- 2 days ago
20/20 - Season 49 - Episode 04: Her Last Note
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00:00:12July 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
00:00:42do.
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.
00:01:04I probably got halfway to my car. I heard somebody running from behind me.
00:01:10I 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.
00:01:21I thought he was trying to kill me. I was terrified. We fought on the ground.
00:01:29There's just blood everywhere. I 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 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
00:01:56area
00:01:56would be even more terrifying.
00:02:03Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
00:02:06Hartford, 901, what's an emergency?
00:02:08My daughter is blue. I went to wake her up, and I just got home for lunch, and she won't
00:02:14wake up.
00:02:15How old is your daughter?
00:02:17Nineteen.
00:02:18She's 19.
00:02:19Oh, my God.
00:02:20Okay, so is she breathing?
00:02:22I don't think so, no.
00:02:24Oh, 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.
00:02:31Okay.
00:02:32Jessie.
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.
00:02:47Jessie, she went to UWM, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She's 19 years old.
00:02:54Jessie 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. She would find her way to a stage and entertain.
00:03:15There'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 doors.
00:03:30The 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.
00:03:48She got to play the violin, which is something that she was always extraordinary at.
00:03:53I was so proud of her. She won the title role in her first community theater out of school.
00:04:02And she started her own business that summer and had 28 mostly kids come into our house every week for
00:04:11piano, voice, and violin lessons. The morning of July 15th was Jessie's first morning that summer to sleep in.
00:04:18They just had an opening weekend and a late night cast party. So this Monday morning, she was pooped.
00:04:27It was a typical morning for Jessie's mom. She walked into her room to drop off some laundry before she
00:04:33headed 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
00:04:45up to Jessie again. Still no answer. And then she looks out the picture window while she's eating a
00:04:49quick lunch, and she sees one of Jessie's six-year-old students and her dad walking up our driveway.
00:04:54And so now she calls upstairs, Jessie, Jessie, your lesson's here. And there's still no answer. So she runs upstairs
00:05:02and goes into
00:05:03Jessie's room. She goes over to her. She reaches out to wake Jessie up, and Jessie's cold.
00:05:10She's cold. She's cold. She's cold. She's cold. She's cold. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.
00:05:18I'm gonna, I'm gonna page out, uh, police. 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
00:05:30hear her in the background calling out for her daughter. Honey, what happened to you?
00:05:36Ma'am, I have EMS, uh, EMS is coming and police will be there shortly.
00:05:41They're on their way. Ma'am, is anyone else with you?
00:05:46Ma'am, what? What? Is anyone else with you?
00:05:48Ma'am, 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.
00:05:58Ma'am, 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
00:06:08the word. So I said,
00:06:10gone. Is she gone?
00:06:13She just tailed off into tears. So I hang up the phone and grab my car keys and drive home.
00:06:21We 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.
00:06:31Lieutenant Jim Zewicki was one of the detectives that arrived that day.
00:06:35So we're outside what was the Blodgett home. You came here to process the scene.
00:06:40Yeah. It was a day off for me. My phone rang. It was my captain at the time saying that
00:06:46they had
00:06:47a suspicious death in the city of a young person. I parked, I walked around, I checked doors and
00:06:52windows and checked for anything that looked like forced entry or if there were going to be any
00:06:56problems. I didn't notice any of that. I walk into the house and I just kind of get an immediate
00:07:01feel 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
00:07:21in this general direction right here with her feet facing towards the door, her head right about in
00:07:27that direction. I learned subsequently that her mother got her removed from the bed because part of
00:07:35CPR is you wanted on a hard surface. So her mother had moved her. I had immediately noticed the way
00:07:42that
00:07:42her head was tilted, you could see a faint ligature mark on the side of her neck. Pressure was applied
00:07:49to
00:07:49her neck via some type of ligature and there was pressure applied from the back, which is something
00:07:56she couldn't have done. We could also identify some faint bruising on the wrists and the ankle area.
00:08:03Her hands had been bound together. Her ankles possibly bound together as well.
00:08:09This was a more intimate marker. Yes, I would agree with that. Someone who strangles,
00:08:15that's someone who is more comfortable, especially if they come into someone else's house to be able to
00:08:19do that. So as Lieutenant Zawicki looks over the room, he's searching everywhere, just anywhere to
00:08:27see what could have been used as the border weapon. We found extension cords in the room that were used
00:08:32to plug things in. She also had the pulling type of shades that you can pull and control that had
00:08:37that
00:08:38rope on them too. None of the items that he was finding in that room matched the marks on her
00:08:44neck.
00:08:46Any other evidence found in this room? There was a little bit of blood evidence
00:08:49that was found on the sheets and the pillowcases. There was no signs of a struggle, no ransacking,
00:08:54and actually when I had first shown up, I went into the breezeway area. She had a piano and on
00:08:59top of
00:09:00that was some cash from a piano lesson and that money wasn't taken. This wasn't a robbery.
00:09:06Did 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
00:09:15her 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.
00:09:41Now 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,
00:09:51there was a panic in Hartford. We were so scared. There was a dangerous person on the loose.
00:09:56To have an actress killed after the first week of your musical, it was beyond any imagination.
00:10:04Holy cow, something's happening in our area. Nobody saw this coming.
00:10:25Nobody knew who had killed her or what had even happened. This was all just completely a mystery.
00:10:41She's cold to the touch and she's blue.
00:10:43And she's got, it looks like strangulation marks.
00:10:48There are strangulation marks?
00:10:50That'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
00:11:05had intentionally taken her life.
00:11:10So as part of the investigation, you're canvassing the neighborhood.
00:11:13Did you get any helpful tips from neighbors?
00:11:17We'd gone to each one of the houses in the neighborhood, even in the back neighborhoods.
00:11:20Nobody saw anything and there was nothing that rose anyone's suspicions.
00:11:25We have a killer in our community and it could be anyone.
00:11:30I had no idea who would ever want to hurt her.
00:11:35We were so scared.
00:11:39This case absolutely stood out to us.
00:11:41We don't have homicides in the city of Hartford. They're very, very rare.
00:11:48Hartford, Wisconsin is a small town.
00:11:50We're just off the northwest corner of the greater metropolitan Milwaukee area.
00:11:56Beautiful community, roughly 16,000 people.
00:12:00There's a lot of art. There's a lot of performing arts.
00:12:03Hartford 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
00:12:16high school students would go out and hang. If you didn't know where Jessie was,
00:12:19you would probably be able to find her at Perk Place.
00:12:22Please. Buck, hello.
00:12:26Perk Place, hot spot in town. And 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.
00:12:43This is Jessie when she's one day old. And that's a very tired,
00:12:47but very present looking Joy who had just had her. It was the most miraculous day of my life.
00:12:55Jessie was Joy's and Buck's only child. They only had one daughter. So for Joy, this is still
00:13:03too much. She can't speak about this. It's too heartbreaking for her.
00:13:08It'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
00:14:01piano with
00:14:02Jessie because I thought I would need to in order for her to stay in it. She was so far
00:14:07ahead of me
00:14:07and loved it so much she didn't need me anymore so I just dropped out. I met Jessie in high
00:14:14school.
00:14:14We heard someone playing piano and singing and we're like, we don't recognize that voice. Who is that?
00:14:24We 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.
00:14:45Jessie's coming out party as a local musician was the eighth grade talent show.
00:14:52The first song she ever wrote, Joy and I had not heard. We didn't even know about it.
00:15:05She starts to play and she starts to sing and I hear what's coming out of my kid.
00:15:16And then the whole place exploded.
00:15:23In 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
00:16:12to change the world through music. Music was going to be her vehicle.
00:16:18I 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. She had an
00:16:33effervescence and an energy that was infectious. And she could play the fiddle. That, I had no idea
00:16:42someone was going to walk through the door and present that way. She came home one day and she
00:16:46said, I'm the Fiddler. She loved the cast. She called them her second family. Jessie's last weekend on earth
00:16:53was opening weekend for the Fiddler on the Roof.
00:16:59We talked to the director. Did anyone have a problem with Jessie? Were there any jealousy issues?
00:17:05Were 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.
00:17:19The 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
00:17:30evidence that 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 days.
00:17:42We 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.
00:17:54They had performed Friday and Saturday and then Sunday afternoon matinee. Then they had the cast
00:18:01party, the traditional late night cast party. Jessie came home kind of late and was a little troubled.
00:18:08The diary that she had that she was keeping we found next to her bed. Detectives learn that Jessie wrote
00:18:15in
00:18:15her diary just hours before she was murdered and something that she wrote immediately jumps out at them.
00:18:20In a way I'm furious. There was a subject in the cast that she was furious at who was a
00:18:25little older
00:18:26than her. You might want to find out why she was upset with this person. It's a big clue in
00:18:31this
00:18:31investigation and that diary entry includes a name.
00:18:45She was an actress, a musician and also a college student. My name is Jessie Blanchett. I'm a freshman at
00:18:52UWM right now.
00:18:53But now 19-year-old Jessie is at the center of a bizarre murder mystery.
00:18:58Everyone wanted answers. Nobody had any.
00:19:02It was very much like hearing that your daughter had been killed.
00:19:08I cannot imagine what Buck went through.
00:19:12You know, I was sorry for her dad not being there when she needed him most.
00:19:19And that I would never stop loving her. And I would never forget her.
00:19:31We 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
00:19:43doing everything in life right. Everything. Jessie had no enemies that I could think of.
00:19:51The detectives asked us if we had any thoughts about who might have done this. And we did have
00:19:56some thoughts. There was the guys who trimmed our trees, who were in the trees literally over Jessie's
00:20:04bedroom, trimming 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.
00:20:22And that's a window to her room. It is. It's her bedroom.
00:20:25They're here for a day, two days, three days. They're picking up what the routine of the house is.
00:20:30When do mom and dad leave? I just thought, you know, maybe they had thoughts seeing her or thinking
00:20:38about her in her bedroom. We interviewed people from the tree cutting place. And we were able to
00:20:43determine that none of the tree cutters were involved in this. But Buck tells detectives about
00:20:51a concern that Jessie had about another individual. There was an old man in a restaurant where she was
00:20:57a waitress right in our neighborhood. And he had once done an inappropriate thing when she was on the job.
00:21:05He positioned 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.
00:21:21There 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 1 a.m.,
00:21:33Jessie went to bed alone. The cast party was at a really neat property. It was out on a farm.
00:21:44There were llamas out there and this big swimming pool and the kids were swimming and playing. We were
00:21:50having chicken fights. It was just fun. Jessie was happy and smiling. I'm actually in that video with
00:22:01Jessie sitting next to me chatting. Jessie comes up and sits down in the chair next to me and is
00:22:06just
00:22:07bubbly as all get out and tells me how much fun she had had this first weekend being this character.
00:22:15I 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
00:22:27and asked her how was the day and the party. Then Jessie was a little troubled.
00:22:34She had a talk with her about being uncomfortable at the party with this older male subject who
00:22:40she thought became a little too flirtatious with her. Jessie was uncomfortable enough to write it in
00:22:45her diary and leave it for us as evidence.
00:22:49This 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
00:23:01and perverting it into competition. In a way, I'm furious.
00:23:06And Jessie writes about just this relationship with an older castmate.
00:23:13That she needs to clearly define that relationship. And that castmate's name is Randy Talley.
00:23:20Randy Talley was the choreographer for the show.
00:23:24He 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.
00:23:44And this 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,
00:23:52is 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,
00:24:01does 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.
00:24:26When I'm getting the vibe, it's like...
00:24:27From me?
00:24:28Yeah, just that you feel like you have a little more to tell me.
00:24:30That was another one of those red flags for us.
00:24:32I just can't believe this.
00:24:34I hugged her goodbye last night and now she's gone.
00:24:38And there's something else investigators here don't know yet.
00:24:42That just three days earlier, in a town just about 15 minutes away,
00:24:46there had been that other violent attack on a young woman.
00:24:49I saw the knife in his hand. I was terrified.
00:25:02We were going to begin with the mysterious death of a teenage actress.
00:25:06Her mother discovered her dead in her bedroom the day after a cast party.
00:25:09We were all terrified. Oh my gosh, is it somebody that we were working with on this show?
00:25:16And Jesse had mentioned that someone in the cast had made her feel uncomfortable.
00:25:21The subject was identified as Randy Talley. It was a 46-year-old individual and she was 19.
00:25:28One of Jesse's friends tells investigators they saw Randy pull Jesse onto his lap at one of the cast parties.
00:25:36We subsequently were able to have an interview with Randy and determine whether he was our suspect in this homicide.
00:25:42What happened?
00:25:44Detective Thickens conducted the interview.
00:25:46Okay, I can tell you, Jesse was found deceased today by your parents. They found her early this afternoon.
00:25:55Okay, so that's...
00:25:55Can you tell me anything about the circumstances of finding her?
00:25:59Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out. It's not real clear right now.
00:26:02We tried to get his time frame for that period that she had died.
00:26:07Oh my God, this is so horrible.
00:26:09And that was a little difficult because he was supposed to be at a certain job.
00:26:12Did you work this morning?
00:26:15No, I did not.
00:26:16So that was another one of those red flags for us.
00:26:19Randy says he works a temp job and he didn't get a call that day.
00:26:24They tried to call me, but they had the wrong number or something.
00:26:28They didn't get a hold of me until, you know, almost the end of the work day.
00:26:32We talked with him about how things went at the cast party, what his interpretation was,
00:26:37what his feelings for Jesse were.
00:26:39What happened at the party?
00:26:40There was swimming and talking and hanging out.
00:26:43I literally sat right next to Jesse for most of the night.
00:26:47Were you just like sitting next to her or was she like sitting tight up?
00:26:52I mean...
00:26:52We were on a couch with four or five kids.
00:26:55Okay.
00:26:55We were about hip to hip.
00:26:57Okay.
00:26:58I think I probably put my hand on her back a few times.
00:27:02Sure.
00:27:03She may have touched my leg a few times.
00:27:05Okay.
00:27:05So you would have had some contact with her?
00:27:08Sure.
00:27:09Did you have any impression from her that anything was wrong?
00:27:12No.
00:27:12On kosher?
00:27:13No.
00:27:14No.
00:27:15No.
00:27:15You know, in fact, we had the best night, Sunday night.
00:27:19We had also learned through our investigation that at another cast party, Jesse was actually
00:27:23sitting on his lap.
00:27:25One of the things that, one of the comments I got from one of the people that was at the
00:27:28party was that it seemed like you guys were flirting a little bit.
00:27:31A little bit.
00:27:32One of the things they said was that when I hit the party on Saturday night, like you
00:27:35pulled her out of your lap.
00:27:36I did.
00:27:37Okay.
00:27:37She's one of my favorite people in the cast.
00:27:40Okay.
00:27:41Did anything more than that happen?
00:27:42Absolutely not.
00:27:43Okay.
00:27:44I got to, I mean, I'm not, I don't want to.
00:27:46I understand, I understand the questioning, I understand exactly what you're saying.
00:27:50Okay.
00:27:51I felt very close to her.
00:27:54I never, I never kissed her.
00:27:57Okay.
00:27:57Or anything beyond what those people saw.
00:28:00Like you said, you got, you know.
00:28:02I have a girlfriend and, and yeah, that, you know.
00:28:06That probably would, it probably would impress her a lot.
00:28:10It would not.
00:28:11I mean, but you know, I mean, it was, it's not anything I'm ashamed of.
00:28:14You know, I'm a, I'm a demonstratively affectionate person.
00:28:19We had learned that he had a longtime girlfriend.
00:28:21He was in what we would have considered a stable relationship.
00:28:25Since Randy had physical contact with Jesse in the last few days,
00:28:30they asked him for a DNA sample and he agrees to it.
00:28:33Swap it up back and forth inside your cheek.
00:28:36I would stay in a different room, watch the interview.
00:28:39We'll be back with you in 30 seconds, okay?
00:28:41Yeah.
00:28:41Okay.
00:28:42And then Detective Thickens would come out.
00:28:44We would confer a little bit.
00:28:46Do you want anything to drink?
00:28:47No.
00:28:47I need to caffeine.
00:28:48And then he would go back in and he would re-initiate the questioning.
00:28:51Okay, I, I don't want to leave here.
00:28:55I just get the vibe that there's something more, that maybe you have some more insight.
00:29:00That's, that's what I'm getting the point of.
00:29:01I don't.
00:29:02Okay.
00:29:03I wish.
00:29:03I wish I had some more insight.
00:29:05I can't imagine this.
00:29:07Detectives want to know, if you didn't go to work that day, what were you actually doing?
00:29:12So what did you end up doing today when you were, did you get a day to sleep in after?
00:29:16What did you?
00:29:17Yeah, I, I, I, I just kind of slept in.
00:29:22I Facebooked some friends.
00:29:23I, um, I sent out a couple of resumes.
00:29:27I, um, you know, I hung around the house.
00:29:30I guess actors, I have a hard time reading sometimes what emotions people have.
00:29:35That's why, I don't know if that's why I'm getting the vibe.
00:29:37It's like, I, I mean.
00:29:39The vibe from who?
00:29:40From me?
00:29:40Just that you feel like you got a little more to tell me.
00:29:42But if you don't know, that's fine.
00:29:43I'm just, if there's anything, if there's something you can think of.
00:29:47No, I'm just floored, sir.
00:29:49I'm just, I just can't believe this.
00:29:53Okay.
00:29:54I hugged her goodbye last night and now she's gone.
00:29:58He was asked, did he commit this homicide?
00:30:01And he adamantly denied that he had any involvement in it.
00:30:05I didn't know Randy very well, but I never saw anything that caused me to say,
00:30:10oh, wait a minute.
00:30:11I'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.
00:30:24Why don't you come around?
00:30:24But detectives aren't so sure.
00:30:26They want to take a closer look at what Randy was doing the day of the murder.
00:30:30And meanwhile, investigators just a few towns over are working their own disturbing case.
00:30:36And got a phone call.
00:30:37There was an alleged attack at the park.
00:30:41I really thought I was going to die.
00:30:44It was like, oh boy.
00:30:47Here we started to wonder if this is something that could be potentially connected.
00:31:06This is unreal.
00:31:09My fear is that this happened.
00:31:10This is somebody that knew her.
00:31:11You said you haven't been to her house.
00:31:13Never.
00:31:13I don't know where she lives.
00:31:14What led us to a guy named Randy Talley was Jessie's last entry in her diary
00:31:21where she speaks of this person that made her feel uncomfortable at the cast party.
00:31:26I'm a hugger.
00:31:27I hug people.
00:31:28You know her.
00:31:29I mean, you're saying you don't know her a lot.
00:31:30I'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?
00:31:47No.
00:31:47Okay.
00:31:48Not 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
00:32:18before Jesse Blodgett's murder.
00:32:20We're going to need probably an ambulance.
00:32:24My 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.
00:33:07He just straight up tackled me.
00:33:09I grabbed the knife and I've got the blade end in my hand.
00:33:15And 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?
00:33:23My body was like, you know what, this 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, you don't have time to feel pain right now.
00:33:35You need to survive.
00:33:41A lot of people also said like, why didn't your dog bite him?
00:33:45She just turned a year old.
00:33:46She 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.
00:33:59And she was like, what's going on?
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.
00:34:08And 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.
00:34:32Did she know this person?
00:34:34No.
00:34:35In our area, there's very little stranger on stranger crime.
00:34:39You'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 Pausing.
00:34:53July 12th.
00:34:54Yes.
00:34:55At Menomonee Falls Hospital.
00:34:56She 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.
00:35:06I 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.
00:35:16And 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.
00:35:24So did he ever say anything to you?
00:35:26When I was grabbing it from him, he said, can I go?
00:35:30He was asking me if he could go.
00:35:31And I was like, no.
00:35:34No.
00:35:34And 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?
00:35:49He was weak, scared.
00:35:51It sounded confused.
00:35:53And who asks that anyways?
00:35:55I mean, what a weird thing to ask.
00:36:00So the detective calls you.
00:36:03Yep.
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?
00:36:10Detectives have cleared Melissa's boyfriend.
00:36:12And they determined the story that she's telling is true.
00:36:15And there's one particular detail that seals the deal for them.
00:36:20She 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.
00:36:32He's white.
00:36:34He's a white guy.
00:36:34Blonde hair.
00:36:36Blonde hair.
00:36:37Black framed glasses.
00:36:38And she described him to a T.
00:36:41And 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.
00:36:46Would you be able to do a composite sketch on him?
00:36:49Could try, for sure.
00:36:52The sketch was very detailed.
00:36:53And it was actually pretty remarkable, her recollection of this attacker
00:36:57during a traumatic incident where she's being attacked and possibly going to be killed.
00:37:03Washington County deputies are searching for a man who assaulted a woman in Richfield Historical Park.
00:37:08I remember watching it on TV.
00:37:11And 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.
00:37:23But soon, there's an unexpected breakthrough in the knife attack on Melissa.
00:37:27And I was like, holy s**t.
00:37:28That never happens.
00:37:30They zero in on a suspect.
00:37:31But 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.
00:37:38And I'm like, where are you?
00:37:41He 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.
00:37:50But investigators are now piecing the puzzle together.
00:37:53Yes.
00:38:02Now, 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.
00:38:31And after she was murdered, the Hartford players didn't know if they should do the second weekend.
00:38:36Without Jessie, everybody was traumatized.
00:38:43What 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.
00:39:05Final decision was made to take a candle and we placed it up there where she had originally sat.
00:39:15And that candle was lit through the entire musical.
00:39:22Just a lit candle.
00:39:24Because they said, Jesse wasn't replaceable, so why even try?
00:39:30The 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, they don't know yet that just three
00:39:52days earlier there had been a violent attack on Melissa Etzler in a nearby town.
00:39:59Washington 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 we live in
00:40:10a small
00:40:10town, 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.
00:40:31We had assigned a detective to go to the park. There was a litany of evidence
00:40:40through the driveway out the parking lot. There were sunglasses that were located there.
00:40:45And then we found a roll of tape. Ventilation tape, it's kind of like an aluminum backing on it a
00:40:50little
00:40:50bit so that when you put it on it sticks real tight and it's real hard to get out of.
00:40:54Why would he have
00:40:55a roll of tape on it? This is not a robbery. And I've done legit robberies. It's a threat of
00:41:01force.
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,
00:41:12why didn't he hide 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. And that's when my brain was like, oh, were you trying to kidnap
00:41:31me?
00:41:31Were you trying to rape me? What is this? He was probably going to credit buying her up somehow
00:41:37or control her that way. So she really showed a lot of strength and a lot of determination to survive
00:41:44by 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?
00:41:58Yes.
00:41:58July 12?
00:41:59It was the 12th, Friday.
00:42:01So a couple of days after the incident, you come back with police.
00:42:05I basically walked them through the park of what happened during the attack.
00:42:11Right to the gravel part after this. Because I still had my leg bandaged up from the hospital. The
00:42:19whole side of my leg was just ripped up from being tackled on the ground.
00:42:22I 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.
00:42:30Okay.
00:42:31But she did say something about a blue minivan.
00:42:34A minivan, that's a pretty common vehicle, at least in Washington County.
00:42:39Where was the van at?
00:42:40Right 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. If you see three cars in the
00:42:59parking lot at one time, that's quite a busy day. Part of our duties are property checks and park
00:43:05checks. I 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.
00:43:29I concluded that the registrar owners were probably just out here walking or walking their dog.
00:43:33So he hears from fellow officers that they're looking for a similar vehicle that may have been involved
00:43:39in that attack. Andy came up to me and said, hey, I don't know if it'll help or not, but
00:43:45there was this
00:43:46blue van parked. And here's the plate. Here you go. Thanks, Andy. With that license plate,
00:43:53we were subsequently able to identify who the vehicle belonged to. It came back to a couple out of
00:44:01Ridgefield, right? Local. So then detectives went out to their house and they said, do you have this
00:44:07minivan? They said, yes. Our son uses this minivan. And found out that they had a 20-year-old son.
00:44:15So I called him. I said, I'm investigating an incident that happened last Friday. I was wondering
00:44:20if I could talk to you. And they said he'd be there in 15 minutes, right? I hung up the
00:44:23phone.
00:44:25And I looked at Aaron. I was like, holy ****, Aaron. He never asked me what this is about. That
00:44:30never happens. It's just hot in here, cuz. And when they sit down to talk to him, he says something
00:44:36about Jesse Blodgett's murder that raises some serious alarms. That's information that hadn't been
00:44:41released. Correct. So that would be inside information that he shouldn't have had.
00:44:57Everybody has had some mix of broken bones or broken heart or broken dreams or broken relationships.
00:45:05I'm singing this song for you. But I've never had a pain that was one one-hundredth, literally,
00:45:12of the intensity and the duration of this pain. I'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
00:45:25house. We thought it would be a good idea to be there for her parents, especially with her being
00:45:31the only child. It was all of Jesse's friends. That house was packed to the gills with people.
00:45:38Mariah, 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.
00:46:10Dan was Jesse's first boyfriend back in freshman year 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. They sat right next to each
00:46:31other in school for four years, first and second chair violins in the orchestra. Dan was also very
00:46:37musically talented as well. He was very similar to Jesse in that way. They were in a lot of the
00:46:42musicals
00:46:43and the plays together. And 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
00:46:56I was
00:46:56holding his hand and 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
00:47:10and was on the phone for a while. He came back into the room and he said, okay, well, I
00:47:15have to
00:47:15go and said, I was just on the phone with a police officer and they asked me to come down
00:47:22to the station
00:47:23for an interview. And Joyce said, um, you know, don't worry, Dan. The police are going to want to talk
00:47:29to
00:47:29all of Jesse's friends. So we drove him to the police station. We dropped him off and he just simply
00:47:36said,
00:47:37pick me up in 30 minutes. The police do want to talk to Dan, but not about Jesse's murder. Instead,
00:47:43they want to ask him about the park attack on Melissa. We need, you know, to talk to him because
00:47:49I, I have his picture and that was a heck of a resemblance for the sketch that I had in
00:47:56my hand.
00:48:12All these different questions gets a person talking. What's your name? What do you do?
00:48:19Do you, do you have a job? Where are you working at? A roller, well, associate,
00:48:24associate engineering. And what do you do there? Mostly cut around the materials. This is about
00:48:32an incident that Detective Walsh are investigating and it happened last Friday. So, um, this happened at
00:48:39a park. And if you have any knowledge about what this is, best to tell me now you understand that.
00:48:46Yes. Okay. The game plan was to get him to admit to being in that park
00:48:52at the same time that Melissa was. Were you at a park last Friday? No. At any park? Right.
00:48:59So, okay. Is it possible that you're at a park now? Okay. If this is our guy, he was in
00:49:08a fight on
00:49:09Friday where a girl, the wounds would still be there. You could see both of us looking, occasionally
00:49:14looking underneath tables, looking for abrasions, signs of a struggle.
00:49:19I see your hands. Go like this. Don't have to own your phone.
00:49:27Got stabbed with a screw at work. Oh. Grab off.
00:49:31I 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. Aaron just saw an opening and went,
00:49:40you don't have a job, do you? It was an intuition.
00:49:43And if we checked with your employer, would they, would you still have your job?
00:49:49No. Okay. That's what I thought. How long, when do you lose your job?
00:49:54A while ago. Okay. Do you encourage
00:49:57know you lost your job? No. First provable, no. And then, now, now he's on the defense,
00:50:04right? Then that's when I went in and said, how did you hurt yourself then? How did you injure your
00:50:09thumb?
00:50:10So then you want to cut your finger at work? Yeah. Where'd you cut your finger?
00:50:14Oh, that's it. Okay. Tell us about that.
00:50:30Okay. At the point that I moved my chair, we went from an interview to an interrogation.
00:50:34Listen, nobody in their right mind would lie about cutting themselves if it happened at home cooking.
00:50:45What happened?
00:50:53Just be honest. I've gone to the park before. I've been there.
00:50:59So we're knocking down dominoes, right? We have our guy. He's now admitted being there.
00:51:14And what you have to do is basically make them understand or make them feel like
00:51:19telling you the truth is better than not telling you the truth.
00:51:23If nobody made a mistake, they wouldn't put the racers on pensions. If you made a mistake,
00:51:27you made a mistake. I'm not telling the parents that I've got fired and that we've been working.
00:51:39They upped the pressure, telling him there's evidence. There's blood on the knife. It's
00:51:43being processed by the crime lab. Finally, Dan cracks.
00:51:48I was at the park. Correct. And you went after that girl, right?
00:51:53Yes. Okay. Why?
00:52:20When that's right, that was just his out fine. In his version of events,
00:52:25it was to, quote, unquote, to scare Melissa. But we didn't believe that.
00:52:30Okay. So you're under arrest. Okay.
00:52:32Okay. You understand that?
00:52:34Yes.
00:52:34Stand up and put your hands in there. Thanks.
00:52:37He was arrested by law enforcement. And then we charged him with an attempted
00:52:41murder and a recklessly endangering safety.
00:52:44I 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,
00:53:02we can't release Dan. He's being detained right now.
00:53:05We were so confused. And we just assumed that meant we could come pick him up later.
00:53:10So what 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.
00:53:34Washington County sheriff's deputies arrested a man for attacking a woman in Richfield historical park.
00:53:40It was all over the news. This young man was taken into custody.
00:53:44The reason why the police found him was because I remembered the van make and model and what it looked
00:53:50like.
00:53:51I'm one of the people that I like to watch crime shows. I do always joke about that the reason
00:53:57why
00:53:57I was able to remember what he was wearing and how tall he was in his weight is because I
00:54:02watched those shows.
00:54:04Dan and I became friends through high school. How could the guy that, you know, I was friends with do
00:54:10something like that?
00:54:13Dan appears to be in denial as well. Just moments after his arrest for attacking Melissa,
00:54:18he asked detectives a really odd question.
00:54:32But there were two other comments that Dan made during that interview that really struck investigators.
00:54:54They just thought it was a little bit odd and unusual that he had been coming from her residence from
00:54:58this vigil.
00:55:00And I asked him, you know, do you know anything about that? And I was making small talk, right? I
00:55:04have no idea.
00:55:06What happened?
00:55:07What happened?
00:55:11Someone raped her.
00:55:14You think so? Or do you think so? Or what?
00:55:16Do you think so?
00:55:17And he 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. That 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. He went to church and he was involved in theater.
00:55:44And the Oscar goes to Daniel Bartelt.
00:55:50He was a straight-A student. He was one of the few students at Hartford Union High School who had
00:55:55a 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
00:56:14group.
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.
00:56:32I know that Jesse and Dan were also close at that time. And I was kind of always jealous of
00:56:37their friendship
00:56:37because I was like, Dan 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
00:56:48year.
00:56:50And then he dropped out of school. His father told him, well, if you're going to be home, you need
00:56:54to work.
00:56:55He told his parents he got a job, but he also landed the lead role in a theater production of
00:57:00Bye Bye Birdie.
00:57:00Here he is singing One Last Kiss.
00:57:14Jesse and Dan were also close at that time. They made music together. They wrote songs together.
00:57:18They sang together. They recorded together.
00:57:21You'll have a day in time.
00:57:26It will feel just fine.
00:57:30They 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.
00:58:18He was one of the smartest people that I've ever interviewed. He was a creep.
00:58:22I'm trying to think of a better way to put it. When I found out that he had a relationship,
00:58:27friendship
00:58:29with Jesse, I knew I was going to call Hartford right away as soon as they had time to do
00:58:33it.
00:58:34The 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
00:59:03that also catches the detective's eye. We got very, very, very lucky.
00:59:27When Daniel Bartelt was arrested, sheriff's department gives us a call and says we have
00:59:32someone in our custody right now for the attack on Melissa.
00:59:38So 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.
00:59:48So our detectives had gone over there to conduct an interview with him.
00:59:53So July 17th, Bartelt 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.
01:00:03Now we wanted to speak with him about Jesse. And Detective Thickens was leading the investigation
01:00:08at this point. So he conducted the interview with him.
01:00:11I'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?
01:00:25She wanted to help. If one of her friends is having trouble at home, she doesn't
01:00:31ignore it or beat her on the bush. She wants to help them confront it.
01:00:37Crazy tree hugger and she only ate organic food.
01:00:41And then he would become emotional as he was talking.
01:00:44She advocated against him.
01:00:51He was exhibiting signs that would show somebody was emotional,
01:01:02putting his head down, making sounds. But every time he would look up, there wasn't a single tear in
01:01:08either one of his eyes. By 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.
01:01:19Where were you on Monday?
01:01:20Driving around.
01:01:23Where'd you go?
01:01:24I was about at Woodlawn.
01:01:26What were you doing about Woodlawn?
01:01:30I kept reading, trying to write.
01:01:33I'm like writing on site.
01:01:35He said that he was at Woodlawn Park in fairly close proximity to Jesse's house.
01:01:43What do you think happened to Jesse?
01:01:46I have no idea.
01:01:48Sometimes things happen that are intended.
01:01:52Have you ever been in a situation like that?
01:01:56You make me very uncomfortable.
01:02:05Because of what you're trying to send you away.
01:02:08The reason he would be asked that question, what do you think happened to Jesse,
01:02:12is because we want to see what he's going to tell us.
01:02:16We try to keep them open-ended.
01:02:31He wants to have an attorney present, so we end our interview with him.
01:02:36What we got out of the interview was a little bit more of the time frame during this time that
01:02:40homicide potentially happened.
01:02:42And so 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?
01:02:58How many cameras are set up here throughout the park?
01:03:01We've got the one, just the one up at this park.
01:03:04When we pulled that video, saw that he was actually here at the park.
01:03:09He 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.
01:03:17And then he kind of goes out of frame as he's walking down the pathway to get out of the
01:03:22park.
01:03:22So 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 that he thought the easiest way is maybe feed us a little
01:03:40bit of the truth with a lot of the lies.
01:03:43He was there at 10 a.m. on Monday morning, like he said he was, but there's still between 8
01:03:50and 10
01:03:50that he was, you know, that he's unaccounted for. So they went and pulled all the garbage from that park.
01:03:58And they asked the person in charge of the park, when was garbage taken? And he said,
01:04:03well, garbage was last taken on Monday morning around 7 or 730.
01:04:07At this point, several days have passed since the murder. What were the odds that
01:04:12that evidence would still be there in a trash can like this?
01:04:16Closest to zero that you could get, I would say. There'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.
01:04:24They did locate something. We called it the mother load.
01:04:32Inside this garbage can, they ended up finding a frosted mini wheats box.
01:04:37The top was opened up on it. Stuffed inside that frosted mini wheats box was a ligature,
01:04:44the rope, alcohol wipes, a ball gag that was homemade, made with the same type of tape that is used
01:04:52for ventilation systems. This type of tape was located at the crime scene with Melissa.
01:04:57I refer to it as a kill kit. It's just someone who has bad intentions to harm someone else,
01:05:03gathering up all the supplies that they would need to do it, keeping it all in one place for easy
01:05:09disposal.
01:05:09But now the critical question is, can they connect these items to Dan? Since Jessie would have been
01:05:15killed sometime after her mother went to work at 830 and Dan was seen at the park at 1025, police
01:05:21believe
01:05:21he would have had plenty of time to dump them there. They were able to locate Jessie's DNA
01:05:28on the ropes and on some of the antiseptic wipes. On that tape, they were able to identify
01:05:34a fingerprint belonging to Daniel Bartelt and they were able to identify a hair follicle
01:05:39with DNA matched to Jessie Blodgett. The only DNA that was in that box was Daniel Bartelt's
01:05:47and Jessie's. We've got him. We begin with an arrest and the killing of that young Wisconsin
01:05:53actress found dead after a filler on the roof cast party. The suspect is one of her high school
01:05:58classmates. It's the same man who was arrested for assaulting a woman in a Washington County Park
01:06:03days before Jessie's death. This 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. He was welcome in her home.
01:06:15He was over the week before. Joy and I couldn't quite believe it.
01:06:21Dan Bartelt is charged with first degree intentional homicide and pleads not guilty.
01:06:27Then as detectives continue digging into his relationship with Jessie,
01:06:30they 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 when Dan Bartelt breaks into your house while you're sleeping to awaken you. And as
01:06:48people start commenting, she adds, he walked into my house and then my room while I was still in bed.
01:06:55What a freak.
01:06:57He knew how to get in. He knew her parents. He knew her parents worked. And he also would have
01:07:02the perfect alibi.
01:07:04I'm just over here to see Jessie and we're just going to play some music.
01:07:08I 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. I 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 statements 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. But he insists he's not guilty of killing his friend.
01:08:03You 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.
01:08:19Although Bartelt's DNA was found on Jessie, he was never charged with rape.
01:08:24Our 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
01:08:44present the case.
01:08:47Jessie's mother, Joy, was our first witness.
01:08:50She didn't ever keep the covers on her.
01:08:52Right.
01:08:52And 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
01:09:00call.
01:09:01She's cold. She's cold. She's cold. She's cold. She's cold. Oh my god.
01:09:06When the defense cross-examines Joy, they focus on Jessie and Dan's friendship.
01:09:11Suggesting 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?
01:09:24Mm-hmm.
01:09:25Yes?
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.
01:09:49Yes.
01:09:49I didn't blame them for this. They didn't do this. I only know them to be a good family,
01:09:54who 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 a bit of a
01:10:03liar.
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.
01:10:27Jesse 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.
01:10:45Here we had a box with all the stuff used to kill Jesse.
01:10:51Rope, laces, antiseptic wipes. 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. The 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 in the mother load of the
01:11:15Frosted
01:11:15Mini Wheat cereal box. And that same Intertape 698 was also located in Daniel's house.
01:11:22In addition, an actual roll was found under Jesse's bed and it had Daniel's fingerprints on it.
01:11:29We had taken good video and good photographic evidence of her bedroom. You can see in one of the
01:11:35photographs 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. It was located about a week later. They never came out and said that somebody
01:11:53planted this tape, but 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
01:12:06the cereal box. Jesse's DNA was sort of in the middle of the rope and Dan's DNA was located on
01:12:13the ends of the rope by the knots that he made. These same ropes were located by search warrant in
01:12:18Daniel's house. It was our theory that Daniel cut this rope at his house. He made a knot around it
01:12:24so it
01:12:24would be a good grip for him and then he used that to strangle Jesse. The defense tried to claim
01:12:30that
01:12:30there was some sort of cross-contamination within the mother load and that you can't tell which was
01:12:36Jesse's on one or on the other. If there is two items that touch each other, there is that possibility
01:12:42of transfer of DNA to occur. But the defense never really said what those alternative explanations were
01:12:48for how this DNA got there. We learned today that the young man accused of killing Jesse Blodgett
01:12:55seemed to have a fascination with murder. The computer search history. A lot of the search
01:13:03history on Dan's computer was very, very disturbing. It was serial killers, spree killers. How many bodies
01:13:10do you need to be considered in one or the other? And it was intertwined with very graphic violent pornography.
01:13:16There was videos on there for bondage and sexual assault and homicide, much of the same way as we
01:13:25suspect that Jesse was bound. Jesse was in her bed sleeping. She 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
01:13:37mark.
01:13:38Jesse's screaming to us. She's screaming to us. She's telling us a story. His DNA is all under her
01:13:44fingernails, under her left hand, under her right hand. I don't believe that you have heard any
01:13:51testimony that would give you reason to believe that Dan Bartelt had any motive to cause the death
01:14:02of Jesse Blodgett. When that jury came back, I was nervous, as everyone on the prosecution team was.
01:14:09Breaking news now. Daniel Bartelt found guilty of murdering 19 year old Jesse Blodgett. The jury
01:14:15reached a verdict in just three hours this afternoon.
01:14:20It wasn't a victory. Jesse's still dead and Dan's still lost.
01:14:37Dan Bartelt took from this family their only daughter. He played on their emotions by going
01:14:44to the vigil. He had just killed their daughter the day earlier. How could he show up to her house
01:14:51after he had just killed her? And it's almost as if he was there so he'd get a front seat.
01:14:57To find out
01:14:58that he was, you know, acting a part, you know, was kind of horrifying. Sometimes evil comes to our door
01:15:04with a familiar face. At sentencing, we each had 10 minutes, me and Dan. And what Dan Bartelt had to
01:15:10say there set shockwaves through the courtroom. Yeah, I'd never witnessed anything like that.
01:15:25Daniel Bartelt will spend the rest of his life in prison. The judge sentenced him to life without parole.
01:15:34At sentencing, we each had 10 minutes, me and Dan, to give our statements. And he looked at Joy and
01:15:41I
01:15:41and he said, these shackles and this orange jumpsuit don't make me guilty.
01:15:46Buck, Joy, I can't give you the answers that you're looking for.
01:15:54I pray for you, for all of you. And I hope that someday I will be
01:16:05before a court that will know that my conscience is good.
01:16:10I love you. I'm so sorry for your loss. There was like some sobbing, but I didn't see any actual
01:16:15tears.
01:16:16I never saw genuine, actual remorse for Jessie, for what he put her through.
01:16:26When it was my turn, mostly I talked about Jessie. I wanted people to know who she was. And the
01:16:31last
01:16:31quarter of it was directly to Dan. I wish no vengeance or retribution. I not only forgive you, I love
01:16:37you.
01:16:42Of course I hate what you did. You are forgiven, but you won't know it and you won't feel it
01:16:48and experience
01:16:49it until you tell the truth. Where does this place of forgiveness come from? For me, it comes from a
01:16:56higher place. It was a gift to me that I didn't hate him and want vengeance. We enjoy, well look
01:17:02what came
01:17:03out of our concern for him. A 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.
01:17:16So we believe that that violence tends to happen a lot less in the presence of love and a lot
01:17:23more
01:17:24in the absence of love. So it's really simple. The more we presence love, the more we absence violence.
01:17:33That's what we're trying to do. The 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. So when you're in trouble, come to me and I'll be there.
01:17:50Oh I swear to you.
01:18:07I think the music that Jessie brought into this world still lives on and that's the legacy she left.
01:18:15How are you?
01:18:17And Melissa Etzler has also teamed up with Buck in his mission.
01:18:20My name is Melissa Etzler. My story is forever tied to Jessie's.
01:18:25What 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,
01:18:40You know, if Jessie was a soul waiting to come into a life and they said this one's going to
01:18:48be short.
01:18:51It's going to end bad and it's going to be violent.
01:18:54But 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.
01:19:16To 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 sentence.
01:19:31That's our program for tonight.
01:19:32Thanks 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.
01:20:01I'm Colin McGee.
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