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Every holiday shopper's got a list. But Ross shoppers, you've got a mission. Like a gift run that turns into a disco snow globe, throw pillows and PJs for the whole family. Dog included. At Ross holiday magic isn't about spending more. It's about giving more for less. Ross, work your magic. Hi, I'm Jessi Pere. And I'm Andy. Cassette. Welcome to Love Murder, where we unravel the darkest tales of romance turned deadly. Our episodes are long form, narrative driven and deeply researched. Perfect for the true crime aficionados seeking stories beyond the headlines. Like the chilling case of Blanche Taylor Moore, the so called black widow who left a trail of poisoned lovers. Or the shocking murders of Chad Shelton and Dwayne Johnson, where family ties masked a sinister plot. Subscribe to Love Murder on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
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I'm brett.
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And I'm alice.
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And we are the prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, a rising newscaster is abducted on her way to work. Now, 30 years later, where is Jody Hewson? Troup. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my triple threat of a co host with brains, beauty and buoyancy, Alice.
A
Brett, I would be so flattered if I didn't know that you are actually describing who we're talking about today. So good job, Jewel.
B
Ray thought you had all those qualities, but you're right, they apply very well to our current case.
A
Well, that was a very, very kind descriptor. Thank you so much. I'm not a triple threat tonight. So we've been talking about where we're still in the fall season here. I've been to like three pumpkin patches this week and the fall fun is reaching a peak. So I am triple tired. I'm so tired.
B
Yeah, it's funny, I feel like every year we get more pumpkins. This year we have so we could start our own pumpkin patch based on the number of pumpkins we have.
A
Are they all from pumpkin patches?
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They're all from pumpkin patch. So that's how many pumpkin patches we have visited. And the oldest still has yet another pumpkin patch to go to this week. So we're gonna have more pumpkins before it's over. We are pumpkin out.
A
That is pretty awesome. So what we've been doing because we too have so many pumpkins, but like, we live in a really hot climate. The problem is if you cut into them, they'll like completely just like melt and get moldy immediately because of the heat. So we've been cutting them open and baking pumpkin seeds, and my kids are. Love it. It's been. They've loved that even more than carving, because they get to eat something at the end of it. And pro tip, I make them separate out the flesh of the pumpkin from the seeds, and that itself is a very engaging activity that lasts 30 minutes.
B
Yeah, we carved our pumpkins. Or two of them. The kids carved their pumpkins last night, and they're already starting to look. Even though it's gotten cool here, they're not looking their best. I don't anticipate that these pumpkins are going to last until Halloween, which is not that far away.
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It's an outdoor. It's an outdoor oven situation here.
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It is.
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It is.
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It's funny because if you're listening to it, you're like, what are you talking about? Because it's almost Thanksgiving for you. But that's just the benefit of recording ahead of time, is you guys get to experience the past all over again. And for us, Halloween's on Friday, so. So, yeah, can't wait. And then it'll be Christmas time. Not much. One for Thanksgiving, as you know, but that's okay.
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And as for our house, you know that we live for Thanksgiving and Squanto. So those of you who are joining for the first time, we're about to roll right into what we call Squanto season in our house. My second is obsessed with Squanto the man, so much so that he method acts as him. He dresses in deer skin and doesn't wear a shirt for about a month and a half and eats with a wooden spoon. This is quite literally when we go into the library. He requests exclusively Squanto books, so much so that our sweet librarian has now bought multiple books about Squanto for us.
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Wow.
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And they are all checked out by us right now.
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That's awesome. I love it.
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It is.
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So love it.
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Those of you who like Thanksgiving, we celebrate it aggressively in our house.
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Yeah. Well, happy Thanksgiving to those of you. This will coming out the week before Thanksgiving and probably part two, the week of Thanksgiving. And today, as Alice mentioned earlier, we are talking about a truly remarkable individual who was stolen from us very early in her life. As Alice was saying when she disappeared 30 years ago, which is hard to believe. Jody Hughes and Truitt was really. I mean, she was on the verge of really making it in her career, becoming something big. She was beloved, as you're gonna see, in her job and her disappearance. And really, I think we can Just call it what it is. Her abduction is one of the most famous cases in true crime. It's one of the most compelling stories. You always want to remember these, these are real people who are involved in this. But it is hard to overstate how much this story in this case has affected people. It is a legitimate whodunnit, a true mystery. As you guys know, we always like to dive into these cases, even when, as much as I'd like to tell you we're going to solve it at the end. As you probably can imagine, it's been 30 years. I don't know that's going to happen. But one thing that is so important in cases like this is to keep the attention going. And that's something that the people who are committed to finding Jody have really grabbed onto. There is a great website called findjody.com which has a ton of great information. They also have a podcast. And I gotta say, the guy on the podcast, if you've not listened to it, has an awesome voice. I mean, that guy, his voice is made for podcasting. So if you are interested in this and you want a really deep dive, look up the Find Jody podcast. It's available really wherever you find podcasts, it's on Apple, it's everywhere. So it's really worth listening to. And I think it's also, when you listen to it, you just, you feel how much of an impact Jody had in what was a relatively short life and how much the people that she interacted with and the people that knew her and the people who knew her story were affected by it. And we're committed to finding out what happened to her. So we are happy and excited to add whatever little bit we can to that effort. So with that, I think we should go ahead and talk about this case. So Jody Husentruit, and I gotta say, I always thought of as he was in Truitt, if you look at the, if you look at the name, sounds like that. So if I accidentally say that at some point, just ignore it. But. Jody HughesNTRUTE was born on June 5, 1968 in Long Prairie, Minnesota. She was the youngest of three girls with an 18 year age gap between her and her oldest sister. That's, that's quite an age gap. That's like not having an older sister. I had a 10 year age gap between myself and my older sister and, and we definitely were sort of at different places in our lives as I was growing up. I think I was probably the annoying younger brother more than anything. I know that's hard to believe, but if you asked her, she would probably say that. Despite her father, Maurice passing away when she was only 13 years old, Jody's childhood was a happy one. Because regardless of that age gap, Jody was close with all of her sisters and considered her mom to be one of her best friends. She excelled in athletics, particularly golf. But that wasn't the only thing she did. She played golf in the Long Prairie High School team. She twice won the Minnesota state championship, which is pretty awesome. She was co captain of the basketball team, she played softball, and she was a member of the student council. So just the kind of person, like I said, that everybody loved. I mean, not to say it, but I'm going to say it. She was the kind of person who lit up a room, right? She was the kind of person who is almost a stereotype of what you see when you look at these, these true crime cases. And throughout her life, Jody was often described as positive, upbeat and friendly. And she was a great friend and a go getter who was always working on self improvement. She completed her first semester of college at Morehead State University, but then transferred to St. Cloud State University where she majored in mass communications. And Jody made the most of her time in college. She co anchored the St. Cloud Daily show, she studied abroad in England, and she even interviewed Patty Wetterling about her son Jacob's kidnapping. The Jacob Wetterling kidnapping being one of the most famous kidnappings in U.S. history. And for anyone out there who, who thinks this has been 30 years will never be solved, that was a case that was solved decades. I think 25, 26, 27 years after it happened, that case was finally solved. So an interesting little connection there and also a beacon of hope as we get started in this case about the possibilities for solving it. Even though so much time has passed.
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And you'll see, you're seeing this picture painted of who Jody was. All of these incredible qualities that made her this shining light to everyone around her is exactly why she was excelling in her career and also unfortunately made her a target for this abduction that we're going to talk about. So Jody graduated in 1989. Her first job out of college was as a flight attendant for Northwest Airlines. She was based in Boston and had traveled to places such as Japan, Europe and Hawaii. But Jody's heart was telling her to follow a different career path. One of her co workers at Northwest Airlines recalls Jodi saying that her future was on the air, not in air. Jody quit her job as a flight attendant and Got her first journalism job at KGAN TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. After that, she took a job back in Minnesota as an anchor and reporter for KSAX TV in Alexandria, which allowed her family to watch her broadcasts. In 1993, Jody took a job at KIMT TV in Mason City, Iowa, to anchor the morning and noon news. This was incredible. I think still on YouTube, there are still her broadcasts that you can see, a lot of them. In fact, she was very popular with her bright personality. I mean, if you're gonna be watching the morning news or anything like that, she was a great, great anchor. Now, at the time of her disappearance, Jody's two years at KIMT was set to expire that November. She had been looking to move on to a top 15 news market, and in January 1995, she interviewed at KARE 11 in the Twin Cities. She was also considering job opportunities in Florida and Arizona. In other words, she was on the cusp of really breaking into the top tier of news anchors. And she was still so young. She was only 27, just a few years into this career.
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And she's really the perfect person to be a news anchor, right? I mean, you see from her time in high school and college, engaging, smart, talented in all sorts of ways, attractive, which is always important. And she was sort of moving up this ladder. I was in an event recently, and it was interesting because it was a couple people who were sort of famous ish type anchors on a couple different cable news stations. And there was somebody there who asked, like, hey, how do you get that? Like, how do you end up doing what you're doing? And they basically said, this is how you do it. Like, you start off, it's almost like a baseball team, right? Like, you start off and I mean, there are multiple ways to do it, obviously, but for them, they're like one really popular way to do it is you start off at these small markets, and you're working your way up and you're building an audience, and people love you at the small market. And then the medium market sees you and they're like, hey, you should come work for us. We really like your style. We like the fact that people like to watch you, and you just sort of make your way up. Then you're doing one of these top 15 places, and then all of a sudden you're looking at network, maybe national news, and then that's how you do it. And I mean, she's 27 years old and she's already in a position where she's interviewing with major television stations and you could just feel that she is on the cusp of something. This is, she's about to take that next step and really break out. But that's in 1995, and unfortunately that path of success would be interrupted. So let's go to June 25, 1995. So Jody had returned home from a water skiing trip to Iowa City with some friends. And these friends are important. One of them was a man named John Van Cise. You're going to hear about him a lot. Another one was Tammy Baker and Annie Cruz, and they worked with her at the news station. I believe Annie was actually one of her producers. And the group had stayed at the apartment of Trent Van Cise, who was a college student in the city. And you're probably already wondering, like, who are these people? Like, who is this John Van Cuys and why are they staying with his son? You're going to see who they are and they will become important as we talk more about this story. So that's June 25th. So coming back from this fun weekend out on the lake, having a good time. Now it's time to get back to the real world. June 26, 1995, at 6:00am, Jody anchored the morning news. And one thing you're going to learn that I didn't realize is if you're a morning news anchor, you don't get any sleep. Like, I don't think I could do it. I could. I can barely function on like eight hours of sleep.
A
And they look great at 6am Right? Like there's all these night get ready with me sort of things on TV of people hosting like 6:00am anchor news. And they're up by like 4:00 clock and by like 4:20 they're in the makeup chair. And I'm like, oh my goodness. Not to mention getting caught up with what you have to talk about that morning.
B
And she has a full day, so she anchors the morning news. By 9am she's at a golf tournament for the Mason City Chamber of Commerce. She's a very good golfer, so she's. Obviously this is her thing, but she's also interacting with the public. She's reporting from this. It's a great opportunity for her to get out into the community and I'm sure everybody was excited to see her. At around 3:30pm after spending the day golfing and volunteering at the tournament, she attends dinner at the country club. One of her golf partners said that Jody had mentioned receiving annoying phone calls and had even planned to change her number soon to stop those phone Calls from happening now, it's worth noting that the weather that day wasn't great. So even though there was some golf, most of the event was actually held in the clubhouse. I only say that's important because one question that is at least somewhat interesting is the extent to which Jody may have been drinking throughout the day. And you're going to see that come in as well later on. In any event, she's having dinner, everything seems to be going well, and she finishes up this event at the golf tournament. But she's there all day.
A
I mean, truly all day. So she gets there at 9am Remember, she was hosting the news at 6am she's there all day, all day until 8pm Around 8pm, Jody leaves the event and she goes home. Now, as she's going home at 8:24pm Jody called her friend Kelly Torgerson. Kelly wasn't home, but Jody talked to her husband for a while and he said that Jody sounded cheerful.
B
Now, one interesting thing about this call that comes up sometimes is Jody at some point in this conversation mentions that she's tired and she's going to go to bed soon. If she did, that's important and you'll see why. Saying, I hate to keep teasing you, but I'm just going to continue to do it. So if that's true, that's important. On the other hand, that seems like the kind of thing, maybe you're talking to somebody and you're like, you know, I'm ready to get off the phone, so I'm going to go to bed. And then what happens next? Who knows? But that's just one thing to note. It's often reported that she says that, and that's often taken as gospel because she said that that means she's going to bed soon. But that's not necessarily the case, especially.
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When she's had a fun day. And well, whatever happens, we don't know. So now, rolling into June 27, 1995, so into the next morning, she has another new show. And like we said, she gets started really early at 3am she's normally supposed to be at KimTV to get ready for her 6am show, but she fails to show up that morning. Now, she usually arrives between 3 and 3:30am to prepare for for the day. And so her producer kind of waits for a little bit because 3am okay, she's not there yet. That's when she normally shows up. But give her 30 minutes. Maybe she's just running late after a long day yesterday. But by 4am Jody still isn't there. Now it's getting down to the wire with respect to going on air for the 6am show. Amy Kunz, who's a producer at KIMT TV, called Jody around 4am when she still wasn't there. Now Amy told police she'd woken Jody and that Jody seemed normal on the phone. In the past, when Jody had overslept, she would be down to the station in 10 to 20 minutes. Now, 4:30am neighbors of Jody's apartment complex will later report hearing a woman scream. Automate your alternative resolution program with Diversion Manager Diversion Manager is a proven web based software platform that automates, automates and manages diversion programs. The platform benefits prosecutors, offices and communities by quickly disposing of system clogging low level crimes, holding participants accountable while providing them with a second chance. Diversion Manager is used by over 600 agencies across the US and provides over 30 online behavior changing courses addressing a wide variety of traffic and misdemeanor violations and has been shown to lower recidivism rates.
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A
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B
So few interesting things here. Number one, shout out to those of you who do the morning news. Like I said, I can't imagine getting up. I can't imagine getting to the station at 3am that's insane because that means yeah, she had to get up before then and I wouldn't be talking to somebody at 8:24. I'd be asleep at like 6. I wouldn't even made it through the golf tournament. But I guess she's young so she has the ability to do this. But something that's interesting about this, you have this day where obviously she's going to disappear. She is most likely, she is certainly going to be abducted on this day. It's interesting to me that you already have this unusual event, you know, something different from her day to day life. Her day to day life is you would expect her to be leaving her apartment maybe 2:45, maybe a little bit earlier depending on exactly how long it takes her to get there. But she doesn't do that. In fact she's probably not walking out of her door until around 4:30, which is, you know, an hour and 45 minutes, almost two hours later depending on exactly when she would normally Leave. That's already interesting because on a day when something unusual is going to happen, the abduction, something unusual has already happened. She has not gotten up in time for work. I don't know that that's necessarily significant, but I think it's interesting that you're seeing these two events coincide.
A
I mean, it's at least significant in the sense that we've seen in lots of these types of abduction cases, you usually watch someone for some time before you abduct them. And one reason for watching them is to get to know their rhythms and their timeline so that you can grab them at the most opportune time, when there's maybe it's dark outside, when there's no one around, that sort of thing. So already, if this is someone who's been watching her, she's already thrown them off, so to speak, because she's leaving at a different time. Now. They could have been laying in wait, but that's a very long time to sit around and wait to be watched by someone. You could imagine someone who has a plan to abduct someone at 2:45. Three comes around. Not there. Three, 30. Not there. Four, not there. Four, 15. Oh, crap. People are starting to wake up. It's getting light. I better hightail it. Let's do this tomorrow, because she's going to do the same thing tomorrow. This is just some. Some thinking. You can think of someone who may just be sitting and watching, which may go to the profile of who may have done this.
B
And that's fascinating, right? What Alice just laid out. So really, if you think about this, we have an abduction. There's three possibilities. I think there might be more than that, but I'll do three broad possibilities. Number one, she was abducted by a stranger. And by that, I mean a random abduction. Like Ted Bundy was driving down the street right as she came out of her apartment and decided, you know what? I'm going to kidnap that person. That's one possibility. Second possibility is she was abducted by a stalker. So someone like Alice said, who is interested in her maybe has been making those unusual phone calls that she's getting, that's been watching her, that's learned her routine and has decided they're going to kidnap her. The third one is that she's abducted by someone she knows. Those, I think, are our three broad possibilities. And just think about this as you're thinking about who could have done this. I mean, I'm not saying it's not a stalker, because we're awfully early in this to start striking Possibilities off. But can you imagine sitting there for that period of time? You're probably already nervous, either with anticipation because you've been fantasizing about this for a long time, or just the nervousness of this thing you're going to do. You're already probably taking steps to conceal yourself, to get away with this, to ensure that no one sees you, and you're just sitting there for two hours, essentially waiting on her when you expected her. That, to me, says something. It says something about the time person who would do this. I think it's a strike against the possibility this is just a random stalker. Because I would think pretty quickly, once things went wrong, you just say, I'll do it tomorrow. You know, I don't know what's going on here. Maybe she's sick. Maybe she's not going to work. It's been an hour. People have probably seen me or they've seen my vehicle or whatever getting out of here. I'll try this again. But whoever did this was not put off by this fact. They went ahead and took action anyway. One thing that's often said is that according to Amy, there was no one else with her. She spoke to her, and there was no indication that anyone else was there. Okay, that's fine. There is no indication anyone's there. That's a fact that's worth knowing. Does not mean no one else is there.
A
If I'm late to work and my boss calls me, I'm not gonna let on if someone is there and they may be the reason I overslept and was late. Certainly not to my boss. No matter how close I am to my boss, that's probably not gonna happen.
B
And if I'm the person who was there, I'm not gonna be like, who's that on the phone? I'm gonna sit there in absolute silence until they're done with the call. Right. So I find that to be completely irrelevant. Not irrelevant. I mean, it would obviously, if she heard someone in the background, that would have meant something. She didn't hear that. But that doesn't mean there wasn't anyone there.
A
Well, okay, since we're all analyzing this, I do think it means something. If it was someone there, it likely wasn't someone there. In my mind, it would not be someone who Amy knew or who was often there, because if everyone knew, like, of course, if you called my house, it would be weird if you didn't hear my kids and my husband in the background, because. So I wouldn't try to hide that, because it's like if you're gonna call me during my home hours, you're gonna hear my husband in the background because we live here and we've been living together for, you know, more than a decade. So that's not weird. But if it is, like the situation you said, maybe it's not someone that typically stays over, it's not someone that, you know, the producer knows something that is not your commonplace, then I can see the situation where both Jody and the other person would just, it's not nobody's business. We're not gonna talk about it now.
B
I said this is unusual. It wasn't that unusual. As you may have noted, it happened enough. She would oversleep enough that her producer actually had in her mind how long it typically took her to get there. So she had overslept before, which is quite unsurprising. I mean, when you got, when you trying to be somewhere at 3:00 in the morning, you got to sleep through some alarms, right? That's going to happen. So even though it's unusual, it wasn't unusual in a way that raised any alarms. Right. So I don't think at this point that Amy was thinking, oh no, Jody's probably been kidnapped. So she calls her. You know, Jody's name's fine. Obviously she's probably a little harried that she's late, but she's going to be there. But this calls at 4:00 clock and Amy's expecting her to be there in 10, 20 minutes tops. Right. But by 5:00am she still hasn't shown up to work. So Amy calls her again, but this time the call goes unanswered. So that's at 5:00am At 5:35am the sun rises. I think this is important because remember that scream was heard around 5, 4:30. The sun doesn't rise until an hour later. Now, once again, as we often talk about with sunrise and sunset, it's not as if at 5:34 it was pitch black and at 5:35 it's daylight. That's not true. But even though it might have been brightening somewhat at 4:30, given that sunrise wasn't until over an hour later, I'm going to say at 4:30, still pretty much pitch black where Jody lived. So 6:00 clock comes, Jody still isn't there for the 6:00am news. Amy is angry at her initially because now she has to anchor the news in her place. But by the time she finishes with that 6am show, she knows, look, Jody's been late before, but she's Never not shown up. And in the broadcast world, I mean that is the cardinal sin, not showing up. I mean that's. You just don't do that. And it wasn't like Jody. So she asked the station manager because she has to continue on with the news broadcast. At around 7:13, she asked the station manager to go ahead and call the police and request a welfare check and make sure there's nothing wrong with Jody. And so at 7:13am the station manager calls the police. And this is where things immediately appeared suspicious. And I'll say this, we talk about disappearances all the time and we talk about the things that go wrong. People are not reported missing because it just so happens their roommates out of town or they had off work or they had a transient lifestyle or the police didn't take it seriously. And so it takes days and evidence is lost. And that's one of the reasons we're still talking about this disappearance. That is not the case here. Recall 4:30, you have that scream. Now I will say this. Ordinarily I don't take these kind of reports that seriously. These are reports that came in after she disappeared. You know, it's 4:30 in the morning, it's in the middle of a city. What does it mean to hear a scream? None of them obviously thought it was important enough to call the police except, etc. Etc. But the fact that she gets the call at 4, she's normally there 10, 20 minutes later. And then you have people saying around 4:30 we heard a scream. I think we can say she was abducted between 4:20 and 4:30. I'll give that. The time may not be exactly accurate, but I think we can say she was abducted around there. So let's assume just for the sake of argument that she was abducted at 4:27 16. The police are responding. So that's three hours later. So she's been abducted. Three hours later, the police are on the scene. They show up at this apartment complex, it's the key Apartments at 550 N. Kentucky Ave. In Mason City, Iowa. And this is not a circumstance when the police don't take it seriously or don't think something happened or assume maybe the person just decided to run off and start a new life. Because they immediately see evidence of an abduction. They see Jody's red Mazda Miata. Basically as they get there, they're pulling in, there's a parking lot. They know to look for that car. They see it parked there and they know she has been abducted. They find her blow dryer, her hairspray her earrings, these are all scattered along the ground near her car. They also find her red high hills and they find drag marks on the pavement and in the sort of dirt that's on the pavement. They also find her car key. It is on, it is on the ground and is actually bent. So this is evidence to them that something very violent and very sudden happened near that car, resulting in all of these items being spread around. Once again, this immediately appears to be an abduction. The police, they, you know, they're calling in the investigative division immediately. The detectives, they arrive, they're on the scene, they start processing it, they're going to find a partial palm print. Where exactly it was found is a little in question. Most of the places I've seen say that it was found on Jody's car, though I have seen that it was found on a nearby light pole. I mean this is like the fog of war and investigations. I'm not exactly sure, depends on the source. I think probably on the car because I think the car is more significant than the light pole, personally. But who's to say? Now obviously palm print on a car, as we've said a thousand times, could have been a lot of different people's, but they don't have a whole lot to go on right now. So that's the first thing we've got, a palm print. It will also be reported that the police found a single strand of hair. Now, exactly where they found it and why they know it's significant is a little hard to say. The police have been pretty tight lipped about this hair and we don't even know whether or not it was possible to get DNA from this hair though. There have been reports that the police do have DNA that they've been testing though once again, it's hard to know whether the DNA you have is necessarily connected to the crime or particularly when it's something like this where you don't have a body and maybe it could be from a lot of different sources.
A
That's a really violent scene to walk into. Like you said, the police are there within three hours of the likely abduction. And I can imagine how stark this is. Red car right there. Also very bold. Right. Didn't wait for her to drive somewhere. We've seen other cases like the Mary Morris cases, for example, where they start driving away from their home, maybe get run off a road, are found in basically a back road that's hard to find so that they are uncoverable for some time. This is not the case. This is basically happening what we See, based on just the scene alone, she likely ran downstairs with all her things in her bag. Maybe her shoes were on, maybe they were in her hand. Because she's running late, runs to her car. It looks like she probably never even made it into her car. And if she did make it into her car, was immediately dragged back out. And this looks incredibly violent based on the drag marks. The bent key, which is of course made of metal, how it got bent, maybe she fell on it, maybe there was some sort of struggle. I mean, this looks like it happened in a flash of an instant and she was absolutely bombarded.
B
And you know, talking about the palm print on the car, I think one reason you would think it might be significant, you think about how this happened, number one, how unfortunate it was that she was running late because, you know, she wasn't paying any attention to her surroundings. You know, even if normally she was somebody who was really like looking around and paying attention and making sure there was no one in the area. And this is not me blaming her, this is just me explaining how this kind of thing could happen. She is rushing to her car with a singular focus. I need to get to work. So if there was someone around, someone who then started moving very quickly towards her in a blitz style attack, she probably had no idea they were coming. And I think what probably happened, her habit was to put these items in her passenger seat. So probably what she did is she walks out of her apartment, she walks straight to her car, she goes to her passenger seat, she pulls out her key. She doesn't even use the key fob. Like she has the, like keyless entry. So she could have unlocked it that way. But I bet she didn't even do that because she was so focused, she didn't even think to do that. She puts her key in the passenger side to unlock it, and she's hit by this. What I think is a blitz attack. I think someone comes up and they smash into her. They take her out in a way that spreads all those items everywhere. She gets maybe one scream out before she's on the ground. And in the process the key comes out and it gets bent as it's leaving the keyhole.
A
Keyhole, Keyhole.
B
The hole the keys go into as it's leaving that, you know, it gets bent and that's how it ends up bent. I mean, you can just. In your mind's eye, I mean, it's like something out of a nightmare, out of a horror movie. You can see this happen, right? And I think that's what happened. And like Alice said, I mean, the police know this is not an accident. This is not. Somebody was trying to rob her and it went wrong. It's nothing like that. This is an abduction. Police find no blood. There's no blood anywhere. So she wasn't shot or stabbed or anything like that, at least on the scene. She's just taken. She's just gone. So the police immediately launch an investigation and a search for Jody. They canvass the apartment complex, they're talking with neighbors, and this is when they start to get those reports that they heard a woman scream around 4:30am but once again, they didn't call the police, because who calls the police? I mean, maybe you're sitting out there and you're thinking, if I heard a woman scream, I'd call the police. I've lived in the city, I've heard a lot of screams. I sleep to the sound of gunshots. I have never called the police. I'm just like, oh, sounds like that one's got a machine gun conversion device on it. Yeah, I wonder if they're out of bullets yet.
A
Right?
B
I mean, that's just my thought. I don't, like, think, oh, I should call the police because someone's shooting in the neighborhood. No, it's just what happens, right?
A
And also a scream in the, like, apartment complex. It could have been a fight. It could have, you know, I don't want to get involved in that. You are not thinking. Thinking abduction. You're thinking, well, someone will handle it.
B
Or just somebody who's drunk and coming home from a night of drinking. I mean, there's any number of things, right? Like that it could have been. Or frankly, this happens to me sometimes. You hear, like, a really loud noise or like a scream or whatever, and you wake up and five minutes later you've convinced yourself it didn't happen.
A
And real quick, when Amy called her, I'm forgetting, was it to her landline? There were no cell phones, right?
B
Or was it no cell phones? This is 1995.
A
I know. I can't quite remember because I'm thinking, Zack Morris. I'm like, when did Zack Morris get a cell phone?
B
Like, she might have had a bag phone. You remember the old bag?
A
Yeah, yeah. This was her landline.
B
It would have been her landline.
A
Okay. So she called her in her apartment.
B
She calls her in her apartment. She's in her apartment, she answers the phone and she starts moving. And obviously there's no cell phone or anything found on the ground or anything like that. So we don't have Any of that. And once again, you know, you think about the advances. What's the first thing you would do if you're the police now? You would try and get a geofence warrant. You would be doing tower dumps, you would be trying to figure out what are the cell phones in the area at that time to try and give you leads. You'd be doing cameras on the light poles, you would be doing tag readers. Because you guys may not know this, but there are tag readers all of your cities and on the interstates that are constantly reading the tags of everybody who drives by. And we can pull those and we can see everybody who drove by this spot at this time.
A
Right?
B
That's the kind of thing you'd be looking for. And in this case, you'd have a little bit more to go on. Because like every crime that was ever committed in the history of mankind, there were witnesses who said they saw a van parked in the parking lot around the time of the scream. This is often described as either a white van or a light colored van. And obviously it was one that the person who described it was not used to seeing in the area. And if this is someone who is doing some sort of blitz style attack, I mean, think about this. They had to have a vehicle and it had to be close by. Because you have to hit Jody. You have to get her in your vehicle and you got to get out. You're not gonna like take her anywhere bodily. You're not gonna throw her over your shoulder and walk somewhere, right? I mean, I guess it's theoretically possible that someone living in the apartment complex could have done this and then taken her back to their apartment. I mean, that's a possibility, right? I don't think anyone thinks that's what happened. So if that's not the case, there has to be a vehicle. So this may be an instance in which a van was actually involved in, in the crime. And this has become a key piece of evidence that everyone who discusses this and every police officer who's ever looked into this case has focused on. But that's not the only thing that happened. So the police are there, they're processing the scene, they're like trying to figure out what happened and who shows up. But Jody's friend, John Van Cise. So you may recall John Van Cise was the guy that she went out on the lake with. He is an older man, probably 20 years. I forget exactly how much older he is than Jody, but he's significantly older than Jody. He's married and he has this sort of friendly, depending on who you ask, fatherly style, maybe older uncle style relationship with Jody pretty much universally said that it wasn't romantic though obviously people have debated that until the end of time. And he appears at the crime scene and this will be one of several things he does which immediately make him suspicious to the police. And I've never seen definitively it stated how he knew something had happened. Though apparently by this time word was spreading. Even though there was no Internet, there's no cell phones, there's no Facebook messenger. People were calling people, friends were calling people and they were saying, hey, something's happened to Jody. She didn't show up to work. The police are at her apartment, something weird's going on. He hears this. He doesn't live that far away for varying things, but I think some people say he lived as little as five minutes away. So he gets in his car and he drives down to see what's happening and from his perspective, to see if there's anything he can do to help. He tells investigators that wouldn't you know it, he was the last person to see Jody because always good. So now he's shown up at the scene of the crime and he's like, I'm the last guy who saw her, probably.
A
And he volunteers it.
B
And he volunteers it.
A
We have seen this before in other cases, by the way.
B
And going both ways, right?
A
Absolutely. Absolutely. Going both ways.
B
So he says that Jody had actually come by his home the night prior to watch a videotape that he had recorded of her surprise birthday party that had occurred the week before. So she'd had this birthday party, of course, Van Size had a camcorder. He records it. He's like, hey, come watch this video. What's interesting about this, he says that the visit happened after the golf tournament, though whether it was immediately after or later in the night, and has never been clear. But recall the timeline, and this is why I mentioned this to you earlier. She leaves that golf tournament at around 8. Say that she left at 7:45 to give her a little bit extra time. Right. She's on the phone with somebody at 8:24. So there's not a lot of time between when she left and 8:24 to see John to go over there and watch this video. And another thing, if she did that, it was a pre planned type of thing because what do we know, she didn't have a cell phone, so John couldn't call her while she was at or. I don't think she had a cell phone. If she had a cell phone, ride in and tell us she had a cell phone, we'll correct it later. So John couldn't call her. I mean, I guess he could call the golf course and be like, hey, get this message to Jody. I mean, people did that kind of stuff back then. But he's never said that, so she wouldn't have known. I need to go. So then you have to imagine she drives back to her apartment, she talks to him, she goes over to his apartment, she then watches the videotape. Then she then turns around, she comes back to her place, and she's on the phone at 8:24. Or alternatively, knowing that she had to be at work by 3am After 8:24. And after that conversation where she said she was going to bed, she then left her apartment to go over to John's place to watch this videotape if that's what she was doing. Either way, he says she watched it the night before with him. So he saw her. He was at least one of the last people to see her, if not the last person before she was kidnapped.
A
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A
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B
Alice Just recently my wife and I, we made pasta with shrimp. It was amazing. But I needed some white wine and I opened the bottle and it was my last bottle of white wine from First Leaf. And I said to my wife, I need another shipment and you're going to be saying the same thing. It is so amazing. It's going to turn you from someone who just drinks wine, maybe casually, to someone who really understands your own taste. You are going to love it and let me tell you, if you don't, first leaf has a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So what are you waiting on? Get cozy and pour that perfect glass because great wine nights start with First Leaf. Head to try firstleaf.com prosecutors to sign up and get 50% off your first box of six hand picked bottles. That's T R Y F I R S T L E a f try firstleaf.com prosecutors guys, we are so excited to talk to you about Prolon. If you've been on a GLP1 for weight loss, you may have seen results. They might have been great. But what we know is that coming off the medication is the real challenge. Well, that's where Prolon can help you. Their five day fasting mimicking diet offers a drug free way to keep the weight off while protecting muscle and supporting fat loss. In just five days, Prolon activates the same fat burning and cellular rejuvenation benefits triggered by fasting, all without giving up real food, helping you maintain your hard earned progress. Guys, I've talked about this before. I've done the gimmicks. I was not excited about fasting, but the thing about Prolon because you're eating real food. You're eating the bars, you're having the soups, you're mimicking fasting. Your body believes it's in a fasting state, but you are not experiencing all the downsides. And by the end of it, it will change your life, I'm telling you. And it's going to do it in a way that burns fat, protects muscles and rejuvenates cells, all while letting you enjoy real food.
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B
You know what this reminds me of? You know the weird guy in the JonBenet Ramsey case who, like, there were.
A
A couple weird guys, but.
B
Well, there were.
A
You mean the one with like sprinkles in his pockets?
B
Yes. And he was going to be buried with them or whatever, but she'd given him to him and that was just like, is this sweet or is this incredibly creepy? Because this feels incredibly creepy, right?
A
I mean, I'm not gonna lie. We are very close. We are like best friends. In fact, you're married to someone else. I'm married to someone else. As platonic and good friends as we and our spouses are with each other. If you named a boat after me, I'm pretty sure both of our spouses would have problems with that.
B
I mean, you named your daughter after me.
A
Fair point. Okay, I take it all back. I am so sorry, Van Sykes. We have no commentary. I did name my daughter after you.
B
No, that would be weird. I mean, that would be weird. I don't think anybody would say that now. I think maybe the marriage wasn't, like, the best. I think even more so it would.
A
Be weird if the marriage wasn't good.
B
Well, yeah, it's true. I mean, it certainly. It feels like this is more than just a platonic friendship or like a older man taking an altruistic interest in a young woman that he wants to help advance because he cares about the next generation.
A
Right.
B
It doesn't feel like that. It certainly feels like he has some sort of interest in her. And obviously, when she disappears, people are going to wonder, was this the kind of interest that very quickly turned into obsession? Maybe he was romantically interested in her. Because it's always. Just because she says, oh, no, there's no romantic interest between us. Doesn't mean he feels that way. Right. Like, he may very well think, no, this is going to go somewhere, and then it doesn't. And he sees her that night. It's not hard to construct a scenario where she comes over, see the birthday party video, and he's like, the greatest birthday gift is getting to spend time with you or something, like. And she's like, john, you know, we just.
A
We.
B
We have to just be friends. I'm interested in you. And he decides at that point, well, I can't be without you.
A
Right?
B
And he drives over and he waits and whatever, like, you can. It's very easy to construct that story. And so he's going to be a person that people focus on. And we're going to talk about him a lot as we continue to look at this case. So the police have what is a very obvious crime scene right around this vehicle. And the next question is, is this a crime scene or the crime scene? We talked about this in the West Memphis three. Is the creek in West Memphis three a dump location, or is it a murder scene? Right, because those are two very different things.
A
Obviously, the parking lot is right next to the apartments where Jody lives. And so you've got to think, well, if she's being attacked at her car, is this something that also involves the apartment. So the first thing they do, of course, once they see the car, is they go inside Jody's apartment. But curiously, nothing inside her apartment appears out of the ordinary. No struggle, it just looks like the way it normally does. But they still get search teams assembled, consisting of the Mason city police department and volunteers. I mean, people are flocking because she is a known person, a personality on TV that people watch every morning at noon. She is known to more people than she knows herself. And these rescue teams get together, they converge to search for Jody. The rescue teams also has divers. Police dogs are brought in. I mean they are pulling out all the stops. They begin searching the immediate area and a two mile radius surrounding it. Because as Brett noted, this is not a situation where she's just been dragged to a location. Because of how quickly this all had to happen and because her stuff is still there, the drag marts end. It seems pretty clear what happened is she gets thrown into another vehicle, is transported elsewhere. But they're hopeful maybe they can find more information about this crime scene right there. And just maybe they can find her. Now it's not surprising though that they find nothing within this two mile radius. So eventually the search expanded to ten miles and beyond. But before we move on from this search scene, clearly they're spreading out. They're doing everything within hours of her abduction. Let's go kind of honing back into that apartment. We know that she was in that apartment before she went to her car. We know this because her producer called her in her apartment. She was there. All the things she carried with her. Her car was at the apartment. So this was not a walking city. She didn't walk to her car from somewhere else. She was coming from inside her apartment. And the way this layout of the apartment is, is it's not particularly large. She can get from her apartment to her car relatively quickly. This is not a big parking garage where you have to go up several flights of stairs and walk. You know, I lived in Houston in and apartment complexes could have these multi layer garages. No, this is basically her car is essentially outside of her door. She gets there within seconds, 30 seconds. You know this is, this is not a.
B
30 seconds is like extreme.
A
Right. Especially if she's rushing out the door. She basically closes her door, locks it or so turns around and can run to her car within seconds. This is important because someone had to have been right there to get her. They didn't have a minute to watch her walk around the parking lot. There was none of that. She probably was from Front door to car in 10, 15 seconds. And they got her in that time.
B
Now, one possibility is they got her because they were behind her. Let me go back to this, this notion of was she alone? That's often the assumption and it's often said there's nothing unusual about the apartment. We're going to talk about something later on that is a little unusual, but I think it is true and really not disputed and beyond dispute that no one attacked her in her apartment. That didn't happen. But that doesn't mean she wasn't with someone. And I don't know what their motive would be for doing this. But you could imagine she's leaving, they're living with her, they walk out together, she locks the door, she turns around, she's walking her car and they attack her. Then like that's the attack. And it's not somebody waiting outside for hours waiting for her to appear. It's someone who knows exactly where she's going to be, exactly when she's going to be there, and decides for whatever reason, either because they pre planned it or because this was what they decided to do right then, to attack her in that moment. Hard to say exactly, of course, but a possibility. And one of the things that's frustrating, there's a couple things that are frustrating about this case. I mean, number one, this is going to be one of those cases where we're going to give you possibilities that are basically impossible, possible disprove because there's not a lot of evidence here. So we're gonna at the end try and narrow this down a little bit. But there are a lot of possibilities here. The other thing that I'll say is frustrating, but it's not, is how responsive the police were. Like, it's frustrating because it's like, man, how could they not find anything? They responded so well to this. So often we're knocking the cops because they didn't take it seriously or they were slow or they didn't put enough resources into it or they didn't realize it was a crime soon enough. And none of that happened here. Here you have immediate response by the police, serious efforts to do everything they can to find this person. And yet Here we are 30 years later talking about this case and it's not a solved case. And that's just so frustrating.
A
I mean, truly Divers dogs, everything you could hope for. Hundreds of volunteers are descending within hours of her abduction. And they are combing every inch of this radius. They're just tracking everything. They have nothing and they don't wait long to bring in other people to help. The very next day, on June 28, 1995, agents from both the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the FBI join in the search for Jody. In other words, the local authorities, they bring in the state division and the feds. I mean, they're not taking any time. Within basically 12 hours, they're already getting on the phone saying, we need your help. We need to call in everybody. So this is exactly. I mean, there's no delay whatsoever. And just two days into the investigation, over 100 people have been interviewed, but no suspects have been identified. Let me pause there for a moment. I know those are just numbers right now. And we've covered the Delphi case for example, extensively, where in that case, we know that there were thousands of tips and hundreds, if not over a thousand people were interviewed. That case was investigated for years. We're talking in just 48 hours. Each of these hundred people, over 100 people, had to talk to an investigator. It didn't take a minute. It probably took some time. And they reported, wrote reports on all these. You can see how there's a massive effort. People are working around the clock. But also, can you imagine writing 100 reports after 48 hours? I mean, you have to keep all these things straight. You can see how, by the way, investigative files can be very difficult to put together. And this is exactly what we mean when we say there are limited resources. You have to decide how you're going to go about an investigation. To write a hundred reports takes immense time. Not to mention talking to 100 people with the amount of concentration and background to be able to interview them appropriately and correctly, that will be helpful for your case. And despite all these efforts, still nothing on July 1, 1995. People are just. They want to do anything. They can help. And an award of $11,000 is announced July 2, 1995. Helicopters are used to search Mason City and the area southwest of. Is not every case that you're able to get helicopters in. They're expensive. You have to make sure that you have access to them. And if they're being used for one thing, they can't be used for another thing. But here, within days, we have helicopters circling the area, seeing if they can spot anything from above, because the hundreds of searchers, divers, canines, have been unable to find anything thus far. And on July 3, 1995, this is just a week later, police actually call off searches for Jody. But they continue to diligently work the case, which is being treated as an abduction so far. Because they have no other indication that, for example, she's been murdered. So there's still hope that they're going to find her. But at this point, this is like out of a movie. This is how I imagine a human trafficking situation happens in the worst case scenario. We've obviously talked about human trafficking that actually it's usually much less dramatic than this. It's usually a vulnerable person who goes with someone who has control over them. This is what people think of when they think of in the movies of like a human trafficking situation.
B
So we have only begun to scratch the surface on this case. Next time we're going to dive more into the rest of the time. But also some of the unusual things about this case. We're going to talk more about the evidence, we're going to talk more about the state of the apartment, some weird things about the state of the apartment. We'll talk more about van size and we'll talk about other people who are person of interest in this case. And recall, this case is 30 years old, but I will tell you it is one that continues to have attention drawn to it. Within days of when we've recorded this, there were a flurry of articles about this case and about a potential suspect in it. So don't feel like this is one that can't be solved. Say this all the time. If you're out there listening, you may have information about this case. It has not been solved. If you have something, tell somebody. Give a call to the police who are looking into this. Send us an email however you want to get that information. And I will say this, the consult did this case. I can't remember if this was on the consult or if it was on the Find Jody podcast, but either way it's a great, it's a great thing. She listen to Find Jody and you should listen to the consult. They did, I believe, three episodes on this great episodes. You'll enjoy them as always. Always good to hear their perspective on these things. But somebody on one of those podcasts mentioned that if you've had a tip and you called it in and you never heard anything back, consider calling it in again because it's possible it fell through the cracks and if it didn't and they've already covered it, no harm done. But if you remember Delphi, that tip, there was a tip that got lost for several years and was only discovered because a volunteer found it. So don't think that you might not have information. We're, like I said, We're 30 years into this there's nothing wrong with reinventing the wheel on some of this investigation. So if you have any information on this, I hope you will reach out to the authorities and share it. The contact line for this, the Mason City Police Department is 641-421-3636. And this is one that absolutely can be solved. Well, look, I think you already see how interesting this is. I hope you guys will join us next week as we look more into this. Alice, do you want to answer a question?
A
Let's do it.
B
Let's do it. Remember, if you leave a five star review on either the prosecutors or the prosecutors legal briefs, we will answer a question. Just leave a question and we will answer it. We always enjoy answering your questions. As we often say, legal briefs is the fastest way to get your questions answered. But we love questions on the prosecutors as well. Okay, let's see. This is from Moon Koala, which is a great name. Moon Koala wants to know, have you ever given any consideration to teaming up with a forensic psychologist to get an assessment on one of the cases? Is that like, would Julia be a forensic psychologist or. Yeah, I don't know if that's different or not. I will say this just generally speaking. We're always interested in teaming up with experts in various areas to talk about any cases. I mean, talking to Joseph Scott Morgan about the West Memphis Three was great. It was so awesome.
A
So I have and we have talked to different psychologists. I don't know about forensic, like, I don't. There are many psychologists and I guess you could get them qualified as forensic for whatever reason if it's for a case. But we've talked to lots of psychologists. We love it. I think the brain is wildly interesting. I can't claim to know everything about it. So yeah, if you have someone in mind, send them our way, would be happy to talk to them.
B
And I always say this, you know, if you're somebody out there who works in these areas and you're like, man, they don't know what they're talking about when they talk about X. Like, let us know. I mean, that's how we met Julia. Julia was like, you don't know. Hey, you keep talking bad about behavioral analysis. You don't know what you're talking about. And we were like, why don't you come on the show and look where we are now? So, okay, let's see. Pmac, PMAC wants to know. This, I guess is for me. What is your writing process? Like, are you an outliner or a pantser? Do you Sit down and write a certain number of words or pages a day. So back in the day, as some of you know, I used to write novels. Used to write horror novels. Check them out. They're pretty good, I think. So the one thing I'll say before even answering this question is that everyone is different in how they write. If you're writing fiction, you're writing whatever. Everyone's different. The way I would write them is typically I would come up with an idea. I would write like a paragraph, and the paragraph would lay out the entire story of what was going to happen. And that paragraph would stay at basically the top of the page. And then I just write it. And I'm very much just like, as the story develops, it gets written. It's not like I can't, number one, I would get bored doing an outline. I'd be like, I just want to write it. You know, I don't like this outlining thing. I've never liked outline.
A
I just realized today that we write completely differently.
B
Are you an outliner and you like to outline everything?
A
It's not that I outline. My outline becomes the body of. Because I jump around when I write. And so I kind of like your paragraph, but I outline it in the sense that there are broad strokes. I'm like, maybe there's six major sections and then there's like pieces within it. But I don't fully outline and then go back and fill it in. Rather I have the structure. Kind of like building an argument. I have the structure and then I'll skip around like, oh, I can. I need to flesh this out. And I write it. And then as I'm doing it, I'm like, I need to do this piece up here. So by the end, I don't have an outline in my written product. My outline turns into my written product and I remove the like bullet points and make it format it correctly, but I fill it in. I don't typically write linearly.
B
Interesting.
A
Yeah.
B
So when I write fiction, I write when the outlines for these episodes, I kind of do it like that. But when I'm writing fiction, it's like I start on page one, finish in the last page. That's awesome. So that's the answer to that question. If you guys have other questions you want to ask, we'd love to answer them. So leave us that five star review and we'll do it. Otherwise, if you have cases you want to hear, if you have thoughts on this case, shoot us an email@secutespodmail.com prosecutors pod for all your social media media. Join the gallery to discuss this and other cases. We always have a good time on that. That's on Facebook. We now have a. We've had it for a while, but we sort of reinvigorated our Discord server. I don't know anything about that. Y' all go forth and make it great, right? I'll do whatever you want to on Discord. Check that out as well. Or if you want to watch us record these episodes, join Patreon for $3 a month. If you don't want to watch us record them, but you would like to get them early and ad free, Same deal. Join Patreon for $3 a month, and you'll get the edited episodes without ads before their official release. All right, Alice. Well, do you have anything else to add before we sign off for today?
A
No. This is a fascinating case. And whatever in all of these cases are devastating because Jody was on a rocket ship to the heights when she was snatched, quite literally from all of us at age 27. But the reason this type of case makes me really excited to cover is because I do think it's solvable. And the only way to do that is some piece of knowledge that exists out there. Within 30 years, it could still be there. That timeline, if it can be solved in this timeline, is. Is quickly waning. But there could still be a piece of information out there that will lead to answers in this case. And so listen to every bit of the timeline here and see if there's something maybe you or someone would have known or something we're missing that may help trigger in someone's mind what happened here.
B
Alice nails it, as always. All right, guys, we'll be back next week with more on this case, but until then, I'm Brett.
A
And I'm Alice.
B
And we are the prosecutors.
A
Oh, my gosh. Come on. It's just as creepy now, even with that. No, no, no. That's the grossest thing ever. Gross. Oh, please. No, you've got to stop that. I can just. This is not cool. I did a whole, entire episode. That's enough.
B
Okay.
A
Like dealing with. Okay, okay.
B
I'm gonna get a word for you. Hold on one second. Who's in truth? Who's in truth?
A
Who's in truth?
B
Who's in truth?
A
Got it. I got it. Sam, What is that voice? I don't want it. No, thank you.
B
What do you mean, Alice?
A
I'm intentionally not looking at the screen. I'm intentionally. Do you see my eyes going everywhere but there? You have got to take that off. You know what I don't like about it? You have the other hand now, cuz. Do you have two? No, no, no, No.
B
This November action is free on Pluto tv. Go on the run with Jack Reacher? Every suspect was a trooper? Then buckle up for drive. World War Z.
A
Every human being we save is one.
B
Less fight and Charlie's Angels.
A
Damn, I hate to fly.
B
Launch into sci fi adventure with the fifth Element and laugh through the mayhem in Tropic Thunder. What is going on here? All the thrills, all for free. Pluto TV stream now pay never.
Podcast Date: November 18, 2025
Hosts: Brett and Alice
Podcast: The Prosecutors (PodcastOne)
In this episode, Brett and Alice dive into the mysterious 1995 abduction of Jodi Huisentruit, a beloved Minnesota-born news anchor from Mason City, Iowa. As prosecutors, the hosts explore the complex timeline, the immediate and thorough investigative response, and the persistent questions lingering 30 years later. The case remains unsolved, but the podcast aims to spark reflection, discussion, and possibly new leads.
"Jody Huisentruit was really... I mean, she was on the verge of really making it in her career, becoming something big. She was beloved, as you’re gonna see, in her job and her disappearance...her abduction is one of the most famous cases in true crime." — Brett (05:20)
"She was a great friend and a go-getter who was always working on self-improvement." — Brett (08:30)
"Jody’s heart was telling her to follow a different career path. One of her co-workers recalls Jodi saying that her future was on the air, not in air." — Alice (11:18)
"One of her golf partners said that Jody had mentioned receiving annoying phone calls and had even planned to change her number soon to stop those phone calls from happening." — Brett (15:56)
"Neighbors of Jody’s apartment complex will later report hearing a woman scream." — Alice (18:16)
"They find her blow dryer, her hairspray, her earrings—all scattered along the ground near her car...they also find drag marks on the pavement...They also find her car key—it is on the ground and is actually bent." — Brett (34:16)
"People who abduct others tend to study their routines. In this case, Jodi’s unusual late departure may have thrown off a potential stalker.” — Alice (24:49)
“This is not a situation where she’s just been dragged to a location. Because of how quickly this had to happen and because her stuff is still there…the drag marks end. It seems pretty clear what happened is she gets thrown into another vehicle, is transported elsewhere.” — Alice (58:55)
"It's frustrating—how could they not find anything? They responded so well…immediate response by the police, serious efforts...and yet here we are 30 years later..." — Brett (59:34)
"He tells investigators that, wouldn’t you know it, he was the last person to see Jody, because always good. So now he's shown up at the scene of the crime and he's like, I'm the last guy who saw her, probably." — Brett (44:48)
"If you named a boat after me, I'm pretty sure both of our spouses would have problems with that." — Alice (54:13)
"There's three broad possibilities...a random abduction, by a stalker, or by someone she knows." — Brett (25:46)
"They pulled out all the stops. They begin searching the immediate area...divers, canines, everything you could imagine." — Alice (61:32)
| Time | Segment | |-----------|----------------------------------------------| | 05:20 | Jodi’s career potential & case impact | | 08:30 | Jodi’s personality and life | | 11:18 | "Future on the air, not in air" anecdote | | 15:56 | Annoying phone calls, dinner timeline | | 18:16 | Jodi oversleeps, last phone call | | 34:16 | Discovery of crime scene, items at the car | | 36:09 | "This is a really violent scene..." | | 44:48 | Van Sice’s arrival, "last to see her" | | 54:13 | Boat-naming, personal relationships analysis | | 58:55 | Crime scene breakdown/possible vehicle usage | | 59:34 | Investigation frustration |
Next Episode: More on Jodi’s last days, Van Sice’s involvement, the state of the apartment, additional suspects, and the lasting legacy of the case.
If you have information about Jodi Huisentruit’s disappearance, please contact the Mason City Police Department at 641-421-3636.
Episode summarized with original tone and speaker attributions for true crime fans and newcomers alike.