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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Jennifer Judd Pt. 2 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
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Speaker 2: Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
0:53
Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come
0:56
Speaker 2: forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated
1:00
Speaker 2: by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and
1:03
Speaker 2: community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and
1:07
Speaker 2: point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases.
1:12
Speaker 2: We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven
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Speaker 2: guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast
1:19
Speaker 2: is intended to state or imply that anyone who has
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Speaker 2: not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
1:30
Speaker 1: On May eleventh, nineteen ninety two, twenty year old newlywed
1:34
Speaker 1: Jennifer Judd was viciously attacked and murdered at home on
1:38
Speaker 1: North Park Avenue in Baxter Springs, Kansas at two point
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Speaker 1: thirty that day, Jennifer's husband of nine days, Justin Jed,
1:46
Speaker 1: came home from work and found his wife's body in
1:48
Speaker 1: the kitchen. Thirty three years later, Jennifer's murder is still unsolved,
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Speaker 1: so we've been going back over the timeline and wondering
1:57
Speaker 1: if there was something that police missed. As we said
2:00
Speaker 1: last week, there were several things that were unusual going
2:03
Speaker 1: on in the day Jennifer was murdered, including the fact
2:07
Speaker 1: that at around eleven forty five that day, Justin's friend
2:10
Speaker 1: Chuck Chance, showed up at Justin's work. Chuck hung out
2:14
Speaker 1: with Justin for a couple of hours and was with
2:16
Speaker 1: him when he shift ended at two thirty. Then they
2:19
Speaker 1: drove back to Justin and Jennifer's apartment. When Justin got home,
2:23
Speaker 1: he noticed that Jennifer's car was in the driveway, and
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Speaker 1: when he and Chuck got to the door, it was unlocked.
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Speaker 1: Once they got inside, Justin found a horrific sight. Jennifer
2:35
Speaker 1: was lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood.
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Speaker 1: Her killer had attacked her and stabbed her multiple times
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Speaker 1: with so much for that the knife broke off in
2:45
Speaker 1: her body, and the killer went back for a second knife.
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Speaker 1: Last week, we talked about how over the years police
2:53
Speaker 1: considered several suspects, but so far no one has been
2:57
Speaker 1: arrested or charged. Jennifer's case, however, does have ties to
3:02
Speaker 1: a man who claimed to have killed over twelve women
3:05
Speaker 1: around the country and was charming enough to be nicknamed
3:09
Speaker 1: the redneck Ted Bundy, and this serial killer wasn't just
3:13
Speaker 1: a random stranger. He actually knew Justin Judd. He was
3:17
Speaker 1: someone who lived in Baxter Springs, was Justin's neighbor, and
3:22
Speaker 1: when on a killing spree shortly after Jennifer was murdered.
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Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past eight years of making
3:29
Speaker 1: my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there's
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Speaker 1: no such thing as a small town where murder never happens.
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Speaker 1: I've received hundreds of messages from people all around the
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Speaker 1: country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
3:44
Speaker 1: their families, and their communities. If you have a case
3:47
Speaker 1: you'd like me and my team to look into, you
3:50
Speaker 1: can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
3:52
Speaker 1: Line at six seven eight seven four four, six one
3:55
Speaker 1: four or five. That's six seven eight seven four four, six,
3:59
Speaker 1: one four or five, or you can send us a
4:02
Speaker 1: message on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone
4:07
Speaker 1: Murder Line. We talked to Justin and he told us
4:54
Speaker 1: last week that, according to what he had been told
4:57
Speaker 1: by police, law enforcement considered his friend shut Chance a suspect,
5:03
Speaker 1: but Justin still has questions about Chuck's story. Justin claims
5:07
Speaker 1: that back when they first talked to police, he believed
5:11
Speaker 1: he caught Chuck in an inconsistency.
5:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, he got cleared by DNA, but still, in my mind,
5:19
Speaker 3: the way he acted that day and stuff, And I mean,
5:21
Speaker 3: who goes to somebody to work and sits there has
5:23
Speaker 3: a shift with them, you know, whether it worked, I
5:25
Speaker 3: mean it, and he'd never done that before, and he
5:28
Speaker 3: just acted really strange that day, and still in my
5:31
Speaker 3: mind there's still something there. We went to the police
5:34
Speaker 3: station and we both wrote down, you know, they want
5:37
Speaker 3: to detail everything that happened that day, from what you
5:40
Speaker 3: had for breakfast, you know, every little detail you could
5:42
Speaker 3: remember of your day. And I wrote that down, you know,
5:45
Speaker 3: and he'd done all his stuff down, and there was
5:48
Speaker 3: a discrepancy. He told me at work that he went
5:53
Speaker 3: to a job interview in Pittsburgh, which is a few
5:55
Speaker 3: miles away, and then he went to his sister's house,
5:58
Speaker 3: which lived out by my parents outside of Quapas, and
6:01
Speaker 3: changed clothes and then come to my work. Well, he
6:04
Speaker 3: calls me and he says, why did you tell the
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Speaker 3: KBI that I went to my sisters and changed clothes
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Speaker 3: and I said, well, because you told me you went
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Speaker 3: to your sister's and changed clothes, doesn't No, I didn't.
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Speaker 3: And right then, that's whenever I thought, because the KBI
6:17
Speaker 3: was already trying to convince me that you know, this
6:19
Speaker 3: is the guy that had done it. And right then
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Speaker 3: I just told him, I said you better get a
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Speaker 3: lawyer and hung the phone up. And what she did,
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Speaker 3: and he pled the fifth and then come to find
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Speaker 3: out he'd actually went to the bank in Commers and
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Speaker 3: went to his house and Commers and stuff. In my mind,
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Speaker 3: the reason why he wanted to recant on telling me
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Speaker 3: that he went to his sisters is because his sister
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Speaker 3: had a babysitter there and he didn't actually go to
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Speaker 3: his sisters, So you know, he knew they was going
6:43
Speaker 3: to be asked a question, so he tried to racing
6:46
Speaker 3: that part of the story. So his stories just didn't
6:49
Speaker 3: add up on what he done that day.
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Speaker 1: Again, Chuck has never been arrested or charged in connection
6:56
Speaker 1: with Jennifer's murder. All of this is just Justin's opinion.
7:01
Speaker 1: Justin also questioned another element of Chuck's story, the one
7:05
Speaker 1: that Chuck told police about going to the gym right
7:07
Speaker 1: after he left his house that morning at around seven am.
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Speaker 1: He told police he had used the whirlpool and showered,
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Speaker 1: then headed to Justin and Jennifer's house and then to
7:16
Speaker 1: Justin's work. Because Chuck told police he and Justin had
7:21
Speaker 1: talked about going to the gym that afternoon after they
7:24
Speaker 1: left Justin's work and stopped to check on Jennifer. Justin
7:28
Speaker 1: said they did talk about going to the gym that afternoon,
7:31
Speaker 1: but he questioned why Chuck would have stopped at the
7:34
Speaker 1: gym twice that day. He said, twice a day workouts
7:38
Speaker 1: were not something that Chuck did normally, so Justin questioned
7:42
Speaker 1: that part of the story.
7:44
Speaker 3: And plus he had went and worked out that morning,
7:47
Speaker 3: and his excuse stopping by the house was to say
7:50
Speaker 3: that he would come by to see if I wanted
7:53
Speaker 3: to work out, And in nineteen ninety two, he didn't
7:55
Speaker 3: work out twice a day. That wouldn't a think was
7:57
Speaker 3: every other day work out? So did that porgonomic sense?
8:00
Speaker 1: Either was Jennifer's killer someone who knew her and killed
8:05
Speaker 1: her in a rage that was personal or could this
8:08
Speaker 1: have been a stranger, maybe someone who was obsessed with Jennifer.
8:12
Speaker 1: Jennifer's body showed no signs of sexual assault. But some
8:17
Speaker 1: studies do show a link between overkill meaning a high
8:20
Speaker 1: number of stab wounds, and sexual motives, but Jennifer's murder
8:25
Speaker 1: didn't seem to fit the textbook definition of those criteria.
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Speaker 1: Most studies mentioned twenty five or more stab winds and
8:32
Speaker 1: other factors like victims being positioned in sexual poses after death.
8:37
Speaker 1: We have not seen crime scene photos, so we don't
8:40
Speaker 1: know for sure if Jennifer's body was moved, but just
8:43
Speaker 1: And did mention it seemed to him as though her
8:46
Speaker 1: shirt might have been pulled over her stab wounds, he believed,
8:50
Speaker 1: maybe in an attempt to disguise them, or maybe just
8:52
Speaker 1: because her body was moved slightly which pulled the shirt up.
8:56
Speaker 1: But from what Justin described and what has been publicized
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Speaker 1: about the crime scene, Jennifer's body did not appear to
9:03
Speaker 1: be overtly sexually staged. There was physical evidence at the
9:08
Speaker 1: crime scene, including fingerprints on the knife piece that was
9:12
Speaker 1: sticking out of Jennifer's back, but law enforcement has never
9:16
Speaker 1: publicly revealed exactly what kind of testing was done on
9:20
Speaker 1: that murder weapon. Over the years, there have been several
9:24
Speaker 1: people named as possible suspects by police. One was a
9:28
Speaker 1: man named Jeremy Jones. Jeremy Jones was born on April twelfth,
9:33
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three. In nineteen ninety, he was a teenager
9:36
Speaker 1: and assaulted a high school classmate of his. That classmate's
9:40
Speaker 1: mother actually came to the young man's defense, and then
9:44
Speaker 1: Jeremy turned on the mom and assaulted her as well.
9:47
Speaker 1: But Jeremy could turn on the charm. Charges in that
9:50
Speaker 1: assault were eventually dropped, and in high school, apparently he
9:54
Speaker 1: was a ladies man who hooked up with a lot
9:56
Speaker 1: of women. In nineteen ninety five, Jeremy was arrested for
10:00
Speaker 1: his first rape, but he paid his bill and was released.
10:04
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety six, Jeremy was arrested in Oklahoma. This
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Speaker 1: time he was charged with rape and possession of methamphetamy.
10:11
Speaker 1: He was convicted of the drug charges and sentenced to
10:14
Speaker 1: two years in prison. Jeremy mainly worked odd jobs in
10:18
Speaker 1: construction for many years. He traveled around and did not
10:21
Speaker 1: have a fixed address. After being paroled in nineteen ninety seven,
10:26
Speaker 1: he was re arrested in connection with the rapes. He
10:29
Speaker 1: ended up pleading guilty to assault and sexual harassment and
10:32
Speaker 1: was put on probation for five years. In two thousand,
10:36
Speaker 1: a warrant was issued for his arrest. He became a
10:39
Speaker 1: suspect in two more rapes. Jeremy moved to Joplin, Missouri,
10:43
Speaker 1: and met a woman whose son was in prison. The
10:46
Speaker 1: son's name was John Paul Chapman, so Jeremy ended up
10:49
Speaker 1: using his charm to convince John Paul Chapman's mother to
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Speaker 1: sell him her son's identity for fifty dollars. From that
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Speaker 1: moment on, Jeremy Jones became John Paul Chapman. In October
11:02
Speaker 1: of two thousand and three, Jeremy was arrested in Georgia.
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Speaker 1: He was charged with indecent exposure and disorderly conduct when
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Speaker 1: he was arrested, even though since two thousand he was
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Speaker 1: technically a wanted man and there were warrants out on him.
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Speaker 1: When law enforcement finger printed Jeremy, and when his prints
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Speaker 1: were run through the FBI's Integrated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System,
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Speaker 1: law enforcement got a match, but not to his real name,
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Speaker 1: Jeremy Jones. Instead, police got a hit to his alias,
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Speaker 1: John Paul Chapman. So police never figured out that this
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Speaker 1: guy's real name was Jeremy Jones, or that he was
11:39
Speaker 1: wanted in Oklahoma on a rape charge. Instead, he was
11:42
Speaker 1: released the next year. In two thousand and four, Jeremy
11:46
Speaker 1: was arrested again, this time charged with criminal trespassing, but
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Speaker 1: once again that finger printing system failed. Once again, Jeremy
11:55
Speaker 1: was released. This happened two more times. He would be
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Speaker 1: arrested and charged and released after the finger printing system
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Speaker 1: failed to find a match. This meant that Jeremy Jones
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Speaker 1: was a free man, free to rape and free to kill.
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Speaker 1: And it wasn't long before he found his next victim.
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Speaker 1: On September eighteenth, two thousand and four, Hurricane Ivan was
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Speaker 1: hitting Mobile, Alabama hard. In that chaos, forty four year
12:23
Speaker 1: old Lisa Marie Nichols was fatally shot in her home
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Speaker 1: in Turnerville, Alabama. Her killers set her body on fire
12:31
Speaker 1: in her bathroom. The fire spread and burned down her house.
12:35
Speaker 1: Lisa's mutilated body was found among the smoldering remains of
12:39
Speaker 1: her home. After his arrest in two thousand and four,
12:42
Speaker 1: police discover Jeremy Jones had shown up at the home
12:46
Speaker 1: of a local couple who lived near Lisa. He was
12:49
Speaker 1: pretending to be John Paul Chapman. The couple believed him
12:52
Speaker 1: and they let him do some construction work. At some point,
12:56
Speaker 1: Lisa Nichols, who was a neighbor, showed up at their house.
12:59
Speaker 1: Jeremy waited until everyone had left, then he took a
13:02
Speaker 1: six pack of beer to Lisa's house, where he broke
13:05
Speaker 1: in and raped her. Police found a fingerprint on a
13:09
Speaker 1: beer can at the crime scene. When they ran it,
13:13
Speaker 1: it was a match for John Paul Chapman, but when
13:16
Speaker 1: they sent the information on John Paul Chapman to Missouri,
13:19
Speaker 1: the authorities in Missouri said the real John Paul Chapman
13:22
Speaker 1: was behind bars there. So authorities tracked down John Paul
13:26
Speaker 1: Chapman's last known address. They talked to his mother. That's
13:30
Speaker 1: when they realized that John Paul Chapman they were looking
13:33
Speaker 1: for was actually someone else, and the real John Paul
13:38
Speaker 1: Chapman's mother gave law enforcement the name of the man
13:41
Speaker 1: who'd bought her son's id for fifty dollars, Jeremy Brian Jones.
13:45
Speaker 1: Police arrested Jeremy a few days after Lisa's remains were found.
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Speaker 1: At first, he denied killing Lisa, but eventually he confessed
13:56
Speaker 1: to her rape and murder. But that was just the beginning.
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Speaker 1: Jeremy Jones eventually confessed to more than a dozen murders
14:03
Speaker 1: across several states, and one of them was Jennifer Judd.
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Speaker 1: In fact, Jeremy said Jennifer Judd was his first killed.
14:25
Speaker 1: After getting arrested for the murder of Lisa Nichols, Jeremy
14:28
Speaker 1: ended up admitting to thirteen murders in six states. He
14:32
Speaker 1: told police he had killed even more people, he said
14:35
Speaker 1: as other victims were sex workers, mainly concentrated in the
14:39
Speaker 1: areas of Atlanta, Georgia, and Mobile, Alabama. Jeremy said that
14:43
Speaker 1: he had murdered Jennifer Judd in nineteen ninety two. But
14:47
Speaker 1: was that actually true. Was Jeremy Jones credible or did
14:52
Speaker 1: he just confess as he later claimed, to get better
14:55
Speaker 1: conditions in prison, or maybe because he had nothing to
14:58
Speaker 1: lose or to gain status inside prison, Jeremy was telling
15:03
Speaker 1: the truth about at least some of his crimes. There
15:06
Speaker 1: were three murders the police were able to link him
15:09
Speaker 1: to definitively. One of his victims was a sixteen year
15:12
Speaker 1: old named Amanda Greenwell. She went missing on March twelve,
15:16
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. Her remains were found in Douglasville, Georgia,
15:20
Speaker 1: a few weeks later. Amanda had been stabbed multiple times
15:24
Speaker 1: and strangled. Jeremy's girlfriend, Vicky Freeman, provided some corroborating evidence.
15:30
Speaker 1: When police talked to Vicki, she told them that on
15:32
Speaker 1: the day Amanda Greenwell vanished, Jeremy had come home from
15:36
Speaker 1: doing drugs for days, and when he came home, he
15:39
Speaker 1: had unexplained scratches on him. Police were all also able
15:44
Speaker 1: to conclusively link Jeremy to the brutal murder of Catherine Collins.
15:48
Speaker 1: Catherine's body was found in February of two thousand and
15:51
Speaker 1: four in New Orleans. Jeremy said he met Catherine Collins
15:55
Speaker 1: in the French Quarter when he went to New Orleans
15:58
Speaker 1: for Marty Grass. He said he ended up doing methamphetamine
16:02
Speaker 1: during a week long binge. He claimed he and Catherine
16:06
Speaker 1: went to an abandoned house to do drugs and have sex,
16:09
Speaker 1: but he said after she took her clothes off, he
16:12
Speaker 1: refused to pay her. He said after that they got
16:14
Speaker 1: into an argument and that Catherine tried to run away,
16:18
Speaker 1: but he said he tackled her to the ground while
16:20
Speaker 1: she was naked and stabbed her multiple times. He told police,
16:25
Speaker 1: quote the bitch deserved it end quote. Jeremy said he
16:29
Speaker 1: stabbed Catherine Collins in the eye, strangled her, and mutilated
16:33
Speaker 1: her vagina. After examining Catherine's autopsy report and comparing her
16:39
Speaker 1: injuries to the ones Jeremy described, police decided his story
16:43
Speaker 1: matched her graphic and horrific injuries, and so they charged
16:47
Speaker 1: him with Catherine's murder. Police took Jeremy's confessions of meth
16:51
Speaker 1: fuel murder seriously. They believe there could be more victims
16:55
Speaker 1: out there. They searched Jeremy's storage unit in two thousand
16:59
Speaker 1: and four. They found photographs of several different women. They
17:03
Speaker 1: made these photos public and asked that anyone who knew
17:06
Speaker 1: who these women were to come forward. So the women did.
17:10
Speaker 1: One was one of Jeremy's family members, others just some
17:13
Speaker 1: random women he knew. Eventually, all of the women were
17:16
Speaker 1: identified from those photos. They were all confirmed as being
17:20
Speaker 1: alive and safe. One of Jeremy's alleged victims was Tina Mayberry.
17:26
Speaker 1: Tina was stabbed to death after attending a Halloween party
17:29
Speaker 1: in Douglasville, Georgia. She was at a place called Gibson's Restaurant.
17:33
Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, She went outside and came
17:36
Speaker 1: back inside the bar covered in blood. This attack happened
17:40
Speaker 1: very quickly. She was rushed to the hospital but lay
17:43
Speaker 1: or died of her stab wounds. Like in Jennifer's case,
17:47
Speaker 1: there was no robbery and no obvious signs of rape
17:50
Speaker 1: or sexual assault. However, police were unable to link Jeremy
17:55
Speaker 1: to that killing, but they did find out that he
17:57
Speaker 1: had been in that area. Jeremy Jones was a regular
18:01
Speaker 1: at Gibson's during that time period, so some of his
18:05
Speaker 1: confessions are unclear, and in other cases he appeared to
18:09
Speaker 1: be stretching the truth or lying outright, like the unsolved
18:13
Speaker 1: kidnapping and murder of sixteen year old Laura Bible and
18:16
Speaker 1: Ashley Freeman, along with Ashley's parents, Kathy and Danny Freeman
18:20
Speaker 1: in Welch, Oklahoma. Laura and Ashley were two friends who
18:25
Speaker 1: were hanging out at Ashley's house to celebrate her sixteenth
18:28
Speaker 1: birthday on December twenty ninth, nineteen ninety nine. Early the
18:32
Speaker 1: next morning, on December thirtieth, law enforcement responded to reports
18:36
Speaker 1: of a fire at the house. Once the blaze was extinguished,
18:40
Speaker 1: they found the bodies of Ashley's parents, Danny and Kathy
18:43
Speaker 1: inside the home. Both of them had been fatally shot
18:46
Speaker 1: before the home was set on fire. Laura and Ashley
18:50
Speaker 1: were gone. No trace of them was ever found. During
18:54
Speaker 1: that two thousand and four confession, Jeremy claimed he had
18:58
Speaker 1: killed the two teens and dumped their bodies in a
19:00
Speaker 1: mind shaft that mine was a real place, but when
19:04
Speaker 1: police searched in the spot where Jeremy claimed he dumped
19:07
Speaker 1: the remains, they found no trace of the teen's bodies. Later,
19:12
Speaker 1: Jeremy recanted these confessions, but police couldn't figure out how
19:16
Speaker 1: even though he lied about the body locations, how Jeremy
19:19
Speaker 1: seemed to have details about that crime scene, details police
19:24
Speaker 1: say had not been made public at that time. In
19:27
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, a local drug dealer named Ronnie Dean Busick
19:31
Speaker 1: was arrested in charge with four counts of first degree
19:34
Speaker 1: murder in connection with Ashley and Laura's murders. Witnesses told
19:39
Speaker 1: police that Ronnie and two other men, Warren Philip Welch
19:43
Speaker 1: the second and David Pennington, who were both dead at
19:46
Speaker 1: the time of Ronnie's arrest, bragged about holding the girl's
19:49
Speaker 1: captive and eventually raping and murdering the teens and taking
19:54
Speaker 1: photographs of them. The torture and the fate that these
19:58
Speaker 1: young women suffered was horrific, but there was no evidence
20:02
Speaker 1: that Jeremy Jones was involved in any way. Jeremy also
20:07
Speaker 1: claimed he killed Patrese Andres, a mother who worked at
20:11
Speaker 1: a hairdressing salon in Coming, Georgia on April fifteenth, two
20:15
Speaker 1: thousand and four. Patrese was having a normal day at work,
20:19
Speaker 1: and then sometime during lunch, in what police later said
20:23
Speaker 1: was only a thirteen minute window of time, she vanished
20:27
Speaker 1: without a trace. Patrese's lunch was still there at the
20:31
Speaker 1: salon Uneaten, her car was parked outside in the parking lot.
20:35
Speaker 1: She was just gone. Jeremy told investigators that he dumped
20:40
Speaker 1: her body into a creek, but when police looked in
20:42
Speaker 1: the area where Jared described disposing of her remains, they
20:46
Speaker 1: found nothing. He blamed his wrong information on the fact
20:50
Speaker 1: that he had been on meth at the time. Jeremy
20:52
Speaker 1: blamed a lot of his wrong information on the fact
20:56
Speaker 1: that he was doing a lot of drugs. That he
20:58
Speaker 1: was on meth at the time of a lot of
21:00
Speaker 1: the killings. He said because of that drug use, his
21:03
Speaker 1: memory was faulty. Later, though, on December six, two thousand
21:07
Speaker 1: and five, Patrese's remains were found behind Lebanon Baptist Church
21:11
Speaker 1: in Dawson County. Now, this was sixty to seventy miles
21:15
Speaker 1: from where Jeremy Jones claimed he had dumped Patrese. Patrese's case,
21:19
Speaker 1: by the way, is still unsolved, so after they realized
21:24
Speaker 1: Jeremy had given them wrong information, police started doubting Jeremy's
21:28
Speaker 1: involvement in the other murders he was claiming. But Jeremy
21:32
Speaker 1: had been telling the truth about the murders of Lisa,
21:35
Speaker 1: Catherine and Amanda, like the unsolved murder of Tina Mayberry,
21:40
Speaker 1: which Jeremy claimed to have committed, though police were never
21:42
Speaker 1: able to conclud lusively link him to that killing. Jeremy
21:46
Speaker 1: was in proximity of the place where Justin and Jennifer lived,
21:50
Speaker 1: Baxter Springs, and it turned out he also knew Justin
21:55
Speaker 1: Judd personally. It's been reported that Jeremy was in the
22:00
Speaker 1: Baxter Springs area in nineteen ninety two, but that he
22:03
Speaker 1: broke up with his girlfriend in late nineteen ninety two
22:06
Speaker 1: and left the area. But there have also been a
22:10
Speaker 1: lot of rumors online about Jeremy's connection to Justin Judd
22:14
Speaker 1: that aren't true that they were friends in high school.
22:17
Speaker 1: For example, Justin says he never met Jeremy until years
22:21
Speaker 1: later in the mid nineties after Jennifer's murder. At the time,
22:25
Speaker 1: Justin was married. He said Jeremy moved next door to
22:28
Speaker 1: him with his girlfriend at the time. Justin claim they
22:31
Speaker 1: never even had a real conversation, though he said he
22:34
Speaker 1: did hear Jeremy and his girlfriend getting into loud arguments.
22:39
Speaker 1: Jeremy Jones had claimed that he and Justin hung out
22:42
Speaker 1: together and said that never happened. Jeremy Jones also claimed
22:47
Speaker 1: that at one point he worked with Chuck Chance. We
22:50
Speaker 1: have no idea if that's true or not. Again, Jeremy
22:54
Speaker 1: Jones lied a lot, so we have to take everything
22:57
Speaker 1: he said with a massive grain of salt. Was Jeremy
23:04
Speaker 1: Jones lying or telling the truth about Jennifer Judd. That's
23:07
Speaker 1: what Jennifer's family was trying to figure out after he confessed.
23:11
Speaker 1: Some of them wondered if Jeremy could have been the
23:13
Speaker 1: stalker who was supposedly frightening Jennifer. Remember, Jennifer's father said
23:18
Speaker 1: that Jennifer thought someone might have been following her to work,
23:21
Speaker 1: and later that someone had pounded on the door and
23:24
Speaker 1: scared her. Jeremy Jones claimed that he stalked Jennifer for
23:29
Speaker 1: several days before he showed up to her apartment and
23:32
Speaker 1: fatally stabbed her. According to what Jennifer's father said in
23:36
Speaker 1: the press, Jennifer told someone at her apartment complex that
23:40
Speaker 1: she had gotten freaked out when a few days before
23:42
Speaker 1: the murder, someone was pounding on the front door hard.
23:46
Speaker 1: She believed they were trying to get inside, so she
23:48
Speaker 1: actually ended up hiding behind the sofa and the person
23:52
Speaker 1: eventually went away. Could Jeremy Jones have been the person
23:56
Speaker 1: who knocked on Jennifer's door that day. Jeremy told police
24:12
Speaker 1: that he met Jennifer at a party. He claimed they
24:15
Speaker 1: started seeing each other romantically and that they were having
24:18
Speaker 1: an affair at the time of the murder. Now, Jennifer's
24:21
Speaker 1: family says these claims are ridiculous. There's no evidence this
24:24
Speaker 1: ever happened. In fact, there is zero evidence that Jeremy
24:28
Speaker 1: ever met Jennifer at all. Jeremy claimed the reason for
24:32
Speaker 1: killing Jennifer was because she did not return his feelings
24:35
Speaker 1: he told police he murdered her due to unrequited love.
24:40
Speaker 1: Could Jeremy have been lying about his relationship with Jennifer
24:44
Speaker 1: but telling the truth about killing her. There were some
24:48
Speaker 1: details that did not seem to match. One thing that
24:51
Speaker 1: didn't match was that police asked Jeremy Jones to describe
24:54
Speaker 1: what Jennifer's duplex looked like where her body was. He
24:58
Speaker 1: reportedly drew a sketch for investigators. Now, according to media reports,
25:03
Speaker 1: the drawing of the home he did was different than
25:06
Speaker 1: the reality of the layout of her home, But Jennifer's
25:10
Speaker 1: duplex looked different in nineteen ninety two than it did
25:13
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five when Jeremy drew the sketch
25:16
Speaker 1: for detectives. The investigator claimed that Jennifer's home did look
25:21
Speaker 1: more like his drawing back in nineteen ninety two. Jeremy
25:25
Speaker 1: also apparently got the type of soda that had been
25:28
Speaker 1: at the crime scene wrong. It was a minute may,
25:31
Speaker 1: he called it something else. There were also some other
25:33
Speaker 1: details that didn't quite match. Still, Alabama authorities who took
25:38
Speaker 1: Jeremy's confession apparently took him seriously enough to tell the
25:41
Speaker 1: police in Kansas about it, and the police last in
25:44
Speaker 1: Kansas did interview Jeremy Jones in two thousand and five.
25:51
Speaker 1: The fingerprinting mistake that had set Jeremy free and allowed
25:54
Speaker 1: him to kill three women made national news. The fact
25:58
Speaker 1: that a killer who had confessed to multiple murders had
26:01
Speaker 1: not been caught because of the computer glitch understandably outraged
26:05
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and journalists and people in general
26:08
Speaker 1: were rightfully asking the question, how in the world was
26:12
Speaker 1: this allowed to happen. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations Assistant
26:16
Speaker 1: Deputy Director Terry Gibbons told reporters that it was quote
26:21
Speaker 1: very infrequent for the Bureau to have this type of
26:24
Speaker 1: fingerprinting air. But what exactly does very infrequent mean? Because
26:30
Speaker 1: the FBI also made some statements about the mistake, They
26:34
Speaker 1: claimed they were conducting an official review they were going
26:37
Speaker 1: to figure out exactly how this happened, But they haven't
26:40
Speaker 1: really given any more details on whether they did the
26:43
Speaker 1: review and what it involved. So how often does the
26:48
Speaker 1: system make mistakes? FBI's Supervisory Special Agent Joe Parris was
26:53
Speaker 1: quoted as saying the finger printing system IAFIS makes fifty
26:58
Speaker 1: thousand fingerprint comparisons a day. He claimed that it had
27:01
Speaker 1: a ninety five percent accuracy rate. That sounds good, but
27:05
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of fifty thousand would be about forty
27:09
Speaker 1: seven thousand, five hundred, which means around two thousand, five
27:12
Speaker 1: hundred could be wrong, which to me is actually kind
27:16
Speaker 1: of scary to think about, because that could be a
27:18
Speaker 1: significant number of people if they rely solely on the
27:22
Speaker 1: fingerprinting system and don't have another way to verify this information,
27:26
Speaker 1: and these mistakes can have very serious consequences. In Jeremy's case,
27:31
Speaker 1: it was literally a matter of life and death for
27:33
Speaker 1: his victims. Once Jeremy heard about the fingerprinting mistake, the
27:38
Speaker 1: case took kind of a wild twist because he started
27:41
Speaker 1: denying the confessions that he had given. At that point,
27:45
Speaker 1: he probably realized if he had not told police about
27:49
Speaker 1: his other killings, he would only be facing rape charges
27:53
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma. He would not be dealing with capital murder
27:56
Speaker 1: charges that could get in put to death. So Jeremy
27:59
Speaker 1: Jones now said he was not a serial killer. He
28:02
Speaker 1: made statements to the media saying, quote, I ain't no
28:06
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy end quote. It was hard to tell fact
28:10
Speaker 1: from fiction with Jeremy because sometimes his stories were a
28:13
Speaker 1: mixture of lies and the truth. For example, he admitted
28:17
Speaker 1: to a WP and My news journalist that he had
28:20
Speaker 1: been inside Lisa's house, but he said he didn't kill her.
28:24
Speaker 1: He was just there when she happened to overdose on drugs.
28:27
Speaker 1: Jeremy told the journalists, quote, was I there when she died? Yeah,
28:31
Speaker 1: I was there when she died. She overdosed on drugs.
28:34
Speaker 1: ME and her sat there and talked about drugs. End quote.
28:38
Speaker 1: Then the journalist asked Jeremy, if that was true, how
28:42
Speaker 1: she got three bullet holes in her head and how
28:45
Speaker 1: she was set on fire. Jeremy said he had no idea.
28:49
Speaker 1: According to the detectives who interviewed him, Jeremy could be
28:53
Speaker 1: intelligent and charming and yet at the same time completely
28:57
Speaker 1: devoid of any kind of remorse. One detective told The
29:01
Speaker 1: Times Picking You that Jeremy's confession was the most frightening
29:04
Speaker 1: he had heard ever during his career. He said that,
29:08
Speaker 1: in his opinion, Jeremy was reliving and getting excited about
29:12
Speaker 1: the murders when he talked to law enforcement. But like
29:15
Speaker 1: a lot of killers, Jeremy lied a lot. According to
29:19
Speaker 1: medi reports, when it came to Jennifer Jud's case, police
29:23
Speaker 1: did not believe they had sufficient credible evidence to charge
29:26
Speaker 1: Jeremy with anything. Also, Jeremy is a convicted rapist, and
29:32
Speaker 1: unlike the rest of Jeremy's known victims, Jennifer Judd showed
29:36
Speaker 1: no sign of sexual assault. So Jeremy seemed to have
29:40
Speaker 1: been dropped as a suspect in Jennifer's case. But some
29:44
Speaker 1: people still believed that he could have been telling the
29:46
Speaker 1: truth about killing Jennifer, and that there could be other
29:50
Speaker 1: reasons why law enforcement might not be super motivated to
29:53
Speaker 1: find Jeremy's other victims. And it's true that every time
29:57
Speaker 1: another victim is mentioned, presumably that does focus the spotlight
30:01
Speaker 1: again on the fingerprinting mistakes and their catastrophic consequences. Jennifer's
30:06
Speaker 1: family hopes DNA could help provide answers. According to the
30:11
Speaker 1: Who Killed Jennifer Judd Podcast, the KBI did DNA test
30:16
Speaker 1: back in twenty fourteen and came up with a profile
30:19
Speaker 1: of a suspect. Sarah Kalin claims this profile was not
30:23
Speaker 1: a match to Chuck Chance. Law enforcement have not confirmed
30:27
Speaker 1: or denied this. There's also been no word on whether
30:31
Speaker 1: or not the DNA on the knife was ever entered
30:33
Speaker 1: into codis. This should have meant that it would be
30:36
Speaker 1: compared to Jeremy Jones's DNA. It would seem as though
30:39
Speaker 1: it should have been given the fact that he confessed
30:41
Speaker 1: and police would have had the correct DNA the system
30:44
Speaker 1: by then, But honestly, because of the mix up, it's
30:48
Speaker 1: really hard to know for sure what was done, especially
30:51
Speaker 1: when police aren't confirming anything. I also wonder why, if
30:55
Speaker 1: they have a profile of the suspect, if they were
30:58
Speaker 1: able to use the DNA from the knife to build
31:01
Speaker 1: that profile, why they have not made it public so
31:04
Speaker 1: that the public could help catch the killer. If this
31:07
Speaker 1: case has taught us anything, it's not to take information
31:10
Speaker 1: for granted until it's absolutely confirmed. Jeremy Jones is currently
31:18
Speaker 1: on death row with the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama.
31:21
Speaker 1: His case is currently going through the state appeals process,
31:26
Speaker 1: which will be followed by the federal appeals process. But
31:29
Speaker 1: whatever happens, he has no possibility of parole, and so
31:33
Speaker 1: one way or another, barring some kind of legal miracle,
31:36
Speaker 1: Jeremy Jones will die behind bars. Justin says that to
31:42
Speaker 1: this day he goes back and forth about whether or
31:44
Speaker 1: not Jennifer knew her killer, but her behavior leading up
31:48
Speaker 1: to the murder makes him wonder if she was worried
31:51
Speaker 1: about something or someone that she wasn't sharing with him.
31:56
Speaker 1: He still wonders if someone close to him, maybe even
31:59
Speaker 1: someone still living in the community, could have knocked on
32:02
Speaker 1: his and Jennifer's door that day, and he hopes that
32:05
Speaker 1: someday someone will come forward.
32:09
Speaker 3: And back then a twenty year old kid, I was just,
32:11
Speaker 3: you know, thinking that it was the wedding and stuff
32:13
Speaker 3: that she was. She was acting quite a bit different
32:18
Speaker 3: a few weeks up to the wedding. I probably was too.
32:21
Speaker 3: You know, we have been married before, so it's a
32:24
Speaker 3: lot of big changes in our life.
32:26
Speaker 1: I wonder if it was, you know, something botheringer someone
32:30
Speaker 1: bothering her.
32:31
Speaker 3: And that's another reason why I it always goes back
32:34
Speaker 3: to Chuck or a friend, because she didn't want to
32:37
Speaker 3: create conflict between me and a friend or something, you know.
32:40
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, The reason why she didn't
32:43
Speaker 3: mention it. You think to me about any of that.
32:47
Speaker 1: I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
32:51
Speaker 1: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
32:54
Speaker 1: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
32:57
Speaker 1: Townsend and produced by Etily's Perez Special thanks to Amy
33:02
Speaker 1: Tubbs for her research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review.
33:06
Speaker 1: Noah camer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
33:09
Speaker 1: is by Ben Salek. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
33:14
Speaker 1: and LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by
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Speaker 1: subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
33:21
Speaker 1: If you are interested in seeing documents and materials from
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Speaker 1: the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
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