Expert Analysis (Bonus)

Hey listeners, just a quick note to let you know that this week we are taking a break from our regular release schedule to bring you a special bonus episode. Be sure to tune in next week when we return with episode five. If you miss past episodes, you can binge them ad free on Tenderfoot Plus. Hey listeners, Jessica here, be sure to check out new episodes of undetermined every

Hey Jessica, thanks for having me so.

Todd, There's one thing that I want to know right off the bat before we go deep into this investigation. Tell me what it's like to investigate a case like this for a true crime podcast as opposed to what it was like investigating it as a police detective.

I really like it.

I wondered initially what it was going to be like compared to being a police detective. But what I'm finding is now I get to focus one hundred percent of my energy, time and effort on just one case, one investigation right now. When you're a police detective, you have a stack of other cases that compete with the one you're trying to devote your efforts to and there's all the other things that come with working for a government agency, the bureaucracy of it, you training, the interrupts things.

All the time that you have to attend.

You might have to stop a criminal investigation because they need you to do an applicant background investigation. So all those things I really really like. I like that we can go so in depth and just focus our efforts in one direction.

And something that I have always had to deal with being a journalist is not having necessarily access to everything that has to do with the case. And so that's kind of different for you. And maybe one of the drawbacks in this type of investigation, Oh.

Man, it tries to be bonkers not to have all the tools and resources that I had while I was a police detective, you know, being able to just quickly run on someone's driver's record, their criminal history, you know, just to call another police department and them openly share any information they have on someone that you're looking into. All those things are hampering and they do handcuff.

Us a bit.

But again it's it's a new challenge also, right, so to have to navigate the challenges of that is stimulating.

I find I also think it forces us to get creative and take our investigation to a different level and then bring it back to the whole storytelling aspect of this, right, you know, focusing on the victim's story. And also I have found as a journalist we can sometimes get people to talk that may not want to talk to law enforcement.

Those interviews it's a different dynamic because You're right, it can be scary talking to the police. So we're just talking to people that are potential witnesses, or that we know are witnesses, or we're just trying to gather that initial round of information. A lot of times we can get them to open up more so than when I walk in with a badge on my belt and a

Of the game.

Or Tony Romo or Tony Romo.

Ah, I'm an Akman fanily can I say?

And you know, I think because when I first started podcasting, there were literally no cops podcasting. Now again, I started in the comedy realm, in the sports realm, but as I started to gravitate back toward that law enforcement world and eventually into true crime, there were very few cops podcasting.

If any.

And now just in a matter of three four years, it's flooded. The podcast industry is flooded with former forensic experts, lab personnel, police, former prosecutors or current prosecutors. And I'm happy to see it because I know for you, it was initially kind of an investigative journalist thing. But now that we have people like you and people like me that can mesh together, it's a well rounded, in depth look into these cases.

And I think it's only.

Improving the quality of the podcast in regards to how effective they are with helping these.

Families right, let's talk a little bit about We just came out of the Jessica V episode. We've heard the caam footage from the first two episodes, so we have a lot of police interaction with THEPD so far with characters within this story. So I want to kind of go into a little bit of depth with you of things that should have been done from the moment she

Okay, So, what the listener so far has been able to experience in witness is the initial taking of a missing person's report. That's what the bodycam footage was about. That's what Officer Gantner was doing. What they haven't been privy to yet, and to beyond, we're not privy too because we have not been handed the case file is what happens after that. So we heard Officer Gantner speak

The officers that.

Initially responded to take the missing person's report, they did a good job of filling in the timeline for the most part, hours prior day of her disappearance. Now it's the detective's job to go back further, go back weeks, maybe even months, to try to determine if there was a significant change in her life, if there was a signal an event that occurred that could possibly be directly related to why she is now deceased.

And one of those things that we already know from the bodycam footage and from Maria herself is there was some turmoil in Jessica's life the day before and leading up to the day she went missing.

They have that knowledge, sure, So now he's going to take an in depth dive, or he should take an in depth dive in filling in that timeline and maybe what led up to the events that Maria touches upon when she relays that information to the police to cause the missing person's report to even occur. So he's going

So now you.

Start with that husband because that's the person, for one, as far as you know, was the last.

Person to see her before she went missing.

And also he's going to have the most intimate knowledge of what's happening in her life day to day, so you expect him to immediately touch base that next morning, if not an hour or two after the report is generated, and really explore with him what was going on in the last couple months. Did you see anything, did you get suspicious of anything significant that was going on with her that would cause her to want to leave or could cause someone to have done something horrible to her.

It starts there, and then you go to other.

People that are intimately involved in her life, family, very close friends. All this an attempt to create that timeline. Now you don't have to rely on people's word either, right because we're in the technological.

Age that we are.

One are the very first steps you're going to do to help complete that timeline. Is you going to send or you should send a preservation request to the service provider of her cellular device, as well as probably the husband's anyone else who could be very intimately connected with her in.

The time period preceding her disappearance.

Stepping away a little bit from the technology side of things, boots on the ground, I mean, canvassing the neighborhood. You and I we spoke to people in that neighborhood who had no idea that someone had gone missing, someone had been found dead. In fact, someone we spoke to didn't know for a year until he saw flyer up asking for information. He had no idea that in his own neighborhood, what was it, a block away from his home, there was a body found.

Well, this is where the detective is going to elicit the help of the uniform side of the house officers that work that area. He's going to reach out to them. He's going to say, hey, I'm going to be doing some stuff. I'm going to be sending out preservation requests all these cellular providers, and then the same thing for

By the phone company.

But if you send that preservation request, the cellular provider will freeze that from happening until they hear back from you and you say it's okay to go ahead and purge, So that will always be there in case you need to subpoena or get a court order or search.

Weren't for it.

Later, even if someone were to delete it from the actual device.

Yeah, that doesn't matter, right, It's going to be on the server. So two things, You'll be able to get some insight on communications she was having preceding her disappearing. It's if not the content of it, who she was communicating with. You also be able to check for geolocation where she physically was in that timeline. So those things are happening, they're going to tie you down to a

I do want to point out, though we also don't know if she left by foot.

What if there's camera footage from a neighbor's house the covers the front her house, and another camera from another neighbor's house that covers the rear exit or the side exit, and during this timeframe you never see that door open.

That could be important.

Right we have video of every exit from that house and we never see her leave. Wouldn't that be important information because that would contradict probably what you were told initially when this missing person's report was taken.

I mean, think about this.

I worked at a time well before body camps as a detective. So if I wasn't the first person at the scene to take the initial report, which many times I was not, I had to rely on that first responding officer's report, which is going to be a summary as best that officer can recall by the time they

Not only that, because I can see it visually.

Not only can I hear exactly what the person was reporting, but I can visually see body languids, facial expression, all those nonverbal behaviors that are important when trying to determine if you're getting truthful information from them. So it's an invaluable tool, and it is standard practice today for detectives to pull that bodycam footage and then thoroughly look through it to aid them in their investigation.

Just to be fair, we don't know because we don't have access to the case file or any investigative notes from Detective lun or anyone else with the n OPD. Maybe they did use the bodycamp footage as part of that investigation. Maybe they did thoroughly canvass the neighborhood, albeit not with neighbors we spoke to. But let's talk a little bit about how police have had this case for ten days and her family from out of state who comes in to do a search uncovers her body.

Okay, so let's think in these terms everything that I just talked about. We don't know obviously, whether or not those were things that were done by detective Want or anyone else for that matter. We just know that these are things that should be done. So everything I just listed off should let the listener know. At this point this case potentially had a lot of positive things working for it. Now it's in the hands initially for somewhere between seven and ten days of a missing person's detective

Their own search. That shouldn't have to be done.

Not to say that police have time on every missing person's case to pull in a bunch of bodies and conduct searches everywhere that they can find in the surrounding area of where the person went missing. What they have to do is take a look at the circumstances surrounding that person's disappearance in its totality, is it suspicious, Does it lead me to believe in my gut and using my common sense that it's likely this person fell victim to foul play of some sort, and then decide from there.

Okay, I know I can't.

Do this in every case, but this is a case that I think likely is going to elevate into something much worse. So I'm going into help as much as I can with that. Not that I can pull thirty or forty cops off the street from what they're doing. We know New Orleans is a very busy city and there's a lot of violent crime there and a lot of things actively to be worked on that you don't want to pull that many people away from being able

I'm going to jump ahead a little bit to this encounter that Jessica Vee had and the letter that she received. I think the episode flushed that out enough, but I do want to talk about the interactions that she had with NPD and get your take on how they could have used Jessica v as more of a re source than they did.

So a couple of things with Jessica Vee. Without reiterating all the details of the interaction she had with Justin, we do know that she was concerned enough that she reached out to police and whoever it was on the police and told her there was not a homicide investigator

So she goes.

There and despite the lack of professionalism and some of the things that happened, protocol wise, things are done correctly. What I don't like about it was that a copy of made of this letter and then prepares her paperwork and then puts it in an envelope along with possibly the original letter, seals it up and then gives it back to Jessica Vie and says, what you need to do now is go hand deliver this to this office

To bring forward information.

It's scary enough to interject yourself into this situation if you're Jessica Vee, But now that just adds further discouragement of her or anyone else ever wanting to do the right thing and insert themselves in such a situation.

And then she gets to the police.

Department, and you know, they do properly what they should to help initiate a seventy two our mental health hold.

On an individual.

But there are other circumstances involved here. This is wrapped within now at this point, a death investigation that is considered suspicious.

There are suspicious circumstances.

The police department knows that a detective currently assigned to that case knows that, and whether or not this particular person she dealt with has any kind of direct knowledge of this.

They are now being informed.

By Jessica Vee of the parties, and after a quick little CAD search, you would see that this is in place. So then you might want to get a hold of the detective that is assigned jess Caasereely during death investigation, right, whether that be a district detective or whoever has it at that point, reach out to them and let them know what's going on, so at least they have the chance to decide whether or not Jessicavi's intervention now is of use to that investigation if you decide it is.

That's my victim.

That person seems very forthcoming in conversation with information about the death of his wife to this person, Jessica V. Maybe I could explore the possibility of using Jessica V as a means of recording conversations either over telephone or in person with Justin Dearney.

Now, at this point, we don't.

Know obviously if Justin is considered a suspect or if he is not considered a suspect. But what we know is that there are some suspicious things surrounding her disappearance and her death. So it's possible that they're considering that option or they're not ready to dismiss him as a person of interest.

Story suspect yet.

So this could be a mechanism to help you get off or on the fence about this with Justin to decide once and for all if he's someone who should be considered a person of interest or a suspect or.

Not not necessarily information that's going to implicate him, but just additional information that had not been gathered yet from police.

Honestly, I will be looking to see if he provides information that contradicts information that he reported to my officers. If so, you know, that's going to be of concern. You know, I just think it's an opportunity. And again, I've done this before in past investigations I was involved with, So it's something that's easily done. And I'm not saying Jessica vee would even be willing to do it, But you know it's worth exploring beyond this seventy two our mental health hoold.

We don't know if once she was found then that investigation was then handed off to another investigator. What we do know is that there was a homicide detective on the scene when her body was discovered, but we don't know from that point on who may have been investigating it. Talk to me a little todd about why it would be so harmful if there was a gap in the investigation while they're waiting on a manner of death. And what I mean by that is we go from missing

Let's explore that, and maybe this is a good way to wrap up this conversation.

Let's thoroughly look into just.

What happens in cases like this when missing person's report is first made. Obviously that and immediately gets assigned to a detective within the missing person's unit. If your agency has such a thing, Larger agencies do, so let's just stick with protocol at these large agencies, so it goes immediately to a missing person's detective, and it will stay with that missing person's detective until that person is no

The district level.

So once we know this is a death investigation, you're going to have a homicide detective and a district detective show up when that body's found, and there's a conversation that takes place. Both just kind of way I've seen this. Both are like chomping at the bed. You know, am I going to get to work this case? Or am I going to get to work this case? Well, you hope for that because you want detectives to be passionate

Now, all this I.

Could give a shit less about from an investigation standpoint, because there should be no gaps, as you mentioned, in investigating this case, and everybody should be working it in the same manner, regardless of the title of the unit that you work with. In so everything the detective lun is doing would be the same things that the district detective and that the homicide detective would be if they

Sure, because we're going from the first forty eight to the first six months, and how much of anything then is completely gone and lost.

So we just have to hope that's not the case here because there would be irreversible damage costs from that. So we have to hope for the best and that everybody is doing the right things up to this point, and that if a handoff must occur, that that happens seamlessly and it does not burden this investigation at all.

Well, what you and I can tell listeners at this point we will be talking to the NOPD to find out where their investigation stands.

Stay tuned.

Thank you for listening to this episode. I want to remind you again that we'll be back next Tuesday with episode five. Until then. Is a production of Resonate Recordings and Tenderfoot TV in conjunction with Cadence thirteen, written and hosted by me Jessica Nole and produced by Dennis Cooper and Todd McComas, with additional production by Whitney Bozarth. Executive producers are Dennis Cooper, Mark Minnery, Jacob Bozarth, Donald Albright,