MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Looking For Love Podcast Exclusive Episode

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

A young man was watching the local news while he ate breakfast one day in 2004, when a story about a savage murder came on. At first, the young man wasn’t paying close attention – the murder happened more than 100 miles away – but then a picture of the victim flashed across the screen. And the young man froze in shock. Slowly, he put down his spoon, abandoned his breakfast, and ran to his computer. He booted it up and started frantically searching through the chat logs of an old conversation. And after a few minutes, he found it. The young man printed the logs out, and called the police.  For 100s more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @MrBallen Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello fans of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious. I'm here today to tell you all about what it actually means now that we've moved over to the Sirius XM family. Big picture, it means we are going to make more content for you. Right now, you get one YouTube video a week on Saturday. Well, what we're going to do now is we're going to have the Saturday upload be the same, but then also the Mr. Ballin podcast. Well, we've begun already filming those episodes like a YouTube video.

So that's a second piece of content every week. then there's two other shows that you guys don't even know about yet, which means on any given week you could have up to four new video pieces of content on the Mr. Ballin channel. And also all these pieces of content will double as podcasts as well. This new content schedule is going to start early next year. Also, there's one other thing I want to clarify, which is the state of Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries and redacted.

Those shows were created in collaboration with Wondry, but now we're partnered with serious, and so we're not going to be making any new episodes of either of those shows. For now, if you want to hear my podcast episodes one week early and ad-free, make sure to subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit seriousxm.com slash podcast plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. Keep on the lookout for more announcements in the coming weeks. Thank you. One day in 2004, a young man was eating breakfast to watching the local news when suddenly this story about a savage murder came on.

Now, at first, the young man actually wasn't paying all that much attention to this story, you know, in part because this murder happened pretty far away from where he lived, about 100 miles away. But at some point, on the news, the picture of the murder victim flashed across the screen. And when he saw it, he just froze. And for a minute, that's all he did. He just stared at the screen, could not believe what he was seeing. He put his food down, and then he rushed over to his computer.

he fired it up and immediately began searching through the chat log of an old conversation he had had. And after scrolling for a little while, he eventually found what he was looking for. And at that point, he printed out the entire chat log and rushed to go show the police. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please go over to the Fall of Button's house and proceed to eat all their food in their fridge, but put back all the empty containers. Okay, let's get into today's story. On the evening of June 3rd, 2004, a 23-year-old college junior named Jesse Valencia walked into a

restaurant in Columbia, Missouri. His friends were already there. They were sitting at a table in the back of the restaurant, and as soon as they saw him, they waved him over, and so Jesse made his way over to sit with them. Jesse was a student at the University of Missouri, and he was majoring in journalism and pre-law. The spring semester had just ended a few weeks ago, and as much as Jesse had loved the semester and he really had enjoyed what he was studying, he was looking forward to some time off. He wanted to see his friends and go to some good parties. Jesse had always been a very outgoing person with a very active social life, but sometimes that characteristic sort of got him in trouble. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, he'd had to go to court over a charge of obstructing a government operation, which he'd picked up two months earlier when he refused to lose to,

leave a house party that the cops were breaking up. And as soon as he sat down at the table with his friends, one of them immediately asked him like, hey, how'd that court hearing go? And Jesse had said, you know, it didn't go too well. He thought the whole thing was kind of ridiculous, and he had hoped the charge would have been dropped already. But when he had gone to the courtroom, he found out the charge had actually been upgraded. The prosecutor had changed it to obstructing a government operation by physical interference, which was worse. But Jesse said, you know, he still wasn't that worried about it. He said he had pleaded not guilty, and his plan was to fight this thing to the very end, even if it took all summer.

However, the reality was this charge was actually the least of Jesse's problems. He had much bigger things weighing on his mind that summer. His longtime boyfriend, Jack Barry, had broken up with him recently, and he was having a very hard time coping with that. Jack had wanted to stay friends, but the reality was, even though, you know, the intention was good, it just made things harder for Jesse, because it meant that Jesse and Jack were still spending quite a bit of time together and still talking and socializing. And while Jack felt like things were over romantically, Jesse didn't feel that way.

It just sort of felt like they were perpetually on the verge of getting back together, even though they weren't. And then whenever Jesse would try to talk to Jack about maybe trying to make things work again, Jack would immediately just turn him down. And so the whole situation was just really difficult. And so without Jack anymore, Jesse had become very lonely. and he had been trying to fill that void with random hookups, you know, meeting guys online and inviting them to the hotel where he worked as a night clerk, but for the most part, it was sort of shallow and didn't mean anything. At one point, Jesse had been having this secret affair with an older man,

which had been exciting, but deep down, what Jesse really wanted was just a real relationship like he had had with Jack, and these random hookups were not that. And so at this point, basically every time Jesse went out socially, you know, no matter what he was doing, he was always kind of on the hunt for somebody who could potentially have, you know, long-term relationship potential. And this night was no exception. And so that night, Jesse and his friends had a nice dinner together. And then when they were done, they left the restaurant and walked a few blocks to a gay dance club called Soco Club.

It was dark and the music was loud and thumping. And as soon as they walked inside, Jesse immediately weaved his way through the crowd on the dance floor over to the DJ booth. He asked the DJ to play his favorite song, which was Billy Jean by, Michael Jackson. And the DJ just sort of rolled their eyes. Jesse knew the DJ was very likely annoyed with him because Jesse requested that song every single time he came to this club. But Jesse never had let other people's opinions stop him from doing what he wanted. And so he didn't care. He just wanted this song played. And so after he had made his request, Jesse went over to the bar and ordered a drink. And while he waited, he saw a young man standing alone at the other end

of the bar. Once the bartender passed Jesse's drink, Jesse went over and asked the man if he wanted to dance. The man smiled and said, sure. And then one dance turned into two, turned into three, and pretty soon the two had spent the whole night together. Now, it was hard to hear each other over the loud music, but over the course of several dances, Jesse had learned that this man's name was Ed McDavitt, and he was training to be a chef. Jesse felt like Ed was a really nice, cool guy, and it seemed like they had an immediate connection. And so when the club closed, Jesse asked if Ed wanted to come home with him. Ed said yes. And after that, Jesse asked his friend Jennifer if she wouldn't mind giving them a ride back to Jesse's apartment. She said, of course. And so shortly

after that, the trio left the club. They got in Jennifer's car and they drove back to Jesse's apartment. And when Jesse and Ed got out, Jennifer said, hey, you know, tomorrow night I'm having a party at my place. You two should come by. And Jesse, he turned to Ed and kind of winked at him and said, yeah, hopefully we'll both be there. And then Jennifer drove off. After Jennifer had driven off, Jesse walked Ed down the stairs to his very run-down basement apartment. And as soon as they went inside, Ed saw the sea of all these history books stacked all over the living room. It would turn out Jesse was really into ancient Greek history. And so Ed began walking around, opening up all these old history books. And as Ed did, you know, Jesse began regaling him with, you know, tales of the

Battle of Thermopy, you know, how the Spartans were outnumbered and how they prevailed and talking about Zeus and the ancient Greek gods and just kind of going off all the stuff that Jesse really enjoyed about, you know, ancient Greek history. You know, and Ed, as he listened to it, just said, you know, I really don't know much about history, but it's really fascinating that you're so into it. And so from there, the rest of the night went great for the two of them. They would spend the night together. And then at 10 a.m. the next morning, as Ed was getting ready to leave, they made plans to meet up again at Jennifer's party that night. Before Ed left, he wrote his phone number down on a scrap piece of paper and gave it to Jesse.

And Jesse took the paper and then walked Ed to the door and gave him a hug and a kiss before he left. And then once he was gone, Jesse just hoped that, you know, maybe this wasn't just a meaningless hookup. Maybe this had the basis of a strong, long-term relationship. The one thing Ed really wanted. Around noon that day, Jesse was eating a quick lunch before heading. out for work when he heard a knock on his door. He walked over and opened it up and he saw his landlord standing in the hallway. And his landlord looked pretty mad. He told Jesse that, hey, it's the fourth of the month and you still haven't paid rent. Jesse apologized profusely and just said, you know, it totally slipped his mind and he promised he would get it to the landlord that afternoon.

But after the landlord accepted his answer and, you know, Jesse shut the door, he couldn't help but have this sort of sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Because the truth was, he didn't have the money. Jesse had grown up in a very poor family in a small town in Kentucky. He was actually the first person in his whole family to go to college, and he had paid his bills by working as a hotel clerk, the same job as mother had had back home. Now, Jesse loved his family, and he spoke to them basically every single day. He would call them all the time. But at the same time, he had always felt so trapped in his conservative, ultra-religious hometown. So he had left and tried to sort of reinvent himself as someone knew, the kind of person who can do anything and go anywhere. And so even though

he had done that, it would turn out that making real money was something that he just hadn't quite figured out yet. Before Jesse left for work that afternoon, he scrounged up all the cash he could find, but it still wasn't enough to make rent. He dropped the cash in the landlord's mailbox anyway, with a note promising he would get the rest of it together in a couple of weeks. Then he walked to his job at the campus inn and spent an uneventful evening behind the front desk, counting down the hours until the end of his shift. And as soon as the end of his shift came, when the clock struck 11 p.m.,

he bolted home and immediately changed clothes before heading out to Jennifer's party, where he was supposed to meet his new love interest at McDavitt. However, when Jesse walked into that party, he didn't see it. He did a lap around the apartment, checking every room, but he wasn't there. And so Jesse just grabbed a beer out of the fridge and began chatting with Jennifer while he waited. But after a while, checked his watch and realized that either Ed was running really late or he just was not coming.

So, trying to tell himself that it was not quite time to be disappointed, you know, maybe there was an explanation here. Jesse went outside and called the phone number that Ed had written down on that piece of paper that morning. Now, this phone number was for a landline phone. And so, you know, Jesse, he punched it in and he listened and it rang for a few beats. And then somebody picked up. And it was a guy. But it was not Ed. It was somebody whose name was Mark Butler. and, you know, Jesse had never heard of this guy, and he asked, you know, where's Ed? And Mark explained that he was Ed's roommate and that actually Ed was asleep right now. He had to work in the morning and so he had decided actually not to go to the party, to Jennifer's party.

You know, he just wanted to sleep. Now, as Mark was telling him this, Jesse was trying to make sense of like, okay, is Mark like Ed's boyfriend or something? Are they together? Or are they just roommates? And also, Jesse couldn't help but feel like Mark clearly did not want to be talking to Jesse right now. It was pretty clear in his tone that he was trying to just get off the phone. But Jesse was not ready to just, you know, mail it in here. He wanted to see Ed.

And so he told Mark, well, hold on a minute. Can you please go wake him up? I need to talk to him. And at first, Mark was like, no, he's asleep. He has work in the morning. Like he does not want me waking him up. But Jesse was relentless and just begged Mark to please just for a second, put him on the phone. And eventually, Mark relented.

About a minute later, a very groggy sounding Ed hopped on the phone. and as soon as Jesse heard his voice, he was so excited, and he basically pitched Ed hard on why he should not go to bed and come out to this party and that he really wanted to see him. And also, hey, bring your friend Mark too. That was fine. Now, it's not really clear if Ed was excited about this idea, but he would eventually say, fine, I'll come out and meet you, and I will bring Mark. When they got there, Mark would only stay at Jennifer's party for a little while

before he headed out on his own. But Ed and Jesse, they would stick around until about 2 a.m. At that point, they would leave Jennifer's house and go to another party across the street. At around 3 a.m. though, Ed said he really did have to get going. It was so late, he had to get up in the morning like he had to go. And so at this point, Jesse understood that this was reasonable. And so he walked him out to the sidewalk and then asked him if, you know, hey, do you want to come over to my place? But Ed said, no, really, I have to get home. I have to go to bed. However, before Ed did finally leave, the two of them would make plans to see each other in just a couple of days.

After Ed had taken off, Jesse wandered across the street to say goodbye to Jennifer, and then after that, he began making the walk to his own apartment. And as he was making this short walk to his own place, he began to think that he didn't want to go home alone. You know, if Ed didn't want to come over, well, he was going to find somebody else who would. And so his first thought was to call his ex, Jack. And so Jesse called Jack a few times, and when Jack did not pick up, after all, it's three in the morning and they are no longer in a relationship. It's sort of reasonable that he wouldn't.

But at that point, Jesse still wanted to see him. And so he walked a few blocks out of his way to make an actual stop at Jack's apartment. Jesse went right up to the door and banged on it. But nobody came to the door. Jack didn't answer. At this point, Jesse began to wonder if, well, maybe Jack's out with somebody else right now and he suddenly felt so jealous. Or worse, Maybe Jack is here and he knows I'm here, but he doesn't want to see me, and he's ignoring me. After a couple of minutes of standing there and knocking a few more times and still not hearing anything from Jack, Jesse finally gave up and stumbled back to his own apartment, drunk and lonely, and a bit heartbroken. Jesse finally stepped foot inside his apartment and shut the door behind him at about 3.45 a.m.

However, right after he'd gotten undressed and flopped down on his bed, he heard a knock at the front door. At 2 p.m. the following day, so Saturday, June 5th, 2004, a college student walked out of an apartment just down the street from Jesse's building, and they were carrying a backpack and a cooler. His friends had just pulled into the parking lot, and they were about to head out for a weekend trip to St. Louis. But while he was loading his stuff into the trunk, he noticed somebody lying in the grass nearby, wearing nothing but a pair of running shorts. Now, at first, he assumed, you know, this was just somebody passed out drunk from a crazy Friday night party, which sort of happened all the time in a college town like Columbia.

But when he took a few steps closer to be sure this person was okay, he saw flies buzzing around their body. About 30 minutes later, Columbia Police Detective John Short felt his pager go off. He unclipped it from his belt loop, and he saw there was a message from his boss's phone number that just read 9-1-1. Detective Short called his boss right away, and he was given the address for a crime scene just off the University of Missouri campus.

Short drove there, parked his car on the curb, and then walked over to the yellow tape that was keeping crowds of worried neighbors away from this crime scene. Another detective, Tim Geiger, waved to Short and led him over to the patch of grass where the victim was lying. It was a young man sprawled out on his back, and he was wearing a pair of light blue running shorts with no shoes, no socks, and no shirt. And across his throat was this very deep gash. The medical examiner was already there, and she was crouched down next to the body, and she'd told Detective Short that a few things were already standing out to her. She pointed to the bruises that were all over the victim's face, their arms, and their torso. But when she lifted the victim's hands, there were no defensive wounds on them. She told Short that that was pretty unusual for a knife

attack, where the victims usually got their hands up, you know, trying to defend themselves, and as a result, they got their hands cut up. She also pointed out that the blood had run down both sides of the victim's neck and pulled under his body. But there was no blood at all on the front of his body, which meant he was probably lying down right there in the grass when his throat actually got cut. Finally, the medical examiner pulled back the victim's eyelids and showed short the hemorrhaging in his eyes, which they both knew was typically a sign of strangulation. And so putting it all together, short theorized that, you know, the victim's killer had likely choked him out and then laid him on the grass and then slit his throat while he was laying there unconscious, unable to defend himself.

The detective looked down at his victim's bare feet and noticed they were covered in dirt, like he had been running at some point outside. Short doubted that the encounter between his victim and the killer began on the lawn where the body was found, and now he just wondered if maybe there had been some sort of a chase here, and that this was just where the killer had finally caught up to the victim. But since there was no ID on the victim, Short had no idea who he was or where he'd been running from. And so Short stood up and stepped away from the body so crime scene techs could load it into a body bag. Just then, another squad car pulled up, and two more officers got out, Sergeant Kenneth Smith and Officer Stephen Rios. Rios was the beat cop

who typically patrolled this neighborhood. So another sergeant on scene had radioed for him to come over and see if maybe he could help identify the victim. And so at this point, Short told the crime scene text to go ahead and unzip the body bag and let Officer Rios take a look. and Rios came over and he looked inside, and after a second, he said that he did recognize this young man. He said it was a college kid that he'd actually arrested at a house party just a couple of months ago. He said his name was Jesse Valencia. And so, less than an hour into his investigation,

Detective Short now had a name for his victim and some pretty good guesses about how his victim was killed. His next task was figuring out who might have wanted Jesse Valencia dead. So, Short looked up Jesse's address, and he found his apartment building was only a block away. So he walked over there. And while the forensics team went inside the apartment to look for evidence, an officer was posted outside the building to make sure no one came or went until the crime scene was officially cleared. Short walked into the building and headed down the stairs to Jesse's unit. And there, the crime scene tech who was dusting the doorway for Prince told him that when they'd arrived, the door was actually already open. and so Short went inside the actual unit and began looking around.

There was no blood anywhere, and nothing was broken or overturned, so there was no clear sign of a struggle, but the door being left open suggested that Jesse must have left in a hurry. And this certainly matched Short's theory about the fight between Jesse and his killer starting in one location and ending on the lawn. Short figured that, you know, Jesse must have run out of his apartment in a panic and made it a block away to that grass

before his killer finally overtook him. And so as Short began to consider this, he also started to think, okay, well, you know, Jesse, who appeared to be in reasonably good shape for his age, you know, if he was chased down and tackled and killed only a block away from his apartment, it's sort of suggested that his killer likely was pretty strong and pretty fast. So we're talking about somebody who is in relatively good shape. That's the killer. At least that's the profile he's developed in his mind. And also, you know, the way that Jesse was actually killed, having his throat cut open. and so violently, it just seemed kind of personal, which suggested that whoever killed Jesse likely was somebody Jesse actually knew. And so with that in mind, Short finished a sweep of Jesse's apartment and then asked a crime scene tech to prioritize getting access to the cell phone and computer that he saw on Jesse's desk. Then he walked out of the apartment and across the hall to the door of Jesse's closest neighbor, and he knocked. A moment later, a very confused-looking young man poked his head out and asked Short what was going on. Short told him that he was investigating

a murder and wanted to ask him a few questions. The young man at first just seemed totally shocked and appalled to be hearing this, but then it was like this look of realization washed over his face. He told Short that the previous night, he had actually woken up to the sound of very clearly two grown men fighting in Jesse's apartment. And one of those men was clearly Jesse because this neighbor heard Jesse clearly saying over and over again, know and stop it to this other man. Now, the neighbor kind of sheepishly said, you know, they didn't actually do anything about this.

They actually just kind of banged on their own wall and said, hey, stop it over there. And then shortly after that, the noise had stopped. And the neighbor had kind of forgotten about it and gone to sleep, not realizing what he was likely hearing was the beginning of Jesse's murder. The neighbor told short that when they had woken up that afternoon, he'd actually gone across the hall to apologize to Jesse for being so rude the night before. But the neighbor said he found Jesse's door was open.

And he didn't look inside. He felt like that was kind of rude. But what he thought was, you know, okay, maybe Jesse was so drunk the night before. You know, that was part of the reason that he must have been having this fight. And so perhaps he was so drunk, you know, he just forgot to close the door. The neighbor said he did try knocking on the opened door a couple of times, but Jesse never came to the door. And so the neighbor just kind of left it at that. went about their business. And so after hearing this, Detective Short asked this neighbor if he had any

idea who the other man was that Jesse was fighting with. But the neighbor said he didn't. You know, Jesse for the most part kept to himself, and really the neighbor didn't know Jesse well at all. So he did not know who this other person was. After that, Short thanked the neighbor for the information, then he turned around and headed back inside of Jesse's apartment. And so at this point, Short was convinced that, you know, based on the neighbor's testimony, that whatever fight led to Jesse's death likely did begin in Jesse's apartment. And so now, Short just had to figure out who were the people that could have potentially been inside of Jesse's apartment late at night like that. You know, was this somebody who was a friend, a love interest? You know, was Jesse trying to kick them out and it spurned a fight?

Like, he didn't know, but who were the people in Jesse's life that could have been there late at night? That's what he had to figure out. And luckily, at that very moment, one of the crime scene techs had Jesse's cell phone and he was holding it in the air like he had found something. Now, they wouldn't be able to do a full phone dump until they got it back to the station, and they hadn't even touched the laptop yet.

But they had gotten access to Jesse's call logs, and the tech told short that there was something in there that he definitely wanted to see. Because the last time Jesse used his cell phone, according to this log, it was to call somebody named Jack Barry, seven times between three and three-18 that morning. So right away, Detective Short looked up Jack Barry's information,

and he found his apartment's address and saw it was not far from Jesse's, and so he drove right over there. Short knocked on the door, and just a moment later, a young man answered, and he had very red, puffy eyes like he'd clearly been crying. Even though Jesse's body had only been discovered a few hours ago, this young man did not seem surprised at all to see the detective. He told the detective that he had already heard the terrible news. A friend had told him.

After exchanging niceties and the young man confirming that he was in fact Jack, Short followed Jack into his living room. And as they sat down, Short asked Jack about all those 3 a.m. phone calls from Jesse. Jack looked like he was really struggling to hold it together, as he told the detective that Jesse was his ex-boyfriend and Jesse had kept badgering him, Jack, for them to get back together and Jack didn't want to. And so those phone calls were very likely a product of more badgering from Jack. Jack said the night before, he had been woken up by his phone ringing over and over and over again.

And before he could even look at the caller ID, he heard a knock at his front door. And he saw it was the middle of the night. And then he leaned over and saw the caller was Jesse. And he sort of figured that, okay, he's calling me. It's very likely him at the front door. I don't want to see him right now. and so Jack just decided he would ignore Jesse and hope he went away. Now, when Jack said this, it seemed very clear he was sort of reliving that moment in his mind.

Like, you know, maybe if he had let Jesse in or engaged with him in some way, you know, maybe Jesse would still be alive. That was sort of the insinuation. But Detective Short was thinking, okay, well, even though he seems like he's being very earnest in telling me this, it does mean that he doesn't really have an alibi. He's basically saying at the time, you know, Jesse was killed, I was home alone by myself, which was pretty weak. However, before Short could begin to poke holes in the alibi, Jack said that, you know, despite the fact that they had broken up, that he and Jesse were, at least in his mind, still on good terms. In fact, they had spoken just the day before on the phone, you know, before getting all those nighttime phone calls. It was during the afternoon. And during that phone call, Jesse had told him about a new guy he'd met at a club the night before.

and his name was Ed McDevitt. That night, Detective Short stood outside of an interrogation room at the police station, watching Ed McDavitt through the two-way glass. Short knew his investigation was moving basically at lightning speed here. But there was still quite a bit of pressure on him to get this case solved even faster, because Columbia was a college town where kids were used to feeling safe, and the murder of a student just a few blocks off campus had sort of shattered that sense of trust. And so, you know, students and parents and, you know, staff of the university really wanted short to get this thing done.

And now, looking at Ed through the glass, short wondered if maybe this was the killer. Maybe this was the guy. I mean, after all, Ed was shaking and fidgety looking. I mean, he seems sort of like an emotional wreck, which could mean, you know, of course, he was just upset because he was connected to the murder victim. You know, that's traumatic. Or it could mean he's hiding something. and now he's about to be interrogated by the police, something that would certainly cause a big emotional reaction.

Eventually, Short went inside and sat down across the table, and he asked Ed to explain exactly what he had done the night before. And Ed, in a very nervous, shaky voice, told the detective that he and his roommate, a guy named Mark Butler, had met Jesse at a party a little after 11 p.m. He said he ultimately went back home again around 3 a.m., leaving Jesse on the sidewalk, still very alive and well. Ed said his roommate Mark had actually seen him return to his apartment at 3 a.m. And Ed said when he went inside, he went straight to bed, and then he had gotten up early for work. Ed said he was at work when he got the call from police, telling him that

Jesse had been found dead. Detective Short listened to Ed's story and asked a few follow-up questions, and then also took a DNA sample from Ed. And then after that, he told Ed that he was also going to get a warrant to search Ed's home. Ed was already such a wreck that, you know, when Short told him about this, you know, search of his home, Ed didn't even really react. However, when Short left the interview room, despite feeling pretty confident that Ed could absolutely be a suspect, he also went and, you know, followed procedure and looked up Ed's roommate, Mark Butler. And he discovered in the police department system that there was Mark Butler, and sure enough, he had a criminal record. So, overnight, while a forensics team was searching Ed and Mark's home, Short actually brought Mark

down to the station for an interview. But in reality, Short wasn't expecting Mark to become this primary suspect year. He just wanted to be thorough and rule out anybody who'd seen Jesse that night, and obviously Mark was one of those people. But almost immediately in their interview, Mark started saying some very odd things. He told Short right out the gate that he did not like Jesse, and actually he said point blank that he didn't really care that Jesse was dead. But he also clarified to Detective Short that, you know, he was just Ed's roommate. He was not seeing him romantically. So this had nothing to do with jealousy.

He just did not like Jesse. Mark confirmed that he did see Ed when he returned from the party around 3 a.m., just like Ed had said. But Mark had actually not stuck around. He said that after Ed had come back to the apartment, Mark had left to go on a date of his own. and he actually didn't know what time he got back. And so as he was saying this, Short realized that that meant Mark

was out and about sort of unaccounted for at the same time that Jesse was killed. And so obviously, something seemed off about Mark. And so Short took a DNA sample and added Mark to the suspect list. The next morning, Sunday, June 6th, after catching a few hours of sleep, Detective Short gathered his team for a meeting.

The mood was tense. everybody was exhausted and very much on edge from spending nearly 24 hours straight working on this case. But when they went around the room and talked about the flood of leads they'd all followed up on yesterday, it didn't actually seem like they had much to show for it. There were now several suspects in play, but none of them seemed to have a good reason to want to kill Jesse Valencia. Jesse apparently had been hounding his ex-boyfriend Jack about trying to get back together, which Jack did not want, and the multiple late-night phone calls and the knocking on the door unannounced, you know, it just seemed like harassment.

So it was possible that maybe Jack had gone over to confront Jesse and things got out of hand. But Jack had told Detective Short that he and Jesse had remained friends after the breakup. And some of the other detectives said that Jesse's friends had said the same thing. The two had remained friends. So it seemed pretty unlikely that things between them would have escalated so much that, you know, somebody got killed. Then there was Ed McDavitt, Jesse's new lover, who had seemed pretty nervous during his interrogation. One of the detectives told short that while searching Ed's house, they'd found a bag full of chef's knives. And some of them were large and sharp enough that they

could easily have been the murder weapon. But Ed worked in a restaurant and was training to be a chef. So owning kitchen knives was hardly a smoking gun. And then as for Ed's roommate, Mark Butler, you know, he did have a criminal past and openly said he, did not like Jesse. It didn't care that he died. But they'd only met one time, and very likely they would never have seen each other again. So it seemed very unlikely that he would go through the trouble of following Jesse home and killing him, like to what end? And so Detective Short was getting really frustrated. He just couldn't make sense of any of these suspects. It was like something was missing here. And so he turned to two of his detectives, Jeff Westbrook and Barbara Cook,

and told them to go to some local bars that Jesse frequented and just sort of ask around about Jesse, you know, in case there were other leads that they had not uncovered yet. However, right after Detective Short walked out of that meeting that morning, another detective ran up to him and pulled him into a quiet corner and told him a tip had just come in, and it was so sensitive that they were going to have to keep it under wraps even amongst the investigators.

The detective told Short that a friend of Jesse's who lived in St. Louis had called the tip-in through crime stoppers. He said that he and Jesse chatted online all the time, and that Jesse at one point had told him about a secret affair he was having with an older man. And this older man was actually an officer in the Columbia Police Department. Later that day, so this is Sunday, June 6th, 2004, two days after Jesse was killed, Detective Short sat at his desk flipping through printouts of all these online chat logs, And these logs showed conversations between Jesse and the friend of his who had called in the tip that Jesse was having this affair with an officer from Shorts' own police department.

In the chats, Jesse wrote all about this relationship. Jesse had seemed to find it pretty exciting at first, having this police officer come by in uniform and carrying on these secret meetups in the middle of the night. But recently, Jesse had begun to suspect that this police officer was married. And this made Jesse furious. He had told this friend in the chat log that he wasn't going to be someone's other woman. However, to Short's frustration, Jesse never actually named the officer that he was having this affair with. He only ever referred to him as Columbia's finest.

And so whoever this mystery cop was, Detective Short thought they were the most likely suspect. Because unlike Jesse's other lovers, this officer had something to lose if this relationship went south. If Jesse told anybody about this affair, well, the police officer's career could be on the line because they clearly were carrying on this totally illicit affair while on duty. You know, that's not okay. And also they were using their position and power potentially to actually land this relationship. And then also on top of that, the police officer's marriage would likely be destroyed. But Short also knew that he had to move very carefully here.

Because now he was investigating his own department. which meant that the killer could literally be in the room with him at any time. And so as he walked through the office to refill his coffee, Short found himself scanning the face of every officer he passed. And he realized there wasn't a single person here he could actually trust. Short brought all the files on Jesse's case into his office, and then he told his secretary to find him a roster of the department's entire staff. Then he locked the door, sat at his desk,

and pulled out the records on Jesse's friends who had been interviewed already. And he went down the list himself, calling each and every one of them to dig for more information. Quite a few of them said that Jesse had told them about this cop he was sleeping with. And one of them remembered Jesse referring to this officer as just Anderson. And so when Short's secretary came back with the staff roster, Short began looking through it, and he discovered out of the 200-plus officers in the entire department, there were only two officers that had the name Anderson. Brad Anderson and Ted Anderson.

And so the next step was trying to figure out if either of them had a connection to Jesse Valencia. And so Short pulled out the records from Jesse's arrest at the house party back in April. And as he flipped through it, he realized Brad Anderson was one of the three officers who responded to that party. The pieces fit together perfectly. Jesse and Brad Anderson, the police officer, would have met around the same time that Jesse began messaging his friend in St. Louis about this secret affair with a cop. And so at this point, Short felt like he had just found the killer. So he grabbed a manila folder off his desk, stepped out of his office, locking the door behind him, then he did a lap around the whole station, and eventually

he spotted Brad Anderson in the locker room, chatting with a few other officers as he put on his uniform. Now, Short wanted to be very careful here, because if Brad Anderson was the killer, he certainly didn't want him to realize he was under suspicion right now. So Short waited in the hallway until Brad walked out of the locker room and then as casually as possible, Short caught up with him and pulled him aside. Short opened up the Manila folder he had brought with him and showed Brad a photo of Jesse Valencia asking if he recognized him. And Brad squinted at the photo for a second and then after thinking he said,

yeah, that's the kid I arrested at a party a few months ago. Short asked Brad if he had seen Jesse at all since the arrest. and Brad nodded and said, yeah. He said that about a month ago, Jesse had called in a noise complaint and Brad had been the one sent out to check on it. But by the time Brad got there, the noise had stopped,

so he was only there for a couple of minutes before leaving. Man, that was it. To short, nothing about Brad's demeanor seemed nervous or suspicious. In fact, it really seemed like he didn't have any clue why the detective was asking him about Jesse Valencia. So if he was the killer,

it seemed like he was going to be very hard to crack. Short was about to let Brad go and just wait to talk to him once he had more evidence, but just then Brad's partner, Officer Rios, walked by. And when he walked by, he looked over and he saw

the Manila folder with Jesse Valencia's photo inside of it that Short was showing Brad Anderson. And Rios, without even thinking, made this comment under his breath that was clearly directed at his partner. It was like this really in bad taste comment where he was like,

oh, looks like your gay lover's dead. When Short heard this, he practically sprinted back to his office. Brad Anderson sort of shrugged off the comment made by Rios about, you know, Jesse being his gay lover. But Short felt like what Rios said was a pretty big deal because even though, again, it was terrible in bad taste humor, you know, that's a terrible thing to say. But maybe there's truth there. Maybe Rios knows that Brad Anderson was seeing Jesse Valencia.

Maybe they really were in a relationship. Now, in the moment, Short did not, you know, agree. aggressively follow up on that comment and demand to know if Brad had actually been in a relationship with Jesse before he died. Instead, all three of them just kind of went their separate ways and short, you know, hustled back to his office. And when he was in his office, right as he sat down, there was a knock on the door. And when the door opened, it was short secretary. And she told him there was someone who had been waiting to see him. And then she led in this very nervous-looking young man who introduced himself as Jesse's friend. And he said his name was Andy Shermerhorn. Andy sat down and told short that just a few weeks earlier, he and Jesse had gone out together and then gone back to Jesse's apartment. But around 3 a.m., they were interrupted by a knock on the door. Jesse went to answer it, and a uniform police officer walked in shining a flashlight. And to Andy's surprise, Jesse led this officer right into the bedroom, and he joined them for a threesome. And then after they were done, the cop told Andy, you better keep this a secret.

Detective Short couldn't believe it. I mean, the final piece of evidence he needed had just fallen into his lap. Andy said he did not know the officer's name. So Detective Short got out a department yearbook and told him to flip through it to see if maybe the guy he saw that night was in there. But Andy just held up his hand and said he didn't need to do that. And Detective Short was like, well, what do you mean? Why can't you do that? And Andy said, well, because when I came in here, the guy I met, he was out in the hall. Based on the investigation that would follow this revelation, the following is what happened to Jesse Valencia in the early morning of June 5, 2004.

Around 3 a.m., right around the time that Jesse was leaving his friend Jennifer's party, Jesse's killer was drinking beers with a few friends after work. And then, just before dawn, the killer wrapped up, got in their car to drive home. but as they were driving, they decided to make a stop along the way at Jesse's apartment. They were expecting another quick, no strings attached,

late night secret hookup, but when they got there, Jesse was very drunk and in a terrible mood. Jesse told the killer that he had figured out they were married, and so now he was not interested in them at all. He didn't want to see him anymore.

But when he told the killer to leave and the killer refused, Jesse said, fine, I'll go to your police chief and I will tell them about our affair. And that's when the killer snapped. If their secret got out, it would cost them everything. So in their mind, they had to silence Jesse before he could ruin them.

Jesse tried to run, but he only made it about a block before the killer caught up with him, wrapped an arm around his neck and put him in a vicious chokehold until his body went limp, and then the killer laid Jesse out on the grass, took out a pocket knife, and brutally slashed his throat. And then on the way home, the killer very skillfully disposed of the murder weapon,

ensuring nobody would ever find it, because they knew the knife was the only piece of hard evidence that could ever link them to the murder. After that, they made their way back home, parked in the driveway, and as they were walking up to the front door, they looked up and saw their wife in the kitchen window, preparing a bottle for their baby son. And then just before going inside,

the killer unpinned the name to the same, tag on their uniform that said Anderson, and they swapped it for another name tag that they had hidden in their glove box. And this name tag was the killer's real name, Officer Stephen Rios. Rios was Brad Anderson's partner. He was the one who identified Jesse's body at the crime scene and made that awful comment about Brad Anderson's gay lover. It's believed that Officer Rios was lying to Jesse about his name, and in fact, he actually stole the name tag, not of Rassons. But of the other Anderson, Ted Anderson, he was using his name tag and parading around like he was him whenever he was with Jesse. Rios was arrested, and in May of 2005, almost a year after

Jesse's murder, he was found guilty of first-degree murder. But after an appeal, he got a new trial and the charge was reduced to second-degree murder. However, he was still found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen.

Our head of production is Zach Levitt. Produced by Jeremy Bone. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Schumway, and Camille Callahan. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Witt Lacasio and Cole Lacasio. Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham. Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain.

Production Coordination by Samantha Collins. Production support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley. Artwork by Jessica Klogsten Kiner. Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios podcast. There's this one, the Mr. Ballin podcast, as well as Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries, bedtime stories, wartime stories, run full, redacted, late nights with Nexpo, and a twist of history.

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