Going West: True Crime - Jasmine Pace // 355

Episode Date: November 8, 2023

In November of 2022, a 22-year-old woman went missing after visiting her mom’s house in Tennessee. After curiously texting her mom her location in the middle of the night, and posting something suspicious to Facebook, the investigation, led heavily by her mom, narrowed in on one possible culprit. This is the story of Jasmine Pace. BONUS EPISODES Apple Subscriptions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-west-true-crime/id1448151398 Patreon: patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Jasmine's Obituary: https://www.lane-southcrestchapel.com/tributes/Jasmine-Pace 2. News Channel 9: https://newschannel9.com/news/local/bond-hearing-delayed-for-suspect-charged-in-chattanooga-womans-death-jason-chen-jasmine-pace-suck-creek-road-homicide-murder# 3. News Channel 9: https://newschannel9.com/news/local/gone-too-soon-jasmine-pace-honored-at-funeral-by-family-friends-in-red-bank-thursday 4. Jasmine's Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/246234886/jasmine-nicole-pace 5. Local 3 News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lscD1HE7OI8 6. Local 3 News: https://www.local3news.com/local-news/tiktok-points-out-fake-pictures-of-jason-chen-expert-explains-protection-measures/article_78b61f7c-71b1-11ed-bbf4-930ea19e72aa.html 7. Motion to Vacate Indictment: https://www.scribd.com/document/650878225/Chen-Motion#fullscreen&from_embed 8. News Channel 9: https://newschannel9.com/news/local/chattanooga-womans-accused-killer-has-preliminary-hearing-thursday-jason-chen-jasmine-pace-homicide-stab-stabbing-knife-suitcase 9. WDEF: https://www.wdef.com/probable-cause-found-to-continue-murder-case-against-jason-chen/ 10. Fox 17: https://fox17.com/news/local/chattanooga-police-search-for-missing-woman 11. Heavy: https://heavy.com/news/jason-chen-jasmine-pace/ 12. News Channel 9: https://newschannel9.com/news/local/suspect-in-jasmine-paces-death-appears-in-court-friday-jason-chen-homicide-chattanooga?fbclid=IwAR2YZfcDAgfGEb1yORH3Mnv1SakBeStkqQNC1jqZDuOxT6uGFqvAz6hPKKU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host Teef. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody, big thank you to many of you who recommended today's case. We have Abby, Jennifer, Shelby, Becca, and Miranda. Thank you guys so much. This case happened just last year. We are still in the midst of getting justice, but there are so many answers already in this case.

It is truly an insane story. So thank you for tuning in, and without further ado, let's dive into today's case. Alright guys, this is episode 355 of Going West, so let's get into it. It would be a tragedy if we were losing one person to drug overdose every day. Even five, seven, or twelve people. It would be unimaginable if fifteen families a day received news of a lost loved one to overdose, but in Canada, we lose 20 people to overdose every single day. That's a crisis. At CAMH, we won't back down until there's no one left behind. Donate at CAMH.ca to help us treat addiction and build hope. To support sustainable food production, BHP is building one of the world's most sustainable

potash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. In November of 2022, a 22-year-old woman went missing after leaving her mom's house in Tennessee. After sending her mom her location in a text and posting something suspicious to Facebook. The investigation, which was led heavily by her mom, narrowed in on one possible culprit. This is the story of Jasmine Pace, nicknamed Jazzy, was born on May 29, 2000 in Ringel, Georgia, before moving to and being raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She had a fairly large network of extended family born to parents Katrina and Travis Pace,

and she had an older sister named Gabby and younger brothers named Enic and Travis. But Jasmine's parents divorced when she was pretty young and her dad relocated multiple states away to New Mexico, while the kids remained in Tennessee to live with their mom. And speaking of her mom Katrina, she went on to marry a man named Scott, bringing Jasmine another little brother named Aiden. Katrina felt so lucky and happy to have Jasmine as her daughter, and she even called Jasmine quote, the biggest and best part of her. As a kid, Jasmine was described as joyful, spirited, and warm. She was in the children's ministry at her family's church,

and her pastor remembered quote, her life touched a lot of people, and we were just some of those people. For just one year of school, she moved to Canada with her mom to be closer to her grandparents and loved playing in the snow, which is obviously something she really didn't see much of in Tennessee. So she was excited to be there. But yeah, she only lived there for a year, so when her family returned to Tennessee, she continued to collect many close friends and could easily make a connection with anyone. Her childhood best friend Bailey Putnam said in a speech at Jasmine's memorial quote, she was a safe space for me as I'm sure she was for you guys.

She made everyone feel like no matter the bad or the good, she'd never judge you or make you feel any less. As she grew older, the family expanded and Jasmine became a godmother, as well as an aunt to two nieces. And these were roles that she really cherished and took very seriously, just going out of her way to do it on the kids and shower them with attention and affection.

And actually her Facebook is like littered with pictures, just showing them off and taking them on field trips. So we'll post a few of those for you guys to see on our socials. However, with as much joy as the family's additions brought them, they also saw their share of tragedy. In 2016, Jasmine's little brother Travis died suddenly, just 14 years old, which was inexplicably devastating for the entire family. Then in 2022, Jasmine's great grandmother Katie passed away, and Jasmine was reportedly taking it very hard.

But 2022 also brought her a surprise that she hadn't been anticipating, in the form of a new boyfriend. Jasmine had been focusing on her family and her studies at Chattanooga State Community College when she met 22-year-old Jason Chen on a dating app. Now Jason and Jasmine, who was also 22, supposedly met on Bumble in the months leading up to her disappearance, although he is believed to have been using Tinder as well. Now the exact timeline and nature of their relationship is unclear, but Jasmine's friends remember her showing his profile to them

as they started to become more serious. Jason was born in New York, but moved to China to be with his grandparents when he was just a baby. And that's where he lived until he was about four years old when he moved back to the United States to settle into Nolan'sville, Tennessee with his parents, which is about a half an hour south of Nashville. So after graduating from Nolan'sville High School, Jason went on to attend the University

of Tennessee at Chattanooga, which is a very short drive away from where Jasmine was going to school at Chattanooga State Community College. So in Chattanooga, Jason was studying finance and software systems and was working as a software developer intern. Personality-wise, he was later described as intense and unsettling by former classmates. With one female classmate from middle school named Addy stating later in an interview, his personality is just very off, and he's not very good at social cues. Others remembered him as odd and inappropriate, and that he had a reputation for his unnerving behavior.

Addy further detailed that Jason had a pension for impersonating others online, and that he'd create fake accounts of other students so that he could talk to girls, which is something that he'd even done to Addy. Creating an Instagram profile to mimic a friend of hers, he messaged her, hey, hoping to get her to engage with him. On yet another account, he wrote twice, quote, add me on Snapchat. He asked her multiple times if she wanted to hang out after school, and later admitted that he was pretending to be someone that he wasn't.

But this was unbeknownst to Jasmine, who seemed happy with him when they first started going out. On Tuesday, November 22, 2022, so two days before Thanksgiving, Jasmine was over at her mom and stepdad's house for the evening, and then she left their house hours later at 11.27pm, planning on seeing them less than two days later, obviously for the holiday. She was seen leaving the house and getting into her car, which was a white 2021 Chevy Equinox. Now by this time, she and Jason had apparently been dating for a few months, and they were

set to hang out late that night, so she headed to his apartment on Tremont Street, arriving exactly 15 minutes later. Early the next morning, which was Wednesday, November 23, 2022, Jason's neighbors reported hearing an altercation coming from the vicinity of his apartment. They claimed they heard things being thrown, and at 2.15am, which would have been 2.5 hours after Jasmine left her parents' house, they heard a woman scream. Not thinking much of it, and maybe assuming it was a movie or a drunken altercation that was being blown out of proportion, the neighbors declined to report this. Three minutes later, at 2.18 am, Jasmine shared her location with her mom via a text message

from inside Jason's apartment without adding any additional context as to why she did so, like all she did was send the ping of her location. So after this location ping was sent to her mom, Jasmine went radio silent, and her family didn't hear from her for the rest of the day on November 23rd. But the following day was Thanksgiving, and they knew that they would see her because Jasmine would never miss a family holiday, especially since the loss of her brother and her great grandmother, which had made the family just really cherish each other even more. So there was no reason for her not to show up that day.

But as the day wore on and she didn't turn up, her family obviously grew extremely worried. Then Katrina received a strange text message from Jasmine, saying that she had actually decided at the last minute to spend the holiday with a friend instead. And her mom obviously knew that this is something Jasmine would not do. Jasmine texted her mom that she was gonna be visiting her friend Emma over in South Carolina, which is two states away and over five hours by car,

depending on where exactly Emma lived. Yeah, which is like a really weird thing to do last minute. Like on the day of you're supposed to show up at your family's home and then you're like, actually, I'm going multiple states away to visit a friend. Yeah, just didn't make any sense. So Katrina was, you know, understandably shocked

because Jasmine never turned down an opportunity to spend time with her family, as Daphne mentioned, and certainly would not miss a holiday with them. So Katrina assumed that Jasmine was still struggling with the recent loss of her great-grandmother and just like needed to get away for the weekend. But when Katrina reached out to Emma, who she actually knew, Emma confirmed that they did not have plans and they had not been in contact and that she didn't even live in South Carolina.

So Katrina wondered if perhaps Jasmine wanted time alone and not wanting to make her family feel badly about it had lied about where she was going. And this is just so weird because Emma actually lived in Kentucky, which is right next to Tennessee. So why would she not just say, oh, I'm going to visit Emma in Kentucky?

Yeah, yeah, I mean, that doesn't make any sense. And obviously, I mean, I think it's good that her mom is wanting to kind of give her space and just if she feels like she needs it, but at the same time, there's definitely a lot of red flags going up because first of all, Kentucky is above Tennessee. It's not, it's not a couple states over like South Carolina would be. So for her to even say that seems kind of weird. Like, yeah, like why not? It just makes it seem even more like something is wrong

if she's not even stating the correct state that her friend lives in. Like something is just off here. So obviously Katrina just wanted to give her daughter some space that she felt she might have needed since she was 22 years old after all. Thus Katrina held off on reporting her daughter missing. But then, two days later on November 26th, Jasmine made a post on social media that raised

the eyebrows of her family and friends even more. The first photo was a picture of herself in what looked like black lingerie, which those who knew her best claim that she would have never posted publicly. Also included in the photos. Jasmine's friend Bailey remarked, quote, we found out that those were old photos. She's had a sleeve tatted on her arm for over a year now, and it's not in those photos. We contacted Emma, she lives in Kentucky, and had not heard from Jazzy in a long time. So yeah, on Jasmine's right arm was a half sleeve of like intricately detailed and interwoven flowers

and petals, but it was suspiciously missing from that lingerie post. And Emma confirmed that the videos were old as well. Yeah, so it's weird and I hate to share it because obviously this photo of Emma in the black lingerie is like supposed to be an intimate photo. This is not something that's supposed to be shared. So I almost just don't even wanna post it.

I might blur it out a little bit because I just out of respect. Because obviously this is not Jasmine posting this. She does not want this photo on the internet, and which makes it so much more messed up. But basically, in the Facebook post, it is that Laundry picture and then there's a collection of other photos.

So it's like, why would she post a Laundry photo in a collection with videos of her and her friend? Like, it was just a really random post. But also, it just doesn't make any sense because she's posting about like spending things giving with her friend, but then she's posting a picture in Laundry. How does that connect at all?

That's what I mean, it's so random. So that in itself is a huge red flag. And then of course the fact that they were able to sluice it out and figure out that was an old photo, like good on them. Well, we also do know that a particular person in this story likes to pretend to be other people online. You are correct. So after Jasmine's very odd social media post,

and obviously being missing from a family holiday, her mom Katrina just knew that something was wrong here. Jasmine's phone was inactive, and though she'd been present on social media, or somebody impersonating her was present on her social media, her family later learned that the activity had not originated from the apps on her phone. So Katrina tracked her daughter's car using the My Chevy app, which is so awesome, and

found it parked near her apartment. And this was alarming on its own because she was supposed to have driven herself to South Carolina, or at least somewhere else, right? Like for her car to be outside of her apartment seemed very odd. Now according to the My Chevy app, Jasmine's car was driven to the Signal View condos on Wednesday, November 23rd, which was the day after her mom and stepdad last saw her before she headed to Jason's. Now the car was actually caught on security camera footage

driving, but it was impossible to tell who was in the driver's seat. Katrina did note, however, that when her car was found, her driver's seat had been pushed back to accommodate someone much taller than Jasmine, who stood at just five feet tall. So with that discovery, Katrina felt even more confident that something was wrong, so she reported her daughter missing to the local police, and they jumped right on the case.

So based on her last location being Jason's apartment, police started there, which was a big relief to Katrina, who had been very wary of Jason from the start. On November 26, so three days since Jasmine shared her location with her mom early in the morning, and the same day that Jasmine supposedly posted that lingerie picture, Katrina wrote on Facebook, quote, �My daughter, Jasmine Pace, is missing. We have not talked her since Wednesday. If anyone has any information, please let me know.

I think this guy might be involved. His name is Jason Chen. If anyone could help canvas the area of 900 mountain creek road at the signal view apartments in the back, behind building S beside the woods, that would be greatly appreciated. And the community really jumped right in to help as well, and official search parties

got together to circle the signal view apartments, which again is where Jasmine lived and where her car was found. Meanwhile, Katrina and her husband Scott headed to the site of the dropped pin that Jasmine texted her on the night that they last saw her. Again, that was at 2.18am. The pin had been dropped at 110 Tremont Street, which was an apartment complex called The Loves That Tremont. So Katrina reached out to Jason directly, hoping that he had heard from Jasmine or better

yet, was with her. But Jason told anyone who reached out to him that the last communication he had with Jasmine had been text messages exchanged between Tuesday, November 22, which was, you know, the last day she was publicly seen, as well as that weekend when she had been reported missing. However, when Jasmine's family pulled her phone records, it was revealed that she had spoken to Jason for 71 minutes on the phone that Tuesday evening before she had gone over to his house, leading them to believe that the couple had gotten into a fight

about something before she went over there. He also gave them a false address to throw off the fact that Jasmine's dropped pin had been in his apartment, telling her family that he lived in what turned out to be an abandoned house. And I gotta say, Heath, it doesn't look good when this guy, he got in a fight with her, or he seemed to have gotten in a fight with her, there's all these neighbors coming forward saying they heard an altercation in his scream, and then her family reached out to him only for him to tell them that he lives somewhere that he doesn't. Like that just looks really bad. Yeah, I mean, he's not the best at covering his tracks here, obviously, he's making a

lot of mistakes. So eagerly conducting her own investigation, Katrina spoke with every neighbor who would answer their door on Jason Street. She determined that Jason did reside there and was even able to ascertain which unit. Speaking to a neighbor close in proximity to Jason's apartment, she learned about the scream and disturbances coming from inside his home on the night that Jasmine was last seen. Then she was somehow able to gain access to his apartment, potentially with the help

of the building manager, but that detail hasn't been revealed by the investigation. Now inside, she found a pair of Jasmine's pants, her driver's license, and multiple credit cards belonging to Jasmine. Katrina also noticed a Walmart bag filled with new cleaning scrub brushes, but no sign of Jasmine or Jason. In a move that would later be severely criticized by Jason's legal team, Katrina took her daughter's belongings with her when she left. And the following day, Sunday, November 27th, police assessed the apartment

with a search warrant, and inside, they made a harrowing discovery. Though the apartment appeared to be clean, a closer inspection revealed a shocking amount of blood. Investigators applied a blood testing agent called Blue Star Forensic, which according to their website is, quote, THE most effective blood reagent for use at crime scenes or in the laboratory. The extreme sensitivity of Blue Star Forensic allows the detection of blood traces with the naked eye up to delusions of 1 over 100,000.

Basically, meaning even a minuscule droplet of blood would still light up. So please process the entirety of Jason's apartment and found blood in the carpet of the bedroom, the grout of the bathroom tile, and the hardwood floor in the living room. Please also found an array of newly purchased cleaning products, presumably bought so that Jason could clean up the crime scene. Now, the lead detective, Zach Crawford, remarked quote, �I�ve never seen the amount of blue star reagent that I have until this case. We could tell due to the condition of the blood at the time that it was apparent that some

sort of cleanup had happened at that location. District Attorney Cody Wamp later asked Detective Crawford how much blood was recovered from Jason Chen's apartment and he replied, quote, at least a liter of fluid. And to give you an idea, the average person can lose around two and a half to four liters of blood before dying

and one liter was just what wasn't cleaned up in this apartment. Like so much blood, it stained Jason's bedroom floor, that it had soaked through the carpet. In addition to the blood, they found broken glass, which indicated that a struggle had occurred. A toothbrush of jasmine was sent to the laboratory for a comparative DNA test, and all the blood found was confirmed to belong to her. As the world's population grows, so does the need for resources like potash to support sustainable food production. This is why BHP is building one of the world's most sustainable potash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced.

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Are you sure you're sure? Get answers you can trust from Salesforce at askmorevei.com. On Monday, November 28, 2022, before they had confirmations about DNA or information about the blood, Katrina shared a missing poster describing her daughter in detail and writing what they believed was Jasmine's intention. Quote, Jasmine Pace, aka Jazzy, was last seen November 22, 2022 by family. Her plan had been to leave the Chattanooga Tennessee area for a few days. Has not been heard from since and vehicle was tracked to 900 mountain creek road of Chattanooga. May have been with a male friend Jason Chen.

So again, this is still then believing that Jasmine did want to go off on her own for Thanksgiving, and that the text and the Facebook post really did come from her, but as we'll find, that was not the case. So that same day, police obtained security camera footage from Jason's apartment building, and what they found corroborated the grim discoveries inside. At 12.54pm on Wednesday, November 23rd, so about 10 hours after Jasmine sent the text with her location, Jason could be seen on surveillance footage leaving his apartment. He was wearing a disposable face mask and had one hand tucked into his pocket.

He then got into his gray Toyota Camry and drove off. Just under an hour later, at 141 pm, Jason arrived at a Walgreens near his house and purchased hydrogen peroxide and bandages. So it appeared that he heard his hand in the attack on Jasmine, but maybe feared that seeking medical attention would like heighten his culpability. Yeah, a lot of times we see this in a lot of cases where if somebody an attacker gets hurts during their attack,

they're like, I'm not gonna go to the hospital because then they're gonna question me, they're gonna ask, how did this happen? Yeah, then they know I have a cut. And that's why he had his hand in his pocket the whole time, like he was trying to hide probably from cameras that he had this cut on his hand. So hours later, at 7.03 pm, he returned to Walgreens for more of the same two things, so more of the bandages and hydrogen peroxide, plus rubbing alcohol and paper towels.

He also headed to Walmart and purchased an array of towels, cleaning supplies and sponges, later noted by both Katrina and the police. To clumsily cover his tracks, detectives noticed on his receipt that he rang up the cleaning supplies as a sparigus in the self-checkout line. And they checked that, so you're fucking dumb.

Yeah, so it's like, oh, if they find the receipt, I just bought some vegetables. Yeah, right. But they see on the footage that you are holding, cleaning supplies and not asparagus, which makes it look way worse, honestly. I mean, nice try, but did not work. No, so later that evening, he was seen dragging

an unknown item behind him on the street outside and then getting in his car with that item. At 8.27 pm, someone can be seen getting into Jasmine's car, which was parked at Jason's apartment complex and then they drove off, leaving it to be found at her apartment complex 12 minutes away. Detectives removed a total of 33 items from Jason's apartment that they felt were relevant to the investigation. And with the amount of blood they recovered, they warned Jasmine's family that it was unlikely that she would be found alive. Jason's cell phone record show that he had visited the airport in the days following Jasmine's disappearance that he had declined to actually

purchase a ticket. Which what does that tell us? Yeah, I'm sure he was there to purchase a ticket, but because he wanted to run exactly. So on November 29th, 2022, police arrested 22 year old Jason Chen in his parents' home in Nolan'sville, Tennessee, which is about two hours away from Chattanooga. And his arrest was based on probable cause due to what they found in his apartment. That day, his bond was set at $5 million, which is actually one of the highest in the history of the country. Jason's mom, Shu Feng Chen, claimed that someone from Jasmine's family had come out to her

home in Nolan'sville to ask about Jasmine's whereabouts, but that she had no idea what they were talking about. And when she asked Jason about Jasmine, he claimed that he didn't know anything about her disappearance at all. In Jason's bond hearing, Shu Feng tearfully testified that Jason didn't have any mental health issues that she knew of, and that he'd always been a good kid. Well, I mean, considering everybody at school is talking about how often weird he is,

like, no offense, but how much are you paying attention? Yeah, maybe you just don't know, or like most moms, they just want to defend their child, but, uh, yeah, I mean, everybody said he was weird. But when police showed up at her home to arrest Jason, he seemed to be expecting them, because he greeted them by saying, quote, do you have a warrant? On November 30, Katrina shared on Facebook, quote, this morning I received the news that my daughter, Jasmine Pace's missing case, has been transferred to a homicide case.

Jason Chan is now in custody as the number one suspect. For everyone who has been following along and offered so much support and help on this case, the outpouring of true love and support from the community this past week has meant more than I can explain. I ask that our community and everyone that has been affected by this horrific event, everyone that has a daughter, a sister, a mother, a grand mother can sympathize with what we're being forced to process. We will live with this for the rest of our lives. Please continue to stand behind us. Anyone that knows anything, no matter how insignificant it may seem. Please, please report it to the Chattanooga PD.

We will be updating all court dates, et cetera, in the future, and ask that people come to show their support for Jazzy and demand justice. The Chattanooga Police Department still needs our help finding my daughter. Please don't share information with anyone except for the Police Department. Please don't give his defense team anything to help him escape full justice.

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 after nine days of searching, investigators located Jasmine's body. On the 1,000 block of Suck Creek Road in the lush wooded area just outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, investigators recovered a suitcase that contained the remains of Jasmine pace. Disturbingly, Jasmine had suffered over 60 stab wounds to her right side, including defensive wounds to her arms and hands proving that she had tried to fight Jason off. After her death, she had been placed in the fetal position with one of her arms tied to her ankle inside of a trash bag. She was then laid inside a suitcase which was dumped on the side of the road. After being seen lugging an item behind him on the evening of Jasmine's disappearance,

Jason's phone pinged in the exact area of Sutt Creek where Jasmine was found, proving that he was in that spot after she died. Following an emotionally charged press conference to offer updates on the investigation, District Attorney Cody Wamp remarked quote, the fact that I have to say the words garbage bag and package when we're dealing with a 22 year old young woman who has friends and family who care about her is heinous. And after his arrest from jail, Jason actually told his mom that he wished he had taken his own life before being arrested, so if that doesn't say guilt along with everything else, I don't know what does.

Yeah, I mean, we pretty much knew it all along. Strangely in the wake of his arrest, yet another account emerged of Jason falsifying his identity. Jason had routinely been stealing the pictures of someone else online and posting them as if they were himself, and he had even posted them to his dating profile, which may mean that Jasmine had matched with him under false pre-tenses in the first place. A man named Taylor Han took to TikTok to accuse Jason of stealing his pictures and impersonating him on social media and also dating apps.

And I will say I did look at Taylor's video and what pictures he was talking about. So it's not like, or at least in this case with Taylor. It's not like Jason took somebody else's photos of their complete face and pretended to be a completely different person. Like he took some of Taylor's photos where Taylor's face is not being shown.

Like, there are cool pictures of Taylor and he's standing in this hoodie and he has this like rock on symbol covering his entire face. There's another picture where Taylor has this big scarf and the scarf is covering the lower portion of his face only showing his eyes and his black hair. So the eyes and black hair are somewhat similar to Jason's eyes and black hair. But overall, that is a different person, but his face was mostly covered. You know what I mean? Right.

So the photos that he stole, in this case at least, you couldn't really see the person's face. But it was Taylor. Exactly. And multiple people apparently reached out to Taylor and the wake of Jason's arrest, just to tell him that they believed his photos were circulating online and that there was no effort

being made to discern Taylor from a murderer. Well, right, because that was the problem is these photos of Taylor were being used when talking about Jason and Taylor's like, that's me and I am not a killer. So let's clear that up. Exactly. In fact, when Katrina first alerted her community on Facebook that she believed Jason

to be involved, she actually unknowingly shared a picture of Taylor because Jason had posted it as if it were himself, so there was a lot of confusion there. Taylor said, quote, I did not know he was using my photos, nor would I allow that shit because that's just weird. I've known him for the longest time and he's always been weird and fake. So that's also the crazy part is that he actually knew Taylor. Which makes it even weirder that he's posting his photos like, it's just easier to get connected to somebody else and for people to know that it's fake.

It's like, oh, that's Taylor, the guy we all know and go to school with or whatever. Yeah, you're not using some random persons from like, yeah, from like a different state or country or whatever. Exactly. So Jasmine's friend Emma also took to TikTok to address the situation explaining, quote,

people that know of Jason have come forward and say that he has a history of stealing phones, stealing from jobs that he's worked at, can't hold a job, he's posted pretending to be other people, so I have no doubt in my mind that he is the one doing this, and the one on her social media accounts, which obviously we all believe as well. Jason Chen appeared in court for his bond hearing on December 9, 2022, which was heavily attended by Jasmine's family and friends, including Katrina, who news reports say was staring his ass down.

In March of this year, so 2023, Jason Chen was officially charged with both first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse. But Jasmine's legal team hit a snag when Jason's defense attorneys filed for the murder charged to be overturned. In July of 2023, Jason's lawyers attempted to vacate his indictment for murder and to start his court proceedings from the beginning. Now their reason was that the first two times that Jason's apartment was entered, once by Katrina and a second time by investigating officers, police had not yet obtained a

warrant. So by the time detectives gained access to the apartment to test for blood stains, the warrant had been secured, but not before that. And obviously, Katrina was able to enter the apartment to look for her daughter, and to remove those crucial items that belonged to Jasmine. When the police came by for an initial visit, the door had been left unlocked, and they stepped into Canvas the property. His lawyer explained, quote, there were actually two searches done into the defendant's residence, one by the Pace family and another by the police,

prior to their ever being a search conducted with a search warrant. Jason's attorneys also said they wanted the opportunity to cross-examine Katrina at one of Jason's preliminary hearings and not be able to do so. Lead detectives Zach Crawford confirmed that this was in fact the sequence of events leading up to obtaining the search warrant, but said that Katrina's efforts were well-intentioned and that she had simply been dropping in under the guise of finding her daughter. When Jasmine's belongings were there, she picked them up for her and everything she removed from the home was later turned over to the police So their point is like well, she didn't know that Jasmine had Abe and murdered and B

Didn't really suspect that Jason and murdered her. She was just saying Oh, it's my daughter in this apartment with her boyfriend or is she somewhere else? And then I see a few things that are hers and I'm like I'm just gonna gather them up take them out. Because Katrina couldn't have imagined at that point that her daughter was deceased. So it's a little complicated. Detective Crawford also admitted that two officers gained access to Jason's apartment when they first came by to look for him. And after entering through the unlocked door, they surveyed the apartment and finding that he wasn't home.

They left without removing anything or noticing anything nefarious. Thankfully, the judge ruled, quote, the defendant is not entitled to relief on this issue. But the defense team latched onto this loophole, obfuscating Jason's clear guilt and zeroing in on hoping that an oversight would grant Jason Leneancy. Their argument at his trial will likely rely heavily on what they're calling illegally obtained evidence and painting Katrina as a home invader. But Jasmine's team feels prepared to see justice for her and thoroughly believe that they have enough evidence to do so. Jasmine's friend Bailey candidly said, quote,

The absolute rage in me praise this man faces the max sentence for the rest of his life. And despite how hard it was to be there today, this was a win for Jazzy, and we will continue to fight until Jason Chen is brought to justice on the evil he is. Jasmine's trial is currently set for June 11th, 2024. So we will update you guys after that news hits in the trial begins, which is like at least 7 months from now, so it's a little bit out. But it feels clear to us that Jasmine Paces true story will prevail, and the monster that killed her will spend the rest of his life paying for it.

Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and on Friday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. Even though this happened across the country from where we lived, I am really surprised that I had not heard about this story before it was recommended to us. Yeah, very shocking case. Yeah, after diving into it over the past week, I'm just shocked because this is really just a crazy story and

there's so much evidence in it and I can't believe I hadn't heard of it before. So thank you again to everybody who recommended it. We really appreciate you. If you have a story that you want to share, email us at going westpodcast.gmail.com. We have so many cases on our list, but we're really trying to get to, obviously as many as we can, we have two episodes a week. So we got a lot of space to cover cases cases but thank you guys for listening to Jasmine's story and we will see is that it? Do we have any sales to report? I don't think we have anything else to report.

Yeah so thank you guys for listening and we'll see you next time. All right guys so for everybody out there in the world don't be a stranger. Thank you. you