Who Killed Jennifer Judd? - Ep.5: 99% Certain

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

After weeks of failed attempts, investigator Sarah Cailean sets up an interview with the person who knew Jennifer most intimately: her husband, Justin Judd. Sarah hopes to learn more about Jennifer, their marriage, the crime scene, and Justin’s relationships with the two primary suspects: Chuck Chance and Jeremy Jones. Justin’s statements lead her to new information in this confounding case. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nature is a dangerous place. On I Was Prey, the podcast, listen to the life-or-death experiences of people who have survived animal attacks, natural disasters, and deadly parasites alike. Featuring audio from Discovery Channel, Science Channel, and Animal Planet. From hit shows like This Came Out of Me,

Nature's Deadliest, Still Alive, and Monsters Inside Me. There are countless organisms that make a living off of us. Listen to I Was Prey wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Scare yourself silly thiseen with these comedy podcasts this paranormal life all he knew is he had just had an encounter with the legendary el cadejo it's just a goat it's not a goat that is

literally a goat it's got it has got the horns of a goat. The Gossip Gaze. I am sad to say that Danny Beard has been mysteriously murdered. It's down to you and me to find out who done that. Who killed Danny Beard? Drunk women solving crime. Was Fraser just conned by an 80-year-old? You make it that long? You deserve it.

Oh, people would do anything for you. Wait a minute. Oh, my God, they were working together! Listen to these ACAST shows wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com

Previously, on Who Killed Jennifer Judd I got goosebumps all over me just thinking about it. Our case is based on witnesses, and there's no doubt I could probably charge Chuck Chance based on the witness information, but I don't think I could do that. Chuck and her got into it many times at parties, but it was just like bantering back and forth. There was no physical pushing or nothing like that. The main thing I want to know is if Justin and Jeremy ever ran around together. I went over to the jail and brought him to the front.

I said, how you been doing, Jeremy? From ID and ARC Media, I'm Sarah Kalin, and this is Who Killed Jennifer Judd? I was at a party, and Jimmy Adams was dating Starla Morgan. And Jimmy told me that Starla had a friend that wanted to meet me over in Pitcher. And I said, all right, let's go. And we went over and I met her. This, at long last, is Justin Judd. Now that we have finally connected,

I'm eager to learn as much as possible from him. And he seems equally eager to help in any way he can. We meet on a Saturday afternoon and decide to start at the beginning, the night he met Jennifer. He was 16 years old. We walked from Starla's house down to the softball field, and we had our first kiss in the dugout sitting on the bench there. Nearly 40 years later, now more than twice the age he was on that cherished night, Justin looks as shy as a teenage boy describing a first crush. We kind of pretty much grew up together as far as, you know, from 16 to 20. Back then, it seemed like it was forever.

He immediately strikes me as being honest. He paints a picture similar to what I've heard from Jennifer's friends. Gosh, me and that girl, we were so jealous of each other. I mean, it was to the point where when we was in high school, we would over who could score the most points in a basketball game. You know, when she would play and I would play, you know, and stuff. We'd get home, we'd call each other, how many you got tonight, you know. It was just super competitive between her and I.

And we were pretty jealous of each other and stuff. And we broke up weekly, probably, you know, we were kids. And to look back at some of the stuff we were jealous over is just, it was ridiculous. I can remember we broke up one time and I sent Rose to school and it was weight day. We was lifting weights at school, getting ready to practice football. And Jim Butcher comes in and goes, there's a mighty pretty girl out there wanting to see you. I'm like, cool. And I go out there and it was her and Teresa Heatherly and Jane Gibbs, I think.

And she brought me, gave me the rose. She was a spitfire, that's for sure. As for their wedding. We just talked about getting married all the time. And then one day, I can remember her always wanting to set a date. When are we going to set a date? When are we going to set a date? And I didn't care. It didn't really matter to me. But whenever, we finally set a date.

Jennifer originally pushed for a date in 1991, but they decided to wait until they could save a bit more money. They eventually chose May 2nd, 1992, and planned a big spring wedding at Jennifer's family church. I remember being really super, super nervous. I just remember waking up and just getting around and going to the church and seeing everybody. And she was really nervous. She was afraid that nobody was going to show up. And it ended up being a packed church. I mean, it was really a nice living. Justin is looking to the side. He seems to be holding back tears. Looking back, you know, when I was 20 years old, I grew up working my dad's pipe and steel yard.

And we sold pipe and steel to all these farmers around this area and stuff. And I got to know them all. And if you've been around farmers much, they're the type of people that when you say something, you mean it. He sold pipe and sealed all these farmers around this area and stuff. And I got to know them all. And if you've been around farmers much, they're the type of people that when you say something, you mean it. And I really took the vows serious and the part where to let them protect, and I didn't protect her. And them words haunted me for a long time. I ask how often he thinks of her. Daily.

Pretty much daily. Not just the wedding, just the song you hear or different things. He mentions May 9, 1992. They had just returned from their honeymoon in Branson, Missouri, and they met up with their friends at the Pitcher High School field. I can still close my eyes and see them walking down the road, walking to the sophomore field. She was mad because we wouldn't go get her glove. And she hurt her finger that day. He smiles as he talks about Jennifer.

Her entire family, including her parents, Debbie and Dale. Me and Dale, at one point in time, we put a new motor in my truck. And I always worked on stuff with my grandpa when I was a little kid. Me and my grandpa, my grandpa, he's like my hero. And working with him on that truck and stuff, it brought back a lot. I got really close with Bill, I felt like. I mean, he was just a great dude.

I enjoyed so much going over there and working on that truck with him. And Debbie, I felt like we was pretty close. She always joked with me and stuff. It was just, I don't know. It just fell apart. I've wondered about Justin's relationship with his in-laws. It definitely fell apart in the years after Jennifer was killed.

He believes they started to question him after a family friend organized a fundraiser with the Harlem Magicians, a famous traveling basketball team. It was Harlem Magicians versus Team Justice for Jennifer. Justin played with the magicians. Apparently, everyone took this as a sign. They were wrong. At the time, he actually found himself struggling with all of the Justice for Jennifer campaigns. Even being as young as I was, I wasn't a big fan of that. Because I really felt like it was putting the person, it was making it too much of a whodunit,

and this person was less likely to talk because everybody in the community wanted to choke them. Oh interesting. That's that's kind of how I seen that it's like man we're just backing this guy in the corner. I did help him hang signs up and stuff like that and the whole time I just had the same feeling. In my opinion I feel like one person done it, one person knows he did it and he has not told a single person and I think it's all he has not told a single person. And I think it's all because of pushing him back in the corner.

I mean, nobody wants to be that guy. You know, you wouldn't think in a community where everybody, I mean, she did not have enemies. I can't literally sit here and think of somebody that did not like her. I see a lot of love on his face, and I hate that I'm going to ask him to talk about the most painful day of his life. But it's inevitable. That's what we need to discuss. Nature is a dangerous place. On I Was Prey, the podcast,

listen to the life-or-death experiences of people who have survived animal attacks, natural disasters, and deadly parasites alike. Featuring audio from Discovery Channel, Science Channel, and Animal Planet. From hit shows like This Came Out of Me, Nature's Deadliest, Still Alive, and Monsters Inside Me. There are countless organisms that make a living off of us. Listen to I Was Prey wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Scare yourself silly this Halloween with these comedy podcasts this paranormal life

all he knew is he had just had an encounter with the legendary el cadejo it's just a goat it's not a goat that is literally a goat it's got it has got the horns of a goat. The Gossip Gaze. I am sad to say that Danny Baird has been mysteriously murdered. It's down to you and me to find out who done it. Who killed Danny Baird? Drunk women solving crime. Was Fraser just conned by an 80-year-old? You make it that long? You deserve it.

Oh, people would do anything for you. Wait a minute. Oh, my God, they were working together. Listen to these ACAST shows wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com I remember getting to work and I really billed your work that morning, I believe. And all I can really recall is getting to work, and then remembering that I forgot my lunch,

and I remember calling her, and she was going to bring it. In the notes from one of Justin's earliest interviews with detectives, the detectives wrote, quote, He asked if Jennifer would bring his lunch. He told Jennifer he loved her, and she commented with words to the effect of, You're just saying that, so I'll bring your lunch. Justin commented this was typical of their relationship,

teasing and joking with each other. End quote. We move on in the timeline of that Monday morning as Justin begins to explain how Chuck showed up at his guard shack at the chemical plant. I thought it was really odd because I believe we played basketball on Saturday, a bunch of us, and he was on the opposite team and he and I was not getting along on the basketball court at all. And I just thought it was really odd that he'd show up at my work.

This has always seemed a little odd to me, too. We know Chuck was unemployed at that time because he spent the morning looking for jobs. Justin says Chuck had never showed up at the chemical plant before. I thought it was odd that he knew that I was working because I worked a rotating schedule there too. And his clothing was kind of weird too. He had on penny loafers, a pair of gym shorts, and a polo shirt, which was not like him. He was always a pretty decent dresser.

He just sat there and visited with me while I was, you know, doing stuff. Chuck asks if Justin wants to go to the gym after work, and Justin agrees. Chuck sticks around for another two and a half hours until the end of Justin's shift. By then, Justin is really starting to worry about Jen. It's not like her to not show up,

to not answer the phone, to not even call to let him know if something else came up. As soon as Justin's shift ends, he clocks out and speeds home. They plan to go to the gym, but Justin wants to check on Jennifer first. Chuck follows and pulls into their driveway right behind Justin. Jennifer's car is in the driveway, and this makes Justin even more nervous. He gets out of his blue pickup truck and walks to the front door. I was always really big on locking the doors. You know, make sure the door is locked.

And I had the key in my hand, and I reached, for some reason, I just reached down and grabbed the knob, and it turned. And at that point, I had a really bad feeling. Chuck gets out of his car and walks to the door behind Justin. I opened the door, and it was dark. And I went to the bedroom first, and the bed was made. She made the bed, and it looked like somebody had laid on the edge of the bed. Now I walked back around, walked in the kitchen,

and seen her laying there. And my first thought was she was anemic and had some problem issues there, and I thought maybe she might have just passed out. And then when I turned the light on, I reached out and I felt her neck, and it was cold and swollen, and I told Chuck to call 911. Justin stops himself. He takes a sip of water.

Chuck got on the phone. He couldn't talk to 911 people, so I talked to him. And after I hung the phone up, I just, I don't know, I just had this rage. I punched the wall. When the EMTs got there, you know, I might have been part of the shock or what, but I thought once they got there, things would be fine. This, of course, was the shock talking. Nothing would be fine.

Justin doesn't remember seeing blood or much else he saw that day. He believes he blacked out or has at least blacked out the memories. This makes sense, and it doesn't make me suspicious. It's incredibly common. His memories jump ahead in time. I just remember there was a bunch of people showing up at the police station. It's in this window of time,

literally within minutes, that cops start to suspect Chuck. At first, Justin didn't agree. It took a lot of convincing for them to even have me consider him as a suspect because he was my friend, he was her friend. We all knew each other for years and years and years. Things like that didn't happen back then. What were they saying to try to convince you

that he was a Bible suspect? First, it was the differences in our stories. There was one part of his statement and my statement that didn't go together. Do you remember what that was? Yeah. What was that? That he had stopped by and Jennifer's car was there

and nobody was there. And so he went on to his sister's house and changed clothes and didn't come back to my work, which really didn't make sense. I mean, he could have changed clothes at my work, but anyhow, they were talking about that, and that night he called me. Chuck called me, and he said, why did you tell the KBI that I went to my sister's? And I said, because you did tell me you went to your sister's and changed clothes.

He goes, no, I didn't. That's when I told him, I said, you probably are going to get a lawyer. I'm going to call it out. Chuck took Justin's advice going to get a lawyer. And I'm going to call it out. Chuck took Justin's advice. He got a lawyer. The lawyer handled all subsequent communication with the police, including their requests for Chuck's blood and hair samples. Chuck never mentioned his sister's house in his first statements to police.

There are two ways to interpret this. First, Chuck might have hidden the stop at his sister's front police. This could be the 23-minute window. If that's the case, he would have had to have killed Jennifer, driven to his sister's, changed, and made it to the bank in 23 minutes. The other possibility is that Justin is misremembering the details all these years later. Maybe at the time he was upset about the discrepancy we see in Chuck's two statements, but if so, it's lost to memory. That's one of the biggest challenges of reopening cold cases. I've learned not to dig deeper when this happens. Often, there isn't any more to dig up. But even more troublesome is trying to force a memory into existence.

This is how vague recollections become rumors, and rumors become accepted facts, all of it leading to false leads and bad theories. We move on from this, because there are other people I want to talk about. He had been at the apartment before the wedding. Oh, yeah. Because it may have just been an elimination thing. Sort of a follow-up question to that. There was supposedly something about a hand injury on that day that he went to the doctor for. He left work in the morning and then ended up at a doctor with a hand injury.

I didn't know anything about that. Okay. But do you have, I mean. But I do know they wanted the blood and hair and stuff. One day he was at work and he heard that they needed something from him. He just walked off the job and went to the police station. Went, did he? Yeah.

Very, yeah. That's really good to hear. The more people we can eliminate quickly, the faster we can whittle the list down to a small group of viable suspects. And while I haven't seen anything in the files that states exactly what Justin is describing about this, neither is there any indication that they had to take legal action to compel Tommy's cooperation or that Tommy ever got a lawyer. I'm feeling better and better about checking Tommy off the list. Moving on to the next name.

If on some weird Reddit rabbit hole, I don't know, if somebody said your mom did it, how would you react to that? Say what? Your mom did it. He's shaking his head and laughing. He's absolutely not in any report profile or anything. I think it was one of these weird, like, web things.

I feel bad even asking, but Justin reassures me. There's nothing you can ask me or say or anything that's going to bother me. Okay. I've already dealt with the worst part of it. He's had years to think about this, and like everyone else, he has theories of his own. I really feel like they've, for lack of a better term, romanticized this murder into

a point where it's some big fascination with drugs and a whole lot of stuff that just wasn't going on back then. We never, I mean, back then steroids was just like a myth, stuff that happened in Hollywood or where bodybuilders and stuff. Speaking of, our producer Danielle has a question. Do you ever hear about Quapaw Mafia? There is 906 people in Quapaw. Quapaw Mafia.

I've asked other people about this so-called mafia, and they react like Justin. No one's ever heard of it. There is just no evidence that any Quapaw Mafia ever existed. There were no drugs. He laughs again at the idea of this having been a hired hit. With what money, he asks. He says he was making $7 an hour and spent all of his savings on the wedding.

And the thing that a lot of people completely, totally forget is we were 20-year-old kids. As far as Justin is concerned, there is one person who knows what happened. Chuck Chance. Justin never really says Chuck's name, by the way. He says, this person. Danielle asks what Chuck's motive could have been. on things and realize that this person, you know how guys together joke around about other people's girlfriends and stuff, you know, I cannot recall him ever mentioning her name in any capacity of anything, joking or anything like that, ever.

Like nothing negative, nothing, like almost like he was protective of her by omission as opposed to... There was a time he and I was working on our football highlight film. We had all our, back in the VHS days, you know, you pause and record and pause and record and put different clips on it. We were working on that and she went with me one night

and it was almost like I went in there after, I mean, they got to talking about those school days and stuff and I felt like, you know, you guys want me to leave? You know? It was, that really sticks out in my mind. Danielle and I continue working through the motive. So the infatuation would almost potentially be

showing up at your house when you knew you weren't there. She rejects him, but somehow it turns into a scuffle, like a fight. That just escalated very quickly to somebody who has a really bad temper. He does? What are other counties that has temper? Well, hell, he and I got into it on the football field one day in practice, into a fist fight. He just always had a fly off the handle temper. If you closed your eyes and there was a world in which Chuck Chance didn't exist,

was never part of this, or had an airtight alibi, is there anybody who you would be like i don't trust that person i would fall back on i can remember the kbi telling me there's a 99 99.9 chance that this one person did it and there's a 0.1 chance that a random passive by serial killer did it. I would fall back on that point. So just a total stranger? Yeah. Okay. We'll go to someone to look for strangers too. The idea that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation

told him there's a 99.9% chance that Chuck Chance did this is next level infuriating. I keep this frustration to myself. I want to talk about the other prime suspect, the one missing from KBI's list, but right at the top of my list, Jeremy Jones.

When Jeremy Jones confessed to killing Jennifer, he said it was a lover's quarrel. He says they knew each other from school, but really met at a powwow party, and he describes having sex with Jennifer in a park. He says she always made him use a condom. The details go on and on. Chris Hausch, Michelle McCorkle, and now Justin Judd

have all told me that Jennifer and Jones did not know each other. So it seems like Jones is making this up, but not entirely. He might have been obsessed with Jennifer and fantasized about her so much that he created an alternate reality in his head. He's even worked Justin and Chuck Chance into this alternate reality. Here's his conversation with KBI agent Larry Thomas. When you run across Justin and Chuck, were you ever a part of any conversations about Justin not wanting to get married?

Yeah. She talked to me, you know what I'm saying? She told me he was the one who wanted to get married. And she didn't. She was afraid he was going to find out about me, that he would kill me. You know, and that Chuck would have seen us. She said, Chuck would have killed us. You know?

Jones claims to have known Chuck around the time Jennifer was killed. He says they worked together at a place called Bayliner. Bayliner was another huge employer in the region, and it's entirely possible that the two men worked there at the same time. Jones says that after Jennifer was killed, he

and Chuck had a conversation in the break room where Chuck seemed upset. Jones claims Chuck said, the police think I did this and I didn't do this. And Jones claims he told him, look, if you didn't do it, you got nothing to be worried about. Jones tells that story twice in the files. The first time he tells it is in his first interview with KBI agent Thomas. He says it was right around the time Jennifer was killed. The second time Jones tells the story,

it's as part of a follow-up interview Thomas did with Jones in his cell on death row a couple years later. In that one, he says it was probably two years after Jennifer was killed. This discrepancy makes it hard to believe this moment actually transpired. It seems like yet another one in which Jones is embellishing. As in, maybe he worked with Chuck

and knew that Chuck was upset after Jennifer was murdered, but this actual conversation in the break room may be made up. Jones also claims to have hung out with Justin and Chuck at Pow Wows. Chris Hausch and now Justin have rejected this claim. If Jones has knowledge of any aspect of the case not known to the public generally, I have to make sure he didn't get the information by any other means than having been present at the scene. It's one of the many things I want to ask Justin about. What have you been told about the Jones' potential involvement?

Well, whenever he first was saying that he did it and stuff, the KBI called me and said, what do you think? And I said, not a chance. I just... Based on what? From what I gather, his Emma was raped, and I really feel like he would have probably raped her if it was him.

This is the same primary reason Jennifer's friends rule Jones out. I hate spelling out that we don't know for sure that the perpetrator did not attempt a sexual assault or the fact that serial offenders often engage in acts that are sexual to them but don't necessarily look that way at the scene. There's also his confession to grapple with. The problem with Jones is that it's about 75% bullshit and about 25% like on the money accurate. And there just was stuff that he knew

that I struggled to understand how he had the information. And especially because one of the things, again, that gets widely reported or is in, like, the Reddit rabbit holes and stuff is that you guys were, like, friends afterwards. Another prevailing rumor around this investigation is that Jeremy Jones knew so much about the case because he was neighbors with Justin

sometime after the killing, and he talked to Justin about the murder, thus gaining access to details never shared with the public. This seems nearly as far-fetched as the rest, but it's important to know for sure. Did you know Jeremy? Not prior to that. He actually was my neighbor.

When me and Misty was married and lived in Quapaw, he moved into one of the little apartments by us. Jones moved in next door to him in the mid-90s, a few years after Jennifer was killed. By then, Justin was remarried. Who was he living with at the time? He had a girlfriend, and it was really bad. I mean, you could hear him beating her. Misty called the police one time, and the police come,

and she would say, oh, nothing's happening, or we're fine, you know. And my mom come over, and she heard it one time. She called the police. The police come over, oh, nothing's going on. And me and my friend Sean Ray had been to the Quapaw Powwow, which it usually goes really late. It's almost daylight. And we'd come back to my house

and we're sitting there talking and he started beating on her and Sean's like, I can't deal with this. And he got up and went over and knocked on the door and says, you wanna hit on somebody? Come out here and hit on me. And Jeremy pulled a gun on him and pointed right at his head and he goes, oh, you wanna shoot me with your little gun? And then it come out on the news, you know,

that he's a serial killer. How long would you say you guys were neighbors? Just a few months, and me and Misty ended up by the house. Did you ever, in those months, like, sit on the back porch and have a beer with him or talk? Never had a conversation with him. Never had a conversation with him. And you never talked about the case with him?

Nope. It's tough to hear, but Justin says, nope. You're sure? Pretty sure. Okay. Do you think there's any possibility that he and Chuck were friends? I don't know if they ever were friends or not.

And so now then, you know, my other question is, could he have gotten some of this from Chuck? At this, Justin shrugs. He doesn't know, and now I'm asking him to speculate. It's time to stop. I was hoping Justin could confirm this part for me, but I'll have to keep trying other avenues. We've been speaking for more than two hours,

and I want to let Justin get on with his day. He's confirmed two important things for me. First, he still suspects Chuck Chance with 99% certainty. I'll keep searching, but I'm not sure what else can be said about Chuck. I have not eliminated him on my own suspect list, but I still struggle to see him as the primary suspect. The second thing Justin confirmed is that he doesn't think Jones killed Jennifer.

I get it. He's been told for so long with such certainty by people who should be in a position to know. I am not so convinced of this yet. I do think that he was wrongly dismissed without further digging and without perhaps

at least getting his DNA compared to some of the blood that was found in the apartment and stuff, and that was never done. So there's a lot of reason to be optimistic, I think. I never ever want to make promises, and I certainly don't want to make promises on time. But I can promise you that this is, like, now my job. You know?

I really appreciate that. I really do. It means a lot. Justin offers to share letters Jennifer wrote to him over the years they were together. I used to read them before going to bed, just hoping that I would maybe have some dreams or something, that she'd visit and dream something. And sometimes she does. I had this one dream where I was laying in bed. I'm laying in bed. It's like one of them sleep

paralysis dreams. And I'm wanting to turn over, knowing she's there, and I can't turn over. And it was just, I would wake up just sweating. And I mean, it was just, and it really never made no sense to me. I tried to help him make sense of it, but like so much of this story, it's hard to say if there is any sense. I had one dream one time where I was in a movie theater, and I was by myself, and somebody tapped me on the shoulder,

and I turned around, and it was her. And she said, I just want you to know I'm okay. And that was a very comforting dream. Nature is a dangerous place. On I Was Prey, the podcast, listen to the life or death experiences of people who have survived animal attacks, natural disasters, and deadly parasites alike.

Featuring audio from Discovery Channel, Science Channel, and Animal Planet. From hit shows like This Came Out of Me, Nature's Deadliest, Still Alive, and Monsters Inside Me. There are countless organisms that make a living out of me. Nature's deadliest, still alive, and monsters inside me. There are countless organisms that make a living off of us. Listen to I Was Prey

wherever you get your podcasts. After speaking with Justin, I understand why he thinks Chuck Chance killed Jennifer. He thinks Chuck had a crush on Jennifer and that this crush led Chuck to the Judd's apartment on the fateful morning of May 11, 1992. Someone else was in the house at some point

and left behind a half-empty can of orange soda. Justin had bought a case of the soda when he was getting supplies for taco night, but to find a can on its side in the middle of the bedroom floor, bright orange liquid spilling out onto the clean carpet, Jennifer would never have just left that there. It doesn't tell us a complete story, but it does tell us that a person brought it back there into the bedroom and just left it on the floor. I see how Justin thinks this could have been Chuck, but I'm not convinced.

Chuck was 20 years old. His record shows a history of violence, but of a very different variety than what was inflicted on Jennifer. He blew part of his own finger off in high school while messing around with a firecracker. He joined the military and was discharged nine months later, reportedly for reasons related to the injury to his finger. When Jennifer was killed, Chuck was married with a child

and had no official record of domestic violence against his then-wife, Tracy, though people who knew the couple have stated they believed there was physical abuse that Tracy never reported to the police. In the years since Jennifer's murder, Chuck has been arrested on charges related to bad checks and methamphetamine. He's currently in prison for some of those. He was hit with protective orders in 2007 and 2011. Otherwise, his record reveals no signs of pattern violence. As a behaviorist, when I'm looking at a 20-year-old suspect

without a history of this kind of violence, I need a firm motive. Sure, Chuck had a reputation as a hothead and a history of getting into fights. But there is an enormous range in the psychology of violence, and a guy who gets into dust-ups over a bad call in a softball game is not the same guy who escalates to the violent stabbing death of a childhood friend, not without a clear motive. I don't need this for known serial predators like Jeremy Jones,

but I absolutely need it for someone like Chuck Chance. After hearing that Justin believes the motive is simple, that Chuck had a crush on Jennifer, maybe a crush going back to childhood, I go in search of confirmation. In the case file, I find a letter Jennifer wrote to a classmate four years before she was murdered. It's a typewritten page with October 27, 1988

in the top right corner. This would have been her junior year of high school. My number one sis. I am so sick of school. It's pathetic. I guess it's because everyone always starts about Justin. Me and Justin are going to get married in California and live happily ever after. I just love him to death sometimes, but then again, I want to get rid of him too. She adds four exclamation points at the end of that sentence. She adds, Jennifer loves Justin eight times, creating a huge block of text across the bottom of the page. It's a few lines in the middle of the note, though, that really jump off the copy. Chuck said last night that he hated Justin.

I said, why? And he said, because he's a smart aleck and thinks he's better than everyone else, but he isn't. I can't believe Chuck, though. If he thinks I like him, he's got another thing coming. Chuck just likes girls for one thing, too. Oh, well, life goes on. This note seems to contradict what I've heard from Jennifer's friends. Chris Hausch dismissed the idea

that Chuck ever liked Jen. Michelle did, too. Both said it's a rumor that started after Jennifer's death. In the case files, I find that investigators spoke with many more of their friends. Their friends said things like,

Chuck Chance had a crush on Jennifer based on the way he always wanted to be around her. Chuck would hang out at the Pitcher Express when Jen was working. Jennifer did go out with Chuck a few times. I think Chuck asked her out. I was told Chuck still hung around Jennifer a lot because he still liked her.

They hung around together a lot in eighth grade. Two statements really stand out, saying almost the exact same thing. Chuck pushed Jennifer in the upper chest with both hands. She was pushed back against the display shelves and fell to the ground. Chuck quickly left the store. These statements put a new twist on the theory that Chuck had a crush

on Jennifer. More importantly, they demonstrate that his notorious temper was allegedly directed squarely at Jennifer on at least one occasion. This alone

could spell motive. I think of Jennifer asking her dad to follow her home from work in the last weeks of her life. Could this be why? Maybe. But this incident allegedly took place

at least four months before Jennifer's death. No one reports a second incident like this one or any altercations between them closer to the date of her murder. It's horrible that it happened. My heart hurts for her knowing she went through that and in the end chose to keep it to herself to prevent what certainly would have been the end of Justin's friendship with Chuck or worse. But it still doesn't draw a straight line to May 11th. Several friends told investigators

they thought that if Chuck killed Jennifer, he wasn't motivated by a crush on Jennifer. Rather, they think Chuck might have been mad at Jennifer for taking Justin from Chuck. This doesn't completely make sense, but there have been friends who said Jennifer and Chuck argued about whether Justin would still hang out with Chuck as much after the wedding.

It's all so speculative. Even back then, it was a bunch of what-ifs and maybes about Jennifer disrupting the friendship between the men. Again, it doesn't add up to a motive for the kind of scene that would ultimately be discovered by those very two men in the duplex. As I read the statements, I keep coming back to Chuck's first conversation with police on May 11th, 1992. They're talking less than 90 minutes after Chuck and Justin found Jennifer's body.

Nothing in the tape makes me think Chuck is covering up the fact that he just murdered someone he's known most of his life. Ultimately, I think there's really only one way we'll sort through Chuck Chance's involvement. Science. I've been counting on touch DNA. But as I dig through the case file, looking for every single mention of Chuck Chance, I realize we might not need DNA testing to rule him out. According to the files, the KBI attempted to lift fingerprints from the knife blade left lodged in Jennifer's back in 1992, but it was impossible because the blade was so bloody. Latent print technology advanced over the next few years, and in 2000, using newer

tech, they were able to identify fingerprints on the knife blade. They lifted three nearly perfect prints. And the prints did not match Chuck. So who do they match? I should be able to answer that question fairly easily. I should be able to enter the prints into the national system, AFIS, and see if they return a match. Unfortunately, I can't. The actual print is not in the case file. All I'm seeing is the report that says a print exists

and that it doesn't match Chuck Chance. I'd love to know if the print matches Jeremy Jones' prints, but as far as I can tell, no one ever checked. Short of finding a copy of the print, I could repeat what they did in 2000 and pull the print off the knife blade. Could, if only we had the knife blade. Naturally, it's one of the pieces of evidence

that we can't seem to find. It's not in the boxes and bags that Detective Joel Tabor and I sorted through at the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office. A representative at the Baxter Springs Police Department initially said they had it, but later called Joel to say they were wrong. KBI says they don't have it. Finding the knife has always been on my list of priorities. Now, knowing that it contains a full print and that the print does not match the man listed as the primary suspect, I move this to the very top of my list.

Still, I'm not pinning all hope on these. I've had my hopes dashed in other cases, and I try to hedge a bit more nowadays. I'll still send evidence for DNA analysis, and I'm still looking at suspects. After several weeks with the case files, I have a few people I want to track down, names I've seen in the files, men who catch my attention. And one in particular, a man named Alan Redden. Next time on Who Killed Jennifer Judd.

So they never told you that they have usable prints on the blade of the knife? Okay. No, they didn't. But that would be really handy. It's a guy named Alan Redden, who is still alive. Are you familiar with this one? He's a registered offender, I believe, isn't he? If something like that would have happened, it would have been bad. Actually, if she told me, this may never even happen, you know?

They definitely moved her then, because that has a ton of DNA, and I can't imagine why that would be too faint for interpretation, because if that's all blood, that's a lot.