Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / True Crime Documentary - Solving the Murders of Jasmine Pace and Megan Newton
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: This time on killers caught on.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Camera Tuesday Nights, Last time I saw my daughter.
- 0:15Speaker 1: In the US, in Tennessee, parents search for their missing
- 0:20Speaker 1: twenty two year old daughter. The evidence leads to a
- 0:28Speaker 1: fatal conclusion.
- 0:30Speaker 3: They found quantities of blood that were not survivable.
- 0:36Speaker 1: And in the UK, in Staffordshire, a night out ends
- 0:41Speaker 1: in murder.
- 0:43Speaker 4: They found a female laying on the bed clearly deceased.
- 0:49Speaker 5: This was a brutal and sustained attack, showing no regard
- 0:53Speaker 5: for Megan's life.
- 0:59Speaker 6: Just sounds like that is happening to her.
- 1:01Speaker 1: We know what happened because the video tells us what happened.
- 1:04Speaker 7: I heard some gunshot.
- 1:06Speaker 1: I mean there's a.
- 1:10Speaker 7: Man.
- 1:10Speaker 1: The score.
- 1:12Speaker 8: The camera doesn't lie.
- 1:21Speaker 1: In Tennessee, Hamilton County, the City of Chattanooga.
- 1:29Speaker 7: Couny County. Now when one was the emergency, her daughter
- 1:32Speaker 7: had been gone since Wednesday, and she had actually sent
- 1:35Speaker 7: a message and it had a pin drop on it.
- 1:40Speaker 7: We followed the pin drop and my daughter's driver's life,
- 1:45Speaker 7: then her credit card. Everything is right here in the open,
- 1:50Speaker 7: and I'm freaking out. What's your name? Her name is
- 1:55Speaker 7: Jasmine Pace.
- 2:04Speaker 1: Twenty two year old Jasmine Pace, known affectionately as Jazzy
- 2:08Speaker 1: was a student at the University of Tennessee. Kintrell Harris
- 2:14Speaker 1: went to high school with Jasmine and worked with her
- 2:17Speaker 1: at a local restaurant.
- 2:19Speaker 9: What made Jasmin's special was her ability to be compassionate
- 2:25Speaker 9: for others, to have empathy for other people, to be
- 2:29Speaker 9: that listening ear whenever you're going through something. Jasmine was peaceful, loving, caring, friendly, supportive.
- 2:40Speaker 6: Jasmine was super sweet, outgoing, She cared about people, and
- 2:44Speaker 6: she had a lot of friends. She was very well
- 2:47Speaker 6: involved in the community.
- 2:48Speaker 10: All right, but love you, chick law.
- 2:52Speaker 1: Jasmine lived with her mom in Chattanooga and worked for
- 2:56Speaker 1: her family's construction business. She was extremely close to her
- 3:00Speaker 1: great grandmother.
- 3:02Speaker 6: On November twenty second, her grandmother had passed away. She
- 3:05Speaker 6: was with her family when her grandmother passed away, and
- 3:09Speaker 6: at some point that evening she left.
- 3:14Speaker 1: But two days later, Jasmine failed to turn up to
- 3:17Speaker 1: Thanksgiving dinner.
- 3:20Speaker 6: Thanksgiving us a massive deal. You always run your family,
- 3:23Speaker 6: so if you're just randomly not at Thanksgiving dinner, it's
- 3:26Speaker 6: gonna be pretty alarming. Her mom gets a message from
- 3:30Speaker 6: her that she's with her friend that she's not coming,
- 3:33Speaker 6: which really prompts im media concern from her mother.
- 3:37Speaker 1: Then a post appeared on Jasmine's social media which seemed
- 3:41Speaker 1: out of character.
- 3:43Speaker 6: Something fell off because the photo was quite suggestive. Jazmine
- 3:49Speaker 6: normally wouldn't do that.
- 3:52Speaker 1: A distinctive tattoo on Jasmine's right shoulder was also missing.
- 3:58Speaker 6: Because of the missing tattoo indicator that was quite old
- 4:01Speaker 6: and it would have been from that day.
- 4:05Speaker 1: The family were increasingly concerned, so Jasmine's mother used an
- 4:09Speaker 1: app linked to her daughter's vehicle to track her movements
- 4:12Speaker 1: and went to the car's last known location.
- 4:19Speaker 11: Number one was the location of nine hundred Mountain Creek Roads.
- 4:23Speaker 12: Okay, what's going on?
- 4:25Speaker 11: My daughter has been missing. I haven't heard from her
- 4:27Speaker 11: since Wednesday, and she's had no phone activity. And we
- 4:31Speaker 11: just located her vehicle outside of the apartment. It's been
- 4:34Speaker 11: here since Wednesday night at eight forty seven and has
- 4:38Speaker 11: not left. Send we have reason to suspect that, you know,
- 4:42Speaker 11: se maybe in danger.
- 4:46Speaker 1: Chattanooga police joined Jasmine's parents at the scene.
- 4:50Speaker 7: Okay, hello, so what's going on exactly? It's been missing
- 4:56Speaker 7: for four days.
- 4:57Speaker 10: So our daughter Wednesday said texted, We never actually spoke
- 5:03Speaker 10: to her, texted and said she was going out of
- 5:05Speaker 10: town for the week with a girl friend, Emma. Okay,
- 5:11Speaker 10: I just talked to Emma today.
- 5:14Speaker 11: She did not go out of town with Emma.
- 5:17Speaker 2: So I tracked her.
- 5:22Speaker 10: My family at Tuesday night is the last time I
- 5:25Speaker 10: saw my daughter Wednesday. It came right here Hat and Memosa.
- 5:29Speaker 10: I pulled up her phone records. She has not many
- 5:32Speaker 10: phone calls since Tuesday night, and someone has been resetting
- 5:35Speaker 10: her passwords.
- 5:39Speaker 13: I've g been in like any arguments or anything recently,
- 5:43Speaker 13: nothing like that.
- 5:44Speaker 11: I don't know.
- 5:44Speaker 7: Okay, everybody's closed. Her granny lived with us. She passed
- 5:48Speaker 7: Tuesday night. Okay, No, everybody's been fine. There's been no arguments,
- 5:55Speaker 7: and she's never done it.
- 5:57Speaker 1: Inside the car, the driving position been changed.
- 6:01Speaker 3: The seat was further back than Jasmine would have had it.
- 6:04Speaker 3: Jasmine was very petite, she was short, and she was small,
- 6:08Speaker 3: and the seat seemed to have been further back than
- 6:09Speaker 3: a short, small woman would have driven it.
- 6:12Speaker 4: At as far as right now I can get her
- 6:15Speaker 4: listed is missing in the national database, So if anybody
- 6:19Speaker 4: comes across her, it's going to pop up right red
- 6:21Speaker 4: missing person.
- 6:23Speaker 1: If you look at missing persons statistics, it's not that
- 6:26Speaker 1: common for women in their twenties to go missing and
- 6:29Speaker 1: to not be found relatively quickly. So most missing persons
- 6:32Speaker 1: who are female are juveniles.
- 6:35Speaker 12: I'm going to go ahead and call that investigator, Okay.
- 6:41Speaker 1: Jasmine's car being found in a random place, her not
- 6:45Speaker 1: making contact with her parents, and missing Thanksgiving, those are
- 6:48Speaker 1: all things that for Jasmine are out of the ordinary.
- 6:52Speaker 1: And so it's more those factors that make this an
- 6:55Speaker 1: important case because those are all unusual things for her.
- 6:59Speaker 1: And when we look at missing persons, just like with
- 7:01Speaker 1: any other kind of situation where there's a big question mark,
- 7:04Speaker 1: we're looking for things that are out of the ordinary
- 7:07Speaker 1: for the specific individual, we're looking for what are called
- 7:10Speaker 1: changes from baseline. The police were limited in what they
- 7:16Speaker 1: could do, but Jasmine's parents were convinced something sinister had happened.
- 7:20Speaker 1: They did their own detective work and tracked Jasmine's vehicle
- 7:24Speaker 1: even further back in time.
- 7:30Speaker 6: Because the car was attached to an app, they were
- 7:32Speaker 6: able to track its movements, and they were eventually able
- 7:35Speaker 6: to discover that that car had been to Tremont Streets previously.
- 7:40Speaker 1: The exact address had already been sent by Jasmine to
- 7:45Speaker 1: her mom.
- 7:46Speaker 2: Jasmine had dropped her location to her mother.
- 7:50Speaker 3: On the night she went missing, in the middle of
- 7:52Speaker 3: the night at around two fifteen am. Mom initially did
- 7:56Speaker 3: not see the pin drop. It was only when the
- 8:00Speaker 3: family was really searching for Jasmine that her mother was
- 8:03Speaker 3: able to go back in her text and all of
- 8:05Speaker 3: a sudden said, oh, my gosh, she sent me your location.
- 8:14Speaker 1: Jasmine's parents went straight there. It was an apartment complex
- 8:20Speaker 1: on Tremont Street, just five miles away from where Jasmine's
- 8:25Speaker 1: car had been found.
- 8:27Speaker 3: When they get to the apartment building, they started sort
- 8:29Speaker 3: of canvassing the apartment building. This couple that lived in
- 8:35Speaker 3: the building also was able to identify a scream of
- 8:39Speaker 3: what seemed like a female around the time Jasmine went missing.
- 8:45Speaker 1: The neighbors confirmed to her parents the scream came from
- 8:49Speaker 1: inside apartment two ten. The occupant a student named Jason Chen,
- 8:58Speaker 1: a name familiar to Jasmine's parents.
- 9:03Speaker 2: Jasmine was a young female. She was not in a
- 9:05Speaker 2: serious relationship.
- 9:07Speaker 3: She was casually seeing a student at the local university,
- 9:11Speaker 3: Jason Chen. Some of her family members had met him,
- 9:14Speaker 3: but her parents had not.
- 9:18Speaker 6: Desperate to find their daughter, Jasmine's parents decided to break
- 9:21Speaker 6: in too Jason Chen's apartment.
- 9:27Speaker 1: Cammy Cay Now.
- 9:28Speaker 11: When one went the emergency.
- 9:30Speaker 7: We are at one one zero, Trademark, Room two hundred
- 9:35Speaker 7: and ten on the second floor. What's going on? My
- 9:40Speaker 7: daughter's driver's license, her credit cards, everything is right here
- 9:44Speaker 7: in the open, and I'm preaking the cheat waiting the
- 9:48Speaker 7: hallway for the officers. They are en route to you
- 9:51Speaker 7: right now.
- 9:53Speaker 3: I knew that something bad had happened when I learned
- 9:56Speaker 3: that the family found Jasmine's personal items in this apartment.
- 10:04Speaker 3: They were items that you would not leave behind, A
- 10:08Speaker 3: driver's license, your credit cards.
- 10:12Speaker 2: I knew that something was wrong.
- 10:16Speaker 1: A few minutes after the nine to one one call,
- 10:19Speaker 1: officers arrived to pick up Jasmine's parents. Investigations have seen
- 10:30Speaker 1: a lot of.
- 10:31Speaker 11: Working to make sure that you know, obviously there isn't
- 10:33Speaker 11: one in here.
- 10:36Speaker 13: It smells like riding food. See that, yeah, along here there,
- 10:48Speaker 13: get down here. That's definitely set them.
- 10:54Speaker 7: Okay? Is she now points.
- 11:03Speaker 8: A missing child is one of the greatest fears that
- 11:07Speaker 8: any parent would have. You instantly go to very dark places.
- 11:13Speaker 8: Is my child hurt? Is my child alive? Is she
- 11:18Speaker 8: being held against her will?
- 11:22Speaker 1: Officers needed to speak with the neighbors who'd heard the scream.
- 11:27Speaker 8: On Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning, we were sitting on
- 11:30Speaker 8: the couch right there, heard some yelling.
- 11:33Speaker 13: I took a note on the phone, say so, I
- 11:38Speaker 13: just wrote the.
- 11:38Speaker 7: Time down from round about that I heard it.
- 11:41Speaker 10: That was the day.
- 11:42Speaker 8: I haven't changed it since, so November twenty third.
- 11:45Speaker 13: That was Wednesday night. I've read down the time of
- 11:49Speaker 13: two fifteen am.
- 11:51Speaker 1: The time of the scream exactly matched. When Jasmine sent
- 11:55Speaker 1: the pin drop to her mom. The police urgently needed
- 11:59Speaker 1: to They started to look for Jason Chen. All they
- 12:06Speaker 1: knew was that he was a university student doing computer science.
- 12:13Speaker 2: Jason Chin was nowhere to be found.
- 12:15Speaker 3: Police are calling him, They are trying to contact him,
- 12:18Speaker 3: they have his information, he is not responding, and they
- 12:22Speaker 3: do not know where he is at.
- 12:24Speaker 1: Alongside a major search operation was also underway for Jasmine.
- 12:32Speaker 6: Everyone is looking for Jasmine. Her mom is frantic and
- 12:35Speaker 6: trying to find her daughter. And she was clearly very popular.
- 12:38Speaker 6: She had clearly had a lot of people who cared
- 12:39Speaker 6: about her. And you have changing us such a close
- 12:42Speaker 6: knit community that when someone goes missing like this, you'll
- 12:45Speaker 6: see it spread like wildfire.
- 12:47Speaker 10: Paces disappearance has caught the eye of social media.
- 12:51Speaker 2: Please stop scrolling and help me find my friend, share it,
- 12:54Speaker 2: get the word out.
- 12:57Speaker 9: When I heard the news that Jazz was missing, it
- 13:01Speaker 9: was truly horrific. I couldn't believe that what was going
- 13:06Speaker 9: on was truly happy.
- 13:08Speaker 3: At this point in the investigation, a search warrant was
- 13:11Speaker 3: then executed by the Chattanooga Police Department.
- 13:17Speaker 2: They utilized a tool that we basically refer to as luminol.
- 13:21Speaker 3: It is a substance that can identify the presence of
- 13:23Speaker 3: blood with the naked eye. Most of the investigators could
- 13:27Speaker 3: not really see any blood, but when they utilized that
- 13:30Speaker 3: luminol turn the lights off, this was not a faint
- 13:40Speaker 3: trace of blood. They found quantities of blood that were
- 13:46Speaker 3: not survivable.
- 13:48Speaker 1: A closer forensic examination of the apartment only confirmed the
- 13:53Speaker 1: worst case scenario.
- 13:56Speaker 2: There was clearly a cleanup job, but not good enough.
- 14:00Speaker 3: It was clear that not only had something gone terribly wrong,
- 14:03Speaker 3: but that most likely whose ever blood that was was
- 14:06Speaker 3: not alive.
- 14:09Speaker 1: Investigators needed to confirm if it was Jasmine's blood.
- 14:14Speaker 3: Law enforcement took a sample from her toothbrush at her
- 14:17Speaker 3: parents' house to compare it to the blood in the apartment.
- 14:19Speaker 3: We sent it off to the Tennessee Beer of investigation
- 14:22Speaker 3: and asked for it to be tested as soon as possible.
- 14:26Speaker 1: Outside the apartment by a dumpster, the police discovered items
- 14:31Speaker 1: covered in blood.
- 14:34Speaker 3: Jason Chen has gone from a person of interest to
- 14:37Speaker 3: the primary suspect and possibly a homicide.
- 14:42Speaker 1: Police were working around the clock to find him. They
- 14:46Speaker 1: checked the neighborhood for surveillance footage. In search of digital clues.
- 14:53Speaker 3: Law enforcement are seeking out video footage from different locations
- 14:56Speaker 3: that Jason may have visited nearby his residence.
- 15:00Speaker 1: Police got a lucky break when they checked the security
- 15:03Speaker 1: footage from a nearby store. The morning after Jasmine went missing.
- 15:13Speaker 1: Jason Chen was captured on camera buying cleaning products.
- 15:19Speaker 3: What was especially interesting to us is that throughout these
- 15:22Speaker 3: videos and throughout this day, mister Chen wears a very
- 15:26Speaker 3: distinct hat that makes him extremely easy to identify, and
- 15:30Speaker 3: we continue to see this hat throughout the course of
- 15:32Speaker 3: the investigation.
- 15:37Speaker 1: Another local store provided the police with even more unsettling scenes.
- 15:46Speaker 1: Jason was buying bandages and hydrogen peroxide. There's something called
- 15:53Speaker 1: the illusion of invulnerability, which is when perpetrators think that
- 15:56Speaker 1: they can't get caught, so they're basically overconfident in their
- 16:00Speaker 1: ability to get away with a crime, and in this case,
- 16:04Speaker 1: having a really distinctive hat could be an oversight, but
- 16:08Speaker 1: it could also be someone who's just incredibly overconfident and
- 16:11Speaker 1: thinks it doesn't really matter what I wear, it doesn't
- 16:14Speaker 1: really matter what I'm doing, because I'm not going to
- 16:16Speaker 1: get caught. The day after Jasmine went missing, doorbell footage
- 16:23Speaker 1: captured Jason returning to his apartment multiple times, and when
- 16:28Speaker 1: investigators checked footage from a street camera outside the apartment,
- 16:33Speaker 1: they made another shocking discovery.
- 16:36Speaker 3: We were able to locate video footage of Jasmine Pace's
- 16:40Speaker 3: vehicle actually leaving his apartment.
- 16:43Speaker 2: And this is when that hat becomes important again, because
- 16:46Speaker 2: we believe that the figure in the driver's.
- 16:48Speaker 3: Seat of the vehicle can be identified as Jason Chen
- 16:51Speaker 3: based on the hat he's wearing.
- 16:55Speaker 1: But why would Jason Chen be driving Jasmine's car. As
- 17:01Speaker 1: investigators continued to search through hours of surveillance footage, another
- 17:07Speaker 1: glimpse of Jason aroused suspicion.
- 17:12Speaker 8: The one piece of video evidence that's really stuck, drew
- 17:17Speaker 8: me in and captured my imagination was the camera that
- 17:21Speaker 8: we have installed on a street corner, and it just
- 17:23Speaker 8: so happened to look up Tremont Street to Jason Chin's apartment.
- 17:30Speaker 8: On that I could see Jason Chin coming and going,
- 17:34Speaker 8: and ultimately I could see him taking a suitcase out
- 17:38Speaker 8: the front door of his apartment and then driving away.
- 17:43Speaker 1: The contents of the suitcase remained a mystery. Jasmine was
- 17:49Speaker 1: still nowhere to be found. Then the DNA results came back.
- 17:55Speaker 1: The blood in the apartment was confirmed to be Jasmine's.
- 18:01Speaker 3: The moment with the family in which we had to
- 18:03Speaker 3: tell them that we did not expect to find Jasmine
- 18:06Speaker 3: alive based on the blood found in his apartment was
- 18:09Speaker 3: when we just had to be honest with them. At
- 18:12Speaker 3: that point, we were all realistic that we were simply
- 18:15Speaker 3: looking for a body.
- 18:19Speaker 1: Eight days after Jasmine went missing, police were finally able
- 18:23Speaker 1: to access Jason's cell phone location data. It led them
- 18:28Speaker 1: on a drive two hours away from Chattanooga to Nolansville, Tennessee,
- 18:38Speaker 1: a house owned by Jason Chen's parents.
- 18:43Speaker 4: Police, Okay, how are you doing, ms Chen?
- 18:49Speaker 13: Mister chen Y, have Detective Crawford came here to speak
- 18:53Speaker 13: with your.
- 18:53Speaker 5: Son, Jason.
- 18:55Speaker 1: He emerged from the shadows.
- 18:58Speaker 8: All right, you're gonna go with this off right here.
- 19:00Speaker 8: We're gonna patch you down, make sure to have anything
- 19:01Speaker 8: on you.
- 19:02Speaker 7: Listen, you go in the back of the police cars.
- 19:03Speaker 1: I'm presure hand God, why would I need to be
- 19:06Speaker 1: put in the police card?
- 19:07Speaker 8: Because you can't. You can't go down there.
- 19:08Speaker 7: You're not free to get an by yourself.
- 19:09Speaker 8: You're gonna have to get.
- 19:10Speaker 7: Out there with us.
- 19:12Speaker 13: Is there any like of probable calls or anything.
- 19:14Speaker 7: They'll explain that.
- 19:14Speaker 8: They're gonna explain that to you.
- 19:16Speaker 1: Asking the police officers whether they have probable cause. It
- 19:20Speaker 1: feels like legal language which could suggest that he's been
- 19:23Speaker 1: researching the kinds of things the police need to have
- 19:25Speaker 1: in order to arrest him, but also in terms of
- 19:28Speaker 1: the kinds of evidence they need to prosecute him, and
- 19:30Speaker 1: that to me, giving the circumstances, does feel suspicious.
- 19:35Speaker 4: I go and put a chance mind your back, appreciate it.
- 19:41Speaker 10: Chenning to police say blood spatters found that a young
- 19:43Speaker 10: man's apartment led them to charge him with homicide in
- 19:46Speaker 10: the case of missing twenty two year old Jasmine Pace.
- 19:50Speaker 3: When Jason was taken into custody, police tried to conduct
- 19:54Speaker 3: an interview with him, and at that point in time
- 19:57Speaker 3: he chose not to say anything.
- 20:01Speaker 1: But a search of Jason's parents' house led to more
- 20:06Speaker 1: incriminating evidence.
- 20:09Speaker 3: They had one car garage, and it was his vehicle
- 20:13Speaker 3: that was meticulously claimed that was in his parents' garage
- 20:17Speaker 3: while his parents' vehicles were in the driveway.
- 20:20Speaker 1: Police also discovered handwritten notes about Jasmine's life and the
- 20:24Speaker 1: complete timeline of their interactions. Jason Chen was now in custody,
- 20:32Speaker 1: but Jasmine was still missing. All search efforts were focused
- 20:40Speaker 1: on finding Jasmine's body.
- 20:44Speaker 8: In any homicide prosecution, we always want to have a body.
- 20:50Speaker 8: It is vitally important to prove one of the essential
- 20:54Speaker 8: elements and that there was an unlawful killing. Absent a body,
- 20:59Speaker 8: there's always a reasonable doubt that that person is still alive.
- 21:03Speaker 3: We knew that he was a suspect and a homicide,
- 21:05Speaker 3: but we did not have Jasmine pace, and that's what
- 21:08Speaker 3: we needed.
- 21:10Speaker 1: Using Jason Chen's cell phone location data, investigators worked on
- 21:15Speaker 1: pinpointing his movements around the time Jasmine went missing.
- 21:21Speaker 3: When law enforcement began to go through those records, and
- 21:24Speaker 3: we found that he was all over town, but in
- 21:27Speaker 3: a very suspicious place, at one point on the bank
- 21:30Speaker 3: of the Tennessee River.
- 21:38Speaker 8: When the investigators arrived in the secluded area off of
- 21:43Speaker 8: Suck Creek Road west of Chattanooga. They immediately noticed a suitcase.
- 21:53Speaker 8: They dragged that suitcase up onto the flat ground, opened
- 21:57Speaker 8: it up in immediate felt what they recognized to be
- 22:02Speaker 8: a human body.
- 22:07Speaker 1: The medical examiner took X ray images of the suitcase's contents.
- 22:13Speaker 8: The body was wrapped in three separate garbage bags. It
- 22:18Speaker 8: was curled into what's described as the fetal position.
- 22:24Speaker 1: The body was confirmed to be Jasmine Pasce.
- 22:28Speaker 8: Jasmine Pasce was handcuffed twice, once with a handcuffed to
- 22:35Speaker 8: her wrist attached to her right leg, another with a
- 22:39Speaker 8: set of leg shackles. One of the shackles was affixed
- 22:43Speaker 8: around her elbow area and the other one to her
- 22:46Speaker 8: opposite left leg. The report of our medical examiner was
- 22:52Speaker 8: very chilling. It told us that Jasmine Pasce had been
- 22:56Speaker 8: stabbed sixty times in her shoulder, in her throat, in
- 23:04Speaker 8: her head, in her abdomen. It described a large portion
- 23:09Speaker 8: of a large knife being broken off in her lung.
- 23:16Speaker 8: She died of blood loss and aspirated on her own blood.
- 23:26Speaker 6: When the body of Jasmine Pace was positive identified, it
- 23:30Speaker 6: really shook the entire city. People just wanted to understand
- 23:35Speaker 6: why could someone do this to this girl.
- 23:41Speaker 1: This is a really brutal find, and specifically the fact
- 23:45Speaker 1: that she was stabbed so many times makes it really
- 23:48Speaker 1: clear that this had nothing to do with self defense.
- 23:51Speaker 1: It had nothing to do with someone who is acting
- 23:54Speaker 1: impulsively maybe once or twice. This is someone who is
- 23:56Speaker 1: intentionally going back and back and back in order to
- 24:00Speaker 1: cause either maximum damage while she's still alive or maximum
- 24:04Speaker 1: damage to her body afterwards. So this is an obvious
- 24:08Speaker 1: and clear case of overkill where someone is maybe emotional,
- 24:12Speaker 1: but in a way that is sustained, not in a
- 24:15Speaker 1: way that is sort of a rash reaction.
- 24:22Speaker 3: This was a tough case for everybody, just the gruesome
- 24:26Speaker 3: nature of it, the uniqueness based on what we typically
- 24:30Speaker 3: see in terms of violent crime in Chattanooga. So this
- 24:32Speaker 3: had been a tough process. It was a tough process
- 24:34Speaker 3: to go through with her family. So as trial approached,
- 24:39Speaker 3: it was somber, and while they were preparing for the trial,
- 24:43Speaker 3: a crucial late discovery of more evidence. We got a
- 24:47Speaker 3: call from the detective in the case who said, we
- 24:51Speaker 3: found her SIM card and it was in Jason Chin's backpack.
- 24:55Speaker 3: The fact that the criminal defendant has the victims sim
- 24:58Speaker 3: card in his possession is just great evidence. There is
- 25:01Speaker 3: no explanation for that, and so we put that on
- 25:04Speaker 3: top of everything that we already had, and it was
- 25:06Speaker 3: sort of the cherry.
- 25:07Speaker 1: On top of this case, a vital piece of evidence
- 25:11Speaker 1: that proved Jason had been impersonating Jasmine after she was killed.
- 25:17Speaker 3: She was murdered around two point fifteen in the morning AM,
- 25:21Speaker 3: and then it wasn't until that night, around six to
- 25:25Speaker 3: six thirty pm that we know that he takes her
- 25:28Speaker 3: body to the bank of the Tennessee River.
- 25:31Speaker 2: During that day, he's.
- 25:33Speaker 3: Also texting her as if she is still alive and
- 25:37Speaker 3: ensuring that her phone, which he had in his possession,
- 25:40Speaker 3: appears that these messages.
- 25:41Speaker 8: Were read, and he posted a picture of him holding
- 25:46Speaker 8: a drink in his hand. The problem with that is
- 25:50Speaker 8: the photograph metadata, well, it showed that it was actually
- 25:55Speaker 8: taken months and months before the homicide, so it was fake.
- 25:59Speaker 8: He knew that Jasmine Pace was dead and he was
- 26:01Speaker 8: trying to create a digital alibi for himself.
- 26:06Speaker 1: The trial began in January twenty twenty five.
- 26:12Speaker 3: It was shocking to us when in the defendant's opening statement,
- 26:17Speaker 3: his attorney admits, yeah, he did kill her, but he
- 26:20Speaker 3: did it in a.
- 26:22Speaker 2: State of passion. He was provoked.
- 26:25Speaker 1: The defense that something is a crime of passion is
- 26:28Speaker 1: a line of defense that has long been used by people,
- 26:31Speaker 1: especially by men killing women, especially men killing intimate partners,
- 26:35Speaker 1: and that is something that is changing in terms of
- 26:38Speaker 1: the societal perception of acceptability. It's no longer seen as
- 26:43Speaker 1: something that should excuse murder or even potentially be a
- 26:46Speaker 1: mitigating circumstance. The question we should also be asking as
- 26:49Speaker 1: a society is do we care? Because really, people should
- 26:53Speaker 1: be able to control their emotional responses, even to strong
- 26:56Speaker 1: and threatening situations, and murder is never an accept option,
- 27:00Speaker 1: no matter how angry you would get.
- 27:03Speaker 6: The defense claim that Jasmine had attacked Jason with a
- 27:06Speaker 6: wine bottle after discovering that he was messaging other girls
- 27:10Speaker 6: on Tender, it seemed basically impossible that one that she
- 27:14Speaker 6: could have posted any physical threat to Jason, and that
- 27:17Speaker 6: too with the cell phone data, it was revealed that
- 27:20Speaker 6: the day before Jason killed Jasmine, he had not received
- 27:24Speaker 6: one message on Tender.
- 27:28Speaker 1: But the cell phone data revealed Jason did use a
- 27:31Speaker 1: dating app. Within six hours of killing Jasmine.
- 27:38Speaker 6: Jason had been messaging other girls mere hours after he
- 27:42Speaker 6: had killed Jasmine Pace and was telling them, Hey, I
- 27:46Speaker 6: guess we're a boyfriend and girlfriend now. And also he
- 27:50Speaker 6: was playing video games after like with her body steal
- 27:53Speaker 6: in the apartment, he was talking about like, hey, let's
- 27:55Speaker 6: run some call of duty.
- 27:57Speaker 1: All of this is happening while Jasmine is dead in
- 28:01Speaker 1: the apartment. It does feel like the act of a psychopath.
- 28:04Speaker 1: It feels like someone who doesn't care and is getting
- 28:06Speaker 1: on with his life rather than panicking and trying immediately
- 28:09Speaker 1: to deal with the consequences. After an eight day trial,
- 28:14Speaker 1: Jason Chen was found guilty and sentenced to life in
- 28:18Speaker 1: prison without parole.
- 28:21Speaker 6: What he did was so heinous in this case, was
- 28:24Speaker 6: so unprovoked, so uncalled for that I think Jason Chen
- 28:29Speaker 6: have forfeited his right to every back end society because
- 28:32Speaker 6: we don't need monsters like that in our society.
- 28:37Speaker 9: I miss Jasmine's personality, her compassion, her empathy. Jasmine should
- 28:44Speaker 9: be remembered for her kind spirit. We did a visual
- 28:49Speaker 9: candidlight for her, you know, celebrating her life and who
- 28:53Speaker 9: she was as a person. There were about two hunch
- 28:55Speaker 9: of people at the visual candilight and just seeing all
- 28:59Speaker 9: the students come out and show the love and support.
- 29:02Speaker 9: It was a positive atmosphere for anyone to come out
- 29:05Speaker 9: and to celebrate the memory of Jasmine. She left a
- 29:09Speaker 9: really big impact on the community and that shows with
- 29:14Speaker 9: a lot of people coming to her candlelight.
- 29:18Speaker 3: We would like Jasmin to be remembered as the ray
- 29:21Speaker 3: of sunshine within her friends and family group that she was.
- 29:26Speaker 3: She was vibrant, she was beautiful, she was always there,
- 29:31Speaker 3: she was loyal, She had everything going for her and
- 29:35Speaker 3: that's part of why this was so tragic. But she
- 29:38Speaker 3: certainly was a ray of sunshine, and that's a message
- 29:41Speaker 3: that we'll continue to try to get across.
- 29:54Speaker 1: In murder cases, victims almost always know and trust the perpetrators,
- 29:59Speaker 1: which is why perpetrators were able to get them into
- 30:01Speaker 1: compromising situations in the first place. They effectively hijack the
- 30:06Speaker 1: victims intuition and what they're doing is they're overriding all
- 30:11Speaker 1: the cues that you could be looking for, all the
- 30:14Speaker 1: red flags, and they're turning them around and making themselves
- 30:17Speaker 1: instead seem like nice guys. In the UK, in Staffordshire,
- 30:29Speaker 1: Stoke on Trent, one of the largest cities in the Midlands,
- 30:35Speaker 1: with over two hundred and fifty thousand people. Known as
- 30:39Speaker 1: the home of Pottery in the UK, with a football
- 30:42Speaker 1: team nicknamed the Potters, but statistically a higher than average
- 30:48Speaker 1: crime rate. It was home to eighteen year old Meghan Newton.
- 30:57Speaker 1: Meghan was studying sports science at Newcast College. She was
- 31:02Speaker 1: a talented football player and recently got a tattoo to
- 31:06Speaker 1: show her love.
- 31:07Speaker 8: For the game.
- 31:09Speaker 4: Meghan had three jobs. She not only did that in
- 31:12Speaker 4: a spare time. She coached in under seven's girls football team.
- 31:17Speaker 4: She was a caring person dealing with children. She loved children,
- 31:21Speaker 4: she gave up a spare time to help them get better.
- 31:26Speaker 1: Meghan's dream was to get a sports scholarship to study
- 31:29Speaker 1: in America.
- 31:32Speaker 4: She had royal ambition for her life.
- 31:39Speaker 1: Friday, April nineteenth, twenty nineteen, Meghan was working her usual
- 31:47Speaker 1: evening shift in a local fish and chip shop.
- 31:51Speaker 4: Megan finished at around nine point thirty working in the
- 31:54Speaker 4: chip shop that she worked in.
- 31:57Speaker 1: After her shift, Meghan went home to get changed.
- 32:03Speaker 4: She went to meet some friends in a pub and
- 32:05Speaker 4: then they all went to a club together. They were
- 32:07Speaker 4: having a lovely evening. Megan was happily showing off a
- 32:11Speaker 4: new tattoo that she had.
- 32:14Speaker 1: At two forty five am, Meghan left the club and
- 32:18Speaker 1: took a taxi home. The next morning a worrying discovery.
- 32:29Speaker 1: Neighbors found a set of keys covered in blood in
- 32:32Speaker 1: a car park outside Meghan's apartment.
- 32:36Speaker 4: Some people who live in the block were able to
- 32:38Speaker 4: establish it belonged to one of the Grand four flats,
- 32:41Speaker 4: so out of concern for the occupant there, they opened
- 32:44Speaker 4: the door. They went in and what they found was
- 32:54Speaker 4: there was a naked female laying on the bed, quite
- 32:57Speaker 4: clearly deceased and quite clearly offer and from some horrendous injuries.
- 33:02Speaker 4: So they came away and dulled nine ninety nine.
- 33:08Speaker 1: The police immediately responded to the scene.
- 33:12Speaker 4: When the officers arrived, the witnesses took them to the
- 33:15Speaker 4: flat and it was quite obvious from her injuries and
- 33:20Speaker 4: the blood at the scene that this wasn't an accident,
- 33:25Speaker 4: And inside they also found a knife, a knife that
- 33:28Speaker 4: they believed was the one that caused the injuries, making
- 33:32Speaker 4: this a crucial piece of evidence. They would have been
- 33:34Speaker 4: in no doubt that this was now a murder investigation.
- 33:40Speaker 1: The woman was confirmed to be Meghan Newton.
- 33:47Speaker 4: Her flat was now a crime scene, meaning it would
- 33:50Speaker 4: be locked down, and it would need to be forensically
- 33:52Speaker 4: examined to look for any trace that could indicate not
- 33:56Speaker 4: only what had happened there, but who it was that
- 33:58Speaker 4: killed her.
- 34:02Speaker 1: Investigators urgently needed to find Megan's killer.
- 34:08Speaker 4: The next important step was to build up a picture
- 34:10Speaker 4: of her movements that night that evening. Where'd she been,
- 34:13Speaker 4: who she've been with?
- 34:15Speaker 1: Police needed to track Meghan's root, retracing how she got
- 34:19Speaker 1: to the nightclub the night before.
- 34:22Speaker 4: Police will be looking for what we call quick wins
- 34:25Speaker 4: CCTV that could potentially give some clues as to what
- 34:29Speaker 4: went on and importantly, who the killer may have been.
- 34:33Speaker 1: Police found CCTV footage from outside the club. They were
- 34:39Speaker 1: able to identify Megan leaving in a taxi.
- 34:43Speaker 4: In that taxi was one of her female friends and
- 34:47Speaker 4: a mau. This clip shows the three of them getting
- 34:55Speaker 4: in the cab, Megan in the middle and the friend
- 34:59Speaker 4: closest to the passenger side. They all look comfortable and
- 35:04Speaker 4: all intents and purposes, there's nothing suspicious going on here.
- 35:10Speaker 1: Police searched for surveillance cameras close to Meghan's home. They
- 35:15Speaker 1: found footage of Meghan and the man walking towards her apartment.
- 35:21Speaker 4: By now, the cab has dropped them off and there
- 35:22Speaker 4: were just the two of them now.
- 35:25Speaker 1: As police tracked Megan's movements on camera, they got a
- 35:29Speaker 1: major breakthrough.
- 35:35Speaker 4: There was actually cameras in and around Meghan's flat, cameras
- 35:41Speaker 4: that overlooked her front door.
- 35:46Speaker 1: When detectives searched through the recording, they identified Megan arriving home.
- 35:54Speaker 4: The footage showed her arriving around three forty five am,
- 35:59Speaker 4: and she wasn't alone. She was with a male, tall, slim,
- 36:05Speaker 4: young white with dark hair. This is the best quality
- 36:09Speaker 4: CCTV so far. They're smiling, they look happy. There was
- 36:14Speaker 4: no activation between them. There's definitely nothing at this point
- 36:18Speaker 4: that you would point out as looking suspicious.
- 36:22Speaker 1: Analysis of the man's behavior revealed a subtle change in
- 36:26Speaker 1: his demeanor.
- 36:28Speaker 12: What was once quite relaxed shifts. He stands quite close
- 36:32Speaker 12: to Meghan, he looks around. We don't know if he's
- 36:35Speaker 12: responding to a noise or just scoping out to see
- 36:38Speaker 12: if someone's watching him, but there's definitely something that's shifted.
- 36:48Speaker 1: Two hours past then he appeared on camera again.
- 36:56Speaker 12: As the man leaves Meghan's apartment, it looks like he
- 36:59Speaker 12: is quite calm. He walks, he doesn't run. He seems
- 37:03Speaker 12: very composed as he makes his way to the door.
- 37:07Speaker 4: The footage is on a front door, so there's no
- 37:10Speaker 4: dispute as to who went in and who came out.
- 37:15Speaker 1: An exterior camera captured the man as he left Meghan's building.
- 37:22Speaker 4: This to me looks really very casual and with his
- 37:28Speaker 4: right hand we see him throw something down.
- 37:35Speaker 1: The object appeared to land in the same spot where
- 37:39Speaker 1: the neighbors had found Megan's keys covered in blood.
- 37:45Speaker 12: Again, he seems quite calm, doesn't particularly seem phazed. He's
- 37:49Speaker 12: even checking his phone. It doesn't seem to be that
- 37:52Speaker 12: anything's miss.
- 37:55Speaker 4: Of all the video footage, this clip, to me is
- 37:59Speaker 4: the one that really hits home. As he's walking away,
- 38:06Speaker 4: he looks down and we can see that there's something
- 38:10Speaker 4: on his hands. You can see the color of it.
- 38:15Speaker 4: It's red.
- 38:19Speaker 1: When police spoke to Meghan's friends, they discovered the man
- 38:23Speaker 1: in the footage was Joseph Trevor, a nineteen year old
- 38:31Speaker 1: semi professional footballer who had attended the same school as Meghan.
- 38:38Speaker 1: Both of his parents were police officers.
- 38:42Speaker 4: Remarkably, it wasn't the first time he comes to notice
- 38:44Speaker 4: of police because that evening before he met Megan, he
- 38:49Speaker 4: had been stopped by bouncers and found to have white
- 38:51Speaker 4: powder on him and they called the police and he
- 38:54Speaker 4: was dealt with by them for this white powder that
- 38:57Speaker 4: turned out to be ketting me Police detained him, but
- 39:01Speaker 4: the decision was made that he was not fit to
- 39:05Speaker 4: be detained. II had been drinking potentially taking drugs, so
- 39:09Speaker 4: those drugs were taken from him and he was given
- 39:12Speaker 4: a bail date to come to the police station in
- 39:15Speaker 4: a later time.
- 39:17Speaker 1: After Joseph Trevor was released from the police station, he
- 39:20Speaker 1: went straight to the Kill night club where he met Meghan,
- 39:25Speaker 1: and just a few hours after he left Meghan's apartment alone,
- 39:29Speaker 1: officers were called out to a potential suicide threat and
- 39:33Speaker 1: the police were called.
- 39:35Speaker 4: To a male who was sitting on the side of
- 39:38Speaker 4: a bridge over the A five hundred and when police
- 39:45Speaker 4: arrived they found that that mail was Joseph Trevor. He
- 39:52Speaker 4: was sat there in a way that caused concern. Is
- 39:56Speaker 4: on this side of a bridge overlooking a road, is
- 39:58Speaker 4: he somebody may be looking to take their own life.
- 40:03Speaker 1: Joseph was taken to the hospital. He was seen by
- 40:07Speaker 1: a mental health worker and picked up by his dad.
- 40:13Speaker 12: We don't know exactly what was going through Joseph Trevor's mind.
- 40:16Speaker 12: It could be guilt, it could be remorse, it could
- 40:19Speaker 12: be shame. However, in these instances, self preservation outweighs guilt,
- 40:25Speaker 12: and what unfolded may have been much more in response
- 40:28Speaker 12: to a fear of the consequences rather than true mores
- 40:31Speaker 12: for what he had done.
- 40:34Speaker 4: Joseph Trevor had gone home to his house he lived
- 40:38Speaker 4: that with his mum and dad.
- 40:41Speaker 1: He decided to confess to his family.
- 40:45Speaker 4: He says to them, I've done something bad.
- 40:49Speaker 12: For Joseph Trevor's parents, who were both police officers, hearing
- 40:53Speaker 12: the news about what he did must have been devastating.
- 40:57Speaker 12: But the reality is there was only one outcome. In
- 41:00Speaker 12: order for Meghan to have justice, they had to forego
- 41:03Speaker 12: protecting their son.
- 41:07Speaker 4: His parents phoned the police and informed them that the
- 41:10Speaker 4: murderer of Meghan Newton was in fact their son, Joseph Trevor.
- 41:18Speaker 1: Joseph Trevor was arrested and charged with the murder of
- 41:21Speaker 1: Meghan Newton.
- 41:24Speaker 4: When someone commits a crime such as this, it's important
- 41:28Speaker 4: to understand, well, is this a one off? Have they
- 41:30Speaker 4: done anything like this in the past. In the case
- 41:33Speaker 4: of Joseph Trevor, it appeared that he had. When he
- 41:38Speaker 4: was fifteen years old, he'd been arrested for a sexual
- 41:41Speaker 4: assault that was never prosecuted, but it gave a clue
- 41:48Speaker 4: as to why and how this happened to Meghan.
- 41:54Speaker 1: The autopsy report revealed the full extent of Meghan's injuries.
- 42:00Speaker 1: Doctor Brett Lockyer is a forensic pathologist.
- 42:05Speaker 5: In Meghan's case, the pathologist was able to determine that
- 42:08Speaker 5: there were nine stab wounds in the back of a neck.
- 42:12Speaker 5: Those stab woids had entered into her chest and had
- 42:15Speaker 5: injured both her lungs. The pathologist had found injuries to
- 42:19Speaker 5: her neck, which would indicate that she had been strangled,
- 42:23Speaker 5: that there had been a period of net compression followed
- 42:26Speaker 5: by nine stab wounds. This sustained and brutal attack is
- 42:32Speaker 5: the reason why Meghan died.
- 42:36Speaker 1: The autopsy also confirmed Meghan had been sexually assaulted.
- 42:42Speaker 12: This is a very disturbing and violent crime. From a
- 42:45Speaker 12: psychological perspective, this is overkill. An overkill really does often
- 42:49Speaker 12: suggest there is an intense emotional experience like rage sadism.
- 42:55Speaker 12: It's about power and control. We also have to acknowledge
- 42:59Speaker 12: that the throat is where our voice resides. So strangulation
- 43:02Speaker 12: can also be seen as a way to silence a victim,
- 43:05Speaker 12: especially if they've been rejected, or if there's resistance, or
- 43:08Speaker 12: even to silence the victim from speaking about what actually happened.
- 43:13Speaker 12: In that moment. The perpetrator has that person's life literally
- 43:16Speaker 12: in their hands. They choose if they live or die.
- 43:19Speaker 12: It's about inflicting anxiety terror in the victim, but also
- 43:25Speaker 12: exerting dominance.
- 43:30Speaker 1: In court. The full details of the evening Meghan was
- 43:33Speaker 1: killed came to light on that evening.
- 43:37Speaker 5: She'd taken him home in order to stop him getting
- 43:40Speaker 5: into trouble with his parents, and Trevor Is repaid her
- 43:43Speaker 5: by raping her, murdering her, and then leaving her dead
- 43:47Speaker 5: in her own apartment before fleeing the scene. This was
- 43:50Speaker 5: a brutal and sustained attack, showing no regard for Meghan's life.
- 43:57Speaker 12: Joseph Trevor had expressed a desire not to go home
- 44:00Speaker 12: because it was intoxicated and he didn't want his parents
- 44:02Speaker 12: to see him in that state. Meghan, being the understanding
- 44:06Speaker 12: friend that she was, offered to share her sanctuary with
- 44:08Speaker 12: Joseph Trevor, but he abused it, took advantage of it,
- 44:12Speaker 12: and attacked her and killed her in her own home.
- 44:15Speaker 12: This really does highlight how Meghan's act of kindness was
- 44:19Speaker 12: met with betrayal and ultimately her losing her life.
- 44:24Speaker 1: The video evidence give police a rare insight into the
- 44:28Speaker 1: mind of Joseph Trevor.
- 44:30Speaker 4: It's quite unusual to actually get a glimpse of a
- 44:34Speaker 4: killer soon after the murder has taken place. You don't
- 44:38Speaker 4: often get that look into their eyes as you do
- 44:41Speaker 4: in this instance when he's coming out of that flat.
- 44:45Speaker 12: Knowing that this man is the killer invites us to
- 44:47Speaker 12: look at this clip differently. The calmness that we're seeing
- 44:51Speaker 12: takes on a different quantity is quite chilling.
- 44:54Speaker 2: It's cold, it's.
- 44:55Speaker 12: Callous, and it has no indication of what's just taken
- 44:59Speaker 12: place moments before.
- 45:06Speaker 1: In February twenty twenty, Joseph Trevor was sentenced to twenty
- 45:11Speaker 1: one years for the murder and rape of Meghan Newton.
- 45:15Speaker 12: It's really important that talking about Meghan's murder doesn't take
- 45:19Speaker 12: away her dignity. Why it's an important case that real
- 45:23Speaker 12: lessons can be learned. We have to hold in mind
- 45:26Speaker 12: that a real woman, a young woman, a woman who
- 45:29Speaker 12: had her whole life ahead of her, is at the
- 45:31Speaker 12: center of this. Meghan brought lots of joy to many people.
- 45:36Speaker 12: She was kind, compassionate, and caring, and she will be
- 45:40Speaker 12: missed by not only her friends and her family, but
- 45:42Speaker 12: her community. Meghan was a keen footballer, not only in
- 45:48Speaker 12: terms of playing, but also teaching the younger generation to
- 45:51Speaker 12: play this sport and encouraging women to get involved. This
- 45:55Speaker 12: is inspiring, This is incredibly hopeful. This is what Megan
- 45:59Speaker 12: should be member for.