← Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
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- [00:03]
Vanessa Richardson
Hi Crime House Community. It's Vanessa Richardson. Exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up. Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Every week has a theme. Tech, bioterror, power, paranoia, you name it. Follow conspiracy theories, cults and crimes now on your podcast app because you're about to dive deeper, get weirder, and go darker than ever before.
- [00:47]
Carter Roy
This is Crime House.
- [00:51]
Kaylin Moore
Thirty years ago, a woman checked into a luxury hotel in Norway. She gave a fake name, she didn't pay, and days later she was found dead in her room.
- [01:00]
Morgan Abshur
Police felt that the answer was pretty obvious, but evidence and mysterious clues have others thinking that's just not the case. So who is the Oslo woman and what really happened in room 2805? Hi guys. Welcome back to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.
- [01:34]
Kaylin Moore
I'm Kaylin Moore and I'm going to be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories and the court files released on these cases.
- [01:40]
Morgan Abshur
And I'm your Internet sleuth Morgan Abshur. I'm the one who's diving into Reddit forums and anything else I can find online to talk about those lesser known details and pulling at the threads that just don't add up.
- [01:50]
Kaylin Moore
Don't forget to share your thoughts on social. We also share a lot of just fun videos and other pictures about the cases on socials. We love hearing from you guys and if you want ad free listening and early access, you can subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. Let's get into this case and the clues that defined it.
- [02:10]
Morgan Abshur
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- [02:25]
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- [02:27]
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- [02:40]
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- [03:10]
Kaylin Moore
All right, before we jump in today, I just want to say nothing but respect to the lovely people of Norway. Oh, gosh, I love how beautiful that country is, how beautiful the language is. We are going to mispronounce a few words. It's just in our nature. English is our first language. Norwegian is one of the hardest languages.
- [03:30]
Morgan Abshur
If you listen and watch two hot takes, you already know I can't pronounce English words correctly. So, yes, my sincerest apologies, because I'm. I'm really sorry. I know it's gonna be bad.
- [03:42]
Kaylin Moore
And we try the pronunciations too. Like, we. We practice watch videos from native speakers. We like everything we do. We try to, like, go straight to the source and figure out how to say the words. And sometimes it just doesn't happen.
- [03:54]
Morgan Abshur
We have little sounded out, like, phonetic thing ready next to it too. And, like, you should see some of the bloopers you guys like. It is a 10 take. Try to get it. And still we. We think we get it. And then you guys who speak the language natively tell us almost, but not quite.
- [04:11]
Kaylin Moore
That being said, I would love to know, if you're listening from Norway, how many Norwegian listeners do we truly have?
- [04:17]
Morgan Abshur
You know what I would also like? We need a little Rolodex of language gurus. So if you are like a native German speaker, if you're a native whatever speaker, please put it in the comments so we can maybe create a little index of people that, like, when we have these cases coming up, we can be like, hey, phone a friend for heart starts pounding.
- [04:36]
Kaylin Moore
I have this heli, who's my German listener, who sends me little voice memos of the pronunciation.
- [04:42]
Morgan Abshur
See, that's what we need.
- [04:42]
Kaylin Moore
We love it.
- [04:43]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, that's what we need. So if you're out there, please chime in. But without further ado. Yeah, let's get into this one. Cause it's confusing this one.
- [04:51]
Kaylin Moore
There's a lot of mystery to this one, and I still don't know how I feel about it. And just a reminder, if you're watching this on YouTube, you're gonna see some assets, images, pictures, videos that'll help you visualize parts of the case. And if you're listening to this video, our listeners can also go over to our socials. We're gonna post all the same images and videos there as well.
- [05:09]
Morgan Abshur
And just a warning, this episode does include Discussions of suicide. If you or someone you know is seeking help, you can call the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline to connect with a counselor. You can also reach them by texting 988 or chatting with them at 988lifeline.org and as always, please listen with care.
- [05:30]
Kaylin Moore
This case starts just after 7:30pm on Saturday, June 3, 1995. A hotel receptionist at the Oslo Plaza Hotel in Norway looks through the system and sees something. The guests in room 2805 still haven't paid for their stay. According to this system. They're a Belgian couple, Jennifer and Luis Fargate. The Plaza is a five star luxury hotel where celebrities and royalties stay when they're in Oslo. So this room is expensive. It's around $180 a night in 1995. That's like $380 today.
- [06:06]
Morgan Abshur
That's bougie.
- [06:07]
Kaylin Moore
The receptionist sends a message to the TV screen in the room and a message pops up saying that they need to contact the cashier. And according to the system, two other messages have already been sent to this TV. One at 2:19pm on Thursday, June 1, and another at 8:57pm on Friday, June 2. On this day, June 3, someone hits the OK button on the remote control within minutes showing that they saw the message. But after that, no one comes down to the desk to pay. So the receptionist decides they're going to call housekeeping. She learns that a Do Not Disturb sign has been on the door for two days. And that's when the receptionist sends security up to go check on the room. Because something is starting to feel odd about room 2805. The security guard knocks on the door around 7:50pm and seconds later a deafening bang comes from inside the room. It's a gunshot. The guard panics. He has this two way radio on him, but he doesn't use it. Maybe it's because he doesn't want to worry the staff just yet. Maybe he's still trying to process what he just heard. Instead, he goes back down to the ground floor and he gets the head of security who arrives back at the room at 8:04pm by this point, 14 minutes have passed and no one's been looking at the room. No one has eyes on the door. When he goes to enter, he realizes that someone has turned the deadbolt from inside of the room. But still the security guard has a master key so he can let himself in. And right away he smells something harsh and metallic. It's probably the gunpowder from the gun. There's a woman lying on the bed. She's holding a gun in her right hand and she has a gunshot wound to her head. He ends up calling the police, who arrive a half hour later, and they notice something very strange about the scene. This woman has almost no personal items in the room. She does have a few items of clothing, but she's cut all the tags. And the name that she's given to reception is definitely fake.
- [08:14]
Morgan Abshur
Morgan, you've already put a botched on the. This might be the quickest we've ever got. So one. I'm like, Caitlyn's cold open. And here we are with one. He should have at least stayed outside the room. How do you know someone didn't escape? Come on.
- [08:26]
Kaylin Moore
Treating things like a crime scene, which we talk about on this show, you have to pretty much immediately treat everything like a crime scene.
- [08:31]
Morgan Abshur
And I know he's a security guard, it's unusual for him and he panicked. You know, he's not law enforcement. But still, I mean, hey, can I get some assistance? You can say it vague enough to where you don't alert people and you keep eyes on the room.
- [08:46]
Kaylin Moore
Yes, that's true. And we don't know if by walking in the room you disturb something about the crime scene that you know is going to affect the way the investigation goes. Yeah, well, because this woman gave a fake name to reception, we don't know a lot about her, like where she was from or what she was doing in Oslo. But when police arrive on the scene, they're able to kind of start putting together some pieces about what her life looked like in the days leading up to her death. On Wednesday, May 31, 1995, a hotel receptionist got a call from a woman who wanted to change her reservation, and she asked if she could speak to someone in German. During this call, the woman asked the desk if she could check in that night instead of whenever her original reservation was for. And instead of one person, she said there would now be two. At around 10:30pm that night, the woman arrived at the hotel. She was described as having short black hair in a pixie cut. She was wearing makeup, and she was dressed in pretty dark clothing. She said that the reservation was for Jennifer and Lois Fargate, and then she gave them a Belgian home address. One employee remembered seeing the woman check in, while another believed that he saw a man with her. There's varying accounts of this. The woman had asked for one of the upscale rooms, so the desk checked her into room 2805 on one of the upper floors. For some reason, the woman did not prepay for the room. She didn't give her credit card details either. Staff later said that this was in fact pretty strange. The hotel had systems in place to make sure that guests paid and no one should have been given a room without payment. Regardless, they gave her a key card. And because of this key card, the hotel was able to get some more details out of her stay and give those over to the police. So the hotel had an electronic key card system and it registered every time a key opened the door from the outside. It didn't track the times that someone left the room or if someone opened it without the use of a key. But that First Night on May 31, a key card was used to open room 28O5 at 10:44pm Just after she checked in. And then it was used again at 12:21am, which meant that someone likely left in between those times and then came back. But the key card was not used for the rest of the night.
- [11:07]
Morgan Abshur
But again, you guys, it's 1995, so the hotel isn't fully operating on computer systems yet, even. Which in this case is helpful because it does give us our first clue. The check in slip. The reservation was logged in the Plaza's electronic system for Jennifer and Louise Fargate, with the last name spelled F A I R, G A T E. But they also had her fill out a check in slip by hand. And on that paper, the woman spelled their last name differently. It was spelled F E, R G A T E. Almost like Fergate, right?
- [11:47]
Kaylin Moore
Right.
- [11:48]
Morgan Abshur
She also signed her name two different times on her check in paperwork. But both signatures were so different, it looked as if they were written by two separate people. She wrote down a home address in a town called Verlaine, Belgium. But after she was found dead, police quickly discovered the address was fake. The street name she used, Rue de la Stade, didn't even exist in Verlan. Neither did the zip code or the phone number she gave. But the area code was Belgian, so at least she had some familiarity with the country.
- [12:25]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, this wasn't back in the day where you could just quickly Google something on your phone and get the zip code you would have to know going into it. The Belgian zip code you wanted to use.
- [12:33]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, so some things seemed like at least they were coming from a place of knowledge. But it just kept getting weirder when they looked into who she enlisted as her employer. And she put down a company called Service in Belgium. Again, didn't exist, but it was very close to CERBERUS an actual Belgian company at the time. So everything's like, close but not quite. Right.
- [12:57]
Kaylin Moore
Like, she's doing it from memory almost.
- [13:00]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. Or like had looked it up recently. Right, right. But couldn't quite remember it perfectly. And again, the signature's being so different. It's like. It's almost like when you're practicing someone's signature, but it's not yours.
- [13:11]
Kaylin Moore
Or it's like when you have a fake ID and the bouncer asks you your address, and, like, you're close enough, but, like, the numbers and the pronunciation are just off.
- [13:18]
Morgan Abshur
I used to go by Molly Mahoney, and one time there was three Molly Mahoneys in the bar at the same time. And the bouncer just laughs. Okay, Molly Mahoney. I mean, it was comical, but ID.
- [13:27]
Kaylin Moore
Chief made the same ideas, but that same concept.
- [13:30]
Morgan Abshur
Right. Like, you sit there and you're like, okay, what's my address? What zip code? Don't ask me what the zip code. Like, it's. It's close, but when you're on the spot, it's difficult. And speaking of, like, IDs, and like, what she put down for birth date and stuff, she put down a birth date that would have actually made her 21 years old, but that couldn't be confirmed because Jennifer never filled in the details of her passport on that slip. So somehow this woman was able to check into this luxury hotel without providing any payment, didn't show any form of identification, including passport. And again, something that was very against their protocols at the time, kind of.
- [14:11]
Kaylin Moore
Suspicious that she was able to go in without really any identification. I know.
- [14:15]
Morgan Abshur
And she's like, she's crossing borders and stuff. So, like, seemingly would have a passport. And like, nowadays it's so like, you hand over your passport, they photocopy it. Yeah. You don't get really loud. Yeah.
- [14:28]
Kaylin Moore
Especially at nice hotels like this.
- [14:30]
Morgan Abshur
Exactly.
- [14:30]
Kaylin Moore
Well, let's talk about her next day in the hotel. That's Thursday, June 1, 1995. So the key card was used at 8:34 that morning to enter. And at approximately 12:44pm, two housekeepers came to clean the room, but said no one was inside. Someone had slept in the bed, but other than that, the room was practically sterile. The guests seemed to have barely anything with them. And what they did have was tidied up. One cleaner remembered seeing a pair of brightly colored women's shoes, though she didn't remember the exact color, but her description was that they were, quote, vivid. Shortly after the cleaners left at 2.19pm, the front desk realized for the first time that they didn't have any payment information for Jennifer Fairgate. And that's when they sent the first of three messages to her TV screen asking her to contact reception that day. No one clicked the message indicating that they had received it, and the message stayed on screen for another 19 hours. The keycard system showed no more entries into the room that night of June 1st either. So the room was empty from at least the time the cleaners came until the following day, June 2nd. However, on the morning of Friday, June 2nd, Jennifer went to reception and asked if she could extend her stay. While she was initially meant to check out that day, she booked two additional nights, meaning that she was now going to stay until Sunday the 4th. But again, whoever was working at reception did not ask for any form of payment. Even though they had already messaged her on the tv, basically asking her to come down and pay, they still didn't ask for payment. In this interaction they had, it's almost.
- [16:09]
Morgan Abshur
Like she snuck behind the counter and just extended herself. Like, so weird. It's so odd at this point. Like she stayed multiple days. Now you gotta pay. Like, yeah, you want more days? Like, we need some sort of balance settled.
- [16:23]
Kaylin Moore
Nope. They just hand her over two new key cards. One of those key cards was used to open the room at 8:50 that morning, which marked the first time that Jennifer had been back since the day before. As she went into her room, a cleaner noticed her and said hello. She saw Jennifer put on a red do not Disturb sign on the door, and then minutes later, someone hit the okay button on the TV remote in her room, dismissing the message to pay. At 1103am, Jennifer's new card was used again to enter the room. And for the next nine hours she seemingly stayed there, since no key card was used to enter unless someone else was there to let her in. Then, at 8:06pm, Jennifer called room service and ordered bratwurst and potato salad. A worker named Kristen Anderson brought the food up, but someone put the wrong number on the ticket, so Kristin ended up delivering it to the door across the hall. 2804. First realizing her mistake, she brought the food to room 2805 at 8:23pm that stuff's cold. And according to Kristin, the room again looked very tidy. The bed had appeared as if no one slept in it and only Jennifer was there. There was no one else. Kristin was shocked when Jennifer gave her a 50 kroner tip. A normal tip would have been closer to 10 kroner. And then at about 8:57pm Eight minutes later, someone pressed okay on the remote acknowledging message to contact the desk about payment. No other key card swipes were recorded for the rest of the night. And no one remembered seeing Jennifer around the hotel. And that brings us to Jennifer's final day, Saturday, June 3, 1995. We don't know a ton about that day, but we can kind of piece it together a little bit from the items that were in her room. At some point on Friday night or on Saturday, Jennifer took a shower or a bath. She also apparently called down for an ironing board. There's no record of the call, but the iron and boards that were found in her room were not standard. They needed to be asked for.
- [18:30]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, maybe she ran into housekeeping in the hall.
- [18:32]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There were no other records of Jennifer's movements. No key card swipes, no witness sightings, until security went to her door to collect payment at 7:50pm and heard a gunshot from inside. But the question became, was it actually Jennifer who pulled the trigger?
- [18:56]
Morgan Abshur
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- [19:58]
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- [20:46]
Kaylin Moore
So it was 8:40pm on June 3rd when police arrived at the Plaza Hotel. And when they entered the room, they found Jennifer's body there on the bed. She was dressed in dark clothes. She was wearing makeup just like when she checked in, and she was holding a pistol in her right hand which was resting on her chest. It appeared as if she had shot herself in the head. The door was locked from the inside by a deadbolt, but the window was open. Her room was on the 28th floor, though there was no balcony to escape from. So initially police just looking at the scene figured it was a suicide.
- [21:22]
Morgan Abshur
Investigators figured the only way to find out more about this woman was to dig into the clues that she left behind, including our second clue, the 9 millimeter Browning semi automatic pistol. One of the first things they noticed when investigating this scene, though, is that there was actually a second bullet hole. Someone had fired the pistol through a pillow into the mattress. At the time, police believed it was a test shot. Perhaps Jennifer hadn't used the gun before, wanted to see how it worked. But that theory changed once they saw the briefcase next to the bed. Inside were 25 loose rounds, which was a lot for someone planning to die by suicide. However, I don't think they sell bullets individually, so it could have been a box was my thought with that one true. The gun itself was also a mystery to them. Its serial number had been taken off with what they thought was acid, removing it completely from the metal. It was that aggressive. Experts said the job looked professional. They were able to uncover six digits of the nine digit serial number, but it wasn't enough to ID the gun or who it was registered to. Plus, there were no prints on the weapon, which is interesting because it's actually pretty hard to lift fingerprints from guns. Regardless, the weapon did have a lot of wear on it, consistent with continually removing it from a leather holster, which kind of made them believe like this had been used a lot before. Let's also talk about the positioning of the gun. This is something that comes up quite a bit in this case and how it was actually found in Jennifer's hand. So Jennifer was holding this gun backwards and had seemingly used her thumb to pull the trigger. The Browning 9 millimeter has a pretty powerful kickback, according to experts. So if Jennifer had shot the gun, holding it in that specific grip, they think it likely would have fallen out of her hand, not just, like, been still in her hand and then on her chest.
- [23:29]
Kaylin Moore
Right. The positioning was kind of weird.
- [23:31]
Morgan Abshur
And then they go further, and they really start looking into the blood spatter patterns. The blood on the sheets and the spatter behind her on the headboard and pillows did appear to be consistent with suicide. But what was odd was the lack of blood and any gunshot residue on Jennifer's hand, which I asked you. I'm like, is that possible? Like, I'm not a gun enthusiast, but, like, is that possible to fire a gun and have no residue on your hand?
- [24:00]
Kaylin Moore
That was actually something that came up in the Menendez case.
- [24:03]
Morgan Abshur
Right.
- [24:03]
Kaylin Moore
Because they never checked the boys for their hands. But one thing you're supposed to do if it looks like a weapon's been fired at a crime scene is you can check people's hands for gunpowder residue, because that will typically point to the person who fired the weapon. So it is immediately suspicious that there's no residue on her hands. Also, just as a side note, because as you were talking, Morgan, I was like, how common is gun ownership in Norway? Like, was it strange in general to open the door and see a woman? Because we're American, so it's not something that we like flag when we read about it on a crime scene. But turns out Norway is actually one of the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to gun owners per capita.
- [24:43]
Morgan Abshur
What about Belgium, where she was saying she was from?
- [24:46]
Kaylin Moore
So in Norway, it says that it likely stems from how common hunting is there. I mean, think about it. There's so many forests, there's a lot of hunting, and they also have some of the strictest laws in the world. It's not as common in Belgium. So here I have a stat that says 12.7 firearms per 100 people in Belgium and in Norway. It said 31 per 100 residents in Norway.
- [25:09]
Morgan Abshur
Okay, so noticeable difference over double, almost triple. That's super interesting.
- [25:15]
Kaylin Moore
So we do have a producer note from producer Kristen that it was way more lax in the 90s to get a gun in Belgium, and that around I. I said the stat of, like, 12 people per 100. That's probably how many people had registered firearms in the 90s. But there could have been a lot more floating around. Unregistered it was stricter in Norway, for sure. But, I mean, the serial number was also scrubbed off. So it could have been owned legally, but we would have never known that, basically just by having the gun. So another odd thing about the crime scene that the police noticed right away is there's just a lack of items there. Seems like Jennifer didn't have any belongings, really. She was found wearing eye makeup, but there was no makeup in the room at all. There was also no hairbrush, no toothbrush, no other toilet either, which is kind of strange because she had been there for a few days and a few overnights.
- [26:08]
Morgan Abshur
They're also items that, granted, 1995, but they're also items that would gather DNA, right?
- [26:16]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, of course.
- [26:17]
Morgan Abshur
Like your hairbrush, hair follicles, toothbrush, toothbrush, saliva, DNA. Like, all brush is like, items that would contain DNA.
- [26:25]
Kaylin Moore
Right. And it's like one of those things where, okay, maybe you show up to a room and you accidentally forgot your toiletry bag. We've all been there. I've done that on vacation plenty of times. But there's also other things missing from the scene that you would just find a person having on them. Like there's no wallet, there's no house keys, just basically anything you would expect a traveling person to have. There is not anywhere to be found. The only personal item besides the clothes that was found in the room was a bottle of men's cologne, and it was almost empty. However, if a man was staying with her, there's kind of mixed reports on if he was ever seen, because, remember at the beginning, one of the receptionists thinks that Jennifer checked in by herself, and another one thinks that they remembered seeing her with a man. But other than that, no one else reported seeing her with a man while she was staying at this hotel. As far as anyone could tell, there was no Louise Fairgate.
- [27:17]
Morgan Abshur
Well, let's jump back to Jennifer's personal belongings that were found for a minute, which also happens to be our third clue. In the room's closet, police found a blazer and several shirts hanging. There was also a leather jacket and a knit sweater on a shelf, and a turquoise travel bag that had pantyhose, several bras, and a top. Strangely, though, most of these items had no identifying labels. Someone had snipped them off with scissors or a razor, and others that were sewn in had been unstitched from the items of clothing. The only pieces with tags were a gray blazer and her turquoise travel bag. The jacket was made by a German brand called Rene Les Art. The Tag couldn't be removed without cutting the blazer's lining. So it would have essentially just kind of ruined the jacket. Similarly, the turquoise bag was made by a German company called Travelite, and you couldn't remove the logo without damaging the bag. Even the clothes Jennifer wore, again, had no tags. And, hey, maybe she's like me. She doesn't like a scratchy tag on the back of her clothes. But it's still odd that, like, everything and the only really identifiable thing besides that blazer was her black shoes that only said made in Italy. She also wore a pair of black stockings, a black bra, silk pajama shorts, and a black thigh length cotton jacket. Again, none of these had labels. Besides her silk pajama shorts, There were no skirts, no dresses, no shorts, no pants, and there was no underwear to be found in this room, which is so odd. Like, has this woman just been going out in pajama bottoms the whole time?
- [29:04]
Kaylin Moore
Well, yeah, and she also has no toiletries, so it sounds like she just showed up with what she had on her back, essentially. It's so odd with, like, a few other things.
- [29:12]
Morgan Abshur
But again, she got there in the silk pajama shorts, which some of them look cute and could be decent in public.
- [29:18]
Kaylin Moore
I did travel with half a bottle of men's cologne on her, which is also just a weird thing to have.
- [29:23]
Morgan Abshur
Like, that's the only thing, the one personal item, almost. It's beyond odd. But what housekeeping also noticed is all of those items obviously gone. But those bright colored shoes that housekeeping had spotted were now also gone. There was also the issue of carrying everything. Investigators thought that the Travelite bag didn't seem big enough to fit all of the clothes that she had with her in it. Which is why they thought that Jennifer must have had another bag that was now missing from the crime scene, Especially since those shoes were gone. And there was one witness who agreed. Kristen Anderson, the woman who delivered room service to Jennifer, said that she thought she was a flight attendant. They were often guests at the plaza and were easy to spot. They tended to wear dark suits and kept their room super tidy. And they usually had rolling carry on suitcases, which Kristen thought she saw in Jennifer's room. There's also another item to note here. Jennifer's watch. More specifically, it is a citizen Aqualand diving watch. It is big, it's bulky, it's expensive, and it's equipped with instruments to monitor time and depth underwater. Kind of an odd watch to be wearing if you're a flight attendant. But I will say Flight attendants are required to wear watches.
- [30:50]
Kaylin Moore
Mm, interesting.
- [30:51]
Morgan Abshur
And at the time I was a flight attendant. You could not wear an Apple watch. You had to have another one, like a battery one.
- [30:58]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, I guess I didn't realize that.
- [31:00]
Morgan Abshur
What is an analog watch?
- [31:01]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:01]
Morgan Abshur
But I think it's now changed. But during the initial investigation, they found three batteries with rough engravings inside the watch that read W395. Investigators believed that this meant the batteries were installed in March of 1995, three months before Jennifer died. Apparently this is like a thing with watch makers and, you know, technicians that change out the batteries. And so they thought this W was the watchmaker's signature. I'm not a watch guru. If we have any watch collectors out there, please let us know.
- [31:35]
Kaylin Moore
This is so random, but I know a lot about grandfather clocks. And when you have a grandfather clock fixed, they'll write the date that it got fixed on just so that, like, they can keep track of it.
- [31:45]
Morgan Abshur
And so that's what they were thinking. That was the date they changed out the battery. And they hoped that maybe if they could find the watchmaker, whoever left this little signature could shed light on where Jennifer bought the watch, who she was, where she came from. But this ended up being a dead end for them.
- [32:02]
Kaylin Moore
But there were a couple other leads that they were able to follow. Even though they weren't able to find the watchmaker, apparently Jennifer tried to make two phone calls from her room. There's not really existing records of the calls, but we know that both numbers she dialed were Belgian, and both of them were nearly identical. They were off by only one digit. Neither call was answered, though. And based on the area code, it appeared she was trying to call someone in Verlan, the village that she put on her check in slip. But when the Norwegian police contacted Interpol for help, they discovered that neither of these numbers actually existed. Belgicom, which is Belgian's telephone company, put together a list of real numbers that were close to the two numbers that Jennifer dialed. And all of them were within a 10 minute drive of Verlaine. But the two numbers that she actually dialed were not in service.
- [32:56]
Morgan Abshur
So odd.
- [32:57]
Kaylin Moore
Which kind of again, I mean, if. If they're one number off, it makes me think of her doing things by memory. She, like, she just forgot, felt like she remembered the number and dialed it and then thought it was maybe one number off, dialed it again. That also wasn't the real number, but it sounds like she was trying to contact someone in Berlin.
- [33:13]
Morgan Abshur
Someone. Someone. After the Oslo police processed the crime scene, on June 3, 1995, they sent Jennifer's body to the forensic pathologist and they were able to give investigators a little bit more information about her. And that is clue number four for us. The autopsy for starters. They found that her age was actually closer to about 30 years old, not the 21 year old birth date that she gave the hotel staff upon check in. Next up in the autopsy was what they found inside of Jennifer's stomach. There was a lot of undigested food, including bits of sausage which suggested that she did eat. Right before she died again on Friday night, she ordered that room service. It was sausage and potato salad. And when police searched her room on Saturday, the half eaten plate of food was still there. Based on our timeline, it could mean that Jennifer got that sausage around 8:30pm on Friday and died after she ate it on Friday night or otherwise. Like she would have got it at Friday at 8:30 and then left it out in her room until the next morning. Yeah, just for hours. I think that food would have been bad by that point, of course. So it's another just like a little weird thing in this case. And we have to keep in mind like the last person to see her alive was the room service employee who she tipped very generously. So investigators start to wonder if like the gunshot the security guard heard on Saturday night was actually a cover up staging suicide. But the pathologist actually didn't agree. He believed Jennifer had passed away on Saturday night around the time the gunshot was heard. Which again, like suggests that the food would have sat for nearly 24 hours and then she ate it shortly before her death. But like, that's potato salad. No.
- [35:09]
Kaylin Moore
An odd detail, no. Well, after the autopsy, police were able to publish a description of, quote, the Oslo woman, that's what they were calling her. She was 5 foot 2, she was 148 pounds, she had blue eyes and short black hair. We have the artist's sketch right behind Morgan. Uh, that is the sketch that they released in Norwegian newspapers and sent it to Interpol and the Belgian police. For a full year between 1995 and 1996, the Norwegian authorities waited for someone who knew her to come forward. And when that didn't happen, they just closed the case. They said this was a suicide. She doesn't have anyone that's going to come forward and identify her. So let's move on.
- [35:50]
Morgan Abshur
What can you do?
- [35:51]
Kaylin Moore
On June 26th of 1996, that's 13 months after her death, Jennifer was buried at a cemetery in Oslo. One of the few people attending was A journalist from an Oslo tabloid called Verdunskong, or VG. His name was Lars Christian Wegner. And in 1996 he wrote a two page story about this case. Decades passed with no one claiming to know Jennifer. So he decided to reinvestigate the case himself in 2016. That's over 20 years later. And what's crazy about that is when he starts looking back into this case, that's when things really started picking up steam.
- [36:35]
Carter Roy
Hey, crime house Community. I'm Carter Roy, the host of Murder True Crime Stories. If you listen to true crime because you want more than just what happened, this show is for you. On Murder True Crime Stories, we take deep dives into history, most notorious murders. But we don't stop at the crime scene. We look beyond the headlines to understand the real story and the people who were impacted the most. Because these cases aren't just mysteries. They're lives, families, communities that were changed forever. Whether a case is solved or unsolved, my goal is for you to walk away understanding why these stories stories still matter and why they deserve to be told with care. Each episode explores the darkest corners of true crime while keeping the focus where it belongs, on the human cost. If you're already part of the crime house community, True crime Stories is a natural. Next listen. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Thursday beginning January 16th. New episodes will will also drop every Friday. Follow Murder True Crime Stories on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.
- [37:54]
Morgan Abshur
When Lars started the investigation in 2016, he re interviewed witnesses, including the hotel staff. He spoke to one of the women who actually cleaned Jennifer's room. And she remembered a lot, despite it being 20 years since the incident. And her details included our fifth clue, a duvet. See, when she was told that Jennifer had changed her reservation to include a guest, she actually put out extra soap, towels and another duvet. In Scandinavia, it's actually a really common thing for people sharing a bed to use their own individual duvets rather than sleeping with one large shared cover. This is actually my sleep method of choice. You have better temperature regulation, less sleep disturbances. Number one cause of waking up is improper temperature regulation. So if you're not doing this and you sleep next to a space heater like me, you should be doing this. And so this housekeeper recalls that when she went in to clean on Thursday, she noticed that only one duvet and pillow had been used. The other was folded up. She put the second duvet away in the closet and she made the bed for one person. When Jennifer returned the next Morning, after a long period away from her room, she put out that do not disturb sign. And when she went to bed Friday night, the room was made up for one person. Housekeeping didn't come in on Friday or Saturday because of that do not disturb sign. But when Jennifer's body was found on Saturday night, both duvets were on the bed, and it looked as if they had both been slept in. Even weirder, several hours after police cleared the scene, the mattress and beddings were thrown away by hotel staff, meaning police did not keep them as a part of evidence. So it's gonna get a little botched mark there.
- [39:46]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, definitely. I mean, that's to be graphic, but that's the duvet that she died on. Yeah.
- [39:52]
Morgan Abshur
I mean, there could have been blood.
- [39:53]
Kaylin Moore
There was blood. There's pictures of the blood. There's gunpowder residue on there.
- [39:58]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. I mean, it seems like something you would keep because of DNA and like, they knew about DNA at this point. Granted, techniques were evolving, but you don't know if there was a hair that was from someone else besides Jennifer that you didn't catch. So it seems silly that they wouldn't at least keep it.
- [40:15]
Kaylin Moore
They learned pretty quickly that the identity she had given was fake. So you would think they would want to preserve some of the DNA just to figure out who she was.
- [40:22]
Morgan Abshur
Who she was. I mean, look at how many cases we're solving now with forensic genealogy. Had you kept some DNA.
- [40:28]
Kaylin Moore
Well, that's an American thing.
- [40:30]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [40:30]
Kaylin Moore
There's not really forensic genealogy in other countries just yet. What are we doing, guys?
- [40:33]
Morgan Abshur
My European friends, my friends around the world, where are we at with that?
- [40:37]
Kaylin Moore
I mean, we love sharing personal data here in America, so not every European country is going to have the same.
- [40:44]
Morgan Abshur
That is very true. I really. I did try to delete my 23andMe data recently.
- [40:49]
Kaylin Moore
No, I gave up.
- [40:50]
Morgan Abshur
It was already very difficult to figure. Yeah, it's already out there. There's a clone of me somewhere in a lab. Yeah. But, yeah, they didn't keep it. And I mean, again, it could have told us if there was a second person in that room. But it's all really unfortunate. But again, going back to Lars, he did note a few other things that police saw at the time, but didn't get much from, including our sixth clue. A newspaper. When searching the room, police found a USA Today newspaper in a clear plastic bag on the desk. The Plaza left these outside of the doors of the nicer rooms on the upper floors every morning. But this bag was marked with a different room Number it was actually meant to be for 2816. What's strange though, is that 2816 was at the other end of the hallway. And when looking at this newspaper bag, the bag had an unidentified fingerprint on it. Whose fingerprint?
- [41:51]
Kaylin Moore
Whose fingerprint?
- [41:53]
Morgan Abshur
The only other fingerprints in the room were on some soda bottles, chip bags and the bottle of men's cologne. They all belonged to Jennifer. So obviously this newspaper bag fingerprint was kind of an anomaly. Like, where did this come from? There's no record of investigators talking to the guest in room 2816 back when this actually happened in 2017. Lars encouraged the Oslo police to send the fingerprint to Interpol. As of this recording, they still don't have a match.
- [42:25]
Kaylin Moore
Oh my gosh. That sounds like another botched. Honestly? Yeah.
- [42:30]
Morgan Abshur
Come on. I mean, you could have easily ruled it out too, if you would have like fingerprinted hotel staff. Granted, would they have been willing to give that up? I don't know. But like, who at least delivered those papers that morning? Can we just cross you off the list? Like, how did this.
- [42:43]
Kaylin Moore
Did they see anything? Yeah, definitely.
- [42:45]
Morgan Abshur
How'd it get there? Unfortunately, when Lars even tried to find out who was in 2816, not able to do so. But he did track down the guest in 2818, which is clue number seven. Her name was Boreal Strandinus. She was a travel agent in town from Bergen, Norway at the time. Six days after Jennifer died on January 9, 1995, Boreal actually called the Oslo police to report the unprofessionalism at the Plaza. See, she worked in hospitality herself, so she was so surprised at how relaxed they were about things when she checked in. Didn't even have her fill out a registration card. Then one night during her stay, she was woken up by sounds from a nearby room. It sounded like intermittent pounding or muffled thumps. She stayed up for a few minutes, kind of waiting to hear more, seeing if things were okay. And just before she was about to call the hotel reception to complain, the sounds just stopped. Lars couldn't tell if the police investigated her complaint at the time, but he wondered whether she heard some kind of struggle and if that struggle actually had something to do with Jennifer.
- [44:02]
Kaylin Moore
As Lars dug deeper into Jennifer's story, he became more certain that there was some sort of Belgian connection. During her three day stay, Jennifer called two Belgian numbers that did not exist, but they were similar to a few numbers that did exist. So Lars went and interviewed people who were attached to those numbers and they were all from Berlin, the same place that Jennifer claimed she was from. But he found that many of them had lived in those houses for decades, and they had no idea who Jennifer was. He even spoke to the current mayor of Berlin, who was also the mayor back in 1995 when she died.
- [44:36]
Morgan Abshur
He is putting the work in.
- [44:38]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah. Really trying to track everyone down.
- [44:39]
Morgan Abshur
Wow.
- [44:40]
Kaylin Moore
And that man did not recognize Jennifer, which was strange because the town was only 3,000 people at the time. And if she lived in Berlin in 1995, the mayor said he would have known her. So the details that she shared about herself were fake. But there did seem to be some familiarity with this small town in Belgium.
- [45:01]
Morgan Abshur
And that wasn't the only link to the country. The man staying directly across from Jennifer at the Plaza was a Belgian, too. He's actually our eighth clue. While re interviewing witnesses, Lars reached out to the man that stayed in room 2804, who he called Mr. F, the same man that room service mistakenly delivered to on the night of Friday, June 2. According to Hotel records, he stayed just one night, checking in Friday, June 2, and leaving the morning of Saturday, June 3. But here's what's sketchy. Lars found an email address for Mr. F, and at first he wrote back. But when Lars asked to speak to him about the incident in Oslo, he stopped responding. So Lars dug deeper. He found Mr. F's home address and just knocked on his door, but Mr. F still refused to speak to him. Finally, two days later, Mr. F did call Lars and he confirmed that he stayed in the Plaza during those dates. He was in town for work, he said. And then Mr. F brought up the topic of Jennifer, completely unprompted. Mr. F asked him, quote, there was a woman who died, wasn't there a suicide? It's posed as a question, right? He told Lars that he remembered because as he was checking out, the receptionist asked him if he knew anything about it, since his room was so close. He said he was a deep sleeper and didn't hear anything that night. Not the gunshot nor the police. He told Lars that the police never contacted him and that the only conversation he ever had about it was was with the hotel receptionist that morning when he was checking out. But here's the problem with his story. Mr. F checked out Saturday morning. Jennifer's body wasn't found until Saturday night. When Lars asked him about this discrepancy, Mr. F pretty much just hung up. Bye. And as of this recording, Lars had not been able to get Mr. F to speak to him again.
- [47:13]
Kaylin Moore
Which part of that would kind of make sense? Like, the police never Spoke to him because they knew that he wasn't at the hotel at the time that she died. But then how was someone at reception talking to him about the murder? Suicide, whatever.
- [47:25]
Morgan Abshur
I know.
- [47:26]
Kaylin Moore
Interesting.
- [47:27]
Morgan Abshur
Very fishy.
- [47:28]
Kaylin Moore
Very fishy. So, in 2016, Lars's investigation made a huge splash, and it prompted the Oslo police to reopen the case. They wanted to identify Jennifer with more advanced techniques than they had back in 1995, and to do that, they had to exhume her body. So In November of 2016, Lars returned to her unmarked grave site, because they're not going to write her fake name on the grave. So she was just in an unmarked grave. And after several minutes of digging, they found exactly what they needed. Bones and perfectly preserved teeth.
- [48:01]
Morgan Abshur
Two weeks later, Lars got some news. Using Jennifer's remains, forensic scientists at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health were able to extract some DNA, which is our ninth clue. And they identified her ethnicity. She was European, but not Scandinavian. They were also able to put together a DNA profile, but Norwegian law prohibits the act of submitting DNA from unidentified people to commercial ancestry sites, so unfortunately, no forensic genealogy. And since she wasn't in any of their existing databases, her specific identity remained a mystery. Thankfully, there was one useful detail from this exhumation. Experts looked at her teeth to see if they could learn anything else about her identity. Which is our final clue. Number 10. As we've mentioned, Jennifer wrote a birth date that would have made her 21 when checking in, but the doctor who performed the autopsy believed she was actually around 30. Well, the new investigative team sent the teeth to a top medical university in Sweden, and they looked at the level of radioactive carbon isotope called C14 that's absorbed by tooth enamel. With that, they decided Jennifer was likely born in 1971, which meant she was about 24 when she died. And based on the amount of an element called strontium in her teeth, additional tests revealed where she lived. She likely grew up in northern Germany, which makes sense.
- [49:38]
Kaylin Moore
She wanted to speak German to someone at the hotel. Yeah, she made the reservation.
- [49:42]
Morgan Abshur
And, yeah, again, it tracks with other details in this case, like the two labels left on her items. They were both from German companies. Lars also found a small metal logo on the briefcase that was filled with those bullets. Another German company, Jennifer's teeth, also had dental work done in porcelain and gold. This style was often used by dentists in the us, The Netherlands and Germany. In addition, Jennifer was wearing a gold ring on her right middle finger. It was engraved with the number 333000. Jewelers say this refers to the quality of the gold. I mean, in a lot of our rings here in the states, you see 14k, 18k. Like something we do here as well.
- [50:25]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah.
- [50:26]
Morgan Abshur
But unlike other countries, Germany is what actually measures their gold in thousands like this. So the ring could have been made and bought in Germany.
- [50:38]
Kaylin Moore
So even with all of these new details, as of this recording, Ozo police have still not positively identified Jennifer. Lars published an in depth article in 2022, and that same year, the case was featured on Netflix's Unsolved Mysteries. So with all of this exposure, maybe the case could get solved. But until then, there's a few interesting theories as to who Jennifer Fairgate was and what may have actually happened to her. And so we can really get into those now. I mean, the first theory that I see a lot is, was Jennifer murdered.
- [51:17]
Morgan Abshur
For sure because she was a spy?
- [51:19]
Kaylin Moore
Yes. Which we will get into that, Morgan, because I actually disagree with you on that one.
- [51:24]
Morgan Abshur
Really? You think just. Okay, yeah, okay, let's.
- [51:27]
Kaylin Moore
I have my reasons.
- [51:28]
Morgan Abshur
Okay, let's get into it.
- [51:29]
Kaylin Moore
So when Jennifer was found, there were two unusual things on her body. First, the way she was holding the gun in that reverse grip, her thumb on the trigger. Experts were surprised that she was able to hold on to the gun. And she also didn't have any cuts or scrapes on her hand, something that, you know, investigators really thought she would have on her hands because it's common in people who die from suicide by gun. The recoil will make marks on their fingers. And then also, remember, there was no gun residue. There was no blood on her hands.
- [51:57]
Morgan Abshur
That's what gets me.
- [51:58]
Kaylin Moore
Yes. So obviously, one of the answers to this is that someone else was in the room with her, maybe that man that she checked in with, that one other person saw her with, and he was the one that pulled the trigger. Now, there were no signs of a struggle in the room. There's a chance that she was drugged. She was never tested for drugs, though. So we don't actually know if she was drugged at the time of her death.
- [52:22]
Morgan Abshur
Just tested for alcohol, and that was negative.
- [52:25]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, and they tested the contents of her stomach, but I guess they didn't test to see if there were drugs in her stomach. Yeah, there was a good chunk of time between when the shot was fired and when the head of security entered her room. And we also only have that one shot being fired that people reported hearing, but clearly there were two shots fired, so we just don't know when that other one was fired. And basically, because we talked about this too. So they hear the, the gunshot, the security guard runs away. There's a 14 minute span where someone could have left the room. However, the room was deadbolted from the inside. Therefore, how could someone have left and then also deadbolted it?
- [53:01]
Morgan Abshur
He had a security key.
- [53:02]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, but I guess it was the key cards. Like if you have a key card, can you deadbolt a.
- [53:07]
Morgan Abshur
So I feel like security have like the little skeleton type key where like even if it's deadbolted, like they can still get in. They can get in. Is it the electronic key that then magically does the deadbolt? Like was the technology there for that or was it a physical, like, oh yeah, skeleton key. And it can twist it from the outside.
- [53:25]
Kaylin Moore
Huh.
- [53:26]
Morgan Abshur
And if this was a spy, I mean, you know, they're maybe equipped to go pickpocket a security guard and get their key or, you know, I mean, clearly this hotel was very, very lax.
- [53:38]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah.
- [53:39]
Morgan Abshur
They didn't ask for payment, they didn't ask for identification. Would they hand over a key? Like, hey dude, I got locked out. My key is right in my room. Can I just borrow this for you and give it back? Like you just never. I wouldn't put it past these people.
- [53:53]
Kaylin Moore
Absolutely.
- [53:54]
Morgan Abshur
I wouldn't put it past these people.
- [53:55]
Kaylin Moore
Do you want to get into the spy theory? Then?
- [53:57]
Morgan Abshur
Let's get into the spy theory. Clearly, everything about Jennifer from her name, address signatures, everything's fake. And intelligence officers are trained to remove identifying effects like trash from pockets. I mean, it could explain why all the tags were gone. We came up with this in the Somerton man case too, where all of the tags were gone except like some mysterious writings.
- [54:21]
Kaylin Moore
Yes.
- [54:22]
Morgan Abshur
So people still think he's a spy. And there's also the case of missing time with her. Like there was 20 to 24 hours where she was not in the hotel room at all. Like one morning she came back at 8:50am yes. Just kind of odd comings and going.
- [54:39]
Kaylin Moore
Well, it stretches without being in the room. I, I am very curious as to.
- [54:42]
Morgan Abshur
Where she was going.
- [54:43]
Kaylin Moore
Where were you?
- [54:43]
Morgan Abshur
Where were you?
- [54:45]
Kaylin Moore
And they didn't think to ask any shopkeepers in the area, anyone who worked in the town nearby, like if they had seen her, which is also strange. Like normally you're asking people, like, hey, this woman was like out and about town or like at the reception, like when she left, which way did she go? Like no one was trying to figure out where she had gone during that time?
- [55:05]
Morgan Abshur
No. And something else people point to with the spy theory is that Several intelligence agencies have assassinated targets and made it look like suicide. And the Plaza was no stranger to foreign dignitaries or their security. From 1992 to 1995, a series of secret meetings took place at the Plaza between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Officially, there weren't any meetings happening at the time. Jennifer died in June of 1995. But again, intelligence agencies were operating there, and they're not really known for their transparency. And, oh, yeah, that murder. We were there at that same time. Like, no one's gonna come forward and openly admit to that.
- [55:50]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah. So that was on Hearthstone. We covered the East Doll woman case, which is very eerily similar to this one.
- [55:56]
Morgan Abshur
Okay.
- [55:56]
Kaylin Moore
Also takes place in Norway. Woman found in the mountains, burned to death. No traces of fire being started around her body. She also has, like, so many pills in her system, it would have killed her way before she got to this, like, remote area of the mountains.
- [56:11]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [56:11]
Kaylin Moore
Police look at her, and the cop, the main cop on the case said, oh, she must have brought hairspray with her and lit the hairspray on fire, set her whole body on fire, and then just died. There was, like, no hairspray found at the scene. Is a very confusing conclusion to come to. Yeah. And so what they basically figured about this woman who also gave a fake identity at the hotel she was staying at, also had no tags on any of her stuff in Norway. She was there in 1975. There was, like, no immigration in Norway at the time. There was not. Also a lot. Not a lot of tourism. But she very clearly was not from there. And they figured she was a spy because similar to this, there were secret meetings actually happening in Norway. It was still the Cold War. There was a naval base there. She was seen at the naval base. But the thing with being a spy, typically, there's a couple different ways to be a spy. If you're, like, a professional spy with an organization, like, you have your backstory locked and loaded, you are not giving addresses that don't really exist.
- [57:08]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [57:08]
Kaylin Moore
You have a passport that's bulletproof. Like, they are giving you the materials to go to this country and not stand out and to not draw attention to yourself. That's true. So that, for me, kind of raised a red flag when she didn't have the right information. But what they'll also do is they'll take sex workers, female sex workers, and they'll say, hey, if you want to make a lot more money, we can. The honey trap. That's what they called it. We can have you be a spy. We'll kind of teach you how to do it, but you'll probably do it bad. But we don't care because we don't care if you die on this job.
- [57:37]
Morgan Abshur
You're expendable.
- [57:38]
Kaylin Moore
You're expendable. We're not going to tell you any real information about ourselves, but your job is to basically, like, try to cozy up to all of the, like, big generals in the military or whatever and get information from them for us. We'll pay you a ton of money to do it. And that's what I think that East Doll woman was doing because she also, similar to Jennifer, like, couldn't keep any of the details straight and, like, was kind of giving fake information that, like, didn't really make sense. And it is just because, like, you're disposable to them.
- [58:08]
Morgan Abshur
I mean, you know, clearly she wasn't good at remembering the details. Maybe she, maybe she got fired. Like, maybe she got taken out because she wasn't good.
- [58:18]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, maybe they were just at. Maybe she had gotten information for them and then they were done with her. And so, I mean, that's what happens.
- [58:25]
Morgan Abshur
Being a spy, like that is. It is a thing. Like, I know we joke and there's spy novels and James Bond, but it's.
- [58:31]
Kaylin Moore
For sure a thing.
- [58:32]
Morgan Abshur
It's for sure a thing. I mean, you know, we really looked into the building and I just have a hard time believing that, like, so much of her stuff was missing. Like only one pair of bottoms and they're silk pajama pants. And she's going around the city, like, stuff. And the shoes. Missing the shoes.
- [58:49]
Kaylin Moore
Like, there clearly were things in the room that had gone missing.
- [58:52]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
- [58:52]
Kaylin Moore
Where did those go?
- [58:54]
Morgan Abshur
Exactly. How did she get there? I mean, granted you could throw an ID away in a dumpster, you know, on your last walk about that morning. But, like, why? Just why? There's a lot missing. And so for me, I kind of have a hard time believing the suicide theory. But it is hard to explain some of the other stuff. Like there wasn't a fire escape. Yeah, the window was open. But, like, could this person have rappelled down the side? I don't know. Did they have a security key and lock it from the outside? What's easier to believe? You know, I know it's kind of like that. Like, don't look too hard. Because if you look too hard, then the most believable, run of the mill answer that it probably is, doesn't feel believable anymore. They always say that about cases we.
- [59:41]
Kaylin Moore
Can get into some of the theories from the Internet. Like, I know you probably read a lot of Reddit theories on this. For me, just kind of browsing through that. Seemed like the Internet was very torn on this. A lot of people do believe she just went there to take her own life. Yeah, she probably knew she wasn't going to leave, so she didn't bring a lot of stuff. She didn't pay because she knew she wasn't going to have to. Even with all like the strange circumstances. I guess you can explain some of those away maybe.
- [60:07]
Morgan Abshur
But yeah, I mean a lot of people also thought like Mr. F was super sketchy. Like again, how did he know someone was killed or committed suicide that morning upon checkout when she wasn't found until that evening? Like no one was talking, no one knew anything, it hadn't been discovered yet. So. Right. A lot of Reddit points to him. But Reddit, I mean, mixed bag of reviews on all the posts in the comments, like, yeah, you know, I feel like no one truly knows.
- [60:36]
Kaylin Moore
No, no. I mean, I did see some people wondering if she was a high end sex worker.
- [60:41]
Morgan Abshur
That honeypot theory, you might be onto something with the honey.
- [60:44]
Kaylin Moore
Could be the honey pot theory. If she's gone for a long time, I will say like the easdal woman, when she was found, she had like very expensive lingerie on her, she had wigs, she had passports from multiple countries and also currency from multiple countries and she had nothing.
- [60:57]
Morgan Abshur
Which also makes me think someone just cleaned the room.
- [61:01]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah.
- [61:01]
Morgan Abshur
Again, no toiletries, nothing identified, brought some.
- [61:04]
Kaylin Moore
Of the stuff to someone else and they had it or I. Yeah, yeah. It's really confusing. This is where we turn to the community.
- [61:11]
Morgan Abshur
I'm so nervous, excited to see what.
- [61:14]
Kaylin Moore
You guys, you guys, what do you think happened? I mean, what, what makes the most logical sense to you all? And do you think that we'll ever have something like this solved? It's interesting. A lot of the techniques that they use to try to identify her, they used to try to identify the Easdal woman as well. Like weird stuff you can do with teeth.
- [61:34]
Morgan Abshur
Teeth.
- [61:34]
Kaylin Moore
See where the dental work took place, there's like the substances on the teeth to see kind of like where someone was raised.
- [61:41]
Morgan Abshur
I know. Well, and it's like the teeth thing, I'm like, could the teeth have been impacted by also being buried for so many years? I'm like, does that, does the ground or groundwater bleach into teeth at all? Like, I'm like, how? I need to look more into teeth research.
- [61:56]
Kaylin Moore
Where's our phone A scientist.
- [61:57]
Morgan Abshur
I'm literally going, I'm going down a rabbit hole in my head that no one knows about right now. And it's, it's a weird spot.
- [62:03]
Kaylin Moore
I, I know you're gonna spend all night Googling like teeth science.
- [62:06]
Morgan Abshur
Teeth freak me out. Every time I walk up the stairs, you guys, I'm like walking up the steps and I just in my head envision tripping and cracking my teeth on the steps.
- [62:14]
Kaylin Moore
I had to show you a picture of my little 10 year old cousin when she did that. She broke both her two front teeth.
- [62:19]
Morgan Abshur
See, it's a very valid fear.
- [62:20]
Kaylin Moore
And she went and she got him fixed. And she looks great now.
- [62:23]
Morgan Abshur
Oh my God.
- [62:24]
Kaylin Moore
Just sometimes that happens. Well, I will say. In recent years, Lars has led a charge for a new investigation to take place. He's partnered with the Oslo police to chase down more leads. He's created a website that puts all of the facts in one place. And he even produced a 30 minute documentary on the case.
- [62:40]
Morgan Abshur
Go, Lars.
- [62:42]
Kaylin Moore
And thanks to his push for answers and the development of cutting edge technology, we've been able to discover new details about the Oslo Plaza woman that were not available in 1995. It's reignited an interest in the case that has spread across the world. And if anyone watching this, listening to this, has any information about the Oslo Plaza woman, we've already asked if you guys are from Norway. Maybe we do have some listeners there that, yeah, something.
- [63:07]
Morgan Abshur
I mean, maybe someone looks at old family photos and they see her in an old family photo again, like this was from 1995. Like, this could very easily be someone's aunt or, you know, sister or anything out there.
- [63:19]
Kaylin Moore
I know that's a really good point.
- [63:20]
Morgan Abshur
And hey, maybe someone can even smuggle some DNA out and we'll run it through an American genealogy website.
- [63:28]
Kaylin Moore
Maybe she had some American relatives immigrate all the time.
- [63:34]
Morgan Abshur
Like, who knows?
- [63:35]
Kaylin Moore
That's true.
- [63:37]
Morgan Abshur
Little theft of DNA.
- [63:38]
Kaylin Moore
Well, you can reach out to the investigative team by emailing Jennifer vg No. Jennifer G. No. You can also submit a tip to the Unsolved Mysteries team Simply go to www.unsolved.com tips.
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Morgan Abshur
Anything is possible.
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- [64:31]
Kaylin Moore
And with that, let's go to our missing person of the week. This week we want to highlight the case of 14 year old Jania McMichael of Gary, Indiana, who disappeared. And currently there is a renewed push for answers in her case. So investigators now believe that the teen was a victim of foul play. Now, Jania's mother, Jasmine McMichael, reported her missing on August 12, 2024 from their home near 19th Avenue in Virginia street in Gary, Indiana. In October, a search warrant was executed. Gary police said that they have not released details of that search to preserve the integrity of the case. The FBI is also involved in the investigation and says it strongly suspects foul play. Janaya was last seen wearing a black hoodie, black pajama pants, and red slash black shoes. Jania's grandmother has said about this case. Quote, one year ago today, I got a phone call from my daughter saying that my granddaughter Janaya ran away. I don't believe she ran away. There have been leads, but no solid leads. Nothing. It's just like she vanished. On April 28, 2025, the FBI and the City of Gary announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of those responsible for Janaya's disappearance. It also seems like at some point an additional $10,000 was posted by USPA Nationwide Security, a private security company. So now the total reward being offered for information is $30,000. If anyone has any information. And the Gary Police Department continues to work on active leads with the FBI and urges anyone with information related to Janaya's disappearance to come forward. Lead Detective Sergeant David Umbarger can be contacted at 219-881-1209 or dash u m b a r g e r@gary.gov. additional tips can be submitted to the FBI at 1-800- CALL FBI. That's 1-800-225-5324 or online at tips.FBI.gov and that is all we have for this episode of Clues. So curious to hear what you guys have to say about this one. I'm just no gonna be spinning on this one.
- [66:35]
Morgan Abshur
Maybe we should do a poll on this one. This could be one that, like we might need a poll on to see what people think. And if you have any other theories we didn't mention, put them in there. Honestly, you could convince me of pretty much anything right now because I, I don't know. I genuinely don't know.
- [66:53]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah. Are there any other details too that stick out to you as being just very odd? The gunshot residue, the missing shoes. Like there's just so many things that stick out to me as just not right about this.
- [67:03]
Morgan Abshur
The Fact, there weren't fingerprints on the gun. I mean, it just seems, like, so odd. And it's like the gun was in her hand backwards, resting on her chest. Like, and this is a little rabbit hole. We're not putting the pictures in the YouTube for you guys. But, like, you do see pictures of her, and it's like, it's very difficult to tell where she was even shot.
- [67:21]
Kaylin Moore
I know. Yeah, I totally agree.
- [67:22]
Morgan Abshur
And then the extra gunshot in the pillow. Yeah, what's that about?
- [67:25]
Kaylin Moore
What's that about? Some people were saying, too, that the pillow had been flipped over. So someone shot the pillow and then flipped it over.
- [67:30]
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. Or just weird. Was the pillow used as a silencer? Like, I mean, right, right, right. So many.
- [67:37]
Kaylin Moore
So many.
- [67:37]
Morgan Abshur
I'm twisted. I'm twisted up.
- [67:39]
Kaylin Moore
You reach us at clues, podcast on Instagram, comment on YouTube, wherever you listen. We love reading through the comments. And again, we get a lot of the missing persons of the week from you guys. So keep those coming.
- [67:48]
Morgan Abshur
Keep posting them. You're highlighting cases we have never heard about and sparking conversations in the comments because of it. So keep putting that. And you just reminded me of, like, call me, beat me, if you want to reach me with, like, your. Find us at clues podcast.
- [68:01]
Kaylin Moore
Clues podcast.com if you want to reach us. It's okay.
- [68:06]
Morgan Abshur
We like it at Crime House.
- [68:07]
Kaylin Moore
We value your support so you can share your thoughts on social media. And remember to rate, review, and follow clues to help others discover the show.
- [68:12]
Morgan Abshur
And subscribe.
- [68:13]
Kaylin Moore
And subscribe.
- [68:15]
Morgan Abshur
Subscribe. We really appreciate you guys subscribing.
- [68:18]
Kaylin Moore
All right, we will be back next week with another case.
- [68:21]
Morgan Abshur
Another. Another really good one. A doozy.
- [68:23]
Kaylin Moore
Oh, doozy.
- [68:24]
Morgan Abshur
Doozy of a case.
- [68:25]
Kaylin Moore
And we will see you then. Bye, guys.
- [68:27]
Morgan Abshur
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- [68:49]
Vanessa Richardson
Looking for your next listen. Hi, it's Vanessa Richardson and I have exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up starting the week of January 12th. You'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays, we unravel the conspiracy or the cult. And on Fridays, we look at a corresponding crime. Follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.