Criminology - Nikole Betterson

Episode Date: December 24, 2023

In 1977, at the age of 2, Nikole Betterson was involved in a car accident in Michigan with her mom and dad that killed her mom, Susan Klingel. Nikole's dad, Jarrett Betterson, showed up at Nikole's maternal grandparents just a few months later with another woman and claimed they were moving out west. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance of Nikole Betterson. Many years later, Nikole's grandparents tried to find her, even employing a private investigator. The private investigator found no evidence of Nikole after early 1978. This started an investigation that saw a number of strange events but no definitive answers about what happened to Nikole. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So everyone and welcome to episode 288 of the criminology podcast. This is Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford. How are you doing, man? I'm doing good. How about you? Doing great.

Still making preparations for the holidays, preparations for this cruise that we're getting ready to go on. So we've got a lot going on over here at the Ferguson household. Yeah, it's busy here too. crunch time getting the last holiday stuff done and planning a party and looking forward to a little bit of downtime to be honest with you. Yeah, this is our last episode of 2003 and we'll be back on January 6th. So we got a week off, which is, you know, very nice. Yeah, it helps recharge the batteries and get your mind going again and give you a little bit of energy, hopefully. So this episode is

dropping two days before Christmas. And, you know, with Christmas just days away, many of us are making last minute plans and preparations, just like you and I talked about. Rapping presents, buying presents, decorating the house for company, making sure that we have everything ready to cook. Maybe a last minute run to the store for milk and cookies for Santa. It's a time of year for many people to see their loved ones and spend time with them. For one set of grandparents, though, around Christmas in 1977, they saw their granddaughter for the last time. And after that, what happened to her remains a mystery to this day.

We're talking about the case of Nicole Bederson. Nicole's mom was Susan Klingle and her father, Jared Betterson. Since Jarrett and Susan weren't married, her parents, Bill and Mary Klingle, didn't approve of their relationship. They believe that he was a bad influence on their daughter. And in that time period, historically, in Dearborn, Michigan, the fact that they were in an interracial relationship was frowned upon by some. On Labor Day weekend in September 1977, when Nicole Batterson was just two years old, the family was in a car accident. Though the car rolled multiple times, Nicole and Jarrett, who was driving, were not seriously injured.

Sadly, Susan, who was just 22 years old, was thrown from the car in the crash and killed. authorities found marijuana in the trunk of the car and felt that it would be appropriate to charge Jarrett with vehicular homicide. But apparently there was what the Las Vegas son called a sloppy investigation and no charges were ever filed. Susan's parents were devastated and they laid their daughter to rest in the St. Hedwig Cemetery in Deerborn Heights, Michigan. So no doubt more if this was tough on Susan's parents, right? Tough any time. a parent loses a child.

And then there's two-year-old Nicole who loses her mother. It's just sad all the way around. And Susan was almost a kid herself, 22 years old, her whole life ahead of her, so young. And then a two-year-old child, you know, she had that initial bonding with her mom. But how much will she really remember later on in life that had to be something that was heartbreaking for her grandparents too? Bill and Mary not only lose her daughter, but then they realize her granddaughter's probably not going to remember her mom growing up. And in the research, when we kind of hinted at it, they didn't really seem to approve all that much of this relationship. I don't know how they felt about Jared after

and the fact that he wasn't charged with anything, couldn't find much definitive in the the research, but my thought is they probably weren't happy about it. We really don't know a lot about the relationship between Jarrett and Susan and how close they were, or if they planned to get married. We don't know how Jarrett took the loss of the mother of his child. But what we do know is that about two months after the crash, sometime in November, Jarrett met Barbara Sadler, and they began dating. She went with him when he took Nicole to see Susan's parents for Christmas. It was at this time that they informed the Klingles that they were going to take Nicole and move somewhere out west. They didn't say exactly where they were going,

and Bill and Mary were in shock at the thought of losing their granddaughter, right after losing their daughter. Jarrett and Barbara had already told their friends they would be leaving, but again their location wasn't certain. They had said Las Vegas to some friends, in California, to others. Before leaving, Barbara promised the Klingles that she would take care of Nicole and love her as if she were her own daughter. According to the Las Vegas son, she told them, I'll be a good mother to Nicole. She'll be well taken care of. Despite this assurance, the Klingles were heartbroken.

As Jared, Barbara, and Nicole left, Bill and Mary said goodbye to them with tears streaming down their cheeks. So we've talked about the Klingles being heartbroken and no doubt they were. They lost their daughter. Now they're being informed that they may not be seeing their granddaughter at all. And I just wonder more if what they thought about Jared and at this point. You know, we've already talked about the fact that they weren't crazy about him.

But here, just a few months after Susan was killed, he shows up with a new woman in his life who is talking about taking great care of Nicole. Yeah, they had to come as a bombshell to them to just have him come in out of the blue. And here's this new person and all of a sudden they're leaving. Because I'm sure that as grieving grandparents, They probably, their plan was to dote on their granddaughter and spend as much time as they could with her.

And to have that stripped away, that had to be, you know, as you said, heartbreaking for them to feel that. On August 28, 1982, when Nicole would have been about ready to start to first grade, Barbara and Jared were married in Clark, Nevada. It's not clear how much contact, if any, Jarrett and Barbara had with Bill and Mary Klingle after they moved away. but apparently it wasn't much. In 1997, the Klingles felt it was finally time to contact Nicole. She would have been 22 by then. The same age her mother was when she passed away in that car accident two decades before.

She would definitely be old enough to learn the truth about who her mother was and how she died and to make her own decisions as to whether or not she wanted to stay in contact with her maternal grandparents. But first, they had to find her. So they hired Peggy Bezzi, a private investigator, to track her down. After finding Jarrett and Barbara Betterson, now a married couple living in Las Vegas, but seeing no sign of Nicole anywhere in any records, Peggy Bezzi contacted Las Vegas Police Department, Detective Jeff Rosgen. Neither Bezzi or Rosgan got any mention of Nicole in any official record.

She had never had a driver's license. She had no criminal record, and there were no adoption records linked to her name. and she had never been enrolled in any Las Vegas school. This wasn't good news for the Klingles. Not only could they not find their granddaughter, but it seemed that Nicole, sometime in early 1978, had simply ceased to exist. Despite this, Jared had continued to collect survivors' benefits for Nicole

until 1993 when she would have turned 18. These payments were from Social Security, a portion of Susan Klingle's eventual benefits used to supplement the loss of her support. So I said more that we really don't know how much contact, if any, Bill and Mary had with Jarrett and or Barbara. But I did think it was a little strange that they waited until 1997 to try to contact Nicole. Again, we don't know what obstacles they had in their way. But, you know, she would have been 22 years old at that point. You know, why not?

18. Why not earlier? I mean, those are just questions that kind of popped into my mind. And as grandparents, I think most grandparents, they didn't see or hear anything about their grandkids for, you know, a stretch of time, whether it's weeks or months or eventually a year. It seems odd to me that they wouldn't try and track her down sooner and just make sure she's okay. And again, maybe they did and we just don't have that information. But definitely it was, it was a long time it passed before they finally really started trying to to get aggressive in finding her. And then obviously the news that came back to them from this private investigator would be very worrisome. You know, here it's, it's 1997 and they're finding out that

really there's no record of Nicole since early 1978. Yeah, definitely very troubling. You think there would be some kind of paper trail for them to follow that would show what she had done, where she had been, and there was none of that. Detective Rosgan, alarmed at the lack of any evidence of Nicole's existence, decided to dig further into her disappearance, and his next move is frustrating. On the one hand, it was clearly effective at putting pressure on a suspect and creating some movement in the case. On the other hand, though, any chance at learning, anything from either of the better,

about where Nicole was or what happened to her would soon evaporate. With no clues or leads to go off of, Detective Rosgan decided to bluff. In November 1998, he met with Jared and pretended to know exactly what had happened to Nicole, telling Jared, if he cooperated with the investigation, they wouldn't take the case to the grand jury. Per Cincinnati.com, he said to Jared, it will be easier on you if you tell us the whole story. This shocked Jared, but he agreed to cooperate and asked Detective Roskin for more time. He said he just needed about a week.

Figuring they had already waited 20 years, Rosgan agreed and left. Just four days later, Jared called the detective and said he was actually willing to set up a meeting between the detective and Nicole, but that he needed time to arrange it. Ten days after that, Jared called him again, asking for more time to set up the meeting. there was no further word from him as Thanksgiving came and went. Detective Rosgan decided to call Jared, but the phone rang and rang. No one answered. So obviously, this detective was very suspicious of Jared and or Barbara to go to this length of, you know, kind of bluffing that he knew what happened.

He must have suspected that maybe they were somehow involved. What I thought was strange was, like all this time passing. I mean, how long does it really take to set up a meeting? You know, I need four days. I need a week. I need 10 days. Well, no, really, nobody needs that much time.

It makes it seem as though Jared is putting the detective off while he gets, you know, something cooking. That's kind of what it sounds like. Yeah, and I think it, I'm sure it made the detective even more suspicious when he kept stalling and putting it off and, you know, is he putting it off to buy time so he can arrange a real meeting with Nicole that she is around someplace? Or is he trying to cover his tracks or get rid of evidence? You know, who knows what he was doing during that time? In Georgia, Jared's mother, Joni Beterson, opened a letter she received in the mail. It was from

her son and Barbara, who she hadn't seen or spoken to it in over 20 years. The letter read, by the time you get this, we should be dead. Jared is about to go to jail, and I don't want to live without him. I'm sorry about living apart from our family. I'm sorry about so many things. We've had a sad and difficult life. We had hoped our troubles would never touch our families, so we kept to ourselves. We've tried to follow God.

Now it's about time for him to judge us. Go to your Bibles to see peace, and please forgive us for all the wounds we have put in your hearts, with our tragic and youthful blunders. Inside the envelope, there was $900 money order to cover cremation cost and requests that the ashes of the two Beterisans be placed into a single earn together. Joni Batterson was clearly floored by this letter and reached out to the authorities and alerted them. So it turns out that, you know, it wasn't just Bill and Mary who hadn't been in contact with the Bederson's. Jarrett's mother, Joni hadn't talked to them in over 20 years. And you use the word

floored morph, and I think that's a pretty good word. I mean, I don't know what you think when you open this letter and read it and essentially says, hey, by the time you read this, we'll be dead. It had to be a pretty shocking letter to open up. And to me, the whole situation is weird that multiple family members, you know, haven't heard from them in 20 years. they just sort of cut off contact. And, you know, obviously families have risks or disagreements that can last a long time and lead to problems where they don't talk to each other. But for multiple people, for Nicole's grandparents not to have heard from them,

for Jared's mom not to have heard from them for that long, I just find it odd that they'd never try and reach out sooner. Because to not hear from somebody after 20 years, no matter what has happened, you think curiosity would get the best. best of them and they'd finally reach out to see if everything's okay and it apparently never happened here. Well, and then, you know, what's in this letter is so cryptic. We've had a sad and difficult life. And what are these troubles that they were experiencing that they're saying led them to keep to themselves and not have contact with the family? And around the same time, Joni received

this letter, just days before Christmas, 1997, almost exactly 20 years since the last time Nicole was known to be alive and well at her grandparents' house in Michigan, the manager of the apartment complex the Batterson's were living in unlocked their unit. There were multiple eviction notices on the door, and it was time to start the process. Instead of a tough conversation with his tenants, he found them both dead. A note had been left for him on the fridge. It read, forgive us for having to deal with the mess we left. They had died about three weeks before being found. Barbara was lying in bed, holding a Bible, and a single red rose that had completely wilted and withered.

She had been shot in the chest twice with the 22 caliber rifle. The bed had been made around her body. And a second red rose was placed over her heart in their second bedroom, lying on the bed and covered with a blank. blanket, Jared had shot himself once in the head. Initially, authorities thought that 49-year-old Jared had killed 50-year-old Barbara and then taken his own life and a murder suicide. While that is technically correct, it was clear from the letter to Joni Beterson and the pressure from Detective Rosgit that Barbara too had wanted to take her own life. It was technically a double suicide, though Barbara had not died at her own hands.

On December 26, on his first day of work, back from Christmas vacation, Detective Rosgan learned the news about the bettersons. Rosgan informed Lieutenant Wayne Peterson of their link to Nicole and about his visit weeks earlier. Lieutenant Peterson had the same questions listeners are probably asking. Was Nicole out there someplace? It's unknown where they stopped on their way from Michigan to Las Vegas. Peterson told the Las Vegas son that he thinks if she's still alive,

she could have grown up with another family, another name, never knowing her past. Of course, this is the best case scenario. Different detectives working the case noted a long drive to Vegas and put forth a second theory. Perhaps she was fussing on the trip west and attempts to quiet her turn tragic. So just like that, Barbara and Jared Bederson were gone and potentially so was any hope for the Klingles of reuniting with their granddaughter Nicole. Lieutenant Peterson told the Las Vegas sign. It may forever remain a mystery. The only people who can solve this mystery may be dead.

Their secret may have died with them. And this is what makes Detective Rosgan's bluff so frustrating to some. It did work. In a way, it proved that the bettersons were aware, at the very least, that they had been committing fraud by collecting benefits for Nicole. When Detective Rosgan said he knew what happened to Nicole, Cole and Jared began to cooperate. It basically confirmed that something did happen.

But there was not even a mention of Nicole in any of Barbara's letters. There was no confession at all, just a plea for forgiveness. The problem is that we're not sure, though, what they should be forgiven for. It could seem cruel that neither Barbara nor Jared left answers for Nicole's maternal grandparents, leaving them wondering whether or not she was even alive. However, if they thought that Detective Rosgen did really know what happened to Nicole, would they feel the need to spell it out again in a letter? It seems that they could have possibly taken him at his work when he said he knew the truth,

and sadly now the truth may never be known. We mentioned earlier. It's unknown why the Klingles waited into Nicole was 22 to try and find her. or if they had any kind of contact at all with her father, Jared, during all those years. If they were trying to wait until she wasn't a minor anymore, they still waited an extra four years. Maybe Nicole, reaching the age that her mother, Susan, was when she died, made them want to reach out at that point. One article mentions that Nicole was her sole heir, so it's possible that they had been doing some estate planning and writing their wills when they decided to try and find her. Sadly, there are many children who have disappeared with no one who noticed for years.

You would think that when a child goes missing, a loved one would sound the alarm quickly. When they don't, you have to wonder why they didn't. An earlier case is that a Patricia Ann Wood, who had vanished by 1976 when she would have been four years old. More recently, you can point to cases of multiple children who weren't reported missing immediately and still haven't been found. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show a woman. 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 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. The Shaw Festival presents the most beloved musical of all. time, my fair lady. This is the story of Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney Flower Girl who, Professor Henry Higginsbecks,

he can turn into a lady. Don't miss, My Fair Lady, a wonderfully lavish and lovelry production. This year at the Shaw. For best seats at best prices, go to Shawfest.com. One of those more recent cases is that of Harmony Montgomery, who was reported missing in November 2021 when she would have been seven years old.

But no one had seen her for almost two years by that point. Sadly, authorities have good reason to believe that Harmony is no longer alive. Her father, Adam, is set to go on trial for her murder in February of 2024. In this case, authorities were able to use welfare fraud to bring Adam and Harmony stepmother, Kayla Montgomery, in for questioning. Kayla quickly testified against Adam in a weapons charge trial earlier this year as part of a plea deal. Kayla Montgomery told investigators that Adam Montgomery killed his daughter on December 7th, 2019. At the time, the Montgomerys were living in their car, which they kept parked in a lot of a friend's apartment complex.

Harmony just five years old at the time was having frequent accidents in the car, unable to hold it until they made it to a bathroom. This absolutely enraged Adam, who Kayla says punched Harmony multiple times while he was driving. This attack killed her. Instead of getting help, Adam put her body into a duffelback that he moved from location to location until March 2020 when he ultimately disposed of her body. Thankfully, Harmony's younger half-brother Jameson had been adopted and is safe, but while Jameson was adopted, Harmony was sent to live with Adam. And tragically, Jameson's family, the Millers would have happily adopted her too. Jameson's adopted father Blair Miller told News Nation now that Harmony did have loving family.

And Harmony does have a loving brother. We may not have met her face to face, but we certainly know how important she is to our family. Another recent case is that of Oakley Carlson, who was four years old when she was last seen on February 10th, 2021. She wasn't reported missing until December 2021. One month earlier, there had been a fire at the Carlson home. Her father, Andrew Carlson, claims this is when he, quote, unquote, lost track of Oakley. Like Jameson and Harmony, Oakley had a loving family who was eager to adopt her. Oakley and her younger sister were both in foster care for more than two years.

The Heil's family had practically raised her, but as soon as Andrew Carlson and Jordan Bowers completed drug addiction, and domestic violence treatment, they were granted custody of their children over the concerns of the Hiles. Jamie Joe Hiles, Oakley's foster mother, told the New York Times, that hole in my heart and that concern for Oakley was there the moment she left. And while there's hope that they simply got tired of caring for Oakley, so they gave her up to someone who wanted a child, and they are showering her with love, it's kind of hard to stay optimistic. Oakley's little sister, only, known as DC has made a few statements that don't give police a lot of hope. Not only did DC tell investigators that her parents kept Oakley locked under the stairs,

she also said that their mother Jordan had told her not to talk about Oakley and that she had gone into the woods and had been eaten by wool. Jamie Joe Hiles told the times when you read those reports about the abuse that she suffered, how can you not let your mind think of dark things? Oakley's seventh birthday, the third since the last credible sighting of her, was just two weeks ago. Some of these children who weren't reported missing immediately have the same tragic ending, which is no ending, no answers, and no one left alive to ask questions. Two similar cases come to mind. In November 2008, Tina Loche and her girlfriend, Sky Hanson, were featured on America's

most wanted. They were suspects in the murder of Tina's mother, Barbara, in January 1998. Barbara's husband, Gary, had been shot and killed two years earlier. No suspect was named in that case. Three hours after that episode aired, Tina and Sky were both found dead. Tina had shot Sky in the head before taking her own life. Tina's son, Christopher, who would have been 18 at the time, was nowhere to be found. The last record of him being alive was from 1999 in Tucson, Arizona. Lieutenant Craig McLean of the Post Falls Idaho Police Department spoke to ABC News about Christopher, saying, he's just vanished. We don't know if we've potentially found another homicide.

Christopher Loche, who would now be 32 years old, remains missing. Another case is one listeners may have heard of before. On May 24, 2011, Amy Frye-Pitson was found dead in a Rockford, Illinois hotel room. Three days earlier, she had signed her son, six-year-old Tim out of kindergarten just 30 minutes after his father Jim had dropped him off. When Jim returned that afternoon to pick Timothy up, alarm bells sounded. Amy's phone went straight to voicemail and she wasn't at home or at work. Amy did get in touch with her mother and assured her that they would be home in a few days.

Around the same time, she called Jim's brother and told him, Timothy belongs to me. During the time they were missing, Amy and Timothy appeared to have a lot of fun. They went to the Brookfield Zoo just outside of Chicago, Key Lime Cove Water Resort in Gurney, and a Wisconsin-Dells resort called Calahari. They were captured together on surveillance footage multiple times. Jim told Cincinnati.com,

Timothy was happy and didn't seem to have any distress or anything. They checked out of the resort at around 10 a.m. And the next time Amy was spotted on security camera, she was alone at Sullivan's Foods in Winnebago, near Rockford, Illinois. It was around 8 p.m. Her purchase included stamps and stationary. Amy checked into a hotel, still alone, at 1115 the same night. At around 1230 the next afternoon, a housekeeper discovered the upsetting scene.

Amy had taken an overdose of antihistamines before cutting her own wrist and neck. There was a suicide note left for the staff, apologizing for the mess they would have to clean. But there was no sign of her son Timothy. Like Barbara Batterson did, Amy sent left. letters before she ended her life. One letter to her mother read, I've taken him somewhere safe. He will be well cared for and he says that he loves you. Please know that there is nothing you could have said or done that would have changed my mind. Authorities have never released the exact wording of Amy's suicide note, but it is clear that while she claimed that Timothy was safe,

no one would ever find him. And to this date, no one has. He remains missing. Oakley's parents, and Harmony's father and stepmother were all arrested before they had a chance to flee or take their own lives. Whatever happened to Oakley and Harmony seems to have been fueled by a life of addiction and crime. Nothing could have been reported without very severe consequences, or perhaps losing the financial benefit of keeping it quiet made the risk seem worth it. For Tina Loche and Amy Frye-Pitson, though, the disappearance of their children seemed to be a very deliberate and vital part of their overall plan. all of these cases of children missing without ever being found and missing at the hands of someone who is supposed to love and protect them is hard to fath them for many so all of these cases are

heartbreaking morph and some of them have some of the same characteristics of Nicole's case I think it's hard not to listen to some of the details and think that one of those same scenarios could have played out with Nicole to me. it's it's frightening how many cases there are of children who go missing and the people that love them are supposed to love them and support them and protect them many times are at the center of it and when they have a chance to provide answers they don't they just leave the mystery and they you know in these cases we've talked about take their own lives and leave these unanswered questions for everyone else to to be puzzled by after the

they're gone. Well, and there's, there's one thought that I have about, you know, children. When you're talking about children who, let's say, haven't been enrolled in a school yet, well, if they don't have a lot of contact with other family members, there's not a ton of record of them. You know, where's the paper trail? You know, much different than an adult, you know, you're going to a job or you're going to a school, there's a record of where you've been, what you've done. But a two-year-old, three-year-old, four-year-old, something like that, they don't have that same kind of record, much harder to track. Yeah, but even then, it seems like they would be neighbors or friends or the family, somebody that might help fill in the pieces

of the puzzle and say, well, you know, I babysat her or I, she played with my, child or something like that. And when you don't even have that, it really seems as if, you know, we mentioned earlier, they almost as if they never existed. They just completely vanished with no interactions with anyone that,

that were able to recall that. Yeah, I think, unlike Nicole's case, with some of these newer cases that we talked about, at least you have security camera footage, you have that type of information that can provide

a record of where at least someone was at a certain time. But in some of the older cases, you're not even going to have that. So going back to Nicole's case, Jared could have easily played dumb and pretended that Nicole left when she turned 18. He could have made up a story about their estrangement. You know, maybe she left home and said she would never look back. But he didn't. It's possible he could have gotten away with it, especially, you know, without a body and

no real timeline, where would police even start to look for Nicole? Then again, maybe Jared and Barbara were truly sorry for whatever happened as was stated in their letter. So maybe rather than make up an elaborate story filled with lies, they chose not to deal with the situation altogether. It seems that whatever it was that happened to Nicole, it was long before anyone came looking for her. If something happened to Nicole on the way to Las Vegas. She could be anywhere along the route. She may have even already been found and has not been identified, but that hasn't stopped people from trying to look for her remains. And they have come up with some possible matches. One possible match could be unidentified person

number 6655. In that case, the partial remains of a child estimated to be between one and two years old was found in a field in Cincinnati, Ohio on February 4, 1979. Nicole's actual date of birth is unknown, so if she had turned two just before Christmas, 1977, she would have been three, assuming she was neglected before she was killed, she would likely be on the smaller side due to malnutrition. This is a lot of speculation, and the eye color this child could not even be determined, but her hair indicates that she was African American.

It's unknown if Nicole has been ruled out as a match to this baby death. And we're going to talk about some, you know, possible matches. There's no way to know for sure whether or not, you know, any of these could be Nicole. My thought about this unidentified child is that the location seems a little odd to me. You know, if you're driving from Michigan to Las Vegas, there wouldn't really be the need to come as far south as Cincinnati. I live just north of Cincinnati, and actually it would be, you know, pretty far north of me even where you would make your turn to go west, where most people would make their turn to go west. Now, somebody could have gone out of their way to throw, you know, people off of the trail.

There's a lot of possibilities here. I just did want to point that out. The location seems a little odd. It's not technically on the way from Dearborn, Michigan to Las Vegas. With not having much information to go on, if this was Nicole, perhaps Jarrett and Barbara went there to dispose of her to throw police off their track, as you mentioned, or maybe they went there to visit somebody that we don't know about, or maybe it's just not Nicole at all. And this is somebody else's child. Another unidentified person that many believe. was a good lead is known as

St. Louis, Jane Doe. On February 24, 1984, 1983, two men entered the boiler room in the basement of 5635 Clemens Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri, looking for a scrap metal. Instead, as one of them tried to light

their cigarette, they saw a body illuminated in the middle of the dark room. They had discovered the body of an African-American child who hadn't reached puberty. Her hands were bound together behind her back with a red and white nylon cord. Her head was missing.

It had been severed from the body after she was killed. An autopsy discovered signs of sexual assault and strangulation. There was no food found in her stomach. She had likely not been taken care of, well, for at least multiple days before she died, but there were no signs of prior abuse on her body. The lack of blood at the scene told investigators that she, had not been killed in the building. St. Louis Jane Doe is estimated to have been between eight and 11 years old. Based on Nicole's age of two in September 1977, in February

1983, she would have been eight or just shy of that. St. Louis is on a direct route from Dearborn, Michigan to Las Vegas that exists today. A lot of factors seem to fit with Nicole Betterson possibly being St. Louis Jane Doe, but Jarrett and Barbara were already in Clark, Nevada by August 1982. There's no reason that we know of for them to be closer to Michigan the next year. Nicole was submitted as a possible identity for St. Louis Jane Doe, but she and 10 other people have been ruled out as a match. This isn't Nicole, and there appears to be no matching missing persons report for this little girl. It's likely that she was killed by a parent or guardian since they didn't seem to be looking for. Unfortunately, her sweater and the nylon rope used to tie her hands were sent by mail

to a psychic in Florida and they were lost. These items can never be retested for evidence using new technology. And you know, one thing that is very difficult when you're researching this type of case is that, you know, you stumble upon a bunch of other similar cases. And they're all heartbreaking because we're talking about, you know, very young children here. And it seems as if, you know, a lot of these children were either killed by, someone close to them. They were neglected.

At the very least, they weren't well looked after. And in some cases, it's as if no one was even looking for them at all. Now, that may be because the person who would or should come looking for them is the one that, you know, had a hand in their death. And it's very tragic that there's this many little girls out there that are unidentified to this day. but one good thing that we know of is DNA and genealogy can solve these cases. You know, it's not just used for identifying serial killers.

It's used for identifying Jane and John Does too. So perhaps if that can be done in any of these cases, we can find out who these little girls are. And maybe that will lead back a trial for police to follow to the people who may have been involved in their deaths. And I hope that happens. Yeah, I do too. I have spent a lot of time talking about some of the newer uses of DNA and some of the new technology. Yeah, it's great when it's used to help solve a crime, catch a killer. But it's also

very important to give names and identity to some of these missing persons, these Jane and John does. That's extremely important. One thing that, many people have pointed out online suggesting that Nicole Betterson could be alive is that if Jared thought that Detective Roskin was telling the truth about knowing what happened to Nicole, his reaction in Stalin didn't seem like the actions of someone who realized the detective was on to him about the murderer of his child. He called the detective back and agreed to set up a meeting with her if she was dead. And Jared thought that Detective Rosgan knew she was was, why would he repeatedly set up and reschedule appointments with him? Now, I think the flip side of

that argument is that, of course, maybe Jared was trying to figure out what the detective really knew and really just stalled for time while he figured out his next move. And I think that's entirely plausible. But to those who try to remain optimistic, their thought is maybe he was trying to track her down if she was out there someplace. Whatever the reason Jarrett and Barbara eventually decided that ending their lives was preferable over dealing with the outcome. Perhaps they realized that even if Nicole was alive and safe someplace, they'd collected her survivor's benefits and they weren't used on her. That in itself was enough to send them to prison. For people who are less optimistic, they think Jarrett could have known the detective was lying from the beginning and tried to find

someone who looked enough like Nicole to pull both the police and her grandparents and soon gave up on their plan realizing that it would fail. It might seem naive to some to think Nicole could still be alive, but if Jared knew she was dead, and especially if he was responsible for her death, it's hard to understand why he would take the chance to wait over a week to end his life. He was certainly in no shape to flee. A bus accident had injured him. severely and he used a motorized wheelchair to get around. Barbara had severe health issues as well. Her prescriptions were so numerous the bottles filled their bathroom. Maybe the law finally catching up with Jared coupled with their medical problems was enough for them to decide that they didn't

want to go on living. Barbara wrote about what she called youthful blunders in her letter to her mother-in-law. online, many people discussing the case feel that the death of a child is not really a blunder, keeping the term synonymous with a mistake. But a blunder is a very serious error by definition. It's very possible that Barbara use this word for its precise meaning, a gross error or mistake resulting usually from stupidity, ignorance, or carelessness. In chess, it's a critically bad decision that usually ends with a loss. Would Barbara describe harming Nicole and covering it up as a blundering?

we don't know. Yeah, I get what the actual definition of the word blunder is, but I think to most of us, blunder wouldn't be a term used to talk about covering up or being responsible for the death of a child. But who knows? Everybody's vocabulary is a little different. I guess you could look at it both ways. Unless Nicole is found, we may never know the truth when it comes to a child. you never want to give up on them, even when searching for them seems futile. Keeping an open mind is painful. Hoping that Timothy was still alive, Jim Pittson continued building a treehouse for him until he couldn't bear to live in the home any longer.

Timothy is still missing. If you have any information about his whereabouts, you can contact the Aurora Police Department at 630-256,000. those who love Timothy hold out the hope that he will come home someday, noting that many would have doubted that J.C. Dugard was alive after 18 years, but she was. Maybe Timothy is.

And maybe Nicole is. There's only one known photo of Nicole. It's blurry and grainy and not very close up. And it's not clear if it's even good enough quality to get an age progression created. And I think when you talk about keeping hope a lot, you know, some of these cases seem very dour as to maybe what the outcome is. But then, you know, you think about a J.C. Dugard. You think about a Stephen Stainer. There are a lot of different examples of children, you know, who went missing. And I'm sure it crossed people's minds that they would never come.

back. And yet they did. Yeah, and you just mentioned a couple big ones. Another one that just came on my mind was Elizabeth Smart. So we know that sometimes, although the odds are against it, a lot of times there is hope. And these kids do show back up alive eventually. And hopefully that might be the situation here with Nicole. Nicole's maternal grandfather, Bill Klingle, passed away on April 12, 2016 without ever finding out what happened to his granddaughter Nicole. He was 86 years old. In January 2003, just more than 45 years since she had seen Nicole, Mary Klingle passed away at the age of 90. It would have been her 46th Christmas without Nicole, her 45th without her daughter Susan, and her seventh without her husband of 65 years, Bill. Bill and Mary have surviving daughters,

and they may very well want to know what happened to their niece, Nicole. If someone out of there's listening and has information. Those details could lead to a Christmas miracle and solve Nicole's case finally. While Nicole Batterson is still missing, there is DNA from the Klingles on file that can help identify her in the event she has found or comes forward. If you have any information about her whereabouts or what happened to her after Christmas 977, you can contact the Las Vegas Police Department at 702-229. 3-1-1. So Morph, as we wrap up this case, it's a tough one. I mean, there's no doubt about that.

I think a lot of people listening will lean toward Jarrett and Barbara having had some hand in what happened to Nicole. But like we said, I mean, there are possibilities. Could they have given Nicole to another family when she was very, very young? and she doesn't even remember who she was before that family. And she's out there living somewhere, has a family of her own now. We just don't know. I think what makes that hard to comprehend is the fact that Jarrett and Barbara ended their life.

For them to make the decision to do that and, you know, couple that with the letters that were sent. to Jared's mother, it makes it seem like they knew they were about ready to be discovered for some really bad things that they had done. And to me, it's hard not to think that something bad happening to Nicole was part of that. And if they did have some involvement in something happening to her, even in death, they couldn't admit to it, which is kind of odd because they're not going to be around to face justice or backlash or anything along those lines, but maybe admitting to hurting a child is just something so terrible in their situation that

they couldn't even bring themselves to admit it in a final letter. And they chose to take their lives without ever sharing that information. Yeah, I mean, on the one hand, you could say, well, why not disclose what you've done? You're not going to be around to face the consequences. But I think you make a good point more. Maybe what they did was so heinous that they just couldn't bring themselves to own up to it, even in death. Well, even if the worst is true and something did happen to Nicole, hopefully one, day if her remains are found or maybe they've already been found and are just waiting to be

identified, you know, we talked about it. Maybe DNA genealogy can play a role in identifying her and some of the other kids we've mentioned in this episode. Maybe those remains will one day be identified as well. Yeah, we always hoped for that. And I think that hope is justified. I mean, we have seen some amazing things happen with some of this new technology. But that's it for our episode on Nicole Batterson. And we mentioned it up front, but Morph and I are taking a little time off to spend with our families over the holidays. And, you know, we want to say happy holidays, happy New Year, from our families to yours. Yeah, we're definitely hoping everyone out there has a safe and joyous holiday season with their family and friends.

If you love the show, but I haven't done so. yeah, take a minute, go out and give us a five-star rating, leave a review, tell your friends over the holidays about the criminology podcast. If you want to find us on social media, run X 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 is it for our last episode of 2023. But we'll see you back here with a brand new episode of criminology, which drops January 6, 2024. So for Mike and Morph.

We'll talk to you then. Happy holidays, everyone.