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[OMINOUS MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 1994,
Okaloosa County, Florida. A group of inmates
uncover a disturbing scene
00:00:19
alongside Interstate 10. MICHELLE SANDLER: One
of them discovered a body while they
were landscaping,
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almost fully decomposed. DEANNA OLESKE: She was
almost entirely skeletonized. She still had some flesh on her.
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There's a lot of
information that you gather from the soft tissue that
you wouldn't necessarily
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have on your skeletal remains. MICHELLE SANDLER: The
zip ties at her throat were really the clue
that this was a homicide.
00:00:46
NANCY GRACE: Detectives
exhaust every lead trying to identify their Jane Doe. Eventually, they hit a dead
end, and her case goes cold.
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KELLY HENDERSON: We did get
some leads from other people that were missing. However, those
leads were followed,
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and nothing was able
to come out of it. We weren't able to identify her. I think that they
were shocked to find
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someone they couldn't identify. NANCY GRACE: Almost
30 years later, new forensic science
jumpstarts the investigation,
00:01:18
giving detectives another
chance to identify Jane Doe. KELLY HENDERSON: We were very
excited, as we had wondered
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since 1994 who this victim was. I told my colleagues that
we were going to identify
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her before the end of the year. This is the story of the
30-year search for the identity
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of a murder victim and the name
of the person who murdered her. I'm Nancy Grace.
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This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] [PENSIVE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Okaloosa
County in Northwest
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Florida, known for stunning
beaches along the emerald coast. ERIC ADEN: We have emerald-green
waters and white-sugar beaches
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on the south end, and
then we have farmland in the north end of the county. "Okaloosa" itself is a
Choctawhatchee Indian word
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for "black water" because of the
color of our rivers in the north end of the county, contrasted
with the white-sugar beach sand
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of the banks of the rivers. It's small. We get a lot of tourists
for our beaches.
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We live where people vacation. So this is a wonderful place
to live and raise your family.
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There is not a lot
of violent crime. I think when we do have
violent crime, it's shocking.
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I think it's fair to say that
the violent crimes are rising, but nothing compared
to other cities,
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and then in 1994, in the
'90s, from what I understand, pretty low crime rate.
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ALAN DUKE: Much of
the Okaloosa area is occupied by swamps,
recreational vehicle parks,
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RV parks. But the main feature
of Okaloosa County is Interstate 10, because
it's this main road that
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takes you from the
coast of Florida all the way to the west coast. In California, it is a
major trucking route.
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Any goods, any vehicles,
anything that is transported by a large truck that goes
from the west to the east,
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there's a good chance it
will be, at some point, on Interstate 10. NANCY GRACE: September 14,
1994, inmates from the Okaloosa
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Correctional Institute carrying
out supervised maintenance on Interstate 10. MICHELLE SANDLER: The
inmates were working
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a shift along Interstate 10 with
a supervisor, and one of them discovered a body while
they were landscaping.
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[TENSE MUSIC] That inmate ran to his
supervisor right away and let the supervisor
know what he found.
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They notified law
enforcement right away. Then a senior officers
with investigations
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would direct the scene and
collection and things like that. Back then, we had about
seven investigators that
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worked for the whole county. One of them would
come out and be the lead on the investigation.
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KELLY HENDERSON: They would
immediately secure the scene. They would remove
everybody from the area.
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They would tape it off to
prevent anybody from being able to come into the area.
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And then they would do
scene sketches, drawings. They would photograph the
scene and then contact
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the medical examiner's
office, at which time the coroner would respond and
take possession of the body
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and/or the skeletons
in this case, and then just finished
processing the scene. ALAN DUKE: They're looking
for artifacts, things,
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clues as to if there
was a struggle, was the person alive
when they were there? Or were they dumped?
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But the remains
themselves were mostly-- it's just a
skeleton, just bones. DEANNA OLESKE: She was
almost entirely skeletonized.
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She still had some flesh on her. She was wrapped up
in a puffy jacket. MICHELLE SANDLER:
There was a little bit
00:05:43
of a floral print dress and
then a little bit of jewelry. She had some
jewelry in her hair.
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And she had, you know,
kind of costume jewelry and a sterling silver ring on. What was left of her hair was
brown with obvious bleaching.
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Another really
important artifact that they found, actually,
were these zip ties
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that, typically, an electrician
or a sound engineer or someone would use to wrap cords
to keep them organized.
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They found that, and it was
right with the body and right in the neck area of the body.
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The zip ties at her
throat were really the clue that this was a homicide. NANCY GRACE: The
missing Jane Doe becomes
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a homicide investigation. Crime scene investigators
preserve all evidence found with the victim's remains.
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They also take samples
from the surrounding area. Detectives want to nail
down who is this victim
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and how long has she been there. MICHELLE SANDLER: They
collected insects, foliage.
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I know that there was a
forensic entomology report done to try to determine
the time of death
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based on the degree
of decomposition. ALAN DUKE: They can
look and see, oh, well,
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that insect takes this
long to find and colonize and grow in a corpse. And it's like a flag,
a marker for them.
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When they see that particular
insect, that bug in the remains, they then can make a
conclusion generally,
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an educated guess about
how long that body has been exposed to the
elements and to the insects.
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I don't think
anyone ever pinpointed an exact time of death. Because of the state
of decomposition,
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it was very difficult. But they
did use forensic entomology and do the best that
they could with the state
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that the body was in. They believed that it had
been there no later than April of that year, April of 1994.
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The evidence is collected. It's secured. And then we send it here locally
to the Florida Department of Law
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Enforcement to get analyzed
to see whatever DNA or anything they
could get from it.
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What they're looking for as
well is evidence of identity. Okaloosa County detectives
wait for autopsy results that
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could reveal information
about the ID of their Jane Doe and the ID of her killer.
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That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] [TENSE MUSIC]
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NANCY GRACE: September 14,
1994, Okaloosa County, Florida. Skeletal remains of
an unidentified person
00:08:48
discovered along Interstate 10. Investigators secure
every bit of evidence they can for testing.
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The victim's remains
undergo autopsy. Detectives aim to learn
more about their Jane Doe.
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DEANNA OLESKE: When we have
just skeletonized remains, we've lost all the soft tissue.
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So if you were
bruised, I would never see it or ever know
it unless there was an injury to your bones.
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If you were shot, I'd have
to hope it hit some bones. Otherwise, I'd never
be able to tell.
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There's a lot of
information that you gather from the soft tissues that
you wouldn't necessarily
00:09:30
have on your skeletal remains. The clothing actually kept the
skeletal remains mostly intact,
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but there was some surface
scatter of the smaller bones, and the skull, I think, was
found about 4 feet away.
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When they brought her, they
brought what they could find-- surprisingly covered quite
a bit of her remains.
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I'd say about 85% of
her came back to us. They documented all
of her clothing.
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And since she was an
unidentified person, they also documented the tags
and the size of the clothing,
00:10:02
which can help us determine
maybe how old she is and how big she was. We're looking for other
pieces of evidence.
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Again, we wouldn't have any
fingernails or places where you could possibly collect for DNA
evidence for sexual assault
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because they're just
skeletonized remains. We would do what we could. In this case, we
found two ligatures
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that were encircling her
cervical vertebrae that were still left over and intact,
that were still held
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there, actually, by her hair. And then we would do X-rays
or radiographs, again, to see
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if there's anything there. Following that, we would
inventory and document what
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we do have, note what we
don't have in terms of bones, do a dental examination or have
that sent to a forensic dentist
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to determine where she
had any dental repairs. Then we would send these remains
to a forensic anthropologist
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to go over every
single bone in detail and try to gather as much
information as they can
00:10:57
from what the
bones can tell you. We learned about
how tall she was. She was about 5 foot 4
plus or minus 2 inches.
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And surprisingly, they made a
guesstimation of how much she weighed based on her bra size.
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She was a 34B, which I
thought was remarkable. She was about 110 to 114 pounds. There was no perimortem trauma.
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That means that there
was no obvious signs of trauma or
injuries to the bones immediately surrounding death.
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However, we were lucky enough to
recover part of the hyoid bone, about 2/3 of it.
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A third of it was missing, and
that could have been because it wasn't fused there,
or it could have
00:11:45
been because it was fractured,
as if she were strangled. There was a major
clue in the autopsy room
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that would lead to a conclusion
of the cause of death. And that would be these
black electrical cord
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ties around the neck. It doesn't take a very
experienced detective or even a journalist to
conclude probably
00:12:11
was a strangulation
involved in this. NANCY GRACE: The autopsy
reveals a lot to investigators--
00:12:19
Jane Doe's height, her
weight, and the suspected COD, Cause Of Death. It's a start, of course, but
forensic science is still
00:12:28
in its infancy in the 1990s. Detectives and science
have a long way to go. In the mid '90s,
they didn't have
00:12:38
the tools that are relied on
today by the same detectives. Databases were just starting
to be created and to be shared.
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Forensic tools that
we depend on today were in their very early stages. Sciences-- forensic
science has come a long way
00:12:57
in the last 30 years. MICHELLE SANDLER: They consulted
with multiple agencies, and they scoured
missing persons reports.
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ERIC ADEN: But with
the skeletal remains, it's a lot more difficult.
You do not have facial ability
00:13:11
to be able to
recognize them, had no identifiable victim
to be able to say, this person is missing.
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We might send out a notification
to other agencies in the area, and we would tell
them internally,
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hey, we have found a body,
a remains of a female. Do you have anyone missing? KELLY HENDERSON: In fact, when
we were reviewing the report,
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we noticed that
they had at least 30 different missing people that
they had further investigated
00:13:33
to see if, by chance,
our skeletons were one of those victims. MICHELLE SANDLER: They tried
to track down the manufacturer
00:13:40
of the clothing-- believe
it was Brandywine Creek, I want to say--
and determine where
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that particular dress was sold. They interviewed as many
people as they could. They got trucking records.
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They went down every rabbit
hole they could possibly go down and used every tool at their
disposal that was available
00:14:00
in the '90s,
including working with other law enforcement agencies. They did everything they
could to try and figure out
00:14:08
the identity of this victim. NANCY GRACE:
Investigators are nowhere in identifying their Jane Doe.
00:14:17
Then, 1995, one year
after she's discovered, a new potential
suspect comes forward.
00:14:28
They had received notification
from another law enforcement agency that Keith Jesperson
had admitted to killing
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a woman along I-10 in Florida. KELLY HENDERSON: He was
incarcerated for, I believe,
00:14:40
Taunja Bennett's murder. And he, again, confesses to
killing multiple other victims
00:14:45
in different jurisdictions. Keith Jesperson is infamous. He shamelessly confesses to
seven additional homicides
00:14:57
after his first arrest in 1995. His nickname? The Happy Face Killer. Mr. Jesperson was very
believable to the Okaloosa
00:15:08
County Sheriff's Office. He told a story that
made sense, and he gave them information that
he would not otherwise
00:15:17
have been able to get. At that point of time, we
didn't have the public records
00:15:23
that we have now, the
internet and all of the things that we have to make
the kind of information
00:15:29
like she was found with
zip ties in a floral dress and the kind of jewelry she
wore and things like that--
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it wasn't widely publicized. They can't do a whole lot
without an identity of a victim.
00:15:43
It's very difficult to
prosecute those cases. NANCY GRACE: Keith Jesperson's
confession in the Jane Doe case
00:15:50
seems credible until he's
asked to ID the victim. Other than the name Suzanne or
Suzette, he now says he can't
00:15:59
remember much else about her. He said her name was
Suzanne or Suzette. I need to know that that's
a Suzanne or a Suzette
00:16:08
in order to prosecute the case
beyond a reasonable doubt. We're required to prove that
there is a crime that occurred
00:16:15
and the body of the crime. And the way the law works is you
can't prove it on a confession
00:16:19
alone. Even with Keith
Jespersen's confession, detectives are unable
to move forward.
00:16:26
Why? Because prosecutors
want a definitive ID for the murder victim. So for now, not much
else can be done.
00:16:38
ERIC ADEN: '96, you
know, about then, it went real cold
because, you know, in '95, he had
already confessed.
00:16:44
And then we interviewed in '96,
but then shortly thereafter, couldn't do much
with it from there.
00:16:49
I mean, the investigators tried
to use whatever means they had at the time at their disposal
to try and get justice,
00:16:56
but they just were
simply unsuccessful. NANCY GRACE: The murder
case of Jane Doe goes cold.
00:17:05
Can detectives trust a serial
killer, Keith Jesperson, to give a truthful confession?
00:17:11
We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:17:23
NANCY GRACE: Okaloosa
County, Florida, 2007, investigators
reopen the cold case of an unidentified woman
discovered along Interstate 10
00:17:32
back in 1994. The only lead? The 1995 confession
of a ruthless serial killer, Keith Jesperson.
00:17:43
Jesperson's info about
Jane Doe is sketchy, so detectives try a new
strategy to ID their victim.
00:17:54
In 2007-- this is 13
years after the body was found and a long time after
this case was put on the shelf--
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a new approach was attempted. MICHELLE SANDLER:
They sent the skull off to a forensic anthropologist
to do facial reconstruction to--
00:18:14
and what they used was
a clay imaging process. And that's where they placed
clay over certain points that
00:18:21
are known to be of
a certain thickness on the skull to recreate
what the individual looked
00:18:27
like in life. They're interesting
because it's actually a 3D rendering based off
of their skull structure.
00:18:35
They can be really accurate. ALAN DUKE: Have you
seen this person? Is this person someone
you knew in 1994?
00:18:44
And at least it might
be a visual trigger that would cause
people to come forth with clues as to who this was.
00:18:53
We did get some leads from
other people that were missing and family members
that had reported
00:18:58
their loved ones missing. However, those
leads were followed, and nothing was able
to come out of it.
00:19:04
We weren't able to identify her. NANCY GRACE: The
clay mask strategy does not help identify
their Jane Doe,
00:19:11
but investigators won't give up. They send the remains off for
a new round of DNA testing,
00:19:17
hoping to create
a new DNA profile they can then upload to CODIS. MICHELLE SANDLER: CODIS
is the Combined DNA Index,
00:19:28
and that is basically the
national database where people whose DNA has been taken for
crimes is entered so that it can
00:19:35
be compared to and
run against crimes in which there's known DNA, but
not a known suspect or victim.
00:19:42
DEANNA OLESKE: Well, we ended
up sending both to FDLE, the Florida Department
of Law Enforcement,
00:19:47
to their lab for
genetic testing, and then ultimately,
also in 2007, to the FBI to do mitochondrial DNA testing.
00:19:56
The profiles were generated,
they were uploaded to codas, and there was nothing.
00:20:04
2008, investigators
take a long shot at identifying Jane Doe. They send her remains off
to the University of Florida
00:20:13
for anthropological testing. The results confirm the
victim's age, between 35 and 55
00:20:21
at the time of death. Unfortunately, it still
doesn't get police any closer to knowing who is Jane Doe.
00:20:32
KELLY HENDERSON: We
know that we have somebody that's been murdered. And because we
can't identify her,
00:20:36
one, we can't give closure
to the family, and two, we can't give justice.
00:20:41
NANCY GRACE: Okaloosa
County detectives, frustrated, they put
the Jane Doe case back in the cold case unit.
00:20:48
Then, 14 years later, October
2022, opportunity strikes. DEANNA OLESKE: I was at a
national conference in Las
00:21:00
Vegas, and I attended a
talk about forensic genetic genealogy, the advances
of and how they
00:21:06
have been successful with it. Forensic genetic genealogy
is when the DNA of a victim
00:21:13
is compared in a database. They make sure that they have
a full genome for the victim
00:21:18
and then compare
it to other genomes so that they can find relatives
and identify our victims that
00:21:26
have remained unidentified. Othram was the company
that was offering to do these kinds of identifications.
00:21:34
And I took a picture of the
slide during the conference, and I sent it to my
associate medical examiner,
00:21:40
Dr. Lorraine Lopez, and I asked
her, can you initiate contact? Let's try to do
this for Suzanne.
00:21:51
Othram is purpose
built to identify victims and perpetrators
from crime scenes using DNA.
00:21:58
So we have built the
infrastructure necessary to be able to test the most
intractable pieces of DNA
00:22:05
evidence, the software needed
to be able to build the most high-performing DNA
profiles that you can upload
00:22:12
to genealogical databases
that are consented for law enforcement use,
to help you infer
00:22:16
the identity of an unknown
person at a crime scene. For every case that comes
to Othram, the first step
00:22:24
for us is to understand what
has been done in the past, what is the current status
of the case, what items
00:22:30
are available for testing. And so we ask for any agency
to submit available information
00:22:35
into our portal so that our
scientific team can review what's available
and make a decision
00:22:42
and determination as
to whether or not we believe we can work the case. KRISTEN MITTELMAN: We got a call
from Okaloosa Sheriff's Office,
00:22:51
and they told us that they had
unidentified remains that were found in 1994, a cold case
that had absolutely no leads
00:23:00
as to who this person might be. They did say that they
thought it was a female. She was about 110
pounds when found.
00:23:07
And she was estimated to
be between the age of 35 and 55 years old. NANCY GRACE: Othram agrees
to take on the case.
00:23:17
Dr. Deanna Oleske
carefully sends over part of the 28-year-old victim's
remains to see if it's possible
00:23:26
to extract a DNA sample. DEANNA OLESKE: We tried sending
teeth at first, some molars.
00:23:32
They were unable to
extract from the molars. We did send a femur as well,
and it also did not yield
00:23:38
enough DNA for extraction. So we ended up sending
part of her skull. The base of the skull,
where your sphenoid, sinus,
00:23:45
and your cavities
live, they've had better success with that than
with teeth at extracting DNA.
00:23:51
At the end of December of
'22, they were able to extract a profile from that.
00:23:55
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] KRISTEN MITTELMAN: We were able
to do forensic grade genome sequencing on this
and create a profile
00:24:02
that had hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of SNP markers. It had enough material
to generate a profile.
00:24:09
They used that and
they compared it to persons who publicly
upload their DNA to a website called GEDmatch.
00:24:18
For a comparison
to see if there is any distant relatives
out there that could be related to this person.
00:24:26
It was actually a
really good profile and uploaded and led to
matches in the DNA database.
00:24:32
We knew that there were
clusters of relatives in certain parts of
the United States,
00:24:37
and that's important
information. Not always are you able
to immediately point
00:24:42
to the name of a
person, but rather, you point to the name of
relatives, and those relatives
00:24:47
can be data sources. KRISTEN MITTELMAN: It was early
2023 when we provided back the family that we thought
the person belonged to,
00:24:56
and then law enforcement
made contact with her family. They asked if
someone was missing.
00:25:02
They said yes. They asked a family member
to provide DNA so that we could confirm the result.
00:25:09
MICHELLE SANDLER:
The victim's mother, they performed a buccal
swab for YSTR testing
00:25:15
to compare that to our victim
and determine that it was, indeed, the child of the
person whose DNA they
00:25:23
had taken a buccal swab of. NANCY GRACE: The buccal swab
test returns a positive result.
00:25:29
That means Othram successfully
finds the mother of Jane Doe. DEANNA OLESKE: I
told my colleagues
00:25:39
that we're going to identify
her before the end of the year. We were able to identify
her within two months.
00:25:48
I was in my office,
and Dr. Lopez yelled at me down the hallway
and said, we identified Suzanne.
00:25:56
I go, oh, what's her name? And she goes, Suzanne. I go, are you kidding me? [LAUGHS] The whole time,
that was actually her name?
00:26:06
I felt really, really good. It was a pure and
utter excitement. We kind of bounced around
for a couple of minutes
00:26:14
cheering that we actually
had her name for once. And it was incredible. Detectives are finally able
to put a name to the remains.
00:26:24
It's Suzanne Kjellenberg. She was 34 years old at the
time that she was killed.
00:26:33
We knew that she was from the
Midwest, that her father was an attorney, that
she had a brother,
00:26:41
that her family had
not given up on looking for her for a long time. KELLY HENDERSON: Back
then, it was, you know,
00:26:48
wait 24 hours or 48 hours. See if they're doing
their own thing or, if it's a child, if they
maybe went to a friend's house
00:26:54
and just didn't
tell their parents. Not taken as serious,
I guess, as it is now.
00:26:59
I mean, now we immediately
do a missing persons report based on situation. It could even be an endangered
to where it gets pushed out
00:27:06
quicker. But back then, it seemed
like it was kind of a "well, let's wait and see if
they come back first."
00:27:12
ALAN DUKE: But she was 34
years old, in her mid 30s, and she liked to roam around.
00:27:18
She was something of a free
spirit in that way, in that she would spend time in
this part of the country
00:27:24
and then in another
part of the country. KELLY HENDERSON: She
was kind of a drifter.
00:27:28
She would kind of
just do her own thing. She would get rides, which
was not uncommon at that time,
00:27:35
you know, to get a ride
with a truck driver or hitchhike with somebody. She wasn't necessarily-- stayed
in contact with her family.
00:27:45
She just kind of
did her own thing. There was a lot of
communication between my office,
00:27:52
as well as the medical
examiner's office and the state attorney's office,
because you know,
00:27:58
Keith Jesperson had previously
confessed to killing Suzanne. He's already serving several
life sentences for other murders
00:28:05
and has been been convicted of. So there was a
little bit of, well, are we going to move
forward with this when he's
00:28:12
already serving life sentences? And the ultimate decision
was, yes, Suzanne, as well as
00:28:16
her family, deserve the same
justice as the other victims from Keith Jesperson. So at that point, it
was decided to make
00:28:23
a trip to Oregon to do
a face-to-face interview with Jesperson. Science and great
police work joined forces
00:28:33
to finally identify Jane Doe. Now, investigators want
to know why she died and who murdered her.
00:28:41
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] NANCY GRACE: Okaloosa
County, Florida, 2023,
00:28:55
29 years after the
remains of a woman found dumped along the side
of Interstate 10, detectives
00:29:03
finally know who she is. Her name? Suzanne Kjellenberg, 34 years
old at the time of her murder.
00:29:12
But now, detectives want to
question infamous serial killer Keith Jesperson. In 1995, Jesperson confesses he
sex assaults and murders Suzanne
00:29:25
Kjellenberg. Keith Jesperson is a
very proud serial killer. If you add up all of the
stories of the people
00:29:36
he claims to have killed,
it would be about 160. However, law enforcement
and prosecutors,
00:29:45
while they might like to pin all
those killings on one person, close all these cases, they tend
to want to have some evidence
00:29:56
to go along with it. And if they think that he's
just boasting about this and not
00:30:01
bringing the information to
connect him to the killing, he doesn't. They have been able
to verify eight.
00:30:10
NANCY GRACE: Since 1990,
Keith Jesperson is known as the "Happy Face Killer."
00:30:15
Why? Because of confession
letters he writes to law enforcement and media. Mr. Jesperson wrote
several letters to the press,
00:30:25
and he signed them
with happy faces. He had written little
notes on bathroom stalls
00:30:33
at truck stops, signed
again with the happy face, the smiley face, almost
taunting the police and media,
00:30:40
letting them know
that the person that's responsible for these deaths are
him, and he's still out there.
00:30:48
NANCY GRACE: Detectives now
go to the Oregon State Prison to interview serial
killer Keith Jesperson.
00:30:55
They want to know if he really
murdered Suzanne Kjellenberg or if his confession all
those years ago is a lie.
00:31:04
Mr. Jesperson was in
the Oregon penitentiary, located in Salem, Oregon. KELLY HENDERSON: So
in September of 2023,
00:31:13
we did elect to go do a
face-to-face unannounced. So Keith Jesperson did not
realize that we were going
00:31:19
to be coming to talk to him. And it was a team of four. It was myself, my partner,
Investigator Pittman,
00:31:25
FDLE Special Agent Mark Zagar,
and then our assistant state attorney, who was going
to be trying the case,
00:31:31
which was Michelle Sandler. MICHELLE SANDLER: We look at
several different scenarios that
00:31:35
could happen before
we go there, and we review the case file
heavily so that we can gauge his truthfulness.
00:31:43
The fact that we had
a confession from 1996 was incredibly helpful,
because then we had something
00:31:48
that we could compare
to the evidence and to whatever statement
he gave in 2023 to see
00:31:55
how truthful he was being. We needed him to
answer time and place and detail, more
than anything else.
00:32:03
We needed to make sure
that he knew things only the killer would know. We were a little worried
he might feign ignorance
00:32:12
or refuse to speak with us. KELLY HENDERSON: Once we got
there, we introduced ourselves.
00:32:20
Keith Jesperson knew
exactly why we were there. When we walked in and I said
that we were from Florida,
00:32:31
he said, oh, about the girl I
killed in Holt. He knew exactly. This is a big man.
00:32:37
He obviously had put on
some weight since the 1990s, you know, photos. But he was probably about 6'
5, probably pushing 300 pounds.
00:32:48
And he had huge hands. He is older now, so he
had gray hair and glasses, but a very big guy.
00:32:56
He was a very affable,
friendly guy to meet us. If you didn't know he
was a serial killer,
00:33:04
you would think he was a typical
big, gregarious type of fellow. But knowing he was a serial
killer kept us guarded.
00:33:14
NANCY GRACE: Okaloosa
County, Florida detectives interrogating a serial killer. Can they confirm he savagely
murdered a defenseless
00:33:23
woman 29 years before? We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO]
00:33:33
[AUDIO LOGO] NANCY GRACE: Florida detectives
are at the Oregon State Penitentiary to interview
notorious serial killer Keith
00:33:44
Jesperson. In 1995, he confesses to the
brutal sex assault and murder of Suzanne Kjellenberg,
the 34-year-old
00:33:53
dumped along Interstate 10. She's not identified
for 28 years, and now detectives are
determined to close her murder
00:34:04
case and seal his confession. We needed to be very careful
that any conviction that we got
00:34:12
had integrity, meaning that
it would not be overturned. So we wanted to make sure
that he had representation,
00:34:18
that he was able to review
the evidence with his attorney and decide to plea
freely and voluntarily
00:34:24
of his own free will. I just asked him to just
tell me what happened. I kind of let him just talk
and explain everything.
00:34:34
And then if we needed to
clarify something, we would. But I explained to him that
I had done all this research,
00:34:39
and I kind of just wanted to
hear it from his own mouth. KELLY HENDERSON:
She was sleeping,
00:36:07
and he decided, well,
I'm not supposed to have unauthorized riders
here, so let me go make sure
00:36:13
I don't get in trouble. He claims that she was
asleep and that he was trying
00:36:17
to be a gentleman and
wake her up to see if she needed to use the restroom. And when she woke up, he
thinks he startled her,
00:36:22
but she started screaming. And he knew that that security
officer was right next to him,
00:36:25
and he didn't want
to get in trouble. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] It was chilling
to hear somebody so
00:37:57
casually discuss the murder
of another human being. When I heard the
story, I felt like it
00:38:05
was a person who had very
little regard for human life. No remorse. You know, he-- it
was matter of fact.
00:38:14
It was just so matter of fact. It was-- he enjoyed
talking about it, you know, is kind of the sense
that I got from it.
00:38:22
He liked that attention. MICHELLE SANDLER: We were
with him for a couple hours, and then we left and
came home quickly.
00:38:31
And then we decided
to file on the case as second-degree murder. And that's just because
the state of Florida
00:38:37
requires that if you file
a first-degree murder, you have to convene
a grand jury.
00:38:43
And we knew he was already
willing to plead to life. NANCY GRACE: Keith
Jesperson convicted
00:38:50
for the second-degree
murder of Suzanne Kjellenberg on April 4, 2024. I was happy to have the
case closed to have justice
00:39:04
for Suzanne Kjellenberg. DEANNA OLESKE: We
contacted the family, and they had to
make arrangements
00:39:10
for her remains, which,
once we had gathered and gotten back from
Othram, we made sure
00:39:17
that we had all of her back. We-- they contacted
a funeral home, and we released her
remains to a funeral home.
00:39:25
And I believe she was cremated. KRISTEN MITTELMAN:
I can't imagine losing someone that I care about
and not having any answers.
00:39:34
And I think that there's nothing
more devastating than allowing a serial perpetrator to
conceal the identity of someone
00:39:42
and take away
their voice forever and leave them voiceless. To me, that's horrible.
00:39:47
And so it means
a lot to me to be able to say that I think
this technology is going
00:39:52
to lead to a world
where no one is ever left voiceless like that. KELLY HENDERSON: It certainly
motivated me to make
00:40:00
sure I never give up on a case. Just because it doesn't-- we don't have something
right in front of our eyes
00:40:07
doesn't mean we can't
develop something, you know? And it grounded me to know--
00:40:13
to keep working, to keep
working on these cases, because somewhere
out there, there's
00:40:17
a family member that is
wondering where their loved one is or deserves that justice.
00:40:22
And I have cold cases all
the way back from '73, so it's given me hope to
try to move forward on those
00:40:30
and get justice to where
we're able to solve all of our cold cases. NANCY GRACE: Incredible
work of law enforcement
00:40:38
and scientists finally solve
the brutal sex attack and tragic murder of Suzanne Kjellenberg.
00:40:46
Their combined
efforts prove justice can prevail in even
the toughest homicide cases after 30 long years.
00:40:58
I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us here
on "Bloodline Detectives."
00:41:03
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