Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Loving wife found bloody, dead in Palm Springs home; NO LEADS??

Episode Date: April 8, 2021

The brother of a California woman found dead is putting up a $25,000 reward for information about Jennifer Dillon’s apparent murder.  Neighbors began checking on Dillon at the request of her wife, after the IT specialist did not respond to call and texts. Her body was found in a bedroom.  Responding detectives immediately suspected foul play, and a subsequent investigation led Palms Springs police to investigate Dillon’s death as a homicide. But over two months later, Dillon’s family and friends still have very little information about the circumstances of her suspicious death. Joining Nancy Grace today: Athena Kelly - Victim's wife Annette Baine - Victim's Neighbor Ashley Wilcott - Judge and trial attorney, anchor at Court TV, www.ashleywillcott.com Dr. Jeff Gardere - Board Certified Clinical Psychologist, Prof of Behavioral Medicine at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine www.drjeffgardere.com, Author: 'The Causes of Autism” @drjeffgardere  Chris Byers - Former Police Chief Johns Creek Georgia, 25 years as Police Officer, now Private Investigator and Polygraph Examiner, www.chrisbyersinvestigationsandpolygraph.com    Katherine Maloney - Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Erie County Medical Examiner's Office, www.nickelcityforensics.com  Kristy Mazurek - Emmy Award-winning Investigative Reporter, President of Successful Strategies PR and Crisis Communications Firm Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Why was a loving wife found dead in her home and seemingly the investigation is stalled. Neighbors are speaking out about a woman found dead in her home two weeks ago in Palm Springs. Police now calling this case a homicide and they're searching for help. News Channel 3's Jake Ingrassia live tied in Palm Springs with more on what neighbors are saying they saw. Jake. A gruesome discovery inside this home. Neighbors say they were checking on their friend after they didn't hear from her.

They found her body inside covered in blood. But that was two weeks ago, and now they want to know what took police so long to investigate this as a homicide. Okay, you were just hearing our friends John White and Jake Ingrassia at KESQ. Why are police just now saying that this woman, Jenny, Jennifer Dillon, was a victim of a homicide? From my understanding, she was found in her home covered in blood. So what took so long to add two plus two to get four? And why is the case seemingly stalled joining me an all-star panel christy mzurik emmy award-winning investigative reporter and president of successful strategies pr and crisis communications firm katherine maloney that's dr katherine maloney deputy chief medical examiner Erie County Medical Examiner's Office

and you can find her at nickelcityforensics.com Chris Byers former Police Chief Johns Creek 25 years on the force now Private Investigator and Polygrapher at chrisbyersinvestigations

and polygraph.com Board Certified Clinical Psych, professor at Truro College. And you can find him at Dr. JeffGardier.com. He's the author of The Causes of Autism. Ashley Wilcott, judge, trial lawyer, Court TV anchor at AshleyWilcott.com. And joining us, two very special guests who feel the need to speak out on behalf of Jenny Dillon. With me, her neighbor who discovered Jenny's body.

What a shock that must have been. That's everybody's nightmare. Something that never goes away from your mind. Annette Bain is with us and also with me, the victim's wife, Athena Kelly. To everyone joining us, thank you for being with us. I don't understand why this case has been stalled. First to you, Christy Mazurek. You know, I hear about people leaving the rat race and going to Palm Springs.

That's where everybody in that region wants to live. What's so special about Palm Springs? It is a vacation area. I know it's beautiful. Tell me about it. Well, it's clearly the opposite of a high crime community. I mean, this is palatial neighborhoods. As you mentioned, Jennifer was very well loved and respected in her community. They had planned neighborhood events. So this is

where people either want to raise a family or it's a utopia for people who have gotten out of the race and just want to rest and relax. Palm Springs has been described as an elite getaway in the Sonoran Desert, and it's in Southern California. It's known for hot springs, natural hot springs, posh and expensive hotels, golf courses, and spas. Now, this is how I first heard about Palm Spring. It's famous for mid-century modern architecture. And there is a shopping district I've heard of. It's super expensive along Palm Canyon Drive with all these vintage boutiques and design shops. My point is out to you, chief buyers, is I'm not pointing out that all these wealthy people live there and it's this destination venue. I'm pointing all this out because it's a very low crime rate you find in Palm Springs. I mean, people often have weekend homes. When I was out in L.A. doing Dancing with the Stars, I ran into some people that had vacation or second homes in Palm Springs.

And they would drive through the night, through the desert at night to get to Palm Springs. Not a place where you expect to find this woman, a loving wife, an I.T. wizard, dead in her own home, covered in blood. Yeah, absolutely. And again, where I was a police chief at, we were the safest city in Georgia and the fourth safest in the United States during about six or seven years of my tenure there. And it was the same thing. But unfortunately, these type of violent crimes found their way into our community as well. But you just don't expect it. And it definitely shocked the conscience when these things happen. And, you know, Dr. Jeff Gardere, I'm not saying that these people should be immune from crime. I'm saying a lot of people go to great extremes. They change their

life. I did. I changed my life. I changed my career. I changed everything to try to give a safer environment for my children because it's just not worth it to have them in a high crime area. I don't care how your career changes. I don't care about any of that. What matters is safety and living your life free of fear. And I think that's why a lot of people go to Palm Springs, Jeff. Absolutely. And that's why this crime is so ironic that it would happen. I would think that Jenny Dillon was a woman who gave of her life to many, many people. And this was a time that she wanted to finally reward herself and her wife by now finally being able to take some me time.

You know, Ashley Wilcott, I just got a flash all over me. I'm looking at Jenny's picture right now and it looks to be beautiful brown eyes. She's got sunglasses up because you know she's out there in that beautiful California sun. Just smile and looking at the camera. Have you seen this, Jackie? She just looks like the kind of woman you just want to go up and hug her. She just is just coming out of her in the picture. And Ashley, her family, her wife is left struggling, feeling helpless because they can't get answers. What crime victim deserves that? No crime victim deserves that. And the other issue that I have with this is every description you just gave is a picture that I've looked at as well. And she's beautiful and glowing and in a place in life where she seems to have kind of achieved it all for her own personal self. And guess what? What that means is when someone like that is found dead, there should be an immediate investigation because it doesn't make sense. When anybody is found dead and it's so obvious to me, you're covered in blood and they can't

figure out it's a homicide. I mean, I don't like that at all. But for a family to be left reeling, I mean, when my fiance was murdered, the last thing on my mind was trying to figure out who did it. I couldn't accept what had happened to him. And now this family's out trying to get answers. Her brother has just put up a $25,000 reward because they're not getting answers. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, I want to go now to our very special guests, Athena Kelly and Annette Bain.

Annette, you found Jenny's body, and I can't imagine the trauma that, I mean, I've had dreams after being in crime for so long of finding a dead body. I guess because I've been to so many crime scenes where there were dead bodies and so many morgue visits. Guys, for those of you just joining us, we want answers in the homicide, the murder of Jenny Dillon. You may know her as Jennifer Dillon. Tip line 760-778-8422 or 760-327-1441. Hey guys, before we go to Annette, take a listen. What do we know about this woman? Who is she? Listen to our friends at Crime Online. You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone with harsh words to say about Jennifer Dillon. Her neighbors in Racket Club Estates say she is well-known in

their neighborhood. Dillon bought her home in 2003 and since then has often taken part in community events, including helping people prepare for natural disasters. She also served on the Racket Club Estates Neighborhood Organization Board of Advisors. Dillon's younger brother, Tom, describes his sister as a sweet, kind person, one of the good ones, and that's a sentiment echoed by her neighbors. Business owner Joy Meredith told thedesertsun.com that she has come to know Dillon as sweet and funny over the last 15 years. Dillon is married and works as an IT specialist and had become an ordained minister. To you, Annette Bain, what led you to Jenny's home?

Tell me about the discovery of her body. Athena had called me after school about three o'clock and she had asked me if I had talked to her and the last text I had was on Friday she was we found her on Monday and so I sent her a text and she didn't respond back but Jenny was the type of person that always sent you something back right away so that made me nervous and so Athena asked if I could go over there. So myself and my husband went over and we found her about 4.30 that afternoon. How did you get into the home? Well, we were supposed to go to the neighbor, but the neighbor wasn't there who had the key. And so I kept the whole time I was texting her.

She wasn't answering. I was calling. She wasn't answering. So I had my husband push me over the wall on the left side of the house. Okay. So you got over the wall. I did. And so I took a look around in the yard.

I didn't see anything. Went around, opened up the garage door to let my husband in. How did you do that? How did you know how to open the garage? Was there a code? No, no, no. It's just the inside button. Gotcha. I knew there was an inside button, so I just opened it. And so my husband and I went in together into the house and the slider was open. What do you mean the slider? Are you saying sliding glass door? Yeah, yeah. It was unlocked.

I wouldn't say it's open, but it was unlocked. Interesting. Hold on. Let me just understand what you're saying. So you go in through the garage because it has an inside button. You can get in without a code. Then from the garage, you go through a sliding glass door. Yeah, there's a breezeway in the mid-century homes. There's a break between the garage and the rest of the house.

And so it's like a breezeway oftentimes. You can get to the garage, but then you have to find your way into the house. They're not always connected. Okay. So to get into the house, you had to go through a sliding glass door. Right. And that sliding glass door was unlocked. It was, yeah.

Was it closed? I try to remember all the time. Yeah, it was closed. Or if it was kind of open, it was for the dogs to go in and out. There was a neighbor that had been over there at 3 p.m. earlier. Really? And hadn't found her. Yes.

Interesting. And hadn't found her. I wonder why. Well, she's an elderly lady. She doesn't hear that well. She doesn't see that well. She doesn't see that well. So it wouldn't surprise me that she, and she said she wasn't looking on the ground. Okay.

So you go in the sliding glass door and then what happened? My husband goes one way, I go the other. Which way did you go? And I'm calling her phone. I went straight and then left because I was calling her phone and I could hear her phone going off. You're absolutely correct. I read that fact. Take a listen to our friend Jake Ingrassia, KESQ-TV. Listen. Jenny Dillon was an amazing human being who loved everyone and everyone loved her.

Neighbors in the Racquet Club Estates community in Palm Springs are mourning the loss of 59-year-old Jennifer Dillon, who police say was killed two weeks ago. We found her in the house face down. Mallory Morse, along with Annette Bain and her husband, did a welfare check after Dillon's wife, who they say was out of town at the time, said she wasn't answering her texts. They start looking around and I'm calling her phone and I'm hearing it go off. And her phone's there. So if I know her phone's there, I know Jenny's there. So she's the kind of person who always has her phone with her.

So you're calling her during this and you hear her phone and you go toward the ring. Then what happened? I did. So her bed was, it was connected to her charger along with her ipad on her bed and she wasn't in that room so then my husband went to so this is a three bedroom so we did the two outside bedrooms and then mallory had come in mallory had seen the garage door go up and so mallory joined us at that point who Who's Mallory? And we still, Mallory is the neighbor, the one that was talking earlier. Anyway, so there was one room in the middle

that looks really dark. And I thought, well, there's, there's a room right there. I haven't really checked. So I pushed it and she was laying on the ground. It was really super dark in the middle room. And so I could see if it would be easy to miss her if you weren't really looking. I assume you turned on the lights. There were no lights in that room. There was no light. It's hard to explain, but there was no lamp in there. What did you do when you saw her body?

I saw her, and I said, here, here i found her i found her and i was so freaked out i did you realize immediately that she was dead i did because her arm was kind of twisted weird and um and when when jake and gracia said she was covered in blood it's it's not that she was there was just a big pool of blood underneath her head. She wasn't. I mean, I'm sure if he turned her over, she would be covered in blood. So that's kind of a. I understand.

There was a lot of blood there. She was lying on a pool of blood. Take a listen to our friends at KESQTV. They found Dylan's body in the middle bedroom. They say she'd been gone for a while. There was blood. I could see some blood. And she wasn't moving. Her arm was kind of twisted weird. It's scary to live in the neighborhood because of that.

Could my house be next? Police initially considered the death suspicious, but it wasn't until more than two weeks later that the investigation was elevated to that of a homicide. I wish that they would have made it a crime scene immediately. Guys, I want to follow along with the events of that day. Take a listen to Sergeant Mike Cassavan of California PD. On January 25th at approximately 4.59 p.m., our dispatch center received a call from Jenny's neighbor. Officers responded to the residents and found Jenny deceased. Officers believed the circumstances

and evidence at the scene were suspicious and made a request for the Riverside County Coroner's Office to assist in the investigation, and they responded a short time later. Palm Springs PD and the Coroner's office conducted a parallel investigation because of the suspicious circumstances at the scene. Once the scene was processed, evidence collected, and Jenny's body removed by the coroner, we released the residents to a neighbor. Now that's interesting because we're getting another story. Take a listen to KESQ. Baines says an officer told her that it was okay to clean up a little, so Dylan's wife wouldn't have to see the bloody scene. He knew that she was my friend and it might be disturbing for her wife to get home and see it. I disturbed everything. I'm sure I disturbed everything. There was still so much blood everywhere.

They're worried the investigation has now lost critical time. The longer we wait, the more we won't know. The easier it will be for someone to get away with it. The search now just beginning for justice for Jennifer Dillon. It's amazing to me that an officer would actually tell a neighbor to go ahead and clean up the scene. That's critical, critical evidence that was being cleaned up. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This woman, loving, beloved, an IT wizard found dead in her own home in a third bedroom. Why did weeks pass before this was named a homicide?

Take a listen again to Sergeant Mike Cassavan. The next day, January 26th, investigators received additional information from the coroner's office that there was additional evidence that Jenny's death was looking like a homicide. Investigators responded back to the scene where they collected more evidence. Investigators also continued canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses and potential video surveillance. It should also be noted that an autopsy had been scheduled and our investigators worked with the coroner's office to have the autopsy completed a week earlier than anticipated. On January 28th, three days after the initial report, the coroner's office confirmed Jenny's death was a homicide and provided our investigators with a cause of death. The cause of death was critical because it provided us with how Jenny was killed and provided us with new direction

in the case. To protect the integrity of this investigation, Jenny's cause of death will not be discussed here. On January 28th, after receiving the cause of death notification, investigators responded back to Jenny's residence to conduct further follow-up in the investigation and to canvas the neighborhood for more witnesses and surveillance footage. Straight out now to Athena Kelly, beloved partner of Jenny Dillon. Athena, thank you for being with us. Thank you. Athena, tell me how that day unfolded for you. That was Monday the 25th.

I was here. I was not home. I was at my sister's in Orange County. It's about an hour and a half away. I was here I was not home I was at my sister's in Orange County it's about an hour and a half away I was here I was getting my car fixed and I was actually gonna go home Sunday and then I talked to Jenny and I was gonna come home Tuesday so I wasn't home but I always talked to Jenny every day in text and I didn't hear from her and I sent her a couple of texts and I my neighbor Mallory that you're hearing she lives next door very close to her I called her to ask her if

she had heard from Jenny and Mallory had said no and she called her to ask her if she had heard from Jenny. And Mallory had said no. And she called her and texted her and didn't get an answer. And Mallory said to me that she had a key. And I asked her to go over and go in. And Mallory is older. And so she was worried about it, afraid, I could tell. But she went in and I waited to hear back

from her and then Mallory had told me later that the middle bedroom Mallory pushed the door and she just looked in but she didn't push the door hard enough she didn't know Jenny was laying behind the door and then Mallory went out and called me from the front closed the door and, and she said, Jenny's not there. There's no dead body. And I was very relieved to hear that. But still, I knew something was wrong because Jenny's not answering the phone or my text. So I reached out to Annette, who's also in the neighborhood, and told Annette that I couldn't reach Jenny. And so then Annette called also and didn't hear from Jenny. And then I said, would you please go over? Mallory was across the street at the time after she looked,

because she was playing cards. And Mallory wouldn't answer the phone again. She's kind of hard of hearing. So Annette and her husband, as you know, scaled the wall and went in the house, and I was waiting. And then I forget what time now. I received a call. The person said, this is the Palm Springs Fire Department. I hate to tell you, your girlfriend is dead. Um, and then, uh,

and sometime after that, I talked to the coroner. Uh, I was still here. It's too far to drive. It's nighttime now. And I'm, I'm in shock as is my sister. And so, uh, the coroner, I spoke to the coroner and the coroner kept asking me if Jenny had any medical conditions or anything was wrong with her physically. And I said, no, the coroner, you know, I didn't know Jenny was still in her pajamas. And I said, no, she didn't have any medical conditions. And the coroner said, well, you know, basically, oh, she may have had a heart attack and fell down and hit her head. Coroner didn't tell me. I think the coroner said she had a black eye.

Didn't tell me how much blood there was, basically, and said, oh, there was a tremendous smell of bleach in the house. And that just really trying to convince me, it felt like that Jenny just died of a heart attack or asphyxiated from the smell of bleach or something. And, you know, never expressed to me, I'm going to jump ahead, they expressed to me that my'm going to jump ahead, expressed to me that my house was a disaster that had been ransacked, everything thrown all over the place. I don't know how anyone can enter a home and see someone laying there deceased and take a look around the house and not understand that someone went through

and did that, that this was not normal. So that's how that happened. Athena, what did they tell you ultimately was the cause of death? I still have not received a cause of death. I've asked the detectives over and over and I have Jenny's death certificate that says pending for the cause of death and I know from rumor from hearsay my friend Vicky who's a retired um uh captain of animal control in San Francisco very dear friend of Jenny's from when Jenny was 17 uh they told her they told Vicky that it was blunt force trauma, but that they're not allowed to release that information because it will jeopardize the investigation. And I don't understand that at all.

Who killed Palm Springs Jennifer Dillon? That's the question. And according to what we are learning, there have been several leads and persons of interest. According to cops, Sergeant Mike Cassavan, each one of those have been thoroughly investigated and all of the persons of interest ruled out as suspects. There have been multiple search warrants, key items of evidence collected at the scene, but still no answers. Guys, the family is left wondering what happened to her. Why was the home ransacked and nobody seemed to notice? Guys, take a listen to our Cut 8.

This is Sergeant Mike Cassavan. Investigators have also searched records for all violent offenders living in the immediate vicinity. To date, our investigators have not identified a person of interest from this list. The Palm Springs Police Department has also kept the public informed of this investigation via our social media platforms, the local media, and most recently via a neighborhood Zoom meeting. Investigators use the Ring Camera Portal to request surveillance footage from the local area of Jenny's residence and as a result are reviewing more than 1,100 videos to see if the videos hold any clues in this investigation. Most importantly, our investigators are in regular communication with Jenny's family. Our investigation is not complete until we find Jenny's killer.

We are still gathering information and processing several items of evidence that may contain key information in Jenny's homicide. Back to Athena Kelly. Athena, did you guys have video surveillance in your home? No, we didn't. No. Did you have a burglar alarm? Pardon me? Did you have a burglar alarm? Pardon me? Did you have a burglar alarm? No.

You know, as you said at the beginning of this, it seemed like a very safe place to live. Athena, how many pets did you guys have? Two cats. Three cats and two dogs. And the neighbor was coming over

to take care of them? No, no, because Jenny was home. Our neighbor just went over, Mallory. Yeah. When was the last time you spoke to Jenny? The day before she died. At what time? Probably in the evening.

Okay. Let's think through that. You say probably in the evening. Okay. Let's think through that. You say probably in the evening. Yes. Would it have been before you go to bed that night? Oh, yes. Yes. And what time would that have been?

Oh, it would probably be like 10 o'clock. And what, if anything, did she say? I mean, nothing unusual. Just our normal conversation, you know. Nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever. So that would have been on January the 24th? Yes, yes.

Which is, yes, Sunday night. crime stories with nancy grace i want to go to katherine maloney dr katherine maloney deputy chief medical examiner erie county medical examiner's Office at nickelcityforensics.com. Catherine, I've never heard of authorities not releasing cause of death because they think it would hinder an investigation except in one other case, and that is in the case of cult mom Lori Vallow's husband's wife, Tammy Daybell, who died in her sleep. It's the only time I've ever heard a COD not released to the family. What about that, Dr. Catherine Maloney? Well, it's difficult to say why the decision was made not to release the cause of death. Um, it's possible that, um, that the, whoever the forensic pathologist in charge, which I believe in that jurisdiction would be a sheriff coroner.

So that person works for both the police department and is also the coroner. So I kind of straddle both roles. So I'm not sure if that's why, but me personally, when I know something is a homicide, I don't think I've ever had a case where I've not called it a homicide. If I think it's a homicide for the

purposes of the investigation I don't really know that that would help the police do their job. Dr. Maloney is that they have absolutely stated it is a homicide but they refuse to release COD cause of death so they've released that it's a homicide but according to what Athena Kelly is telling us she's heard through the grapevine, which I think is entirely unfair to victims' families, that it was blunt force trauma. To Annette Bain, the victim's neighbor who actually discovered Jenny's body, you said that you saw a pool of blood under her body, yeah under mainly toward her head so it looked like she bled out and what i had in my mind the scenario that she was found near the foot of the bed

but now i'm understanding she was kind of behind the door she was in a room that had a lot of clutter in it. Like a storage room? No, that was her office. Got it. That was Jane's office. So she was found in an office that had a lot of stuff in it. Was it behind the door, Annette Bain? Yes.

It almost sounds as if she were in there with the door shut against the door or behind the door and somebody pushed it open and then hit her in the head. I mean, sure. I'm sure. You know, I don't I don't know. But she fell and her head was down, face down and right underneath her head was a tremendous amount of blood. When you say she fell, could this have been an accident? I know. I thought that too.

In fact, that's the first place I went. And so when the officer came to talk to me and said, it looks as if she's lost consciousness and she fell, I was like almost relieved. Like, thank God no one did anything horrible. Not that it wasn't horrible. Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

What object in that room, based on where she was, Like, thank God no one did anything horrible. Not that it wasn't horrible. Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait. What object in that room, based on where she was, Annette Bain, what object could she possibly have hit? If she's right behind the door, I'm just instinctively looking over at the door in our studio, there's got to be a space for the door to open, unless it's a pocket door. Was it a pocket door, Athena? No open unless it's a pocket door was it a pocket door athena uh no no it's a door that opens so you've got to have that amount of space for the door to open what like three feet for the door swing so if she's behind the door what did she fall and hit

there's no furniture there or is there athena uh it's a computer room like I'm not sure because it wasn't there but I know they took a computer tower as evidence uh but I don't I can't imagine that she would fall and hit her head on a computer tower and that would make her would kill her um Athena is the is the floor carpet No, there's really no carpet in the house. Is it stone floor or wooden floor? Yeah, it's, uh, you know, uh, stone. Stone floor. Yeah.

So if she fell on the stone, would that have been enough? Was she on any kind of blood thinner or any kind of medication that would make her bleed out? No, nothing. Okay. Catherine Maloney, Dr. Maloney, this is what I'm getting at. It's very hard to just fall on the floor and die. I mean, what object is she going to fall on with so much velocity that it breaks her head open and then we hear there's been blunt force trauma.

There's a big difference when you conduct an autopsy, when somebody falls on the floor and they bleed out as opposed to blunt force trauma. Explain the difference between a single fall, people fall all the time but they don't die, and blunt force trauma. Doctor? I completely agree, Nancyancy and i feel like this is a common misconception people generally don't fall down and hit their heads and die

the only way this happens is you can fall down and hit your head and then have internal bleeding inside your brain but that's something that's going to take hours maybe even days you're going to have a headache you're going to feel like something's wrong you're going to have obvious injuries to your scalp like bruises or lacerations breaks in the skin but it's going to have a headache. You're going to feel like something's wrong. You're going to have obvious injuries to your scalp, like bruises or lacerations, breaks in the skin. But it's going to take time. People generally don't fall down from a standing height and hit their heads and then immediately become unconscious and die. It just doesn't happen. What would you expect to find in an autopsy when there's been blunt force trauma to the head and the person dies? So with blunt force trauma, it can really depend on whatever object was used, I guess,

to injure the person. So they may have lacerations or breaks in the skin. They may have abrasions or scrapes. They may have bruises. They may have skull fractures. There may be bleeding in the brain or bruising on the brain. It really depends on the extent of the injury and what object may or may not have been used to strike them. An example we're talking about, everyone recalls Liam Neeson's wife, beautiful actress, Natasha Richardson, was skiing, hit a tree with her head and didn't want to go to the doctor, went home and laid down that night. And she had internal bleeding and she died. There's nothing to really see on the outside, maybe a bruise, but she had the internal bleeding that Dr. Catherine

Maloney is talking about. I want to circle back to Chris Byers, former police chief, Johns Creek, 25 years on the force. Why would you tell a neighbor to clean up a crime scene? Why? Yeah, he would never do that. And as we've talked about in the past, when you go into these things, you always go in treating them like a homicide. You always treat it to the highest degree it could possibly be, because then you can scale back as the investigation unfolds. The problem is when you go in at a lower level, you can never get the things that you missed by not treating this as a homicide from the beginning.

That scene should have been completely processed that day, again, as a homicide, but you would never, ever tell a neighbor to go in and say that it's okay to clean up that scene. To Dr. Jeff Gardier, the clinical site board certified psychologist professor at Truro College, Dr. Jeff, to deal with the loss of the person you love the most, and then to deal with the fact that you don't know what happened. How debilitating is that? I'm sure that Jenny's family and Athena very much are grieving, but now we look at a sort of a complicated bereavement in that you don't have

any answers. So there's no completion. There's no wondering at this point when this will ever end. And now that we're hearing, Nancy, that this may have been mishandled initially by the police officers, then there's got to be some measure of anger that is part of this situation. Which prolongs the process of ever getting your own life back together again. To ask you, Wilcox, what, if any, rights does the victim's family have to get the truth out of the medical examiner or cops? Well, listen, you know, as you well know, prosecutor offices frequently have victim assistance, right, to help victims.

And so if the medical examiner's office or the police are saying, nope, we're not going to release any of this information to family, my suggestion thought would be to go to the prosecutor's office to enlist their help as the victim, even if there are no charges at this time, to say, listen, we're the victims in this case and we want information. Nancy, the other thing I have to say, and it's just to point out and highlight that cases always need to be treated as a homicide from the get-go. I'm not suggesting that she hurt herself in any way, shape, or form, but I'm wondering if the injuries might have been such that there was an assumption by police that she had hurt herself and therefore, okay, let's let them clean it up and we're not going

to treat it as a homicide. Again, the highlight of that to me is regardless of the injuries, it should always be treated as something happened to this person that needs to be investigated. To Christy Mazurek, joining us investigative reporter, where does it stand now? I mean, the brother is feeling the same way. Her brother feels helpless, he says, and has offered a $25,000 reward. What is the latest, Christy? Well, and the members of the media that are trying to help this family track down a killer are also becoming angered and dispelled by the police department because they have changed their story. You know, when the media shows up on a tragic scene like this, we either become

the friends or foe of investigators. So they either want the media to help them get information, or once there's a screw up, they put the freeze. And I'm telling you, my colleagues out in California have been telling me since this occurred weeks ago, they have been frozen out. And as recently as just a few weeks back, they held this virtual Zoom meeting to finally address the residents. Well, when residents started questioning the police department about why they haven't received any information, they pulled the plug on the meeting. Okay, that's not a good signal to send. To Athena Kelly, what can you tell me about nearby surveillance video? Well, the thing is in our, in our neighborhood over the past, maybe, I don't know, six years,

I can't recall. We had a full neighborhood, all the homes, people lived in full time. And then our neighborhood changed into our bnbs uh where we didn't know the neighbors anymore on my street in particular there's only three permanent residents myself mallory and someone across the street a friend uh so there are surveillance mallory's wasn't working she had a camera it wasn't working. She had a camera. It wasn't working. I guess my point saying that is just that the neighborhoods are more empty because people have sold and the homes have been turned into Airbnbs. So it's very empty. There are a lot of Airbnbs in that area. So who knows who is coming in and out of the neighborhood.

If you know or think you know anything about the death of this woman, Jenny Dillon in Palm Springs, please dial 760- 778-8422. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace,

Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.