Going West: True Crime - Jennifer Odom // 280

Starting point is 00:00:00 What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Tee. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to going west. Howdy everybody, happy Friday! Big thanks to Samantha for recommending today's case. And thank you so much to everybody who sends recommendations in general. We have hundreds of cases on our list, so we are getting through them as quickly as we can to a week baby. But even so, if you are all caught up on going west and you need more episodes, we have over 80 bonus episodes over on our Patreon. If you head on over to patreon.com slash going west podcast, you can access all of and you need more episodes. We have over 80 bonus episodes over on our Patreon.

Starting point is 00:00:45 If you head on over to patreon.com slash going west podcast, you can access all of those. And actually, we're going to be moving over to Apple Podcast subscriptions. Don't worry, that doesn't mean that our show is gonna be behind a paywall. It's only going to be for the bonus episodes. I think it's gonna be $10 a month.

Starting point is 00:01:03 You're gonna get two bonus episodes every month, full length, ad free, and then our entire back catalog, if you're interested in joining, if not, is not our requirement. Yeah, I mean, it's basically gonna be the same thing as Patreon, it's just gonna make it a little bit easier for Apple users to subscribe for bonus episodes. Exactly, which we love, we love convenience, and I love Apple podcasts anyway.

Starting point is 00:01:25 So, you know, that just makes it so much easier to listen if you want to. But we're gonna have that launched probably by the end of next week. So stay tuned for that. All right guys, this is episode 280 of Going West. So let's get into it. In February of 1993, a 12-year-old girl disappeared near her home in rural Florida after a day at school.

Starting point is 00:02:21 Her community banded together to find her, but six days after she went missing, her body was found in an orange grove 10 miles from the bus stop where she had last been seen. With multiple suspects in mind and a vehicle description, police worked hard to catch her killer. This is the story of Jennifer Odom. Jennifer Renee Odom was born on August 25, 1980, near Dade City, Florida, which is a town of less than 10,000 people nestled between Tampa and Orlando. Jennifer was born to newly wed's Renee and Sydney Odom, who were just about 20 years old when she was born. And soon after they had Jennifer, her mom Renee gave birth to Jennifer's sister Jessica.

Starting point is 00:03:26 Eventually, juggling two babies and a new marriage proved to be too much for Renee and Sidney, so they decided to divorce. And with that, Sidney moved over to the city of Orlando and didn't seem to have much involvement in the girls' lives after that point. Although Renee claims that she and Sidney were unhappy, she was still very hesitant to get a divorce and explains that she likely would have stayed married regardless of her misery, but when Sidney wound up leaving her, it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened for her and her daughters.

Starting point is 00:04:01 It was then that Renee met Clark Converse, who was a very kind and gentle man who proved to be a wonderful stepfather to the girls. Clark had been married before as well, in fact twice, and had a son with each wife, so two kids just like Renee. But because he traveled for work, his ex-wives maintained primary custody of his sons. Although Clark really yearned for a more traditional day-to-day life, where he could, you know, be home with his children more. Renee and Clark got married, and Clark actually legally adopted Jessica, who remember is Jennifer's

Starting point is 00:04:37 younger sister, so he adopted her as her, her, her, his own, and, uh, she officially became a converse. And according to Jessica in an interview she did later on, she said, quote, he was planning to adopt Jennifer but didn't have the time. The four of them settled on Jennifer's family's sprawling 15-acre property in sleepy St. Joseph Florida. St. Joseph is just a short drive from Dade City, and both are situated in Pasco County. Now according to her family, Jennifer was a joyful and kind little girl who was quote

Starting point is 00:05:12 full of life. Rename recalls her affinity for animals, especially the family's spring or spaniel named Gypsy. But Jennifer really lit up when she was on the water. Because she was a barefoot water skier, and she was actually once named the seventh best in the country in her age group. That's wild. I've always wanted to water ski, I've never done it,

Starting point is 00:05:33 but it sounds awesome. Get to it. So she also had a passion for playing the clarinet in her middle school's band. At 12 years old, Jennifer was attending seventh grade at Thomas E. Waitman Middle School. She was an honorals student and she was well liked and respected by her teachers and also by many friends alike. Starting to enjoy the freedoms that came with being almost a teenager,

Starting point is 00:05:57 Jennifer was now allowed to walk home alone from the school bus stop, where she had the family's home tour cell for about an hour before she would be joined by her little sister Jessica, who was actually still in elementary school at this time. Friday, February 19, 1993, began like any other day. Jennifer was particularly looking forward to that weekend as she would be playing clarinet in her school's band's competition over in Tampa the following day. Their morning routine consisted of Renee driving Jennifer to the bus stop and then driving away along with the bus until their paths diverged.

Starting point is 00:06:34 Renee remembered, quote, she would always wave goodbye to me. That morning, Jennifer was wearing white pants and a white turtleneck shirt under a red cashmere sweater. Over it, she pulled a white hooter zip-up hoodie, yes, that hooters, with the logo on the sleeve, and she was carrying a teal backpack, a brown purse, and a black clarinet case with the initials L-O because it had originally belonged to her cousin. And then her shoes were lace up black boots. So each day actually Renee would drive Jennifer

Starting point is 00:07:08 to wear her school bus picked up, which was near the end of the family's very winding driveway, which spanned about 600 feet. So it was a super short drive that Jennifer surely could have walked, but it kind of gave them a moment together before they started their days, especially since, you know, Jennifer would have to walk back up at the end of the day, at least Renee could take her down to the bus stop so she didn't have to do that walk alone twice daily. Yeah, I mean, that's just kind of a nice moment.

Starting point is 00:07:36 Like, I remember my mom taking me to middle school, even though it was like, you know, like less than a half a mile away. Yeah, yours was really close. Yeah, I could have definitely walked it, but she just liked to have those mornings with us. Yeah, absolutely. So insane with Renee and Jennifer. So at the end of the driveway,

Starting point is 00:07:53 sat the Converse Family's mailbox near the intersection of Jim Denney and Jessamon Roads and the former Jim Denney is actually named for Renee's father, because remember, this is like the family's property. So Renee remembers watching her daughter take a spot at the back of the bus and waving to her out the back window. And that would be the last time she would ever see her daughter. Later that day around 4 p.m. her sister Jessica arrived home to, you know, commence their afternoon routine of Jennifer letting her in before their parents arrived home from work.

Starting point is 00:08:29 But Jennifer didn't answer the door and the house was locked and completely dark. So this was very odd and unlike Jennifer, who usually arrived home around 3pm, which again would have been an hour earlier. Renee's parents, so the girls' grandparents, lived on the same property, so Jessica walked up to their house to request a spare key. And when she did, Jessica went back down and opened the door to a very quiet house that was devoid of both Jennifer and her school belongings as if she hadn't been home at all. Confused, Jessica called her mother Renee at work who worried instantly. It just wasn't like Jennifer to make plans without consulting her first and she didn't understand why she wouldn't be home.

Starting point is 00:09:18 So Renee called one of Jennifer's best friends whose name is Michelle, who told Renee that she remembered seeing Jennifer get off the bus that day, and that she hadn't heard from her since. Renee said sadly, right then I knew. I knew it was bad, and it was bad. Now being a little girl herself, Michelle was, you know, haunted by her friend's disappearance, which happened practically before her eyes. Jennifer had even asked Michelle if she'd wanted to come over to practice their clarinetes for the band concert that was coming up the following day, but Michelle declined,

Starting point is 00:09:54 knowing that she needed permission from her mom, so they made plans to meet up later. Michelle's mother said that the guilt has stuck with her forever, she said, quote, she second-guessed that for a long time, whether that would have prevented it. Of course, the other side of that is, it could have been both of them. And unfortunately, Jennifer was the only student who actually got off at that particular stop, making her a very easy target to single out. Fellow students remember pulling up to the stop around 2.45pm that Friday afternoon, and

Starting point is 00:10:27 Michelle remembers Jennifer waving to her and telling her to call her later. Multiple students saw her walking toward the direction of her family's driveway, but the bus pulled away before any were witnessed to what actually happened to her. Not willing to wait in hopes of hearing from her, Renee called the Pasco County Sheriff's Office immediately and reported her daughter missing. They, like Renee, were instantly concerned. I mean, she's a 12 year old girl who people saw get off of this bus and now she is gone. Especially because the bus stop is essentially at the bottom of their driveway.

Starting point is 00:11:02 So it's like there is a very short distance between that bus stop and her front door, like I said about 600 feet of driveway. So where else would she have gone? Right. And as an unincorporated community blanket it in orchards and orange groves, St. Joseph itself housed only about 100 residents. One local paper printed quote, in this rural area, a crime like the murder of Jennifer Odom affects nearly everyone, because here, neighbors are not strangers. I mean, it can't even imagine something like that happening in such a small community.

Starting point is 00:11:35 Right, and as we'll talk about, I mean, and as you kind of just said, like her murder, as we're going to get into, not to jump ahead, made such a big impact on this community because of this whole, we know everybody type of scenario, which always makes it so much harder and so much closer to everybody because everybody is so familiar with everybody else. Then you can imagine the amount of possible

Starting point is 00:12:01 finger pointing going on and also, the thought that was this just a, the thought that, you know, was this just a stranger blowing in from, you know, blowing through town? Right, yeah, like you're saying. And, or like the rumors would be rampant of like, if somebody's kind of weird in town, people would wonder if it's them.

Starting point is 00:12:17 Like there's so much more of that, I think than there would be in a larger area. Exactly, and actually Jennifer is stepfather Clark, echoed this sentiment saying, quote, for us, we don't wanna believe that we could actually be shaking hands with or sitting down with the person who did this. I think we rationalize, oh, it wasn't somebody we know

Starting point is 00:12:37 because we don't want it to be somebody that we know. But the reality is that, you know, in such a small community, that is a distinct possibility. Absolutely. So law enforcement started by questioning the other students with whom Jennifer had been on the bus to see if any of them had noticed anything or any one suspicious around the time that Jennifer was dropped off. Because these are the only people that would have seen anything. And, you know, of course, they were kids. So, a few of them actually did see something,

Starting point is 00:13:09 but while no one was able to comment on the appearance of the driver or whether or not he was accompanied, several students remember seeing a car idling near the bus stop that afternoon, after Jennifer was dropped off, or while she was being dropped off. So parked on Jimmy Denny Road had been what was described by the students as a quote,

Starting point is 00:13:31 faded blue pickup truck. The truck was a bit older, believed to be a 1970s or 1980s model, but remember this case takes place in 1993, so not that old, and likely a general motor's make. It had a silver-painted bumper, and there's an important distinction here. It was not chrome, it was metal that appeared to have been painted silver. On the rear of the vehicle was a tractor hitch, hanging wires and pipes, or potentially a ladder.

Starting point is 00:14:08 Some kids even claim that they saw the car start to follow Jennifer's path as the bus drove away. So with that as their only lead, police really grabbed hold of the theory that the driver of the truck was to blame for Jennifer's disappearance. In just 24 hours, police stopped and questioned the drivers of hundreds of pale blue trucks in and around Pasco County. And as you can imagine, with many drivers of pickups in the surrounding farming community, this was a monumental task. But unfortunately, none of them led to Jennifer. So, the family was gripped in fear. I mean, Renee didn't step away from the phone all weekend,

Starting point is 00:14:55 just hoping that someone would call with good news. Renee's father Jim and her husband Clark conducted their own voracious search of the area, just looking everywhere that they thought she might have been taken. Police took the matter seriously as well. The area was terrified at the possibility of a child of Doctor or a potential murderer among them, so other than to most importantly get justice for Jennifer and her family, the police had reason to find her of Dr. and fast. Police did contact Jennifer's biological father Sidney, of course, in Orlando, but they

Starting point is 00:15:35 found no reason to believe that he had been involved. So soon enough, searches spilled over into neighboring counties and hundreds of volunteers consisting of firefighters, officers, and concerned citizens alike scoured the areas surrounding Jennifer's home. It expanded to include searchers on horseback, helicopter, and even via the Air Force. Kedavardogs were also utilized searching surrounding farms, pastors, orchards, orange Groves, and Forested Areas. The Red Cross provided close to 400 meals for locals, aiding in the search for Jennifer. And local supermarkets put forward donated tissue boxes for students returning to Jennifer's

Starting point is 00:16:16 school for the start of the new school week. Love seeing stuff like this. Yeah, I mean, they just really banded together here. So by the following Monday, Jennifer was still nowhere to be found, and there was still no sign of her clothing, backpack, or her clarinet, which she had brought home with her on Friday in anticipation of her concert the following day. So on that Monday, the FBI were called in to assist in the search. Over 60 square miles, or about 100 square kilometers, were searched in just the first 48 hours alone.

Starting point is 00:16:51 Tips flooded in mostly sightings of a blue pickup truck, but none that led them to the driver believed to have abducted Jennifer here. So was the weekend drew to a close, police announced, quote, in our description, we don't have anything distinguishable other than the truck. We've stopped a lot of blue trucks in the last 24 hours, I can assure you that. Remember, this is Pasco, virtually everybody's got a pickup truck.

Starting point is 00:17:17 But Jennifer's family would soon have answers. Just not nearly the answers that they were looking for, because sadly, just shy of a week after her disappearance? On Thursday, February 25, 1993, Jennifer's body was found. Renee said later that she had always told her daughters should they run into trouble to run into and quote zigzag the orange grove in order to lose whomever was after them. She said quote, I can find you in the orange grove. And this was advice that would prove tragically foreboding. Because 12-year-old Jennifer's remains were found naked and face down in an abandoned

Starting point is 00:18:03 orange grove in neighboring Hernando County. Likely due to the six days of exposure to the elements, she was described as severely decomposed. Around 11 a.m. that morning, a local couple had happened upon her body while searching the grove and they called police right away. She had been discarded about 600 feet off of Powell Road in a Grove located about 10 miles or 16 kilometers from her family home. Dental records along with Renee's confirmation of the jewelry that she had been wearing substantiated the discovery. And by that evening, it had been announced that all hopes of finding her alive had come to an end.

Starting point is 00:18:50 At this point, the search had transitioned, of course, from looking for Jennifer to looking for evidence that would bring her murderer to justice. So while Renee, Clark, and Jessica begin their harrowing grieving process, the police continued to dig for answers. And autopsy was conducted on Jennifer's remains, but they concluded that she had likely died from blunt force trauma to the head.

Starting point is 00:19:19 And because she was found naked, it's possible that she had been assaulted, but also because of the level of decomposition, it was just impossible to tell. Mercifully, it did seem as if she had been in her final resting place, since shortly after she had been abducted, so it didn't appear that she suffered very long. Again, the small community just really rallied behind Jennifer's family. Billboards stunning her picture and asking for information dotted the roadside and boasted a $20,000 reward.

Starting point is 00:19:53 Her story was also even featured on two separate episodes of Unsolved Mysteries over the years. But somehow, there was just no sign of the pickup truck or her belongings. And also, no indication as to what fate may have been falling between when she was last seen and when her body was found six days later. This story had rocked the area so much that close to a thousand people attended her memorial. And like you said, there's only about a hundred people living in her community alone. So this really just outstretched.

Starting point is 00:20:27 Right. People from Pasco County and, you know, other counties came to this memorial to share their respects. One fellow student who was Jennifer's age remembers quote, it was my first encounter with danger, with evil. A plaque was hung in the hallway of Jennifer's school that read, quote, Remember Jenny, don't walk alone. Jennifer's family pastor who performed both her baptism and her funeral said, quote, this truly is God's country, or at least it was until some criminal invaded it. There is a sickness on our land. Time passed

Starting point is 00:21:03 excruciatingly slowly as her killer remained at large and would take close to two years for investigators to come across any evidence in this case. But finally, on January 5th, 1995, they did. Before that quick break, we explained that it took almost two years for evidence to be found regarding Jennifer's disappearance. But then, on Thursday, January 5, 1995, a couple out searching for scrap metal happened upon Jennifer's black clarinet case and her teal backpack. Inside the backpack was one of her textbooks still adorned with her handwritten name. So these items were recovered from a thicket behind Oak Hill Hospital in Spring Hill, Florida, which is over 25 miles or 40 kilometers from her home.

Starting point is 00:22:23 But strangely, her clothing was not found with the items that were recovered, which indicated multiple dumping spots or interference. However, there were fingerprints on the items that didn't match those of the couple who discovered them, nor Jennifer's family, or Jennifer herself. But sadly, these were never matched to anyone. And crazy enough, this was the last evidence found in Jennifer's case, which now happened 30 years ago with the last evidence being discovered 28 years ago. But there have been plenty of suspects since then, so let's get into that portion of this story.

Starting point is 00:23:06 So in March of 1994, so just over a year after Jennifer's murder, police announced their first person of interest, a man named Frank Potts. Now according to the Sheriff Major, he said, quote, it seems wherever Mr. Potts is, people disappear and die. If what we suspect is true, Mr. Potots is, people disappear and die. If what we suspect is true, Mr. Pots is indeed a serial killer. Frank had been working on a farm in Lakeland, Florida, which is about an hour away from where Jennifer lived around the time of her murder, and he had a very dark criminal history filled with ludaxe involving children.

Starting point is 00:23:43 So at the time he became a potential suspect in Jennifer's case, Frank was serving jail time for sexual battery against an 11-year-old girl. While Frank was originally from Florida, he owned a large property consisting of 40 acres in the neighboring state of Alabama. In early March of 1994, while Frank was being held without bail for assaulting the young

Starting point is 00:24:05 girl in Lakeland, authorities searched his property, and they found the body of a young man buried within its limits. The sheriff announced that they were contacted by authorities across Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and New York in connection with missing persons. All of those states had connections to Frank Potts when he worked as a migrant farm laborer. He was also said to have owned a blue 1978 GM pickup truck at the time, which again is the type of car believed to be involved in Jennifer's abduction and murder. In anonymous tip to the Pasco County Police said quote,

Starting point is 00:24:49 you need to look at Frank Potts. He likes kids and he has a blue pickup truck. Police were able to seize the truck, eventually, which had changed in appearance since Jennifer's murder, but found no evidence that Jennifer was ever inside. But to be fair, if he was involved, he had over a year to make sure that there wasn't any evidence left behind. So basically at this point, unable to connect him directly to Jennifer's murder, Frank Potts was released as a suspect.

Starting point is 00:25:18 And four years after this in 1998, another suspect emerged, this, accused by his own wife of his involvement. Walter Ducharm was in his early 30s and living in Pasco County at the time of Jennifer's abduction and murder, so he was right there. Now he already had a lengthy rap sheet at this time, including exposing himself to an underage girl, burglary, theft, drunk driving, driving with a loaded gun, and multiple violations of restraining orders from former partners. However, this did not prove his involvement in Jennifer's case specifically, but when his estranged wife Kimberly accused him of child abuse against her

Starting point is 00:26:05 son, who was Walter Stepson, she told police that she also believed him to be linked to Jennifer's murder. 31-year-old Walter married Kimberly when she was just 18, and she claims that the abuse started immediately. She had a baby from a previous relationship and the two then had a daughter together, and in 1993, so the same year that Jennifer was murdered, Kimberly claimed that Walter beat her so bad that it caused her to miscarry. He was convicted of aggravated battery for this and explained that he had a severe drinking problem and that he was also unaware of how

Starting point is 00:26:45 to stop. A letter that he wrote to Kimberly, red quote, �I am still drinking. I'll never stop. You know me, drink, drink, drink. I don't know how to stop. I don't want to. I live to drink." The investigation into his involvement went as far as to extra-dite him from his home in Maine back to Florida, where he had been living at the time of Jennifer's murder. A jury heard two days of testimony in a case against him, but ultimately concluded that there were, quote, many inconsistencies and factual inaccuracies in the allegation. And so here this, like Kimberly later recanted her statement that Walter, from whom she was then divorced, was involved in Jennifer's murder.

Starting point is 00:27:35 And by that point, Kimberly herself was serving jail time for child abuse, and she herself then confessed to the abduction and murder of Jennifer Odom, which is a confession that was very quickly met with skepticism, of course, and ultimately deemed false. She later admitted to involving herself simply because she loved and craved the attention, writing in a letter quote, I'm sorry I brought this whole mess on myself with these lies. What are what is up with these fucked up people? I mean, I think that in particular is very sad that you're going to, you know, accuse your husband and then accuse yourself. And it's like, what do you think? How do you think that Jennifer's family feels about you just

Starting point is 00:28:20 making up all the shit? Right. yeah. Like on their daughter's account. Exactly, yeah. You're just basically at that point, you're just torturing this poor family. Because obviously when you say- Because they want attention. Right, and when you say shit like that, police are obviously gonna have to investigate it,

Starting point is 00:28:35 and that just brings up all these bad memories for the family and the, again. And it was police's time. And this went to court like absolute insanity. What a dumb dumb. So anyway, Thomas Ellis Brown was also another man believed to be in the area at the time and his checkered past raised eyebrows among investigators. In 2003, an article printed that over the past 35 years,

Starting point is 00:29:01 Thomas had been arrested more than 70 times in eight different states, most recently for trying to lure a 16-year-old girl into his car while he sat inside naked. So while this seemed like a pretty promising lead, Thomas was confirmed to have been in Maine at the time of Jennifer's murder. As recently as 2015, a new person of interest emerged after his son's DNA tied him to a cold case of over 20 years. At 3pm on January 16th, 1992, almost exactly a year prior to Jennifer's murder, 17-year-old Carolyn Murray was abducted, attacked, and raped in Spring Hill, Florida.

Starting point is 00:29:45 And this is where Jennifer's backpack and clarinet were found. Jeffrey Norman Crumb Sr. had approached her when she was walking home from her bus stop after school, and kidnapped and raped her before leaving her for dead and a wooded area. But miraculously, she was lucky enough to be found by her family about two hours later before she could succumb to her injuries and she survived. Carolyn was eventually able to give a description to police, but her attacker went without apprehension for over two decades. And then, like you said, when Jeffrey's son, Jeffrey Crumb Jr. was arrested on charges of armed robbery,

Starting point is 00:30:26 a DNA sample that he entered into the system was a match for the rape kit done on Jeffrey's 1992 victim. Carolyn, who is now in her 40s, lived, but she sustained brain damage from how brutally Jeffrey had beaten her. And remember, Jennifer, at least they believed that Jennifer had died from blunt force trauma to the head. Yes, very good thing to note here. So doctors initially didn't even believe that Carolyn would pull through, and she had

Starting point is 00:30:59 to go or undergo, rather, multiple surgeries and fell into a coma. I mean, Jeffrey had hit her so hard in the head that she was missing a piece of her brain. So her left side remains paralyzed and she cannot speak in full sentences. She lives in a full-time care facility and her mother claims that she is still scared to go or even look outside from fear of what happened to her. Which is so horrible if you think about it, it literally ruined her life. Devastating. So in 2017, two years after Jeffrey's arrest for the attack of Carolyn Murray, authorities

Starting point is 00:31:38 announced that he was now a person of interest in the murder of Jennifer Odom. The similarities in the time and place and just the opportunism of the girls both having been getting off of the school bus have led many to believe that he is connected to Jennifer's case as well, but this has yet to be proven. In 2019, Jeffrey Crum Sr. was given two life sentences for what he did to Carolyn Murray. 16 months after Jennifer's murder, desperate for answers. Investigators actually brought in a psychic and a pretty unprecedented and controversial move. Psychics in criminal cases are rare and not proven effective, but this time they hoped that it would be.

Starting point is 00:32:26 cases are rare and not proven effective, but this time they hoped that it would be. Nancy Meyer of Pennsylvania had at that point assisted in over 300 criminal investigations and turned up clues 80% of the time. A retired police colonel who was interviewed on the episode of Unsolved Mysteries about Jennifer's case said of Nancy quote, When you come to a dead end and you have no place to go, if you have someone who can open a door and say, Hey, I think I can help you? And just through her psychic powers,

Starting point is 00:32:52 she's able to put us in another league. Then through good investigation techniques, we can go on, continue and solve the crime. And that's what we've done. So Nancy was brought to two places that were key to the investigation. The bus stop that Jennifer was believed to have been abducted from, and the orange grove where her body was found.

Starting point is 00:33:13 Now according to Nancy, Jennifer was likely abducted by the man in the blue pickup truck after he stopped her to, you know, innocuously ask for directions. At the time, investigators had yet to find any of Jennifer's missing belongings, and Nancy observed that they were discarded nearby and was also able to pinpoint a few of the items that were yet to be discovered, including the Claire and Net case without being prompted by police. Now Nancy explained with confidence that Jennifer had been abducted by two adult men. She described them as muscular and said that they likely worked as mechanics,

Starting point is 00:33:52 and one she described as a smoker with a persistent cough. But sadly suspects matching these descriptions have never been located, so it's hard to say if this was helpful or not. So it's hard to say if this was helpful or not. As recently as 2013, an officer was assigned full time to Jennifer's case, but that has yet to help them obtain the answers her loved ones so desperately deserve. It seems even a decade after that development that there are no closer to being able to solve the horrific murder of Jennifer Odom. Jennifer's case file is over 75,000 pages long, and then the three decades of the investigation, there have been hundreds of interviews and thousands of tips.

Starting point is 00:34:38 Each of these false starts were excruciating for Jennifer's family, and eventually, they petered out altogether. And with this case, it's so hard to speculate because even though we do have multiple persons of interest, which is great, it still just feels impossible because obviously there is so much that police have not released in Jennifer's case and then regarding these persons of interest.

Starting point is 00:35:01 But one thing that is big to me is just the fact that somebody was at this bus stop slash near the bottom of Jennifer's driveway to begin with, because this is a smaller community. It's a rural area. She herself lived on 40 acres of land. So that's how big the property was. So this is not just like a residential neighborhood where all these kids are, you know, popping off the bus

Starting point is 00:35:29 and this is a popular zone. Like it's a little bit more remote feeling. So I wonder how this person even knew to be there and knew to be there at that time, which is what would make me believe that this person was familiar with this particular street or was familiar with Jennifer or her family or the school bus is route. You know what I mean? Like one of those or else how the hell did they happen to end up in this place where only one kid gets off the bus? Right. And you know, it could be just simply the fact that they had been stalking Jennifer had been watching her for a period of time or it possibly it was just a very opportunistic situation they were passing by to go somewhere else that's

Starting point is 00:36:15 very true I think either one which is hard because which is it I mean in my personal opinion about this case I'm really leaning toward Jeffrey Crumb senior because of the fact that he had already attacked a girl, you know, around the same age and- Five years older, but I know what you mean, yeah. Right, an attacker in the same way, and then also the fact that police believed he drove a general motor as a blue pickup truck. I mean, it's just, there's too many connections for me to not notice. Well, and like you had mentioned, the whole blunt force trauma thing. So yeah, I definitely

Starting point is 00:36:49 agree with you. I just wish there was some form of DNA, but hopefully answers will come to this case at some point. And while her family is still alive to get that news. I mean, DNA these days is just incredible, and the things that they're doing to connect these criminals to the crimes is amazing. So I really feel like there's a lot of hope. Right, exactly, and that is how Jeffrey Crumb got, you know, was able to be convicted anyway and was caught. Exactly. Anyway, it was because of genealogy.

Starting point is 00:37:20 So, and DNA testing. So despite the passage of time, Jennifer, who would now be 43 years old, is still missed dearly by her family. Renee remarked, quote, we were very together as a family, and we're still that way. We just have one less, and she has missed all the time.

Starting point is 00:37:41 So if you have any information regarding the murder of Jennifer Odom, please call the Hernando County Crime Stoppers at 1-866-990-8477. 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 Tuesday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. As we always say, please don't forget to share this case. I mean, I feel like it's good to share every story, but especially the unsolved ones where people are desperately looking for answers all the time, sharing costs nothing

Starting point is 00:38:30 and it's so easy and it just helps. That's all it does, it just helps. Absolutely, you never know who has information out there. It's so true, especially if you're in Florida or near that area, but either way, you know, people move all around and we have so much reach on social media, et cetera. So thank you guys so much in advance for doing that. Thank you for tuning into this episode.

Starting point is 00:38:52 And we'll see you next week. All right guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

Starting point is 00:39:16 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% You you

Going West: True Crime - Jennifer Odom // 280

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.