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Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, [music] and this week, Britt and I are going to
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divide and conquer because two Indiana cases recently came across my desk that are both pretty recent and both in need
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of some eyes and ears. So, you're going to get two episodes this week. One for me today and one from Britt on
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Wednesday. And if you follow me on social, you'll know I was recently back near [music] my hometown scoping out an
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area in Elcart, Indiana that was once a crime scene because I just needed to see
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it for [music] myself. How did someone lay and wait, blitz attack a young woman, then drag her to the side of her
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trailer and cut her [music] from ear to ear without a single witness seeing? It didn't seem possible. And how have
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police not tracked down her killer [music] after 14 years? Well, being at the scene and doing some
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digging of our own has made it pretty clear that the police bungled the investigation. And it might be up to all
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of us now to [music] help the family get justice. And we might be close because our digging led to someone who said they
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know what happened. And based on who they're connected to, they could [music] be telling the truth. This is the story
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of Jessica Star. 911. Where's your emergency? Um, it's in Elkart, Indiana, uh, Melody
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Lake. I was sitting on the couch and uh one of my mom's friends was getting home
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from work, one of her roommates and heard a run up the uh deck and and was screaming and then she sounded like she
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got like her a handcuffed over her mouth and she got pulled away. We need somebody, I guess, to be sent here and
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led away. That was part of a call that an 11-year-old named Jeff made to dispatchers just after 11:30 p.m. on
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August 8th, 2011 from inside his trailer. He'd been home with his mom and little brother, expecting his mom's
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roommate and coworker, Jessica [music] Star, to be coming home any minute like any other normal night. But he's pretty
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sure that he just heard her getting attacked in front of their home. And now, having called the police, he is
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staring out the open front door into the pitch black night, watching his mom call
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for Jessica from the front porch with her gun in hand, afraid that someone might still be out there. But it is now
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completely silent. They can see Jessica's two-door Pontiac parked close to their front porch in front of the
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house, but the driver's side door is wide open. Just then, Jeff and his mom, Terry, heard this rustling sound [music]
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at the side of the house. Almost like someone was running off. But her children's safety was her first
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priority. Terry stays on the porch, gun in hand, waiting for police to arrive. [music] And thank God, it's not long.
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Police cars pull down the dark road, and as soon as their cars are in park, cops
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are scouring the property. And it's when they walk to the side of the house, the
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side where Jeff and Terry heard that rustling, that's when they find Jessica, and it's bad. She's got bruises on her
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arms. Her throat has been cut and she'd been stabbed. So, by the time they get to her, it's too late. She's already
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gone. Police are baffled by the brazen attack. And the fact that there were witnesses, I mean, in the house that she
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was headed towards makes it all the more confounding, but also promising for the
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now homicide investigation. So, police go to Jeff like, tell us everything you saw and heard. He told us recently what
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he shared with them 14 years ago. He said that he was laying in the living room with his brother waiting for
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Jessica to get home. He's on his Game Boy when he hears this noise by the front door. Now, all these years later,
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he says he can't exactly remember what that noise was, but he got up and looked out this little window at the top of the
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front door, except he couldn't see anything. It was like completely dark. Now, at the time, it didn't occur to him
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that it shouldn't have been pitch [music] black because his mom always left the porch light on. But young boy,
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oblivious to that kind of detail, he just went back to lie down and kept playing his game. Except that didn't
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last long. Soon after he started hearing screaming and not just any screaming. I
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mean this was primal guttural screaming coming from somewhere in the front yard.
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At first he thought it might be some sort of animal like cats fighting before he had that chilling realization that it
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was Jessica. And whatever happened next happened very quickly like within minutes. Jeff says that it sounded to
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him like Jessica made it to the front porch, but someone put their hand over her mouth to muffle her screams and
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dragged her away. Once the screaming stopped, Jeff says that he was almost in shock for like a couple of seconds, but
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when he snapped out of it, he snuck to his mom's room to tell her what was happening. Now, she's sound asleep at
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the time, and from there, the loud fan that she kept running likely was drowning out all the noise. But any
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parent knows that a panicked shake from your child will jolt you right awake. So
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that's when she told Jeff to bring her her gun and call [music] police. Based on Jeff's story and what police see in
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front of them, Jessica's immediate family believe that police built out this [music] theory. Jessica's car is
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parked to the right of the house, door a jar, and police see that there are groceries in the back seat. So, it looks
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like Jessica got home and parked and maybe was about to take the groceries out when she's attacked. I mean, there's
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even fresh mud that's kicked up on the side of that open door. So, it looks like there was a struggle, but what they
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don't see there is any blood. The cut that Jessica suffered to her throat would have been super bloody. So, that
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obviously didn't happen at the car, which means that they likely would have had to incapacitate her in some other
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way, either just by overpowering her and grabbing her or with a weapon. And they
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actually think it's probably option B because of the extensive bruising that she had to her arms. And laying in the
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yard close to her body, they actually find a baseball bat-siz branch. And all of this had to have been premeditated.
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The branch likely came from a brush pile at the back of the trailer, so a weapon
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was picked beforehand. Not to mention, the killer obviously had a knife on them, which they did not
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leave behind like this branch. And then just off to the right, if you're looking
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at the trailer straight on, they see an area where some of the grass is like stamped down like someone was almost
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like crouching there for a while. But from the street, Jessica probably wouldn't have been able to see someone
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waiting for her if they were tucked into the brush enough. And then finally, there's that sound that Jeff first
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[music] heard. It turns out the reason the porch was so dark when Jeff looked out the window that first time was
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because the porch light bulb was missing. Now, Terry was sure that the light had been on when she went to bed
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that night. So likely the first sound that Jeff heard was either someone tall enough unscrewing the bulb and like just
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being loud about it or someone shorter maybe with the help of something or someone like being hoisted up to remove
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it. So whoever this is, they got their weapons, they made sure it was dark and then they laid in wait for Jessica. They
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blitz attacked her at her car and from Jeff's account, it sounds like she tried to run up to the front door and she
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screamed for help, but they got a hold of her and dragged her off the porch to the side of the house where they swiftly
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and thoughtlessly slaughtered her. And then they took off into the night with just the knife and the porch's light
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bulb. They left everything else, including Jessica's purse, which leads [music] me and Jessica's family to
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believe that this wasn't a random robbery. Jessica was targeted. They knew her routine, where and when she lived,
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when she'd be coming home, where she would park when she did. This was about killing her. So, it was now going to be
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about finding who would have motive for that. Except if physical evidence was the way to do that. Police dropped the
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ball right from the beginning. Jessica's family told us that when they showed up outside the trailer the very
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next evening for a candlelight vigil, Jessica's car was still just sitting there. Police hadn't taken it. They
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hadn't moved it. Hadn't even taped it off. In fact, most of the scene isn't taped off. So, of course, as people are
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grieving, they're like putting their candles on her car. They're walking all over the yard. And I mean, to no fault
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of their own, like, by the way, because how would they know not to go anywhere or touch anything if the police in
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charge don't tell you not to? It's not a citizen's job to collect and preserve [music] evidence. They're trusting the
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police to do that. Now, did they do that at all? Did they process anything the first night? Maybe. I can't tell you
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because the police wouldn't talk to us for this episode [music] and they denied our foyer request as well. But in
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talking to Jessica's family, they have their doubts whether the car was even fingerprinted [music]
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because I mean, you would usually tow the car if it's part of an investigation, but her family told us
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that they never even moved the car from where Jessica parked it. And when her family got it back a few days after her
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death, they told us that they didn't see any fingerprint dust or any evidence that they had done any real processing
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of the vehicle. But that's just the start of their many complaints about how Elcart County Sheriff's Office seemed to
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just not care about finding Jessica's killer. From their perspective, it seems like police just leave a bunch of
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potential evidence behind, [music] like blood on the ground where Jessica was found or possible footprints by her
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car where that mud was kicked up. Jessica's family even mentioned a handprint on the top of the car,
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although they clarified that they aren't sure if it was from the attack or if it
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was there before, but worth checking. I think Jessica's dad also doesn't think that they asked neighbors for any camera
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footage or from the grocery store that she was working at before she went home. I mean, it's basic stuff that just
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doesn't seem like it was done. And even though we couldn't get the files, you might think, "Oh, well, Ashley, you guys
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talked to the family. Surely the police at least told them what was or wasn't done." Nope. According to Jessica's
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family, police weren't keeping the family updated. So, they're assuming the worst. Now, I grew up right around here.
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Elcart is kind of a small town. People talk. What's real? What's rumors? You never really know. But Jeff told our
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reporter that he thinks he remembers hearing something about police getting DNA from under Jessica's fingernails,
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which makes sense because after her autopsy, they said her arm was broken. And that combined with the bruising
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makes me think that she fought like hell. But if they did get something, they have never spoken out publicly and
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said that. So, is there a DNA profile? Was it good enough for Cotus? Was it ever compared to anyone? Specifically,
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was it ever compared to Jessica's ex? Because immediately, that is who her family became suspicious of,
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32-year-old Tavvarz Browning, who everyone calls BA. Bae was actually the reason Jessica was
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living with Terry in the first place. They had dated for a few years. They had been living together, but they broke up
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a couple of months before this in April. And then Terry offered Jessica a place to stay while she like got back on her
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feet. Now, everyone has something to say about BA, specifically about how tumultuous their relationship was. I
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mean, her family and friends told us that they never saw or heard of any physical abuse from him towards Jessica,
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but he was allegedly a verbal and emotional abuser. And according to Jessica's friends, after he and Jessica
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broke up, he started stalking her. He even showed up at her work. Now, her co-workers were aware and they didn't
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let her leave or walk to her car without someone else with her. One of her friends told us that there had been talk
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of a restraining order at some [music] point, but she doesn't think Jessica actually got one. And I think that's
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correct because we couldn't find record of one with local courts. Now, BA is a drug dealer with a history of battery
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charges, although those battery charges were from years before he and Jessica even dated. And he was only ever
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convicted of two of those charges, one in 1998 and one in 1999. [music] But the timing of what happened to
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Jessica stands out to me. I mean, not only is leaving an abusive relationship one of the most dangerous times for a
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victim, but also Jessica just started seeing someone new. So maybe that's motive.
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But here's the thing. According to Jessica's family, police told them that they went to Ba's home the night that
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Jessica was killed because I mean that's how quick they were hearing about him. And when they arrived, he was in bed
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with another woman and looked like he had just woken up. Based on Jessica's brother's recollection, he thinks that
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detectives assume he wouldn't have been able to get back to wherever he was staying and clean up and stuff before
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police got there that night. Although, honestly, I'm a little skeptical about this. I'm not sure exactly how long it
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was between when the murder took place and when police turned up at Ba's door. But police likely have the details that
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we are lacking. And based on what they have and know, they quickly rule him out. And maybe the other thing that they
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have is DNA. And maybe they know that the profile they have isn't a match to him. To me, that would be worth saying
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publicly, but they [music] haven't. So, I'm not making any assumptions. They very well could have just ruled him out
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based on him being home. There's also a world where he's involved directly or [music] indirectly, but didn't actually
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do it. Jessica's family laid out a couple of scenarios [music] for me. Their thinking is that if it wasn't Bae,
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he may have orchestrated it, or someone may have killed Jessica in order to hurt
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him. Despite being a smalltime drug dealer, Jessica's family told us that he had this way of luring people into his
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web and manipulating those around him. So maybe he ticked someone off or got on someone's bad side enough to where they
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killed Jessica to get back at him. I mean, he was clearly still attached to Jessica in some way. And maybe someone
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else knew that. Now, to his credit, the one thing Jessica's family does say is that he was absolutely distraught
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[music] when she died. So if he was involved, it actually makes way more sense to them
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that this was someone else who carried it out. And really, that's even more based on what they know about the
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attack. They don't think that BA would have needed a tree branch to take [music] Jessica down. I mean, he's
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pretty tall and she's on the shorter side, so they think his bare hands would have been enough. You use the tree
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branch if you need help overpowering her. Say if you were smaller, physically weaker,
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maybe a woman around Jessica's same size, which makes something a neighbor kid heard the night of Jessica's murder all
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the more interesting. When police interviewed neighbors, one 17-year-old kid in the home across the street did
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remember hearing something that night. He claims he heard screaming and then after he heard a woman's voice saying,
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"Well, we got to get out of here." Now, in the moment, his brain was trying to put what he was hearing into context of
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his normal life. So, he thought that may have been someone calling for their dog,
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but he didn't see anything. Now, this is super interesting because there is a group of women in Jessica's orbit who
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her family learned about within a few months after her death. You see, Jessica actually had two jobs when she was
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killed. The first was at a grocery store, and the second was at a local factory. And Jessica's dad hears that
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some of the women she worked with at the factory ran in [music] the same circles
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as BA. Now, they weren't happy that she'd broken up with him. Allegedly, they told her that she needed to go back
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to her man, and it wasn't right that she'd left him. Now, the thing is, I don't know if police ever looked into
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this group of women. Despite Jessica's family reporting all of this to them, it's one of the questions I wanted to
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ask them most if they would have agreed to talk to us. If they didn't look into this, it's probably because they
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directed their attention to more obvious suspects like this guy named Josh. And listen,
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it's for good reason that they looked at him early on. Even if the incident that
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makes him so suspicious happened nearly a decade ago, [music] it is still horrific.
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So, according to Jessica's brother and sister-in-law, this guy Josh went to high school with Jessica back in 2001
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when she was 18, and he was really into her, but she wasn't into him, which apparently pissed him off. So, one
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morning before school, he came to her house, grabbed a tire iron out of her garage, and beat her with it while also
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allegedly attempting to sexually assault her. Now, he got caught that very day because dude literally went to school
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with her blood still on his hoodie and he served almost 3 years for that. But as unhinged as this man is, police end
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up finding out that he was in Michigan at the time that Jessica was killed. So, they rule him off the list, too. But the
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list of potential suspects keeps growing the more they learn about Jessica. Not because she was into anything bad. Quite
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the opposite, actually. She took every bad thing that happened to her and used it as a drive to do good. Her family
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told us that she had worked as a legal assistant in the prosecutor's office shortly before her murder, and she
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sometimes stepped in as a liaison for victims of domestic violence, [snorts] which can be a dangerous position. So,
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[music] I mean, I kind of wondered like, oh, what if she got involved in a case where someone else's abusive partner
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would want to retaliate against her? So, I had our team reach out to the former prosecutor who Jessica worked under, but
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unfortunately, he doesn't remember any cases that she would have helped out with where that could have been a
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concern. I mean, he's familiar with Jessica's case, obviously, and in his opinion, that's not a likely scenario.
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He said based on what he knows, he thinks it likely would have been someone close to Jessica.
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And so, we're right back to where we started. Over the years, without anywhere to place blame, people just go
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looking for it. And many times, it's fallen on Terry. I mean, some of Jessica's friends can't help but wonder
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if Terry could know more than she's saying. They also don't like that Terry didn't go looking for Jessica when she
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went out onto the porch with her gun. But let me stop you right there. Like, first of all, fight, flight, freeze. You
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don't know till you're in it. I mean, the fact that she's even on the porch with her gun to me is a lot. [music] and
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she is a mom with two little kids in the house. I don't blame her for not wanting
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to leave the doorway open when there is a mystery asalent outside. [music] And those are the same feelings that
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Jessica's family shares. They understand how Jessica's friends might find that suspicious, but they don't think that
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Terry had anything to do with this. And Terry herself also denies knowing more than she's let on. But speaking of
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Terry, she actually has her own theories. And she gave me something that I was desperate for, the name of a
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woman, because I can't get over that female voice saying, "We ought to get out of here." She says that briefly
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while Jessica was living with her, [music] they had another roommate, Anna. She was only there a hot second cuz
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Terry had to kick her out because she wasn't following house rules, doing things like inviting a guy over without
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permission. And according to Terry, Anna blamed Jessica for her getting kicked out. And I'm not sure why. Maybe Jessica
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was the one who told Terry that this stuff was happening. Or maybe she was just feeling replaced. Or maybe Jessica
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was just a great example of following the rules and made a glaring example of what a bad roommate she was. Who knows?
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But Terry told our team that she's suspicious of Anna because of one really specific reason. Anna would have known
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that Terry slept with that industrialsized fan to block out noise, which would have prevented her from
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hearing anything. Now, we asked Jessica's family what they thought of Terry's theory, but they don't really
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buy it. Still, our team connected with Anna just to get her take. And not only did she deny having anything to do with
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Jessica's death, she actually gave us a whole new story that sent me spiraling. Anna told us that this guy she was
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dating, who by the way also ran in the same circles as BA, this guy assaulted her sometime after Jessica's homicide.
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And during this assault, he threatened her with a knife and allegedly said, quote, "Do you want to end up like
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Jess?" Now, I had all the questions after learning this. Like, did he just say this because he knew what happened
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to Jessica? Like specifically how she died? I mean, her cause of death isn't a secret, so it's very likely that he knew
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she was killed with a knife. Or did he maybe know more than he was letting on? Did he have more insight into what
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happened? Now, we've tried to confirm any part of this with other people, and in doing so, we talked to some of
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Jessica's friends, but they couldn't corroborate this threat. To me, it would still be worth looking into, as are the
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women at the factory, especially when it seems like police don't have anything else. The people in Elcart are still
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talking about Jessica's homicide to this day, and her friends and family are keeping their ears to the ground for any
00:22:43
chatter, turning over any rumors that they hear to police. Because, like any good crime junkie knows, people don't
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keep secrets forever. And actually, the most recent tip that they turned over was just from like a year and a half
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ago. That's when one of Jessica's loved ones had a runin with this woman who also happens to run in the same circles
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as BA. And she was going around claiming that she knew who did it. So again, all
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the questions. Does she actually know more? Is she just saying that to get attention or to make people mad? We've
00:23:18
been trying to get in touch with this woman to follow up on these claims. And I know all of this has been reported to
00:23:23
the police, but no one knows if they've done anything with this. So many rumors still seem to revolve around Ba, but
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police have never connected him to this. Ba is currently serving a pretty hefty sentence for dealing cocaine. We reached
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out to Bay for comment, and he denies having anything to do with Jessica's death. He also denies stalking and
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verbally or emotionally abusing her. Jessica's family worries that they're never going to be able to tie anyone to
00:23:54
the crime because of how royally they think Elcarp County Sheriff's Office screwed up the investigation from the
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start. They even say that police ghost them when they ask for updates, which I am sure feels terrible when all you want
00:24:07
is answers without police communicating with them. Jessica's family is still waiting for justice. Her brother said
00:24:14
that whoever did this didn't just kill Jessica, they killed the whole family. I mean, Jessica's mother died just a month
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after her from health complications compounded by grief, [music] and her father spent the rest of his life
00:24:26
searching for answers. I mean, he died just earlier this year. Her brother told us that their [music] dad filled
00:24:33
notebooks upon notebooks of theories about who could have killed his daughter and notes on his own investigation.
00:24:39
Unfortunately, he'd like isolated himself after her death, so he didn't share much. And even when they got his
00:24:46
books after he died, they were like in pretty bad shape and nothing really useful came from them. Listen, her
00:24:52
family wants Jessica to be remembered as the type of person who used the bad things that happened to her for good.
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Like how she helped victims of domestic violence at work. She would tell people that they could survive what was
00:25:05
happening to them because she had. She even kept a photo of her 18-year-old self in her desk to show people what
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they would come back from. and she would have wanted her death to be used for good, too. Her family honored her that
00:25:19
way by organizing a donation drive for a local women's shelter that she'd helped
00:25:23
with as a part of her work at the prosecutor's office. They ended up filling like three to four semi-truck
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trailers full of donations in her honor. And we at Audiochuck have made a donation to that same women's shelter in
00:25:36
her honor as well. It's called Safe Haven Elcart County. We're going to link to that in the show notes if you want to
00:25:42
join us. Jessica's killer could still be out there and someone knows something. If you have any information about the
00:25:49
death of Jessica Star, you can submit tips [music] to us at tipsaudio.com. You can also contact the Elcart County
00:25:57
Sheriff's Office, and we're going to have their contact information in our show notes. You can find all the source
00:26:02
material for this episode on our website, [music] crimejunkkey.com. And if you want to listen to this
00:26:07
episode and all of our episodes completely adfree, be sure to join our fan club. You'll also get early access
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to new episodes [music] every week. You can follow us on Instagram at CrimeJunk Podcast. And we will be back next week
00:26:22
with a brand new episode.