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[Music] up next tragedy at a texas college she's cold she's called to the touch yes ma'am oh
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my god it's very unusual for a 20 year old girl to die suddenly of natural causes
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tiny drops of blood could mean an accident or a murder we had no idea what had cost
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her death they were just more questions than answers eyewitnesses place a man at
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the scene but are their descriptions accurate they had us really scratching our heads
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bryan texas is a college town that lies in the shadow of texas a m it's home to blinn college
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where jenna verhallen and spencer hood were inseparable jenna's parents say that
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he was just the love of her life that they had dated for several years went to prom together in high school
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jenna just absolutely adored spencer jenna and spencer planned to pursue careers in either
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law or government and they lived in separate apartments at the same complex the autumn woods apartment complex is
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right next to blinn college and so there's quite a few students that live there it's easy for them it's close
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easy access to the college on april 9 2008 after attending his morning classes spencer stopped by jenna's apartment to
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pick up a book he'd left there when spencer arrived at jenna's apartment he found the door unlocked
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and he went inside spencer found jenna's lifeless body on the bedroom floor and asked a neighbor to call
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she's just laying 911 the ground i'm talking she's not breathing okay can you touch her and see if she's
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warm to the touch can you touch her if she's warm to the touch she's cold she's cold to the touch yes
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ma'am oh my god police and paramedics pronounced jenna dead at the scene the only injuries that
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we could find on her were a small bruise on her forehead she had also clinched down on her tongue with her
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teeth it didn't appear to be any kind of robbery her purse was hanging on a hook
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right next to the door credit cards were there in her purse there was cash in her purse
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her keys were in the purse there were no pills no alcohol there were no indications that she had
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committed suicide spencer told police he last saw jenna the night before around midnight the two of them studied
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and then he left and went to his apartment at 12 30 that morning and then made a phone call to jenna a
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few minutes later to tell her a good night phone records showed that he had placed
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a call at 12 47 a.m we know that she was discovered about 11 30 the next morning so we've got
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you know probably less than a 12-hour window when jenna was killed during the autopsy
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the medical examiner found no evidence that jenna had been sexually assaulted but he couldn't rule
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it out either it has been my experience in some 30 years of performing autopsy examinations that the
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lack of genital injuries does not rule out a sexual assault but he did find small broken blood vessels in the whites
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of jenna's eyes known as paticual hemorrhages peticile hemorrhages are in that
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constellation of findings that we refer to as stigmata of asphyxiation it tells me that i need to look for a
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cause of asphyxiation and he found it jenna's larynx had been crushed the conclusion was inescapable
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this is a strangulation and in great probability manual strangulation by hands [Music]
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a background check revealed that over the years spencer and jenna had broken up several times
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dated others but always made up and got back together knowing that there were no signs of
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forced entry i think you immediately think this was some kind of lover's quarrel
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gone bad we did ask spencer if he killed jenna and his response was absolutely no
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but would the forensic evidence support his claim as investigators looked into jennifer
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holland's background they learned she was well liked and respected by her friends and classmates
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at blinn college in texas she didn't have any enemies she didn't have fights
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with people she didn't have arguments or disagreements everybody had nothing but good things to
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say about her jenna was a dedicated student who was working her way through school
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as a waitress at a local restaurant she worked for everything that she had and didn't have a
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i think an almost full-time job at wings and more while taking classes on the night of her murder jenna worked
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at the restaurant until 9 00 p.m surveillance tapes revealed nothing suspicious all we found was
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jenna just walked into her vehicle we didn't find anybody following her jenna returned to her apartment around 9
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30. her boyfriend spencer hood said he stopped by and they spent about three hours studying together
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and he left after midnight then jenna's neighbors provided a possible lead on the night of the murder the neighbors
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were playing sand volleyball in the courtyard in between the apartment buildings
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around midnight they saw a man walking from the direction of jenna's apartment he was shirtless
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and he was acting very upset we learned that this suspicious male had come out anywhere between the hours of midnight
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and 2 am in fact some of the girls that were playing said that he looked scary witnesses said
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the man resembled 26 year old shawn stevens also a college student who lived in an adjoining apartment
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building according to friends he'd once made a vulgar remark to jenna in the parking lot it was more or less
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just some cat calls and stuff from sean's balcony down to the girls and there were some
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words exchanged between jenna and sean shawn's apartment had a direct line of
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sight to jenna's apartment we contacted him sean was extremely nervous and was literally shaking sean denied
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any involvement in jenna's murder he also said he wasn't the shirtless man
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walking from jenna's apartment on the night of her murder but he couldn't provide accurate information
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about where he had been that night due to a large consumption of alcohol then police uncovered a startling
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piece of information two months before her murder jenna told her family about an incident involving her
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apartment's maintenance man it happened one morning after she got out of the shower
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she found the maintenance man standing in her living room he was there when he wasn't asked to be
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and she didn't know that he was there according to janna the man claimed he didn't hear the water
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running and believing the apartment was empty walked inside it's creepy it's creepy just to think about you
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don't stick around while someone's in the shower and then when they come out leave jim
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became very upset and contacted the supervisor of the maintenance worker and explained to him what had happened
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worker's name was jeremy rosser he was 29 years old divorced with two children
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he had never been in trouble with the law he comes from a religious background his father is a
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pastor in a nearby town but police were more than a little suspicious so they conducted an experiment to see
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whether rosser's explanation had been truthful when detectives fry and matthews go back to the apartment
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complex they actually stand right at the front door and have someone go into the
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jenna's bathroom turn the shower on close the door to the bathroom and they say from the front
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threshold of the door you can clearly hear that the shower's running inside that apartment
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coincidentally rosser was fired one week after jenna's murder he had been terminated or fired because
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he wasn't coming to work anymore police wanted to question rosser but he left town after he lost his job
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and no one knew where he was they also discovered that jenna's boyfriend spencer hood was missing
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too certainly our first area focus was on spencer as he was the last one to see her and
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the first one to find her it did not help his case any that he had suddenly left town
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that left sean stevens and he was nowhere to be found either he's gone he's not at school anymore he's not his
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apartment complex anymore this made us a little bit suspicious i started to realize they just have no
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idea they have no idea who did this police had three persons of interest in the murder of jennifer holland
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her boyfriend spencer hood shawn stevens who matched the description of the man seen leaving jenna's apartment
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building the night of the murder and jeremy rosser a maintenance man at jenna's apartment
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complex who had once entered her apartment under suspicious circumstances investigators hoped scientists could
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find forensic evidence that would help narrow their search we're looking for biologic evidence
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is there skin is there hair there may be fibers there may be bits of material from a scene or from
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dirt or something on a person's clothing first scientists discovered skin cells under
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jenna's fingernails which is not unusual when a victim is involved in a struggle
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they extracted dna and discovered there were two genetic profiles both male one a minor contributor and one a
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major contributor investigators also found a drop of blood on jenna's shirt collar
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and two drops of blood on the carpet near jenna's body one of those did come
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back to be jenna's dna and the other one came back to be the same unknown male contributor that was
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detected in the nail samples and on the neck of the shirt she's fighting for her life she is
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scratching him scratching him deeply and hard enough that he's actively bleeding
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this cna evidence was extremely exciting to us because we knew if we could ever get dna from a suspect
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that matched we would have our killer armed with the killer's dna investigators wanted dna samples from
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jenna's boyfriend spencer hood her neighbor shawn stevens and the maintenance man jeremy rosser
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mysteriously all three left town after jenna's murder while police searched for them
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they also conducted a dna dragnet they asked other men who lived in her apartment complex
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as well as male co-workers for dna samples nearly 50 people willingly complied but no one matched the dna from the
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crime scene if we're eliminating people that are around her that have a connection with
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her if this is a completely random act then how how are we ever going to locate that
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person again to get their dna eventually police found jenna's boyfriend spencer hood
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three hours away at his parents home we ended up driving to wimberley to try to track him down because at that time
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we believe that he may be our killer i asked him the question about why he left town
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what he'd explained was he was just upset him and jenna were very close and he wanted to be with his family
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spencer was entirely cooperative he allowed police to photograph him without his shirt
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and police found no scratch marks on his body he also answered questions without an
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attorney present and willingly provided a dna sample next police tracked down shawn stevens
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at his parents home 450 miles away in oklahoma sean said he went home to see his
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brother who was on leave from military service in iraq so this gave us an explanation of why
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sean led town when asked sean willingly provided a dna sample without police having to resort to a
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court order the only remaining suspect was jeremy rosser police were finally able to locate him
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through his ex-wife who provided an important clue she said jeremy had shown signs of
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violence at the time of their divorce they got an argument he shoved her to the ground and while she was on the
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ground he kneeled over her and put both hands around her neck coincidentally this incident occurred right around the
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time of jenna's murder but for investigators it was still one problem a criminal check was done of roster's
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background and we found no instances where he had been arrested in the past this made him somewhat of an
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unlikely candidate for a crime of this type when police questioned rosser he denied
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any involvement and was happy to cooperate he was very calm very cool not someone that you
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would pin a murder on but in rosser's truck investigators found a laptop computer
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the serial number was traced to a tenant living in janus apartment complex who'd
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reported it stolen months earlier they also found rosser still had keys to the apartments
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this indicated to us that rosser had likely gone into many apartments during his term there as a maintenance
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worker but jenna's apartment key was not among those found in jeremy's possession
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and just like the others jeremy willingly provided a dna sample my feelings of jeremy was that we might
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not have our person being how cooperative he was and his demeanor so investigators had three
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possibilities would a dna match be among them or was the killer still at large i have other cases where
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i know who did it i just can't prove who did it this case is different whereas i can prove who did it i just
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don't know who did it with dna samples from three suspects scientists hoped to determine who killed
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college student jennifer holland and had it not been for science there's no telling what would have happened
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had we not had the dna under her nails or on the collar of her shirt or on the carpet we may never have
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solved this crime without the forensic evidence i don't think there would have been an arrest
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the dna results left no doubt jeremy rosser was in jenna's apartment on the night of
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the murder how would your skin cells be under here what snapped what made him want to want
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to do this to her it's weird when police arrested rosser he wasn't surprised
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there's no screaming yelling i'm innocent what are you talking about it's
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just oh okay and so that was a big indication prosecutors believe that rosser's
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intrusion into jenna's apartment while she was in the shower was no accident
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after that encounter prosecutors believe rosser used his master key again on the night of the murder to
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enter janna's apartment while she was at work this time they believe he hid in jenna's
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second bedroom and waited for her jenna came home around 9 30 p.m but her boyfriend spencer hood also
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stopped by something rosser probably didn't anticipate this forced rosser to wait another three
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hours spencer left shortly after midnight nicely i love you too but he called jenna at 12 47 to say
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good night after that call jenna went to bed and at some point rosser attacked [Music]
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jenna fought for her life scratching him collecting his skin cells he strangled her to death
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tiny drops of rosser's blood landed on jenna's shirt and on the rug next to her body
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i would like to say that jenna in her last moments i guess fought like she always fights and she's
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been a fighter and that was enough to help us identify who this person was so that we could
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try and achieve some small sense of justice for her and her family when charged with jenna's murder rosser
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admitted he was guilty in order to spare his family the ordeals of a trial [Music]
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rosser never revealed his motive it's possible that jeremy entered jenna's apartment to burglarize it
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and then once spencer left jeremy may have exited the bedroom hoping to get whatever he was there to
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steal and was caught by jenna and then subsequently had to end up murdering her being that she knew his identity
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it's also possible the assault had something to do with his marital problems at the time
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jenna looked very similar in bill to rosser's ex-wife he may have assaulted jenna based on the fact that
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he was angry with his ex-wife the forensic evidence was crucial to this case because we don't have a motive without
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his dna we don't really have a motive for him going into that apartment regardless of his motive jeremy rosser
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was convicted of jennifer holland's murder and was sentenced to 55 years in prison
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he has two children you're gonna grow up with a dad in prison so there's a lot of people affected by
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the decisions that that rosser made this case stands out to me and i consider it to be one of the
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most important cases that i've worked in my career based on the type of person that jenna
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was she was a young person that had her life ahead of her and it's just a tragic event
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that has to happen to someone like her