THE JESSIE BLODGETT CASE

so today's video is going to be another solved true crime case today we're going to be talking about the case of Jessie Blodgett and for once in my life I don't think I've got anything else to say in the beginning of these videos so let's just get into it before we do I just want to give my usual disclaimer that I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone that I talk about in this video this video is for educational purposes and everything that I'm about to say is just information that I have found on the internet and I'm compiling into one video so Jessie Blodgett was born in the spring of 1994 in Atlanta Georgia to parents book and joy Blodgett although they eventually moved to Wisconsin Jessie from a very early age was so gifted in so many different ways she was such a talented girl in the first grade when Jesse and all of her classmates were given like lists of words to learn and learn how to spell Jessie could do them like that and so her teachers had to make Jessie her own lists of more complex words while all the rest of the classmates were learning the easier ones she began learning to play piano at a very early age and she was obsessed with performing singing dancing acting she loved her [Music] as Jesse got older she began to see all of the injustice in the world as we all do when we get to a certain and she realized that the world just isn't fair and when most people would just kind of accept the world for what it is in all its unfairness Jesse couldn't stand it she couldn't live in a world like that and so she wanted to change it she couldn't bear to see anyone suffer or anything suffer she was a big campaigner for animal rights and social justice her family described er as a fierce defender of animal rights environmentalism sustainability social justice and women victimized by male violence but for Jesse her men like burning passion in life was music of course she loved performing acting and dancing but music and singing and playing piano and writing her own music was everything to Jesse her friend Jacqueline has been quoted saying that every time I would go over to her house she'd be playing the piano even when I was trying to talk to her she'd be playing the piano she looked to create of course she loved covering other people's music but she loved to write her own and perform her own and create something and she surrounded herself with people like that as well all of her friends were into performing music acting dancing as well and one of her closest friends was the boy that she sat next her all the way through high school 19 year old Daniel Bartelt and he just like Jesse was incredibly gifted both academically and musically he played violin he starred in shows just like Jesse did and he was known for being the funny one Jesse and Dan both met in their first year of high school and obviously they had everything in common they were like the same soul in two different bodies they were obsessed with all the same things and to them it seemed logical to me me being a romantic relationship be boyfriend and girlfriend because they were so good for each other however after four months Dan decided that he just kind of liked them as friends that this wasn't a romantic thing that he wanted to pursue with Jesse and so the two of them split up for no kind of major reason they continued to be friends and they were best friends for the rest of high school and into college so yeah the two of them left high school and went off to college and Dan actually went to one out of the state whereas Jesse's stadium was concert and they didn't necessarily lose touch but they just definitely weren't as close when Dan moved away jesse originally starts his college studying something a lot more academic because her father book said that maybe it was more practical to get something more academic under her belt and kind of pursue music on the side but Jesse just knew that she was meant to do music that was her true passion that was what she was meant to do with her life and so she actually managed to persuade her parents to let her switch a major to music around this same time Jesse quit a part-time job that she had as a waitress and decided to start up her own little mini business giving people music lessons singing violin piano lessons and within two months of setting up this little side business giving lessons jesse already had 26 students so she was very very busy and from this she was being offered all the jobs left right and center to do with music the local church wanted to be choir director she was also offered a job mentoring disadvantaged kids in music and everything was going so well for Jesse she had so many opportunities the vision that Jesse had for her life like her ultimate vision was to be a high school on university choir director she wanted to teach at least a hundred kids a year and use music to impact people and change the world Jesse's first year of college like I said went so well for her and then that summer in the summer of 2013 everyone was coming back to Wisconsin from colleges out of the state so jesse was reunited with all the old friends and one of these friends that was obviously back in the state was Dan Bartelt her friend from high school and he actually told Jesse that he'd quit college it wasn't for him it wasn't working out so now he was back in Wisconsin permanently and Dan and Jesse's friendship from that moment completely blossomed again into what it once was when they were back in high school they were together nearly every year that summer they were playing music together writing music together singing together recording things together and that summer both Dan and Jessi London lead roles in two separate players Dan in Bye Bye Birdie and Jessie as the fiddler in fiddler on the roof so the first show of Jessie's in Fiddler on the Roof was July 14 2013 and of course she performed amazingly as she always did and then that night was the first cast party here's some footage of Jessie at this party she seems happy as we led to find out she was actually really uncomfortable in that video she returned home from the party in the early hours of the morning and spoke with her mother and said that there were two older men at that party that were being inappropriate with it and they were flirting with it they were making her feel uncomfortable and so they talked about it for a little bit and then they both eventually ended up going to bed and before Jessie went to sleep she actually brought about this party in her diary she wrote I think I'm being corrupted I think certain men are taken what should be platonic love and perverting it into a competition at 8:00 a.m. the following morning joy Blodgett Jesse's mother woke up she did the laundry she left some laundry in Jesse's room and then she went off to work book her father was already at work at this point and then four hours later around noon joy returned home for her lunch break but the house seemed strangely quiet there's no piano there's no singing as there normally is so she just assumed Jessie she's on summer break she's probably sleeping in like most teenagers would when they've got time off for college and so she began shouting up to her to wake her up because it was midday but there was no movement from her room so Johnny went and stood in the doorway and again shouted to Jessie get outta bed wake up but again there was no movement from Jessie in her bed and joy couldn't understand why she wasn't waking up why she was kind of ignoring her and so joy went over to go in no chair and when she touched Jessie she was cold Oh perfect I know one what's your emergency she won't wake up she's gone okay hang on a second okay she breathing I don't think so okay ma'am do you know how to do CPR you just do CPR means cold [Music] regulation work there are strangulation marks police and an ambulance was sent to the scene however it was already too late and Jessie blood jet had already passed away at age 19 so Jessie's father book rest home from work although he and joy Jesse's old mom and dad weren't allowed in the room to go and see her to go and touch him to go and say goodbye because she was a crime scene at this point this was obviously quite suspicious so crime scene investigators went into Jesse's room while her body was still there obviously the job move anything straight where and they noticed what seemed to be ligature marks and tie marks on her neck and on her wrists meaning that maybe she'd been bound and that also suggests that her cause of death was probably strangulation with a ligature and they also noticed that obviously Jessie's hair and her clothing was wet and this suggests that her killer probably tried to get rid of any evidence on her so there were the obvious immediate questions of who did this to Jessie why did they do it how did they get in the house and the crime scene invest as quickly noticed that there was no signs of forced entry on the house no smashed windows no broken locks so it seemed as if maybe this was someone that Jesse knew herself and Hitler in oh maybe it was someone that knew access points to the house so someone that had been to the house before so still someone that knew Jackson of course when joy Jesse's mother started to think about it she became really concerned about that conversation that they'd had just 12 hours earlier jesse was talking about - were older men that were being sexually inappropriate towards her and then this happened and so my mother told police so police began asking around the cast of Jesse's production fiddler on the roof to see if there was any inappropriate behavior going on at that party if anyone else not to stir these kids had noticed some men being inappropriate with Jesse one of them at one point even pulled her onto his lap and so police decided to look into this more so they looked into one man in particular the one that pulled her onto his lap because obviously that is very concerning behavior and so we got in touch with this man's manager at his work and his manager said that he actually hadn't turned up for work that day the morning after the cast party the morning after Jesse died which is obviously even more concerning to police and certainly brought him in for questioning detectives spoke with this man for only a couple of hours before ruling him out completely as a suspect so obviously he's innocent so I don't know his name I don't know what went on in that questioning but you know police cleared him of any involvement so it must have been convincing both he and the other older man at that party that was being inappropriate both of them were ruled out and so a search for Jesse's killer continued but as police in Jesse's town were questioning and ruling out suspects they didn't know that police in the next town over were focusing in on Jesse's killer only for a different crime that they'd committed and this or the crime that Jesse's killer had committed was another attack on another woman completely different woman in a different town on a different but eerily similar to Jessie just three days before Jessie's murder a woman named Melissa at slur was out walking her dog in a local park when she was attacked Melissa was just getting ready to leave the park she was heading towards the exit when she heard footsteps behind that I look back and I left and said oh you scared me just because I thought he was some friendly a and then I turn around again because I can hear him coming at me and I see a knife in his hand and Melissa says that the next thing she remembers was this man tackling her to the ground and she's laying face down while he's sat on it pinning her down so of course she began like wrestling him off her and she eventually grabbed hold of the knife but she grabbed hold of it by the blade and this caught up her hand really badly eventually she managed to completely wrestle this knife of him so now he is completely disarmed and she has a weapon and so he's trying to get it back off her but she's saying no she's got a really good grip on it and it's not going anywhere and at this point the attacker realized that he wasn't gonna get this knife back Melissa was very athletic she was very strong she wasn't gonna let this knife girl and so he turned to her and he said can I just go and Melissa said yeah girl and so he ran away so Melissa went straight to the hospital for her wound to be treated because like I said she was bleeding really badly from her hand and she had a bunch of other injuries and while she was there police came to interview her about this attacker and her memory was amazing she described the attacker so vividly she said that he was a white male 18 to 20 years of age six-foot-two around 210 pounds light blond hair very fair-skinned and he was wearing plaid shorts she remembered exactly which parking space this man had parked ynx obviously he ran back to his car to speed away and she remembered the exact model of his car almost down to the year it was a dark blue minivan she said exactly it was a Dodge Caravan I don't know what year an older model though so from this really vivid description police were able to make a posit sketch of this attacker and they believe that as soon as it went out on the news they were going to get hundreds of calls in telling them who this person was because it seemed so accurate but it went out on the nears and police got no feedback but they did get one lead and it wasn't from the public actually it was from an internal source within the police force it was another officer that actually recognized the model of car and this officer remembered see in this exact van the exact color the exact model in that exact same parking space a wild before this attack so not on the same day but a lot of people tend to have a parking space or an area of a parking lot that they tend to go after so he felt that that was a strong lead but not only that not only did he recognize the car he actually ran the plates on the car that day so he had the details of this car in the system somewhere however the owner of this vehicle was nothing like Melissa's description she said a six-foot blonde man fair-skinned fair-haired but the owner of this minivan was a middle-aged couple so the police went to go and interview this couple anyway just in case you know they obviously owned a van that was very similar maybe had been stolen or something like that and so they went to speak to them and they found out that at that time on the morning of Melissa's attack their son was actually out borrowing the van to go to work and their son was six-foot fair-haired fair-skinned 210 pounds you know the exact description of Melissa's attacker and so his parents give police his phone number meanwhile as all of this was going on in a separate town the search for Jessie's killer was still going on and her family and friends were obviously still grieving this was very soon after her murder and so they decided to hold a vigil at the house where all of her friends all her performing friends high school college friends all her students all her family could come and tell stories and hug and share memories and support each other and as they were all talking together damn bartels phone rings and he answers it and he just says yeah sure I'll be right there but on the other end of that phone call was a police detective dan Bartelt was the teenage son of that middle aged couple the Onge the minivan but what sparked more interest when I got off the phone I looked at detective Foster said he never even asked me what this was about how many people get called by a detective asked the meet and they don't say what's going on why do I need to meet you so and then got off the phone he looked up at everyone in the room and said it was the police I've just been called down to the police station and obviously at this point no one in the room knew about the attack on Melissa obviously that was what the question was about that's why he was being called to the police station but everyone in the room just assumed that it would be in connection with Jesse so Jesse's mother joy comforted Dan she went up to him and she said ah don't worry about it they'll probably be calling in all of Jesse's friends just to kind of question them see what was going on that night or in her life or whatever don't worry about it so Dan went down to the police station and just before his interrogation as police were like setting everything up getting everything ready one of the officers was having small talk with him and at this point the cameras were already rolling the microphones were going they would just kind of prepare in paperwork and things like that and this officer said to him so where have you been tonight and so Dan said that he was at Jessie Blodgett vigil and because this detective was from a different town he knew of Jesse's name and the case and everything but he didn't really know the details and so he said to Danny was like ah what what happened to her is that the girl that passed away like what's what's going on with that and Dan Bartelt sent to this police officer I think someone raped and murdered her and then obviously the paperwork was sorted and everything and they got on to the questioning about Melissa so one of the first questions was where was he on the Friday that Melissa was attacked was he at that park and he said no I don't believe sir he was just denying everything all knowledge of Melissa and her attack and everything and as Dan was talking telling his story whatever one of detectives was like watching him talk and he was talking a lot in his arms and this detective noticed a graze on his elbow and so he pulled him up on it and Dan said I probably just fell or something and so then he asked to properly see his arms and his hands so Dan put his hands out and this detective noticed a puncture wound on his thumb which again he asked him how he got it and Dan said that he had been jabbed with a screw at work and so they asked him some more questions about work and found that he didn't actually have a job he was just pretending to his parents that he actually had a job every morning he would wake up early he would put uniform on he would make his lunch he would get ready and then he would go to work but all he'd really do was borrow the family minivan and just go out for the day and go to random places and parks and just go and sit about all that and so police said right you do have a job then how did you get that injury you've just told us that you don't have a job so how could you have done it at work and then Dan changed his story - he was at home he was cooking a meal he was cutting up some vegetables and whatever and he accidentally cut his thumb and so at that point police stopped him and they said look we know you're lying why would he need to cover that up if that was the truth that he put his finger cooking at home why would he have tried to cover it up saying that he did it at work he wouldn't have needed that obviously he'd given an excuse for this injury on his thumb then port tolls in his excusing that he didn't have a job so thought of another excuse there were both lies and police knew this obviously dad was trying really hard to cover up the true story behind the injury on his thumb and so they said look we know you're lying just tell the truth and so Dan said yeah I did attack that girl in the park Melissa and so detectives asked why like what was his intention what was his motive what was he gonna do once he had power over her and Dan said that he just wanted to scare her he said that ever since he dropped out of college he felt scared scared of life he felt like he didn't have a future and you were scared in the future and so he just wanted to make someone else feel that kind of fear so now they had a contact and emotive but just to back it up police wanted some evidence so police went to the park and they gathered all of the rubbish from all of the bins from the dead Melissa was attacked and they went through it and in one of these bins they found multiple items that had done Bartels blood on them one of these items that Dunn had thrown away was a roll of tape which he was probably going to used to put over her mouth maybe around her wrists and her ankles or something and then on a search of Dan's home they found that same identical tape around some of his pipes proving that that was Dan's tip and just for that extra bit of evidence police decided to put Dan Bartelt in a lineup of different suspects people that kind of look a bit like him and Melissa looked at this lineup and immediately picked up Dan as her attacker so Dan was arrested and held in custody awaiting trial and in the meantime one of the officers that interviewed him that day remembered something strange about that interview so if you remember the officer was just kind of making small talk with Dan before the interview began that we're talking about Jessie and her vigil and like what happened to her and everything then when he asked Dan what had happened to Jessie Dan said that she'd been raped and murdered and this came as a surprise to police because Jessie's autopsy hasn't even finished yet and so even police didn't know that she'd been raped it's not like it was public information it's not like it was in the news literally Jessie's own parents didn't even know at this point police didn't know no one knew the only person that could have known that was the murderer and so this was grounds enough for police to get a search warrant of Dan's electricals obviously they'd already looked at his house and everything but they wanted to seize like his laptop his for and things like that and on Dan's computer detectives found extensive search history I'm like bondage porn along with a search history of terms like spree killers and serial killers but the most concerning thing that police found on Dan's computer was a snuff film which if you don't know what snuff film is it is a video of someone being killed and that in itself is very concerning but it only gets worse when you find out that the exact events that happened in that snuff film is the exact events that happened to Jessie that night in this movie a woman is sexually assaulted and then she's strangled with a ligature and then her body is washed to get rid of all the evidence and if you remember Jessie's clubs and the hair were wet she'd been washed so now police decided to get done in and question him specifically about Jessie's murder whereas before he don't have been talking about Melissa now they wanted to know about Jessie so as soon as he came in the first question they asked him was what do you think happened to Jessie just to see if he'd slip up and say the same thing again but this time instead of incriminating himself Dan just broke down in tears and said I don't know and detectives knew already that Dan was very very close to Jessie that summer and he had been for years before that but particularly that summer when he came back from college they spent a lot of time together and Jessie's parents had told the police that and when they did police were quite concerned because Dan had never mentioned that to them Dan hadn't said how close he was to Jessie he kind of acted in his questioning as if he didn't really know her and so police thought that was really suspicious and so they pulled him up on it they said why haven't you told us that because you can obviously see how bad it looks and Dan told police that he did this because he and Jesse were sat in a kind of romantic relationship that's someone they were flirting things were going a bit further than they should have and Dan actually had a girlfriend at the time which is why this was so bad and so he didn't want to tell anyone that he was close to Jessie and that he'd been spending so much time with Jessie just in case it got out and got to his girlfriend and all the way through this interview as police are asking him about like Jessie their friendship what happened to her that night Dan is crying he's whimpering he is sniffling but this whole time detectives didn't see a single real tear come out of his eyes like his eyes were completely dry as for his alibi on the day of Jessie's murder Dan said that he was doing what he always did he was at work he went out in the van he went driving went to a couple of parks he said around 10 a.m. that morning he arrived a park named Woodland Park and he sat there for a while reading and trying to write a book and sir out of interest police began asking down more about this book that he was writing they didn't know that he was writing a book and so Dan told them that it was actually a series of books and the main character was called Jessica and she would eventually be murdered and as suspicious as that might sound dan was still denying every single accusation that police were throwing at him and serve the interrogation continued and as he was being questioned Dan's demeanor gradually shifted from sad grieving crying friend to defensive and argumentative he told police that they were making him feel uncomfortable they were making him feel like a suspect and like they were insinuating things about the situation and with that Dan Bartelt said if you want to ask any more questions I would like to have a lawyer present and so the question in finished well police did help the first half of the questioning to go off they still had some little bits to be looking into for example his alibi that he was at the woodland park that morning and sure enough when police checked the CCTV at the park Dan was there at 10:00 a.m. so he couldn't have been at Jessie's house at that time but of course that doesn't account for during the night he could have killed her and then gone home setting himself out got ready for work and then got out to this park afterwards and so police thought right if he'd already killed Jessie that morning he will have had evidence that he will have wanted to get rid of so they went to this park Woodlawn park where they had evidence that he was that morning from the CCTV and they began looking for evidence in bushes in ditches they checked the rubbish in the bins again and in one of these bins police found an empty cereal box with paper towels shoved inside it so they took this cereal box out took all the paper towels out and they realized that it wasn't all paper towels wrapped up inside was some rope alcohol wipes and a ball gag the Rope seemed to line up perfectly with marks on Jesse's neck as well and on a second search of Dan's home they found the long piece of rope that this shorter piece of rope was caught from but not only that on a second search of Jesse's home on a second search of the actual crime scene police found a roll of tip under her bed and this tip was the same brand the same type of tip that police had found in the bins with his blood on when he tried to attack Melissa that same tip that was found on pipes in Dan's home was now found under Jesse's bed with his fingerprints on it obviously police took Dan bartels DNA so that they could test all of these items in that cereal box from the park and they found Dan's DNA on every single one of those things along with Jesse's DNA but not only that now that they had Dan bartels DNA they went back and checked Jesse's body and of course they found Dan's DNA under her fingernails and because of what Dan said in his interview about the sexual assault they went and tested her and yes she'd been sexually assaulted by Dan Bartelt and even though Dan was denying every single accusation against him he was still charged with first-degree murder and found guilty dan was sentenced to life in prison because the judge believed that if he wasn't locked up for life he would go on to do this again obviously he was determined to kill someone or hurt someone our sexually assault someone because he tried twice in the space of three years what's stopping him from doing that ever again you know Dan actually tried to appeal his sentence in 2017 so just almost two years ago on the grounds that police had not explained his rights to him well enough and of course this was rejected and he's still serving life in prison so quickly before I end this video I just want to introduce you to a new little segment that I'm gonna be doing in the end of every single one of my true crime videos from now on obviously these videos always end on a really really sad note and that can't be helped these are sad videos in nature but I don't really want you guys to be leaving my videos sad I want something good to come from these videos more than just education on these cases I want actual change actual help from these videos and so I've decided that in the end of every single one of my true-crime videos we are gonna talk about a different charity big small whatever the cause is just we're gonna talk about a different charity we're gonna talk about the good that they do for the world I just think it'd be such a good thing for all of us for me and you guys that watch these videos that are constantly watching all this sad stuff like I want to end it on a lighter now it'll be good for the charities but we're helping out they'll get more donations they'll get more exposure hopefully that's where you guys come in so if you guys have any particular charities that mean a lot to you personally small big whatever the cause literally anything let me know put them in the comments tweet me them instagramming them whatever as for today's charity that we're going to talk about I thought that this was the most perfect time to start this little segment in my videos because book blood jet Jessie's father actually started his own charity in memory of Jesse it's called the love is greater than hair project and their main mission their main goal is to end mail violence against women I felt like I was given a job to do and I feel like all of us have a job to do and we all are are meant to learn and grow and develop ourselves is better and better human beings and learn how to bring more and more love into this world and end evil and violence and hate I said it Jesse's funeral love isn't always will be stronger than hate I don't know why I said that I don't know where that came from it just did and I had no idea the ripple effect out through the community of the impact of those words but I began to see it in the weeks to come especially at the candlelight walk where there was banners and everything everywhere that said love is greater than hate and when I saw that I realized something was going on here that was bigger than me and I was supposed to do something about it and all of us are supposed to do something about it they gave presentation they talk in high schools talking to young people who are still growing and still farming their values and their morals in their head it's really important to educate of course everyone on things like this on violence against women but especially younger people who are who need this kind of education as they're growing up as they're forming their personality as their farm in who they are they are of course a nonprofit organization that rely on donations to be able to give these talks in high schools on radio shows on TV shows of course you can donate as little or as much as you personally can afford and as much as you feel comfortable with imagine if every single one of us watching this video right now could donate at least just one pound imagine how much we could raise for Jesse and for her memory and for her family and for her story to go on and change lives of course you can just donate and that's it but you can also buy merchandise from the website they have fans they have badges they have keyrings t-shirts jewelry and book written by Jesse's father of course the link to the love is greater than hair project will be down below in the description please consider checking it out consider donating consider buying a piece of merchandise to represent this amazing cause and of course if you have any other charities that you want me to feature in the end of one of my videos let me know in the comments but yeah thank you so so much for watching this video if you enjoyed make sure you leave a big thumbs up and subscribe down below if you want to see some more from me because I upload these true-crime videos all the freaking time if you want to see some more like me like Ellen or like like the weird person behind this very serious true-crime queenie then consider subscribing to my second channel I'll link it up here in the little I think but yeah I'd really appreciate you checking that out because I do love that channel and even though I draw blood on it as as I should it's still my little baby and I love it for a big shout out to all of my channel members all of the names are on screen right now if you want to become a channel member all you have to do is click the link in my description or you can click the join button if you're on a desktop if you do become a channel member you get access to a bunch of extra perks you get your name on this end screen of every single video you'll also get access to a members on the community tab where we talk about the cases I'll ask for care suggestions you'll get your suggestions fast track but yeah thank you so so much for watching this video again the links to the charity and down below and I will see you in the next one bye [Music]

Channel: Eleanor Neale

Views: 1,711,381

Keywords: makeup, tutorial, eleanor, neale, eleanor neale, eleanor neale 2, eleanor neale true crime, eleanor neale makeup, review, fashion, style, beauty, 2019, vlog, mystery, unsolved, unsolved mystery, true crime, solved, jessie blodgett, crime watch, crime watch daily, criminally listed, chills, documentary, bbc, itv, podcast, dan bartelt, bartelt, blodgett, kendall rae, actress, singer, the grindr killer, missing, disappearance, news, case, mile higher

Id: _EX3-ffoXHg

Length: 33min 35sec (2015 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2019