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Ie previously on who killed Jennifer Judd?

He's just such a liar. That whole side of the street was just bat shit crazy.

She was more upper class, and Jeremy was the interaction.

I feel like it was somebody she knew and she let him in the house, and it went downhill from there.

From ID and Arc media. I'm Sarah Kalin, and this is. Is who killed Jennifer Judd.

This is Sarah.

She's sad.

Nice to meet you. We're back at Leslie Bissell's office to speak with a woman Leslie reached out to earlier this week, Michelle McCorkle. Michelle was friends with Jennifer in the last four years or so of Jennifer's life. I want to talk to as many people as possible who really knew her as, like, a whole complex human being. And through that, I think a lot of times you get avenues you can explore for investigation by getting to know the victim's life. And so that's, you know, I tasked Leslie with finding people in the community who were in a position to do that. So that's why you're here. Michelle has a vibe about her. There's her bejeweled cat eye glasses, long blonde ponytail with hot pink tips, her pink gel manicure, and camo pants. But that's not the vibe I'm talking about. It has more to do with the massive black fabric binder she pulls from her bag. She unzips the edge, and I see a pile of loose papers. She reaches for one. But before we start talking about the investigation, I want to hear more about Jennifer.

I was 15. Met her when I was 15. I was dating my husband back then, Tommy Davis. And he was best friend with Justin. And we ran around with a bunch of them. Everybody would go on top of the chef house, look for UFO's.

Michelle looks nostalgic as she describes those carefree teenage days. She pulls out her phone and flips to a prom photo. There's Jennifer in a classic 1980s gown, strapless, the top covered in blue sequins, the bottom layers upon layers of satin filled out by crinoline. In another photo, Jen's laying on her bed in shorts and a t shirt with the sleeves cuffed, writing in a notebook, her hair as perfectly feathered and curly as ever.

We done so many things, swimming at Miami Pool, and Justin, me, Tommy, and her, we'd all go out and eat.

Michelle took time off in high school when she and Tommy had a little girl, and they asked Jennifer and Justin to be their daughter's godparents. Jennifer doted on Michelle's daughter. She took her to the mall for photo sessions. She would go buy her clothes.

I mean, expensive, real pretty, frilly clothes. And Jennifer was her godmother. I mean, she loved Lauren, and Lauren loved her. Those two years that she was with.

Her, those years were cut short in a way Michelle and their friends never could have imagined. What happened to Jennifer has haunted Michelle ever since.

We were with her Saturday. She was with us all day Sunday. We played softball. We ate burritos. I mean, I can close my eyes and just see it all. She was the pitcher, and Jeff Morsette had hit the ball and came back and jammed her finger because the ball came back and hit her in the finger. So she set out, and I threw the ball. We were supposed to go eat tacos that night, and our truck broke down, so we went home.

Michelle trails off. She's lost in a memory. Jennifer asked her to go to the mall on Monday, but Michelle couldn't go. She's regretted it ever since.

We had some good times. Thank you, sir. Yeah, I tried, you know, everything. So to find out who it is, I mean, I, you know, I'd go to parties, I'd talk about it, you know, and, you know, we'd go to Dallas, and I'd say, you know, I wish Jennifer was here to start conversation and see if I could hear anything. Cause people talk.

She didn't hear anything memorable back then. But years later, something really caught her attention.

I didn't know that we were. I was married into the Cuapo mafia.

Sorry, the what?

I didn't find that out until 2030 years later down the road. So they were into drugs and stuff.

Michelle's telling me her husband Tommy and Justin were somehow connected to a family of dealers in the area that she is calling the Quapaw mafia. I ask if she has anything to prove the existence of this supposed mafia, and she says, no, I'll need to confirm this. She says she remembers Jennifer talking about something that might at least prove Justin's friend Chuck chance was involved with drugs.

Jennifer had told me one time that she found some stuff in the toilet. I have only told three people. So she went to the apartment, and she was crying. And she said that her and Justin got into it. And I was like, what? They were always fighting. And she said that she found plastic bags with white substance in it. Powder. And I'm like, what was it? And she goes, I don't know. But when she asked Justin, Justin said, just leave it alone and let it be. I'll tell Chuck not to do it anymore. Because Chuck was doing the pickup drop off thing at her house before she moved in. Well, he was told not to do it anymore. Well, he ended up doing it, I guess. I don't know. That day that she was killed, I don't know. That's what happened.

I asked Michelle to slow down. She's saying Jennifer found a bag of drugs stashed in or behind the toilet tank at Jennifer and Justin's duplex. Something white, which could be anything from meth to coke to steroids. And when she confronted Justin, Justin said they were Chuck's drugs. I'll need to confirm this, too. She says Justin came down hard on Chuck.

Chuck was told not to ever come back over there. And he wasn't over there for a whole week and then end up showing up at that Monday morning. She was killed. That's what I know about that.

How sure are you that he was there that night?

He told the cops. He told Baxter police department that he.

Was at the house.

He had drove over there and seen a lady in a maroon cardinal. And asking if this was the Judd's house. He said that he didn't know who she was. So then that's whenever he went to Justin's work, which they got timestamps where Justin logged in a couple of the. Well, supposedly Justin logged in. It could have been Chuck logged him in. Why he took the car to go to Baxter. I mean, that's another scenario. There's so many things to talk about. I just don't know where to start.

Michelle has lots of theories because shes had so much bottled up for so long and she wants justice for Jennifer. It strikes me that she suspects Justin or at least expresses skepticism about his timestamps at work. Leslie Bissell doesnt think Justin was involved. Chris Hausch didnt like him, but she doesnt think he was involved right off the bat. Less than 15 minutes into our conversation, a person who spent a lot of time with both Jennifer and Justin is expressing skepticism about him. Wanting a better understanding of this skepticism, I ask Michelle to back up a few steps to tell me more about Jennifer and Justin's relationship.

Jennifer chased Justin the whole time. He was screwing around with everybody and they'd get into fights. It was never physical, except for Jennifer. Jennifer would kick him because she was just, you know, she was only this tall. She'd call my house or she'd come over in her little black car and we'd go for a ride. She'd talk about them fighting for him, screwing around on her again. She was in love with Justin. No matter what he done, she chased him all over.

Michelle doesn't recall Jennifer running around on Justin or being anything but devoted.

She did have a mouth on her every once in a while, but she just wanted to get married and have babies.

I've now heard this from several friends. Jennifer and Justin fought, but no one can remember them physically hurting each other. I'll keep a slightly more open mind about Michelle's theory, but I honestly don't think it passes the smell test. There's just nothing in Justin's life since then to indicate a propensity towards violence. And I really would expect to have seen it turn up again. While I disagree with her suspicion of Justin, there's more I need to talk about. I ask Michelle if she remembers Jennifer being scared of anyone at the pitcher Express or asking her dad to follow her home after work.

She told me everything. We thought she was pregnant. You know, we did. Tracking receipts, I mean intimate things like that. She never told me anything like that. She told me everything. And none of that came up. Never? Never. Did she say she was scared of anybody at the express or anybody came around the express and talked to her and scared her? Never.

Michelle is an open book. She shares everything she can in a sort of stream of consciousness narrative. Sometimes she answers a question, sometimes she wanders off in a new direction.

This is the year that we're gonna do it. Something's gonna happen, just something's gonna go down that it's gonna come out and someone is you wouldn't think killed her.

Who do you think? Killer.

Wow. I have so many theories.

I want to hear more.

Let me give you another name so you can check him out.

Michelle offers me three additional names and their accompanying theories. One is a man who has already been convicted of murder, a stabbing death, no less, and executed by the state of Oklahoma. Michelle says her dad is a retired deputy, and he told her he believes this man, Gary Welch, might have killed Jennifer. Her dad's theory is based on a jailhouse informant who claimed to have heard it directly from Welch. I'm not in the habit of trusting anything that's not first person, especially of this variety. I make a note to pull Welch's record, and I ask to speak with Michelle's dad. But I'm not adding Welch to my suspect list just yet. I'm trying to keep up with her shifting gears when she suddenly takes a hard turn into territory. I definitely wasn't expecting Jeremy Jones.

We were friends in high school. We were in the cafeteria. One of my friends, Gina, she fell in love with him at first sight. That's when I remember we were all sitting in the cafeteria. He walked in, and he sat down beside us, and we started talking to him. And that's when we started hanging out with him. We took him in pretty fast as one of our, you know, in our group, and he hung around with us.

Michelle says they were the artsy group of friends at Quapaw high school.

He was not weird. I mean, he might be in a troublemaker, you know, fighting and stuff, but he never hit on me, never insinuated any kind of sexual response or nothing. After reading about him, I'm like, wow.

I had no idea Michelle knew Jeremy Jones and definitely didn't know she was friends with him. I ask if she remembers him ever being violent.

He bitch slapped some people at parties. I mean, he would get mad drinking, you know, he was not a tough kid. I don't know who he got into a fight with at Quapaw. Maybe Charlie Bertram. He was just a smart ass, and people don't like that first when you come to school, you don't smartass somebody.

Michelle doesn't give me a chance to ask if she thinks Jones killed Jennifer. She's reasoned her way through it.

He never showed any kind of weirdness or psychotic that, you know, what he's been convicted of. Yeah, but he would have raped Jennifer.

Not necessarily. Well, so I am not hard set on Jones by any stretch. But I do think that the dismissal of him was too fast. I ask about connections between Jones and some of the other people in Michelle and Jennifer's circle of friends. In the confession tapes, Jones claims that he worked out at the gym with Chuck and that they were friends.

Oh, yeah, he knew Chuck. They all were doing steroids together.

This is a huge piece of information. If Michelle were to have said that she never saw them together, that she doubted Jeremy Jones interacted with anyone in that circle, it really would have gone a long way towards disproving Jones story. But if they were doing steroids together like Michelle says, then Jones was telling the truth about spending a fair amount of time with that crowd around that time. This would make it harder to dismiss his version of events. It also means theres more to untangle in what he says. I ask Michelle more about Joness possible connections. She doesnt recall ever seeing him interact with Justin. She says they might have been at the same parties sometimes, especially parties hosted by her father in law. Michelle's father in law often held backyard barbecues and Michelle is pretty sure she saw Jones there over the years. She's not sure if this was before or after Jennifer was killed. Regardless, she says Jeremy Jones, Justin Judd, Chuck Chance and Michelle's ex husband Tommy Davis were all somehow associated with what Michelle calls the quapaw mafia. Again, I'll need to confirm this as we're talking. I'm still thinking about what Michelle said earlier about Justin.

Do you have any thought at all that Justin did it?

I don't think so. Even though we're friends, I don't think he did it. I really don't.

I must have misinterpreted her earlier. I thought she said she suspected him. I don't press on the inconsistency because she's starting to tell me what she thinks happened that day. She's suggesting that Jennifer fought with someone in her bedroom. Then the fight escalated as it moved to the kitchen. I point out that there's no blood in the bedroom or on the walls between the bedroom and the kitchen. Michelle says there was, but it was cleaned up. This is sounding far fetched, but I go with it for now. I ask her to explain the entire theory.

Last week is the first time I've ever even put it all together. And I was like, that makes sense. Chuck ended up going to his work and Justin took his metro Geo or whatever, the car, the white cardinal come back to the apartment and help clean up the mess or got out of the area.

I'm slightly confused because Michelle just told me she didn't think Justin is involved. Now she's suggesting that Chuck saw someone at Jennifer's house that morning, walked into the crime scene, drove to Justin's work to tell Justin, and then helped Justin clean up the scene. She doesnt think Justin killed Jennifer, but she thinks he knows who did. And she thinks he helped clean up the scene to protect that person. Now I get it. I wont share the name of the suspect in Michelles theory because it involves someone im not willing to name publicly without actual evidence. The one thing I will say is that Michelle. Michelle named the same woman Chris Hausch named. Michelle insists she hasn't talked to Chris about this theory. She's only recently started to consider it.

Yeah, I've been processing ever since Thursday. I've been, like, freaking out about it because I would have never guessed doing that.

The theory is pretty far fetched. Our series producer, Danielle, tries to sort through it. You were saying that then maybe Chuck goes to the house and sees the scene, immediately goes to Justin's work.

Mm hmm.

They come back together, and the thought is that Justin feels like he's in a bind. What's in it for him to not go to the cops?

I don't know. He has always told me he's always talked to the cops.

I'm not at all on board with this theory, but that doesn't mean I'll throw it out entirely. The part about the bedroom captures my full attention, but not because of the person she suspects I'm stuck on. What makes Michelle think there was a fight in the bedroom at all? There is no blood in the bedroom, but Michelle insists that's only because someone went in and cleaned it up.

They fought on the bed. Whoever this person was, they got into it on the bed. She got away from them and then went down into the kitchen. And that's when it. Oh, see, there's so many things that I'm like, okay, this this. This is all. It's connecting.

I mean, to be honest, that changes. That changes some calculus. Michelle doesn't quite catch what I'm saying. I hate to spell it out to a close friend of Jennifer's, but if there was indeed blood on a wall leading out of the bedroom, then there may have been an attempted sexual assault and that he had dragged her in there fighting, then manages to get free runs, and he attacks her first from behind and then from the front, and she collapses there. There's only one way to confirm if the police went back in with luminol in a black light, which is what would be required had the suspect or suspects done a thorough cleaning job. If it happened, it'll be in the case file. I thank Michelle for everything she's shared. Again, I'm not on board with her theories, but I will look into them.

If you need me to do anything. This is for Jennifer. This is for my best friend. I want to find out the truth.

The murder of Jennifer Judd is different from a lot of the cases I work. So many of my cold cases are cold because the victim was ignored or forgotten, often because they belong to a marginalized population. Jennifer is different. She wasn't ignored or forgotten by her community. The media has written countless stories on the tragic loss of this wonderful, spirited, funny young woman. Yet somehow, the case still seemed to die on the vine, to get left untouched for decades, investigators whispering to each other that it could never be solved. Maybe it's because I was just about the same age as Jennifer when she was killed, because I identify with so much of her life in those years. Or maybe it's because it seems impossible to me that there can be no answer in this relatively simple case. I refuse to accept that with all the developments in investigative techniques and sciences in the last three decades, there's no way to find an answer. And so, once again, if I have to be the one to work it until it's done, then so be it. This is what I plan to tell Sheriff Groves and why I hope he'll hand me the keys to the kingdom.

Well, to the case.

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Podcasts, including the David McWilliams podcast, I'm grandmam and the one you're listening to right now. Cherokee county investigators need your help closing a case that's nearly three decades old. They believe they're just one piece of evidence away from closing this case for good. The Cherokee County Sheriff's office made big public announcements about reopening Jennifer's case in 2018 and again in 2021.

A fresh set of eyes may see something that may have got missed or just see it in a different context and provide the, you know, a new direction.

That's Sheriff David Groves speaking to a local news reporter. He offers a $5,000 reward for information that may help solve the case. These announcements make me hopeful as I walk into the Cherokee County Sheriff's office to meet with him. Maybe he'll want my fresh set of eyes. Still, I've worked enough cases to know that law enforcement today usually keeps an extremely tight grip on their cases. It took me weeks of calls and emails to set up this meeting. The goal is to build a relationship and gain the sheriff's trust. I have nothing at the sheriff rose. I check in at the security desk, and the attendant goes to get the sheriff. I'm recording on my phone because I didn't want to bring our producer today. I want this to be as casual as possible. The sheriff here, a man dressed in a suit walks into the lobby. He, too, seems to be looking for the sheriff. I have a meeting with him at once.

You're the person I meet. I thought you maybe you're the person I'm meeting. I'm the county attorney.

Apparently the sheriff invited a few more people. The man introduces himself as county attorney Kurt Benicke. His position is similar to that of a district attorney in many jurisdictions. I know. And I was a little. I was like, well, I'm about to get upstaged by somebody else. No, I'm here. I'm here to meet you. Oh, my God. I'm so glad.

I want to hear what you have to, what you can do, kind of miracles you can work.

I think we can.

A few minutes later, Sheriff groves strolls into the lobby and ushers us through a swinging door, then into a conference room. Two men are sitting around a long wooden table, all dressed in street clothes or office attire. There's chief deputy Nate Jones, essentially the number two in a sheriff's office, and Chief Detective Joel Taber. Large tvs are mounted high on the walls around the conference room. Each shows the same senior year portrait against a black background. With Jennifer Brian Judd, December 27, 1971 to May 11, 1992. I'd expected this to be a short introduction with just the sheriff, a chance for him to kind of kick the tires before he made a decision about involving me in the investigation one way or another. Instead, I've walked into a meeting with everyone responsible for the case at the highest levels. I tell them about my work on the disappearance of two teenage girls in this area, a few other cases, and my interest in Jennifer's case, the other sort of arm of what I do in 2020. I partnered up with Doctor Ann Burgess. She kind of invented the science of forensic psychology, profiling, and everything that has followed since.

Back in the midst of COVID Doctor Ann Burgess and I, along with three other forensic psych nurses and professors, established a cold case consultation collaborative. We meet over Zoom to evaluate unsolved homicides on behalf of different police groups, attorneys, and families. We've just started collecting experts, and so, you know, we have an incredible forensic entomologist. We've got, you know, two forensic. The group is now 50 members deep, including highly regarded experts in many forensic disciplines. And so I also said to them, I would really like to work on the Jennifer Judd case. So when you opened with, like, what can you do for us? I think I can get exposure for the case on a scale beyond just local and regional. And I can give you guys access to of the best experts in the world without it being a resource cost to you. Our team is willing to contribute our time and skills at no cost. That is something that never happens. On the other hand, allowing outside civilians into an investigation is both risky and unusual. Swimming against the tide is extremely difficult, and letting go of that tight grip is definitely going against the tide in law enforcement.

And then, of course, I have access to all of the Jones material, Jones confession videos. Has that been shared with you? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it carries on a bit. He does like to talk, and, you know, like, just the thrust of it is that there's a lot of bullshit in there, but there are some points that it's like. It is, in my opinion, without having access to the full case, they're responsible to dismissed him completely out of hand. They dismissed him pretty early on based on some stuff that doesn't actually exclude him. I don't think so. Yeah. So that's where I am. I want to be as helpful to you guys. The men are nodding. I realize I've done all the talking and ask the sheriff what he thinks about the case.

So kind of where we're at is none of us obviously were here at that time. Several years ago, like, I think three or four years ago, we went through the file, digitized everything. Just because of Illinois. Yeah, you know, that's what it is. At that time went through, and some things were re analyzed by the KBI lab. We got together with three KBI agents. None of them were there at the time. Just trying to get everybody, all the current stakeholders, players. Joel and two of the KBI investigators were going to go down to Alabama last week and try to interview Jones. And, like, at the last minute, what the warden said, unless he pre authorized the visit, then they couldn't furze it out through us.

His attorney's gonna say no. I've tried a couple times.

The thought was if he was willing to take a polygraph, they were gonna do that, but that got scratched.

The timing of this makes me wonder if the sheriff wanted to do it before meeting with me. I keep this thought to myself, because I am here to build a relationship, and I feel like it's going well.

The reality is, we don't have the manpower to dive into this and just focus on nothing else. It's not a everyday situation.

Well, I'm here to tell you that, like, I am most of the manpower, and I can certainly dedicate the time and the, you know, the investigative, like, power to it. The sheriff explains his hesitations. Most of them revolve around the podcast and what will be revealed publicly. I assure him I would never release anything that could compromise the investigation. With that out of the way, we get back to the case.

I feel like that's one of the reasons why Jeremy was dismissed was because the investigators locally were fixated on Chuck, and they were checking a box.

It reads like that when you watch the interview. That's how it feels. And what's interesting is we talk through this a bit more, and then I ask about physical evidence, if they still have it. I tell them I think it could lead us to an answer. I want to send it for a specific type of DNA testing called Touch DNA. Touch DNA testing did exist the last time the sheriff opened this case, but it was nowhere near as sensitive, and it was not used at anywhere near the scale that it is today. A big part of this change was the invention and proliferation of a machine called the M vac. The M vac is really just a wet vac, operating the same way it would when you shampoo your carpets. But on a microscopic level, this technological advance might make all the difference. The sheriff is nodding again, as if he knows all about touch DNA and the M vac. Finally, he smiles. He admits he doesnt know a thing about this particular type of testing, but he likes the idea very much. I can see the sheriff beginning to feel more comfortable with the idea of working together.

So what is it? What is a typical initiation process look like with you? If we were to do something, what would I say?

The way Paul Birch did it, and you can verify this with him. He was like, here you go. And it was like, you know, here's boxes of stuff from the Rene Bergeron case, which was the first one I worked on with him. I would love nothing more in the world than to sit in this room with the files, not take any pictures or anything like that, but just go through and then make my own notes on, like, okay, here's a path that I'm interested in pursuing, and do it hand in hand with you guys every step along the way. I have no interest in this being solved by anybody other than the Cherokee County Sheriff's office. I just want to work for free, basically, is what I'm offering you guys. Nate and Joel seem to be on board. We all look at the county attorney. He's stone faced, a look revealing nothing. And then I'm all in favor.

The Paul Birch treatment.

He mimes, shoving a huge imaginary pile of documents across the table to me. We all break out laughing, the tension released, each of us confessing we couldn't get a read on him. Sheriff Groves points to a pile of Manila folders and tells me I'm welcome to stay as long as I'd like, and that when I come back on Wednesday, he'll have a copy of the case hard drive ready for me to take home. I pull a soda out of my backpack, lay out my color coded post its, and crack open the first giant Manila folder.

So we have basically big bags that just catch all a bunch of evidence in the big bags. So we don't know what, what we have and what we don't have.

Joel is showing me the physical evidence bags. He has them piled high on a cart. I plan to get into them later in the day. First, I want to look at the files. All right, I'm gonna tackle this.

Okay.

Is it okay if I take pictures of documents?

I don't have an issue with that.

I start all investigations pretty much the same way. I find whatever appears to be the beginning of the file, the first day of the case, and start cataloging as a hyper organized textbook, type a, or, if astrology is your thing, a classic Virgo. I absolutely live for color coding and spreadsheets, color coded spreadsheets, to be really specific. As I read every single page from top to bottom, I'm making notes and cataloging everything I see. Every name, every address, every license plate number, every vague vehicle description, every bit of physical evidence. It all goes into its designated tab on the spreadsheet. During this stage, I am digesting info that leaps out at me, but it's really about getting it all into one searchable document. Joel hangs out as I start this process. He's not hovering, just hanging out. I run things by him now and then. I have looked at that scene and thought it could be a female offender. Normally, it seems pretty brutal.

For a female offender, though.

It does.

It is a really personal matter.

It's a really personal matter. And it's like the stab wounds aren't particularly deep if she's astride her, and they're just like this, you know? I mean, other than the one in the back.

Yeah.

And that almost seems like, for lack of a better word, a lucky strike that it was fatal. But for the most part, it's me and the files. This part can take days or even weeks of full time work, depending on how big the file is. Once I'm fairly certain that it's all logged into my own little clearinghouse, I go back to page one. Now I'm reading with my mind focused entirely on the stories. The witnesses tell stories, the suspects tell stories, even the crime scene and the evidence tell stories. My job now is to match up all the different stories, look for gaps, and find connections. This is the meat of it. This is the red string on a cork board part of the process. Typically, I will have been through the files a couple times before I start talking to witnesses and friends of the victim. Honestly, that is the best way to do it, because I want to know as many of the answers already as possible before I start asking questions. Doing so in reverse can color my impressions of the stories in the pages. But because we didn't know which way the sheriff was going to lean.

I went ahead and dove into those conversations head first. I'm now searching these pages for proof of some of the details I've heard already from Jennifer's friends and loved ones, things passed around by members of the community and by the good old fashioned rumor mill. I've been keeping mental notes of the various theories and even some of the more outlandish suspect suggestions, and am now keeping my eye out for any threads to pull on. Oh, that's interesting. So there was hair and blood. I'm seeing a tangled web of information. I'm not agreeing with everything I see. Still, the investigators who came before me have clearly done a lot of work. I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task at hand. Yet I'm fairly optimistic with moments of pure giddiness about some of the information I'm taking in. Oh, here we go. But if she meets, I see things I expected, including an early and thorough investigation into Chuck chance. Initially, Chuck claimed to have been applying for jobs in nearby Pittsburgh, Kansas on the morning that Jennifer was killed. Is there fucking proof he was in Pittsburgh? Beyond Chuck, there's a long list of suspects I never knew they'd considered.

Who is Ellen Wein Redding? One suspect name in particular jumps off the page. Tommy Lee Davis, junior. Tommy is the ex husband of Michelle, the father of Jennifer's goddaughter. One half of the couple, Justin and Jennifer, spent most of their social time with. Michelle never mentioned that Tommy was a suspect, but she was so raw and open with me about everything else that I can't help but wonder, did she even know? I text Leslie Bissell asking her to set up another meeting with Michelle. Another surprising name on the suspect list is Justin's father, Bobby. Police collected his phone records and receipts, too, as though they felt it necessary to verify his whereabouts at the time Jennifer was killed. I don't have the detectives notebooks, so it's difficult to interpret their thinking. Were they checking off boxes to be safe, or was there something there that concerned them? I make a note to learn more about Jennifer's relationship with her in laws. I am starting to find the seeds of many of the rumors and theories I heard before getting the file. The late night drives home from work being a source of fear for Jennifer.

The sightings of Chuck's car near the duplex that morning, even mention of a nearby serial killer active at the time. Some of these details are pretty close to the versions that made it into the public discourse. Some are like a wild game of telephone, where I can see how it started, but can't fathom how it became the story that spread far and wide. I even find little nuggets of Jennifer's personality that make me feel close to and protective of her. I see on the sign out sheet for movie rentals at the Pitcher Express how she rented the silence of the lambs on Christmas eve of 1991. It would be an odd choice of holiday viewing for many, I'm sure, but it's one that makes me smile and feel a kinship with Jennifer Juddhenne. After several hours with the case files, I ask Joel if I can take a look at the physical evidence. He looks slightly hesitant, but agreeable.

I want to go through it.

Yeah.

And figure out, hey, yes, I have it. Yes, we have it.

No, no, I definitely wouldn't. I'm not asking to take anything. You know what I mean? Yeah, I would let. I would then just put you guys in touch with my DNA person and let you do all that. He hands me a pair of purple rubber gloves, and we start to sort through. The first thing I notice is that there's untested physical evidence, as well as some that hasn't been retested in ten or 20 years. And we all know the equipment and technology have made staggeringly huge advances during those decades. All of these gaps are the apparent byproduct of multiple law enforcement agencies jumping in and out of the case over the years. This is frustrating.

This is her purse. Regular. This is the knife set from the kitchen. Here's the original copy, the crime scene video.

Oh, interesting. Okay. I'm hoping this video will answer some of the questions on my growing list, questions about the case itself and about the competence of the police who investigated the case throughout the years, between Baxter Springs police, the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, the KBI, and even the FBI on a purely consultative basis. I can't even count how many different hands have been in this case. Jesus Christ collected 615 submitted. A 615 of 92 submitted in 2014. It's frustrating to see, because it's possible that all the starting and stopping, this constant changing of the guard is what caused the case to languish for 32 years. But that same fact also gives me hope. Maybe all it really needed is one person to wrap their arms around it completely, to be focused on nothing else, to find the answer that was always sitting there in these pages. Joel and I searched through each and every item. After 2 hours, we've exhausted everything, matched it all up by individual record numbers, and there are some extremely important items missing. I asked Joel to check his office. Did he forget to bring anything in?

I didn't miss any boxes.

Through everything. Make sure it's not just not labeled on the outside.

She went for autopsy. They would have been packaged there.

It's all listed on all of these. The fingernail scrapings and her sweatshirt and jeans and bra. Like, they're all listed in the. In various reports over the years. KBI and FBI. Most of the things I'd want to test first, in fact, don't seem to be anywhere in these packages. Joel realizes the blade of one of the knives is not here either.

That should be somewhere not in the city. So I'm wondering if there's a box somewhere.

Yeah, it seems like there must be. Joel calls the KBI to see if it somehow got left there.

KBI says they don't have anything after lab, but they're gonna call and confirm that for sure.

I mean, they gotta be somewhere.

Yeah.

Is there any chance Baxter has some?

Hey, that's a good question. I don't think so. Cause Baxter turned everything over to us, and then we turned it to the KBI, and then the KBI gave it back to us.

The sheriff steps in and asks how it's going. We tell him we can't find these key pieces of evidence.

This is one of those cases that, like, when it doesn't get solved, it's not our case.

Yeah.

You know, so then it's like, nobody's bullshit of anything and stuff could be anywhere.

This is not ideal. Joel steps out to take a call while I fill sheriff Groves in on what I've found so far. And then Joel is back.

Baxter, evidence.

Shut up. Jennifer's clothing and the knife that remained embedded in her back after her attacker fled the scene are in the custody of the Baxter Springs police Department. A Baxter detective says he'll bring them over as soon as he gets back from vacation. That's fine with me. A week or two won't hurt. Now I feel like I'm off to a good start. There's a tremendous amount to do. But while I'm examining the original crime scene, sorting through the suspect list, and deciding what evidence to send to the lab, I know I need to make some headway in one area. I keep striking out. I need to get in touch with the person who found Jennifer that day, her sweetheart and her widower, Justin Judd. Detective Leslie Bissell talked to him for me, and he said he'd speak with me, but I haven't been able to reach him. I'm planning to ask him about something Michelle told me this morning.

Then he, like, out of the blue, will text me you at 02:00 in the morning, because that's when he works, is at night. He'll say stuff like, no member rain just came on. It's a song that reminds you of Jennifer. And it's the axl rose he's singing. Okay? That song reminds him of Jennifer. Any song that comes on that reminds him, he'll say, hey, guess what came on.

Justin Judd sends Michelle all sorts of memories and random moments when Jennifer pops into his mind.

His daughter's riding horses now, and he goes, it's hard to believe she is the same age Jen was when me.

And her meth, they talk sometimes late into the night about the case and the rumors that swirl around it. She read me a message he sent her about a year earlier.

Something was bothering her the days before she was killed, she was having nightmares.

Justin said that?

Yeah, yeah, you can go through it.

No, no, I believe I just. That's really interesting. This could be significant. Fear nightmares, subtle but strange behavior changes in the days before her death. This is why victimology matters. This is why I don't just talk to friends and family once. I keep talking to them. If I can figure out what was causing Jennifer to wake up in terror in the middle of the night, I am almost certain it will lead me to her killer. Next time on who killed Jennifer Judd.

Chuck was huge. He was kicked out of picture, and someone said, I think Chuck did it to my ears. I never thought Chuck had much to do with it. I don't think he did it, but then I'm not 100% sure.

I'm about 85. Who killed Jennifer Judd is produced by Ark Media for id. You can follow our show wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love it if you could take a second to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts.

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