Cold Case Files - A Sister Lost / Rumors of Murder

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

A high school janitor is suspected in the murder of a young girl, but police must let the case go cold. After watching an episode Cold Case Files on TV, a woman asks police to reopen the 24-y...ear-old case of her cousin’s disappearance. Apartments.com - To find whatever you’re searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place.Omaha Steaks: Go to OmahaSteaks.com and use promo code COLDCASE at checkout for $35 off. Minimum purchase may apply.Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at Shopify.com/coldcase and take your retail business to the next level today!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode contains stories involving violence against children. Listener discretion is advised. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. I had done a cannonball off the side of the pool, and I accidentally ran into her. So she was upset.
Starting point is 00:00:35 And she had told me that she was going to go home and tell me, mom and dad, and then I was going to get in trouble. It's July of 1974 in Prairie Village, Kansas. John Wilson is 11 years old. His sister Elizabeth is 13. So I went out into the middle of the parking lot, and I heard my name. She called out my name, John. Turn around and looked, and she was running my way.
Starting point is 00:00:59 John Wilson runs through the parking lot, docks around the corner of a local high school, and waits for his sister. I was going to jump out and scare her and try to make a last minute. to deal with her not to tell mom and dad. And she never came by. Never came by. With no sign of Liz, John runs the four blocks home and waits. The minutes turn into hours with no sign of Liz.
Starting point is 00:01:25 Our rule was when the streetlights come on, you better be in your yard. And we never once broke that rule. And so we knew something was terribly wrong. At 10 p.m., the Wilson's dial 911. Officer Randy Pellidis takes the call. Received a radio call on a missing child from the Prairie Village swimming pool parking lot. Poletus and a team of officers hit the streets. Responded to the area and conducted a neighborhood canvas of all these homes and went door to door to see if anyone had seen the little girl.
Starting point is 00:02:01 After five hours, the search turns up no trace of Elizabeth and no reports. reports of anyone or anything suspicious. Extreme concern for her welfare. The fact she's 12 years old in her swimming suit and it's now dark and going into the early morning hours and still no sign of. It became one of the biggest cases the FBI had in Kansas City. We can go out and put 100 people on a case, you know, almost around the clock. And that's what we did at the time. It's just to try to cover all bases.
Starting point is 00:02:33 Zach Shelton and J.B. Brown are two of 100 FBI agents called in to work Elizabeth Wilson's disappearance. There was no abduction. There was no witness stated that a car drove in and a little girl was taken. In fact, it looked like she vanished in thin air. Elizabeth Wilson was last seen alive running past a local high school. With nowhere else to turn, detectives returned to the school. And the only man working there at the time. A janitor named John Henry Horton. He's a person of extreme interest at the time, given the extensive amount of door-to-door canvas and investigation that was being conducted and no one else had seen any other person
Starting point is 00:03:19 in the area and he had the job to put him right there where she was last seen. Horton's time card showed he punched out for a dinner break at 8 p.m. and didn't return until almost 11. He clocked out about 20-month- minutes after Liz Wilson's last scene. Well, that was the first serious red flag of the investigation was the fact that he had not returned during that window of her disappearance. According to the overnight janitor, when Horton returned to work, he was shirtless and had
Starting point is 00:03:49 fresh scratches on his back and arms. When detectives questioned Horton about his absence from work, he claims he went out to buy dinner and had some car trouble. His story is that his car broke down at a Milgram's growing up. grocery parking lot on 75th Street. We interviewed the employee there at the Milgrams and this particular employee said there was nobody in that parking lot doing that period of time. Horton's shaky alibi raises enough suspicion to merit a search warrant. When detectives open the trunk on Horton's car, they get an eye full.
Starting point is 00:04:25 They pulled a lot of stuff out of the trunk of his car. That was very questionable. sulfuric acid, chloroform, ether, butcher knife, some bags, and it just wasn't right, obviously. We all know when police worked at chloroform in a rag, you put it over someone's face, you can render them incapacitated very quickly. And at that time, I was very concerned about the fact that we had a possible homicide on our hands. Horton tells police he stole the chloroform to get high, and the knife was a gift for his wife. agents don't buy a word of his story. They view Horton as a liar and a murderer. Their theory gained support when police talk to Beth Reichmeier,
Starting point is 00:05:11 a 15-year-old who describes an encounter she had with Horton on the same night Elizabeth disappeared. I had been over playing tennis at Prairie Village Pool and I was walking home. And on my way, a man, gentleman stopped me. He's standing right here. He wanted me to stand on his shoulders to help him turn off the wall. water. He said he'd been watering the trees and he'd say he'd been watering the trees and he'd
Starting point is 00:05:32 might stand on his shoulders to help him help the water. And that just didn't sound right to me. Beth says she refused to help and walked on. When FBI agents revisit the school, they discover the water spigot is just six inches off the ground. And suspect Horton was using that ruse to lure Beth into the school. In the weeks and months that follow, detectives work to find a similar link between Horton and Liz Wilson. And you know, when you can put 100 agents out here on one particular thing, and with all the people you talk to, there's nobody else that shows up. That could have done it. That's it, but yeah. And you had the...
Starting point is 00:06:10 Everybody's a suspect. We interviewed a lot of child molesters, sexual deviants of the area. So we did our job, but it kept coming back to the only explanation of what happened was John Horton. After six months, detectives have a circumstantial case, but no direct evidence tying Horton to Elizabeth's disappearance. Meanwhile, her brother John keeps hope alive that his big sister will someday return home. I kept hope. I just knew in my heart she'd return home.
Starting point is 00:06:48 But that was not to be. Nine miles from the spot where Elizabeth Wilson vanished is a vacant field. Six months later, Later, on January 7th, a construction worker named Fred Kipp surveys the land and turns up a skull. You know, it didn't look like much of anything. It was here it's winter and you have a skull. You know, it's just, there's nothing there but just the bone and the skull and everything else is deteriorated. Kip dials 911 and a team of officers arrived to search the area.
Starting point is 00:07:20 We walked almost arm and armed through this whole half to three-quarter section of land, bear land, looking for anything that we could pick up. Agents recovered the skull and some bones, but nothing further in the way of usable evidence. Dental records confirm the remains belonged to 13-year-old Elizabeth Wilson. After six months, a family's worst fears become a reality. I felt bad because I was the last one with her, and I felt like I had let everybody down because obviously she ran into foul play, and I wasn't there. I didn't understand it.
Starting point is 00:07:57 How could this happen to my family? It was way beyond me. It's too young, too much. Investigators take their case to the DA, hoping to secure an arrest warrant for John Horton. The DA, however, feels there is a lack of sufficient evidence tying Horton to the victim. In time, Elizabeth Wilson finds her way to the cold files,
Starting point is 00:08:18 where the investigation sits until 2001, when a rookie detective takes an interest. One afternoon, while looking for part of a file in another case I was working on, I came across some photocopies of reports related to this case. Kyle Ships is a detective with the Prairie Village Police Department. On a slow day in 2001, he comes across the unsolved murder of Elizabeth Wilson. It was just one of those things that grabbed you when you first read it. This poor family for 27 years has lived without justice,
Starting point is 00:08:54 for their daughter and the suspect that everyone keys on is still walking around free. So that was my motivation to take a look at it. He had all these young teenage girls right across the parking lot at the pool. Ships partners up with Agent Bradcourts from the KBI Cold Case Squad. The two take a hard look at John Horton,
Starting point is 00:09:16 the prime suspect from 1974. What was hard to believe was that he left all that evidence in his trunk. I mean, he didn't get rid of it that night. No. He left it in his trunk and they found it the next day. And that, those telling of items too. I mean, we're not talking anything nondescript, but bottles of ether and chloroform. Why would you have those in the trunk of your car? Exactly. Yeah, what? 27 years earlier, police pulled chloroform, rags, and a knife from the trunk of Horton's car. Ships pulls the evidence and takes a look.
Starting point is 00:09:54 These three bottles here are marked as chloroform. It was our feeling that he had utilized the chloroform in order to render Ms. Wilson unconscious and then to affect the molestation. A person who is just going about day-to-day business has no business having these kind of items in their trunk. They're basically an abduction kit, whether to threaten somebody into a company, you rendering the person unconscious, things of that nature. Detectives refreshed the investigation by running a criminal history on Horton. In 1993, the former janitor was arrested for peeping into teenage girls' windows.
Starting point is 00:10:41 Only a misdemeanor offense, but telling nonetheless. That was a big break in the case I thought because it established that he's had a propensity for stalking and molesting teenage girls. this whole life. It was all a common thread of this fascination in a sexual manner with young teenage girls. Cold case detectives begin the process of tracking down and re-interviewing witnesses. Well, first I found a note on my door, and so I called them, and they said they were going to reopen the case.
Starting point is 00:11:15 In 1974, Beth Reichmeier was just 15 years old when she told police that Horton approached her near the high school. on the same night Liz disappeared. Now, detectives returned to Reichmeier and asked her if she might have also seen Liz's brother, John Wilson, that night. It was Horton first, and then as I got up around the friend of the school, that's when John Wilson went running by. We were up towards the front of the doors,
Starting point is 00:11:40 and he was out near the pillars. Reichmeier's statements put Horton that much closer to Liz Wilson and the time she disappeared. Captain Dan Meyer is a specialist in forensic mapping, and lays out a timeline for cold case detectives. Based on the evidence provided to me, I know that Beth is talking to John Horton and identifies the time of that encounter at 7.20 p.m.
Starting point is 00:12:03 I then calculated the time that it would have taken them to reach the front door, and I know that Beth arrives at the front door of the school at 722. It's during that time that she sees young John Wilson run by her location. Based on my calculations, I know that just seconds prior to the 722 time, John had turned and saw his sister while she was continuing to run from this location. The final location that he saw his sister was only 175 feet, 13 to 17 seconds away from the location that John Horton was last seen, meaning he was the only one that had the opportunity for the abduction and was in the area at the time.
Starting point is 00:12:44 Liz was last seen by her brother John at the end of this median here. Cold case detectives take their timeline into the field and play out how Lisbeth Wilson was abducted. John Horton was at this location near the sidewalk in between the two trees. John Wilson was on around at the front of the school, and it should have taken Liz about two minutes to walk up to where John was, and she never did arrive at that location. He didn't forcefully bring her into the school, but rather somehow was able to gain her confidence. We think he used some sort of either ruse or excuse in order to get her to enter the school with him at that time. Then once he got her in the school began a molestation.
Starting point is 00:13:38 There's indications that there was a struggle at one point. Their case is built almost entirely on circumstance, times and date. that put John Horton in close proximity to Liz. It is not an ideal case, but enough to warrant a sit-down with Horton. We wanted to catch him cold to get that initial, unrehearsed response from him, because that's a true indicator.
Starting point is 00:14:04 On August 7th, Brad courts surprises Horton in the parking lot of the factory where he works and asks him about Elizabeth Wilson. And immediately, he dropped his head and just remained silent like he was trying to think of something to say. And he started to shake. And I actually said to myself, right then,
Starting point is 00:14:26 I said, he's killed. He did it. The issue is whether you did it or not. It's right. How it happened. Horton agrees to sit down for questioning. For two hours, courts digs. But Horton sticks to his denials and admits to nothing.
Starting point is 00:14:45 You're the only one there, John? I know I'm the only one there, but I don't remember seeing her. I don't remember anybody running by. There's no wife said I need to evidently contact a lawyer. All this kind of stuff's going on. This is crazy. No, it's not crazy. It's fact.
Starting point is 00:15:06 You think I'd make all this stuff up? No, I say you make everything up. It's not crazy, John. It's reality. Cold case detectives believe their case is as good as it's going to get and prepare to take their evidence to the DA. Then another woman surfaces. One who had her own run in with John Horton and his bottle of chloroform. I couldn't move at all, none whatsoever. But when I came to, it was like a foggy vision. Okay, quick story. Last week I was online
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Starting point is 00:18:18 Brad Courts and Kyle Ships are talking about John Horton, a former school janitor and the man they believe abducted and killed 13-year-old Elizabeth Wilson more than 30 years earlier. Courts and ships can place Horton at the school where Wilson was last seen and have a bottle of chloroform and a knife recovered from his car. But little else in the way of hard evidence. That is, until they review the case file and happen upon a name. There was just a written note in the case file I found that said, had a name Joy Krieger.
Starting point is 00:18:55 We have another young teenage girl. She needs to be talked to. When they brought up his name, it freaked me out and I was at work. And I'm like, oh my God, you know, why do they want to talk to me? They haven't in 30 years almost, you know. Joy Krieger has kept a secret for almost 30 years. On August 8th, she sits down with Agent Angie Wilson and decides to talk. We asked her how she felt about John Horton and what her experiences were like with John Horton,
Starting point is 00:19:26 and that's when she became very emotional and said that she didn't like him at all. Joy tells Agent Wilson that two months before Elizabeth disappeared, her neighbor, John Horton, offered to get her high. Krieger at the time was 14 years old. So we were just going to go to the golf course. what I thought was just went by and get high. Walked over to a green, kind of sat down, like a little circle area, and he pulled out this bottle in a rag and kind of says, here, you know, this will get you high.
Starting point is 00:19:59 And I went like this because that's what he told me to do. And I was like, no. And he said, no, go ahead. And I remember him putting his hand back up to mine. Joy inhaled the fumes and quickly blacked out. Sometime later, she woke up in a haze. I couldn't move at all, none whatsoever. But when I came to, it was like a foggy vision, but my pants were down.
Starting point is 00:20:26 He had his fingers inside of me. He was kind of leaning up over me a little bit. But it's like I couldn't move. I couldn't say anything. Before she could do anything to stop Horton, Joy blacked out a second time. I have no idea how I came to. but when I did, my pants were being pulled up and zipped. I kind of went out again.
Starting point is 00:20:51 When I came to again, I remember setting up and just violently throwing up. Joy found her way home and made a promise to herself that she would never tell a soul. She was very upset by it and explained to us that we were the first people she had ever told about this. detectives believe the attack on Krieger to be a blueprint for Horton's abduction of Elizabeth Wilson and the final piece in their case against him. You almost thought it was too good to be true that there's no way this guy could be doing this twice. On October 15, 2003, Horton is arrested and charged with the murder of Elizabeth Wilson. On September 20th, 2004, John Horton's trial begins.
Starting point is 00:21:38 This was probably, in my opinion, the prosecutor's dream case in terms of having a victim as pure as the driven snow and a defendant who had done some very outrageous things to cause this to happen. And, yeah, I was fired up about trying to get a conviction. Central to prosecutor Rick Gwyn's case is the testimony of Joy Krieger. Nothing can prepare you for saying something like that on the stand. and sing him in person. On September 23rd, she takes the stand and tells the jurors her story. He had molested me when I was young.
Starting point is 00:22:18 We believe there were two lessons he learned. Number one, that Joy Krieger woke up in the middle of his assault on her, and so therefore more chloroform would be needed in order to keep his next victim unconscious. And number two, Joy Krieger never told a soul. So in his mind, it could have very easily been that she had no memory of what happened to her, and therefore it was the perfect crime.
Starting point is 00:22:43 Gwynne picks up on Krieger's testimony, arguing that Elizabeth Wilson was victimized in the same ways, except this time Horton went one step further and killed his victim. Our theory was that she was solicited by the defendant to come inside the school, to turn off a water hose. He took her into a TV room inside the high school, had the chloroform with him at that time, had a knife with him at that time to threaten her in case she struggled or fought with him. And then he subdued her through the chloroform, rendered her unconscious, and then removed certain clothing for the purpose of fondling her. In the process of doing that, that the chloroform instead of renting her unconscious, ended up killing her.
Starting point is 00:23:35 After six days of testimony, the case goes to the jury. Just two hours later, they're back with a verdict, guilty in the first degree. You could see the color slowly draining out of his face. That smile that had been present throughout the trial suddenly started turning into a look of shock, a look of surprise. The look on his face when they announced guilty, it was priceless. Because he was stunned. For the family of Elizabeth Wilson, the verdict means justice, 30 years in the making, and a small bit of comfort for Liz's brother, who wonders how different things might have been.
Starting point is 00:24:17 We're supposed to walk home together, and even though she was right behind me, you know, that was not supposed to happen. But I knew in my heart that I wasn't there, and that was hard to overcome. miss her. I often wonder how it would have been growing up with her in teenage years and getting old. But I'll see her again in heaven. In February of 2004, in Las Vegas, Nevada, 34-year-old Christine Hickman flips through the channels and stops on the story of a serial killer. I was watching an episode of Cold Case Files. They were profiling the Green River Killer in that
Starting point is 00:25:08 episode, they make the statement that even though those girls were prostitutes, nobody deserved to die like that. And I shot forward in my chair and thought, that's it, they're right. Flashing through Christine's mind is an image of her cousin, Julie Hill. For most of her life, Christine had believed Julie ran away from home and worked as a prostitute in Nevada. Then Christine began to hear family rumors that Julie had actually been murdered. Families have rumors, okay? Is she a or is she dead? It's time to get down to the bottom of it. Family gossip lays the murder at the feet of Julie Hill's abusive boyfriend at the time, a Duluth native named Donald Bloomer. Hickman gets on the phone to the Las Vegas
Starting point is 00:25:52 Metro Police Department, lays out her situation, and asks for advice. I reached a lady detective. I laid out what I had for her, and she listened and she asked questions. And when I was through, she said, by all means, you contact the Duluth police, you tell them you want an investigation, and she's stressed, and you don't take no for an answer. I got a phone call from a lady named Christine Hickman. She lives in Las Vegas, and Christine has a story to tell. Bob Erz Palmer is a detective with the Duluth Police Department.
Starting point is 00:26:30 After talking to Christine, he gathers together his homicide team and lays out what he knows. She says that her cousin, a girl named Julie Hill, was reported missing to the Duluth Police Department in July of 1980. She said that she was at a family gathering discussing Julie. And since the family is so spread out over the United States, they don't get together often. And they all started realizing that nobody's seen Julie since. the day she was reported missing. Laura Marquhart is one of the detectives in the meeting and is given the job of following up with Julie Hill's family.
Starting point is 00:27:15 I started talking to family members and getting a better idea of who Julie Hill was, what the family thought was going on back then. I started having little flags go up in my head that maybe there is something more going on. Markhort's initial legwork convinces her there might be something to Christine Hickman's story, that Julie Hill might in fact have been murdered
Starting point is 00:27:40 and that her old boyfriend, Donald Blumer, might be the culprit. Christine told me that Julie, at the time she went missing, had a boyfriend named Donald Blumer. And she came right out and said, she believes, and the family believes that Donald Blumer had something to do with her disappearance. He was very controlling, so if she were wanting to leave, this would not be a very good thing from his perspective. His reaction to this would be to control it if she was going to leave.
Starting point is 00:28:15 Julie and Donald had a very tumultuous relationship, and she said that Julie's mother actually remembers that there was some excavating being done. in the back of Bloomer's house. They didn't know if he was putting in a root cellar or repairing part of the foundation. So this is all information that we're gonna have to really start nailing down so that we can get a timeline going and start using this information to put into a search warrant. He had been excavating in his yard
Starting point is 00:29:01 just prior to Julie Going missing, And then she heard that when Julie's mom went to check with Blumer to see if he had seen Julie, this was all filled in. And she thought that that was suspicious and said maybe it's something, maybe it's not, but it's at least a place to get started. Erz Palmer and his team have a suspect and some intriguing circumstance. But the one thing their homicide lacks is a body. For us, of course, you know, we need a body. That's our best piece of evidence. And right now we don't have it.
Starting point is 00:29:40 So as we're developing our probable cause, we're going to have to show the best we can that Julie no longer exists. Without much in the way of physical evidence, Erse Palmer decides to shake up his suspect by confronting him. And he knows exactly where to find Donald Blumer, right across the street from the police. Department. Coincidentally, our office windows were right up there. And Mr. Blumer does business right here. At 8 a.m., Sergeant Erzpommer greets Donald Blumer as he works on loading newspapers.
Starting point is 00:30:15 The truck was parked right here. He was taking newspapers into that door right there. Erzpomber flashes his badge and told him that I was a police detective and wanted to talk to him. He didn't ask us, why do you want to talk to me? And you could tell he was very shocked. He then became actually afraid because as he was moving newspapers in, he was just shaking. Just shaking. Blumer follows investigators back to the police station, never asking why they want to speak with him. This is the interview room that we brought Mr. Blumer into.
Starting point is 00:30:55 We had this set up. At 9 a.m., Donald Blumer sits down with detectives. Bob Erzpommer talks to Blumer for a while. Then Laura Markwart takes over. You need to tell me what happened. You need to explain so Julie can have some peace. So you can have some peace. He comes up with different scenarios as to what happened to Julie.
Starting point is 00:31:19 And his belief is that Julie ran off to Las Vegas to be a prostitute. Clearly, what I know, to have happened is that Julie is dead. Don, you're gonna need to sit and listen to me, okay? Okay. All right? She is dead, okay? And I do believe that you had some heart,
Starting point is 00:31:42 you know something about what happened. He's sitting there. He's leaning into me. I'm leaning into him and he's nodding. He's agreeing with me. And I don't want you to tell me what you've already told me. You've already told me that dozens of times. And you and I both know.
Starting point is 00:31:57 That's not the truth. Don, Don, that isn't the truth. And that's probably a couple hours into the interview when I start down that road. If I know you're responsible for her death. Something happened. It was unfortunate. It was a mistake. You're wrong.
Starting point is 00:32:12 Oops. I'm not wrong, Don. You are wrong. You are wrong. It could have been an accident. Maybe it wasn't. I don't know. You were the only one there.
Starting point is 00:32:20 That kind of thing. Everything I said was exactly, like I said, my last memory. My last memory, this is the gospel truth, my last memory. Don't, don't say those things when we know they're not right. No, they're not right. You're, please look at. Please look at it. I'm looking at you.
Starting point is 00:32:39 I'm looking at you, Don't. Let me say this. I'm just telling you, don't, don't say those things to me, to my eye like that. I know that's not you. And we go down that road for quite a while. And on several occasions, he gets very, very close to telling me the truth, to admitting that truth. I've heard what you've had to say, Don.
Starting point is 00:32:59 We've spent hours listening to what you had to say, your explanation about what happened. It's not true. None of the facts show this. What it shows is that you lied to me. No, those facts are all wrong. There's a lot of things you said you there. Those facts are not.
Starting point is 00:33:17 No, they're not. They're not. You can't go on living with this like this, Don. In the end, Donald Blumer sticks to his story, and cold case detectives have no choice but to get out the backhoe. I used to grab whatever meat was on sale at the grocery store and call it a day. It worked, but it wasn't exactly exciting. Then I tried Omaha steaks, and wow, suddenly weeknight dinners actually felt like something to look forward to. The flavor is richer, the texture is noticeably more tender, and I'm not saving the good stuff for special occasions anymore.
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Starting point is 00:35:56 And I believe she's on your property. Inside a police interrogation room, homicide detective Laura Marquhart earns her pay. Markwhart suspects the man in front of her, Donald Blumer, killed his girlfriend 24 years earlier and buried her under his house. He continually denies that and says we won't find anything like that on his property.
Starting point is 00:36:20 There's nobody buried there. There's no bones, no nothing. How are you going to deal with that? You need to deal with it now instead of later. Let me do this now. Please. No way. That little piece of earth is so sacred.
Starting point is 00:36:35 Let me plan this. Please. Don't you want to hear me? I do. Why? Don't you listen to me? I've been listening to you for several hours. No, you're not.
Starting point is 00:36:44 This, I'm telling me, right now, absolutely not. And then interestingly, as I push that whole issue, he tells me things like, well, if you do find any bones, they're not from me. It's an ancient Indian burial ground. You think I couldn't live there with Julie's body in my yard? No way. I go home there. That used to be the most sacred.
Starting point is 00:37:11 The only thing I had come crawling all from her and maybe get a few minutes there. No way. That is that sacred Indian land there. That was a huge red flag, actually. When he said that, that made me think, my gosh, she probably is there. Detective Marcourt is more convinced than ever that if they dig under Donald Blumer's house, they will find bones,
Starting point is 00:37:35 not from an ancient Indian tribe, but from his ex-girlfriend, Julie Hill. We are at 215 West Knight Street in Duluth. This is the site of where the home was, where we believe Julie Hill was murdered. On a Monday morning, a team of detectives, including Tom Mehta, descends on Donald Blumers' property. front of the house was about here.
Starting point is 00:37:58 The driveway was right along this side here. They are looking for Julie Hill, or at the very least, an indication that she may have been murdered inside Bloomer's home. Problem is, Donald Blumer is a pack rat, and the house is an utter wreck. After a day of searching, the city building commissioner weighs in.
Starting point is 00:38:17 He halts police efforts and orders the building be demolished. Three days later, Donald Blumer's house is raised. and the earth underneath is laid bare. Based on information we had back from about the time she was missing, neighbors and family had mentioned that they saw him digging in the backyard here, digging a hole, and then the digging stopped shortly after Julie disappeared,
Starting point is 00:38:40 and he never built anything further on that location. We started to think that there was a high likelihood he buried it right back here. A backhoe reaches into the earth and begins to dig, but nothing is found. It is frustrating when you invest that amount of time and you don't find what you were hoping for, don't get that closure for the family, it remains some questions in your mind as to to be actually uncover all the truth
Starting point is 00:39:07 or is there something else hidden there? Homicide detectives still don't have a body and resign themselves to another session of give and take with Donald Blumer. When they return to the interrogation room, however, detectives find a changed man. What's changed? What's changed today?
Starting point is 00:39:26 Within 20 minutes of talking with Donald, he tells me that he wants to get down to business, that he has things to tell me. You can, that first day, when you're all done, and you put your hand on my shoulder. Time to come some piece. Just like that. Just like that.
Starting point is 00:39:55 And then he says it was an accident. And that he needs to tell me about everything that happened and that he should have told me the first time that we were talking, but he just couldn't. And then he goes on about how it's been haunting him and that he feels Julie's presence. Can you tell me what happened? What was the accident that happened?
Starting point is 00:40:19 Oh, yeah. They're going to go camping and They're going to go camping and canoeing and target shooting the next day on the 4th of July. So they were practicing, loading and unloading this brand new 41 Smith & Weston Revolver that he had gotten that they hadn't used before. He'd pick that up and start pulling the trigger
Starting point is 00:40:49 went around like this, the sights, and she came downstairs, carpeted stairs, she didn't even hear her. She came around the corner, smiling, and the gun just went out. I couldn't believe it. He accidentally pulls the trigger and shoots her, and he happens to shoot her right between the eyes, and she's dead instantly. Bob Ers Palmer watches the interview in another room and doesn't believe there was anything accidentally.
Starting point is 00:41:19 about the shot that killed Julie Hill. That's not a real accidental gunshot. That's where somebody's aiming. That's a very large caliber handgun. Very powerful. It takes some strength to hold that handgun up and aim it at somebody's head. You'd almost have to be doing it.
Starting point is 00:41:40 So I was suspicious. Donald Blumer is arrested and charged with murder. He tells police he wrapped Julie's body in a carpet and dumped it in the woods. A search, however, turns up nothing. Without a body, the DA agrees to a plea of second-degree manslaughter, and Donald Blumer receives a sentence of three years. For Christine Hickman, it hardly seems enough.
Starting point is 00:42:05 I would like to see him receive the same sentence Julie got, but obviously that won't happen. So I have to be grateful for what I have, which is Donald Blumer is answering to man, And he's answering to the law. And he is behind bars. That is what I have to be grateful for. Despite the guilty plea, this is a cold case without an ending.
Starting point is 00:42:29 As Julie's body has never been recovered, and the questions linger. It was my fervent hope that they would find her body. One thing that really bothers me is that any person of faith, I believe, strongly, has a right to have that final prayer set over their remains. Donald Blumer denied Julie that one basic right. It would be tremendous to be able to bring Julie back to her family. But again, I know we have done absolutely everything we could to do this. Julie's body's still out there.
Starting point is 00:43:03 And if by chance, you know, somebody knows something and we get a tip, boy, we'll be out there looking. We really will. At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV. Then I heard a voice. Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free. The truth is our city.
Starting point is 00:43:33 It's just so beautiful! On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, The 100 and The X-Files may cause excitement, loss of sleep and sudden belief in extraterrestrials. No credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never.

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