Latest / NO FILTER / Talented teen strangled by friend who wanted to become a serial killer(MP3_160K)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: I'm Chris Hansen right now on Crimewatch Daily from here
- 0:02Speaker 1: in New York City. So it was your whole life.
- 0:15Speaker 2: She was always singing, always dancing.
- 0:17Speaker 3: She was brilliant.
- 0:18Speaker 1: Jesse Blodgett was a passionate performer whose final curtain call
- 0:22Speaker 1: came suddenly.
- 0:23Speaker 4: Did you read it? She's cold, cold good?
- 0:28Speaker 1: Her killer hiding and playing sight on this stage.
- 0:31Speaker 5: I've interviewed killers before. He's at a different level.
- 0:35Speaker 1: In the Garcia with the clues Jesse left.
- 0:37Speaker 6: Behind her own diary is telling you that there is
- 0:41Speaker 6: an older man who's been bothering her.
- 0:44Speaker 1: The killer's dry run three days earlier.
- 0:46Speaker 7: All of a sudden, I see a knife in the
- 0:48Speaker 7: guy's hand, and.
- 0:49Speaker 1: The unbelievable moment her parents found out who did it
- 0:53Speaker 1: when the police.
- 0:53Speaker 3: Called him, he was at her house.
- 0:57Speaker 6: Right now, let's go Jason Mattewer with I Watch Daily.
- 1:00Speaker 2: I'm miss also going to from Crimewatch Dailey. Yes, lit'stbe
- 1:03Speaker 2: smart from Crimewatch Daily.
- 1:05Speaker 6: It's Ana Garcia from Crime Watch Daily. You got anything
- 1:08Speaker 6: to say?
- 1:08Speaker 1: He is crime Watch Dally.
- 1:10Speaker 6: What do you mean you don't know? If she's thirteen?
- 1:12Speaker 1: You're running away now, So welcome to Crime Watch Daily Everyone,
- 1:17Speaker 1: I'm Chris Hansen, first up today, an aspiring actress who
- 1:20Speaker 1: needed her goal to change the world through music. But
- 1:24Speaker 1: just as she started to realize those dreams, her life
- 1:27Speaker 1: would be taken by a mystery attacker in the early
- 1:30Speaker 1: morning hours. Ana Garcia is here now with today's top story,
- 1:34Speaker 1: The Final Act.
- 1:35Speaker 6: Chris, I'm in Wisconsin, where a teenager with a passion
- 1:39Speaker 6: for drama would find herself in the middle of a
- 1:42Speaker 6: dramatic hunt for a killer. There is a killer in
- 1:46Speaker 6: this cast, and someone on this stage is about to die.
- 1:51Speaker 3: Oh my god for nine to one, what's your emergency?
- 1:55Speaker 6: It looks like Tregulation Mark, an impostor on the Prime.
- 2:01Speaker 8: He is able to present himself to the world in
- 2:04Speaker 8: a very different length than the way he actually is.
- 2:06Speaker 6: Acting on evil.
- 2:08Speaker 3: He staged her body.
- 2:10Speaker 6: A real life thriller is twisted as any drama. You've
- 2:14Speaker 6: got one woman who's been attacked and another woman who's dead, a.
- 2:17Speaker 5: Lot of dark, dark stuff.
- 2:20Speaker 6: And when the plot finally unravels, right when I saw
- 2:24Speaker 6: his face, I'm like, yeah, the suspect at the center.
- 2:27Speaker 2: We told him you had the rock eye.
- 2:29Speaker 6: We'll leave a community stunned and several families torn apart.
- 2:34Speaker 3: No more compassion.
- 2:40Speaker 5: I've interviewed killers before. He's at a different level.
- 2:48Speaker 6: This was Jesse Blodgett, the essence of who she was,
- 2:52Speaker 6: and on most days how you'd find her.
- 3:02Speaker 9: Every time I would go over to her house, she'd
- 3:03Speaker 9: be playing the piano. Even when I was trying to
- 3:05Speaker 9: talk to her, she'd be playing the piano and I'd
- 3:07Speaker 9: be like, I'm trying to.
- 3:08Speaker 2: Talk to you, you know. She was always singing, always dancing,
- 3:13Speaker 2: and as.
- 3:13Speaker 6: Both a public performer and a music tutor for local kids,
- 3:17Speaker 6: Jesse was something of a star in the small town
- 3:20Speaker 6: of Hartford, Wisconsin. What was she like as a little girl?
- 3:23Speaker 3: She was brilliant. In first grade, the teacher created her
- 3:27Speaker 3: own curriculum for Jesse and when the classes spelling words
- 3:30Speaker 3: were and and Jesse's first one was metamorphosis and anesthesiologist.
- 3:37Speaker 6: A brilliant mind that Jesse would use to pursue many
- 3:40Speaker 6: passions as she grew, from fighting for animal rights to
- 3:44Speaker 6: advocating against violence towards women. But in the end, it
- 3:49Speaker 6: always came back to music.
- 3:52Speaker 10: We actually wrote some songs together. She was just brilliant
- 3:56Speaker 10: at writing music.
- 4:03Speaker 6: But Jesse wasn't the only exceptional talent to come out
- 4:06Speaker 6: of Hartford. Enter her good friend and classmate, Dan Bartelt.
- 4:14Speaker 3: Dan and Jess sat next to each other every day
- 4:18Speaker 3: in school all through high school. Dan was a gifted violinist.
- 4:22Speaker 3: He was first chair and Jess was second chair.
- 4:25Speaker 2: Dan was hilarious, you know.
- 4:26Speaker 9: I always thought he was the funny, really outgoing, always
- 4:29Speaker 9: making jokes.
- 4:30Speaker 2: He was also very smart. I kind of admired their friendship.
- 4:33Speaker 6: Jesse and Dan also had a shared love for the stage,
- 4:37Speaker 6: and on paper, they had all the makings of an
- 4:39Speaker 6: arts loving power couple, but they tried. That didn't work.
- 4:45Speaker 3: They dated for about three or four months. Freshman year
- 4:48Speaker 3: of high school, they broke.
- 4:51Speaker 6: Up, but Dan is the one who broke it off.
- 4:54Speaker 3: Why, I don't know. We thought that he's freshman in
- 4:57Speaker 3: high school. He doesn't need to explain himself why he's
- 4:59Speaker 3: not committed for life here and.
- 5:01Speaker 6: Anyway, they were better as friends. After high school, Jesse
- 5:06Speaker 6: and Dan went away to different colleges, but they reconnected
- 5:09Speaker 6: the following summer.
- 5:11Speaker 3: Jess came home one day and said, Dad, Mom, Dan's back.
- 5:15Speaker 3: He dropped out of college. He's a straight A student.
- 5:19Speaker 9: What's up with that I know that they became really
- 5:21Speaker 9: close when he had dropped out of college, and they
- 5:23Speaker 9: would play music together all the time they were collaborating.
- 5:26Speaker 6: The two even wrote and recorded this song together, which
- 5:33Speaker 6: now serves as something of a time capsule. Just a
- 5:37Speaker 6: few weeks after posting that tune on YouTube, Jesse and
- 5:40Speaker 6: Dan would be in the spotlight for separate but equal reasons.
- 5:45Speaker 6: Dan landed a storing role and bye bye Bertie and Jesse.
- 5:49Speaker 3: Jesse was the fiddler in Fiddler on the Roof.
- 5:51Speaker 6: Here she is playing for a packed house on opening weekend.
- 5:55Speaker 6: These last few notes Jesse's swam song.
- 6:01Speaker 3: That was her last night on Earth.
- 6:07Speaker 6: Just hours after curtain call, Jesse is seen here at
- 6:12Speaker 6: the cast party, her smile apparently betraying some very uneasy
- 6:17Speaker 6: feelings issues that had to do with at least two
- 6:20Speaker 6: older men in attendance. Later that night, technically early the
- 6:26Speaker 6: next morning, July fifteenth, Jesse returns home and runs into
- 6:31Speaker 6: her mom. The two talk about that party.
- 6:34Speaker 3: They talk about two of the people at the cast
- 6:37Speaker 3: party were kind of flirting with her.
- 6:42Speaker 6: She even put those feelings down in her diary that
- 6:45Speaker 6: same night, writing in part I think I'm being corrupted
- 6:49Speaker 6: I think certain men are taking what should be platonic
- 6:52Speaker 6: love and perverting it into a competition. But Jesse also
- 6:57Speaker 6: goes on to write, I am not helpless. I will
- 7:00Speaker 6: recognize problems and confront them without fear.
- 7:05Speaker 2: God be with.
- 7:06Speaker 6: Me, and then she went to bed.
- 7:09Speaker 3: Yes.
- 7:10Speaker 6: Around eight the next morning, Jesse's mom, joy dropped some
- 7:13Speaker 6: laundry off in Jesse's room before heading to work. Jesse's
- 7:17Speaker 6: dad had already left for the day.
- 7:19Speaker 3: Jesse was asleep in her bed and everything was fine.
- 7:23Speaker 6: Four hours after that, Jesse's mom returned home for her
- 7:27Speaker 6: lunch break. The house was quiet.
- 7:30Speaker 3: Joyce just thought she was sleeping in she was a
- 7:33Speaker 3: teenager on.
- 7:34Speaker 6: Break, but when she went to wake her daughter.
- 7:37Speaker 3: She was mad that Jess wasn't answering her. She went
- 7:42Speaker 3: into Jesse's room. She couldn't understand why she wasn't responding,
- 7:48Speaker 3: and then she touched her and Jesse was cold. Oh
- 7:53Speaker 3: my god, Oh my god.
- 7:56Speaker 7: For nine to one, what's your emergency?
- 7:58Speaker 5: My daughter is blue.
- 7:59Speaker 3: I wake her up and I just got home and
- 8:02Speaker 3: the look for lunch and she won't wake up.
- 8:05Speaker 6: She was like, God, okay a second, okay, so she's breathing.
- 8:12Speaker 4: I don't think so.
- 8:13Speaker 6: No, Jesse is unresponsive, covered up in her own bed.
- 8:18Speaker 4: Okay, ma'am, do you know how to do CPR?
- 8:21Speaker 7: Do you do you know how to do CPR?
- 8:24Speaker 4: Man, he's cold, she's cold. He's cold, she's cold.
- 8:28Speaker 6: Good. You can hear the anguish in her voice as
- 8:31Speaker 6: she tries to process the scene and especially what she
- 8:35Speaker 6: sees next.
- 8:36Speaker 3: Oh my god, she's good.
- 8:38Speaker 5: Oh my god, Oh my god.
- 8:43Speaker 3: She rolled her over and she saw ligature marks. Her
- 8:48Speaker 3: plans are all in, she's good.
- 8:51Speaker 6: It looks like strangulation marks.
- 8:55Speaker 4: There are strangulation marks.
- 8:57Speaker 3: That's what it looks like. I don't know what's going on,
- 9:00Speaker 3: and I don't know.
- 9:00Speaker 5: What's going on.
- 9:03Speaker 6: After that, the dispatcher puts Joy on hold while she
- 9:06Speaker 6: alerts MS sadly, it's already too late.
- 9:12Speaker 11: Money, No, honey, No, that's how we found her dead.
- 9:32Speaker 6: She was just nineteen years old.
- 9:52Speaker 3: Next, just tried to tell me and I didn't realize it.
- 9:55Speaker 6: Jesse Blanchett has been murdered. Did she see it coming?
- 9:58Speaker 6: Did you think it was someone who knew the victim?
- 10:00Speaker 6: Or did you think that this was a random act
- 10:03Speaker 6: of violence?
- 10:04Speaker 7: And all of a sudden, I see a knife in
- 10:07Speaker 7: the guy's hand.
- 10:08Speaker 6: Could another attack just days before reveal a chameleon with
- 10:12Speaker 6: killer intentions.
- 10:13Speaker 3: You want to believe the best about your friends.
- 10:15Speaker 7: I'm bad.
- 10:16Speaker 3: I am right next to you.
- 10:17Speaker 5: You want to.
- 10:17Speaker 3: See your friends not be evil.
- 10:23Speaker 1: You'll return out to today's story the final act once again,
- 10:27Speaker 1: here's Ana Garcia.
- 10:28Speaker 6: Chris Jesse Blodgett had just finished a performance of Fiddler
- 10:32Speaker 6: on the Roof, but within hours her friends would be
- 10:35Speaker 6: in shock and police would be on the hunt for
- 10:37Speaker 6: a killer. Buck Blodgett was at work the monday. His
- 10:41Speaker 6: wife found their only child, Jesse, apparently strangled to death
- 10:46Speaker 6: in her bedroom.
- 10:47Speaker 7: He's so good.
- 10:51Speaker 6: By the time Buck returned home, investigators already had his
- 10:54Speaker 6: daughter gordoned off. Did you know that she's been murdered
- 10:58Speaker 6: in her own bed?
- 10:59Speaker 3: They wouldn't in the upstairs, so I couldn't see her.
- 11:02Speaker 3: I couldn't touch her, I couldn't say goodbye. I couldn't
- 11:06Speaker 3: tell her I loved her, and I couldn't tell her
- 11:08Speaker 3: I was sorry for not being there when she needed
- 11:10Speaker 3: her dad, And I'm sorry I forgot the question.
- 11:20Speaker 6: Detective Richard Thickens of the Hartford PD was one of
- 11:23Speaker 6: the first investigators on the scene that day, what did
- 11:26Speaker 6: you find?
- 11:27Speaker 8: We found Jessie on the floor, very obvious mark on
- 11:31Speaker 8: her neck and marks on her wrist ray faint marks
- 11:34Speaker 8: that could possibly have been binding marks.
- 11:37Speaker 3: At that point, I believe we had a.
- 11:38Speaker 6: Homicide on her as Jesse's mom also tells detectives that
- 11:43Speaker 6: when she found her daughter, her hair and clothes were wet,
- 11:47Speaker 6: a sign the killer may have spent extra time with
- 11:50Speaker 6: his victim.
- 11:51Speaker 8: He staged her body. I believed he washed her body
- 11:54Speaker 8: and then placed it back in the bed, covered her up.
- 11:56Speaker 6: Did you think it was someone who knew the victim
- 11:58Speaker 6: or did you think that this was a random act
- 12:01Speaker 6: of violence.
- 12:02Speaker 8: There was no signs of forced entry, so it let
- 12:05Speaker 8: us believe that it was somebody that knew the house.
- 12:08Speaker 6: But who knew Jesse's movements so intimately, and who would
- 12:12Speaker 6: use that knowledge to end her life. Police didn't have
- 12:16Speaker 6: to look far to find their first suspects.
- 12:19Speaker 8: Jesse had been in a play that had wrapped up
- 12:21Speaker 8: a Sunday night, and afterwards she had gone to a
- 12:23Speaker 8: cast party, and Jesse had talked about some concerns she
- 12:28Speaker 8: had about other people involved in the cast.
- 12:32Speaker 6: Concerns. She wrote about in her journal on the day
- 12:35Speaker 6: she died, her own diary is telling you that there
- 12:40Speaker 6: is an older man who's been bothering her, and you
- 12:44Speaker 6: start looking at him absolutely, what did you find?
- 12:48Speaker 8: We found that there were some concerns with his actions
- 12:52Speaker 8: at the cast party. He had actually pulled her onto
- 12:55Speaker 8: his lap, according to one of her.
- 12:56Speaker 6: Friends, And on the day Jess was killed, he.
- 13:00Speaker 8: Hadn't shown up for work on Monday, which for us
- 13:03Speaker 8: was a significant concern.
- 13:06Speaker 6: But police say he cooperated with the investigation, and after
- 13:10Speaker 6: talking to the man for a few.
- 13:11Speaker 3: Hours, we cleared him pretty quickly.
- 13:14Speaker 6: Detectives also cleared the other man Jesse wrote about in
- 13:17Speaker 6: her diary. What are you narrowing down on.
- 13:20Speaker 8: To someone that knew her activity and knew where she'd be.
- 13:25Speaker 6: What cops in Hartford didn't realize was that authorities in
- 13:29Speaker 6: the neighboring town of Richfield were already zeroing in on
- 13:33Speaker 6: the suspect, but for an entirely different reason, an entirely
- 13:38Speaker 6: different attack on an entirely different victim.
- 13:42Speaker 5: N okay, and how was he holding in?
- 13:46Speaker 6: It? Happened three days before Jesse's murders. A young woman
- 13:51Speaker 6: named Melissa Etzler was walking her dog at a local
- 13:54Speaker 6: park when she was tackled from behind by a man
- 13:57Speaker 6: with a knife. Washington detective Joel Clausing interviewed Melissa in
- 14:03Speaker 6: the hospital shortly after the assault, her emotions still raw
- 14:07Speaker 6: as her wounds from fighting off the attacker.
- 14:11Speaker 5: All right, Detective Clausing, it is July twelfth, do you
- 14:17Speaker 5: mean a stop?
- 14:18Speaker 6: And so what was her story?
- 14:20Speaker 5: Well, I got down to the hospital and I started
- 14:25Speaker 5: talking to her, and she couldn't write because her hand
- 14:28Speaker 5: was all cut up. So I got a recorded statement.
- 14:31Speaker 6: Melissa tells detective Clausing. She was just getting ready to
- 14:34Speaker 6: leave the park that morning when she's startled by the
- 14:37Speaker 6: sound of footsteps behind her.
- 14:40Speaker 12: So I look back, and I laughed and said, oh,
- 14:42Speaker 12: you scared me, just because I thought he was some
- 14:47Speaker 12: friendly a. And then I turn around again because I
- 14:50Speaker 12: can hear him coming at me, and I see a
- 14:52Speaker 12: knife in his hand.
- 14:54Speaker 6: Melissa continues her story a few days later, when police
- 14:57Speaker 6: take her back to that park to reenact snap cooking out.
- 15:02Speaker 5: This is how far away you were when you first
- 15:04Speaker 5: got it. Okay, now you turn around then, yeah.
- 15:08Speaker 2: A step class at the knife.
- 15:11Speaker 6: Night after that, Melissa says it was fight back or die.
- 15:16Speaker 9: The next thing I remember, I'm on the ground.
- 15:18Speaker 6: He's not stopping me.
- 15:19Speaker 2: I'm a stomach down.
- 15:21Speaker 6: I'm holding on to the knife.
- 15:22Speaker 3: You are right for it.
- 15:24Speaker 12: I have played and that's why I thought.
- 15:28Speaker 2: That's when he said when I.
- 15:29Speaker 6: Was selling, he said something weird to her.
- 15:32Speaker 5: After she disarmed him, he asked if he could leave,
- 15:36Speaker 5: and I believe she said no, you tried taking it.
- 15:40Speaker 2: From me, and I said no, it's like, you're gonna go, and.
- 15:43Speaker 6: I see news with me and as Melissa tells us,
- 15:47Speaker 6: that's exactly what she did.
- 15:49Speaker 7: Oh, I kept the knife. Yeah, that was in my car.
- 15:52Speaker 7: It was a fishfully knife.
- 15:54Speaker 6: Wow, so you kept the knife?
- 15:56Speaker 11: Right?
- 15:57Speaker 6: Is that? When he said can I go?
- 15:59Speaker 7: He can't get it from me. He's trying, but he
- 16:01Speaker 7: just can't get it out of my grip. So he
- 16:03Speaker 7: finally is just like, can I just go? And it's like, well,
- 16:06Speaker 7: you're the one on top of me, so.
- 16:08Speaker 6: You're the one who attacked me. But I'm doing.
- 16:10Speaker 7: Exactly So it was just it was just bizarre.
- 16:14Speaker 6: She says. After that, the suspect ran off, but that
- 16:17Speaker 6: she remembered every detail of her perpetrator.
- 16:20Speaker 7: I can still see it in my head right now.
- 16:23Speaker 7: What he was wearing?
- 16:23Speaker 5: A white male eighteen to twenty years of age, six
- 16:29Speaker 5: and ten pounds.
- 16:30Speaker 12: Yep.
- 16:30Speaker 5: He had light blonde hair with very fair skin. Yests, okay,
- 16:35Speaker 5: and he said he had checkered shorts.
- 16:37Speaker 12: Shorts.
- 16:38Speaker 5: Melissa was the best witness I've ever had in my
- 16:42Speaker 5: entire career. She described where he was parked in the
- 16:45Speaker 5: parking lot and what kind of vehicle he was driving
- 16:49Speaker 5: to within a couple of years.
- 16:51Speaker 12: Dark blue minivan, Dodge caravan. I don't know what you're
- 16:57Speaker 12: an older model though.
- 16:58Speaker 6: Based on melissa description of the suspect, police released this
- 17:03Speaker 6: composite sketch to the Medium.
- 17:04Speaker 5: We expected a bunch of calls saying I knew who
- 17:07Speaker 5: this guy was.
- 17:09Speaker 6: We didn't get anything, but when they circulate Melissa's near
- 17:13Speaker 6: perfect description of the suspect's.
- 17:15Speaker 5: Van, I was approached by a deputy Meyer from our department.
- 17:19Speaker 5: He came up to me and said, I saw a
- 17:21Speaker 5: car like that parked in that very same spot a
- 17:25Speaker 5: couple months ago. But even better, he said, I found
- 17:28Speaker 5: you a plate.
- 17:29Speaker 6: How did he have the plate?
- 17:31Speaker 5: He ran it that day? No way, Yeah, he ran
- 17:34Speaker 5: the plate that day. He knew he ran the plate
- 17:37Speaker 5: that day, So he looked back on all the plates
- 17:39Speaker 5: that he had run over the past how many ever weeks,
- 17:43Speaker 5: and found it.
- 17:44Speaker 6: And when police put a name to that plate, the
- 17:47Speaker 6: focus of two mysteries in two separate towns narrows in
- 17:52Speaker 6: on one very surprising suspect.
- 17:54Speaker 3: The owner didn't match the description. But then they found
- 17:57Speaker 3: out that they had a son who did up.
- 18:00Speaker 6: Who was driving that van? And what, if anything, does
- 18:04Speaker 6: that have to do with Jesse Blodgett's murder. When the
- 18:07Speaker 6: police called.
- 18:08Speaker 3: She was at her house.
- 18:13Speaker 1: One woman is dead, another attacked? Could they be related?
- 18:17Speaker 1: Police are about to run the plate on a suspicious
- 18:19Speaker 1: van in the area and get a surprise hit for that.
- 18:22Speaker 1: Let's head back to Ana Garcia in Wisconsin.
- 18:27Speaker 6: On the same day, nineteen year old actress, slash activist,
- 18:30Speaker 6: slash singer songwriter Jesse Blodgett was being murdered in her
- 18:35Speaker 6: own bed. Twelve miles away in the neighboring town of Richfield, Wisconsin,
- 18:40Speaker 6: a woman named Melissa Etzler was walking detectives through an
- 18:44Speaker 6: assault that happened to her three days before. The police
- 18:48Speaker 6: were still trying to find the person who attacked you, right,
- 18:51Speaker 6: did you ever get a really good look at him.
- 18:53Speaker 7: I know, I got a good look at his clothes
- 18:56Speaker 7: and his van.
- 18:57Speaker 6: And because of that, Detective Joel Clausing of the Washington
- 19:00Speaker 6: County Sheriff's Office was able to track down a license
- 19:04Speaker 6: plate for the suspects vehicle, though to his initial dismay,
- 19:08Speaker 6: it came back registered to a middle aged couple.
- 19:11Speaker 5: We're looking for a twenty year old kid that's six
- 19:15Speaker 5: foot one, two hundred pounds. We're not looking for a
- 19:18Speaker 5: forty five year old man and his wife.
- 19:22Speaker 6: But when police questioned that man and his wife, they
- 19:25Speaker 6: find out the couple has a son twenty years old,
- 19:28Speaker 6: roughly six foot one, two hundred pounds.
- 19:32Speaker 5: Mom and dad gave us his cell phone number. As
- 19:34Speaker 5: we're driving away from the residents. I called him.
- 19:37Speaker 6: Around that same time, in the town of Hartford, Jesse
- 19:40Speaker 6: Blodgett's loved ones have filled her family's home.
- 19:43Speaker 3: We all sat in a circle around our living room
- 19:48Speaker 3: and people shared memories and cried together and hugged.
- 19:54Speaker 6: Among those mourners, Jesse's old artistic collaborator, fellow actor slash
- 19:59Speaker 6: singer song rider Daniel Bartelt.
- 20:02Speaker 2: Dad actually did most of the talking.
- 20:04Speaker 9: He was talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, he did a
- 20:08Speaker 9: lot of talking.
- 20:09Speaker 6: And he was about to do a lot more.
- 20:11Speaker 9: Then all of a sudden he was he had this
- 20:12Speaker 9: phone call. And I just kind of looked at him
- 20:14Speaker 9: when he got the phone call, and he.
- 20:16Speaker 2: Wasn't like upset, he wasn't.
- 20:17Speaker 9: Surprised, and he just said, okay, I'll be right over there,
- 20:21Speaker 9: and then he hung up the phone.
- 20:23Speaker 6: On the other end of that phone, Detective Clausing Daniel
- 20:28Speaker 6: Bartelt was the son of that couple, the driver of
- 20:31Speaker 6: the van.
- 20:32Speaker 5: I told him we needed to talk to him, and
- 20:34Speaker 5: he said okay, and I asked him where he was.
- 20:36Speaker 5: He said he was at Jesse Blidgett's.
- 20:39Speaker 6: Vigil And by this time, even though it wasn't your case,
- 20:42Speaker 6: you knew who Jesse Blodgett was.
- 20:44Speaker 5: Yes, But what sparked more interest. When I got off
- 20:48Speaker 5: the phone, I looked at Detective Bolster said he never
- 20:51Speaker 5: even asked me what this was about. How many people
- 20:54Speaker 5: get called by a detective asked the meet and they
- 20:58Speaker 5: don't say, what's going on? Why do I need to
- 21:01Speaker 5: beat you? He never said it.
- 21:04Speaker 6: And apparently he didn't have much to say to his
- 21:06Speaker 6: friends back at the blodge at the house either.
- 21:08Speaker 9: He kind of looked at everyone and was like, I
- 21:11Speaker 9: got called down to the police station.
- 21:12Speaker 6: Of course at that point, no one there even knew
- 21:15Speaker 6: about the attack on Melissa.
- 21:17Speaker 3: He's in our house and Joy, this is my wife.
- 21:21Speaker 3: She said, Dan, don't worry. They're going to talk to
- 21:23Speaker 3: all of Jesse's friends. And little did we know at
- 21:27Speaker 3: the time why they were talking to Dan.
- 21:29Speaker 5: All right, do you know what this is about.
- 21:33Speaker 1: This is about an incident that content walstou Investie.
- 21:36Speaker 5: Had the last right.
- 21:38Speaker 6: You're questioning him only about the attack in the park,
- 21:42Speaker 6: not Jesse's murder.
- 21:44Speaker 5: That's correct. And tell me, you know, I just want
- 21:47Speaker 5: to talk to you about some stuff. And I said,
- 21:49Speaker 5: where we at again?
- 21:54Speaker 3: Harder and a girl that has passed, Yeah, here his day.
- 21:58Speaker 5: Pas And I said, you know, just making small talk.
- 22:01Speaker 5: Whatever happened with her? And he said that was in.
- 22:07Speaker 6: The first two minutes of the interview, but would prove
- 22:10Speaker 6: to be one of its most significant moments. More on
- 22:13Speaker 6: why in a moment, But first.
- 22:16Speaker 5: I wanted to talk to him about my case, right,
- 22:19Speaker 5: So we started asking him about his history.
- 22:23Speaker 1: Where are you at a part of last yeah, and
- 22:27Speaker 1: he sped.
- 22:29Speaker 6: Dan denies knowing anything about the assault on Melissa. But
- 22:33Speaker 6: then something catches Clausing's.
- 22:35Speaker 1: Eye where on your.
- 22:41Speaker 7: Well probably see your hands ahead this that's what they're
- 22:46Speaker 7: telling because yeah.
- 22:47Speaker 3: It was screw at work.
- 22:48Speaker 5: He had an injury twist thumb, a puncture cut. We
- 22:51Speaker 5: asked him where he had sustained that injury, and he
- 22:55Speaker 5: said he did it at work, tray, and then Detective
- 23:00Speaker 5: Walsh says, if.
- 23:01Speaker 11: You check what your employer would they would you still
- 23:03Speaker 11: have your job?
- 23:05Speaker 6: Okay, that's what I thought. Did he really have a job.
- 23:08Speaker 5: No? Every day he would get up, put on his
- 23:10Speaker 5: work clothes, grab his lunch, get in his van, and
- 23:14Speaker 5: pretend to go to work to his parents.
- 23:16Speaker 6: But if Dan wasn't working, then his explanation for that
- 23:20Speaker 6: cut wasn't either.
- 23:21Speaker 5: Then I said, well, how ginger your thumb?
- 23:23Speaker 7: Then tell us about that he was cooking a cover haund.
- 23:28Speaker 5: And that's when they stopped him, and I said.
- 23:32Speaker 9: Let's talk.
- 23:33Speaker 3: Okay.
- 23:33Speaker 5: Nobody in the right mind would laugh love cutting.
- 23:37Speaker 6: Themselves if they have that home cork.
- 23:40Speaker 7: Okay, where did that?
- 23:42Speaker 3: What happened?
- 23:43Speaker 7: To be honest?
- 23:46Speaker 6: And to closing surprise, he suddenly was I've.
- 23:50Speaker 4: Got his part before it.
- 23:52Speaker 5: Eventually he admitted that he was the one that attacked
- 23:54Speaker 5: Melissa in the park.
- 23:55Speaker 1: He went after that girl, right, Why what were you
- 24:00Speaker 1: to do?
- 24:02Speaker 6: Dan Tell's detectives that since he dropped out of college,
- 24:05Speaker 6: he's felt frightened of life and he just wanted someone
- 24:09Speaker 6: else to feel the same. A confession complete with motive,
- 24:13Speaker 6: But then investigators didn't necessarily need it. At the park,
- 24:18Speaker 6: they find Dan's blood on multiple items and a roll
- 24:21Speaker 6: of heating duct tape that matches tape in Dan's house.
- 24:25Speaker 6: Plus they had their star witness.
- 24:28Speaker 7: They had me do a lineup. Right when I saw
- 24:31Speaker 7: his face, I'm like, yeah, that's him.
- 24:35Speaker 5: So you had your guy for the attack. And then
- 24:38Speaker 5: what happens We got to arrest him, you know, But
- 24:41Speaker 5: now we discussed, you know, do you think he's the guy,
- 24:44Speaker 5: the Jesse blogic guy? Correct? You know, do you think
- 24:46Speaker 5: he's good for the murder?
- 24:48Speaker 6: And the reason they wonder that goes back to those
- 24:51Speaker 6: first few minutes of the interview when Daniel Bartelt said this.
- 24:58Speaker 5: He said, well, that she was raped in mar which
- 25:00Speaker 5: was significant because because the police us at that time
- 25:04Speaker 5: didn't even know that she was sexually assaulted.
- 25:07Speaker 6: Coming up actor singer psychopath.
- 25:11Speaker 2: He was researching serial killers.
- 25:13Speaker 6: Who is the real Daniel Bartelt and what did he
- 25:17Speaker 6: do to Jesse Blodgett.
- 25:18Speaker 8: We actually had pornographic snuff films.
- 25:25Speaker 6: Investigators expected to find the man guilty of the brazen
- 25:28Speaker 6: assault on Melissa Exler lurking in the shadows. They figured
- 25:33Speaker 6: any persons of interest in nineteen year old Jesse Blodgett's
- 25:37Speaker 6: murder twelve miles away to be hiding underground. Instead, Daniel
- 25:42Speaker 6: Bartelt was basking in the spotlight, even landing the lead
- 25:47Speaker 6: role in Bye Bye Bertie just before both attacks.
- 25:51Speaker 5: Dan was one of the most intelligent people that I've
- 25:53Speaker 5: ever interviewed. He had a sense about him that was bad.
- 25:58Speaker 6: Dan made you skin crawl, Yes, especially when, just one
- 26:03Speaker 6: day after Jesse's murder, before the forensics had even come back,
- 26:08Speaker 6: this trained actor flubbed one of his lines.
- 26:12Speaker 8: He said that he believed that Jesse had been raped
- 26:15Speaker 8: and murdered, and you didn't even know she had been
- 26:17Speaker 8: raped yet, we had no indications of her being raped.
- 26:21Speaker 6: Only the killer could know that. So while Dan sits
- 26:25Speaker 6: in jail for that assault on the girl in the park,
- 26:28Speaker 6: detectives covering that case share what they know with detectives
- 26:32Speaker 6: investigating Jesse's murder.
- 26:34Speaker 5: I was doing search warrs on Dan's computer, and in
- 26:37Speaker 5: the computer there was a lot of bondage pornography. There
- 26:43Speaker 5: was a lot of I don't know how you describe it,
- 26:45Speaker 5: it's dark, dark stuff.
- 26:49Speaker 6: Including one Wikipedia search on spree killers and several other
- 26:54Speaker 6: searches for serial killers. It didn't end there.
- 26:57Speaker 8: We actually had searches for pornographic snuff films that actually
- 27:02Speaker 8: seemed to match the series of events that had occurred
- 27:06Speaker 8: in Jesse's room in the movie. After strangling her, he
- 27:09Speaker 8: washes her. One of the things that missus Blodgett had
- 27:13Speaker 8: made note of was how Jesse was placed back in
- 27:17Speaker 8: her bed, covered up, and that her hair was wet,
- 27:21Speaker 8: just an eerie coincidence.
- 27:23Speaker 6: Detectives were about to ask the suspect themselves, what I.
- 27:28Speaker 8: Want to talk to you about Jesse Blodgett and understand
- 27:32Speaker 8: that Shoe you are friends with her.
- 27:35Speaker 6: Okay, this time Dan is a little more careful not
- 27:39Speaker 6: to incriminate himself.
- 27:40Speaker 5: What do you think happened to Jesse?
- 27:44Speaker 6: Idea that Dan admits that he'd reconnected with his one
- 27:48Speaker 6: time girlfriend that summer and had been at Jesse's house
- 27:52Speaker 6: a lot in the weeks before her murder. He even
- 27:55Speaker 6: says he had good reason to hide that fact, but
- 27:58Speaker 6: it wasn't because of anything. The fair started kissing on
- 28:02Speaker 6: the couch and she'd asked me.
- 28:04Speaker 8: He said that they had a romantic relationship, but he
- 28:09Speaker 8: hadn't made it public because he was dating someone else.
- 28:12Speaker 6: But detectives are suspicious.
- 28:17Speaker 8: The entire time I talked to him, he made it
- 28:20Speaker 8: look like he was crying, but I didn't see him
- 28:22Speaker 8: shed a tear.
- 28:23Speaker 6: It's one of those kind of cries, right, a lot
- 28:27Speaker 6: of noise and no tears.
- 28:29Speaker 9: Right.
- 28:31Speaker 6: As for Dan's whereabouts on the day of Jesse's murder,
- 28:35Speaker 6: he says he was driving around in his parents van,
- 28:38Speaker 6: pretending to be at work.
- 28:40Speaker 8: He said that he had left the house and he
- 28:43Speaker 8: had gone to a couple of different parks, ending up
- 28:45Speaker 8: at Woodlawn Parking in the city.
- 28:49Speaker 4: I'm ten years ago, order a woodla.
- 28:54Speaker 6: Trying to write an air type alibi, claims Dan. But
- 28:59Speaker 6: then get this. When it comes to what Dan was
- 29:02Speaker 6: quote trying to write, he tells detectives it's a series
- 29:06Speaker 6: of stories about a young girl, not unlike Jesse, who
- 29:09Speaker 6: would eventually be murdered. So he admits to killing off
- 29:17Speaker 6: the fictional character Jessica, not so much for Jesse, blodging.
- 29:23Speaker 5: You help us.
- 29:25Speaker 6: Come up.
- 29:29Speaker 3: He denied any involvement.
- 29:31Speaker 6: And as detectives continue to press, Dan's tone gets suddenly
- 29:36Speaker 6: less teary.
- 29:38Speaker 5: Very uncomfortable.
- 29:40Speaker 4: Is it is what you're trying?
- 29:42Speaker 3: And said Uk.
- 29:44Speaker 6: Much time, Dan uses his right to remain silent on
- 29:49Speaker 6: that question, and he won't have much to say beyond
- 29:51Speaker 6: that either.
- 29:53Speaker 3: See how this is helpful if you tell a lawyer.
- 29:58Speaker 6: And with that statement was interview over. Dan had confessed
- 30:05Speaker 6: to nothing. As for his alibi, Dan said.
- 30:08Speaker 5: That he was at the Woodlawn perk. So they get video,
- 30:12Speaker 5: Sure enough, there's Dan. He was there that morning that
- 30:14Speaker 5: Jesse was killed.
- 30:15Speaker 6: That's him in the red shorts. Definitely not at the
- 30:19Speaker 6: scene of the crime. So then, had police been too
- 30:22Speaker 6: quick to pin a murder on an easy suspect, one
- 30:26Speaker 6: who had already confessed to another crime. Jesse's own parents
- 30:30Speaker 6: thought so, especially because Daniel Bartelt spent hours grieving with
- 30:36Speaker 6: them after Jesse's murder. In fact, when the police called Dan.
- 30:40Speaker 3: Dan was at our house, was crying over Jesse, yeah,
- 30:44Speaker 3: and sharing memories with us. I hugged Dan several times.
- 30:48Speaker 3: We were telling the police it wasn't him and he
- 30:51Speaker 3: was a good guy.
- 30:52Speaker 6: But Jesse's parents are wrong, fooled by his act. As
- 30:56Speaker 6: it turns out, Dan's own alibi would also be his undoing.
- 31:01Speaker 6: Back at that park, police uncover the dark side of
- 31:05Speaker 6: Daniel Bartelt.
- 31:06Speaker 5: They go take all the trash out of the trash
- 31:10Speaker 5: bins at Woodland Park. They find the cereal box. Inside
- 31:15Speaker 5: the cereal box is ballgig ligatures, alcohol wipes.
- 31:22Speaker 6: And the rope found in the trash lines up perfectly
- 31:26Speaker 6: with the ligature marks on Jesse's neck. Then, when detective
- 31:30Speaker 6: search Dan's house, they find the exact same rope in
- 31:34Speaker 6: his garage. Plus, remember that tape investigators found on Dan's
- 31:38Speaker 6: vents that match tape he dropped during Melissa's assault. Incredibly,
- 31:43Speaker 6: a full week after Jesse Blodgett's murder, investigators taking a
- 31:48Speaker 6: second look at the scene find the exact same tape
- 31:52Speaker 6: under her bed.
- 31:53Speaker 5: His fingerprints are on that pretty incredible, yes.
- 31:56Speaker 6: And based on the evidence, investigators believe they know exactly
- 32:00Speaker 6: why the tape was there. What did he use this
- 32:03Speaker 6: tape for?
- 32:04Speaker 3: He hogtied Jess, he gagballed her, and he taped her
- 32:08Speaker 3: so the gag ball wouldn't come out.
- 32:10Speaker 6: Detectives also find both Jesse and Dan's DNA on those
- 32:14Speaker 6: ligatures and Dan's DNA under Jesse's fingernails. And when it
- 32:20Speaker 6: comes to that detail, Dan let slip in his first
- 32:24Speaker 6: interview and did he rape.
- 32:27Speaker 8: Her, we found DNA that indicated that he assaulted her.
- 32:34Speaker 6: After that, it was hard for anyone to deny that
- 32:37Speaker 6: Daniel Bartelt they thought they knew was something else entirely.
- 32:42Speaker 3: Dan's chameleon. He is able to.
- 32:48Speaker 8: Present himself to the world in a very different length
- 32:51Speaker 8: than the way he actually is.
- 32:53Speaker 6: Good qualities for an actor, lethal for a killer.
- 32:57Speaker 10: You want to believe the best about people. You want
- 32:59Speaker 10: to believe the best about people that you call your
- 33:00Speaker 10: friends is to you know, see your friends not be evil.
- 33:05Speaker 6: Even without a confession, Dan Bartelt is charged with first
- 33:09Speaker 6: degree intentional homicide of his old friend Jesse. But there's
- 33:14Speaker 6: still one giant question left hanging. Why Dan would get
- 33:19Speaker 6: one more chance to say his piece in court. But
- 33:22Speaker 6: would he finally come clean or would it be the
- 33:26Speaker 6: ultimate slap in the face to a family already in mourning.
- 33:30Speaker 4: Mister Bartelt, before I sentence you anything you want to
- 33:33Speaker 4: say on your behalf, I do coming up shackles that
- 33:38Speaker 4: I'm putting don't make me guilty.
- 33:41Speaker 6: Daniel Bartelt's last stand.
- 33:44Speaker 4: The only reason that I want to trial at all.
- 33:48Speaker 1: Because Dan Bartelt has confessed that he tried to attack
- 33:54Speaker 1: a woman in the park. But as for the murder
- 33:56Speaker 1: of his friend and fellow actor, Jesse Blodgett, he maintains
- 34:00Speaker 1: he's innocent. But would the jury buy that story? Anna
- 34:03Speaker 1: Garcia has the drama in the courtroom.
- 34:07Speaker 6: Jesse Blanchett didn't have an arch nemesis. She wasn't murdered
- 34:12Speaker 6: by an angry foe. Jesse's life was taken by someone
- 34:16Speaker 6: she thought was a friend.
- 34:18Speaker 2: She definitely admired Dan.
- 34:19Speaker 9: You know his musical talents, his you know his mind,
- 34:23Speaker 9: his intelligence.
- 34:25Speaker 2: She really did. You have a good friendship with Dan.
- 34:28Speaker 6: The two even wrote and recorded songs together. Just weeks before,
- 34:32Speaker 6: Daniel Bartelt bound Jesse as she slept, sexually assaulted her,
- 34:38Speaker 6: then strangled her to death, leaving her dead in her
- 34:41Speaker 6: bed for her mother to find.
- 34:43Speaker 7: Honey.
- 34:47Speaker 6: But the big question still remaining was why he did it.
- 34:52Speaker 3: Personally, don't like labels, but I think he's a sociopath.
- 34:55Speaker 3: I think he has no empathy. I think he's brilliant
- 35:00Speaker 3: and talented, like many sociopaths, and they're calculating and they
- 35:03Speaker 3: learn how to fit in and blend.
- 35:06Speaker 6: And based on the evidence, which included a lot of
- 35:09Speaker 6: disturbing searches found on Dan's computer, the prevailing theory is
- 35:13Speaker 6: that the big reason Dan killed Jesse was just to
- 35:17Speaker 6: satisfy a sick urge.
- 35:19Speaker 8: I think she was a convenient target. He knew where
- 35:21Speaker 8: she was going to be. You knew there wasn't going
- 35:23Speaker 8: to be a family in the house. I think he
- 35:27Speaker 8: wanted to kill someone and she was available.
- 35:30Speaker 6: And if cops hadn't caught Dan when they did, you
- 35:34Speaker 6: think he.
- 35:34Speaker 7: Was going to kill again.
- 35:36Speaker 8: I believe there's a possibility that he would have tried
- 35:38Speaker 8: it again.
- 35:38Speaker 6: What's the time span between the attack and the park
- 35:42Speaker 6: and the killing of Jesse?
- 35:44Speaker 5: Three days?
- 35:46Speaker 6: At trial, prosecutors bring up all these points and more.
- 35:51Speaker 6: Daniel Bartelt is found guilty.
- 35:53Speaker 5: I think Dan's a bad, bad person. He's where he
- 35:56Speaker 5: should be.
- 35:58Speaker 6: But that's what everyone else says out him. Now that
- 36:01Speaker 6: he's been found guilty, What would Dan have to say
- 36:04Speaker 6: for himself? Would he finally confess.
- 36:09Speaker 4: Buck, Joy, I can't give you the answers that you're
- 36:14Speaker 4: looking for.
- 36:16Speaker 6: Guess not.
- 36:17Speaker 3: When he started by saying, Buck and Joy, I wish
- 36:21Speaker 3: I could give you the answers you're looking for. We
- 36:24Speaker 3: knew it wasn't going to go in a good direction.
- 36:27Speaker 4: This jumpsuit that I'm wearing, these shackles that I'm put in,
- 36:33Speaker 4: don't make me guilty.
- 36:35Speaker 6: No, it was the mountain of evidence that made him guilty.
- 36:39Speaker 6: And yet, like an actor delivering his final monologue in
- 36:43Speaker 6: a play, Dan praddles on, I.
- 36:46Speaker 4: Can't prove that I'm innocent to anyone, not even myself.
- 36:51Speaker 5: I can't prove.
- 36:53Speaker 4: That sun that I haven't seen for over four hundred
- 36:57Speaker 4: days still even rises and such, but I like to
- 37:00Speaker 4: believe that it does. The only reason, the only reason
- 37:04Speaker 4: that I went to trial at all is because I
- 37:08Speaker 4: was told I would not be allowed to acknowledge that
- 37:10Speaker 4: I couldn't refute the evidence and just accept sentencing without
- 37:18Speaker 4: saying that I'd done something I hadn't.
- 37:20Speaker 6: Basically said, there is this evidence, but no, I didn't
- 37:25Speaker 6: kill her.
- 37:26Speaker 3: He said.
- 37:27Speaker 6: Some weird things, weird things like this.
- 37:30Speaker 4: I'm suffering now more than I ever have before. In
- 37:35Speaker 4: this Judge Martin's I pity you.
- 37:39Speaker 6: But in the end, the one thing Dan didn't say
- 37:42Speaker 6: my consciousness.
- 37:44Speaker 3: He didn't acknowledge what he did and let alone apologize
- 37:48Speaker 3: to Joy and to me and to Jesse and to everybody.
- 37:53Speaker 3: He continued to deny what he did.
- 37:56Speaker 6: Daniel Bart tells his sentence to life in prison with
- 37:59Speaker 6: no chance of parole, anger, hatred, rage. Any normal parent
- 38:06Speaker 6: of a murdered child might be feeling all of these things.
- 38:09Speaker 6: But when it was Jesse's father's turn to speak in court,
- 38:12Speaker 6: he turned to his daughter's killer and said this.
- 38:16Speaker 3: I forgive you, as I have every single day since
- 38:18Speaker 3: we found out it was you. I believe there's good
- 38:21Speaker 3: and bad in every one of us, so I don't
- 38:24Speaker 3: demonize or vilify you.
- 38:26Speaker 6: You showed a lot of grace and kindness and love
- 38:30Speaker 6: in your statement.
- 38:32Speaker 3: I don't want you to think that I'm living in
- 38:35Speaker 3: some sugarcoated bubble and I don't have pain or anger
- 38:40Speaker 3: at all. At the same time, stronger than that was
- 38:43Speaker 3: this inexplainable peace and forgiveness and a sense that everything
- 38:48Speaker 3: is okay. And I don't know how to explain that
- 38:50Speaker 3: to this.
- 38:51Speaker 6: Day, because he's seen the impact his forgiveness has had
- 38:55Speaker 6: on others. He's decided to honor his daughter's memory by
- 38:59Speaker 6: starting an organization called the Love Is Greater Than Hate Project.
- 39:04Speaker 3: It's a nonprofit and our dual mission is to end
- 39:07Speaker 3: violence against our girls and women and to have all
- 39:10Speaker 3: people inspired, educated and motivated to choose love over hate.
- 39:16Speaker 6: It's how Jesse would have wanted it, He says, what
- 39:19Speaker 6: she lived for and what she wrote about, and the
- 39:22Speaker 6: music that lives on after her death.
- 39:25Speaker 2: But that's just with this surfew.
- 39:35Speaker 3: Don't get me wrong. I'll never be okay with what
- 39:38Speaker 3: Dan did to Jesse. But Jesse's life and death for
- 39:42Speaker 3: me are for bringing light into this world. My life's
- 39:50Speaker 3: getting better and better all the time. Love is greater
- 39:53Speaker 3: than hate.
- 39:56Speaker 5: The bad