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00:00:00July 12th, it was a beautiful day. The sun was beating down. I decided to go to the park with
00:00:20my dog Remy. When I pulled up to the park, there was a van sitting there. I didn't really think
00:00:28anything of it because it's a park.
00:00:37It was very peaceful, very quiet, and it was just me and my dog, which is what I love to do.
00:00:44We walked through the woods a little bit, and we were there for about an hour. Once it got really
00:00:51hot, I'm like, okay, let's get back to the car. That's when I noticed the van was still there.
00:00:58I probably got halfway to my car. I heard somebody running from behind me.
00:01:11I did a very quick double take, and that's when I saw the knife in his hand.
00:01:17He tackles me on the ground.
00:01:19I thought he was trying to kill me. I was terrified. We fought on the ground. There's blood everywhere.
00:01:31I think that was like my fight or flight.
00:01:38The police, they wanted to figure out who was this? Who did it? How can we find them?
00:01:44And, you know, just try to understand what's going on here.
00:01:50And as scary as this attack was, what was about to happen next to a different young woman in the area
00:01:56would be even more terrifying.
00:02:03Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
00:02:06Harper, 901, what's an emergency?
00:02:07My daughter is blue. I went to wake her up.
00:02:11And I just got home for lunch, and she won't wake up.
00:02:15How old is your daughter?
00:02:16Nineteen.
00:02:17She's 19?
00:02:19Oh, my God.
00:02:19Okay, so is she breathing?
00:02:21I don't think so, no.
00:02:23Oh, not breathing?
00:02:25I don't think so. She's blue. I tried to wake her up, but she's not even waking up.
00:02:30Okay.
00:02:31Jessie.
00:02:37Jessie was really bright. She had a ton of energy and passion.
00:02:44I'm Buck Blodgett. I'm Jessie's dad.
00:02:46Jessie, she went to UWM, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
00:02:52She's 19 years old.
00:02:53Jessie was a very talented musician.
00:02:57She could play the piano. She could sing. She could play the violin.
00:03:01Jessie was a performer more than anything.
00:03:04She would find her way to a stage and entertain.
00:03:08There's nothing like the opening night of a show. It's high energy. Everybody's really excited.
00:03:22That energy is infectious, and the audience feels that from the moment they come through the outer
00:03:28doors.
00:03:28The first week of Fiddler on the Roof, it was everywhere. It was the talk of the town.
00:03:34Jessie got the role as the fiddler.
00:03:36She got to play the violin, which is something that she was always extraordinary at.
00:03:52I was so proud of her. She won the title role in her first community theater out of school.
00:03:59And she started her own business that summer and had 28 mostly kids come into our house every week
00:04:11for piano, voice, and violin lessons. The morning of July 15th was Jessie's first morning that summer
00:04:17to sleep in. They just had opening weekend and a late night cast party. So this Monday morning,
00:04:23she was pooped.
00:04:27It was a typical morning for Jessie's mom. She walked into her room to drop off some laundry before
00:04:32she headed off to work.
00:04:37Joy came home for lunch, called up to Jessie. No answer. She didn't think much of it. She called up to
00:04:45Jessie again, still no answer. And then she looks out the picture window while she's eating a quick lunch,
00:04:49and she sees one of Jessie's six-year-old students and her dad walking up our driveway.
00:04:55And so now she calls upstairs, Jessie, Jessie, your lesson's here. And there's still no answer,
00:05:00so she runs upstairs and goes into Jessie's room. She goes over to her. She reaches out to wake Jessie
00:05:08up and Jessie's cold. She's cold. She's cold. She's cold. She's cold. Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm gonna,
00:05:18I'm gonna page out, uh, fleece. So hang on. I will be with you in just a second.
00:05:23You can hear Joy's emotion. It's heartbreaking. Then, when she's put on hold, you can still hear
00:05:31her in the background, calling out for her daughter. Honey, what happened to you? Ma'am,
00:05:37I have, uh, BMS is coming and police will be there shortly. They're on their way. Ma'am,
00:05:43is anyone else with you? What? Is anyone else with you? No. I got the phone call that every parent fears.
00:05:51And Joy said, honey, it's Jessie. I came home and she's, she's not responding. No, honey, no.
00:06:00And she said, the EMTs are here. And I said, hon, is she? And then I didn't want to say the word.
00:06:09So I said, gone. Is she gone? She just tailed off into tears. So I hang up the phone and grab my car
00:06:19keys and drive home. We saw a bunch of police cars outside of Jessie's house. We tried calling her.
00:06:27We tried texting her, but we couldn't get a hold of anyone. Lieutenant Jim Zwicky was one of the
00:06:33detectives that arrived that day. So we're outside what was the Blodgett home. You came here
00:06:39to process the scene. Yes. It was a day off for me. My phone rang. It was my captain at the time saying
00:06:46that they had a suspicious death in the city of a young person. I parked. I walked around. I checked
00:06:52doors and windows and checked for anything that looked like forced entry or if there were going
00:06:56to be any problems. I didn't notice any of that. I walk into the house and I just kind of get an
00:07:01immediate feel of what we have here. Where was Jessie found? Jessie was found up in her bedroom.
00:07:07Upstairs. Upstairs. So this was Jessie's room? This was. This was. We had taken video of her bedroom
00:07:14and I saw it was a normal young lady's bedroom. When I arrived up here, Jessie was laying in this
00:07:21general direction right here with her feet facing towards the door, her head right about in that
00:07:27direction. I learned subsequently that her mother got her removed from the bed because part of CPR is you
00:07:35want it on a hard surface. So her mother had moved her. I had immediately noticed the way that her head was
00:07:43tilted. You could see a faint ligature mark on the side of her neck. Pressure was applied to her neck via
00:07:51some type of ligature and there was pressure applied from the back which is something she couldn't have
00:07:57done. We could also identify some faint bruising on the wrists and the ankle area. Her hands had been
00:08:05bound together. Her ankles possibly bound together as well. This was a more intimate murder. Yes, I would
00:08:13agree with that. Someone who strangles, that's someone who is more comfortable, especially if they come into
00:08:18someone else's house to be able to do that. So as Lieutenant Zawicki looks over the room, he's searching
00:08:25everywhere, just anywhere to see what could have been used as the murder weapon. We found extension
00:08:31cords in the room that were used to plug things in. She also had the pulling type of shades that you can pull
00:08:36and control that had that rope on him too. None of the items that he was finding in that room matched the marks on
00:08:44her neck. Any other evidence found in this room? There was a little bit of blood evidence that was found on the
00:08:49sheets and the pillowcases. There was no signs of a struggle, no ransacking and actually when I had first shown up, I
00:08:56went into the breezeway area. She had a piano and on top of that was some cash from a piano lesson and that money wasn't taken. This wasn't a robbery.
00:09:04Did the scene seem staged? Yes, absolutely. The way her mother had found her, she was in bed,
00:09:11she was covered up. Her head was on the pillow as if she was sleeping or as if someone placed her back
00:09:15in bed to make it look like she was sleeping. Investigators are talking to Jessie's mother.
00:09:19They're trying to figure out what happened. And in those conversations, Jessie's mother tells
00:09:26detectives something really unusual that Jessie's hair and pants were wet in bed when she found her
00:09:33daughter. It appeared to be that she was bathed. That struck me as extremely odd.
00:09:42Now, a mystery surrounded the death of a 19-year-old woman in Washington County.
00:09:46She died in Hartford. When we found out that she had been murdered, there was a panic in Hartford.
00:09:53We were so scared. There was a dangerous person on the loose. To have an actress killed
00:09:59after the first week of your musical, it was beyond any imagination. Holy cow, something's happening
00:10:06in our area. Nobody saw this coming.
00:10:26Nobody knew who had killed her or what had even happened. This was all just completely a mystery.
00:10:36Ma'am, you stay in line with me. We're going to get EMS out for you.
00:10:39Um, she's cold to the touch and she's blue. And she's got, it looks like, strangulation marks.
00:10:48There are strangulation marks? That's what it looks like. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on.
00:10:59After talking with Joy and her telling me what she saw on Jessie's neck, we realized somebody had
00:11:06had intentionally taken her life. So as part of the investigation, you're canvassing the neighborhood.
00:11:14Did you get any helpful tips from neighbors? We'd gone to each one of the houses in the neighborhood,
00:11:19even in the back neighborhoods. Nobody saw anything and there was nothing that rose anyone's suspicions.
00:11:26We have a killer in our community and it could be anyone. I had no idea who would ever want to hurt her.
00:11:32We were so scared.
00:11:39This case absolutely stood out to us. We don't have homicides in the city of Hartford. They're very,
00:11:44very rare.
00:11:45Hartford, Wisconsin is a small town. We're just off the northwest corner of the greater metropolitan
00:11:54Milwaukee area. Beautiful community, roughly 16,000 people. There's a lot of art. There's a lot of
00:12:02performing arts. Hartford kind of exemplifies the heartland of America.
00:12:12Perk Place is like a staple in Hartford. It's the local coffee shop. It's where a lot of high
00:12:16school students would go out and hang. If you didn't know where Jessie was, you would probably be
00:12:20able to find her at Perk Place. Buck, hello. Stephanie, hello. Perk Place, hot spot in town,
00:12:29and that's where I met Jessie's dad in downtown Hartford, Wisconsin.
00:12:34Jessie loved this little shop. Often was in the habit of coming after school with friends.
00:12:38They'd come here and do homework or just hang out and have fun.
00:12:41Jessie was Jessie when she's one day old, and that's a very tired but very present looking Joy,
00:12:49who had just had her. It was the most miraculous day of my life.
00:12:54Jessie was Joy's and Buck's only child. They only had one daughter. So for Joy, this is still too much.
00:13:03She can't speak about this. It's too heartbreaking for her.
00:13:07It's too painful. We had to leave Hartford so she didn't have to relive the nightmare constantly,
00:13:13every day. I miss everything about Jessie. Our bond just, it got deeper as the years passed.
00:13:22We talk about everything. And my kid, it was never an issue trying to pull anything out of Jessie.
00:13:29I couldn't shut her up sometimes. She just was free to talk about everything and things that mattered.
00:13:35Sometimes I would get annoyed. I'd be like, let's just talk about high school things. But she was
00:13:40definitely wise beyond her years. She was the kid at the high school parties that chastised the smokers
00:13:46and the drinkers. She had great inner strength and belief. Music was so important to Jessie. It was her
00:13:53way to express herself. So she started playing piano as a kid. As a kid, first grade, yeah. I took piano with
00:14:02Jessie because I thought I would need to in order for her to stay in it. She was so far ahead of me and
00:14:07loved it so much, she didn't need me anymore. So I just dropped out.
00:14:13I met Jessie in high school. We heard someone playing piano and singing and we're like,
00:14:17we don't recognize that voice. Who is that?
00:14:19Forget, have resonate. We convinced her to try out for the concert choir and she was incredible.
00:14:32Jessie wrote her own music. I think that was what made her unique. That's what made her special and
00:14:36that's what drew a lot of us to her. Jesse's coming out party as a local musician was the eighth grade
00:14:48talent show. The first song she ever wrote, Joy and I had not heard. We didn't even know about it.
00:14:57She starts to play and she starts to sing and I hear what's coming out of my kid.
00:15:17And then the whole place exploded.
00:15:19And a standing ovation and she won the talent show. It was the first time for me,
00:15:28it was the first time I really saw her talent as a musician.
00:15:36Super musical. So in college, she auditioned for the University of Wisconsin music program.
00:15:42So you want to do your name and introduce your pieces?
00:15:45Okay, well, my name is Jessie Blodgett. I'm a freshman at UWM right now. I'm in the English
00:15:50education program, hopefully transfer to music ed.
00:15:58After her audition, you know, she called me and she just was beaming. She made it into the School of
00:16:02Music. Well done. Thank you.
00:16:05Her dream and her vision was being a music teacher. She really thought that she was going to change the
00:16:13world through music. Music was going to be her vehicle.
00:16:19I took on the directing for the Fiddler on the Roof production.
00:16:26I first met Jessie at auditions. She stuck out even from that first night of auditions.
00:16:33She had an effervescence and an energy that was infectious. And she could play the fiddle.
00:16:40That, I had no idea someone was going to walk through the door and present that way.
00:16:45She came home one day and she said, I'm the Fiddler. She loved the cast. She called them her second
00:16:50family. Jessie's last weekend on earth was opening weekend for the Fiddler on the Roof.
00:17:00We talked to the director. Did anyone have a problem with Jessie? Were there any jealousy issues?
00:17:04Were there anything that could potentially lead someone to feel that they needed to harm her?
00:17:09Because my mind started to think that this could have potentially been a targeted attack.
00:17:14They knew their way around the house. They knew where Jessie's bedroom was. And that's where they went.
00:17:20The crime lab did the rape analysis where they end up checking for any body fluids. It usually takes
00:17:26time to get results back from any type of sexual assault kit that would be done or any type of evidence
00:17:31that was potentially found on Jessie's body. As investigators are waiting for the results
00:17:35to see if Jessie was sexually assaulted, they're trying to piece together a timeline of Jessie's last
00:17:42days. We made the determination that she was killed that morning simply by when we got there,
00:17:47the body temperature was still warm. She did not have rigor mortis that had set in.
00:17:52They had performed Friday and Saturday and then Sunday afternoon matinee and then they had the
00:18:00cast party, the traditional late night cast party. Jessie came home kind of late and was a little
00:18:06troubled. The diary that she had that she was keeping we found next to her bed. Detectives learn
00:18:14that Jessie wrote in her diary just hours before she was murdered and something that she wrote
00:18:19immediately jumps out at them. In a way I'm furious. There was a subject in the cast that she was
00:18:24furious at who was a little older than her. You might want to find out why she was upset with this
00:18:29person. It's a big clue in this investigation and that diary entry includes a name.
00:18:34She was an actress, a musician and also a college student. My name is Jessie Blanchett. I'm a freshman
00:18:52at UWM right now. But now 19 year old Jessie is at the center of a bizarre murder mystery. Everyone
00:18:59wanted answers. Nobody had any. It was very much like hearing that your daughter had been killed.
00:19:08I cannot imagine what Buck went through. You know, I was sorry for her dad not being there when she
00:19:16needed him most and that I would never stop loving her and I would never forget her.
00:19:29We did a full workup on Jessie Blanchett. Her friends, who she knew, who they knew, where she
00:19:37worked, what type of person Jessie was. And when we did that Jessie was an amazing person. She was doing
00:19:43everything in life right. Everything. Jessie had no enemies that I could think of.
00:19:52The detectives asked us if we had any thoughts about who might have done this and we did have some
00:19:57thoughts. There was the guys who trimmed our trees who were in the trees literally over Jessie's bedroom
00:20:06trimming big limbs just the week before. And they came in the morning as she was sleeping.
00:20:11That is potentially a lead here. The trees that they were working on overlooked her bedroom window.
00:20:16Where were those trees? Just right back here? Yeah, those trees were right over in this area.
00:20:20And that's a window to her room. It is. It's her bedroom. They're here for a day, two days, three days.
00:20:28They're picking up what the routine of the house is. When do mom and dad leave?
00:20:34I just thought, you know, maybe they had thoughts seeing her or thinking about her in her bedroom.
00:20:39We interviewed people from the tree cutting place and we were able to determine that
00:20:44none of the tree cutters were involved in this. But Buck tells detectives about a concern that Jessie
00:20:52had about another individual. There was an old man in a restaurant where she was a waitress right in
00:20:58our neighborhood. And he had once done an inappropriate thing when she was on the job. He
00:21:06positioned himself in a narrow hallway where the waitresses had to come into contact with him,
00:21:12had to rub against him as they passed. But detectives are able to determine that
00:21:17that former coworker wasn't even in town when Jessie was murdered. So he's completely cleared.
00:21:22There is still no official cause of death. Authorities say they are awaiting toxicology results.
00:21:27According to a police affidavit, Jessie's mother says after coming home from a cast party about 1am,
00:21:33Jessie went to bed alone.
00:21:37The cast party was at a really neat property.
00:21:41It was out on a farm. There were llamas out there and this big swimming pool and the kids were
00:21:49swimming and playing. We were having chicken fights. It was just fun.
00:21:55Jessie was happy and smiling. I'm actually in that video with Jess sitting next to me chatting.
00:22:02Jess comes up and sits down in the chair next to me. And is just bubbly as all get out. And tells me
00:22:09how much fun she had had this first weekend being this character. I was thrilled to hear this.
00:22:22Jessie came home from the cast party that night. Joy heard Jessie come in and got up and
00:22:28asked her how was the day and the party. And Jessie was a little troubled.
00:22:33She had a talk with her about being uncomfortable at the party with this older male subject who she
00:22:40thought became a little too flirtatious with her. Jessie was uncomfortable enough to write it in her
00:22:45diary and leave it for us as evidence.
00:22:47This was her last entry into her diary. This was written the night before she was murdered.
00:22:55It was, I think I'm being corrupted. I think certain men are taking what should be platonic love
00:23:02and perverting it into competition. In a way, I'm furious.
00:23:06Jessie writes about just this relationship with an older castmate. It's that she needs to clearly
00:23:15define that relationship. And that castmate's name is Randy Talley. Randy Talley was the choreographer
00:23:23for the show. He also played one of the young men with a leading role in it.
00:23:29The Bible clearly teaches us, never trust an employer.
00:23:37At the cast party, I did see her sitting in his lap. It was around a fire.
00:23:44This was a 46-year-old individual and she was 19.
00:23:48I did feel very unsettled seeing her in his lap. I just remember feeling like,
00:23:51is this something that she's okay with? Because if yes, then whatever. That's their business.
00:23:57But if not, I just felt this like, what if she's not comfortable? Like,
00:24:00does she need somebody to intervene? It just stuck with me.
00:24:07Detectives have seen this entry that talks about an older castmate, Randy Talley.
00:24:13They've got questions for him now. They call him in for an interview.
00:24:16What happened? Well, let me get to that.
00:24:19He was probably one of the last people to see her. Certainly the police would want to talk to him.
00:24:25That was another one of those red flakes for us. I just can't believe this. I hugged her goodbye last
00:24:36night and now she's gone. And there's something else investigators here don't know yet. That just
00:24:42three days earlier, in a town just about 15 minutes away, there had been that other violent attack on
00:24:48a young woman. I saw the knife in his hand. I was terrified.
00:25:02We're going to begin with the mysterious death of a teenage actress. Her mother discovered her dead
00:25:07in her bedroom the day after a cast party. We were all terrified. Oh my gosh,
00:25:12is it somebody that we were working with on this show? And Jesse had mentioned that someone in the
00:25:19cast had made her feel uncomfortable. The subject was identified as Randy Talley. It was a 46-year-old
00:25:25individual and she was 19. One of Jesse's friends tells investigators they saw Randy pull Jesse onto his
00:25:34lap at one of the cast parties. We subsequently were able to have an interview with Randy and determine
00:25:40whether he was our suspect in this homicide. What happened? Detective Thickens conducted the
00:25:45interview. Okay, I can tell you, Jesse was found deceased today by your parents. They found her early
00:25:53this afternoon. Okay, so that- Can you tell me anything about the circumstances of finding her? Well,
00:25:59that's what I'm trying to figure out. It's not real clear right now. We tried to get his time frame for
00:26:04that period that she had died. Oh my god, this is so horrible. And that was a little difficult because
00:26:11he was supposed to be at a certain job. Did you work this morning? No, I did not. So that was another
00:26:17one of those red flags for us. Randy says he works a temp job and he didn't get a call that day. They
00:26:24tried to call me, but they had the wrong number or something. They didn't get a hold of me until,
00:26:29uh, you know, almost end of the workday. We talked with him about how things went at the cast party,
00:26:35what his interpretation was, what his feelings for Jesse were. What happened to the party? There was
00:26:40swimming and talking and hanging out. I literally sat right next to Jesse for most of the night. Were you
00:26:47just like sitting next to her or was she like sitting tight up in it? We were on a couch with four or five
00:26:54kids. Okay. We were about hip to hip. Okay. I think I probably put my hand on her back a few times.
00:27:02Sure. She may have touched my, my leg a few times. Okay. So you would have had some contact with her?
00:27:08Sure. Do you have any impression from her that anything was wrong? No. Uncosher? No.
00:27:15No. You know, in fact, we had the best night, Sunday night. We had also learned through our
00:27:20investigation that at another cast party, Jesse was actually sitting on his lap. One of the things,
00:27:25that one of the comments I got from one of their people that was at the party was that it seemed
00:27:30like you guys were flirting a little bit. A little bit. One of the things they said was that at the
00:27:33party on Saturday night, like you pulled her on your lap. I did. Okay. She's one of my favorite people
00:27:38in the cast. Okay. Did anything more than that happen? Absolutely not. Okay. I got it. I mean,
00:27:45I'm not, I don't want to. I understand. I understand the questioning. I understand exactly what you're
00:27:50saying. Okay. I felt very close to her. I never, I never kissed her. Okay. Or anything beyond what
00:28:00those people saw. Like you said, you got, you know. I have a girlfriend and, and yeah, that, you know.
00:28:06That probably would, it probably would impress her a lot. It would not. I mean, but you know what I mean,
00:28:12it was, it's not anything I'm ashamed of. You know, I'm a, I'm a demonstratively
00:28:17affectionate person. We had learned that he had a long time girlfriend. He was in what we
00:28:23would have considered a stable relationship. Since Randy had physical contact with Jesse
00:28:29in the last few days, they asked him for a DNA sample and he agrees to it. Swap it up back and
00:28:34forth inside your cheek. I would stay in a different room, watch the interview. I'll be back with you in
00:28:4030 seconds. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And then Detective Thickens would come out. We would confer a little
00:28:45bit. Do you want anything to drink? I need caffeine. And then he would go back in and he would re-initiate
00:28:50the questioning. Okay. I, I don't want to leave here. I just get the vibe that there's something
00:28:58more that maybe you have some more insight. That's, that's what I'm getting. I don't. Okay. I wish,
00:29:03I wish I had some more insight. I can't imagine this. Detectives want to know if you didn't go to
00:29:09work that day. What were you actually doing? So what did you end up doing today when you were,
00:29:14did you get a day to sleep in after, what did you? Yeah, I, I, I, I just kind of slept in. I
00:29:22Facebooked some friends. I, um, I sent out a couple of resumes. I, um, you know, I hung around the house.
00:29:30I guess actors, I have a hard time reading sometimes with emotions people have. That's why,
00:29:36I don't know if that's why I'm getting the vibe. It's like, I, I mean. The vibe from who? From me?
00:29:40Since you feel like you got a little more to tell me, but if you don't know, that's fine. I'm just,
00:29:44if there's anything, if there's something you can think of. No, I'm just floored, sir. I'm just,
00:29:50I just can't believe this. Okay. I hugged her goodbye last night and now she's gone.
00:29:58He was asked, did he commit this homicide? And he adamantly denied that he had any involvement in it.
00:30:04I didn't know Randy very well, but I never saw anything that caused me to say, oh,
00:30:11wait a minute. I've got a member of my production staff who I feel is unsafe with these young people.
00:30:18That kind of thought never, ever occurred to me.
00:30:22This is the voice of my job. Why don't you come around?
00:30:24But detectives aren't so sure. They want to take a closer look at what Randy was doing the day of the
00:30:30murder. And meanwhile, investigators just a few towns over are working their own disturbing case.
00:30:36And got a phone call. There was a alleged attack at the park.
00:30:42I really thought I was gonna die.
00:30:45It was like, oh boy. Here we started to wonder if this is something that could be potentially connected.
00:31:00This is unreal. My fear is that this happened. This is somebody that knew her.
00:31:11You said you haven't been to her house? Never. I don't know where she lives.
00:31:14What led us to a guy named Randy Talley was Jesse's last entry in her diary where she speaks of this
00:31:22person that made her feel uncomfortable at the cast party.
00:31:24I'm a hugger. I hug people.
00:31:27Okay. You know her. I mean, you're saying you don't know her a lot.
00:31:31I'm saying that I've known her for six weeks and that I feel very close to her.
00:31:36I'm completely freaking out.
00:31:41So there weren't any tiffs or hot moments or anything like that?
00:31:46No. Not any.
00:31:49Detectives want to verify Randy's story, so they pull his phone records.
00:31:54We were able to determine his movements.
00:31:57So there was an impossibility that he would have been able to be at the house on that day.
00:32:03Mr. Talley was ruled out as a suspect in this case.
00:32:09As all of this is going on, just a few towns over, investigators with the Washington County
00:32:13Sheriff's Office are investigating their own case of a young woman attacked just three days
00:32:19before Jesse Blodgett's murder.
00:32:20We're going to need probably an ambulance.
00:32:23My son's girlfriend was just attacked in a park by a guy.
00:32:27So July 12th, you are here.
00:32:30Yes.
00:32:31Walking your dog.
00:32:32Yep.
00:32:32Was there anybody else out here when you first arrived?
00:32:35I remember there being one person here.
00:32:37He was sitting in a van, but I didn't really think anything of it because it's a public park.
00:32:44So Melissa said that she ended her walk with the dog, walked back to her car,
00:32:49and she had turned around and there's a guy running towards her.
00:32:54When did it hit you that you were in real danger?
00:32:57When I turned around and said, oh, you scared me, and he didn't stop.
00:33:01He just kept coming.
00:33:05And that's when I saw the knife in his hand.
00:33:06He just straight up tackled me.
00:33:09I grabbed the knife and I've got the blade end in my hand.
00:33:13And I'm just yelling at him like, what are you doing?
00:33:17Where did you get the wherewithal to put your hand on the knife blade?
00:33:22My body was like, you know what?
00:33:24This is our best bet at survival.
00:33:26I knew I had a grip on the knife and I was not letting go.
00:33:30My adrenaline just really kicked in and was like,
00:33:33you don't have time to feel pain right now.
00:33:35You need to survive.
00:33:36A lot of people also said like, why didn't your dog bite him?
00:33:45She just turned a year old.
00:33:47She just was standing there and probably just kind of confused.
00:33:50Then he went back and ran back to his van and took off.
00:33:54Then she went to her car, threw the knife into the car, drove home.
00:33:59Who was your first call?
00:34:00Joel.
00:34:01We weren't even dating for that long.
00:34:03She was just frantic.
00:34:04She said, I just got attacked.
00:34:06I just told her to go to my parents' house.
00:34:07And I stayed on the phone with her the whole time.
00:34:09I'm on the phone.
00:34:10My hand is ripped open.
00:34:12There's just blood everywhere.
00:34:14I'm so thankful that he was there and he kept me calm because that's,
00:34:20I truly believe that's what helped save my life.
00:34:23And then your dad calls 911.
00:34:26He tackled her.
00:34:27She fought him off and everything in the park.
00:34:29She's got his knife.
00:34:30She's bleeding from the hand or leg.
00:34:32Okay, did she know this person?
00:34:34No.
00:34:35In our area, there's very little stranger on stranger crime.
00:34:40You're very cynical at first, right?
00:34:41You're like, it probably is some BS, something manufactured.
00:34:45But that was my initial thought.
00:34:46When I got to the hospital, I introduced myself and talked to Melissa.
00:34:51Okay, this is Detective Plausing, July 12th.
00:34:54Yes.
00:34:55At Menomonee Falls Hospital.
00:34:57She was obviously distraught.
00:34:58She was obviously shook.
00:35:00So then what happened?
00:35:01So then he tackled me on the ground.
00:35:04I somehow managed to grab the knife from him.
00:35:07I mean, I really honestly couldn't tell you how I got it, but I did.
00:35:11And I'm just glad that he didn't hurt my dog.
00:35:15And I really thought I was going to die.
00:35:19But I grabbed it, and I wasn't going to let him do that to me.
00:35:23And when I was grabbing it from him, he said, can I go?
00:35:30He was asking me if he could go.
00:35:32And I was like, no.
00:35:34No, and he tried grabbing the knife away from me.
00:35:36And I'm like, if you're going to go, I'm taking this with me.
00:35:39And he started running back to his car.
00:35:42And then I got out of there as fast as I could.
00:35:45He didn't say a word until, can I just go?
00:35:48And what did that sound like?
00:35:50Weak, scared.
00:35:51It sounded confused.
00:35:54And who asks that anyways?
00:35:56I mean, what a weird thing to ask.
00:35:57So the detective calls you.
00:36:02Yep.
00:36:03What did the detective say?
00:36:04Just, like, interrogating me.
00:36:07Asking me where I was last night.
00:36:08How do I know her?
00:36:09Detectives have cleared Melissa's boyfriend.
00:36:12And they determined the story that she's telling is true.
00:36:16And there's one particular detail that seals the deal for them.
00:36:19She had gravel dust on the toes of her shoes.
00:36:24Her story was that he was on top of her and she was on her stomach.
00:36:27That would create these circles of gravel dust.
00:36:33He's white.
00:36:34He's a white guy.
00:36:34Blonde hair.
00:36:35Blonde hair.
00:36:36Black framed glasses.
00:36:39She described him to a tee.
00:36:40And she was, to this day, one of the better witnesses I've ever talked to in my entire life.
00:36:44She would have made a better witness than I did.
00:36:47Would you be able to do a composite sketch on him?
00:36:49Could try, for sure.
00:36:52The sketch was very detailed and it was actually pretty remarkable,
00:36:55her recollection of this attacker during a traumatic incident where she's being attacked
00:37:00and possibly going to be killed.
00:37:03Washington County deputies are searching for a man who assaulted a woman in Richfield historical park.
00:37:07I remember watching it on TV and I'm like, why is nobody calling?
00:37:13Nothing.
00:37:14Zero.
00:37:14Zip.
00:37:15Not a single call.
00:37:17You get that realization of like, wow, this is not going to be easy to solve.
00:37:22But soon, there's an unexpected breakthrough in the knife attack on Melissa.
00:37:27And I was like, holy ****, that never happens.
00:37:30They zero in on a suspect, but when they track him down, no one can believe where they find him.
00:37:35I said, I was wondering if I could talk to you.
00:37:37And he's like, sure.
00:37:39And I'm like, where are you?
00:37:40He was portraying himself as something that he absolutely wasn't.
00:37:45He was with us when we were grieving.
00:37:47He saw our pain.
00:37:48Both cases very different, but investigators are now piecing the puzzle together.
00:37:53Yes.
00:38:03Now, a mystery surrounding the death of a 19-year-old woman in Washington County.
00:38:0915,000 people have been on edge ever since Jessie Blodgett's murder.
00:38:14That 19-year-old UWM student was found dead inside her family's home.
00:38:18That crime sent shockwaves through Hartford.
00:38:21Fiddler on the roof.
00:38:22Jessie's a part of the cast.
00:38:29She was the fiddler.
00:38:30And after she was murdered, the Hartford players didn't know if they should do the second weekend.
00:38:36Without Jessie, everybody was traumatized.
00:38:39What do we do now?
00:38:44Do we cancel?
00:38:46What would Jessie want us to do?
00:38:48It was very challenging to get back into it.
00:38:53They debated it hard and decided together that Jessie would want the show to go on.
00:38:58And they were right.
00:38:59The final decision was made to take a candle and we placed it up there where she had originally sat.
00:39:16And that candle was lit through the entire musical.
00:39:19The symbolism of the fiddler sitting on the roof is that life is always tenuous.
00:39:36And you never really know what's going to happen next.
00:39:40She could never have known that that harm was coming toward her.
00:39:47While police in Hartford, Wisconsin, are investigating Jessie's murder,
00:39:51they don't know yet that just three days earlier there had been a violent attack on Melissa
00:39:56Etzler in a nearby town.
00:39:57Washington County deputies are searching for a man who assaulted a woman in Richfield Historical Park.
00:40:04When I found out about the attack in the park, I did think it was related because
00:40:09we live in a small town, so there's not a lot of crime that happens here.
00:40:13The detective that went down to process Melissa's car located a knife on the passenger floorboard of
00:40:20the vehicle. And then later, Melissa was like, that's the knife that I took from him.
00:40:24Blood on the handle still. Most likely her blood from the defensive wound of her hand.
00:40:32We had assigned a detective to go to the park. There was a litany of evidence
00:40:40through the driveway out the parking lot.
00:40:42There were sunglasses that were located there.
00:40:45And then we found a roll of tape.
00:40:47Ventilation tape, it's kind of like an aluminum backing on it a little bit so that when you put it
00:40:51on it sticks real tight and it's real hard to get off. Why would he have a roll of tape on it?
00:40:56This is not a robbery. And I've done legit robberies. It's a threat of force.
00:41:01Guy with a gun, guy with a knife, we now have your attention. But that's followed by a request.
00:41:08Give me your wallet, your necklace, and then you go in deeper and you're thinking, well why didn't he
00:41:12hide his identity? Put on a mask, put on a cap. Why didn't he? Absolutely nothing.
00:41:19Really the answer is because he didn't expect that there would be a witness. Probably because
00:41:24he wanted to take her with him.
00:41:27And that's when my brain was like, oh were you trying to kidnap me? Were you trying to rape me?
00:41:33What is this? He was probably going to credit buying her up somehow or control her that way.
00:41:39So she really showed a lot of strength and a lot of determination to survive by fighting him off.
00:41:49Tuesday, July 16, 139, we're in Richfield at the historical park. Melissa is going to walk us
00:41:55through what had occurred. Was it the 12th? July 12th? It was the 12th Friday.
00:42:01So a couple of days after the incident, you come back with police. I basically walked them through the
00:42:07park of what happened during the attack. Right to the gravel part after this. Because I still had my
00:42:15leg bandaged up from the hospital. The whole side of my leg was just ripped up from being tackled on
00:42:22the ground. I noticed he was looking at me out of his part and when he noticed that I saw him,
00:42:27he went like this so I like couldn't see he was there.
00:42:30But she did say something about a blue minivan. That's a pretty common vehicle, at least in
00:42:37Washington County. Where is the van at? Right here.
00:42:42So something really interesting happens. Just two weeks before the attack on Melissa,
00:42:46an officer on routine patrol in that same park makes a crucial observation.
00:42:55Richfield Historical Park, there's not a lot of traffic at all. You see three cars in the parking lot
00:43:00at one time. That's quite a busy day. Part of our duties are property checks and park checks.
00:43:06I drove through this park at least once a day.
00:43:11I saw a single vehicle. I tend to recognize the vehicles you see on a regular basis. This was one
00:43:16I hadn't seen before. I ran the registration. I did a brief background check. There were no red flags,
00:43:22no criminal history, nothing that caused any concern. I concluded that the registry owners were
00:43:31probably just out here walking or walking their dog. So he hears from fellow officers that they're
00:43:36looking for a similar vehicle that may have been involved in that attack. Andy came up to me and said,
00:43:43hey, I don't know if it'll help or not, but there was this blue van parked. And here's the plate.
00:43:48Here you go. Thanks, Andy. With that license plate, we were subsequently able to identify
00:43:56who the vehicle belonged to. It came back to a couple out of Richfield, right? Local.
00:44:02So then detectives went out to their house and they said, do you have this minivan? They said, yes.
00:44:09Our son uses this minivan. And found out that they had a 20-year-old son. So I called him,
00:44:16said an investigating incident that happened last Friday. I was wondering if I could talk to you.
00:44:21And they said he'd be there in 15 minutes, right? I hung up the phone and I looked at Aaron. I was
00:44:26like, holy ****, Aaron. He never asked me what this is about. That never happens.
00:44:32It's just hot in here, cuz. And when they sit down to talk to him,
00:44:35he says something about Jesse Blodgett's murder that raises some serious alarms. That's information
00:44:41that hadn't been released. Correct. So that would be inside information that he shouldn't have had.
00:44:46Everybody has had some mix of broken bones or broken heart or broken dreams or broken relationships.
00:45:07But I've never had a pain that was one 100th, literally, of the intensity and the duration of this pain.
00:45:16I'll be here for you.
00:45:21The day after Jesse had been murdered, some of us friends were invited to go over to the Blodgett house.
00:45:26We thought it would be a good idea to be there for her parents, especially with her being the only child.
00:45:32It was all of Jesse's friends. That house was packed to the gills with people.
00:45:36Mariah, Jackie, and Ian were among Jesse's closest friends that were there that day,
00:45:43along with Jesse's former boyfriend, Dan Bartelt. Those are some good friends.
00:45:48Those are some good friends, some good kids, some good young human beings. We formed a big circle in
00:45:54our living room around the fireplace and told stories, you know, just shared memories and
00:46:01shared tears and shared hugs. We were also laughing. Jesse's life, I mean, she was a light in this world.
00:46:08Dan was Jesse's first boyfriend back in freshman year of high school. Jesse was kind of head over heels
00:46:16for Dan temporarily. For I think about three months, Dan broke up with Jesse, but so they stayed friends.
00:46:24You would see them laughing or hanging out or just doing music together.
00:46:29They sat right next to each other in school for four years, first and second chair violins in the orchestra.
00:46:35Dan was also very musically talented as well. He was very similar to Jesse in that way.
00:46:41They were in a lot of the musicals and the plays together,
00:46:45and Dan was just over the week before playing music in Jesse's music room with her.
00:46:50When we were gathered as friends the day after Jesse had died, I sat with Dan on the fireplace and I was holding his hand
00:46:57and I had my head on his shoulder crying and he squeezed my hand in comfort.
00:47:04And then his cell phone rang. So he excused himself from the room and went over into the dining room and was on the phone for a while.
00:47:12He came back into the room and he said, okay, well, I have to go and said,
00:47:18I was just on the phone with a police officer and they asked me to come down to the station
00:47:23for an interview. And Joyce said, um, you know, don't worry, Dan. The police are going to want to
00:47:28talk to all of Jesse's friends. So we drove him to the police station.
00:47:34We dropped him off and he just simply said, pick me up in 30 minutes.
00:47:39The police do want to talk to Dan, but not about Jesse's murder. Instead, they want to ask him about
00:47:45the park attack on Melissa. We need, you know, to talk to him because I, I, I have his picture
00:47:51and that was a heck of a resemblance for the sketch that I had in my hand.
00:47:59Okay. Um, my name is Joel Klotz and that's Aaron Walsh.
00:48:02All these different questions gets a person
00:48:15talking. What's your name? What do you do? Do you have a job?
00:48:21Where are you working at?
00:48:22Uh, a roller, well, associate, associate engineering.
00:48:25And what do you do there?
00:48:28Uh, mostly cut around, uh, materials.
00:48:32This is about an incident that, uh, Detective Walsh are investigating and it happened last Friday.
00:48:37So, um, this happened at a park.
00:48:39The game plan was to get him to admit to being in that park at the same time that Melissa was.
00:48:54Were you at a park last Friday?
00:48:55No.
00:48:56At any park?
00:48:58Go ahead.
00:48:59I think so.
00:49:00Okay.
00:49:01Is it possible that you're at a park now?
00:49:04Oh, okay.
00:49:05If this is our guy, he was in a fight on Friday where a girl, the wounds would still be there.
00:49:12You could see both of us looking, occasionally looking underneath tables, looking for abrasions,
00:49:18signs of a struggle.
00:49:19Can I see your hands?
00:49:22Go like this.
00:49:24Don't have to on your phone.
00:49:25Cut the stab with a screw at work.
00:49:28Oh.
00:49:29Grab off.
00:49:30I have, like, a card that I move my stuff around on there to screw through the line.
00:49:35Aaron thought, this guy ain't working.
00:49:37Aaron just saw an opening and went.
00:49:40You don't have a job, do you?
00:49:42It was an intuition.
00:49:43And do you, if we check with your employer, would they, would you still have your job?
00:49:49No.
00:49:49Okay.
00:49:50That's what I thought.
00:49:51How long, when do you lose your job?
00:49:55A while ago.
00:49:55Okay.
00:49:56Do you encourage to know you lost your job?
00:49:58No.
00:49:58First provable, no.
00:50:01And then, now, now he's on the defense, right?
00:50:04And that's when I went in and said, how did you hurt yourself then?
00:50:08How did you injure your thumb?
00:50:09So then you want to cut your finger at work?
00:50:12Yeah.
00:50:13Where'd you cut your finger?
00:50:14Oh, that's it.
00:50:15Okay.
00:50:16Tell us about that.
00:50:22Where, where, where, when did this happen?
00:50:24What happened?
00:50:25Okay.
00:50:25Hold on a second.
00:50:27Okay.
00:50:27Let's talk.
00:50:28Okay.
00:50:30At the point that I moved my chair, we went from an interview to an interrogation.
00:50:35Listen, nobody in their right mind would lie about cutting themselves if it happened at home cooking.
00:50:42I've gone to the park before.
00:50:57I've been there.
00:50:59So we're knocking down Domino's, right?
00:51:01We have our guy.
00:51:02He's now admitted being there.
00:51:04And what you have to do is basically make them understand or make them feel like telling you the truth is better than not telling you the truth.
00:51:23If nobody made a mistake, they wouldn't put the erasers on pensions.
00:51:26If you made a mistake, you made a mistake.
00:51:30Made a mistake.
00:51:32I'm not telling the pensions that I've got fired and that was been working.
00:51:38They upped the pressure, telling him there's evidence.
00:51:42There's blood on the knife.
00:51:43It's being processed by the crime lab.
00:51:45Finally, Dan cracks.
00:51:47And I was at the park.
00:51:49Correct.
00:51:49And you went after that girl, right?
00:51:54Yes.
00:51:54Okay.
00:51:55Why?
00:51:56I'm scared.
00:51:58It's life scares me.
00:52:03I don't handle it as well.
00:52:08College was stressful.
00:52:10Left college.
00:52:12So I'm employed and I wanted to scare someone else.
00:52:17I'm so confident.
00:52:21When that's , right?
00:52:22That was just his out.
00:52:24Fine.
00:52:24In his version of events, it was to, quote unquote, to scare Melissa.
00:52:28But we didn't believe that.
00:52:29Okay.
00:52:30So you're under arrest, okay?
00:52:32Okay.
00:52:33You understand that?
00:52:33Yes.
00:52:34Stand up and put your hands.
00:52:35Bring it there.
00:52:37He was arrested by law enforcement.
00:52:39And then we charged him with an attempted murder and a recklessly endangering safety.
00:52:43I was very thankful because I was scared that he was, like, going to come back and finish the job.
00:52:49As for Dan's friends, the ones who had dropped him off at the police station,
00:52:53they had no idea this was all going on.
00:52:55And so we came back in 30 minutes and we said, we're looking for Dan.
00:52:59And a police officer came out and said, we can't release Dan.
00:53:04He's being detained right now.
00:53:05We were so confused.
00:53:07And we just assumed that meant we could come pick him up later.
00:53:10So one arrest has been made and investigators are now wondering,
00:53:13is it possible that the man who attacked Melissa could have also killed his own friend?
00:53:19He was living this secret life.
00:53:29Washington County Sheriff's deputies arrested a man for attacking a woman in Richfield Historical Park.
00:53:41It was all over the news.
00:53:42This young man was taken into custody.
00:53:45The reason why the police found him was because I remembered the van make and model and what it looked like.
00:53:51I'm one of the people that I like to watch crime shows.
00:53:55I do always joke about that the reason why I was able to remember what he was wearing
00:53:59and how tall he was in his weight is because I watched those shows.
00:54:04Dan and I became friends through high school.
00:54:07How could the guy that, you know, I was friends with do something like that?
00:54:13Dan appears to be in denial as well.
00:54:15Just moments after his arrest for attacking Melissa, he asked detectives a really odd question.
00:54:21There were two other comments that Dan made during that interview that really struck investigators.
00:54:38They just thought it was a little bit odd and unusual that he had been coming from her residence from this vigil.
00:54:59And I asked him, you know, do you know anything about that?
00:55:03And I was making small talk, right? I have no idea.
00:55:06What happened?
00:55:06What happened?
00:55:11Someone raped and murdered her.
00:55:14You think so or do you think so or what?
00:55:16You think so?
00:55:18He said that his friend Jesse had just been murdered and that she had been raped.
00:55:21But that's information that hadn't been released.
00:55:24That is true. That had not been released.
00:55:25That she had been raped.
00:55:26Correct. So that would be inside information that he shouldn't have had.
00:55:31This is a detail of the crime scene that only the killer would know.
00:55:38Daniel Bartelt came from a nice family.
00:55:40He went to church and he was involved in theater.
00:55:44And the Oscar goes to Daniel Bartelt.
00:55:51He was a straight-A student.
00:55:52He was one of the few students at Hartford Union High School who had a higher GPA than Jesse did.
00:55:58He's a gifted violinist. He's an athlete on the cross-country team.
00:56:03Dan Bartelt was funny. I mean, he was a fun person to be around. He lightened up a room.
00:56:08He could pull in a crowd and get people to gravitate toward him. And we loved being part of that group.
00:56:14He could sing. He could act. He could write music. He was a good entertainer.
00:56:20Dan often showed off his talent. Here he is singing Master of the House from Les Miserables.
00:56:25Master of the House, tuning up the charm, ready with the handshake and a new ping pong.
00:56:33I know that Jesse and Dan were also close at that time.
00:56:35And I was kind of always jealous of their friendship because I was like,
00:56:38Dan is so cool and he's so fun and he's so smart and he's an overachiever.
00:56:43And he went off to the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and he was there for his fall semester freshman year.
00:56:50And then he dropped out of school. His father told him, well, if you're going to be home, you need to work.
00:56:54He told his parents he got a job, but he also landed the lead role in a theater production of Bye Bye Birdie.
00:57:01Here he is singing One Last Kiss.
00:57:14Jesse and Dan were also close at that time. They made music together.
00:57:17They wrote songs together. They sang together. They recorded together.
00:57:20They loved music together and it was just a shared love that they had.
00:57:34He's Jesse's friend. He's a good kid. He's never in any trouble.
00:57:38Daniel Bartelt was playing the part of an actor who was portraying himself as something that he absolutely wasn't.
00:57:44Dan had been pretending he had a job that he didn't have for months and nobody knew.
00:57:50He never worked there. Apparently, he never even had applied for the job.
00:57:54He would get up every morning, 5, 5.30. His mom would pack his lunch for him.
00:58:00He would put his lunch pail, his work boots, his computer and a backpack in a van and drive away
00:58:06from the house and his parents had no clue that he didn't have a job.
00:58:10And in fact, what he was doing is he was hanging out in parks.
00:58:12He was becoming a predator and he was looking for easy prey.
00:58:15He was one of the smartest people that I've ever interviewed. He was a creep. I'm trying to think
00:58:23of a better way to put it. When I found out that he had a relationship, friendship with Jesse,
00:58:30I knew I was going to call Hartford right away as soon as they had time to do it.
00:58:33The sheriff's department gives us a call and says, we have someone in our custody right now for our
00:58:41attack in Richfield. He's a friend of Jesse's. He knows Jesse. You guys are probably going to want
00:58:47to come talk with him. So our detectives had gone over there to conduct an interview with him
00:58:52pertaining to Jesse Blodgett. But this time, Dan has an alibi. He says he was at the park.
00:58:59Sure enough, he was there like he said he was. But there's something else at that park
00:59:04that also catches the detective's eye. We got very, very, very lucky.
00:59:18When Daniel Bartelt was arrested, the sheriff's department gives us a call and says, we have
00:59:32someone in our custody right now for the attack on Melissa.
00:59:36So A, he came and met me from Jesse's vigil. B, he mentioned that she was raped.
00:59:46You need to look at this guy.
00:59:47So our detectives had gone over there to conduct an interview with him.
00:59:54So July 17th, Blodgett is brought in once again for questioning.
00:59:59They had already gotten the evidence and they had enough for the charging for the attack on Melissa.
01:00:04Now we wanted to speak with him about Jesse. And Detective Thickens was
01:00:07leading the investigation at this point. So he conducted the interview with him.
01:00:10I'm trying to talk to anybody, everybody who might have some information that's going to help me
01:00:15and figure out what happened. Initially, Dan was cooperative and wanted to say that, you know,
01:00:19how great she was. What kind of person was Jesse? How would you describe her?
01:00:24Is she going to help? If one of her friends is having trouble at home, she doesn't
01:00:31ignore it or beat around the bush. She wants to help them confront it.
01:00:37Crazy tree hugger and she only ate organic food.
01:00:42And then he would become emotional as he was talking.
01:00:44He was exhibiting signs that would show somebody was emotional, putting his head down, making
01:01:04sounds. But every time he would look up, there wasn't a single tear in either one of his eyes.
01:01:09By this point in time, they knew that he had lied about having a job.
01:01:15They asked him what he was doing that Monday when Jesse was killed.
01:01:18He said that he was at Woodlawn Park in fairly close proximity to Jesse's house.
01:01:42What do you think happened to Jesse?
01:01:44I have no idea.
01:01:47Sometimes things happen that are intended.
01:01:51You've been in a situation like that.
01:01:54You make me very uncomfortable.
01:01:58Why is that?
01:02:00I'm glad I make you feel uncomfortable.
01:02:04Because of what you're trying to send you away.
01:02:07The reason he would be asked that question, what do you think happened to Jesse?
01:02:12Jesse is because we want to see what he's going to tell us.
01:02:16We try to keep them open-ended.
01:02:18See how this is helpful.
01:02:21You don't want to answer what you're going to do.
01:02:24If we're going to talk more about the other way.
01:02:30That's what you're going to do.
01:02:31He wants to have an attorney present.
01:02:33So we end our interview with him.
01:02:36What we got out of the interview was a little bit more of the time frame.
01:02:39During this time that homicide potentially happened.
01:02:43So officers did what good officers would do and they try to figure out,
01:02:48okay, is there any way we can tell if Daniel Bartelt was at Woodlawn Park?
01:02:53How many cameras are set up here throughout the park?
01:03:01We've got the one.
01:03:02Just the one up at this park.
01:03:04When we pulled that video, saw that he was actually here at the park.
01:03:10He walks this way over towards this pavilion here.
01:03:13There's children in here playing.
01:03:15He walks by these garbage cans here.
01:03:18And then he kind of goes out of frame as he's walking down the pathway to get out of the park.
01:03:23So that actually corroborated what Daniel had to say.
01:03:26That he was at Woodlawn Park sometime on Monday morning.
01:03:31I think Daniel Bartelt was being asked so many questions.
01:03:35And he was starting to get so frustrated.
01:03:37That he thought the easiest way is maybe feed us a little bit of the truth with a lot of the lies.
01:03:42He was there at 10 a.m. on Monday morning, like he said he was.
01:03:48But there's still between 8 and 10 that he was, you know, that he's unaccounted for.
01:03:53So they went and pulled all the garbage from that park.
01:03:58They asked the person in charge of the park, when was garbage taken?
01:04:02And he said, well, garbage was last taken on Monday morning around 7 or 7.30.
01:04:07At this point, several days have passed since the murder.
01:04:10What were the odds that that evidence would still be there in a trash can like this?
01:04:16Closest to zero that you could get, I would say.
01:04:19There's being good and there's being lucky.
01:04:20And, you know, in this line of work, you need a little bit of both of them.
01:04:23In this case, we had a lot of luck.
01:04:25They did locate something.
01:04:26We called it the mother load.
01:04:32Inside this garbage can, they ended up finding a frosted mini wheats box.
01:04:36The top was opened up on it.
01:04:40Stuffed inside that frosted mini wheats box was a ligature, the rope, alcohol wipes,
01:04:46a ball gag that was homemade, made with the same type of tape that is used for ventilation systems.
01:04:53And this type of tape was located at the crime scene with Melissa.
01:04:58I refer to it as a kill kit.
01:05:00It's just someone who has bad intentions to harm someone else, gathering up all the supplies
01:05:05that they would need to do it, keeping it all in one place for easy disposal.
01:05:09But now the critical question is, can they connect these items to Dan?
01:05:14Since Jessie would have been killed sometime after her mother went to work at 8.30,
01:05:18and Dan was seen at the park at 10.25, police believe he would have had plenty of time to dump them there.
01:05:25They were able to locate Jessie's DNA on the ropes and on some of the antiseptic wipes.
01:05:31On that tape, they were able to identify a fingerprint belonging to Daniel Bartelt,
01:05:37and they were able to identify a hair follicle with DNA matched to Jessie Blodgett.
01:05:42The only DNA that was in that box was Daniel Bartelt's and Jessie's. We've got them.
01:05:50We begin with an arrest and the killing of that young Wisconsin actress found dead
01:05:54after a filler-on-the-roof cast party. The suspect is one of her high school classmates.
01:05:59It's the same man who was arrested for assaulting a woman
01:06:02in a Washington County park days before Jessie's death.
01:06:06This is a close friend of Jessie's. They had been hanging out all summer,
01:06:11and now all of a sudden he's being charged with her murder.
01:06:13He was welcome in her home. He was over the week before.
01:06:17Joy and I couldn't quite believe it.
01:06:22Dan Bartelt is charged with first-degree intentional homicide and please not guilty.
01:06:27Then as detectives continue digging into his relationship with Jessie,
01:06:31they discover a chilling social media post from just a month and a half before her murder.
01:06:36We were able to retrieve a Facebook post that Jessie had written about Dan coming into her house.
01:06:42Jessie wrote,
01:06:43When Dan Bartelt breaks into your house while you're sleeping to awaken you.
01:06:47And as people start commenting, she adds,
01:06:51He walked into my house and then my room while I was still in bed. What a freak.
01:06:56He knew how to get in. He knew her parents. He knew her parents worked. And he also would have
01:07:02the perfect alibi. I'm just over here to see Jessie and we're just going to play some music.
01:07:07I think honestly it was a practice. Could I get into her house? Could I get up to her room?
01:07:16But that post is just the beginning.
01:07:19I did search warrants on the home, the van, the computer.
01:07:24Looking at this search history, it looked like that Daniel was attempting to play the part of the killer.
01:07:39Opening statement started today in Daniel Bartelt's murder trial in West Bend.
01:07:45Thirteen months after Jessie's murder, Dan Bartelt walks into a Wisconsin courtroom to face a jury.
01:07:51He would eventually plead guilty to the charge of reckless endangerment for that attack on Melissa.
01:07:56And the charge for her attempted murder? That was dismissed.
01:07:59But he insists he's not guilty of killing his friend.
01:08:02You see Jessie's side on one side of the aisle and Dan's side on the other side of the aisle.
01:08:08Like a bizarro horror movie wedding.
01:08:11People are crying. People are angry. You could look at anybody's face and you'd see a different emotion.
01:08:16Although Bartelt's DNA was found on Jessie, he was never charged with rape.
01:08:23Our biggest fear was that Dan was going to claim
01:08:27that this was a consensual thing that Jessie participated in that went wrong.
01:08:32And we knew that wasn't true. That didn't mean he might not claim it in court and smear her name.
01:08:38Yes, there's tons of pieces of evidence. We want to think through a logical order of how we're going to present the case.
01:08:45Jessie's mother, Joy, was our first witness.
01:08:50She didn't ever keep the covers on her. And her bed wasn't cluttered.
01:08:54Joy was an important witness because she was the person that found Jessie. And she was also on that 911 call.
01:09:01She's cold. She's cold. She's cold.
01:09:03She's cold. She's cold. Oh, my God.
01:09:06When the defense cross-examines Joy, they focus on Jessie and Dan's friendship, suggesting he would have no reason to kill his friend.
01:09:14You would see Dan at the house on those three occasions.
01:09:17Did Jessie and Dan appear to enjoy each other's company and be having a good time making music?
01:09:23Mm-hmm.
01:09:24Yes?
01:09:25Yes.
01:09:26This was an unusual case because Daniel Bartelt's family actually knew Jessie's family.
01:09:30And there was an interesting dynamic because we had two mothers testify.
01:09:34Daniel Bartelt's mother broke down in tears on the witness stand today.
01:09:38Love your son.
01:09:39Yes.
01:09:41It's fair to say that you and your husband have done everything to provide a decent and loving home.
01:09:48Yes.
01:09:50I didn't blame them for this. They didn't do this.
01:09:52I only know them to be a good family who gave him a good environment to grow up in.
01:09:56But when questioned by the defense, Laura Bartelt admitted it wasn't her son's nature to be
01:10:02a bit of a liar.
01:10:03Was Dan a kid who would lie to you often as he was growing up?
01:10:08Well, yes.
01:10:09From time to time?
01:10:10Time to time.
01:10:11When you found that out from law enforcement that your son didn't have a job, were you surprised?
01:10:16Yes.
01:10:16Why were you surprised?
01:10:17Because he was leaving every day and I don't know where else he would have been going.
01:10:28Jesse Blodgett's parents walked out of court at one point today, the testimony simply too much to take.
01:10:33A detective took the stand. He testified about some key evidence that he found.
01:10:38Based upon your experience, was it also an unusual mixture of materials to be located in a cereal box?
01:10:43Very much so.
01:10:44Here we had a box with all the stuff used to kill Jesse.
01:10:51Rope, laces, antiseptic wipes.
01:10:55And the Intertape 698 was a huge piece of evidence.
01:10:58It's not like duct tape or masking tape or scotch tape.
01:11:01It's not a common tape.
01:11:03The police couldn't even find any in all the hardware stores in Washington County.
01:11:07It was located at the crime scene where Melissa was attacked on July 12th.
01:11:12In the mother load of the Frosted Mini Wheat cereal box.
01:11:16And that same Intertape 698 was also located in Daniel's house.
01:11:21In addition, an actual roll was found under Jesse's bed and it had Daniel's fingerprints on it.
01:11:28We had taken good video and good photographic evidence of her bedroom.
01:11:34You can see in one of the photographs the roll of tape that was underneath her bed.
01:11:40The defense definitely made some hay out of this roll of tape because that was not initially
01:11:47taken into evidence.
01:11:48It was located about a week later.
01:11:50They never came out and said that somebody planted this tape.
01:11:55But they were trying to cast doubt on the investigation.
01:12:02Another important piece of evidence for the prosecution was that rope that was found in the cereal box.
01:12:09Jesse's DNA was sort of in the middle of the rope.
01:12:11And Dan's DNA was located on the ends of the rope by the knots that he made.
01:12:16These same ropes were located by a search warrant in Daniel's house.
01:12:20It was our theory that Daniel cut this rope at his house.
01:12:23He made a knot around it so it would be a good grip for him.
01:12:26And then he used that to strangle Jesse.
01:12:29The defense tried to claim that there was some sort of cross-contamination within the mother load
01:12:34and that you can't tell which was Jesse's on one or on the other.
01:12:37If there is two items that touch each other there is that possibility of transfer of DNA to occur.
01:12:44But the defense never really said what those alternative explanations were for how this DNA got there.
01:12:51We learned today that the young man accused of killing Jesse Blodgett
01:12:55seemed to have a fascination with murder.
01:12:58The computer search history.
01:13:00A lot of the search history on Dan's computer was very, very disturbing.
01:13:07It was serial killers, spree killers.
01:13:09How many bodies do you need to be considered in one or the other?
01:13:13And it was intertwined with very graphic violent pornography.
01:13:17There was videos on there for bondage and sexual assault and homicide.
01:13:23Much of the same way as we suspect that Jesse was bound.
01:13:27Jesse was in her bed sleeping.
01:13:29She never had a chance to fight back.
01:13:32The motive was I want to kill somebody and I want to kill somebody that's going to be an easy mark.
01:13:38Jesse's screaming to us.
01:13:40She's screaming to us.
01:13:40She's telling us a story.
01:13:42His DNA is all under her fingernails, under her left hand, under her right hand.
01:13:47I don't believe that you have heard any testimony that would give you reason to believe
01:13:57that Dan Bartelt had any motive to cause the death of Jesse Blodgett.
01:14:03And that jury came back.
01:14:06I was nervous, as everyone on the prosecution team was.
01:14:09Breaking news now.
01:14:10Daniel Bartelt found guilty of murdering 19-year-old Jesse Blodgett.
01:14:15The jury reached a verdict in just three hours this afternoon.
01:14:18It wasn't a victory.
01:14:22Jesse's still dead.
01:14:24And Dan's still lost.
01:14:29And the world still hasn't changed.
01:14:32The kid's still gone forever.
01:14:33But it was justice.
01:14:37Dan Bartelt took from this family their only daughter.
01:14:42He played on their emotions by going to the vigil.
01:14:45He had just killed their daughter the day earlier.
01:14:48How could he show up to her house after he had just killed her?
01:14:54And it's almost as if he was there so he'd get a front seat.
01:14:57To find out that he was, you know, acting a part, you know, was kind of horrifying.
01:15:02Sometimes evil comes to our door with a familiar face.
01:15:06At the sentencing, we each had 10 minutes, me and Dan.
01:15:09And what Dan Bartelt had to say there set shockwaves through the courtroom.
01:15:13I'd never witnessed anything like that.
01:15:25Daniel Bartelt will spend the rest of his life in prison.
01:15:28The judge sentenced him to life without parole.
01:15:34At the sentencing, we each had 10 minutes, me and Dan, to give our statements.
01:15:39And he looked at Joy and I and he said, these shackles and this orange jumpsuit don't make me guilty.
01:15:45Buck, Joy, I can't give you the answers that you're looking for.
01:15:52I pray for you, for all of you.
01:16:00And I hope that someday I will be
01:16:05before a court that will know that my conscience is good.
01:16:07I love you. I'm so sorry for your loss.
01:16:13There was like some sobbing, but I didn't see any actual tears.
01:16:16I never saw genuine, actual remorse for Jessie, for what he put her through.
01:16:23When it was my turn, mostly I talked about Jessie. I wanted people to know who she was.
01:16:31And the last quarter of it was directly to Dan.
01:16:33I wish no vengeance or retribution.
01:16:36I not only forgive you, I love you.
01:16:42Of course, I hate what you did.
01:16:45You are forgiven, but you won't know it and you won't feel it and experience it
01:16:50until you tell the truth.
01:16:51Where does this place of forgiveness come from?
01:16:55For me, it comes from a higher place.
01:16:57It was a gift to me that I didn't hate him and want vengeance.
01:17:01Me and Joy, well, look what came out of our concern for him.
01:17:05A movement to end violence like this.
01:17:10Shortly after her death, Buck started the Love is Greater Than Hate project in Jessie's memory.
01:17:15We believe that violence tends to happen a lot less in the presence of love
01:17:23and a lot more in the absence of love.
01:17:26So it's really simple.
01:17:28The more we presence love, the more we absence violence.
01:17:33That's what we're trying to do.
01:17:35The project recently hosted an event for survivors of violence
01:17:39and featured performances of Jessie's music.
01:17:41There's nothing I wouldn't do
01:17:43So when you're in trouble, come to me and I'll be there.
01:17:49Oh, I swear to you.
01:17:53Cause if we ever stop living this life, oh so suddenly
01:17:59How could we ever see the beauty that it could be?
01:18:04If we haven't gone, then we should give a dick.
01:18:08I think the music that Jessie brought into this world still lives on.
01:18:12And that's the legacy she left.
01:18:15How are you?
01:18:16And Melissa Etzler has also teamed up with Buck in his mission.
01:18:20My name is Melissa Etzler.
01:18:22My story is forever tied to Jessie's.
01:18:25And what he's done is just incredible, bringing his daughter's legacy to life.
01:18:32And you never met Jessie?
01:18:34No, but we have a soul connection. We do.
01:18:39Somebody said to me, you know, if Jessie was a soul waiting to come into a life,
01:18:46and they said, this one's going to be short.
01:18:51It's going to end bad.
01:18:53And it's going to be violent.
01:18:55But you're going to cause more love than most people ever will in their 80 years.
01:19:03Jessie would have been at the front of the line to jump into that life.
01:19:14To help keep her memory alive, there's now the Jessie Blodgett Scholarship,
01:19:21given every year to young people following in her footsteps, David, hoping to study music.
01:19:25And as for Dan Bartelt, his latest appeals have been denied, and he continues to serve his life
01:19:30sentence. That's our program for tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm David Muir.
01:19:34And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at ABC News and 2020, good night.
01:19:44Good night.
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