Criminology - Jennifer Odom

Episode Date: August 6, 2023

Someone has been arrested in the 1993 abduction and murder of 12-year-old Jennifer Odom. Jennifer went missing after getting off the school bus near her Saint Joseph, Florida home. The only real lead that police had to go on was the sighting of a light blue pickup truck that people saw following Jennifer that day. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murder of Jennifer Odom and the identification of Jeffrey Crum Sr., who has been charged with Jennifer's murder. It seems as though Crum hit police radar due to a tip sent in by a citizen sleuth. Bryan Burnette, who just may be the tipster who started it all, joins us for this episode to provide his insight. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Everyone and welcome to episode 268 of the Criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing good.

I'm 100% on the strength as they use in the video games, right? You play video games. I don't really play them, but I know that my kids have a strength that they've got to build up. like I'm 100% so how are you doing? I'm doing good. I'm laughing at your video game reference though. No, I'm doing great.

My family and I actually went to see a movie earlier this week and it was interesting because we saw Haunted Mansion, which was really good because, you know, we love Disney. We love going to Disney. We've been there a few times. And the movie was good,

enjoyed it. But it was the movie theater experience. I just haven't been to a lot. I think it's only my second in-person, you know, in the theater movie since the, since COVID broke. Yeah, I've only been to a couple of myself since I've moved to Florida. So it is, it's fun to get out there and experience some movies at the theater, especially if it's like a, you know, sci-fi, big special effect type movie. That'd be really cool to see there.

Yeah, yeah, it was good. Hey, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Johnah Horn, Tracy Broyhill, and Allison Barone. So a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much to everyone that takes the time to support the show. And for anyone else out there on the fence that would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology. All right.

Let's go ahead and jump into this week's case. And we're covering one in which a young girl was brutally murdered. And her killer avoided being identified for over three decades. but just this past week, police announced that they had identified her killer. We're talking about the 1993 abduction and murder of 12-year-old Jennifer Odom in Florida. We'll discuss what happened to Jennifer, but also how the killer was finally identified. And we'll also hear from a citizen sleuth who may have played an important role in getting Jennifer's killer in the crosshairs of police. St. Joseph, Florida is a city about 35 miles northeast of Tampa and Panthers.

Hasco County. It sits just north of Zephyr Hills. Back in 1993, the area was very rural, and much of it was undeveloped. There were about 10,000 residents living there. St. Joseph was where 12-year-old Jennifer Odom called home. She lived there with her mom, Renee Converse, her stepfather, Clark Converse, and her younger sister, 9-year-old Jessica Odom. Jennifer attended Thomas E. Waitman Middle School, where she was a seventh grader, and she played in the school band. She was very active in the community as a member of the Future Farmers of America and the American Water Skiers Association. She was very good at barefoot water skiing, regularly climbing atop a human pyramid, and ranking high in tournaments. Her family attended Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

Jennifer and Jessica loved to play together outside on the rural property, which was about 15 square acres, riding bikes and four-wheelers and building forts together. During the summer, they were usually swimming together in the creek behind their home. On Friday, February 19, 1993, 12-year-old Jennifer Odom caught the bus to school. Her mother, Renee, drove her down their long driveway, and together they waited for the bus to come, as they did every weekday. It was a chilly morning in St. Joseph. Jennifer was wearing a white turtleneck, a pair of white jeans, a pair of black boots, and a red cashmere sweater that her grandmother had given to her.

she had her book bag, clarinet case, and purse with her too. As always, Jennifer hopped on the bus and sat down in the back row. Renee followed the bus in her car. Since they lived on a dead end street, they took the same road away from the home, Jennifer heading to school and Renee heading to work. As Renee turned off the bus's route, she and Jennifer waved at each other. This was just second nature, something they did without a second thought. It would be the last time that Renee ever saw Jennifer a lot.

At about 3 p.m. after an uneventful day at school, Jennifer's school bus dropped her off at her stop at the corner of Jessamine and Jim Danny Rhodes, about 200 yards from her home. As she walked away from the bus, Jennifer waved to friends on the bus with one hand as she carried her school books and clarinet in the other, and she began walking toward her home. A few of the friends noticed a faded blue pickup truck slowly driving behind her,

but they didn't think much of it at the time. About an hour later, around 4 p.m., Jennifer's sister Jessica arrived home from school as usual. She tried to head inside the house, since Jennifer had usually gotten home from school by then and always was there to let her in. But this time, the house was locked, and no one answered the door. Thinking her big sister was just trying to prank her and angry about it, Jessica walked up the road to their grandmother's house to tattle on Jennifer. So up to this point, it sounds like these are two close sisters that get along, but also like sisters, they have their moments where, in Jessica's case, maybe she thinks her older sister Jennifer's punking her a little bit. So she's planning on going

to grandma's house to rat her out, not having any idea that something's bad has happened. Well, I've got two girls. I don't think this is out of the ordinary at all. You know, sometimes they get along great. And other times they fight. I mean, it's just, it's just, it's, just how siblings are, brothers and sisters, sisters especially, though, I think. Half an hour later, Jessica called Renee from her grandmothers to let her know what was happening and that Jennifer wasn't around. It immediately alarmed Renee, setting off the search for Jennifer. She contacted the school and found out that Jennifer had been in school that day and had boarded the bus home. She learned that Jennifer even made it to the stop at Jim Denny and

Jessamine Roads, but somehow between the bus stop and her door, which was about 200 yards, she vanished. René contacted the police who began searching the area and looking for potential witnesses. No one had seen or heard anything, no commotion, no screaming, no abduction. The only clue was the sighting of an older light blue pickup truck near the stop that day. It had been driving behind the bus until Jennifer got off. And according to witnesses, it headed down the private drive toward Jennifer's house behind her. A search of the area was organized, and 400 volunteers looking for Jennifer searched 60 square miles but found no clues. It was hard for Renee not to worry about what happened to her daughter, and one thing stuck out to her. Just weeks before, Renee had talked

to Jennifer about stranger danger, according to websloose.com forums, She had told Jennifer, if someone bothers you, drop your books, drop your clarinet, and run. Yet none of these items were found on the ground. A family that lived nearby had recently moved away, leaving Jennifer to get off the bus by herself, without the safety of other children walking with her. Retracing Jennifer's path from the bus stop, there was no sign of her. Over the next week, searches continued for Jennifer, but despite the use of dogs and a helicopter, nothing was found.

On February 25th, six days after Jennifer disappeared, a couple on Powell Road near Spring Lake south of Brooksville discovered Jennifer's partially clothed body near a horse riding trail. This spot surrounded by pine trees in an orange grove was at least 10 miles away from the bus stop where she was last seen and it was in a neighboring county. Jennifer had vanished from Pascoe County and her body had been dumped in her Orlando County. Her backpack and her clarinet case were not with her. Some of her clothes, including her boots, were also missing. She had been sexually assaulted, severely beaten, and left face down. Police were tasked with breaking the sad news to Jennifer's family.

So Morph, let's stop here. Let's take a minute and just kind of talk about these six days. You know, I don't know unless somebody has gone through this. And you really put yourself in the shoes of a parent of a missing child. Renee gets the call. And as we talked about, it sounds like she was immediately panicked. The search began very quickly. And then we know it took six days to find Jennifer and she was dead. I'm trying to go through that range of emotions in my head.

And I just can only imagine what that week must have been like for the family. And then to finally get the ultimate bad news is heartbreaking. And you would think that they were probably trying to stay positive and focused and hope for a great outcome that she'd be found, that she'd be okay. But tragically, that wasn't going to be the case. And, you know, that feeling of getting that news has to be terrible for any parent to to go through. The search for Jennifer's killer began, but from the beginning, police were hampered. Recent rains, over an inch, had washed away any potential footprints, tire tracks, and physical evidence.

There was really nothing to go on at all. Major GZ Smith told the Tampa Bay Times, it's certainly a very difficult investigation. They didn't leave us much out there. He added, if we solve it, it may take another crime to do it. Also hampering the police was the fact that some of Jennifer's belongs, including her backpack, books, and clearing out were missing. Had they been found with Jennifer, it may have helped them find clues faster that pointed to the killer. The best Lee that police had was the mysterious blue pickup truck that seemed to be stocking Jennifer when she was last seen. But narrowing that truck down in a sea of pickup trucks would be tough. Witnesses were able to tell police specific things about the truck, including

that it had a painted rear bumper and not one that was chrome, a trailer hitched with wires hanging, and pipes are a ladder in the back. Police kept their eyes open for a truck matching that description, but weeks and then months went by with no breaks in the case. More if you and I do a mix of solved and unsolved cases, you know, one thing that always kind of interests me is what do police have to go on in an investigation? And, you know, really here, and I think the major said it to the Tampa Bay Times,

they had very little. You mentioned the rain, had washed away pretty much any type of evidence that they would have hoped to find. They had no eyewitnesses to speak of, except for the sightings of this blue truck. And so it sounds like they were really focused in on that. But when you think about that description, a blue truck, and now you're getting very broad.

I mean, we don't even have a make, a model, a year, anything like that, how many blue trucks are running around that area? And I would say the number is very high. Yeah, and I would think so too, because this is an area that's sort of rural blue color. There's probably a lot of trucks that are used for different construction jobs, things like that. So I would say, though, a blue truck maybe is a little bit easier than say a white truck. They said white truck, had the witnesses seen a white truck, that may have been even harder because just imagine how many company trucks are white they want to keep them generic. So blue was at least a little bit of something to differentiate from a lot of trucks out there,

but still like finding a needle in haystack. At around 9.45 a.m. on June 5, 1993, this is about four months after Jennifer was abducted, a 10-year-old girl was riding her bike around her Moon Lake Estates neighborhood when a man driving a light blue pickup truck pulled up next to her, opened his door and grabbed her right arm in an attempt to pull her off her bike and into his truck. She managed to get away with only scrapes, bruises, and some emotional trauma. Investigators looking into this abduction attempt could not link it to yet another report of suspicious activities. involving a pickup truck and a teenage girl from just the night before. And they also couldn't definitively link this light blue pickup truck to the one scene near Jennifer's bus stop. But despite not being able to firmly link the incidents, a perpetrator in a blue truck trying to abduct a young

girl was hard to ignore. The way the man pulled his truck right beside her and tried to grab her right off her bike, gives some clues about how Jennifer could have been abducted by a stranger without even having time to scream, fight, or drop her things and run, as her mother had instructed her to do. It's possible that Jennifer's killer trained a gun on her and she didn't run out of fear of being shot. We also don't know that she didn't drop her things and run, only to be caught by a determined suspect who also picked up her belongings off the ground before driving away with Jennifer. We only know that no one saw an abduction and that her things were missing by the time

anyone searched for her. Police decided that they really needed to drill down on the mysterious blue truck, both in Jennifer's case and in this most recent attack. Articles about the second abduction attempt included a lot more detail about the blue pickup truck, senior Jennifer's bus stop. The truck in Jennifer's case was believed to be a general motors truck, light or medium blue, with a step bumper, trailer hitch, tools in the back, and an electrical connection normally used to connect brake lights for a trailer, hanging over the back bumper. The truck in the second attempted abduction was noted to be noticeably rusty

with rust holes in the driver's door, a loud muffler, a cracked windshield, and a ladder rack with a ladder inside. So now we find out that police had a little bit more in the way of a description on the blue pickup in Jennifer's abduction. When comparing the details of these two trucks, to me, they sound similar and then they sound very different at the same time. And you know, you just don't know if that's because the details are coming from different people. And some people noticed certain things about the truck while others noticed different things about the truck, or if these are two completely different trucks. And I think that's why it was so important to have as many witnesses as police could gather

because with these different witnesses, they can pick out lots of different information, compare it to each other, see what matches. Maybe there's something the other witness saw that the first set of witnesses didn't see. So I think they really tried to get as much information on these two different blue trucks in these incidents to see if they were the same truck. Just as they couldn't connect the truck at the time to this second attack, they also could not definitively link Jennifer's murder. With a similar attack from the year before, on January 16th, 1992,

the 17-year-old girl named Carolyn Murray got off her school boss at the intersection of US 41 and Twin Oaks Drive in Spring Hill and was brutally attacked and sexually assaulted. We usually would not reveal a victim's name publicly, but her name appears in a lot of different mainstream news articles and on various forums that discuss the case. Carolyn was found, thankfully alive by her family, about two hours after her attack, and she was airlifted to a hospital, her godmother who had been watching Carolyn in order to help out so her single mother could work, immediately suspected that something was wrong that day because Carolyn didn't come home to watch General Hospital, her favorite show.

Following the attack, Carolyn had been left in a wooded area behind an abandoned home south of Maseric Town. Her skull had been fractured by some kind of weapon and she was left with permanent disabilities, both physical and mental. Once a track and field runner, her left side was now paralyzed. Despite two surgeries, there was only so much doctors could do. The attack on Carolyn literally resulted in her having pieces of her brain missing. She had been left for dead.

Authorities recovered the offender's DNA from both Carolyn and her clothing, but they had no suspect to match it to. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsubed. unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

In January 1995, as the two-year anniversary of Jennifer Odom's murder approached, there was a break in her case. Her clarinet case and backpack were found by a couple, searching for scrap metal in a remote area of western Hernando County. 12 miles away from where Jennifer's body was discovered. There was apparently an unauthorized or unofficial dump site nearby, and the killer had apparently discarded Jennifer's belongings there, thinking they'd never be found. This area is said to be directly north of the Moon Lake Estates, where a 10-year-old girl was nearly abducted,

just months after Jennifer's murder. In that incident, a 13-year-old girl recalled seeing an older light blue truck with racks and a ladder in the back, near the area that Jennifer's bag was found in. She had also seen that truck before, just a month earlier. Investigators were able to lift the fingerprint from the inside of the clarinet case. It was not Jennifer's, but there was no immediate matches to anyone in the system either. In May 1998, authorities decided to search the area where Jennifer was found to see if they could find any clues that had been missed in the original investigation.

Inmates at Sumter Correctional Institution helped clear half a football field of trees and brush that had greened. grown in the five years since her murder. Canine units and metal detectors were used to comb the area, but the search came up empty due to the proximity to orange groves and the fact that a siding of a truck, possibly with ladders or pipes in the bed, many suspected that Jennifer's killer was someone who had been working to harvest oranges in the groves. And because Jennifer and Jessica knew not to get in a stranger's car and had been told that, and they had even practiced.

practiced it. What to do if approached by a stranger, her family feared she had been killed by someone they knew. In a 2011 interview with ABC Action News out of Tampa, Renee asked, is it somebody that we eat dinner with on a regular basis? Worse, she wondered, was it somebody that came and gave me a great big hug during all this time and said, I'm really sorry? And this is something that I don't know that you and I talk all. all that much about because I think in a lot of cases, it's believed to be a stranger, but we know that there are a lot of abductions carried out by friends, family, people close to the family. And I'm just kind of putting myself in Renee's shoes here, the family's shoes. This interview was done many years after the murder.

And you know that entire time. They're trying to figure out. they're racking their brains. Who did this? Who could it have been? And this statement by Renee is really telling. She's asking these questions. Is it someone that we eat dinner with? Is it someone who consoled me, gave me a great big hug after it all happened? I just wonder, how do you trust anyone if those thoughts are going through your head? It must be really tough. Yeah, and I think that's especially true in a smaller community where there's not as a big population, if this was a big city, knowing the person that did this, it might seem like the odds are against that. But with this

community and being a lot smaller, perhaps she did know this person, and that's got to be pretty frightening to consider that. In 2007, 14 years after Jennifer's murder, police were trying various methods to solve the case. Inmates at the Hernando County Detention Center were given sets of playing cards featuring various cold cases in hopes of receiving new information. Jennifer was featured with two-color photos on the Queen of Diamonds. Despite a $20,000 reward for information in the case, no one came forward with any tips. In February 2015, a man named Jeffrey Norman Crum Sr. was taken in for questioning in the 1992 attack on Carolyn Murray. Advances in technology allowed investigators to finally develop a DNA profile of the suspect in that

case, and they got one partial hit with a suspect whose DNA was in the system. But there was a problem. Jeffrey Norman Crum Jr., whose DNA was a partial match, was also just a child when 17-year-old Carolyn had been attacked. It couldn't have been him that abducted or assaulted her, but his father, Jeffrey Crum Sr., would have been in his 30s, so police zeroed in on him. While talking to Jeffrey Crum Sr., he acknowledged that he had lived just one mile from where Carolyn was attacked, but he told investigators that he had no involvement with her attack and had never seen or talked to her before. For whatever reason, he agreed to give a sample of his DNA voluntarily to assist in the investigation. A buckle swab of oral DNA was a perfect match to the DNA

of the person who had attacked Carolyn. He was arrested and charged with attempted felony murder and sexual batter with serious injury. Crum had a criminal. criminal history in Hernando County dating back to 1998 with arrests for battery, aggravated assault, and cultivation of marijuana listed on his record. One 1995 mugshot from a DUI arrest is extremely similar to a sketch that was created of the man who attacked Carolyn in 1992. He had also been arrested for kidnapping and assault in Hillsborough County in 1987. His record there goes back to at least 1981 when he was arrested on a robbery charge. So, Morp, this is 2015.

It really jumped out to me that this guy, Jeffrey Crum, senior, is voluntarily giving up his DNA. I mean, who doesn't know in 2015, what DNA can do? Now, maybe he thought, I might as well give it up voluntarily. If I don't, they're just going to get a warm. and I'm going to be forced to give it up anyway. Maybe he thought, okay, it won't, they won't be able to match it. I don't know. I just, I thought it was a little strange.

And one thing that jumps out to me is how many times do we talk about these creeps that do this stuff? And then you look at their background and here you go with this giant string of arrest for different crimes dating back years. In this case, it was, you know, all the way back to 1981. So not a nice guy based on his history of crimes. Yeah, and he had some, you know, growing pot and things like that. But he also had some very serious charges, kidnapping, assault, aggravated assault, battery. So, yeah, I agree with you. This was not a, not a nice guy.

This arrest marked the first time genetic genealogy and specifically familial DNA was successfully used by law enforcement in the state of Florida. The arrest was surprising news for Carolyn Murray's family, who figured Carolyn's attacker was long dead. Carolyn's mother Dorothy told the Tampa Bay Times, At church, we thought her prayers had killed him a long time ago. Speaking of her daughter, Carolyn's condition, Dorothy said, She's come a long way because this is a girl that was supposed to be dead. But the damage Carolyn suffered at the hands of this predator was long-lasting.

She still, over two decades later, could not form complete sentences and walked with a cane, though she would often fall. In 2013, Carolyn entered a full-time care facility. The emotional effects of her attack were still clear, too. When staff at the facility needed to move her from her bed into a wheelchair, it would often cause her to panic, fearing that she was going to be attacked again. She also refused to look out the window, afraid of what or who she might see outside. Carolyn's mother, Dorothy, hoped the arrest would bring her comfort, telling reporters, she looked forward to telling her daughter, you don't have to be scared anymore. You can look out the window again.

All that mattered now was a bad guy was caught. Almost immediately upon hearing news of an arrest in Carolyn Murray's 1992 case, many of those following Jennifer Odom's case made a connection. Not only was that case so similar to Jennifer's murder, except that the victim was found in time to survive with medical treatment, but one of the addresses listed on Jeffrey Crumm Sr.'s record is in the Spring Lake area. near where Jennifer's body was found. At the time, it was thought and feared that the rain had washed away all traces of DNA

from the scene, making it impossible to link Crum if he did kill Jennifer or anyone to her case. In 2019, Jeffrey Norman Crum Sr. was sentenced to life in prison for the 1992 attack on Carolyn Murray. Carolyn's aunt mentioned Jennifer Odom in her victim impact statement, saying a year later, a young lady, Jennifer Odom, was killed, and that brought back so much different things that today her murderer has not been caught. But despite the similar MO in these crimes, Jeffrey Crum was not charged with Jennifer's murder. But that didn't stop people from wondering or questioning if Jeffrey Crum, Sr., was responsible for Jennifer's murder. It was possible that some other predator out there had a similar mind to

as crumb, and thus a similar MO. So police looked for similar cases. A set of cases out of Spotsylvania, Virginia in 1996, 1997, and 2002 seemed very similar. In 1996, 16-year-old Sophia Silva was abducted from her front porch and found in a nearby creek five weeks later. In 1997, sisters Katie and Kristen Lisk, just 12 and 15 at the time, were each abducted after they got off their school bus. They didn't ride the same bus, but they were found together in a river five days later. The cases seemed like they would never be solved until June 2002, when another abduction occurred in another state. A 15-year-old girl in Columbia, South Carolina, was watering her flowers in the front yard

of her house when a man forced her into a container at gunpoint. The container was placed in the trunk of his car, and she was taken back to his apartment, where she was handcuffed and assaulted. The quick-thinking 15-year-old waited until her abductor fell asleep. She waited a total of 18 hours and then fled the apartment. She was able to find help and lead authorities directly back to the apartment of 38-year-old Richard Mark Yvonans, who was nowhere to be found. He had obviously woken up, realized the girl was gone and fled before he could be caught.

Two days later in Sarasota, Florida, authorities. engaged in a high-speed chase with Ivanitz when he was cornered and there was nowhere else to go. He refused to be caught. Instead, he took his own life using a firearm, probably the same one he pointed at his victims to get them to comply. Looking into his background, police found that he had once lived in Spassylvania and had newspaper clippings about the Lisk sisters in his possession, pink fibers from his bath mat and blue fibers from the fuzzy handcuffs. He used matched fibers on all the victims. Inside his trunk, authorities noticed four small marks, like fingers.

They were the fingerprints of Kristen Lisk. Police determined he was the Spassylvania killer. Some people found it interesting that Yvonitz was found in Sarasota, Florida. Just an hour and a half south of the town that Jennifer Odom was abducted, from. This opens up the possibility that he could have been responsible for some of the murders and abductions on the west coast of Florida. His ammo, though, was to leave his victims in bodies of water, suggesting that he wasn't the one who killed Jennifer Odom, and the attacker in the case of Carolyn Murray, Jeffrey Norman Trump, was behind bars. Although Yvonitz checked

some boxes, there was nothing that solidly linked him to the murder of Jennifer Odom. Police pressed on, hoping that eventually they would catch a break. Then, just last week, week in late July, 2003, a month short of what would have been Jennifer's 43 birthday, investigators made a huge announcement. There had been an arrest in the murder of Jennifer Odom. Her killer, Jeffrey Norman Crum, Sr., now 61 years old and already in prison, serving a double life sentence for the attack in 1992 on Carolyn Murray. Finally, eight years after he was initially identified and wound up on police radar,

everything came together. A secret grand jury had indicted him for the murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault of Jennifer Odom. Hernando County Sheriff Al Ninehouse told the Tampa Bay Times that after his arrest in 2015, Jeffrey Norman Crum Sr. had quickly, almost instantaneously, become our number one suspect. At the time of Jennifer Odom's murder,

Crum lived in Spring Hill, just 12 miles from where her body was found. He drove a blue truck to his jobs installing drywall and doing construction. Detective George Lloydgren, head of the Hernando County Sheriff's Office, Cold Case Unit, was the one to inform Jennifer Odom's family that Crum had been arrested for Jennifer's murder. He told the Tampa Bay Times that he tried to deliver the news fast, saying, I didn't want to get emotional. It's a lot for them to take in and absorb, and I can imagine it's going to take in.

take some time before it really sinks in. Though Jennifer's accused killer has finally been named, the case is still technically an ongoing investigation, and the public can still help. Sheriff Ninehouse told the Tampa Bay Times, we truly believe there is one or more individuals out there that have information that can help add a little piece to that mosaic about what happened with Jennifer. We have to remember, Crom was arrested in 2015 for an almost identical crime. It was clear to police that he was probably Jennifer's killer, but it took eight more years of work for the case to be strong enough to take to a jury. When I asked about the possibility of the death penalty, Florida State Attorney Bill Gladson said to WFLA News, I have confidence. We have the right person and we have the right

aggravators. So I talked earlier about the emotions and what Jennifer's family went through. from the six days of searching for her to ultimately getting the terrible news that she had been found dead. Now, many, many years have passed. And there was some paranoia. You know, we talked about it. They thought maybe it was somebody close to the family. They didn't know who it could have been. But now you get the news that police believe they know who it is.

And it's just this roller coaster of emotions. that I keep coming back to. And you have to wonder if Jennifer's family held out hope all that time or had they given up thinking maybe this case isn't going to be solved. Yeah, I don't know the answer, but I would have to imagine that most families don't give up that hope because especially as the years have passed, yes, harder to solve because time's gone by, but they're looking at all the advances in technology. They're seeing these cases on the news, old cases being solved. So maybe there's, you know, renewed hope based on that.

Multiple articles reference a November 2016 tip. Now, authorities never released the details of the tip or who may have given it. But apparently that tip was key in tying everything together. In 2019, investigators were looking for that tipster. At the time, Denise Maloney of the Hernando County Sheriff's Office told WFLA News, we're looking for a person who provided information to us about the Jennifer Odom case back in November of 2016. Well, it just so happens that I happen to know someone who called in a tip regarding this case in 2016. His name is Brian Burnett.

And while we're not sure if he's the tipster, police were referring to, We do know that way back in late 2015 or early 2016, Brian passed his information on the law enforcement. The name that he turned into police way back then was Jeffrey Norman Crum Sr. And we'll hear from Brian shortly. And just like Brian did, if anyone listening has any information that might be able to help police connect the dots in Jennifer Odom's case, or if you have any information about crimes that Jeffrey Norman Crum may have committed. Please call the Hernando County Sheriff's Office

at 352-754-6-830. There are multiple cases in South Florida that fit Crum's M-O that are also still unsolved. Here are just a couple. 21-year-old Deborah Rizzo was last seen around 3.30 p.m. walking to her home in Clearwater, Florida on July 24, 1978. She lived there. for just three months before vanishing. She had decided to walk home because her dad was late picking her up from her therapy appointment. About a week later, her body was found in a wooded area. She had possibly been sexually assaulted and she had been severely beaten.

Clearwater is just over an hour from where Jennifer Odom lived. 15-year-old Michelle Lynn Otter was last seen on May 7, 1998, as she left her school in Fort McCoy, Florida in the morning. I don't think it's unreasonable to wonder if she could have been abducted, assaulted, and left somewhere in the nearby Ocala National Forest. Michelle Lynn Otter has never been found. Fort McCoy is just about an hour and a half north of the town Jennifer Odom was abducted in. In addition, Jeffrey Norman Crum has lived in the state of Ohio, so perhaps there are more victims there that fit his MO. Fresh air, longer days, a chance to reset. This season let therapy be part of your spring cleaning.

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including Medicaid in some states. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as zero dollars depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash book now to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash book now. Growtherapy.com slash book now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Jeffrey Norman Crum will be back in court. August 29th. He has a public defender and is being held in Hernandez County without bail, which is more of a formality since if he were able to bail out, it would technically just be back to prison due to his life sentences that he's already serving. Investigators are likely working around the clock to review old cases in their jurisdictions and to connect crumb or rule him out.

With his 2015 arrest and 2019 conviction, we still didn't get a lot of information about crumb. Hopefully, this renewed activity will lead to more background on his life and where he has worked and lived. Maybe someone who worked with him or live near him will speak to the media. If there are any living victims or women who may have encountered him and lived to tell their story, we hope that they too will have the courage to come forward to the, authorities. And again, I think one more time. If you think you have any information about Crum or any of his crimes, potential crimes, please call the Hernando County Sheriff's Office at 352-754-6830. We mentioned Brian Burnett earlier. He was a citizen sleuth who spent countless hours diving into

the Jennifer Odom case, the way many online sleuths devote time and resources with the hope of solving a case. He told us what drew him to Jennifer's case. and how her case affected him. My name's Brian Burnett. I'm originally from Pascoe County, Florida, where this case originated from, and I currently live in Connecticut. When I was in middle school,

I went to Stewart B. Middle School in Zeper Hills, Florida at the time, and this was 1993. At the time, there was a new school that was built called Waitman Middle School. That's where Jennifer went. And I actually hung out in the circle of friends that Jennifer hung out with

because our bus systems shared one another at the time because it was a new school. And then when she was abducted, it went through the school like Wildfire. I actually remember watching the newscast when I got home that she was missing. And that's kind of what started it for me. Her being from where I'm from made it very personal for me. Plus, you know, going to school with people that knew her. and I know some of her, a couple of her cousins, you know, you got to see it firsthand what it did to people around me at our age. So it was, it hurt, you know, it hurt.

As an adult, Brian never forgot about Jennifer Odom's case and he decided to try and do something about it. So years had passed fence, her abduction and murder. I actually started looking into her case. I was deployed to, um, overseas for Operation Island. Iraqi freedom. And I just happened to go online and check up on the case. And they were actually checking Lake Jovita in San Antonio out. There was a property there that was owned by a gentleman who they thought was the right suspect. And they were searching for the blue truck in Lake Jovita. And I remember clicking on the article I looked and they didn't find anything. So I dove a little

deeper then. And I actually found a family journal that they were keeping online where family members would write entries about life, you know, currently and how they were feeling. And it was, heartbreaking. And, you know, then past that, I was watching a documentary and I heard something about web sleuths. And a woman had actually helped a police department out in a cold case. The The police department actually reached out to WebSloose, gave them a piece of information and a pitcher, and they were actually able to crack the case. And at the time, I was working night shift, and I figured, you know, I'm kind of wasting my time when I get home by playing Xbox or whatever. So I fired up my I Mac, you know, had a Jack and Coke and got on WebSloose and started going to the Jennifer thread. And then I had seen something about Jeffrey Crum, and then I searched his information using a,

a public information website. And I saw where his home address was in relation to the 1992 abduction, rape, and attempted murder of Carolyn Murray. And then I just kept using public information, whether it be the court system or web sleuths. Once I started to put enough together addresses, I was able to look up old crimes. everything kind of fit what you would think as a perfect suspect. I also used an app. It was a point of interest app. It allows you to put drop pins and information on those pins.

So I was able to attach pitchers of Crum, Jennifer, and then other possible victims, and then place these pens all over the nation if I had to. And then once I got everything together, I was able to send them off to the Hernandez County Sheriff's Office and the Pascoe County Sheriff's Office. Brian told us about the decision to take what he had gathered on Jeffrey Norman Crum and turn it over to the authorities. Before I actually passed this information on to the police departments, I actually reached out to a friend of mine from high school. Her name's Haley Hines, and she actually worked at Channel 10 at the time in Tampa.

there is a an anchor, a former anchor of Channel 10 named Reginald Roundtree. And he had been covering the case for the longest time. And he was a former police officer. So I trusted he knew what to do with the information. I didn't have the means to move it forward because I live in Connecticut. So I did it kind of like a two-prone attack where I wanted this guy's picture out

and I wanted this information out, you know, so we could start seeing if there's anybody else that was affected by this guy. So I reached out to him first, and he was very receptive. He immediately was like, you're on to something. So once I felt like I had some validation there, I actually contacted the Pascoe County Sheriff's Department, who were very receptive to it. They were actually pretty shocked.

I actually sent them the POI file. They were able to open it because there were some cases in Ohio that he may or may not have been attributed to. because he's originally from Ohio, and I was actually able to find an address that he had there is in 1994. So it was about a year after Jennifer, and they were going to validate that information. They came back to me the next day, and they did.

They said, you know, this is legit, and we're going to look into it. When I was on WebSloose, unbeknownst to me, there was a female I was talking to, and she was actually inside the Cole Case Unit at Hernando County. And she told me that they had not heard of him, And she was really pushing me to get this information to Detective Lloydgren, who's the head detective for the cold case there in Fernando. So I did. I didn't hear anything back from him.

And then I want to say it was probably about maybe a few weeks later. He actually called me. And we talked about the case, 2016, the beginning of 2016. So like, it's like February. The conversation started off. He basically, he was a little irritated, you could tell. And rightfully so, to some degree, rightfully so. He was concerned about the Odoms, which, you know, I am too.

I had actually talked to a crime, a true crime author named J.T. Hunter. He's a guy from that area. He's a good guy. And he had reached out to me once he saw it because I put this stuff on WebSloof. And he said, you know, hey, I want to talk to you about this. I don't want to do this book. And I just want your perspective. And we did.

And he asked me, you know, how I felt, you know, as far as what did I feel as far as a reception from Hernandez County. I told him there wasn't much at all, to be honest with you. And then I told him, I was like, you know, these guys asked for your help, the community's help, and you give it to them, and they just don't seem to care. And, you know, I understand you have to keep it close to the chest and whatnot, but you should validate these people,

especially if they're on to something, you know what I mean? So he actually, Hernano County detective, Detective Lloyd Wendt, wound up calling me after this interview with J.T. Hunter. It was basically saying, hey, look, you know, there's this author. He's asking questions from the Odoms. My understanding is he reached out to him through Facebook. And I told Lloydgren, I said, look, you know, that's not me. That's him. I would not do that.

But that's his job. So he went further to say, look, you know, you're not crazy. You're not like some person who, you know, their poster told them that this is the guy and whatnot. He says, you're on to something. I had asked him if he was on the radar and he said, no, we know who he is, but he was not on a radar. Brian talked about the frustration of turning over the name of a suspect that he was convinced had killed Jennifer Odom, but not seeing any break in the case. Reginald Routhrie in 2016, I think it was, mid-16, I can't remember the date, actually aired a segment on Channel 10. He got the green light from Detective Lloydgren, and this is what Reginald told me.

He'd say, look, you know, this guy looks like the guy, and I want to run a story and get his picture out. Is that okay? And then he said yes. So they run the segment. I'm excited because now this guy, my plan was to get this guy's pitcher in the public. And they run the segment. It's good. They put the picture up.

And I actually wound up getting emails and messages from people I don't know about stories about this dude. And so I was like, great. You know, this is working. You know, so maybe people are actually reaching out to the police departments too. I was really excited. But, you know, then I want to say it was maybe 24, 48 hours later. There was a rebuttal to that segment from another. news agency and they said that the information was bad. I reached out to that journalist and she said,

yeah, she goes, no, we were told the information was bad. And Mrs. Odom was actually in that segment. And I think she had confirmed that as well. So now I'm thinking, you know, what's going on? And the cart before the horse, I thought, you know, now that this guy's here, you know, people are agreeing, this is the guy, they're going to go out and arrest them. And I knew better than that. You know, this case has actually been brought before a grand jury before. for and it was a clown show. The people they brought in weren't the people. And my understanding is the state was like, you don't come back here again unless you

have something physical. So everything that I gave them and the FBI and PASCO, it was all circumstantial. And I was super excited. You know, even with that, I thought they could do something, but they didn't. And six years went by and we're here now. As long as, I mean, he's being charged. I'm happy about that, but that's six years that went by. And my whole goal was to get this out there and have him charged before her parents passed.

I think the 2016 tipster that they mentioned in the press conference is me. I reached out to Detective Lloydgren and the media agent there in Hernando and have not had a response. I mean, it would be foolish of me to think that, you know, I'm the only tip. I do know that they've been looking for an anonymous tipster from November of 2019, I think it is. So there's other people out there. But I believe, I personally believe I'm the one that got the ball rolling on this guy. It was very frustrating. It was bittersweet.

I literally, I prayed to God. I promise you this is what I did. I was at work. I saw the press conference begin. I saw Crum's face. And I was just like, I knew it. I knew it. And then I prayed to God.

I told him, you know, what I had to tell him. And, you know, then I sat back and I was like, why did it take this long? There's no way it should have taken this long. I'm happy that, again, he's being charged and that, you know, her family is going to have something. I don't want to say closure because. a friend of mine from back home actually pointed it out. She said that she keeps hearing the word closure, but she doesn't feel it. And I totally understand that. You know, I'm a father, two little girls, so I would want something. So my, my frustration is I wanted the parents,

I would have loved to have the parents had this six years ago when I brought it to their attention. While Brian isn't seeking accolades or a book deal or anything like that for potentially playing a role in solving this case, He does feel that when police ask the public for help, that they should acknowledge that help when it comes in. So, again, when they ask for the community's help, and you hear this in all sorts of cases, you know, we want people to come forward and all this stuff, you know, I've learned, at least this is my opinion now, is that they don't want you to come up with what I came up with, which is all circumstantial, even though correct. They basically want you to hand them a physical piece of evidence so they can just close the case. and I don't want credit for anything. I would love some type of validation.

That's the hard part too, because when I talked to Lloydgren back in the day, he kept repeating, like, it's an active investigation, and I can't really get into it, which I get. Like, personally, I don't want to know anything about the investigation because down the road, it could affect the outcome. But now we're at, we're at. It would be nice for them to say, hey, look, this did have an effect on the case, or it didn't.

I'll take the positive or the negative. It's just not knowing. I'm one of these people I have to I have to know the outcome. That's why this case drove me nuts. And, you know, if you want your, you want your community to help you, then let them help you. You know, we're a force multiplier, which is something that's a term used in the military. You know, these guys and women in these cold case units, there was only one to two running the unit. So they don't have all the soldiers to do work for them. They have multiple cases going on. And this is what Lloydgren told me, too. He says, look, I'm.

I'm looking at 12 suspects for war. And I actually told him, I said, look, you may be looking at 12, you know, suspects, but this is the one that killed her. And he was like, you believe that. And I said, yeah, I'll bet my soul on it right now. And, you know, I didn't have to do this. It was something like I wanted some closure and I wanted these guys to be able to close this case. And, you know, if you're not going to validate my efforts, whether on the phone or other,

email, whatever. you know, it kind of sucks. It makes you feel like, kind of like you're an idiot. Like, oh, I wasted my time and they think I'm an idiot or whatever. And it just puts kind of a bad taste in people's mouths because nobody has to do it. But if they do and they help you, you should probably recognize them for it, privately or publicly, however you want to do it.

Brian told us how working on Jennifer Odom's case affected him personally and whether he could bear to ever dive into a case like this again. So coming back from overseas, I've had some issues. And, you know, when I came home, I only had two boys who I loved dearly. And they're older now. But then I got married and I had two little girls. One, Lydia, she's my 13-year-old. And then Sophia, she's my 8-year-old. So that really is what kind of sparked me to do this.

And I kept looking at my girls and putting myself in the Odom's position and thought to myself, you know, what would I do if this happened to them? I took it very personally now, more so than I did when I was a child. I put my time in. I did the, I gave over the evidence, and then I moved on once I figured they weren't going to do anything. And I noticed, too, that while I was doing this, I was going so deep into it. Emotionally, it was a really mess on me. To this day, I can't look at Crum's face without my blood pressure boiling over to the point where it's kind of a medical issue. So that's kind of changed.

And how I, you know, raise my girls, they'll tell you. You know, I have cameras all over my house. I have sensors. You know, I crack them. I do everything because of this incident, because of this monster. It's been quite a change. I actually, during the process, everybody told me, like, dude, they were like, you're really good at this.

I did this in a matter of two weeks. I came up with all this stuff on an IMac and public sources. I love doing this stuff. I love true crime. I don't, you know, anybody who's in the true crime doesn't like the crimes themselves. It's the, it's the who, what, where, why type sitch. And I actually started looking at some cold cases in Tampa, and I actually talked to victims, relatives to try to help them out. And there was another case where we were actually, I was calling companies in the United States. It's tough work. Like, For people, you know, I have the utmost respect for our police, especially the ones that have to deal with this nastiness on a day-to-day basis.

It's tough. And I don't see how they can function when they leave their job. It sticks to you. It kind of got to have to find a way to cleanse your soul at the end of the day. So I realized I'm like, look, I don't have the time. And it really isn't healthy for me to do it. So I'm going to leave it up to the professionals. It's clear from Brian's involvement in this case that it took a toll on him, and that's a common thing, it seems, with many citizens slews who spend countless hours invested in these cases.

And in Brian's case, it took so much of a toll that he doesn't foresee himself ever diving into a case again, the way he did with Jennifer Odoms. But it's fascinating to not only see that there are so many citizens sleuths like Brian out there exploring these cases, but every so often, they actually come up with the right suspect. As we are recording this, there are a lot of missing details about the Jennifer Odom case and exactly what physical evidence, if any, ties Jeffrey Norman Crum, Sr. to the murder. I think we're all going to have to be somewhat patient and see what developments come out and if there is any news that breaks in Jennifer's case. But at this point, it's really great to see her family on the verge of getting justice after three decades. And I think, you know, Morph, and as we wrap up this case, it's one of the things that we're seeing so much of lately that has to have people hopeful. A lot of these, you know, old cases, you know, decades old cases are being solved. Now, this one's not technically solved yet,

but it sounds like they're on the right track. We'll have to wait for, you know, the details and to see what, how it plays out in court. And I think we will get a lot more of the details, both on, you know, Jeffrey Norman Crum's background, his life, and maybe more details on the murder. Yeah, and one thing I'll be watching for is to see if he's connected to any other cases that we haven't discussed maybe or ones that there just wasn't enough to link him to that now are going to be re-evaluated to see if he could be connected to any of these because he definitely seems like he's a predator.

So there could very well be other victims out there. And my thought is that almost certainly he has more victims. Sad to say that. But, you know, I think with a predator like this, you know, dating back confirmed to 1981, you mentioned a case from 1978. Does it really go back that far? Maybe. I just think with a predator like this, in my mind, there's probably more that they've gotten away with

than police will ever actually link them to. You also mentioned the fact that he lived in my home state of Ohio. That's scary. But it's also scary to think that these people, you know, they move. They live in different areas. And so pretty tough to believe that you would move to a state, but not committed. any of these crimes that you've been committing. More likely, it's that you've left victims in your wake everywhere you've lived. It just haven't connected you with the crimes.

Well, let's just hope that if there are more victims out there of his, that police are able to connect the dots and find them. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's something that we'll all be paying attention to. So that's it for our episode on Jennifer Odom. I think a lot of people will be paying attention to what comes out about Jeffrey Norman Crum Sr. As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, give us a five-star rating, you can leave a review as well. Also, keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way.

If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology podcast. and you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast, discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morf.

We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.