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pod. We've got links in

0:48

our show notes. The

0:52

following series is based on

0:54

extensive research conducted over a

0:56

two-year period. Reviewing various sources

0:58

including police reports, interviews, and

1:01

newspaper articles. Throughout our research,

1:03

individuals involved in the case

1:05

were attempted to be contacted

1:07

in order to share their

1:09

experiences and perspectives. The opinions

1:12

expressed in this series do

1:14

not necessarily reflect those of

1:16

the minds of madness podcast.

1:18

Listener discretion is advised. Previously,

1:27

in part one of Who Killed

1:30

Jennifer, you were introduced to

1:32

Andy, Jennifer Lynn Sherm's son, who's

1:34

lived practically his whole life without

1:36

his mother, not knowing who

1:38

killed her or why. You

1:41

also learned about Jennifer's traumatic

1:43

childhood experience with a former sheriff's

1:45

captain who may have triggered a

1:47

tragic chain of events, pushing Jennifer

1:50

into a dangerous life, working the

1:52

streets of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Unlike

1:55

Many of the cases we've covered, Jennifer's case

1:58

wasn't one we went looking for. He.

2:15

He. Ever forget some like this,

2:17

but you can definitely folded up

2:20

real nice and put it in

2:22

a cute little box. In the

2:24

corner of your mind is less

2:26

kind of where I was in

2:29

Two Thousand and Twenty we interviewed

2:31

yeah, I'm sure for another case

2:33

we were covering a quadruple homicide

2:35

farmville Virginia. That's when I first

2:38

heard about Jennifer to been murdered

2:40

back in Nineteen Eighty Five, when

2:42

name was just. A

2:45

case. That remains unsolved ever

2:48

since. I never saw

2:50

anything was going to commerce case

2:52

ever guy. Just I was going

2:54

to remain a cold case for

2:56

knows how long you know what

2:58

I mean. It's been like a

3:00

culture shock to me. He really

3:02

has. I've learned more about my

3:05

mom says you guys took an

3:07

interest in this. Join

3:09

me now as we take

3:11

you through a two year

3:13

investigation into the murder of

3:15

Jennifer Lynch. Are you sure

3:17

about the perils faced and

3:19

how the time of her

3:22

murder? Several serial killers and

3:24

interest individuals who targeting have

3:26

very specific type of woman

3:28

in Albuquerque leading police on

3:30

a challenging complex investigation trying

3:32

to determine who. Has

3:47

or had read or write and started

3:49

looking into Jennifer's case. She did what

3:51

he always does and down was trying

3:54

to gain an understanding of the backdrop

3:56

of what was happening at the time.

3:58

The murderer. One

4:00

of the things that I get to do

4:02

with every case we work on is obviously

4:04

just get to know as much about the

4:06

environment of the case as I possibly can.

4:09

And. Once I started looking

4:11

into Albuquerque specifically East Central

4:13

Avenue. Immediately. What you start

4:15

to find is that this is a notorious

4:18

area of Albuquerque. If.

4:20

He were to google Albuquerque Heat see that

4:22

is referred to by locals as the More

4:24

Song and Dance because of the violent crime

4:27

that goes on in this area. But

4:29

it wasn't always that was. Once

4:32

upon a time, he Central Avenue was

4:34

actually a part of Route Sixty Six

4:36

that when from Chicago out to L

4:38

A and in Albuquerque, it was kind

4:41

of an oasis along that dirty. That.

4:43

Everybody would stop and spend the

4:45

night. So on the Central Avenue,

4:47

over a hundred motel sprung up

4:49

to cater to these travelers that

4:51

we're going through. And for

4:53

a time and next the fifties and sixties,

4:55

the Center Avenue was a happening place. But.

4:59

That all began to change in

5:01

the seventies when I forty was

5:03

completed. The interstate the goes through

5:05

Albuquerque and to Los Angeles. Now

5:07

of the motorists to just go

5:09

across the interstate with less and

5:11

less of them going to me.

5:13

Central Avenue. Saw.

5:15

The motels along Essential Avenue got less

5:17

and less customers, though they receive less

5:19

and less money in that area went

5:22

into a slow and inevitable economic decline.

5:25

And one way of coping with

5:27

this economic decline was that the

5:29

Motel started becoming hotbed for seedier

5:32

and seed your activities. Many.

5:34

Of them started renting out Bruce by the hour.

5:37

It didn't take long for he Central

5:39

Avenue to begin to develop a reputation.

5:42

First. It was known as the

5:44

Strip and then The Straw and by

5:46

the eighties he became the Cruise and

5:48

would eventually be told the War Zone.

5:52

but all these nicknames was just

5:54

kind this increasing level of vice

5:56

the theory was known for by

5:58

the eighties it's were all the

6:00

porn theaters arts, where all the sex

6:02

workers arts, where the drug dealers arts,

6:05

where robberies happen, petty crimes, and

6:07

early in the 80s it wasn't exactly

6:09

dangerous, it was just seedy. But

6:12

that really started to change about

6:14

the mid 80s. The

6:21

criminal element on East Central Avenue

6:24

had become a mixture of deviant

6:26

subcultures, drug traffickers,

6:28

dealers and users, bikers, sex

6:30

workers, pimps and johns, with

6:33

the lines often becoming blurred.

6:36

For decades, Albuquerque police had managed

6:38

to keep a tap on all

6:40

these various subcultures, but

6:42

an unprecedented level of violence

6:44

was about to infiltrate Albuquerque's

6:46

underworld, marking a dark

6:49

turning point in the city's history. There's

6:59

definitely only so much you can learn about a place

7:01

by reading about it, by looking at the newspapers. So

7:04

one of the really great things that

7:06

happened was Shane reached out to a

7:08

journalist named Mike Gallagher, who was based

7:10

out there in Albuquerque, who saw

7:12

this in real time. What I

7:15

learned was that around 1983, in the beginning

7:17

of the 80s, gangs from

7:19

California mostly came into

7:21

Albuquerque bringing crack cocaine.

7:24

It was Cuban gangs from Miami that

7:27

actually controlled the powder cocaine that was

7:29

used to make a crack. There

7:32

was also another deadly group that

7:34

emerged, the Memphis Group. They

7:37

were from east of the Mississippi, Tennessee

7:39

area, and they really

7:41

took over the sex work trade

7:43

in that area. And

7:45

what they did is they would force

7:48

their sex workers to also sell prescription

7:50

amphetamines on the side to

7:52

their customers, to their johns. And

7:56

so Just within the span of a year,

7:58

you've got three different orgs. Organized

8:00

gangs. Come. To the cruise

8:02

in the landscape entirely changed

8:04

in Nineteen Eighty Four That

8:07

Tony wonder thought Jennifer found

8:09

yourself back in Albuquerque trying

8:11

to provide for a baby.

8:13

It was also around that time

8:15

said Jennifer got into a new

8:17

relationship with the main named Alex

8:20

The same mean indisputable, the boogie

8:22

man whose photo sent him straight

8:24

into a panic attack. In

8:33

Hades, Alex was one of the

8:35

most prominent math cooks in Albuquerque

8:38

which was actually a relatively new

8:40

drug to be area increasing in

8:42

popularity and problems where the city

8:44

as the years one on. Another

8:47

Methodist in Albuquerque, Police have taken down

8:49

to net houses just a few blocks

8:51

apart and they believe that you are

8:54

connected say sound. A meth lab in

8:56

an Albuquerque Most Health In this case

8:58

it was one bus had led to

9:00

another showing a trend of meth lab

9:02

operating on a near twenty four seven

9:04

basic millions of dollars of math along

9:06

with nineteen guns in a former city.

9:08

Employees have. Seemed

9:11

kinda Elyria Remember Salix from

9:13

his days? Worthy narcotic investigations

9:15

for the Albuquerque Police Department.

9:18

We time we ever had any encounters with

9:20

him he was always Art One of the

9:23

largest ones that I was ever involved with.

9:25

Him: as much as you must search warrant

9:27

it was a trainer, he had a full

9:29

blown meth lab going on and it was

9:31

pretty good sized. My Meta: he was massive.

9:33

Pretty much just the entire mobile home was

9:35

a mess. Lamp. Funny. Rifles in

9:37

their firearms. If you've ever watched any

9:40

hour episodes of Breaking Bad when he's

9:42

in the motor home and got off

9:44

all the glass apparatus and then of

9:46

course and the episodes where he they

9:48

left the the large methamphetamine lab underneath

9:51

the laundry. That's exactly what you would

9:53

see with this. See.

9:58

him remembers burst you know on at

10:00

least three or four different occasions. Alex

10:03

has always cooperated with us. He never fought us. You

10:06

know, it was like one of those things. Okay. He got me, we

10:09

did them at another hotel and he opens the door

10:11

and he goes, Oh, it's you again. He was always,

10:13

like I said, he was always compliant. He never fought

10:15

us. We never had any issues with him. Alex

10:18

was just kind of, Oh, they got me this time, you know, and it

10:20

was, we never had any violence with

10:22

them or anything else though. And like I said,

10:24

every time we encountered him or

10:26

the meth labs we had with him, there was always

10:28

firearms there. The Alex

10:30

Sam was describing was the same Alex

10:32

and he had been terrified of as

10:34

a child and although he'd eventually be

10:37

able to come face to face with

10:39

this fear when he was 21 until

10:42

that day, he'd continue to have

10:44

disturbing visions of him. Whenever

10:48

my grandmother would bring up Alex, she'd

10:50

spell out K L E X. I'm

10:53

sure that was kind of their way of trying to

10:55

shield me. This guy was the

10:57

boogeyman. You look at this, this picture of

10:59

me, I think of it as a famous

11:01

photo, you know, cause it's the number one

11:03

image that's been burnt into my head of

11:05

this guy. And you look at this, this

11:07

picture of me, he looks like a nut.

11:11

He looks absolutely insane.

11:14

And, uh, growing up, he was literally

11:16

like a boogeyman to me. I

11:19

swear like he'd be waiting for

11:21

me sometimes. I'd visually

11:23

see this guy. He wasn't

11:25

actually there, but I see him

11:28

waiting across the street from school. I

11:30

see he would just stand there and look at me. That's

11:33

how scared I was as this dude. That's

11:36

how he was built up in my

11:39

mind that bad. It's

11:42

pretty much like indescribable. For

11:50

Jennifer being involved with Alex, man,

11:52

she was even more exposed to

11:54

the deadly scene unfolding on East

11:56

central avenue at the time, the

11:58

other aspect. that it made

12:00

life especially dangerous for was the fact

12:03

she'd chosen not to have a pimp.

12:06

Although that meant she had the benefit of

12:08

keeping all the money sharing to herself, it

12:11

also meant she had no protection on

12:13

the streets. Up until

12:15

1984, the cruise was known to be a

12:17

hotbed of vice. What it was

12:19

not known for was murder. That

12:22

all changed. It's believed to be

12:24

the first unsolved homicide of a sex

12:26

worker from East Central Avenue. And

12:29

that happened in August of 1984. The

12:32

victim in that case was a 21-year-old sex

12:34

worker named Danessa Howard. And she

12:36

was found in the laundry room of an apartment. She'd

12:39

been strangled with an extension cord around her neck. And

12:42

they really had no idea who did this. And

12:44

the case went unsolved. At

12:47

the time, Danessa's unsolved homicide just seemed like a

12:49

one-off it had never happened before and they were

12:51

kind of hoping it would never happen again. But

12:54

nine months later, in May 1985, less than

12:57

100 feet away from where Danessa was found,

13:01

the body of Jennifer Sherm was discovered.

13:04

And they realized pretty quickly that

13:06

it was very possible that both of these murders might be

13:08

linked. As

13:16

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13:29

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13:42

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14:25

It was while our friend Shane

14:27

Waters was digging through archive news

14:29

articles that he first stumbled on

14:31

this information about Danessa Howard. One

14:34

of the things I started doing

14:37

initially was I was searching through

14:39

newspaper archives relating to Jennifer's case

14:42

and when that didn't come up with

14:44

much information I started looking at cases

14:47

that could have been related from the same year

14:50

I found an article about a

14:52

different victim and this victim had

14:54

been murdered nine months before Jennifer

14:57

she was found on the same

14:59

street that Jennifer was found and

15:01

so I started wondering could these cases

15:04

be related could these women

15:06

have been murdered by the same person or

15:08

people and that's how I

15:10

actually came across an expose called death

15:12

on the cruise and it

15:14

was written by an investigative reporter named

15:17

Mike Gallagher. In that article

15:19

Mike had identified a total of

15:21

seven unsolved murders of sex workers

15:24

off east central avenue between the

15:26

years of 1984 and 1988. All

15:31

of these cases shared a number of

15:33

similarities. None of these victims were killed

15:35

with guns. Almost all of

15:37

the bodies had been dumped somewhere

15:39

other than where they were killed

15:42

and it was so shocking to read

15:44

through his article because he mentions both

15:46

victims and he lays out a theory

15:49

that was sort of matching up to

15:51

mine and it was so strange

15:53

for me reading someone's

15:55

theory an article from 1990 to see that

15:57

he had the same theory

16:00

that I had currently. After

16:25

reading the article, I decided I

16:28

would love if I could find Mike

16:30

Gallagher. I realized the article

16:32

was written in 1990 and

16:34

there's a thought, is this guy

16:37

still even alive? So

16:39

I end up writing to the

16:41

Albuquerque Journal and they

16:44

respond. And they tell

16:46

me that he had actually just retired

16:48

six months before I contacted

16:50

them. I asked them if

16:52

I could give them my information and if

16:54

they would mind passing it along to Mike

16:56

to see if he would mind reaching out

16:58

to me to talk. And

17:01

so that's what they did. The current person

17:03

in his position reached out to

17:05

Mike and before I knew

17:07

it, I had an email from

17:09

Mike Gallagher and hit the

17:11

subject of his email was death

17:14

on the cruise. And lo

17:16

and behold, Mike Gallagher. And

17:18

I knew here is the first connection

17:20

I could make to someone who was

17:23

on the ground investigating at

17:25

the time of all of

17:27

this. He remembered the

17:29

case so well, like from 1990 and he

17:31

was just like, Oh yeah, I remember talking

17:34

to so and so. And I'm

17:36

just thinking, I don't know that I would remember that. Although

17:45

Mike no longer had his original notes

17:47

on the cases, he still remembered Jennifer's

17:49

and the type of danger she'd been

17:51

facing at the time of her murder.

17:54

You have two different cultures working out on the

17:57

cruise, the heroin and the meth and

17:59

cut him out. And Jennifer at

18:01

that time was sort

18:03

of caught in the middle. Our

18:06

boyfriend at the time was Alex. He

18:08

was a biker with a lot

18:10

of methamphetamine connection. He was

18:13

a biker, who was a Capital B. And

18:15

the bikers in 1985 in New Mexico, and

18:19

pretty much also in the country, controlled

18:21

the methamphetamine trade. They were the

18:23

cooks. Heroin

18:25

in Albuquerque was a little

18:28

different. Tended to be controlled by these

18:31

long established networks of

18:34

heroin dealers who had connections to Mexico.

18:37

But right about this time, crack

18:40

begins to show up. And

18:42

so do transient gangs.

18:50

Along with the gangs showing up on East Central in

18:52

the 80s, there had also

18:54

been another type of group that had made

18:56

its way into Albuquerque. And that

18:59

was the Memphis group. A

19:01

very loosely organized gang of

19:03

pimps, trafficking women into Albuquerque.

19:05

As well as aggressively and violently

19:08

recruiting sex workers in the area

19:10

to work for them on

19:12

the streets. They were known as Guerrilla

19:14

pimps. Pimps used excessive

19:16

physical violence to control their

19:18

girls, drugging them to the

19:20

point of passivity. And

19:23

the I-40 corridor had always been

19:25

part of the traveling pimps They'd

19:27

moved from Oklahoma City to

19:30

Albuquerque, out to Bakersfield.

19:33

You know, there was sort of a route that

19:35

they followed. Jennifer was not part of the I-40

19:37

corridor. And because Jennifer

19:40

didn't have a pimp, she became

19:42

a target for this group. No one wanted her

19:44

to work for them. And

19:52

so there were things happening to people that

19:55

didn't happen in the past. There

19:57

was a level of fear among them.

20:00

Among the sex workers about who they could

20:02

trust and who they could talk to and

20:04

what was typically a

20:06

fairly rough trade became

20:08

a deadly trade. This

20:11

transition from rough to deadly happened over

20:14

the span of just a few years

20:16

and in 1985 Jennifer

20:19

would have quite literally been

20:21

surrounded by danger from every

20:23

angle, dangerous pimps following her

20:25

and harassing her, shady

20:27

clients who might get violent. Even

20:30

at home Jennifer's relationship with Alex

20:32

would turn out to be volatile

20:34

at times with them even breaking

20:36

up because of it. In

20:39

fact the last time they broke up

20:41

was just two months before Jennifer was

20:43

found murdered but it was

20:46

an incident after this breakup that

20:48

would place Alex's name on the

20:50

police suspect list in Jennifer's murder

20:52

investigation. But before looking

20:54

more into Alex, APD had

20:56

someone else they had to rule out.

21:00

So one of the things that police

21:02

quickly realized when they began looking into

21:04

Jennifer's murder was that she

21:06

had been the victim in this

21:08

high profile case that had dominated

21:11

headlines ten years earlier and that

21:13

was when Frank Turkle, Sheriff's captain,

21:15

was accused of raping a minor.

21:18

And because of this connection actually it's

21:20

very possible that because she was this

21:23

victim in this high profile case years

21:25

earlier they actually might have

21:27

done a little more investigation into her

21:29

murder than they might have for another

21:31

victim of her demographic. For

21:39

reasons unknown police were able to

21:42

quickly rule out Frank Turkle as

21:44

a suspect in Jennifer's murder and

21:46

although we couldn't find an explanation

21:48

for why that happened we had

21:50

a theory. Another

21:52

reason that they may have been so eager

21:54

to rule Frank Turkle out as a suspect is

21:56

they already had quite a list

21:58

of other potential suspects. they could look

22:00

into, Jennifer lived a

22:03

very dangerous lifestyle around many

22:05

dangerous people. On

22:12

June 5th, 1985, at

22:16

the University of New Mexico School

22:18

of Medicine in Albuquerque, the

22:20

autopsy of Jennifer Lynn Sherm was

22:22

conducted. One week after

22:24

a murder, the beginning

22:26

of her autopsy report states, the

22:29

body is that of an adequately

22:31

nourished, well-developed adult boy female. The

22:34

body weighs 114 pounds and is 66 inches in

22:36

height and appears consistent with

22:41

the reported age of 22. Reading

22:46

an autopsy report from almost

22:48

40 years ago isn't all

22:50

that different from reading one

22:52

written today. It's written in

22:54

the same calculated medical language

22:56

delivered with precision, cold

22:59

formality, and chilling finality,

23:02

an extensive examination of the

23:04

human body detached from the

23:06

human being. The part

23:09

of Jennifer's chest where she'd

23:11

held her newborn baby boy

23:13

against her skin becomes the

23:15

upper midclavicular. The finger

23:17

where she wore the ringer ex-boyfriend

23:20

gave her becomes the proximal failings

23:22

of the right fourth digit, highly

23:25

descriptive, yet revealing so

23:27

little. There's nothing in

23:30

the medical examiner's report that

23:32

could tell anyone about Jennifer's

23:34

emotional scars. There's also

23:36

nothing that could tell us a

23:38

better personality, like how she

23:40

wouldn't hesitate to give her last dollar to

23:43

a friend in need and refuse to let

23:45

them pay her back, unless she

23:47

was a fighter to the very end.

23:50

All that's in there, our clues of

23:52

what might have happened in our final

23:54

moments. Jennifer's

24:01

autopsy concludes by stating,

24:04

four deadly blows from an

24:06

unknown object was Jennifer's official

24:08

cause of death, but

24:10

it would be what the medical examiner noted

24:13

about the possession of Jennifer's body that

24:15

would provide the biggest clue as

24:17

to how Jennifer wound up at 187 Monte Largo

24:20

Drive. One

24:23

of the real benefits of having the actual

24:25

police report's actual case file is you can

24:27

see in real time what the officers were

24:29

discovering and writing down in their

24:31

reports. And so looking at the

24:33

crime scene, you can see it from several officers'

24:35

perspective of what they found. They

24:38

noticed that her body was lying in

24:40

a position that did not indicate that

24:42

that's where she had been killed. In

24:44

fact, it looked like she must have been placed

24:47

into a rather cramped area for

24:49

a while before her body

24:51

was dumped where it was found because

24:53

her body had gone into rigor mortis and it was

24:56

not laying in a way that would suggest that that's

24:58

where she'd been killed. The most

25:00

obvious and first thought police had

25:02

was she'd obviously been put into the

25:05

trunk of a car and then dropped off here.

25:08

And they were actually able to corroborate this theory with

25:10

some of the evidence they found at the scene. Jennifer

25:17

was laying on the curb and her

25:19

hand was actually falling over the curb

25:21

above the road. And

25:23

under that hand was a puddle of blood. And

25:26

then what they saw was the trail

25:29

of blood drops leading away from Jennifer's

25:31

body going down the road. Just

25:34

small dots, but every one of

25:36

those dots was exactly the same

25:38

distance apart. And every

25:40

dot was slightly less prevalent than the one

25:42

before it. So what they realized is

25:45

that most likely what had happened is that a

25:47

car tire had driven over a drop

25:49

of her blood. And as

25:51

it went down the street, every time that wheel

25:53

hit the ground again, it left a blood transfer.

25:56

So that's why it disappears slowly as it goes away in

25:59

every single one of the of the straps is exactly

26:01

the same distance from the one before it. They

26:04

did some math and they figured out some

26:06

wheel and rim and tire sizes and were

26:08

able to determine that there was plenty of

26:10

makes and models of cars and tires that

26:12

would have left this exact pattern. And

26:14

so they basically determined that

26:17

this was the most likely possibility that Jennifer had

26:19

been placed into a trunk of a car, then dumped

26:21

on the side of the road, and then the

26:23

car drove away with one of the

26:26

tires driving through a pool of her blood and

26:28

leaving marks as it went away. It

26:31

wasn't much to go on, but was about

26:33

as much as they were going to get

26:35

from a crime scene that only seemed to

26:37

raise a series of questions. For

26:39

starters, why had Jennifer been left

26:42

in that particular location, a residential

26:44

street where someone could have easily

26:47

been spotted disposing of a body?

26:50

Was it possible the address

26:52

itself held some significance? 187

26:55

Munty Largo Drive? After

26:58

all, 187 was and

27:01

still is popular gang slang for

27:03

murder. Had Jennifer's

27:05

body been left there to send

27:07

a message to someone, or perhaps

27:10

the location meant nothing at all? Just

27:12

random and convenient? For

27:15

investigators to solve this puzzle, all ideas

27:17

needed to be on the table. But

27:20

there was one elephant in the room that

27:22

couldn't be ignored. And that

27:24

was how close Jennifer's body had been

27:26

found to where Denissa Howard's body had

27:29

been discovered. Only about 100 feet away. The

27:33

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27:35

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28:46

that she'd been transported to that location in

28:48

the trunk of a car and then dumped. That's

28:50

all they had. But one of the

28:53

things that actually really surprised me looking

28:55

into this case file was how much

28:57

evidence they actually did collect from this

28:59

crime scene, especially considering her

29:01

victim status, which would usually

29:04

indicate that maybe they wouldn't do a

29:06

very thorough investigation.

29:08

Instead, they actually investigated this quite thoroughly

29:10

and they collected a lot of evidence.

29:13

All the trace evidence from Jennifer's body,

29:15

they collected fingernail clippings. They collected, I

29:18

think, 25 different strands of hair from her

29:21

body. They swabbed different parts of her body

29:23

and they took fiber samples from various parts

29:25

of her body. The

29:36

reason it was remarkable was because at

29:38

the time, there was little police could

29:40

do with that kind of evidence. In

29:43

fact, it would be two more years

29:45

before DNA technology would ever be used

29:48

to solve a crime anywhere in the

29:50

world. A first case came from England

29:52

in 1987, reported on by BBC News in 2020. 35

30:00

years since DNA fingerprinting was first

30:02

discovered. Since then, it's been used in

30:05

millions of police investigations across the world,

30:07

but it was first used in 1987

30:10

to convict the killer of two teenage

30:12

girls in Leicestershire, preventing a grave miscarriage

30:14

of justice. While

30:17

police in Jennifer's case waited for a

30:19

time in the future to test the

30:21

forensic evidence they've collected, the

30:23

samples were placed securely into

30:25

plastic bags, carefully filed way

30:27

into evidence. In the

30:29

meantime, they did what any good

30:32

cop would do and began working

30:34

the investigation from the inside out,

30:36

starting with those closest to the victim.

30:43

After delivering the devastating news to

30:45

Jennifer's family, police discovered the last

30:48

time they'd seen her alive was

30:50

six days before her murder, when

30:52

she'd gone back to her childhood

30:54

home to spend some time with

30:57

her son Andy. One

30:59

of the things that the detectives learned from

31:01

talking to Jennifer's mother was that

31:03

Jennifer had actually started seeing another

31:06

guy fairly recently, and this was a man

31:08

named Ralph. And Jennifer

31:10

and Ralph had been staying in various

31:12

motels, including the Sundowner Motel on East

31:14

Central. And this was in the wake of

31:17

Alex and Jennifer breaking up. So

31:19

Ralph was a 28-year-old with a history of

31:22

check forgery, and in the

31:24

month before her murder, he'd been living

31:26

with Jennifer. And they bounced around

31:28

from hotel to hotel, whatever they could afford. Ralph

31:31

didn't have a dime to his name, and

31:33

he basically relied on Jennifer to make all

31:35

the money. Jennifer would go out and

31:37

work the streets, make some money, bring it home. Now,

31:40

even though Ralph seems like he wasn't bringing anything at

31:42

all to the table, one

31:44

theory is that Jennifer may have sidled

31:46

up to this guy Ralph while Alex

31:48

was in jail because he might

31:50

have offered her a little bit of protection. We

31:53

do know that in the weeks

31:55

before she started dating Ralph, she'd

31:58

actually had some run-ins with someone. known

32:00

violent pimps who were trying to recruit her

32:02

to work for them and these were pimps

32:04

from the Memphis group. They'd even

32:06

kicked down her door at one point and they

32:09

were trying to basically strong arm her into

32:11

working for them which is something she didn't want

32:13

to do. So maybe just having

32:15

a bigger stronger guy living with

32:17

her might have been you know just

32:19

a little added layer of protection for what she was

32:21

doing. On

32:32

the same day Jennifer's body was

32:34

discovered four detectives from the APD

32:37

tracked down Ralph at the sundowner. It

32:39

was the first time he said he'd

32:41

heard about Jennifer being murdered. According

32:44

to Ralph on Tuesday May 28th the

32:46

day before Jennifer's body

32:48

had been found she'd gone out to work

32:50

earlier in the day returning with

32:52

about $130. Around 4.30 p.m. Ralph said they went out to a

32:58

restaurant at around 9

33:00

p.m. He said Jennifer headed out to work

33:03

again but then returned about

33:05

15 minutes later saying the cops

33:07

had stopped her. Immediately

33:09

Ralph said Jennifer left again.

33:12

He then claimed he threw on a

33:14

shirt and followed after her but by

33:16

the time he left the motel room

33:18

Jennifer was already gone. After

33:21

looking for her for about 10 minutes

33:23

along central Ralph said he headed back

33:25

to the room but when

33:27

Jennifer didn't return after a while

33:29

he said he started to worry

33:31

because whenever Jennifer went into work

33:33

she was never gone for very

33:35

long. Detectives

33:43

interviewed a very close friend of Jennifer's

33:45

and through her they learned

33:47

that it wasn't really like Jennifer to wander

33:49

very far away from where she was staying

33:51

at the time. She didn't walk down the

33:53

cruise for miles in order to

33:56

get jobs she basically just hung out in the area

33:58

that she was living in at the time. So,

34:01

later on the night she disappeared, Jennifer

34:03

had gone out and she didn't return. And

34:06

after a while, Ralph thought it most likely that she'd been

34:08

picked up by the cops. So he picks

34:10

up the phone and he calls the jail to see if she's

34:12

there and she wasn't. He goes to

34:14

sleep and the next morning, he calls the

34:16

jail two more times, checking to see if

34:18

Jennifer had been brought in, thinking clearly that's

34:20

what must have happened to her. And

34:23

not long after making that second phone call is

34:25

when police showed up to the motel he was

34:27

in and they broke the news to

34:29

him that Jennifer had been murdered. From

34:32

reading the transcripts of Ralph's interview with

34:34

police, it seemed they believed he

34:36

was being truthful. At the end

34:39

of his interview, police asked Ralph if he

34:41

knew anyone who might want to kill Jennifer.

34:44

He responded by saying it could

34:46

have been either pimps or tricks,

34:48

but then he added another possibility

34:50

when he told them she'd

34:52

burn her ex-boyfriend Alex. Before

34:58

police even got the chance to interview

35:00

Alex, they actually received a tip from

35:02

a guy named Antonio Valdez. Antonio

35:04

told police that he'd actually seen Jennifer the

35:07

night before at 3.30 in the morning on

35:10

May 29. So this was

35:12

just a few hours before her body would be

35:14

discovered. Now Antonio said he didn't know

35:16

Jennifer very well. In fact, he didn't even know her name.

35:18

He just seen her around, kind of knew who she was.

35:22

And that night, according to his statement

35:24

he gave, he and Jennifer

35:26

had just kind of hung around chatting for

35:28

about 15 minutes near his motel, which was

35:30

actually about three miles away from where Jennifer

35:32

was staying. While they were

35:34

just out chatting, a white Cadillac pulled

35:36

up, according to him. When

35:41

we mentioned this report of a

35:43

white Cadillac to Andy, Jennifer's son,

35:45

he remembered something his grandmother told

35:47

him long ago. Later

35:50

on down the road, I started

35:53

hearing about this white Cadillac.

35:55

The thing was, is that grandma

35:57

used to always say, well, they put her in the back

35:59

of that. goddamn white Cadillac and they

36:01

just they went and dealt her like

36:03

a piece of garbage, you know. Later

36:07

we'd find other reports about a

36:09

mysterious white Cadillac lurking around East

36:11

Central Avenue. Interestingly, mention

36:13

of a white Cadillac would

36:15

come up a year later

36:17

in another murder investigation on

36:19

Central. While police are getting

36:21

these different stories of what may or may

36:24

not have happened to Jennifer trying to piece

36:26

together a timeline that happened the night before,

36:28

through all of this there was one

36:31

person based on the rumor mill at

36:33

the time that actually might have had

36:35

the most motive to murder Jennifer and

36:38

that was her ex-boyfriend Alex. So

36:41

the vast majority of what we know

36:43

about Alex and Jennifer's relationship actually comes

36:45

from witness statements that were provided to

36:47

police. This is close friends, this

36:49

is motel managers who knew both of them,

36:52

and it comes from an interview that

36:54

police did with Alex himself. It was

36:56

while reading through the witness statements and

36:58

Jennifer's case file that we learned that

37:00

Jennifer had started dating Alex when she

37:02

moved from Colorado back to Albuquerque in

37:05

the summer of 84. And this is

37:08

from Alex. Over the next nine months they

37:10

dated on and off, they had kind of

37:13

a tumultuous relationship. It was often

37:15

physically violent and sometimes that violence went

37:17

both ways. They broke up, they

37:19

got back together again, and one

37:21

of the things that Alex mentions in his

37:23

statement is that one of the causes of

37:26

a lot of their arguments was

37:28

the fact that Jennifer would go out and work the

37:30

streets. Alex did not like that and he didn't want

37:32

her to do that. So

37:34

this relationship continued having

37:36

their ups and downs until around April

37:38

of 1985 when it seemed like

37:40

they'd split up for good. But

37:42

according to Alex, even though they'd broken

37:45

up romantically they still remained friends. But

37:48

after they broke up an incident

37:50

happened that would turn Alex from

37:52

just being an ex-boyfriend into a

37:54

possible suspect in Jennifer's murder. About

38:01

a month before Jennifer was murdered,

38:03

Alex went to jail on drug

38:05

charges. And believing he could still

38:07

rely on Jennifer, he called her

38:09

up from jail, asking for a

38:12

favor. What happened next

38:14

varies depending on who you ask.

38:17

Andy tells the version that was the rumor

38:19

on the streets. I

38:21

was always told that Alex, he

38:23

went to jail, he got caught for drugs

38:25

or larceny or something. He went

38:28

to jail, my mom was on the outside, they

38:30

were dating on and off, and

38:32

he had a stashed dope. He

38:35

was one of the biggest dealers at the time.

38:38

So he told her, like, hey, go

38:40

here, get this dope, you

38:42

flip it, and then get me out of jail. And

38:46

what ended up happening, what I

38:48

was told, was that he

38:50

did the deal, but she got burned. She

38:53

didn't get the money. And so Alex

38:56

ended up having to get bailed out

38:58

by someone else. And

39:00

he wasn't very happy when he got out. The

39:02

version Ralph gave to police would be

39:04

very similar to the story Alex would

39:07

later give to law enforcement when he

39:09

was busted on new drug charges on

39:11

June 12, 1985. But

39:15

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39:17

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U.S.A. for details. After being read his rights,

40:29

Alex was asked if he'd be willing to

40:32

be interviewed about Jennifer's murder. Unable

40:34

to reach his lawyer, Alex agreed, as

40:37

long as he wasn't questioned about his

40:39

pending drug charges. Alex

40:41

also gave them permission to search

40:43

his vehicle, telling them to help

40:46

themselves. So it's actually

40:48

very interesting reading the transcription of

40:50

the police interview with Alex. And

40:53

although we can't hear his voice, we don't have the audio for it,

40:55

we do have the transcription. And even

40:57

just reading it, one thing really

40:59

comes through pretty obviously, and that's

41:01

his forthrightness about everything that had

41:03

happened between him and Jennifer. On

41:07

the day of this interview, Alex told

41:09

police he felt bad about his breakup

41:11

with Jennifer and that he'd actually

41:13

gone out looking for her the night before she

41:15

was murdered. He

41:17

says that he wished he'd found her

41:19

that night, because if he did, then

41:21

maybe she'd still be alive. Another

41:24

thing that Alex says during the interview is he

41:26

actually asks detectives if Jennifer was still

41:28

wearing a specific ring he'd given

41:30

her when they found her body. Later

41:33

on in the interview, the transcription even makes

41:35

note of the fact that Alex starts crying.

41:38

And when he starts crying, it's because he's

41:40

telling police how Jennifer's family was so upset

41:42

with him for not coming to her funeral.

41:46

But according to Alex, the reason he

41:48

hadn't gone to her funeral was because he didn't even

41:50

know she was dead at the time. After

42:03

telling police who his alibis were

42:05

for the night of Jennifer's murder,

42:08

investigators started asking pointed questions. Specifically

42:11

about drugs, Jennifer had allegedly stolen

42:14

from Alex a month prior to

42:16

a murder. But just

42:18

as Alex began to talk more

42:21

about the situation, the interview was

42:23

interrupted by Alex's lawyer and it

42:25

doesn't appear he was ever questioned

42:27

again. Sometimes when we're

42:29

looking at these police interviews, you got to read between

42:31

the lines a little bit. And one

42:34

of the things that becomes really clear

42:36

while reading a separate interview with an

42:38

acquaintance of Jennifer and Alex's, the

42:40

detective indicates that he really believes Alex's

42:43

version of the story. Despite

42:45

the fact that everybody on the streets

42:48

and all the rumors, everybody pointing their

42:50

fingers at Alex, police

42:52

thoroughly investigate Alex. They've searched his vehicle.

42:54

They've really done their work trying to

42:56

see if they can't find anything to

42:58

pin Alex to this murder and they

43:01

find absolutely nothing that can. After

43:04

police discovered they had no evidence

43:06

to connect Alex to Jennifer's murder,

43:08

they realized they were back at

43:10

square one in their investigation. So

43:13

after looking into Alex, police start to expand

43:15

their search a little bit and they start

43:17

looking further and further into Jennifer's personal life.

43:20

And they find out that she had a

43:22

former boyfriend, a guy named Bill Duran in

43:24

Colorado who had been physically abusive to her.

43:27

Immediately, they think, well, maybe he's a suspect now

43:29

and they looked into him. But

43:32

it turned out that that was a complete dead

43:34

end because Bill had been sitting in jail on

43:36

the very day that Jennifer was murdered. Bill

43:44

Duran was Andy's biological father who he

43:47

wouldn't get the chance to meet until

43:49

he was 18. The

43:52

little bit of time I had with my dad, he

43:54

told me about my mom. I have

43:56

a better understanding about some of my traits,

43:58

characteristics, and that's how My

44:01

dad's only my my stubbornness for

44:03

cigarettes. In. The you know that was

44:06

like there was her release. And whenever

44:08

I was younger and teenager yeah, I actor

44:10

as a cutter. thinking.

44:12

About how far she made a

44:15

having to face all the as

44:17

adversely the he face all those

44:19

years she was room she was

44:21

raids, she's molested turned to drugs

44:23

as he made his honesty days.

44:26

You know that's. A some

44:28

hardcore sit man. Sadly,

44:31

And his father passed away just

44:33

a year after meeting them and

44:35

with the deaths father. Of

44:38

memories he carried of jennifer. Since.

44:41

I've known you guys and since you

44:43

know this, this whole thing started like

44:46

I've literally learned more about my mom

44:48

in this place. Blast year to I

44:50

have in my whole life. And.

44:53

See. My family's. Credit

44:56

think the I good intentions trying to

44:58

shelter mean but you know in the

45:00

grand scheme of things to kind of

45:02

me up. In. This way that they

45:04

probably didn't anticipate. In

45:06

so learning all this stuff, I adequate

45:08

in ice in, I still do personally

45:10

what you know why by was so

45:12

much to this hidden from. I.

45:15

Only had like my member, my family

45:17

that was kind of the most transparent

45:19

and us My and Jesse and. She.

45:21

Was the closest jenny but still I

45:24

see there's still stuff the see them

45:26

so me and i'm always kind of

45:28

wonder y. Se as I got

45:30

older like getting understand this a little

45:32

kid I think is the and systems

45:34

get a sense he just wanted to

45:36

see me some heartache but there is

45:38

always a side of me that that

45:40

wondered by lobbyist us knowing as much

45:43

is this thing as hurt me it's

45:45

enabled me I think to heal to

45:47

and in ways I never would have

45:49

been able to heal before. I. mean

45:51

that the the odds are sitting nearby i

45:53

can't lie as time by myself to reno

45:55

thing Police

46:05

spent an entire month chasing down

46:07

all the leads they could, but

46:09

soon realized their investigation seemed to

46:12

be going nowhere. That

46:14

changed about a month later in July when

46:16

a witness named Benita Dodden came

46:18

to police. And she

46:20

told police that she didn't just know who

46:22

killed Jennifer, but how she was killed and

46:24

exactly where she was killed. And

46:27

the reason she claimed she knew all this was

46:29

because she said that she was there when

46:31

it happened. We first

46:34

learned about this witness when Shane Waters actually

46:36

started digging into all the newspaper archives and

46:38

digging up all the little random

46:40

bits here and there. But

46:42

we found out the whole story about

46:44

this witness when we received the case

46:47

file. And in that case file is

46:49

a long detailed interview with Benita Dodden.

46:52

Benita is a 23 year old

46:54

sex worker on East Central

46:56

Avenue at this time. And she

46:59

comes forward to say that she was

47:01

with Jennifer the night that Jennifer was

47:03

murdered. According to Benita,

47:05

she and Jennifer had been picked up

47:08

at 7pm by two pimps who then

47:10

drove them out to the Mesa near

47:12

the airport. There in

47:14

the desert, Benita said the pimps

47:16

brutally beat Jennifer with some kind

47:19

of stick or bat, kicking

47:21

her repeatedly until her body

47:23

went completely limp. After

47:26

throwing Jennifer in the trunk, she said

47:28

the pimps drove to a spot off

47:31

Central and opened up the trunk again.

47:34

Benita says that these men

47:36

assumed that Jennifer was going to be

47:39

still alive when they opened the trunk.

47:41

So they go back, they open the trunk. And

47:44

that's when they discovered that Jennifer died

47:46

because of her wounds. Benita

47:51

then told police the pimps drove

47:53

off with Jennifer still inside the

47:56

trunk the next morning around 10.30am.

48:00

She claimed the same two men

48:02

founder picked her up and then

48:04

throw for to a motel and

48:06

forced her to clean Jennifer's plot

48:09

as a trunk. Super Need A

48:11

shares a lot of information that

48:13

was accurate to the police's understanding

48:16

of the case. She says that

48:18

there were multiple people, at least

48:20

two people that were present.matches up

48:22

with what we believed. She.

48:24

Shared that. Jennifer.

48:27

Was hit with a blunt object

48:29

with outmatched. One. Thing up

48:31

and need A sad that really convinced

48:33

police that she was telling the truth

48:35

was when she said that Jennifer was

48:37

thrown into a trunk and then they

48:39

ask for to to show them position

48:42

that they that she saw jennifer and

48:44

the trunk. And. Sarnoff when

48:46

he gets down and she's laying

48:48

in the same position that they

48:50

end up finding Jennifer's body him.

48:53

But neither says that these men

48:55

assume the Jennifer was gonna be

48:57

still alive when they open the

48:59

trunk. So they go back the

49:01

open the trunk. And that's when

49:04

they discover that Jennifer died because

49:06

of her rooms. For

49:08

need us story seem to wind

49:10

up with what police believe so

49:12

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49:14

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50:31

end up showing Benita a stack

50:33

of photos of known pimps

50:35

that are in the area. She says that

50:37

she recognizes pretty much all of them. And

50:40

then they show her a picture of a guy

50:42

named Gene Autry Hill. And then

50:44

she says that this is the man who

50:46

killed Jennifer. The

50:48

DA then secured an indictment against

50:51

Gene on an open count of

50:53

murder, and he voluntarily turned himself

50:55

in, entering a plea of not

50:58

guilty. So just by

51:00

reading the newspaper articles about Benita, it seems

51:02

that she's able to corroborate a lot of

51:04

things that police already know about Jennifer's murder,

51:06

and that her story seems valid. As

51:09

I dug further, I realized that

51:11

at some point, the police and the

51:14

DA dismissed her as a witness. And

51:17

I thought, of course they did, because

51:19

Benita was a sex worker. They surely

51:21

dismissed her because they probably didn't think

51:24

that she would make a good person

51:26

to put up on a stand because

51:28

of her past. It

51:31

wouldn't be until we got Jennifer's

51:33

case file, reading through the transcripts

51:35

of Benita's interview that we'd realize

51:37

there was actually more to it.

51:44

Although there were some things

51:47

that did match, there were

51:49

a significant amount of discrepancies.

51:52

Another Benita story starts to unravel

51:54

is when she's describing what Jennifer

51:56

was wearing that night, And

51:58

there's also the time. weiner for

52:01

story she's talking about, but they

52:03

were picked up at seven o'clock

52:05

that night. If that were true,

52:07

that would mean to other eyewitnesses

52:09

to other men Ralph, any Antonio

52:11

were either lying or they were

52:14

mistaken. But then she starts

52:16

saying that Jennifer's real last name

52:18

was hurt him and she was

52:20

a runaway from Tulsa, Oklahoma and

52:22

she ran away at the age

52:24

of fourteen or fifteen? How though

52:27

Benita gotten a lot of these

52:29

kinds of details about Jennifer Wrong

52:31

To detail she'd given about Jennifer's

52:33

actual murder had matched up. Which

52:35

got us wondering. One.

52:40

Thing about Bonita is that

52:42

where her statements falls apart,

52:44

it's not about. Jennifer's.

52:46

Murder. All that seems to

52:49

be completely accurate. It's

52:51

about the backstory of Jennifer, about

52:53

how she knows Jennifer and I

52:55

can't help but wonder is it

52:57

because of her drug usage? We

53:00

know that drug use it affects

53:02

your brain. And. It affects

53:04

your long term memory and so

53:06

was she just creating this part

53:08

of house. He knows Jennifer because

53:11

of an absence and her memory

53:13

because of that drug usage. I

53:16

still wonder was ponied up there

53:18

that night but Jennifer was murdered

53:20

because all of the details that

53:22

she gave about how Jennifer was

53:24

in the trunk the object of

53:27

as use that all accurate enough

53:29

I was to make something hop

53:31

about how someone was murdered. There's

53:33

no way it our make up

53:35

all those accurate details. After

53:38

looking to Jennifer's case file,

53:40

there are also other sex

53:42

workers top choice of and

53:44

similar experiences with Pam's that

53:46

sounded strangely similar to the

53:48

neatest account. Is. the

53:50

sex workers were talking about similar

53:52

situations where they were forced into

53:55

cars by these pants and they

53:57

were driven out to the desert

54:00

They were then beaten with these

54:02

sticks, these baton type of sticks,

54:04

then they were driven back, dropped

54:07

off. Had Benita

54:09

in fact witnessed Jennifer's murder or

54:11

was she just retelling a story

54:13

she'd heard from other sex workers?

54:21

At the end of the day, there

54:23

are just simply way too many holes

54:25

in Benita's statements for her account to

54:27

be trusted really at all. Definitely

54:29

too many holes in her statements for it

54:31

to be the only thing that police could

54:33

rely on to secure a conviction. Any

54:36

skilled defense attorney would be easily

54:38

able to discredit her testimony and

54:41

they wouldn't even have to use

54:43

any ad hominem attacks based on

54:45

her profession. They could just do

54:47

it simply by disproving so many of

54:49

the things that she told police, so many

54:51

simple facts about Jennifer, who she was, her

54:54

name, what had happened, too many

54:56

facts that she simply got wrong. But

54:59

their testimony was so weak and because it was

55:01

the only thing police had. Eventually

55:03

the district attorney had to drop all

55:05

the murder charges against Jean Hill and

55:08

Jennifer's murder was left unsolved or

55:11

at least what they believed was just

55:13

unprosecutive. In

55:18

our next episode of Who Killed Jennifer? We'll

55:21

take a look at several extremely

55:24

dangerous and violent men and how

55:26

a series of coincidences revealed new

55:28

possible suspects in not only Jennifer's

55:31

murder investigation but in a case

55:33

that's captured the residents of Albuquerque

55:35

for the past 14 years. Stay

55:39

tuned for part 3. I

55:43

remember my grandmother, because I was

55:45

over at her house one day and her

55:47

phone was blowing up, she had a house line out, there was

55:49

four cell phones and all that. I

55:52

could just tell something was going on,

55:54

you know, and she was really elated,

55:56

upset, and I was like, I don't know

55:58

who it was. was that really

56:00

this information to her, but she basically said,

56:03

hey, you know, they finally found Alex. They're

56:06

bringing him back from North

56:08

Carolina. And not only

56:10

that, they're gonna officially charge him with

56:13

the murder of Jenny. Follow

56:37

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56:39

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56:41

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56:43

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56:46

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56:48

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57:01

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57:04

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57:10

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57:12

until next week, thanks for listening.