True Crime All The Time - Donald Blom

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

On May 26th, 1999 nineteen-year-old Katie Poirier disappeared from a Moose Lake, Minnesota convenience store, where she was working a late-night shift alone. An employee at the Minnesota Veterans Home called the police to report his suspicions about his coworker- Donald Hutchinson. Donald was arrested and eventually confessed to kidnapping and murdering Katie. The police learned that Donald Hutchinson was really Donald Blom, and Katie wasn’t his only victim. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the crimes committed by Donald Blom. Donald had a long history of sexual violence towards young women and may have been involved in two other murders. For years, Donald toyed with police, offering to tell them about other murders that he committed. But, each time, he would decline to admit to anything. There's no doubt that Blom was a vicious predator but just exactly how many people did he murder?You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 252 of the True Crime All The Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. How are you? Hey, I'm good, man. How about you? I'm doing real well. That's good. Excited to be in the studio with you as always.

Oh yeah. Good times. This is when we have our fun. It is. After we've done all of the hard work, this is kind of our reward. It is. For getting all of that done. We're seeing some great support.

So let's give some shoutouts on. On Patreon, we had Selena Ventura. Hey, Selena. Holly Cavalero. What's going on? Cavalero. Denise Nikki. What's going on?

Nicky? Alicia Clinton jumped out of the highest level. Hey, thank you, Alicia. Caitlin Anzac. What's up, Anzac? Melanie Duval. Hey, Melanie. Tarina Bowden jumped out of their highest level.

I appreciate that. Tarina. Gina Nelson. Hey, Gina. Justin Jackson. What's going on, JJ? Marina Ledesma. Hey, Le Desma.

Tiffany Ray. Appreciate that, Tiffany. Amanda Weber. Hey, Amanda. Anya Walsh. Hey, Anna. Jamie Bullock. What's up, Bullock?

Chelsea. Hey, Chelsea. Ryan Kerrigan. What's going on, Kerrigan? Marissa Landice. Hey, appreciate that to Mercia. Claire Mahoney. Well, hello, Claire.

Rita Johns. What's going on, Rita? Courtney Nelson. Appreciate that. Courtney. Christopher Borland. Hey, Borland. Chickadee.

Oh, good old chickadee. And Boudreau love. Oh, I need some Budro. Okay. All righty then. I think. And then if we go back into the vault, Gibbs, this week we selected Ellen Wright. Hey, Ellen.

So we appreciate all the new support, the continued support. On PayPal, we had donations from Kerry Cassiopo. What's up, Cassiopo? Melanie Boza. Hey, you, Bozo. And Dan Rodommer. Oh, the Rodomers in the house. Yeah.

So we appreciate all that as well. So we have a lot out right now, Gibbs. on Unsolved. We have an episode out on the disappearance of Michelle Wedge. Yeah. Headed up to Canada. We are. And Michelle was a seven-year-old girl who went missing and we'll get into all the details.

It's a very interesting episode. Check that out. On Saturday, we released a brand new Patreon episode on audio and video. It's on the murder of Marine Corporal Justin Huff. Oh, man, that was so interesting. It is an interesting case because you've got a catfish scenario that essentially leads to murder. Yeah. So all of our folks on Patreon, check that out. If you're not a supporter on Patreon, now's a great time. Come on over. The water's warm. Yeah. In a couple of weeks, we're getting ready to hook Gibby up to a polygraph machine.

and we're putting out a video exposing Gibby on a number of questions that I think will tell an interesting story. Then again, I have been trained. That's true. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. It's an experiment. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? Yeah, I'm fascinated with this one.

We are talking about Donald Blum. It was on May 26, 1999, that 19-year-old came. Katie Poyer disappeared from a Moose Lake, Minnesota convenience store where she was working a late night shift alone. After days of extensive searching, she was nowhere to be found until an employee at the Minnesota Veterans Home called the police to report his suspicions about his co-worker, Donald Hutchinson. Donald was ultimately arrested and eventually confessed to kidnapping and murdering Katie. The police learned that Donald Hutchinson was really Donald Blum and that Katie was not his only victim.

Donald had a long history of sexual violence towards young women and may have been involved in two other murders. Donald Albin Blum was born February 5th, 1949 in Richfield, Minnesota and would grow up to become a serial rapist and murderer. Gibbs, there's not a ton of information out there about his childhood. But what we do know is that Donald was a troubled team. In the 10th grade, he was sent to reform school because he was constantly skipping and drinking while underage. Well, skipping school is never good.

Drinking underage is really never good. No, but you seem to have mastered it both of those. Well, I did. And I came out just fine. As a youngster. Yeah. That part is debatable. But in all seriousness, I mean, when you say troubled team.

Okay. Were a lot of us troubled teens? Yeah. Sure. I would say a large percentage of the people listening. Maybe would think of themselves as being quote unquote troubled teens. Well, what does that really mean? You know, it depends on the severity. Sure, it does. We talk about it a lot with killers just because I think a lot of them really were troubled teens. And I mean troubled. Right. Yeah, it's not like when I was in that small town, that rural town where you couldn't dance and we wanted the dance and, you know, you had to go to the outskirts of the county line to have the dance. Because the preacher had shut everything down. Yeah. I know you had a rough time there for about a year or so. We just wanted to get foot loose. I saw. I know. Before he murdered Katie, Donald had six felony convictions. Five of them were for sex crimes. His sentences were short because at the time, Minnesota had. had lenient sexual assault laws, he was set free Gibbs over and over. And each time he was out of prison, he committed another crime against women. Yeah, and you know how I feel about that. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about it ad nauseum. Go back to the 50, 60, 70s, whatever decade you want to talk about, it really does kind of make you sick to your stomach. As you research these

cases and you just get the sense of how little emphasis was placed on sexual crimes against women. Yeah. You know, as a dad with two daughters, it pisses me off. Absolutely. Now, have we come a long way? Yeah, I would say we have. Probably a lot of people would say we haven't come far enough. Right.

Just like people say that about everything. But there's no doubt, 2021. as it pertains to crimes against women, sexual crimes against women, much different than it was in the 60s and 70s. For sure. And that's a good thing. That's how it should be. In 1975, Donald kidnapped a 14-year-old girl. He gagged her and sexually assaulted her.

He locked her in the trunk of his car. But she managed to escape and turned him in. He went to trial and was convicted of aggravated assault. So just analyze that right there. Think about aggravated assault. What does that mean to you? Hey, smacking somebody around. You got in a fight with somebody, a tussle, you know, you hit somebody.

That's what it kind of means to me. You know what it doesn't mean? Kidnapping a 14 year old girl sexually assaulting her and locking her in your trunk. To me, that is not aggravated assault. And I think, you know, that highlights the problem. Now, we're in 1975 here. That highlights the problem back then. And again, I don't know all the facts.

Maybe they didn't have the evidence they needed or whatever. But, you know, how, how was he not convicted of kidnapping, sexual assault, things like that? How did it get down to aggravated assault? Yeah, you wonder if they had some type of plea deal, maybe? Maybe or maybe they just didn't think they had the evidence to get the other ones or, and this is an even more scary thought, maybe they didn't go after some of these charges like they should have. We don't know. It's going to prove to be a issue.

Time and time again, yeah, unfortunately. In 1978, he was released from prison and committed aggravated assault against an unknown victim. In 1981, Donald attempted to sexually assault a 13-year-old girl. Then in 1982, he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl. So there's no doubt here that Donald Blum targeted young girls. I mean, I think already we've established that pattern. Yeah, I mean, you can see all this brewing up year after year after year. I mean, he's just trouble, man.

Oh, there's no doubt he's trouble. I think what upsets you, what upsets me and what upsets everyone is the fact that he's let out, right? so quickly to then go and do these things over and over and over. In 1983, he was arrested again for criminal sexual conduct. He kidnapped two teenage girls, drove them to a remote area. He threatened them and sexually assaulted one of the girls at knife point. They were rescued because a police officer happened to be driving through the area and scared Donald off.

The girls reported him, and he was eventually caught. and sentenced to nine years in prison. So six victims in less than 10 years, but he only ends up doing, what, nine years this time? Well, three that they know about. Because I don't think they, at the time, knew about three that we talked about. But, you know, here again, you can make the argument that should it have been nine, should it have been more, did they take into account his previous conviction? But if you look at it, his previous conviction was for aggravated assault.

Had it been for kidnapping and rape, maybe he gets a lot more than nine years. Sure. It looks more like a repeat offender. In 1992, a psychologist examined Donald Blum. He told him he was abused by his father at the age of 13, which made him a heavy drinker. The psychologist ultimately determined that if Donald was. not monitored. He would engage in antisocial behavior. But despite this warning, Donald was released from prison that very same year. He changed his name, married a woman named Amy Hutchinson and got

a number of jobs. And I think, you know, you look at this. Again, it's something that upsets us. You have people within the prison system trained psychologists who are. You know, you look at this. You who are providing diagnoses, they're providing insight. And it's almost as if parole boards and prison officials, they're just totally dismissing all of this information. Yeah, he's saying he needs to be watched carefully or he'll do something bad, right? Now, you can look at it and say, maybe he did his nine years and they just couldn't keep him any longer. On May 26, 1999, 19-year-old Katie Poyer disappeared from a convenience store in Moose Lake, Minnesota.

Katie was a college student studying to become a corrections officer. She worked at the store for extra money. Katie was engaged to a man named Mark Johnson. They had moved in together and were both students at Fondulac Community College in Carlton, Minnesota. they wanted to become state conservation officers and eventually work as game wardens in either Montana or Wyoming. So you look at this 19 year old girl Gibbs and it seems as though she had, I don't want to say her life planned out, but she had goals.

She had aspirations. I also respect the fact that she's working as she's going through college. Yeah. I think that says a lot about a person. It does. just minding her own business doing her thing. Yeah, exactly. That night, Katie was working the late shift at DJ's Expressway, part of the Canoco service station.

Katie went to work that evening for what she thought was going to be just a normal shift, although she was working alone. Another girl named Catherine Hanick was working at the subway next door. And there were security cameras all around the property. After midnight, a passerby called the police to report that the convenience store clerk wasn't there. This person found Katie's denim shirt, her checkbook, and her car keys. But no Katie. Police arrived and found no one in or around the store.

So at that point, they're going to have to at least go and check the cameras at the office to see what happened. Yeah, check the security cameras, no doubt. One thing I wanted to talk about was, you know, this, working in a convenience store late at night. It can sometimes be a scary proposition. Yeah. It seems like a lifetime ago, but I used to work in a number of gas stations around the Detroit area. I mean, they had bulletproof glass and all kinds of things.

Somebody tried to rob me with a screwdriver. It can be scary when you're there by yourself, especially. Yeah, I think it would be kind of strange to knowing that you're going into work that night, that you're going to be sitting behind bullet. I mean, was that it's got to be a little freaky, I would think, that you know somebody might try at one point through the night to rob you and shoot at you. Yeah. Why would you need bulletproof glass? Exactly.

If that wasn't an option. So you mentioned the security cameras at 1140 p.m. Surveillance video captured a man forcing Katie out of the store with his hands around her neck. Now, the footage was grainy, making it difficult to identify the man. He was wearing jeans, a baseball cap on backwards, and a Yankees number 23 jersey. And this is something I definitely have a lot of experience with, you know, in the late 90s. Some of that video footage, it just wasn't very good. You know, the technology, I think I might have mentioned it before, but, you know, the system that we had at the different gas stations that I

was in you had basically had one VHS tape at the time for every day and you just swapped them out and you know had they been there for two or three years what happens when you tape over a VHS tape every week for three years it's going to suffer in it and just the technology of the cameras nothing like what we have the day with 4k video and this high resolution and all that night vision right so much better. Katie's family was notified at 150 a.m. and the police started searching for her. Her family left Moncato at 2.30 a.m. and arrived at the store by 6 a.m. The police contacted Catherine Hannock, who was working at the subway next to DJ's expressway. These stores were connected by an internal door. Just before she closed the subway at 10 p.m. Catherine said she saw a man

in and around the store behaving strangely. That's the way she put it. She said he was driving a black pickup truck with white markings on the side. They left it about the same time. And at one point, Catherine was driving behind him. And she was able to give a partial license plate number and a description to the police. What she gave them was 5,57. And then she didn't know the next two characters.

but she knew the last character was why. She said he looked to be in his mid-20s and had long, light-colored hair. So a composite sketch was made and put out to the local TV station. Good, good for her to have that type of memory. Yeah. Well, and the mindset to even think about that, right? She notices this man. She thinks, okay, what's he doing?

He's acting a little strangely. I'll take a look at his license plate number. I'm driving behind him. That's some real street smarts there. I can't remember the last time I recalled a license plate number. Besides yours. Yeah. Furry one.

I can't remember the last time you could articulate the plot of a movie you were thinking about, who was in it, any of that. So maybe all of that goes hand in hand. I don't know. Maybe it does. Tush. But I think there's no doubt, Gibbs,

from the standpoint of police, you have a missing girl, you have an individual who was said to have been acting strangely. Is there a possibility that they're connected? I would say, yeah, the police had to have been thinking that. I mean, if you're not thinking that, you don't put out a composite sketch to the media, right? If you don't want to talk to this person, if you don't think that they have, at the very least some information that could be relevant to what's going on. Later that day, hundreds of volunteers drove around Moose Lake to help the National Guard and police look for Katie, a local facility for sex offenders, informed the police that all their inmates were accounted for.

So that's interesting. Something that you and I don't talk about often or we don't see in the research. Now, I've seen before where police will kind of automate. dramatically check out the local sex offenders in the area. Right. But to have a facility kind of account for all of the people house there. Okay. That's interesting.

Obviously, they must have been contacted. The police added Donald Blum to their suspect list because his license plate number matched Catherine's statement. Yeah, it's the one thing I didn't say about the license plate number. Yeah, she didn't get all of the characters. But getting four out of six, I think is huge because there's only so many possible combinations with four out of six of the numbers and a description of the vehicle. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

If you have that many numbers and you find a black truck with some white riding on it, you might have the truck. All right, Gibbs, let's take a minute to talk about best fiends. If you've listened to the show for a while, you know I'm obsessed with this. game. And I'm convinced it's the best match three style puzzle game by far. With best fiends, you play through an actual storyline. You've got the good guys, the fiends, and then the not so good guys, the slugs. And the more you play, the more fiends join your team and the more powerful they become, helping you solve increasingly challenging puzzles as you progress through the game. It's action-packed

fun, but it's also a brain-boosting puzzle game. So it kind of rolls it all into one. And they're always adding new content to the game. So you'll never get bored. Now, I don't want to brag, but I've been playing it for a while and my level is in the high three digits. Let's put it that way. But Best Fiends has thousands of levels with more being added all the time. So when I need that kind of mental pick me up, I need that break from some of the tough research that we do. I pick up Best Fiends. It really kind of helps to reset me. So if you haven't already, check it out. Download Best Fiends. free today on the app store or Google Play. That's Friends Without the R. Best Fiends. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Listen, folks, if there's something interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals, I can honestly say that BetterHelp is there for you. I've tried the service. It works. Better help will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. You can start communicating in under 48 hours. This is not a crisis line. It's not self-help. This is. This is a crisis line. It's not self-help. This

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Enjoying the over 2 million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. BetterHelp has a special offer for True Crime All the Time listeners. Get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com slash T-CATT-T. When police got to Donald's house,

they saw a white truck in the driveway. Donald wasn't home, but his wife, Amy, told the police that they had gotten rid of the black truck some time ago. But now you got to be a little deflated. As a police department, it seemed like everything kind of fell into your lap very quickly. You go to the house and you find out that, no, we got rid of that thing a long time ago. Now, my question there is, Gibbs, if you sell your truck to somebody or you give it away or you sell it to a junkyard for scrap, would you not take your license

plate off of it before that transaction was ended. Yeah, you would think you would. I know some people don't. I make it a practice to take mine all the time. Well, you take yours off at night. Well, that's true. Just because you don't want like a stray police cruiser to run you. But, I mean, it just seems like to me, common sense.

You would not want that to go with whoever is taking the truck. Right. But maybe not everybody does that. Maybe that's just a me and you thing. On June 6, 1999, the search for Katie ended. The police had found no evidence leading them to her. They hope that since the suspect was foolish enough to kidnap Katie in a store with security cameras, he would make another mistake. The staff of the Hope Lutheran Church established a headquarters and managed the tip hotline. So to me, Gibbs, it doesn't sound as though, you know, everybody was giving up on Katie Poirier. It sounds as though the intensive searching by police ended, which it does in every case.

It does. At some point, like we said before, there's only so long that you can throw, you know, all these resources at one case. Day after day after day, if you're not getting anything, Well, inevitably, those resources get pulled and put on to other cases because you're constantly having new cases. Yeah, and you've got to figure out a different way to keep the case moving forward, right? Different ways to get it out into the media and so forth. But I just didn't want to make it sound as though police just threw up their hands and said, oh, we're done. Right. That wasn't the case.

Two weeks after Katie disappeared, the police asked the Minnesota Twins player Paul Malter to make a public service announcement. So he had to have been pretty late in his career in 1999 because growing up when I was young, Paul Malta was a really good player and actually one of my favorite player. Really? But by 1999, I'm surprised he was still in the league, but he had to have been on the downside of his career. But he was still a big name, right?

Because he had been a star for quite a quite a long time. Had a good career. Yeah, he did. His appeal got the attention of. Darrell Brown, Donald's co-worker at the Minnesota Veterans Home, Donald worked there as a custodian. And on June 18th, Darrell called the tip line. He told the police that Donald Hutchinson had recently stopped driving his black pickup truck. He also told them that Donald was absent from work, the day that Katie Poyer was abducted. He resembled the composite sketch but had recently cut his hair.

And soon after he got the haircut, he quit that job without notice. Wow, a lot of suspicious activity there. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, a lot of things that you would think would peak the interest of police. Eventually, the police learned that Hutchinson was actually Donald Blum, the owner of a Black Ford F-150 with a license plate 557 HDY. They also found out that his wife, Amy, had lied to them. That's never good.

No, that's not good. The truck was still registered under his name. Donald also owned a Moose Lake property about 12 miles from DJ's expressway. And it didn't take him long, Gibbs, to look into his record and find convictions for sexual offenses. I think the other thing that police noticed right away was that all of Donald's other victims were petite young girls. very similar to Katie Poyer. But from what investigators could piece together, Katie didn't know Donald Blum. Donald's employer told the police that he never knew about Donald's criminal record because he had used a fake name.

He kept to himself and he didn't talk much at work. On June 18th, the police got a warrant to search Donald's property. on the 19th, they searched around his home with 100 National Guard members and a few hundred volunteers. They went miles into the woods, but they found nothing. Katie's mother made a statement that she hoped to find her daughter alive. You know, and on that, Gibbs, I'm thinking, you know, what else would a parent say? You have to have that hope, right?

Right. And we've talked about that in a number of episodes. Once you give up hope, then I don't know what you do. But I don't think parents give up hope. I don't think they ever would. No, you can't. You just can't do that. On day two of the search, the police found bone fragments and a tooth in the fire pit

on Donald's property. Investigators also found guns, which would later earn Donald another felony charge. So they sent a tooth to Dr. Ann Norlander, a board certified forensic odontologist. At first, she wasn't even sure that. the fragment was a tooth, but she spent hours examining it and found some filling material. DNA tests were inconclusive, but she was able to identify a brand of filling from the particles. With this information, she could narrow down local dentists that use that brand and look into patient records. And it was determined that the composition of the filling matched Katie's record.

Dr. Norlander was also able to determine that it was a tooth from a young female and most likely tooth number 18. Amazing how much information they can get from something like that. Yeah. And it wasn't even a whole tooth. We're talking about fragments. Right. To the point where she wasn't even sure it was a tooth. So yeah, it does amaze me.

The technology and the fact that they're able to do these type of things, agents from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehendants, Apprehension went looking for Donald Blum. On June 20th, they found him at his family campground 140 miles from Richfield, Minnesota. In the early morning hours, agents woke him up to ask him some questions. Of course, Gibbs, he denied any involvement in Katie's murder. He told them he was at his Moose Lake property on May 14th or 15th, and then again on June 12. On May 26th, he said, he left early. From work, he went fishing and was home sometime between 7 and 8 p.m. Donald was arrested that same day as he drove home from the campground and was taken him for questioning. He wasn't charged right away, but the sheriff felt pretty confident that they had the right man. Catherine Hanick

identified him in a lineup, but Donald refused to talk and requested an attorney. Go ahead and say it I always have an attorney present. So he's smart there. Yeah, as much as we don't like these killers, we don't like what they do, I think it is important to point out because this goes for everyone. Not just killers. Some people are innocent. Sure they are. You need an attorney.

He was offered a plea agreement, but still refused to speak. The police said about interviewing Donald's neighbors. They learned that he purchased the property in 1997. They said that he spent a lot of time there before Katie's abduction, but not after. So that's intriguing. That is. And we're talking about the Moose Lake property. Right.

They said that after she was abducted, because he wasn't showing up, the place started to look neglected. And it doesn't take very long, right? If you're not there, if someone's not cutting the grass, weeding, using the weed eater, gets bad real quick. Yeah, nature will definitely take over. But you have to ask yourself, why is that then? Right. And I think that goes back to your point of it being intriguing. Is it just a coincidence that someone is there all the time very often?

And then all of a sudden, after the incident that they're suspected of being involved in, they don't show up anymore. You know, just like, you know, getting your haircut, leaving your job, things like that. in and of themselves don't really mean all that much. I mean, it's not concrete evidence, right? But it's definitely suspicious.

You'd have to say that. Can you have one coincidence, two coincidences? I'm sure you start getting in the neighborhood of three, four, five, six. Okay,

maybe it's no longer a coincidence that all these things are happening. Exactly. Donald was charged with first degree murder and kidnapping on June 23, 1999. after the charges were filed, he was transferred to the county jail. Gibbs, he made some escape plans, but got caught and put in solitary confinement.

He's got some gumption, huh? Why does everybody think they can escape? Now, some people can, right? Pee we did. And we've had some other killers who were pretty good escape artists.

But I think by and large, most people don't escape. A lot of people have plans, but they don't work out. Yeah, they watch too much cool hand, Luke. Too much,

yeah, too much TV. on August 10th, Donald sent a note to Carlton County Sheriff David Sebo saying that he had some information. He didn't just send one. He sent eight notes throughout August and early September. And on September 3rd, Donald agreed to talk in exchange for a phone call with his family. Sebo tried to arrange a meeting for that evening, but Donald wanted a plea deal and said that unless he got it, he wouldn't talk. His attorney tried to talk him out of making the deal. But Donald said he just wanted to put this

whole thing behind him. I think another part of this Gibbs is that he wanted to be transferred to a facility in North Dakota to be closer to family. Yeah. Make it easier on them to visit him. Yeah, probably. It's actually a kind of a big thing with prisoners trying to angle, you know, getting into better prisons, cushier prisons. We're going to see that with Donald. Yeah. He actually does this later on.

On September 7th and 8th, state and federal prosecutors sent letters to Donald's state and federal defense outlining terms of the agreement. The state would obtain an indictment. Donald would be sentenced to life in prison, but he would be imprisoned in North Dakota. Another part of the deal was that no criminal charges would be filed against his wife, Amy.

And Donald would be allowed more time outside his cell as long as he followed the prison rules. So there are some things in this for him, which is pretty normal. You got to give up a little to get something. Isn't that how it is in life? It is. On September 8th, Donald met with the police. and he confessed to abducting Katie, strangling her, and burning her body in the fire pit on his property. His confession interview reportedly lasted two and a half hours.

So what he said was that on May 26, 1999, he went fishing and drove home to Richfield. Later that evening, he went to his Moose Lake property. And on the way, he stopped to buy some liquor. And that's where he saw Katie. working at the store, he tried to grab her. And she ran outside. He followed her and decided to kidnap her, force her into his truck, and drive her to his home. He told authorities, I don't know if it was guilt or something or whatever, feeling stupid,

but then I choked her and killed her. When they got to the property, he choked Katie from behind and gives, he said it took 20 minutes for her to die. And I think that's something you and I have heard before. On television and in movies, sometimes they make it seem as though choking a person happens very quickly. Yeah, just a matter of second sometimes. Right. That they would die very quickly. Well, we've learned from killers. Number one, that it takes a lot more strength than a lot of them first realized. And I think number two, it takes longer than most people think it would to choke someone to death. Right.

Now, I think a big thing Gibbs is that Donald denied sexually assaulting Katie. He said after he killed her, he put her body in the fire pit and set her on fire. But the police noted that his confession was inconsistent with what they had seen on the security footage. which showed that he forced her out of the store. Katie didn't run outside. He said that Katie begged him to let her go, but never made any efforts to fight him until he was choking her. And I think to police,

that was something they found very hard to believe, that she would not have put up a fight from, you know, the very first moment that she realized he was trying to abduct her. Right. Donald also said that he burned her body with wood and paper. And again, this is something that police questioned. Probably most people listening would question that as well. If you've listened to enough true crime, if you've watched enough true crime documentaries,

you know that it takes more than just wood and fire to burn a body to ashes. Yeah, you've got to get that heat really up there. And oftentimes that involves some type of. of accelerant. So I think the point is they're finding a number of inconsistencies with his statement and the facts as they knew them from the evidence. When asked if the ashes in the fire pit were Katie's, Donald responded, I guess so. Okay. Strange answer. I think you know the answer, Donald. It's either yes or no. I mean, that's an answer I would expect from my 16 year old or me or you. The interviewers kept pressing him for information.

He would only say he guessed so. So then they asked him, well, whose remains are they? And apparently he replied Gibbs, well, I was asking that myself, man, as if he had no idea whose remains were in his fire pit. He's just playing games at this point. Yeah, obviously. Unless you've burned so many bodies that you can't remember whose body you burned on this day or that day.

Right. And that's a whole other problem. Yeah, that would take it up a notch altogether for sure. After this interview, Donald called two TV stations to request that they leave his family alone. Amy Hutchinson was given back her property as part of the plea deal. Donald's attorneys met with the media to announce the negotiations and said, Blum has admitted to both the kidnapping and the killing of Katie Poirier. On September 14th, 1999, Donald's Moose Lake home mysteriously burned down in what was later determined to be arson. All that remained after the fire was the crumpled metal roof,

some broken glass, and charred appliances. There had been no known threats made, but the timing was very suspicious. Neighbors didn't see or hear anything that night and didn't report the fire until 7.45 a.m. the next day. Well, maybe somebody didn't want that house there anymore. That's a good possibility. On September 16th, a grand jury indicted Donald for murder. At a hearing that day, his counsel informed the court that Donald was uncomfortable with entering a guilty plea before the completion of DNA testing.

The defense also said that he was uncomfortable entering a guilty plea because the disposal method of Katie's body was impossible. So the next day, the federal government withdrew the agreement. Basically, he refused to plead guilty. Well, then why did you enter into a plea agreement? Right. If you weren't willing to meet those demands. So Donald recanted his confession, telling his lawyer it was, quote, a stupid thing to do.

He changed his statement. He denied all guilt. He said that the stress of solitary confinement. and his medications made him falsely confess. He said he was hallucinating and he thought confessing was the only way to get out of the cell. But with his plea deal rescinded, he had to prepare for trial. So here we go. We're going to trial now.

In the spring of 2000, the state legislature passed a set of proposals called Katie's law. Katie's law changed sex offenders laws by imposing longer prison terms. And I'm all for that. You know I am. Pam Poyer, Connie Larson, and Patty Wedderley, all mothers of crime victims joined together to help get the law passed. They wanted increased restrictions on sex offenders and computer tracking of their movements. Katie's law increased the penalty for convicted sex offenders who didn't register with the police to a felony with a mandatory one-year sentence. Well, it's a great law.

And, you know, fortunately, it went into effect on August 1st, 2000. After five weeks of jury selection, Donald's trial started on June 12, 2000. Trial lasted 25 days. The defense was led by Rodney Broden and the prosecution by Assistant County Attorney Thomas Pertler. Gibbs the defense argued that Donald was a victim of mistaken identity, a series of coincidences and his own stupidity. All right. That's my defense.

My client here's stupid. He's not smart. Right. He doesn't make good decisions. And he's just had a number of coincidences that don't mean anything. Over 50 witnesses testified. Prosecution experts testified that the tooth matched Katie's dental records. Dr. Anne Norlander said although she wasn't 100% certain, she was confident the tooth belonged to Katie.

But the defense had their own expert who disputed this. Donald's brother testified that he gave Donald a box of old clothes containing a Yankees jersey. But Donald had told the police earlier that he didn't own a Yankees jersey. Well, somebody's lying. Oh, yeah. Isn't that the case in every one of these that we do? Someone is lying. Yes.

The key is to figure out who it is. Donald's barber confirmed that in May, he gave him some blonde tips to make him appear younger. Very much like what you're rocking right now. Yeah. Pretty cool. I know you like to go the blonde tip route. I said, hey, man, put that little thing on my head and pull that hair through and just do a little frosting. Yeah, frost my tips.

The two young women from the 1983 kidnapping and assault agreed to testify at Donald's trial. They told the jury that Donald tied them to a tree, threatened them with a knife, and gagged them with socks. He choked one of the girls several times until she passed out. Then he revived her. He threatened to rape them and he did assault one of them. And we talked about it earlier, right? the deputy came along, scared Donald off, and he ran into the woods. He was arrested a couple of months later.

But I think one of the things that, like almost every article that I looked at pointed out, Gibbs, was how everyone in the courtroom noticed how similar both of these girls were to Katie, like in their physical descriptions. They looked very much like Katie Poirier. Right. So that's telling. It is in a lot of cases because we know a lot of predators have a type. But I think the most damning piece of evidence against Donald was the full recording of his confession, which the judge allowed the jury to hear. Which is awesome because it doesn't always happen that way.

Yeah, you're right. And it's always a very pivotal point in any case, right? when you've got a recorded confession, the defense is going to try to get that thrown out. Yeah. To not allow it to be heard by the jury. Obviously, the prosecution is going to argue the other way. And it's up to the judge. I think it's really hard to come back from a recording like that if you're the defense. I would agree.

Donald's defense attorney called his first witness on August 7th. It was Donald's wife Amy. She testified that her husband was home on the night of May 26th, and she said she knew exactly what he was doing because when she heard the news that Katie disappeared near their Moose Lake property, she decided that Donald may be a suspect because of his criminal record. So she wanted to have a statement ready if the police came to ask her questions. She said that Donald came home at 9.30 p.m. and they went to bed. When she woke up in the morning, the coffee pot was ready. So she assumed he was there the entire night. She had no recollection of him leaving their home.

She also claimed she had never seen him wear a Yankees jersey. Now, this one for me is always tough, right? Because I know for a fact, Gibbs, my wife would have no idea if I went out in the middle of the night to do something nefarious. As long as I was home and snuck back into the bed before she got up, how would she know? Well, she doesn't know. I mean, I remember when you were watching what you ate, you would sneak out to the Waffle House at 2.30 every night, get you one of those All-American meals. Smother covered chumped. Yeah.

And come back and get back in bed like nothing happened. Right. She never knew. She never knew. Broden pointed out the fact that only one of six witnesses identified Donald. in the lineup, three witnesses picked an undercover police officer. Donald's coworkers only identified him after investigators talked to them about Donald for half an hour.

And he argued that the composite sketch and description of Donald were inaccurate. He described Donald as a haggard old man. But Catherine Hanick reported seeing a young man at the gas station. Well, definitely two big differences. Yeah, but we also know that, you know, eyewitness accounts. They are somewhat unreliable. I think it's been proven. Yeah.

That people have a hard time in some instances telling police exactly what someone looks like, estimating their age, their height, their weight, things like that. I would also say if I was the defense attorney and my client was on trial and all the statements said, was young and 20 something 20 something I would get him prepped by looking as old as I could and bring him into that trial well I think we haven't said it but we have to point out he was about 50 years old right it's a time that katie disappeared so that is quite a gap 20 something to 50 so again as a defense attorney you have to pounce on that oh for sure broden told the jury that Donald's confession was a stupid mistake.

And he said the confession didn't fit with other evidence from the crime scene and should be disregarded. Like you said, Gives, that confession is huge. And as a defense attorney, you got some work cut out for you, trying to tell the jury why they shouldn't put much stock in it. I don't think there's much more you can say, right? Besides the fact that it was just a stupid mistake. You don't want to stay on that subject too long, right? you just want to address it and move on. Yeah, that makes sense to me.

You plan a seed and then you get away from it, right? You just got to plant a seed in the jury's mind. Finally, he introduced another suspect, a sex offender who the police questioned before they talked to Donald. This man allegedly confessed to a fellow inmate that he killed Katie. Well, there you go, pushing some reasonable doubt. Donald testified on August 10th for about three hours. he said that his life was falling apart and that he was sick when he made his confession. He talked about how his wife had threatened to take her own life because of all the media

harassment. And he said he had to do anything. It took to get out of his cell. He testified that he was fishing in Moose Lake on May 26th, but was home by 10 p.m. So then the case went to the jury. They deliberated for 10 hours. and on August 15th, 2000, they found Donald Blum guilty of first-degree murder during the commission of a kidnapping. The Star Tribune reported, having just been dealt his fifth conviction involving the abduction of teenage girls, Blum shrugged slightly, but otherwise showed no reaction to the verdict.

Outside the courthouse, Katie's mother Pam said, we still lost. we don't get to bring Katie home. I think that's a powerful statement. Obviously, you want to see justice for your child. You want to see whoever committed the murderer put away. Right. But it doesn't change the fact that your child's never coming home. No, I think you have that very short victory.

And then you go home sad as hell, man. Yeah. And I think you have days. where you're sad as hell for the rest of your life. I mean, that's just the cold hard reality. Yeah. Of what these types of crimes due to the victim's families. On August 16, 2000, Donald was sentenced to life in prison plus 19 years and seven months for being a felon in possession of firearms. His sentencing hearing has been described as chaotic. The judge briefly suspended it after a heated exchange.

between Pam Poyer and Donald. And Pam told him during her victim impact statement, get a good look at me. I want my face in your dreams always. And then I guess they had some back and forth. And then Donald told her, you've got the wrong effing guy, lady. You look all you want.

I'm not your effing man. Donald claimed he'd be exonerated one day. He told reporters, hey, I've never killed anyone. So an automatic appeal was filed after his sentencing. He appealed on three grounds. His attorney didn't work hard enough to suppress the confession. The court didn't allow him to present evidence that another man committed the crime.

And his defense team made statements to reporters that corrupted the jury pool. So he's throwing three things up on the wall, hoping one of them sticks. Got to have something stick, right? And it was not long after this appeal that Amy sent an email to two Minnesota legislators claiming Donald had abused her for years. She said Donald punched and kicked her for the seven years they were married. She was ashamed, but felt as though she really couldn't do anything about it. Donald never told her much about his life.

And she didn't know that he had been married twice before. He took her last name to hide his criminal record, which she said she didn't know all that much about. She wrote, I now know that I was in many ways his hostage, paralyzed to speak up. Gibbs, she also said that she believed he murdered Katie. But due to her state of mind, she couldn't tell the truth at trial. And now she wanted to tell the real truth. And that was that Donald was not home on May 26, 1999. She said that when she heard the news that police found bones in the fire pit,

she asked him about it. And he angrily responded, you're not effing stupid. Are you? She said she wanted to believe he was innocent, but felt like he was the killer. She ended by saying she thought Donald may have more victims. So Gibbs, this is interesting because I do believe we see this in many cases where you have an abused spouse.

It doesn't always have to do with talking about a murder. It can be just talking about the abuse. We've heard it from so many people that when you're in that situation, you're so scared that talking out or reaching out to someone. is terrifying because you don't know what the retribution is going to be. Now let's put it in the context of telling the police that your husband wasn't home. You believe he might have killed this girl. What's he going to do to you? Are you going to be his next victim?

I know, and you do as well, from the many different communications that we've had with victims of abuse that these can be very tricky situations. Oh, for sure. And I think she finally felt safe. Exactly. And when he's appealing this case, she probably gets a little bit nervous that maybe he'll be coming home. And this is her time to speak up. And she finally spoke up. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. I do know that she was never charged for lying on the stand. On July 1st, 2004, an appeals court upheld Donald's conviction. They determined that he did have a fair trial.

In the summer of 2006, Donald wrote a letter to the police saying it was, quote, time to talk. He wanted to be transferred closer to relatives in exchange for information. And the police agreed to the deal because he was a suspect in the sexual assault and murder of a 19-year-old. girl whose body was left in the woods near his home. In his letter, Donald told the police about a 1983 unsolved murder case. He admitted to observing part of the woman's assault. Donald also said he may have killed a man whose body was never found. So does he want to be transferred or is he just toying with the police? Well, he's already gone back and forth once. And this time when detectives arrived with the transfer letter, Donald didn't make any confessions. He talked, he rambled with them

for like three days. But he never confessed to anything. And so again, the deal was rescinded. And I think your question is valid. You either want to be transferred or you do not. Right. And to get transferred, you're going to have to give up some information. Yeah. So either you have that information or you don't and you're just messing around. Or maybe. he's getting off on the fact that he's messing with police, because we know a lot of people do. In November of that year, investigators went back to Donald to talk to him. They wanted to look into whether he was involved in some other murders. These victims were Wilma Johnson and Holly Spanger.

Blum was at the scene of Wilma's murder, but denied killing her. He said he may have killed Holly. He was an initial suspect in her murder. He also said he may have killed a man near a bridge in St. Paul, but this man's body has never been found. Wilma Johnson was found Friday, May 13th, behind the chancery of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul in Minneapolis. She was naked. She had two black eyes and some head injuries. Her cause of death was ruled as strangulation. Wilma was described as a transient street person. She was 44 years old.

old and had been staying at the St. Paul YWCA for the preceding few days. A maintenance man on his way to work found her lying face up next to a lamppost at 6.55 a.m. And it was determined that her body had only been there for a few hours. She was wearing men's socks. Her shoes were next to her body and her clothes were in a hedge about 20 feet away. Wilma's murder is still unsolved. Holly Spanger was just 19 years old when she was murdered. She was stabbed to death in a Bloomington Park on July 15, 1993.

Holly moved to Bloomington to study architectural design at Northwest Technical Institute. Her roommates reported her missing when she never came back from a party on the 15th. Her body was found five days later in the park and Holly's murder remains unsolved. So they weren't able to tie him into him. No, but they really thought he was good for these murders. And I think Gibbs that they thought he was going to confess to some of these in exchange for being moved, you know, to be closer to relatives. My thought is either changed his mind, decided that he didn't want to admit to any more murders, or he was just playing with them and he didn't have the information. that could be corroborated to prove that he did it.

Right. In late December 2007, the Minnesota Supreme Court denied Donald's third petition for a new hearing. On June 17th, 2017, a 68-year-old Donald Blum was transferred back to Minnesota. He had been incarcerated in Pennsylvania for security reasons. and I saw a number of newscasts online. There was one Gibbs where I think they had found out that at one point he was transferred to a prison in Pennsylvania. That was a minimum security prison.

I mean, this was a prison where inmates had a lot of freedom and people were very upset about it. And should have been. And I think the investigation by this news team led to him being moved because there was such an outcry that he was kind of almost being treated as what do you want to call it? I don't know say a white collar criminal, but you know, someone who is not a danger gets to live a little easier or have a little more freedom in prison.

This guy was a convicted killer. Donald hasn't filed any more appeals. He also hasn't tried to make any more deals in exchange for information. in the past when he's claimed to have information. He's really only rambled. He's refused to give any real information. Although this sexual predator and killer will be in prison for the rest of his life, there are at least two murders that he's believed to have committed that will remain

unsolved unless he's willing to give information. I think if you can say that there's anything good that has come from, from his case, it's the increased restrictions on sex offenders and harsher punishment. You could also make the argument that if some of that stuff had been in place already, when he first started attacking young girls, Katie may still be alive. Yeah. And possibly these other two women if he killed them as well. Absolutely.

Now, you can always make that argument, right? And there's no doubt that oftentimes some of these laws get changed because something happens, right? Their reactions to a murder or a series of murders. We'd love it if everything was more proactive, but it just doesn't always work that way. No, it does not. But no doubt, Donald Blum's a bad guy. I think the question for me with this case is how many more victims did he have? He committed a number of sexual assaults.

Those are documented. He spent time in prison. He was convicted for killing Katie Poirier. He has hinted at the fact that he has information on other murders, but time and time again has been unwilling to give it. And his own wife has mentioned the same, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, back to what you were saying, once she felt as though she was free from any type of retribution from him, she came out and started talking. Right. And I can't stop thinking about what the prison psychologist said. Yeah. I think he was right on the money that this guy needed to be monitored. He was going to do some bad things in the future. Right. obviously that proved itself out to be true.

Now, I don't know back then how much monitoring they could have done. You know, if he wasn't let out early, if he did his entire nine-year sentence and he was a free man, what could they have done? Nothing, right? Yeah, I think that is a tough one. Now, if he was let out early on parole, okay, maybe then they could do some type of proactive monitoring or, or, or something like that. But yeah, these cases that go back into the, you know, 70s and 80s, sometimes they just really upset you.

Yeah, for sure. Because you think what this guy did back then was unbelievably brutal. You can make the case that his sexual assault alone should have put him in prison for the rest of his life. Agreed. And therefore, he's not free to murder Katie Poirier. or possibly murder these other two victims that police think he potentially is involved with. It just upsets you that the laws weren't strong back then or the sentencing guidelines were not stiff enough.

Yeah. When it came to the sexual assaults of women, it's just there's no way to sugarcoat it. It's the way it was. Yeah. But that's it for our episode on Donald Blum. We got some voicemails, Gibbs. You want to check those out? Yes, hear them.

Hey, Mike and Gibby. This is John Stickley down here in North Carolina. And I just finished listening to the Ronald Gene Simmons episode. And first thing I thought of right away was this story from 1929 here in North Carolina, the murder of the Lawson family. And Charlie Lawson killed his whole family on Christmas Day. And it's rumored that the reason was incest with his own. oldest daughter. So I was wondering how many, you know, father figures that kill their whole family,

how often that's the reason. Anyway, crazy story. Love you guys. Team Mike and Gibby forever. Keep your own time ticking. I kind of think more than we care to admit to. Yeah, I'm afraid you're right about that. And, you know, we did cover briefly that loss in case in one of our Christmas episodes years ago. We could probably do an entire T-Cat on it, but we did cover the case in some detail. Did you. Hi, Mike and Gibby. I wrote this out so I wouldn't get Tunkied. I just wanted to say that I've been listening for a long, long time and it raises me how much you know about the law that goes into these cases. I just graduated law school and I'm a current attorney. Criminal law obviously was my main focus in school, and I've done a lot of research into many of the topics.

I actually wrote a paper for a law review on the punishment of juvenile offenders, so I'm very passionate about the morality of punishing those offenders. I know you've covered several cases involving young people, so if you need any information, I'm here. In any case, I love y'all and all the work you do. I listen every week, so please continue to put out content. No team here. Y'all are both amazing and keep me laughing and intrigued. Keep your own time ticking.

Bye. All right. Love it. And we appreciate the offer. We do. We do get quite a few offers from professionals with very specific knowledge. And I kind of keep a list in case we know. We need to reach out and get some information.

You do. I do. That's why I said it. You're just confirming that what I said was true. Exactly. And I appreciate it. Yes. Hi, this is Vivian from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and I am a first-time caller, and I've

been listening for probably about three months. And now I found you guys a while ago. I'm an avid true crime podcast listener, and for some reason it just didn't drive the first time. And then about three months ago, I just listened to one of the newer episodes, and I was hooked. You guys are honestly one of my favorite podcasts now. and I'm banking from the beginning. At first I just kind of picked and chose the ones I wanted. And now I started from the beginning and I just listened to the Jeffrey Dahmer episodes.

And yeah, I just wanted to say thank you because you guys are awesome. You make me laugh. And right now in Crazy Alberta, we're going to so much crazy still with COVID. So it's a dumpster fire here. So it's really great to. have you guys to keep me sane and keep a smile on my face while I'm driving around, trying to be in a good script. So once again, thank you so much for all you do and keep your own time taken.

Bye. Man, I'm glad you came back. Yeah, me too. I do hear that quite a bit. You know, there are some people who want to start from the beginning have to start from the beginning. And then there are some listeners who like to pick and choose maybe some of the more well-known cases or some of the ones they've never heard before.

Right. So it kind of runs the gamut of how people listen to the podcast. We don't care as long as you listen. We love that. Always go with reverse prime. Okay. That's the Gibby method? Yeah.

I love it. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Sarah Rodriguez. And I just want to tell you guys, I love your show. And I think you're amazing. And everybody loves everything that you do. So keep up what you're doing. I just became a Patreon supporter and I actually just finished Pee-Wee part one and you guys gave me my shout-out

so I'm super excited. I started listening in March of this year and I have been bitching you guys. I started all the way back from the beginning and I have finally caught up and of course it's Sunday now so the new episode is going to be coming out so but now I can start unsolved in all the Patreon stuff but I just really wanted to thank you guys for everything that you do and keep your own time taking. Bye. Well, you have as of the time this comes out, 37 Patreon episodes.

Yeah. We just put out number 37. And all the cool stuff in between. Yeah. You can listen to that as well or watch it. It's all on video. Yeah. After a certain point.

I can't remember when we started doing videos. And next month, you get to see me hooked up. Mm-hmm. It's going to be exciting. For you. Exactly. We had nothing in the mailbag this week, buddy. So that is it for another episode.

of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.