Crime, Conspiracy, Cults and Murder - Ep. 6 | Jeannette DePalma | The Most BIZARRE Case you Never Heard Of

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

How did we not hear about this case??? In 1972, the mysterious death of Jeannette DePalma left her community shaken and full of questions. Found under strange and unsettling circumstances, her case remains unsolved to this day. Join me, you beautiful freaks, as I explore one of New Jersey’s most chilling mysteries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Kayak. Got that right. Crime, conspiracy, cults, cold cases, and murder. All things I love to consume. And you like to consume them as well. I don't want to consume you. Even though you do look delicious. Anyway, today we are going to be talking about the unsolved murder of Jeanette De Palma, one of the most bizarre and controversial homicide cases on record.

And I wanted to talk about this case today because it is widely unknown outside of the state of New Jersey. New Jersey, where Jay is from. Now, whether that was by design or mere coincidence, we'll never really know for sure. But this case is full of theories and rumored cover-ups. It's going to be a big one, so buckle up, all right? If you were to believe one side, Jeanette would have been one of the first victims of a ritual occult murder in suburban America. And if you were to believe the other side, this case could be the earliest example of satanic panic. And for those of you who don't know, satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000

absubstantiated cases of satanic ritual abuse, starting in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts of the world through the 1990s, and persisting to today. So let's get into the case of Jeanette De Palma. Let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes, and deep dive through this windshield into this burs. bizarre unsolved murder case together. So let's start at the beginning and get to know the teenager who would become to known

as the girl on the mountain. Jeanette DePama was born August 3rd, 1956 in Jersey City, New Jersey by Florence and Salvador DePama. Florence was a homemaker and Salvador owned and operated a DND auto-salvage in Newark, New Jersey. Jeanette was the seventh child born in a large Italian Catholic family. Damn, that's a lot of kids.

And that wouldn't be all. She would have a younger sister who would make the eighth child born the year following. And they would settle in Springfield, New Jersey, in a large house at four Clearview Drive. And they bought it at the price of $65,000, which in today's money would be $500,000. Wow, that's quite expensive.

And this family was looking forward to settling down and growing roots within this community. Located in the heart of Union City, the township of Springfield was formed in the late 18th century, with its roots heavily planted in the American Revolution, whatever that means, and several decades, Springfield would go from being a small town

to the very affluent hustle and bustle town it is to this day. So the DePomas were known as a more well-off family, living in a new affluent suburban area of Springfields called Springfield Top. But they were known around the community to have what they called strange behavior. I'm gonna describe that to you right now and you could be the judge of that.

Several residents were called a family never leaving their home and when they did, they would not talk to their neighbors. That's me. Am I strange? Elastir? Yeah, probably. But Springfield was one of those really close-knit communities where all the neighbors talked to each other. They really like to gossip through this whole thing. You're gonna see how much these people gossip it's fucking insane.

So for a family not to communicate with the rest of the community, it started to draw suspicious eyes. The DiPomas were also known to get into fights constantly. Salvador and Florence, especially, the parents. And their neighbors, being nosy as hell, would always call the cops on them and they would go to the DePama's house. But every time the cops would show up to their house, Florence would just shoe them away and say nothing's wrong. Salvador de Palma, the father, was also rumored to be part of the mafia, uh-oh, the mob, if you will. So were other residents of Springfield Top, but it was never confirmed, so we don't actually know that.

It could just be gossip, but this town was just full of gossip. So it's hard to take anything that couldn't be proven very seriously, but it just adds to the mystery stew that we're brewing, man, and this is a big fucking stew. Once Jeanette grew into adolescence, she found herself the topic of the local gossip. She was rumored to be a wild child. Margaret Bandrowski, that's a hard name. Margaret Brat, she's...

Margaret Bandrowski, there we go. A former teacher at Jeanette's High School would recall, quote on quote, "'Junge it by what I heard from the other students, "'she was a little on the wild side. "'I don't know the specifics on what wild meant necessarily for her. "'But in those days, it usually meant "'that she hung around boys,

maybe did some drugs are smoked, stuff like that. This is in Jersey, so I'm gonna be doing, like, a poor Jersey accent for all of these quote-on-quotes, because there's a lot of quotes. But this just sounds like a regular-ass teenager to me and probably to all of you as well. That's like mild, rebellious teenage behavior. But in this time, you know, the drugs and that kind of stuff was looked down on. But she wasn't even consuming any hard drugs. We'll get into that a little bit more.

Some other local residents who were children at the time recall hearing about Jeanette being very promiscuous around town. And Officer Kish, somebody who worked on Jeanette's case, would recall all the other officers at the station calling her a party girl because of one time they caught her in the back of a guy's car at a park and pulled her out. Which like, who hasn't been pulled out of a back of a guy's car just partying in the park, you know? We've all been there, okay? Except for me, I'm abstinent. But Jeanette's best friend at the time would say that that wasn't even Jeanette at the back of that guy's car. She was actually with her at the time. So Kish's recollection was just false. So the police are already making up stuff. The pot's doing. It's doing.

In later interviews with Officer Donald Schwart, he said he wasn't able to recollect ever even hearing about Jeanette before she was murdered or anybody calling her a party girl in the precinct. So it was really just Kish. It's my understanding that Kish really just liked the limelight during this case. He found that he could say anything and be in the spotlight. So I feel like we're going to be hearing a lot of bullshit from him, but you could be the judge of that. But besides the allegations that were coming from that one officer, Jeanette's friends recall her not being perfect by any means. She would hang out with boys. She would smoke cigarettes. She would sneak out just like any other teenager would at the time. And it would be heavily implied that she barely ever drank maybe once or twice. And she never did

hard drugs because she was very, very against that. She would from time to time smoke the devil's lettuce. But that was very, very popular at the time for teenagers to be. be doing and her friend said that she would never sought it out if she would just do it if she happened to be at a party where they were doing it. Her friend Grace DeMiro would describe her as When you would start to talk to her, she was so sweet and honest and funny. Some of the other girls in our grade weren't so friendly to her because of that. But these girls wouldn't make an effort to be friendly with her. If Jeanette tried to be friendly with them, they would just ignore her. Fucking bitches. She didn't say that last part, but she said the rest. And a couple of her other

fellow students at Dayton High would say, she never talked much and you had to lead the comfort. And if she did talk, it was only about a respective classes. This is one of the students talking, by the way. So she was, she was a bit of a recluse. She was like an introvert. She kept to herself. She only talked if she needed to. So I feel like people really, there was a lot of mystery behind Jeanette.

And it just put people off besides her friends, of course. But her friend's recollections of her just seemed to portray Jeanette De Palma as an average rebellious teenager. Certainly by today's standards. I mean, kids are doing crack cocaine nowadays. freaking eating tide pods and saying fuck you to their mom, all right? They're fucking crazy nowadays. But it was also at this time where Jeanette began telling her peers and her superiors that she wanted to start devoting her life to Christ.

And her family was very religious and she was religious, but she noticed she was starting to veer off of this Christian path and she wanted to get back to that. So she openly said that she wanted to turn a new leaf on her life. But sadly, it was at this time where her life would come to an end. the afternoon of Monday, August 7, 1972. So let's talk about the day of her disappearance. Like many other facets of Jeanette's life, the details of her final day on earth are pretty vague with several differing accounts of what happens, so we're going to go through all of them. So according to Jeanette's cousin, Lisa Gruelick, the morning of her disappearance started out

pretty normal and then went downhill pretty quickly. Lisa recalled that she was told by her parents, Jeanette's aunt and uncle, that Jeanette came downstairs from her room for breakfast that morning. And that's when she was told by her parents and her aunt and uncle that her cousin had gone missing. Her cousin being Lisa, who is telling us about the recollection. Lisa had been missing for quite some time at this point. Lisa explains that she had run away for about a month. At this point, an extended family didn't know anything about it, only her immediate family knew about it. So it was this morning where they chose to tell Jeanette and the rest of their family.

Lisa obviously came back from running away because we're getting this recollection. But at the time, Jeanette was absolutely pissed in her own right that her aunt and uncle didn't tell her about this previously, because it had already been a fucking month. What the f? I'd be fucking pissed if my mom didn't tell me about like my sister or even my cousin going missing. Like that, I don't even understand that. Anyway, so being mad, she would leave the kitchen and go up to her room. Gail, one of Jeanette's other friends, would recollect that Jeanette called her right after this and Jeanette would say to her that she wouldn't be able to come over anymore because her mother has her scrubbing the bathrooms all day. And Gail would be pissed because she's like,

You're bailing on me, man. They were supposed to meet up with two other guys, and Gail was able to guilt trip her into coming. So Jeanette felt bad, and she said, fine, fine, I'll come, I'll just come up with an excuse, and I'll hitchhike over to your house. But this would be the last time Gail would ever hear from her friend. So after her phone call with Gail,

Jeanette's sister, Cindy, recalled Jeanette coming to ask her if she wanted to hang out with Gail and the two boys. But Cindy denied because she was waiting at home for a phone call from her boyfriend because she had recently got into a fight with her. him and she regrets that decision to this day. But Gail would later contradict Cindy's claim because when Jeanette asked Cindy to come hang out with Gail and these two boys, Jeanette said

that her boyfriend Tommy would be there and that she'd like Cindy to meet him because she hadn't met him yet. And Gail would say that Jeanette didn't know anybody named Tommy and the only Tommy that Jeanette did know was Gail's boyfriend. I don't know what to think about that. But other friends of Jeanette would say that she did have a boyfriend at the time but since he lived in a different area. Nobody knew his name. So maybe it was Tommy, we don't really know. So Jeanette would tell her parents that she had a shift at her job at Brooks department store later that night. So she had to go. But police and press would find out later that Jeanette actually never had a job at this book department. So we have to assume that she made up the fact that she had a job here and she probably did just to use it as an excuse so she could go out and hang out with friends or do whatever she wanted without her parents even asking about it. And her friends would confirm also that she never had a job here. job at this store. But before Jeanette would leave the house to hitchhike, she would call one more friend to ask to join her, but her friend's mother would say no. So Jeanette would hang up the phone and tell her mother she was going to go to Summit Station to catch a ride to her shift. And Jeanette's

mother, Florence, would say goodbye, not knowing that Jeanette was actually planning on hitchhiking to Gail's house and not knowing she would never see her daughter ever again. Now, after Jeanette left her home, we don't know much detail of what happened next. We only know she made a pit stop at another friend's house, Donna Blanche. Supposedly Donna constantly had parties at her house. She was the party house. But although not confirmed by literally anyone that there was a party happening that night, rumors already started to spread that Jeanette might have OD'd at that party and the people at the party might have hit her body where it ended up being found. But that was debunked because there was no drugs found in her system. We'll get into that later as well.

But it's just the start of the stew of the gossip in the town. So this would be the last place that Jeanette was seen. because Donna Blattis would say that she left and she never saw her again either. So sometime late in the evening, Florence and Salvador began to feel uneasy about Jeanette not coming home yet. Because it got late, she would always call to tell them. So it was not long after the diplomas started calling everybody they knew to ask if they had seen Jeanette. And not a single person that they called said that they heard from Jeanette or had seen Jeanette that night. So naturally, fearing the worst for their daughter, they would call the Springfield Police Department. And boy, do I got a fucking bone of pick with you? Springfield Police Department, all right?

We'll talk about it. All right, but we'll get to that. But they would be met with frustration after calling the department because they wouldn't be able to do anything until she was missing for over 24 hours. Which was common back then. It's not common now. They would actually look for somebody nowadays. But the police officer that took the original call said that the De Palmas just said that she ran away. So the police weren't taking it as seriously.

But the DiPOMAs would deny that claim and said that they explicitly said that she did not come home from work and she did not run away. But soon the rumors would spread that she was just a runaway. So the DePomas would be left worrying all night and for the days to come because Jeanette never returned home. So let's jump ahead to what we know now, what happened. So on September 19th, 1972, a 44-year-old patrol officer and veteran by the name of Donald Schwart had just got back from a vacation with his family two days prior. But Donald was ready to get settled back into his routine because he loved his job at the Springfield Police Department. So Donald did what he did every morning before work. He would go downstairs, eat breakfast with his family, get dressed for work,

and would take the three-minute walk down to the department with his seven children in tow on their way to school. Why does everybody have seven kids in this town? What the fuck is going on? Oh, they're all Catholic. That's why. After Donald got into work that day, he was assigned to patrol the north side of the township, firing up his Plymouth Fury patrol car. Schwirt prepared for what he thought was just going to be another regular day on the job. Little did he know. So Schwirt was driving up and down the streets of Sleepy Springfield as a dog with something in its mouth was weaving through the labyrinth of trees bordering the nearby Hudale Quarry.

The dog would run back to his owner's home with his prize in his mouth and go to the Baltusral Gardens apartment complex on Wilson Road. So he would get there, loosen his bite over by the grass by one of the rear entrances and drop what he had in his mouth. And soon after his owner would call him where they were out of sight, the dog would run over and go inside the apartment complex. And very shortly after the superintendent of the apartment building would walk outside, look down, and to her horror, see what was at her feet. It was a human arm. So Schwert would get the call about the arm shortly after,

thinking this woman was just a victim of a harmless prank, saying, quote unquote, I figured it was gonna be a mannequin's arm because this lady was being harassed by a few kids. kids that lived in the apartment complex. They would do things like throw trash all over her lawn. They were just awful to her. So when I got the call, I figured it was just those kids again. And maybe they poured some ketchup on a mannequin or something. I don't know.

That was a quote. That was a quote from Donald Schwartz. Which, fair. But Schwart would be the first on the scene and walk up to the building where the arm was laying in the grass and would say to himself, this, this is human. No shit, Donald. No fucking shit. He literally said that.

In the book I read, that's what he said. He said that he said that he said that he said that. said that to himself. We like Donald. Donald's, Donald's okay. So Donald would get his camera and take pictures and call for backup. He would say, quote unquote, you better send detectives up. We got an arm here and it's no joke. After the discovery of the arm, all hands were on deck and his search party was sent out immediately. Short shift would end shortly after he would go home and change and go out to join the search party as well. And it was not long after that he himself would make the gruesome discovery in the quarry that was being laid out for the Interstate 78. It was the

upper portion of the arm he had found earlier at the apartment complex. It was quickly assumed that it must have fallen off of the arm naturally while the dog was carrying it back home. So they assumed that the body probably wasn't that far away and they would be right. So all the officers began to sweep the entire surrounding area that was absolutely covered in brush and it was just a really difficult terrain to trek through. Some even had machetes and were chopping down at the forest to get through it. Schwart and his fellow officer Calabri noticed a lofty bluff overlooking the floor, otherwise known as the devil's teeth. And being determined to find the body, they would ascend the extremely large, dense, and steep hill as fast as they could. Schwart would be the first one at

the top of the mountain and would be met immediately with the horrendous display of Jeanette De Palma's decomposing body. Her body was lying face down on a flat at the very top of the hill. Her skin was a grayish brown, kind of like leather, and she was wearing a blue t-shirt and pants the same outfit she left in when she disappeared. But the body had no socks and no shoes. There were flip-flops found, though, very close to the body and a pocketbook on the ground as well. She was difficult to identify at first because animals had eaten a lot of the flesh around her face and around her feet and ankles as well. And above her head was a wooden cross made of two sticks and a semicircle of stones made around her head kind of in the shape of a halo. Schwart would stare at her body in the odd arrangement above her

and would be broken from concentration from a fellow officer saying to him, Dawn, this looks like witchcraft. So, the police would search the area more for any other evidence that would allude to foul play or slewer slide, but they would inevitably find nothing. Jeanette's body would have to be lifted and brought down by an 85-foot fire truck ladder from the cliffside, because it was way too steep and dense to carry the body in any other direction on devil's teeth. So it just kind of makes you think how the body got up there to begin with, or if it happened in that location, or there's a lot of questions,

and not a whole lot of answers, but we'll get into all the theories. So once her body was taken down, she would be sent to the coroner, where her family dentist would meet the coroner and the body there and make the determination that it was, in fact, Jeanette De Palma. The coroner, on the other hand, would end up with more questions than answers. He would discover that there was no initial markings indicating bullet wounds, stab wounds, or even blunt force trauma, like broken bones or fractures. So he would end up sending Jeanette's body to the local hospital to get x-rays to make sure,

and they would come back with the same result. But the coroner, Dr. Edinburgh at the Sullivan Funeral Home, had a reputation of botching autopsies. Oopsie. According to Ed Kish, the local officer that likes to make shit up a little bit. Maybe not all shit. I'm just, that's my own opinion, okay? I have to say that's my own opinion. The local officer at Springfield would exclaim, quote-unquote,

Bernie Edinburgh was not a trained pathologist. Okay? The guy was a freaking physician. You know how Bernie Edinburgh got his job? Political appointment. He was not competent enough. As far as I'm concerned, to have been conducting forensic autopsies, all right? I know for a fact that he botched the autopsy of another high-profile murder victim that was found in Springfield Top, all right? And he was referring to Beverly Manoff.

These are all real quotes, by the way. These are real quotes that are actually said by these people. I just need to iterate that because they're just. just kind of all hilarious. I'm going to be honest. But yes, he was referring to another high profile case, which was Beverly Manoff, the wife of Yale Manoff, a Union County lawyer, who was found beaten to death in her bedroom after an assumed robbery. So after the x-rays, Edinburgh would examine the body again and determine, well, there was no official cause of death. It was possible that Jeanette died via strangulation. And this determination was eventually leaked to the press. And in

the mind of the Springfield residents, Jeanette De Palma, was now being considered a victim of homicide. Kish would go on to say again, quote unquote, Ehrmberg never came up with the specific cause of death. There are rumors as far as any of that is concerned. Edinburgh could not positively determine that she was strangled or that she was beaten or shot. Those were things that I believe were not able to be proven by the pathological examination. So what we had was a suspicious death because of where the body was ultimately located. Which, you know, fair enough. Kish sometimes says things that makes sense. So we have an incompetent coroner, some rightfully paranoid cops, and some suspicious happenings going on already. But wait,

there's much, much, much, much more. So after the autopsy was done, Jeanette's dried and decaying clothing was packed up and sent off back to the Springfield Police Department. And for some bizarre very unprofessional reason, they took the clothes and hung them up outside over a large AC unit on the side of the building for four days, by the way. What the fuck? Like, I know this is the 70s, but that's like some 1800 shit. The retired Springfield Lieutenant Peter Hammer recalled that incident with a laugh and said, quote unquote, you were lucky if half of us could read a write back then, to be honest. What? What? Again, this is the 1970s. This isn't the 1400? Just everyone can read and write.

What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Can you imagine a cop coming up to you in 1970 after pulling you over and just being like license and registration? Oh, yeah, sorry, okay. Do you know how fast you were going, Robert? It's Randy? No, I don't. How fast was I going?

I was kind of hoping you would know because, because I can't read, Ronald. It's Randy. All right, you're under arrest for being a smart ass, okay? Anyway, after the clothes were hung up and obviously contaminated. They were boxed up with the notebook as well and sent off to a crime lab for further forensic testing. But there would be nothing further discovered on the clothing. Shocking. So as the investigation was still going on,

the press would get a hold of the information about the strange ritualistic like arrangements around Jeanette's body when it was found. And this is when rumors and speculation about witchcraft and Satanism being involved in this case was spread. An article appeared on September 19th, 1972 in the Elizabeth Daily Journal titled as Girl Sacrificed in Witch Right. It's a bit aggressive, and would make the following claim. Investigation to the death of 16-year-old Jeanette De Palma

is focusing on elements of black witchcraft and Satan worship. A review of death scene photos, according to reports, is leading authorities to believe the girl's death may have been in the nature of a sacrifice. Pieces of wood, at first thought to be at the scene by chance, are now seen as symbols. Detectives throughout Union County have been alerted to the possibility that a cult or cult member played a part in the death. This article would be the first publication to link Jeanette's death with witchcraft or Satanism

and would immediately cause panic and an overwhelming sense of dread throughout the entire community. Some believed it was just media sensationalism, but a lot believed that it was Bible, truth, and began locking their doors for the first time. I love that that was just like not a thing back then, like locking your doors. like I can't even imagine that like nowadays or even back then can you imagine you're just in in bed with your husband and you hear a noise and you're just like Tony did you hear that Tony wake up what what there's somebody downstairs I heard somebody what do you mean the door was closed who could get in yeah but maybe just maybe we should start using those do-hickies by the door handle that make it stay closed

no matter what even if somebody tries to open it that is fucking insane Maria what a stupid fucking idea Oh, there was a man in our doorway who's about to kill us. See? This is what I'm talking about. So while it was obvious that no two people agreed on what was and was not found by Jeanette's body, numerous occult historians happened to agree on one matter. The items reported to be arranged around the corpse, while certainly very strange, were not satanic or related to Wicca or Richcraft in any way. Dr. Coy, a professor of history at the College of Charleston,

and renowned expert in the field of witchcraft. How do you become that? That sounds kind of badass, to be honest. Said this, quote unquote. This seems like media sensationalism to me. The early 1970s was a time of media concern with the satanic hippie cults. I think this is a case of media jumping to conclusions

to sell papers amid the concern with satanic cults that marked the era. Which fair enough, you know? But we have more to talk about on this subject. But what he said had a lot of merit at the time. Because this was a time when satanic panic was very prevalent, whether it was the Manson family getting convicted for their crimes a year previous,

or books like the satanic seller, a memoir of a former satanic cult member coming out with his book, or movies like The Exorcist coming out. People and the media were very paranoid and saw the potential in sensationalizing crimes in this manner back then, even if there was little to no evidence proving it. One of the main reasons why the ritualistic witch sacrifice allegations really came to head was because of a tragic event that happened only nine months earlier. John List made national headlines after murdering his entire family

and completely vanishing into the ether. He was a 46-year-old accountant who lived nearby Westfield in a Victorian mansion with 19 rooms. Holy shit, that's a lot of room. What do you even need those rooms for? He didn't have that big of a family. There was three kids and one wife and one mother. Sorry, I just...

Anyway, this mansion was dubbed the Breeze Nol and sat only three miles away from the department. Palma residents. And the List family from the outside looked very well off and affluent, but they had a ton of troubles in the home. John, for example, had become jobless for months, but would put on his work clothes and pretend to go to work for months and convince his family that he still had a job, but he would just go to the bus station and read and then come home later to act like he was at work all day. But he was embarrassed of this fact, so he didn't want to tell his family that. On top of that, John's wife was extremely sick. She was afflicted with syphilis from a previous marriage and had lost sight in one eye

and was just basically bedridden. And on top of that, John was growing concern about his eldest daughter, Patricia. 16-year-old Patricia was becoming obsessed with the occult and with the theater, which is less of the problem. But John didn't like either. John was a very stern Christian man and with his daughter Patricia now identifying herself as a witch was simply too much for him. He would catch her using Ouija boards regularly with her friends, and then he found out that she was telling her peers and her teachers that she was a witch and part of a local coven of witches who practice Satanism. Fun. I just skipped school once in a while and went to Domino's, but, you know, but joining a coven and becoming a witch sounds pretty cool. I'm kidding, by the way. Friends recall Patricia mentioning a secret altar located somewhere in Westfield, and besides her constant ramblings about witchcraft and the devil. She also spoke to her drama coach specifically how she thought her father was planning on

murdering her entire family. She would even ask her drama coach to come by that evening when she did tell him to maybe talk to her father and just get to know more about the situation and talk him down because she didn't know who else to go to. But the drama coach would end up having something come up and he wouldn't be able to make it that night and that just happened to be the night where John List would murder his entire family. So on November 9th, 1972, John would shoot all of his family members in the back of the head and drag them all into the ballroom in his mansion, besides his mother, who he said was too heavy to drag to the ballroom. And we know this because he claimed it in letters he left for the police after he vanished.

And the letters are crazy and very long, so I won't read the whole thing. But if you would like to read them, I'll put them up on screen and you can read them yourself. But if you want the Cliff Nose Virgin, I'll give that to you right now. Basically, the letter said that he couldn't make enough money to support his family anymore, and he was worried that Patricia was becoming increasingly involved in the occult and with acting, and was worried she would walk away from her Christian values. And his wife was becoming too sick to attend church, so he thought that would affect his other children and would make them not want to attend church either,

then affecting their Christianity and their ability to get into heaven. And then he rambles on about how to deal with all of their possessions and how to deal with the bodies that he left for the police to find as well, where to bury them, whether to cremate them or not, etc. It's some crazy shit. And John would just vanish from thin air, and he would soon become one of the most wanted men in America. And he was gone for a long time, but was found in 1989 in Colorado. And he would be tried and sentenced to life in prison and die in prison in 2008. Good. Fucking die. You're fucking, that's fucking crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. Because essentially he wanted his whole family to be able to make it to heaven because he thought that they wouldn't make it to heaven if he continued on the route that he was on with his life, which is, I mean, he's a terrible human being, but it's also just incredibly sad, you know?

So it's just a terrible, terrible crime that happened. So how did all this connect with Jeanette's murder? Well, while Patricia's father, John would disappear into thin air at the time, the ghost of the occult-loving Patricia would loom over the Union County for years. to come. Memories of the self-proclaimed witches, supposed involvement with a teenage coven of devil worshippers, would lead many to wonder if the same group of kids may be murdered Jeanette as well as a sacrifice. It's believed that the Westfield police and the media tapped into this theory and kind of just ran with it and exploited it, with articles claiming that there were connections within both murders, saying the bodies in the list home were laid out the

exact same as Jeanette's body was found, and that symbols that Jeanette's crime were similar to symbols that were found at the List family crime scene, but not all of them were really vague. But it didn't really matter because what the press had done had already done damage to the community. And everyone just assumed now that it was the work of the occult and that witches had murdered Jeanette. And their local reverend James Tate was no help, no help at all with easing their minds. He grabbed this case and he fucking put it on his back and he fucking ran with it, man. Freaking pastors and cull, they're basically cult leaders. I'm just, they're not. They're not, but some of them are. Some of them are. Okay, examples. He would basically bask in this limelight,

adding on to the theories that the police were giving and that the press were giving, and he would just completely lean into the fact that this was the work of Satan. And his assembly would fully give in to everything that he was saying. And by doing this, he gained popularity and a lot more people joined his assembly as well. And he became kind of like a local celebrity. It sounds a bit culty to me. Just saying. And on September 30th in 1972, police, would bring a real witch that they thought to the top of devil's teeth. This bitch was just a local school teacher that was just like, hey, yeah, I'm a witch. I want to be involved. I want the spotlight. That's my interpretation because this

chick just came out of nowhere and it's like I'm a witch. Let me solve this case. So they took her to the top of the mountain to basically examine the area around the occult symbols. Shockingly enough, nothing came of this, but it would freak people out specifically it would freak out Florence De Palma, which was Jeanette's mother, because she fully believed in this whole occult theory, given the fact that James Tate was her reverend. So she literally thought that this witch was going to go to the top of devil's teeth and bring back her daughter in a demon form. Like that that's genuinely what Florence thought, which is just sad. So as time went on, the police would get multiple calls in that people knew of,

animal sacrifices that were happening near and around the area as well, whether it was cats, dogs, squirrels. There was a goat found sacrifice somewhere around that area as well, or just killed. We don't really know. And of course, Reverend Tate came up and confirmed that there was absolutely definitely a cult there that was definitely sacrificing animals and everyone should be scared and run to church. Rumors would spread throughout Dayton High School that there was, in fact, a cult and the name of that cult was the witches. That is the worst fucking name for a cult of ever of my life. This is all speculation, by the way. None of it is ever confirmed. This is all just rumors essentially. But it just kind of added to the occult theory. So the witch rumors are flying and

the community is panicking. Nothing is being solved at all with Jeanette's case. But in October 1972, a lanky 21-year-old Terry Rickle would walk into the Springfield Police Department and tell them he knew who killed Jeanette. He said it was a strange figure who lived in the woods bordering Houdale Corey and his name was Red. Yeah. Terry would describe him as such, quote unquote. He was probably in his 30s then, maybe late 30s. He was tall and thin with wildish red hair and a full beard. He was a weird-looking guy. He looked like an old hippie. According to Terry, Red was a vagrant who often worked at the Baltuseral Golf Club as a caddy. Supposedly Red lived in the woods during the golf season right by where Jeanette's body was found. And since it was still golfing

season during the time that Jeanette's body was found and Red lived right near the body, Red became a suspect. And it would end up adding up to the police because police were getting reports of a transient that lived in the woods and that was working on this golf course as well. So he became a viable suspect. So they would make their way to Mountain View Road to see where Red was. And they would find his makeshift shack only about 50 yards away from where Jeanette's body was found. They would find blankets, cans of food, and some cooking pots as well, with food still in them that was rotting. So they would actually put in some effort now for once and try to go find Redd. And they would actually find him later that fall in 1972. And after finding him, they would take

red in for some aggressive questioning, but he would soon be cleared and set free and vanish into thin air, never to be seen again. Sounds like something a guilty person. would do but that's just me. It was said that the police assumed that since Jeanette and Red's ages were so different and that their lifestyles didn't meld in any way that that was the reason that he was cleared, just didn't add up or make sense why Red would have killed her, which I think there's more reasons what from what I've read I couldn't find anything else, but it's a bit suspicious. So Red was cleared and he disappeared and Jeanette's case

was slowly going cold. But the conspiracies continued with another murder that happened close by within eight days of Jeanette's murder. And that murder victim was Joan Kramer. On August 15th, 1972, Joan Kramer and her boyfriend went to a party that they were invited to with a bunch of friends and family in Union County. The night was going well,

but unbeknownst to the other partygoers, there was some tension brewing between Joan and her boyfriend. Joan would leave the party in frustration and walk a mile and a half into the downtown area. She would find a phone booth and call her friend that was in New York and talk about the fight that she just had with her boyfriend. And then after that, she would call her parents and tell her she would head home soon and catch a ride with a taxi. After the calls, she would hang up and for some unknown reason, she would end up hitchhiking rather than getting a taxi. So she would hitch a ride with a stranger on the corner of South Orange Avenue and Sloan Street. And this would be the last time anyone saw Joan Kramer alive. On August 28th, 1872, 13 days after her disappearance, Joan would be found only six miles from where Jeanette's body was found, and only eight days later as well. And Joan's cause of death would be strangulation, which was one of the determinations of how Jeanette might have died as well. But it wasn't 100% confirmed, as we know.

But not only that, but they were also both found lying face down, only six miles apart again. both were attractive brunettes with a middle part, and both had vanished eight days apart while also both hitchhiking. It's matching. It's matching up. It's screaming serial killer to me, but what do I know? I'm just a YouTuber. And I'm being sarcastic in an asshole because the police didn't put that together somehow. Anyway, later on, a disgraced and drunken accountant and former Sunday school teacher and a father of five, Otto Nilsen, was eventually identified as the person that picked

up Joan Kramer that night on August 15th, 1972. He was arrested and tried for her murder, but the jury failed to determine that Mr. Nilsson was beyond a shadow of a doubt, the person who killed Ms. Kramer. And he was inevitably released. But a short time later, Nilsson would go insane and be committed to a psychiatric hospital and eventually take his own life in 1992. And Jeanette, despite being an obvious possible victim of Nilsson, given the obvious similarities to Jones' death was never connected or really given the time of day during the investigation of Jones' death or Nilsen's trial. And Jeanette's case would eventually fade into the background given the little progress in figuring out what actually happened to her. And to top it off, in

1995, the Springfield Police Department claimed that all the records prior to 1995 were destroyed due to flooding during Hurricane Floyd. This had a lot of people saying that it had cover-up written all over it, which kind of yeah. And some of those people being the De Palmas themselves, and rightfully so. Fast forwarding to today, the Springfield Police Department and the Union County Prosecutor's Office

continued to remain silent after over four decades of perceived indifference and deception. And we may never truly know what happened to Jeanette De Palma. What I hope to accomplish with this video is to bring light to Jeanette's case and bring light to the other victim's cases that didn't get solved as well that I talked about and hope that they and their families receive the closure and justice that they deserve.

So thank you guys so much for watching this cold case episode. I very much enjoyed reading about it. It was extremely interesting and I'm really hoping that this case gets reopened and looked at more because Jeanette's family deserves that closure. But I, you know, I find this stuff very interesting. So if you have any other cases that you want me to deep dive into, let me know below, whether that's cults, serial killers, cold cases. I'm open to it all. I appreciate you guys for watching until the end, and I will see you a beautiful face in the next video, okay?

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