rebecca Bletch lying on the

154
00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:30.120
side of the road. It looked
at first glance like she had been just

155
00:11:30.120 --> 00:11:31.799
just like they said. It looked
like she had been out for an evening

156
00:11:31.919 --> 00:11:35.279
jog out for a run, and
then a car must have struck her without

157
00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:41.840
stopping, but responders were checking her
out and they quickly realized that this was

158
00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:46.399
no hit and run. Now,
Rebecca was known as Becky to her friends

159
00:11:46.399 --> 00:11:50.679
and family. She was the oldest
of three sisters and one brother, and

160
00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:54.960
she was described as nurturing and a
motherly woman. And she was married.

161
00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:58.960
Okay, she had married the love
of her life. His name was Kevin.

162
00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:03.080
They got married in two thousand and
nine. They'd been together for eighteen

163
00:12:03.159 --> 00:12:05.879
years married, but more before that. So they were settled in and they

164
00:12:05.879 --> 00:12:11.679
were happily raising their twelve year old
daughter, Ellie. So Becky, and

165
00:12:11.679 --> 00:12:15.679
I'm going to cringe to say this, but Becky was known dun dun dah

166
00:12:15.879 --> 00:12:18.720
in Sir Keith Morrison here, but
she was known as the life of the

167
00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:24.440
party. And I know how cliche
that line sounds if you are a true

168
00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:28.440
crime fan, But I will tell
you this, I've never met this woman

169
00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:33.240
a day in my life, but
I can tell you from her photos alone

170
00:12:33.679 --> 00:12:37.039
that she has a light and a
beauty that she just emits in all of

171
00:12:37.039 --> 00:12:41.799
her photos. I believe it when
they say that she literally was the life

172
00:12:41.799 --> 00:12:45.120
of the party when she walked in
a thousand watts smile. In her photos,

173
00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:48.639
she's got these cute little poses going
on. She had almond shaped eyes,

174
00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:52.720
and she was tan, she was
fit, really lush brown hair,

175
00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:56.679
and best of all, y'all know, Mama likes those pearly white teeth,

176
00:12:56.720 --> 00:13:00.679
and she had them, y'all.
She had those pearly white, eight straight

177
00:13:00.799 --> 00:13:03.679
teeth. She was stunning. And
she was a really tall woman too,

178
00:13:03.759 --> 00:13:07.039
I guess compared to me, I
would say, she's really tall. She

179
00:13:07.159 --> 00:13:11.120
was five foot ten, so she
was teetering up there on six foot tall.

180
00:13:11.559 --> 00:13:16.960
But being beautiful wasn't her only attribute. She was happy and so many

181
00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:22.039
descriptions of her by different people said
that she was happy. And to me,

182
00:13:22.240 --> 00:13:26.240
that's such an overlooked blessing these days, right to just be a happy

183
00:13:26.279 --> 00:13:31.240
person, to go through life with
a joyous spirit about you. So,

184
00:13:31.320 --> 00:13:35.120
like I said, she was married, and she had her twelve year old

185
00:13:35.159 --> 00:13:39.519
daughter, Ellie, and she just
lived for her. She was mama's baby.

186
00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:41.720
She loved her little girl, and
she and her husband. Matter of

187
00:13:41.759 --> 00:13:46.480
fact, they were kind of later
on in their professional lives, and so

188
00:13:46.039 --> 00:13:50.759
they were really starting to even think
about retirement. She and her husband had

189
00:13:50.840 --> 00:13:54.559
just purchased a travel trailer, and
so they were really excited because they wanted

190
00:13:54.559 --> 00:13:56.759
to start taking up camping, and
they wanted to travel with their daughter,

191
00:13:56.919 --> 00:14:00.919
and so all of these exciting times
were getting ready to you know, they

192
00:14:00.919 --> 00:14:03.879
were going to be ahead of them, and they couldn't wait to just set

193
00:14:03.919 --> 00:14:07.559
off and start having these fun family
adventures. But aside from being a mother

194
00:14:07.639 --> 00:14:13.159
and a wife, y'all, she
had brains and she was a strong woman,

195
00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:18.639
both in spirit but also in you
know, physical fitness. She worked

196
00:14:18.639 --> 00:14:22.840
as a physical therapist assistant at a
nursing home, and at that place where

197
00:14:22.840 --> 00:14:28.759
she worked, she was so loved
and so very appreciated by her clients.

198
00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:33.639
I will tell you this, if
I'm ever murdered, I can only hope

199
00:14:33.879 --> 00:14:37.559
to be described the same way that
people described Becky. Among the other things

200
00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:43.159
I've already told you about her,
she was described as reliable, tenderhearted,

201
00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:48.519
and social. And I thought,
what wonderful ways to describe someone that you

202
00:14:48.600 --> 00:14:54.919
really cared about. Reliable. We
all want to be reliable, right Her

203
00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:58.600
own sister told mlive dot Com that
she was everything I wanted to be.

204
00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:03.679
I lost my role model, and
I lost my hero, and I'm like,

205
00:15:03.840 --> 00:15:07.000
wow, you know, a sister
describing her sister that way, It

206
00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:11.039
says it all to me what a
lovely woman Miss Becky must have been.

207
00:15:13.399 --> 00:15:16.320
So now, this beautiful woman that
I've been telling you about is lying mortally

208
00:15:16.360 --> 00:15:20.600
wounded on the side of the road
at what looks to be a horrible accident.

209
00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:24.159
But that's until the responders decided to
roll her over as part of the

210
00:15:24.200 --> 00:15:28.720
assessment, and it was at this
point they realized that she had actually been

211
00:15:28.799 --> 00:15:33.440
shot. She had been shot in
the head. They attempted CPR while everyone

212
00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:37.559
was wondering who in the world would
want to shoot her, a woman that's

213
00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:41.320
out on a jog and why why
was she shot while she was alone and

214
00:15:41.399 --> 00:15:45.120
jogging? It just it didn't make
sense. That's the thing about evil,

215
00:15:45.120 --> 00:15:50.240
though, you know, evil doesn't
make sense. Other items were then recorded

216
00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:54.000
at the scene in photographs, including
some shell casings. That's right, I

217
00:15:54.080 --> 00:16:00.080
said, some shell casings, meaning
more than one. So Miss Becky would

218
00:16:00.159 --> 00:16:04.799
ultimately succumb to her injuries, and
her autopsy would reveal that she had been

219
00:16:04.840 --> 00:16:11.000
shot with a twenty two pistol,
not once, not twice, but three

220
00:16:11.080 --> 00:16:17.559
times. Matter of fact, the
way she was shot. Looking at the

221
00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:22.320
autopsy, she was shot in the
back of the head, and then at

222
00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:27.679
closer range there were two more shots
to the side of her head. So

223
00:16:29.320 --> 00:16:33.360
if you want to know what execution
and guaranteed confirmed death looks like, shooting

224
00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:37.080
someone from the back of the head, then walking up, slowly, bending

225
00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:41.759
down and pop pop, shooting someone
two more times in the head. And

226
00:16:41.799 --> 00:16:45.759
I say this almost callously because that's
what this murderer did. It was callous.

227
00:16:47.639 --> 00:16:52.360
This was someone's wife, and someone's
mama, and somebody's sister, and

228
00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:56.440
you just shot her while she's jogging. The most innocent thing I can think

229
00:16:56.480 --> 00:17:02.279
of. So as police processed the
evidence, they came to the conclusion that,

230
00:17:03.559 --> 00:17:06.400
like I said, she must have
been shot from a distance from behind,

231
00:17:06.759 --> 00:17:08.680
and then two more times at a
much closer range. And they made

232
00:17:08.680 --> 00:17:14.000
that decision based on where the shell
case the shell casings were found on the

233
00:17:14.039 --> 00:17:18.519
ground, and that's how they figured
this out. So after her family was

234
00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:26.240
notified and the shock began to subside, her funeral was planned. This is

235
00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:30.279
so precious. Do you remember the
nursing home residents I just mentioned that just

236
00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:33.759
adored her while I wasn't just saying
this as like part of you know,

237
00:17:33.880 --> 00:17:37.920
showbiz or something like that. It
was genuine and that is real. Her

238
00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:45.680
mother would even tell that the nursing
home actually hired a bus to transport the

239
00:17:45.759 --> 00:17:49.720
patients that she had so lovingly cared
for to her funeral so that they could

240
00:17:49.720 --> 00:17:55.640
pay their last respects, that many
of them wanted to go say goodbye to

241
00:17:55.680 --> 00:17:59.640
her. That's incredible to me.
Tell me, this woman wasn't a loss

242
00:17:59.799 --> 00:18:03.839
to her community. So now a
man lost his wife, a little twelve

243
00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:10.680
year old girl lost her mama,
two sisters and a brother right lost their

244
00:18:10.720 --> 00:18:15.759
sibling, and a mom lost her
daughter. So this is just a huge

245
00:18:15.839 --> 00:18:19.640
ripple effect. But regardless of how
much of a loss was being felt,

246
00:18:19.880 --> 00:18:25.640
police were doing their best. But
the case is sadly gonna kind of go

247
00:18:25.839 --> 00:18:30.000
cold. They don't have any motive, They can't find anybody who hated her,

248
00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:37.519
they can't find an enemy. Even
after a ten thousand dollars reward was

249
00:18:37.559 --> 00:18:44.960
offered, there was still stone cold
silence, so cold that two years would

250
00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:49.640
pass by before a break would be
made in this case. So what does

251
00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:56.359
this case have to do with the
kidnapping of Jessica heringa and that teenager that

252
00:18:56.519 --> 00:19:00.720
jumped from that van. Well,
when the teen jump from the van and

253
00:19:00.759 --> 00:19:04.119
then was able to turn around and
identify Jeffrey Willis as the man that tried

254
00:19:04.119 --> 00:19:11.240
to abduct her, police went and
searched the properties near the attempted abduction and

255
00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:15.599
there is where they found that blueberry
farm with the video surveillance that showed the

256
00:19:15.640 --> 00:19:22.559
infamous silver van seen at both Jessica
hearing Goes suspected abduction and the attempted abduction

257
00:19:22.039 --> 00:19:29.160
of the teenage girl. So this
information alone led the police to question Jeffrey

258
00:19:29.160 --> 00:19:33.200
Willis and then to search his van
for any evidence. So during that search,

259
00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:37.640
the police found that toolbox and that
lock box with the items that seemed

260
00:19:37.640 --> 00:19:41.119
to make up that rape kit,
as well as the gun and the gloves

261
00:19:41.160 --> 00:19:47.160
in that lock box. So fast
forward and the gun and the gloves are

262
00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:52.359
sent to the crime lab for DNA
testing. The teen girl had said that

263
00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:56.880
jeff put a gun right up to
her whenever he tried to abduct her,

264
00:19:56.319 --> 00:20:00.720
so DNA would be a great piece
of evidence for them to get from that

265
00:20:00.839 --> 00:20:06.440
gun. So while DNA was being
run on the gun, investigators also test

266
00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:11.240
fired it. Investigators also noticed that
the serial number on the weapon had been

267
00:20:11.319 --> 00:20:15.880
obscured, like someone had tried to
scratch it off. The lab was able

268
00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:21.960
to restore the serial number anyway,
and I'm not sure exactly how they did

269
00:20:21.960 --> 00:20:23.200
it, but I can tell you
I know one method that they can do,

270
00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:27.240
and it has to do with like
using acid, and basically they can

271
00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:32.680
burn down deeper into the frame of
the gun where the serial number is.

272
00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:36.640
They go deeper than the scratch because
it's a very deep stamp, and then

273
00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:38.880
after they get past the scratch,
boom, they come down and they see

274
00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:42.359
a serial number. So I'm sure
it was something similar to that method.

275
00:20:44.359 --> 00:20:48.759
Also a fun fact, while we're
on talking about firearms, manufacturers put secondary

276
00:20:49.359 --> 00:20:53.240
serial numbers on firearms, so for
example, the barrel and the slide of

277
00:20:53.279 --> 00:20:57.160
the weapon would both have the serial
number. But I guess he missed that

278
00:20:57.279 --> 00:21:03.880
lesson in criminal school. So when
the police ran the number on the gun,

279
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:10.200
they found that Willis was not the
legal owner of the weapon. Ah

280
00:21:10.319 --> 00:21:12.960
Okay, it's kind of starting to
make sense here. He tried to act

281
00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:17.759
as though, you know, when
he told police about his legally owned weapon,

282
00:21:17.799 --> 00:21:18.839
but it would be illegal to have
a gun in his car. He

283
00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:25.480
didn't have one in his car in
that original interrogation, right, he never

284
00:21:25.640 --> 00:21:32.799
mentioned that he had a gun that
he stole from a coworker. That's right.

285
00:21:33.359 --> 00:21:38.680
The gun was registered to a female
coworker of Jeffrey Willis, and she

286
00:21:38.799 --> 00:21:44.599
had said that the gun was stolen, and that was pretty obvious because it

287
00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:48.480
was legally registered to her, but
she never knew was Willis who had stolen

288
00:21:48.519 --> 00:21:53.279
it, and then had obviously tried
to remove the number. Okay, now,

289
00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:56.480
and if you hadn't stolen it,
why would you try to erase the

290
00:21:56.559 --> 00:22:00.200
number? I mean, just common
sense? Right? So police all also

291
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:03.400
ran DNA on the other items in
the toolbox and the lock box, and

292
00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:11.359
this included the handcuffs, the dildos, and the gloves. Well, when

293
00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:18.359
the DNA came back, police were
straight up shook us. Guess whose DNA

294
00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:22.640
was on the weapon? Jeffrey Willis, of course, it was right,

295
00:22:22.680 --> 00:22:27.240
his finger was found and DNA was
found on the trigger. But another DNA

296
00:22:27.319 --> 00:22:33.559
profile came up on the handcuffs,
the gloves, and one of the sex

297
00:22:33.640 --> 00:22:40.519
toys, and that would be none
other than Rebecca Bletches. What in the

298
00:22:40.599 --> 00:22:45.640
hell right could this be? Real? Investigators had had nothing on this case

299
00:22:45.680 --> 00:22:51.119
for two years, and now her
DNA is randomly showing up in combination with

300
00:22:51.160 --> 00:22:56.240
a man's DNA that is suspected in
two other women's cases. That's crazy,

301
00:22:56.359 --> 00:23:00.599
right, Well not really. If
you've been listening to any in my podcast,

302
00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:03.880
I keep telling you the same twenty
to thirty percent of the population commits

303
00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:07.160
one hundred percent of the crimes.
All we need is time to figure it

304
00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:14.759
out. However, those test firings
of the weapon that they test fired also

305
00:23:15.200 --> 00:23:19.279
were tested against the bullets that were
found in Rebecca's head, and the shell

306
00:23:19.319 --> 00:23:23.319
casings were compared to those that were
found on the road side by her body,

307
00:23:23.720 --> 00:23:30.039
and in an incredible finding, investigators
were able to positively match the bullets

308
00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:36.359
and the casings to Rebecca Bletch's murder. So a picture was really starting to

309
00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:40.880
take shape. Here. Rebecca was
minding her own business. She was jogging

310
00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:45.599
when she at some point was approached
by Jeffrey Willis in his van, and,

311
00:23:45.640 --> 00:23:48.599
in comparison to the other two questions
in case, he likely attempted to

312
00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:53.119
take her, but she decided to
fight back, and seeing that his plans

313
00:23:53.119 --> 00:23:57.599
were being thwarted, he chose to
murder her. Rather than just abort mission

314
00:23:57.640 --> 00:24:03.200
and take off, he killed her
for not complying with what he wanted.

315
00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:07.680
So when her family was notified that
the case had been likely solved and that

316
00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:12.920
investigators believed that they now knew what
had happened to her, their response was

317
00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:18.480
that she certainly absolutely put up a
fight, and they expected no less from

318
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:22.240
her. She went to war with
him, y'all, but she just lost

319
00:24:22.279 --> 00:24:26.640
the battle. And her sister said, of course she fought. She wouldn't

320
00:24:26.680 --> 00:24:30.839
have gotten in that van with him. Her sister was also directly quoted as

321
00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:34.839
saying, the only good thing is
she died fighting for her life. He

322
00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:40.440
didn't have a chance to hurt her
anymore than he already did. And I

323
00:24:40.519 --> 00:24:42.680
kind of like, my heart hurts
for her sister to have to say this,

324
00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:45.920
But in a weird way, I
hope people feel almost empowered. And

325
00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:49.200
you know that she took her fate
into her own hands, like hell,

326
00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:52.960
you're dragging me in this van.
Fuck you and your gun, because that's

327
00:24:53.000 --> 00:24:57.119
basically what she'd said, not today, not tomorrow, And she fought,

328
00:24:57.160 --> 00:25:00.319
and she was exhausted. I'm sure
she had been jogging. That's what made

329
00:25:00.359 --> 00:25:06.279
her a great victim. She was
tired. She also at the scene.

330
00:25:06.319 --> 00:25:10.000
I didn't mention this. They found
her headset, like her Walkman headset,

331
00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:12.880
and they found her her shoes and
things like that. So it seems to

332
00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:18.480
me that he probably tried to get
her attention, you know, was able

333
00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:21.480
to sneak up on her without her
notice, noticing at first, maybe because

334
00:25:21.519 --> 00:25:23.359
of the music, and then when
she took off her headset, because he

335
00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:26.000
probably asked a question or something like
that to take her, you know,

336
00:25:26.039 --> 00:25:30.279
get her off off guard, you
know, and then he put the gun

337
00:25:30.279 --> 00:25:33.440
in her face, and she said, like hell, she was a warrior,

338
00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:41.079
and she died fighting, and I'm
so incredibly empowered by that fact.

339
00:25:41.480 --> 00:25:45.359
What she also did was to make
sure that everyone knew that, through her

340
00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:52.839
death, Jeffrey Willis was more than
capable of hurting women. Her murder was

341
00:25:52.880 --> 00:26:00.559
the definitive link that Jeffrey Willis was
a predatory animal who carefully picked him prey.

342
00:26:00.200 --> 00:26:07.440
He methodically prepared, and then he
finally attacked. It turns out,

343
00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:11.799
too, jeff Willis lived just down
the road from Rebecca Bletch. He would

344
00:26:11.839 --> 00:26:15.359
have known the path that she traveled. He would have been able to pick

345
00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:22.960
up on her habits the most common
means of control for abducted victims is physical

346
00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:29.119
abuse, threats, and restrictions of
free movement. So I would assume he

347
00:26:29.160 --> 00:26:33.480
tried to stop her and restrict her
movement. She fought back, She became

348
00:26:33.519 --> 00:26:37.680
a very difficult victim, and so
he shot her. So while this case

349
00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:41.559
may have been solved, which is
a you know, a huge who right,

350
00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:47.119
the why was still lingering. But
the rape kit that he carried around,

351
00:26:47.160 --> 00:26:48.559
y'all, that should tell you all
you need to know about the why.

352
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:53.359
But thinking you know that this is
the case and proving it is two

353
00:26:53.519 --> 00:26:59.039
very different things, and police would
need more to slam Jeffrey Willis in all

354
00:26:59.079 --> 00:27:03.039
of these cases. So, while
the murder of Rebecca Bletch seemed to be

355
00:27:03.119 --> 00:27:08.000
solved, no DNA of Jessica Heringez
nor the kidnapped teen was found on the

356
00:27:08.039 --> 00:27:11.599
gun or on any of the other
items that were tested in the van.

357
00:27:12.799 --> 00:27:19.240
Also, when the police confronted jeff
about his kit with the sex toys and

358
00:27:19.279 --> 00:27:23.880
the lubricants, he chalked up to
it being his wife's Her name was Charlene

359
00:27:23.880 --> 00:27:30.519
Willis at the time, to which
she adamantly denied and said that's not ours.

360
00:27:32.079 --> 00:27:36.359
He also claimed that the insulin and
the needles were his wives as well.

361
00:27:36.640 --> 00:27:42.240
Now this brings up the typical plausible
deniability criminals always hoped to build to

362
00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:48.039
muddy the waters. See Charlene,
his wife was in fact a diabetic.

363
00:27:49.079 --> 00:27:53.200
But after further questioning, a few
things were made very clear. Number one,

364
00:27:53.279 --> 00:27:59.200
she said, he never injected me
with insulin. Not only had he

365
00:27:59.240 --> 00:28:02.960
never injected me with insulin, he
had only practiced once on an orange.

366
00:28:03.359 --> 00:28:06.720
It was like they had gone to
classes together because apparently her diabetes was a

367
00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:10.160
pretty serious case, and so they
went to a class together where they were,

368
00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:11.519
you know, teaching them how to
do it. But she said he

369
00:28:11.599 --> 00:28:15.039
never ever injected her. As a
matter of fact, he called an ambulance

370
00:28:15.079 --> 00:28:19.799
on her behalf one time because she
was in such a bad way. Okay,

371
00:28:21.039 --> 00:28:23.680
well cool though, right, Maybe
maybe he's trying to chalk it up

372
00:28:23.680 --> 00:28:27.720
to it. It was her insulin. But in your everyday diabetic kit,

373
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:30.319
which, by the way, I
know there's a lot on the market now

374
00:28:30.400 --> 00:28:33.640
these days. But assuming you were
just an old school, you know,

375
00:28:33.799 --> 00:28:38.519
way about you know, in twenty
fourteen, twenty thirteen, whatever, Assuming

376
00:28:38.519 --> 00:28:41.960
you were an old school in your
stuff, you may carry a blood sugar

377
00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:45.880
meter and some strips okay to test
one put your blood on. You may

378
00:28:45.920 --> 00:28:49.880
even have some tablets or snacks in
case of a low. But I have

379
00:28:51.119 --> 00:28:56.359
never, ever, in my history
of diabetes, ever been advised to carry

380
00:28:56.400 --> 00:29:03.359
insulin needles, a dildo, hand
cuffs, and a gun together. Not

381
00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:07.640
once did a doctor ever say you
need these items to get better. It

382
00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:11.000
also wouldn't make sense, and in
the event of an emergency, just in

383
00:29:11.079 --> 00:29:17.480
practicality, it doesn't make sense in
a diabetic emergency to have it locked up

384
00:29:17.599 --> 00:29:22.680
with a key necessary when time is
of the essence. It doesn't make sense.

385
00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:26.200
That's why aed defibrillators and all that
are just on the wall. We

386
00:29:26.240 --> 00:29:30.359
don't need to waste time finding someone
with a key. What if you don't

387
00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:36.519
have the key right? I also
would be pretty embarrassed to have to ask

388
00:29:36.559 --> 00:29:38.400
someone to dig through my dildos and
lube to get to my insulin. So

389
00:29:38.519 --> 00:29:44.960
give me a friggin break, dude, No way. So police decided to

390
00:29:45.039 --> 00:29:48.480
check further into Jeff's life, believing
that there just had to be more to

391
00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:52.319
this, and they found that he
bought that silver Mini van in March.

392
00:29:52.279 --> 00:29:56.599
So Jeff's wife even made mention of
this van, explaining that in March of

393
00:29:56.640 --> 00:30:03.039
twenty thirteen, Jeff insisted that they
needed to buy a mini van for quote

394
00:30:03.480 --> 00:30:07.359
more room, but they didn't have
kids, y'all. So she just found

395
00:30:07.400 --> 00:30:12.200
this to be bizarre. But he
was an adamant that they get a van

396
00:30:14.200 --> 00:30:17.480
and whatever, just being like,
okay, Jeff, whatever, they bought

397
00:30:17.519 --> 00:30:19.400
the van, but what do you
need more room for? What are you

398
00:30:19.440 --> 00:30:26.279
putting in this van that you need
more room. eBay records also showed a

399
00:30:26.319 --> 00:30:30.079
purchase of a safe that was the
same as the one found under the front

400
00:30:30.119 --> 00:30:34.119
seat of that van. So police
were curious about Jeff's whereabouts on the day

401
00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:41.160
of her disappearance, and they already
knew he had lied about what happened the

402
00:30:41.279 --> 00:30:44.039
day of the disappearance. Remember the
oil change, Oh, I don't remember

403
00:30:44.039 --> 00:30:47.400
that, like you wouldn't remember a
world change. So in that respect,

404
00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:51.359
they looked at his phone records and
they found that on the night of Jessica's

405
00:30:51.359 --> 00:30:56.599
disappearance, Jeff attended a card game
at a shop near the gas station,

406
00:30:56.720 --> 00:31:03.640
which, if you remember that witness
brought her friend to a card game,

407
00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:07.640
right, and then she even said
later on, I don't know if I

408
00:31:07.680 --> 00:31:11.759
mentioned this that she kind of was
parked off to the side and she could

409
00:31:11.799 --> 00:31:14.920
actually see the gas station from where
she was parked waiting on her friend to

410
00:31:14.920 --> 00:31:19.440
finish his card game. He drove
a silver Mini van to the game as

411
00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:26.920
well, and then phone records would
place him at eleven twenty three PM near

412
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:32.759
some property that he owned which had
previously been his grandfather's. This property was

413
00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:36.599
at thirty thirty eight Bailey Street,
so when his grandfather died in twenty eleven,

414
00:31:36.599 --> 00:31:41.359
it was forwarded to Jeff, so
he told police that he was home

415
00:31:41.519 --> 00:31:45.160
until twelve thirty am, so this
simply couldn't have been the case. When

416
00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:49.119
police went to that property, they
found that it was kept locked up with

417
00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:56.079
a padlock. Once inside, they
found a basement that was full of cleaning

418
00:31:56.119 --> 00:32:00.200
products such as bleach, even though
the rest of the house was basically empty.

419
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:04.759
And guess what they even looked at
the manufacturer dates of the bleach,

420
00:32:04.799 --> 00:32:07.119
and the bleach was a twenty thirteen
bottle of bleach, so he couldn't argue

421
00:32:07.119 --> 00:32:09.200
that it had been there for years
and years and years and years and years

422
00:32:09.200 --> 00:32:13.839
at the time that this was taking
place. Of More interest, too,

423
00:32:14.319 --> 00:32:19.200
was its location in proximity to the
Exxon station where Jessica was working. It

424
00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:27.359
was just about fifteen minutes away.
Also, at one ten am, two

425
00:32:27.519 --> 00:32:34.519
days after Jessica's abduction, phone towers
placed him in a rural area of Manisty

426
00:32:34.680 --> 00:32:39.960
National Park, and interestingly enough,
he then revisited that exact same location again

427
00:32:40.039 --> 00:32:46.920
in July and again in August.
Now, Jeff was known to be a

428
00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:54.440
hunter and an avid snowmobiler, but
y'all, there's no snow in August.

429
00:32:54.680 --> 00:32:59.920
So police brought cadaver dogs, they
did helicopter searches, they even brought it

430
00:33:00.039 --> 00:33:02.960
in infrared searches, but it all
turned up nothing. But come on,

431
00:33:04.039 --> 00:33:07.440
y'all, y'all are crime people like
me? You know? Good and well?

432
00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:09.400
Two days later, at one am
in the morning, he's in a

433
00:33:09.480 --> 00:33:13.880
national park. And then you go
back and you check on it, not

434
00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:17.400
once but twice. What are you
doing? I know what you're doing.

435
00:33:17.559 --> 00:33:28.680
You're trying to go make sure that
your burial site hasn't been disturbed. So,

436
00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:34.680
while this information is circumstantial at best, further investigation would uncover a treasure

437
00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:39.599
trove of evidence that would stun but
police would have to work really hard to

438
00:33:39.640 --> 00:33:44.759
find it. This is crazy.
Okay. Better yet, maybe the police

439
00:33:44.799 --> 00:33:47.319
didn't have to work hard to find
it more than Jeff had to work really

440
00:33:47.400 --> 00:33:52.559
hard to hide it. So once
they were at the property that he owned,

441
00:33:53.240 --> 00:33:58.359
police would have to look in places
you wouldn't readily expect someone to hide

442
00:33:58.440 --> 00:34:00.839
evidence, Okay, typical places you
would hide evidence, I don't know,

443
00:34:00.880 --> 00:34:05.799
in a closet, you know,
maybe in an attic, under a bed,

444
00:34:06.079 --> 00:34:09.199
under a mattress, stuff like that. Well, they went out to

445
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:16.360
a shed that was on the property, and not easily you know, dissuade.

446
00:34:16.920 --> 00:34:20.639
One of the investigators went in the
shed and he noticed that the ceiling

447
00:34:21.199 --> 00:34:23.480
right you could you could move and
you could see up into the attic of

448
00:34:23.519 --> 00:34:29.800
the shed. So the investigator goes
up there and he starts putting his hands

449
00:34:29.880 --> 00:34:37.679
up there and between the joists he
finds a ziplock bag and he grabs it

450
00:34:37.719 --> 00:34:39.039
and he pulls it down. He's
like, what's this. Okay, me,

451
00:34:39.079 --> 00:34:40.880
I'd be thinking drugs. Okay,
I'm not even gonna lie. That's

452
00:34:40.880 --> 00:34:45.920
exactly where my brain would go.
But he unzips it and he opens it

453
00:34:45.039 --> 00:34:51.119
up and inside of it there's foil, right, So he opens the foil

454
00:34:51.239 --> 00:35:00.480
up and guess what's inside women's panties? Used women panties. Now, I'm

455
00:35:00.480 --> 00:35:06.719
not trying to be gross, but
there is a difference between dirty underwear and

456
00:35:06.719 --> 00:35:10.920
clean underwear, and we all know
it. So I'm going to fast forward

457
00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:14.199
a little bit in the story just
because I want to make this make sense.

458
00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:17.119
Okay, But they're really creeped out
that they find underwear in the joice.

459
00:35:17.320 --> 00:35:21.119
So they take this underwear and they
send it to the crime lab.

460
00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:27.880
Guess whose panties those were? Because
they ran DNA on them. And it

461
00:35:27.920 --> 00:35:31.519
was really neat learning about this because
I never really listened to DNA evidence about

462
00:35:32.199 --> 00:35:36.159
like underwear, I guess, I
mean obviously semen and all that. But

463
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:39.119
this analyst, it was a male, and he was so professional. It

464
00:35:39.159 --> 00:35:42.920
was really cool. But he said, I decided to swab the inside of

465
00:35:42.920 --> 00:35:46.239
the waist band because I wanted to
see whose DNA was most likely wearing it,

466
00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:51.119
like who would have the majority DNA
in the waistband? And they got

467
00:35:51.159 --> 00:35:55.239
the DNA profile back. Guess whose
underwear it was, y'all? It was

468
00:35:55.320 --> 00:36:04.280
his coworkers. Yes, the same
coworker he stole the gun from. Now

469
00:36:04.280 --> 00:36:10.679
what's crazy about that is that whenever
police had gone to her home, her

470
00:36:10.719 --> 00:36:15.360
dirty laundry basket was in the same
closet that she would have kept the gun.

471
00:36:16.960 --> 00:36:21.079
But when they talked to her,
she said, I've never had him

472
00:36:21.119 --> 00:36:25.559
at my house. He's never been
here, y'all. She was adamant that

473
00:36:25.679 --> 00:36:30.960
man has not been at my house. Police talked to him and he says,

474
00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:34.239
oh, yeah, she gave me
this. She gave me the gun,

475
00:36:34.320 --> 00:36:37.320
she gave me the panties. Well. Too bad for him, though,

476
00:36:37.320 --> 00:36:42.000
because in episode one I told you
that he said he didn't own that

477
00:36:42.039 --> 00:36:45.079
caliber of gun when he was questioned. So why would you lie about it?

478
00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:50.199
Y'all? He broke into that woman's
house, he stole her gun and

479
00:36:50.559 --> 00:37:00.159
her dirty underwear, and even further
testing would find seamen In said on to

480
00:37:00.159 --> 00:37:04.159
where you figure that out what he
was doing with it? Just think about

481
00:37:04.159 --> 00:37:07.159
that for a moment. How did
he know where she lived? This made

482
00:37:07.199 --> 00:37:09.960
my brain start kind of going down
a you know, a rabbit hole here.

483
00:37:10.599 --> 00:37:15.280
How did he know where she lived? How long did he go throughout

484
00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:21.239
her home without her knowledge? How
did he know when she would be gone?

485
00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:24.559
Was he stalking her? And the
answer is obvious, of course,

486
00:37:24.599 --> 00:37:29.440
he was of course he was.
He had time to dig through her dirty

487
00:37:29.480 --> 00:37:36.119
laundry. Hmm. So back at
Willis's house, in the living room,

488
00:37:36.519 --> 00:37:38.159
they ended up removing an air vent. I don't know, I just thought

489
00:37:38.159 --> 00:37:43.000
this was kind of genius because I'm
not sure, you know, just armchair

490
00:37:43.039 --> 00:37:45.320
quarterbacking. It sounds great, right
of course she would look there. I

491
00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:47.480
don't know that I would look in
an air vent necessarily for this type of

492
00:37:47.519 --> 00:37:51.800
crime, but hey, I'm taking
notes. But in the living room they

493
00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:54.199
would have to remove an air vent. And then when they looked inside the

494
00:37:54.239 --> 00:38:00.840
air vent, they located a stud
and on that stud they found an external

495
00:38:00.920 --> 00:38:07.760
hard drive velcrode to it. Okay, row, that's a clue. But

496
00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:15.400
the contents of that hard drive are
disturbing, so they send it for forensic

497
00:38:15.440 --> 00:38:22.239
analysis. And when they looked at
it, y'all, they uncovered folders that

498
00:38:22.280 --> 00:38:28.480
were titled VIX V I C S, which anyone with a brain cell would

499
00:38:28.559 --> 00:38:32.440
understand that that's short for victims.
He titled it VIX, and then within

500
00:38:32.480 --> 00:38:42.239
the VIX folder he had subfolders and
guess what they were, Jessica Heringa and

501
00:38:42.559 --> 00:38:50.840
Rebecca Bletch. The titles of the
folders were their initials, respectively, and

502
00:38:50.920 --> 00:39:00.800
the dates of the crimes against them. So investigators look inside Jasca's folder,

503
00:39:00.199 --> 00:39:06.960
and there were pictures of her,
including her missing, kidnapped flier. There

504
00:39:06.960 --> 00:39:10.320
were also articles, news articles about
her disappearance. And then he had saved

505
00:39:10.440 --> 00:39:17.079
pornographic videos under that folder. I
guess that reminded him of her. And

506
00:39:17.119 --> 00:39:22.039
he had even made remember it had
been years now that they're getting into these

507
00:39:22.079 --> 00:39:25.159
houses, this house and investigating.
He even had made a new folder on

508
00:39:25.400 --> 00:39:30.960
that hard drive on the three year
anniversary of what was believed to be her

509
00:39:30.960 --> 00:39:37.679
death. He was revisiting, he
was revisiting what he had done here his

510
00:39:37.800 --> 00:39:43.840
trophy case, his electronic trophy case. The Bletch folder had a porno in

511
00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:47.199
it, and while that porno was
obviously not Rebecca Bletch, the woman in

512
00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:52.760
the porno looked strikingly like Bletch.
And then there were tons of other photos

513
00:39:53.079 --> 00:39:58.000
of actual Rebecca Bletch that he had
gotten I guess from online in places of

514
00:39:58.039 --> 00:40:06.440
the sort you want to get really
creepy. The computer password on Willis's computer

515
00:40:06.559 --> 00:40:12.320
was even more disturbing, all right. The password was j four twelve seven

516
00:40:12.880 --> 00:40:15.639
h thirteen, which at first glance
you may say Okay, well, it's

517
00:40:15.679 --> 00:40:21.159
just some random numbers and digits.
But that's until it was really analyzed and

518
00:40:21.199 --> 00:40:30.000
a very astute investigator realized that this
password was Jessica's initials J L H and

519
00:40:30.079 --> 00:40:37.039
the numbers in the middle for twenty
seven thirteen was the date after her disappearance,

520
00:40:37.880 --> 00:40:42.440
so it was J four one two
seven h one three, which was

521
00:40:42.559 --> 00:40:52.519
Jessica April twenty seventh, h HERINGA
thirteen. So this made police go,

522
00:40:52.639 --> 00:40:55.840
wait a minute, she may have
been abducted on the twenty sixth, but

523
00:40:55.920 --> 00:41:01.679
I bet her date of death was
the twenty seven because remember, we haven't

524
00:41:01.679 --> 00:41:13.519
found Jessica. That computer also contained
thousands of pornographic images. Among those images

525
00:41:14.239 --> 00:41:19.559
was also a bunch of videos that
had a very specific theme. The themes

526
00:41:19.559 --> 00:41:23.239
of the videos that he downloaded were
the abduction, restraint, rape, and

527
00:41:23.360 --> 00:41:29.519
murder of women. So paying attention
to the videos, it became very apparent

528
00:41:29.519 --> 00:41:37.119
that the videos were done using many
of the same items that they found in

529
00:41:37.199 --> 00:41:42.119
the van when they searched it,
things like the gags and the chains.

530
00:41:43.599 --> 00:41:49.239
So it's like he was downloading these
videos and then emulating them. Videos of

531
00:41:49.280 --> 00:41:53.679
women bound taped and gagged like literally
a woman's worst nightmare, and he's got

532
00:41:54.119 --> 00:42:02.800
thousands of them, So saying this
is horrible, you know, isn't enough.

533
00:42:02.920 --> 00:42:06.880
But I really wondered, And I
don't know if you think like me,

534
00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:08.639
but hey, I'm just being I'm
in open and honest here. I

535
00:42:08.679 --> 00:42:14.280
really wondered what it was like for
a victim to be gagged? Okay,

536
00:42:14.280 --> 00:42:16.440
And I don't mean this in a
creepy sexual way. I just mean,

537
00:42:16.519 --> 00:42:21.280
like, what must it feel like? What must be going through your head

538
00:42:22.159 --> 00:42:29.639
when someone abducts you and then gags
you. So I was researching this,

539
00:42:29.880 --> 00:42:32.960
and y'all, the first thing that
came up on my computer made me sit

540
00:42:34.039 --> 00:42:37.079
back on my couch. And I'm
not even kidding you. I hurt my

541
00:42:37.159 --> 00:42:44.159
own feelings. Like I researched,
and I literally just set my computer down,

542
00:42:44.360 --> 00:42:45.760
dropped my pen, and leaned back
on my couch and was just like,

543
00:42:46.840 --> 00:42:53.599
I cannot believe what just popped up
on my computer. I researched in

544
00:42:53.800 --> 00:43:00.280
very like technical terms. I put
like victim point of view abduction and gag.

545
00:43:00.800 --> 00:43:05.440
I put in victim point of view, or then I put in like

546
00:43:05.519 --> 00:43:13.599
statistics of adult women abducted. I
was being very professional in my research queue

547
00:43:13.599 --> 00:43:19.679
in what I typed and what popped
up. The very first thing that popped

548
00:43:19.760 --> 00:43:24.320
up on my screen said young girl
gagged and tied up with rope and trunk,

549
00:43:25.119 --> 00:43:28.079
which I was like, oh my
god, the blessed you know,

550
00:43:28.119 --> 00:43:30.960
bless this child's heart. But that
wasn't the worst, y'all. What happened

551
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:37.960
was that it wasn't a video or
a news article about a real child's abduction.

552
00:43:38.679 --> 00:43:45.679
It was a video that was for
sale free delivery, Like, are

553
00:43:45.719 --> 00:43:49.880
you fucking kidding me? It made
me angry that I typed in something very

554
00:43:50.159 --> 00:43:52.440
professional and you know, data driven
is what I was looking for. And

555
00:43:52.480 --> 00:43:55.199
then someone can just make this video, which means they had to use a

556
00:43:55.280 --> 00:43:59.960
child to make the video and then
post it for sale, and it was

557
00:44:00.119 --> 00:44:06.320
right there, boom Google search.
The fact that there is a market for

558
00:44:06.360 --> 00:44:10.199
this shows the absolute depravity of our
world. And I quit looking at that

559
00:44:10.239 --> 00:44:13.079
point. I'm gonna be straight up
with you, I'll quit looking at that

560
00:44:13.119 --> 00:44:16.559
point this world, y'all. I
just I mean, if that's what someone

561
00:44:16.639 --> 00:44:22.480
is into, then these films that
people claim are just fake and harmless,

562
00:44:22.599 --> 00:44:28.719
right that they're selling put in the
hands of the wrong person, specifically a

563
00:44:28.840 --> 00:44:34.079
sexually motivated and excited male. That
is a huge problem. And case in

564
00:44:34.159 --> 00:44:37.800
point, I'm a servant to you
on a platter right now. Jeffrey Willis,

565
00:44:37.880 --> 00:44:43.599
also on his computer, had homemade
voyeuristic videos, so real quick.

566
00:44:43.599 --> 00:44:46.840
If you don't know, voyeurism is
filming someone without their knowledge, usually for

567
00:44:46.920 --> 00:44:52.719
sexual pleasure, basically. And these
films not only had women in them,

568
00:44:52.880 --> 00:44:57.880
but they had young girls. And
if there's anything we know about sex offenders,

569
00:44:57.920 --> 00:45:02.559
it's that they escalate, escalate,
escalate. The location of the films

570
00:45:02.960 --> 00:45:06.360
makes the hair on the back of
my next stand up. Matter of fact,

571
00:45:06.360 --> 00:45:08.719
if you're watching me podcast right now, I have goosebumps. You can

572
00:45:08.719 --> 00:45:15.440
see it. The y'all. The
these videos that he made, he made

573
00:45:15.480 --> 00:45:20.239
them. He didn't purchase them.
They were made not only in public places,

574
00:45:20.920 --> 00:45:27.119
but also in unsuspecting people's homes and
at public events like swim meets.

575
00:45:27.559 --> 00:45:31.199
Now, my daughter's best friend is
a high school swimmer, so I took

576
00:45:31.239 --> 00:45:35.920
this personal. We cheer that baby
girl on. We are so proud of

577
00:45:35.920 --> 00:45:43.159
her and all that she has accomplished. He had fifteen thousand videos at high

578
00:45:43.199 --> 00:45:49.760
school swim meets. Not only did
he have fifteen thousand videos. He had

579
00:45:49.800 --> 00:45:54.239
a special infrared lens that he would
put on his camera which basically made their

580
00:45:54.280 --> 00:46:00.440
swimsuits like see through, and then
he was zooming in and focused seeing on

581
00:46:00.559 --> 00:46:06.000
the breasts and genitalia of these young
girls. These were high school meets,

582
00:46:06.199 --> 00:46:09.400
y'all, and they did further research
on this. He didn't have any family

583
00:46:09.440 --> 00:46:17.639
members there or anything. This means
that he was researching these high schools and

584
00:46:17.679 --> 00:46:23.679
then finding their their swim meet you
know, schedules, and this pervert.

585
00:46:23.800 --> 00:46:28.440
While parents are cheering our kids on
and telling them good job and you can

586
00:46:28.519 --> 00:46:31.119
do this, this pervert is sitting
in the stand zooming in on your child

587
00:46:31.199 --> 00:46:36.679
trying to see through her swimsuit.
It makes me shake. It makes me

588
00:46:36.719 --> 00:46:40.719
so angry. We have to be
aware. We've got to pay attention.

589
00:46:40.760 --> 00:46:45.079
I'm gonna tell you a short story
real quick, just to tell you how

590
00:46:45.119 --> 00:46:47.679
common this is. I was at
a local skate rink and denim springs,

591
00:46:47.679 --> 00:46:50.719
Louisiana, and if you're from here, you'll know where it is. It's

592
00:46:50.760 --> 00:46:57.079
right by that car dealership by the
Interstate, and they were having a birthday

593
00:46:57.079 --> 00:46:59.159
party there a friend of ours,
and so we showed up. We brought

594
00:46:59.159 --> 00:47:02.440
our kids to the birthday party.
There's this play area. Okay, So

595
00:47:04.480 --> 00:47:07.039
I'm sitting in this play area and
I'm just kind of observing and I look

596
00:47:07.079 --> 00:47:13.320
over and I see a man that
was in the play area before our party

597
00:47:13.400 --> 00:47:16.440
showed up. So that would tell
you that when our party showed up and

598
00:47:16.519 --> 00:47:22.239
everyone from the previous party left,
that he shouldn't be there, but he

599
00:47:22.320 --> 00:47:27.000
stayed. And so I'm kind of
like, hmm. It just caught my

600
00:47:27.079 --> 00:47:30.119
attention because I couldn't understand why he
didn't leave. So I go over and

601
00:47:30.199 --> 00:47:32.320
aggravated my husband and I'm like,
hey, you see that guy right there.

602
00:47:32.360 --> 00:47:34.920
You think he's being creepy? And
my husband's like, oh my god,

603
00:47:34.920 --> 00:47:37.039
you think your Bosa creeper or Kelly
just enjoy the party, la la

604
00:47:37.119 --> 00:47:40.119
la la lah. Right. Well, I couldn't let it go, so

605
00:47:40.639 --> 00:47:43.519
I went to the host of the
party and I was like, hey,

606
00:47:43.599 --> 00:47:45.320
girl, who's that man right there. She's like, oh, I don't

607
00:47:45.320 --> 00:47:49.239
know. He's been sitting there in
the play area. Mind you, little

608
00:47:49.239 --> 00:47:52.639
girls in their little birthday dresses running
around, slide and playing in the ballpit

609
00:47:52.679 --> 00:47:55.800
and all that. Huh. So
I just kind of slowly went through the

610
00:47:55.960 --> 00:47:59.719
people that were at the party.
Hey, you know that is? Nope?

611
00:47:59.760 --> 00:48:02.199
You know who that is? Nope. So finally it started making me

612
00:48:02.239 --> 00:48:04.960
mad. Nobody knows who the hell
you are, and you're all up in

613
00:48:04.960 --> 00:48:07.280
our birthday party. So I walked
over to him and I was like,

614
00:48:07.280 --> 00:48:10.400
excuse me, who are you here
for? And he's like, oh,

615
00:48:10.480 --> 00:48:13.719
I'm just waiting on my granddaughter.
I said, oh, is she at

616
00:48:13.719 --> 00:48:19.360
this party? Yeah? Okay,
well whose party is she at? And

617
00:48:19.400 --> 00:48:22.920
he goes, uh, well,
I think they're over there. Actually,

618
00:48:22.920 --> 00:48:23.239
I think I'll get up and go. I said, yeah, I think

619
00:48:23.239 --> 00:48:27.840
that's a good idea. So he
got up and he walked off. Well

620
00:48:27.840 --> 00:48:30.639
it just wasn't enough, I'm telling
y'all pissed me off to no end because

621
00:48:30.639 --> 00:48:34.679
there was no reason why you wouldn't
have been following your granddaughter, you know

622
00:48:34.679 --> 00:48:36.880
what I'm saying, Like the way
that the layout of this building was.

623
00:48:37.119 --> 00:48:39.639
So I went out of the party
because I'm I'm I'm crazy like that.

624
00:48:39.679 --> 00:48:43.360
I guess I don't know. And
I followed him and I just kind of

625
00:48:43.360 --> 00:48:45.199
watched him from a distance. He
never went and talked to a kid.

626
00:48:45.639 --> 00:48:49.000
He never went and sat down by
a little girl. He never went and

627
00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:52.880
bought a drink. He just sat
there, watching and he would move about

628
00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:57.159
and watching, And so I went
up to the counter and I said,

629
00:48:57.239 --> 00:48:59.679
let me tell you something. Now. That man says he's here with somebody.

630
00:48:59.840 --> 00:49:02.159
I haven't seen him talk to a
child in the last hour and thirty

631
00:49:02.239 --> 00:49:07.039
minutes, and I think you have
a problem on your hands. So I

632
00:49:07.119 --> 00:49:09.079
went back up to him and I'm
like, dude, where's your granddaughter?

633
00:49:09.679 --> 00:49:14.039
And he was like, uh,
and he walked outside of the building.

634
00:49:14.079 --> 00:49:15.960
But then he sat down outside of
the building. He never went to his

635
00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:20.559
car, he never left. Bingo, motherfucker. You don't have anybody here.

636
00:49:20.719 --> 00:49:22.519
You're sitting here watching kids. And
they ended up calling the police on

637
00:49:22.599 --> 00:49:29.920
him. I'm telling you, I
don't I don't have any room for that.

638
00:49:30.679 --> 00:49:31.840
And if you're here and you have
a reason to be here, then

639
00:49:31.880 --> 00:49:36.239
tell me. And that's fine,
but I feel obligated as my children's mother.

640
00:49:36.880 --> 00:49:38.920
I feel obligated that you need to
explain to me while you're here and

641
00:49:38.960 --> 00:49:43.519
when you don't have a reason to
be here. Kick bricks, motherfucker.

642
00:49:44.920 --> 00:49:49.599
All right. Back to Jeff though, So this means that he purposefully put

643
00:49:49.679 --> 00:49:55.960
himself in a position to film children
one video on this computer that he had

644
00:49:57.320 --> 00:50:01.960
was of his neighbor's children. And
they weren't shot from far away. Okay,

645
00:50:02.199 --> 00:50:06.039
they weren't like across the street or
next door or something like that.

646
00:50:06.199 --> 00:50:09.760
No, he literally was creeping up
at night to their house and he was

647
00:50:09.880 --> 00:50:15.480
filming up close through the blinds,
and he was specifically filming the young girls

648
00:50:15.559 --> 00:50:21.960
undressing. And that is horrifying to
think about a grown man lusting after your

649
00:50:22.039 --> 00:50:27.159
children within close proximity of your home
and you have no clue. Think about

650
00:50:27.159 --> 00:50:30.079
your kids, y'all riding their bikes
in the neighborhood today, they're being watched.

651
00:50:30.119 --> 00:50:35.840
Everybody sees them, and they're watching
you. They're watching your children without

652
00:50:35.880 --> 00:50:38.280
your knowledge. And I'm not saying
everybody, but the wrong people. They're

653
00:50:38.320 --> 00:50:44.880
everywhere. The wrong people are everywhere, y'all. So basically, it seems

654
00:50:44.880 --> 00:50:47.119
to me like Jeff used the abduction
videos he had, you know, he

655
00:50:47.159 --> 00:50:52.559
had downloaded, and he was using
those as his research for his common plan.

656
00:50:52.360 --> 00:50:55.480
After he finished researching what he liked
and what turned him on, he

657
00:50:55.519 --> 00:51:00.880
went about gathering the tools like the
ones in those pornographic videos. This was

658
00:51:00.960 --> 00:51:05.159
clearly part of his planning and his
preparation for the abduction, the rape and

659
00:51:05.159 --> 00:51:07.599
the murder of young women. And
something else that stood out to me,

660
00:51:07.639 --> 00:51:15.920
and it never made it into the
official record, was that police found a

661
00:51:15.960 --> 00:51:22.519
specific video and it was described as
the roadside abduction video. So was this

662
00:51:22.639 --> 00:51:27.599
his inspiration for the bletch murder?
Because he sure liked the video he had

663
00:51:27.599 --> 00:51:32.400
downloaded. Also in the shed they
found a camera bag and inside there was

664
00:51:32.440 --> 00:51:37.760
a printed list of US serial killers
five pages long to be exact, and

665
00:51:37.800 --> 00:51:42.039
there was a hashtag next to certain
names, and they were named the Toolbox

666
00:51:42.119 --> 00:51:46.119
Killers. This was Lawrence Bittaker and
Roy Norris who were known in nineteen seventy

667
00:51:46.199 --> 00:51:52.880
nine to have kidnapped, tortured,
raped, and murdered five girls. A

668
00:51:52.960 --> 00:52:00.280
tape was also found in that bag, and on that tape was recorded voicemails.

669
00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:05.880
It was the recordings of the police
looking for his wife, shar Willis

670
00:52:06.320 --> 00:52:08.960
to call them. So, if
you remember in episode one, I mentioned

671
00:52:08.960 --> 00:52:13.519
that police had tried to contact her
but she never called them back. Well,

672
00:52:13.559 --> 00:52:15.639
now it was all starting to make
a lot more sense. She never

673
00:52:15.920 --> 00:52:21.119
got those messages. He beat her
to it. He recorded them as part

674
00:52:21.159 --> 00:52:24.159
of his trophy box, and then
he deleted them, but he had them

675
00:52:24.159 --> 00:52:29.440
recorded on that video on that cassette
tape and police were able to hear them.

676
00:52:30.239 --> 00:52:32.920
They also found a checklist for the
items that were in the toolbox,

677
00:52:34.400 --> 00:52:38.559
in the car or in the van. What was rather creepy was the note

678
00:52:39.039 --> 00:52:45.079
that was written. One of the
notes that was written included additional items of

679
00:52:45.159 --> 00:52:51.559
women's specific clothing, and this clothing
was specific to what Jessica was known to

680
00:52:51.599 --> 00:52:53.800
wear to work, one of them
being like this hoodie that she always wore

681
00:52:54.400 --> 00:52:59.960
and whenever they did testing of the
handwriting, it was confirmed that that was

682
00:53:00.079 --> 00:53:06.360
Jeffrey Willis's handwriting. Remember when he
told that female witness that was at the

683
00:53:06.360 --> 00:53:10.400
gas station not to worry her customers
were watching her. Well, he couldn't

684
00:53:10.440 --> 00:53:19.559
have been more literal. Police also
spoke to Jeffrey Willis's coworkers and they mentioned

685
00:53:19.599 --> 00:53:22.840
some information that seemed interesting considering what
they had all they had uncovered. They

686
00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:28.639
recalled that jeff had been coming to
work back then with deep scratches on his

687
00:53:28.760 --> 00:53:32.159
face and his arms, and the
timing of those scratches would matter because it

688
00:53:32.199 --> 00:53:38.320
was shortly after Jessica's disappearance. Remember
it's been a few years now, since

689
00:53:38.400 --> 00:53:44.559
Jessica's disappearance and this case certainly wasn't
cold, it just wasn't solid until that

690
00:53:44.639 --> 00:53:47.519
teenager jumped from that van, sparking
the link between the van and the two

691
00:53:47.639 --> 00:53:53.119
cases. And something else that would
now work to the police's advantage was that

692
00:53:53.199 --> 00:53:59.159
when time changes and time goes on, so does marital status. An old

693
00:53:59.199 --> 00:54:04.719
Jeffrey Boy had divorced in the meantime, so when people spoke to his ex,

694
00:54:04.920 --> 00:54:08.840
Charlene, she gave some information that
seemed to mimic what his coworkers were

695
00:54:08.840 --> 00:54:14.840
saying. Charlene told him that she
was gone to church functions a lot,

696
00:54:15.679 --> 00:54:17.719
and that he never wanted to attend
with her. She seemed like a good

697
00:54:17.760 --> 00:54:23.119
woman, y'all, she just married
a psycho. She said that he quote

698
00:54:23.280 --> 00:54:29.159
just wasn't into church other than a
major holiday every now and then. And

699
00:54:29.199 --> 00:54:34.119
she also mentioned that she knew he
had videotaped the neighbor's kids one time.

700
00:54:34.519 --> 00:54:37.360
But I don't think that she was
complicit in that. I think she just

701
00:54:37.400 --> 00:54:42.559
didn't realize that, you know,
what she was dealing with. Eventually,

702
00:54:42.599 --> 00:54:47.400
though, she said that he came
home with scratches on his back and on

703
00:54:47.440 --> 00:54:52.360
his legs. But she suspected that
he was cheating in their marriage, and

704
00:54:52.400 --> 00:54:58.639
so in twenty eleven they parted ways
they divorced. But what she thought was

705
00:54:58.760 --> 00:55:04.400
cheating may have also very likely have
been the remnants of a woman fighting for

706
00:55:04.440 --> 00:55:09.599
her life. What people knew for
certain was that Jeffrey Willis had an mo

707
00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:15.800
a modus operandi, a common scheme
or plan to kidnap, sexually, assault

708
00:55:15.880 --> 00:55:19.840
and murder young women. He killed
Rebecca Bletch, he tried to kidnap the

709
00:55:19.880 --> 00:55:22.800
teenage girl, and now he was
placed at the disappearance of Jessica Hearinga.

710
00:55:22.920 --> 00:55:29.719
But what happened This is what the
police came up with based on the eyewitnesses.

711
00:55:30.199 --> 00:55:37.239
Jeff was stalking Jessica that night and
probably prior to On the night of

712
00:55:37.239 --> 00:55:40.800
her disappearance, he engaged her in
conversation close to closing time, maybe to

713
00:55:42.159 --> 00:55:45.760
lower her guard, and near closing
time he returned to the scene. At

714
00:55:45.760 --> 00:55:51.039
some point he took her and he
forced her out the back door, and

715
00:55:51.119 --> 00:55:54.320
he likely did this at gunpoint.
But at some point between exiting the store's

716
00:55:54.360 --> 00:55:59.440
back door and getting into his van, they struggled and he struck her with

717
00:55:59.480 --> 00:56:04.239
the gun to make her comply.
This is believed to be the case due

718
00:56:04.280 --> 00:56:07.199
to that blood that was found on
the ground. And then remember they found

719
00:56:07.239 --> 00:56:12.320
a laser site, a set of
two batteries, and the laser site case

720
00:56:12.400 --> 00:56:16.679
covering on the ground. See this
is what they later found out. When

721
00:56:16.679 --> 00:56:22.320
the gun had been stolen from Jeff's
coworker, she said that the gun had

722
00:56:22.320 --> 00:56:25.119
that very same site on top.
So they went back to the sale of

723
00:56:25.159 --> 00:56:29.800
the weapon. They researched who sold
it, and when they went back and

724
00:56:29.840 --> 00:56:32.719
looked, they were able to verify
that that in fact was the case and

725
00:56:32.760 --> 00:56:37.920
that the gun was sold stock that
way, the same gun that killed Rebecca

726
00:56:37.960 --> 00:56:44.400
Bletch was the one used to kidnap
and eventually kill Jessica hearing A, and

727
00:56:44.440 --> 00:56:47.159
it was the same gun that was
found in the rape, kidnap kits in

728
00:56:47.199 --> 00:56:53.880
the van. Now, Jessica's body
has never been found to this day.

729
00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:59.199
She also has never contacted her son
since the day of her disappearance, nor

730
00:56:59.320 --> 00:57:05.400
used any other method of communication or
financial transaction, so what Jeff Willis did

731
00:57:05.400 --> 00:57:08.639
with her isn't known, but there
is hope that she still may be found

732
00:57:08.679 --> 00:57:15.519
one day. Jeff's own cousin,
Kevin Bloom, wouldn't help Jeff's case much

733
00:57:15.599 --> 00:57:21.079
either, because he actually called a
detective saying he had information on Jessica.

734
00:57:21.920 --> 00:57:25.280
Now this is a little grainy because
it's an interrogation clip, but I want

735
00:57:25.280 --> 00:57:30.079
you to listen to what he had
to say when police were interrogating him.

736
00:57:30.280 --> 00:57:32.000
I got upstairs and then I said, to the bottom of the set and

737
00:57:32.039 --> 00:57:37.199
nineteen that girl. Okay. At
first I said, cool, she was

738
00:57:37.239 --> 00:57:40.400
dead. Okay, how do you
know? She was saying? She was

739
00:57:40.440 --> 00:57:45.599
just how movement and what else?
Told you she was at her color?

740
00:57:46.800 --> 00:57:57.599
Just credit for me? You know, everyone might Her hair was here in

741
00:57:57.639 --> 00:58:02.679
her back and her arms are over
like this, and I don't know what

742
00:58:02.800 --> 00:58:07.199
he had high He says, uh, this is atis and girls. Essa.

743
00:58:07.639 --> 00:58:10.039
We put her in here summer and
then keep setting meat here. How

744
00:58:10.039 --> 00:58:15.159
did you put her in there?
We buried her in the sheet. You

745
00:58:15.159 --> 00:58:17.000
guys can't how did you bury her
in the sheet? I helped him,

746
00:58:17.000 --> 00:58:21.119
and he said he was going her
my wife. Okay, it's truer in

747
00:58:21.199 --> 00:58:24.920
like that. She's hit and I
was scared, and he said, you

748
00:58:25.119 --> 00:58:30.280
keep touched up on email A good
boy. But then after he seemingly gets

749
00:58:30.320 --> 00:58:34.679
all of this off of his shoulders, I guess he started to freak out

750
00:58:34.719 --> 00:58:37.920
a little bit and do some thinking, and he goes back to police,

751
00:58:37.960 --> 00:58:42.599
and then he completely recants that statement. I'm tired and my bass is down,

752
00:58:42.760 --> 00:58:46.360
and and I liked that I are
seeing jests enough and just never called

753
00:58:46.480 --> 00:58:51.400
me. I'm going him right now. Regardless of what he says in that

754
00:58:51.480 --> 00:58:54.239
recant, the way he tells the
story, watching his body language, I

755
00:58:54.320 --> 00:59:00.800
believe him he was a part of
something there. But they did a search

756
00:59:00.840 --> 00:59:04.679
warrant or a search of the area
that he indicated to them where her body

757
00:59:04.800 --> 00:59:07.280
was, and they didn't find it. But y'all, I mean, finding

758
00:59:07.320 --> 00:59:10.119
a body that's been gone for years
or buried for years isn't always easy.

759
00:59:10.159 --> 00:59:16.199
I mean it's vast area. Without
this so called confession, it didn't matter.

760
00:59:16.239 --> 00:59:20.679
Police felt that they had more than
enough to arrest and charge Jeffrey Willis

761
00:59:20.679 --> 00:59:23.519
with Jessica hearing his murder, he
was picked up during a traffic stop and

762
00:59:23.559 --> 00:59:29.440
he was promptly arrested so he would
stand trial for the killing of Rebecca Bletch

763
00:59:29.599 --> 00:59:32.920
on November two, twenty seventeen,
and it would take the jury less than

764
00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:38.599
ninety minutes to convict him of first
degree murder and fell any firearm. He

765
00:59:38.599 --> 00:59:44.760
would then stand trial for the twenty
thirteen kidnapping and murder of Jessica hearing A

766
00:59:44.760 --> 00:59:47.760
about a year later, and on
May sixteenth, twenty eighteen, he would

767
00:59:47.800 --> 00:59:53.360
be convicted of both and he was
sentenced to life in prison. Now it

768
00:59:53.360 --> 00:59:55.599
can't end there real quick, y'all. I gotta tell y'all this. He

769
00:59:55.719 --> 01:00:01.599
of course played the victim after the
convictions, and he'd he blamed everyone but

770
01:00:01.840 --> 01:00:09.639
himself. Supposedly. He says there
were sleeping jurors. There's a bloodthirsty public

771
01:00:10.360 --> 01:00:15.840
that's rich coming from him, right, and a terrible public defender. He

772
01:00:15.960 --> 01:00:22.760
actually spoke upwards of seventeen minutes seventeen
minutes at his conviction, and I'm not

773
01:00:22.800 --> 01:00:24.639
going to play that. I'm not
even going to give him the platform for

774
01:00:24.719 --> 01:00:29.599
it. He was heard loud and
clear when the jury weighed and measured him

775
01:00:29.960 --> 01:00:34.360
for who he really was. His
cousin, just so you know. Two

776
01:00:34.440 --> 01:00:37.760
follow up was charged with multiple things, including accessory after the fact as well

777
01:00:37.800 --> 01:00:42.400
as lying to the police, but
he pled the fifth and he wouldn't testify

778
01:00:42.760 --> 01:00:46.519
at Willis's trial, and he served
four hundred and seventy six days in jail

779
01:00:46.800 --> 01:00:52.000
and then was released on January of
twenty eighteen. Jeff remains behind bars,

780
01:00:52.039 --> 01:00:57.639
having had multiple appeals result in nothing. So while this case was certainly about

781
01:00:57.719 --> 01:01:00.960
Jessica hearing A, it has evolved
into a story of three women who are

782
01:01:00.960 --> 01:01:05.000
now connected and part of a club
that no one wants to be a part

783
01:01:05.039 --> 01:01:09.119
of, and that's the victim club. It took all three women to solve

784
01:01:09.159 --> 01:01:15.679
each other's cases, and to me, that's just poetic justice. Rebecca's family

785
01:01:15.719 --> 01:01:21.639
said it best. They said,
closure's the wrong word. Answers. Yes,

786
01:01:21.719 --> 01:01:23.800
we're getting them, and in that's
so true. You're not going to

787
01:01:23.880 --> 01:01:28.320
get closure. There's no closure,
there's moving forward, there's no closure.

788
01:01:29.559 --> 01:01:34.440
Rebecca's family also thanked the teenage girl
who jumped out of Jeffrey Willis's moving van.

789
01:01:34.880 --> 01:01:37.920
She set off that chain of events
that no one could have imagined,

790
01:01:37.239 --> 01:01:42.400
and thank god that little girl had
the guts to jump. Her actions that

791
01:01:42.519 --> 01:01:45.480
day were not only life saving for
her, but that teen girl gave answers

792
01:01:45.519 --> 01:01:50.800
to another teen desperate for answers,
and that was the daughter of Rebecca Bletch.

793
01:01:51.760 --> 01:01:57.599
One teen helped another without even knowing. In the moment, Rebecca's family

794
01:01:57.639 --> 01:02:00.880
was also quoted as saying, if
it was not for her, we would

795
01:02:00.880 --> 01:02:04.159
still be looking. I just want
to say thank you to her. She's

796
01:02:04.199 --> 01:02:07.280
a brave, brave little girl.
I'm proud of her as a mother,

797
01:02:07.679 --> 01:02:10.760
and my heart goes out to that
little girl. So even in their worst

798
01:02:10.840 --> 01:02:15.719
moments, a family who lost so
much felt the tug of empathy for another

799
01:02:15.760 --> 01:02:20.559
who survived, And to me,
that's beautiful. A teen's abduction led to

800
01:02:20.639 --> 01:02:25.199
the solving of a roadside murder,
which explains exactly what happened to Jessica heringa

801
01:02:27.639 --> 01:02:35.239
Now after his conviction, Jeff Willis
was asked about the location of Jessica's body

802
01:02:36.079 --> 01:02:42.400
and this was his response. I
don't want to be badgered. I needed

803
01:02:42.519 --> 01:02:46.440
myself. I don't know, multiple
times to multiple people that I didn't do

804
01:02:46.519 --> 01:02:51.519
it. I'm innatt and I don't
know where the body is. Wow,

805
01:02:52.199 --> 01:02:58.679
he doesn't want to be badgered.
Well, Rebecca and Jessica and the teen

806
01:02:58.800 --> 01:03:01.559
that had to jump out of your
moving vehicle didn't want to be badgered either.

807
01:03:04.000 --> 01:03:07.039
They didn't want to be murdered.
How about you tell us where Jessica's

808
01:03:07.039 --> 01:03:12.800
body is so that she can have
a proper burial. But No, you're

809
01:03:12.800 --> 01:03:15.480
not gonna do that, Jeffrey,
because that doesn't serve you, So it

810
01:03:15.519 --> 01:03:22.559
won't happen. These women mattered and
they all deserve better. So as someone

811
01:03:22.559 --> 01:03:27.159
who kept files on the women he
killed, and he liked to research and

812
01:03:27.199 --> 01:03:30.280
plan his attacks, it sure seems
like he fancied himself an academic of sorts,

813
01:03:30.360 --> 01:03:36.360
right, someone smarter than the police, someone who researched and perfected his

814
01:03:36.480 --> 01:03:40.719
crimes before he committed them. Well, unfortunately, y'all, he was wrong

815
01:03:40.760 --> 01:03:46.719
and he couldn't outsmart the authorities.
He will die behind bars, womanless and

816
01:03:46.840 --> 01:03:52.039
hated by the other inmates because he's
a sex offender. But hey, maybe

817
01:03:52.039 --> 01:03:55.679
he can use his research skills behind
bars and maybe help other inmates on their

818
01:03:55.719 --> 01:04:00.199
own research activities. I mean,
he can even brag there about his intellect,

819
01:04:00.239 --> 01:04:06.000
considering he's going straight to hell on
a full scholarship. H