Post Mortem | Justine’s Voice

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This is a production of the U. Parents just don't understand.
Don't miss the new season of Family Legacy. All episodes now streaming exclusively on Paramount+.
Welcome back to Postmortem. I'm your host, Anne-Marie Green.
And today we're going to be discussing the case of Justine Vandershoot,

who in 2003 went missing from her parents' home in Auburn, California.

Now, law enforcement quickly suspected Justine's boyfriend and his roommate.

With me here to discuss this case is 48 Hours correspondent, Natalie Morales, and producer, Guyane Kachetian-Mendez. Thank you so much for joining us again, ladies.
Good to be with you, Anne-Marie. Thanks for having us.
So listen, as usual, everyone, a reminder to you that if you haven't listened to this 48 Hours episode, you can certainly find the full audio version just below this episode in your podcast feed. So go take a listen or go watch it wherever you get your 48 hours,

and then come on back for this conversation. You start the hour with a conversation with Matt Scribner.
He's the equestrian who had actually first spotted first a freshly dug hole in the ground. And later he goes back and it looks a lot different.
You're on horseback. And I think that something that maybe might be missed is that this is an area that's actually kind of hard to get to.
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
And Matt Scribner, he was key to the testimony in this case by giving investigators that timeline of when he saw this freshly dug hole and then going back later and then seeing a mattress and debris covering that hole. Now, what was really intriguing about this is that, you know, had he not been eight or 10 feet above ground on a horse, he probably might not have seen that.
But I loved being able to do the interview on horseback because that's how he saw it. And it also provided for us a little bit of a different element and a way into this investigation than we normally do.
A key element of the case is that this location was so hard to get to, at least the prosecution argued, and Brandon being able to lead detectives right to it without any hesitation in the dark through sort of rugged terrain. Even the investigator, the original investigator on the case, didn't know how to get there.
Matt was the only one who was able to lead us every single time because he just grew up on these trails. And so he knew it like the back of his hand.
There's a couple of road signs, but once you're there to actually get to the spot where the burial site is, there is nothing marking it. It's just sort of feeling your way and knowing where to go.
And he couldn't really give us verbal directions. We had to have Matt as a guide every time, and he was just very generous in doing that.
And I learned something about you, Natalie. I did not know that you were an equestrian yourself.
And the horses are pretty interesting as well. Yes.
Oh, my gosh. The horses are incredible creatures.
They are, I think both of them were wild mustangs that had been, you know, tamed or broken. And the horse that Matt Scribner was riding, his name was Astro.
And they were so amazing to be on, but also so relaxed and chill, surprisingly, given that we had camera crews all around them. And also we use drones and we were a little concerned using the drones because I don't know if you know this, but when they round up wild Mustangs, they fly helicopters over them.
And so there was some concern that the drone and that sound that they make, you know, that buzzing noise might freak the horses out a little bit. Thankfully, you know, we kept the drones far away from them.
The horses seemed to be pretty fine with it. And so we got the footage that we needed and we were able to do the interview and it all came out great.
When I saw kind of the image of the debris, I thought, is that a mattress? What is that? And then I thought, how do you even get stuff out there? What was this place like back then? From what we've been told and also from some of the evidence photos we've seen, back in the early 2000s, and this crime happened in 2003, it was really a dumping ground, you know, where you would have maybe unhoused populations coming through. There was an abandoned trailer there.
So just all kinds of debris. And so a mattress was really not out of place.
Wow. So let's talk about the suspects because police, you know, identify them pretty quickly.
Danny Bessemer and Brandon Fernandez. It's not uncommon for investigators to look immediately to a boyfriend or a partner.
A little less common for them to also suspect the roommate. You know, tell me about these two guys.
Sheriff's detectives tell us that they zeroed in on these guys early on. And one of the reasons being is that they did everything together, according to the people in the inner circle in the know who knew Danny, Brandon and Justine.
And they found out that they were lying about their alibi that night. So that was sort of a big red flag right away that led them to look at these guys.
But as they looked at them, they discovered that they had this fascination with violence, with murder. They talked about being able to kill people and get away with it.
They looked into beating polygraphs. Brandon was set of a website that sort of ranked levels of violence.
And based on the witness accounts of what they had seen, it was pretty startling, disturbing stuff. Yeah, they were very close friends.
They lived together, as you said. And according to investigators, there was some history there with Brandon not liking Justine.
And also, according to Christine, Justine's sister, Justine had believed that Brandon had been cheating on his girlfriends in the past. So she didn't like him either.
So, you know, there definitely was this tense and toxic relationship in this sort of triangle between Danny and Brandon and Justine being the one in the middle. According to Danny's testimony, he at one point was so heartbroken because he believed that Justine was cheating on him.
He was thinking of taking his own life. But Brandon said, why kill yourself? Why don't you kill her instead? So that's sort of where this plan came about.
But the defense denies that Brandon ever said anything to encourage him. So all of that stuff kind of goes to motive, right? A fascination with violence.
Have they been in trouble with the law before? Because that is quite a leap to go from having a fascination with murder and actually committing one. Prosecutors tell us that there was nothing serious, criminally serious in these guys' backgrounds, but they both had brushes with the law as juveniles.
Danny reportedly had been involved in some burglaries and possession of stolen property. Brandon had been prosecuted for hacking.
He was a computer whiz. So we don't have access to their juvenile records, obviously.
But again, prosecution says nothing that would lead you to believe that they could be dangerous on this level. So initially, Danny and Brandon say they're each other's alibis, right? And that doesn't work out for them.
So then Danny claims that Brandon was the mastermind of Justine's murder. And Brandon claimed that he had just participated in the cleanup and, you know, the cover up in the weeks afterwards.
So let's talk about this four and a half hour interrogation between Brandon and the FBI. First, he says he saw Justine after she was dead.
And then he describes her breathing, which would indicate that she was actually alive as she was breathing. So he must have seen her while she was alive as well.
And then at the end of this interrogation, he writes one letter to Justine and one letter to her parents and reads it to investigators. Did not make it into the hour.
I want to play some of that right now. This is to the parents.
Donna Lynette, I want you to know that your daughter's death has not been in vain. I want you to know that I made promises to Justine.
I prayed for her. I did not want any of this to happen.
I didn't know it was going to happen.

I lied to you because I could not break my promises to Justine.

I promised her I would have been to her death.

I have.

I've protected those she loves.

I was so scared.

I wanted to let you know everything.

You knew I knew, Dawn.

It hurt you. You knew I was scared.
I lost two friends in one night. I lost Justine, and I lost Danny.
I was left with protecting everybody else. I care.
I do. I am sorry it had to be this way.
Wow. As you heard there, Brandon sort of casting himself as a hero.
The prosecution felt this was sort of a telling reaction because if Brandon was truly so fearful of Danny that he felt powerless to be able to stop him or to go for help, he should have cast himself as the victim in the letter. And his narrative was sort of like, I'm the Avenger in her death.
And, you know, I'm going to do right by you. But yet he was witnessing her take her last breaths.
He did nothing to stop that from happening. Absolutely.
What did the FBI agents who interrogated him think? Yeah, Jeff Reinick. I mean, he is a skilled interrogator.
And he told us that he usually has people write a letter to the victims at the end or to their families. And so this is sort of part of his strategy, I guess, in a way to maybe see what they reveal, you know, in writing.
And he said that, you know, it was almost as if he was trying to rewrite, as if Brandon was trying to rewrite his role in what happened. Welcome back, everyone.
Danny Bessemer and Brandon Fernandez ultimately took plea deals, and they're currently serving life sentences in prison. What was it like for Justine's family to realize that this young man that they welcomed into their home, it was nothing like who he had presented himself to be to them.

The Vandershoots did everything to include Danny.

He had a key to the house.

He was welcome into their home whenever he wanted to come in.

Don gave him a job at the Mercedes-Benz dealership where he worked.

So he hooked him up.

And this is what happened to them. I think their emotions have really run the gamut over the last two decades, having to relive this over and over again.
Every time that they have to face these guys at a parole hearing or now with Brandon, the second go-around for the petition to be resentenced. So it's just really hard to encapsulate what they're feeling because it's just such a range of emotions.
You know, obviously anger in there, but a determination to make sure these guys don't get out. You guys use a lot of the local news coverage from when she initially was missing.
I thought it was so unnerving because you see him, right? You see Danny. And we've seen this before, you know, appealing to the cameras for help.
But he's not just doing that. He's trying to throw investigators off and he does it flawlessly.
He doesn't look nervous. It is absolutely chilling.
It's chilling. It is chilling.
And I said to Guyane, like, I kept looking at his eyes, trying to read his body language, trying to get a sense of, you know, where was his mindset? Like, what was he possibly thinking? Being to do that, go in front of the media the way he was, holding up her picture and saying, I did everything for that girl. And let's not forget, he had dinner with the Vandershoots on the night that he was planning to then take their daughter into that forested area and kill her.
The level of depravity and sickness is just so outrageous. I think it's important to point out, too, that the defense kind of uses Danny's commitment to this lie and just the way that he's able to do it so flawlessly.
And to say that, you know, this is the guy, this is the real danger here. And trying to use that as an argument to say that Brandon was duped by him just as much as Justine was.
But that is the argument that Brandon Fernandez is still using, that his sentence should be adjusted, which brings us to sort of the other part of this hour, right? A change in the law. You mentioned the hour in 2018, the California law was changed to reduce the fault of defendants who didn't actually commit the murder, do the killing.
Let's just explain, you know, the change in the law. We're told that the law was intended to give relief to people who were inadvertently, unintentionally involved in a murder where they neither intended to kill and they didn't actually do the killing, like a getaway driver in a robbery gone bad.

And then those people used to be prosecuted at the same level as the person who actually pulled the trigger.

This law was intended to fix that.

And unfortunately, according to prosecutors and Justine's family, the way that the law

was written allowed someone like Brandon, who they say absolutely is not deserving and doesn't fit the bill on this, to apply and to be given a chance to actually make his case to a judge. If you listen to Brandon's defense attorney, he's exactly the kind of person for whom the law was intended because he says Brandon didn't commit the crime, that he saw Justine as Danny had already killed her and then was so scared that he did what Danny told him, helped dig the grave, bury her, and then proceeded to lie to cover it up for over two weeks.
I mean, he's serving a life sentence now. He wanted his life sentence thrown out and to be resentenced as what they call an accessory after the fact.
So basically saying, you know, I didn't mean to do this. I didn't take part in it.
I just was there and it happened.

Right. And so as a result, the Vandershoots have had to kind of like reopen this wound over and over and over again.
Seven times in seven years, they've been to court. You know, they took a plea deal because they thought that would be the easiest way to not have to relive the horrific details of their daughter's murder.

And yet now they're having to... that would be the easiest way to not have to relive the horrific details of their daughter's

murder. And yet now they're having to do that over and over again.
So how is Justine's family

doing today? I mean, they're incredibly brave. And I would say the Vandershoots are among the

strongest family I've met because they are taking what is such a horrific loss and their pain, and they're turning it into something positive and good.

They have, along with the prosecutor's office, enacted Justine's Law to help educate teens in high schools across the state of California on teen dating violence, which unfortunately is becoming more prevalent, as we know, with social media. They're really trying to turn the page on something that was so tragic in their lives and really doing something powerful with it instead and really hopefully making an impact in a positive way to remember their daughter.
The judge, when he issued the ruling in this case, pointed out that it can seem unfair. The law, the justice system can seem unfair to victims' families.
And they definitely, that resonates with them because they feel that it's only the rights of people like their daughters murderers that are being protected with the constant evolution of these laws that provide more protections and more relief.

And so they've been advocating for victims' rights and they've been working with the sheriff's office as well as the DA's office from the beginning to raise money and just to raise awareness. We're all parents of teenagers, tweenagers even here, and, you know, you have daughters.
I have a son who's 16 and an older son as well, and it is something that, you know, you don't necessarily really think about, you know, them getting into a toxic relationship like this that could lead to something so horrific. But there are telltale signs and there are red flags.
And in hindsight, Justine's family, they're trying to point those out because there were signs of controlling behavior. It really made me kind of question myself, have I had these conversations with my daughter? Should I? What's the language I should be using? I just, and I thought, you know, it's not a conversation that my mom ever had with me about toxic relationships and red flags, but it may be time to have that conversation.
We really wanted to give people something to think about and to also, you know, spread the word on what the family's trying to do. But, you know, doing these murders, I have an almost 13-year-old daughter, and I tried to shield her from some of the really horrific stuff of, you know, and this definitely is at the top of the list, but she knows Justine Vandershoot's name.
She knows her story. And even though she's too young to be dating, it's just, you know, it seemed like a natural thing for her to be aware of.
I think Natalie and I, and obviously Justine's family, they just want to be able to help even one person, one family from having to go through what they have gone through with this just by paying attention to the signs that were right there. Absolutely.
And it absolutely will. Natalie, Guyenne, thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you.
If you like this series, Postmortem, please rate and review 48 Hours on Apple Podcasts and follow 48 Hours wherever you get your podcasts.

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Thanks again for listening. It's not just music.
This is family. We call them music legends.
To be great, there are sacrifices that need to take place. They call them mom and dad.
My mom is literally calling me right now. The Global Music DocuSeries returns to Paramount+.
Nobody can hype the world up like my dad. With rare family stories from the children of Lil Wayne, Buster Rhymes, Salt-N-Pepa,

and more.

Parents just don't understand.

Don't miss the new season of Family Legacy.

All episodes now streaming

exclusively on Paramount+.