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Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
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with me as always is a man whose fantasy football team will squash your little fantasy football team like a grape. Here
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Canada. All right, I got two from the old Keystone State. Cheers to Jessica in Brookville, Pennsylvania and cheers to
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free. Also, we have a bonus show called Off the Record and that is only on Stitcher Premium. You can find all those
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links at truecrimegarage.com and that is enough of the business. All right, everybody gather around, grab a
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chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. A young woman leaves work late at night and arrives
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home. Her car makes it into her usual spot in the garage but somehow she never makes it inside
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the house. With very few clues left behind police are left scratching their heads.
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The number one suspect the boyfriend acts suspicious but nothing ties him to the
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disappearance. The case grows cold and languishes for 30 years. In so many of these missing persons
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cases decades pass there is no movement on the case and we are left with no resolution.
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But in this case all is not as it seems. After nearly three decades there is new information
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that is not really new at all but it was left out of the case files. Some suggest that this information was
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conveniently lost or covered up intentionally. This is True Crime Garage and this is the case of Veronica Jill
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Blumehurst. Veronica Jill Blumehurst was born on September 4th, 1969. Nothing is known about her birth
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parents. This is actually a major speed bump for the investigation. It's complicated but we will get into
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that the why that is important after we get to know a little more about Veronica,
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her family and the day that she went missing. Veronica was adopted by Paul and Betty
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Blumehurst when she was only seven months old. She had an older sister named Carolyn,
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also adopted but from a different family and a younger brother named Todd who was
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the Blumehurst biological son. Reports are that Veronica had some early physical disabilities that impeded her
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ability to walk but with the help of leg braces and hard work she eventually overcame this.
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She had magic shoes. She was also diagnosed with a learning disability and took special education classes in
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school. Veronica was somewhat quiet and shy but was friendly and everyone liked her.
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She was a bit of a homebody. Her family likes to say that she often was tucked into bed by 8:00 p.m. unless she was
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working or with her boyfriend. In 1990 Veronica Blumehurst was 21 years old and living at home with her family
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in Mendota Illinois. Veronica lived with her parents and her brother Todd on Monroe Street. Mendota
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is a very safe small city of about 7,000 residents in northern LaSalle County. Well, and on top of that they moved
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there because the father became a firefighter and he was well connected not just in
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the fire department but also with the police department as well. Yeah, her father Paul was a firefighter. Her uncle
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was a police officer and her mother worked at a nursing home. Her older sister Carolyn in 1990 was in
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her mid-20s and lived about 20 minutes away with her husband. Veronica was working as a sales
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associate at a local retailer about a half a mile from her home. This is at Dempsey's Super Value.
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She had multiple job duties. This included cashier, manning the movie rental counter, and selling lottery
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tickets. Many people in town knew her as the friendly movie clerk and although she was not a gregarious person she was
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described as bubbly. When she wasn't working, Veronica spent a lot of her time with her boyfriend
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Jeff Verwica. A 22-year-old computer science junior college student whom she met about six
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months earlier. The two were serious and had discussed marriage although they were not officially
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engaged at this time. Now, we relied heavily on the terrific series of articles in this case by Jim
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Haggerty that was released earlier in 2020 on the Rockford Advocate website. We spoke with Jim as well and we'll be
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sharing some information that he gave to us. Now, let's get into the events, Captain,
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of September 19th and 20th of 1990. This weekend ahead of us marks 30 years that this young woman has
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been missing. And foul play is absolutely suspected in this case. Now, the day in question will
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be Wednesday, September 19th, 1990. Mhm. Veronica went to work at 5:00 p.m. for her evening shift as usual. This is the
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cashier gig at Dempsey's Super Value. She has worked there for several years. Veronica recently had a bad case of mono
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and she wasn't feeling very well. Have you ever had mono? I have not. It's awful. It just
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you feel completely drained. Like you don't even feel sick so much or at least I didn't.
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I just felt completely exhausted. Well, they ruined the New York Jets football season last year. Mhm. So, you know it's
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serious. So, she's not feeling well. She's still taking medication for mono at this time.
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Around 9:30 Veronica's sister Carolyn came into the store and talked to her sister about a doctor's appointment that
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Veronica had the next day. This, of course, to address the mono that she's still fighting off. Mhm.
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Then Veronica called Jeff, her boyfriend. She rented a movie for herself from the
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store's catalog of VHS films. This was the Bette Midler movie Stella. Old school VHS.
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Mhm. Be kind, rewind. Mhm. When her shift ended at closing time, she walked out of the store in the
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company of another sales associate. This was her friend Sharon Van Diver. And what time was this at?
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It was late. This was at 1:07 a.m. So, Veronica told Sharon that she was very tired and she was going to go home
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and go to bed. She intended to watch the movie the following day. Mhm. The two walked to their cars parked on the west
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side of the parking lot. They warmed up their vehicles, defrosted the windshields,
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and then Veronica got into her blue Chevy Corsica and drove north out of the parking lot onto
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Meriden Street and headed east toward her home on Monroe Street, which again is just half a mile away.
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The next morning, Veronica's brother Todd woke up for school. Todd was having some car troubles, so
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Veronica was supposed to drive him to school that day. Right. She wasn't downstairs yet, but he saw her car in
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the garage, so he just simply waited. But, she never came down. When he went and looked in her room, he
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realized that she was not there. So, now he's like, she's not home at all. He called his father at work at the
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firehouse, and his father told him, you know, just drive your own car to school and I'll come and pick up this vehicle
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later and I'll do some work on it. So, Todd leaves the house. He goes off to school.
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Paul, father, arrived home from his overnight shift around 8:00 a.m. that morning.
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He assumed that Veronica was out to breakfast with her boyfriend Jeff and simply forgot about driving her brother
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to school that day. Again, it's not a regular activity for her to drive him. Maybe it just slipped her mind. Well,
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and like you said, Jeff is this is a serious relationship, so the family knows who Jeff is and and
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everybody is aware of of who he is. So, Paul leaves the house again. Some reports say that he went off
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to his part-time job. Some say that he went to run some errands. Regardless of why he leaves the house,
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when he returned to the house, the phone rang and it was the doctor's office. They're
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calling to say that Veronica didn't show up for her follow-up appointment that was scheduled for that day.
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Then the phone rang again. Now, this time it's Jeff, the boyfriend. He's asking for Veronica. Is Veronica there?
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They were supposed to go out to lunch, he said. Paul told him that Veronica was not home
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and actually asked Jeff, had he seen her anytime since she left for work the previous day. Mhm. He said, no, I had
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not. Starting to worry, Paul calls his wife, who's at work. He asked her if she had seen Veronica that morning and she
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says, of course she had not as well. All right, so we are in a weird spot here, Captain.
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Everything appears to be as it should with the exception that no one knows where Veronica is. Mhm. Her car is
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parked in its usual spot in the Bloomhurst garage. It also appears that the vehicle arrived
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at or about the expected time. But, anywhere that Veronica should be, she is not. She wasn't home to drive her
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little brother to school that day. She missed a doctor's appointment and she was not out with her boyfriend. I heard
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it reported multiple times. Some people say that it was a follow-up doctor's appointment and some
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people were saying that because she didn't feel like the mono was getting better or she
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wasn't feeling better that it was a extra appointment. And so, that makes it even more important. Sometimes you don't
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follow up on an appointment cuz you're feeling better. The other thing to hear is the garage
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setting. Right. There's multiple different kinds of garages. Your house now has a attached garage.
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Your house before had a detached garage, but this this is a detached garage and it's I believe roughly about 30 ft away
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from the house. So, it's it's quite a distance between the garage and the house.
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Well, and it looks to me too that you would actually, if you were driving and wanted to park in the garage, that you
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would enter the garage from an alley that is behind the house and behind the garage. Right, that makes sense. That
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you wouldn't pull that that there may not even be a driveway to get you from Monroe Street to the garage.
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Mhm. So, with Veronica's car in the garage, this means that she or at least the vehicle
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arrived home after her shift at the SuperValu the night before. Her mom woke up around 2:00 a.m. and
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from the kitchen window, she could see Veronica's car was in the garage. The garage door was shut and the
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lights were off. This was the family's kind of signal, you know, that everyone was home and
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safe at the house for the night. The last person in would close down the garage and Betty,
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it was routine for her to get up in the night to check that the garage was closed down. Well, and again, like we
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said, it's a very small community. Her father works for the fire department within the area. I think one of their
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neighbors was a police officer. It's a very safe area. So, since there's no sign of Veronica, Paul, he gets in his
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vehicle. He drives out to the sister's house, out to Carolyn's house, again about 20 minutes away.
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And this was just to see if Veronica was there. She was very close with Carolyn and there was some reason to believe
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that she intended to go to her sister's house that day to talk about maybe wedding arrangements or wedding dresses.
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But, Veronica was not there as well. When Paul showed up at the house, Carolyn was immediately alarmed.
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She says, you know, her father was normally a calm and practical dude, but on this day, he
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was quite panicked and this set her off. So, Carolyn had no idea where her sister
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was and she followed her dad back to the Bloomhurst home. When they arrived, they were surprised to see Veronica's
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boyfriend Jeff as well as their neighbor John. John lives across the alley behind the
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Bloomhurst home. He is, as the Captain was saying, a Mendota police officer. Jeff called 911 around noon to report
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Veronica missing. With the arrival of the police, people started to gather at the
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Bloomhurst home and searchers fanned out to scour the neighborhood. We aren't going to get into the whole
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scope of the search, but the PJ Star summed it up nicely by saying, quote, "Police quickly began searching the town
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and questioning people. Two hours after the first report, planes began to crisscross the sky for a glimpse of a
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missing woman." That day and several after, just about every fire and police department within
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30 miles of Mendota assisted in the search. Hundreds of civilians scoured the area hour after hour, day after day,
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not stopping even in the rain. Dive teams jumped into lakes and ponds to seek clues."
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End quote. Now, remember Paul was a firefighter, so you can imagine that we're going to have an all hands on
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deck type of response. Right. And that her neighbor was a police officer. Yeah, the police chief stated
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that he could not even begin to guess how many man-hours were expended on the search,
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Mhm. which extended to a 15-to-20-mile radius of Mendota. And yet, there was no sign anywhere of
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this young woman. No sign anywhere of Veronica. It seems that she has just simply
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vanished. Now, at the house, it was Veronica's sister Carolyn that thought someone
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should check the trunk of Veronica's car. We got the car in the garage. No one's thought to check the trunk.
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And this is really we've talked about this with many cases that we've covered. When a person goes missing,
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the vehicle is located, this is always a very traumatic experience for whomever is the one that
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is in charge of opening up the trunk. And a lot of times we tell these stories and it's a family member
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that's opening up the trunk of the vehicle and it's something that they never ever forget. Right. Now, Carolyn
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was very careful to open the trunk very very slowly. All that was in there, thankfully,
00:19:08
was Veronica's overnight bag, which I guess was packed and still in there from the weekend before.
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Mhm. Now, of course, police looked at whether Veronica had actually made it home that night.
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As we said, her car was found in the usual spot in the unattached garage about 30 ft from the house. Right. Betty
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usually left the garage lights on for her, so Veronica would not come home to a dark garage. Again, their routine was
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that Veronica would shut off the light, close down the garage before entering the house.
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Sure enough, the garage door was shut. The garage light was off. There was no sign whatsoever that anything was amiss.
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No sign of a struggle. Nothing was dropped. You know, there's not items laying on the ground that
00:19:59
Right. We don't have blood on the garage floor. Yeah, or any personal items that would
00:20:03
be lying on on the ground out there. But so we we have evidence that the car made
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it into the garage. The light got turned off. The door got shut. We have evidence of that. We don't have
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evidence that it was her. Other than her co-worker saying that I walked her out to her car.
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Probably actually saw her drive off for a second. Yeah, and I say that that it appears that
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everything was as it should be because we don't have a whole lot of time between when
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the co-worker said that they left from their shift to the time where her mother would routinely wake up to make
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sure that the garage, you know, that Veronica's vehicle was in the garage and the garage was shut down.
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It was 1:07 according to the co-worker. And according to her mother Betty, Betty
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would usually get up around 2:00 a.m. to look out the kitchen window to check and
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see if the garage was shut down. Yeah, so nothing seems amiss except for we have a missing woman. Correct.
00:21:11
Correct. So police did begin to suspect that Veronica did drive home, did in fact drive home and then immediately
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left with somebody else. This, of course, is because not only was she missing, but some of her personal
00:21:26
items were missing that seemed to indicate that she had taken them with her. Mhm. These items were her purse and
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car keys. The items that she was wearing, of course, were were gone as well. And this included her boyfriend's class
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ring, her earrings, a watch, her glasses, and her red work smock. Also missing was the VHS movie that she
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had rented at work and brought with her when she left that night. So Captain, you're starting to see a
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picture here of if in fact she did drive home, she gets out of her vehicle, shuts
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off the light, closes the garage door. She's going to walk from the garage to her her house. Yeah, roughly 30 ft away.
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And it's almost like everything you would expect for her to be carrying into the home with her
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that night Mhm. is also the things that are missing along with her. Yeah, so then the question becomes
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is she abducted? Does somebody pull up that she knows and says, "Hey, come with me real quick."
00:22:33
And she gets in their car. What happened? Right. And I've not been able to find anything
00:22:40
in regards to if the vehicle was locked or not or if the garage was locked or if it was common for
00:22:48
either to be locked. It It's likely not important, but I was looking for those details. Yeah, but to be very clear,
00:22:56
yes, there was a search that happened. We have planes flying overhead. We have people searching
00:23:02
countless man-hours, 15-mi radius. They didn't do a lot of searching of the actual property
00:23:10
of of the house, of the garage, of her car. The idea to even search her trunk was
00:23:19
not the police officer's idea, came from the family. Well, and I think the problem here is
00:23:27
very similar to what we were talking about yesterday on Off the Record. It's what do you think that you're
00:23:34
searching for can often dictate the way that a search is is that you go about the search.
00:23:41
And it feels to me like in in these very crucial hours, you know, we can sit here 30 years later
00:23:49
and go, "Well, why didn't they do this? Why didn't they do that?" But in these very crucial hours,
00:23:54
they think that they're just looking for a person who who is missing for any number of reasons.
00:24:01
They're not fully aware, maybe they're not equipped. I don't know the answer to that, Captain, but
00:24:07
for whatever reason, they don't think that they should be looking for clues uh or evidence for for foul play at the
00:24:15
time. They're simply looking for Veronica. Right. The Bloomquist family also believed that Veronica must have
00:24:23
left with somebody she knew. Her paw told the Register Star that if his daughter was taken against her will,
00:24:33
it was by somebody she knew. Otherwise, there would have been some noise or some
00:24:39
sign of a struggle in the garage. She's always been, he says, very naive and overly trusting. I think what it's kind
00:24:47
of a weird statement that he gives there, but I think what he's saying is even if she was taken against her will,
00:24:53
she may not have realized that at the time and very likely willingly got into someone's vehicle or walked away with
00:25:00
somebody that night. Uh dogs were brought in to track Veronica's scent from the garage.
00:25:07
This is a good move. After sniffing an item of of her clothing, the dogs left the garage and
00:25:13
went into the alley behind the garage. And after about 200 ft, the dogs seemed to become confused and simply lost the
00:25:23
trail or whatever trail they were following. The obvious conclusion was that Veronica
00:25:29
may have gotten into a vehicle that was waiting for her in the alley. When she disappeared, Veronica was 5 ft
00:25:37
tall, 100 lb, with braces and hazel eyes. She was wearing a mint green sweater with a white tank top,
00:25:46
cream-colored pants, and wire-rimmed glasses. All right. We are back. Cheers. Cheers,
00:26:28
cheers, cheers. Police labeled Veronica a missing person. Early reports state that police did not believe that there
00:26:36
was foul play, but it was clear to everyone who knew her that something bad happened to Veronica.
00:26:43
Well, we see this a lot with police where they go, "Hey, she's an adult. She probably took off. Maybe she's with
00:26:50
another guy and doesn't want to tell her boyfriend about it. Maybe she took off with some friends. Maybe she took off to
00:26:57
start a new life." Yeah, they did the typical thing. They thought that she left on her own. You
00:27:02
know, she is 21 in their defense. There is no sign of a struggle. So they awaited They waited about 24 hours to
00:27:10
take an official report. But again, her friends and family are saying she didn't
00:27:16
run away. That this is totally out of character for her. And there is some evidence of this, right? She did not
00:27:24
take any additional clothing or any sentimental items. Right. It's just the things that she would have
00:27:30
carried from the vehicle to her home, her and those items are the only things that are gone.
00:27:37
She rented a movie just the night before. That seems like a strange thing to do if
00:27:42
you're planning on taking off the next day. Mhm. She had a doctor's appointment later
00:27:48
that day. And remember, she wasn't feeling very well the morning before. In fact, she considered calling in sick to
00:27:57
her shift at Super Value. Plus her family, they're on record. They said that she only had $10 cash on her at the
00:28:05
time and that she left her paycheck at work uncashed. Well, she lived kind of a simple life. She struggled through
00:28:15
school, so going to college was not really an option that she put into her own mind. And so really her plans were,
00:28:24
"I like my job. Yes, it's kind of strange hours, but it gives me a bunch of time during the day to do my own
00:28:30
thing." And really the plan for her or her plan for herself was, "I'm going to get married and become a mom, and and
00:28:39
that's what I'm going to do." And I'm pretty sure that in regards to her job with the those weird hours,
00:28:46
I'm kind of guessing here, Captain, cuz I don't know for certain, but I'm thinking that she probably shut down the
00:28:53
store. That that store must close maybe at the 1:00 hour, and that's why her co-worker's pretty firm on that 1:07
00:29:01
a.m. time of having last seen her. Mhm. Again, $10 cash on her at the time, she had a paycheck at work that was left
00:29:10
uncashed. If she intended to run away, she would have very likely needed some money, some
00:29:17
resources. You would wait to get that check and cash it. Well, let's stay on that check for a second because it's
00:29:22
reported multiple ways. Some people make it seem as if there was a check left in
00:29:28
the car. Like she had a work check in the car. That was what I believe is not the case,
00:29:34
that she had actually a check that she was going to be receiving that the next Friday in a couple days.
00:29:41
And that's the check that people are talking about her not having. Correct. The information I have says that the
00:29:48
check her paycheck was at her work. She also never used any credit card or accessed her bank account after the
00:29:56
night that she went missing. Finally, Veronica's mom, Betty, was battling cancer at the time. Of course,
00:30:02
Veronica was very concerned about her mother and made sure to check in with her all of the time. So, the
00:30:10
idea that Veronica would just leave was really unthinkable to her family and friends.
00:30:17
A co-worker of hers says at the Super Value who says she was the closest of the employees to Veronica
00:30:27
said that she would have told someone if she was planning to leave or to go somewhere as she often spoke and told
00:30:35
everybody at work about her upcoming plans. I'm reading a little between the lines
00:30:39
here, Captain. I don't know that I believe that this statement from the co-worker means so much that she would
00:30:46
have told us if she was planning on running away and starting a new life somewhere.
00:30:51
I think it also hints to the idea of if she had something going on that day to meet with a specific person or go to a
00:30:59
specific place she probably would have blabbed about it to her co-workers at some point leading up to that event.
00:31:06
Right. And what we have pretty much on record is her telling her co-workers, "Hey, I'm going to go home. I'm not even
00:31:12
going to watch this movie. I'm just going straight to bed." So, no talks about meeting up with her
00:31:18
boyfriend afterwards or meeting up with a friend after work. She seems like an open book, doesn't she? Where we have
00:31:26
both co-workers and her family that seems to say that they were very aware of what her plans would have been for
00:31:34
the following day. Well, and I think a lot of people make something out of the fact that she was
00:31:40
adopted and maybe now that she's a little bit older, maybe she would want to know where she came from. But all
00:31:47
indications point to she was kind of curious, but not that curious and felt that it would be almost like a insult to
00:31:56
her family that that gave her this life that she enjoyed. Yeah, her adopted family is her family. And I believe that
00:32:04
was her own words. You know, this this is my family. Whether it means now or whatever, however she felt about it
00:32:11
she didn't feel the need to seek out the people that gave her up. She was living
00:32:17
with who she wanted to live with. She was very proud that her parents adoptive parents were the ones that raised her.
00:32:23
She's in a unique situation, too, Captain, where her sister her older sister was adopted as well
00:32:31
Mhm. from another family. So, if she had any weird or mixed feelings about being
00:32:36
adopted, she had someone sharing the exact same experience as her to go to and bounce things off of. Yeah. Police
00:32:44
eventually came around to the belief of foul play in connection with Veronica's disappearance
00:32:50
and their thoughts this is not that it was not a random abduction. So, per the Register Star that we quoted
00:32:59
earlier, Chief Ken Hahn said police {quote} "Doubt that it's a random abduction in in part because the Super
00:33:07
Value store where she worked and her home are off the beaten path. Mendota is also small enough that everybody knows
00:33:14
everybody Mhm. and any strange face or vehicle would likely be noticed." End quote. Now, I know this is back in what,
00:33:22
1990? Yeah. But answer me this question if you could. As many cases as we've gone
00:33:29
through, especially missing person cases, if you're in law enforcement, how are you handling this? Because to me,
00:33:35
it's almost like they use this, "Well, we think that she just took off on her own and she'll turn back up." It's
00:33:41
almost like they're which I know that happens a lot of times. I know that there's thousands of missing person
00:33:48
cases and within 24 hours, 48 hours that person's found and they're okay, no big deal.
00:33:56
But it seems to me that it's not the responsible thing to do. That it's just it's
00:34:05
it would be better to you know, let's wait and see and not put out any information at all. Mhm.
00:34:15
I think it's a tricky situation because she is an adult. I think had this been a younger person
00:34:23
that we wouldn't be in the same boat that we are now. Right. I do also believe that there's likely in many of
00:34:30
these cases things behind the scenes that we are unaware of. Simple things of okay, well, we have our
00:34:38
our shift roll call for police uh first first shift, second shift, third shift of of this day. Mhm. Oh, one
00:34:46
of the notes is we have a missing young woman. She's 21 years old. Here's a description of her and a picture even
00:34:52
though we've not gone official with it at this point. Yeah, it's it's weird because when you look at these small
00:34:59
towns, especially the ones that are safe and have very low crime rates, you go, "Well, what else could they be working
00:35:05
on?" Just make this priority number one. Yeah, but it's also strange, too, because it's like maybe their their
00:35:10
words and their actions don't necessarily match up where they go, "Well, look, we think that she went
00:35:17
missing on her own or she went went to go hang out with somebody." But we're also all hands on deck and a
00:35:25
bunch of people searching and we have a 15-to-20-mile radius of a search. That seems a little
00:35:33
take that's that's a little more taking it serious than the words of "Oh, we think she'll turn up."
00:35:40
Yeah, I I think we're probably putting those in the wrong chronological order. It's obvious to me that it would be oh,
00:35:48
she might turn up and then it's all hands on deck for a search later. okay. So, who took Veronica? Now that
00:35:55
the police have come around to the idea that she's not just gone, that she's not
00:35:59
just where she shouldn't be or was expected to be that someone took her and their words are, "We believe there's
00:36:06
foul play in connection with her disappearance and we also do not believe that this is a random abduction." I
00:36:12
think they're probably pretty spot-on with both of those thoughts and theories. Now, as we've seen in so many
00:36:18
cases, the investigation is going to start with those closest to her. So, two days after Veronica was last seen,
00:36:27
police sat down with Veronica's boyfriend, Jeff. As we saw, Jeff showed up at the
00:36:34
Bloomhurst home very quickly after learning from Paul that she was missing, right?
00:36:40
He hears from Paul and then Paul goes off on some errands, out to the sister's house, comes back to
00:36:47
the home with the sister and now Jeff, the boyfriend, is at their house with the police officer
00:36:54
and now it's kind of becoming a thing that Veronica is missing. Right. So, him being there, I guess is understandable.
00:37:01
Right? He would go over there to look for Well, if they're supposed to have lunch that day. Well,
00:37:06
he goes over there cuz he now believes she's missing. Not just to pick her up for lunch. He's
00:37:11
already gone from the father. what I'm saying is he was had plans with her and she didn't
00:37:16
show up and now he's worried where she's at. He and Veronica were serious at this time. He loved her
00:37:24
by all accounts. He was concerned when she didn't turn up. But then he called 911 rather than
00:37:33
leaving it to her parents. I think some people might think that this is weird. I'm totally fine with
00:37:39
this. Right? Because we've sat here before in these same chairs and said, "Why isn't anyone taking action?" Mhm.
00:37:46
So, we're not going to uh punish somebody for being the first to take action. Yeah, and I I don't fault him
00:37:53
not all for that. You wonder was that uh a discussion that Jeff and Veronica's father had.
00:38:01
Right? Like you wonder because they there was a conversation before Jeff shows up at the house. Did Jeff tell the
00:38:09
father, "Hey, I think we should call 911 or I think we should report this to the
00:38:13
police" and the father says, being the firefighter, being the guy that is said by his own family to be always
00:38:21
calm, level-headed did the father say, "No, it's it's early. Give it a give it an hour. Give
00:38:29
it a couple hours. Let me go to her sister's house." You know, was Jeff was he panicked from from the get-go? Well,
00:38:35
like I said, I mean, it just throws another wrench in the whole case because like we said, she had some learning
00:38:44
disabilities. She struggled just to get through school. I mean, they had to get her special help just get her
00:38:51
through school. So you would assume that Jeff would know her almost better than anybody at this time.
00:39:01
You know, especially when you're 21, with your parents. So, I just wonder if he really
00:39:08
understood her capabilities within side the world. When we talk about how her father says
00:39:16
that she had this sense of naivete, how much does Jeff understand this? But he would have a
00:39:22
better sense of who she was, what she was capable of doing and like I said, this this the house being 30 ft from the
00:39:32
garage it leans to the idea that you could abduct somebody but it seems like the idea that somebody would have to
00:39:47
know her and on some capacity to get her into that car. Agreed, and I think you could look at
00:39:55
this thing with Jeff of calling 911 one of two ways. With him arriving at the house and
00:40:03
calling 911 and and throwing himself into the investigation, it's either one of two things. Either he is responsible
00:40:10
for why Veronica is missing right and he's manipulating things to make it look like he's concerned or to me I I think
00:40:20
you could go either way with it, but you could also lean that this is further confirmation
00:40:25
by somebody else outside of the house that she would not have just went off somewhere. But this Jeff guy is a unique
00:40:33
character. He seems to have some social immaturity. I guess would be the way I'd put it.
00:40:42
Well, the best communicator with people. Kind of a nerdy guy, smart guy. Everybody says
00:40:48
he's pretty bright. Well, there's there's what we have is we have several people that say Jeff
00:40:55
started to act inappropriately early on in this case. So first of all, they said that he would
00:41:04
not leave the Bloomquist home. So he showed up there. He stayed there for 3 days sleeping on the couch.
00:41:12
And the father Paul said quote, he was constantly asking how the investigation was going. Yeah, almost like he was a
00:41:20
little too concerned. Yeah, Paul says that he Jeff began answering the phone as if he was a
00:41:28
person that lived there. Right. Trying to control the situation. Okay. And Paul told the media that he
00:41:35
would not meaning Jeff would not leave our house. We didn't think much of it at first, but then we would just he would
00:41:42
just lay on our couch in the fetal position. Paul says, I think he went home to shower, but other than that he was at
00:41:49
our house all of the time. Mhm. Every time the phone rang, he would try to answer it. We thought that was very
00:41:55
strange. Again, it's it's one of two things. The same thing we just talked about.
00:42:01
It's either him trying to control the investigation knowing what the police know, knowing what the family knows,
00:42:08
or he's just really freaking concerned. Well, not only is he concerned, but he just doesn't think other people are
00:42:14
capable. So he don't need to answer the phone, I'll answer the phone. You know what I mean? Uh I I don't know that I we
00:42:21
would I would take it that far. Um to to worry that people aren't capable. Paul's a firefighter. I I don't
00:42:29
want to try to think of what what Jeff was thinking. Just judging his actions, it shows me
00:42:34
it's either one of those two things. He's trying to know be the first to know about the investigation to cover his own
00:42:43
ass right or he wants to be the first to know that everything's okay and that the
00:42:48
woman that he loves is alive and well. Right, but that's why I'm saying about the
00:42:54
maybe he there was a sense of him not thinking other people were going to do as much as he could do for the
00:43:00
investigation. That's why he has to plant himself in their house. That's why he has to
00:43:05
answer every phone call. That's why he has to talk to the police about every detail. That's why he's getting
00:43:10
arguments with people about details and and conversations about her going missing.
00:43:17
According to the Rockford Advocate series on the case again by Jim Haggerty, Jeff, the boyfriend approached the
00:43:26
producers of the radio broadcast of the Mendota high school football game that took place on Friday, September 21st.
00:43:37
This is the day after Veronica came up missing. Jeff asked them to play something for
00:43:44
him during the halftime show. It was a recording that Jeff gave them to play that had Jeff reading some words
00:43:53
and he says on this recording quote, I am making this recording for you because me and all your friends and family miss
00:44:01
you. We want you back. I don't care what the problem is. I don't care where you are or whoever
00:44:08
you're with. I won't be happy until you're back with me. I hope I haven't pushed you or anything.
00:44:17
I don't think I have. I want you to know I love you. Everybody else loves you and we're waiting to hear
00:44:24
from you cuz we got some sad people. And wherever you are and whatever you are doing, call the Mendota Police
00:44:32
Department at and he gives their number cuz I love you. I know you love me. So I brought this tape for you to hear
00:44:41
cuz it's going to be strange to a lot of people out there, but you know this song
00:44:47
and it's for you. And you know I always think of you when I hear it. Veronica, I love you.
00:44:54
This was followed by a polka song. Unfortunately, I do not have the the name of the the song.
00:45:03
It's followed by a polka song. Well, polka's big in that portion of the country.
00:45:08
Makes me think of you every time I hear it. Well, so a lot of people thought that
00:45:15
this was totally strange, right? Maybe this guy is one of those just a dramatic person who
00:45:22
is gushing publicly about his feelings and it might be overreacting in the eyes of some.
00:45:30
But airing this public statement basically very very shortly after Veronica went
00:45:37
missing, I do think it's a little odd. Yeah. A little odd. And a quick background investigation on
00:45:46
Jeff revealed some concerning information. Um according to people who knew him at
00:45:51
work, he had a temper and was the type to quickly fly off the handle over very small things like a machine
00:46:01
malfunctioning or something not working properly. Didn't he have a accident at some point? He did. Further, a co-worker
00:46:09
of his who was a long-time friend of Veronica's told police that Jeff had become
00:46:14
possessive and controlling of Veronica and would get mad at her if she was late for something or busy when he wanted to
00:46:23
talk to her. Veronica told this friend on several occasions quote, he's mad at me and I
00:46:28
don't know why. This friend believed Veronica was afraid of Jeff's angry outburst.
00:46:35
Another co-worker of Jeff's, this is a woman, told police that he had called her down to their workplace one night
00:46:43
after Veronica vanished, but didn't want to talk about work stuff. Creeped out, she left, but Jeff followed
00:46:52
her home and demanded to know whether she thought that he had done something to Veronica.
00:46:59
He even said to her quote, this is according to this woman, I don't know why anyone would think I would have
00:47:06
anything to do with her disappearance or murder. The whole incident left her feeling very
00:47:13
unsettled because Jeff and I have a problem with this, too. Jeff was the first person to mention the
00:47:21
word murder in regards to Veronica. To everyone else, she was just missing. Now,
00:47:32
Jeff, her boyfriend, he is saying the word murder. Kind of want to argue with you on that a little bit because
00:47:38
isn't that kind of similar to the 911 call? Everybody's looking for her and you go,
00:47:44
well, I don't think that's enough. Going to call 911. Hey, I think she's just missing.
00:47:52
Right? That's a level of concern. And he then ramps up that level with of concern by saying,
00:48:00
uh I don't I'm not so for sure that it's just a missing that she's just missing.
00:48:06
I think there's something more nefarious here. Yeah, I I don't know. To me it's similar
00:48:12
in where one may talk about somebody in the past tense and be the only one to know that they're
00:48:18
no longer with us. True. True. After his daughter went missing, Paul Bloomquist recalled that one weekend
00:48:27
when Veronica had gone to a polka festival with Jeff, she had come home with bruises on her
00:48:34
face. She told her parents that she walked into a speaker. So now there's a question to
00:48:44
Veronica's parents, was Veronica covering up for something that actually happened,
00:48:50
something bad that happened on that trip and maybe Jeff was to blame. Maybe was she covering for Jeff.
00:48:57
It's worth mentioning that this character assassination of Jeff was not it doesn't seem to be universal.
00:49:06
Veronica's parents, Paul and Betty Bloomquist and sister Carolyn and her husband, they all liked Jeff.
00:49:14
They have said that he was I think you used this word, a little odd, a little quirky, but he He was a
00:49:22
horse of a different color. Well, they all said that it was clear that the two of them were in love. That
00:49:29
that he very much loved Veronica and she loved him and things seemed great between the two of them.
00:49:36
Of course, people pointed fingers at him because he was the boyfriend, but there wasn't much to go on, right? Even
00:49:44
after years passed. Jeff moved away and started his own family. But in 2004, 14 years after Veronica
00:49:53
vanished, the Mendota Police Department officially re-examined her case. And in the course of doing so, they did
00:50:02
some re-interviewing of people and reviewing of the evidence. This examination also included some new
00:50:10
interviews. For example, Veronica's closest friend Tracy was interviewed for the first time
00:50:17
14 years later, for the first time. And then they gave the case file to the Bloomer family.
00:50:24
And what it contained about Jeff, the boyfriend, was enough to convince some family members,
00:50:31
particularly Todd, Veronica's little brother, that Jeff had killed Veronica. And when the case file was leaked to the
00:50:39
public, it had the effect of trying Jeff Veverka in the court of public opinion. So, what
00:50:46
do we have as evidence that points the finger in a negative light towards Jeff? Well, it's the case file. So, let's go
00:50:56
through what this case file said. On September 23rd, 1990, this is 2 days after Veronica went missing. Police sat
00:51:06
down with Jeff, who was at the time a composing room worker at the local paper, the Sterling Daily Gazette, as
00:51:15
well as a community college student. The investigator who interviewed him, supposedly over a long period of time,
00:51:24
there varying reports on this, and you're going to have that when you have a case that's 30 years old.
00:51:30
Most reports say that it was about 6 hours, maybe a little longer. The officer, the investigator who
00:51:36
interviewed Jeff, then wrote up a summary of what he says Jeff said in this interview.
00:51:44
And what has been purported to have been said by him is very suspicious. Now, this investigator who wrote up this
00:51:54
report was Mendota Police Department investigator John P. I'm going to go with P for his last
00:52:01
name. That's P period. Who was in charge of the investigation. Yes, this is the same John who was
00:52:08
neighbors with the Bloomer. His house was directly across the alley that was in the back of their home.
00:52:17
Here is what the report says Jeff told police. Keep in mind that this is all as described by the interviewer John, not
00:52:26
verbatim and not taken from any transcript or recording. Either of those things apparently do not exist
00:52:35
in this case. This is all as described in Jim Haggerty's series about the case. He has personally reviewed the police
00:52:44
report containing this information about Jeff. So, in this interview, it said that Jeff
00:52:50
said that on September 19th, the last day that Veronica was seen, he drove his father's van to Veronica's house
00:52:58
and then used Veronica's car to run some errands. He later returned to the car to the Bloomer's home.
00:53:08
That's a confusing story in its in itself. I don't know why he wouldn't just use
00:53:13
the van to go about his errands, but this is what police are saying he said. Then around 4:40, he was in his van and
00:53:21
he saw Veronica leaving for work. So, he drove to Supervalu, waited for her to park. When Veronica pulled into
00:53:29
the lot, he said he inched the vehicle, his van, up next to her vehicle, and then the two kind of, you know, gave an
00:53:37
I I love you type signal to one another. He then drove home to his house in Sublette, Illinois,
00:53:47
and didn't talk to Veronica until 9:30 p.m. She called him from work, he said, and they discussed having lunch after
00:53:56
the doctor's appointment the next day. He said he then watched a movie and fell asleep at 1:30 a.m.
00:54:05
Then, according to Mendota Police investigator John, his report says Jeff gave reasons why he
00:54:12
might be involved in Veronica being missing. And he also gave us ways he thinks it might have happened.
00:54:19
Per the report, Jeff blurted out that maybe someone she knew in a van, no, a truck, drove up by her garage, and she
00:54:28
got into the vehicle with them. Maybe they got to fooling around, and maybe she said no, and she was pushed or
00:54:36
shoved and got hurt real bad. And then he dumped her somewhere where no one would find her.
00:54:43
Also, it's possible that when she got off work, she took her red smock and placed it over the passenger's front
00:54:50
seat, and someone may have taken it and put it around her head and did something. And the smock was not found.
00:54:57
Correct. He went on with another hypothetical, saying, "Maybe I thought when she told
00:55:03
me on the phone that night her sister was taking her to a doctor's appointment that she was pregnant, and I drove down
00:55:10
there, pulled up in the alley, and she got into a van, no, a truck, and we argued.
00:55:18
And maybe I was afraid of what our parents would say, and I did something. I don't remember. Maybe I was the person
00:55:26
who picked her up, and I thought she was pregnant, and I thought she was pregnant, and I lost my mind." Yeah, but
00:55:32
this is after how many hours of questioning? The least amount of time that I found in the reports say 6 hours.
00:55:40
Yeah, so it's anywhere from 6 to I think I've seen up to 24 hours of them questioning this guy. Yes. Which
00:55:48
that would be a long time. I don't know how they You would think the officer would need to take some kind of break.
00:55:52
The officer started confessing. Uh I worked I Several times I worked over 30-hour shift. If you want somebody to
00:55:59
talk, put me in a room with them. We'll go at it for 2 or 3 days. Yeah, I'm ready.
00:56:04
Nonstop. The other big problem and issue I have with this with this information is how
00:56:13
it comes to us. This is not a audio tape of Jeff being interviewed by police. This is not a video tape of Jeff being
00:56:25
interviewed by police. This is not a transcript of that interview with questions and answers, questions and
00:56:32
answers. Well, it is a transcript. No, it's not. It's What it is is it's the officer's
00:56:39
He is telling He is reporting later Yeah, it's a transcription of his him remembering.
00:56:47
Well, right, but we can get into semantics if you like, but it's it's not the proper use of the
00:56:54
word transcript. What I'm saying is this is not even The officer didn't sit down
00:57:00
and write down this stuff in the interview itself. This is a couple days go by, and he's told his superiors that
00:57:10
Jeff said some incriminating stuff when I interviewed him for hours the other day. Oh, what did he say?
00:57:16
Oh, he said this and this and this. Well, could you write that down for us in some kind of report? Right. And what
00:57:21
I mean by that is you could you could take that any way that you want. There's a lot of nuances that are missed and
00:57:28
left to speculation in this situation. This officer is reporting this days later. Did Jeff say that he did this, or
00:57:37
did Jeff say that someone could have done this? Well, that's two very different things.
00:57:42
Mhm. And we have this officer writing it down days later? Also, we just we're just we have the
00:57:48
only this officer to report this. We don't have anybody else backing this up. We have no, again, no recording of
00:57:55
any of this, nobody else sitting in the room writing down the same notes. All right, but this reminds me, again,
00:58:01
Shaker Heights a little bit, right? West Memphis 3? Well, Shaker Heights, they recorded the
00:58:09
interviews, and they had multiple officers in the interview room at the same time. Right.
00:58:14
But again, with this case, we don't know, but I I don't like the question of, "Well, how do you think it would
00:58:20
have been done?" You know, or like when in West Memphis 3, when Damien goes, "Well, the
00:58:29
enjoyed it, or I must have felt some power or something, right?" He's speculating on something. And then
00:58:36
people turn that into, "Well, he must have done this, because why would he say that?" Well, cuz you're asking him to
00:58:43
speculate. Those are pretty common questions that are that are that are in these interviews.
00:58:50
Again, I believe to me, it's the nuances that are missed, because you didn't bother to You didn't transcribe the
00:58:57
interview. You didn't record the interview. Then now, 48 hours later, where the officer says to Jeff,
00:59:07
"Well, what was she going to the doctor for?" "Well, she had mono." "Could she have been pregnant?" Jeff says, "I don't
00:59:13
know." And then later, the report says, "Jeff said she might have gone to the doctor because she was pregnant." Those
00:59:19
are two completely different things using about the same words. Right. It's it's way too messy, I think, to look at
00:59:27
this and go, "Well, Jeff's statements are very incriminating." No, the practice in which that you obtained that
00:59:35
information seems to be extremely flawed. If you have thoughts on this case, go to
00:59:53
truecrimegarage.com, check out our blog. We're interested in hearing your thoughts. And until
00:59:59
tomorrow. Be good, be kind, and don't litter.