48 Hours - A Juniper Tree Leads to a Killer

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

When a young mother disappears, DNA from a tree helps lead to her killer. "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. Hey, Joe. Hi. Hey, it's Officer Joseph. So you said you took your purse with her, right?

Yeah. Phone? Yeah, phones. Do you want it? It's here. Police officers first made contact with Joe Elledge on October 10th, 2019. Joe Elledge said that on October 8th, he'd gone to sleep with Mung-Shee at about 11, 11.30 or so, and that he woke up the next morning and that he noticed that Mung-Shee was gone, vanished.

And then he noticed that Munchie was gone, vanished. Her phone and her wedding ring were both, were both just left on that table. I can't unlock her phone, it's locked and I don't know what passed through. At the time that Munchie G disappeared, she was a young married mother. She had a child who was one years old. I think it's easy to see that Jo would have been attracted to Munchie for her personality in terms of how caring she was.

We all know that she's a very successful young engineer, and she's really good at being a mom, and she had hopes for a brighter future in this marriage in Joseph Allage. At first blush, Facebook postings, Instagram, you would see what appeared to be a happy family. These young people got married, had a child, and circumstances changed, And arguments happened. You talk too much. You need to know when to stop.

You don't listen enough. You need to know when to listen. So there was a total of 14 hours of audio recorded between the couple. Right now what's happening is just more of what I don't want. Communication. Lack of it. He actually discovered that she was involved in an online relationship. And he knew that there were some of these sexually explicit photos being sent back and forth. Correct.

I actually found this earlier. It's like a journal. And it talks about her having like some secret love. I think he's in China right now. Have you met some secret love? I think he's in China right now. Did she ever express an interest in a future with this man, that perhaps she'd move back to China? There were discussions about a future.

We checked into whether or not there was maybe any contact with Uber, cab companies. Had she bought an airline ticket? We were looking for any evidence of an electronic footprint. I know she was talking to somebody else on the side, and whatever she's doing, I just hope she's safe. I would have loved nothing more for her to just appear out of nowhere alive so she could take care of her daughter. But I knew that wasn't going to be the case. We have these boots that were found, and then we have five juniper needles

that are caked into the boots. And these needles, where did they come from? We had three needles that came from that tree right there. Who would have ever thought it? DNA from these juniper trees helped solve this crime. I've never heard of anything like this before in my entire career at 48 hours. In In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn,

and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it,

people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Hotshot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own.

She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals.

Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. You said you had a seat right there? Yep. I'll be back in just right there.

On October 15th, 2019, Joseph Elledge walked into the Columbia, Missouri Police Department without a lawyer to tell detectives about the mysterious disappearance of his 28-year-old wife, Mengxi Ji, six days earlier. We didn't have any big fights. I think the last big fight was actually the week before. It wasn't really a big fight. The 23-year-old described his wife as tense and withdrawn the night before she disappeared. So he gave her a massage. I was doing it kind of slow. I was trying to drag it out because I wanted to extend the amount of time that we were together doing something. According to Joe, Meng Shi eventually went to sleep,

saying she had to be somewhere in the morning. I asked her about three times, who does she mean? And her answer was, just quote me. She wouldn't tell me who she was meaning or where she was going, what she was doing. The next morning, Joe says he woke up alone. His wife was gone.

He was claiming she had just disappeared, that she had left her little girl behind. Her phone was left behind. Her car, her car keys were left behind. From the beginning, then Boone County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Knight had doubts about Joe's story. We were trying our best to leave no stones unturned. But there were a lot of stones. Joe told investigators that after his wife disappeared, he found journal entries on her computer where she'd written about an online emotional affair she was having

with a man living in China. And the last paragraph said, like, it's sad, though, that I have no interest in my husband. The day Joe spoke with detectives, he also did an exclusive interview with our local CBS affiliate, KRCG, and implied that his wife may have left him for another man. I hope that she's at least with somebody who cares for her, you know, enough to keep her safe. Joe and his family hired attorney Scott Rosenblum, who points out there were intimate texts between Manchiji and the man she was communicating with. Sexual in nature, very sexual. Texts like this one, where she wrote,

I want you so much right now. And did she ever express love for him in any of these communications? She did. The question was, had Mengxi run off to be with that man who lived in China where she was born? with that man who lived in China where she was born. Munshi was born during China's one-child policy. Amy Saladay is the Ji family's attorney.

But K-Ren, Munshi's mother, would say that we only ever wanted one child. We wanted to give all of our love to this child. Mengqi is like the kid all the parents would want. Yao Li is a Chinese immigrant and an assistant prosecutor in Boon County who helped Dan Knight communicate with Mengqi's parents. They are really, really proud of her. And I know how hard it is to get into a top university in Shanghai and Beijing. The competition is really intense and she did that. And then she came to the University of Missouri in 2012 where she finished up her undergraduate studies and then she also obtained

her master's degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. This was a brilliant woman, correct? Absolutely. One of her professors hired her right out of school at his biomaterials company, Nanova, where Joe also worked. Joe grew up in Kansas City. He then came to the University of Missouri, and he studied engineering, and he met Mungshi at Nenova Biomaterials. My understanding is that she was his supervisor. The two quickly fell in love, and a year and seven months into their relationship, Joe proposed. He took a knee on

a trail in Rockbridge Memorial State Park called the Devil's Icebox. Two weeks later, they were married. Well, I believe there was a rush to get married because Meng Shi's visa was about ready to expire. It's a really foreign concept for American citizens to understand the stress that an immigrant is facing. She's fully capable to support herself financially, but she cannot get this green card.

So this really changes the power dynamics of a marriage. Nearly five months into the marriage, Meng Shi was offered a big job. And then she found out she's pregnant. Meng Shi and Zhou decided she should turn down the job to be a full-time mom, even though at the time she was the sole income earner. Zhou had quit working to finish school. In October 2018, their baby was born.

So that's the dynamic of this marriage. So that's the dynamic of this marriage. Meng Xi was completely isolated from all the support system that she can have. The little baby is the only thing she has. Her one lifeline was a daily call with her mother in China. It was their ritual. So when Meng Xi didn't call on October 9th, 2019, her parents sent a friend living nearby to check on her. Yeah, I told him everything that happened. I told him that she just hasn't been here for a couple days.

And it was only after that visit, the day after he said his wife vanished, that a seemingly unconcerned Joe Elledge finally called police to report her missing. I need to follow a missing person in the report. But he didn't call 911. Joe called the non-emergency 311. Do you find that suspicious? Absolutely. Absolutely. It would be natural for him to have reported this immediately. Instead, Joe would tell police that the day he woke up and found his wife missing,

he went on two long leisurely drives in her car with their baby in the back seat, looking for new hiking trails. There's just this big area that's all green on a gold mass. And so I wanted to go and see if there were walking paths back there. Naturally, that raised eyebrows. Did you lock her door when you left the apartment? Yeah.

If she comes home, how's she going to get back in? You've got her keys and her car and her phones in the house. She can't even call anybody. Yeah, I don't know. Detectives and Dan Knight suspected foul play, but there was no physical evidence. No blood, no blood, no weapon, no witnesses, no body. There was also no evidence that Meng Shi took off with that man in China.

And then also, it became apparent early on that Meng Shi would not have abandoned her child, her one-year-old daughter. She was a great mother. During his interview with detectives, Joe gave them access to his phone. And on it, they found something stunning. Ten hours of secretly recorded conversations with his wife, like this one. I'd like to discuss our relationship. And I am kind of ready to discuss the end of it as well. Joe told Mung-Shi that he wanted to divorce her.

I don't like being married to you. I don't like living with you. It's been a terrible relationship. I'm eager to end it. He was asking her whether or not she was going to basically cooperate. And if not, he was going to tell the judge that she had been abusive to him. Should I mention in court that you're abusive to me? Should I ask them to deport you? But that was nothing, says Dan Knight, compared to the nearly four and a half hours of secretly recorded

audio they found on Meng Shi's phone. And what was on those conversations of significance? Unvarnished Joe Ehrlich. If you keep acting this way, I've told you before, it ain't gonna be pretty. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of

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Are you trying to make me go crazy so that you can call the police on me and take my baby away from me? It was October 29th, 2018, about a year before Meng Shijie would disappear when she secretly recorded her husband Joe going ballistic for nearly an hour. You want me to break? You want me to hurt somebody? It all started weeks earlier after Meng Shi gave birth and her parents flew in from China to stay with them. It is Chinese custom for grandparents to stay and help for 100 days, a custom that infuriated Joe. I don't want your mom here. Your mom is causing problems.

Your mom should f***ing leave. What really infuriated Joe was that Munchie was standing up to him and saying that she needed her mother. If I don't take care of my own body, my own health, it's not responsible for me or this family. I agree.

She's helping me to do that, and I know it. I don't like that woman. I don't think you should either. The tension was just to the breaking point. And there's yelling, there's cussing. And Yao Li says Zhou really despised it when Meng Shi and her mother, Kay Ren, spoke Chinese in his presence.

That's a stressor for him because everything that he doesn't understand, he would assume the worst. When Mengqi's father returned to China, Zhou decided to take back control, says Amy Saladay. Mengqi's mother was making Chinese dumplings, fantastic dumplings. She's making them making Chinese dumplings, fantastic dumplings. She's making them for his birthday, and he doesn't like how she's using the cutting board. I called it the cutting board incident.

Prosecutor Dan Knight says it's an incident that seems petty, but it led to an explosive argument. Don't do my cutting board like that. I'm telling you, cutting board doesn't like that. argument. He was demanding that his mother-in-law leave the residence immediately and permanently, never to return. Did Mung-Chi's mother stand up to him? Would she stand up to him? And could that have triggered this cutting board incident? Mung-Chi's mother, like Mung-Shi, wanted harmony more than anything else. There was no standing up to Joe. There's going to be some problems if you try to stand. I'm going to make it go away. The problem?

You can bet your ass on that. It was a one-way street. It was Joe's way or the highway. You're not the God. I am the highway. Meng Shi pleaded with Joe to let her mother stay. He responded with insults and profanity. He told her that she was incapable because she was a woman. You think you're so empowered because of this society?

You're still just a woman. It was a calculated effort on his part to gaslight her, to try to brainwash her, to bring her under his control. Joe was also threatening, explaining how he conquers nature, a cryptic comment that Dan Knight believes was a metaphor for wanting to hurt Meng Xi. You know how I conquer nature? I f***ing kill it. I grab its head and break its f***ing neck. That's how you conquer f***ing nature. Meng Xi's mother, of course, was in shock.

It's just really difficult for her to understand why this young man is so mad and so angry at her, at everything. Mongshi felt so helpless that she called Joe's mother, Jean Gerringer, who drove two hours to try and mediate. I don't have a choice. I have to call you. I'm sorry. He's going to come back and just, I don't know, unpredictable things could happen to call you. I'm sorry. He's going to come back and just... I don't know. Unpredictable things are going to happen. Mengshi recorded that meeting as well. I'm not here to choose sides. I'm here to try to be neutral and just give advice.

Even in his mom's presence, Joe was not shy about expressing hateful, even violent thoughts about his mother-in-law. Do I just smack her? Do I just beat her down? You wanted to. I have that craving. Yes, you can't. I'm not going to go there. The evidence that we had was that he was making his mother-in-law, Karen, kneel to him and bow to him. Joe would eventually apologize to his mother-in-law, but he still forced her to leave before the 100 days were up.

She thought that apology was sincere, or otherwise she wouldn't have left, and then believing that things might get better. Yao Li translated Meng Shi's journals for the prosecutor's office and says things didn't get better. Yao Li translated Meng Shi's journals for the prosecutor's office and says things didn't get better. But Meng Shi couldn't walk away. And even she is confused of why I just cannot

get out of this relationship. That's her constant question to herself. Dan Knight thinks Meng Shi felt trapped by her immigration status. In just five months, she was set to have another interview where she would be applying to get her permanent green card. A little over two weeks after Meng Shi vanished, the Columbia Police Department announced it was opening a criminal investigation into her disappearance.

That same day, police showed up at Joe's apartment. He's with his mother. The detectives at the scene are asking her, where is Mong Chee? Do you know where she is? Joe was arrested, but not in connection with his wife's disappearance, but on suspicion that he had physically abused their daughter. We have become aware that there was some bruising. So do you know what we're talking about?

Yep. This is through Keren, her mother. Mungshi had told her that she'd observed bruising on the buttocks, and Keren suggested that Munkshi confront Joe about this. Joe then admitted that he had done this to the little girl. Tell me exactly what happened. She was crying a lot one night. I think I just pinched her butt a little bit.

To me, that was a ruse to get him incarcerated. Joe's defense attorney, Scott Rosenblum. He was a young parent. Maybe he made a mistake. But there was no other indication that he was abusive towards his daughter. None whatsoever. Joe was held on a $500,000 bond. His mother took custody of his daughter. And Dan Knight set about proving his theory about what happened to Meng Shi. I thought from pretty much the very beginning this eventually was going to wind up being a murder case.

Things just had to develop. So you're telling me that these trees that we are standing among right now helped solve this case? Absolutely. What do you think happened to Meng Shijie? Chat now on Facebook and Twitter. On October 25th, 2019, police executed a search warrant over at Joe Elledge's and Meng Shi's apartment. That was the same day Joe Elledge was arrested on suspicion of child abuse. Meng Shi had been missing for a little over two weeks. These officers, they were on the ball.

They were able to find some things that were great evidence in this case. Prosecutor Dan Knight. Police collected from his backpack writings, different writings. Notes Joe had apparently written to himself about how to respond to questions from reporters and investigators.

One of those I labeled as being a script with what to tell the police. Another thing that he had written was that he was to speak about Munchie in the present tense rather than the past tense. She's a very dedicated person. She's a hard worker, and I really like that. That's important to me. Why would a man who was claiming his wife had walked away have to remind himself to not speak about her in the past tense?

Because he killed her. Detectives looked for possible evidence in every corner of the apartment and, on a hunch, also took this muddy pair of Joe's boots into evidence. Just in case down the road they might be relevant. Something was amiss. Yes, and they sensed it. And they took him. The search for Meng Shi became a hunt for her remains,

starting by retracing the long, leisurely drives that Joe said he took with his baby in the back seat while only he knew that his wife was missing. He just went driving me in. It was a nice day, and so I just wanted to go out. But every lead was just another dead end. So Dan Knight made a bold move. I decided to go ahead and file charges. murder in the first degree without a body. Charges were filed while Joe was still in jail on abuse charges.

Meanwhile, Dan Knight stepped up the search for Mongshi's body. These are the cell tower records that we had in this case. This is his cell phone and Joe's cell phone. that we had in this case this is his cell phone and joe's cell phone according to joe's cell phone records he had spent 30 minutes by the lemine river the day he claimed mongshi disappeared something he had not told police convinced her body was here authorities searched for. There was even a memorial on the river attended by Mengshi's mother. By March of 2020, we had really given up. We needed to do something to be able to say goodbye.

Then a year later, with Joe Elledge still awaiting trial, a hiker was making his way through this wooded area, the very park where Joe had proposed to Mung-Chee. A flash of color in the dirt caught his eye. It was a purse. He had this walking stick, and he kind of flipped that purse around just a little bit. He noticed that there were these shoes, and then he saw something that looked like maybe a skull. In fact, it was a skull, Mengshi's skull. She had finally been found.

That's right. That's right. It was a miracle. I think that's the worst moment for a parent. I think that's the worst moment for a parent. Yao Li had a video conference with Mengxi's parents, who were both back in China. They didn't say anything. All you see is their tears. They now knew their daughter was dead. But how and why were still a mystery. Sadly, even the medical examiner's office couldn't say what killed Meng Shi. Was there damage to her bone structure?

Yes. Unnatural damage? Yes, there was. Four ribs were broken all the way through. Do you believe that those broken ribs are evidence of physical abuse, of a physical attack? Of a massive, catastrophic blow to her back, all the way, these through and through breaks, that she would have been in agonizing pain. Dan Knight was building a theory of what happened to Meng Shi, and items collected about a year and a half earlier were about to become key.

For one thing, Joe's cell phone records put him near Mengshi's burial site, the day he reported her missing. What were the weather conditions like that day? Unfortunately for Joe, but fortunately for Justice, it was raining. for Joe, but fortunately for Justice, it was raining. Dan had those muddy boots and a hunch was about to pay off. As you can see right here, there is soil that is caked onto these boots. Mud and gravel on the soles of Joe's boots were sent out for analysis, along with foliage stuck in the mud. So we've got 12 different types of vegetation in these boots. Dan Knight decided to send Joe's boots to a lab at the Missouri Botanical Garden,

where juniper tree needles were carefully removed from the soles for DNA testing. Plants have DNA, just like people. Absolutely, yeah. Every organism, every living organism on the planet has DNA. Christine Edwards is a plant population geneticist who never dreamed she'd become a CSI investigator in a murder case. They wanted to see if there was some way that we could match the vegetation and the boots to the site where a woman's remains were found. These are two samples that were collected from the left boot right here. Once we knew that we could get usable DNA out of the forensic samples that we took from the boots, then we needed to match them to the trees at the site. Christine's colleague, Alex Lignon, was tasked

with collecting sample needles from the juniper trees surrounding Mongshi's gravesite. How do you do it? Pick it up off the ground or go up through the trees? So we have to go all the way up to the trees, and this involved a ladder and a 10-15 foot long pole pruner so that we could make sure that the needles that we were make sure that the needles that we were getting came from the exact tree that it was. So we couldn't just get it from the ground. It had to be from the tree. Each sample was stored and numbered.

And back at the lab, they were compared to the needles found on Joe's boots. These two lines here are the genotype of one of the samples from the boot. And this one is from the tree that is overhanging the grave site. And as you can see, the lines match up. And that moment for you when you realized you had a match? Yeah, it was really exciting. We got him. He was there. No doubt he was there. No doubt in my mind. He was there. Scientifically confirmed. Yes. Just like a fingerprint, just like DNA, blood DNA that is presented in trial.

This is just as reliable. Exactly. Exactly the same technology, even. So what you're telling me is these trees that are all around us here played a role in solving a murder? Absolutely. Yes. Dan Knight says it's only the second murder case he knows of where tree DNA has been used as evidence. The walls are closing in on Joe. So I expected at trial for there to be another defense besides, oh, Monk Shee must have just run off and gone to China.

Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth? And Dan knight was right on november 1st 2021 joe ellge went on trial for the murder of his wife, Meng Shi Ji. The question is, what happened in that apartment? And Joe's attorney, Scott Rosenblum, pivoted to a new explanation about what happened to Meng Shi. Joe didn't mean to kill his wife. What happened was a tragic accident. Thanks to this juniper tree and its DNA,

Joe could no longer claim that Meng Shi had run away. He now had to admit that he buried his wife in a shallow grave. He had no intent. Certainly not murder. That's not even close. Joe did have something to do with Mengshi's death, said Rosenblum, but it was not murder. He took jurors back to October 8th, 2019, the day Mengshi died. And as they go into the evening hours, he asks her if she wants a massage.

Tries to initiate sex. She rebuffs him. She says no. Joe now admits he knew about his wife's online affair with that man in China, Rosenblum said. And on this night, he confronted her. He's upset. He's hurt. And he wants to take his daughter for a walk. She lunges towards him and pushes him, and he pushes her. Pushes her into the countertop. Joe claims that's when Mung-Shee broke her ribs. The defense called Dr. Keith Norton, the pathologist who conducted Mung-Shee's autopsy,

and he said it was possible. Yes, but it would have to be a very forcible push. Does Joe maintain that she initiated this physical encounter? 100%. She came after him. Well, I mean, she wanted to prevent him from leaving with their daughter. He claimed in his news story that she attacked him. Do you buy any of that?

Look at the size difference. Of course not. He's twice as big as her. And again, she lunges at him and he pushes her away. And she falls this time on her back and he hears the thud of her head hitting the ground. Joe claims Meng Shi was knocked nearly unconscious and then got up and went to bed.

In the morning, when the baby started crying, Meng Shi didn't wake up. And he's sort of violently shaking her. Are you all right? Are you all right? And it is abundantly clear at that point in time that his wife is dead. Why did Joe lie? He was scared. He made a choice, an erratic, irrational choice. Is that someone who's in a panic state, or is that a killer who's trying to cover up his crime?

I believe it was evidence of extreme panic. That story was very clever, but it wasn't what happened. Prosecutor Dan Knight says all the proof he needs that Joe's story is made up are those four broken ribs. You know how painful it is to break a single rib. She would have had to have been to a hospital, right? Oh, sure. There's no doubt about it. Knight says he keeps going back to Joe's story about giving Mung-Shi a massage that night and believes that's when he killed her. I don't know if he put his hands around her neck and he strangled the life out of her. I don't know if he maybe forced her face into a pillow.

But I know one thing for sure, that murder was horrific. A premeditated murder, says Knight, fueled by months of growing anger. He hated Munch with everything he had. I'll find a happier life. This, I ain't happy here. Joe took the stand in his own defense. Y'all may be seated. And insisted that he loved his wife, even though there was tension in the marriage. You would have these arguments.

You both thought you were misunderstood, and there would be a reconciliation, and you would love each other. That's right. The defense tried to get jurors to relate to the sometimes stormy nature of Joe and Mung-Shee's marriage, moments of arguing common with many couples. Joe claimed his wife was responsible for much of the tension. She would raise her voice, yelled, and she wouldn't listen to me very well. They wanted to paint her as the aggressor. They wanted people to feel like it was

her fault. Amy Saladay and Yao Li were in the courtroom regularly texting updates to Meng Shi's mother, who was unable to travel. She didn't believe a bit of it, and that was very emotional for her. When Dan Knight finally had his chance to question Joe Elledge, he point-blank asked Joe how he killed the mother of his child. Did you maybe stand up on top of her and jump on top of her back? No. Did you suffocate her? No. After nearly two weeks of testimony detailing the audio recordings,

digital evidence, cell tower data, and the tree DNA linking Joe to Meng Shi's burial site, both sides delivered their closing arguments. Rosenblum asked for manslaughter. Pretend right murder. And Dan Knight asked for first-degree murder. She deserves justice, ladies and gentlemen. Much she deserves justice. We were all nervous, and we hoped that the jury would see the case the way that we saw it. See more evidence in the case at 48hours.com. We've all come to know Munchie. And so I think we all felt that connection to her.

And we hoped that justice would be served. All rise. Mr. Elledge, would you please stand to receive the verdict? It was 7 p.m. on November 11, 2021, and after deliberating for nearly seven hours, the jury had its verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant, Joseph Dwayne Elledge, guilty of murder in the second degree. Guilty of second-degree murder. The jury believed that Joe killed Meng Shi, but not with premeditation. Yao Li says Meng Shi's parents were very pleased.

They weren't nervous about the conviction at all. They believe this is a fair system. But the day wasn't over yet. The jury would now hear testimony in the penalty phase. I had to turn around very quickly late late at night, and start presenting evidence. Dan Knight wanted life in prison. The defense asked for 10 years. I feel very sad and I feel angry. The state called several of Mongshi's friends, who spoke about the impact of her death. of Mongshi's friends, who spoke about the impact of her death.

That hurt us. That make us huge pain and huge sorrow. The defense called only one witness to plead for mercy, Joe's mother, Jean Gerringer. It's very disturbing. It's heartbreaking because it's so out of his character. It was midnight when the jury got the case again. A little over an hour later... We, the jury, declare the punishment for a term of 28 years. Dan Knight believes the jury gave Joe one year for every year of Meng Shi's short life. Yao Li informed Meng Shi's parents.

I don't think the numbers matter to them. I think the truth matters the most. That's what is frustrating. I don't think they will ever, ever know the whole truth of what actually happened. know the whole truth of what actually happened. All they can look forward to now is to be able to help raise their granddaughter, says family attorney Amy Saladin. I hope that she can be raised to know her mother's Chinese culture and to know her mother's family. In December 2022, Mengxi's parents and Joe's mother

reached an agreement. The child will spend her summers in China and the rest of the year with Jean. Scott Rosenblum says she is in good hands. Jean and her husband are great parents. She makes it her business to include the maternal grandparents in the baby's life. Dan Knight would not discuss the child's future, but he did say this about the trauma already suffered by Mung-Shee's daughter. Number one, she was in the apartment at the time that Joe killed Munchie, her mother. One of these days, she's going to find out about that. Second thing is when Joe drove around, the next day, Munchie was in the trunk and their little girl was strapped into a car seat. But the thing that she's also going to find out about is that Joe would have been just fine

with her going the rest of her life thinking that her mother abandoned her. I want her daughter to know that she was a great mother. She was dedicated. She loved her with all of her heart. I want her to be remembered for her smile and how friendly and outgoing she was. Meng Shiji's legacy of accomplishment, dedication, and love lives on in her baby girl and in the hearts of those whose lives she touched.

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