00:00:00
Hey, Bay Area, this is your friendly reminder that San Francisco's most incredible national park site might be hiding in plain sight.
00:00:08
I'm talking about the Presidio and its 1,500 acres of trails, forests, and beaches.
00:00:13
Whether you want to take the kids out for a day of play at Presidio Tunnel Tops Outpost Playground,
00:00:19
or you want to head on over to Chrissy Field for a beach day with epic views of the Bay,
00:00:24
the Presidio has something for everybody. It's one park with endless possibilities.
00:00:28
So what are you waiting for? Plan your visit at Presidio.gov. Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.
00:00:38
Listener discretion is advised. Unfortunately, you're right in the middle of all of this.
00:00:50
And to sit here and lie to us to begin with is not helping you at all. This is a friend of yours or was a friend of yours.
00:00:59
and somebody brutally murdered Carpino. Hello, and welcome to Season 13, Episode 350 of Sword and Scale,
00:01:09
a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. Starting a business sounds exciting until you actually do it.
00:01:57
Then suddenly you're the product guy, the website guy, the shipping department, the marketing department, customer service, all of it.
00:02:04
And if you're anything like me when I started, you're thinking, am I doing this right?
00:02:09
Is anyone going to actually care? That's where Shopify makes a lot of sense. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, including 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S.
00:02:21
They give you hundreds of ready-to-use templates so you can build a clean, professional online store that actually looks like your brand.
00:02:29
And once you're up and running, Shopify has tools for inventory, payments, analytics, returns, and international shipping all in one place.
00:02:38
They even have AI tools to help you write product descriptions, improve page headlines, and enhance product photography.
00:02:45
Plus, easy email and social media campaigns to help customers actually find you.
00:02:51
It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 a month trial today at shopify.com slash sword and scale.
00:03:04
Go to shopify.com slash sword and scale. That's shopify.com slash sword and scale.
00:03:12
Cha-ching. Simpsonville, South Carolina, is a small southern town where life moves at an easy pace.
00:03:34
Families know their neighbors, church bells still mark the hour, and the peaceful atmosphere feels almost rehearsed.
00:03:42
But on the afternoon of October 26, 2016, the calm was broken. Inside a cramped interview room at the Simpsonville Police Department, investigators spoke to a young man named Ricky Hargrove.
00:03:57
I want to tell you what you've effectively done, Ricky, is you've inserted yourself into a murder investigation.
00:04:07
I mean, what do you think? I think it would do something like that. takes some kind of monster to do something like that to someone.
00:04:19
This interview with Ricky was one of the first threads in an investigation that would span nearly a decade.
00:04:26
It was a horrific homicide case that centered around a 22-year-old woman named Katie Blavel.
00:04:32
Katie believed she could build a simple life for herself in Simpsonville and was doing what she could do to make that happen.
00:04:40
Katie was an animal lover. And in 2016, she was working full-time at her local PetSmart.
00:04:47
I just want to confirm with you, she was working here on Monday. And do you remember what her hours were here on Monday?
00:04:53
She was 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 9 to 2? Mm-hmm. I don't know exactly what time she left, but, I mean, it was no later than 2.15.
00:05:03
Okay. So you were working on Monday, didn't you? Yes. How was Katie's demeanor that day?
00:05:10
Perfectly fine. And she was talking about picking up her, someone named Cheyenne.
00:05:16
I don't know who that is to her. And they were going shopping together. On October 23rd, 2016, Katie worked a full-time shift at PetSmart.
00:05:26
When she clocked out at around 2.15 p.m., she confirmed plans to meet up with her younger sister, Cheyenne.
00:05:33
But I said, what are you doing? And she said, I'm driving around. I asked her, I said, will you take me?
00:05:39
Come on in to get food. You want to go buy you food? And she said, yeah, I'll be there in an hour.
00:05:44
And I said, well, if you don't know what you're doing right now, I said, why is it going to take you an hour to get here?
00:05:48
And she said, I don't know. But I kind of just let it go because I was like, you know,
00:05:54
maybe she doing something she don want to tell me about She grown She can do that you know And so I fell asleep and I got her back in like an hour and a half and she didn answer
00:06:06
Katie never showed up to meet her sister that day. When phone calls went unanswered, Cheyenne felt the first wave of panic.
00:06:14
She immediately knew that something was very wrong. Her phone was off, and then that's when I kind of started to worry.
00:06:21
I'm like, Katie never leaves her phone off. Katie never blows me off. I don't know, like 12, 31 o'clock, I called John.
00:06:30
And he answered and he sounded like he just woke up. And I said, I can't find Katie.
00:06:36
And I said, I need to know if she's at your house or if you see me. I said, just tell me.
00:06:41
You know, and he said no. I don't talk to her anymore, so he said on the phone. Desperate to find her sister, Cheyenne did the only thing she could think of.
00:06:51
She reached out to Katie's estranged husband, John. 28-year-old John Blavelt was an active-duty soldier in the United States Army.
00:07:11
When Katie went missing, he was living and working in Simpsonville as a recruiter.
00:07:16
So I understand you've been deployed twice? Yes. Iraq? Yeah. When was the last time you got back?
00:07:24
2010. How's recruiting? Obviously a lot different than being a part. Yeah, that was probably the worst
00:07:32
job I've ever had. Really? Yeah, because I joined the Army at 18 to fight in Iraq. Shoot guns.
00:07:38
Shoot big guns, yeah. And then they had me sit behind a desk. You couldn't get a different
00:07:44
assignment, right? No, it's one of the Army's mandatory assignments. You either take it or you get out.
00:07:52
John and Katie met by chance outside the Army recruiting office where he worked.
00:07:58
Her job was just a few doors down, and one afternoon during a smoke break, their conversations began.
00:08:04
So me and her just kind of met and started dating. I was staying at her house most days during the week at her dad's house, and then we finally got an apartment in December.
00:08:15
And you got married in what year? 2015. After they married, it didn't take long for John and Katie to realize they weren't as compatible as they'd hoped.
00:08:25
They barely lived together for two months before the relationship fell apart, and Katie decided to walk away.
00:08:32
She left John, and the two were officially separated. What kind of stuff were you all arguing about?
00:08:39
Everything. Just normal. Just normal stuff. People stuff. And then, being a recruiter, I talked to a lot of different people.
00:08:46
So I had two phones, and I talked to a lot of females, and she didn't like us. But that was my job as a recruiter.
00:08:54
I had to talk to everybody, and she wouldn't like that. So then we'd argue about that.
00:08:58
So you guys weren't married long at all? Mm-hmm, two months. In October of 2016, Katie went missing.
00:09:05
And naturally, her husband was one of the first people police wanted to talk to.
00:09:10
For the most part, John was open and cooperative. He admitted that their marriage had been difficult, even horrible at times.
00:09:18
But he insisted he never laid a hand on her or caused her any physical harm. I mean, we were the worst couple.
00:09:26
You know, we argued a lot. But I think it was bad timing, honestly, because she was going through some shit.
00:09:33
And I was going through some shit. And she just left one day. When was the last time you actually saw her?
00:09:40
I'd say probably July. because she moved out in April, I think. Have you ever gotten so mad at her that maybe you did something you didn't mean to do?
00:09:50
No, absolutely not. John also told investigators that he hadn't seen Katie for months,
00:09:55
and he provided a reasonable alibi for the day she went missing. Did you work this Monday?
00:10:01
Mm-hmm. What time did you get off Monday? Like 2.30ish, 2.00, I don't know. Where did you go to work?
00:10:09
Home. Did you stop anywhere on the way home? Was anybody home with you? Um, yeah, my roommates were there.
00:10:19
John's roommates backed up his story. They told investigators they saw him come home from work that day,
00:10:25
on the day that Katie went missing. Though they did lose track of him later in the evening,
00:10:31
when he said he was going out for a jog. Investigators also spoke with people who knew both John and Katie
00:10:37
and were familiar with their relationship. Many describe John the same way Polite, disciplined
00:10:45
The picture of an army soldier For them, the idea that he could hurt Katie Didn't seem possible at all
00:10:53
They used to fight a lot But like, he was never like Violent with her when I lived there
00:11:01
And a lot of the time It was like, mostly her that like Started the argument What do you think chances are that John lost his cool and did something to her?
00:11:13
I know he did. I've been around him when he's drunk, like straight up drunk. And he's not angry. You know, they've gotten really upset and he just he just comes in and just cries.
00:11:25
Like, I mean, I've seen him mad, but, you know, he just yells and that's the end of it.
00:11:30
After looking into John and finding no clear link to Katie's disappearance, investigators began to consider other possibilities.
00:11:38
They knew that after the marriage ended, Katie had started dating again. This opened the door to new questions and a different suspect.
00:11:49
I don't know what her family's told you. Hopefully, Cheyenne's been up front with you, but she's been dating around a lot.
00:11:54
Katie? Yeah Yeah we looking into some of that Investigators learned that Katie had recently reconnected with an ex 21 Wayne Roper
00:12:05
This was a bizarre relationship that quickly became the focus of their suspicions.
00:12:11
And through a series of strange, unsettling events, that relationship led detectives to another name.
00:12:19
The young man you heard at the beginning of this episode, Ricky Hargrove. Yesterday when I was finishing up some assignments in my classes online, I got a call from Wayne at around 1130.
00:12:35
Wayne says, hey man, can you come pick me up from work? On the night of October 24th, 2016, Ricky received an unexpected phone call.
00:12:47
It was from Katie's ex-boyfriend, Wayne Roper, who asked for a ride home from the Walmart where he worked.
00:12:54
Ricky hesitated, then agreed, as long as he got a little gas money. When he got into the car, I say, hey man, what's up with Katie being missing?
00:13:08
And he said they haven't been able to find her. They pinged her phone in West Virginia or something.
00:13:14
and then they pinged it again and it was in Simpsonville. And he said, yeah, there was this house that we used to hang out at
00:13:23
and I've been wanting to check that because I think that she might be there. When Wayne climbed into the passenger seat, his request caught Ricky off guard.
00:13:36
He wanted to go to a nearby abandoned farmhouse, a place that was rumored to be haunted.
00:13:40
strangely Wayne said he thought Katie might be hiding there I get out of the car with him give
00:13:49
him my lamp my headlamp and we walk in there I'm talking about the house being haunted I don't want
00:13:58
anything to do with this and I tell him about um you know if we do find her he says we're going to
00:14:07
I call the cops, and I say, I got a bunch of weed in there. And then I'm not expecting to find her at all in there.
00:14:15
And I was just kind of dismissive. Whenever we go in there, we check all the upstairs rooms.
00:14:23
And then when we get done checking those, we go downstairs. Reluctantly, Ricky drove Wayne to the abandoned farmhouse,
00:14:31
and together they searched the dark, empty rooms for any sign of Katie. After several minutes of searching and after they'd made their way into the basement, Wayne Roper pulled out his phone and dialed 911.
00:14:46
Simpsville 911, what's the location of your emergency? Um, I'm in that discovered search across from the woods.
00:14:55
Um, my friend, uh, she's been missing for, for, I think, 30 hours now. and we went into the woods where we used to all hang out at
00:15:06
and there's a house there and we went looking for her there just in case like she might be there staying or something
00:15:14
and we found her in the bottom part in the basement covered up with pieces of wood.
00:15:22
Okay, like was she still alive? No, sir. No response. She's pale. So she was pale and unresponsive?
00:15:32
Yes. Are you still there with her? No, sir. I walked away. I couldn't. Is anybody still there with her?
00:15:40
No, sir. That night, the body of 22-year-old Katie Blauvelt was found in the basement of an abandoned farmhouse.
00:15:49
She'd been covered with planks of rotting wood, and an autopsy later revealed she'd been brutally stabbed to death.
00:15:57
Simpsonville wasn't the kind of place where people normally vanished, or where murder made the nightly news.
00:16:05
When it did, everyone knew about it. Naturally, solving Katie's murder became a top priority for local investigators.
00:16:13
But answers didn't come quickly. Nearly a decade would pass before a jury would finally hear the case.
00:16:22
And even then, the truth was anything. but certain. Starting a business sounds exciting
00:16:44
until you actually do it. Then suddenly you're the product guy, the website guy,
00:16:49
the shipping department, the marketing department, customer service, all of it. And if you're anything like me
00:16:54
when I started, you're thinking, am I doing this right? Is anyone going to actually care?
00:17:00
That's where Shopify makes a lot of sense. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, including
00:17:08
10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. They give you hundreds of ready-to-use templates so you can build a clean, professional online
00:17:15
store that actually looks like your brand. And once you're up and running, Shopify has tools for inventory, payments, analytics,
00:17:22
and international shipping all in one place. They even have AI tools to help you write product descriptions,
00:17:30
improve page headlines, and enhance product photography, plus easy email and social media campaigns to help customers actually find you.
00:17:40
It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 a month trial today at shopify.com slash swordandscale.
00:17:52
Go to shopify slash sword and scale That shopify slash sword and scale Cha Hey Bay Area This is your friendly reminder that San Francisco most incredible national park site might be hiding in plain sight
00:18:10
I'm talking about the Presidio and its 1,500 acres of trails, forests, and beaches.
00:18:16
Whether you want to take the kids out for a day of play at Presidio Tunnel Tops Outpost Playground.
00:18:22
Or you want to head on over to Chrissy Field for a beach day with epic views of the bay.
00:18:26
The Presidio has something for everybody. It's one park with endless possibilities.
00:18:31
So what are you waiting for? Plan your visit at Presidio.gov. On October 23rd, 2016, 22-year-old Katie Blauvelt was supposed to meet her younger sister after work.
00:18:56
But by that evening, she was missing. The following day, investigators began piecing together what little they knew.
00:19:03
A troubled marriage with an army recruiter, a recent separation, and a late-night drive to an abandoned farmhouse.
00:19:12
That's where two young men, Wayne Roper and Ricky Hargrove, claimed to have made a discovery they'd never forget.
00:19:21
It was Wayne who happened to be Katie's ex-boyfriend who reached for his phone and dialed 911.
00:19:27
I was worried about my friend, Katie, and she went missing. She's been missing for a while now.
00:19:35
And we came in this house that we used to all hang out in. And she's been there.
00:19:44
She's been alive. What's wrong with her, sir? She's been alive. We found her in this house not a while.
00:19:54
You found her what? We found my friend Katie Boyder dead in the house. Okay. In other words, are you saying she's dead in the house?
00:20:08
Yes, ma'am. Now, are you sure she's dead? She's not breathing? Is she cold? She's very ill, and there was no response.
00:20:19
There was no response? No, ma'am. Okay, sir. And what's your name? Wayne Prokker.
00:20:26
After Wayne made this call, officers quickly arrived at the scene, and the search for Katie Blahvelt came to an end.
00:20:34
Her body was found in the basement of the abandoned farmhouse, stuffed into a narrow cement opening and covered with planks of rotting wood.
00:20:43
An autopsy later revealed the cause of death. She'd been stabbed multiple times, including twice in the neck.
00:20:52
A fragment of the knife used to kill her was still lodged in her throat. Investigators later concluded that the murder had taken place somewhere else,
00:21:01
likely nearby, perhaps in the driveway, and that Katie's body had been dragged into the basement
00:21:06
in a hurried attempt to hide the crime. Now that Katie had been found and the case had shifted from a missing person
00:21:13
to a homicide investigation, detectives turned their attention to the man who claimed to have discovered her body,
00:21:21
Katie's ex-boyfriend, Wayne Roper. Tell me, how did you meet Kate? like a month or so.
00:21:57
Wayne explained that his relationship with Katie had been a brief high school fling,
00:22:02
and that after they broke up, the two remained friends. Years later, after Katie married Army recruiter John Blauvelt,
00:22:09
Wayne ended up moving into their home. In a strange twist, he had become a housemate to his ex-girlfriend and her new husband.
00:22:17
John offered me to move in with him and be a roommate. So you live with her and her husband?
00:22:23
Yes. Did he know that when you moved in? Yeah. According to Wayne, John was aware of his past relationship with Katie and never seemed to be bothered by it.
00:22:37
In fact, after a night of heavy drinking, Wayne claimed he was invited into their bedroom.
00:22:42
When you were living with John and Katie, how often were you all being intimate with each other?
00:22:48
It was always. And John was there or not there? It was a, it was. Did he know it?
00:22:55
How did he not know it? I had, yeah, it was like a three something. And like after that, like he just, he changed.
00:23:05
And how did that come about? I was drunk and he was drunk and it was her idea. I can see where that might cause some friction, but you continued to live there.
00:23:17
Yeah. I mean, he didn't say anything verbally to me, you know, and I just thought everything was going to be okay.
00:23:26
Then they started having arguments because of me, because she told me that he was jealous of me.
00:23:36
Their arguments started getting worse. Wayne described how John and Katie's marriage had fallen apart,
00:23:42
marked by constant fighting and tension in the house. Eventually, Katie moved out, and a few months later, Wayne did as well.
00:23:51
Then, after Katie went missing, Wayne claimed he had just decided on a whim to go look for her at the old abandoned farmhouse.
00:24:00
where her body was found. Tell me about the band in the house. How do you know about it?
00:24:05
We used to go there and drink all the time. I didn't get off of work until 11. I called Ricky and see if he'd give me a ride.
00:24:16
I was almost home from work. I asked him if he would take me to go to the band house to work.
00:24:23
I used his flashlight to go in there. What was that flashlight? It was a headline.
00:24:28
Okay. And I was looking on the ground for any footprints or tracks or anything. Wayne said he went to the abandoned farmhouse in the middle of the night to look for Katie,
00:24:40
which was something investigators immediately found unusual and highly suspicious.
00:24:47
Then we went down to the basement. I looked over in that concrete thing, and I seen a jacket.
00:24:56
Looked to the left. and I see her on her. How do you know it was her? She was missing.
00:25:04
Like, it's the first thing that popped in my head. After that, we ran out of there,
00:25:09
and then once I got to the road, I called down the wall. Investigators also spoke with the young man
00:25:16
who had driven Wayne to the farmhouse, Ricky Hargrove. His account of that night
00:25:22
largely matched Wayne's version of events. And then he looks down, and he said, I think he said, there she is, oh my God.
00:25:30
And then I looked, glanced at her, and I said, oh my God. I turn around, and I hear him say, Katie, like trying to wake her up or something.
00:25:40
I'm like, dude, I think she's dead. I'm kind of going up the steps by then. And he comes up behind me when he's pulling out his phone calling right then.
00:25:51
Naturally, investigators were puzzled by this story. Something about it just didn't add up.
00:25:58
It was strange enough that these two guys had randomly decided to search for Katie in the middle of the night.
00:26:03
But even stranger was the first place they looked, they found her body. Detectives knew something wasn't right.
00:26:12
One of them, or maybe both, had to be lying. Why didn't you call the police? they already
00:26:21
put out a missing report I'm talking about all this conversation about the abandoned house
00:26:27
I'm just curious why didn't you refer it and say hey look I might go over there and look
00:26:33
I didn't think of it at the time I didn't that's kind of odd isn't it it's just like
00:26:41
I don't know I just didn't expect anything to be there you get a call and said hey
00:26:48
I don't know if there's any truth to this, but I've heard people talking. And there's an abandoned house down here, and y'all may want to check that.
00:26:57
That makes sense to me. Putting on a headlamp like a minor and going up in there at midnight don't make no sense to me.
00:27:08
Another detail that bothered investigators was that Katie's car wasn't at the scene.
00:27:14
It had actually been found the day before, abandoned in a parking lot several miles from the farmhouse,
00:27:20
with its license plates removed. So when Wayne and Ricky showed up at that old house,
00:27:26
investigators had to wonder, why go inside at all? If Katie's car wasn't there, what made them think she would be?
00:27:35
Did you think she was dead? No, I didn't. Okay, but there's no cars there. So what are the odds if she's really there that she would be okay?
00:27:47
I just. But, I mean, help me understand. I mean, I don't know. I'm trying to get it.
00:27:54
Because you drive up there because you're kind of worried about her. When you get there, there's no cars.
00:28:00
Yeah. Right? So what's the probability that she's really there? How would she have gotten there?
00:28:07
You know what I'm saying? Yeah. This is just the bedroom house. Did you know she was dead?
00:28:13
No. Detectives pressed Wayne with simple questions, one that should have been easy to answer.
00:28:20
But instead of explanations, they got shoulder shrugs and a string of I don't knows.
00:28:28
It's really hard for me to get through my brain that you've got hundreds of law enforcement officers
00:28:36
was looking for this little girl that you said was a friend of yours. We're pinging phone.
00:28:42
We're subpoenaing records. We're trying to find this girl because people that love her
00:28:47
are trying to find her. And yet you and other guy in there, the first place they look,
00:28:56
they find her. What are the odds of that? What do you mean? I think they just said what I mean.
00:29:06
You had a bunch of options, yeah? But if you really cared about her, why didn't you tell somebody?
00:29:16
Why didn't you get somebody else to tell? Why would you think the best idea is for you to walk into what turns out to be her final resting place
00:29:29
where somebody murdered her and dumped her down there like a piece of trash? Why do you think the best solution for you and Ricky is to go up there and put your DNA all over a murder crime scene?
00:29:43
Why? I just, I didn't think about that. Listening to this interview, it's not difficult to figure out what investigators were thinking.
00:29:53
They clearly believe that Wayne already knew what had happened to Katie He probably knew where her body was and this so discovery had been completely staged And we need to decide whether we going to continue to risk
00:30:10
being a accessory before or after the fact of a murder, helping dispose of a body after it was already dead,
00:30:17
or play stupid and end up getting charged with all of it. because right now we can't put your hand
00:30:27
being the one that killed that girl but you finding her there that's way too big of a coincidence
00:30:33
for me pal so I'm not opposed to helping anybody that's made a mistake Wayne but I can't help you
00:30:41
if you don't tell me the truth you're telling me the truth you're telling me part of the truth
00:30:47
I'm telling you the full truth I've told you everything that I know You haven't told us everything you know, Wayne, but it's time for you to do that, okay?
00:30:58
Investigators kept pressing Wayne for what they believed was the truth. But no matter how hard they pushed, he stood by his story.
00:31:07
That he'd simply found Katie's body and he had nothing to do with her death or how she ended up in the farmhouse.
00:31:13
You took that your poor unsuspecting friend right down in the crime scene because you knew exactly where she was
00:31:23
and you couldn't stand the fact that she was going to be there and might not be found
00:31:28
that's what I think happened you took that boy in there so you could find her body
00:31:33
No I didn't I'm telling y'all the full truth I've told you everything that I can think of
00:31:40
What kind of hand did you have in putting her body there? None. None at all. None whatsoever?
00:31:48
None whatsoever. Despite the investigators' efforts, Wayne stuck to a story and to his claim of innocence. After several
00:31:58
hours of questioning, both he and Ricky Hargrove were released and sent home. From there, the focus shifted to the
00:32:05
farmhouse itself. Detectives began narrowing down their list of suspects by looking for anyone who not only knew about Katie, but was familiar with the property.
00:32:16
They soon learned the house had a reputation. It was a popular hangout spot for local teenagers looking to drink or get high.
00:32:25
Because the abandoned house that she was found in, like it was released in the news,
00:32:31
was a high school hangout for us. We'd go over there and chill sometimes. But the only people that really knew about the house was the immediate group, which was me, Cameron, Wayne, who found Katie, Cheyenne, Allie, Nick, and John.
00:32:51
When detectives reviewed the names of people connected to the farmhouse, one caught their attention.
00:32:58
John Blauvelt, Katie's husband. He was 30 and an Army recruiter. So what was he doing, hanging around a known teenage party hotspot?
00:33:10
Are you familiar with this abandoned house? Yeah. Okay. That's the spot. What's the spot?
00:33:17
The hangout spot. I've been there a couple times. When was the last time you were there?
00:33:23
I don't know. Like a week ago, a month ago? It's been months. When asked, John admitted he was familiar with the farmhouse.
00:33:32
He'd partied there before with some local teenagers. But he claimed he hadn't been there in months.
00:33:39
Even if that was true, investigators couldn't ignore how strange it was for a nearly 30-year-old Army recruiter to be socializing with high school students.
00:33:51
As they dug deeper, they learned that John's job often brought him into contact with juniors and seniors,
00:33:57
and that drinking with them had apparently become part of his routine. Many of those students said they admired him.
00:34:05
And why wouldn't they? He was a good-looking soldier with a confident smile and a uniform that commanded respect.
00:34:13
On the surface, he looked like a man who had his life in order. Disciplined, trustworthy, the kind of person parents might even encourage their kids to follow.
00:34:23
But beneath that polished exterior, investigators were hearing something very different.
00:34:30
According to several of those same teenagers, it wasn't unusual for John to invite potential recruits back to his house, where he'd let them drink and get high.
00:34:44
He was doing some recruitment thing, and I guess he wasn't meeting his quota, so he had told her to invite some friends over to smoke, and then he would do the recruitment stuff then.
00:34:58
and then that's how we met him. So it was a pretty safe study. That's a hangout for, if I say kids, your age back then,
00:35:07
to hang out, drink alcohol. Yes, sir. As investigators spoke with these teenagers,
00:35:14
they began to get a clearer picture of John and Katie's relationship. What they learned didn't quite match the simple
00:35:22
and amicable separation story John had been telling. During the time that you were around, when they were together, did you ever see any violence between the two of them?
00:35:32
Any arguing? Katie? Yes. Yes. It was frequent. They were always fighting about something.
00:35:39
And then John would always be yelling and screaming at her. And then they would just go in their room and lock the door and just fight.
00:35:48
And we wouldn't see any of it visually, but we could always hear it. Investigators eventually discovered that before her death Katie had filed a police report with a different department than the one handling her murder case In that report she stated that John had threatened to kill her and her entire family
00:36:09
Katie filed a criminal domestic violence report with Fountain Inn Police in January.
00:36:14
And in the report, she detailed a fight that she had had with her husband a month earlier where he threatened her several times at home with a revolver, threatening to kill her if she would not open or unlock her phone.
00:36:27
The report went on to say that John Blaufeld grabbed his shotgun, both sets of keys, and left the house saying he was going to kill everybody she knows.
00:36:36
Following this incident, Katie made up her mind to leave John. She went to the police and reported what had happened.
00:36:43
Within days, officers were at the door to arrest him. She just left one day. It was like a Tuesday, and then she came back Friday with the entire fountainhead police department.
00:36:54
And it was a pretty big scene. It was a four-hour thing. When police arrived at John's door, he was drinking and getting high with high school students.
00:37:03
And then the night that it happened, when the cops showed up, he was, I'm not sure what he was on,
00:37:10
but he was running around the house waving guns saying that he wasn't going to let the cops in
00:37:15
and that he would rather use the gun before he let them in. Is this the night he got arrested?
00:37:23
Yes. Strangely, when officers arrested John, it wasn't for threatening Katie with a gun,
00:37:30
even though she'd filed a report saying he had. Instead, he was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor
00:37:36
for drinking and using drugs with teenagers. After the arrest, the Army was notified and John's recruiting duties were suspended pending an investigation.
00:37:46
Because of the civil investigation, all of my recruiting duties have been suspended.
00:37:51
So I've literally been sitting here since about March. Weren't they happy to do during the day just office type stuff?
00:37:57
Playing on the phone. John knew that the Army's investigation was mostly a formality.
00:38:03
He knew what the outcome would be. He'd be found guilty and discharged, ending a 10-year military career with a dishonorable record.
00:38:14
After a decade of service, he'd essentially destroyed everything he'd built. But instead of any self-reflection, instead of admitting that giving alcohol and drugs to teenagers might have been a bad idea,
00:38:28
John looked for someone to blame. all of his anger landed squarely on his soon-to-be ex-wife katie blauvel and everything
00:38:38
kind of went bad for a little while he feels like it's your fault that he's losing his job
00:38:41
he's just he just blames it all on her you know and um i don't know if this matters or not
00:38:50
but i know he has like 150 000 life insurance policy on it too as don waited for the army to
00:38:58
discharge him, his behavior didn't change. He continued drinking with the high school students,
00:39:04
and according to several of them, he often talked about Katie's life insurance policy
00:39:08
and his desire to see her dead. I was over there one day with a bunch of, like, friends,
00:39:14
and, like, John, like, he plotted out ways to, like, kill her, but it was jokingly.
00:39:22
Incredibly, John also offered a 16-year-old girl $50,000 to help him build a false alibi.
00:39:33
He planned to have this teenager drive his car and take his phone to Charleston so it would appear he'd left town.
00:39:40
When in reality, he'd still be in Simpsonville killing Katie. He was like, do you want to get to Charleston?
00:39:49
And I was like, do you definitely want to get to Charleston? He was like, yeah, I want you to tell something.
00:39:52
What? And he was like, I want you to take my car and my phone and all that, like me, you, and Cheyenne.
00:39:57
And he was like, no, just you. I was like, well, that's weird. I said, why? And he was like, I can't really tell you.
00:40:04
And he was like, kind of like didn't want to tell you really. And I was like, well, why?
00:40:07
I was like, why do you want me to go? He was like, take my car and my phone and my credit card.
00:40:11
That's what he wanted me to do. And he was drunk. And he was like, because I'm getting feel kidding.
00:40:15
He was going to get Allie to take his credit card and his phone to Charleston. and I asked why
00:40:21
and he said so it'll look like I was in Charleston. And I asked him what he was going to do
00:40:28
while she was in Charleston. He said he was going to kill Katie and he would give her $50,000.
00:40:37
Which is the exact amount of life insurance policy. Naturally, after hearing these things about John,
00:40:43
investigators confronted him with the accusations. John denied it all. Have you ever, and probably jokingly I would assume, made a statement to any of your friends about wanting to kill Katie?
00:40:57
No. Ever said, you know, well, if Katie dies, we'll get some money or a lot of money to do anything with?
00:41:04
No. Have you ever gone up to any friends and said, hey, would you do me a favor and take my car, take my keys, my debit card, my phone,
00:41:15
and go away for the weekend to Charleston, say? And that'll make it look like I'm out of town so I can kill Katie.
00:41:21
No. Okay. So if somebody told us that, they're making that up? I believe so, yeah.
00:41:26
Okay. After being confronted with the accusations, John pointed the finger at Katie's family,
00:41:32
claiming they were spreading lies about him. In his version of events, he was the real victim,
00:41:39
and just as hurt as everyone else who loved Katie. That's the same type of shit that has been coming out of her family's mouth
00:41:45
for the last fucking two weeks. And I'm getting kind of sick of it because I don't feel safe in my house anymore.
00:41:53
Fucking dirtbag-ass family. Well you got to understand right now they going through a lot too I trying to understand but I going through the same fucking shit I lost a friend Maybe not the best wife but I lost a fucking friend
00:42:08
There was another crucial element in this investigation. One that would eventually give investigators their best shot at justice for Katie.
00:42:17
It centered around a teenage girl named Hannah Thompson. It's this girl Hannah. Tell me about her.
00:42:22
Her and John like a couple? Hannah and John have been sorted together, I guess, for like seven, eight months.
00:42:36
So pretty much since he and Katie split up. While John and Katie were still living together, John began sleeping with 17-year-old Hannah Thompson.
00:42:47
And after Katie moved out, Hannah became John's live-in girlfriend. Once investigators learned about Hannah and her connection to John, they were, of course, eager to speak with her.
00:42:59
When was the last time you saw Katie? Like a few months ago. What were your feelings towards her?
00:43:08
I mean, I always, like, I've always seen her as, like, a friend, because, like, you know, she always told me that she was, like, here for me if I ever need anything.
00:43:16
So is it fair to say you were on good terms with her once she was killed? Mm-hmm.
00:43:22
Okay. We had a good relationship. Like, we were kind of close. Did John ever make any mention of life insurance policy on her?
00:43:32
I don't know. He never talked to me about it. Has he ever joked around about things would be better if she's dead or I should kill her?
00:43:40
No. Have you ever joked about that? Yes, sir. Within moments of speaking with Hannah, investigators were fairly certain of one thing.
00:43:50
She was trying to cover for John. In other words, she was lying to protect him, which was an extremely dumb thing to do.
00:43:59
We've been working this case steady since she disappeared. So there's a lot of these things that we know the answers to.
00:44:07
I can tell you already, you're lying to me. Okay. you do not want to get wrapped up
00:44:12
and catch a murder charge. You're 17 years old. You have your entire life ahead of you. You may
00:44:18
love John and you may think you two are going to get married and walk down Yellow Brick Road.
00:44:23
Okay? But no man and no woman is worth going to prison for. Investigators gave Hannah the typical pep
00:44:30
talk about honesty, consequences and the importance of coming clean. But none of it seemed
00:44:36
to sink in. When you told me earlier that you and John aren't an item that was a lie, right?
00:44:43
No, we're not really. There's not a label on it. So who are you dating? I'm not dating anybody.
00:44:50
But if you look at your Facebook status, you just posted on Sunday that you're currently
00:44:55
in the most amazing relationship ever or something along those lines. So who was that relationship with on Sunday?
00:45:02
It was, I mean, it was with John, but we're not like in a relationship. We're not dating.
00:45:08
I just have a good relationship with him. While Hannah denied being in a romantic relationship with John, investigators only turned up the pressure.
00:45:18
They were clearly convinced that she knew a lot more than she was saying. Well, after me and John started, like, getting together, Katie started not liking me.
00:45:32
And I'm going to say it right now. She was not nice sometimes, but she did not deserve that.
00:45:41
What she deserves right now is for us to figure out who did this to her. I know.
00:45:45
I know. I know. And at this point, nobody needs to cover for anybody. If you know something and you're trying to cover up for it, you're going to go down with the rest of them.
00:45:59
You're going to go down with the person who did this to her. I don't know anything about her.
00:46:05
You do. I don't. You do. I really don't. We really do. You do. We know more than you think we do.
00:46:12
I don't. Which is evident. I don't want to talk anymore right now. Okay. Me too.
00:46:18
You know who else can't talk right now is Katie. Man, she's not able to ever talk again.
00:46:25
Investigators kept pressing Hannah, but they went too far. the moment they showed her the photos of katie's body the interview fell apart what do you think
00:46:35
about somebody that would stab a girl in the neck to the point where the knife went all the way
00:46:39
through to the other side and then stick her body like a piece of trash in the basement of an abandoned
00:46:44
house to sit there for a day and a half before somebody finds her look at her she's right here
00:46:50
I don't want to look at her. Who's your friend? I don't want to do this anymore.
00:46:56
Don't want to do what? Don't want to help us find out who killed her? All you got to do is tell the truth.
00:47:01
It would be so easy. I can't look at her. I can't look at her. Can I tell you something?
00:47:07
To tell the truth, you don't have to try. It just flows. It just comes out. Can I please leave?
00:47:14
Can I please leave? Hannah, this is a friend of yours that we're trying to do. I know.
00:47:17
I know. I want to help her. Listen to me for just a second. This is a friend of yours or was a friend of yours and somebody brutally murdered her.
00:47:26
I know. Okay. Unfortunately, you're right in the middle of all of this. And to sit here and lie to us to begin with is not helping you at all.
00:47:39
Before long, Hannah abruptly stood up, walked out of the room, and the investigators had no choice but to let her go.
00:47:45
around the same time their interview with John ended as well after he refused a lie detector test
00:47:52
and said he'd be contacting a lawyer I'm just going to ask you point blank did you go
00:47:58
okay no okay Do you know who killed her? No. Would you be willing to take a polygraph so we can go ahead and do that with you and eliminate you and start looking elsewhere?
00:48:06
I have to talk to my lawyer about that first. Okay. See what he says, because I don't know about that at all.
00:48:11
By this point, investigators had gathered a good amount of evidence against John.
00:48:15
Several interviews with friends and acquaintances painted the disturbing picture of John repeatedly talking about killing Katie and hiding her body.
00:48:24
one witness said that John even offered them money to help him create a false alibi
00:48:30
investigators also knew John had a documented history of domestic violence towards Katie
00:48:36
and that he was the sole beneficiary of her life insurance policy also cell phone records placed John's phone near the parking lot where Katie's car was abandoned
00:48:47
at the exact time it was left there Despite all of this, investigators decided to hold off on arresting John,
00:48:56
wanting more time to strengthen their case. They let John walk out of the interview room.
00:49:03
This was a decision that would turn out to be a very big mistake. Hannah Thompson's mother reported her missing yesterday to the Fountain Inn Police Department.
00:49:14
The report states that the teen was last seen on October 30th. Hannah's mother told police that her daughter is believed to be with John Blofeld, the known homicide suspect.
00:49:24
Investigators told Hannah's mom that Hannah's bank account has been left untouched since her last paycheck.
00:49:31
In November of 2016, when investigators went looking for John and Hannah again, both of them were gone.
00:49:39
No note, no warning, no trace. They had simply vanished. their phones were dead their car missing
00:49:50
and every lead hit a dead end overnight the prime suspect of his teenage girlfriend
00:49:56
had disappeared into the wind leaving behind a grieving family in an open murder case
00:50:03
for the next six long years the investigation into Katie's death would remain frozen in place
00:50:11
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00:51:58
Cha-ching. Did you know you can bring your own to the Presidio? San Francisco's own National Park site encourages you to bring your own sense of adventure.
00:52:09
Explore 1,500 acres of stunning nature with miles of trails and San Francisco's best beaches.
00:52:15
Bring your own picnic and enjoy wide open views of the Golden Gate Bridge. And bring your own curiosity to discover year-round attractions, food trucks, free events, and the amazing Presidio Tunnel Tops.
00:52:27
So bring it, Bay Area. Plan your day at Presidio.gov. In November of 2016, the investigation into Katie Blauvelt's murder took a shocking turn.
00:52:49
Her estranged husband, the prime suspect, Army recruiter John Blauvelt, had disappeared.
00:52:55
He'd fled town with his teenage girlfriend, Hannah Thompson, and nobody seemed to know where they might have gone.
00:53:01
Well, 28-year-old John Blaufeld is charged with murder in the death of his wife, Catherine, who went by Katie.
00:53:08
Katie's body was found in an abandoned house in Simpsonville back on October 26th.
00:53:13
Investigators say she was killed with a knife two days earlier. Her husband was last seen on November 15th in New Mexico and remains on the run.
00:53:22
Simpsonville police say investigators believe that he's with his 17-year-old girlfriend.
00:53:27
After John and Hannah fled, police spent weeks chasing scattered tips across state lines,
00:53:33
but nothing brought them any closer to finding the couple or even knowing where they might be hiding.
00:53:39
For Katie's mom and the rest of her family, this was a crushing setback. Because losing your child, I mean, losing a member of the family is hard, but losing your child is just unbearable.
00:53:51
And in the beginning, we had hopes that we knew John did it. We just in our hearts knew John did it But police have to go through their steps before they can you know serve once and get him And waiting was hard but we thought you know we know they got him they get him
00:54:07
But then when he ran, our hearts sunk. Like, now what? Weeks turned into months, and there were still no credible signs of John or Hannah.
00:54:19
Then, just when it seemed like all hope was lost, Hannah Thompson walked into a police station and turned herself in.
00:54:28
Obviously, we brought you in here today because we wanted to talk to you about the trip and about everything that's been going on with you.
00:54:34
But let me tell you that we are very glad that you're back and that you're safe and that nothing bad happened to you.
00:54:41
After Hannah returned to Simpsonville, investigators wasted no time. To find John, they needed to know what they'd been doing while they were gone.
00:55:16
He drove for two days straight, not sleeping or anything, through Georgia and then Alabama.
00:55:27
He basically drove all the way to Texas before he went to sleep. According to Hannah, she and John hit the road and never looked back.
00:55:36
They drove through several states, living like fugitives, mostly sleeping in their car,
00:55:41
always on the move and always looking over their shoulder. What was the game plan when you guys left?
00:56:14
like texting me and he wouldn't let me reply or anything. Hannah told investigators that John had simply panicked.
00:56:22
He knew it was only a matter of time before he was arrested, so he ran. As for Hannah, she claimed she'd only left with John
00:56:30
because he'd convinced her that she had no other options. He just kept telling me that if I talked to anybody, that I would go to jail.
00:56:38
If I went back home, I would go to jail. If I left him, I would go to jail. He just kept saying that pretty much every day.
00:56:46
He made me believe that he knew what was best for me. And he was keeping me safe.
00:56:53
Hannah explained that after several weeks on the run, the couple made it all the way to Oregon.
00:56:59
That's where John's paranoia began to take over. He was unraveling more and more each day and panicking over the smallest things.
00:57:09
Then one afternoon at McDonald's, his anxiety finally got the better of him. We had stopped at McDonald's, and he was going to use, like, Wi-Fi,
00:57:20
because that's usually where we would go, like, Starbucks and McDonald's to get the Wi-Fi.
00:57:25
And he, like, went to go find a table and sit at, and I went to the bathroom. And then when I came out, he was, like, he, like, packed everything up, like, really fast.
00:57:35
And he was like, we got to go, like, right now. and I was like asking him why and he just wasn't like talking to me.
00:57:42
He was just like, we just gotta go. And we got in the car and he like, he just kind of like
00:57:48
threw the laptop like on my lap and like basically floored it out of McDonald's and I kept asking him like what's going on
00:57:56
like what's wrong. He was like, I can't talk right now. He's like, I'm trying to focus.
00:58:02
Dawn had seemingly snapped. It began driving like a madman weaving through the winding roads of Eugene, Oregon,
00:58:10
pushing deeper into the mountains as his paranoia took over. We, like, drove up into the mountains,
00:58:17
and he, like, freaking out, like, just being really, like, hectic and, like, in his own head and, you know, just panicking.
00:58:28
I kept asking him more, and he just kept telling me to be quiet and not talk to him and stuff like that.
00:58:33
And then he just got the car, like, stuck in, like, in trees, like, in the mountains.
00:58:41
And then I was like, why did you do that? Like, what are you doing? Like, how are we going to get it back out?
00:58:47
And he was like, we'll figure it out. He said that we would hike. We had to hike, like, walk off the mountain, basically.
00:58:54
John's paranoia had made a very bad situation even worse. The couple was already on the run for murder,
00:59:02
and now John had managed to get their car stuck deep in the wilderness. There was no way to get it out without drawing attention,
00:59:10
which meant they'd just lost their only means of transportation. Hannah said this was the moment it finally hit her.
00:59:17
Something inside her 17-year-old brain finally clicked. She was trapped in the middle of nowhere with a man who was losing his grip,
00:59:25
and for the first time she realized that her life was in real danger. I feel like when he crashed the car, he was trying to kill me or both of us
00:59:35
because he was just driving into trees full speed, just so fast. And we were hitting stuff and I was really, I got scared at that point that I was going to die.
00:59:50
that night John and Hannah spent what would be their final night in the car John talked about ending it all a double suicide he said might be their only way out The next morning as they made their way off the mountain he confessed something that was
01:00:08
just as terrifying. That night, I remember before I went to bed, he told me, he was like,
01:00:15
I'm thinking about letting the car run all night so that we both die in our sleep.
01:00:23
And then the next morning, he had taken a gun with him when we left. And the next morning, he said he really thought about shooting me in my sleep and shooting himself.
01:00:37
After weeks of living on the road and dealing with John's spiraling, unpredictable behavior,
01:00:43
Hannah finally broke. She wanted out. She wanted to live. And she wanted to go home.
01:00:50
And I was just, at that point, I was kind of like not really having it. And I was crying and I was like, I can't do this anymore.
01:01:02
I was like, I need to go home. And he just started crying and he was like saying,
01:01:09
no, don't worry, I'm going to fix it. I'm going to fix it. He was like, I'll find it somewhere.
01:01:13
He started yelling at me and calling me names and saying that if I left, he was going to kill himself.
01:01:20
He ran away from me, just screaming. And then he came back. He was just panicking again.
01:01:30
He was saying that he did all that stuff for me. Did all that stuff. Like cocaine.
01:01:37
He was like, I did that for you. And all that kind of stuff, trying to make me feel like it was my fault.
01:01:47
And he kept telling me that, like, if I went home, like, I wouldn't get to see my parents because I would just go straight to jail.
01:01:57
He was just trying to make me feel really guilty. And, like, he told me that, like, he was the only person I could ever trust in the world.
01:02:06
He basically told me I didn't have anybody else but him. Hannah told investigators that John had manipulated her into staying with him.
01:02:14
convinced her she didn't have a choice. But then, one day, John was simply gone.
01:02:23
Then, like one morning, like, he had gotten up. He was like, I'll be right back.
01:02:33
Like, I'm going to get into the bathroom. I was like, okay. I was kind of like half asleep.
01:02:39
He just got up and left. and I went back to sleep. Then when I had woken up, he still wasn't back.
01:02:51
And I was just like, I'm not just going to sit here. And by then, I was having to use it often too.
01:02:58
So I got up. I went to try and find the library. Anna said she made her way to a nearby library,
01:03:09
logged into a public computer, and sent a few messages through her social media.
01:03:15
A friend responded, offering to come get her and take her home to Simpsonville. She accepted and said that, from that moment on,
01:03:22
John Blauvelt was gone from her life. By the time I had gotten back on the computer,
01:03:28
everybody had responded to me. And that's when Angie came to pick me up. They had arranged it for her to come pick me up.
01:03:38
Did you ever see John again? During this interview, it became clear that Hannah had switched sides.
01:03:46
She now recognized that John was dangerous and manipulative, and investigators appeared to believe her story.
01:03:53
At least, that's the impression they gave her. Do you understand now what he was trying to do?
01:03:58
I feel like he was just trying to, like, manipulate me and just make it so that, like, he wouldn't be alone,
01:04:06
so that I wouldn't tell anybody anything. It seemed to me like he was looking out for his best interest the whole time, and it really had nothing to do with you.
01:04:16
It just was really upsetting because, like, I've never, like, trusted somebody that much before.
01:04:24
With Hannah now seemingly on their side, investigators shifted focus. They pressed for details about Katie's murder.
01:04:33
They wanted to know what Hannah knew, how involved she'd been, and anything John might have told her.
01:04:40
The last time you went to work with him, was that that Monday? Mm-hmm. That was the last time you went to work with him?
01:04:45
Mm-hmm. Okay. So he was driving, you went fast in your seat? Mm-hmm. Was it just the two of you?
01:04:50
Yeah. And you went up to work with him at nine? Mm-hmm. Did you sit in the car? Did you go walk around?
01:04:57
What did you do? I sat in the car. and I remember him telling me he needed me to drop him off on Woodruff Road
01:05:05
and so I turned and we were in the parking lot and he got out of the car we started walking
01:05:14
and I didn't think to ask him what he was doing because at this point we'd been dating for a while
01:05:21
and it was just not something that I usually do ask him what he's doing or why he's doing something.
01:05:31
Hannah told investigators she had nothing to do with planning Katie's murder and claimed
01:05:35
she didn't even know what John was up to. According to her, on the day of the murder,
01:05:41
she simply gave John a ride to a remote parking lot and dropped him off without asking any questions.
01:05:48
Investigators later concluded that John had likely lured Katie to the abandoned house where
01:05:53
she was killed Phone records showed that despite their separation and despite the restraining order the two were still in contact It seemed that Katie ever hopeful wanted to believe their marriage could still be saved
01:06:09
John used that hope to his advantage and ultimately to lure her to her death. What was his relationship with Katie like? Did he still communicate with her to your knowledge?
01:06:21
or every time they talked, she would call from a private number. And they would only use, like, texting apps to talk to each other
01:06:31
because they had, like, a restraining order, I guess. And so they were, like, kind of sneaking around talking to each other.
01:06:39
Hannah also claimed that John later described the murder to her. He told her that when he stabbed Katie, the knife broke off in her neck.
01:06:48
and as she bled to death, Katie begged him to let her go. At some point they were like on the trail leading up to the abandoned house.
01:06:57
He told me that's where they went. That he took her there. He says that they were talking for a little bit.
01:07:04
He doesn't say like exactly the conversation. He just said that they were talking and then he just did it.
01:07:10
And he said that he stabbed her in her neck and that there was a lot of blood. And she told him that if he lets her go,
01:07:22
she won't say anything to anybody. Investigators believe that after Katie bled to death,
01:07:30
John dragged her body into the basement of the abandoned house and covered her with planks of wood.
01:07:35
Then he went home, met back up with Hannah, and once again asked for her help. So I went back home and John was outside.
01:07:45
I didn't even go inside the house. But he was outside, and he was like, I need you to follow me.
01:07:53
And he's about to call her somewhere. And I was like, okay. And he had this, like, bag.
01:08:01
John loaded what investigators believed was a trash bag full of his bloody clothes in Hannah's car.
01:08:08
Then he told her to follow him as he drove Katie's vehicle to an empty parking lot.
01:08:12
And I followed him, and we just drove, like, for a long time, because he didn't get on the highway at all.
01:08:23
John parked Katie's car, removed the license plates, and climbed into Hannah's vehicle.
01:08:29
The two then headed back home, but not before stopping at a couple of dumpsters where John disposed of the plates,
01:08:37
the bag of bloody clothes, and anything else that might tie him to the crime. when he threw the clothes away or the bags away did you know at that point in time what was in the
01:08:46
bags nothing okay then what happens you go home hannah claimed that as she drove john around that
01:08:54
day she had no idea she was essentially acting as his accomplice she said she didn't even know
01:09:02
katie was dead until days later after the body was found and after the story hit the media
01:09:07
When I woke up in the morning, my mom had, like, sent me, like, a new story that, like, a body was found in the man's house.
01:09:18
And I was just, like, I immediately got, like, cold chills. And I was, like, oh, my gosh, like, what is going on?
01:09:26
Like, I used to go there all the time. It was just really scary. And I immediately, like, woke John up and I showed him.
01:09:34
Hannah said that once she learned about Katie's murder, the truth slowly began to sink in.
01:09:42
At first, John denied having anything to do with it, but deep down, she knew he was lying.
01:09:49
Eventually, he admitted to what he'd done, though he rarely talked about the details.
01:09:54
And whenever Hannah tried to ask him, he'd turn it back on her, making her feel guilty for even bringing it up.
01:10:01
It was just so crazy because, like, I didn't know, like, what to think. And he had told me, like, the police are going to want to talk to you.
01:10:11
She was like, you need to lie to them or else you're going to go to jail. Like, you're going to get to see your mom.
01:10:19
Like, the way that I felt, it felt like I did it. You know, like, when did he tell the mom that he killed her?
01:10:26
She never like came out and said I killed her But like But you knew in your gut that he did it
01:10:35
Yeah Did you ever ask him Hey John did you kill Katie? Mmhmm He was just brushing it off
01:10:43
Like he'd be like You really want to talk about that right now Like kind of make me feel dumb
01:10:50
For wanting to know for asking it Considering Hannah's relationship with John that she was sleeping with him, running with him, and protecting him,
01:11:01
it would be easy to doubt her story. But honestly, I don't. John completely played her for his own benefit.
01:11:12
And I do believe that he turned her into an accomplice without her even realizing it.
01:11:17
Judging by the way the investigators treated Hannah, I don't think they doubted her story either.
01:11:23
I'm not saying that you knew what he was about to do, Hannah, okay? And quite honestly, I don't think that you had a hand in it at all.
01:11:32
I'm just scared. I don't want anybody to think that, like, I would do or help somebody do something like that to anybody.
01:11:41
Like, I'm just really scared. Here's what I think, okay? One, I know he took advantage of you.
01:11:49
He trusted you, and He lured you in, promised you whatever, told you whatever, and then
01:12:00
You do stuff that in the long run was just to save him. Hannah's return to Simpsonville was a good thing for several reasons.
01:12:09
For one, she was safe and no longer on the run with the killer. And it also gave investigators another potential witness that could testify against John when his case went to trial.
01:12:21
But that would only matter if they could actually find him and catch him. We're still looking for John.
01:12:30
While he's out there, there's no telling him what he's going to do. Did he ever talk about going to Mexico or Canada or flying anywhere?
01:12:39
Who? First, what, she talked about going to Mexico. Unfortunately, when it came to John's whereabouts, Hannah didn't have much to offer.
01:12:50
As far as anyone knew, John might not have even been in the country anymore. and the investigation into Katie Blavelt's murder remained open and unresolved for years.
01:13:01
This week marks three years since 22-year-old Katie Blavelt was brutally murdered in Simpsonville.
01:13:08
Police say her estranged husband, John, is a suspect in her murder. But Simpsonville police say he's been on the run since they found her body in a cellar of an abandoned home.
01:13:20
Now, he was last seen on the West Coast back in 2016 and not been seen since. By 2021, investigators had renewed their efforts to find John.
01:13:32
Part of that effort meant bringing Hannah Thompson, now 22 years old, back into the interview room.
01:13:39
John is not a good person, obviously. And we are trying desperately to find him.
01:13:44
Okay. But we're still looking for him. And he needs to be held responsible for what he's done.
01:13:50
Yes. Okay. During this follow-up interview, Hannah made a disturbing admission. She told investigators that she'd remained in regular contact with John
01:14:02
for years after returning to Simpsonville in 2016. And how were you guys communicating?
01:14:10
At the very beginning, we communicated on Facebook Messenger. and then after that we were talking on snapchat like at first we were talking every single day
01:14:20
multiple times like for hours a day i was the one that stopped communication with him
01:14:25
and i had just decided to like do it i didn't tell him like i'm not gonna talk to you anymore i don't
01:14:33
think and so i think the conversation was pretty like like no like substance to it really just
01:14:41
maybe like a hey how are you where was he back then i know that he was living with somebody who
01:14:50
um a girl that he said that they were dating she had her own house i think i think it was an
01:14:58
apartment okay but he also did like meet her parents and like they had gone to her parents
01:15:05
house, stuff like that, too. So, what's the girl's name? I don't know. Where was that at?
01:15:13
I don't really know. Whenever I would ask him, like, where he was, he would not tell me.
01:15:19
He would say, like, I'm not telling you that, or, like, I can't tell you that. Unfortunately, by the time Hannah made this admission, it had been nearly a year since
01:15:29
she'd last heard from John. Even so, the information helped investigators narrow their search.
01:15:36
In 2022, about six years after Katie's murder, John Blauvelt was finally found. Tonight, an upstate man on the run since 2016, who investigators say killed his estranged wife, is now in custody.
01:15:52
The victim's family just confirmed to us John Blauvelt was arrested in Jackson County, Oregon.
01:15:59
Online records show he's been booked into that local detention center today. After his arrest, John made several jailhouse calls to friends and family.
01:16:09
The recordings gave investigators a glimpse into his state of mind, as well as the events that led him to go on the run.
01:16:18
Oh you not even in prison yet No I still got to go to trial and everything I going to be in this jail for two to three years Oh no Yeah Oh I thought you were in prison
01:16:29
So, okay. That's why I need a lawyer. I signed up for a public defender, but, you know, they're, like, fresh out of college.
01:16:38
They don't give a shit what happens. They just need to do their time. So, that's why I could get a real attorney.
01:16:46
But we'll see. I'm going to be in this jail for years. They're not going to give me a bond because they know I'll run.
01:16:52
Because I just ran for six years. The day I ran, I wasn't staying at my house anymore.
01:17:00
And I was on my way home from work or something, from somewhere. Because I just like to stop by and check on my dog.
01:17:08
And I saw the police at my house knocking on my door. So I said, okay, I'm leaving.
01:17:14
And then I left. And I was home once for a while. and I was working for a while and I met a girl
01:17:19
and I lived with her for like four years and then one morning the U.S. Marshals came
01:17:25
I was out front tending to my vegetable garden and the U.S. Marshals was pulled up
01:17:31
in the driveway but that night I got the best sleep that I've had in six years so I guess there's a positive to it
01:17:37
yeah I guess I don't know I've been anxious, you know, I've had that anxiety depression the whole time
01:17:44
but I'm actually feeling really good now During these calls, John said more than once that he was relieved to be caught.
01:17:53
Happy, even, that he no longer had to live his life constantly looking over his shoulder.
01:18:16
Like 10 dudes, guns out. And I just, I swear, dude, I smiled. I was like, I can't believe it's over.
01:18:24
I got in the truck and the marshal was like, six years is a long run, man. And I was like, oh, I'm glad you finally found me.
01:18:32
And I was like, it was a nightmare. What's most disturbing about these calls is what John didn't say.
01:18:38
Not once did he mention Katie, her family, or show a single hint of remorse. Like a textbook narcissist, every word was about himself and the supposed peace he'd finally found.
01:19:14
In later phone calls, John shared more about the six years he'd spent on the run.
01:19:20
He described how he'd managed to weasel his way into another woman's life, lying about his name, his past, and who he really was.
01:19:29
Then I met that girl, did real good. I maintained her budget, put her on a diet, turned her life around.
01:19:38
We bought a house together in September. It took three years to save up for her.
01:19:42
We bought a house, all in her name. And then I got arrested. The U.S. Marshals tracked me down.
01:19:50
And I called her, like, a week later from jail. And she was like, fuck you, you ruined my life.
01:19:58
And I'm like, oh, okay. You didn't know about anything, I guess? No, hell no. I didn't tell her shit about this.
01:20:04
I had a fake name. I was going by Ben. I liked that name, too. We had a good time.
01:20:10
We had a good life, man. We had a house. We had a dog. We had three cats. I didn't work for two years.
01:20:15
I worked for the first two years we were together. I was a landscaper. She mulled lawns, built fences and stuff like that.
01:20:21
Right. And then that guy retired. He retired. So, and I was out of a job. And she was like, well, you can just stay at home.
01:20:30
Just keep the house clean. Take care of the dog. And I was like, all right. Once again, this narcissist seemed either blissfully unaware
01:20:38
or simply incapable of understanding that by dating this woman, living with her for years and hiding his past he made her a victim as well So he being arrested on charges out of South Carolina for murder
01:20:53
Are you serious? Yeah. We can't believe it. We've been together for like six years.
01:20:59
He would do random on-jobs. He was basically here watching my cats and my dog all the time.
01:21:06
When John's girlfriend learned the truth, she was devastated. And who wouldn't be?
01:21:12
Imagine living with someone for nearly six years, loving them, trusting them, only to find out they were wanted in another state for murder.
01:21:22
That the name and the backstory they'd given you were complete lies. The man she thought she knew had been living a double life.
01:21:31
But this woman wasn't the only one to face the fallout. With John behind bars, it was finally time for Hannah Thompson to face justice as well.
01:21:39
There is also a second suspect in Katie's death. Hannah Thompson was John Blauvelt's teenage girlfriend who fled the state with him.
01:21:48
She is now 25 and charged with obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact.
01:21:54
Despite the charges against her, Hannah agreed to testify against John at his trial without any promise of leniency from prosecutors.
01:22:04
Unlike John, Hannah's remorse seemed genuine. And as the star witness for the state, she helped ensure that John Blavelt received the prison sentence that he deserved.
01:22:16
On Friday, a jury found John Tufton Blavelt guilty of murdering his estranged wife in 2016.
01:22:24
Blavelt, the former U.S. Army recruiter out of Greenville, now a convicted killer, was sentenced by the judge to life without the possibility of parole.
01:22:36
As for Hannah, she pleaded guilty to her charges and received probation for helping John flee after the murder.
01:22:43
Her reduced sentence reflected both her cooperation with investigators and the fact she was only 17 when she ran away with him.
01:22:51
There's no question that Hannah was also a victim in this case. John clearly manipulated her.
01:22:59
But one thing about her lenient punishment still feels hard to accept. After returning to Simpsonville in 2016, Hannah stayed in contact with John for years.
01:23:10
And she didn't tell investigators about this until 2021. She said nothing, knowing that Katie's family was still suffering.
01:23:20
She said nothing, knowing that a killer was still out there and could strike again at any time.
01:23:26
Maybe a more fitting punishment would have been a prison sentence that matched the years she kept this secret.
01:23:33
But that's just my opinion. And what do I know? I'm a podcaster. In the end, what matters most is that Katie's family finally got some measure of justice
01:23:44
and hopefully a bit of peace in knowing that John Blauvelt will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
01:23:51
What's one thing that we should know about Katie? One of the things I had was something about her laugh and her big eyes and her smile.
01:23:59
And she just had a true heart. And her name is Katie, but her name is Catherine.
01:24:04
And it meant innocent and pure. And that's what she was. And we lost that. The murder of Katie Blauvelt wasn't a crime of passion or a moment of rage.
01:24:15
It was the calculated act of a man who understood appearances, how to weaponize them, and how to hide behind them.
01:24:22
As a soldier, a recruiter, and a husband, John Blauvelt knew exactly how to make people believe he was something worth trusting.
01:24:32
But beneath that uniform, an easy smile was a manipulator who saw others as tools to use, to control, to discard.
01:24:45
He fooled his wife, his girlfriend, his community, and for a time, even the system meant to hold him accountable.
01:24:52
In the end, John's greatest deception wasn't how he escaped justice. It was how long he convinced everyone that he was one of the good guys.
01:25:03
If nothing else Katie murder is a reminder that trust should never be automatic Because anyone can wear a uniform that hides their deception And sometimes that person wearing it is a monster
01:25:29
We hope you enjoyed that episode like we hope you enjoy all episodes of Sword and Scale,
01:25:33
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01:25:41
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01:25:49
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01:25:56
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01:26:05
And it's filmed in a very, how would I say, maybe a David Fincher-like style, if that helps.
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01:26:21
But we spent a lot of time getting it right and making sure that it's the best goddamn true crime show you can find anywhere.
01:26:31
on TV or podcast or anywhere. So definitely go take a look-see if you like it. It's right there for you.
01:26:39
All 26 episodes. Plus we got one coming every month for the rest of the year. So make sure to check it out while you can.
01:26:50
Because it seems like true crime isn't really in vogue these days. A lot of people aren't that interested anymore.
01:26:58
So it's you. Yes, you. keeping the lights on, making sure that we continue offering this show for you every week.
01:27:09
So one way to make sure that happens is to support us. This is my long beg. I only do this once a year.
01:27:17
I do a long beg. It's part of my routine before I go back to my natural habitat.
01:27:26
But yeah, I'm running out of things to say here. so, um, yeah, just buy it or something?
01:27:33
I don't know. Or don't. I guess it's a free market speaking up. Probably shouldn't have alienated all of you, woke people.
01:27:43
Sorry about that. Oh, well. Guess I made my bed. For those of you still left, I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your week,
01:27:56
and, uh, I don't know. Stay safe. Thank you. Hey, Bay Area. This is your friendly reminder that San Francisco's most incredible national park site might be hiding in plain sight.
01:29:10
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