Cold Case Files - REOPENED: Rumors of Murder

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

When 21-year-old Julie Hill goes missing, everyone assumes she has just run off again. Fourteen years later, Julie's cousin starts to question the reason for her disappearance, and a murder investigation begins to unfold. Check out our great sponsors! ClickUp: Use code "coldcase" at ClickUp.com to get 15% off ClickUp's massive Unlimited Plan for a year! 1-800 Contacts: Order online at 1800contacts.com - download their free app - OR call 1-800 Contacts (that’s 1-800-266-8228) June's Journey: Download June’s Journey today! Available on Android and iOS mobile devices, as well as on PC through Facebook Games! DON’T MISS VH1’S MY TRUE CRIME STORY - NARRATED BY REMY MA! ONLY ON VH1. CATCH UP ON DEMAND. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 27 million drivers who trust Progressive!

Julie Hill was 21 in 1980. She lived in an apartment in Duluth, Minnesota with her two dogs. On July 18th, two days before her birthday, Julie's mom reported her daughter missing. Some members of her family believed that Julie had left town and become a sex worker. The thing was, not only did Julie leave her dogs behind, she'd also left her purse, clothes, and other essential belongings. Julie had also left her dinner, still cooking on the stove.

Julie's cousin Christine had been told stories about Julie, but she didn't share her family's belief that she had intentionally left without a trace. Christine believed it was likely that Julie had been murdered. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. I'm Brooke, and here's the fascinating Bill Curtis with a classic case, Rumors of Murder. At the edge of a forest in the valley of the Green River, a team of detectives works. In February of 2004, 34-year-old Christine Hickman flips through the channels and stops on the story

of a serial killer. So we knew we had a serial killer, obviously, working here. I was watching an episode of Cold Case Files. They were profiling the Green River Killer.

In that 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. It was like a bolt of lightning. 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 alive 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 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 Duluthuth police you tell them you want an investigation and she 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 Erspommer is a detective with the Duluth Police Department.

After talking to Christine, he gathers together his homicide team and lays out what he knows. She says that her cousin, 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 Marquart is one of the detectives in the meeting

and has given the job of following up with Julie Hill's family. 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, you know, little flags go up in my head that maybe there is something more going on. Marquardt's initial legwork convinces her there might be something to Christine Hickman's story, that Julie Hill might in fact have been murdered, and that her old boyfriend Donald Bloomer might be good for it. Christine told me that Julie, at the time she went missing,

had a boyfriend named Donald Bloomer. And she came right out and said she believes, and the family believes, that Donald Bloomer 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. 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 bloomers 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 going to 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 just prior to Julie going missing. And then she heard that when Julie's mom went to check with Bloomer 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.

Hurstbomber and his team have a suspect and some intriguing circumstance. The one thing their homicide lacks, 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. 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 a lot in the way of physical evidence, Ersbommer decides to shake up his suspect by confronting him. And the detective knows right where to find Donald Bloomer, across the street from the police department. 21-year-old Julie Hill had been missing for 14 years when her cousin Christine started to question the reason for her disappearance. Most of their family believed that Julie had left on purpose and was working in Nevada as a sex worker. The detectives looked into Julie's disappearance and believed it was likely that Julie had been murdered. The problem was that without a body,

murder would be very hard to prove. The detectives suspected Donald Bloomer, Julie's boyfriend at the time of her disappearance. Coincidentally, our office windows were right up there, and Mr. Bloomer does business right here. At 8 a.m., Sergeant Ersbommer greets Donald Bloomer as he works unloading newspapers. The truck was parked right here. He was taking newspapers into that door right there. Ersbommer flashes his badge. I 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. Bloomer 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. Bloomer into. We had this set up. We had some props here. At 9 a.m., Donald Bloomer sits down with detectives. Bob Erspommer talks to Bloomer for a while. Then Laura Marquardt takes over.

I need you to help me. 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, 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.

Donald, 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 part, 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 that's not true. Don, Don, that isn't the truth. And that's probably a couple hours into the interview when I start down that road. I know you're responsible for her death. It could have been an accident. Maybe it wasn't. I don't know. You were the only one there.

That kind of thing. Everything I said was exactly like I said. My last memory, this is the gospel truth, my last memory. Don, don't say those things when you know they're not right. No. They're not right. I know you want to remember those things. I'm looking at you.

I'm looking at you, Don. I'm just telling you, don't say those things to me, to my eye like that. I know that's not you. 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 had to say, Don. 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 to me that I've Those facts, no, they're not, Don. They're not.

You can't go on living with this like this, Don. You were wrong. Tell it to you. You told me. She had no reason. In the end, Donald Bloomer sticks to his guns, and cold case detectives have no choice but to get out the backhoe.

You know what? I'm going to keep doing what I need to do until I find where she is. And I believe she's on your property. Don, I do. I absolutely do believe. What are you going to do? How are you going to deal with that? You need to deal with it now instead of later.

Inside a police interrogation room, homicide detective Laura Marquart earns her pay. Marquart suspects the man in front of her, Donald Bloomer, killed his girlfriend 24 years ago and buried her under his house. He continually denies that and says we won't find anything like that on his property, that there's nobody buried there, there's no bones, no nothing.

No way. That little piece of earth is so sacred. Let me finish, 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. Listen, I'm telling you 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 could live there with Julie's body in my yard? No way. I go home there. That used to be the most sacred, only thing I had, I'd come crawling home from work and maybe get a few minutes there. No way.

That's 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 Marquardt is more convinced than ever that if they dig under Donald Bloomer's house, they will find bones. Not from an ancient Indian tribe, but from the woman who 24 years earlier

unhappily called Donald Bloomer her boyfriend. We're at 215 West 9th 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 descends on Donald Bloomer's property. Front of the house was about here. 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 Bloomer is a pack rat, and the house an utter wreck. After a day of searching, the city building commissioner weighs in, halting police efforts and ordering the building be demolished. Three days later, Donald Bloomer's house goes the way of all things, 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 and he never built anything further on that location. We started to think that there's a high likelihood he buried her right back here. A backhoe reaches into the earth and begins to dig. Precious little, however, 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 did we actually uncover all the truth or is there something else hidden there?

Homicide detectives still don't have their body and resign themselves to another session of give and take with Donald Bloomer. When they return to the interrogation room, however, detectives find a changed man. Well, today something's changed. What's changed today? Detectives find a changed man. 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. When you came that first day, when you were all done,

and you put your hands on my shoulder, I had to cut some piece. I had a little burden for a long time. Do you have a tissue? Certainly. Just like that. 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? Oh, yeah. Hmm.

It was the 4th... the night before the 4th of July. Okay. They're gonna go camping and canoeing and target shooting the next day on the 4th of July. So, um... they were practicing loading and unloading this brand-new.41 Smith & Wesson revolver that he had gotten that they hadn't used before.

I just picked it up and started pulling the trigger and went around like this to sight. And she came downstairs carpeted stairs with her bare feet didn't even hear she came around the corner smiling and the gun just went off 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 Erspommer watches the interview in another room and doesn't believe there was anything accidental

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. So I was suspicious. Donald Bloomer is arrested and charged with murder. He tells police he wrapped Julie's body in a carpet and dumped it in the woods. The search, however, turns up nothing.

Without a body, the DA agrees to a plea of second-degree manslaughter. And Donald Bloomer receives a sentence of three years. For Christine Hickman, it seems hardly enough. 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 Bloomer 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 a finish, as the victim'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 Bloomer 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. And if by chance, you know, somebody knows something and we get a tip, boy, we'll be out there looking. We really will. Donald Bloomer was released from prison in June of 2006. His home had been condemned during the search for Julie's body and he filed a wrongful destruction case against the city. In July of 2007, the family of Julie Hill filed a wrongful death civil suit against Bloomer. A confidential settlement was

reached outside of court. Cold Case Files the podcast is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our associate producer is Julie Magruder. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis. You can find me, at Brooke Giddings on Twitter, and at Brooke the Podcaster on Instagram.

I'm also active in the Facebook group Podcast for Justice. Check out more cold case files at AETV.com or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the A&E Real Crime blog at AETV.com slash real crime.