Episode 646: The Unsolved Murder of Jeannette DePalma
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Don't miss the Hulu original docuseries, Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Frankie. My wife created a YouTube channel. Thumbs up, subscribe. But only what we wanted to show. I'm stupid! A three-part series event. She said the children were demonically possessed. Get out! That blew the powder keg. Ruby crossed the line to psychotic. Nine, I'm on emergency. Open the door! Hulu's Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Frankie. All episodes available February 27th. Streaming on Hulu.

- Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. - And I'm Alayna. - And this is Morbid. - This is Morbid. - What is that squishy thing that you have? - So this is, what is it called again? - Is it like a stress ball?

It's called like Knee Dough or something. Yeah, it's like a stress ball, but I actually got it for the kids for like a stocking stuffer, I think. Yeah. It's like this little teardrop of a thing that's like filled with gel almost. And you can squeeze it and mess around with it as much as you want. And it just turns back into that shape. Throw me it. Caught it. Oh, yeah. Can I have one? Yeah. Oh, wow. Can I have one? You can like really stretch this. Yeah.

Oh, wow. I could work some anger out on this. Yeah. It's literally called knee doe. Knee, N-E-E, doe. That's a lot of dog hair on there. Yeah. Sorry, that was a really aggressive throw. That was. Luckily, I played softball, man. Same, but not as well.

No, these things are great. I recommend a stress ball for everybody. I think it should be, they should be passed out in the United States right now. Yeah, honestly. Actually, I think. Honestly. As you know, this comes out so much later than anything, but our hearts really go out to anybody affected by that plane crash. It is. We are only a couple of days out from the helicopter crash.

slamming into the passenger plane, the U.S. Airways passenger plane in D.C. at Reagan Airport. And it has been...

weighing on my mind so heavy because it like victims names people are being identified I mean there's still people they're still doing the recovery right now and we're two days out it is so many kids a lot of them were from like the Boston skating club like locally six victims were from only a couple towns over from us I think so it's

It's, like, really heart-wrenching. It's gut-wrenching. I can't wrap my brain around it, and I can't wrap my brain around the response to it. I can't wrap my brain around how it happened. I just feel... For everybody. I feel really, really horrible for everybody involved, and it's, like, breaking my heart. Every time somebody gets identified, it just, like, shatters me. Yeah. So...

It really said and if you're in the DC area, I'm sure you're just like feeling it extra hard feeling the weight of that. And if you know any of the people that were involved, like, fuck, I'm so sorry. So, so, so, so, because holy shit, this seemed entirely avoidable. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's been a real bummer. We would be very remiss not to say anything. Yeah. Or how late this comes out. Yeah, I just wanted to touch on that for sure.

Um, unfortunately I don't have anything happier to talk about. I know. I'm trying to think if there's any like a exciting thing to throw out there. Oh, I think I don't, I mean, it looks like it's confirmed guys. I'm going to switch gears entirely just to get us into like a neutral space here. A little palate cleanser. Uh,

I think Matthew Lillard is going to be in Scream 7, everybody. It looks like he is. There's a lot of reports saying he is, and he did a little video where he wrote, my mom and dad are going to be so mad at me on a piece of paper. My dad is going to be so mad at me.

And I don't know how to properly contain my excitement. I hope he comes back with his wonderful sweater that he wore. That beige sweater. I hate beige, but I love that sweater. That sweater was torn to shit. He's going to have so many scars on his face.

Oh, he's going to come back gnarly. He's going to be like Pinhead when he comes back. It's going to be awesome. And do you think, so do you think he's going to come back current or do you think it's going to be a flashback kind of deal? I think I will feel a little cheated if it's a flashback. If it's a flashback deal. No, same. Um,

that would not be my favorite thing. That would not be my favorite thing either. If you're listening right now, don't do that to us. Please. I don't think anybody would be happy with that. No, we need him to come back. Like, no, I've been saying since, I've been saying since the dawn of time, that's who lived through that whole thing. John keeps telling me I'm crazy, but I can't wait to go downstairs and rub this in his face. No, I was sick the other day. And whenever I'm sick, I watch scream because it's a comfort movie. It's how Alina raised me. Um,

And he moans after the TV settles. He does. He groans. He goes, uh. He does a little groan. Yeah. Literally. Yeah. That's the exact noise. The actual noise. Uh. Uh. Yeah. So he's alive. He is. And he's going to be in Scream 7, guys. When is that supposed to come out? I'm ready for it. February next year. So only like a straight up a year from now. Shit. That's crazy.

I hope it's early February. February, it is the latest it could be without being the last day of February. The 27th? Yeah. Wow. Wow. I hope it's early. I'm manifesting that it's early February. You're like, eh. Like close. Close, but no cigar. Close, but not at all. It's a short month. Yeah. You know? Yeah. There you go. I made a really good coffee today. I'm in my at-home barista era.

Yeah, you are. You made a really yummy one for me this morning. Is it good? I appreciate it. I got new beans and they're a lot better. Yeah, the beans were beaning. The beans were beaning. I've been making this cookie butter latte thing, everybody. It's the shit. You literally just like a smear cookie butter around a cup and then you put like a tablespoon of it in your little like glass that you're going to brew your espresso over. Put some milk in your cup, over ice, that espresso shot in there. That's it.

It's that simple. It's that fucking simple. It's so good. It's like a morning treat. It is. It's delicious. I love it. I don't need to go get coffee anywhere anymore because Ash just brings me one. It's true. I'm great. I'm very blessed. Yeah. Never stressed. Still very stressed.

I literally, as soon as I said that, I was like, I'm still very stressed as well. Still the most stressed, but very blessed as well. I have a whole new appreciation for baristas, though, because that shit is not easy. Yeah, it's not. It's a science. I had to order, like, so many accoutrements to go with my fucking... I was like, oh, good, espresso machine. That's it. It was like, buy these other five things if you want it to taste good. Yeah.

It's like its own thing there. Yeah. But my coffee bar is cute, so. So that's all that matters. Well, that's all the good things we can think of. Coffee, Neato, and Matthew Lillard. That's a great thing. It's a rough thing sandwich is what it is. Yeah. And we are going to be talking about an unsolved murder today. This one is, this is a very interesting case. It breaks your heart on so many different levels because we're going to be talking about the murder of Jeanette DePalma.

I do remember this one. Yeah, it happened. Some of it. It was like the late 60s, early 70s. So I'm sure you've heard it talked about. In passing, yes. I haven't heard the details. It's wrapped up in an era of satanic panic and that plays such a crucial role in this case to the point where Jeanette's memory really gets lost and kind of clouded by all of that. Yeah, I can definitely see that.

Which is really shitty. Yeah. But we're going to tell it obviously the best we can. And Dave did a really great job with this one, making sure to get... There's so many people that thought they knew Jeanette and said all these things about her. But then her family and close friends said things on the complete opposite spectrum. And obviously they're the people that really knew her. Exactly. So I'm glad that he was able to gather a lot more of those quotes. Yeah. Yeah.

So let's get into it. Who was Jeanette De Palma? She was born August 3rd, so she's a Leo, 1956 in Jersey City, New Jersey. And she was the sixth of seven children born to Florence and Salvatore De Palma. Florence was a homemaker and Salvatore was an auto mechanic. Right around the early 1960s, the family moved to Spring Township, New Jersey, which is just a quiet suburb. It's about 30 miles away from New York City.

It seemed like the perfect place to Florence and Salvatore to raise their kids. It was quiet. It was far away from a very increasingly violent city life. One resident said there were no gangs to speak of in Springfield, but there were a few interesting characters in town. This is iconic. There was Tilly, an extremely short woman with one huge breast. There was the lady who swept the moonbeams off her driveway all night long. I'm obsessed. As well as the mailman who ended up living in a dumpster. Wow.

I said, I love an eccentric group of people. Hell yeah. Sign me up. Sign me up. What an array there. What an array indeed. What a smorgasbord of humans. That's a town. Yeah. That's a group of people. It's weirdly getting like stars hollow. Yeah. You know? It really is. Yeah. I want to know more about each of those people. I want to know, especially the lady who's sweeping moonbeams off her driveway. Yeah. All night. I would never sweep a moonbeam off my driveway. No, but I'm just like, tell me your story. I know. I know.

So the DePalma family had always been close-knit and relatively private, which immediately caught their new neighbors off guard. One of their former neighbors said, something wasn't 100% right with that family. They were weird.

And to make matters worse, by the early 1970s, Sal and Florence became the center of several rumors around the town because the police were constantly being called to their house. Former patrolman Ed Kish said, Sal and Florence would get into a fight. Somebody would call us. But by the time we got there, Florence would turn us away.

sounded like a lot of domestic disputes were going on between the parents. Rachel Sajewski, Sal and Florence's granddaughter, also remembered the DePalma house as one of constant turmoil and chaos. And she said her grandfather, Sal, was quote-unquote rotten to her grandmother. So there was a lot going on. That makes me sad. Yeah, yeah.

In time, it wasn't just Sal and Florence that fueled the rumors around town, though, but the children. A former teacher in town, Margaret Bandrowski, said, Judging by what I heard from the other students, Jeanette was a little on the wild side. She acknowledged what a lot of people considered wild in the 70s and late 60s is pretty different from today's standards. So she added, I don't think wild meant anything other than that Jeanette was not the perfect Christian child that her mother believed her to be. Which, like, is true.

Which, like, relatively, that's not wild. Exactly. Ed Kish also commented that Jeanette was what they would refer to as a party girl. He said, I can recall quite a few instances where I had to pull that kid out of the backseat of some guy's car over at Bryant Park. Oh, man. In my words, she was living her best life. You know about that. She's being a teenager. Yeah. Let her live. Yeah. While some of those who knew Jeanette back then remember...

her in the terms of rumors around town, those who knew her best completely rejected the characterization that was being painted of her as like this wild party girl out of control.

So there. Yeah. So like what? Yeah. Yeah.

I love how just like to the point. She's like, nah, that's bullshit. That's a bunch of bullshit. That's a sister right there. That is a sister. Florence, Jeanette's mother, also disagreed with the opinion that her daughter was this crazy wild child. When

When Jeanette's body ended up being found in 1972, Florence told reporters, my daughter was more a Christian than anything else. I think the most important thing she loved to do was lead children to Jesus. She loved to help the kids out with their problems. Well, that sounds nice. Yeah, which was at least partially true because when she wasn't at school, Jeanette actually worked part-time at the community office of the Evangel Church in a program that was supporting at-risk youth in the area.

Damn. So she was giving back to the community. Yeah, absolutely. And it's really fucked up that everybody's like, oh, I had to pull her out of the backseat of a car. And, you know, I heard from other students that she was so cuckoo. Yeah. And it's like she was doing more for her community than most teenagers are, to be honest. Literally helping at-risk children. But okay. Yeah.

Even Detective Sergeant Sam Calabrese, the lead detective on Jeanette's case, told reporters that Jeanette, quote, had no record of trouble with authorities. See, so that's all just like hearsay. It's like she can't have been too wild because there's literally no reports. Yeah, unless she was like a criminal genius, criminal mastermind out here. Which I doubt. And also giving back to her community. At the same time, yeah. Yeah.

It's really unclear why the locals in Springfield have such dramatically different memories of Jeanette DePalma, but it's very highly possible that in the 50 years that have passed since her murder, the rumors surrounding her death have tainted the recollection of those who didn't really know her very well. That absolutely makes sense.

And just like with a lot of female victims of crime at the time, people were quick to question the victim's behavior. Oh, yeah. And just straight up blame the victim for what happened instead of placing the sole blame on the person who committed the heinous crime in the first place. Yeah, her favorite pastime. Yeah.

But to those who were closest to her, Jeanette was a pretty ordinary teenager. Her cousin Linda said, we were hippie Jesus freaks who smoked weed. We used to smoke and listen to rock music. Janis Joplin was her favorite. Damn. Which is just like... Hippie Jesus freaks listening to rock music and smoking. Like, that's literally what you pretty much picture for teenagers of the 60s and 70s. Absolutely. Like, maybe not so much the Jesus freak part of it, but even that. Honestly, probably, yeah. Fairly common. Yeah, absolutely. You know?

And when it came to the rumors of Jeanette being promiscuous or engaging in heavy drug use, people started saying that kind of thing. Lisa just rejected those claims with an emphatic, hell no. She was like, uh-oh. Now, in 1970, Jeanette convinced her parents to let her transfer from Union Catholic School to the public school, which was Jonathan Dayton High School.

Former teacher, Margaret Bandrowski, the one we were talking about before, she said, the impression that we had was that Jeanette's mother was convinced of her daughter's religious nature and had removed her from Union Catholic because kids in the public school needed her example more. Wow. Which is nice, but like, it doesn't sound like this teacher was Jeanette's teacher because she literally said like, from the account of other students and the impression that I had, I'm like, so did you know her firsthand? Yeah, like, did you ever talk to her? Yeah. Yeah.

It appears her memory could be clouded by the passage of time because she only knew Jeanette by sight and reputation. And then on the flip side of that coin, a close friend of Jeanette's from school, Grace Petrilli DiMuro, said, She never mentioned to me that she was religious or devoted to a Christian lifestyle. Although if being a good Christian meant being a good friend, looking out for you, helping you if she could, that's what I saw. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. But how weird. It's so wild that a lot of people are like,

Very conflicting ideas. Complete opposite ends of the spectrum. But it's the people who were not close to her are like, oh, this, want to hear this fact about Jeanette? And then the people who actually knew her are like, no. She was a good friend and she was pretty fun to hang out with. She liked Janis Joplin. She liked Janis Joplin. And it's like that seems more...

the real thing. I think a lot of people in town had opinions of the family as a whole and Jeanette kind of got scapegoated in a way there. Yep. I think so too. And I also think, and we'll come to find out, that the rumors, like I said in the beginning of this, the rumors surrounding the nature of her death really made an imprint on people's opinions. It really colored in what the image of her now is. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Since Jeanette's case gained a certain amount of notoriety once details became public, it's difficult to discern the real Jeanette DePalma from the murder victim of local legend, which is really sad. That is really sad. But relying more on the information from her friends and family, again, she just seemed like an ordinary teenager. Yeah, who was a good friend, a good example. Yeah. Did some stuff for her community, helping at-risk kids. Yeah.

She sounds like a cool girl. A cool chick. She loved music. We know she loved Janis Joplin. She loved clothes. She was into her style. She liked boys. And like other teenage girls, she allowed her parents to believe the best in her, even if that wasn't always what was true at the time. Yeah, of course. Who among us? Retweet.

Her friend Grace said, the thing about Jeanette was this. When you first saw her, you assumed this preconceived notion of her being this tough, fast, wild girl. But when you would start talking to her, she was so sweet, honest, and funny, but she didn't take anyone's crap. Good for her. Yeah. Fuck yeah. I'm like, maybe she had a duality that literally none of you could understand. Yeah, maybe that's what it was. Maybe she was so far ahead of her time and that she could... That you just couldn't grasp that she could be multifaceted. Exactly. She could lean on both sides of her personality. Well...

In the early summer of 1972, Jeanette's cousin Lisa, who she was always really close to, ended up running away from home. It was not the first time that Lisa had run away, so the family assumed that she would come back in a few days, and they figured it was best not to tell Jeanette because they didn't want to upset her for no reason. But after a month passed and Lisa still hadn't returned, Sal and Florence decided finally to sit Jeanette down. And this was on the morning of August 7th, and they told her what was going on with her cousin.

Lisa later remembered hearing about Jeanette's reaction and said she was pissed. She was very angry that her parents had waited so long to tell her. So she left the table and stormed off back to her room. Oh, man. Which like, I don't blame her. I'd be pissed if they kept that from me.

But as a punishment for her behavior that morning, Jeanette's mother gave her additional chores to do, even though she actually had plans to meet up with some friends that afternoon. I think it was like a, you know, you got an attitude thing, you can't act like that in this house. Yeah, like you stormed off into your room and you get an extra chore. Right. Right.

Oh, no. Yeah.

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According to Jeanette's sister, Cindy, Jeanette asked her if she actually would come with her to Gail's house in Berkeley Heights about eight miles away. Cindy said Jeanette was seeing a guy named Tommy who I had never met. She wanted to meet up with him at Gail's house before work. At the same time, though, Cindy was having trouble with her own boyfriend and said she didn't feel like going out, so she declined.

But then on the flip side of the coin, when asked about this, Gail Donahue denied Cindy's version of events and said she didn't remember anybody named Tommy that Jeanette was seeing.

And said Jeanette had never said anything about even bringing Cindy with her this afternoon. She said Cindy was a year younger and they didn't really hang out with her often. So, again, 50 years had passed by the time a lot of these people started talking or continued talking about this. So your memory is not going to serve you perfectly well, but... No, I mean, no. Like, my memory is terrible. Yeah, I barely remember what I had for breakfast this morning. Yeah, I could not remember any kind of intricate...

I don't know, because I always think about it. I'm like, but if it's like an event like this, does it help your memory or hurt it? You know what I mean? Because it's such a tragic and life-tainting event, you know? Yeah. I don't know. It's just interesting. Like, some people are like, oh, she was going to meet Tommy. Yeah. And then other people are like, I'd never heard of Tommy. Like, who are you talking about? Yeah. But who knows? I mean, people have secrets that we don't know about. That's very true. While they're living.

Like the memory of Jeanette herself, the time that's passed has clouded a lot of people's memories of the day she went missing. But the details could have been more important than just trivial plans of teenage girls. Given the circumstances in which Jeanette would be found, the existence of this secret boyfriend actually could have been a pretty significant piece of the puzzle. Yeah. But unfortunately, throughout the investigation and the years that followed, no one could actually settle on whether or not she had a boyfriend. They didn't know. That's so hard because it's like...

I get so scared of teenage years. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because you're like, you want to maintain such consistent communication, but sometimes kids throw up roadblocks. Oh, and they can shut you out completely. Yeah, and they can shut you right out. And that's my biggest fear. Yeah, it's scary. It's not having that consistent line of communication where they feel like they can tell you anything. I think luckily these days you're in a lot better of a situation because the amount of shit you can put

on those kids' phones. I know, it's true. You can track their ads everywhere. But parents in the 60s and 70s, how the fuck did they do it? Oh my god, it was the Wild West out there. Because if your kid wasn't telling you what they were saying, oh, I'm going to go do this, but actually they went and did that, which how many of us do as teenagers? Oh yeah, it's like they just went around the dark side of the moon. You just lost communication and hopefully it comes back. You just hope for the best. Yeah, you can't see them, can't hear them, and you're just like, oh, I hope they come around the other way. Yeah, it's scary. Yeah, but...

Those that believe Jeanette did have a boyfriend at this time couldn't remember a name or any details, which, you know, doesn't help. No. So anyway, after finishing her chores that afternoon, Jeanette told her parents that she was scheduled to work a shift that night and she made another call to one of her friends and then grabbed her purse, told her mom she was going to walk the three miles to the train station and summit and head to work. Okay. From there, she actually planned to take the train to Berkeley Heights to go see Gail to follow through on their plan.

Which, you know, Florence obviously didn't know. She was concerned enough about her daughter walking the three miles to the station by herself, but she did agree to let her go. Had she known that Jeanette's actual plan was to hitchhike to Gail's house, obviously Florence never would have let Jeanette leave the house that day.

Now, one of the last people believed to have seen Jeanette that day was her friend Donna, I believe it's Blattis, who lived a few houses down. According to Donna's husband now, John Rosensky, Jeanette stopped at the house on her way to Berkeley Heights and tried to get Donna to go with her. He said Jeanette was having a fight with her boyfriend and was looking for a ride somewhere.

According to Rosensky, Jeanette even went so far as to ask Donna's mother for a ride, which Jeanette's friends later said would have been pretty unlikely because I guess Donna's parents didn't really like Jeanette. Oh, okay. But whatever the case, Donna's mother refused. So Jeanette left the Blattis house and continued down the road in the direction of Berkeley Heights. Okay. Intending to continue hitchhiking.

Later that night, several hours after Jeanette should have returned home, Sal and Florence DePalma started to worry because she wasn't in the habit of coming home late regardless of where she had been. And on the occasions where she would have been late, she always called them.

So after a few hours of waiting, they decided it was time to start reaching out to some of Jeanette's friends and classmates to find out if anybody had seen her or heard from her that afternoon. But none of the people they spoke to had heard from Jeanette at all. Now, when their phone calls failed to produce any information, the DePalmas gave in and they reported Jeanette missing to the Springfield police.

To their surprise, though, they were told that they would have to wait a full 24 hours before reporting their daughter missing. That's wild to me. Nothing about that makes sense. No. Ed Kish said it was strange how runaway situations were not handled the same way back then as they are today. Back then, runaways did not garner much attention because they left willingly and running away from home wasn't a criminal offense.

But just like so many aspects of the case, there are also discrepancies around the De Palma's call to the police.

Sal and Florence maintained that they reported their daughter missing when they called the police. But according to several retired Springfield police officers who were with the department at the time, Sal and Florence, quote, claimed that Jeanette had run away when they reported her missing. Oh. So there's major discrepancies there. Yeah, and it's like, where's the record? Exactly. Where are any of the records? That's a big question. That's the thing. Clearly, the rumors around town about the DePalma family and Jeanette's behavior started affecting the case almost immediately. Of course.

Even as they took down the report, the responding officers noted that Sal and Florence were giving short and vague answers.

Former officer Don Schwartz said, there was talk in the station house that they weren't very cooperative. It was like, let's keep this quiet and not be out in the public with it. The family didn't really come out right away and give interviews or anything, as far as I know, at least. Which is like, they don't have to. Yeah, that's their prerogative. Also, they're already the center of a lot of rumors in town. This is probably the last thing that they want getting out is that their daughter's now missing. You know, like, you're going to the police, the people who are going to help you here. Yeah.

I mean, look at how people are already talking. Exactly. I'm sure they don't want to just fuel it. And you don't know what you would do unless you're in that position. Yeah. And also at the time of Jeanette's disappearance, again, like late 60s, early 70s, parents weren't encouraged to react as quickly as they would be today.

And it wasn't customary for ordinary people to reach out to the media and arrange press conferences or other media events. Yeah, it's very different. That's something that happens more often now. Yeah. But of course, even though the behavior of parents in the wake of their kid's disappearance is always pretty relevant to investigators, we all know that people deal with stress in different ways. It's so tough. It doesn't always seem rational. It doesn't always make sense, but it doesn't mean they're guilty. And that's the thing. It's like...

It is 100% human nature, not a great part of human nature, to look at how somebody's reacting to something and deduce what you will deduce from it. That is human nature. Of course. Nobody's a bad person for, you know, being like...

I don't know. They seem... That was a little weird. We all do it. Yeah. Again, not our best, you know, little quirk that we have as a species, but there it is. But also... But we know that it is not always helpful and it is not always indicative of what they are actually feeling. People in shock...

act crazy. They will just straight up shut down and it looks like nothing is bothering them when in fact their entire nervous system has just gone into orbit. And it's actually just the body's response to this trauma. Because our bodies self-preserve in these situations. We're designed to do that. We are. And everybody's body does it a little different or they react to it a little different or they allow their body to do it in a certain way. Right. So it's like

I know it's easy to do that. And again, human nature. And sometimes it's dead on. Oh, yeah. Sometimes how they react to it and you go, that's fucked up. And then, yeah, it was fucked up. It just can't be the only thing we rely on. Look at Chris Watts. Chris Watts is a perfect example. Haunting. I watched that man's fucking little interviews and I said, that man knows something. Yeah.

I knew at the second. There is a science to some things. Yeah, of course. Like body language and all that. For sure. Tics that people do. But it's such a tight, it's a,

It's a dangerous and tight line to walk. Yeah, for sure. Exactly. I'll get off my soapbox now. No, that's not even a soapbox. No, it comes up a lot. That's just straight up. Yeah. But regardless of how cooperative Springfield police remember Sal and Florence being at the time, they were never considered suspects and no one investigation wise ever really thought they had anything to do with it.

So that tells you. Or anything. They weren't the reason that their daughter ran away. Or that they knew anything. Exactly. Yeah. The rumors about the DePalma family also might have contributed to the relatively underwhelming response from the community once word got out that Jeanette was missing. That's pretty shameful. It's really sad. That's pretty fucking shameful, that community. She's a teenager. Yeah, there's a child. That literally just missing. Disappeared into thin air. Yeah. And then when you find out what did happen to her, you're like, cool that nobody was searching. Yeah. Yeah.

Years later, William Nelson said, it was my understanding that Jeanette just ran away. He was just one of many people who either assumed or had heard that Jeanette ran away rather than she actually disappeared. Mary Starr, another neighbor at the time, heard the news framed in similar terms. She said, I did hear the rumor that Jeanette was running away. Jeanette would not have surprised me if she had run away from home. Jeanette would have been more inclined to go against her parents, I think. See, even more mystery. Because it's like,

Everyone's got a different idea of what she would or wouldn't have done. Even if it was a kid, which I'll tell you right up at the top, it's not... She didn't run away. No. That's not what was happening. But it's like so many people could have pictured her running away. Yeah, it's just...

I just feel bad that she's been categorized in such a way after she's unable to defend herself. And especially when, like... Or to show who she is. Yeah, and when it's clear that, like, obviously she was dealing with a lot at home. I mean, like, no matter what, the police were getting called to that house frequently. And she's, you know, like...

their own granddaughter said that Sal was pretty awful to Florence. Yeah. Like she was seeing that and dealing with that. You should have empathy for her. Yeah. And it doesn't really seem like a lot of people did at all. She's a child. Yeah. She's still a kid. And like, this is a teenager. No matter what, she's troubled if that's going on. And if that's the case, then she does need help. And everybody needs to be, because no matter what, even if she did run away, she could still be in danger. Yeah. Like she's a kid on the run. Absolutely. Yeah.

It's unclear why rumors of Jeanette having run away persisted as long as they did. According to authors Mark Morin and Jesse Pollack, Florence and Salvatore DiPalma made no reference to Jeanette having run away during several interviews that they gave to the Elizabeth Daily Journal and the New York Star-Ledger, each time insisting that their daughter had simply left home to visit her friend in Berkeley Heights. But either way, the rumors absolutely affected the response to her disappearance.

After several days passed with no word from Jeanette or the Springfield Police Department either, like they called, reported their daughter missing. The Springfield Police Department said, OK, you have to wait a full 24 hours before we're going to do anything about this. And then more days passed and they didn't do anything.

It makes no sense. So Sal and Florence ended up organizing their own search party for their daughter. But by then it was too late. Yeah. I mean, which is like the first 48 hours are like the most, that's why that always astounded me that it was like, we have to wait 24. Let's cut that in half. Yeah. Well,

Let's cut our time that we could find them in half. Do you know when that was that they established that the first 48 are the most crucial? It had to have been after this time period because clearly nobody was following it. Because that's actually such a good point. Yeah. Because you're literally just chopping it in half. Throwing those 24 hours to the wind.

So it says, and this is according to Google's AI, there isn't a single definitive date marking when the first 48 hours concept was established as crucial in investigations, but it's generally considered to have gained widespread recognition and application with police practices over the course of the late 20th century due to advancements in forensic science and investigative techniques that highlighted the importance of immediate evidence collection in the initial stages of a crime investigation. I love that in the beginning they were like,

Like, that it came to a point where they were like, shit, we should probably pay attention. It would be awesome if we collected evidence right away, now. Like, it's just like, who came, who was like, who was like, light bulb moment. Whoa, if evidence doesn't get to be disturbed and decayed, it might be more helpful. We might do better at this. Who could,

hoompsed before that was like, we should just let evidence get tainted for a little while. Yeah. And then we can just work harder to try to figure out who did it. A lot of people, actually. A lot of people were in that boat. In that boat, I meant to say. What an aha moment for that person to be like, wow, the earlier we do this, the easier our job is. And the funniest thing to think about too is, not funny, but like ironic, that they were probably met with pushback.

100%. It's like the first person who was like, hey, we should wash our hands if we work in a hospital. And people were like, throw that guy in jail. It's a fucking crazy person telling us to wash our hands. Well, this is about to take a very, I mean, it's already very sad, but it's about to take an even sadder turn.

So on the morning of September 19th, a resident of the newly built Baltus Roll Gardens, I looked up how to say that, so don't come at me, was an apartment complex. One of the residents opened the back door to her apartment for her dog, who immediately darted out of the apartment in the direction of a nearby quarry. Unbeknownst to its owner, that dog would return a short time later, carrying in its mouth a badly decomposed human arm, which it dropped in the yard just before heading back into the apartment.

Holy shit. Again, unbeknownst to the owner. Oh my God. Just moments after the dog had entered the apartment, the building superintendent stepped outside and made her way down the steps onto the lawn where she then found the arm lying in the grass.

Officer Don Schwert recalled, Oh my god.

So Officer Schwart grabbed his camera and took several photos of the arm before returning to the car to report what he had found and request additional officers be dispatched to the scene ASAP. The superintendent told the officers she thought it was entirely likely that her dog, who she also let out earlier that morning, had found the arm in the woods and brought it back to the yard. But when the officers saw the dog, they knew that probably wasn't what had happened. Schwart said, the lady brought me over to a puppy.

So he didn't think that that puppy would have been able to carry the arm, most likely. Okay. I guess. Yeah. Although it was unlikely that her dog had found the arm, the notion that a dog had found it and dropped it in the yard did seem like the most likely scenario. So the officers went door to door looking for other large dogs until they finally found one resident with a large Dalmatian.

Schwartz said, that tenant told me she had let her dog out to run earlier that morning, and we determined that this Dalmatian had most likely brought the arm home from wherever it had been roaming. Okay. So the officers packed the arm into a cardboard box and returned to the station, all of them considering whether or not they'd just found Jeanette DePalma or part of Jeanette DePalma.

That afternoon, the on-duty members of the Springfield Police Department broke up into small teams and they started combing the wooded area behind and around the apartment complex, including the Hudai Quarry.

Located a short distance from the apartment complex, the Hudai Quarry was this large open area that actually at the time was being mined for greenachite, which is a mineral rich with cadmium, I think it is. It was also a spot known to be popular with teenagers and other locals, including the Springfield police, who actually used the area for target practice. Oh.

Schwartz said, we were over by the quarry searching the bed that had been laid out for Interstate 78 when we found the upper portion of the arm. So they found the other part of it. Once they found the upper portion of the arm, investigators assumed that the rest of the remains couldn't be far. So they spread out across the quarry and kept on searching. A little after 6 p.m. Remember, that arm was found earlier in the morning at about 11. It took them until 6 p.m.

Schwart and one of the other officers found Jeanette's badly decomposed body about 400 yards from the road at the top of a steep cliff that the locals referred to as the Devil's Teeth. So that ended up gaining a lot of traction later, even though it's literally just a made-up name for a fucking cliff by locals. Wow. Jeanette's body was laying face down at the top of the steep incline, just a few feet from the edge, actually.

She was found fully clothed in a blue t-shirt and tan pants and a pair of flip-flops were lying on the ground nearby. Schwartz said, I immediately remembered that this was the description of the clothing Jeanette De Palma was wearing on the day she went missing.

Also on the ground near the body was a woman's pocketbook. Detectives at the scene opened it, hoping that they might find something inside to identify the body, but it contained nothing of note. Okay. Jeanette's remains had been exposed to the element at that point for nearly six weeks. Six weeks had gone by. Wow. So they were badly decomposed by the time they were discovered. Remember, she went missing in August. Holy shit. Yeah.

To make matters worse, the parts of the body that were uncovered, primarily her feet, ankles, and head, had been eaten away by animals and insect activity. Other than that, there were no apparent signs of trauma or an immediately recognizable cause of death at that point. But still, in a press conference the following day, Assistant Union County Prosecutor Michael Mitzner told reporters, Jeanette's death is being treated as a homicide by the police. But they confirmed they had no leads. Zero. Wow.

Of all the details of the case that are shrouded in rumor and myth, none are more heavily debated and controversial than the scene where Jeanette's body was found.

According to Dawn Schwart, quote, there was a wooden cross over her head that was made out of two sticks. There were also some stones arranged around the top of her head in the shape of a semicircle, almost like a halo. Okay. Which would have been strange. Absolutely. Schwart was just one of the officers at the scene who found the arrangement of sticks and rocks to appear intentional. To Howard Thompson, who arrived at the top of the hill shortly after Schwart, the objects around Jeanette's body looked like, quote unquote, witchcraft. Oh.

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A few minutes later, a number of detectives arrived at the top of the hill and effectively took over the investigation from that point forward. Schwartz said, once the detective bureau came on the scene, we were pushed aside and everything became secretive. They treated the rest of us patrolmen like a bunch of dunces.

Anyway. The silence is deafening. Yeah. Because of the steep incline, detectives opted to remove Jeanette's remains by using a stretcher lowered down the cliff face by means of a rope and pulley system. So this was tough. Yeah. Once on the ground, Dr. Bernard Ehrenberg pronounced the victim dead and the body was taken by ambulance to Sullivan Funeral Home for an autopsy.

During the autopsy the following day, Dr. Ehrenberg had the body x-rayed for any evidence of bone fractures or any other skeletal damage, but it seemed like there was none. There also appeared to be no external signs of physical trauma. There was no bullet hole, no knife wound that they found. So ultimately, Ehrenberg concluded that the body was too badly decomposed to determine the cause of death. That sucks. But suspected that strangulation could have been the cause. Okay.

That evening, Jeanette's body was identified by a dental comparison, which is just... Whenever that happens, that adds such a layer of sadness. The reason I said that sucks is just to not know what happened to her and her family. Absolutely. That must be tough. To not have it be 100% concrete. Yeah, you just don't know. You're just left to wonder. You'd wonder for the rest of your life, exactly. That sucks. Now, according to Ed Kish...

The autopsy was poorly performed by Dr. Ehrenberg, who Kitsch felt was not trained or experienced enough to conduct pathological exams. Oh, good. Yeah, awesome. That's great. Kitsch said, Wow. And he might have been right, because it does appear that the autopsy wasn't held to any rigid standards, and a lot of the samples and tests conducted at the time have since been lost. Wow.

Wow. Like completely lost. I don't know how that happens. So there's no hope of determining whether she had, you know, drugs in her system, alcohol in her system, anything like that at the time of her death. Wow. And I'm not saying like that she did drugs, but you don't know if she was poisoned. Yeah, exactly. Drugged her or did anything like that. Exactly. That's a huge piece of the puzzle missing. How do you lose samples like that? Couldn't tell you. We couldn't if we tried.

In the morgue. We couldn't have lost that shit if we tried. Yeah. Well, in the absence of any evidence or viable leads, the investigation and press coverage quickly turned to the more sensational and dubious aspects of the case. Within a week of the discovery, the local press started reporting that the police were, quote, investigating the possibility that black witchcraft and Satan worshipped were involved in Jeanette's death. Or you could just look for a murderer.

Yeah. You could do that. Because usually that's who kills people. I mean, 99.99999, if not 100% of the time.

It's a murderer who murders people. It's not a ritualistic sacrifice. Nope. Usually it's just they want to murder someone. It's not a coven hiding in the woods. Yep. It's not the devil reincarnate. When had, how many, like how many times has it been a random witch coven hiding in the woods that has been responsible for a murder? I would say approximately zero. Like let's be like real here. Like be so for real right now. Like be so for real and start looking at actual suspects. Yeah.

instead of this bullshit that did not happen this is only going to get and that's why this is unsolved it's exactly this day oh and it's just wait just wait it's exactly why according to one article in the daily journal of elizabeth searchers who found the girl's body said pieces of wood were crossed on the ground over her head and more wood framed the body like a coffin

No one ever said that. I was just going to say, where did that come from? No one ever said that. These rumors and reports were often contrasted with quotes from Jeanette's own parents describing their daughter as somebody who, quote, tried to lead others to Jesus. The black magic angle, though, was quickly associated with the murders of the List family in nearby Westfield, which had happened less than a year earlier. In that case, if you're not familiar, five members of the List family were shot and killed by the father of the family, John List, who went on the run after committing those murders.

In the search of the List home, investigators found a, quote, number of books on witchcraft in 16-year-old Susan List's bedroom and were, quote, trying to determine if the crimes had any link to a coven or witchcraft group thought to exist in that area.

nope just her mentally ill father yeah and it's like who killed the entire family like let's not make a joke of it because you're being like oh it's gotta be witches must be witches nope it's just it's usually just a man it's usually just a man and like that's statistically true like can we stop can we please stop with like the the fakery here

It doesn't help anything. It makes cases like this remain unsolved for decades. And it just makes a mockery of it all. And it makes their family and their loved ones have to wait for so long, if forever, to get answers. When they could have got... It just makes me mad. Like, do actual detective work. Don't be silly. Stop looking to the forces of the dark world. That's silly. And there's no time for silly. No. Like, come on. Silliness is for fiction stories. Mm-hmm.

Now, any belief that Jeanette's death was related to the List case would soon be abandoned, but the witchcraft angle would remain the central piece of this case. And that's where we get to the satanic panic of it all, so let's talk about that for a little bit. Throughout the 80s and early 90s, a wave of what we now refer to as satanic panic swept across North America, fueled almost entirely by rumors and widespread religious fears.

In a very broad sense, satanic panic was what's known as moral panic or this widely shared fear among a group or society that some negative influence poses a threat to the safety and well-being of one particular group. In this case, apparently New Jersey. Yeah. The majority of New Jersey. Just New Jersey. The majority of these panics usually surround kids or young adults, and they tend to come out during times of generational shifts and social transformations. Yeah.

In the case of Satanic Panic in North America, rumors and false reports of these ritualistic child abuse at schools and daycare centers fueled the belief that secret groups of witches and devil worshippers existed across America and were involving young people in their rituals for evil purposes. Yeah, for sure. We found that to be the case in a lot of these cases, right? Even though there was actually no evidence of any such groups or activities existing in the U.S., and

Tons of tons of people were swept up in false and completely outrageous claims that in some cases led innocent people to become outcasts in their community or led people to even be jailed for long periods of time based on rumors and lies and just Tom motherfucking foolery. Ridiculous. Be so for real. Yeah.

Now, the origin of the satanic panic of the 1980s is actually most often traced back to the book Michelle Remembers, which was a supposedly true account of satanic ritual abuse, which was published in 1980. And while it's true that Michelle Remembers kicked off the widespread fears of ritual abuse, it's fair to say that the roots of the panic can also be found in America's suburbs in the 1970s.

According to the independent scholar Sarah Hughes, the panic was part of a backlash to social movements in the late 1960s and 70s that challenged white patriarchal norms. In simpler terms, to older generations, the culture among young people in the 60s and early 70s was so foreign and posed such an existential threat that they just had to attribute it to some outside nefarious dark influence.

And theories about this supposedly evil influence reached into suburban homes were ultimately supported by the release of movies like Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, the whole nine. Yeah. Just basically depicting the lives of ordinary Americans being upended by witchcraft, satanic influence, and diamonds. Diamonds. It's never a daemon.

In suburban New Jersey, it wasn't just the discovery of Susan List books about witchcraft that ultimately took Jeanette DePalma's case in a strange direction. The books were part of a series of events, actually, that spurred the fears of Satanism in this area.

Because the year before Jeanette's death, the drowning death of 20-year-old Patrick Newell in Vineland, New Jersey, about an hour south of Springfield, shocked the region when it was initially reported on. The case prompted one reporter to ask, is it really possible that the pleasant town of 48,000 people could harbor Satan cults? Wow. No.

The answer is no. Well, the reason they asked that is because early in the summer of 1971, Patrick's body was discovered floating in a pond in Millville, New Jersey. His hand and feet were bound with adhesive tape. And upon investigation, two of Patrick's closest friends, Richard Williams and Wayne Schweikert, told police that Patrick Newell, quote, belonged to a Satan worshipper sect and felt that he had to die violently in order to be put in charge of 40 leagues of demons.

I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say about that. I'll tell you more about what they said so you can just sit tight. Yeah. So they said he enlisted the two of them to aid him in a, quote, satanic ritual where he would be the sacrifice and they would push him in the pond and allow him to drown so that he could die violently and be in charge of this league of demons.

During the investigation, police did find a, quote, considerable amount of literature on satanic cults and witchcraft in Patrick Newell's bedroom. And they also learned that, among other things, this is very sad, he had previously attempted suicide on multiple occasions. And this is a trigger warning for animal cruelty. He had, quote, sacrificed hamsters by shaking them up in a wooden box into which sharp nails had been driven. Oh, my God. Yeah. Awful.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, investigators learned that, quote, hard drugs were involved in a party prior to the killing.

So what you're seeing here is that this actually really doesn't have anything to do with quote unquote Satanism or black magic or any of that dumb shit that people want to label it with. It has to do with mental illness and troubles, drug abuse situation. Yeah. Drug abuse. Like there's plenty of factors here and I can tell you that Satan isn't one of them. No, he's absolutely not.

Patrick Newell's death was ultimately listed as a, quote, suicide with assistance and would likely have been assumed to be a very tragic result of drug abuse slash mental illness had it not been for Reverend Harry Snook, pastor of the Chestnut Assembly of God. Snook spent a lot of his time doing outreach to local teens and adolescents, preaching in what was described as a, quote, fervent Pentecostal style of old-time religion. So very, like, theatrical and shouty, like,

Scare tactic-y kind of preaching. That's literally nightmarish to me. It is. It's very scary. It's what you would picture, I think, in a lot of horror movies. Yes. You know? Yeah. He claimed that he, quote, talked with half a dozen or more young people who confessed to having taken part in devil worship rants.

i like how you went i just had to like your preacher voice that's my preacher voice uh no i no i i don't believe him i think one i think you scared these kids yeah i just don't believe him i think unfortunately this is the only thing they're allowed to do so they don't get to use their imagination elsewhere so you're giving them the perfect place to use it and ever heard of the salem witch trials that

That's exactly, exactly what it reminds you of. You know where that started? Bored kids. Yeah, bored kids being influenced by religious trauma, essentially. Yeah, exactly. But he wasn't the only one who claimed that Satanism had infiltrated their region. Reverend Joseph Donchez, I believe, a pastor at the First Presbyterian Church, quote, estimated the number of young devil worshippers in Vineland at between 80 and 90.

Oh, okay. Thank you for that. I don't know what fact that's based off of, but he said, I'd say 80 or 90, give or take. You know what? Let's take this guy into one of those contests where you get to guess the amount of jelly beans in the jar and you get something special. He sounds really good at it. I think he might be. Because he can pick out the devil worshippers. Yeah, just like that. Just like the jelly beans. Yeah, boom.

It's unclear where either of these bozos got their information because like I said earlier there has literally never been evidence of an organized group of devil worshippers active in the United States. No. But in most crimes where ritual sacrifice or other occult symbols are involved it's obviously the result of mental illness unfortunately drug abuse or

teenage pranks. Exactly. Or just somebody knowing that a bunch of bozos will latch onto it if they put a pentagram at a crime scene. Yeah. And that it will take them completely in the wrong direction, leaving that person to scoot, scoot, scoot away and never get looked at. Exactly.

I mean, let's. It's like you're giving them a route to take. We got to rub some neurons together and see what like it's so easy. Just give it a shot. It's so easy. It's literally the look over here. Yeah, it is. Tactic. It is. And everybody looks over there. It's like stop looking. It's the Jada Essence Hall. Look.

over there. Yeah, stop looking over there. This person's running away and they're getting away with it now. Well, in fact, Snook and Donchez themselves and even the investigators in the Patrick Newell case acknowledge the prominent role that drug abuse played in the lives of these supposed devil worshippers who did that. So it's like,

let's blame it on what is actually the root cause here and actually try to do some work on that. Yeah. Maybe. Exactly. Instead of being like, it's the devil. And it's like, no, they're just seeing things because they're on many drugs. Yeah, exactly. Maybe you should help. Maybe. Make this not a thing, not an epidemic. Yeah. In November 1971, Richard Williams and Wayne Schweikert pleaded guilty and they were both sentenced to a maximum term of 10 years at the correction center at Yardville for their role in Patrick Newell's death.

However, while their sentence may have effectively brought that case to a close, the supposed influence of satanic and occult beliefs would just go on to spread around the state and become the defining aspect of Jeanette's murder, at least as far as the police and the press were concerned. Yeah.

Although the cases of Patrick Newell, the List family, and Jeanette DePalma weren't linked in literally any evidence or any fact, they still became associated with each other because in the absence of evidence at all or a suspect, investigators turned to the more sensational rumors of devil worship and this youth culture that had, as far as adults could tell, gotten completely out of control. Yeah, it was nuts.

It's also unknown whether it was Don Schwart or one of the other officers at the scene, but somehow the news about the supposed evidence of witchcraft at the site where Jeanette's body was found was leaked to the press, which just renewed and fed the fears of the occult being in suburban New Jersey.

In no time at all, Jeanette's murder was being mentioned alongside other evidence of the occult in the area, including police having found, quote, burning candles and a bowl of blood and feathers and pigeons with their necks snapped at a nearby reservation.

And elsewhere in the area, somebody said they found a dead goat that they believed had been sacrificed. This is always what happens in these cases. It's crazy. As soon as it gets mentioned, this must be the devil worshippers, all of a sudden people are finding dead animals. Yep. It's so true. They weren't finding them before. The same thing happened. But as soon as it gets mentioned, all of a sudden dead animals all over the place. The same thing happened close by to us. Yeah. Was it Mariana Ruda? Yeah, yeah. She was killed by...

a monster of a human being literally and everybody claimed it was like the satanic cult but it's like no it's a monster of a human being yeah and they were like oh we're finding all this stuff around the bridgewater triangle and it's also spooky and blah blah blah it's like

no, this is a human being who's responsible for this. Maybe we should go find them. Can we stop blaming it on some, like, it's just ridiculous. It's so annoying. But within a few days of the new angle being pursued in the press, Sal and Florence DePalma, both, like we know, deeply religious people, were being quoted in the press as agreeing that their daughter, quote, could have been the victim of black witchcraft and Satanism.

There were also rumors that, with no leads to go on, the Springfield police had actually consulted with an area witch on the case. Florence told a reporter, we were afraid the witch would try to bring Jeanette back from the dead. The police, on the other hand, refused to comment on the rumors of a witch being involved in the investigation. Police Chief George Parcell said, I heard that some people from the department brought a witch out there, but I know nothing about it.

It's getting kooky. It's getting real kooky. This investigation. It's like, guys, can we put the nose to the grindstone here and actually look for the person who did this? Let's look for... This is a teenage girl who was murdered in the woods. Let's look for evidence. Let's look for evidence. Let's try to find the person who did this to her. Let's look for leads.

Let's look for anything that you look for in an investigation. Look into the boyfriend angle. Start talking to more people. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, come on. You had a perfect angle going there that there might be a secret boyfriend. Go look into it. Why did that suddenly come to an end? It's like, nah, it's probably not that. It's probably just this fictional group of witches that we've come up with. It's like, no. Or the devil. There's like real avenues to go down here. Yeah, absolutely. And no one's going down them.

Yeah. Meanwhile, Jeanette's just, her case is just going to be unsolved to this day. And it is. Within a few weeks of her body being discovered, Jeanette went from being the victim of a tragic and mysterious murder to the potential victim of a, quote, sacrificial rite of black magic, with both theories being treated as equally valid, which is insane. Yeah.

In the span of just a few days, the news about the arrangement of sticks around Jeanette's body spun into something far more sinister than they were originally described to be. Reverend James Tate told a reporter, Can I name one?

Nope. Could I point one out to you? Absolutely not. But I can tell you maybe 10 to 12 people are involved. But I'll tell you. Yeah. Give me that jar of jelly beans. I'll tell you. Yeah.

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Like the religious leaders in Vineland, Reverend Tate was convinced that Springfield had some sort of organized group of occultists or Satanists operating under the cover of darkness.

Though why he believed that is entirely unclear and doesn't seem to be supported by literally anything other than rumor. Because why not? But further complicating that theory was that while Don Schwart and one or two other officers remembered seeing what appeared to be that intentional arrangement of sticks at the crime scene, the cross and like the semicircle.

Other officers remember no such thing. Ed Kish said of the discovery, she was found lying in the middle of the woods for Christ's sakes. There were sticks and stones everywhere. Yeah. Like, hello. That's the thing. And even Don Schwart, who was one potential source of the story, eventually told reporters from Weird New Jersey Magazine he had, quote, no memory of any sticks or branches framing Jeanette's body like a coffin. Huh. So he was like, I wouldn't go that far. Well, and even if there was a cross, what does that have to do? Is it upside down?

Yeah. What does it have to do? To me, that looks like a grave marker. Right. Exactly. That's a Christian grave marker to me. Like, you know, like I don't understand why the cross would immediately lead you to Satanism unless it's upside down. Also, if anything, I feel like that would just lead you more to the pathology of your killer. Exactly. Like look more into that. And like take, really look at it, you know? Don't look at it and go, Satanism. Right. Look at it and be like, why would they do that?

Right. Did they do that? But unfortunately, profiling was far off at that point. No, of course not. But it's like just common sense. Like just start thinking with your brain. You would think. And then to hear all these dudes be like, some of them are like, yeah, it was a cross and a semicircle around her head of...

Like a halo almost. Of like sticks and stones and all that. And then the other one would be like, there's sticks and stones everywhere. I didn't see anything like that. How did one part, like how did somebody see that and another person at the scene didn't? It obviously wasn't that obvious if it was there, which makes me think it wasn't intentional and it was just sticks looking a little weird. In the woods. I mean, you could walk through the woods and find any number of arrangements of sticks that

that are naturally occurring that would make you be like, whoa. Ever since I've seen the Blair Witch Project, I see crazy shit. I see those everywhere in the woods all the time. Yeah. And it's like, so it obviously wasn't, if they were really setting this up so that when she was found, this was a main attraction. Everybody there would have said it. They all would have saw it because it would have been obvious. It would have been made to be obvious. It would have been made to be something you saw. Yes. To me, it sounds like it wasn't. It sounds like it could have been either

not intentional and just organically there, or it was like an afterthought. Well, that's exactly it. Yeah. Given the general imperfection of human memory, especially in this case, and the number of times that this story changed over the years, we'll likely never know why the sticks and rocks were interpreted as evidence of witchcraft or perceived to be arranged in a way that associated them with the occult. And that's something you would remember.

But the thing is, in the year leading up to Jeanette's death, New Jersey residents had followed two highly unusual murder cases, both of which had some supposed supernatural or occult influence on them. There you go. So under those circumstances and the growing fears about the occult influence on American teens, it's possible that the officers there saw what they wanted to see. Yeah. Or interpreted the random arrangement of nature as something that it wasn't just out of fear. Yeah.

But regardless of their motives or their reasons, the belief that Jeanette's death was somehow related to devil worship stuck to the case and not only influenced the investigation, but ultimately how Jeanette was remembered by those who didn't really know her very well. Yeah. To some, like Reverend James Tate, Jeanette's devout faith made her a target. He said she was so religious that she would often talk to friends and acquaintances about God, which we've already heard is not the case. I

Like her own friend. Some of her closest friends, like I think it was Gail Donahue earlier, was like, I didn't even know that she was Christian. So that's interesting. That's really crazy. But it was his belief that Jeanette had met some local occultists, you know, of course, just out and around town. Yeah. And she, quote, tried to lecture them about Jesus, the person these people detest. Their fanaticism arose and they killed her. So he thought...

That whilst hitchhiking or, you know, going about her merry way, Jeanette came across a group of occultists. How she would have known. Who hate Jesus now. They don't believe he exists. How she would have even known that they were occultists. I'd love to know. Maybe they were dressed in all black. They were wearing black. Shrouded in. They had black fingernails. Come on. Yeah, like weird makeup. Who knows? Yeah, come on.

And she said, can I tell you about Jesus? And they were like, absolutely not. We're going to kill you. They said, that guy? I fucking hate that guy. That's literally, they don't believe in that. When has that ever happened? Wouldn't that be the whole shtick? Also, when has that ever happened? And also, where did this happen? Where did she run into a cultist? In the woods. And no one, just in the woods. In the woods, obviously. Just in the woods. I forgot. There are

I'm always thinking that. At the devil's teeth or whatever it was. Yeah, that we better not take a walk through the woods because we'll run into some occultists who are just waiting. That's usually why I head into the woods. Yeah, let's go. Make some friends. But it's like, that doesn't make literally any sense. And again...

To have, they are spinning this narrative that is so infuriating. That's like, her friends are literally saying, I didn't even know she was that Christian. Yeah. Like, she wasn't out here. I just knew she was a cool person and a good friend. Like, preaching to all of us. Like, she was just a good person and a nice friend. But of course, the reverend has to be like, she was trying to tell them the word of God. She was out there spreading the word of God. And it's like, first of all, if she was, she was. But it's like, second of all,

Everyone close to her is saying that's not true. Doesn't sound like it. So I don't think she was just randomly doing it one day. And again, I don't know. And for them to be sitting there saying this, like, I don't know Jeanette De Palma. No. I know what I am finding out about her through people that knew her. And these people who don't even know her are sitting there being like, I know exactly what happened. This is what happened. She was out there preaching the word of God to some occultists that she met randomly in the middle of the fucking woods. And it's like, no. No.

No. What are you doing? Like, what, to derail a case like this with this nonsense. Is criminal. Is infuriating. It should be criminal. Because she, she should have been the focus. And the focus became, look at it, they used this. Oh, yeah. They used this, this, like, particular branch of this community. Yep. 100% used Jeanette's murder. Yeah.

To further their whole conspiracy of the youth of today is getting corrupted by Satanists that are wandering around the woods. And it's like, okay, so we're just going to forget about Jeanette, 16-year-old Jeanette who got murdered. Right. We're just going to forget about her. Exactly. Because now she's furthered your narrative. Well, and it's like your case that you just covered. Yeah. Bobby Dunbar. Yeah.

it's sold papers. Yeah. Salacious, weird shit sells papers. It's true. And people take that and they run with it. And then the truth of what the poor victim went through is literally lost forever. Oh yeah. And their memory is tainted forever. Yeah, they just, they check their own humanity at the door before they go and print this shit. Yup. And they pick it up on the way out. Yup. But it's like, it's,

So gross. It is. They used her to further this bullshit conspiracy of Satan worshippers wandering around in the forest. And it's like, nope, the focus should be on Jeanette and what was going on here and figure out who did this to her. Exactly. And they didn't. Well, and on the completely flip side of things, other people took a far less sympathetic approach to the story and just associated Jeanette with hippie culture and blamed her murder on drugs. Wow. Even though there was literally no evidence that she had done drugs. Wow. Yeah.

And it's like, okay, and if she had done drugs, does that mean she deserves to be murdered in the middle of the woods? To send people. Like, damn. Yeah, that's nice. That's cool. That's awesome. Apparently everybody's checking their humanity somewhere. Yeah, I don't know what was going on. Jesus. On these parts.

Well, about a year into the investigation, a young man referred to as Terry Rickle. I don't know if that was like a pseudonym. It kind of seems like it is. He approached Ed Kish, Officer Ed Kish, and said he had some information about the case. According to Terry, there was a local unhoused man who went by the name Red Kira, I think it is. And he was living at a campsite at the quarry very close to where Jeanette's body was found. Okay.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, really? I'm like, I feel like we're doing the same thing over and over again in this case. We're not getting the best results. Kish said, I want to say that Red was cleared and that he was no longer a viable suspect. I was told this was because of the differences in age and lifestyle between Red and Jeanette.

But I'm like, it can't have just been the difference between age and lifestyle because older people in very different lifestyles murder people in younger, very different lifestyles literally every single day. Yeah. So there's more to that. But he was cleared. The press continued to focus heavily on, you know, of course, the supposedly occult aspects of the case, going so far as to literally interview members of the Church of Satan for their perspective on the case.

Behind the scenes, though, investigators were getting nowhere, of course. And with the exception of Red Kira, no new leads had been uncovered. Zero. By the following year, the case had gone entirely cold, and the story slipped further and further from the front pages of the local papers until the press just stopped reporting on it at all. Wow. Because Satanic Panic eventually did die down. Wow. So, I mean, they really showed their ass on that one. Oh, yeah. They were just like...

Well, we were using it to further this narrative that sold papers and got everybody riled up. And now that that's over, we don't really care what happened. People are interested in something else now. Wow. So let's put that to rest. That's not shameful at all. Just forget the memory of the 16-year-old girl who was murdered brutally in the woods in the middle of the day. Yeah. Well, by the late 1990s, Weird New Jersey Magazine started writing about Jeanette's case. And through their heavy reporting on the case, they sought out anybody associated with the case for comment.

The resulting articles attracted the attention of several members of the Springfield community who remembered the case, and soon anonymous letters started coming into the Weird New Jersey office. Jesse Pollock, a correspondent for the magazine Remembered, we got a tip from a relative of one of these other victims found in the area. They said, you better take a look at this because the MOs are very similar. Now, this is the first time you will ever hear actual investigation into this, and it's compelling. Yeah.

And it's done by the weird New Jersey. It's done by weird New Jersey. Good for them. Who we love. I was just going to say weird. There's so many different state offshoots. There's so much fun. But like good for them. Yeah. And it's like I can't believe it came down to them having to do it. Yeah. When you hear what they found, you're like how was that not investigated at the time? Because it wasn't important. Because this is genuinely so compelling. Yeah. None of this was important. It was furthering that narrative of satanic panic. Which is

Devastating. Yeah. Jesse and his writing partner, Mark Morin, I think it is, started digging into similar murders committed around that part of New Jersey in the few years before and after Jeanette's death.

And they discovered a number of murder victims who were very similar to Jeanette. Jesse said all were young, attractive brunettes with the same hairstyle. Come on. All were between 16 and 24, average height, all thin, Caucasian, and all supposedly picked up hitchhiking. All were killed by obstruction to the airway. All found dead, arranged face down in a wooded area.

come on there are not that many motherfucking coincidences in life everybody let's be real literally shit same mo same victim profile same dispose like body disposal same method of killing what the all in the same area within a span of years before jeanette was killed when jeanette was killed and after jeanette was killed

I'm shook by the fact that they just ignored all of this before. That weird New Jersey had to be the people that reported on this. And like decades later. Decades later. That the police... And I'm like, there's no way that the police that didn't come across their desk that...

you know, all of these thin, young, attractive brunettes with the same hairstyle between a very similar age were killed similarly. I think they weren't looking to see if there was anything connected. I think all they were looking for... How did that not slap you across the face, though? All they were looking for... You don't even have to look for that. Well, because it didn't fit their narrative. So they're not going to look at it because it doesn't fit what they were trying to get across. They went looking for ritualistic...

crime scenes and things to do with Satan and things to do with like leading a fucking band of demons and all that shit. All the really important stuff that you should look at when you are trying to solve a case of a 16 year old girl's murder. Meanwhile, look at all of that. And instead you're supposed to be saying, huh, are there any victims in the area that are of the same profile were killed in the same way? Are there anything that we can link to this? None of them did that. Tons. None of them did that because it didn't further that narrative. Tons.

It's insane. It was a preconceived idea of what they wanted to get across when Jeanette was killed and she was used for that purpose. How wild is that though? Now I want to get these guys on the podcast. I'm like, let's fucking solve. I would love to talk to them. Jeanette's case, man. If you guys are listening, you're invited anytime. That's very impressive that you guys were able to do this. Insanely impressive. Yeah. And we love your books. We literally have many of them in the office. We do.

We do. We've used them for like cryptids and shit before too. We have, yeah. They're awesome. But back to this story. At the time of the murders, law enforcement agencies operated independently. And like we've seen in a lot of cases, they were not very good at communicating with one another. And even if they had been able to, the concept of a serial killer was still a few years away from entering the public consciousness. So it's really actually unlikely that they would have had the resources and relevant information that would have led them to that conclusion way back then.

But still, Jesse Pollack and Mark Morin believe one man was responsible for several of these murders committed in the area during the 70s. I can see that. Including Jeanette DePalma. Pollack said, Yeah.

Which is even scarier. Even scarier. I don't think that's the case. I think somebody was operating in and around New Jersey, had a victim profile, was murdering these young women in the same manner and disposing of their bodies in similar ways and got away with it.

Because everybody was like, Satan. Satan. I agree. I think they are on to something huge. Now, more than 50 years have passed since Jeanette's body was discovered at the quarry, and police have made no additional progress toward closing this case. To some, the occultist and devil worship angle is still a sufficient explanation for Jeanette's death, and to them I say, grow up. Yeah. Do better. Truly.

seek help yeah but others like pollock and moran believe the more modern theory that jeanette was murdered by an experienced killer who would go on to kill again and again and again and then there are those who hold on to their biases and preconceived notions in 2019 don schwart told a reporter they were probably doing drugs and god wow despite a complete lack of evidence of drug use literally no evidence to that but sure but yeah totally

The circumstances of Jeanette's death, honestly, at this point might not ever be known and her killer may never be identified. In a 2024 interview, Ed Kish summed things up and agreed, telling a reporter he didn't believe the case would ever be solved. He said, the cops are only as good as the evidence left behind. And in this case, there was virtually no evidence left at the scene. And according to Kish, kids tend not to talk and whoever had knowledge of what may have happened would be taking it to their graves. Wow. That's devastating. Yeah.

unreal that that is the turn that that story took. I just like... And I hate hearing it's probably never going to be solved because I refuse to believe that. I refuse to believe that too. I think the work that the guys over at Weird New Jersey did has some fucking legs. Yeah. And I think you get the right eyes on that. I mean...

There has to be some kind of DNA left at one of those scenes. And genealogical DNA is so fascinating to me. I think it really is going to solve so many more crimes. And if you can connect those things, connect a few of those things.

Figure out who it could be and then trace backwards and see if you can connect her back to it. Start pulling that string. There's got to be a connection. There's got to be. Like, it's, there's got to be something there. I mean, the thing that's awful about Jeanette's case is that they really, I mean, they lost vital records. And it looks like they half-assed the autopsy. They half-assed the autopsy. I don't even know. I don't think anything was even discovered on her body. That's pretty shameful. You know?

But I really, really hope that they can do something. I know at one point, I think as recently as 2019, they wanted to test her clothing, but it was being left up to decision. And I don't know if they came to a decision about that. Come on, guys. I know.

I know. It's pushed to get it done. Like, come on. Like, look at the Lady of the Dunes. Look at the Somerton Man. The Boy in the Box. Those are the things that give you hope. They're so old. Cases that were never going to be solved. Even older than this case. Yeah. Even older than this case. I mean...

the Golden State Killer, obviously not older than this case, like around the same time. But still, that was a massive one. It's like, holy shit. That guy thought he was going to live, Joseph James D'Angelo, whatever his name is, thought he was going to go live the rest of his days. Boom, interrupted. Let's interrupt the motherfucker who took these people's lives away from them. Yeah, absolutely. And

Because then it would take away from the whole satanic panic and occultist thing of it all. It would be like, nope, that's stupid. It's this guy. Remove that part of the story. Remove it. Yeah. Get rid of it. Torch it. And then it can be what we've been saying it is, which is bullshit and a distraction. It's a monster of a human. Yeah. Ugh. So sad. Damn. So sad. But I really hope that at some point it could get solved. Yes. Yes.

And in the meantime, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you don't go tell the weird New Jersey guys that we want to have them on to talk to them about this case because how great would that be? Mark and Jesse, let's go. Are you listening? Are you listening? Love your books. Oh my god, I love your work. ... ... ... ...

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