Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Jodi Sanderholm

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

When a beloved college student disappears on her way home one January day in 2007, a massive city-wide ground search is initiated, and the community is hopeful that she’ll be found and brought safely home. But as hope starts to dwindle, investigators realize that a predator has been stalking their community for years, hiding in plain sight.For more information on Texas Equusearch, please visit their website, texasequusearch.org. For more information about the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, & Resource Center (SPARC), please visit their website, stalkingawareness.org.If you or someone you know is a victim of stalking, please reach out to the VictimConnect Resource Center at 1-855-484-2846, or you can chat online at victimconnect.org.You can also contact the following resources:The National Domestic Violence Hotline: [phone]RAINN’s National Sexual Abuse Hotline: [phone]Remember to vote for Crime Junkie for iHeart Radio’s Podcast of the Year! Visit iheart.com/podcast-awards to submit your vote!Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies.Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-jodi-sanderholm/Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllcCrime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at [phone] to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, random photos of Chuck, and more! 

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And before we jump into today's episode, you guys, I actually just want to take a moment and celebrate because Crime Junkie is nominated for I Heart's podcast of the year. I can't believe it. You guys, we say this all the time. We would not be here without you.

And if we're going to win, I know it's going to be because of you because you can help determine the winner of this award. So if you could do us the tiniest little favor and head over to iheart.com slash podcast awards. You can vote for Crime Junkie as iHearts podcast of the year. Yeah, I literally just went to the link before this. It took me less than two minutes to vote. So easy. Yes, and please do it soon because voting closes on February 18th.

We are going to have the link directly to it in our show notes. So while you're listening to this long episode, please take a couple of those minutes and go vote. All right. Now on to today's story, which is one that will infuriate you. At least I hope it does. May it light a fire under all of us. Because it is about what happens when reports are ignored, when the seriousness of a crime is diminished until someone has to pay the ultimate price.

This is the story of Jody Sanderholm. On what started as a normal drive home from practice for the Cowley Tigerettes dance line the night of January 1st, 2007, College freshman Lori Leglider is beginning to realize that the night would be anything but normal. Initially, it just kind of registered as weird to her when a guy in a light-colored Cadillac slammed on his brakes to let her out of the parking lot. But the longer she drives, the more she realizes he likely did that for a reason so that he could get behind her and follow her.

Every glance in her rear view mirror makes Lori's heartbeat just a little bit faster, and that one part of our brain that tells us that we're overreacting is telling Lori, you know, let's just be sure before we panic. So Lori starts taking turns down random streets of Arkansas City, Kansas to see what this guy behind her does. But every intersection passed, every turn taken, he is trailing close behind, and Lori is beginning to freak out. But she does keep her wits about her. She knows that there is one place she can go where she's going to feel safe. So she takes another detour, this time

heading for the closest police station. Now this dude behind her doesn't seem to catch on to her plan, so he is on her tail right up until the moment she pulls into the station parking lot. And I'm sure she kind of holds her breath as she waits to see what he does, and then probably lets out a massive sigh of relief when he drives past instead of following her in. Like, this guy may be brazen, but apparently he's not that brazen. For the next few minutes, Laurie sits there in the parking lot waiting to see if he's going to show back up.

And as she sits there, she's debating whether she should go in and file a report or not, but that irrationally rational part of her brain speaks up again. What if she's just being paranoid? And what would she even say? Like, Hey officer, I'd like to report a crime. There's this aggressively polite guy who let me out. He made the same random turns as me in her mind. She's like, what are they going to do with that?

Right. Plus it's dark out. Like I doubt she even got a glimpse of his license plate, nor did she even get a good look at him. So when all is said and done, once she's convinced he's gone, she just gets back on the road and heads home. And for the next few days, she mostly forgets about the whole thing.

Because let's be honest, being on the receiving end of some dude's unwelcome detention isn't exactly a foreign experience for a lot of 18-19 year old girls. And the whole thing probably would have stayed forgotten too, if that same sh- light blue Cadillac hadn't shown up outside the Tigaret's next practice on the morning of January 5th. But there it is again, creeping past Lori as she steps out of her car. And this time, feeling emboldened in the broad daylight,

she hurls a string of four-letter words in this car's direction as her best friend and fellow dancer, Jodi Sanderholm, watches with a mix of amusement and honestly, a little bit of confusion. Right, be weird, be rude, stay alive, Lori. I love to see it. Yes.

So Lori fills Jodi in on the other night, what had happened, why she's hurling curse words at this guy, and how she's sure that it's the same car that just drove by. And honestly, now that it's daylight, this time she got a good look at the driver and Lori realizes that she actually knows him, or at least she knows who he is. His name is Justin Thurber and he had gone to high school with her older brother. And this dude had been just as much of a creep back then. Like he came over one time with a group of her brother's friends,

and she had asked her brother to make him leave because this dude would not stop staring at her. And she was in eighth grade at the time. Now, he hadn't said anything when she swore at him. I don't even know if he heard her. He just continued on his way. But knowing that the face behind the wheel was familiar might have honestly put Lorie at ease a little.

Yeah, it's easy to be like, oh, I've dealt with this creep before, nothing happened. He's just like general creep, right? Right. And there's also the fact that they have this big halftime performance that night that they're like all super excited about one that Jodi, her best friend had choreographed like the whole routine for it. So either way, like again, they've got this fun thing like, okay, I know the guy like he's a creep, but he's a harmless creep. They both put Justin out of their minds and they head into practice laser focused on the night ahead. That practice wraps up an hour or two later

and Lori and Jodi walk out to the parking lot together and part ways with a quick love ya agreeing to meet up in a few hours after they've eaten and showered. So Jodi gets into her car and drives off, but Lori isn't so lucky. One of her tires is flat, like fully not drivable flat,

which is weird because it was fine that morning. Justin. Well, she definitely wonders, but actually in an interview for an episode of the show Your Worst Nightmare called Every Step You Take, she says that she doesn't jump to any conclusions about how it got that way. At least not right away she doesn't. Because she's thinking, you know, maybe she just ran over a nail, like maybe she didn't notice. Plus, it's not like Justin is lurking around then. She hasn't spotted his car in the parking lot.

But eventually a good Samaritan helps her, like put on her spare. And this guy's like, hey, this isn't an accident. Someone slashed your tire. No two ways about it. This was intentional. And so it was then that naturally Justin was the first and really the only person who came to her mind, and she was pissed. But when she calls Jodie to vent about it,

because seriously, like, who does that? And also, who else do you call? She gets her voicemail. Same when she tries again a little bit later. And listen, their whole plan was to shower, get ready, meet up, so maybe she's just not seeing her phone, she'll try again later. But for the next few hours, it's the same. Jodi's phone just rings and rings until voicemail picks up. So eventually, Lori does what any good BFF would do. She just shows up at Jodi's house. But her car isn't in the driveway, which means she's not there. So she thinks that Jodi must be with her mom, Cindy, because Jodi and Cindy are like super close,

the kind of close every girl mom dreams of. Hashtag, I hope this for me and Joe. So Lori heads to the shop Jodi's parents own in town, because she thinks that's the most likely place where she's gonna find her, just hanging out with her mom. But right when she walks in and greets Cindy, something inside of her just kind of shifts, like the world just isn't quite right, because Cindy's there, Jodie's not.

And she asks Cindy if she knows where Jodie is, and Cindy's like, no, and actually I've been calling, but I keep getting her voicemail. I assume she was with you. And not answering Lori's calls is one thing, but Jodi always answered for her mom. And she always let Cindi know where she was, what she was up to. So by now, Cindi and lawyer are both feeling panic start to creep in. But Cindi's got one more idea. She's like, you know what?

I'm going to call Jodi's older sister, Jennifer. Jennifer doesn't live in town, so there's no thought of like, oh, maybe they're together, anything like that. But Jennifer is pregnant, like very pregnant, about to pop any moment kind of pregnant. She's already passed her due date. And so there's no way Jodi would let her call go to voicemail. She would assume that Jennifer was calling to say she was in labor. So Cindy's like, I'm going to have Jennifer call her, see if she picks up for her.

So she phones her other daughter, explains the situation, asks her to try Jodi. But Jennifer calls her mom right back and says, nope, I got Jodi's voicemail too. So it is then, when they know something is really, really wrong, when they're searching for an explanation, that's when Lori mentions to Cindy all the weird things that have been happening that week with Justin, because it dawns on her that if he's been following her around, and she has been spending all this time with Jodi, he could have been following Jodi too. Exactly.

And more than could have. Like again, he kind of already has been in a sense because they're always together. And each of her interactions with him have revolved around dance practice, right? Like where Jodi would be. According to an episode of Solved, Extreme Forensics called Deadly Obsession, that's all Cindy needs to hear. She decides to close the shop early for the day and get home to see what she can figure out there. I don't know if Lori goes with her at this point, or if she goes somewhere else to like wait to hear from her, but either way,

soon enough, they both realize that Jodi hadn't even made it home from practice. How do they know? Well, because Jodi's a creature of habit. Like, her routine is always to stop at the end of the driveway, grab the family's mail from the mailbox, and then leave it on this, like, bar that they have inside. So no mail, no Jodi. Precisely.

By 6 p.m., the Sander Holmes are calling the Arkansas City Police Department to report Jodi missing. And how many missing persons cases have we covered that go to hell at this point? I mean, almost all of them if they end up on our show. True, but for once, that's actually not what happens at all. You see, the police chief, Sean Wallace, knows the Sander Holmes, he knows Jodi. One of his sons actually graduated with her.

She was class valedictorian. According to reporting by Amanda O'Toole and Becky Tanner for the Wichita Eagle, she was also a member of the National Honor Society, a Kansas State Scholar and a Kansas Board of Regents Scholar. And she was captain of the high school dance line for two years. And now she's majoring in pre-pharmacy at Cowley College

and carries a 4.0 GPA. She is like the epitome of grounded, responsible. This woman would not go MIA without a word to her family, at least not on purpose. So an investigator goes out to talk to the Sander Holmes and they take him around the house, pointing out all the reasons they know Jodi hadn't made it home.

There's the mail for one, plus none of her stuff is missing and Cindy also shows him Jodie's shower, which is bone dry. Even her loofahs dry. Now, for a brief moment, the police think that there might be a simple answer to where Jodie is. Because as her parents are telling them all about her, her life, her routines, they mention

her boyfriend of almost five years, Colby. And they're not like suggesting that maybe he hurt her. They really like this guy. I mean, he's a good kid. He's always been good to Jody. He's always been respectful to them. In fact, in an episode of Murder Under the Friday Night Lights called Devil Came to Dance,

Cindy says that he's even planning to propose in May on their five year anniversary, seemingly with their blessing. But they tell investigators that he actually splits his time between Texas and Arc City. And they're pretty sure that he's with his brother in Texas then, like has been for a few days. So for a hot minute, this gives investigators a little surge of hope. Maybe Jody did just up and leave after all. Maybe she went to go see him in Texas. And, yeah, it would be

at a character, but at least it would make some kind of sense. But that hope vanishes as soon as they get Colby on the line. He confirms that he is in Texas, hasn't been in Arc City at all that day, but he says he hasn't talked to Jody since the day before, and he seems genuinely shaken by the news of her disappearance. Before they hang up, he agrees to drive back to Arc City for an in-person interview the next day. So that's enough for the Arc City PD to mount a full response. They put out a bolo to nearby agencies asking them to be on the lookout for Jodi's black Dodge coupe,

and they launch a full-scale ground search of Arc City. By now, best case scenario is that maybe she was in some kind of car accident, maybe on some back road that doesn't get much traffic, maybe she's just hurt, even unconscious, and maybe she's out there waiting to be found, maybe. I mean, this is great, but honestly, if the ground search, did Cindy tell them about Justin?

Where is Justin? Yeah, she told them all about Justin, and they're also headed that night to talk to him. Investigators go to Justin's parents' house and as luck would have it, he's there. Even better, he's willing to talk. He says that he had spent that day out at the Cowley County State Fishing Lake with some friends.

This lake is about 20 minutes east of Ark City, kind of in the middle of nowhere, and it's a popular spot for Arc City residents, so on its face what he's saying is plausible. I mean, not the whole day though, because we know he was at the girls' practice in the morning. Did he mention that part? It's not super clear, to be honest. I'm not even sure he's directly confronted about that, at least not yet. But Ron Sylvester reports in TheWitch.Eagle that he is asked about it the next day.

And then he tries to kind of just deflect by saying that, I don't know, like other people drive the Cadillac too, my mom drives it, my sister drives it. But at least in this moment, the first time they're talking to him, this Lake story doesn't seem to jump out as a huge discrepancy. I don first time they're talking to him, this Lake story doesn't seem to jump out as a huge discrepancy. I don't think they're like really drilling in on exactly what time he got there left

or whatever. And to be fair, like when this is happening, how quickly this is unfolding, like investigators have gone from zero to 100 in a matter of a few hours. So I don't know who's going to actually talk to him. I wouldn't be surprised if every single investigator is in 100% briefed on every single detail. Right, they're just like collecting as much information as possible. Yeah, either way, according to Justin, the whole day turned into a bit of a disaster when the people he was with, like their car got stuck in some mud.

Okay, was this his car or one of his friend's cars? From what I can tell, it makes it sound like it's one of his friends cars and Justin says that the car gets stuck the guys start bickering over what I don't know I don't know if it was just the predicament they were in or whatever But he basically at some point was like at this I'm out of here and according to the episode of your worst nightmare He just starts walking. He says he broke off from the group, walked and walked, eventually called his dad for a ride. And what does dad say? Well, that's the thing.

Dad is there at the house too, and he confirms the whole story. He's like, yeah, he called me, said he was stranded. So I drove out, picked him up. He's still all wet and muddy when I got there. And I think that's enough for them for that day. So investigators kind of wrap up with Justin, and they're kind of wrapping up everything.

I mean, again, they didn't get called till that evening, so it's getting late, it's getting dark. They reluctantly call it a day, although there is some of the ground searches that are continuing. At that point, everyone is still holding out hope that any moment with each turned down an alley or an isolated county road, Jody's car is going to be found. Jody's going to be found safe and sound inside of it.

Maybe hurt, maybe bruised, maybe in need of medical attention, but alive. But with each passing hour, I mean, with each passing minute, that hope is dwindling because one by one, all of those roads, all of those alleys and ditches are being ruled out. By daybreak, the next morning, an aerial search is added to the ground search and local media catches wind of Jody's disappearance. When Kansas Bureau of Investigation Special Agent David Folletti sees a news segment about it on TV,

he wastes no time. He calls Chief Wallace directly and asks if the KBI can be of any assistance. And like, kudos all around here because so often we hear about departments like closing ranks, icing other agencies out in situations like this, right? Yeah, it always becomes some sort of turf war instead of dealing with a life and death situation. Right, but Chief Wallace, he ain't that kind.

He'll take all the help he can get plus some. So just like that, Special Agent Folletti and the KBI join the effort to find Jodi. Now, Colby comes into the station for an interview that day like he had promised. And again, he seems genuinely devastated. And it doesn't take long for investigators to confirm everything that he's told them on the phone,

specifically that he wasn't even in the state when Jodi went missing. He's got credit card receipts to prove it, and his phone records tell the same story, so he is all but ruled out as a suspect. I don't understand how they're even talking about anyone else at this point. Like I know you have to like cover your bases, dot your eyes, cross your T's, but why aren't they going hard at Justin? I know, and they're not like ignoring him.

It's not like after that first chat, they like ruled him out or whatever. I honestly think that this interview with Colby is more of a formality than anything else. Like to your point, covering their bases, let's get this guy ruled out so we can focus on our real suspect kind of thing. And plus like they have to talk to him. Maybe he's got information that could be helpful. You know what I mean?

But they are really considering Justin suspicious. I know that because that morning they put his family's house under surveillance. And now that he's officially part of the investigation, Agent Folletti is the one who kind of leads the charge at looking into Justin, starting with vetting his alibi of being out at that fishing lake with friends when Jody went missing.

Now they have the names of these three friends, so Agent Folletti tracks these guys down, brings them in for interviews, and they deny being anywhere near the fishing lake that day before, or anywhere near Justin for that matter. All three of them have different alibis that put them somewhere else, which aren't just verifiable, like pretty soon they're verified. Not one of them was out at the fishing lake with Justin. And things only go downhill from there when investigators pick up Justin's ex-girlfriend,

Alexis, for an interview. Because according to that episode of Murder Under the Friday Night Lights, the girls got a lot to say about her relationship with Justin, and she's happy to share every last sort of detail on one condition. She'll take her interview to go, thank you very much, because she doesn't just have things to tell them, she has things to show them, things outside of Ark City. Now when I first heard this, I thought Alexis was going to take them to that fishing spot.

Yeah, I mean I've been internally screaming that since you said they were searching. Yeah, well that's not where they go. But they go somewhere close. It's this place called the Caul Wildlife Area and it is east of Ark City, just like the fishing lake. And they go here because according to Alexis, Justin spends a lot of time out there. Like multiple times a week. And listen, a lot of people from Ark City spend time out there, but according to Alexis, Justin doesn't just go there to commune with nature.

Judging from comments he makes out there, his intentions seem darker. He makes comments like, I could ditch a body out here and no one would ever know. And listen, every time I pass a swampy area or fly over a vast forest, do I wonder to my crime junkie self, or sometimes out loud, how many bodies do you think are out there? Yes, yes I do. sometimes out loud, how many bodies do you think are out there? Yes, yes I do. Okay, but you say that meaning how many bodies are already out there that you could find and bring closure to families with, not that you would put there. Exactly, my friend. And according to Alexis, Justin wasn't just joking when he said this stuff. She said he was plotting, maybe even

threatening. She also tells investigators plotting, maybe even threatening. She also tells investigators that he has a violent streak. He especially liked to choke her during sex and it was almost like he needed to hurt her in order for him to be into it. So following this interview with Alexis, the ground search that had been taking place in Ark City switches its focus east out to this call wildlife area.

And then at the same time, other investigators are getting their hands on footage from different security cameras on the Cowley College campus. And according to the episode of Solved Extreme Forensics, not only do they spot Justin and his Cadillac all over campus the morning Jodie disappeared, they spot him all over campus on multiple days leading up to her disappearance. From the looks of things, he was there following a bunch of different dancers around. So what about Lori's tire? Does the footage catch him slashing it?

Not quite, but that's because her parking spot was off-camera. What it does show, though, to me is almost as incriminating, because it shows him getting out of his car, walking directly in the direction of her parked car, looking like he's on a mission, and this is right around the time that her tire would have been slashed. So we literally see everything but the actual action of it being slashed. Got it. Is there anything on camera where he looks like he's confronting Jody, We literally see everything but the actual action of it being slashed. Got it.

Yeah. Is there anything on camera where he looks like he's confronting Jody, interacting with her, following her around? No. Where would he grab her then? Because if he doesn't get her in the parking lot and she never made it home, I guess how would he have intercepted her? And he would have to get rid of her car then too.

Well, that's kind of the missing piece, right? And that's the piece that they need in order to move forward with an arrest. But the good news, if you can even call it that, is that they have an idea of how it might have happened. All because of another crime that Justin committed, the very same week Jodi disappeared. And they do have probable cause in that case to take him back into custody. Turns out, dude's currently out on bond

on a charge of impersonating an officer from just like a few days prior to all of this. And when the bondsman catches wind of what's going on, he's like, oh, hell no, I want nothing to do of this. And when the bondsman catches wind of what's going on, he's like, oh hell no, I want nothing to do with this guy, and he revokes Justin's bond. So with that, a warrant is issued for his arrest, and investigators take him straight into custody. At the same time as the arrest, investigators execute a search warrant at the Thurber's

house, which gives them a chance to have another chat with Justin's dad. And they confront him about Justin's bogus alibi story. But his dad swears, like, listen, the thing I told you is true, Justin had called me for a ride. I had picked him up near the lake. And he also says that when they got home, Justin immediately took a shower and washed his clothes. And then the two cleaned the mud off his sneakers, which, by the way, are still sitting out on a towel drying.

So needless to say, investigators seize all of it, the clothes, the sneakers, along with his cell phone and his car. But as the day draws to a close, they are no closer to finding Jody. Worse yet, they don't have any hard evidence of where she might be. I mean, it's all educated guessing at this point. But the following morning, their working theory gets

a little more educated and a little less guesswork when they get their hands on the location data from Jodi's cell phone the afternoon she disappeared. It shows that she, or at least her phone, was traveling east of Ark City, out towards the wildlife area, which helps them kind of home in on their searching even more. According to Murder Under the Friday Night Lights, the searching group, the trackers, are near one of the spots Alexis had pointed out when they stumble onto something that could crack the case wide open. There in the dirt are shoe prints leading from the road into a densely wooded area. Two sets of shoe prints. There's a larger set that looks like it came from a pair of sneakers right next to a smaller

set that looks like it came from a pair of flip flops. And Jodi was wearing flip flops when she was last seen. So they start following these prints, and they may have just been imprints in the dirt but they are telling a haunting story. Except almost as soon as they reach the edge of the woods, that smaller set of prints from the flip flops abruptly just stops. Only the bigger set leads into the woods. And investigators have a theory about what that means. They think that Jody realized that if she went into the woods, she would never make it out alive. So she put up a fight and then a struggle probably ensued.

And then Justin, what? Carried her? Mm-hmm. They think he probably picked her up and carried her in. By the end of the day, they've counted more than 70 prints total, but nightfall approaches and they still haven't found Jody. Like those prints didn't lead to her. It's getting late, their eyes are starting to play tricks on them, and soon it's going to be dark, so they have no choice but to end the search for the day. Pretty confident that they've got to be close, she's got to be somewhere in those woods. But then as they're leaving,

like they're driving back home for the night or whatever, a couple of these trackers, as they're called, they decide on a whim to just swing by the Cowley County Fishing Lake. I mean, after all, that is where Justin said he was that day. And so they parked their car at this access point, like where it's basically like a parking lot with a set of like restrooms,

like a boat ramp where everyone like kind of goes in. And right away, something stands out. There are tire tracks on the sidewalk between the parking lot and the restrooms. Almost like a car had sped in, tried to stop, it hadn't turned sharply enough, and then one side of the car had almost jumped onto the sidewalk. So it's enough to make these people think that they should look around a little bit

more. One heads into the restrooms and peers into the toilets. And these aren't real toilets, by the way. They're the kind you find at campgrounds in state parks, ones that are basically elevated holes in the ground. And he doesn't see anything in the first one. But when he looks into the second one, something catches his eye. It looks like pieces of mail.

And the next, he notices a shiny windbreaker type jacket with lettering on it and a wallet too. When the items are recovered, and to be honest, I'm not sure if this happens that night or the next morning, but investigators confirm that the items belong to Jodi. Just her items though, right? Not her? No, thank God. It's just items and it's her Tigorette jacket, one of her flip-flops, nine pieces of mail addressed to the Sander Holmes, a pair of dance shoes, and the floor mats from her car. So they haven't found Jodi, but none of this is a good sign, right?

In an interview for that episode of Murder Under the Friday Night Lights, Jodi's sister, Jennifer, tells this heartbreaking story. She says that when her mom calls her and tells her that Jodi's clothing had been found, the first words out of her mouth are something along the lines of like, oh my god, so she's out there without her clothes, like she's probably freezing. And her mom has to be like, no Jennifer, she's not cold, she's gone.

And this for me was one of those moments. Every person's story we tell has one for me. And it's a moment so human and relatable, one that if you're empathetic enough, you can let yourself kind of fall into and just feel the weight of. You know, the thing that we didn't know is like, Jennifer had actually gone into labor the day after her sister went missing,

but she didn't even tell her mom right away because she didn't want to distract from her mom's search for her sister. And I think about what a weird time that had to have been. Like it's a time that is supposed to be so exciting for the whole family. But then you're going through this thing that is like one of the most devastating things so many families don't even think they'll ever have to face. Like it just doesn't even seem possible. Jennifer even said in that episode that once

she gave birth she said quote I had a newborn child that I had to take care of and my mind could not process the good and the bad that were happening at the exact same time in my life end quote so not only did she have to like kind of keep this thing to herself for a minute that you want to tell everyone but she wasn't able to even come out there to be with her family or to help look and I don't know I just keep thinking about how hard becoming a new mom was for me I don't know that I could have done that and then everything this family had to do on top of that Jennifer had to be so stinking strong and the whole family is gonna have to continue to be so strong because while the end to the search for Jody is near,

they're close to having to face a new battle. Because these tracks on the boat ramp, it almost looks like a car was driven down the ramp, right into the water. So they send divers to go into the lake that same day, but they don't find anything. And that's when investigators put in a call to Tim Miller and his organization, Texas Equisurge. Britt, just a reminder about the organization. I know we've talked about them before, but I wanna highlight them again.

For sure, and I would absolutely love to. According to their website, they are a nonprofit volunteer search and recovery organization that assists families and law enforcement agencies in missing person searches. Tim founded the organization in 2000 in honor of his daughter, Laura, who was abducted and killed in 1984. Her body wasn't found for a year.

So Tim, I mean, he's familiar with how much something like that can rip your life apart, especially that uncertainty of not knowing. And according to their website, they started out as just, you know, a humble horse-mounted search and rescue recovery team. Yeah, I mean, they started searching just on horseback, hence the name. Right, but in the nearly 24 years since then,

they've become honestly like a force of nature. They rely on volunteer searchers and provide their services at no charge to families or to law enforcement. Their website says, quote, today searches include the use of ground searchers, side scan sonar, ground penetrating radar, boats, aircrafts, drones and ATVs.

In other words, they've got resources at their disposal that some local law enforcement agencies can really only dream of. They've assisted in thousands of missing person cases over the years, including some pretty high profile ones. Cases like the disappearance of Natalie Holloway, Kaylee Anthony, and Vanessa Guillen. They've been incredible out there doing just outstanding work. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we've actually given money to Texas EquaSearch in Jodi's name for this episode. I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to donate if anyone listening wants to support them as well.

But I know who they are, so they call up Tim Miller, they fill him in and he's like friends, say no more. We're gonna be there first thing in the morning with a sonar scanning boat in tow. Meanwhile, while they wait for Tim, investigators in Ark City get some critical information from the evidence lab, which has been racing to process the items discovered at the lake. They found a latent fingerprint on one of the pieces of mail, and it belongs to Jody. And it's confirmed that the mail was delivered the day she went missing. So she did make it home,

the whole like no mail, no Jodi thing. But that means he must have gotten her at the mailbox. Mm-hmm, yeah. I still don't know how he got her car if he was in his. Well, this is where they begin to suspect that this was more than just a spontaneous crime. This was well thought out, planned.

Because you see, investigators around this time have found yet another shoe print. And like the prints from the wildlife area, they're able to match it with Justin's sneakers. But this print isn't out at the wildlife area. Not even at the lake either. They find this print in the wooded lot directly across the street from the Sanderholmes mailbox and driveway. He got there on foot, and then he laid in wait.

Investigators theorized that Justin attacked Jodi and forced her back into her own car, but this time with him behind the wheel. And that theory is bolstered by an account from a friend of Jodi's named Carrie, who tells investigators that around 12.30 on the day Jodi went missing, she had actually passed Jodi's car coming in the other direction heading east. But it wasn't Jodi who was driving. She was in the passenger seat and a man was driving. Now, Carrie didn't think too much of it,

figuring the driver was maybe Jodi's boyfriend Colby, except he did look a little bigger than Colby. And when Carrie waved to Jodi, Jodi didn't wave back. So she actually had even called Jodi, but Jodi didn't answer. And at the time it was all a little misdefying, but not necessarily concerning, again, at the time it was all a little misdefying, but not necessarily concerning, again, at the time. But police use this to kind of build their theory, like they know how he got her.

But the problem is, where is she now? Because despite best efforts of the search parties at both the wildlife area and the lake, yet another day ends without solid answers. No car and no Jody. And when they start back up again in the morning, the pressure is mounting, especially because a bad winter storm is forecast to hit later that day. But luckily, that's when Tim and his team arrive, and they don't waste any time getting their high-tech boat into the water. And almost as soon as they do,

the sonar picks something up, something that is resting at the bottom of the lake, something that sure looks car-shaped. According to additional reporting in the Wichita Eagle by Barbara J. Eisenberg, a diver goes in and confirms that it is indeed a car submerged in just about eight feet of water. As soon as the car is detected, a new somberness falls over the search team. Because everyone's thinking the same thing. They're going to find Jodi when they pull the car from the lake. So they're all actually a little shocked when they don't. It's Jodi's car, there's no doubt about that. The license plate confirms it,

but there is still no sign of Jodi. And beyond that, the car is completely waterlogged. The windows are all rolled up and it looks like the sunroof had been shut, but popped open under the water's pressure. And because of that, the entire car is filled with lake water. When one investigator suggests

that they should still process the interior like it hadn't been full of water for days, like specifically he wants to like do tape lifts on the seats, try and find any hairs or fibers that might have been left behind. Everyone's like, okay, sure, man, have at it, but like, we're going to do other things like we're not holding our breath thinking this is going to be the thing. Right. Except it kind of works. They do tape lifts on the whole damn thing and one of them pulls up a single solitary strand of hair.

It is carefully packaged up and sent off to the lab for testing. Now meanwhile, over in the wildlife area, one of the trackers is doing his thing tracking when a pile of brush in the distance catches his eye. Something about it just doesn't look right. It looks unnatural. It looks, I think the word he uses, like, staged.

Like, someone had piled up tree branches and leaves and twigs and whatnot intentionally. So he approaches the pile, and as soon as he gets close, he sees it. Just this flash of human skin, a hand just barely visible under the pile of debris, almost like it's reaching out begging to be found. When the remains are uncovered, and though there's no official confirmation yet, no one is doubting that they found Jody. She's completely naked with ugly purple bruises covering her entire body.

Investigators start processing the scene and her remains are transported to the Sedgwick County Forensic Science Center in Wichita for official identification and autopsy. By the next morning, before prosecutors have even had the chance to file charges against Justin, not one, but two Ark City women have filed petitions for protection orders against him. One had actually been filed a few days earlier by Justin's ex Alexis, who alleged that prior to his arrest,

he was sending her threatening texts and loitering ominously outside the homes of family members. And then the other was filed that very morning by a woman named Nicole, who manages a subway in Arc City where Justin had briefly worked. Nicole says that when she showed up to open at 6.30 on the morning of January 3rd,

just two days before Jody went missing, Justin is there like waiting for her. He told her that his car had broken down and he needed a ride. Even though he'd only worked there for like a month at the end of 2006, he had thoroughly creeped out all of the female employees, Nicole included. And not just like freak them out

cause he just like gave weird vibes. Like he had followed a few of them home. Which is exactly what he tried to do with Lori. Yep. So Nicole was like, sorry dude, no can do. Like I gotta get to work. She hurries into the store, starts doing her thing, and not 10 minutes later,

who does she see driving slowly by, except for Justin. In a very much, by the way, not broken down car. And then he drives by again and again. And the whole thing scared her so much that she asked for an Ark City police officer to escort her to work the next day. And notably when she got to work the next morning with her police escort, the lock was jammed because someone had stuffed it with wood. So this guy was just like spiraling. He wasn't going to stop until he got some poor girl into a car alone.

He sure wasn't. some poor girl into a car alone." He sure wasn't. And that's basically the theory eventually put forward by prosecutors, that after Alexis broke up with him in late 2006, he needed to find another outlet for his violent sexual impulses. And judging from Jodi's autopsy results, his intentions were nothing short of brutal. She was found to have received a severe blow to the head, which was so forceful that it tore an artery in her neck. And this was possibly from the ambush blow at the mailbox. Her ultimate cause of death was determined to be strangulation with

blunt force trauma as a contributing factor. But the pathologist doesn't think that she was just strangled once. Like they think that this guy would strangle her to the point of unconsciousness, allow her to regain consciousness, and then just do this again and again and again. So just torture. It was torture, because even before this, she had been beaten from head to toe.

Court documents outline the extent of her injuries, noting bruising, quote, on her head, on her arms, on her torso lower back buttocks legs and they also refer to injuries on her back suggesting that she had been dragged for up to 30 feet so I mean like you said it was the same conclusion investigators came to that Jody had basically been tortured for hours before she was killed tortured and brutally sexually assaulted, violated in ways I'm not even going to say out loud.

As the investigation progresses, a few other witnesses come forward saying that they had seen Justin and Jodi in her car outside of Ark City near the wildlife area. And then more young women start to come forward with stories of harrowing encounters that they had with Justin, like one woman who claimed that all the way back in 2000 when she was just 14 and Justin was 17, he had tried to sexually assault her while holding a pillow over her face. And then a girl that he'd worked with at a KFC

said that in 2001, she'd been talking to him in the parking lot through his car window. Like he was in the car and she was standing outside of it. And then he suddenly grabbed her and pulled her into the car through the window. What? Yeah, he forced her to sit there in the car and she was standing outside of it. And then he suddenly grabbed her and pulled her into the car through the window. What? Yeah, he forced her to sit there in the car with him for hours.

And on another occasion, he sexually assaulted her. On yet another, he followed her, leaving town. Oh my God. And she wasn't even his only victim that year. Another was a teenager. He followed home from Blockbuster for seven miles. She got home safely, but when she ran inside and told her mom what had happened, her mom acted quickly enough to be able to catch the car's license plate number as it was speeding

away. They reported this incident to police and, of course, found out the car was registered to Justin. Then there was the girl in 2004 who found a note from Justin propositioning her inside her car. It's a little unclear from the reporting, but I'm pretty sure this was also reported to police. Then in 2006, Justin told the young woman

who was in the market for a vehicle that he knew of one for sale. I guess they'd apparently dated briefly like the year before, so she believed him. But English wasn't her first language, so when Justin offered to give her a ride to check it out, she had this 11-year-old friend come along to interpret. But instead of taking them to see this car, he drove them out to the middle of nowhere, and both girls were so scared that they made a run for it as soon as they got the chance.

And Ron Sylvester reports for the Wichita Eagle that they ran until they found a farmhouse and called the police. More reporting there by Tim Potter describes another 2006 incident where Justin took a woman out into a remote area and forced her to undress at knife point. And there are others who come forward with their own shocking stories.

But the most shocking revelation of all has to be the testimony of a guy who had been friends with Justin when he was younger, because Justin had confided in him way back then that there was this house nearby where these two girls lived. And the older sister, who was Justin's age, I think at the time would have been like 12 or 13, and then he said there was a younger sister who was 8 or 9. And Justin says that in the summer he would creep into their yard and watch these girls while they were in their swimming pool. And he says if he was really lucky sometimes he could see them undressing through the windows.

And Brit, the sisters were Jennifer and Jody. Oh my god this goes like way back. According to Murder Under the Friday Night Lights, the same friend also testifies that Justin used to sit in the blockbuster parking lot where Jennifer worked when she was 17 and just watch her all night long. And she had no clue.

No idea. Yeah. So I know the police had originally theorized, oh, you know, Alexis breaks up with him and he needs like an outlet, but this isn't new behavior. He was a monster for so much longer than just a breakup. Yes. And again, having this like history of watching Jodi

and her sister, it's making it more and more clear. Foyurism of stalking behavior. Yeah, that this didn't even just like, this wasn't even just like an outburst or a crime of opportunity. And it wasn't even randomly Jodi, really. And if there was any doubt that he was responsible for Jodi's death, which at this point there was none, but his DNA is found under Jodi's fingernails.

And remember that one solitary hair found in the driver's seat of Jodi's fingernails. And remember that one solitary hair found in the driver's seat of Jodi's car? Well, DNA testing confirms that it belongs to Justin too. So he is indicted on charges of aggravated kidnapping, rape, sodomy, and capital murder. And when he goes to trial in 2009, he's convicted on all charges and sentenced to death. I mean, the jury only had to deliberate for three

and a half hours before finding him guilty. Now, in the years after Jodi's death, the Sander Holmes make it a personal mission to reform anti-stocking laws in Kansas, allowing police to take action much sooner. Because not all of the girls that he had stalked over the years had made police reports, but some had and those reports didn't go anywhere.

The bill that they helped usher through the legislator is called Jody's Law and it passed in 2008. And I want to end Jody's story with this, crime junkies. You guys all know the true crime trope. The one about how every victim of a homicide lit up a room. There's even a meme about it online, this kind of morbid joke about, you know, why you don't want to be that person who lights up a room, because those people are often the ones

who fall victim to violent crime. And the point is, of course, that there's a tendency to portray victims as faultless and flawless, beacons of love and light. And really, when it's not an accurate portrayal, it is a little bit of a disservice. It can rob victims of their faults and flaws and depths and complexity.

And almost humanity. Yeah, things that make them them. But the phrase does exist for a reason because occasionally, if we're truly lucky in life, we might be fortunate enough to know a person who fits that description. Someone who radiates warmth and kindness and positivity. And it seems like that was Jodi. Her family and friends lost light

that January day in 2007. And I'm sure there isn't a day that goes by where her family doesn't wake up or go to bed without a flash of her in their minds. A memory, however brief, of what life was like with that light, and then the realization that they're gonna have to go on another day without it. For so long, stalking has been treated as a lesser crime, an annoyance, maybe, or an inconvenience. The Victim Connect Resource Center,

a program sponsored by the nonprofit advocacy organization, the National Center for Victims of Crime, has a simple definition. Although, keep it in mind that each state has its own. But Britt, do you wanna read what stalking is, according to them? Sure, it's quote, a course of conduct directed at a specific person

that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear, end quote. That is just so concise. Yeah, and the tricky thing is the individual acts that add up to stalking can be, but aren't necessarily criminal acts. They can also be non-criminal things, like things like repeated phone calls, unwanted gifs or texts or emails, driving by someone's house or place of work, showing up at the same place that they are, even using friends and acquaintances or family members as intermediaries to communicate with the

person who says they don't want to communicate with you. And like, again, each individual thing on their own might strike an outsider or even a member of law enforcement as harmless. Like, just, you know, block his phone number. Just ignore him. If you just don't give him attention, whatever. But stalking is not about any one individual act. It is about a pattern of behavior, a pattern that should not be ignored.

You can't just block the number. That does not make them go away. And it is all far from harmless because all too often it escalates and the results can be downright deadly. So in honor of Jodi and her story and all victims of stalking, AudioChuck has decided to sponsor an incredible organization called the Stalking Prevention Awareness and Resource Center, or SPARK. SPARK's mission is to provide training and resources to the organizations and entities

that are there to keep victims safe and to hold offenders accountable. From domestic violence shelters and college campuses to law enforcement agencies and court personnel, Spark aims to ensure, quote, that allied professionals have the specialized knowledge to identify and respond to the crime of stalking. We, of course, are gonna link out to their website in the show notes.

And if you or someone you know is a victim of stalking, please know that resources are available. You can reach out to the Victim Connect Resource Center by phone or text at 1-855-484-2846 or you can chat online at victimconnect.org. You can also contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or RAINN's National Sex Abuse Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. All three of those will be linked in the show notes as well. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at CrimeJunkie Podcast.

We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime junkie is an audio chuck production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?