Jeanne Childs
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Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. It's a case that haunted the authorities for decades. A woman is stabbed to death a total of 65 times inside of her Minneapolis apartment. Although the scene overflowed with physical and forensic evidence, the case eventually turned cold.

It wasn't until the police collected DNA from a hot dog napkin that they finally got the break they had hoped for. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 266, The Murder of Jeannie Childs.

June 13, 1993, South Minneapolis, Minnesota.

One of the maintenance workers at the Charles Horn Towers Public Housing Complex got a work call around 5.30 p.m. The call was from a tenant complaining about a water leak coming from the building's 21st floor. So as soon as the call came in, the maintenance worker went straight to apartment 2105 and spoke to the woman living there.

She showed him the water that was now leaking into her place and said that it looked like it was coming from the apartment next door, apartment 2104. On his way up to the 21st floor, the maintenance worker noticed that the front door to apartment 2104 was unlocked, but he didn't feel comfortable going in there by himself. So he called the building's security company and waited for them to get there.

As soon as they arrived, the officers from the security company and the maintenance worker went inside apartment 2104 through the unlocked door. And as they stepped in, they called out just to make sure if anyone was home. They didn't want to scare anyone. But besides the noise of the television, which was turned on low, no one called back. So they assumed no one was home. Maybe someone accidentally left the water running or there was an issue with one of the pipes.

From the moment they stepped foot into the place, they saw water everywhere throughout the tiny one-bedroom apartment. There were pools of it in the living room, and running water was coming from the bedroom. The water even had a reddish color to it, like maybe it was blood. So the security officer and maintenance worker went toward where the water was coming from, the bathroom, and that's when they noticed that the shower was running.

And not only that, but the shower head was turned in a way that the water was spraying everywhere throughout the bathroom, not just in the tub. So they quickly turned off the water and started mopping up the place in the hallway just outside the apartment that had water on it. But even as they cleaned up, no one saw anyone inside the apartment. It appeared completely empty. The men decided it would also be a good idea to call the building's owners to let them know about the water leak.

It had clearly caused a lot of damage, so they needed to notify them. So after they were called and a little while later, the owners of the building showed up and they went inside the apartment. That's when they discovered a lot more than just a water leak. They found the body of an adult white female. She was discovered lying mostly naked on the bedroom floor. She was wedged between the left side of the bed and the dresser.

but the reason why no one saw her earlier was because she was partially underneath of the bed, so no one could really see her. It was obvious from the moment the building owners showed up to this woman that she was beyond saving. She was very clearly deceased. And now, they were standing in the middle of a crime scene.

So they immediately got out of the apartment and called the Minneapolis Police Department. By 7 o'clock p.m., the police were at the apartment. The homicide unit was called, and the entire apartment was put on lockdown. No one besides them was allowed in or out. Since the woman was already dead, they didn't need to worry about moving her body or trying to get her to the hospital. So they secured the scene and started looking for any potential evidence.

The first thing that stood out about this scene was just how bloody and messy it was.

An autopsy would later reveal that this woman, whoever she was because she hadn't been ID'd at this point, had been stabbed a total of 65 times. Many of the stab wounds were to her chest and stomach area. She had a fatal stab wound that went from right through her heart and her stomach had been slashed, exposing most of her insides. A kind of murder like this, 65 stab wounds, stands out for so many reasons.

But the primary one is, this was personal. Whoever did this knew the victim, and they were very, very angry. Plus, it also would be revealed at the autopsy that many of these stab wounds happened post-mortem. She was already dead when more than half of these wounds were inflicted. So to me, that also screams overkill.

The next thing the Minneapolis police had to do was identify her. They knew the apartment didn't belong to her because the lease had a guy by the name of Arthur Gray on it, and the police felt pretty good about the victim not being someone named Arthur Gray.

But fortunately for investigators, they found a fanny pack in the bedroom that had a wallet inside of it. And inside the wallet, they found the idea of the victim, 35-year-old Jeannie Childs. The police would discover later on that Arthur Gray, the guy whose name was on the apartment lease, was Jeannie's boyfriend at the time. So it makes sense for her to be inside of the apartment.

But it's also worth mentioning here that it didn't actually look like Arthur lived there. Everything inside the apartment belonged to Jeannie. So it looked like Arthur just put his name on the lease so that his girlfriend could live there. Of course, that was against the apartment building policies, but they weren't the only ones to do that. A lot of people did.

Someone more qualified would sign a lease for one of the apartments and someone else, maybe someone who couldn't qualify on their own, would actually live there. So it looks that's the case here. Obviously, the Minneapolis police wanted to know as much as possible about this Arthur Gray guy. And here's what they came up with.

It turned out Arthur had a nickname, Nasty. He rode a motorcycle. He didn't have a job, or at least not that anyone knew about, so he was unemployed at the time. He was said to be both physically and emotionally abusive toward Jeannie, and he acted more like a pimp to her rather than an actual boyfriend. Here's the story on that.

Through the investigation, it was uncovered that Jeannie Childs might have had a history of working as a prostitute or sex worker, and she may or may not have used that apartment to conduct her business and bring clients there, the apartment that was under her boyfriend's name. So the theory goes, Arthur Gray was more like a sex trafficker, pimp, than he was an actual boyfriend.

He owned the apartment so that she could bring money in. It was a classic sex worker operation. So not surprisingly, the Minneapolis police were a little skeptical about Arthur and wanted to keep him on top of the suspect list. He's a pimp. He doesn't treat the victim very well. He's just not a very good guy. So some of the detectives wondered, could he have done this?

They already sensed this was something over extremely personal. 65 stab wounds, multiple post-mortem wounds. Certainly a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship is incredibly personal, or even a pimp relationship. If she wasn't doing what she was supposed to be doing, or bringing in enough money, maybe that's what caused all of this.

Arthur Gray would have also had easy access to the apartment. Not only was he on the lease, but the police didn't find any signs of forced entry. The front door was left completely unlocked when the maintenance worker showed up. And besides the bedroom, the apartment didn't look too bad. The kitchen was described as a little unkept. There were dirty dishes in the sink, but it didn't look like there was any type of struggle there. The same could be said about the living room.

The only signs of a struggle were inside of the tiny bedroom. Let's talk about that now. The bedroom was a mess. Blood was virtually everywhere. Smears of it were on the walls. The bed was covered in blood. Most of it had soaked through all of the sheets and even the mattress. The same could be said about the floor and the bathroom next door. It all had blood.

But none of that should be too surprising. For someone to have been stabbed 65 times, that's going to cause a lot of blood evidence. You'll have blood coming from the victim. You'll have cast-off patterns on the walls and the ceilings from the stabbing. The suspect himself might have even cut himself. So there's the potential for his blood to be mixed in there as well. 65 stab wounds, that's going to produce a lot of forensic blood evidence.

Jeannie herself also had a lot of blood on her. Besides a pair of bloody socks on her feet, she was completely naked. Her clothes and underwear were found in the bedroom. And since her body was partially hiding underneath the bed, that's why no one saw her at first. She also had a gold necklace that was knotted up in her hair.

It was pretty clear that the struggle happened in the bedroom. All of that blood was there, and even the bed looked like it had been moved, like maybe it got moved during a fight. But it wasn't just the amount of blood on the bed and in the bedroom that stood out. On top of the bed was an open bottle of shampoo. But here's the strange part.

The shampoo bottle was completely clean of blood, like it had been placed there after the blood got on the bed. So does that mean the killer showered after the attack? Still getting around to that fix on your car? You got this. On eBay, you'll find millions of parts guaranteed to fit. Doesn't matter if it's a major engine repair or your first time swapping your windshield wipers.

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Throughout the rest of the apartment, the police found more bloody clues. There was a blood-stained blue towel hanging on the bathroom wall, a blood-stained washcloth on the toilet, and there were several bloody footprints throughout the apartment, including four underneath the bedroom window, like someone covered in blood was standing there looking out the window. There were also a pair of white underwear found inside the toilet that had some blood on it,

There was a used condom on the dresser door and blood was found on the white shower curtain. All of that was photographed, collected and put into evidence. Underneath the victim's fingernails, the police found additional forensic evidence. Blood was discovered underneath her fingernails, further suggesting there was some type of struggle. She didn't go down without a fight.

And during that fight, she might have gotten some of her killer's DNA underneath of her fingernails. So fingernail scrapings were collected and put into evidence as well. But wait, there's still more evidence.

The police also collected several strands of hair found inside her hands. But there was noticeably one thing missing from this bloody crime scene, the murder weapon. The only knife found in the entire apartment, which was found inside of the kitchen, had zero blood on it. So it couldn't have been the murder weapon. Whoever did this must have taken it with them.

On the very night Jeannie's body was discovered, the Minneapolis police called in help from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, or BCA. Because there was so much forensic evidence to go through, the BCA was called in to help with that. And one of the things the BCA was most interested in at the crime scene were the four bloody footprints found in the bedroom underneath the window.

The prints appeared much larger in size than the victims, so the police felt pretty confident that they belonged to the killer. So the BCA took lifts of the footprints and cataloged them for later forensic analysis. We'll talk about that much more later on, but these footprints are going to be a very important piece of evidence.

After the Minneapolis police response, the BCA, the Forensic Evidence Collection, Jeannie's body was finally removed from the apartment and taken for an autopsy. The next step of the investigation now began. Look for her killer. The obvious first suspect was the boyfriend-slash-pimp, Arthur Gray, a.k.a. Nasty. But right away, the police ran into some problems with him.

For starters, and the biggest issue, he had an alibi. He was apparently with a friend at a motorcycle rally in Wisconsin. And when detectives sat down and questioned the friend, it seemed like an airtight alibi. He wasn't anywhere near the apartment when Jeannie was killed. But that didn't mean Arthur was completely off the hook.

After the evidence was collected from the apartment, it was sent to the lab for forensic testing. And here's what some of the police learned. Number one, the strands of hair found in the victim's hands were determined to have come from Arthur Gray. So that's pretty problematic for him. How could he explain how his hair got there? And number two, his DNA was found on the comforter in the bed.

So you might be wondering, wasn't that a slam dunk for the prosecution and the police? His hair is found in the victim's hands, and it's his DNA on the bed. Well, not exactly. The police still had the airtight alibi that put him nowhere near the scene that night. So there was nothing the police could do. They didn't have enough to go out and arrest him for murder.

After that, the investigation stalls out. Arthur Gray is a free man. There were no other witnesses. No one inside the apartment complex heard or saw anything suspicious, or at least no one was willing to come forward. And there just weren't many leads. Yes, they had a mountain of forensic evidence, but we're talking about 1993 here. Forensic analysis was just starting to happen across the United States.

So whatever evidence was collected from the apartment, they did the best they could with it. But their resources were extremely limited for it being the early 90s. So eventually, the case went cold.

The Minneapolis police didn't stop working the case or pursuing new leads, but there was nothing they could do. The evidence dried up, the leads stopped coming in, there weren't any credible witnesses, so the case was at a standstill. The police also couldn't come up with any promising suspects. They knew the victim sometimes worked as a sex worker, so any of her customers could be a possible suspect.

Her work in that type of industry meant that she would have crossed paths with a lot of people, so the police didn't even know who they were looking for. They had no idea who she was in contact with at the time of her murder. On top of being stabbed dozens of times, there was evidence of a sexual assault, or at the very least, she had engaged in some type of sexual activity right before her death.

Besides the blood found all over the crime scene, the police also collected semen from the bed. And more of the same DNA was found on the bloody bath towel and the bathroom sink. So this initially, this discovery, seemed promising. They've got the suspect's semen all over the crime scene. But again, 1993 here.

If the DNA or semen didn't match anyone in the database, then chances are the police wouldn't be able to identify the contributor.

Just three years earlier before this crime happened, CODIS was created, the Combined DNA Index System, our national DNA database here in the U.S. But 1990 was just the start of the pilot program. It wasn't until 1998 that the database finally became fully operational. So at the time this murder happened, 1993, CODIS wasn't operating like it does now.

So whatever DNA evidence was collected inside the apartment, semen, blood, nothing could be matched to any person in particular until they had a comparison sample. Over the years, the police still suspected Arthur Gray, the boyfriend. But he wasn't the only one. The police had about three or four pretty good suspects.

They also considered other possibilities, from this being a random act, a random murder committed by a random stranger. But that didn't seem to fit the evidence, the 65 stab wounds. That screams that this was over something personal. There was also the theory that one of the victim's customers had something to do with this. But again, tracking any of them was next to impossible.

She could have come into contact with so many different people, and there was absolutely no record of it. So months went by, then eventually years, and the case seemed destined to become unsolvable. By 2018, the police began working with the FBI. It was time to do something different. It had been 25 years. It was time for whoever did this to be caught.

So one of the first things they did was send a DNA sample from the crime scene to DNA Solutions, Inc., a lab based inside the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

The police asked them if they could take the DNA and create a single nucleotide polymorphism or SNP profile. Once they had that, they could compare that profile to other profiles on commercial genealogical databases to hopefully identify the source's relatives. By 2018, the

This process, usually called forensic genetic genealogy, had taken off across police departments across the country.

Ever since the arrest of the Golden State Killer from California, the police were now turning to genetic genealogy to solve their cold cases. The process of taking unknown DNA collected from crime scenes and identifying the suspect's relatives from commercial DNA databases like GEDmatch or 23andMe. Just because they couldn't find a direct match to the unknown DNA profile didn't mean they couldn't look for any relatives.

And once they can identify a relative or two or three or four, the police can work backward to find a promising suspect. Look for someone who was the right age at the time the crime was committed. Did they live or visit the area where the victim was murdered? Did they have the means to do something like this? Then finally, once they had a suspect who checked off all of these boxes, they could make a direct DNA comparison.

So that's exactly what they started to do in this case in 2018. They sent the unknown DNA to the lab to create a SNP profile to submit to these databases. It was the perfect case to do something like this. After the police in Minneapolis got the SNP profile back from the lab, they uploaded it to various commercial databases, including GEDmatch, Ancestry.com, and MyHeritage.

These are all websites you can submit your DNA to find out more about your ancestry. And while going through the matches on MyHeritage, they found something. A first cousin to the source of the crime scene DNA. Once they had that, the police then used the match to create a family tree that ultimately revealed a very promising suspect, a guy by the name of Jerry Westrom.

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On the outside, Jerry Westrom looked like your average American guy. He was someone who could be your neighbor. He was married, the father of two young children, a successful businessman, and was well considered a hockey dad to his children. He definitely didn't come across as a person capable of stabbing someone over 60 times.

But now that his DNA seemed to match the DNA found all over the crime scene, the police weren't too sure he was who he pretended to be. Also interesting, even though Westrom had never been considered a suspect in this investigation, he did live in the Twin Cities area between 1991 and 1993. So geographically speaking, he could have done it.

But before the police could go in and make an arrest, they needed to be sure they had the right guy. Just because they found a relative who shared DNA with the killer, they needed to be 1,000% sure it was Jerry Westrom. And the only way to do that is through a direct DNA comparison.

So to cross their T's and dot their I's, the police looked for ways that they could secretly get a DNA sample from him. They knew they couldn't just go up to him and ask him for one, so they needed to get creative. That's when they found out he was attending his kid's hockey game one weekend. So that's when the police came up with a plan.

They would follow him to the hockey game and wait for him to throw away something containing his DNA. A piece of gum, a cigarette, a coffee cup, whatever they could get their hands on. So as soon as Westrom showed up at the hockey game, the police began watching him. For a while, he just sat there watching the game, and the police weren't too sure that this was their opportunity. But then, something happened.

Westrom got up from his seat, went to the concession stand to order something to eat, a hot dog. The police watched him as he went back to his seat to eat it. They also watched when he got up, walked over to a nearby trash can and threw it away in the trash. And that's when they swooped in and grabbed it. Anything he threw in the trash can was now fair game.

The napkin that Westrom used to eat his hot dog was sent to the BCA for analysis.

From there, they created STR DNA profile from the residue on the napkin and found that it matched the crime scene sample. It was definitely his DNA. This was also confirmation of what they already knew from that genealogical testing. This discovery now meant the police finally had the forensic proof they needed to go to a judge and ask for an arrest warrant. And that's exactly what the Minneapolis police did.

They got a warrant and went out and arrested Gary Westrom for the 1993 murder. The seemingly normal husband and father was now under arrest for a brutal murder.

He was charged with second-degree murder. Even though the case was over 25 years old, there is no statute of limitations on murder, so he could still be charged and convicted. But from the moment the handcuffs were put on, he denied everything, saying he had nothing to do with what happened inside of that tiny one-bedroom apartment. Yes, he did live in the area for a brief period of time, but he said he never met her.

But not everyone believed him or his story. After he was put in jail, a grand jury later indicted him for first-degree premeditated murder. So now he faced two counts, first and second-degree murder.

Before the case would eventually go to trial, Westrom's attorneys filed motions to have all evidence stemming from the police's comparisons of the SNP profile created from the DNA gathered at the crime scene with other profiles at commercial websites all thrown out. They also filed motions contesting the admissibility of evidence obtained through the STR analysis of DNA taken from the hot dog napkin.

but ultimately, all of these defense motions were denied. The judge said that since he threw away that hot dog napkin in a public setting, that meant he no longer had the right to privacy.

As soon as that napkin hit the trash can, it was fair game for the police to go in and grab it. Under the law, there is no expectation of privacy for things that we throw away in a public trash can. They basically become public domain at that point. That also means that whatever the police did with that hot dog napkin after they got it from the trash didn't violate any of his rights.

If they wanted to test it for fingerprints, they could. If they only wanted DNA, which they did, the judge said they could legally do it. Also before trial, the state arranged for Mark Ulich, a forensic administrator for the city of Minneapolis, to testify about the footprints found inside of the apartment.

He was the one who performed the analysis on them, and according to his testimony, those four bloody footprints matched Westrom. That was now a second piece of forensic evidence planting him at the crime scene. But the defense had their own witness talk about the footprints, Dr. Michael Nuremberg.

He disputed the state's ruling using the real method of forensic podiatry, which analyzes a person's features by measuring multiple dimensions of a footprint. On cross, the state challenged Dr. Nirenberg's methodology, and a FRIMAC hearing was held.

During the hearing, the state confronted the defense doctor with evidence that the footprint samples he relied on were collected using a different procedure than what he had assumed. And if that was the case, if the footprint samples were analyzed using a method that wasn't valid, then that changes everything.

About four months after this hearing and right before the trial was supposed to begin, Westrom disclosed a new report that utilized two additional methods of forensic podiatry, the visual overlay method, which examines a footprint's traced outline, and the gun method, which measures the distance between various points on a footprint.

But the judge wouldn't allow him to offer any evidence related to any of the forensic podiatry methods because the real method didn't meet the Fry-Mack standard. He also wasn't allowed to use it because the other methods were disclosed too late.

It was also found that forensic podiatry in general was unreliable for purposes of identification and that the gun and visual overlay methods would not have met the Fry-Max standard either, even if they were presented much earlier.

Put another way, this standard wants to know two things. One, do the experts in the field widely share the view that the results of scientific testing would be scientifically reliable? And number two, did the lab conducting the analysis comply with appropriate standards? So it's a way to make sure any type of forensic evidence discussed at trial is both accurate and valid.

When it comes to this case, the judge said the evidence that the defense had regarding the forensic podiatry, all of that didn't meet the evidence standard. Experts in the field of forensic podiatry just don't agree that using these methods produce accurate results. So therefore, none of it can be used by the defense as evidence.

Of course, their position was that the footprints found at the crime scene don't match him. When the state's experts say who used a different method to compare them, they say that they did.

One of the biggest parts of Westrom's defense was the alternative suspect theory, Arthur Gray, the boyfriend-slash-pimp. But besides him, Westrom also named at least three other possible suspects who were interviewed by the police during the course of the investigation. But like the other claims, the judge denied that too, saying there wasn't enough evidence to implicate Gray or anyone else.

Although, it's worth mentioning here that at least some of the forensic evidence collected at the crime scene does in fact match Gray. So maybe part of his defense is true. It doesn't mean he's innocent, but he had a point. At trial, the prosecution stuck with their biggest piece of evidence, the DNA.

All their experts testified that the DNA found on Jeannie's towels, clothing, and bedding all matched him. No doubt about it, he was the contributor. And let's not forget, most of this DNA came from semen. When it came time for Westrom to challenge any of this DNA evidence, he didn't. Not a single forensic or medical expert testified on his behalf.

so all the jury heard about when it came to the forensic evidence came directly from prosecutors. I don't know why he didn't put any forensic experts on the stand. Maybe he couldn't afford any. Or maybe they couldn't find any to defend him. Who knows? After hearing all of the evidence, the jury took less than two hours to reach a decision. They found him guilty on both counts, first and second-degree murder.

and for both of those charges, he received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after serving a minimum of 30 years. Almost immediately, Westrom appealed. His first complaint was that the DNA obtained from the hot dog napkin violated his constitutional right to privacy. It was an unlawful search. Let's talk about that now.

The issue wasn't so much that the police got the DNA from the trash can. It was about what they did after they got it. The STR testing to get the DNA profile. His defense argued that violated his rights. Well, the court disagreed.

They said that this issue has already been put in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, and they believe that any DNA analysis done on a lawfully obtained sample only reveals the identity of the source. It doesn't identify anything unrelated to identity, like the predisposition to disease or heritage. It only reveals the identity. That's it.

So as long as the sample is lawfully obtained, which it was in this case, there's no violation of privacy because the sample was only used to identify the source. No other personal information was gained by creating the DNA sample.

This is a direct quote from the judge about this. Quote, End quote.

Some of Westrom's other claims was that he wasn't allowed to present evidence of at least four other possible suspects, including the boyfriend. He wasn't allowed to present evidence about the footprint analysis since his expert didn't conduct the same type of testing on it. And finally, that the state conducted prosecutorial misconduct during its closing arguments. But most of these claims were denied.

The only victory for his defense was that the court ruled he shouldn't have been convicted of both first and second degree murder. So the first degree murder conviction was vacated, leaving only the second degree charge. But none of that means he walks free. He's now 58 years old and serving his life sentence in the St. Cloud prison.

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Jeannie was a wonderful person even though she had problems. She had a big heart. End quote. No motive for the murder has ever been offered. Since Jerry Westrom still maintains his innocence, he won't be the one to tell us why. Prosecutors didn't say either. Their job isn't to provide a motive. It helps, but they don't need to tell the jury why someone did what they did. They only have to explain the evidence that they have.

But here are some of the popular theories out there. It's possible he was a customer of hers or had sex with her the night that she was killed. She did or said something that he didn't like and things turned violent. However, even today, he denies ever having sex with her or any other woman in all of Minneapolis. Another theory could be that they knew each other from somewhere else.

No one knows when or how they met, but maybe they knew each other and had some type of dispute. The third theory, it's possible this was completely random. We don't know. Among other things, Westrom claims he has no clue why his DNA was found at the crime scene. He said he wasn't there, he didn't have sex with her, he didn't kill her. So there's no reason for his DNA to be there.

His defense still claims that the police botched the original investigation and that the knife found in her kitchen sink was never tested for physical evidence. And since the actual murder weapon has never been found, he claims that knife might be it. But the police dropped the ball because it was never collected. So there's no way to either rule it in or rule it out.

On June 13, 1993, Jeannie Childs was found stabbed to death inside of her South Minneapolis apartment. She'd been stabbed a total of 65 times, many of which came after she was already dead. It took years of investigating and new forensic testing to identify the source of DNA found at the crime scene. And if it wasn't for that hot dog napkin, a killer might have gotten away.

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