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True Crime Documentary - One Clue Left Behind How a Single Footprint Unraveled a Murder · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: On thirteenth of June nineteen ninety three, I was on
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: call as a team leader for our crime scene team.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: We had pagers then and no cell phones, and I
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: got a page who was a sergeant requesting our assistance
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: on the twenty first floor of this high rise apartment building.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: When you entered into the apartment, you didn't really see anything.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: You wouldn't have known that a crime had occurred when
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: you went a little further and you ended up going
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: into the bedroom. It was pastrophic.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: When I proceeded to where the body was on the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: side of the bed, I looked down and I could
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: see the print and blood looked like a left foot
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and a right foot. It's an actual bare foot. I
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: mean wow.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: I turned the TV on I saw the apartment. They
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: said they just found a young woman in her early thirties.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: Oh my, I just got chills all over.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Don't tell me that was Jeane. I called the coroner's
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: place and he said, are you all alone? You better
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: get somebody over there with you because it was your daughter.
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: I couldn't believe it.
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: Jeanie Child's had defensive wounds on her hands.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: When they found her.
• 1:52
  Speaker 5: She had been stabbed at least sixty five times, including
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: after she had died. Invesciators took DNA evidence. At the time,
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: they could not find who it belonged to, and they
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: had a dead end at some point and moved on.
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: And it wasn't until twenty fifteen that a cold case
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: unit reopened the case. A DNA profile was uploaded into
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: my heritage dot com and they found what could be
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: a match. Jerry Westrom is a husband, a father of three,
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: a businessman. He attended church, He was a hockey dad.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: Police expect Western to be charged with murder by noon tomorrow.
• 2:33
  Speaker 6: Jerry doesn't have a demeanor of being a violent person.
• 2:39
  Speaker 7: Have you ever seen him lose his temper? No?
• 2:43
  Speaker 6: I believe it's in my toes. He's not capable. Okay,
• 2:46
  Speaker 6: he didn't do it.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: There was DNA from other individuals that did not belong
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: to Jerry Westrom, but clearly belonged to a male source.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: We know that there were experts that viewed to pull
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: footprints and they're in her blood.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: The person who put the footprint down had to step
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: in wet blood and it had to be after she
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: was stabbed or bleeding.
• 3:14
  Speaker 7: How important did those footprints in blood become in this case.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Without the footprints, we would not be sitting here. I
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: think that the footprints defined the path of this case.
• 4:19
  Speaker 7: Minnesota crime scene investigators captured this footage when they got
• 4:24
  Speaker 7: their first look inside a high rise apartment in Minneapolis.
• 4:28
  Speaker 8: Cameras pointing west off was tight.
• 4:32
  Speaker 7: According to police reports, at around five thirty pm June thirteenth,
• 4:37
  Speaker 7: nineteen ninety three, a tenant reported waters seeping into their apartment.
• 4:43
  Speaker 7: A building caretaker and the security guard were called to
• 4:46
  Speaker 7: check it out and discovered the water was coming from
• 4:50
  Speaker 7: apartment twenty one oh four.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: They went into the apartment and they found that the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: shower was still running and causing all this flooding.
• 4:59
  Speaker 7: Next store, after the shower was turned off, they came
• 5:04
  Speaker 7: upon a gruesome scene in the bedroom. Thirty five year
• 5:08
  Speaker 7: old Genie Child's body was partially under the bed. That's
• 5:12
  Speaker 7: when police were called to investigate.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: This was a violent, bloody crime scene. This is one
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: of the bloodiest that I'd been to.
• 5:23
  Speaker 7: Retired forensic scientist bart Epstein says, carefully documenting that scene
• 5:29
  Speaker 7: was crucial. Bloodstains and blood spatter tell a story.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, if sure can. In this case, we could establish
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: that Genie Child's was hit in front of the bathroom door.
• 5:42
  Speaker 7: Epstein says Genie then moved into the bathroom. She was
• 5:46
  Speaker 7: stabbed and slashed dozens of times.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: She was down on the floor, smearing blood along that area.
• 5:54
  Speaker 7: While the shower had been turned off earlier, investigators noticed
• 5:59
  Speaker 7: water was still running from this sink faucet.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: There was a lot of activity going on there. Why
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: was the sink fawcet still dripping? Was he trying to
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: clean up?
• 6:09
  Speaker 7: Genie apparently made it back to her bedroom where her
• 6:12
  Speaker 7: body was found.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: The blood wasn't confined to just the area where she was.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: The blood was on the walls, the blood was on
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: the comforter, the blood was on the floor.
• 6:23
  Speaker 7: Julie Rendelman is a defense attorney and legal consultant. For
• 6:27
  Speaker 7: forty eight hours.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: It leads one to believe that a struggle happened, that
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: she was fighting to save her own life.
• 6:35
  Speaker 7: The living room appeared untouched. A sitcom was still playing
• 6:39
  Speaker 7: on the TV. There was no evidence of fourth entry.
• 6:44
  Speaker 7: If Genie knew her killer, what could have prompted so
• 6:48
  Speaker 7: much violence.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: This to me seems like more rage someone who got
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: upset at the time that the crime was committed.
• 6:57
  Speaker 7: Jeanie's mother, Betty Eckman, was watching television news when she
• 7:01
  Speaker 7: saw a report about a woman who had been murdered.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: I called my husband at work. I said, I just
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: seen them on the news taking a.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: Stretcher out of that building that she lives in.
• 7:14
  Speaker 7: Betty soon got the news. No mother wants to hear
• 7:18
  Speaker 7: the victim was her eldest child.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: I just wanted to hold her. I couldn't believe it.
• 7:28
  Speaker 7: Betty says she spoke with her daughter the day before
• 7:31
  Speaker 7: her murder. Geenie, she says, wasn't expecting visitors because she
• 7:36
  Speaker 7: was nursing a toothache. What were her plans that weekend?
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: She went to the emergency room. She was in so
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: much pain. Genie always had problems with her teeth. I
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: don't know why, so I said, let me come.
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: And get you. No, Mom, stop worrying about me.
• 7:55
  Speaker 7: Jeanie was dead by Sunday afternoon. As the crime investigation
• 7:59
  Speaker 7: can continued, authorities focused on gathering evidence. A blue wash cloth,
• 8:06
  Speaker 7: a red t shirt, a bath towel. Blood scrapings from
• 8:11
  Speaker 7: the sink, along with the comforter were collected and taken
• 8:16
  Speaker 7: for DNA testing. Investigators observed dishes in the kitchen sink
• 8:22
  Speaker 7: and a knife in the drying rack. Did you take
• 8:25
  Speaker 7: that knife in?
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Did not take that knife in? I looked at it
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: and there was no apparent blood on there. We never
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: found any actual weapon there that was a murder weapon.
• 8:37
  Speaker 7: Investigators were able to identify some blood stains found in
• 8:42
  Speaker 7: the stairwell near Jeanie's twenty first floor apartment. Did ay
• 8:47
  Speaker 7: the blood belonged to the victim, Jenny Child. Do you
• 8:50
  Speaker 7: think it's possible that the person who.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: Stabbed or was also cut?
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Well, it could be. That's why we took the samples.
• 8:58
  Speaker 7: E F. Sign says, whoever murdered Genie Child's unknowingly left
• 9:03
  Speaker 7: behind something investigators rarely encounter. Bloody bare footprints under the
• 9:09
  Speaker 7: bedroom window.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: That drew my attention right away, and right next to it,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I see the soft foot of Genie.
• 9:17
  Speaker 7: Childs The footprints were dusted with black powder at the
• 9:21
  Speaker 7: crime scene. When you first saw these, you said, because
• 9:25
  Speaker 7: she's wearing socks, these belonged to the killer.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: That would be my feeling, that's most likely the perpetrator's footprint.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: If there's the friction ridge on the feet, like the
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: friction ridge on your fingers, there's potential to identify the
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: person's foot that made them. That was very, very significant.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: I knew that God was going to make sure that
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: I was going to know what happened.
• 10:07
  Speaker 9: Everyone said, she looked like me. These are pretty precious.
• 10:15
  Speaker 9: Very few pictures I have of us together.
• 10:20
  Speaker 7: Cindy Blummer remembers the deep lass she felt after the
• 10:24
  Speaker 7: murder of her big sister Jeanie.
• 10:26
  Speaker 10: A lot of sadness when you wanted to pick up
• 10:29
  Speaker 10: the phone and call your sister. I needed my sister.
• 10:31
  Speaker 10: I wanted to talk to her, wondering what actually took place?
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: Who did this?
• 10:38
  Speaker 7: Although her sister was twelve years older, Jeanie's playful spirit
• 10:43
  Speaker 7: made an impression on Cindy growing up.
• 10:46
  Speaker 10: Lionel Ritchie was one of her favorite and as soon
• 10:49
  Speaker 10: as she would hear him play, I mean her fingers
• 10:51
  Speaker 10: would start snapping and she would dance around.
• 10:55
  Speaker 7: But those good times were few and far between. Betty
• 10:59
  Speaker 7: Eckman's as she first noticed the change in her eldest
• 11:02
  Speaker 7: daughter when she was a preteen.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: She kind of lost her way when she was probably
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: around twelve thirteen.
• 11:13
  Speaker 7: Betty says it wasn't until decades later that Genie claimed
• 11:17
  Speaker 7: she had been abused by a male relative. Jeanie started
• 11:21
  Speaker 7: running away from home.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: I took my life in my own hands many times
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: to track her down. I could have been killed, but
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: I had my great Dane and a gun.
• 11:34
  Speaker 7: Would is sometimes find.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, when she would come home, she was like
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: a cat on a hot tin roof. She was so Ansie.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: She couldn't stay very long.
• 11:49
  Speaker 7: As the time passed, she feared her daughter was using drugs,
• 11:53
  Speaker 7: and soon learned how Genie was making ends meet And
• 11:59
  Speaker 7: what did your daughter to prostitution?
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: I just hoped and pray that she would stop.
• 12:08
  Speaker 7: At one point, it seemed she settled down long enough
• 12:11
  Speaker 7: to get married, but her family says it didn't last long.
• 12:15
  Speaker 7: Soon after, she married again to a man with children,
• 12:19
  Speaker 7: and Genie became a stepmom.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: And they depended on her. She was the only mother
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: they really knew.
• 12:26
  Speaker 7: Even when Janie split with their father, she remained in
• 12:30
  Speaker 7: the children's lives.
• 12:32
  Speaker 10: They needed anything, they knew how to get a hold
• 12:34
  Speaker 10: of her. She was really good that way.
• 12:39
  Speaker 7: At the time of her murder, she was living with
• 12:41
  Speaker 7: a man named Arthur Gray at that apartment complex. After
• 12:47
  Speaker 7: Genie's murder, he became a person of interest.
• 12:51
  Speaker 11: Investigators immediately looked at whether Arthur Gray was involved in
• 12:56
  Speaker 11: the murder.
• 12:58
  Speaker 7: Retired FBIA and Chris Bogers would later join the investigation.
• 13:04
  Speaker 7: According to police reports, Genie, who was a sex worker,
• 13:08
  Speaker 7: claimed she worked for Gray and there was a history
• 13:11
  Speaker 7: of violence between them. At the crime scene, authorities found
• 13:16
  Speaker 7: hairs stuck to Genie's left hand, and one of those
• 13:19
  Speaker 7: hairs matched Gray, But Boger says the case against Gray
• 13:25
  Speaker 7: started to fall apart pretty quickly.
• 13:30
  Speaker 11: Arthur Gray as a resident of that apartment, it makes
• 13:34
  Speaker 11: sense that his hairs would be throughout the bedroom.
• 13:37
  Speaker 7: And Arthur Gray said he wasn't even in town, but
• 13:40
  Speaker 7: on a motorcycle trip in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the weekend Genie
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: was murdered.
• 13:45
  Speaker 11: He had a really solid alibi that he was out
• 13:48
  Speaker 11: of town that weekend. On those corob rated by others.
• 13:52
  Speaker 7: Authorities compared the unknown bloody footprints in the apartment to
• 13:57
  Speaker 7: Grey's footprints and determined they weren't his. Do you know
• 14:01
  Speaker 7: how many other possible suspects persons of interest whose footprints
• 14:06
  Speaker 7: were compared to those left in Jenie's apartment.
• 14:10
  Speaker 11: There were multiple people whose footprints were compared to the
• 14:13
  Speaker 11: footprints that were left in Jeanie's apartment. You could see
• 14:16
  Speaker 11: that in the case file that a lot of effort
• 14:19
  Speaker 11: was put in attempting to solve Janie's case.
• 14:25
  Speaker 7: According to the case file, on the day of the murder,
• 14:28
  Speaker 7: a witness in the apartment building told police she saw
• 14:32
  Speaker 7: Genie with a tall, blond man wearing a trench coat.
• 14:37
  Speaker 11: We had no way to track down who that may
• 14:40
  Speaker 11: or may not have been.
• 14:42
  Speaker 7: Investigators never found the man. Despite efforts to find Genie's killer,
• 14:48
  Speaker 7: the case slowed to a crawl. Months turned into years,
• 14:53
  Speaker 7: and then decades. How often would you call the police
• 14:58
  Speaker 7: trying to get an update to find out if they
• 15:00
  Speaker 7: had anything new on this case.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: Many times as I could, but I never let a
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: year go by without reminding them.
• 15:11
  Speaker 7: In twenty fifteen, the Minneapolis Police Department began digging deeper
• 15:16
  Speaker 7: into unsolved cases, and Genie Child's murder was one of them.
• 15:21
  Speaker 7: Jeanie's family had no idea, but investigators were hoping science
• 15:26
  Speaker 7: would help them solve the case.
• 15:30
  Speaker 11: Technology is so much more refined and rigorous than it
• 15:34
  Speaker 11: was in nineteen ninety three.
• 15:38
  Speaker 7: Agent Booker says they discovered that a blood sample found
• 15:42
  Speaker 7: near Genie's blood in the stairwell of her apartment building
• 15:46
  Speaker 7: had matched to a man named John s Wine. In
• 15:49
  Speaker 7: twenty fifteen, investigators interviewed s Wine, who was in prison
• 15:55
  Speaker 7: for violating probation on a drunk driving offence. Have any
• 16:00
  Speaker 7: idea why.
• 16:01
  Speaker 11: Your DNA would be in that building, your blood would
• 16:03
  Speaker 11: be in that building?
• 16:04
  Speaker 12: No, okay, my blood was in the building.
• 16:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 16:08
  Speaker 12: If you follow my blood somewhere, all I can think
• 16:10
  Speaker 12: of is that I must have fallen down somewhere.
• 16:14
  Speaker 7: S Wine told investigators he was in the building once
• 16:17
  Speaker 7: in nineteen ninety one, two years before Genie's murder.
• 16:22
  Speaker 11: He easily volunteered his DNA. He also allowed himself his
• 16:28
  Speaker 11: footprints to be taken. Then his footprints were compared to
• 16:32
  Speaker 11: the bloody footprints in Genie's bedroom.
• 16:36
  Speaker 7: According to elaborate port, the footprints were inconclusive and s
• 16:41
  Speaker 7: Wye's DNA was not found inside Genie's apartment. The mystery
• 16:46
  Speaker 7: only deepened investigators knew from the case file that there
• 16:52
  Speaker 7: were DNA profiles discovered at the crime scene that had
• 16:56
  Speaker 7: never matched to anyone. Andrew fa A, forensic scientists with
• 17:01
  Speaker 7: the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, performed a digital testing
• 17:06
  Speaker 7: on the evidence that was collected back in nineteen ninety three,
• 17:11
  Speaker 7: and she noticed something unusual about one of the unknown
• 17:15
  Speaker 7: DNA profiles.
• 17:17
  Speaker 13: That DNA profile repeated itself throughout the crime scene.
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: It was on the comforter, it was on the blue towel,
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: it was found on the blue washcloth and the red
• 17:27
  Speaker 7: t shirt. Correct, and on the sync.
• 17:31
  Speaker 13: Yes, those were the only areas that we tested that
• 17:35
  Speaker 13: ended up matching each other.
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: Essentially.
• 17:38
  Speaker 7: Investigators then turned to investigative genetic genealogy for answers. The
• 17:43
  Speaker 7: unknown DNA profile was submitted to genealogy websites including my
• 17:49
  Speaker 7: heritage dot com.
• 17:51
  Speaker 11: The forensic genealogist indicated that she had a match potentially
• 17:55
  Speaker 11: two brothers here in Minnesota.
• 17:59
  Speaker 7: And one of the brothers was a man named Jerry Westrom.
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: He was a well respected member of the community. People
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: were surprised.
• 18:26
  Speaker 7: More than twenty five years after Jeanie Childs was murdered,
• 18:30
  Speaker 7: unknown DNA at the crime scene was matched to fifty
• 18:34
  Speaker 7: two year old Jerry Westroom. What did you know about him?
• 18:38
  Speaker 11: He was living north of Minneapolis Saint Paul, that he
• 18:41
  Speaker 11: was working for a company up in Saint Cloud, Minnesota area.
• 18:45
  Speaker 11: He'd been a businessman.
• 18:47
  Speaker 7: Retired FBI agent Chris Boger says the married father of
• 18:51
  Speaker 7: three wasn't hard to find.
• 18:54
  Speaker 11: Had a Facebook account that we could follow. He was
• 18:56
  Speaker 11: leading a seemingly normal family life.
• 19:01
  Speaker 7: Westrom had grown up in rural Minnesota.
• 19:05
  Speaker 6: He and I were on a four h trip when
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: we were fourteen to Washington, DC.
• 19:09
  Speaker 7: Wayne Triplet and Jerry Westrom were farm kids. They later
• 19:13
  Speaker 7: became college buddies, and when Wayne got married, he.
• 19:18
  Speaker 6: Was one of the groom spent in our wedding.
• 19:20
  Speaker 7: That means he was a good friend of you.
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: Yes, that's true. He got along well with a lot
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: of people. Very low key gentlemen easily can make friends
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: with people.
• 19:32
  Speaker 7: Westrom and his family were well respected in Isante, Minnesota,
• 19:36
  Speaker 7: about forty miles away from Minneapolis. They owned a Seer's store,
• 19:41
  Speaker 7: and in the year two thousand, Westrom built his own
• 19:45
  Speaker 7: field of dreams, a convenience store and gas station known
• 19:50
  Speaker 7: as Westrom's Corner. But in two thousand and eight, the
• 19:53
  Speaker 7: turbulent economy took it all away. Was that tough on
• 19:58
  Speaker 7: him to lose Western.
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: I think it was tough on him. I'd be tough
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: on anybody.
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: Westrom returned to his roots. He began raising organic corn
• 20:10
  Speaker 7: and soybeans and cultivating a business selling crop insurance.
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: He's a very good salesperson. He understands the need to
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: fill the need. He understands how to communicate. Then people
• 20:22
  Speaker 6: have to be comfortable with you to close on business.
• 20:25
  Speaker 7: Way. Never imagine that the even tempered friend he's known
• 20:30
  Speaker 7: since their teenage years would become the prime suspect in
• 20:34
  Speaker 7: a violent murder case. Do you have any history of
• 20:38
  Speaker 7: violent crimes?
• 20:39
  Speaker 11: No apparent criminal history involving violent crime?
• 20:44
  Speaker 7: Genie was stat over sixty times, and here's this man,
• 20:48
  Speaker 7: no history of violence, and this is the guy who
• 20:52
  Speaker 7: might have killed her.
• 20:54
  Speaker 11: Well, it gave some pause that that level of violence
• 20:58
  Speaker 11: and that type of crime, we kind of expected it
• 21:01
  Speaker 11: would be somebody that maybe had been arrested multiple times.
• 21:04
  Speaker 11: So yes, that does give a little pause.
• 21:10
  Speaker 7: Investigators were anxious to confirm that the unknown crime scene
• 21:14
  Speaker 7: DNA was indeed Jerry Westrooms, but to do that they
• 21:19
  Speaker 7: needed to track him down.
• 21:21
  Speaker 11: We needed to obtain DNA from Jerry in order to
• 21:26
  Speaker 11: compare it to the unknown DNA from the scene.
• 21:32
  Speaker 7: Forensic scientist Andrew Feya, and what did you tell them
• 21:36
  Speaker 7: would be the best DNA if they could get it.
• 21:39
  Speaker 13: Best DNA is something that has been in a person's mouth,
• 21:43
  Speaker 13: like if they drink out of a drinking container, a straw,
• 21:47
  Speaker 13: if they spit out chewing gum, anything that could have
• 21:51
  Speaker 13: saliva on it.
• 21:52
  Speaker 7: Why is saliva the ideal? Why did you say get
• 21:56
  Speaker 7: something that had touched his mouth.
• 21:59
  Speaker 13: There's a lot of DNA and saliva.
• 22:01
  Speaker 7: Westrom, a devoted hockey dad, frequently attended his daughter's college games.
• 22:07
  Speaker 7: In January twenty nineteen, Westrom traveled to a game in Wisconsin.
• 22:13
  Speaker 7: Agent Bogers, along with his partner, surreptitiously followed him there.
• 22:18
  Speaker 11: Westrom went out to the lobby concession stand and made
• 22:22
  Speaker 11: a food order. We watched him sit at the table
• 22:25
  Speaker 11: and eat his order, and when he finished, he took
• 22:28
  Speaker 11: a napkin and he wiped his mouth.
• 22:32
  Speaker 7: Westrom tossed that napkin and food container in the garbage can,
• 22:37
  Speaker 7: and when he returned to the ring, Agent Bokers made
• 22:41
  Speaker 7: his move.
• 22:42
  Speaker 11: I was gloved. I just reached down and got the
• 22:45
  Speaker 11: container and we begged it up for evidence.
• 22:49
  Speaker 13: I tested and got a DNA profile from that napkin
• 22:53
  Speaker 13: and compared it to the unidentified profile on the comforter
• 22:58
  Speaker 13: and the blue towel and what was the result They
• 23:01
  Speaker 13: were consistent with each other.
• 23:04
  Speaker 7: A month later, in February twenty nineteen, Jerry Westrom was
• 23:09
  Speaker 7: arrested in charged with the murder of Genie childs As
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: you sit here right now, Wayne, do you believe that
• 23:17
  Speaker 7: Jerry Westrom is the one who killed Genie Child?
• 23:20
  Speaker 6: Definitely? No, definite, no, definitely no, not a chance.
• 23:24
  Speaker 7: In a videotaped interview at the jail, agent Bogers and
• 23:28
  Speaker 7: his partner questioned Westrom, does.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: This lady look familiar to you at all?
• 23:35
  Speaker 12: Okay, her name is Jeanie Child and she was founded
• 23:39
  Speaker 12: in her building, in her apartment deceased.
• 23:42
  Speaker 7: Do you know anything about.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: That at all?
• 23:44
  Speaker 12: No? Do you think you would have ever had tax
• 23:46
  Speaker 12: with her?
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I don't it. In ninety three, would you have been
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: with the prostitute?
• 23:54
  Speaker 7: No? No. WCCO TV senior investigative reporter Jenna for Merily.
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: He doesn't give much in the interview, but what he
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: doesn't say almost says more what do you mean? He
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: doesn't ask any questions about what happened, about why he's there,
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: about why they're looking at him.
• 24:14
  Speaker 7: Jerry Westrom had no history of violent crime, but it
• 24:18
  Speaker 7: seems he had been keeping a few secrets from his friends.
• 24:23
  Speaker 7: Westrom had told Wayne about two DWI arrests, but never
• 24:27
  Speaker 7: shared he had been arrested twice for soliciting sex workers.
• 24:32
  Speaker 7: He didn't know anything. Oh, what was your reaction?
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: It was hard to understand. That's the hard pill to swallow,
• 24:41
  Speaker 6: meaning how was a person with a good family and
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: loving wife have the need for solicitation? What's going on there?
• 24:49
  Speaker 7: Investigators questioned Westrom for eleven minutes until he asked for
• 24:54
  Speaker 7: a lawyer. He was then handcuffed and spent the night
• 24:57
  Speaker 7: in jail.
• 24:58
  Speaker 11: And the following mo warning. We went to the jail
• 25:02
  Speaker 11: with Minneapolis crime Lab personnel and they obtained his footprints.
• 25:08
  Speaker 7: Forty eight hours. Legal consultant Julie Rendelman says the footprints
• 25:12
  Speaker 7: were important because Westerroom's DNA was not the only DNA
• 25:17
  Speaker 7: recovered there.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: DNA that was recovered was from multiple individuals. If you
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: don't have anything else, that in and himself does not
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: establish boundar reasonable doubt that Jerry Westrom is the person
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: that committed this crime.
• 25:48
  Speaker 7: For more than twenty five years, Betty Ekman had prayed
• 25:52
  Speaker 7: for a break in her daughter's unsolved murder case. In
• 25:56
  Speaker 7: February twenty nineteen, her prayers were answered.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: I got a phone call and he said, I'm the
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: detective that worked on your daughter's case. And I said, Okay,
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: what's going on. We found them and I got goosebumps
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: all over.
• 26:17
  Speaker 7: Man.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: I said, are you sure.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: He said, yes, we got them.
• 26:26
  Speaker 7: But when Cindy Blummer learned the name of the suspect
• 26:29
  Speaker 7: in her sister's murder, she had trouble believing it.
• 26:33
  Speaker 10: I said, no way, no way.
• 26:36
  Speaker 7: Jerry Westrom was a familiar face who lived in their
• 26:40
  Speaker 7: town of Isante, Minnesota.
• 26:42
  Speaker 10: I'd seen Jerry because our boys played hockey. He's tall,
• 26:47
  Speaker 10: he kind of stands out. He also owned the business,
• 26:51
  Speaker 10: the gas station.
• 26:54
  Speaker 7: The hockey dad and local businessman was now charged with murder.
• 26:59
  Speaker 7: Westroom was late indicted by a grand jury and pleaded
• 27:03
  Speaker 7: not guilty. Westroom's DNA, according to forensic scientists Andre feya
• 27:09
  Speaker 7: found on the comforter and towel in the bathroom, was
• 27:12
  Speaker 7: identified as seamen, but she says her team couldn't determine
• 27:18
  Speaker 7: the type of DNA that she says Westroom left on
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: the red t shirt, the bathroom sink, and the washcloth.
• 27:26
  Speaker 7: You can't say definitively that his blood or any other
• 27:31
  Speaker 7: kind of DNA was found at the scene. You know
• 27:34
  Speaker 7: it's his DNA, but you don't know what kind is that?
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: Correct? Correct?
• 27:38
  Speaker 13: I don't know how it was deposited.
• 27:40
  Speaker 6: Essentially, you say DNA to general Joku public, Well, that's
• 27:44
  Speaker 6: a slam dunk.
• 27:45
  Speaker 7: Wayne Triplett, however, has questions about how and when the
• 27:50
  Speaker 7: DNA was left there.
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: There's no time stamp on DNA.
• 27:54
  Speaker 7: Despite advances in DNA technology, there's no way to know
• 27:59
  Speaker 7: how long DNA had been there, and Wayne says the
• 28:03
  Speaker 7: evidence only suggests one thing that.
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: Just doesn't mysteriously show up.
• 28:08
  Speaker 7: He had to be there, so you think he probably
• 28:11
  Speaker 7: was in that apartment at some point.
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: You know, you can't run from that evidence. He had
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: to been there. Don't get there by accident.
• 28:20
  Speaker 7: You don't believe he was there the day that Genie
• 28:22
  Speaker 7: Childs's murdered.
• 28:24
  Speaker 8: I don't.
• 28:26
  Speaker 7: Forty eight hours. Legal consultant Julie Rendelman says the evidence
• 28:31
  Speaker 7: in this case does raise questions. According to lab reports,
• 28:36
  Speaker 7: there was other DNA from seamen discovered on Genie's purple
• 28:41
  Speaker 7: panties that does not match Westroom, whose DNA it is
• 28:46
  Speaker 7: remains even today a mystery. And that wasn't all.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: There was DNA from other individuals that did not belong
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: to Jerry Westrom, but clearly belonged to a male source.
• 28:58
  Speaker 7: Random in points of that DNA found in the stairwell
• 29:02
  Speaker 7: close to blood stains identified as belonging to Genie Child's.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: Jerry Westrom's DNA is not in the stairwell, but we
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: know that there's at least one other person whose DNA
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: blood is found in that stairwell.
• 29:17
  Speaker 7: Remember that stairwell DNA matched John s Wine. When investigators
• 29:22
  Speaker 7: interviewed him, he couldn't recall how his blood ended up
• 29:26
  Speaker 7: in this stairwell, not far from Genie Child's apartment on
• 29:31
  Speaker 7: the twenty first floor.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: His answers were a bit peculiar, I found. And the
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: reason I say that is because he actually describes being
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: there one time.
• 29:40
  Speaker 7: And why does that bother you?
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: So it bothers me, because how the heck would he
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: remember when he's interviewed all these years later that he
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: was there but only there once, and the one time
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: he says he was there was years before the murder.
• 29:50
  Speaker 7: It just it felt a bit convenient. We reached out
• 29:54
  Speaker 7: to John s Wine for comment, but he didn't respond.
• 29:58
  Speaker 7: He has never been charged in this case. RenderMan also
• 30:03
  Speaker 7: points out that before Jerry Westrom's DNA was identified at
• 30:07
  Speaker 7: the crime scene, authorities had discovered a mixture of DNA
• 30:11
  Speaker 7: types on the comforter. According to a twenty twelve lab report,
• 30:17
  Speaker 7: a man named James Luther Carleton couldn't be excluded as
• 30:22
  Speaker 7: one of the contributors.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: We know this is an individual that had committed multiple
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: sex times in.
• 30:27
  Speaker 7: The past, and what makes Carlton so significant. A little
• 30:32
  Speaker 7: more than a year after Genie Child's murder in July
• 30:35
  Speaker 7: nineteen ninety.
• 30:36
  Speaker 8: Four, sometime between last Thursday and Monday, someone entered this
• 30:40
  Speaker 8: one bedroom Uptown apartment and murdered Jody Dover.
• 30:44
  Speaker 7: Twenty six year old hospital worker. Jody Dover was stabbed
• 30:48
  Speaker 7: to death in her Minneapolis apartment. Jody's murder was eerily
• 30:53
  Speaker 7: similar to Genie's murder. Jody's killer had also left behind
• 30:58
  Speaker 7: bloody footprint. Authorities arrested Carleton and determined a footprint found
• 31:05
  Speaker 7: inside Jody Dover's apartment belonged to him. He was convicted
• 31:09
  Speaker 7: of her murder in nineteen ninety five and is serving
• 31:13
  Speaker 7: a life sentence forty eight hours. Can't confirm if he
• 31:17
  Speaker 7: was ever questioned around the time of Genie Child's murder.
• 31:21
  Speaker 7: We reached out to Carlton, he declined our interview request.
• 31:26
  Speaker 7: Carlton's criminal history was a red flag for Westroom's defense team.
• 31:31
  Speaker 7: Attorney Stephen Meshbasher told our CBS station WCCO that it
• 31:37
  Speaker 7: was a rush to judgment in this case.
• 31:40
  Speaker 8: You need to do the investigation first, find out what
• 31:43
  Speaker 8: the facts are, find out what the evans is, and
• 31:46
  Speaker 8: then determine the charge.
• 31:48
  Speaker 7: Now they're charging. At first were the footprints Jerry Westrooms.
• 31:53
  Speaker 7: As both sides prepared for trial, it became clear that
• 31:58
  Speaker 7: it would all come down to this unique evidence in Minnesota.
• 32:03
  Speaker 12: Here people are not committing crimes a lot of times
• 32:06
  Speaker 12: with their sacks and shoes off.
• 32:08
  Speaker 7: Mark Ulrich, a supervisor with a Minneapolis police forensic division,
• 32:13
  Speaker 7: examined the footprints. He says he focused on the friction
• 32:18
  Speaker 7: ridge skin, the arrangement of ridges and furrows unique to
• 32:22
  Speaker 7: every person.
• 32:24
  Speaker 12: Friction ridge skin is found on your fingers, your palms,
• 32:26
  Speaker 12: and the soles of your feet.
• 32:28
  Speaker 7: Seven bloody footprints were photographed and labeled a through G.
• 32:33
  Speaker 7: Defense attorneys hired their own forensic scientists Alisia McCarthy, a
• 32:38
  Speaker 7: professor at Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, to analyze the
• 32:42
  Speaker 7: bloody footprints. For them, you call this case a beast.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: It was a beast.
• 32:49
  Speaker 14: It was definitely very challenging.
• 32:51
  Speaker 7: What conclusions would the experts reach? Was Jerry Westrom just
• 33:14
  Speaker 7: a customer who had left his DNA in Genie Child's
• 33:17
  Speaker 7: apartment previously, or was he the one who stabbed her
• 33:22
  Speaker 7: to death more than sixty times? Investigators believed the bloody
• 33:27
  Speaker 7: footprints found in her apartment would provide the answer. That
• 33:33
  Speaker 7: looks like a left though correct.
• 33:36
  Speaker 12: I completed the reference files.
• 33:38
  Speaker 7: Mark Ulrick at the Minneapolis Police Lab was tasked with
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: comparing the crime scene Prince to Westroom. He determined that
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: four of the seven prints were suitable for comparison. One
• 33:50
  Speaker 7: of them, he says, revealed the impression of a left foot.
• 33:54
  Speaker 7: He labeled the heel he won and an area below
• 33:57
  Speaker 7: the big toe as E two. When Alric analyzed it,
• 34:02
  Speaker 7: this was his conclusion.
• 34:04
  Speaker 12: E one and E two were identified to mister Jerry Westrom.
• 34:08
  Speaker 7: And he says there was more this.
• 34:11
  Speaker 12: One B that one was identified to the right foot
• 34:14
  Speaker 12: of mister Jerry Westrom.
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: Allors believe that all four prints E one, E two, B,
• 34:20
  Speaker 7: and another left foot print he labeled D one belonged
• 34:24
  Speaker 7: to Westrom. As the trial date approach, forensic scientists Alicia McCarthy,
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: who had been hired by the defense, was asked to
• 34:37
  Speaker 7: verify Alrich's work.
• 34:39
  Speaker 14: They wanted me to come in and look and double
• 34:42
  Speaker 14: check the work that was done by the Minneapolis Lab.
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: McCarthy believed that only the print labeled E two, the
• 34:51
  Speaker 7: area below the left big toe, was suitable for comparison.
• 34:56
  Speaker 7: This is the crime, same photo, this is E to
• 35:01
  Speaker 7: During her analysis, she began comparing E two to the
• 35:05
  Speaker 7: footprints of alternate suspects and didn't get anywhere.
• 35:10
  Speaker 14: I was sort of in limbo for about a year
• 35:13
  Speaker 14: where I was comparing to other people, and then I said,
• 35:16
  Speaker 14: I'm inconclusive. I can't say it's these people. I can't
• 35:20
  Speaker 14: say it's not these people.
• 35:22
  Speaker 7: McCarthy showed us what unique characteristics she was looking for.
• 35:26
  Speaker 14: We have what we call a recurve. Yes, it comes
• 35:30
  Speaker 14: down and recurves back up, and for a friction ridge examiner,
• 35:34
  Speaker 14: that's pretty exciting.
• 35:35
  Speaker 7: When she compared E two did Jerry Westrom's footprint? She
• 35:40
  Speaker 7: followed the curves and finally, and who do you believe
• 35:45
  Speaker 7: left that footprint at the crime scene?
• 35:48
  Speaker 14: That was Jerry Westrom's left foot.
• 35:51
  Speaker 7: And you're sure of that positive. McCarthy agreed with Mark
• 35:57
  Speaker 7: alrich E too, the small hilaria below the left big
• 36:01
  Speaker 7: toe had been placed there by Jerry Westrom. But she
• 36:05
  Speaker 7: disagreed with ulrich on the other three footprints.
• 36:09
  Speaker 14: I went through and did the comparisons that Mark had
• 36:13
  Speaker 14: made identifications with I didn't agree with him.
• 36:16
  Speaker 7: She believed those three prints didn't have enough detail.
• 36:20
  Speaker 14: There wasn't enough for that very high threshold to say
• 36:22
  Speaker 14: an identification and go to court in front of a
• 36:25
  Speaker 14: jury and tell them that this impression belongs to Jerry Westrom.
• 36:29
  Speaker 12: That's her decision, and I have known qualms about what
• 36:32
  Speaker 12: she did. I just known the quality of my work
• 36:34
  Speaker 12: and I know what I stand by.
• 36:36
  Speaker 7: When McCarthy determined E two belonged to Westrom, she was
• 36:40
  Speaker 7: immediately released by his defense team. Both experts would then
• 36:45
  Speaker 7: testify for the prosecution.
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: Opening statements today in the trial of a hockey dad
• 36:50
  Speaker 6: accused of a murder nearly thirty years ago.
• 36:55
  Speaker 7: In August twenty twenty two, Jerry Westrom went on trial
• 36:59
  Speaker 7: for Genie Child's murder. He had been out on bond.
• 37:03
  Speaker 7: The judge ruled there'd be no cameras in the courtroom
• 37:06
  Speaker 7: forty eight hours. Asked Westrom and his family for on
• 37:10
  Speaker 7: camera interviews, but they declined.
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: Jerry's wife and three kids were there for most of
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: the trial.
• 37:18
  Speaker 7: Jennifer Merrily covered the trial.
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: Jerry and his wife would walk into the Headmen County
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: Government Center holding hands.
• 37:26
  Speaker 7: In the courtroom, prosecutors painted a different picture. They said
• 37:31
  Speaker 7: the evidence points to Jerry Westrom as the killer, the
• 37:34
  Speaker 7: bloody footprints combined with his DNA as proof. They said
• 37:39
  Speaker 7: that he was in her apartment when she was murdered.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: The bloody footprint put a time stamp of when the killer.
• 37:48
  Speaker 7: Was there, but the defense tried to poke holes in
• 37:51
  Speaker 7: the footprint evidence. They also called that witness who had
• 37:55
  Speaker 7: told believe she saw Genie childs with a blonde man
• 37:59
  Speaker 7: wearing a trench coat the day she was murdered, and
• 38:02
  Speaker 7: she said she saw this same man later running down
• 38:05
  Speaker 7: this stairwell without a coat.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: Jerry Westerm has dark hair. There's no evidence he ever
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: had blonde hair or anything like that.
• 38:13
  Speaker 7: The defense also named Arthur Gray, who died in twenty twelve,
• 38:17
  Speaker 7: as an alternate suspect. Janie had accused him of domestic abuse.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: And then when you put the hair of Arthur Ray
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: in her hand, it starts to become more significant.
• 38:29
  Speaker 7: The defense, who declined our request for an interview, was
• 38:33
  Speaker 7: dealt to blow when they couldn't introduce James Luther Carleton
• 38:37
  Speaker 7: and John s Wine as alternate suspects. The judge ruled
• 38:42
  Speaker 7: there wasn't enough evidence against either man, and prosecutors cleared
• 38:46
  Speaker 7: them both, so the jury never heard that expert analysis
• 38:51
  Speaker 7: of their footprints had been inconclusive.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I think it was incredibly damaging to the defense's case.
• 39:00
  Speaker 7: Prosecutors declined our request for an interview. Jerry Westroom did
• 39:05
  Speaker 7: not testify, and after eight days, the jury quickly reached
• 39:09
  Speaker 7: a verdict guilty the jury.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: The jury came back quite quickly and convicted Jerry Westrom
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: of the top count, which was murder in the first degree.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: They also found him guilty of murdering the second degree.
• 39:23
  Speaker 7: Prosecutors didn't present a motive. Wayne Triplet says he still
• 39:28
  Speaker 7: believes his lifelong friend is innocent and says that both
• 39:32
  Speaker 7: families have paid a terrible price.
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: The victim didn't deserve what they got. It's terrible saying
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: here in Jerry's paying for that, but it's not Jerry.
• 39:43
  Speaker 7: On September ninth, twenty twenty two, Jerry Westrom was sentenced
• 39:47
  Speaker 7: to life in prison for the murder of Genie childs
• 39:52
  Speaker 7: As we said in the.
• 39:53
  Speaker 8: Beginning, and we're saying now, you've got the wrong guy.
• 39:59
  Speaker 8: We are so for the loss of Genie Child's life.
• 40:05
  Speaker 7: Genie's mother, Betty believes justice has been served and that
• 40:09
  Speaker 7: the right man is behind bars, but her grief will
• 40:14
  Speaker 7: always be there. She poured her heart out in a letter,
• 40:18
  Speaker 7: a love letter she never got to send.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: My emptiness will never go away. Since you were taken
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: that fatal day. It wasn't fair you had to die.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: I never got to say goodbye.
• 40:38
  Speaker 15: I love you and miss you so much. Love and peace, mom.
• 41:02
  Speaker 14: I can only describe it as evil, something horrible.
• 41:05
  Speaker 16: From forty eight hours, this is trained to kill the
• 41:09
  Speaker 16: dog trainer, the heiress and the bodyguard.
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: He couldn't control his obsession.
• 41:13
  Speaker 16: Who was the hunter and who was the hunted? Follow
• 41:17
  Speaker 16: and listen on the Free Odyssey app or wherever you
• 41:20
  Speaker 16: get your podcasts,