Park Predators - The Reservoir

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

When a devoted father and outdoorsman is found shot to death near Potholes State Park on Mother’s Day weekend in 1999 his family is left with more questions than answers. Law enforcement immediately... finds a promising trail of clues and surveillance video only to have their investigation fizzle out. If you know anything about the unsolved murder of Jesse Guy Loman, call the Grant County Sheriff’s Office in Washington, USA at (509) 754-2011. View source material and photos for this episode at: parkpredators.com/the-reservoir Park Predators is an audiochuck production. Connect with us on social media:Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. And the case I'm going to tell you about today takes place near Pothole State Park in Washington State, an area of the United States that's known for having large depressions in the ground that floods carved out around the time of the Ice Age. Many of these seep lakes, as they're commonly called, are referred to as potholes because they're just kind of here and there. Some are deep and others are shallow. Technically, the official pothole lakes are about 30 to 45 minutes
Starting point is 00:00:30 away from the boundary of the park itself, but most people who visit them just sort of group them in with the general area of Pothole State Park and the nearby O'Sullivan Reservoir. And when I say reservoir, I don't mean like a little small reservoir. It's actually a massive body of water that has 6,000 feet of shoreline touching the state park. Some maps label the O'Sullivan Reservoir as just Potholes Reservoir. Visitors are attracted to this park and its surrounding habitats,
Starting point is 00:00:59 like the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, because these locations have a lot of places to camp, boat, and fish. And when I say fish, I mean like serious fishing. Anglers can fish year-round for bass, trout, walleye, and much more. In fact, just reading about how great a destination this place is for anglers got me itching to book a plane ticket and grab my tackling rod like yesterday. However, I'm kind of thinking twice about that. Because in May of 1999, the lure of this part of Washington lost its luster a little bit. A brutal murder took place, and though there were numerous clues that made detectives feel like they were on the verge of netting a suspect,
Starting point is 00:01:40 to this day, the killer or killers are still at large. And that's something that needs to change. to this day, the killer or killers are still at large. And that's something that needs to change. This is Park Predators. Around 1130 in the morning on Sunday, May 9th, 1999, two friends named Chris Mora and Rodrigo were driving on Seap Lakes Road in Grant County, Washington. The pair was making their way south from where they lived in the town of Moses Lake to go fishing at a body of water known as Hampton Lake.
Starting point is 00:02:28 All around them was dry land that was mostly used for cattle grazing. Some parcels were owned by private citizens and others were owned by the state, and even a few tracts belonged to the federal government. So essentially, they were traveling through an expanse of rural landscape that was kind of in the middle of nowhere. If you were going to stop anywhere on Seap Lakes Road, you'd likely go to one of the public access points at Hampton Lake, Canal Lake, or Marco Polo Lake. Those are just a few of the small pothole lakes that are dotted all around that area. And like I said, that morning Chris and Rodrigo were on their way to spend the afternoon at Hampton Lake,
Starting point is 00:03:06 when suddenly they noticed something kind of odd. On the right-hand side of the road in a field was what they thought looked like a blue barrel lying on the ground. Curious about what something like that would be doing out in the middle of nowhere, the pair pulled over and the two got out. As they stepped off the roadway and walked closer to the object in the field, more of it came into view, and that's when the pair realized they weren't looking at a barrel at all. The blue item lying about 75 feet in front of them was a person. Whoever it was wasn't moving, so Chris and Rodrigo immediately retreated to their car and tried to call for help
Starting point is 00:03:45 using their CB radio. But unfortunately, the signal wasn't good enough, and their call wasn't getting through. So that's when the duo decided to flag down a passing car to see if anyone driving along the road had a cell phone they could use to try and call law enforcement. Thankfully, Chris and Rodrigo didn't have to wait long because an oncoming car with a couple of campers, Jean-Paul Banks and Tamitha Pierre, saw them and pulled over. Right away, Chris told the pair about the body in the field, and that's when Jean-Paul used his cell phone to dial 911. Dispatchers at a multi-agency communications center that serviced the region alerted deputies with the Grant County Sheriff's
Starting point is 00:04:25 Office about the discovery. And after that, the department dispatched several investigators to the scene. When units arrived, deputies immediately blocked off traffic on Seap Lakes Road so that they could better assess the situation and gather evidence. It didn't take long for the authorities to determine that the person lying in the field was a middle-aged white man dressed in blue jeans, a bluish-turquoise-colored t-shirt, and white socks. He'd been left face-up in a sort of depressed area of the field, and his shoes were missing. His feet were pointed toward the roadway, and his head, which was covered in blood, was furthest into the field. He was surrounded by cheatgrass, which, for those of you who don't know, is a weedy grass that can grow up to two feet high.
Starting point is 00:05:09 So he wasn't super visible from afar. In fact, the only reason Chris and Rodrigo had been able to spot the guy's body in the first place was because they'd been traveling south on Seap Lakes Road. And the way that road kind of naturally rises and falls in elevation when you travel from that direction had given them just the right angle to catch a glimpse of the body. Anyway, when deputies looked over the victim, they saw a visible bullet hole in the left side of his midsection,
Starting point is 00:05:35 and lots of bruising and swelling on his face. Deputies surmised that in addition to being shot, whoever this guy was had also endured a severe beating. His shirt was pulled up high over his chest and stained with blood and had lots of grass on it. However, his white socks and pants didn't have any signs of grass stains or blood on them. They were both pretty clean. I imagine the detectives figured the blood on the shirt
Starting point is 00:06:02 likely came from the gunshot wound and other injuries he might have sustained while being beaten. Still, investigators collected several hairs and fibers from the victim's clothing and body as evidence. They also videotaped the scene and took photographs. Back at the edge of the roadway, deputies found two sets of footprints in the dirt, a spent shell casing, and visible drag marks that indicated something heavy, likely the guy's body, had been pulled from a vehicle. The drag marks started at the roadway and continued for at least 150 feet into the field. They stopped where
Starting point is 00:06:38 the body was located, and the path they traced was obvious because the vegetation was compressed or bent over, indicating something heavy had been dragged over it. There were also several tire marks right there near the roadway, too. The source material doesn't say if investigators took impressions of these tire tracks, but I have to imagine they did. Deputies interviewed Chris, Rodrigo, Jean-Paul, and Tamatha and took photos of the bottoms of their shoes so that they would be able to eliminate their footprints from the two sets of footprints deputies had discovered near the roadway. Now, I imagine authorities did this because they figured
Starting point is 00:07:15 since everyone in the group had likely walked around the area before law enforcement arrived, it was best to just know what the bottom of Chris, Rodrigo, Jean-Paul, and Tamatha's shoes looked like so that detectives could rule them out if they needed to. In speaking with Jean-Paul and Tamitha, detectives learned that the two had actually seen the victim's body that morning prior to Chris and Rodrigo. However, at the time, they hadn't paid much attention to it because they didn't have any idea it was a body.
Starting point is 00:07:43 Just like Chris and Rodrigo, though, they'd been driving south on Seap Lakes Road and seen a glimpse of something in a field, but Jean-Paul and Tamitha just hadn't stopped to check it out. The couple said that not long after passing the body, they'd run into some people on the roadway who were having car trouble and stopped to help them. It wasn't until later in the morning while driving north on Seap Lakes Road, passing back through the area where the field was, that Jean-Paul and Tamitha were stopped by Chris and Rodrigo, who explained that the blue item in the field they'd passed earlier was in fact a person's body. The source material isn't super clear on who spoke up about this next part,
Starting point is 00:08:22 but according to incident reports I requested from the Grant County Sheriff's Office, someone in the group of folks who reported finding the victim's body told investigators that they had a.22 caliber rifle that had been shot recently, and they just wanted deputies to know about it. In fact, this person even offered to give deputies the gun so that detectives could compare it
Starting point is 00:08:43 with any bullets related to the crime so that it could be ruled out. After that, investigators let Chris, Rodrigo, Jean-Paul, and Tamitha go. A chief deputy coroner removed the victim's body from the scene and transported him to the Spokane County Morgue for an autopsy. While authorities had been working to collect evidence and interview the witnesses at the scene,
Starting point is 00:09:04 an investigator for Grant County Sheriff's Office received word that the male victim might have been a Basin City man who was reported missing just a few hours earlier. According to the official incident reports in this case, around the same time of morning that the unidentified male victim was found, the Sheriff's Office learned that the family of a 45-year-old man named Jesse Guy Lohman had reported him missing from a campsite at Canal Lake. For reference, Canal Lake is about 15 minutes south of where the field was, and you can get to it from Seep Lakes Road. According to what Jesse's brother, Ernest Lohman, told the sheriff's office, Ernest said
Starting point is 00:09:43 he'd driven up to a campground at Canal Lake around 5.45 in the morning that Sunday and been surprised when he hadn't found Jesse there waiting for him. Jesse had left his hometown of Basin City, Washington in the morning the previous day, Saturday, May 8th, and he'd gone ahead of the rest of his family to get a campsite set up for an annual getaway they all planned for Mother's Day weekend. The group was going to be comprised of Jesse, his wife Gail, one of their sons William, Ernest, and Jesse's parents. When Ernest realized Jesse wasn't at the campsite at Canal Lake that morning, he'd been concerned but not overly panicked. Jesse's truck wasn't there and neither were any of his camping supplies, so the absence of those two things indicated to Ernest that Jesse had either never arrived or had just set up camp elsewhere around Canal Lake,
Starting point is 00:10:32 in a spot Ernest just hadn't thought to check yet. Ernest told deputies after searching around for his brother and not finding him, he decided to leave and drive the 45 minutes south to Jesse's home in Basin City to see if anyone there knew what was going on. When he arrived, he spoke with Gail, Jesse's wife, but she told Ernest that she didn't know where her husband was and agreed that Jesse not being at the campsite was really odd. So right away, Ernest got back into his car,
Starting point is 00:11:01 this time with William, one of Jesse's sons in tow, and together the two of them drove the 45 minutes back up to Canal Lake. When they got there, they searched high and low for Jesse, but again couldn't find him. Shortly after that, Robert Lohman, Gail and Jesse's other son, got a phone call from his mom notifying him of what was going on, and he made his way to Canal Lake too. But despite Ernest, Robert, and William collectively trying to locate Jesse, no sign of the missing 45-year-old surfaced.
Starting point is 00:11:31 So that's when they decided to call 911 and report Jesse missing. They told authorities that Jesse's truck, a 1994 Chevrolet pickup, was also missing. The source material isn't clear on what time exactly in the morning the sheriff's office took down this information from Jesse's family, but like I said earlier, it was believed to be around the same time that Chris and Rodrigo first spotted the body on the
Starting point is 00:11:55 side of Seap Lakes Road. So like somewhere around 11 30 a.m., give or take. Incident reports from the Grant County Sheriff's Office also state that while Robert, Ernest, and William were at Canal Lake reporting Jesse missing, they learned from someone near the scene that a man's body had been found in the general area, and they were eager to know from law enforcement if it was their missing father and brother. In the end, it didn't take long for Jesse's family to officially learn from authorities that the dead man was in fact Jesse Lohman. So really in just a short amount of time, investigators with the Sheriff's Office had learned a couple of critical things. One, Jesse was their victim.
Starting point is 00:12:36 Two, he'd been shot and then dumped off Seap Lakes Road. And three, his 1994 teal-colored Chevrolet pickup truck was still missing. Well, sort of. That third conclusion quickly changed. Because as sheriff's office detectives would learn by late Sunday afternoon, Jesse's truck wasn't MIA. It was parked right out in the open, just waiting for investigators to find. According to incident reports from the Grant County Sheriff's Office,
Starting point is 00:13:20 a few hours after Jesse's body was found, police officers in the nearby town of Moses Lake, Washington, which is about 35 to 45 minutes north of Canal Lake, found his teal-colored 1994 Chevy pickup truck parked in the parking lot of a Safeway grocery store. I guess word about Jesse's case had spread fast to this agency, and so the officers who spotted the truck had immediately gotten in contact with Grant County detectives. When Jesse's truck was located, the front of it was facing out from the store toward the street. Thankfully, when Grant County deputies got on scene, they were able to find surveillance video from the shopping plaza that showed when the truck had been parked there. The recording showed a man, who was not Jesse,
Starting point is 00:14:01 dropping off the truck well after dark on Saturday, May 8th, and then getting picked up by a car which was being driven by someone else. It's unclear from the source material what time this event happened, but the incident reports state that videotapes from inside the Safeway store were seized and reviewed as well. So it's possible the unknown man who left Jesse's truck and then got picked up by someone else was there while the grocery store was still open. Thus, the reason law enforcement wanted those tapes from inside as well.
Starting point is 00:14:32 You know, to maybe see if those cameras caught a better angle of the stranger or something. I'm not sure. It's hard to tell based on how the reports are written. But unfortunately, other than those brief few seconds that captured the mystery man in the parking lot, detectives didn't have much to work with as far as identifying anything noteworthy about the guy. At least that's what I can tell from the source material available.
Starting point is 00:14:56 Anyway, the next day, Monday, May 10th, the doctor overseeing Jesse's autopsy in nearby Spokane County released the results of his examination to law enforcement. The doctor determined that Jesse suffered two gunshot wounds, one to the left side of his torso and another to the front of his head. His official cause of death was ruled as a homicide and his manner of death was attributed to the gunshot wound to his head. The coroner clarified to the Tri-City Herald that initially investigators had mistakenly interpreted the swelling and bruising on Jesse's face to mean that he'd been beaten before being shot.
Starting point is 00:15:32 But after performing the autopsy, the doctor stated those things were the result of the gunshot wound to Jesse's face, not proof that he'd been assaulted or beaten prior to his death. Thankfully, the doctor was able to locate and retrieve two bullets from Jesse's body. One was a.32 caliber and the other was a.25 caliber.
Starting point is 00:15:52 The large caliber had been fired into Jesse's head. The smaller one was pulled from the wound in his torso. The clothes that Jesse had been wearing when he died were searched, and other than some loose change in his pants, the rest of his pockets were empty. His wallet and ID were missing. They'd not been found on him or in the field where his body was placed.
Starting point is 00:16:13 So the next obvious step authorities turned to was examining Jesse's bank card activity for Saturday night and Sunday morning. I imagine they figured if his wallet was missing, then any activity on his cards might lead them to a possible suspect. When investigators got a hold of Jesse's bank, they learned that around 7.30 p.m. on Saturday night,
Starting point is 00:16:33 before that stranger was seen driving his pickup truck into the Safeway parking lot, Jesse's bank card had been used to withdraw $100 cash from an ATM located near the grocery store. Now, it wasn't an ATM associated with the grocery store. It was located at a bank very close by. Immediately, authorities wondered if Jesse had made that withdrawal himself or if someone who was just using his card and knew his PIN
Starting point is 00:17:00 had initiated the transaction. According to Shirley Wentworth reporting for the Tri-City Herald, when detectives went to the ATM to check its surveillance tapes, they discovered that the camera inside the machine had not been turned on when Jesse's card was used. I know, a huge bummer. So I don't know whether Jesse was the person who took the money out or not, but part of me feels like investigators might have thought he was because it states in the sheriff's office's incident report that for a little while detectives thought Jesse may have gone to gamble at a popular casino in town before making his way to Canal Lake
Starting point is 00:17:36 to set up his family's campsite. Authorities surmised that maybe Jesse wanting to gamble was the reason why the $100 had been withdrawn. But after reviewing surveillance video from the casino for Saturday night, as well as interviewing the casino's employees, authorities quickly ruled out Jesse going to gamble as a possible avenue of investigation. The following day, Tuesday, May 11th,
Starting point is 00:18:00 detectives executed a search warrant for the inside of Jesse's pickup truck and processed it for evidence. I don't know if they found anything of forensic or evidentiary value, because that's a detail Grant County investigators have never released to the public. But what I can tell you is that after examining the truck, detectives released it back to a farm that Jesse worked for. Where it is now, I have no idea. Something authorities in 1999 didn't have to wait for lab tests to confirm, though, was that they could see with their own eyes none of the camping equipment Jesse had packed for the Mother's Day trip had been removed from the truck. Meaning,
Starting point is 00:18:37 whoever had abandoned the Chevy at the Safeway hadn't stolen the gear. According to reporting by Candace Boutelier, investigators also noticed that a diamond plate toolbox was still in the truck's bed, which again, only puzzled detectives as to why the perpetrator had left that valuable item behind if in fact their motive had been to rob Jesse. I should note though that Shirley Wentworth reported for the Tri-City Herald
Starting point is 00:19:02 that investigators did say some items from the truck were missing. Now, I don't have any information about what those items were or if the missing items the reporter referred to meant Jesse's wallet and ID. It's hard to tell. But it's safe to say authorities believed robbery was connected and a possible motive as to why Jesse had been killed and why his truck was left abandoned by a mysterious stranger in the Safeway parking lot, regardless of the fact that the camping gear and toolbox were still there. While that part of the investigation was going on, deputies canvassed
Starting point is 00:19:36 the stores and bars near the ATM where Jesse's card had been used, but no one working at any of those places remembered seeing the 45-year-old on the night of Saturday, May 8th. For a second, detectives thought they'd caught a lucky break when they located some more surveillance video from another establishment in Moses Lake that showed Jesse's truck being driven by a stranger early on Saturday. But just like the video from the Safeway parking lot,
Starting point is 00:20:00 that video was too grainy to really make out much of anything. Feeling like they were hitting a wall, detectives sent off all the surveillance they had to the FBI to see if better technology could enhance the videos or make out any features on the man who'd abandoned Jesse's truck in the Safeway parking lot. But unfortunately, even for the feds, the videos were too grainy and dark. While that was going on, investigators started interviewing Jesse's family members and friends,
Starting point is 00:20:27 and the first person they formally interviewed was his wife, Gail. The details of law enforcement's conversations with her are not included in the incident reports Grant County provided to me. But what I can tell you is that it seems like back in 1999, authorities quickly cleared Gail of any suspicion. Based on everything I've read
Starting point is 00:20:45 in news reports, it doesn't seem like investigators working the case now believe she was involved in what happened to her husband. In addition to his family members, detectives also interviewed Jesse's boss, a man named Ted Shirky, who told them that Jesse was a good man who worked hard to provide for his family. He didn't have any enemies that Ted knew of. An obituary posted in the Tri-City Herald distinguished Jesse as a devoted father of four. In addition to his sons, Robert and William, he and Gail had two daughters, Katrina and Michelle. Even though their kids were mostly grown in between the ages of 17 and 23, Gail and Jesse got together with their children
Starting point is 00:21:25 on a regular basis to celebrate things like birthdays and holidays, which is why the Mother's Day camping trip at Canal Lake was something everyone knew Jesse was looking forward to. Jesse had lived in Basin City, Washington for two decades prior to his murder, so the impact his death had on people in both Franklin County, where Jesse was
Starting point is 00:21:45 from, and Grant County, where he was killed, was massive. Citizens rallied around Gail and the kids to help with Jesse's funeral expenses or just provide a hot meal during their time of grief. Many folks knew Jesse well because he'd spent a long time working as a mechanic for a local transmission shop in the Tri-City area. That job had required him to make long commutes, though, and so a few years before May 1999, he'd left that job and started working full-time for Ted. Jesse's obituary states, He was born in Columbus, Montana, and came from a big family.
Starting point is 00:22:24 He'd spent his childhood and young adulthood living in Montana, learning how to hunt, fish, and camp. He soon met Gail, and a few years after they got married in 1974, the Lomans moved to Washington State. The most puzzling question people couldn't wrap their heads around was how someone had gotten the drop on Jesse. If authorities could determine that part, then the answer of who killed him might be that much easier to find. According to that same article I mentioned earlier by Shirley Wentworth for the Tri-City Herald,
Starting point is 00:23:02 Jesse's friends said he was strong, stood six foot three and weighed 275 pounds. Gale had even described him as a teddy bear, which reinforces his strength, but also his fun-loving energy. His best friend told the newspaper, quote, there wasn't anybody who was his enemy. That's why this is so shocking and mind-boggling.
Starting point is 00:23:25 If he had a scrape with anybody, he'd get up and walk away. He could go out there and pick up the side of a car. He's a bull, end quote. So the suggestion that a person or even two people had been able to restrain Jesse and force him into a car or make him do anything he didn't want to do just felt really unlikely to the people who knew him best. However, in my mind, though, if the perpetrator or perpetrators had firearms, that would have probably made Jesse seem like less of a threat and he might have complied. The shock of his murder reignited a concern
Starting point is 00:23:59 that perhaps the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge should have had its own law enforcement officers patrolling for suspicious activity to prevent or deter crime. In 1999, the manager of the refuge said that the area wasn't regularly patrolled and didn't have a full-time officer due to lack of resources.
Starting point is 00:24:18 Considering Jesse's murder, the manager told the Tri-City Herald he was going to ask for funding to put more routine measures in place to staff the popular recreation spots along Seap Lakes Road. Shirley Wentworth reported that anglers who frequented Canal Lake and other pothole lakes in the region said they wondered if they should start arming themselves before going it alone. To help address the public's fear that a gun-toting killer was on the loose, deputies from Grant County Sheriff's Office and troopers from the Washington State Patrol fanned out in droves to make sure citizens and visitors saw them making their presence known in and around Pothole State Park.
Starting point is 00:24:55 Still, people were worried. There were so many places for a murderer to hide out in the remote landscape that surrounded the park. A fishing guide told reporter Shirley Wentworth, quote, it's a wide open area, easy to get lost in. It's kind of a no man's land once you get out there, end quote. Law enforcement continued to work the case and follow leads. Jesse's friends and family held his funeral service on May 13th, 1999, and set up a trust fund for his son, William. After the ceremony, his remains were cremated. Then May ended with no new updates, and June also passed with no word from investigators about a suspect or possible
Starting point is 00:25:37 persons of interest. Jesse's family began to wonder what was going on with the case. On the two-month anniversary, his wife and children expressed that they were eager to know if detectives had any new information and if the murderer would ever be caught. Gail Lohman expressed her frustration with the lack of progress in law enforcement's investigation when she told reporter Shirley Wentworth, quote, We replay it over and over as a mail delivery driver, plagued by questions that no one could answer for her or her children. Jesse's son Robert expressed how sad everyone in the family was that their dad
Starting point is 00:26:26 had been taken in such a brutal manner. He said, quote, what was so bad they had to do that to him? End quote. Unfortunately, a whole year went by before another update in the case. In May 2000, the Grant County Sheriff's Office remained tight-lipped about its investigation,
Starting point is 00:26:46 but it did publicize that it was offering a $3,000 reward for any information related to the case. A big flyer with the basic facts of what had happened to Jesse, alongside some photos of him and his Chevy pickup, were displayed on the poster. Authorities' plea to the public was clear, help us. The poster advertised in bold letters that all information and tips would remain confidential. In the years after that, the investigation slowly grinded to a halt. No new information was released, or at least none that was publicized by the media. Jesse's family took out ads in local newspapers, reminding folks how much they wanted answers
Starting point is 00:27:25 and how much they missed Jesse. By June 2007, eight years after the homicide, a new detective for Grant County Sheriff's Office had been assigned the case, and at that point it was considered a cold case. Anniversary articles written by Lynn Lynch for the Tri-City Herald and Candace Battiglia for the Columbia Basin Herald stated that this new investigator had officially reopened the case and felt confident that Jesse had been killed sometime on Saturday night, May 8th, likely before or after that 7.30 p.m. ATM withdrawal, or during the morning hours of Sunday, May 9th. In 2007, this detective resubmitted old case evidence to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab, hoping that advances in technology since 1999 would yield better results.
Starting point is 00:28:12 He also discussed resubmitting old surveillance video from the Safeway and that other Moses Lake location for a second round of evaluation. According to the article by the Columbia Basin Herald, the hope was that images from the video would be, quote, refined and touched up to possibly get a look at the person who brought the vehicle there, end quote. It appears Jesse's family was instrumental in getting Grant County to take these big steps in 2007. Jesse's sister Debbie told reporter Lynn Lynch that she called the sheriff's office every month asking what they were doing and if there was anyone actively working on the case. But even with Jesse's family members pushing investigators, the case went cold again.
Starting point is 00:28:57 It wasn't until August of 2022, just two years ago, that the Grant County Sheriff's Office issued another statement, once again asking for the public's help. By that point, Jesse's unsolved murder was 23 years old. The department created an updated poster which showed Jesse's photo and provided the basic facts of the case. News outlets and newspapers published the update, but whether that media blitz helped move the needle in the case remains unknown. A public information officer with the Sheriff's Office told me over the phone that there is a cold case investigator currently assigned to Jesse's case, and the department is desperate
Starting point is 00:29:36 for any scrap of information they can get to help close it. But something that I just can't stop thinking about, though, is how different this case would be now if only that camera on the ATM in Moses Lake had been working when the $100 was taken out using Jesse's bank card on Saturday night, May 8th. Like, if Jesse was who took the money out, then that could help clear up the murky timeline surrounding when he encountered his assailant or assailants. And more importantly, why. If it wasn't Jesse who used the card, though, then that's still kind of important, because we'd likely have a decent picture of the potential perpetrator's face, or at least a better description. The other thing that bothers me, and this is also something law enforcement has never been able to pin down, is where exactly Jesse was shot in the head and torso. Based on everything I read in the source material
Starting point is 00:30:30 and incident reports from the sheriff's office, it seems like detectives believe Jesse was shot somewhere else before being dumped in the field on Seap Lakes Road. I didn't get the sense from the source material that law enforcement has ever thought the field is where Jesse was shot. To me, though, that spent shell casing deputies said they found near the roadway by the field kind of points to it being the place where the murder occurred. But maybe that piece of evidence just fell out of the vehicle Jesse was transported in. Maybe it's not proof that a gun was discharged there.
Starting point is 00:31:03 Maybe it's not proof that a gun was discharged there. I also want to know what the sheriff's office has done with those hairs and fibers they said they collected from Jesse's clothing and body. Have those ever been tested? If not, let's send those things in. Do the fibers match fibers known to be in the interior of Jesse's pickup truck? I have all the questions. And while I'm on the topic of vehicles, we don't even know if Jesse's body was transported in his own truck to the field. He could very well have been killed in another vehicle,
Starting point is 00:31:33 dumped in the field, then the killer or killers had to ditch his truck somewhere, so they took it to the Safeway parking lot in Moses Lake. I guess the question that bothers me the most about this story is where is the crime scene? Is it the field? Is it somewhere near the Safeway out of view of the surveillance cameras? Was it the parking lot of the ATM? There's just so much that I, the Sheriff's Office, and Jesse's family don't know, but want to know. So if you have any information about the unsolved murder of Jesse Lohman, please contact the Grant County Sheriff's Office or email crimetips at grantcountywa.gov.
Starting point is 00:32:32 Park Predators is an Audiochuck original show. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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