Post Mortem | Cati Blauvelt: Death of a Soldier’s Wife
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Welcome back to 48 Hours Postmortem. I'm your host, Anne-Marie Green. And today we are talking to correspondent Peter Van Sant and field producer Kat Turfs about the case of John Blavelt, a military recruiter found guilty of stabbing his young wife, Katie, in Simpsonville, South Carolina, back in 2016. However, before authorities had enough evidence to arrest him for murder, he went on the run with

with his 17-year-old girlfriend, Hannah Thompson. So, Peter, Kat, thank you so much for joining us. Hi, Anne-Marie. Hi, Anne-Marie. Great to be back. And a reminder to everyone, if you haven't actually watched this 48 hours or listened to it, you can find it in your podcast feed just below this one. Go listen, and then come on back so we can have this conversation.

So I want to start things off by talking about the weapon. It's a knife and it's not a particularly large knife. And I know when I saw it, I thought you have to get so close to someone to kill them with this knife. It has to be sort of an intimate engagement. Peter, you were in the room with the murder weapon. I'm wondering what it was like. I know you've seen a lot of different pieces of evidence in murder cases. But what was it like to be in the room with this knife?

piece of evidence. It's a real solemn heartbreaking moment. This is the weapon that was one of the last things that Katie Blauvelt saw on this earth.

It was selected by her killer. This killer was a trained soldier. He knew how to use knives. And Kinley Abey, the prosecutor, she suggested to me that he knew this would be a painful death. And Blauvelt left the knife in her neck because we know now this was a revenge killing, that he did that on purpose. And Kat, this was an important piece of evidence, obviously.

Right. It just shows how much force would have been used for that knife to actually break off. No DNA found on it, though.

So at trial, the defense argued that there was no DNA linking to John Blauvelt, nothing at the scene that tied to him. And the prosecution said that there was DNA found under Katie's fingernails, but it was a partial match to John Blauvelt. You cannot conclusively say that that was John's DNA there. So this is another case where people are just not what they seem.

And the thing with John is that he's not just in the military. He's a military recruiter. And I thought to myself, you know, you get that position because you have the ability to influence. You have the ability to connect with young people, to convince them that joining the military is going to be something beneficial for them. So, you know,

Of course, Katie finds John completely trustworthy. She's wooed by him so much so that she actually enlists as well. Much to the surprise, I think, of Katie's mom. But Peter, you spoke to Katie's mom a little bit about this. And this wasn't able to make it into the hour. So we want to play this sound. So was it did it strike you as odd that here John and Katie had found each other? There was this attraction between.

even some love, that he would encourage her to join the Army where she could be posted in another part of the country. I mean, was there a plan here? Did you talk to John about this? No. I had no idea where that came from, what the plan was. Did it seem odd to you? It did, because I thought the same thing, that there's no telling where. And I didn't know if maybe he had planned on moving with her somewhere else, or was he trying to get rid of her already?

I don't have any idea. Here's the thing about him is it wasn't just Katie who had fallen for him in a way, but he was an influential adult figure in the lives of other teenagers as well, including the girl who ends up being his girlfriend, Hannah Thompson.

These teenagers are at his house hanging out. Allie Somerville, one of Katie's friends, told me that he partied with them. And it's shocking behavior. John was in his late 20s. And, you know, these kids are 17. Peter, you know, you made a point about adults suffering.

psychologically taking advantage of children. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. These are 17-year-olds. And as a father of a bunch of kids, that's a very vulnerable age for people. And he just took advantage of that. I think a lot of these kids have a lot of independence as far as what we saw, and they enjoyed this adult kind of lifestyle that their parents were unaware of. Right, right. Yeah, there's got to be sort of a bit of a combination of...

personality who looks for vulnerabilities in these kids and then the kids that are vulnerable. I'm sure there are other kids who just thought he was weird and, you know, never went to his house. So, Peter, you actually, you spoke to Captain Cheryl Schofield. You spoke outside of the house there. Yes, I frightened her. Why did they use a wide-angle lens? I don't know.

I don't know. You watch it in the show. I look like Lurch. I'm like nine feet tall. But you are nine feet tall. You do not look like Lurch. But Peter Branson is a very tall man. I'm six foot three. That's not too tall. But yeah, it looks silly. We had a good laugh in the screening room when we took a look at that. But she was a terrific investigator. Her heart was so into solving this case. The kind of people you want to have in law enforcement. Let's talk about this investigation then.

As far as John Blauvelt's demeanor, he's told about this death and he's brought in for questioning. I know 48 Hours viewers were analyzing every second, every move that he made, the words that he chose.

He really shifts from like crying to being unemotional. I was trying so hard to see whether or not there were real tears or, you know, what. What did you guys make of it? Because I know you got a chance to watch more of the interrogation than we did. OK, well, there was a lot going on there in the beginning. He did appear to be distressed. I mean, we don't know what's going on in his head, but he...

It looked emotional. He looked like he was crying. He put his head in his hands. But as the interview progressed, he was laughing at points. The cops said he was very like nonchalant about, you know, answering questions after being informed that his wife had just had just been murdered. And then he takes off.

Much to the frustration of law enforcement. I think a lot of people will wonder, hey, if you're under suspicion for murder, how is it that you're able to just kind of leave like that? But if you're not charged, then there's there's no reason to hold you.

Right. And there is a level of threshold of evidence that has to be presented to a judge to get a warrant. They didn't quite have that at that point. They had this interview, which raised their suspicions greatly. They knew where the body was found was a place where kids had hung out and partied with John. So they had pieces of this puzzle, but they just didn't quite have enough and Blauvelt

takes off and he takes off with a 17 year old girl, Hannah Thompson, with him. They're heading out on the road and this is where a 17 year old, I think, can be brought into a circumstance psychologically from an adult of his age and his sophistication and his training and all of that. I think she was a real victim at this point being pulled into this horrible situation with a man

How much she knew at that point that he had committed murder, she learned a lot more later on. The whole thing was just a tragic situation. But off she goes in his car and they're heading west. Out of curiosity, did any of the investigators speculate about why he would even take Hannah with him? You would think that bringing Hannah would just increase the likelihood of him eventually getting caught, right?

Well, they supposedly were in love at that point. She told authorities later that she was in love with him. She said that she trusted him. She felt like he would keep her safe. And I think it was suggested to her that it was going to be an adventure. You know, at first it seemed fun, but as time on the run went on, that very quickly wore off. Did it ever. I mean, they drove several thousand miles and they have the Pacific Northwest and he gets his

His car stuck in the mud near Walla Walla, Washington. You probably remember that from Bugs Bunny cartoons. And they have to walk away. And they live their lives basically as homeless people. They were panhandling to get money for food. They were sleeping outside quite a bit. And about a month into this journey, he just walks away, according to her, and she calls her parents.

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Welcome back, everyone. So there's another irony in the case, and it comes up when John goes on the run. Peter, you have a really great exchange with a U.S. marshal where he makes the point that John had training with the army and the government provided this training to him, ironically. And then you sort of interject, right, saying the training was to... To avoid us, because these U.S. marshals...

They're extraordinary investigators. I've done a whole host of hours with these guys, and there's something about them that they tend to be very calm. Their personalities don't dominate a room, but they are so fixated.

If I can do a quick story, what they remind me of, when I was young, when I was a teenager, we got a couple of kittens at our house. We had one named Charlie and we decided to give Charlie away. And my mother found a family and drove Charlie three miles away to this household. Next day, the family says, Charlie's gone. Two days later, Charlie shows up at our house. That's a U.S. Marshal. They just suddenly appear out of the blue. Like, how did that happen?

And these guys are patient and they find these little clues and they hunt people down in the confidence level. And it may take some years. I've had them find a man in a remote Mexican village. And in this case, John Blauvelt had used all of his training and brilliantly ended up in Medford, Oregon, with a woman who had no idea who he was.

and was living low and thought he, I'm sure, that there was no way they would find him. Yeah. I, too, am also a big fan of the Marshalls. I think that the description that you presented was just so spot on. And something that kind of jumped out at me in the hour that I thought would make their job challenging, I don't know if you guys noticed this or not, but I felt like,

Wow.

Ah, but he had one identifying feature that he could not shed, that he could not change. And that was a pirate tattoo that was on his arm. He had other tattoos as well. Yeah. But when he went in for his interview that was on camera, the interview right before he fled, he wore a short sleeve shirt. Imagine if he'd worn a long sleeve shirt and they didn't know this, but there they spotted the tattoos and these marshals,

They focus in on this. We have an identifier. But I just thought, you know, it's like 101. Tattoos are identifiable. You wear long sleeves. You cover it with makeup. You do something. So even though he had all this great training, he also didn't implement everything as well as he could, I suppose.

He definitely could have worn long sleeve clothing at the time he did the interview. But the marshals really were very thorough. You know, investigators were talking to Hannah over the years and Hannah actually provided some information that helped lead to Blauvel.

It was difficult for them, you know, to get her to trust them. But as the investigators told us, as time went on and she has she's matured and she's got time away from Blauvelt, they felt that really helped. You know, and then we were also told that she has said that she wanted to do the right thing. It's tough, Anne-Marie, because they know she's going to be their star witness in any court case against Blauvelt.

And so it is a delicate dance here. But it's important to note that authorities don't think that Hannah Thompson was actually there when Katie was murdered. Right. So, yes, we find out that, you know, six years after Blavill

The U.S. Marshals are able to actually track him down to where he's living with his new girlfriend in Medford, Oregon. How did they actually track him down, though? You know, investigators were talking to Hannah over the years, and Hannah said that he had told her that he had had this long-term girlfriend who he was living with. And investigators were able to use that information and...

Really hone in. They found a phone number that was an old number for Blauvelt. And they saw that that number had been used to text this other woman who they they weren't sure who it was at the time, but they found an address for that woman. It ended up being that girlfriend. And then they just started staking out the house. And then, you know, it was that pirate tattoo.

And where they were connecting some of the dots here, remember his truck got stuck in the mud in Washington. When Hannah called her parents, she was in Oregon. And so when they discovered on this phone that he'd been texting this woman, that woman lived in Medford, Oregon. So geographically, you know, the noose was tightening. They said, this must be the area that he is in. And don't forget at this point, he was Ben Klein. He was not John Blauvelt.

He had changed his name, which would make it even more difficult to try to identify this guy. But they were able to get her address. And she was an upstanding woman in the community, a full-time job. She was the breadwinner in the family. And John was sort of a stay-at-home partner for her.

In fact, when they observed him one day, I think he was putting together was it a portable swimming pool out on the yard? Do you remember that cat? Yeah, he was. It was a hot day and he was coming outside with this kiddie pool and he was shirtless. And so the marshals were able to see that.

tattoo on him. And he looked so different. He had a beard, long hair. He'd put on some weight. Somebody that I wouldn't have recognized him except for Hardy Hard Har, that tattoo. So this new girlfriend is shocked. She doesn't know anything about his past. But I thought to myself, she says that he hardly ever leaves the house. He does, you know, a handful of odd jobs.

Yeah. So she said that he had told her that he didn't get along with his family and she just kind of thought he was a hippie. He didn't have social media as far as she knew. He told her his name was Ben Klein and she said he was a very good liar. And, you know, she unfortunately fell for it. During the course of our show, we played some of the audio that was recorded at the scene after the takedown of John Blauvelt.

at that woman's property right outside her front door. And one of the marshals interviewed her, and we have more sound from that talk that just gives you a sense of the shock that she was experiencing to learn that her partner in life was a killer. I'm just trying to get how he was able to be here

hidden for so long. He just said that he didn't want anything to do with... Did he ever go out? No, he said it was mainly he would chalk it up to the PTSD. He didn't like to be around crowds. He didn't like... So I thought it was just... I mean, you can see that she's completely broken up about this. Yeah. And as she learned more details, just imagine that horror ride.

So the other really interesting element to this case is that authorities, after they track him down, they discover a journal. And he's been writing in this thing now for quite a while. At one point, there's the phrase, I did it. And

The prosecution argues that this is him admitting that he killed his wife. Yeah, so he actually had been keeping that journal since he first went on the run. And he would write about his day-to-day happenings, camping, how he was spending his time. And there were letters in there between John and Hannah where she had written in the journal as well when she was out there with him. And they wrote,

lovingly to each other. And there was a letter where he wrote to her after she left where he said that he was sorry to have allegedly involved her. So the trial lasts only four days. He's found guilty. He's sentenced to life in prison.

Where do things go from here with the case? Well, he's going to appeal his conviction. And then, Kat, you want to talk about what's happening with Hannah? Hannah is facing five felonies and her fate is going to be up to a judge. There's no trial date set yet, but a judge will decide what will happen to Hannah. And we should note that Hannah has pleaded not guilty to the charges against her. Well, you know, it was a great hour yesterday.

I also sort of it was heartbreaking because I thought to myself, you know, a lot of us get into relationships that are not meant to last. They just don't work out and you leave. And Katie would have left. I mean, literally after the honeymoon, the writing was on the wall. And because she crossed paths with the wrong person, it has this tragic, tragic end. And it's it's such a shame. Yeah.

She was a sweetheart of a young woman. Those who knew her, she loved animals. She just wanted to get married. She wanted to have a family. Just the shock of what she had hoped for and what her life became, how it ended in this tragic murder is just heartbreaking. Definitely. Well, Peter and Kat, thank you so much. Really appreciate talking to you. Thanks. Thank you, Anne-Marie.

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