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foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] garage wherever you are whatever you are
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doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that
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told me before I went on vacation that he was changing the locks on the garage he is the captain I'm also the man that
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called the cops on you for breaking and entering but that did me no good so it's
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good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
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my friend [Music] today we are drinking Secret Stairs by Trillium Brewing Company garage grade
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four and a half bottle caps out of five Secret Stairs is a stout that is bold and balanced and unlike most outs it's
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not too syrupy not too sweet this fine beer was brought to us by you and these five members of the garage crew first up
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from Chester New York two great people with great taste and beer and True Crime podcast obviously a big thank you to
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Stephanie and Matt and a resident of Parts Unknown we have Kristen she likes to listen to the show why she jogs
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around Parts Unknown next we have Jody and Sydney Australia and a big cheers mates from Candy Cane her also in Sydney
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Paige in Huntsville Alabama and last but not least a huge thank you to Candace and South Lake Tahoe California so
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thanks to everybody for helping us out with this week's beer run if you want to help us out with next week's go to
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Snapchat Twitter Facebook all that stuff do so at True Crime garage and Captain I
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know I've said it a million times but I get asked every single week so here we go one more time old episodes bonus
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episodes are available in the iTunes Store and on our store Page at truecrime garage.com and while you're at our
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website make sure you check out the blog and join in the discussion that's enough
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of the business that's right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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eating [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
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this case begins with a teenager who goes missing several weeks later in September of 1972
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a body is discovered atop a cliff high above an abandoned Quarry and Springfield New Jersey
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[Music] later it was determined this was the body of the missing teen Jeanette De
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Palma along with the body it was said that cult related items were recovered from
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the area rumors said that she had been resting on a makeshift altar in the woods
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the cult-like items were rumored to have been occult symbols carved from branches
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and logs the perpetrator or perpetrators of this murder are said to have left the teen's
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body posed with the crude symbolic artifacts surrounding the body the only thing missing from the young
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girl was a gold cross that she always wore around her neck these stories would certainly Point
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toward a possible ritualistic murder committed by satanists or a deadly coven of witches
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weeks after the body was found local newspapers published articles that fueled speculation and scared the locals
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with headlines like occult symbols reportedly surrounded the body and Witchcraft implicated in De Palma murder
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these articles told us that living inside this quiet conservative community was a group of bloodthirsty satanists
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then the story vanished from the local newspapers the Police Stopped releasing information
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some say the police quit working the case some say they didn't want to work the case
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Jeanette's family wanted a clearly deserved answers but would they get any did police have any suspects and if so
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why hold back so much information information that could lead to a possible arrest and conviction
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was there a cover-up for all we know this could be like so many other murders that happen in
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communities back then where the cops figured out pretty quickly who did it but in the absence of reliable forensics
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they simply could not build a solid case against the offender the case went cold
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years later the story became local folklore and the rumors have never quieted the murder of Jeanette De Palma is very
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bizarre and still unsolved this case is not known to most outside the state of New Jersey could the unsolved abduction
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and murder of this teenage girl be the result of a police cover-up is Jeanette's case one of the first
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examples of satanic panic [Music] or was Jeannette one of the first victims of ritual occult murder in
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Suburban America this is the case of the devil's teeth [Music] [Applause] [Music]
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[Applause] [Music] [Applause] September 19 1972 Springfield New Jersey at around 11
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A.M 44 year old police officer Don Schrute he is responding to a strange police call he is on his way to the brand new
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Gardens apartment complex on Wilson Road the strange call that came in the apartment building superintendent had
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found what was reported to be a severed human arm this was found lying in the grass near
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some bushes right by one of several entrances to the building this was not officer Dawn's first day on the job and
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he was trying to figure out what to expect to see when arriving on the scene probably see an arm Don and the other
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officers had responded to several calls not only from this apartment complex but
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from the same superintendent that had made this call see a group of teenage boys that lived in the apartments well
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these kids suck and they decided for some reason to pick on the super intended and they always played pranks
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on this poor woman actually one repeat prank that they seem to enjoy was to take trash bags full of
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rubbish and cut the bags open and then they would dump the trash all over the lawn and then the lady would have to
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clean up their mess real dick noses as he got closer to the apartments officer Don thought well you know here we go
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again this time the boys had stepped up their game and he was going to have to give them a Stern talking to because it
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appears this time the boys tried to scare the poor lady to death they stepped up their game by severing an arm
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or leaving something that would scare the woman into believing she saw a severance you know he might have to use
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the strong arm of the law to put some fear in these boys maybe like a mannequin with some ketchup they need to
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stop picking on this woman well anyway the the Springfield police they've got better things to do than to continually
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respond to calls at this apartment building so officer Don he pulled up to the building and got out of his car he
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approached the building looking for the superintendent but before he could locate her he spotted the item that had
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fueled the police call there lying in the grass was a forearm officer Don could immediately see this was not the
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arm of a mannequin like he had expected to see not a half arm he saw the fingernails he could tell that the arm
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had been out in the elements for quite some time the flesh appeared to be almost leathery and kind of maroon in
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color Don got out his camera and took several pictures of the find and then he called
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into the station telling them you better get some detectives out here we have a human arm lying in the grass and it's no
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joke so I'm assuming this arm didn't get there by these pranksters correct well that's the weird thing Captain because
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that is the first thing that jumps in my mind how did this arm get here lying in
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the grass near this building right and I don't know that they ever truly answered
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this if you look up like little short Snippets about this case they will tell you that a dog had somehow found the arm
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and and brought it to this location leaving it there in the grass I don't know that they fully explained that uh
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the police anyway in their investigation yeah the issue was the lady that made the initial call that her dog was very
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little like a small dog yeah but what they found out later was that there was a Dalmatian that was owned by somebody
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on the property and that the domination would roam this area all the time so they kind of assumed that that's how the
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arm got there yeah because they started knocking on doors of the tenants that lived in the building just asking
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questions what people had been doing that morning and such and like you said that Dalmatian was a large dog and the
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one lady says I let my dog out this morning and he just runs wild and then I'd let him in whenever he's done
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whenever he comes back and so I think they kind of just put two and two together and came to this
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conclusion that maybe the dog had gone off into the woods or in some other location bringing it back to the
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apartment complex the other strange thing that that occurs early on in this police call is once the
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detectives and some other officers get there it's not a long time that they're there before one of the tech detectives
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spoke up and says hey I think this could be the arm of Jeannette De Palma you know which seems like a very strange
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thing but we have to keep in mind we're talking about 1972 in Springfield New Jersey and from my understanding it's
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not a huge town you know there's not a ton of people that are living there and at the time Jeanette De Palma she was
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the only missing person listed in Springfield right I'm assuming that they could tell that it was a female hand
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well it did have the uh the fingernail polish but we both know that doesn't mean anything no uh but uh I mean we
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both know well we both know we grew we grew up when the goth thing came was was going crazy yeah we had we might have
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had more guys with fingernail polish than girls in the high school it's possible in the in that old classy high
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school well you probably had more guys wearing nail polish and College Tech than the college prep program well it
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took some time Captain but a search was organized they had to call in a favor with another Police Department the
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Springfield Department was very small and had limited resources back then they did not have a K-9 unit or a search dog
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so they brought in an officer with a bloodhound and they had a team of about four or five officers some of them were
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actually Off Duty Officers that had volunteered their time to help in the search
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the official search started around 3 P.M that same afternoon just after about 3 30 PM the search team entered a wooded
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area this is off of Mountain View Road they spent some time kind of you know getting deep into these Woods
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The Searchers passed over a hill crossed a creek and then came to a quarry now this area this property actually
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belonged to the howdale construction materials company and according to the officers this area would not be
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accessible to any normal means of traffic that's their word so for clarification on what that may mean is
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just this simple they would not expect hikers to be trampling through this area mainly because of where it was located
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it was when they got near this Quarry area that they found what they believed to be a small top portion of the arm
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that was earlier located at the apartment complex and they're assuming that the dog again a dog went to the
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woods took the arm took it back to the apartment complex and so that this piece would have fell off on its Journey back
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and remember officer Don that we spoke of earlier well he was one of the officers that had volunteered his time
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that afternoon to join the search so he along with another officer started up what officer Don would later call a very
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Steep Hill he says that it was steep enough that he had slipped several times on his way to
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the top at the top of the hill there was a flat area it was on this spot that the
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two men had located a body the body was lying face down the flat area where the body was lying was about
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12 feet around on the body a blue there was a blue t-shirt and tan pants but no shoes or
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socks they did find a pair of flip-flops nearby now excuse me for for saying this I can give
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a little warning here it's a little gross but animals had ate most of the flesh off of the feet and around the
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head of this body according to the officers that found the body the clothing was in so-so shape but the body
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was very deteriorated they couldn't tell if it was the body of a male or a female and as they had
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anticipated the body was missing an arm the remaining arm was resting under the head and the head was pretty much just a
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skull by this time with long dark matted hair even though they couldn't tell outright
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determine the gender of the body they suspected it was a female body because of the long hair and they had found a
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pocketbook nearby well yeah even though this is like the height of the hippie movement right or around well it's in
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the hippie movement there was what the officers would say a bizarre arrangement of sticks and stones around the body
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some said that the sticks had been arranged to appear like crosses that there were some Stones arranged around
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the head in a semi-circle and according to one of the officers it looked almost like a halo around the body's head
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one of the officers told officer Don that in his opinion this looks to him to be the work of witchcraft
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when the detectives arrived the they kicked all of the Searchers and the officers off of the hilltop they had to
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wait for the coroner to show up to officially declare the body as dead before they could remove the body now
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the hill was so steep captain that they had to use a fire truck to remove this body
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and the way that this was explained to me is that on one side you know you pretty much have a steep Cliff or a
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steep hill and then on one side you have a cliff so just a complete drop off and what they did was they took the fire
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truck and they backed it up to the cliff portion and they took the ladder and they shot it up towards the top of the
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cliff yeah I mean it's it's kind of like when you're moving a mattress right instead of going through the house
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you go through like the bedroom window right right that's a good explanation I I guess the officers just determined
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that the hill was too steep to take it down the hill this way would be faster and probably preserve the body the best
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that they could now once they get the body back to uh to check it out to try to find some
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evidence figure out who this person is and the cause of death it's crazy Captain because they weren't
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able to determine a cause of death there was no cause of death determined and while the coroner was going to
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continue to work on this aspect of the case right the detectives they were charged with trying to figure out who
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this body belonged to the identification from the autopsy where they're able to speculate anything I mean I know that
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they couldn't determine you know for sure like this is how the person died but sometimes they can say
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well it's possible that this person died this way okay so my understanding is that the the body had been deteriorated
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very badly and that this did not allow them to come up to come up with a 100 conclusion of how this person would have
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died now they say that they believed that this person was strangled um and they can't prove it they can't
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prove it and there was actually no like ligature marks to to lead them to that conclusion what my
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guess is is that they have no they don't have any obvious signs of of a bullet wound you know or any signs of blunt
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force trauma or something that would have fractured the skull or fractured other bones and typically you would see
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that with bullet holes or you would see that with stab wounds or being struck over the head there was nothing to
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indicate that anything like that had happened to this person before he or she expired or if there was any indication
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of that it possibly could have been postmortem as well correct now to kind of paint a picture of how badly
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decomposed this body was and and how possibly long it had sat there in the woods the clothing of the person and the
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the body of the person it had laid there so long that they kind of started to become one and was very sunken into the
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ground that the body had laid on so I mean when they're seeing this situation they're seeing this site it's obvious
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today them even from somebody with an untrained eye that we're looking at a person that's been there in out in the
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elements for quite some time so as we said the the detectives are charged with trying to make an
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identification of this body and the one detective decides you know what he's he remembered what one of the other
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officers said Remember the officer said hey this could be the arm of Jeannette De Palma well he remembered hearing that
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and he says you know what I'm going to start there so yeah I mean obviously she's the only
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person that's missing in your town yeah reported missing and then furthermore they kind of believe that they're
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looking at the body of a possible female victim right so this is a good starting
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point so what they do is the following day the day after the body is discovered they have a meeting with Jeanette's
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dentist okay now the way that I understand this is that the dentist he was new to the area and he was kind of
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the young dentist right and he was working for this older dentist that had been in the area for many many years
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skeptical and I guess what's skeptical well I'm anti-dentite next thing you know you'll be saying
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they should have their own schools yeah [Music] because the way that this situation that
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they had set up was this that the the older dentist he took all the older patients and anybody that was younger
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and knew well he got the new patients so the dentist had to go over to the funeral home and do an examination on
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the body's dental work and comparing it to records that he had brought with him regarding Jeanette De Palma and of
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course made a positive identification that this was in fact the missing teen that they had been looking for she'd
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been missing for almost six weeks you ever spent any time in a funeral home only when I'm attending a funeral well I
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had a friend that lived in one okay and now we had a sixth grade dance and at the funeral home yeah I was
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you know it's romantic in a creepy way wow no it's not no it's not I was like my girl no I
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think that's what you do when you want the children to remind their parents that hey this is what happens when you
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don't vote for the school levy no it was just a party it was a school dance so we
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gotta talk about Captain the devil's teeth and uh for those of you out there listening you know the title of the show
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was the devil's teeth it wasn't wasn't just a clever name that the captain came up with you just say Devil's teeth I
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think I think I did hey listen to our new episode The Devil's teeth but the reason why we have this is
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this title is because Janet De Palma her body was found at the top of the cliff the cliff that they found her body at is
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now known to the locals as the dev Devil's teeth now our story takes place in 1972 but how this spot got to be
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known as the devil's teeth well you have to go back a bit according to locals back in the 1920s it was known as The
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Devil's skull this is because some kids found a large natural depression in the blue stone that was up there so this is
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a like fairly large Rock Hollow and in the spring and summer months it would fill up with water and the kids would
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sit inside of this kind of like a like a bathtub or a hot tub the hot tub yeah in
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the Autumn months and when it started to get cold out the place became you know dreary kind of kind of like Ohio does
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when the Sun goes away in in November and you don't see it again for a few months but it is said that you could
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often see buzzards circling above the spot because like little rodents and stuff would would fall in there and
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drown in the water and the the birds would pick their bodies out of there but during times where there would be enough
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time between rainfall The Rock Hollow would dry out and it would start to take on the appearance of the inside of like
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an inverted half skull so the kit the kids started calling it The Devil's skull so then years later when the
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construction materials company purchased the land and started mining the area they would dump loads of waste rock
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along the edge of the devil's skull so the rows of this waste rock started looking like teeth like lining the jaw
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of the devil's skull so that's how it took on the name of the devil's teeth and remains it's still called that to
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this deck foreign [Music] I was just admiring your little uh fancy coaster thing you have over there on
00:23:54
your desk during the beer break yeah it's because uh there's some beautiful people that
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listen to the show and they like to send me some things well Captain I want to talk about victimology here because we
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know that Jeanette De Palma is our victim and we know that she was found September 19
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1972. yeah she was last seen on August 7th 1972. this is like six weeks before they find her body
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apparently she was supposedly going to Gail Donahue's home this is a girl her same age good friend of hers somebody
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that she had hung out with often uh apparently I guess Gail lived approximately eight miles away
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now the story goes like this because there's some conflicting stories amongst people close to Jeanette on what her
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plans were for the last day that we know that she was possibly alive and the one story comes from Gail
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Donahue herself she says that that morning one of the two had had phoned the other one either Jeanette had called
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her she had called Jeanette right the plan for the day was that Jeanette was supposed to come over to Gail's home
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because there were two boys that they were interested in they they had made plans with and they were going to hang
00:25:14
out that afternoon apparently I guess that Jeanette says I can't make it you know I know we said we
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were going to hang out but I can't make it my mom has some chores and things that I have to do and I won't be able to
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to get over there right Gail says look you know we've been there well I don't know that all of us have been there but
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I can recall times where you're supposed to make plans and you got two girls two
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guys making plans and if your buddy doesn't show up now you got a weird situation right because you're thinking
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maybe the girls won't show up or maybe they only want to hang out because he's there whatever your day is kind of
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ruined if somebody drops off especially at that age yeah it's an awkward time so
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Gail kind of gives Jeanette the business like no we made these plans with these guys you should figure out a way to get
00:26:04
over here right right make it happen Jeanette before she hangs out hangs up the phone she says you know I'll get
00:26:10
over there what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk to my mom I'll hit you hitchhike a ride to your place okay
00:26:17
which the hitchhiking was a lot more popular back then yes of course where the stories start to vary a little bit
00:26:25
is we have Jeanette's sister Jeanette's sister said that on that day Jeanette had asked her if she wanted to
00:26:33
go with her to Gail's home and this is this is where I should I should clarify this is where the story gets a little
00:26:39
strange she says that she wanted to go to Tommy's home okay Tommy is a boy that I guess
00:26:46
Jeanette was interested in and she told her sister that Tommy lived near Gale Gail would later say that that's not you
00:26:56
know that's not the case she was coming to my home yes we did know a boy named Tommy but he was the guy I was
00:27:01
interested in right what I think we have here Captain is we have an older sister
00:27:06
who ultimately does not end up going with Jeanette and I bet you there's I bet you both stories are probably true
00:27:13
in some sense we probably have an older sister that maybe really only knew part of the facts
00:27:20
of why Jeanette was leaving or why she wanted to go where she was going yeah but this happens all the times
00:27:26
especially with teenagers you know you have a situation where people's stories don't line up but
00:27:34
also it's like you're trying to their perceptions are off of what the truth is it's not that they're
00:27:40
technically lying they just don't really remember the facts correctly yes and we
00:27:46
have so we have the sister that was asked to walk with Jeanette the sister ultimately turns her down she had
00:27:51
something else to do we do know that Jeanette reached out to another friend asking her if she would like to walk
00:27:58
with her to the to Gail's home yeah what was under a report that the mom was going to drive her that's correct
00:28:07
typically her mother would drive her down to a train station and then she would take the train to wherever she was
00:28:14
going maybe it was work later that day or to a friend's house now remember we said that her friend Gail Donahue's home
00:28:21
was approximately eight miles away so in this situation she would need to get three miles to the train station and
00:28:28
then make it the rest of the way to her friend's house it's it's the summer time
00:28:33
it's August 7th she tells her mom hey it's nice out I would prefer to walk so she's got three miles to travel on foot
00:28:41
she's reached out to a few different people who can't go with her or don't want to make the trip with her so she's
00:28:47
on foot alone for these three miles and I don't know if it matters at all but I also heard that it wasn't a nice
00:28:55
pleasant conversation it was the mom said I'm gonna drive you and she said uh I'm 16 now I'll just you know I'll
00:29:06
hitchhike well it's interesting that you bring that up because of a couple of points and one that I will wait to get
00:29:12
to later but one point is this though it's pretty common when you know when we're talking about victimology and what
00:29:20
kind of person was Jeannette and what kind of family did she come from right it's widely reported by people that knew
00:29:26
her and knew her family that there was a lot of kind of back and forth between between
00:29:32
mom and daughter the the Jeanette was kind of a tough a tough girl and it sounds like the De Palma family was a
00:29:39
little tough all of them and yeah maybe hard-headed would be a word that we could use
00:29:46
um well I mean I think it's safe to say I mean I I don't want to assume too much
00:29:51
but I think when I when a younger boy is becoming a man the 16 to 18 range he has
00:29:58
some issues with the father mostly and when when uh a teenage girl is becoming a woman she starts having issues with
00:30:06
her mother well if in fact they did argue about whether she would walk or ride to the train station
00:30:14
that would not be their only argument that I have heard reported of that that day of the day that she went missing
00:30:21
apparently her cousin had run away from home several times and I don't get the sense that she was
00:30:29
running away from a home where she had like abusive parents or she was being mistreated right it was more of she's a
00:30:35
teenager and she was kind of wild and running away might be going and staying with friends for a couple of days
00:30:41
without permission from the parents yeah well on this day her parents had informed her that her cousin had been
00:30:50
gone for like a week or two like like a a longer time than than expected and previous from previous times again this
00:30:59
is a different time so it wasn't very it's pretty common that at 18 you moved out back in the 70s and so you'd have a
00:31:08
lot of situations where somebody would you know I'm going to live on my own at 16 or 17. that wasn't super uncommon and
00:31:17
at some point during the course of that morning Jeanette's parents told her that her
00:31:22
cousin had been missing for a while and Jeanette got upset with them and kind of
00:31:26
gave them the business because she's like well why did you wait so long to tell me yeah so they they could have had
00:31:33
more than one argument that day regardless she goes off on foot by herself she's got to make the three mile
00:31:39
hike to the train station now we do know that she was seen walking several people
00:31:44
had seen her walking in the direction of the train station yeah but that walk is
00:31:49
going to take her about 45 minutes yeah and she's last seen not terribly far from her home where she's Crossing an
00:31:57
intersection this is widely considered the last sighting of Jeanette De Palma on the day that she went missing now
00:32:04
let's talk about the De Palma family I've been told that this is an upper middle class area the neighborhood that
00:32:11
she was lived in in the neighborhood that she was last seen in regarding her family a lot of the people have referred
00:32:19
to the family as quote unquote weird and that would make you think that there would be something very strange with
00:32:26
this family I don't know that I found a lot strange with with what they their accounts of why this family was weird
00:32:33
what do they mean by weird so this was a small community right and these the de Palmas were not very social
00:32:41
they rarely went out they didn't go out a lot the adults didn't the mother and father and when they did go out they
00:32:48
were not social to the other people in the community this regarding you know when you take into account the time
00:32:54
period and the small community that they lived in this was considered to be strange there was the other
00:33:01
consideration that there were Mafia rumors that maybe the father was in the mafia this was an Italian family a large
00:33:08
Italian family I believe they had seven or eight children yeah and they seemed to have some money and so I think some
00:33:16
people that in the neighborhood and in the town thought that they were involved in the mafia well they had a little bit
00:33:21
of money because they weren't going out all the time there you go so and and look there's a difference between you
00:33:28
know maybe they were quiet some people assume all this person's quiet so they're rude and so you know I'd like to
00:33:36
know if there was a you know or were they outwardly just rude to people there were a few two police officers now
00:33:43
retired obviously that state that they had responded to the home several times on police calls
00:33:50
for what well it I guess they don't really know the police don't really know because every time they would arrive
00:33:57
they would get the same story that there was a problem now there is no problem we're all fine here
00:34:04
they believed that there was probably some yelling and fighting between the parents and at times maybe one of the
00:34:12
parents would call or one of the children would call the police and then whatever issue had warranted the call
00:34:20
was resolved by the time the police would arrive but we do have several police officers stating that they
00:34:26
believe and recall that happening several times now regarding our victim Jeanette De Palma what kind of kid was
00:34:33
she what kind of girl was she that is that's the debate yes it's all over the shop you've you've read these
00:34:41
things too it's like depending on who you talk to you get one completely different version of somebody else you
00:34:48
know somebody else's account and if you take all the different versions of who she was we could literally talk about
00:34:56
that for maybe four or five hours it's that debatable all right well let's start
00:35:03
no let's not because I found that portion of when I was looking into this case I found that portion to be quite
00:35:09
boring and I felt that it was quite really because I I actually thought it was interesting well the thing for me
00:35:15
was I didn't think it helped me understand the case any better maybe that's why I thought it was boring but I
00:35:21
found that it was interesting that you know one person would be like oh she was a real wild girl you know she was always
00:35:27
she was always you know hanging out with the greasers and doing drugs and and she
00:35:32
was a fast girl she spent a lot of time with a lot of different boys yeah there was rumors um a lot of cops were saying
00:35:39
that you could find her at like Lovers Lane and stuff like that she would always be in somebody's car and then you
00:35:45
have other people that other girls or boys her age that would say the complete opposite they were like well she might
00:35:53
have smoked a cigarette every now and then maybe even some weed once in a while but I wouldn't consider her to be
00:35:58
wild and I didn't know her to do anything more than first base you know maybe she liked to kiss some boys but
00:36:06
nothing you know that was out of the ordinary for her time you know for her age right she's 16 years old that's what
00:36:12
everybody's doing what most the kids are doing at that age and then you have other people that are
00:36:18
saying that she was very religious and that she had a boy or two that she was interested in and when
00:36:24
she was interested in a boy she didn't look at other boys she didn't chase other boys or talk to him that she was
00:36:31
pretty conservative so it's really all over the shop at the end of the day and it makes it hard to kind of nail down
00:36:37
what type of person she is well and there's again there's then there becomes rumors of that she's heavily involved in
00:36:44
church and there's a lot of stuff from her family coming out and saying she was very involved in church and then other
00:36:51
people saying that she was possibly involved in witchcraft yeah and one thing I found captain that when uh years
00:36:59
later when people would go back and try to investigate this case is I found that what a lot of people
00:37:06
were reporting regarding her character Jeanette's character and her actions it seemed to
00:37:13
me they were reporting things that they had heard or things that they had heard other people say or my parents told me
00:37:20
this or my sister told me that here's what I wonder you know we mentioned during the trailer that this
00:37:26
case has almost become folklore at some point and I think that very quickly in this case when you have a 16 year old
00:37:34
girl that goes missing and she's missing for six weeks and then later found dead
00:37:38
in the woods you know you know sometimes and and I don't care for this one bit but sometimes parents and Priests and
00:37:48
police officers and teachers and principals aunts and uncles anybody in the the form of authority
00:37:56
figure to teenagers they kind of use this as a teaching moment where they're like and they they misconstrue the truth
00:38:04
they they stretch the truth quite a bit sometimes when they choose to take this on as a teaching moment and they'll
00:38:10
throw things in like she was a wild girl you know she was always in the back seats of uh cars with with boys hanging
00:38:17
out in lover Lanes this is what happens to you and they give hand jobs yeah and they don't really outwardly say that but
00:38:23
they imply like this happened because she was this way or she was she was way into drugs and look where it got her
00:38:30
yeah Reefer Madness man yeah and where really I mean yeah maybe you can use that as a
00:38:38
teaching moment I don't think you can when when you don't have a cause of death and you have a person who is a
00:38:46
victim at this point we don't have anything to point us in the direction to lead us to believe that
00:38:53
that she had anything to do with her demise well it's a lot of rumor and a lot of hearsay yeah and one thing that
00:38:59
does not seem to be rumor or hearsay remember we have her telling her friend that she would just hitchhike a ride
00:39:06
over to her house yeah well it seems to be that that was a general consensus amongst her friends
00:39:13
was that that Jeanette was not opposed to hitching a ride there were several of these friends
00:39:20
though however that said she would not get into a car unless she would know the driver
00:39:26
and apparently that sounds silly it's like it's one of the other right just kind of hitchhike and it's you only get
00:39:33
in the car when you're hitchhiking if you know the person I get what you're saying I wonder if you know if she would
00:39:40
recognize uh girl and guys her age are a little bit older well they would have to be a
00:39:46
little a little bit older because apparently back then you had to be 17 and a half in New Jersey to get a
00:39:52
license at that time right so when she's 16 she's trying to get around on her own
00:39:56
my speculation is what they mean by that is that she would recognize a friend's car from high school and then stick the
00:40:03
old thumb out or wave them down you know hey Tommy hey Julie whatever I'm heading
00:40:08
over here you live near them would you mind giving me a ride kind of thing yeah but this kind of stuff in cases drives
00:40:14
me nuts because maybe that's not the type of person she was just getting in a car with a stranger but all it takes is
00:40:21
one time yeah maybe she got desperate right and didn't want to make I mean eight miles
00:40:26
is a is a stretch right so after walking for 45 minutes maybe you went I don't really know this guy but he seems safe
00:40:33
or he's he's looks like somebody I might go to high school with or he looks like
00:40:39
he's only 18 years old well here's one rumor that I do want to talk about though because this one seems
00:40:46
to stand out amongst the others for me Captain and this is something that didn't really I think this was a rumor
00:40:52
that was swirling about amongst the people that knew Jeanette and amongst the people at her high school but it
00:40:59
wasn't something that was kind of widely known until a couple years after her death and this was a rumor of a party
00:41:06
the night that Jeanette had disappeared and this party was taking place at her friend's house Donna blattis now her
00:41:15
friend Donna blattis and her brothers apparently were throwing a party that evening the rumor is that Jeanette
00:41:22
showed up to this party and at some point you know there were drugs and drinking and things like that going on
00:41:28
at this party at some point that she had overdosed on an unnamed drug and one of
00:41:35
the blattus brothers or all of them kind of panicked and people that were at that
00:41:40
party took her body off into the woods off of Mount View Road and dumped her there
00:41:47
I guess this this seems to be the belief that is also held by some of the members
00:41:54
of the De Palma family and some people dispute this because they say well the drugs that would be the unnamed
00:42:01
drugs right would be like LSD and that you can't OD from LSD okay and I'm not an LSD expert so I I don't know
00:42:10
if that's possible or not I thought I was working with an LSD expert uh no but I would I would also assume you know
00:42:17
because one of the other rumors is that maybe that she left this party and she went wandering and she just collapsed or
00:42:25
whatever in this in the woods right is that possible if you're high on LSD well you have the situation where there is no
00:42:34
visible signs of cause of death uh for this individual so that that would lead some you know lend some Credence to what
00:42:43
they're saying here but so the the people of the De Palma family that seem to believe this is we have Cindy her
00:42:50
sister we've mentioned her sister before but not by name the youngest one and Carl and according to Cindy her mother
00:42:57
believed this too and the reason why they believe this rumor that they heard was they recall not having seen Donna
00:43:04
blattus and her brothers at the funeral you know this was a this was awake and a
00:43:10
funeral that was attended by hundreds of people uh people that that Jeanette knew
00:43:16
and the De Palma family knew and they don't recall seeing them at the funeral when you have that many people you might
00:43:22
have missed somebody you might have missed a face in the crowd yeah it's also possible that they didn't go for
00:43:27
whatever reason I don't know I don't know how much it points towards guilt it might seem strange though I can I can
00:43:34
get on board with that that it might seem strange but we have a friend of of Jeanette's
00:43:41
and she was somebody that was very close to Donna blattis and she disputes this she
00:43:49
says that you know this rumor might have some it might have some truth to it but
00:43:55
according to this friend and her name is Denise Parker she gives a slightly different story she says that there was
00:44:02
no party at Donna's house that night that's just a bad rumor she states that there were always kids there were always
00:44:09
kids hanging out at Donna's house 24 7. it was a hangout right you know but had there been a party she would have been
00:44:16
aware of it and she also stated that that was not a party house it was just a place where you would you would see a
00:44:23
couple kids hanging out from time to time right but that again it's not a party house it's just kids
00:44:29
hanging out but is it possible that why these kids were hanging out parents leave for a little bit and they decide
00:44:36
to do some experimenting with some drugs and some things happen well so but Denise would go on to further say that
00:44:44
she did hear a rumor that Jeanette was at Donna's house that night she's the same woman saying that there's there was
00:44:52
no party that night she's saying however that Jeanette had stopped by there on her trip walking that she had stopped by
00:44:59
Donna's and was looking for a ride to get to her friend's house right and she when she gets there she finds
00:45:08
out that Donna was actually grounded and could not drive her over to Gail's home
00:45:14
and from there the rumor she heard was Jeanette had just had to leave on foot because her friend was unable to drive
00:45:21
her there yeah didn't I I also heard that maybe she asked the mother like the girl was grounded but then she
00:45:28
was like well let me ask your mother okay like she was she was really into uh finding a ride but either
00:45:37
way I think that backs up the story that she was at least there and maybe you know again quote unquote there wasn't a
00:45:43
party and if that verse yeah that version that you had heard there would have been no no party I would assume now
00:45:48
what do the investigators think when retired investigators and police were were presented with these rumors
00:45:54
regarding the party there's a man by the name of Ed kitch now Ed was the juvenile
00:46:00
officer back then and he was a juvenile officer for over 20 years in the area can't believe that
00:46:07
kids do that they let them take the job Ed believes that the blattus theory is the one that holds the most truth the
00:46:17
blattest Knight and the Pips out of all the theories that he's heard over the years and rumors he believes this one
00:46:22
holds the most truth he he would go on to say that he's 90 sure that something happened to Jeanette in the blattus home
00:46:30
that night and that Mark blattis this is one of the uh Brothers was rumored to have been involved and he
00:46:37
he believes that that's where the truth in this case lies all right so in your personal opinion
00:46:43
do you think a group of teenagers could hold on to a story like this I mean I've seen I Know What You Did
00:46:50
Last Summer yeah and then you have to wonder not only are they holding on to a lie you're talking about keeping it
00:46:55
quiet and holding on to a lie for four decades over four decades but if it's family members
00:47:03
then I'd be easier to do I tend to when when we look at a lot of cases and the first thing that I look at when I'm when
00:47:12
I'm looking at a case is was this committed by an individual or committed by multiple people a group of people
00:47:18
that's interesting they start with Wikipedia and the thing here is with especially
00:47:24
with these older cases that's usually the assumption that I make that it's probably an individual rather than a
00:47:31
group of people because it is often hard to keep a group quiet there's usually one person that will come out at some
00:47:38
point and say hey this is what happened or I know something you know we have drunken confessions that we've heard of
00:47:45
on the show and reported about we've had deathbed confessions that we've reported
00:47:49
about so often I find that this is not the case that it that is would be very tough for a group of people to keep this
00:47:56
quiet now but keep keep this in mind we're talking about did a group of people actually keep this quiet because
00:48:03
there's rumors out there that this is what in fact happened right so where it it's it's now boils down to how can you
00:48:11
trace these rumors back what is the root of these rumors and do they stem from somebody that was at that house that
00:48:18
night right at night that Saul Janet Janet so what you're saying is is it speculation and that's how we got to
00:48:25
this point and we know that she was at this house and we know that kids hung out at this house so is that where it's
00:48:33
coming from that and it's just pure speculation or did somebody say something and because of that the rumor mill
00:48:41
started up and I don't want to upset anybody because you know when I make this statement I thought about this last
00:48:47
night when I was thinking about this case and I was like do I say this because I'm afraid that
00:48:52
people are going to be like well then everything you just said is hogwash no but I think this should be taken into I
00:48:58
have to say a captain because everything I think you have to take it with a grain
00:49:02
of salt because this case almost reminds me of the serial case of Adnan Saeed and
00:49:09
and uh Heyman Lee we're talking about a girl that disappeared she's not found until
00:49:15
weeks later and then I think we have we have teenagers that are being questioned
00:49:20
they're like when did you see her last did you see her on this night and I think they start wondering well yeah I
00:49:25
saw her yeah I saw her on uh what was that a Tuesday no it was a Monday oh okay well maybe it was a Monday yeah I
00:49:31
saw her maybe you didn't you get into a point where you start to wonder the I'm not I don't want to call these
00:49:39
people Liars if somebody believes something they're not Liars they're just misremembered right right misremembering
00:49:45
they they don't have the date it was it should have been a normal day it should have been an ordinary day there was no
00:49:49
reason to remember if that was the last time you would see this person or not yeah so I see the similarities I mean we
00:49:56
have similar ages we have somebody going missing for a period of time and then their body was found but a difference
00:50:04
here is Hayman Lee was um reported missing where Jeanette was reported as a runaway yeah so I said we
00:50:15
would get to this later and this is where we need to get to that right so her parents reported her missing the
00:50:20
same night uh that we had already discussed her parents are salvatory and Florence
00:50:26
De Palma now keep in mind Jeanette was scheduled to work that evening or at least she told her parents that she had
00:50:33
to work that evening so she was going to go to work after going to her friend's house she never returns home that night
00:50:40
her mother starts making calls to Jeanette's friends and to their parents as well nobody seems to know anything
00:50:48
she didn't arrive at her friend's home not only did they not know anything in fact no one had anything to report to
00:50:55
them you know having heard from her or plans changing anything like that there was nothing to report
00:51:01
now when they called the police to report their daughter missing the police gave her the old same old troubling
00:51:09
story that we've heard a hundred times when we talk about these older cases you know we've seen this a lot they they
00:51:15
get the old she needs to be gone for 24 hours before she can be reported missing
00:51:20
according to the police it was the De Palma's the the family themselves that reported Jeanette as a runaway right and
00:51:29
that might have been they could have been assuming because of her cousin because of the cousin and remember you
00:51:36
and I had talked that there was probably at least two arguments that took place that day between her and one of her
00:51:43
parents before leaving the house the thing here though Captain where this gets real screwy is you know back then
00:51:51
police would not really this isn't something that you investigated when somebody's reported
00:51:56
missing it's investigated when somebody's reported as a runaway you might look around for the person you put
00:52:03
out a you know you you alert the officers that this person is uh has left their home and that the parents are
00:52:10
looking for this home and if somebody matching the description go up and talk to them but they don't really do any
00:52:16
work when somebody's reported as a runaway that because they're under the belief that this person left of their
00:52:22
own will that they wanted to leave the home and in most these cases when that does happen the teenager
00:52:29
returns after a couple of days the thing here Captain I wonder about you know when when a girl is reported
00:52:37
let's say she was reported missing let's say she was reported as a runaway let's
00:52:41
let's let's take that aside but she's reported as not being where she's supposed to be okay and then six weeks
00:52:49
later she's found dead out in the middle of the woods somewhere and you come back
00:52:54
as an investigation and you say well we can't come up with a cause of death but we're going to rule it a suspicious
00:53:01
death or a homicide because she was found somewhere that she should not have been that we don't expect her to have
00:53:08
gone on her own so therefore we're going to we're going to investigate it as a homicide so now your department has
00:53:16
declared this a homicide the problem you have here is if when you took the missing persons report you
00:53:23
decided or officers amongst your group decided she's not missing she's a runaway and then you find her dead out
00:53:30
in the middle of the Woods well then there's a problem with the Department there's a problem with
00:53:34
somebody in the department one of the detectives or one of the cops because the public wants to know well why did
00:53:40
you call her a runaway it's very likely she did not run away if she was found murdered somewhere
00:53:46
man so here's my big question my big question is that later the police stating that the family reported her as
00:53:56
a runaway this wasn't our problem this was not our doing nothing that we did wrong was it to cover their ass right to
00:54:02
cover their butts problem I have with the family let's say the family did report her as a runaway
00:54:10
I understand that yes there was an argument or two and I understand that maybe because her
00:54:15
cousin had taken off you thought maybe she was doing the same thing there's a couple problems with these
00:54:22
stories one is if the cousin had been gone long enough that the family not only the immediate family but the
00:54:30
extended family were growing concerned because she was gone a lot longer than typically she would be gone
00:54:37
to the point where you tell your daughter that starts an argument with you that morning because she's mad you
00:54:42
waited so long to tell her wouldn't you have enough concern of the cousin of your niece
00:54:48
that your daughter all of a sudden missing would wouldn't she fall into that same concerned department for you
00:54:55
like naturally for me it would the second part that I have an issue with is if your daughter ran away she didn't
00:55:02
take anything with her and you had 24 hours to figure that out I would be a little if if my daughter or
00:55:10
son which I don't have they don't exist but if if one of them existed and left you know said say they took off and they
00:55:18
were gone okay and the police tell me I can't report this for 24 hours I'm gonna
00:55:24
do a little investigating on my own and one thing I'm going to first look at is did they take anything with them you
00:55:30
know it a kid a 16 year old kid that packs up a backpack full of items is a lot different than somebody that just
00:55:38
leaves walking on foot with nothing um did you ever try to run away when you're a kid not like a real runaway you know
00:55:46
like the silly like maybe rode my bike too far and stayed gone a little you know like hours longer than I was
00:55:52
supposed to but not overnight I don't think I ever made it yeah but that's not running away you just stayed out later
00:55:57
but no no no but I think I I think my intent at one point was like like that's it I'm out of here and then it's like
00:56:05
three hours later you get hungry and it gets dark and you're like okay well I'm going back I was in kindergarten and I
00:56:11
had this duffel bag I remember thinking I'm going to run away and uh so I put the duffel bag and
00:56:19
there's no like strap right so I put the the handles around my neck right and I have this stuff bag filled you aren't
00:56:28
going to make it very far no so I got to the like the end of the court and I couldn't breathe
00:56:35
teaching moment this is what you get for running away this is what she's a strong
00:56:40
teaching moment here my my mom looked at me and said this is what you get for giving handjobs
00:56:45
all right well Captain I think what we've brought up here is that there's a lot of questions about her friends and
00:56:52
certainly questions about her own lifestyle and character but where I think that we need to hone in on and
00:56:59
talk about when we start off the next episode there's some questions about this family and about the parents as
00:57:04
well what what truly happened to Jeanette De Palma and we never even got to the aspect of possible Satanism or
00:57:13
witchcraft being involved in this murder and that is a huge Topic in this case foreign
00:57:23
thanks for telling a friend thanks for sharing on social media until tomorrow be good be kind and don't litter
00:57:30
[Music]