Episode 200 - Jeffrey Willis - The Monster Of Muskegon County
46:21 Share

America, we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Ryan Reynolds here from Int Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down.

So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless. I bet you get 30, 30, bet you get 30, bet you get 20, 20, 20, bet you get 20, 20, bet you get 15, 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month. Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes each detail.

The opinions expressed in the following episode do not necessarily reflect those of the Minds of Madness podcast. Listener discretion is advised.

One of the absolute best parts about living in a four-season climate is that first truly perfect day of spring. It's the light at the end of the tunnel from a long, cold, and seemingly endless winter. Out of nowhere, the skies are clear and the temperature rises. The promise of summer is just on the horizon as the trees begin to blossom and the birds all seem to sing a little louder.

In 2016, April 16th was that first perfect day of spring in rural Muskegon County, Michigan. By 9 that Saturday morning, it was 62 degrees, already the warmest day of the season by far. And 53-year-old Don Schmidt was among those taking advantage of these glorious conditions.

Making herself a steaming cup of morning coffee, she carried it outside to her back deck and sipped away staring at the forest, enjoying the refreshing sunshine. But then she heard something strange. I heard kind of a disruption, a man and a woman's voice not far from my home down the road.

Turning her ear to the noise, Dawn couldn't make out what the man or woman were saying, but soon realized the woman's voice was getting closer and closer to her home, and it sounded frantic. I was sitting on my deck at the time, and I went through my home and looked out my front door, and I saw a young lady running down the road towards my home. She's about 16 years old.

The blonde teenager sprinting down the road at full speed was running without any shoes, and it all took a single look to realize the young woman's complete desperation.

I opened my door and I motioned for her to come up the driveway to come to my home and to come in the front door. She was hysterical. She was a wreck. She could hardly catch her breath. She was hyperventilating. I was trying to get her to calm down and she was yelling, he's got a gun, he's got a gun.

Acting swiftly, Dawn brought the girl into the interior bedroom and closed the door before calling 911. She had no clue what exactly had happened to the poor girl, but whatever it was had been enough to frighten her half to death. So I got her into the bedroom and she was literally trying to crawl under the bed. She was trying to hide from whatever was outside.

Nobody knew it at the time, but Madison Nygaard, the 16-year-old hiding under the bed in the home of a complete stranger, had just escaped Western Michigan's most twisted killer. Join me now as we take a disturbing look at the Muskegon County murders, a pair of unsolved and seemingly unconnected murders that haunted the area for years.

you'll hear the shocking story of an undetected killer lurking in the shadows of a small town, and how a failed abduction attempt became the tipping point in the case that had stumped law enforcement for years.

Craig Harpster clocked out of work at precisely 11 p.m. on Friday, April 26, 2013. He remembers because even just one minute later would have meant overtime at the factory in Norton Shores, Michigan, and that simply wasn't allowed.

When he got into his car, the low fuel light reminded him to stop and get gas on his way home, so he pulled into his usual stop, the Exxon station on East Sternberg Road, around 11.10 p.m. For some odd reason, Craig couldn't get the pump to activate, so he walked inside the convenience store to see if the attendant could help him out. But when he went inside, he found the place strangely abandoned.

There's nobody there. Walked in, kind of hollered, hey, anybody here? You know, where are you? And nothing. Taken aback by the empty station, Craig checked the bathrooms and the walk-in cooler to see if anybody was there. Proceeded behind the cash register and there was an office there. That door was open and nobody was in there also. Felt like leaving, but my gut said, call 911. That's what I did.

In moments like this, it's extremely tempting to convince yourself you're overreacting, that your mind is just jumping to silly conclusions, and there must be a simple, rational explanation. Besides, we don't want to bother anyone with our suspicions. But when you just know deep down something's wrong, it's always a good idea to trust your instincts, like Craig did that day.

Shortly after making the 911 call, police arrived at the Exxon station to take a look. Everything appeared normal inside the store. Lights were on. There just wasn't an employee there.

The employee who wasn't there was 25-year-old Jessica Herenga. She'd been working a solo shift and was scheduled to close the store that night around 11, which by the looks of things in the store, she'd been in the middle of doing. There was a trash can by the back door, I believe a broom with a dustpan. The till was open. The money was in the

the back room on top of a safe so it appeared as though that employee could have been shutting down the store for the night

Inside the store, there was absolutely no signs of a struggle or robbery. Hundreds of dollars from the till were sitting in plain sight, and police even found Jessica's purse in the back room with $400 inside. To make her absence even more alarming, Jessica's vehicle was still parked out front of the store. It was as if she'd simply vanished.

That was until officers found several disturbing clues on the ground outside the building's back door. The first thing they noticed was a fresh bloodstain about the size of a hockey puck on the concrete.

and only a few feet away, a plastic battery cover. But not just any battery cover. This one came from a Walther handgun laser sight. The laser's batteries also found on the ground nearby. Now that blood and guns were involved, foul play seemed like an absolute certainty. DNA tests on the blood would later confirm the blood was indeed Jessica's.

Obviously, the very first thing police decided to check was the gas station's surveillance system. Surely there had to be at least some indication of what had happened to Jessica caught on camera. But they were in for a very unexpected surprise. This Exxon station didn't have a surveillance system, not a single camera.

Not on the pumps, not in the store, and definitely not out back where officers had discovered blood on the ground. Fortunately for police, they were able to uncover a few clues the old-fashioned way.

First they discovered Jessica's last transaction on the till had been around 10:52 p.m., which means she was still at the store at the time. After tracking down the customer who'd made the transaction, the woman reported Jessica had been cleaning the floors at the time and seemed in a very good mood. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Another witness reported seeing a silver minivan, possibly a Chrysler Town & Country, pull into the Exxon station that night at 11 o'clock.

But instead of pulling up to the pumps, it had turned off its headlights and driven around back to the exact spot police would find blood and broken gun parts. Although the witness couldn't remember the license plate number, she was able to give police a detailed description of the driver, a middle-aged, heavyset man wearing an orange shirt. A police sketch was then created and broadcasted widely in the media.

Police were also able to pull security footage from other nearby businesses, confirming that a silver minivan had indeed driven away from the area at the exact time the witness reported, but they couldn't make out the license plate either. Could this be the vehicle that had driven away with Jessica? Police also naturally turned their focus toward another line of inquiry, Jessica's personal life.

At the time, Jessica was living just minutes away from the gas station with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Dakota, raising their three-year-old son, basically living paycheck to paycheck. But after thoroughly looking into Dakota, with a few red flags to investigate, police eventually became convinced he had nothing to do with Jessica's vanishing.

Jessica's disappearance soon became the biggest news story in western Michigan, with law enforcement responding by devoting massive amounts of resources to the case. At least 15 different federal, state, and local agencies dedicated 75 full-time investigators to tackle the case, and a tidal wave of tips from the public began to pour in.

A grand total of 1,400 potential leads were investigated, most of them involving a silver minivan. Which was a bit of a problem for police, because silver minivans are some of the most popular and most generic-looking vehicles on the road. Without seeing the logo on the front, do you think you'd know the difference between, say, a Chrysler Town & Country, a Dodge Caravan, a Honda Odyssey, or a Kia Sedona?

It's not quite the same thing as identifying a red Ferrari. Dozens upon dozens of Muskegon County residents were reported simply because of the color of their minivans. Ultimately, the case went completely cold, and no one saw Jessica Herenga again. Police were left stranded at Square One.

On the one-year anniversary of Jessica's disappearance, several news outlets ran stories highlighting the details of the still unsolved case. With no fresh leads, it seemed it might stay that way forever, with Jessica's case eventually being overshadowed by another shocking tragedy in Muskegon County.

Okay.

Mark and Michelle Clint were driving along a rural stretch of highway on June 29th, 2014, when they spotted something on the road ahead of them. At first, they assumed it must be a deer that had been hit by a vehicle, but as they got closer, realized to their horror, it was a person.

Okay.

Judging by her clothing, it appeared the unconscious woman laying face down on the road had been out jogging. Her sunglasses, headphones, and neoprene cell phone armband were also lying on the pavement.

Mark and Michelle assumed the woman must have been the victim of a hit and run. While Mark spoke to the operator, Michelle, who was a nurse, took charge of assessing the situation and providing emergency care.

But as the seconds and minutes ticked away, waiting for the ambulance to arrive, the woman's condition deteriorated rapidly. Okay, no, Michelle, just leave her. If she's got a fault, she's fine. Okay, I need to know if she's breathing normally. If she's breathing normally, Michelle. She is not breathing normally. Okay, we want to start CPR then.

Just before the sirens of first responders could be heard in the distance, Michelle realized as she attempted CPR, the woman had completely stopped breathing. And by the time the ambulance arrived, within eight minutes of the call, the woman had already passed away. As responders took control of the scene, they identified the woman as 36-year-old mother and occupational therapist Rebecca Blatch.

It turned out Michelle and Mark actually knew Rebecca quite well. In fact, she was their neighbor and their daughter's middle school basketball coach. But because of her injuries, as well as the frantic and heroin situation, they hadn't recognized her until the paramedics said her name.

paramedics had also been able to determine that the severe head injuries Mark and Michelle had noted on their 911 call were not the result of a collision or a fall. They were bullet wounds. This was definitely not a hit and run. It was cold-blooded murder. The decedent had very long, thick, dark hair. And this

can make finding wounds in the scalp sometimes difficult. And the hair was also wet and bloody. So going through to find the wounds, my assistant and I had to move a lot of hair out of the way. Through the course of the examination, four different gunshot wounds were found on the head in the hairline of the scalp.

Police investigating the crime scene soon found several spent .22-caliber shell casings in the area where Rebecca was found, one on the road and two in the grass, and she'd been shot less than a mile away from her own home.

Later that night, while investigators were still on the scene, Rebecca's husband, Kevin Blatch, was driving home from their family cabin in Luther, Michigan, about an hour and a half away. He'd spent the day enjoying the cabin and the great outdoors with his 11-year-old daughter. But as he approached his home that evening, he noticed flashing blue and red lights of emergency vehicles off in the distance. The next thing he knew, his phone was ringing.

It was the police notifying him of his wife's death. The ensuing investigation into Rebecca's murder left detectives completely stumped.

There were no eyewitnesses, virtually zero clues, and nothing to suggest anyone having a motive to murder her. In fact, it was just the opposite. According to friends, family, coworkers, and even casual acquaintances, Rebecca was the kind of person everyone enjoyed being around. She didn't rub people the wrong way. She didn't have any enemies.

She coached middle school basketball, an all-around good person.

Of course, detectives did do their due diligence by investigating those closest to Rebecca, including her husband, Kevin. But after a few days, police were able to confirm his rock-solid alibi and publicly stated he wasn't a suspect in the case. But once Kevin was cleared, police didn't have another single working theory of what could have possibly happened to Rebecca. Had this just been a completely random act,

It was a possibility that only made things all the more terrifying for the community, especially women joggers.

Soon rewards were being offered for any tips or information, and Rebecca's family did their best to keep her story in the news. But despite considerable efforts by her family, law enforcement, and the community as a whole, the investigation went absolutely nowhere. And just like the Jessica Herringa case, news outlets once again were airing one-year anniversary segments on the mysterious unsolved murder of Rebecca Blatch.

For everyone in Muskegon County, both of these cases were a complete and utter mystery. And that's exactly how they would remain for another two whole years.

It was Friday night in Muskegon County, April 15th, 2016. School was out for the week, and like many of her friends, 16-year-old Madison decided to kick off the weekend with a party. As she moved from one party to another, she ended up at a more rural spot in the county, a place she wasn't too familiar with.

Madison figured it shouldn't be a problem though, because one of her friends had promised to give her a ride home. But when morning came on Saturday, April 16th, and it was time for Madison to leave, she realized she didn't have a ride home like she'd expected. Typical teenage stuff, really. Her friend's friend had gotten drunk and passed out inside the car.

The only problem was, he'd locked all the doors and the car keys were still inside. Madison was completely stranded and with no other options, decided to start walking, hoping she'd find her way home. As Madison began walking along the road, a passing cyclist stopped and asked if she needed help.

Although he handed her his phone to call her mom, in a terrible turn of fate, at that very instant, the phone's battery died and the man cycled away. So Madison kept on walking. Fortunately, that Saturday morning happened to be one of the nicest days of the year so far. That truly perfect day of spring. And as Madison continued walking, the temperature kept rising.

the birds singing, just a little bit louder. Eventually, Madison heard the sound of a vehicle approaching, slowing down before coming to a complete stop next to her.

The man driving the silver minivan rolled down his passenger side window and asked if she needed a ride. But instead of accepting the offer, Madison asked if she could just use his phone instead, which he agreed, but asked her to get inside the van, telling her he didn't want to hold up traffic. Reluctantly, Madison hopped in and immediately regretted her decision.

Without even looking at his phone, the driver told Madison its batteries were dead. Strange, considering that was supposed to have been the entire reason for her getting in the van.

Sensing something was wrong, Madison asked to be let out of the vehicle. Instead, the driver reached under her seat, grabbed a handgun, and pointed it at the 16-year-old girl. Now, if you've ever had a handgun pointed at you, which I hope you haven't, it might be hard to relate to this experience, but this is what happens. Your body instantly goes into survival mode.

Your heart races, your breathing quickens, and your muscles tense up. It's like a primal and evolutionary switch that flips inside you, preparing a person to either confront the danger, fight, run away as fast as possible, flight, or become virtually paralyzed. At that moment, it's not about thinking. It's about reacting. Fight, flight, or freeze.

And in that instant, with a gun pointed directly at her, Madison chose flight. She unlocked the door, opened it, and jumped out of the moving minivan. Hitting the ground hard, Madison's body flipped and tumbled along the side of the road, her shoes flying off in different directions.

Her shoulder and hip took the brunt of the impact, giving her a terrible case of road rash, abrasions that began bleeding profusely. Through her adrenaline, Madison stood up and began running away barefoot as fast as she could. Looking back, she could see the van had stopped and the man getting out of the van. Standing at the rear of the van, he aimed his handgun in Madison's direction.

I was running down the road and screaming for him, please not to kill me. And then after I was far from him, he told me it was just a joke and he was just kidding. And then I ran to a stranger's house.

Running for her life, Madison approached the driveway of Dawn Schmidt, screaming at the top of her lungs. Looking up, she saw Dawn standing inside the threshold of her front door, who then waved for Madison to come inside. Once police were called and officers were on their way, Madison knew she'd survived an incredibly dangerous situation.

But in the weeks that followed, she'd learn the true depths of the horrors she'd escaped.

With Madison as a direct eyewitness to her attempted abduction, police had a lot to work with. A lot more than they'd had with Jessica Herringa's disappearance or Rebecca Bledge's murder, anyway. At the crime scene, investigators found two unfired .22 caliber rounds of ammunition lying on the ground. Either the abductor's gun had jammed, or perhaps the bullets had fallen out of the van when the door was opened.

Either way, they knew they were looking for a 22. Madison described her abductor as a heavyset middle-aged white male driving a silver minivan. Using this information, detectives scoured the surrounding areas, looking for security cameras that may have captured the van. Eventually, they found footage of the van on a security camera from a blueberry farm.

Although the footage was too grainy to make out the license plate number, they were able to identify the make, model, and year of the car, a 2006 Dodge Caravan. They were also able to make out a few other distinguishing features, like luggage racks and an aftermarket antennae.

Narrowing down their search, detectives identified 10 potential minivans matching this description within Muskegon County. And when they showed Madison a photo lineup of potential suspects, she was able to confidently identify the man who tried to kidnap her. His name was Jeffrey Willis. Although the 46-year-old didn't have a criminal record, he was a person local law enforcement had recently become familiar with.

Not long before Madison's attempted abduction, police had actually conducted surveillance on Jeffrey. After receiving a complaint, he'd been stalking local women in the parking lot of an area store.

But police didn't witness him doing anything illegal, and nothing ever came of it. Jeffrey was a lifelong local who'd worked at a furniture factory for the past 18 years. He seemed like an average family man with a wife and kid at home. The kind of guy who just blended in, unnoticed by the world around him, kinda like the generic silver minivan.

The only black mark on his resume was from way back in 1999 when he'd been fired from his job as an elementary school janitor for using the school computers to look at pornography. Because of Madison's positive ID, police had enough to secure Jeffrey's arrest and took him into custody on March 17th, 2016.

Of course, Jeffrey staunchly denied having anything to do with their abduction. But what he didn't know was that police had already conducted searches of his home and the silver minivan. By the time they were finished, police realized they'd uncovered something bigger than they'd ever expected. Inside the minivan, investigators discovered a small lockbox beneath the driver's seat.

It's a small metal lockbox. It had a combination lock, and the corner of it was slightly ajar, so you could still see into it even though it was locked. When police opened the lockbox, they found a number of disturbing items. Semi-automatic pistol, a pair of black gloves, a set of handcuffs, a few different syringes, a vial of insulin, and a couple of handcuff keys.

Notably, the handgun police discovered was a .22-caliber Walther, the same caliber as the bullets found on the ground at Madison's abduction scene. They'd also find a box of bullets in the van matching the exact same manufacturer.

But what investigators found next was even more disturbing. One of the features that makes a minivan like the Dodge Caravan so useful is the ability to fold down its rear seats into hidden compartments in the floor, a feature called stow-and-go. When the seats are up in their normal position, the compartment is usually empty and hidden by a floor cover. But when investigators looked into Jeffrey's stow-and-go, they found a large black toolbox.

Inside the toolbox was what anyone in law enforcement would refer to as a rape kit. There's a section of rope, a section of chain, another section of chain with handcuffs attached. There are two video cameras, another set of black leather gloves, two more syringes, some lubricant, and another set of leather handcuffs. There's a ball gag, is what I would call it, and a couple sexual toys.

Finding the syringes and insulin, along with the sexual bondage items, now began to paint a very dark and disturbing picture.

For people with diabetes, insulin is a necessary and life-saving drug. But if it's injected into a non-diabetic person, it causes a severe blood sugar crash and can completely incapacitate or even kill a person within minutes, depending on the dose. On a piece of paper taped inside the lid of the toolbox was an anatomical diagram of a woman.

The diagram showed specific injection sites for insulin, with each site labeled "slow, medium, or fast speed." At this point, detectives believed they understood the gravity of what Madison Nygaard had narrowly escaped. But when they searched Jeffrey's residence, they found evidence she hadn't been the only victim.

Inside Jeffrey's home, police seized three computers and two external hard drives. One of these drives had been extremely well hidden, secretly velcroed to the inside of an air duct. Clearly, this had been something Jeffrey didn't want anyone to find. And when they began looking through those files, they were stunned by what they saw. There were a lot of disturbing files that were located. Thousands. Videos that were found, videos that were found.

depicting this activity necrophilia being defined having sexual relations with a deceased individual

There's videos that are found depicted individuals pulling up alongside of a female on the side of the road. When they approached her, that female took off running into a field. Once into the field, they chase after her, attack her, sexually assault her, where at the end of them, they murder. They show this in an acting way, and we also found videos that show this that are not acted. They're real life.

Despite the disturbing nature of the content, these videos appeared to have been downloaded from the internet and not made by Jeffrey himself. But then police discovered a folder titled "Homemade". There was thousands, approximately 15,000 videos that were of swim meets and water polo events at schools. High schools from Muskegon County, Kent County, Ottawa County.

They were taken with a special filter, a night vision type filter, even though they were taken inside a school building. They were taken with a special filter that made it look like you were looking through the girls' swimsuits. The focus of those videos were all on their breasts, on their buttocks, their groin area. You don't see any of these girls that are videotaped

in the event themselves in the swimming pool. They are all taken outside the swimming pool and there's over 15,000 of those.

Forensic investigators were able to determine these videos had been taken by one of the cameras found inside Jeffrey's minivan toolbox. But the biggest bombshell was yet to come. Among the thousands and thousands of extremely well-organized folders of photos and videos, investigators found a folder simply titled "VIX", which they soon realized was shorthand for "victims".

Inside this folder was two subfolders, one labeled "JLH" and the other labeled "RSB", the initials for Jessica Lynn Haringa and Rebecca Sue Blatch. But perhaps even more damning was how each folder contained a secret code in parentheses next to the file name. What we did was we just exchanged the letters for numbers.

A being 1, B being 2, C being 3, up to the letter Z in the alphabet, which is 26, and we replaced the letters with numbers to decode that.

Next to Rebecca's initials were the characters F, Z plus C, 14. The F would equal 6, the Z would equal 26, and then the letter C would be 3. So it would show 6, 26 plus 3 of 14. So the decode of that would be 6, 29 of 14. That was the day she was murdered.

Next to Jessica's initials were the characters DZ13, which again, using the same code, gave detectives the date April 26th, 2013, the same day Jessica had disappeared. Each respective folder contained photos of the women taken from the internet. Jessica's folder also included images of her missing poster and news articles about her disappearance.

Detectives now believed it was possible they'd found the man responsible for Muskegon County's two most notorious unsolved cases. But they still needed hard evidence to connect them all. The .22 caliber Walther handgun discovered in Jeffrey's van would prove to be the key to unraveling it all. Police saw that Jeffrey had filed down the weapon's serial number, which is a felony itself.

but it turned out he hadn't done a good enough job. Using sophisticated enhancement techniques, police were able to restore the serial number and traced it back to its owner, a female co-worker of Jeffrey's. What they uncovered was that the gun had been stolen from his co-worker's house just months before Jessica Herenga's abduction.

Further evidence that Jeffrey had broken into her home was corroborated by the fact that Jeffrey had also stolen two pairs of her underwear and kept them hidden in a secret spot in his garden tool shed. Ballistics testing on the Walther .22 caliber pistol proved conclusively that it was indeed the same weapon that had murdered Rebecca Bletch on the side of the road.

Rebecca's DNA was also found on several items inside the minivan's toolbox, including Jeffrey's gloves. But there was one more thing police learned about the gun itself.

According to Jeffrey's coworker, the original owner of the gun, before Jeffrey stole it, it had been equipped with a special laser sight mounted on the barrel. And notably, the laser sight was now missing. Detectives thought back to the crime scene of Jessica Herenga, next to the pool of Jessica's blood on the concrete, where they'd found a broken battery cover from a Walther laser sight.

And to make the connection even stronger, detectives discovered a pile of receipts inside Jeffrey's house from the same Exxon station, dating all the way back to Jessica's disappearance. One even listed Jessica as the cashier. In fact, it turned out Jeffrey had even been interviewed by police during Jessica's original investigation after an anonymous tip mentioned his name in connection with the silver minivan.

And although Jeffrey's alibi had been shaky and they could see the minivan had been recently cleaned, for whatever reason, they never dug any deeper. The toolbox police found inside the secret compartment also took on an additional layer of horror when detectives found another item inside Jeffrey's tool shed, a printed-off list of infamous American serial killers.

The only handwriting on the page was a special mark Jeffrey had made beside two names: Lawrence Bideker and Roy Lewis Norris. You might know them better by their infamous nickname, the Toolbox Killers, perhaps the most twisted pair of serial killers in American history. Their M.O. was to kidnap teenage girls in their van before recording themselves raping, torturing, and murdering their victims.

It was now looking like Jeffrey Willis had been trying to copycat the duo by himself. But an unexpected twist would lead detectives to question whether or not he'd acted alone at all.

About a month after Jeffrey's arrest, police were in for a shock when a surprise witness came forward claiming to have information. A 47-year-old prison guard named Kevin Bloom, Jeffrey's first cousin. Kevin told police he knew what had happened to Jessica Herenga. The reason he knew, because he said he was involved.

According to Kevin, Jeffrey actually owned a second home, an old decrepit house he'd inherited after his grandfather passed away a few years earlier. And police were able to verify this much was true. The day after Jessica's disappearance, Kevin claimed Jeffrey invited him over to his grandfather's house to party with him, telling him there'd be a woman there.

But when Kevin arrived, he found Jeffrey with a dead woman down in the basement. He identified the woman as Jessica and said she was laying face down with her hands tied together. After making a crude sexual joke implying he'd raped her, Jeffrey asked Kevin to help dispose of the body, which he did.

Together, the men wrapped Jessica's body in blankets and placed her in the back of the minivan, then drove out to a remote location near some railroad tracks. They found an empty grave that Jeffrey had dug beforehand, where they buried her. Kevin was willingly admitting to being an accessory after the fact.

Using cell phone records, police were able to verify that Jeffrey's phone had been at his grandfather's house during the hours immediately following Jessica's disappearance. And remember how we told you he'd been interviewed way back as a potential suspect?

His alibi back in 2013 was that he'd been at home with his wife the entire time. But these cell phone records now proved Jeffrey had lied to police. In a subsequent search of his grandfather's house, police were able to locate an unusually large number of bleach bottles stored in the basement, which they believed Jeffrey had used to clean up the crime scene.

According to Kevin, Jeffrey had also called him one day to confess to murdering Rebecca Blatch. With this direct eyewitness testimony, the case against Jeffrey started to look like a slam dunk. But here's where things got a bit murky.

Kevin took detectives out to the place he claimed they'd buried Jessica's body, but the body wasn't there. And even though police scoured the area and used cadaver dogs, they found zero evidence that a body had even been there. At first, Kevin insisted Jeffrey must have moved it later on, but not long after making these confessions, Kevin officially recanted his entire story, saying he'd simply made it all up.

Kevin's bizarre statements and reactions naturally caused detectives to investigate him as a potential suspect in the murders as well. But when it came to Rebecca's murder, Kevin had a rock-solid alibi. At the time of her murder, he was in a completely different county attending his daughter's soccer game, with photos from the game clearly showing Kevin watching from the sidelines.

In the end, police were never able to find any proof Kevin had been involved in Jessica's abduction or murder, only his confession to having helped dispose of her body. Ultimately, Kevin was charged with perjury, as well as being an accessory to murder which he pled no contest to, and spent 487 days in jail.

In 2017, Jeffrey Willis was found guilty of the murder of Rebecca Bletch, and in 2018, despite police never locating her body, Jeffrey was found guilty of murdering Jessica Herenga as well. Jeffrey is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

At each trial, the star witness for the prosecution was Madison Nygaard, the victim who got away. And because she was able to identify her abductor, there was zero doubt in anyone's mind that her heroic actions almost certainly saved other women's lives from a violent and disturbing predator.

For Rebecca's family, the guilty verdict was a welcome relief after years of waiting. But when it came time for them to give their impact statements before the court in 2017, Jeffrey Willis walked out of the courtroom refusing to hear the family's words. And on his way out, he did something completely unforgivable. He stared at Rebecca's family and blew them a kiss.

Nevertheless, Rebecca's mother and sisters stood up and addressed the court. It's been very difficult to say everything I want to say, but this coward should have been here to listen to us. We deserve a right to tell him exactly how we feel. And for him to walk out on us was just horrible. He doesn't deserve anything. It is important for this courtroom to know who Becky was.

Becky was one of the special ones. She had the most vibrant personality. She was fierce and loyal. She was passionate about life. She lived to help others enjoy their lives like she enjoyed hers. She loved sharing stories about her work. There will be many people that may have been her patients that will never know the commitment and love she would have brought to their lives.

She loved to laugh and make those around her laugh as well. She was easy to love and people wanted to be around her. To the monster of Muskegon, I leave you with this: Look around this courtroom. Everyone here is here for Becky, not you. I doubt one single person in this room gives a crap about you. I'm willing to bet we all feel the exact same way. Rot in hell. I believe your days are numbered, Jeffrey Willis.

While Rebecca's family had received justice in the verdict, they felt robbed of their ability to speak to the man who'd taken the life of their loved one. But there was still one small sliver of poetic justice to come. Two days later, when Jeffrey was being transferred from jail to prison, the officers driving the transport vehicle popped in a CD and turned the volume up.

It was a 25-minute recording of Rebecca's family's impact statements. The drive took long enough that Jeffrey was forced to hear every single word five times over. Just a few months later, the state of Michigan passed a new law requiring defendants to remain in the courtroom during the impact statements, known as the Bletch Law.

For the family of Jessica Herenga, closure still remains out of reach. Despite numerous searches to locate her remains, police have never been able to locate her body. Even though Jeffrey Willis was found guilty of her murder, he still adamantly denies having anything to do with it. And surprisingly, some members of Jessica's family believe him.

Instead, they're holding out hope that she's out there somewhere, still alive, and maybe one day, on that first truly perfect day of spring, she'll come back home.

Follow the Minds of Madness on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. To support the show and get access to ad-free episodes, extra content, and Patreon-exclusive episodes, go to patreon.com slash madnesspod. To find us on Instagram and Facebook, search The Minds of Madness, and on Twitter using the handle

at MadnessPod. And also, by checking out our sponsors and using our promo codes, you're also helping support the show. We've got all the links in our episode notes. So until next week, thanks for listening.