Obsession

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Speaker 4 We heard all this talk around the town that Jesse was dead.

Speaker 4 To know that the last moments that she spent on this earth, she was fighting for her life and in terror,

Speaker 4 it's not fair.

Speaker 7 The party was supposed to be fun, but for Jesse, it wasn't. She was 19 and these were men in their 40s.

Speaker 4 A friend told us there was a guy that was making advances on her.

Speaker 9 She didn't like men taking privileges on women.

Speaker 6 Her mother found her in bed.

Speaker 11 I kind of jiggled for a little bit and nothing.

Speaker 7 There was a very red mark running pretty much all the way across her neck.

Speaker 6 Then, news of another attack. Was someone stalking young women?

Speaker 4 Every time someone would come up behind me, I would jump.

Speaker 12 But this time, the victim lived.

Speaker 8 You grabbed the knife with your bare hands. It was either I'd try to save myself or let this guy do whatever he wants to me.

Speaker 5 Had she fought off Jesse's killer?

Speaker 10 We were saying, no, not this kid.

Speaker 4 There's no way that he could kill our friend.

Speaker 7 And my God, I knew he had done it. And now I needed to go out and prove it.

Speaker 8 She was a young woman who devoted her whole life to making music.

Speaker 8 An accomplished musician who played several instruments, acted, even wrote her own songs.

Speaker 13 Singing this song for you.

Speaker 14 That was her biggest passion. She saw music as a way to change the world.

Speaker 4 That's the only friend I had that sang and did all like the violin and piano.

Speaker 14 She's got a really unique sound.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 8 So who could have predicted that on July 15th, 2013, the music and a young girl's dreams would end so suddenly?

Speaker 4 We were in shock and disbelief.

Speaker 17 Bit was hard to understand and to come to grips with.

Speaker 17 Oh my God. Oh my God.

Speaker 18 Oh my God. Ma'am, can you be in line with me? We're going to get EMS out for you.

Speaker 8 A small town was faced with a mystery, with police asking, what was real and what was a performance? He's an actor.

Speaker 7 He's two different people.

Speaker 8 Who is this guy? Who does he think he is? That he can go around doing this to women.

Speaker 8 Ask anyone who knew Jesse Blodgett growing up in Hartford, Wisconsin, and they'll tell you she was happy, passionate, full of life. Her dad Buck says she had always been that way.

Speaker 8 Did she have a happy childhood?

Speaker 15 Oh yeah.

Speaker 14 I'll show you 600 photos on my computer. You can be able to count on one hand, the ones you can find where she's not beaming and smiling.
She was a really happy kid.

Speaker 8 Jessie, an only child, was the light of her parents' lives, their miracle baby. Buck and Joy Blodgett thought they couldn't have children, so they cherished their little girl that much more.

Speaker 14 We bonded from day one when that little purple head came out, and every day since. We talked about drugs, we talked about sex.
There was nothing off limits.

Speaker 8 And her mom says Jesse's friends were like part of the family.

Speaker 10 They always seemed to hang out at our house.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we did.

Speaker 16 She would find any reason to throw a party.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 8 Ian, Jackie, and Amelia were three of Jesse's closest high school pals.

Speaker 4 We all just kind of hit it off right away, I guess. Hard not to.
I mean, she's a really contagious personality.

Speaker 8 But Jesse also had a more serious side, one that loved to debate issues and fight for causes she believed in. Jessie sounds a little like an old soul.

Speaker 8 Is that fair?

Speaker 4 She liked old people stuff. Yes, she did.
I don't really know much high schoolers that are super activists about animal rights.

Speaker 14 She made herself well-versed in just a lot of different opinions and viewpoints.

Speaker 8 Jesse wanted to make a difference. That much was clear.
But what made her happiest was sharing her gift.

Speaker 4 Every time I went over to Jess's house, she would always be playing the piano. Even though when I was trying to talk to her, she'd be like,

Speaker 20 I'm like, hello, Jessie.

Speaker 8 Jessie's passion for music grew even stronger in college. In the summer after her freshman year, she teamed up with an old boyfriend and theater pal, Dan, and together they wrote this heartfelt song.

Speaker 14 We had a music room. He had a music room at his house.
So he'd bring his guitar and they both sang.

Speaker 8 That summer, Jesse also won the title role in the local production of Fiddler on the Roof. Jerry Becker directed the show.
Did she just fully embrace it?

Speaker 17 She did. She enjoyed being the person who really opens the show and sets the mood, sets the feeling.

Speaker 8 It was July 14th after the Sunday matinee. Jesse and the cast gathered for a pool party.

Speaker 17 We went out to a cast member's farm. He had a pool and some llamas and other animals there.

Speaker 17 I left early with my family, and I remember her sitting there and said goodnight and thanked her for her performance.

Speaker 8 She came home around what time?

Speaker 9 It was late, 12.30, I believe.

Speaker 8 You were still awake?

Speaker 9 I waited up for her.

Speaker 10 I couldn't go to sleep until I heard that she was in the house.

Speaker 8 They chatted briefly and said goodnight. The next morning, Jesse's mom popped into her daughter's room before work and saw Jesse still fast asleep.

Speaker 8 Nothing that you would ever think was odd when you left, I would imagine.

Speaker 11 No, and this was her first morning to sleep in in a very long time.

Speaker 8 Joy returned home for lunch and saw that Jesse wasn't downstairs ready for her afternoon violin lesson.

Speaker 10 I went to the top of the stairs and I was like, Jesse,

Speaker 10 nothing.

Speaker 10 So then I went in,

Speaker 21 I came around the bed, and then I

Speaker 11 kind of jiggled her a little bit and

Speaker 16 nothing.

Speaker 20 And then I knew, this is not good. This is not good.

Speaker 8 Joy made a frantic call to 911.

Speaker 22 What's the problem?

Speaker 18 My daughter is blue. I went to wake her up and I just got home for lunch and she won't wake up.
Is she breathing? I don't think so, no.

Speaker 18 Okay, you're trying to do sleep here? I'm trying to just pump her chest.

Speaker 8 Just hours before, she had seen her daughter sleeping peacefully. Now Joy, a chiropractor, was fighting to save Jesse's life.
Your mother instincts were kicking in and your doctor instincts.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 19 I just kept thinking, oh,

Speaker 9 she fell asleep and stopped breathing in the pillow or something.

Speaker 8 As Joy moved Jesse to the floor to better perform CPR, first responders arrived. Did you at that point start to feel her slip away? That hope was dwindling fast?

Speaker 20 I think I just was thinking, they'll do it.

Speaker 19 They'll take her to the hospital. Oh, God, they can do all kinds of stuff, you know.

Speaker 8 But they never took Jesse to the hospital. It was too late.
She was gone. A tragedy, and now a mystery.
What happened to Jesse Blodgett?

Speaker 8 Detectives learn something they find interesting and troubling. When Jesse got home that night from the party, she was upset.

Speaker 10 What's going on? She said, oh, the guys, you know what about the guys

Speaker 8 joy bloggett had come home for lunch and discovered her 19-year-old daughter jesse dead in her own bed jesse's father was at work you had to call your husband i wanted to let him know as soon as possible because I knew how much he loved his little girl and I knew I had to get on the phone and tell him as soon as possible.

Speaker 20 But I didn't want to get him on the phone until I knew for sure.

Speaker 14 She said, honey, honey, honey, it's Jesse. Then she busted out crying and I knew something was really, really wrong.
I said, is she

Speaker 7 gone?

Speaker 14 And Joy,

Speaker 14 no more words came, just tears. So I raced home.

Speaker 8 But when Buck arrived home, police cars and a crime scene truck were already in the driveway.

Speaker 14 I went in the door through the yellow tape and when I saw Joy's eyes in the living room, then I knew that Jess was gone.

Speaker 8 Did you quickly ask how?

Speaker 8 How did this happen? No.

Speaker 14 My whole first thing was I wanted to see her. I wanted to touch her.
I wanted to tell her goodbye,

Speaker 14 but they wouldn't let me.

Speaker 8 Buck wasn't allowed in Jesse's room because police were in there trying to figure out what had happened. Detective Richard Thickens of the Hartford Police Department was one of the first on the scene.

Speaker 8 He looked around, saw a typical teenager's messy bedroom. Nothing strange there, but when he saw Jesse's body, it was clear to the detective that Jesse didn't die of natural causes.

Speaker 7 The first thing I noticed was there was a very red mark running pretty much all the way across her neck.

Speaker 8 Did you need an autopsy to tell you what you were seeing?

Speaker 7 No, it was very apparent that this was a ligature mark at that point.

Speaker 8 Jesse had been murdered, strangled. Did they finally let you go upstairs when they had finished to say a proper goodbye?

Speaker 14 They released her room as a crime scene at the end of the day and

Speaker 14 brought her down. And after waiting all day and finally getting my moment to say goodbye and tell her I love her and tell her I'm sorry, suddenly everybody's around watching me.

Speaker 14 And I never really had that moment with her alone to say goodbye.

Speaker 7 That is heartbreaking. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Having barely digested the news of their daughter's death and still in shock, Buck and Joy sat down with investigators to tell them everything they knew.

Speaker 8 There was no sign of forced entry to the house, but they explained, like most people in this quiet, safe town, they often left a door unlocked.

Speaker 7 This individual found that one door. The house wasn't ransacked.

Speaker 7 It looked to us that this person knew right where to go to find her.

Speaker 8 To the detective, it didn't seem random. It was clear Jesse was targeted.
One of Buck's first thoughts, a crew of tree cutters that recently worked outside Jesse's window.

Speaker 14 It made me wonder if they had had thoughts when they were in the trees, liminar trees above her bedroom and she was sleeping in there.

Speaker 14 Just wondered if they noticed that here's this teenage girl sleeping home alone when Joey and I are at work while they're in our yard.

Speaker 8 Buck also told the detectives about a problem Jesse was having at her part-time restaurant job, trouble with a co-worker.

Speaker 14 She had come home a couple times and said that he was inappropriate with her.

Speaker 8 What was he doing that was inappropriate?

Speaker 14 He would often make sure that she had to rub against him as she passed him.

Speaker 8 That must make you nuts as a parent when you hear stories.

Speaker 14 When I first heard that, I was almost out that door to go over and talk to him.

Speaker 8 The restaurant was just down the road. It seemed possible that this co-worker Jesse found creepy knew where she lived, had been watching the house.

Speaker 7 Certainly we're going to take any possibility.

Speaker 7 We don't want to close any avenues of investigation at that point.

Speaker 8 Then Joy told the detectives something that really caught their attention. Jesse had come home from that fiddler-on-the-roof cast party, clearly upset.

Speaker 10 I said, what's going on? She said, oh, the guys, you know, they're always...

Speaker 10 making passes and I don't know why they have to always turn it there.

Speaker 8 Jesse told her mom two older men from the cast were flirting with her, and it made her uncomfortable. One pulled her on his lap.
The other told a dirty joke.

Speaker 8 At the time, Joy thought the flirtation seemed harmless, and her young daughter simply didn't know how to handle it.

Speaker 9 She didn't like men taking, you know, privileges on women.

Speaker 8 But perhaps the incidents were more serious than her mother thought. Jessie wrote about them in her diary that night, ending her final entry with God be with me.

Speaker 7 She was 19, and

Speaker 7 from what Joy understood, these were men in their 40s.

Speaker 8 Is that a bit of a red flag for you?

Speaker 7 Can be. We wanted to talk to him.

Speaker 8 Detective Thickens could see the pretty, talented teenager could attract unwanted male attention. Now he had to figure out if any of it had to do with Jesse's murder.

Speaker 8 Detectives question a possible suspect.

Speaker 7 Someone that was flirting with her less than 24 hours before before her death.

Speaker 4 We thought it was him. I mean, who else could it have been?

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Speaker 8 It was hard to believe a murder like this could happen in peaceful Hartford, Wisconsin, let alone to a warm and loving teenager like Jesse Blodgett. Within hours of her death, word had spread.

Speaker 8 Jesse's close friends, Jackie and Amelia, raced to the Blodgett house.

Speaker 4 Drove up her driveway, and her parents were standing outside, and they said, Jesse's no longer with us anymore.

Speaker 8 Was that when it became real for you?

Speaker 16 It was just.

Speaker 21 I don't know, it's just like

Speaker 16 really shocking, I guess. So

Speaker 16 it's probably the worst pain that anyone could ever feel.

Speaker 8 Jesse's theater director, Jerry Becker, was also stunned, having just celebrated with Jesse in the cast of Fiddler on the Roof the night before.

Speaker 17 The best way to describe it is simply surreal. That kind of thing doesn't happen here.

Speaker 8 And to someone like Jesse.

Speaker 25 Exactly. Jesse was

Speaker 17 someone you could not imagine a bad thing happening to.

Speaker 8 Finding Jesse's killer became the police department's number one priority.

Speaker 7 This is a girl that's been attacked at her home where she should be safe. And I think that it definitely did put people on edge.

Speaker 8 Detectives talked with cast members from Fiddler on the Roof and heard again how Jesse had been upset after the cast party, in particular with one man named Randy Talley.

Speaker 7 We made contact with him and asked him to come in to speak with us.

Speaker 8 Are you thinking that this could be the guy?

Speaker 7 He's significantly older, someone that was flirting with her less than 24 hours before her death. So he's certainly a person of interest.

Speaker 8 Randy came in for questioning and admitted to joking around playfully with Jesse at the party and swore there was nothing more to it. But part of Randy's story didn't sit well with Detective Thickens.

Speaker 8 Where had he been during the time of the crime?

Speaker 7 He was working or was scheduled to work through a temp agency. He didn't actually go to work that day.

Speaker 8 So where was he then?

Speaker 7 He said he spent most of the day actually at his apartment by himself.

Speaker 8 Did you just come right out with it? Did you have anything to do with the murder of Jesse?

Speaker 7 I asked him if he had any involvement in her death. He said no.

Speaker 8 But the detective wondered, was his story straight out of a script?

Speaker 7 He's an actor, and it's hard for me at that point to gauge if he's acting or being truthful.

Speaker 8 Investigators issued a search warrant for his phone records.

Speaker 7 We're going to verify where Randy was and look at his alibi. Was his cell phone anywhere near that house in this time period?

Speaker 8 Jesse's friends quickly heard the police were looking at a cast member. What was being said about the

Speaker 8 cast member?

Speaker 4 Just that he was kind of creepy, and we thought it was him. I mean, who else could have been?

Speaker 8 But the play's director, Jerry Becker, didn't believe it. He couldn't imagine Randy being responsible for Jesse's death.
Did you pick up the phone and call Randy when he was going through this? Yes.

Speaker 17 He was saddened by all this.

Speaker 8 How did that conversation leave you feeling?

Speaker 17 I was exceptionally confident at the end of that phone call that

Speaker 17 he was not involved in this in any way.

Speaker 8 And when the detective got his hands on Randy's phone records, he began thinking the same thing.

Speaker 8 Did his phone records tell you anything that was of significance?

Speaker 14 No.

Speaker 7 He had been talking to her on the phone that we could see in this time period that we were looking at, and he hadn't been near the house. We haven't eliminated him, but

Speaker 7 we're having to look at other options.

Speaker 8 So, working day and night, they went over the other leads from Jesse's parents. They interviewed the tree trimmers who might have been peering into Jesse's window.

Speaker 7 There was nothing of significance found as far as their possible involvement.

Speaker 8 And they tracked down the restaurant co-worker Jesse had been upset with.

Speaker 7 He was actually out of the country, as our understanding was at the time this would have happened.

Speaker 8 So, case closed on that one.

Speaker 7 He's not going to be involved.

Speaker 8 And remember, Joy mentioned a second man from the cast party who made Jesse uncomfortable. The one she claimed told an inappropriate joke.
Turns out that guy was none other than Jerry Becker.

Speaker 17 I got gotta believe it was sort of some misunderstanding with regard to who Jesse was talking about.

Speaker 8 So it was a surprise to you that she had brought up your name specifically?

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 8 Did you have anything to hide about that night?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 25 My daughter and my son were there at the picnic with me.

Speaker 8 Jerry told us he'd had just a brief conversation with Jesse that night. There was nothing flirtatious about it.

Speaker 8 Detectives didn't think it sounded like much of a lead, and Jerry never became a suspect. In fact, the investigation was going nowhere, leaving the town on edge.

Speaker 4 Every time someone would come up behind me, I would jump, even if I knew they were coming up behind me.

Speaker 8 Then, news of another crime heightened everyone's fears. It was an attack so brutal, she had to get 15 stitches on her hand.
It happened in a neighboring town.

Speaker 8 Another attack on a young woman close to Jesse's age in a park less than 10 miles from her house. Did you think that there was any possible connection to the park attack?

Speaker 6 They were too similar.

Speaker 14 They were too violent. They were against young women.
They must be connected some way or another.

Speaker 8 What had happened in that park? And could it lead detectives to Jesse's killer?

Speaker 8 A harrowing first-person account of that vicious attack. You grabbed the knife with your bare hands.
It was either I try to save myself or let this guy do whatever he wants to me.

Speaker 8 Was someone stalking young young women around this small town?

Speaker 8 After the vibrant 19-year-old with a passion for music was strangled in her own bed, Jesse Blodgett's grief-stricken parents couldn't stop thinking about the way she died.

Speaker 8 That's such a dark place to go. To think about her last moments.

Speaker 14 It doesn't get any darker than that and I laid on her bed early on and held my breath as long as I could until longer than I've ever been able to in my life trying to black out to see how that was, which is nothing like what she went through.

Speaker 8 Police thought Jesse had been targeted, but now some of Jesse's friends wondered if her murderer was the same person who attacked a woman in a nearby park.

Speaker 4 When I found out about that, I was almost thinking in my head, like, who's next? You know, if he's still out there, he could still be plotting. He could still

Speaker 4 be hunting.

Speaker 8 I was like, who is this guy? This is Melissa Richards, the victim of that attack. It happened three days before Jesse was killed.
Her courageous story of survival is amazing.

Speaker 8 You arrive at the park, and what's the first thing you see? A blue minivan. Anything out of the ordinary? No.

Speaker 8 Melissa Richards and her dog Remy went for a walk in Richfield Park and when they returned. The guy was still parked in the car and what I noticed was

Speaker 8 him looking out of the driver's side window. Did it seem weird? I just thought he wanted his privacy.

Speaker 1 And then about

Speaker 8 here I hear somebody running behind me. So I look back and go, oh you scared me.
Then I noticed he had a knife in his hand and he was still coming towards me.

Speaker 8 Before Melissa could run, she was knocked to the ground and her attacker pinned her down on her stomach. But Melissa fought back and did something almost unthinkable.

Speaker 8 She grabbed the knife by the blade. You grabbed the knife with your bare hands, right?

Speaker 8 What possessed you to do that? Well, it was either I try to save myself or let this guy do whatever he wants to me. With Melissa resisting, the attacker apparently panicked and seemed to give up.

Speaker 8 He finally

Speaker 8 was just kind of got up off of me. He was still holding onto the knife and he's like, can I just go?

Speaker 8 And I said no. A defiant Melissa wanted her attacker to stay put and answer for his crime.
But instead, he dropped the knife and fled. So he ended up running back to his car.

Speaker 8 I got in my car and I got out of here as fast as I could. Wounded and bloody, Melissa picked up the knife and got herself to a hospital for stitches.

Speaker 8 There, she was met by Detective Clossing of the Washington County Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 22 This wasn't a robbery. He didn't say, Give me your purse.
This wasn't a dog napping. He didn't say, Give me your dog.
This was

Speaker 22 a vicious personal attack on a stranger.

Speaker 8 Melissa had never seen her attacker before, but lucky for investigators, she had an almost photographic memory. He was wearing glasses.

Speaker 8 He had blonde, shaggy hair.

Speaker 8 I said he's about six to

Speaker 8 210 pounds. Did he look like a normal guy?

Speaker 21 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 8 Yeah, especially with what he was wearing, just normal clothes from Kohl's. Melissa could even tell police the make and model of his van.

Speaker 22 She knew it was a blue Dodge caravan, likely around 2000 to 2002.

Speaker 8 Despite that great description, investigators could not identify Melissa's attacker, and he was still at large when Jesse was murdered.

Speaker 8 And while some of Jesse's friends had been speculating about a link, investigators disagreed. You're not linking the two crimes or trying to force them to fit together.

Speaker 14 Not at all.

Speaker 7 One's in a park with a knife and the other one's in a private home with strangulation.

Speaker 8 So the two investigations remained separate and Hartford police continued to look for new leads in Jesse's case. One by one, they called in her heartbroken friends to ask them what they knew.

Speaker 8 Did you consider any of her friends as possible suspects?

Speaker 14 Never.

Speaker 8 Not one friend?

Speaker 14 Never.

Speaker 8 The interviews with Jesse Blodgett's friends revealed nothing new. Then, detectives in the park case got a huge break, one that would change the course of both investigations.

Speaker 8 Melissa's description of her attacker's van triggered the memory of a deputy who routinely patrolled the park where she was assaulted.

Speaker 22 Deputy Meyer had approached us in the Detective Bureau and said, several weeks ago, I was in that park.

Speaker 22 There was a blue van parked in the exact same spot that you had described, parked the exact same way.

Speaker 8 At the time, the deputy thought the van seemed suspicious and ran its license plate, but he found nothing alarming and continued his patrol.

Speaker 8 Now, his intuition was telling him the van was the same one involved in Melissa's attack. He had no paper record of the plate, but in his squad car, the computer kept a log of old searches.

Speaker 8 And after hours of backtracking, bingo.

Speaker 22 It wasn't a bingo, but it was very good. Close.
Yeah, it was close.

Speaker 8 The van belonged to Alora and Melvin Bartelt.

Speaker 8 Records showed that Melvin was too old to be Melissa's attacker, but detectives learned the Bartelts had a 19-year-old son who matched Melissa's description perfectly.

Speaker 8 And when Detective Klossing called that son's cell number, it rang somewhere that would surprise everyone.

Speaker 22 He answered.

Speaker 22 I introduced myself. I said I needed to speak with him.
His name had come up in an incident. I asked him where he was.

Speaker 22 He told me he was at the Blodgett house. I said, where?

Speaker 8 Was this the break detectives so desperately needed? Or just a strange coincidence?

Speaker 10 We were saying, no, not this kid.

Speaker 4 There's no way that he could kill our friend.

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Speaker 8 It was a promising lead for investigators searching for the young man who so brazenly attacked Melissa Richards with a knife.

Speaker 8 They had a suspect who matched her description, a suspect whose parents owned a blue minivan just like the one she'd spotted at the scene.

Speaker 22 He was showing up in 15 minutes, so we were talking about how we were going to talk to him.

Speaker 8 Their person of interest arrived, friendly and cooperative. My name is Joel Podman, Aaron Walsh.

Speaker 8 And almost immediately, investigators noticed suspicious cuts and bruises on his body.

Speaker 8 Couldn't stay up with a screw at work. Oh, grab a lot.

Speaker 8 I'd like a card that I moved my stuff around on there.

Speaker 22 He had a cut on his thumb. He had road rash on his leg.
He He had injuries which looked consistent with the injury someone might have had with attacking Melissa Richards. Supposed to be at work.

Speaker 8 Detectives were skeptical about the work injury story. In fact, they weren't sure this 19-year-old even had a job.

Speaker 28 If we checked with your employer,

Speaker 28 would you still have your job?

Speaker 28 No. Okay, that's what I thought.
How long when did you lose your job?

Speaker 28 A while ago.

Speaker 22 It's the first time we had him in a line.

Speaker 22 Picked up my chair, moved it over next to him.

Speaker 22 We started a different phase of the interview. No more lies.

Speaker 22 This just makes things worse.

Speaker 8 So after the detective's warning, the suspect tried another story. This time, he claimed he'd cut his finger while cooking.

Speaker 8 Nobody in their right mind would lie about cutting themselves if it happened at home cooking.

Speaker 8 Okay, where did

Speaker 8 what happened? Just be honest.

Speaker 8 I've gone to the park before. I've really been there.

Speaker 8 As the police continued to press the young man, he began to crack and quickly. And you were in your hand, cracked through your mom's man or your gifts.

Speaker 14 And you went after that girl, right?

Speaker 8 He admitted to going after Melissa Richards with a knife and then offered a bizarre explanation for why he did it. I wanted to discover someone else.

Speaker 8 Everyone else.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 I don't understand it.

Speaker 8 I need someone to be left.

Speaker 8 Detectives placed him under arrest, but were far from finished. The reason? Remember what he told detectives when they reached him by phone.

Speaker 8 Where were you at again?

Speaker 8 A house in

Speaker 8 Hartford, Jesse Colonel's house.

Speaker 8 That's right. The confessed attacker was also a friend of Jesse's.

Speaker 13 Is that the girl that just passed?

Speaker 28 Yeah, you were listening to her face.

Speaker 8 His name was Daniel Bartelt, Dan to his friends. And he was the same Dan Jesse had been riding this music with that summer.

Speaker 8 Detective Clausen called Hartford Police right away. They had a suspect for them in custody.
Jesse's parents refused to believe the news.

Speaker 10 We were saying, no, not this kid, no.

Speaker 8 He's a friend of ours.

Speaker 8 And our daughter.

Speaker 8 He's a little screwed up.

Speaker 11 He just got back from college and he doesn't know what he's doing right now.

Speaker 21 Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 10 But no, we don't think it's dad.

Speaker 8 After all, Daniel was more than Jesse's friend. He was her first love in high school and had never been in trouble.

Speaker 14 He had everything going for him. He was a top-notch student, straight A student.

Speaker 8 I've never shared a general enthusiasm.

Speaker 14 He's got the lead role in most of the musicals. Very talented.

Speaker 10 I was like, I like this kid, you know, just because, you know, he could make me laugh. And he came from a nice family.

Speaker 14 We said, it's not Dan. He's a good kid.

Speaker 8 Jesse's friends agreed. When detectives called Daniel's cell phone, they were with him at the Blodgett house, grieving together.

Speaker 4 We were all crying, and our friend Dan's, his phone rang, and he was like, I got called into the police station for questioning.

Speaker 8 Amelia and Jackie were the ones who drove Daniel to the police station that afternoon. They'd assumed it was just routine questioning about Jesse.

Speaker 4 I was like, well, you know, Dan, like, they might question you as a suspect. That's what they've been doing for all of her male friends.

Speaker 8 And he's like, oh yeah, I didn't even think about that.

Speaker 8 Now, even with Dan under arrest for the park attack, they couldn't imagine their friend was capable of murder.

Speaker 4 I was thinking it was a mistake. Like, yes, maybe Dan did attack this girl in Richfield, but there's no way that he could have killed our friend.

Speaker 8 But the the detective who just interrogated Daniel thought the opposite.

Speaker 8 Did you believe Daniel could have killed Jesse?

Speaker 22 Yes.

Speaker 12 It was

Speaker 22 just a sense you got, a feeling you got.

Speaker 8 That you were sitting across from a killer. Yes.

Speaker 8 Detective Thickens went to grill Dan himself.

Speaker 7 So I was hopeful that we might get more information that would advance our case.

Speaker 14 When was the last time you saw him?

Speaker 23 Last week, I think.

Speaker 8 Daniel admitted to having romantic feelings for Jesse, but swore, through sobs, he had nothing to do with the murder.

Speaker 29 What do you think happened to Jesse?

Speaker 29 I have no idea.

Speaker 29 Do you think it could have been accidental?

Speaker 13 I don't know why someone would use that to her.

Speaker 8 But detectives didn't believe him, and he fit the profile of the killer they were looking for, someone who knew Jesse and her habits.

Speaker 23 She usually wouldn't get up before 11 or 12.

Speaker 8 And as for his emotional denial, they thought it was an act.

Speaker 7 He was making these noises, gulping and sobbing noises, as if he was crying.

Speaker 7 He didn't shed a tear during the entire time I talked to him. And my God, I knew he had done it, and now I needed to go out and prove it.

Speaker 8 Daniel faces a jury and Jesse's family.

Speaker 23 Buck, Joy, I can't give you the answers that you're looking for.

Speaker 8 Daniel Bartelt had confessed to a violent attack against a woman in a park. But after police spoke with him, they realized he could also be guilty of something far worse.

Speaker 8 Did you leave that interview having any doubt that Dan was the killer?

Speaker 7 None whatsoever.

Speaker 8 Daniel told investigators on the morning Jesse was killed, he was in a park reading a book. And when they checked the security cameras, we found video that put him there.

Speaker 8 But that didn't mean Daniel was innocent. Detectives decided to search the park, combing through more than a dozen garbage bins, hoping to find anything that linked Daniel to Jesse's murder.

Speaker 7 And in one garbage can,

Speaker 7 this serial box full of ligatures.

Speaker 8 Ropes that were very likely the murder weapons used to strangle Jesse, plus a whole lot more. Bloody sanitizing wipes, tape, shoelaces.

Speaker 7 I guess he didn't believe that we would have made the effort to go through the garbage to find anything.

Speaker 8 Police sent the evidence for testing, and forensics showed that both Jesse and Daniel's DNA were on the ropes found in the park. Detectives shared the incriminating discovery with Jesse's parents.

Speaker 14 I had trouble getting it that it was Dan. The realist in me knew it was him.
The other half of me was like,

Speaker 14 what happened to Dan?

Speaker 8 Daniel Bartelt was officially charged with murder. Buck and Joy tried to wrap their heads around what happened to the funny teenager and had nothing but empathy for his parents.

Speaker 14 They didn't do this. They did nothing wrong.
They provided a great environment for him, for his sister. They're good people.

Speaker 19 I can't say that he's totally evil, but something went very wrong.

Speaker 9 I don't know what.

Speaker 8 And they also felt sorry for Randy Talley, the cast member briefly rumored to be involved, now completely cleared.

Speaker 14 I felt bad. Just more collateral damage from one person's evil choices.

Speaker 8 And though the DNA evidence linking Daniel to the murder seemed to give the DA a slam-dunk case, Daniel pleaded not guilty. Gary Schmaus was his attorney.

Speaker 8 Some people might say that there was overwhelming evidence against Daniel. Why go to trial?

Speaker 5 You go to trial

Speaker 15 when

Speaker 12 your client, and in this case Dan, denies having committed the crime.

Speaker 26 Whether the defendant is guilty.

Speaker 8 When Daniel's trial began, the courtroom was full of conflicted hearts. Supporters on both sides knew or cared for Jesse and Daniel.

Speaker 8 What was it like watching one friend being tried for killing another?

Speaker 4 It's like I was watching a TV show. Like, you're in the same room as a person that, you know, murdered your friend.
It's crazy.

Speaker 14 It was the strangest mix of emotions. When he walked in from the back room of the courtroom,

Speaker 14 I wanted to hug him and make him feel better.

Speaker 14 I felt his humiliation and shame.

Speaker 14 I wanted to punch him.

Speaker 8 Prosecutors said from the start there was no easy explanation for why Daniel did what he did.

Speaker 30 Why did he pick Jesse? Was he mad at Jesse? No. He wasn't mad at Jesse.
He picked Jesse because she was convenient.

Speaker 8 But the DA did say there was evidence that showed this seemingly sweet young man had been secretly obsessed with murder. On his computer, police found disturbing internet searches.

Speaker 30 What does he do in the days and events leading up to

Speaker 30 this crime? He does a search for serial killers on Wiki. A little bit later, serial killers by number of victims.

Speaker 8 Their most alarming find was a violent pornographic film with a plot eerily similar to how Jesse was killed. Prosecutors claim Daniel used it as an instructional video.

Speaker 14 At some point in the movie, he pulls out a binding.

Speaker 7 and places around her neck. He then strangles her.
There were searches on serial killers.

Speaker 7 There were searches on bondage.

Speaker 8 Did Dan then, who was big into the theater, a straight-A student,

Speaker 8 was he

Speaker 8 also a serial killer in training?

Speaker 7 I think that's the potential.

Speaker 30 These items.

Speaker 8 Prosecutors showed the jury all the physical evidence, the DNA, the tape, the wipes, the likely murder weapons that tied Daniel to Jesse's death.

Speaker 8 Through it all, Daniel sat quietly at the defense table, looking at no one and showing little emotion.

Speaker 8 Even when the DA presented evidence the public had never heard before,

Speaker 8 DNA that the state argued showed he not only killed Jesse, but also raped her.

Speaker 8 Daniel's DNA was found under Jesse's fingernails and inside her. That must have been one of the toughest.
pieces of evidence to combat in front of the jury.

Speaker 12 Difficult. Difficult.
You know,

Speaker 12 didn't have

Speaker 12 really an alternate explanation for that and don't have one as I sit here right now.

Speaker 8 In any case, Daniel was never charged with rape.

Speaker 8 And for the murder, the defense rested without calling a single witness to the stand. The jury deliberated just three hours.

Speaker 29 We, the jury, find the defendant Daniel Bartelt guilty of first-degree intentional homicide as charged in the information. Ladies and gentlemen, was this your verdict?

Speaker 29 It's not a good day for anybody. Nobody won.

Speaker 30 But Jesse's father, Buck Bludgeon.

Speaker 8 Months later, at the sentencing, Buck stunned the courtroom when he said this.

Speaker 7 Dan,

Speaker 14 I forgive you

Speaker 14 as I have every single day since we found out it was you.

Speaker 8 And in response to such unbelievable grace, Daniel looked straight at Joy and Buck and continued to deny his guilt.

Speaker 23 Buck, Joy,

Speaker 23 I can't give you the answers that you're looking for.

Speaker 23 I pray for you, for all

Speaker 23 of you.

Speaker 23 And I hope that

Speaker 23 I believe that someday I will be

Speaker 23 before a court that will know that my conscience is clear.

Speaker 23 I love you. I'm so sorry for your loss.

Speaker 19 He's such a liar.

Speaker 9 He looked right in our face.

Speaker 19 I mean, with all this evidence that there's just no refuting it.

Speaker 10 Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 9 And then for him to still be looking at me saying this, I'm thinking, kid, do you honestly believe that I believe you with this?

Speaker 14 I think Dan's a sociopath. He doesn't seem to have the

Speaker 14 conscience. Or if he does, he doesn't care.

Speaker 8 Daniel was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.

Speaker 8 For the attack on Melissa Richards, he was sentenced to five more years.

Speaker 14 Melissa's our hero. If it wasn't for her, they wouldn't have caught him.
We are forever indebted and thankful to her for that.

Speaker 8 The police and the Blodgetts commend you and

Speaker 8 do feel that

Speaker 8 other women could have been murdered if it wasn't for you. Well, I tried to help out as much as I could.

Speaker 8 I just

Speaker 16 wanted to help him out.

Speaker 15 I don't know.

Speaker 8 I tried.

Speaker 13 I'm singing this song for you.

Speaker 8 Jesse's parents have started an educational campaign in their daughter's honor called Love is Greater Than Hate.

Speaker 14 I'm doing it for the millions of people who will be Jesse, if not murdered, sexually assaulted, and have their lives changed forever because of it.

Speaker 8 Those who love Jesse say her zest for life changed them for the better and still lives on. through her music and her spirit.

Speaker 14 We started thinking differently because of her. We started acting differently because of her.

Speaker 8 Have the tables turned? You were always the one proud of her.

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