Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Lipstick, red heels and purse only clues in TV Star Jodi Huisentruit disappearance

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Lipstick, red heels and purse only clues in TV Star Jodi Huisentruit disappearance · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, And at this our investigators
1:37
Speaker 1: still have few clues about where Jody, who's in truth.
1:40
Speaker 1: The FBI is now involved in the case and they're
1:42
Speaker 1: beginning to concentrate their search. Dogs turn up clues, but
1:45
Speaker 1: tonight it remains untested evidence. Where is she who knows
1:50
Speaker 1: something hasn't come forward? Caroline Lowe is intifin Iowa with
1:53
Speaker 1: an update right now. Caroline, well a million tonight there's
1:57
Speaker 1: a stained silo door. Being a journalist, I know what
2:00
Speaker 1: gets covered, and that's why we do things like billboards
2:03
Speaker 1: to try to the attention. We really wish we weren't
2:08
Speaker 1: here today. Twenty three years later, what happened to Jodi
2:12
Speaker 1: is still a mystery. You are watching news Channel three
2:14
Speaker 1: day Break. The time is six o'clock, sixty four degrees
2:18
Speaker 1: and light showers falling in North Iowa. Jody grew up
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Speaker 1: in Minnesota, then she went to Mason City in nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety three to become a reporter morning anchor. This morning,
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Speaker 1: our morning anchor, twenty seven year old Jodie who's in fruit,
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Speaker 1: apparently disappeared. She was running late, appeared that Jody had
2:39
Speaker 1: been attacked from behind and then dragged away from her car,
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Speaker 1: and her stuff is scattered behind. You are hearing from
2:45
Speaker 1: our friends there at CBS. Forty eight hours after this air.
2:51
Speaker 1: There's been a flood of tips, but still no answers.
2:55
Speaker 1: What happened to this beautiful young ki MT TV anchor
3:01
Speaker 1: there in Mason c the Iowa schedule to report to
3:03
Speaker 1: work at four a m. That morning. I'm Nancy Grace.
3:08
Speaker 1: This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
3:10
Speaker 1: The tip line six four one two one three six
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Speaker 1: three six. Where is Jody? Who's in truth? You know?
3:21
Speaker 1: I remember to Alan joining me my partner in crime
3:24
Speaker 1: in LA and joining me right here in the studio
3:26
Speaker 1: Jackie Howard, along with death investigator, Professor Forensics at Jacksonville
3:32
Speaker 1: State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon,
3:36
Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan, renowned forensic psychiatrist, doctor Daniel Bober, and
3:43
Speaker 1: North Carolina family lawyer. She knows her way around our courtroom,
3:47
Speaker 1: Kathleen Murphy. Alan, I remember speaking to Deborah Norville, Okay,
3:54
Speaker 1: who has turned out to be a good friend over
3:56
Speaker 1: the years, and you can see her every day on
3:58
Speaker 1: Inside Edition. Do you know, Alan, that she got her
4:03
Speaker 1: start in Atlanta. Now she was a student at Eugene
4:07
Speaker 1: and Athens, and she would stay believe it or not.
4:11
Speaker 1: You know, you'd never know by looking at her now,
4:13
Speaker 1: with all her fame and fortune or wonderful husband and
4:17
Speaker 1: beautiful children, that she would stay in her car and
4:23
Speaker 1: she would drive that car over or from Athens to
4:29
Speaker 1: Atlanta and get here. Must you have to get here
4:32
Speaker 1: at three o'clock in the morning, I guess, And she
4:35
Speaker 1: would go into the offices of the TV station and
4:39
Speaker 1: she would take a sink, shower and get herself ready
4:45
Speaker 1: and get on TV. And look at her now, I mean,
4:49
Speaker 1: a superstar and that that really has always inspired me. Now,
4:55
Speaker 1: you know, she is not called Debbie Norville. She is
4:58
Speaker 1: always called Deborah nor to my understanding. But imagine what
5:02
Speaker 1: she went through and all the sacrifices she made to
5:07
Speaker 1: make it in TV. And she certainly did. And that
5:11
Speaker 1: makes me think of Jody who's in trooped there in
5:14
Speaker 1: Mason City, Iowa at four a m. She's getting there,
5:20
Speaker 1: you know, Alan. When I started at Court TV, after
5:24
Speaker 1: I was on with Johnny Cochrane, God rest his soul,
5:27
Speaker 1: I took a morning shift. I had to be there,
5:30
Speaker 1: be there ready to go at six forty five am,
5:34
Speaker 1: and then I would stay through the I had nothing else,
5:38
Speaker 1: you know, I knew nobody in New York. I would
5:40
Speaker 1: stay and then do Larry King at night at nine o'clock,
5:44
Speaker 1: and I would get home, you know, at ten thirty
5:47
Speaker 1: or eleven at night. It was quite a long day.
5:50
Speaker 1: But you know that was a sacrifice, and that's what
5:52
Speaker 1: Jody was doing. Alan, I don't understand. I remember when
5:55
Speaker 1: this happened. I've never understood how they didn't find the
6:00
Speaker 1: purp or fine Jody. I mean, she clearly was attacked
6:03
Speaker 1: in the parking lot. I mean, you take it on.
6:06
Speaker 1: Tell me what happens. Well, this reminds me of something
6:08
Speaker 1: that's happened to me before. And that's like, you've got
6:11
Speaker 1: to be on the air at six o'clock. Wait, they
6:13
Speaker 1: found your pocketbook and your lipstick in the No. Okay,
6:16
Speaker 1: but you oversleep, you know, actually ever slept, Allen? That's
6:21
Speaker 1: you not mean? Oh no, I just know that one
6:23
Speaker 1: one morning I'm going to get a call from Jackie said, Alan,
6:26
Speaker 1: where are you? And time make up every morning at
6:30
Speaker 1: three o'clock. It never fails between two fifty nine and
6:33
Speaker 1: three ten, thinking it's five and it's time for me
6:36
Speaker 1: to get up. Yeah, Jackie gets uf at four, so
6:39
Speaker 1: we don't really want to hear about you being sleeping.
6:42
Speaker 1: But it's part of the game of being in to
6:45
Speaker 1: get up early, to get your ponytail done I do,
6:48
Speaker 1: and take out those sponge rollers and get that all
6:50
Speaker 1: comed out. As a morning anchor, it did take Jody time.
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Speaker 1: She had to get her hair ready and get her
6:56
Speaker 1: makeup done and everything. But she said, hold on, isn't
7:00
Speaker 1: it true yet to put on a lot of makeup
7:05
Speaker 1: to be under those bright lights, I mean thick and
7:07
Speaker 1: in the morning greezy, and then you put that powder
7:10
Speaker 1: on top of that. So bottom line back to her, Yeah,
7:14
Speaker 1: she was awakened the producer back at the station at
7:17
Speaker 1: Wi MT and she had to be there at four hour. Formally,
7:21
Speaker 1: she was there showing up at about three thirty to
7:23
Speaker 1: look at scrips and see what was in the rundown.
7:25
Speaker 1: But at four o'clock she wasn't there. So her producer
7:28
Speaker 1: called her on the phone and apparently she was just
7:32
Speaker 1: getting ready and she says, okay, I'm sorry, I'll be
7:34
Speaker 1: there soon, and then the clock tick five thirty, half
7:38
Speaker 1: hour before she's supposed to go on the air, she
7:40
Speaker 1: still wasn't there. Wait now, hold on, you're telling me
7:43
Speaker 1: something interesting. So her boss or a co worker, producer
7:48
Speaker 1: called her. And that's not unusual very often. In fact,
7:52
Speaker 1: he went on with me to HLN and became a
7:57
Speaker 1: senior on the the show. At HLN. My producer justin
8:03
Speaker 1: he we would talk in the morning, starting at thirty
8:07
Speaker 1: in the morning or really early, so that's not unusual
8:10
Speaker 1: to be calling back and forth, not necessarily to wake
8:13
Speaker 1: the person up, but to say, hey, this happened. That happened,
8:16
Speaker 1: and you know, get your mind around it. Here, come on, right,
8:19
Speaker 1: well now we text. That's the way you and I
8:21
Speaker 1: and Jackie. We knew that. So she still wasn't there
8:24
Speaker 1: at five thirty, so there was some panics setting in,
8:27
Speaker 1: perhaps just because what are we going to do about
8:29
Speaker 1: the show? Well, she didn't live that far away either,
8:31
Speaker 1: so all she didn't show what they knew something was
8:34
Speaker 1: it's a small town. I mean, Mason City, Iowa. Twenty
8:37
Speaker 1: seven thousand is the current population according to Wikipedia anyway,
8:41
Speaker 1: so it's not a big town. So but unfortunately it
8:45
Speaker 1: turned out that it wasn't just that she overslept and
8:48
Speaker 1: she was late. But they found her car but not her,
8:52
Speaker 1: and it looked like she had been involved in some
8:55
Speaker 1: sort of a struggle. Well, it was the car at
8:59
Speaker 1: the parking lot, in her apartments, at Key apartments, or
9:04
Speaker 1: at the studio at the station was it was looking
9:07
Speaker 1: like she was on her way there. There was a
9:10
Speaker 1: red The video that I've seen of it showed a
9:12
Speaker 1: red Mazda Miata, right it was, Well, it was a
9:16
Speaker 1: red Mazda Miata, and she's very proud of that car.
9:19
Speaker 1: But it was it had her stuff. Her shoes were
9:24
Speaker 1: outside the door. Well, yeah, she had a pair of
9:27
Speaker 1: red dress shoes. Now her personal belongings were found scattered
9:30
Speaker 1: and the apartment, it's the apartment, not the station apartment
9:34
Speaker 1: complex parking a lot around her red Mazda Miata. There
9:39
Speaker 1: was also a pair of red dress shoes, a bottle
9:42
Speaker 1: of hairspray, I gotta have that, a blow dryer, ear rings,
9:49
Speaker 1: and who's in truths car keys. A co worker went
9:54
Speaker 1: out and assisted cops and searching her apartment and there
9:59
Speaker 1: was no sign of struggle in the apartment. Listen to this,
10:03
Speaker 1: our friends. At forty eight hours, I called her and
10:05
Speaker 1: I talked to her. She was there. It sounded like
10:07
Speaker 1: I woke her up. Her friend was what time is it?
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Speaker 1: I said, Jode, it's ten after four. You need to
10:12
Speaker 1: come in. That was the last contact anybody has had
10:15
Speaker 1: with Jody. It's been thirty eight hours now since anyone
10:18
Speaker 1: has spoken to Jody. Who's in truth. Good evening, everyone.
10:22
Speaker 1: I had such a strange collision of emotions. Residents from
10:27
Speaker 1: all across in North Iowa are in turn feeling the
10:29
Speaker 1: emotion and the desperation for Jody's safe return. And I thought,
10:33
Speaker 1: I know her so well, and all of these folks
10:36
Speaker 1: who are watching on TV right now feel like they
10:39
Speaker 1: really know her too. They had her in their home
10:42
Speaker 1: every morning, and they loved her. She has a hard
10:46
Speaker 1: last name. Who's in true After the twenty seventh of June,
10:50
Speaker 1: She's Jody. Doesn't need a last name anymore. She'll always
10:53
Speaker 1: be just Jody. The clock was ticking. I'm John Shine
11:00
Speaker 1: from KIMT Television, Mason City, Iowa. We need your help.
11:04
Speaker 1: One of our news anchors is missing. It's been forty
11:08
Speaker 1: two hours since we last heard from our dear friend Jody.
11:11
Speaker 1: There are lots and lots of theories how would you
11:13
Speaker 1: classify John. I would classify him as a friend. Jody
11:18
Speaker 1: spent more time with John van Seiss in the last
11:21
Speaker 1: month that she was in Mason City than anybody that
11:23
Speaker 1: we know of, and he said I was the last
11:25
Speaker 1: person to see her. I interviewed him the next day.
11:28
Speaker 1: And have the police indicated with or not your assessment? No,
11:31
Speaker 1: they haven't even an indication. They've interviewed me twice, but
11:33
Speaker 1: they haven't to be an indication. I will suspect if anybody.
11:37
Speaker 1: The Mason City Police said they're now concentrating their efforts
11:40
Speaker 1: on twelve people. There's been no detainments, there's only been
11:43
Speaker 1: people that have been interviewed. It could be somebody we
11:45
Speaker 1: least expect. You were hearing our friends at forty eight hours.
11:50
Speaker 1: What happened to Jody hues and truth absolutely stunning in
11:54
Speaker 1: her twenties, working like a maniac, trying to make it
11:58
Speaker 1: in TV, A family figure mixture in Mason City, Iowa. Yes,
12:03
Speaker 1: it's a small market, but she was very beloved and
12:07
Speaker 1: based on her trite record, she was headed for great things.
12:10
Speaker 1: When she did not report to work one morning, super early,
12:14
Speaker 1: everything went sideways in her apartment complex parking lot they're
12:19
Speaker 1: at Key apartments in Mason City. Her personal belongings found
12:23
Speaker 1: scattered in the apartment complex parking a lot around her
12:26
Speaker 1: little red Mazda Miata, a blow dryer, Baala hair spray,
12:30
Speaker 1: her ear rings or car keys, and a pair of
12:33
Speaker 1: red dress ess. That's very common for TV people to
12:37
Speaker 1: either dress up from the waist up and dress down
12:41
Speaker 1: from the waist down. I know, for the last I
12:44
Speaker 1: don't know how many years I was on TV, I
12:45
Speaker 1: always had my black workout pants underneath a jacket or
12:50
Speaker 1: a fancy sweater or something on top. So she was wearing,
12:55
Speaker 1: for instance, tennis chees or flats, and she'd switch into
12:58
Speaker 1: her heels to go into work. But it's it tells
13:01
Speaker 1: me I'm going so many different ways. Let's start with
13:05
Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert, author of Blood Beneath My
13:10
Speaker 1: Feet on Amazon, detailing many of his cases as a
13:13
Speaker 1: death investigator. Joe Scott one, at first, I would think
13:18
Speaker 1: it was somebody targeting her, okay, because she was locally
13:24
Speaker 1: very famous. That would have to be somebody waiting in
13:28
Speaker 1: the parking lot, you know, at four o'clock in the morning.
13:32
Speaker 1: And I say that Joe Scott, because who's going to
13:34
Speaker 1: be wandering around in a parking lot at three thirty,
13:37
Speaker 1: I don't know, unless you're a cop or a you know,
13:40
Speaker 1: a news anchor, or you're delivering milk. You know, that's
13:45
Speaker 1: that's a weird time of day. I spent a lot
13:47
Speaker 1: of my career Nancy working a graveyard ship from midnight
13:50
Speaker 1: until six in the morning, or midnight till seven in
13:53
Speaker 1: the morning, and it's an odd period of time. The
13:56
Speaker 1: individual that attacked her, they knew her movements. They were,
14:02
Speaker 1: in my opinion, this is somebody that has stalked her out.
14:06
Speaker 1: They set up in a location where they can watch her,
14:10
Speaker 1: they can observe her, and then they took her by stealth,
14:13
Speaker 1: probably where they crept up behind her. Another scenario that
14:17
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about was she in her apartment with this
14:21
Speaker 1: individual that night and she was demanding that she go
14:27
Speaker 1: to work and they were like, you're not leaving, and
14:29
Speaker 1: they followed her out into the parking lot. So there's
14:31
Speaker 1: a couple of different ways you can go, but it's
14:33
Speaker 1: very very limited in the spectrum here. It doesn't make
14:35
Speaker 1: sense to me what you just said. Are you saying
14:39
Speaker 1: like a boyfriend or a lover with her all night
14:41
Speaker 1: that went crazy when she laughed. Yeah, yeah, that's one
14:44
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah. Look, if you've been at the site
14:45
Speaker 1: with somebody all night long, I doubt they're going to
14:47
Speaker 1: get that mad when you have to go to work
14:49
Speaker 1: and make a living. I'm not really buying that when
14:54
Speaker 1: the other one makes more sense to me. Doctor Daniel Bober,
14:57
Speaker 1: forensic psychiatrists joining us out of the floor to jurisdiction.
15:01
Speaker 1: Doctor Bober, look at the facts, divine for me, your
15:07
Speaker 1: best analysis. Is this someone that was stalking her? Or
15:10
Speaker 1: are we getting all tangled up in the fact that
15:12
Speaker 1: she was on air and anchor. Or is this just
15:15
Speaker 1: some perv in the parking lot and this was a
15:20
Speaker 1: crime of opportunity because notice her pocketbook, money, credit cards,
15:26
Speaker 1: and so forth we're missing. There were her shoes, blowdry
15:30
Speaker 1: or bottle of hair spray, earrings, and her car keys,
15:32
Speaker 1: no money or pocketbook. Nancy. To me, this is someone
15:35
Speaker 1: because she was a celebrity of sorts and a lot
15:39
Speaker 1: of people saw her. To me, this is someone who
15:41
Speaker 1: probably developed some delusional obsession with her and you know,
15:45
Speaker 1: took her out. I don't think that this was, you know,
15:48
Speaker 1: someone she knew. I think this was, like, like you said,
15:50
Speaker 1: a crime of opportunity. I will never forget doctor Daniel
15:53
Speaker 1: bober When a guy I can't remember where he came from,
15:59
Speaker 1: I want to say maybe Iowa, but took a bus
16:04
Speaker 1: all the way to Time Warner in New York City
16:08
Speaker 1: with his suitcases and showed up in the lobby and
16:12
Speaker 1: said he was there to work on our relationship, that
16:14
Speaker 1: we were getting married. Well, I had never even heard
16:17
Speaker 1: of him. Apparently he had been writing letters for months
16:22
Speaker 1: to CNN, but I never saw them or heard about them.
16:26
Speaker 1: They never made it to me or our staff at all.
16:29
Speaker 1: Nobody knew about them until the guy showed up and
16:33
Speaker 1: he you know. Then there were others that were like angry.
16:39
Speaker 1: That's usually the type I got that were angry about
16:41
Speaker 1: something I said. The first time it happened, doctor Daniel Bobbe,
16:44
Speaker 1: I was still actually a prosecutor, and some igeit from
16:48
Speaker 1: the jail, the Fulton County Jail faxed over a threat,
16:52
Speaker 1: and I'm like, wow, how are we ever going to
16:53
Speaker 1: find him? So I don't want to laugh it off
16:58
Speaker 1: because it's very serious, but that particular one was pretty
17:01
Speaker 1: easy to solve. So it happens, and believe it. In fact,
17:06
Speaker 1: I wrote about it in Death on the d List.
17:10
Speaker 1: There was a stalker in that case, which I don't
17:13
Speaker 1: want to spoil the ending, but it turned out to
17:15
Speaker 1: be a red herring that thought somebody on air was
17:17
Speaker 1: sending them messages through their movements, and that does happen? Doctor,
17:22
Speaker 1: What about the obvious that it's somebody in the parking lot?
17:28
Speaker 1: So to you, Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina family and divorce lawyer,
17:32
Speaker 1: trial lawyer, Kathleen Murphy, what do you think about this?
17:36
Speaker 1: Are we getting hung up in the fact that she's
17:38
Speaker 1: on air and she was an anchor or could it
17:42
Speaker 1: be someone just walking literally in the parking lot saw
17:45
Speaker 1: her and jump her. I think that there are two
17:49
Speaker 1: things that happened at the same time that caused me
17:52
Speaker 1: to think it's somebody she knows. It was unusual for
17:56
Speaker 1: her to be late and for her producer to call
17:58
Speaker 1: her and tell her she's liked, and that occurred at
18:01
Speaker 1: the very same time that she walks outside and then disappears.
18:08
Speaker 1: And I watched the forty eight hours episode and I
18:13
Speaker 1: was concerned about her friend that seemed to be obsessed
18:17
Speaker 1: with her. Now tell me your thoughts on that perhaps
18:20
Speaker 1: was with her that night. Tell me your thoughts on that.
18:22
Speaker 1: I thought it was very odd that he named his
18:24
Speaker 1: boat after her. I thought it was very odd that
18:28
Speaker 1: he would massage her shoulders. I thought it was very
18:31
Speaker 1: odd that a lot of her friends were telling her
18:33
Speaker 1: that he was obsessed with her. And I thought it
18:37
Speaker 1: was odd that she was late on the very day
18:39
Speaker 1: that she happened to disappear light on the day she
18:42
Speaker 1: happened to despair. What do you mean by that, Kathleen.
18:44
Speaker 1: You got to spell it out for me. Well, her
18:46
Speaker 1: producer calls her and tell you need to be here.
18:49
Speaker 1: Why aren't you here? She gets up and goes outside
18:53
Speaker 1: and then disappears. So there are two events back to
18:56
Speaker 1: bat that were unusual for her. That she disappeared obviously,
19:02
Speaker 1: and unusual that she was late for work. Guys, I
19:05
Speaker 1: want you to take a listen to this. Police descended
19:09
Speaker 1: on the newsroom, searching Jody's desk for any evidence of
19:13
Speaker 1: an angry or obsessed viewer at Jody's natural warmth made
19:19
Speaker 1: her at Tarket. You know, she went grocery shopping and
19:22
Speaker 1: it took her two hours because she talked to three
19:24
Speaker 1: people along the way and She always had time for everybody.
19:28
Speaker 1: Joe and Nathy is Jody's sister. She definitely was to
19:32
Speaker 1: trust so not thinking that maybe some of those people
19:36
Speaker 1: watching her had their own potentially troubling ideas. Yeah, that's
19:41
Speaker 1: what I worry about, that she, you know, was too personable.
19:44
Speaker 1: Way to go, I'm getting way to keep me in check,
19:48
Speaker 1: revealing too much, maybe what she did day to day.
19:51
Speaker 1: I lived by a big swimming pool, and I can
19:53
Speaker 1: hear the children swimming and splashing and yelling them, Hi,
20:05
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace here. Have you ever Googled yourself, your neighbors,
20:08
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20:12
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20:16
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20:19
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Speaker 1: Nancy truthfinder dot com forward slash Nancy Fine. The Truth
21:18
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Jody Who's in Truth's dream
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Speaker 1: of making it Big ended the morning of Tuesday, June
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Speaker 1: twenty seven, nineteen ninety five, the anchor of ki MTS
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Speaker 1: six am newscast. She usually arrived at work by three
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Speaker 1: thirty in the morning. If she's not there between three
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Speaker 1: thirty and four, giver calls her are you awake? Producer
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Speaker 1: Amy Coons noticed nothing unusual and she called and woke
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Speaker 1: Jody up about ten after four that morning. She was
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Speaker 1: asking about the show. She was concerned about the show
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Speaker 1: and she said, I'll be right there. But in five thirty,
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Speaker 1: still no Jody, and this being a time before cell phones,
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Speaker 1: Amy tried her at home again and got her answering machine.
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Speaker 1: At six am. Amy had a step up and deliver
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Speaker 1: the news in Jody's place. She loves her show. She
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Speaker 1: calls it her show. You know she wouldn't miss it
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Speaker 1: for anything. From our friends at forty eight hours as
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Speaker 1: they investigate the disappearance of a gorgeous young anchor Jody
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Speaker 1: Who's in truth, Let's talk about this guy, John van Seiss.
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Speaker 1: This is a guy that was reportedly obsessed with Jody
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Speaker 1: Who's in truth? Now, what do we know about him?
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Speaker 1: Alan de John van Siss met Jody at a bar
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Speaker 1: and by the way, it turns out that John van
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Speaker 1: Siss's background had some DUIs and so we know he
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Speaker 1: liked to drink. But they became close friends. She and
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Speaker 1: another one of her friends became friends with John. They
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Speaker 1: would go out on his boat and they would go
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Speaker 1: socializing together. But he was forty nine years old she
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Speaker 1: was just twenty seven at the time. Friends, though, thought
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Speaker 1: he had feelings for her that were not mutual. In fact,
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Speaker 1: as Kathleen mentioned, he named his boat after her. That
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Speaker 1: is obsession if you ask me, my dad named his
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Speaker 1: boat after my mom. Okay, But she told friends that
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Speaker 1: he was just like a father to her. But the
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Speaker 1: mystery is was he jealous of her perhaps potential relationships
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Speaker 1: with other men closer to her age. John n sais
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Speaker 1: an Arizona man who apparently remains a person of interest
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Speaker 1: in the Jody who's in true case? Now, what do
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Speaker 1: we know about him? His legal name is Arthur John Mensis,
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Speaker 1: and he was named on the March twenty seventeen search
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Speaker 1: warrant for GPS data from his ninety nine Honda Civic
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Speaker 1: and a twenty thirteen GMC fifteen hundred. Now to you,
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Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan for expert. What does that mean? Well,
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Speaker 1: that means that they don't have a huge field of
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Speaker 1: suspects to look at, and so they've narrowed it down
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Speaker 1: to this particular gentleman along with they said twelve others.
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Speaker 1: But I think that their focus is specifically on him.
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Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, Nancy. The one troubling thing about
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Speaker 1: this that we've gone back to now a couple of times,
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Speaker 1: is this idea that she was later than she normally
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Speaker 1: would be. Remember they called her and she said that
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Speaker 1: she would be there, and that was outside the norm
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Speaker 1: for her. Why on that particular morning shift was she late?
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Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons I had put forward
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Speaker 1: this idea that maybe someone had come to visit her
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Speaker 1: at her apartment, someone coming to visit her at the apartment.
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Speaker 1: But the apartment wasn't it. I think that's Alan Dee
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Speaker 1: jumping in. John was in the apartment totally in order.
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Speaker 1: It didn't look like anything had happened there. She hadn't
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Speaker 1: done the dishes, which anyway, But yes, it look it
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Speaker 1: did not look like there was a struggle. But John
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Speaker 1: Vancis claimed to be the last person to see her.
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Speaker 1: He said in an interview two years, two days after
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Speaker 1: her disappearance, that she was over at my house the
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Speaker 1: night before and she was laughing and we're having fun.
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Speaker 1: And so he claims he was the asked person to
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Speaker 1: see her. By the way, he was recently divorced. You
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Speaker 1: mean at the time he was recently divorced. Yes, what
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Speaker 1: does that mean? What it means that he was going
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Speaker 1: through some turbulence in his life at the time. Okay,
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Speaker 1: all right, definitely. This guy ben Sis, was an acquaintance
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Speaker 1: of Who's in Truths, believed to be the last person
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Speaker 1: to see the twenty seven year old anchor alive now.
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Speaker 1: According to an article in the Globe Gazette, he said
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Speaker 1: he passed a polygraph. I don't know that that's true.
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Speaker 1: The police did say, okay, all right, and you'll you'll
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Speaker 1: hear that in the forty eight Hours Special that he
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Speaker 1: did pass a polygraph soon after the dion. What I'm
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Speaker 1: trying to figure out regarding this warrant, there was a
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Speaker 1: warrant regarding John ben Size that was still the same day,
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Speaker 1: Meaning no other information is available to the public about
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Speaker 1: why the search was ordered or what was discovered. But
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Speaker 1: whatever was discovered and whyever it was ordered, we do
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Speaker 1: know that he remains a person of interest. Now, it
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Speaker 1: seems to me that search warrant could have gotten if
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Speaker 1: it existed GPS Global positioning on his vehicles? Did it
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Speaker 1: exist at that time, Joe Scott Morgan. Was there a
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Speaker 1: GPS at that time? Well, there was GPS, but it
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Speaker 1: was it was more in the sophisticated. It was more
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Speaker 1: sophisticated to the functions of say, for instance, like uh
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Speaker 1: like like military utilization. Also, if you remember back in
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Speaker 1: that time, they used LoJack, which was kind of a
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Speaker 1: kind of a GPS. But the everyday person, you know,
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Speaker 1: they wouldn't they wouldn't have that back during that time.
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Speaker 1: Now we know he videotaped a birthday party he threw
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Speaker 1: for her just days before she disappeared, and he himself
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Speaker 1: admits he was at his house the night before her
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Speaker 1: disappearance watching that tape. He also says that he was
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Speaker 1: with her the night before she disappeared. There were definitely
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Speaker 1: signs of a struggle. Now, she was legally declared dead,
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Speaker 1: but her body has never been found. Police actually searched
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Speaker 1: the basement of a home for occupied by Van, says,
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Speaker 1: but that search didn't turn anything up. And he still
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Speaker 1: remains a person of interest to you, doctor Daniel Bober,
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Speaker 1: forensic psychiatrist, What does it mean to you that he's
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Speaker 1: still a person of interest. It means that at this
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Speaker 1: point they still cannot rule him out as a suspect,
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Speaker 1: and I think that's probably the best thing they have
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Speaker 1: right now. But it is interesting that her body has
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Speaker 1: never been found. To DA Mason, CDPD searching dumpsters, the
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Speaker 1: parking lots, you name it, looking for clues leading to
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Speaker 1: the disappearance of the kimt anchor Jody Who's in Truth
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Speaker 1: reported missing in the early early morning hours of June
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Speaker 1: twenty seven. Listen to this who revertive. Jody seemed to
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Speaker 1: be familiar with her schedule. Could it have been someone
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Speaker 1: she knew? To find out, investigators were piecing together the
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Speaker 1: last days of Jody's life, and this man popped up
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Speaker 1: on their radar by declaring he'd been the last person
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Speaker 1: to Jody alive. They reviewed me twice, but they haven't
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Speaker 1: give an indication almost suspect. Jody's friend John Van Seiss
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Speaker 1: told Robin in an interview that Jody had visited his
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Speaker 1: home the night before she was abducted. She's laughing the
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Speaker 1: whole time she's there, and she laughed at the time.
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Speaker 1: She laughed, how did he strength you? Way too happy
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Speaker 1: and gleeful, and he wanted to be interviewed. She was
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Speaker 1: like a daughter, Tomy. She was just like my own child.
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Speaker 1: I turned her like my own child. So who exactly
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Speaker 1: is John van Seiss? Drilling down into that question is
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Speaker 1: complicated by the passage of time, but this certainly helps.
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Speaker 1: Twenty three years ago, days after Jody disappeared, forty eight hours,
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Speaker 1: was in Mason City and we spent time with the
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Speaker 1: man who had put himself at the center of the case. Houstly,
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Speaker 1: she's alive somewhere. I just hope she's not hurt. I
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Speaker 1: hope she's okay. I hope you come back. So back
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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety five, we caught up with John Van
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Speaker 1: and Jody's close friend Annie Cruz dark Side, where we
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Speaker 1: learned the three off in water skied off his boat.
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Speaker 1: Van say, certainly wasn't hiding. We're acting like someone under
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Speaker 1: a cloud of suspicion. She wouldn't want to sit around
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Speaker 1: home and try and stabbed. She'd want to all having
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Speaker 1: fun because that was her, isn't it? Isn't think she's
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Speaker 1: coming back? Be ready for It's been an active investigation
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Speaker 1: since it happened. But we're twenty three years in right.
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Speaker 1: I'm not ready to quit yet. The more we keep
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Speaker 1: this story alive, it might just unlock the puzzle. I
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Speaker 1: may be walking around my king and maybe in a wheelchair,
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Speaker 1: but I am staying on this until Anty. Somebody knows something.
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Speaker 1: Is it you? You're hearing our friends at forty eight
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Speaker 1: hours who have rekindled the case of Jody. Who's intrude
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Speaker 1: to you? Ellen Duke? Who is Tony Jackson? And what
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Speaker 1: could he have to do, if anything, with the missing
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Speaker 1: the gorgeous young missing TV anchor Jody Who's intrude? Tony
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Speaker 1: Jackson was student at a community college in Mason City, Iowa.
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Speaker 1: He had been a college basketball player before on a
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Speaker 1: higher level and then sort of had some trouble in
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Speaker 1: his life, but he was interested in broadcasting. Was he
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Speaker 1: the predator of the stalker she was reporting? Well, Jackson,
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Speaker 1: who lived just a few blocks away from Jody when
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Speaker 1: she disappeared, is currently serving a life sentence in a
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Speaker 1: Minnesota prison for a rape conviction. So let me understand this.
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Speaker 1: He lives in close proximity to her and he's in
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Speaker 1: on another rate charge. You know. That brings me to
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Speaker 1: this question to Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert and author
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Speaker 1: Jesscott Morgan, how should they have processed the scene? Because
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Speaker 1: I'm just wondering if they lost DNA, or if there
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Speaker 1: is any DNA still to be found even these many
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Speaker 1: years later, it can still be processed, then they could
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Speaker 1: try to match up to this Tony Jackson. Yeah, in
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Speaker 1: a perfect world, Nancy, what they would have done has
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Speaker 1: gone into her apartment and have collected things, intimate things, say,
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Speaker 1: for instance, like the betting. You know, maybe look for
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Speaker 1: specific things like cigarette butts, if there was a smoker
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Speaker 1: in the house, any kind of you know, Alan actually
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Speaker 1: set a mouthful a second guy. I know, he said
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Speaker 1: it tongue in cheek, but you know she had dirty dishes,
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Speaker 1: for instance, in her sink. Were there a couple of
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Speaker 1: wine glasses, coffee cups, anything that was in there that
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Speaker 1: might contain some kind of biological evidence. The key here, though,
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Speaker 1: is how well did the police preserve this? Now we
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Speaker 1: can't stand in judgment of the people back in nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety five because they didn't understand things like touch, DNA
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Speaker 1: and all this technology that we have now. But how
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Speaker 1: well was it preserved going forward? Was it stored in
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Speaker 1: some kind of musty evidence room somewhere? Was it properly
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Speaker 1: packaged so that they could go back and reflect. Remember,
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Speaker 1: by their own admission, the police have said this has
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Speaker 1: never been classified as a cold case to them, that
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Speaker 1: this is something that is active. Well, if it's active,
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Speaker 1: one of the things I'm going to look at is
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Speaker 1: how much evidence did you collect or potential evidence did
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Speaker 1: you collect it that particular time. There were also reports
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Speaker 1: that Jody Houston true thought one day when she was
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Speaker 1: out jogging that she had been followed by a black vehicle,
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Speaker 1: a black vehicle, And I don't know, could that have
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Speaker 1: anything to do with it? Do you know anything about that?
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Speaker 1: Alan Duke, Well, she reported it to police, but they
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Speaker 1: never got to the bottom of it. They never figured
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Speaker 1: anything out. And this was several months before she disappeared.
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Speaker 1: Now I should add Mason City police did investigate this
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Speaker 1: Tony Jackson guy, but of course they didn't have DNA
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Speaker 1: to the extent back then, and they concluded then that
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Speaker 1: they had no evidence to hold him. In Jody's case,
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Speaker 1: was it a crime of opportunity? Was she targeted by
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Speaker 1: an obsessed fan or was it someone she knew? Take
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Speaker 1: a listen to this. It was later that Monday evening
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Speaker 1: that Van Sis claims Jody came over to his home
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Speaker 1: to watch a video and we watched a tape and
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Speaker 1: we chuckled and laugh we giggled, he hauled, we did
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Speaker 1: everything and say we're gonna cut this portion now the
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Speaker 1: daber and got this portion now the day and then
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Speaker 1: we laugh about it. The next morning Jody was gone.
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Speaker 1: Would John Van Says have a reason to harm her?
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Speaker 1: Annie couldn't think of anything, not a doubt. I had
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Speaker 1: no question that. There's no possibility in my mind you
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Speaker 1: could could have ever moved The police we're also asking
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Speaker 1: Annie what she knew. The investigators are asking you about
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Speaker 1: John Van Sis yes, and you're saying it couldn't be John, Oh,
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Speaker 1: he's our friend. For me, I'm thinking, why would you
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Speaker 1: hurt somebody that brought so much to join in here? Like,
33:31
Speaker 1: you know, speaking of the friend Van Sys, he was
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Speaker 1: at her place the night before watching a birthday video
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Speaker 1: of a birthday party he threw for her a few
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Speaker 1: days before. But he had stated he felt like she
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Speaker 1: was his daughter to Daniel Bober Dodger, Daniel Bober, forensics psychiatrist,
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Speaker 1: does that make a difference, Yes, it does. I mean
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Speaker 1: if that's the type of relationship that he thought he
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Speaker 1: had with her, but you know, if he some kind
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Speaker 1: of obsession with her and felt, like you know, she
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Speaker 1: rebuffed his advances, then that love or that obsession could
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Speaker 1: turn to rage very quickly. But if the relationship was
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Speaker 1: simply a father daughter relationship, then it sounds like it's
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Speaker 1: a lot more benign. Of course, that's what he said
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Speaker 1: to Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina's family endorsed lawyer. That's what
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Speaker 1: he says after the fact. But how did he behave
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Speaker 1: in during her life? Well, according to her friends, Nancy,
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Speaker 1: they warned her that his behavior was kind of creepy,
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Speaker 1: naming the boat after her was weird and he appeared
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Speaker 1: from there. From her friend's opinions that he was just
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Speaker 1: obsessed with her, that's a red flag for me. Well,
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Speaker 1: it's interesting that the friends thought that at the time.
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Speaker 1: Take a listen to this. It's been thirty eight hours
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Speaker 1: now since anyone has spoken to Jody, Who's in Truth
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Speaker 1: and whose Channel three co anchor disappeared yesterday morning, June
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Speaker 1: twenty eighth, nineteen ninety five. The investigation was expanding for
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Speaker 1: the FBI to some assistants, and Jody's story was national news.
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Speaker 1: Fair is growing in one Iowa farmtown. Someone is missing,
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Speaker 1: not a face in the crowd, but one of the
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Speaker 1: most familiar faces in town. It just struck me as
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Speaker 1: so sad, and I was just second. I thought, this
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Speaker 1: is not what we meant about being on national news.
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Speaker 1: You know, there are so many possibilities of who it
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Speaker 1: could have been, who took Jody Who's the Truth? Listen
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Speaker 1: to this our friends of forty eight hours. Caroline Lowe
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Speaker 1: was an investigative reporter at WCCOTV in Minneapolis. She started
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Speaker 1: reporting on Jody while covering a terrifying crime spree in
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Speaker 1: the Minneapolis Saint Paul Area. I covered a serial rapist
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Speaker 1: who was accused of raping four women in eighteen days.
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Speaker 1: The rapist was Tony Jackson. He was arrested in nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety seven after a routine traffic stop. Police found in
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Speaker 1: his car the tools of his trade. He's got rope's handcuffs,
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Speaker 1: he's got his gun, he's got duck team. Basically, it's
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Speaker 1: a rape kit. Jo Barrio, formerly a detective with the Woodbury,
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Speaker 1: Minnesota Police Department, worked the Jackson case. All the victims
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Speaker 1: that we know of, there is an element of stocking.
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Speaker 1: Jay explored Tony Jackson's past. He learned Jackson was living
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Speaker 1: in Iowa when Jody disappeared, and not just anywhere. The
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Speaker 1: background investigation puts him in Mason City, two blocks from
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Speaker 1: the TV station that Jody worked at. Two blocks. It's chilling.
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Speaker 1: That is chilling, But listen to this. Another theory emerges.
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Speaker 1: After spending weeks chasing various leads, pouring through fifty plus
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Speaker 1: birthday cars, they founded her home from the birthday party
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Speaker 1: Van Sisse gave her. They went door to door within
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Speaker 1: her apartment complex, talking to everyone. People heard a scream,
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Speaker 1: a woman scream at four am and didn't call police,
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Speaker 1: did nothing, didn't call nine one one. In the early
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Speaker 1: any hours, they could still see where her car was
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Speaker 1: parked and where drag marks ended up about one hundred
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Speaker 1: feet away, right to a white van. That white van
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Speaker 1: became a major component in the investigation. Flyers went everywhere
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Speaker 1: urging the public to help. Still no leads in the search.
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Speaker 1: Where is Jody? Still not giving up? The case not
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Speaker 1: classified as a cold case. Listen, Annie says van sise
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Speaker 1: and a history of jealousy when it came to Jody,
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Speaker 1: if we were out somewhere, if she was visiting with somebody,
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Speaker 1: he would come join the conversation, just swoop in pretty much. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: you wanted to make sure that everybody knew Jody was his. Okay,
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Speaker 1: that doesn't sound good. He still remains a person of
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Speaker 1: interest in the disappearance of TV anchor Jody who's in trooped,
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Speaker 1: but never enough evidence for anything more than a POY classification.
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Speaker 1: This is a case that has custard, that has caused
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Speaker 1: pain for so many years. Someone was such a bright future.
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Speaker 1: Outside of the TV station, there is a tree planted
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Speaker 1: and there is a stone marker there with engravings of
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Speaker 1: her favorite things. A golf ball and the news camera.
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Speaker 1: Her voice was silenced that early morning, but her story
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Speaker 1: goes on tipline sixty four one four two one thirty
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Speaker 1: six thirty six Repeat six four one four two one
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Speaker 1: thirty six thirty six Nancy Gray's crime story, signing off goodbye,