True Crime with Kendall Rae - The VERY Suspicious Death of Jessica Easterly

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Jessica Easterly was married to a man who was allegedly physically and emotionally abusive to her, cutting her off from most of her friends. One day, she decided that she had had enough. Jessica let her friend know that she was planning on leaving, but the following day, when she was supposed to get back in touch, she went silent. Suddenly, Jessica was missing, and no one seemed to know where she could have gone. And on top of all that, local law enforcement wasn't doing much to help. Featuring the voices of Jessica’s sisters, Amanda and Audrey, and her best friend Maria. HELP JESSICA GET JUSTICE! #justice4jessica Take a second to sign the petition: http://chng.it/ccgJM8Rq More info: Justice 4 Jessica website: https://justice4jessica.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Justice4Jess_ District attorney’s contact info: Jason R. Williams, The People’s DA Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunWithJason?s=20 Phone Number: [phone] Email: [e-mail] (WERE PREVIOUSLY BLOCKING ALL INCOMING EMAILS) (WERE PREVIOUSLY BLOCKING ALL INCOMING EMAILS) Sample Email/call (feel free to write your own) Dear Jason R Williams #ThepeoplesDA, My name is [your name], and I am reaching out in regard to Jessica Easterly Durning’s case. I am kindly asking that you look into her investigation and death. There are many unanswered questions in this case and her family is in need of help. Thank you, [your name] This episode is sponsored by: Daily Harvest Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

Okay, here's how Miro works. See, it's amazing! What's everyone doing at David's desk? Ever since marketing started using Miro's collaborative online whiteboard, he thinks all our other teams should sign up. Why? He says Miro's making his meetings disappear, and if every team gets on it, that means even less meetings! They're using Miro for brainstorms, mind maps, customer research. So could we use Miro instead of having another 100 meetings for every round of feedback?

Yep, you can comment, react to ideas, even leave a recording on the board. And what about presentations? There are Miro templates for that. How do you know so much about Miro? I've actually been using it all along. I just used a Miro board to plan the best vacation. OK, I'm on board. See how Miro users save up to 80 hours every year

by meeting less and doing more. Get on board at Miro.com with three boards free forever. That's m-i-r-o.com. Hey, guys, and welcome back to my channel. I hope you guys are all having a great day. Today I'm going to be introducing you to another family and we're going to be talking about Jessica Easterly. I have been in contact with Jessica's sister Audrey for a while now. This story is so crazy. what this family has been through is insane and should never happen to anyone. I honestly don't know how they're still going. What they've been through has been traumatizing to say the least,

but they still continue to fight. Audrey has fought so hard to get her sister's name out there, and I wouldn't know about the case if she didn't contact me. But more people need to hear about this one because it's insane, and it just happened pretty recently, I mean, in the last couple of years, and not enough people know about it. So today's gonna be one of those videos where we need active true crime viewers to help us. We have a call to action plan, and you can actually make a difference by following the steps that I will get to in a little bit, or that are already in the description box if you want to just get ahead of the game.

Okay, now let's get into Jessica Easterly's case. So Jessica was born on August 17th, 1976 in Mississippi. She was delivered by her own grandfather who was a doctor, Dr. Clay Easterly. Her parents' names are Donna and Lloyd. And when she was younger, she had an infant brother named Clay, who was named after their grandfather. But unfortunately, they lost him when he was only an hour old. That was really hard on their family.

But that made them cherish Jessica even more. And she was a very loved child. Everyone in the family said she was constantly bringing joy into their lives. She had a huge smile, gorgeous smile, that really lit up a room. As a baby, she was healthy, happy, and pretty easy. Jessica also grew up with her two sisters, Amanda and Audrey, who goes by Audrey sometimes, and she also spent a lot of time with her cousins, who were just like siblings to her.

And they would all spend time together at their grandparents' home. They were very, very close with their grandparents. She and her sisters were raised mostly in ocean springs in a town just across from Biloxi Bay and Mississippi. And growing up, her family says that she was full of life. I mean, she was a little Leo, so that does not surprise me. But she's described as being witty, smart, and very active.

She also was funny. She was described as having a really good sense of humor and also a good imagination. Jessica was friendly. She had friends from all walks of life. She was funny. She was especially quick with her jokes. She loved to cook.

She was great at fashion. She could put any two pieces of clothing together and make something phenomenal. She loved music, especially 80s. She also had a penchant for rap music. Jessica was probably the funniest person you you would ever meet. She had a lightning fast wit no matter what you were talking about. She would come right back. Something so funny. Like if you talked to her on the phone, you would spend the whole time laughing and at like Betty White level with. Just quick,

quick, quick and funny. She was the type of girl that really liked to just sit around in your PJs and watch movies together and cook and and have just the most chill time and laugh. And when she was growing up she was really into dancing, she loved performing arts, she loved to play outdoors and spend time with her dogs, she was a huge animal lover, and she also had an insatiable love for reading. And Jessica had a really good childhood. She was very loved, had both of her grandparents very close to her. Her grandma would teach her how to cook. Her grandpa spent tons of time with her

and all the other grandkids. She loved her parents and they supported everything that she did. She was involved in many activities and had a lot of friends. She loved holiday traditions. She loved Marilyn Monroe and she loved the color purple.

Our parents married whenever I was about nine and Jessica was about 12. So growing up with that age difference, we were basically big sister, little sister relationship. About a year after I graduated from high schools whenever I moved in with her and that's whenever we became close and she was one of my best friends. So after high school, Jessica went to the University of South Alabama and she graduated with a degree in audiology and speech pathology. And as an adult, Jessica's friends and family said that she was just as upbeat and lively.

She was when she was a kid. Jessica was always up for adventure and had a real spark of life to her. She made friends super easily and was very loyal to the friends that she had. So her parents actually separated when she was young and her mom got remarried and she really liked her stepdad as well

and his name is Rick Schmidt. He was around for many years when Jessica was younger. I'm not sure when exactly he entered the picture but he was very close with her and she was very close with him. So eventually Jessica meets this guy named Justin Durning Junior. And it's apparently love at first sight.

Jessica had actually written about this and talked about how she met him on a boat. And when she first got on the boat, she was like with a group of friends. She saw him, it locked eyes, and she couldn't keep her eyes off him. It was one of those situations where she didn't want to stare but she couldn't stop.

And she noticed he was doing the same thing, and they connected that night, and she said it was just kind of love it for sight. Ugh, another pointless video call where nothing gets done. I think you're on mute, David. Sorry, what did I miss? IT just approved Miro for the whole company. Miro? the whole company. Miro, that's the...

Online whiteboard. For team collaboration, we can make these long video meetings so much shorter with Miro boards. We can share ideas, feedback, and updates on them whenever, actually see what we're talking about. It's all online. Miro will make her flexible work set up so much easier, with one virtual space for our brainstorms, projects, presentations.

Oh, that sounds kind of amazing. So, I don't need to wake up for 6am calls with the London Office anymore. Now you're getting it. Don't let time zones get in the way of your team working well together. See why 99% of the Fortune 100 trust Miro to get good work done from anywhere. Get your first three boards free at miro.com. That's m-i-r-o-dot-com. OK, here's how Miro works.

See, it's amazing. What's everyone doing at David's desk? Ever since marketing started using Miro's collaborative online whiteboard, he thinks all our other teams should sign up. Why? He says Miro's making his meetings disappear. And if every team gets on it, that means even less meetings!

They're using Miro for brainstorms, mind maps, customer research. So could we use Miro instead of having another hundred meetings for every round of feedback? Yep, you can comment, react to ideas, even leave a recording on the board. And what about presentations? There are Miro templates for that. How do you know so much about Miro? I've actually been using it all along. I just used a Miro board to plan the best vacation.

Okay, I'm on board. See how Miro users save up to 80 hours every year by meeting less and doing more? Get on board at Miro.com with three boards free forever. That's M-I-R-O.com. So eventually, in 2002, she moves to New Orleans to be with Justin. And they actually get married in 2015.

When Jessica told me she was marrying Justin, I was honestly happy for her. I thought to myself, good, she found the one that's gonna make her happy for the rest of her life. But even though she had moved to a different state, she stayed very close with her friends and her family. She was constantly talking to her mom and her two sisters, Audrey and Amanda, and also would always stay in touch with her friend, Maria. They were super, super close. The two of them had actually been friends for over 20 years and they'd helped each other through a bunch of highs and lows it sounds like from interviews I've heard with Maria so their bond was

incredibly close. Maria said that it was one of those friendships where no matter how much time had passed since they had lost seeing each other that when they did get together it was just like old times, it was easy and they would always stay in contact. They never let that slip. Now, her friends and family definitely had some concerns about Justin from the beginning. None of them were ever really close to him in any way and we'll get more into that. He just seemed a little trying too hard to be personable, but it wasn't a natural thing. There was an incident when I was getting my kids buckled into the car where my oldest

son, who was two or three at the time, he held out his little hand to Justin and he said, I hurt my finger or my finger hurts. I don't know what he had done to it. And Justin whipped out a pocket knife and flipped it open and was like, well, let me just cut it off for you. Which I guess he thought he was being funny, but to my very small child, this wasn't funny. Like he was very alarmed and cried a lot about it. And another thing to know about Justin is he has a daughter

and her name is Gracie. She was very close with Jessica from what I understand. And Jessica loved her too and she loved being a stepmother. So over time, things started to fall apart with Jessica and Justin. And there are a lot of questions here that we're just not going to have the answers to because Jessica's not here to tell us, but it seems like a lot of their life was kind of secretive. Their friends and family only knew so much about what was going on, but Jessica was telling her friends that Justin was being physically abusive to her. Specifically, she was telling Maria and really confiding in her and Maria was supporting her and kind of coaching her

because Maria has mentioned in interviews that she has been through a similar situation. Seemed like just mental abuse at first, and I think that's emotional and mental abuse are always the first steps in a relationship like that anyway. If she was doing anything, he didn't like. It was just chaos and fighting and just a very tumultuous situation in the household. She was always reluctant to be very forthcoming because she really wanted her marriage to work and she knew that the more she revealed, the more she couldn't fix it if things got better in my eyes.

So she was always trying to say face more than she was trying to save herself, which is very unfortunate. But she never wanted anybody to view the relationship as bad. She always wanted to have the fairy tale. So when things got really bad, it was really hard for her to be open about it, but she eventually did tell me that he was doing things to her inner sleep. And when she was asleep, she had been given too many pills or was unable to wake up for whatever reason. So she was a sleep in a way that she could not control. And she said he was doing things to her that she did not agree to while she was sleeping.

And no one was really close with Justin. It didn't seem like he had any fans out of her friends and family. They were concerned. Audra was very concerned about Justin that her sister was being controlled. And she made it clear several times that she didn't like him, that she felt worried about him, and he eventually cut communication for the two of them. He was constantly looking over what they were doing, and if they did talk, he would want to listen in on the conversations they would have to be on speaker phone. So that's the type of guy he was. He was incredibly controlling.

And we're going to go through some of Jessica's text messages today. And when you hear them, you're going to understand exactly what this guy was like. So this is a message that Jessica had sent Maria before she disappeared. And to give context to this message, basically Maria was going to be coming down her way because one of her children had a cheer competition. And she was like, oh, maybe we can stay with you in Justin. And Jessica said, yeah, apparently Justin said, yeah, too. Like, we have plenty of room. You can stay with us. This guy was very hot and cold. He would sometimes say certain things and then go back on it. Apparently, he wiggled out right before they were supposed to come. And this is her message trying to explain that to her.

It says, hey, I need to talk to you about this weekend. I'm hiding in the bathroom right now, so Justin doesn't hear me. We've been fighting, like, fighting, for the past three days, about everything. He's threatening to kick me out, put me in jail, he's hit me, it's bad. He told me you guys can't come, or it's going to be worse for me. Low, which is what she calls Maria. I'm so sorry. I know it's bad. He told me you guys can't come or it's gonna be worse for me. Low, which is what she calls Maria. I'm so sorry, I know it's last minute. I feel awful.

I don't know what to do. I can recommend somewhere else that's reasonable, like a B on the canal. We used to stay there a lot, and then she writes low, I'm scared. So after hearing that message, obviously it really paints a picture for what was going on,

what Jessica was dealing with, how she felt. She was clearly incredibly frightened and worried and knew that something could happen to her. And from what Maria has said, basically it seemed that Jessica was wanting to leave and would tell Justin I'm gonna leave. Her first concern was that she would never get to see Grace again, her stepdaughter. And her second concern was she wouldn't be able to provide for herself, which I'm not sure why she felt that way because she was on disability. So she had steady income. He made it clear to her that if she left she could never come back and he threatened according to her.

Obviously, I never heard him threaten her. He's always trying to be charming in front of me. But according to her, there were threats that if she ever left, he would use all of his resources. And by resources, he, he claims to have all these special ops friends in the military that could just like hunt her down and track and trace all of any kind of financial, electronic, data, cell phone records, all of that sort of thing, that he would hunt her down and kill her if she tried to leave, according to her. And so if she was going to leave, it had to be like the great escape, where she would like have a burner phone, if any all and have to do everything cash. And she was really afraid that her disability check being deposited into account would make her findable no matter where she went. And she would have to go really, really far to get away from him. Before Jessica met Justin, she was a very independent girl. She always kind of seemed to have her stuff together. She wasn't

the sort of person that really tolerated a whole lot from her partners. She was quick to say, this isn't working out and move on. That was the hardest part about her being with Justin is seeing a very, very quick shift from that very independent minded, very outgoing girl to someone whose light was actively dimming. So it seems like Jessica was possibly planning to leave. In fact, her friends and family all believe that she was planning to leave Justin and that she may have been executing

the plan. They believe that she had a to leave Justin, and that she may have been executing the plan. They believe that she had a breaking point in the marriage, and she knew she could not stay with him, that she feared for her life. It seemed like she had finally accepted that she deserved better and was ready to make the move. [♪ Music playing in background, uh, another pointless video call

where nothing gets done. I think you're on mute, David. Uh, sorry. What did I miss? I teach just approved Miro for the whole company. Miro? That's the... Online whiteboard.

For team collaboration, we can make these long video meetings so much shorter with Miro boards. We can share ideas, feedback, and updates on them whenever. Actually, see what we're talking about. It's all online. Miro will make her flexible work set up so much easier, with one virtual space for our brainstorms, projects, presentations. Oh, that sounds kind of amazing.

So I don't need to wake up for 6am calls with the London Office anymore. Now you're getting it. Don't let time zones get in the way of your team working well together. See why 99% of the Fortune 100 trust Miro to get good work done from anywhere. Get your first three boards free at Miro.com. That's M-I-R-O-D-C-M.

Obviously domestic violence situations are not easy to leave. Some people may not understand that. I mean, you could never really understand unless you've been in that situation, but she felt trapped. And she's also so worried that she wouldn't be able to see her stepdaughter again. She loved Gracie. She was like a mother to her, so the idea of losing her was scary and sad. So that brings us to August 12, 2019. And something I want to know before we continue is around this time, according to her stepdaughter Gracie, Jessica was possibly cleaning the house, like deep cleaning the house.

And this information is from Maria. She said eventually Justin cut off communication with her and Gracie so she can't talk to her anymore. But she said that Gracie said that she was cleaning a bunch. And Maria said that that kind of made her think maybe she was preparing to possibly leave. Because sometimes when you leave situations like that you want to do a deep clean kind of get your ducks in a row, make sure you're ready. You have everything that you need because you may never come back. And she thinks that Jessica may have been putting her plan to leave Justin in action.

But on August 12th, something clearly happened that gave Jessica the urgent need to leave her house. She called Maria and Maria missed the call. She actually missed it three times. She called like three times in a row and she called her back in just a few minutes. And when she did connect with her, Jessica sounded exhausted and panicked and said that she needed a ride, that she needed to leave the house. And she said she needed this ride right now. But the problem is Maria was over two hours away from her. Maria is also a mom. She has young kids and she had no one to look after them and she was

very concerned to take them with her and bring them possibly into a dangerous situation. Logistically there was no way for me to get her on on that Monday afternoon and also get my school in time. So she kind just a good down and she would get to her the next get through the day and I in the morning. And I sa

and she said, Well, I don' me leave with any of it. get it at some po and I suggested she need and she was like, well, m a few things and I don't out and I said, okay, well morning, but you have to b

car and go as soon as I g the next morning to drop and then head straight t then that next morning her phone her kids off at school and then head straight to Jessica. But then that next morning, her and Jessica talked on the phone. Jessica was actually at the doctor's office with Gracie and she was able to step out in the hallway for a second and make this call. She called me and she was like, you know, I just need to see what happens when I get home. He's had a chance to sleep now. I'll just let you know. And I said, okay, and we got off the phone. So that evening, Jessica's going home.

And the last message that she sends Maria says this, okay, just hang on. I don't know what's gonna happen when I get home. And then that whole night, Maria does not hear from Jessica. And then the next morning, she starts calling her, trying to get a hold of her texting her, and she hears nothing back. She wasn't sure what to do and she thought it was possible

that Justin was just keeping her phone from her or she couldn't talk while he was around something like that. So then she doesn't hear anything until 9 p.m. the following night, the 14. She gets a message from Jessica's Facebook account from Justin and it says, it's Jess with you, Grace and I are worried.

And of course Maria is immediately panicked. Now she knows something probably happened. So she frantically starts typing back to Justin, trying to get some more information out of him. And here is their conversation. I think it's very telling. So I want to go through it. So he says, is Jess with you?

Grace and I are worried. If so, that's fine. We just don't know where she is. And Grace can't handle stress like this right now. Maria says, no, she's not. One was the last time that you spoke to her. He says about noon today and she left everything here. He's car ID money and he puts a bunch of question marks.

Maria says, what about her phone? He says, here too, ething weird. Worried she's never done this. I have no idea. Checked everything and everyone I know, question mark, question mark. She says, okay, well, I'm sending the police over there. To which she says, okay, you're going to freak grace out, but question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark. To which she says, if Jonathan came home from work and all my stuff was here and the

kid didn't know where I was, He would already be talking to police. To which he responds, I know how to file a missing person's report. Do you think I hurt her or something? Police can't do anything until 24 hours. She's an adult. I'm checking hospitals and jails now. Called hospital and both jails but not at any of them. Called police and missing persons is 24 hours after last scene to file a report. I have got to be missing something. I'm going full out on social media and every other asset I have to find if my wife is safe. I have a child throwing up that needs to know her mom is okay. Here is the missing persons report.

If you know where she is and that she's okay, I would appreciate you telling me before all the world knows our personal problems. This is really messing grace up. And then Maria says this, if she left because you're an asshole to her, I'm 100% supportive of her doing that. The problem that I'm having is, is I'm the person that she would call and I haven't heard from her since Monday. So either some random person in this big dangerous city you live in has taken my friend or you lost your shit because she was trying to leave From my point of view, but honestly, I can't even name one single other friend. She has left It doesn't make sense that she would leave and not tell me something and he says back You're right as always. It's all about you. Thanks for helping her and us in this. And she says, don't even.

If I hear anything from her, I'll be sure to let you know that she's safe for Grace's sake. And he says, plenty human of you. And the whole thing about having to wait 24 hours to file a police report is not true. Someone tells you this is incorrect information. And Maria even called the police station to confirm this. And while I was on the phone with the police, he was saying, oh, I know, I know how to

file a missing person. Do you think I did something to her? I was like, I haven't said that. Why would you immediately jump to that? And he said, well, I can't file a missing person's report for 48 hours. And I read that out loud to the dispatcher. And she was like, that's not true. And then it started to sink in for her that my alarm was, was probably well-founded and that somebody needed to go out there and check on Jessica. Jessica's friends and family at this point were extremely worried

and knew that something had to have happened because Jessica would not have just Left like this and you know like Maria said she would have at least told her even if she did decide to just go start a new life She would have told her so they know that something's got to be wrong here. She's not okay There's no way that Jessica is out there and just not letting us know that she's okay Friday went by no response Saturday no response, Sunday evening, I finally got in touch with a different person, a different call taker at the third district.

So she was able to impress upon detectives that I was not going away anytime soon and had them call me. And they went out to check on Jessica, assuming that she was home and just no longer allowed to communicate with me because I was making a scene on social media. It was just right from the beginning, very unmotivated and dismissive of this as a whole and of my concerns for her wellbeing. Dispatch sent out two patrol cars

to just do a wellness check on Jessica. And they showed up, I've watched the video for that. He was acting very nervous, trying to talk about his dog and his dog being trained and trying to be very jovial and then trying to name drop that he had buddies at the police station.

None of which is relevant to his wife missing. So the police were very suspicious and rightfully so. But here's my concern. He was not even worried about this until her friend from out of state and called the service over here to look for her to make sure she was in coma. That's what prompted him. and tell her friend from out of state, then call the Serpent to be here to look for her, to make sure she was incoming.

That's what prompted him. No, he's really not. It doesn't. He's just rolled notch a lot. Like, oh, I have the officers come to the Polk Street side. They're my dad and my daughter sleeping. I don't want to wake them up. But then when we get here, he's like,

he doesn't need to do this in the car or if you want to come in. You can come look through the house if you want. He's just being really weird about it. She says when she doesn't take her medication, like she has mental problems, that she gets severe depression, but it doesn't make her active.

It makes her go sleep inside, but if she got bad on the foot with depression, maybe, you know, right. He is just explaining himself to death. Did you get that feeling? Yeah, he's like, oh, he, and he was, he was like, I'm sorry if I seem shakily. Yeah, I'm sorry if I seem sketchy. This is just all weird to me.

And he's just constantly trying to. And he's just like over-explaining everything. So like, is there any place that she would go hang out as early as you're like, or that she goes to or any... I don't know. I've only friends that we really have in North Carolina. You know, we have Keller and Adderallock, but I mean, he's the first person I call.

They relayed to the police department, the precinct, whatever, that they needed to send somebody out again to investigate the fact that she was missing because the welfare check had been performed. She was not there. Now she was missing. And so I guess it's procedure that that has to be called in and then sent back out. So the report was filed at about 2 a.m. on the 15. So a few days later is actually Jessica's 43rd birthday and her friends and family are just

devastated that she's not there. So I created a missing poster for her on her birthday and published it on social media. And in an effort to just get some traction, get some attention, get the word out. So that if she was somewhere hiding safe, which I really didn't have a lot of hope And in an effort to just get some traction, get some attention, get the word out so that if she was somewhere hiding safe, which I really didn't have a lot of hope that she was, that she would see it and at least contact me to calm me down and call me off so that

she could go and disappear and do her thing and escape her situation. The police work in this one is beyond upsetting, truly. Like, this should piss you off. If it doesn't, I don't know what to tell you. Ugh, another pointless video call where nothing gets done. I think you're on mute, David. Uh, sorry. What did I miss?

I teach us to prove Miro for the whole company. Miro, that's the... Online whiteboard for team collaboration. We can make these long video meetings so much shorter with Mirro boards. We can share ideas, feedback, and updates on them whenever, actually see what we're talking about. It's all online.

Mirro will make her flexible work set up so much easier with one virtual space for our brainstorms, projects, presentations. Oh, that sounds kind of amazing. So I don't need to wake up for 6am calls with a London office anymore. Now you're getting it. Don't let time zones get in the way of your team working well together. See why 99% of the Fortune 100 trust Mirro to get good work done from anywhere. Get your first three boards free at mirro.com.

That's m-i-r-o-dot-com. Eventually, Jessica's family just decided to go down to New Orleans and try to find her themselves because they didn't feel like Justin was doing anything. They didn't feel like the place were doing enough. So they wanted to take matters into their own hands. So her family goes down there and they bring one of their cousins, named Doug. And Doug goes with them so that he can talk to you detectives

because he kind of knows what to ask and understands all of this a little better. We went to Project Nola to go see if we had seen the car going anywhere or Jessica walking around, but there was nothing. Then we decided to go to her neighborhood and scout out places for a future search party. So as they're driving around the neighborhood,

they have the windows down. And they're about two and a half blocks from Jessica's house when they notice a bad smell. The smell of a decaying body, which Doug is familiar with, and they follow the scent. And that is when we found Jessica. That's right, her family found her body. Near her house, almost like police didn't even look.

This is near the interstate 610 underpass. They get out of the car and as soon as they see this body laying there, they realize that it's Jessica. She was in this wooded area right in city park just lying in the open. This is at the end of a dead end corner. There's a bunch of trees kind of like right before the wood start, she was right there just lying in front of the trees. I can't imagine what that moment was like for their family. What it was like for Audra when she realized that that was her sister lying there. And this is like a week after she went missing.

And they had to call the police and let them know. We literally found our family members' body because you couldn't. It was chaotic. There was 15-20 cops there. I had never seen so many cops my whole life. And she was so close to home and wasn't even hitting. Like wasn't buried. It's odd that they didn't find her. It doesn't make any sense. You know, there are cases out there where it's next to impossible to find the body or someone literally got rid of it to the point where you cannot find it.

But in this situation where she's literally just lying on the grass near her home, it's so frustrating to hear about this. And one thing that stands out is whenever the lieutenant was talking to a homicide detective, we heard him say that this is a homicide. And it's possible that they even broke her rib when they moved her, although I want to clarify that the family does not believe that's what the broken rib is from. We'll get more into that. So the corner arrives to the scene and they take her body to the Orleans Parish Corner's office. And at this

point, her body is not confirmed to be Jessica. And even though her family felt like this was her recognized some of her clothing, you know, they have to confirm that it is with DNA and her body was so decomposed because she's lying out in the sun in New Orleans in August for like a week. So they start an investigation, right? And they talked to Justin and he told them

several different stories and there's not a lot of information about what exactly he told them but his timeline for when she left the house kept changing and at one point he even suggested that she went to a psychiatric hospital, had left the house to go there. When Jessica first went missing I tried to give Justin the benefit at the doubt. I wanted to hear his side of the story because I had only heard Maria's side. I called no answer. And to this day, he still has not contacted me. So the police seemed to be getting nowhere with the case, not getting anywhere with Justin. And Jessica's family had so many questions. I mean, how did her body get there? Was her body there the whole time? Did someone put her there? How did they miss her in their initial search?

Did they even search the neighborhood? We have no idea. And some of the neighbors have said that they never saw police presence in that area around that time. So, my guess is no. So their family at this point is stuck just waiting. And they're waiting for them to even identify her body as Jessica, because the police tell them that they cannot start the investigation until they even confirm that it's her. Even though we had identified Jessica at the scene, they said that they needed DNA evidence from my mom, just in case if this ever went to court. And the process of identifying

Jessica was painfully slow for the family. First of all, it took over a week after she was first found for the police to mail a DNA swab of Jessica's mother's DNA to the New Orleans Police Department for comparison. And then for a while, they just

didn't hear anything. They were supposed to be identifying her, but during all this time, she's just in the morgue. It took us forever to get an official ID on her body, so they can't lay her to rest. They can't even confirm that it's her. Imagine what that would be like. And during all this time,

Justin never called Jessica's parents, which is so bizarre. I can't imagine Josh not calling my parents if I was missing. He would be on the phone with an hours of me being gone with my parents. It takes him until September 2nd to call her family. Finally, Justin calls her parents and talks to them. And I'm not sure what that conversation was like.

I mean, her family definitely had their ideas of what had happened. Justin has not one time shared her missing poster, but the day her body was found, he was telling, oh, she committed suicide. I'm just ready to heal and move on from this and just trying to really put it behind him. So then over a month goes by,

without a single word from detectives. And their family this whole time is under the impression that they're in the process of identifying Jessica so that they can start the investigation. But then as if they haven't been through enough, in October, they find out that the New Orleans Police Department was sent the DNA sample from her mother and that they put it on someone's desk. And that was the last time that any of them had seen it. The reason why the autopsy took so long was because they misplaced the DNA

and they kept mumping Jessica for other cases. And it's really depressing to hear this kind of thing that this stuff actually does happen. You'd think that if something happened to you, you'd hope that the police are going to make identifying your body a top priority and not just throw DNA on desks, willy nilly and just lose things.

Hearing that police department's lose evidence is so maddening and it happens so often. So they had to get another sample from her mother and send that in. They weren't able to get confirmation that from her mother and send that in. They weren't able to get confirmation that this was Jessica's body until

November 8th. The coroner confirmed that a body found a couple of blocks away belonged to Jessica. The positive idea in this case took more than two months. This thing would not have

taken as long as it has had she laid in the New Orleans sun for a week and a half before her body was found. She shouldn't be dead right now. My family's devastated. They lost a cousin, a sister, a daughter.

And if that's not bad enough, it then took the corner two months to say what her cause of death was. And on January 15th, 2020, the corner came back with undetermined, which is not what their family wanted to hear. But now that the autopsy was done, her body can be released to her next of kin. And because she was married, that person is Justin. And Justin was apparently dealing with things in other ways because about a week after this, he's in a bar and scares some women so bad that he is detained for a 24-hour observation. And get this, this woman's name is also Jessica. He had been staring at this woman. He eventually went up to her, told her that his wife was also named Jessica, and that she had committed suicide, and then tells her that he would like her to take her clothes.

She said that he was just acting crazy and her and her coworker actually called the police because they had heard about Justin from this case. And on that same day, while Justin is busy with all of that, Audra and Jessica's stepfather are doing everything they can to move everything forward. When was the last time you found a professional look that fits so well you felt like you could take on anything. Indochino believes you shouldn't fit your clothes, they should fit you.

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And when they meet with them, they are told that Jessica's case is a cold case, that there is no further information or evidence. There's no new leads, the investigation is installed. And normally this doesn't happen for quite a while. I mean, it was a pretty fresh case to be determining it a cold case already. Obviously they were very disappointed and everything

felt even more bleak when the coroner's report came back at the end of January. And it turns out that Jessica had a broken rib, which the police claim is from them moving her after they found her, but we don't know. She also had an injury to her nose and had a linear fracture in her jaw. But her most significant injury was a broken vertebra, specifically the C4 vertebra, which is near the base of your neck. It's part of the midsection of the cervical spine. And an injury to the cervical vertebra is the most severe type of spinal cord injury. This vertebra has nerves that run to the diaphragm and control breathing. And if someone survives breaking this, they are likely to suffer paralysis and may need to be on a ventilator for the rest of their lives.

Some people get injuries to their C4 when they get in car accidents, like a quick jerk, but it can also be caused by choking, strangulation. So when it comes to her toxicology report, apparently they weren't able to run that many tests because of her advanced stage of decomposition. All they could test was liver tissue and it did come back with traces of methamphetamine and buproprian. But they can't confirm that Jessica had even taken these

recently. Now there has been a lot of speculation about what drugs Jessica possibly could have been taking at the time. Jessica had fibromyalgia and it's basically, I have it too, it's weird, it's just body pain all over, it feels different at different times and it can be unbearable at times. And so Jessica was prescribed medication for that.

Obviously those medications can be very addicting and they can also make you feel very drowsy and tired. So according to her friends who have contacted some of Justin's previous wives, which he's had multiple ex-wives, they have claimed that Justin really liked to take a bunch of different pills that he really liked uppers. So Jessica's friends believed that it's possible Justin was giving her stimulants like Adderall or something to counteract the medication that she was taking. But because she was so decomposed, there's no way to really know how much she was taking on that day or if it was affecting her in any type of way.

And because of this, the coroner can't rule out a drug-related death. So that's still kind of on the table. But Jessica's friends and family are convinced that there was foul play. They were really frustrated that the manner of death is listed as undetermined because of that C4 injury that could have been caused by strangulation and the broken rib. So meanwhile, word had spread around the area that Jessica lived in Lakeview that there could be a killer on the loose. That someone could have just randomly attacked Jessica, and people were really freaked out.

Everything seems to be hush-hush. The police don't know anything. The neighborhood is very upset about it, and we would really like some answers as to what happened to our neighbor. And then after a little while, someone in the neighborhood actually found more evidence that the police had missed.

They found a blanket and Jessica's ID, which was all crumpled up and had a little tear at the bottom. So they call Jessica's sister, Audra, and she calls police to let them know to go over to this person's house and collect the evidence and talk to them. She doesn't hear anything,

so a week later, she calls this couple that found the ID in the blanket and police never contacted them. They never did anything with this. So it had become increasingly clear to their family that the police just did not do a thorough investigation if any investigation at all. It seems like they were missing all the major evidence. The fact that they missed her body, they were

losing DNA. It's like they just didn't care. It was almost like they were sabotaging the case. When we were growing up, we were always taught that if you need help to ask the police. So the way this case has been handled from the beginning is heartbreaking. It's

an injustice. It is a slap in the face. We shouldn't have to fight the justice system to get justice for our loved ones. So on April 14th, Audrey decided to file a formal complaint because they felt like they were failing to investigate Jessica's death. And I completely agree. And of course, for the next several months, she would try calling to get an update on the complaint at least. And she would hear absolutely nothing. She can never get a hold of anybody. So finally on August 6th, the public integrity bureau confirms that they had started investigation into the NOPD's handling of Jessica's case. And this is just unbelievable, but that couple that had found the blanket and the ID were not contacted by police until September 1st. This is 170 days after

they reported these items to a detective. They still don't know how long her ID was laying on the ground. They don't know if they even searched the area. And one of the worst parts about this case was how long Jessica's body was in the morgue. During all this time, she's still in the morgue. Justin never picked her up. Her family was desperately trying to get in touch with him for months, and he just wasn't replying. So then in late October, somebody threw out a headboard and a futon

in front of Jessica's house from inside the house. So crime scene investigators surprisingly, actually went to the scene and collected some evidence from it. These items had been in Jessica's room and they were put outside for a donation pickup. And of course they found this really odd. And with their experience so far DNA testing takes a long time with these people. So they were hoping you would come back by maybe the end of the year. But by this last Christmas Eve of 2020, Jessica's body was still in the morgue. It had been there for 490 days. And the results of that DNA testing

from those items outside the house had still not come back. So obviously her family feels stuck. They feel like the police investigation is going nowhere. That it doesn't seem like they even want to solve this case. And that's how it looks. So her friends and family are left to try to raise awareness and figure out what really happened to Jessica and get her the justice she deserves. And they have done an excellent job of raising awareness. Her sister Audrey is so, so tough. She is not going to stop until she gets justice and I think it's

amazing what she's doing. But there is one huge part of this that we just have to talk about. I know people are going to look into it anyway and I think it's important. So Justin and Jessica were actually in the adult entertainment industry. They were doing cam videos. Jessica did this under the name Vivian or Viv and Justin did it under the name Lance Anderson. They had built up a little, you know, fan base that was watching them as these characters and these characters had kind of whole storylines to them as well. And it sounds like her family did not know about this, you know, it's her private life, whatever she doesn't need to tell them.

But her friend Maria kind of knew that it was going on, but she didn't know. She'd never seen it before. She didn't actually understand what was happening, but she knew that Jessica was doing this. I remember joking with her. I was like, I wonder if I could sell videos of my feet. If somebody wants to be a weirdo, look at my feet Like I can make peace with that. Like I could sit here and adjust my claims and take videos of my feet and like if somebody wants to pay me, like pay me. So I mean, I never followed through with that, but that was like, that was our little run and joke.

So that's another thing. It's quite possible if she left Justin, she'd be losing her livelihood because he kind of put all this together and put it out there. He convinced Jessica that he had a VPN, and this is not how a VPN works, right? We know this.

He convinced her that he had a VPN that was blocking her content, her adult content from popping up in certain states, like where her friends and family were, so that no one would know that she was doing this on the side. And even after Jessica was found, Justin continued posting from the two of them, continued sharing her pictures and video content after he knew she was dead all over this page. He was right away in communication with some girl from the porn industry and sharing, you know, kind of salacious messages back and forth

with her and ready to move on, just ready to heal a move on. And then eventually in November, remember she died in August, he announces that she died to all of their followers. And then in December of 2019, he creates two different go-fun means. Clearly trying to make money off of Jessica's death after all of this. The first one that he made is for Jessica Durning, which is his name. Her maiden name is Easterly. But the second one was for Vivian, for her memorial services. Literally for the character that they were putting out online.

Luckily, the fundraiser only raised about 140 bucks before it was closed. And this is probably one of the skimmiest things I've ever heard when looking into one of these cases, but Justin put in the description box of Vivians. Go find me that people who donated would be promised special exclusive pictures, lingerie, videos from Jessica that she had already pre-recorded and even some of her items such as her shoes. He was literally selling her stuff to strangers online after she was dead. That's what he was spending his time doing. Then it turns out that Justin has been arrested in the past

for unrelated charges such as assault, unlawful possession of a firearm, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a probation violation, and some domestic violence thrown in there as well. Also, it seems like he has a history of lying. Of course, he's innocent until proven guilty. I have to say that. This is alleged. But according to her family and friends, Justin has also lied about his background in the military. And it's impossible to find anything about this guy and what he does online. But it seems as if he has been saying for a long time that he has this extensive military background

and knows all these people, and that's what he used to scare Jessica with. It's like, I know all these people, so you'll never get away from me, whatever. But it turns out when they track down his ex-wives, they confirmed that he never was in the military at all, and in fact one of them said he never even made it to enrolling in boot camp. So who knows the truth about this guy? But with all of that, he's never been named a suspect in her death.

And the house that they were all living in, Justin's father also lived in, and Justin owned half of this house he like inherited from his mom or something. But his father was also living there at the time of Jessica's disappearance and he's never been questioned. Also the detectives never even searched their house or her vehicle. So of course we got to talk about other theories here. There is a possibility that Jessica could have been being stalked. I mean you've got to kind of consider it when she did have all of these fans online. It's possible that someone was kind of obsessed with her and sought her out.

But with the timeline of everything, this seems incredibly unrealistic. Also, the suicide theory, which Justin seems to be really pushing. In fact, he had told that woman in the bar that his wife had committed suicide. And the coroner did find drugs in her system. There's no way to know when she took them

and what did she just take a bunch of pills and then it go out and lay down near her house. had committed suicide. And the drugs in her system, there to know when she took them a bunch of pills and then it her house outside. It just right? The detectives at district police department that maybe she wondered off those injuries to herself. I even after death, what about those injuries?

Of course there is the possibility that Jessica was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe she was walking around and happened to run into some type of predator. Seems like other things are more likely. So as for latest updates, Jessica's body was finally released from the morgue to her family in February. At that point Jessica Jessica's body had been in the morgue per 30 days. I've never heard anything like this. And this was because Justin just straight blew off picking her up. The

coroner didn't hear from him for months. Like he didn't even care. And he just left her in the morgue forever. Her family just recently was able to get her out of the morgue due to lack of contact. And he tried to r did anything whatsoever. F to have a small burial for buy. And eventually, they' of life service for Jessica

down after COVID. But as of r still waiting on those fr the DNA swabs. They took the futon in front of j was collected in october over six months later, we as far as I know, as of t going on with Jessica's is nothing more than a box

collecting dust on a shelf somewhere. Jessica's friends and family have vowed to not stop fighting for her until they get the justice that Jessica deserves. And if you have been moved by the story, I invite you to be an

active true crime viewer by taking a few steps to help Jessica's family today. And they're easy. So first of all, this case will obviously be updating and changing over time. Holy crime viewer by taking a few steps to help Jessica's family today. And they're easy. So first of all, this case will obviously be updating and changing over time. Hopefully so you can stay updated on Jessica's case by following her Twitter account that her family runs or you can also stay up to date by visiting justice for

Jessica.org. That's four, like number four. And their family also uses justice for Jessica as their hashtag for the case. So you can stay up to date that way. Then we also have a petition going that will be linked below. Please just take a minute to sign in. I promise it takes less than a minute, honestly. Takes a second of your day. If you had time to watch this whole video, you should have time to take a quick second to sign this. And if you want to really go above and beyond, you can participate in our Calling and Emailing campaign, which is super easy to do,

and it will make the most impact because we're gonna be contacting the new DA, who was just appointed in January. His name is Jason R. Williams, and we're gonna ask him to look into the investigation and death of Jessica Easterly. It's that simple. Let me just show you guys how easy this is, all right?

I understand some people like emailing. I'll have like a little email easy below that you can just copy paste. Or if you want to make this call the numbers below, super easy, I think it's after hours, but I'll just leave a message. Hi, this message is for district attorney Jason R. Williams. My name is Kendall.

I am calling about Jessica Easterly Durning's case. I'm asking that you look into the investigation and her death as there are a lot of unanswered questions and their family really needs help. I would really appreciate it. See, it's that easy. And these calling and emailing campaigns really make a difference, you guys.

Like if we come together, we can get some things done for this family and for Jessica. Because they deserve answers. Jessica deserves justice. This case just tore my heart apart. So again, I'll put all that information below. You can follow justice for Jessica. You can sign the petition and you can make a short phone call and an email. It's going to make a huge difference. I think that what I would like everyone to remember about Jessica's case is the injustice. She wasn't important enough. She got put on the back burner and still is to this day. She was a human being. She loved and she had a life and it got taken away from her.

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. It's Jeep 4x4 season. Make your next adventure epic with Jeep Wrangler 4xE. Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xE and the 3-row Grand Cherokee L. Hurrie and now for great deals.

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