Born to Kill

Hello everybody, Deborah Roberts here to tell you what our 2020 True Crime Plus subscribers are listening to this week. All six episodes of The Scream Murder, a new podcast from 2020. They're available to subscribers now ad-free. And as always, subscribers get access to hundreds of our 2020 episodes going back years. If that sounds like something that you are interested in, well, subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts now. Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the save. Join for just $20. At BJ's dot com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's home of the save. The crime scene was one out of a horror movie. The house was an old abandoned house. Deep into the wood line, you couldn't even see it from the street. The walls had holes in it. Old stained mattresses laying on the floor. Empty beer cans, empty soda cans, just trash everywhere. The house itself had been abandoned for Lord knows how long. There was graffiti and stuff written on the wall. The walls, satanic graffiti. Real dark. If the house could tell stories, I'm sure it would have a lot to tell. I didn't even know it was there. I've been in Fountain Inn in Simpsonville since 2002, and I never knew it was there. There was a lot of people that would go there and smoke and drink and things. I guess it was something a lot of high schoolers had done before us. A house in the woods that we could go hang out after school and not get in trouble. It is what we thought it was. Looking back now, it's terrifying to even think about it. This is a picture that Katie took. This is me and Katie. That's me right there and that's her right there. This was the day of our 5th grade graduation. So like, this is another one of her. You know, it just shows her smile, and there's like a little bit of goofiness to it. We went to Hillcrest High School together. All these photos were taken right before our senior year started. Everybody had to wear, you know, just something appropriate. Katie Blauvelt was a young girl living in Simpsonville, South Carolina. Simpsonville is one of the South Carolina small towns. It has very few businesses. Everybody kind of knows everyone. She liked One Direction. I just remember her being really big about them. My ringtone for her was "You Don't Know You're Beautiful." When I hear that song, I still tear up because that was her song. She just didn't realize how beautiful she was. She just liked happy music, something with a good beat. She just always wanted to be bouncing, singing, going. She just always wanted to be bouncing, singing, doing, having fun, going on an adventure. Katie had gotten over some hurdles. She was on her way to a new life, working at PetSmart, got in a new car. I co-signed for her a 2011 Ford Fiesta. Nice little car, really cute. And so she was happy to finally have her own little car. She loved that thing. We worked at the PetSmart in the Pets Hotel, which is a doggy daycare and boarding facility. She had the biggest heart I've ever known. Never met anybody that she was unkind to, absolutely obsessed with animals, loved Harry Potter. That's her turtle tattoo. Turtles were her thing. Katie was my mom's little sister, so she was my aunt. We're four years and one week apart. She was just always there for me when I needed her, and she was my best friend. Always somebody who I could talk to. Not one person had a bad thing to say about Katie. Everybody said she was loving, she was fun. She had a good job. She was just doing the things that a normal 22-year-old would do. On October 24th, Katie goes to work. We have her time cards where she checks in at PetSmart. She ended up clocking out just a few minutes after 2 p.m. on the 24th. She was supposed to meet up with her niece, Cheyenne, later on in that day. Cheyenne called her after she'd gotten off work and told her to come by. We'll go grab something to eat, we'll hang out. I called her and I said, "Do you want to come hang out with us after you're done with work?" And she said, "Yeah, I'll call you later." Cheyenne even said that the conversation was a little weird, that Katie wasn't her normal self on the other end of the phone. But she didn't really know why. She was just very vague on the phone, and I was like, "What are you doing?" And she was like, "I don't really know." Didn't think much of it until later on. I look back, I realize that she. sounded uncomfortable. But at the time, I didn't pick up on that. She doesn't show up. She doesn't call. She's not answering her phone. It's like she's disappeared. No missed calls, no messages. Katie wasn't there, she's not answering her phone. Just nothing. So then I just started up the chain. Like, call mama, make sure she's on this too, see if she's there, is she asleep. Brandy calls me. She said, "Is Katie there?" I'm like, "No." She said, "Have you seen her, talked to her?" I'm like, "No." I said, "She's not here." She said, "Something's not right." Word gets out in Simpsonville, "Hey, Katie's missing." So everybody kind of knows, "Hey, this isn't right, something's wrong." They're out there looking for her. Friends, family, coworkers. Everybody went out looking for her. Everybody. I said, "If I don't hear anything by morning, I'm going straight to the police station." So I did. And I went down to Simpsonville Police Station and reported her missing. And then that's when law enforcement gets involved and starts trying to track down where Katie is. So they said, "Just go home and wait." And that was the hardest thing to do, was just go home and wait. But we didn't. We got in groups and we were searching places she'd hang out. I was the investigator who was on call. I got a phone call from the uniform patrol supervisor who was meeting with the family. He related the information. He gave me information about the case to me. I immediately felt like this was something we needed to jump on as quick as possible. I contacted her cell phone carrier and went ahead and requested what's called an exigent ping, where they were able to give us either the current location of the phone if it's turned on, or the last known location. Her phone was pinging way out of state. And they actually get some information back from the wireless provider that shows that she's up in West Virginia. Katie's GPS actually said she was in Bluefields, West Virginia. I said, "Does this make any sense? Do you know anybody up there? Is there any reason she'd be going in this path?" They said, "Absolutely not." Katie's been missing about 24 hours now. And her friends and family are asking, "What is she doing there? Did she go on her own? Or did someone take her there?" Around 1:30, 2:30 in the morning, Brandy called me and said, "Mom, something's going on." I knew. I knew from that minute what happened. And I was just screaming. Two of Katie's friends, Wayne Roper and Ricky Hargrove, go looking for her. And the first place that they search is honestly so creepy, it's the kind of place you expect to find a body. Dispatch received a phone call from two young men. They were friends of Katie's, and one of them had just gotten off work at the local Walmart at midnight. Wayne Roper was a good friend of Katie's. Knew her for a really long time, went to school with her. And they decided to go to this house because it was a place that they had all hung out in the past. She's been missing for, I think, 30 hours now. And we went into the woods where we used to all hang out at, and there's a house there. And we went looking for her there just in case, like she might be there staying or something. They did a search of the entire house, and the last place they checked was the basement. There was a concrete. Box formed in the floor of the basement. It was covered with a piece of plywood. These two boys removed the plywood and found Katie's body. What's wrong with her, sir? She's not alive. She run away? No, ma'am. We found her in the cell, not alive. It went from a place where they used to socialize and have fun to a tomb. I believe it was Investigator Moorcraft who called. me to notify me that we had a murder and we had located Katie's body and that I needed to respond as an additional investigator to help out. Okay, hold on for me, sir. So you have police on the way? I've got police on the way. All right, we'll stay for you if you could just advise. Sir, I should have officers pull him up now. Can you see him? Yes, sir. The abandoned house itself has got its own special brand of creepy. Then you add in the fact that law enforcement's discovering this crime scene after midnight, late night. There's floorboards missing. There's all this spray paint on the walls. And then you see the camera pivot and turn to walk down into the basement. Then you just see Katie's body. She is naked from the waist down. She's got her shirt pulled up. And she's got that board covered on top of her. And you can just see a stab wound on her neck. Her shirt's soaked in blood. The actual handle of the knife wasn't present on the scene. And the entire blade was inside of her neck. The six-inch knife, 4.9 inches into her right neck, cut the carotid artery in the left jugular vein. And she bled to death. She wasn't wearing any clothes from the waist down. Obviously makes you concerned if there's some sort of sexual assault. The coroner's office tested to rule out a sexual assault. There was no signs of sexual assault. Police say that they find blood spatter in the undergrowth of the bushes near the house, which makes them think that Katie was likely killed outside and her body taken inside the farmhouse. They were dragging marks and blood leading from outside the house down to the basement and into this hole, if you will. You could tell she'd been there more than 12 hours or so due to some different things that we found on the body. Pathologist said there were some injuries on her hands and all that would be consistent with defensive type wounds. I think she fought. There was no signs of where her cell phone was. It was still turned off. We couldn't locate it anywhere in an initial search of the crime scene. So that was the thing we really wanted to get our hands on. I passed by the abandoned house and saw the cops there that night. Something just clicked in my brain and I was like, "Why else would they all be here?" I knew. I knew Katie was dead. I got out and went and asked one of the policemen. I said, "Is it my daughter you found? Tell me. I just want to know." They said, "We can't tell you anything. You need to go home and just wait for somebody to contact you." I remember screaming. I was just screaming. And I remember somebody picked me up and put me back in the car and took me home to my mom and dad. I was checking the news and I saw that there had been a body found and I kind of looked at my roommate and I was like, "I'm not gonna think anything until I hear something." I found an article just scrolling through Facebook and it said, "22-year-old body found," and I was just hoping and praying it wasn't her. Just please don't be her. The body of a 22-year-old Catherine Blyveldt was found in the cellar of an abandoned home on Main Street, having about one o'clock this morning. Police say her family had reported her missing just hours earlier Tuesday afternoon. I picked up the phone and I didn't want to hear what he said, so I handed it to my husband. And I remember watching my husband's face, and that's what told me there's nothing else to do. Cops are asking themselves, what are the chances that these two guys who found Katie's body found it in the first place? What made you go to that house specifically at midnight? Since this is obviously a death investigation, we kind of have to treat everybody like they may have something to do with it. Simpsonville did a really thorough job investigating this case, so they looked at everyone. That included Wayne Roper, that included his friend Richard Hargrove that was there with them that day that found Katie. What we want to do this morning is talk to you about how you came about to find Katie. Just ask you some basic questions, okay? Oh, these two guys called and said that they had found Katie's body in an abandoned house between Simpsonville and Fountain Inn. So tell me what happened once you got to the abandoned house. We went through all the rooms, then uh, shunned all the light down in the basement. At the bottom of the flight of the steps, there was some kind of concrete structure to the ride, and uh, it looked like somebody had shoved the body in there. Then I looked in there and I see a white jacket that had dirt on it, and then I looked around in there, and I see the horn. Wayne pointed out the body, and I couldn't believe it at first. All I did, I looked in there, and I remember I said, "Oh my God." I couldn't handle it. I had to, I started leaping right then. Who at 12:30 at night is going to go to this abandoned house by themselves, without contacting the police first, or without going with a group of, you know, friends? It seemed a little bit strange to us. This was a pretty obscure place for someone to find the body. We couldn't figure the odds of these two guys deciding, they're going to go look for Katie. And they go check one place and find her under a bunch of trash in the basement of this abandoned house. Um, tell me how you knew this young lady? Um, Katie? Yeah. She, I went to school with her. I've known her since then, and then we did date, and it was pretty much it. And then we've been hanging out pretty so often. Has Katie ever made you mad, or? No, sir. Were you guys talking like you were trying to get together? No. This latest time? No, sir. We were just, we were being friends. She was just telling me everything that was, like, going on in their lives, and everything. Detectives interview Katie's niece, Cheyenne Paxton. She tells police there's no way Wayne could have killed Katie. Wayne would never do something like this to Katie. Wayne and Katie have known each other since I was 11 years old, and that's how I know Wayne. And Wayne wouldn't do something like this to Katie. We just, we felt bad that he asked it. I understand, but you've got to look at it from our perspective. I know. It's very suspicious that he's the one that found that body, especially where it was. Of course, we didn't know either of these two. We didn't know their relationship to Katie. - If you don't mind, I'm gonna take some pictures of you. - Wayne and Ricky submit to DNA tests. They have their bodies photographed. - Turn around. - They turn over their cell phones. So it seems like Wayne and Ricky are in the clear. - All right, we'll be in touch with you then. I appreciate your time. - However, they get called back into the interrogation room because a neighboring police department from Fountain Inn that's working on the case wants to talk to them. - Hey, Ricky, I gotta tell you, man, it seems like every time you kind of go over the story, a little bit more is added to it. Does that resonate in your mind? - I mean, you guys are asking me the questions, I'm answering them. - And we run that blood on plants around that house where a body's found, and it comes back, and you're the winner. What do you think's gonna happen to you? - You're gonna think that I did it. - Do you see how we would think that anyway? - Yeah, I think that it's weird that, like, I'm the one that found her and that we just, it's just a weird coincidence that I just went to her-- - I don't believe in coincidences. Not like that. I'm not opposed to helping anybody that's made a mistake, Wayne, but I can't help you if you don't tell me the truth. - I'm telling you the truth. - You're telling me part of the truth. - I'm telling you the full truth. - It's just hard for me to get my mind around how they go into this abandoned house with flashlights and find her buried under a bunch of stuff. I mean, just didn't pass the smell test to me. - Wayne, did you kill, did you kill her? - Yes, sir. - Do you know she was dead, though? - No, I didn't, sir. - Why else would you go straight down to where she was? - I didn't go straight there. I don't know what, I'm not telling you. That's all, like, I've told you everything that I can think. - And I'm like, I can tell him he didn't do it. I can promise you he didn't do it, I know he didn't do it. - We were thorough enough that, even though we were suspicious about that, you know, they were eliminated and they were actually, you know, telling the truth. - These gentlemen had nothing to do with it. - And, you know, if I could ever say anything to Wayne, it's two things. One, thank you for being the one that found her, but I am so sorry it was you that found her. 'Cause I can only imagine what he went through for that. And I hurt for him for being the one that actually found her. - Police tell us they do have a few leads, but no defined persons of interest just yet. - Wayne and Ricky have been cleared, so police turn their attention to other people in Katie's life. - They do start with the people closest to her. - Even though Katie may look young, the 22-year-old has already been married. But then investigators find out that she's recently separated from her husband and they decide they need to talk to him. - And at this point, we're able to say that it is a cap. Okay, I'm so sorry for your loss, sir. ♪ ♪ Especialized by My Mom's Murder, a podcast from Audible. Lauren Malloy spent 30 years thinking her mom had died of natural causes. That's what everybody told her. That's what she believed. Until one day, she got a phone call that changed everything. A woman claiming to be her mom's best friend told Lauren that her mother was actually murdered and that no one had ever investigated it. Well, she became kind of a detective. She pulled the threads, knocked on doors, and confronted the contradictions. And what she found was worse than she imagined. Something happened to Lori Malloy. Someone killed her. And Lauren won't stop until she finds out who. The system may have given up on her mom, but family never will. Listen to My Mom's Murder wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all 10 episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. The show is supported by Chime. Here's a message your younger self would have liked to hear. There's a bank out there where you don't have to pay all those endless fees. It's called Chime. Chime is a breath of fresh air compared to all the other banks that charge you for everything. With Chime, there are no monthly fees, no overdraft fees, and no minimum balance fees. Instead of fees, you get rewards. You get 5% cash back on Chime Card in a category of your choice, like gas or groceries, all while building credit through their regular everyday spending with no credit check. You can also grow your money faster with a savings rate that's nine times the national average. And if you're ever in a pinch, SpotMe lets you overdraft up to $200 fee-free. Join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to Chime.com/20, spelled out T-W-E-N-T-Y. Sign up now. It only takes a few minutes. That's Chime.com/20. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime Card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to Chime.com/disclosures for details. Hank joined BJ's Wholesale Club the day he became a father of 30. I coach football. Now Coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices, 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks. And that's just pregame. He knows teamwork, and BJ's knows savings. This is your home, Coach, home of the save. Join for just $20 at BJs.com/20. Chime.com/Mosquite and save $0.10 per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's, home of the save. This is Josh Payton. He's the detective. This is Gary Sessions, he's the detective corner. At the time of Katie's murder, she was actually living with her parents because she had separated from her husband, John Blauvelt. What's your wife's full name? Ann Blauvelt. Okay. And are you familiar that she's missing? I don't know. Okay. He didn't file the missing persons report because they weren't living together at that point in time. They hadn't been married very long at all. They get married in December. They are married a few months before they had separated. She said that it was over. She was done. She didn't want to be with him. Naturally, detectives have questions for John. But before they can get to that, they need to inform him that his wife has been murdered. John was considered next of kin since he was still legally married to Katie. John Blauvelt is in the army. He's currently serving as a recruiter. So myself, the deputy coroner, and an investigator from Fountain Inn went to his office and made the death notification. Out off of Southeast Main Street, there was a body that was found in a house, an abandoned house. And at this point, we're able to say that it is Kat. OK, I'm so sorry if we lost her. We are obviously in the process of investigating this. Katie and John Blauvelt started dating sometime late 2014. She worked at Firehouse Subs, which is a sub shop. And right next door was the army recruiting station. And that's how it started. She just worked right next to him, and I remember her saying that he would come in and get drinks and talk to her. He was nice, very talkative. She kept him secret for a while. And the reason was, I think, is because he was separated from his wife, but he wasn't divorced yet. And I found out he had a daughter. But she would crawl up in Katie's lap in a heartbeat. And Katie was very protective of her. She really loved her. We were laying on the trampoline in my mom's backyard, and we were just talking. And she told me, she said, I think that I'm falling in love with John. And I remember being a little shocked. I was like, I thought this was fun, something you were playing with, but I didn't know it was that serious. I was at work one day, and we were texting. And halfway through the text, she said, oh, by the way, me and John got married. I'm like, what? When? She said, yesterday. That was fast. That was really fast. For better or worse, it went to worse pretty quick. And then-- Katie moved out of the house. We were the worst couple. We argued a lot. She moved out in April, I think. And then we talked on and off. Mostly, she just wanted to see the dog. So she would come over with her dog. But we couldn't really connect again. That wasn't really working. I know she still loved him. I do know that she talked to him. I do know she hung out with him. Him and Katie were definitely still around each other. They would both find excuses. Katie was like, there's still-- there's still a way where we can fix everything, you know? She wanted her marriage to work. But it's like every time she would go back, she would just realize how wrong it was. But then she gets up right back into it. Who do you know that would want to do harm to her? Nobody. I can't think of nobody that would actually want to do anything to her. Because she's just average, quiet. Have you ever gotten so mad at her that-- that maybe you did something you didn't mean to do. - No, absolutely not. I used to have a drinking problem, so I used to get pretty mad. And we used to have, like, yelling matches and ****. But she had some lungs on her, so we could go back and forth all night. But I hadn't drank in two months now. Just because I'm trying to turn my **** around. Are you familiar with this abandoned house? Yeah. Okay. That's the spot. What's the spot? The hangout spot. When was the last time you were there? Probably, I don't know. Like a week ago, a month ago? It's been months. What starts out as a death notification starts morphing into an interrogation. And the more questions that the cops ask, the more uncomfortable John becomes. Am I being charged with a crime? Because he's recording me, and I'm not comfortable with that. No, if I am, I'd like to come. I'll take an order. Because this is uncomfortable. Okay. You're not, you're, you're not being charged. Okay. With crap right now. Our job is to find out. What happened? Who killed her and bring them to justice. Chief Steve Moore tells us that Catherine Blauvelt was last heard from that same afternoon while driving in her car. That car is now missing. Her car was not located at the crime scene. We didn't know where the vehicle was, so we entered it on NCIC, basically as a vehicle of interest in a murder case. We believe that the car would hold evidence, you know, that we could use in this case, but so far we haven't been able to find it. Now, this is what that car looks like. It's a 2011 black Ford Fiesta. If you have seen or heard anything about this case, the Simpsonville Police Department wants you to call them. On the same day that cops are talking to John. There's a huge development in the case. A Greenville County deputy located the vehicle in the parking lot over on Whitehorse Road and called in the VIN number on the vehicle and came back as a match to the vehicle we were looking for. We are pulling into the strip mall where Katie's vehicle was dumped on the day that she was killed. Katie's car, key evidence about what happened in the last few hours of her life. And now. Surveillance video. Is the killer caught on tape? From the time her body was found, it was later that day that the car was found. We got the 911 call a little after midnight, and her car was located at Joe's Auto a little after 6.30, 7 o'clock. Law enforcement found that car quick. This is the parking lot where Katie's vehicle was stashed after she was killed. Same day. We put out a BOLO for her vehicle, so area law enforcement agencies were looking for it in relation to her murder. Greenville County deputies came up on the vehicle. Katie's car contains clues, but we're not talking about DNA or fingerprints here. It has this tiny little insurance device that's called a snapshot that's hidden underneath the dashboard. It was equipped with a data collection unit that plugs into the OBD port, and it measures their driving activity to get lower rates or higher rates in some cases. Snapshot from Progressive. Plug it in and you can save on car insurance. The insurance company says it uses this device to personalize rates so it can measure how good and safe a driver you are, and Katie was trying to save some money. Now authorities are hoping that this little box is going to pay off for them. I think that was some pretty good evidence that we've found, because not only did it show his erratic driving, but it also showed the trajectory of Katie. Katie was very greedy from when she left work to when she got to the abandoned house as well. It's powerful. It's just powerful. It's breadcrumbs from murder to where they left the car finally on White Horse Road. It showed us a lot of information that we would have never gotten. It was able to pick up speeds, locations, duration of said locations, how long it took her to get from point A to point B, how long she was at that specific location. And it showed us a trajectory. It showed us a trajectory of where she went from when she left PetSmart to how she got to where her body was located. She wasn't able to speak again, but thank goodness, thank God, that her progressive insurance snapshot kind of spoke for her after that. Police say the device even recorded the driving behavior of the killer as they made their getaway. The way her car was driven after we know she was dead, you can just see it's a completely different person driving that car. He's got really high rates of speed. He was braking really quickly, speeding up, taking curves really fast, and all that matches up with that device that was on the car. The device shows that Katie's car sat at the abandoned house for about an hour and a half and then drove about three and a half miles away. They found the car without a license tape. So then, being very good law enforcement, they looked for video. One of our captains located the business across the street. Thanks for watching! As they talk to witnesses and they gather more evidence in the homicide of Katie Blauvelt, investigators start focusing in on her husband, Sergeant John Blauvelt, as suspect number one. And then in a move that you'd expect to see in a mob investigation, police put a hidden camera inside the funeral home for Katie's visitation. The footage is decently muffled. John shows up to the viewing of Katie's body. He gets a private viewing separate from the rest of the family. He brings Hannah Thompson, his 17-year-old girlfriend, to the viewing as well. He makes a remark that she still has blood on her, like they could have done a better job cleaning her up. You do not see an emotional man looking at his wife. He's kind of making fun of her. He's talking about how dirty she is. He showed up with Hannah, the last person he should have showed up with. Who brings another woman to your wife's funeral? Even if they're separated, you just don't do that. You just don't. Their relationship started before Katie even moved out. And then after Katie moved out, Hannah moved into John's bedroom. At the time of Katie's murder, John, who's 28, is dating 17-year-old Hannah. She was my friend from high school. She just was around with us a lot. Coming to his house, hanging out and smoking, and that's how John met her. All right, so November 2nd, 2016. So we contacted him again, and he voluntarily came to the police department. I lost a friend. Maybe not the best wife, but I lost her. But I lost a friend. We would have always been the worst married couple on the planet, but she was always going to be my friend. We've heard a little bit about this abandoned house. You've been there before? Yeah. He denied being in the cellar at one point, even though all of his roommates told us that they would hang out there. The abandoned house is so true. We used to go to hang out with our friends and stuff. The only people that I know that know about it, they know Katie as well. I think there's not many people. Have you guys ever been in the basement? I have been down there before. John's been there too. You ever been down the stairs in the basement? No, because the one side's all flooded out, and then you can only climb down. And then the other stairs is like missing the last step, and it's all sketchy. You can feel it. I don't know if you've gone down there, but you can feel it every step, wobbling back and forth. You don't know how you're going to get back up. He even knows that they're wobbly when you step on them, and how do you know that if you've never been down there? And he also knows that another part of the basement that Katie's body wasn't even in was flooded, and it's not visible unless you actually go down there, go down the steps to see that it was flooded. Police then asked John, why would you bring Hannah to your wife's visitation? It's all in there by myself. I'm dealing with it by myself. I'm dragging her around because she's willing to be dragged around. So John was a recruiter at the local high school, and he really just kind of became everyone's friend. He was the cool guy, the guy that would throw all the parties. It seemed like a great place to hang out and do things we weren't supposed to do. Instead of recruiting them for the Army like he was supposed to, he was recruiting them to come party at his house. Katie was against it, and she's like, I keep trying to get him to stop and tell the kids to quit coming, but they just leave. He lets them in, and they keep coming. And there's an incident at the house about eight months before Katie is murdered. There's a party with underage teens. They're allegedly drinking and smoking, and then the cops knock on the door. John wouldn't come to the door, basically barricaded himself inside, and at that point, it kind of became a standoff of sorts. We essentially just rushed the door. And got him handcuffed, and that was it. That same night, Katie goes to the police. Katie went down to the Fountainhead Police Department and reported the fact that at some point in time, John and her had gotten into an argument, and he pointed a gun at her and threatened to kill her. They did arrest him for contributing to the delinquency of a minor and a criminal domestic violence. They arrested him for both of those that night. And Katie's life was really impacted his career, so he immediately gets written up and then goes from being an active recruiter to working a desk job. He blamed her for him losing everything. Like, his whole downfall was all her fault. Katie's the person that ratted him out. Katie's the one that made up these allegations and went to law enforcement. Katie's the person that has ruined his military career. What was Hannah's response when you guys were. at the viewing? Just kind of, uh, taking them back. I mean, that's what, that's what our friends do. I mean, they were close. They were real close. Like, months. Do you have the right to report this to Hannah? Mm-hmm. And if police want to know more about Hannah, well, she accompanied John to his interrogation at the police station. Now, he brought Hannah with him, and that was a great opportunity for us to interview her as well. So, who are you dating? I'm not dating anybody. But if you look at your Facebook status, you just posted on Sunday that you're currently in the most amazing relationship ever, or something along those lines. So, who was that relationship with on Sunday? It was, I mean, it was with John, but we're not, like, in a relationship. Like, we're not dating. I just have a good relationship with him. Hannah may be a 17-year-old with braces, but she holds her own against a tough interrogation. You may love John, and you may think you two are gonna get married and walk down Yellow Brick Road. Okay, but no man and no woman is worth going to prison for. Mm-hmm. Do you agree? Yes, sir. Okay. Hannah stands by John, doesn't say anything to police, even when they show her Katie's autopsy photos. That's your friend. I don't want to do this anymore. Don't want to do what? Don't want to help us find out who killed her? All you got to do is tell the truth. It would be so easy. I can't look at her. Can I? I can't look at her. And she literally. She literally got up out of the room and left. He just told you. I don't want to talk anymore. I'm sorry. Okay. I can't talk. At that point, we had nothing to charge her or to hold her, so, you know, we had to let her leave. Hannah and John are free to go. You either have the evidence to make the arrest or you don't. If you don't, you have to let him go. I think that's one of their biggest regrets is that they didn't arrest him on the day that they searched his car and took his DNA. But this investigation is just getting started. And police will soon catch a break. In an initial search of the crime scene, there was no signs of where her cell phone was. They went back to the house and they drain out the basement, and they ultimately find Katie's phone there. Nowadays, cell phones are a treasure trove of information. They are able to extract it and get some of the information out. There was a photo, that photo was actually taken at the crime scene. Police now have a chilling window. And to Katie's last few minutes of life. ♪ Hank joined BJ's Wholesale Club the day he became a father of 30. I coach football. Now, Coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices. 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks. And that's just pre-game. This is your home, Coach. Home of the Save. Join for just $20. Just $20 at bjs.com/mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light. And slowly the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress. A hoodie slips beneath a blazer. An old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it. Layer by layer. Until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross. Shack here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shack. Thank you, Mr. Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shack. Hey, have you always been so big, tall, and handsome? Not always. I was 6'10" once. Seven days to love it or return it to you, Mr. Shack. I can't wait to see it. Not that I would, Mr. Shack. Not that I would. You never do. No. I never do. So buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com. The body of a 22-year-old Kathryn Blyveldt was found. She was found in the cellar of this abandoned home. About one o'clock in the morning. At that point, we had a lot of evidence pointing towards John, but not enough to physically arrest him. Hi, Crystal. Hello. How are you? I'm good. Oh, God. I told him anything and everything that I could. Where he was, what's he been doing, and you know, I didn't have a whole lot of insight. He was just mad. John was just mainly pissed. You know, he was like, I know everybody's going to be looking at me. I know her family is going to point it straight towards me. The level of suspicion around John Blauvelt at that time was extremely high. The very next step is an arrest warrant, and I think John sniffed that out. Did you work yesterday? Yes. Thursday? Pretty much. Uh-huh. Yes. Thursday? Yes. Yes. Thursday? Yes. Yes. I don't want to help somebody who can't put my life back to anybody, right? I'm just really scared. And that was kind of the gotcha moment. It was the nail in the coffin we were waiting for. What did he tell you about killing Jamie? He told me that the knife broke. He told me that the last thing she said was "Ow." And she says that before that, that if he let her go, that she wouldn't call the police. I think she's fortunate to be alive. I think they were one argument away from her being hurt. Did he tell you where they were when he killed her? Or what did he say about that person? He said that. he put her there. that. he put her in the water. He threw her phone in the water? What water was he referring to? He doesn't think that was funny. So at the time, there was no signs of where her cell phone was. ♪ ♪ And we had suspicion that there was something wrong with Jamie. Suspicion that there was still some communication between Hannah and John. Hannah knows. Hannah knows where he's at. We took a gamble. She will lead us to him. If you know where he is, we need to find out. Now's the time to tell me. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the Save. Addiction. You create it layer by layer. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did. And have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Hannah had come back. I have a seat right there in that chair for me. She told me that John had. I told her that he had taken Katie's cell phone and thrown it in a flooded area in the abandoned house. We were able to go back and locate a separate basement area. So not the same area that Katie was located in. And it was flooded about two or three feet of water. So they find the phone and it is submerged in water. So they call the forensic technicians. They say, hey, we have this phone. What should we do with it in order to try to be able to extract it? And they tell them to put it in rice for a while. Put it in a bag of rice and hope for the best. And so we had to give it a shot. And we let it dry out the best we could. Eventually, they were able to get data out of it. There was a photo, what appeared to be a selfie, taken by Katie. You can see there's woods in the background, which is consistent with the woods of the abandoned house. She still is on her PetSmart shirt. We had a time stamp. Around 4:17 on October 24th, she was at the abandoned house. So we know that's the time frame when she was killed. She was smiling. She was happy, not knowing what was going to happen. I don't think she knew she was in any danger. But this critical new evidence doesn't get police any closer to finding John Blauvelt, who's still on the lam. With police unable to find him, the police can't find him. They've been unable to find him for years. The case is still unsolved. And Katie's family is begging for answers. It's bad enough knowing your daughter was murdered and will never be back again. But to know her murder is free, running around doing who knows what. Hannah returns. She's not charged with anything. Myself and others, we believe there was still a chance they would be in contact. I threw a fit about Hannah. Every chance I got, Hannah knows. We took a gamble. Authorities are certain that Hannah is the key to finding John. And the U.S. Marshals interview her multiple times over the years. I looked and spent hours and hours and hours, many hours, looking at every individual that was interviewed in that case. Over and over and over. There's a seven seconds piece that I showed Hannah that actually broke the case. This is one of the interviews that the. Simpsonville PD did for John. Yeah, well, I took Hannah with me. I'm dragging her around because she's willing to be drug around. John doesn't say, "Oh, Hannah was my girlfriend, that I loved her and I trusted her." Instead, he says, "Because I could drag her around." In that moment, John reveals his true self to Hannah. Because she's willing to be drug around. That's it. When I played that for her, that was the key right there. I knew that 100% I told, "We're going to catch this guy." We called Simpsonville. And I said, "I will have her in your office tomorrow at 9:00 a.m." She is going to tell you everything. How you been? Good. Yeah? Yeah. It's been a long time, huh? How long? How old are you now? It's been, what, six years? I'm 22. All right. Well, I heard you wanted to talk to me. The floor is yours. I want you to tell me everything. We had suspicion that there was still some communication. Between Hannah and John. And she did end up admitting to the fact that she spoke with John all the way up through January or February of 2019, which is a little over two years since when they actually fled. And how are you guys communicating? Through, at the very beginning, we were communicating on Facebook and Messenger. And then after that, we were talking on Snapchat. So what was his Facebook page? It was a man named Benjamin. Hannah was still very much in love with John and thought that once the heat, so to speak, went away, that they'd be able to start their life together. I was going to move to Colorado. We were going to live there. And then I didn't, like, when I got to Texas, I was just thinking about everything. I was scared. And so I came back home. I think enough time had lapsed between the spell that John had on her. That she was no longer trying to keep him hidden. I don't know where he is. I heard him mention Ashland and Bedford. I don't know for sure. But I feel like it was in Oregon. My name is Chris Tamayo, Deputy U.S. Marshal. And I was assigned. I went to the cold case unit for this case. There was deputies and officers in South Carolina that discovered that through interviews with Hannah, she was still in communications with him. I just know the number that he's using to communicate with me. Would you already give that to the Marshals? Yes ma'am. We ended up getting records that had conversations between them via text. And once we saw this 541 area code, we immediately honed in on 541. That's an Oregon area code. We read it. We ran that phone number through a normal law enforcement database, and it came back to us, Stephanie. I know that he was living with somebody, a girl, that he said that they were dating. And when we further checked into Stephanie, it came back to this address that's right here behind me. They saw him in the yard. He had changed. He'd had a full beard, no longer the short haircut, army haircut, but had his shirt off. Chris Tamayo. The Marshal. The Marshal's office said he had a unique tattoo. It was of a pirate. I did that drive-by. We saw the tattoo, and I communicated that to them. I said, you know, we can take him outside. We can take him right now. It's him. Are you good with that? He had no shirt on. They could see his waistband. He didn't have his gun. What do you want us to do? Go get him. So John's far in the back there. We turned up the driveway. The team got in front of the vehicle, gave John commands. Police, U.S. Marshals, warrant, get down on the ground, and John dropped right in the back there. The team's got him in cuffs. I looked down at John's face. I said, look at me. I take a photo. We got a 10-15. Fugitive is apprehended. They found John Blauvelt. I said, you gotta be kidding me. What was John doing for all those years? How was he able to survive as a wanted man? Police are hoping that the woman he was living with might be able to explain. The first pictures that came out were of him on the ground getting arrested. I said, what's your name? That's when he said, Ben Klein. I was like, okay, we're going to play that game. I just went behind him and started rolling his fingerprints. It said, John Tufton Blauvelt wanted out of sight. South Carolina for homicide. I remember turning around to him and just kind of no smile anymore, deadpans and looks down. And I was like, yeah, you're going to jail. Stephanie, the woman he had been living with for five years, had no idea when she came home from work as a postal carrier that her house would be surrounded by U.S. Marshals. At the time, there were pets. We wanted to make sure the house was secure before we just took off. And we knew that Stephanie was going to be in jail. Stephanie had been with him so long. She was questioned and interviewed by the U.S. Marshals. She was completely beside herself. She had absolutely no knowledge of who this man really was. To her, he was Ben Klein. You said his name is John what? John Tufton Blauvelt. So he's being arrested on charges out of South Carolina for murder. Are you serious? Yeah. That moment that she found out, it's so raw. Her cries are so deep. Deep and cutting. Like, you can feel her pain. He murdered his wife. And then went on the run and came here to Oregon. We've been together for like six years. I mean, because that's how long we've been looking for him. Oh my God. Who she thought she knew is not the person that she knew. Have you ever seen him? Any ID? His identification? No, he always said that he was just like off the grid or didn't like anything. So I just, I chalked it up to him being like a hippie. I believed her. I knew she wasn't involved with this because she truly broke down. He found someone that would allow him to live here, take care of him. And he didn't have to do anything else. He would do random odd jobs and then like just random Craigslist things. He was. I'm basically here watching my cats and my dog all the time. While Stephanie is being interviewed by one U.S. Marshal, another one walks in and says, hey, do you know where this bag is that John's talking about that he wants us to get for him? Is that something you would allow us to take a look at? The rafters. I think it's green. It's a green hiking bag. I think it's filled to the brim. We're going through the backpack looking for anything that may just show how he was on the run. Fake IDs, stolen IDs, checkbooks, something that just indicates that he was living another life. So once we went through it, it was the journal, some fake IDs that he had. At this point, U.S. Marshals know they have something here. But they don't know how important that journal will become. He had kept that journal what appeared to be during the actual fleeing. It was during the trip with Hannah. He's writing about everything on it. Hannah's run. You know, where they're staying, what they're doing, where they're eating. He's drawing pictures of the ocean. There's a letter to his daughter in there. He talks about how sorry he is that he had to do what he had to do, but that girl was evil. And then he's writing this thing, and there's certain letters capitalized at the end. And so letters that are capitalized at the bottom of this journal entry, if you put together all the capitalized letters, it just says, I did it. I did it. Which I don't see that much. It just doesn't happen. Blavelt is being held in a jail in Oregon, but he will be extradited back to South Carolina to face his charges. A day or two later, we had flown back with him and got him back here. He really didn't show much of any emotion. After nearly six years on the run, John Blavelt appeared in court in Greenville. He pleads not guilty. A judge denied bond. He's charged with murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. And eventually, those 2016 charges of domestic violence and contributing to the delinquency of a minor were dropped. And not long after John's arrest, Hannah Thompson was also arrested. Hannah Thompson is now charged with obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact. The state attorney general's office says Thompson is looking at potentially a 55-year prison sentence. She ended up getting arrested. I think she had five different warrants between Simpsonville and Greenville County. She had an ankle monitor and house arrest that she was on prior to trial. This is a prepaid collect call from John Blavelt, an incarcerated individual at Greenville County Detention Center. While John is sitting in jail awaiting trial, he starts calling all his friends and his family, who he hasn't spoken to in years. Where you been, man? I've been all over the country, man. And it's so bad. It's bizarre. He's filling them in on what it was like being on the run. I was, like, working on pot farms and stuff like that. And I met a girl and lived in with her. Just held it down like that. Bought a house, all in her name. And then one morning, the U.S. Marshals came. I was out front, tending to my vegetable garden. And the U.S. Marshals just pulled up in the driveway. That's right. But that night, I got the best sleep that I've had in six years. So I guess there's a positive to it. I do imagine that there is some sort of relief. That comes with that. Because it's got to be a little bit freeing. That I'm not having to look over my shoulders anymore. I'm not having to pretend to be somebody else. I got a lawyer visit tomorrow. We're going to trial. Nearly eight years after Katie's murder, John is finally headed to trial. He probably thinks he's going to get off because he's just that lucky. And the star witness for the prosecution is his old girlfriend, Hannah. All these years later, and John's trial is about to begin, and he is facing the possibility of life in prison for the murder of Katie Blauvelt. The trial is underway in Greenville County for an upstate man accused of murdering his estranged wife. Six inches, 2,724. Four miles and 2,086 days. Those were significant numbers in the six inches that blade went into her body. The number of days that John Blauvelt was on the run. And then the distance from Simpsonville to Medford, Oregon. It's hard looking at him because he's like smug. He probably thinks he's going to get off. I was trying to look at his eyes because, like, right here doesn't change. I stay calm. I don't know if the witness. Thank you, Your Honor. The state calls Keith Moorcraft. Katie's cell phone had been dumped in a separate side of the basement. Please state your name for the record. Cheryl Schofield. I was confident. We had a great prosecution team, and I was confident with what evidence we had. State, I need you to give some witnesses. The state will now call Allie Somerville. Allie Somerville was one of John's roommates and also a close friend that he confided in. Please be seated. Allie Somerville had a really good insight. And I'm going to give you a little bit of a summary of what we've heard so far. We've heard a lot of good and bad about John Bloveld and what he's done for the state. We've heard a lot about John Bloveld and what he's done for the state. That's what his purpose was here on this earth. The most important witness was Hannah Thompson. Hannah Thompson was the only person that got us from A to Z in the entire case. The day of the murder, he had told Hannah, "Today is the day I'm going to kill Katie." Then told her, "I need you to drive me near Katie's job." And I'm going to stand outside of her vehicle until Katie gets off of work. That's what he said. That was when John had gotten in the car with Katie. Hannah testifies that she brings John's phone back to the house to make it look like he's there. He had staged Katie's car in a gravel, wooded kind of like drive-thru that was somewhat behind John's house at the time. What were you told to do then? To follow him while he drove Katie's car in our Stradwick, the Prius. Do you remember where you ended up? We pulled into a parking lot on Whitelish Road. Thank God for Joe's auto. He's got his video going, captures that when both cars are coming in. Who pulled in first? John. car was he driving? Katie's car. Who pulled in second? Me. John gets on Katie's car and he gets into the car and I'm driving. And then you see that gold Prius just leaving. That's incredible evidence. That was tied together by Hannah Thompson. By the time we got to trial, Hannah had a full version of events of John giving a full confession to her about how he did it. That was version number 11 of events. I don't know anything about her murder. And that had been going on for several years. In those eight years, you've had now 11 opportunities to come before this court and tell the truth. Yes. And today's that day? Yes. You've lied to your friends. And your family. Yes. And you can't lie. Yes. I don't know how you parse out what part of her statement is the truth. Her story was constantly changing. And so she alone by herself in a vacuum is not credible enough to try an entire case. But we were able to corroborate every single little step of her story. It's just a journal that John kept. She was one of the reasons why she was actually present in the trial. She wrote in that diary. She was able to identify that John's handwriting was in the diary. And again on page 39, is that John Apollo Brown? Yes. Somehow I hope you understand why I did it. That girl was evil to me. Sorry that I had to do that. But there was no other way for me. I don't know that I would categorize anything in there as a confession. John is talking to, is writing a letter to his daughter. He's not confessing and he's not apologizing for killing Katie. He's apologizing for running and not being there for his daughter and missing out on her growing up years. So everyone is wondering, is John going to take the stand in his own defense? After three days of testimony. We are raised for a closing argument as lawyers. I recognize the state. May it please the court. You don't have to take Hannah Thompson's word for it. You don't have to take Investigator Moorcraft, Investigator Schofield, or even my word for it because you can take his words for it. I did it. We're here because of tunnel vision. It became obvious that he was going to be the only person that law enforcement investigated. Then fear got the best of him and he decided to take his chances on the road. Was John a perfect husband? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But does being a terrible husband make you guilty of murder? No. After just hours of deliberations, the verdict is in. Breaking news right now out of Greenville County, the jury just reaching a verdict. The jury deliberated for about five hours today. The verdict did come back. I was just watching the judge because I am hard of hearing. Foreman, I understand that you agree to the verdict. Is that correct? Yes, Your Honor. I wanted to see his lips when he said what he said. As to the charge of murder, we the jury unites when fined the defendant, John Teak, of outlaw wealth. Guilty. I even grabbed my husband. I said, guilty? Just to make sure I heard it right, you know. And I couldn't believe it. I just started crying like crazy and couldn't stop because that's when I guess all the emotion and the stress I've been going through, it just finally broke through. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder. In South Carolina since 96, life means life. It's a pine box life as we call it. It means you don't get out unless you're in a pine box. No freedoms, hopefully no happiness. If we can't get the pain and suffering he caused my sister, at least he doesn't get anything else either. A second suspect was John Blauvelt's teenage girlfriend. She is now 25 and charged with obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact. Hannah Thompson was looking at trial at 50 years in prison. John's been convicted of murder, so what about Hannah Thompson? John Blauvelt's girlfriend, Hannah Thompson, who was 17 at the time of the crime, faces lesser charges in this case. Hannah Thompson was looking at 50 years in prison. By the time we get to sentencing though, three of the five charges against Hannah have been dropped. So now she's facing a potential of 20 years in prison. She pled guilty to obstruction of justice and mis-prison of a felony. The judge that presided over her plea got to see the value of her information that she provided and ultimately sentenced her to a probationary sentence instead of active time. She's scarred for life because of this and she knew she was manipulated. She participated, she should have done it sometime. It's hard to accept, and I recognize that, but you have to decide what's important for the conviction of the person that actually did the killing. John Blauvelt will never get out of jail. And a lot of that was due to the testimony of Hannah Thompson tying it together. And as much justice as we got with John, we got the total opposite with Hannah. And so she's living free as a bird and can come and go and do what she wants now. And that's just wrong to me. She knew what he was doing. She knew his plans. She helped him make sure he had an alibi, a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back. That's what she got. After Katie's death, her mother, Patty, brought flowers to the place where she was murdered, that abandoned farmhouse. We went down to where they found Katie. I laid roses down there. He put her there because he was taking out the trash. My daughter's not trash. She was a beautiful soul who did not deserve this. Would she have had kids? Would she have had someone who truly loved her? What would she have been doing, you know, in this moment? We've got necklaces. Necklaces that have a little piece of her. So, should we just take her everywhere we go? After she passed, I got her signature on my wrist from a birthday card and the word "parabate." It comes from a book series we liked, and it meant two warriors who are supposed to fight through life together. Katie had my name saved as that in her phone when she died. Nobody's ever heard this letter. She wrote this when she was 17. "Dearest Crystal, just remember I love you. Promise me you'll always remember me. How I can never be mean to someone without feeling guilty. How I always have to say thank you or I'll feel bad. Remember me as I sang with you on the bus, not caring who hears or if we were in tune. Oh, the good times we have. I really hope we have more, but if we don't, remember the ones we did have. Always and forever, Katie. She was a sister I never got to have. I would give anything just to have her back. Her name, Catherine, it meant pure and innocent. And that's what she was. She was pure and she was innocent. Along with her family, Katie continues to be remembered by her colleagues at that Pet Smart where she worked. In fact, they've installed a memorial to her that even includes a picture of her favorite animal, a sea turtle. As for Katie's killer, her estranged husband, John Blauvelt, he's appealing his conviction. That's our program for tonight. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Debra Roberts. And I'm David Muir from all of America. You're listening to ABC News. Good night. Good night. Good night. only. BJ's, home of the save.