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[Music] [Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:45
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always it's my friend and yours guard
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that plate because he's tasting those curly fries here is the captain I always love it when you order curly fries but
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you get one onion ring it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a
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[Music] friends this week we are very excited to be featuring hazy Jane New England IPA
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fund first up a cheers to Tiffany in Alabama and big shout out to Brooke and Benton Arkansas here's a big cheers to
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share it with people on social media and that is enough of the business all right
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everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] [Applause]
00:03:58
crime [Music] this week on True Crime garage a 14-year-old girl goes missing her parents call police police often
00:04:26
write missing teens off as runaways but in this case she pretty much was a runaway but then she turned up dead a
00:04:38
victim of a very violent homicide this teen girl was gone for days and then thrown over a
00:04:46
bridge detectives say her body was dumped there but she was not killed there under her body investigators found
00:04:54
what they believe was the murder weapon this was just one of several pieces of evidence collected from the
00:05:03
body recovery scene evidence the Clay County Sheriff's Office still has and is resubmitting for
00:05:11
DNA testing some evil monster simply discarded her like trash and no one is talking but why was she the victim of a
00:05:23
serial killer did she become just another young girl in a string of Vic or did she fall prey to someone closer
00:05:34
to home this is true crime garage this is the case of Jennifer [Music] metnick in 2001 14-year-old Jennifer mck
00:05:59
was living in Woodland Estates Mobile Home Park this was a large mobile home park situated on 103d Street in
00:06:07
Jacksonville Florida which is in Deval County Florida it's not one of those parks where people bring their campers
00:06:15
this is a development with a nice sign at the entrance established smaller homes and really a community type of
00:06:22
feel as of earlier this year 2021 the park had 20 93 residents so it is quite large now Jennifer lived at
00:06:35
9359 103d Street on lot 28 with her mother Angie met it's not clear where her Father
00:06:45
James was living at this time he may have been living with them or how much of a role he played in her life as he's
00:06:53
simply absent from all of the stories in the news articles that I could find Jennifer was a student student at Joseph
00:07:00
Stillwell middle school but at 14 years old she was starting to behave a little like an older Teenager her mom later
00:07:08
said that Jennifer used to be a good girl but that changed in the spring of 2001 this would be right around the time
00:07:17
that Jennifer turned 14 years old she says Jennifer started to act out she began cutting school and so on Angie
00:07:27
said as quoted in the Florida Times Union quote she started going downhill last year at the end of the school year
00:07:34
she had to go to summer school she started getting into a little trouble now 3 weeks before everything happened
00:07:42
everything being what we're leading up to here Captain Jennifer got a ticket because she was caught smoking at school
00:07:51
so as you can imagine Jennifer and her mom started butting heads as often happens with teen girls and their
00:07:58
mothers and over the weekend of November 3rd and 4th 2001 Jennifer and her mom had a big argument now according to Mom
00:08:08
according to Angie the two had words over the state of Jennifer's room it was such a mess that her things were
00:08:15
spilling out into the hallway now Angie later told the Florida Times Union that on that Sunday November 4th the two
00:08:24
worked together to clean up the room and afterward Jennifer was allowed to go out
00:08:29
to hang with some friends and at that time Jennifer left with a girlfriend someone her mother did not know as she
00:08:37
was told Jennifer and her friend were going to walk to the safari food store this is a convenient store located on
00:08:46
103d Street in West Jacksonville this is very near the Woodland Estates where Jennifer lived so this is a rather short
00:08:55
walk it would have taken the two just a few minutes to get there on foot Angie said Jennifer kissed her goodbye and
00:09:03
told her that she loved her now that's the nice version of the story and if that's what Mom says happened well
00:09:10
unless you're Casey Anthony or a few other moms that we've discussed here on the show then we will go with that we
00:09:16
will go with what you're saying but I do want to take this quick moment here to present a slightly different and maybe
00:09:23
still possible series of events because we've seen this too many times maybe Mom and Jennifer have some type of
00:09:32
blowup argument and in typical teen girl fashion Jennifer storms off to meet up with her friend and because she left in
00:09:40
a tizzy Jennifer took nothing with her she left the trailer on Sunday and then she did not come home that Sunday night
00:09:49
now even though she didn't come home that night we still believe that she was alive and well and just staying at a
00:09:55
friend's house yes Captain so I took that time to do a little aside and add in my two cents here because later it
00:10:04
was reported that it was not uncommon for Jennifer to spend the night out at a friend's house this especially after mom
00:10:13
and daughter argued so when she didn't return that Sunday night her mom probably wasn't too worked up about it
00:10:21
she probably decided to let Jennifer cool off for a bit but Jennifer didn't come home on Monday night either
00:10:30
so this is not what you think right as you pointed out Captain Jennifer was still okay even after two nights not at
00:10:38
home she was choosing not to go home she was being a stubborn little teenager is
00:10:43
what she was yeah she was still at the Woodland Estates just not at her own house where she stayed Sunday night we
00:10:51
don't know for certain and her mother didn't know either Jennifer did not have a cell phone so her mom could not reach
00:10:59
her or track her movements Jennifer apparently hung around the neighborhood on Sunday night and Monday and this will
00:11:08
come from other Witnesses statements as we said her mom had been struggling with
00:11:13
Jennifer cutting school and sure enough Jennifer failed to show up at school on Monday but she was still in the area
00:11:21
several residents in the mobile home park later told police that Jennifer told them on Monday that she had a fight
00:11:28
with her mother and that she had left home she did not say where she was staying or whether she planned on
00:11:35
leaving Woodland Estates or not meanwhile Jennifer's mother apparently decided that enough is enough although
00:11:43
Jennifer had never run away from home before she had temporarily left in the past but Jennifer never stayed away for
00:11:52
what was turning out to be this long it seems that her mom knew that Jennifer was defiantly staying away from home and
00:12:00
wanted to call in some reinforcements to help her Corral her rebellious teenager
00:12:06
she reported Jennifer missing to the Deval County Sheriff's Office on Monday night clearly she felt that Jennifer
00:12:15
needed you know a talking to and perhaps maybe even a a little scare from someone
00:12:20
in a position of authority because after she filed the missing person's report on
00:12:25
Monday evening at 6:00 p.m. it's reported that Angie Jennifer's mom caught a glimpse of Jennifer walking in
00:12:33
the distance still with inside the park and we know that another neighbor saw Jennifer at this time as well walking
00:12:40
away from her home but even though Angie could briefly see her daughter she could
00:12:46
not go after her now Angie from my understanding was in poor health at this time and she was not able to get around
00:12:53
very easily so this prevented her from going after her daughter well also probably one of the reasons she called
00:12:59
for help correct but it is interesting to note that this sighting of Jennifer did not prompt Angie to cancel that
00:13:08
missing person's report that she had previously filed Angie either wanted or likely felt that she needed interveners
00:13:15
right AKA police or sheriff's deputies to force the 14-year-old to return home and probably you know tell her to go
00:13:23
easy on her mom my friend Jessica submitted a request for the missing person report and the request was
00:13:30
granted so here is what that report said on November 5th 2001 at 8:07 p.m. I was
00:13:38
dispatched not me your friendly Colonel but uh the officer writing the report obviously was dispatched to a missing
00:13:45
person runaway call at 9359 103rd Street upon my arrival I met with the complainant who is the victim's
00:13:55
mother she stated that the victim wanted to go to the the store with one of her friends on November 4th at 3:30 in the
00:14:04
afternoon she told the victim that she could go when the victim did not return she started checking with some of her
00:14:11
neighbors to find out if they had seen the victim on November 5th at 6:00 p.m. she saw the victim in their trailer park
00:14:20
she said the victim ran from her and she is in poor health and was unable to go after the victim the complainant stated
00:14:28
that this is not the first time that the victim has not returned home when she was supposed to she said this is the
00:14:35
first time that she has ever stayed gone this long and that is why she called the
00:14:40
police to report the victim missing the complainant believes that the victim is staying with someone in the trailer park
00:14:46
possibly another unknown girl that she saw the victim with today the complainant said this is the first time
00:14:54
she has called the police to report the victim as missing so this report report specifies that Jennifer was last seen
00:15:01
wearing brown sandals green and black shorts and a white T-shirt with red lips some kind of drawing or decal of red
00:15:10
lips on this white T-shirt she has some facial scars some small facial scars uh some to the upper lip and left eye her
00:15:19
mental state on the report is listed as good her status is listed as runaway and
00:15:25
it's noted that her probable destination was 9359 103rd Street Woodland Estates trailer park so she's missing she's
00:15:37
reported missing by mom mom catches a brief glimpse of her at some point but she's hearing from Neighbors as well
00:15:44
that her daughter's still within the confines of this trailer par right there's still eyewitnesses that see her
00:15:50
alive she's just not going to school and just not coming home well it's tough we've all been 14 before and I know for
00:15:57
me I thought I knew everything and I thought I was smarter than my parents and I thought that I was StreetWise and
00:16:04
and all those things back when I was 14 you quickly find out that you know little to
00:16:11
nothing that is so true that is absolutely true now as noted in the missing person's report Angie believed
00:16:19
Jennifer was still somewhere in the mobile home park and was just refusing to come home but later on Monday evening
00:16:26
Witnesses said that they saw Jennifer walking out of Woodland Estates on the access road to the park this is
00:16:35
according to Klay County Sheriff Scott Lancaster yet detectives found Witnesses who told them that Jennifer was still
00:16:42
hanging around the park staying with who knows and staying who knows where until
00:16:49
November 7th and it seems like this is the time that we really need to start calling everything into question because
00:16:58
right this is where she seems to have totally dropped off of the radar but here's one of the problems though right
00:17:03
you have this 14-year-old girl roaming this park some of these Parks people will live there because the background
00:17:10
checks might be different I don't know if this park is similar to that or not but you also have a situation where you
00:17:19
have a condensed population and she's roaming this park not going to school and she's basically average izing to any
00:17:30
of the scumbags over there hey I'm not being supervised and I'm a easy target I'm not
00:17:37
going home my mother my parents don't know my exact whereabouts I'm not going to school so probably up to no good
00:17:45
during what's supposed to be school hours for her again this is really when we start to call a lot of things into
00:17:51
question this November 7th date and it seems like she drops off the radar vanishes really at this point because
00:17:59
this is where we lose track of Jennifer now this is going to take us to November
00:18:04
8th 2001 this is the Thursday after Jennifer was seen exiting the mobile home park remember that was on Monday so
00:18:13
3 days earlier is when she was seen but on this Thursday the 8th we have two teenage boys who decided that they were
00:18:23
going to go fishing this would be under a bridge now the long Branch Creek runs through these kids Maxville neighborhood
00:18:32
in Clay County remember Jennifer met was reported missing in Deval County right this area where these boys were going to
00:18:42
go fishing this is a remote area described as desolate in one article about 13 mil away from the Woodland
00:18:51
Estates and about 2 mil across the Clay County Deval County Line the boys slowly
00:18:58
worked their way down the creek embankment and got ready to bait their hooks when something in the water
00:19:04
stopped them in their tracks here's a quote from the Florida Times Union that reads quote they saw what they thought
00:19:11
was a body lying face down in the water sort of on her side with her hip up said
00:19:17
Mary Justino a spokeswoman for the Clay County Sheriff's Office they weren't sure if it was something left over from
00:19:24
a Halloween prank or a real body and as all of our garage regulars know we don't
00:19:31
cover Halloween pranks here on this show so un yet somay that's our new series we
00:19:37
aspire to cover Halloween pranks yeah run again like we've learned in The Last 5 Years it's it's never a mannequin so
00:19:46
unfortunately a prank or a fake it was not on closer inspection the boys realized that they had just discovered a
00:19:54
body lying in the creek it was a naked female one of them ran to his nearby house and
00:20:01
told his father who then called The Clay County Sheriff's Office who responded to
00:20:06
the scene immediately the responding officer's report was timestamped at 2100 hours this reports a body found at 609
00:20:17
County Road 217 middleberg Florida it reflects the finding of a white female name and age unknown incident type
00:20:27
homicide suspect and weapon are both listed as UK for unknown the responding officer was
00:20:36
Sergeant CJ jet who wrote the following statement on November 8th 2001 at 1530 hour so 3:30 hours I was notified via
00:20:48
Department Le pager to respond to the area of 609 County Road 217 in reference to a death investigation the body of an
00:20:58
unidentified naked white female was found floating in the water next to a bridge I arrived at the scene at 1605
00:21:06
hours and observed the naked body of an unidentified white female with dark colored hair floating face down in the
00:21:14
water on the west side of County maintained TW Lane cement Bridge the victim's body was retrieved from the
00:21:22
water at 1805 hours the victim's body was later transported to the medical examiner office in Jacksonville Florida
00:21:31
case pending when you got to feel for these two teenage boys that just were going fishing and find this body and and
00:21:38
at this point we don't know exactly what condition her body is in but we've seen
00:21:43
some really terrible cases where the bloating of the body and and water can make it a very horrific sight and so
00:21:53
this would be a pretty traumatic experience for these teenage boys now you'll note that the incident report was
00:22:00
filed at 900 p.m. just a handful of hours after the body was found this indicates that the body was the victim
00:22:07
of a homicide so what we have here is just by the officers arriving on scene they're visually able to determine
00:22:16
before even an autopsy takes place right that this we're talking about a homicide
00:22:21
here so how did Sergeant jet know this prior to an autopsy being performed the answer is simple it was obvious to
00:22:29
anyone who got a good look at the body I'm guessing puncture wounds well the the young female's body was riddled with
00:22:36
stab wounds her death had been extremely violent that's awful one article we found said her body was quote Savaged
00:22:44
detective Rob shover of the Clay County Sheriff's Office Cold Case division said
00:22:50
to First Coast News quote with the wounds that you could see during the autopsy it was very gruesome the way she
00:22:59
died it was a horrible and tragic death for her to have to go [Music] through this show is sponsored by better
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Cellular when Freedom calls we're here to answer call us at 1888 [Music] [Applause]
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Freedom all right you filthy animals if you're an animal and you're nasty make sure you check out our bonus show called
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off the record on Stitcher premium you can find out more information at true Crim garage.com on that all right we're
00:25:41
back cheers to you Colonel cheers to you Captain cheers to all the people who bought the good seats up front the
00:25:49
officer responding to the creek where Jennifer's body was found was Sergeant jet who noted that the body was removed
00:25:57
moved and then sent to the Jacksonville medical examiner office for the autopsy now we tried to get a copy of this
00:26:07
autopsy report but could not get our hands on it I have some speculation to offer up here in this regard though just
00:26:14
like most murder case investigations the physical evidence found at the scene along with the
00:26:21
details in that autopsy report might be the making or breaking point for your case but I believe here in Jennifer's
00:26:31
case it's even more important and that may become more clear as we continue on because as we get through some of these
00:26:39
details and specifics here Captain we are going to get into some rather interesting suspects in this case well a
00:26:48
couple issues if you're dealing with this investigation is that the body is found
00:26:55
in water so water is know known to get rid of certain parts of evidence also we don't know if her body was placed in the
00:27:06
water and then moved at some point the autopsy might be able to show us that but also being out
00:27:14
doors it makes the the scene of the crime a lot larger and harder to search so that's a perfect setup for some of
00:27:23
the information that we are going to get into right here right now well I've been
00:27:27
practicing that's right one statement we were able to get our hands on does offer
00:27:31
up some more info at least in regards to the possible time of death Now that statement was officials said the
00:27:39
unidentified woman died one to three days before she was found plus Sheriff Lancaster told the media at the time
00:27:47
that the body was mildly deteriorated when it was found indicating that she had been dead for
00:27:53
more than just a couple of hours now more recently Det detective shover told us that Jennifer was seen alive the
00:28:01
night before she was found so we know based off of this information that she was dead for not more than about 24
00:28:10
hours right so we have a timeline and normally in these investigations the more information we
00:28:17
find the smaller that timeline becomes that smaller window of when the crime could have taken place now do they
00:28:25
believe that she was murder murdered at sight or is this a Dumping Ground cuz to
00:28:31
me this seems like she was placed there after the murder so we also learned that
00:28:37
she was not bound or restrained in any way when she was found the Clay County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Mary
00:28:44
Justino told the media that investigators believed that the woman found in the creek likely was killed at
00:28:50
another location before her body was dumped under a bridge on County Road 2117 this road is just south of the
00:28:59
Deval County Line the bridge was a two-lane Highway over the creek now detective shover told True Crime garage
00:29:08
that investigators believe that the evidence at the scene showed that the woman had been thrown off of the bridge
00:29:16
and was already dead when she was discarded likely transported by vehicle so she was killed somewhere else likely
00:29:24
transported via a motor vehicle and then thrown from from the bridge rather than
00:29:28
carried down the side of the embankment and of course we know who the homicide victim was but at this time in our
00:29:37
timeline for this story who this young murder victim was was still unknown to investigators and
00:29:44
the public on November 9th the Clay County Sheriff's Office released some information about the woman found in
00:29:52
Long Branch Creek they were trying to gather information from the public about who she possibly was want to to your
00:30:00
point like you said she's found in a different County so one of the things that law enforcement is going to do is
00:30:07
to reach out to neighboring counties and go do you have a missing female yeah comparisons of her physical description
00:30:14
to that of missing persons reports from the area turned up nothing which is difficult because we know she was
00:30:22
reported missing but as you said this is a different County so again this is kind
00:30:27
of surprising given the fact that the P the missing person's report was filed in
00:30:33
the adjacent County of Deval County 4 days earlier but anyway they didn't put this together at the time so the Klay
00:30:41
County officials issued a statement and a facial reconstruction sketch of the unidentified victim the statement said
00:30:50
that the body found was per the Florida Times Union a white female in her early 20s
00:30:57
who stands 5'2 in tall and weighs 115 lb with brown eyes and dark brown hair falling below her shoulders and she had
00:31:08
a 1 and 1/2 in scar near her right eye two scars on her right upper lip near her nose and a single piercing in both
00:31:17
ears she was wearing a heart-shaped ring and the weird thing here Captain is they they mention they kind of go out of
00:31:26
their way when I you know trying to describe this heart-shaped ring the interesting thing here Captain is when
00:31:34
they describe that she's wearing this heart-shaped ring they also say that she is wearing an engagement ring now
00:31:41
obviously we've not seen photos from the autopsy so we don't know if this is one
00:31:47
and you know one in the same that the heart-shaped ring is an engagement ring or that she was wearing two rings so I
00:31:54
want to be clear about that before we move on it was then 3 days later on November 12th that the Clay County
00:32:01
Sheriff's Office was able to determine the identity of the homicide victim now what happened was the Sheriff's Office
00:32:09
officials ran the description of the victim we read earlier they ran this in the Times Union newspaper on November
00:32:16
10th asking for the public to call in tips if they thought they knew who she could be they also ran the sketch of the
00:32:25
victim's face along with the article three days later the Clay County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Mary
00:32:33
Justino told the newspaper quote we got about 25 phone calls based on the picture that had been put out of the 25
00:32:41
callers a few were people who thought it was this girl the girl from the creek unfortunately was Jennifer menack and
00:32:51
after Jennifer's body was found we have a statement issued by the family yes Jennifer's family had had to be notified
00:32:58
that their beloved daughters was brutally killed Jennifer's mother must have felt a dis Jennifer's mother must
00:33:06
have felt a devastating combination of both guilt and effort my guess right over her argument with Jennifer that
00:33:16
caused Jennifer to leave but then the knowledge that she had gone above and beyond to trying to get Jennifer to come
00:33:23
home right by calling in a missing person report before her daughter was even really missing missing now in an
00:33:32
impromptu news conference described by the Florida Times Union this took place on the
00:33:39
mobile home park access road Angie the mother declined to comment personally instead Jennifer's Uncle Matt
00:33:49
Jackson read the family statement which was basically asking anyone with any information about Jennifer slay to come
00:33:58
forward now this was incredibly tragic for Angie because Angie had already lost a child at age one this before Jennifer
00:34:06
was born and then after that tragedy she then bravely decided to try to get pregnant again and did and the new baby
00:34:15
was Jennifer now Angie later told the Times Union in an interview about Jennifer quote I think children today
00:34:22
are growing up too fast I think she was too end quote Captain Ronnie Gan of the Clay County Sheriff's Office said to the
00:34:32
media quote this was a 14-year-old girl who was brutally murdered and dumped in the creek like a piece of trash now
00:34:40
detectives were fully vested in this case from everything that I could find Captain all the articles that I was able
00:34:46
to review from 2001 my gut tells me these detectives were fully vested in this case and right
00:34:53
from Jump Street they were determined to get to the bottom of this thing and figure out who killed 14-year-old
00:35:01
Jennifer Meck once the body was removed from the muddy water and hauled away to the medical examiner's office
00:35:09
investigators from the Clay County Sheriff's Office major case unit began combing the scene for Clues as to who
00:35:17
the victim was and who had killed her they scoured the creek Banks and Bridge area including nearby Woods until late
00:35:26
on that Thursday night and then reconvened for more of the same the next day on Friday divers were brought into
00:35:35
Plum the depths of the Long Branch Creek to see what might have sunk to the bottom and although this was not
00:35:42
revealed at the time they did find something that is considered a crucial important piece of evidence remember we
00:35:51
said that the investigators believed that the body was thrown from the bridge Jennifer was already deceased at that
00:35:57
time and that she had been killed elsewhere well that's interesting considering what was found at the body
00:36:04
recovery scene recall that the police report from the responding Officer says that the body was floating in the water
00:36:15
the creek was about waste deep at its deepest parts but it was narrow and had Muddy Banks right it seems that Jennifer
00:36:24
was floating in a very shallow area of the creek and when medical examiner Personnel removed the body they found
00:36:34
something underneath of it none of this was released at the time detective shover revealed all of this via a piece
00:36:42
on First Coast News that ran back in 2018 mhm it said underneath her body investigators found the handle of a
00:36:52
knife with strands of Jennifer's hair wrapped around it they believe it was the murder weapon but the blade portion
00:37:01
of the knife was never found and as stated earlier the knife handle was just one of several pieces of evidence
00:37:09
collected from the scene vom law enforcement I'm bringing out a scent dog I know that the thought is that she
00:37:18
disappeared from one County she's found in this County but maybe a scent dog will lead us in some direction of where
00:37:26
this vehicle or this person would have went after they dumped Jennifer's Body the other thing I'm doing is I'm going
00:37:34
back to the park and having kaver dogs walk around every trailer because again they believe that the murder scene was
00:37:46
somewhere else and not at the creek yeah and we know that she was seen at different points in that trailer park so
00:37:54
that seems to me like probably the most likely place if something did go down that led to her death it may have
00:38:01
occurred there now investigators believe that the brass screw top knife handle that was found which as the news piece
00:38:09
said has Jennifer's Hair entwined in it was a part of the murder weapon the thinking is that at some point the blade
00:38:18
broke off the blade portion of the knife Captain has never been found it was not
00:38:24
found in Jennifer's Body and the creek was searched thoroughly more than once detective shover believes that the knife
00:38:35
which was a unique Style with a very large blade broke during the commission of the murder during the stabbing of
00:38:44
Jennifer for some reason her killer threw the handle into the water where it lay on the muddy creek bottom under her
00:38:52
body again the blade however is never accounted for this is a weird portion of the case to me right that it seems to me
00:39:01
like I get it you got to get rid of this body and you probably want to get rid of
00:39:08
the murder weapon as well but you've only managed to get rid of a portion of the murder
00:39:13
weapon so I kind of kept going around and playing around with this in my head over and over again is this something
00:39:20
that's just happened stance that uh something that was unlucky to the killer that the the knife handle ended up in
00:39:28
the creek with Jennifer or was this something that was done on purpose the knife itself as described as
00:39:38
the detective as unique the best way for me to describe it and there are some pictures of this knife handle that are
00:39:46
available online this is one of those cases though captain that you're not going to find a whole lot of information
00:39:53
about online um it's one of the it's kind of a lesser known Florida case but the knife handle itself to kind of
00:40:03
give a a little perspective on why we have the handle but not the blade what it looks like to me is that the blade
00:40:12
portion probably screwed on top of the handle or the guard to the handle you'll see these knives a lot they're like
00:40:22
survival type knives where the handle itself is Hollow because in the hollow handle they usually you can screw off
00:40:31
the bottom and place things inside of the handle right A lot of people for survival type knives will place things
00:40:39
like matches or what have you inside of the handle cocaine what this makes is for
00:40:47
a a situation where the the blade or the there's a technical term for it and I'm probably going to get 12 emails
00:40:56
about it but the the blade itself does not go fully down into the handle so it makes it more easily to break off right
00:41:08
and what you see here in the pictures is you can see hair around the top of the the handle as well as what looks to be
00:41:19
well I'm sorry not just looks to be but it's labeled as victim's Blood on the handle itself but where she was roaming
00:41:27
when she left her mother's trailer in the trailer park there was some shady stuff going on in this park yeah so
00:41:36
let's talk about these Woodland Estates for a bit because it seems to be that once she as you said Captain left her
00:41:42
mom's home she's then known to have been moving around staying God knows where right but we have a lot of statements
00:41:53
eyewitness statements of people who saw saw her people who talked with her in the days leading up to her death and
00:42:01
they're all saying hey she was still here in the Woodland Estates so as it turns out more like hoodlum Estates the
00:42:10
police were all too familiar with the mobile home park where the metx lived here's a quote from a resident named
00:42:17
Cindy Bose who lived near the metx she did not know them personally but her daughter was one of the witnesses who
00:42:25
said that they saw jennif for walking away from the direction of her home on Monday afternoon Cindy told the Times
00:42:32
Union quote this place is messed up there's a lot of fighting and drugs the police are here all of the time of
00:42:41
course investigators conducted interviews with residents of the mobile home park they could not talk to
00:42:48
everyone based on the sheer size of the place but they canvased the neighborhood
00:42:53
and spoke with teens loitering in the the area and anyone who answered the door when they knocked to ask
00:43:02
questions they were hoping that the teens in the neighborhood might know Jennifer right might have known her
00:43:11
personally or maybe help them fill out their timeline a little bit leading up to her murder now several of them did
00:43:18
know Jennifer and per the Times Union said that several teens said that they had known the teen they described
00:43:26
Jennifer as a quiet girl without particular friends or vices saying quote she didn't mess with nobody she just
00:43:34
kept to herself said Steven Smalls he goes on to say that she was the kind of person that trusted
00:43:41
anybody through their canvas police found that this trusting naive nature might have made Jennifer vulnerable and
00:43:53
as you pointed out earlier captain if she's out telling people I'm Outdoors I'm not staying at
00:44:01
my mom's house that too makes her vulnerable as well detective Rob shover of the Clay County Sheriff's Office who
00:44:10
reopened this case in 2018 and who spoke with us told the First Coast News that Jennifer had
00:44:17
gotten involved in the adult party scene at Woodland Estates per the news report
00:44:24
quote in the days leading up to her death detective shover says some of the adult men in the mobile home park were
00:44:32
seen hanging around her and she was spotted at a party he goes on to say that there were parties going on where
00:44:39
she was present with illegal drugs again this from detective shover the other issue too is if she's staying
00:44:48
with a friend one night if her friends parents say Hey you know you need to go back home you can't stay here
00:44:56
here so now you have this 14-year-old kid with not that many options so even if somebody that you don't know too well
00:45:05
and an adult says hey well you can stay here with me you might take that option CU it's your only option I agree I I
00:45:13
think what we're looking at here Captain is a situation where Jennifer was couch
00:45:18
surfing and she may have been staying with people that are not so readily willing to admit that she cred at their
00:45:26
place right for a night or two yeah because they just don't want to be even looked at as a suspect yeah or they're
00:45:35
adult men right you don't want to be creepos yeah you don't want law enforcement knowing that you're hanging
00:45:42
out with a juvenile wow and that she's seen at locations that contain illegal drugs the other thing that needs to
00:45:50
happen in this case is like you said she's a 14-year-old girl we we need to do the
00:45:56
old pervert Roundup well that was something that was absolutely conducted now what we do know per law enforcement
00:46:08
is that Jennifer was hanging out with adult men and we have to factor in the fact that based off of the information
00:46:17
we have from the body recovery scene was that Jennifer was wearing what some have
00:46:23
said looked to be like an engagement ring so the other thing that I want to know is who gave her that ring who gave
00:46:32
that ring to her right was this someone who wanted her to feel emotionally invested and trusting
00:46:43
was this the you know made to look like some type of relationship between unknown person and 14-year-old
00:46:52
Jennifer yeah or she's couch Sur is a item that she stole from somebody could be but until you have an explanation for
00:47:02
why that item is found on her body you have to seek out that explanation a few days after Jennifer was identified Klay
00:47:10
County Sheriff Scott Lancaster asked the public to call police if they had any idea where Jennifer was during that time
00:47:19
frame and who she had been with in the time period of November 5th to nov mber 8th when she was eventually found he
00:47:29
said that the investigation was a joint effort between clay and Deval County authorities and somewhat dishearteningly
00:47:37
Sheriff Lancaster said that there were no suspects in Jennifer's murder but this is not or was not really true or if
00:47:48
it was true it would not be for long yeah but sometimes law enforcement misspeaks and maybe it was just we have
00:47:54
no suspects at this time that we're willing to tell the public about correct and it looks to me that at some point
00:48:03
detectives made up their minds pretty much about who had killed Jennifer and we've seen this in several
00:48:11
other cases the problem was proving it so no arrests were made immediately after finding her body or having her
00:48:21
identified no arrests were made in their initial efforts in the investigation so
00:48:25
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