Part 2: She Dreamed of Solving Crimes - Then She Became One | The Case of Brittney Gregory

Imagine you just celebrated your 16th birthday. You're dating your high school sweetheart and enjoying the summer before your junior year. You dream of becoming a forensic scientist to help uncover clues and solve murder cases. But what you don't know is that before the summer is over, someone will be trying to solve yours. This is part two of a two-part series. If you haven't watched part one yet, it's linked right below in the show notes so you can easily jump back to catch up on the case before this final episode. Investigators have a lot of questions. Who was Deborah Gregory and Joe Dunn? What kind of company did they keep? I told you in the beginning that we were going to dive into the reason why Brittany doesn't live with her mother, even though her mom only lives 20 minutes away. It seems to be by choice that Deborah is not taking care of her daughters. As investigators start to ask questions, starting with the neighbors around Greenwood Park, a very ugly picture starts to emerge. Starting with the business that was being conducted inside the household that Brittany lived in, and it has to do with Lori Peterson, Brittany's father's girlfriend. It turns out she was running a business. A supposed massage therapy business, however, according to the people in the community and those close to Brittany like her neighbor Jacqueline, it was no secret. Lori was not running a massage therapy business, not a legit one. No, it was something else. It was more of an escort type of business. And they knew this because Lori had no shame. She actually put her business cards on payphones in the area. It didn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together. There were people coming in and out of that house, strangers, individuals being serviced by Lori on a daily basis. Now in these situations, police are less interested in arresting a woman for some kind of like shady business dealings. They're more interested in knowing who was coming and going. And when Detective started to interview the residents that lived in this vicinity, who could see people going in and out? They found out some very disturbing information. There was apparently one client who would religiously come every month and he would get out of his car. I'm not kidding. Get out of his car wearing a diaper. And it had been reported that part of the service that Lori would provide to this man was to bottle feed him and change his diapers. These were the type of individuals that were coming in and out of that house where a 16 year old was living. So now investigators are really thinking this could be way more than just bringing and leaving with someone she knew. It was getting more serious. So they had to keep digging. They wanted to know what else was going on in that home. And there's more. When some of Britney's friends were interviewed, friends I had been over there, hanging over her house, hanging out. They saw drug paraphernalia, even drugs at the home so much that they actually thought drug dealing was happening. So there wasn't just the shady business with those, you know, weird clients. There were also people buying and selling drugs and doing drugs. It was bad news. As soon as Joe Don would leave for work every morning, it seemed like there was a revolving door of men coming in and out of that house. And not only that. Another friend reported that there was actually a fish bowl, the middle of the kitchen table was there every day and it was full of condoms. So you could just walk in, go over to the table, pick out a condom. Most likely to be used when you're getting serviced by Laurie. You know, if someone wants to conduct that kind of business, I mean, I don't want to know about it, but with a child in the house, that's concerning. At this point, investigators are no longer categorizing Britney's case as a missing person's case. They actually changed the categorization to homicide or kidnapping. And that's a lot to take in. Her parents don't even know that they're being investigated the way that they are. At this point, detectives, they're getting to the bottom of finding out every single person who went in and out of that house in the past month or two. And I have to say, I want to give so much credit to these police officers and detectives and everybody that was working on this case. Because every single article that I read, I mean, they were coming out every day. So much work was going into this. By day five, there were 204 state police trainees that were helping with the search. However, Britney's parents did not feel like they were in the loop. But the problem was they were out of the loop because they were part of the investigation. So investigators couldn't give them much information because they didn't know what if any involvement they could have had into what happened to Britney. Everyone has to be looked at thoroughly. And right now, things were not looking good considering the fact that drugs were involved. And that shows girlfriend is responsible for bringing strangers into a home with a minor there. Everyone was shocked. However, something big is about to happen. That was very unexpected. Britney's mom and dad were shocked. When the police announced that they had actually arrested someone, they're thinking, "What are you arresting this person for? Who are you arresting? Where is my daughter?" And what I thought was absolutely incredible were the headlines in the media. On July 18th, police had arrested a man in connection with her murder. Murder. The headlines the next morning read, "Man held in teens slaying." But as far as anyone knew, Britney was just missing. So what is going on? Why is it that everyone that cared and loved Britney is finding out that she supposedly did without hearing that she had even been found? They knew nothing. There were just more questions, more confusion throughout the entire community and even beyond. There was one thing that people were close to Britney recognized right away and that was the face of the man in the news articles. Jack Fuller Jr. Deborah was beside herself and that is an understatement. She said, "Why is Jack arrested? And why are you saying my daughter is dead? What is going on? I can't even imagine the shock that someone would be in. That this family must have been in reading these headlines, hearing that their daughter is killed without any information. I don't know if this was insensitive. I don't know how soon before these articles went out that the family was informed." But as soon as Deborah finds out that they arrested Jack, she wants to know more and they can't give her any information. So she gives them some information. She says, "I don't understand what's going on here. I just saw Jack. He is a friend of our family. We have known him for 20 years. Our daughters are friends with Jack's daughter, Cassandra. She hangs out with Bobby Joe, Brianna, and Britney. And then Deborah goes on to say, "Jo and I, we conducted our own search on the night of the 17th. And we went around that neighborhood. First, we stopped at another friend's house, Tom Long. And then we were going to go hit up Jack's house, which was right down the street. They didn't see Tom. They were just going around questioning any and all of their friends to see if they could have had any information about what happened to Britney. They said they saw Jack that night. And what they told police was a little suspicious. And now things are starting to add up because they're looking back at it. They didn't really think it was suspicious before. They said that Tom wasn't home. But when they were in the vicinity, they saw Jack walking out from the woods near Tom's house. They didn't think much of it because it's not unusual for Jack to be back there doing drugs, making drug deals back in that area near the woods. And he came right out, went up to Joe, hugged them and said, "I'm so sorry. I hope you find your baby." And this was around 330 in the morning, now going into July 18th. After that, Jack asked them if he could get a ride to a friend's house and they'd give him a ride. And that was the last time they saw him. And now they're thinking, "I just gave this man a ride." He was in the back of our car. How could a human being that might have something to do with what happened to their daughter act like that? At this point, police don't even know what happened. But all Deborah could think about was the fact that he acted so normal like everything was fine. So there's all kinds of thoughts that must have been going through Deborah's mind because she's trying to remember back all of the years that she knew Jack and think about whether anything stood out as being suspicious. She just kept saying he has his own daughter. He would not do anything to a young girl, so what is going on? The first thing that Deborah's mind was that she knew Jack was a drug addict. And that he would do just about anything to get his hands on money for drugs or drugs themselves. If the police are saying that her daughter is dead, at this point, she doesn't even know she doesn't know what to believe, but apparently they have some kind of information about it, so if they're going with that theory, she wants them to know that her daughter wore a diamond ring as well as a diamond necklace that's spelled out her name. And if anything, she would assume that Jack wanted the jewellery to get drugs, but that he would not hurt a little girl. So the police take that into consideration, but they still aren't giving anyone any details about why they arrested Jack Fuller for murder. However, on July 19th, Big Headline in the newspaper as you could have possibly imagined happening after hearing this news, it said 38-year-old man with a history of burglary and theft convictions has been charged with the murder of 16-year-old Brittany Gregory who disappeared from the family's Greenwood Loop Home last week. Authorities said yesterday that Jack Fuller Jr. of Western Drive was charged with a single count of first-degree murder, his bail is set at $1 million. Meanwhile, police firefighters and other emergency workers spend all day looking for the body of the brick township Memorial High School student. Officers from Lakewood and Brick, as well as Ocean County Sheriff's Department, were combing the area around Ocean County Park and Route 88 in Lakewood. At one point, investigators from the prosecutor's office asked for a state police helicopter, but because the weather was so bad, they weren't able to search by air, they would have to wait till tomorrow. And then it just goes on to say investigators have released a very little information in this case, citing that it is an ongoing investigation and they declined to discuss what evidence led to the charges against Fuller and what if any relationship he had to Brittany Gregory or her family. But obviously, there was sufficient evidence enough for a judge to approve the arrest warrant. I also found out that in May of 2004, Jack was sentenced in a state superior court to five years in prison for theft and receiving stolen property. Four months later, he received another five-year sentence for a burglary. And after violating his probation in December of 2002, he sent to prison and he was released in April of 2003. So this was a year before this incident occurred. They were moving so fast on this guy, he was set to make his first appearance in court the next day on July 20th. So I need to back up because I need to tell you what the police knew. And this gets to be pretty unbelievable for me at least. I've done a lot of cases and I've never had anything like this happen because basically they're taking somebody's word, which is pretty incredible. You have a man who's definitely been in prison. We know that. He's been convicted of burglary and theft and receiving stolen property. But what about any crimes related to murder? We know the criminals who have already committed crimes are more likely to be the ones that carry out even more severe crimes. But there's just so much left to interpretation and not enough solid information to understand why a burglary would go from committing that kind of crime to hurting a friend's child, someone that he had known since she was born. Jack, we know, is very good friends of the family. He's over the house a lot. He does drugs with Joe. But here's the thing, the family knew him for 20 years. Remember Boomer? That's Brittany's older brother. He's also serving time. He was actually engaged to Jack's daughter Cassandra. And that's how Cassandra got close to Brittany, Brianna and Bobby Joe. But something really significant had just occurred a couple months before all of this went down and it involves Cassandra, Jack and Brittany. Brittany and Cassandra, whose 20, they actually saved Jack's life. They saved his life. Brittany went over to Cassandra's at Jack's house. And while they were there, a taxi cab pulled up in the front of the house and Jack was in the back seat. And he was in bad shape. They didn't know what to do. They didn't know what was going on. They pulled him out of the cab. The cab drives off. They bring him up to the front of the house. And they have to call 911 because he's not breathing. He's completely blue in the face and he's having a drug overdose. So the EMTs, they rush over and they revive him and they save his life. And now we're finding out that he's done something to the same girl that helped save his life that stayed with him and made sure that he got out of this self-inflicted situation. So Deborah is just, she stunned. She's like, "This is the way that my daughter is repaid." So let's get into the truth about why Jack was arrested. On July 16, three days after Brittany had been reported missing, a man named Brian Burke calls detectives and tells them he has a tip. He says it could be connected to Brittany's case. And the case at this time was getting a lot of publicity in the local area. And that's where this man's calling from. So this man is putting two into together. He has seen the posters. He hears the story that he's about to tell and he says, "I think this is the girl." He tells police that there's a man he buys stolen property from and he met him in his girlfriend up at the holiday in on the 13th of July. This man is Jack Fuller. And while Jack is there, he starts to complain about his back hurting and Brian says, "Well, why is your back hurt?" And Jack says, "Oh, I've been digging in the sand." Brian says, "Why have you been digging?" And Jack says, "According to Brian, I killed a white girl from brick and I had to bury her." Well, that's pretty shocking. I don't think anyone's expecting someone to tell them they just killed someone. Maybe their back was hurting because I don't know, they sat wrong, they slept wrong, they were doing some yard work. But for this man to tell Brian that detail that was shocking, even for a criminal, but what's more is that Jack pulls Brian aside out of the presence of Brian's girlfriend and he's like, "Um, do you know how deep you should go when you're trying to bury a body? To make sure the animals stay away, the animals can't smell it, people can't smell it." And Brian, he just looks over and he's like, "I think it's like six feet." And that's when Jack said, "Well, he's looking concerned." And he's like, "Well, nah, it's good enough. I'm not going to go digging it up because it's in no man's land." But he does seem concerned that he possibly didn't dig the grave deep enough because according to Brian, Jack is sort of hesitating, he's saying, "Well, I don't know, I think I dug it, I don't know, four feet, maybe it was four feet? I don't know, but I really don't want to dig it back up." Not to mention, then he goes on further and says, "You know, it's in no man's land, it's in the middle of F and nowhere. No one's going to find it. It'll never be found." So I'm not familiar with the entire process of confidential informants and how all of that works, but apparently Brian Burke, he's not just any kind of criminal, he's actually given information to police before. So he's like a criminal informant. So they find him to be credible, whatever that means. I always think that's kind of like contrary to being a criminal, but they apparently bring him down to the station because it peaked their interest, they want to know more. It's the biggest lead that they have so far, but there are a lot of officers involved in this and not all of them believe this guy. He might be trying to get like a lighter sentence on something, they're suspicious and they're like, "Okay, dude, you give us this information, we don't really believe it. Who gave you all this information? Because he did not mention Jack Fuller yet. He didn't say the name over the phone, he wanted to wait till he got in person. And as soon as he said the name Jack Fuller, one of the officers who knew him looked over and said, "If Jack Fuller is involved, Britney is dead. They know they need to find out what happened. They want to find out how frequently did Jack go over to Joe's house? Was he there for drugs, was he there for Lori, or was it both? But it's not looking good. So while they have Brian at the station, they tell him to call Jack to see if they could hear him, get him a pick of the phone. They call twice and they get no answer. So the next day, which was Saturday the 17th, Brian calls the police again and says, "Oh my gosh, Jack just reached out to me. He wants to meet me in person. What am I supposed to do? He doesn't want to talk of the phone." So they say, "Come back down." And they wire him up. It doesn't have an actual wire. It's a wireless microphone. But they wire him up and they say, "Okay, go ahead and meet him at the gas station." And he agrees to do it. They also put some plain close detectives in the area at the gas station and they wait to see what happens. Sure enough, few minutes after Brian shows up, Jack pulls up and a conversation ensues. I would be terrified. But these are criminals. I guess they have a different way of thinking. Brian is just having some small talk with Jack. He's like, "Hey, what's up, buddy? How you doing? I just wanted to meet up. I just wanted to let you know. I've been talking to some of my friends. I've been watching some informative shows on forensics and I really think you should know." That four feet has not enough. He said, "Man, you need to at least dig six feet." He's like, "You only need to get three feet. You gotta go back there and fix it." And Jack, he's like kind of flustered. He says, "No, no, no, no. I told you I dug it four. I'm not gonna go back there because it's in the middle of nowhere." And her body is gonna be decomposing. It's gonna be smelling. I don't want to dig it up. Nobody knows. Nobody's gonna find her, has Rick a mortis, is gonna set in, the body's gonna be all stiff, and she's gonna be hard to carry, and she's gonna be heavy in my back. I'm just gonna leave it alone, but Brian's like, "Hey man, you need to dig that should "deeper son." And that's when Jack says, "I dug it four feet." So you might be wondering, maybe not, how would they make an arrest? Jack didn't admit to anything. He didn't really say much. He didn't say bring his name. So is this information that they were going on for a arrest for murder? Because I was a little bit surprised, but then I found out there's more. During this conversation, Jack then tells Brian, there's someone else that he needs to take care of, meaning he's gotta kill somebody else, because they know too much. And he actually turns and points to his vehicle. And in this vehicle is his cuddle friend Tommy Long. And you might have heard that name before, briefly, because Tommy is another friend of Brittany's parents. And that night when they were doing their own investigation, they stopped by Tommy's house to question him, and that's when they saw Jack coming out of the woods near Tommy's house. What he said was listen to me. I wanna tell you something right now. I got to take him out. And so Brian's like, "Tommy?" And he's like, "Yeah, but I wanna make it look like, "we'll make it look like he's been down "asparagus getting robbed." So Brian's like, "Why do you have to kill Tommy?" And Jack says, "He knows some shit "that only him can put me down forever." And then Brian's like, "Yeah, he knows about the dead body." And Jack is like, "Yeah, he knows about it." The thing I was thinking of was, why would you even tell anyone this? But these two men had been friends and childhood. Jack would have easily thought that maybe Brian would have helped him. Or I don't know, would wanna get involved and the thing is you really can't trust anyone. So even Jack, as much as he was selling him at the very end, after confessing all this, he goes up to him and he starts patting him down. He's like, "Man, are you wearing a wire?" And of course, Brian's probably kind of freaking out inside. So he pushes him and he's like, "Get the hell off me." What are you doing? And that's when Jack is like, "Dude, dude, I'm just kidding." And I'm like, "No, you're not." But he gets back in his car and he drives away, but there's a big problem. He's in the car with a man that he just told someone he was going to kill. Another thing that they found out from Brian was why Jack felt like he needed to kill the girl. And he told Brian it was because she saw my face so I had to kill her. Now this doesn't happen fast, they can't just, I don't know, go over there and pull over Jack's vehicle. Tommy was dropped off and they made sure, Jack was at a site and they wanted to let Tommy know what was going on. They wanted to get him alone. So the police tried to inform him of what they just heard and he does not want to cooperate with the police. He wants nothing to do with it. But then they played the tape forum. And after the hat, Tommy gets quiet. He's starting to understand this is a big deal. The detective wants to know why would Jack want to kill you? What do you know? And this is when everything starts to unfold. This is the part of my research where I was just laser focused on understanding everything that transpired and how Brittany ended up going missing. This is the pivotal moment. He said on the night of July 11th, he was driving around with Jack. The two of them were smoking crack. They pull over fairly close to where Brittany's house was and they had run out of crack. So Jack turns to Tommy and he's like, you know what? Let's go over to Joe's house. I know he probably has some. So let's just get it from him. Tommy said they drove up to Joe's house. They parked outside. Jack got out of the car and he actually let himself in through the sliding glass door of Joe's house. Jack comes back to the car a few minutes later. He gets inside, closes the door and then all of a sudden, Tommy realizes somebody else is opening the back passenger side door and he looks back and he sees Brittany. Tommy actually speaks to Brittany and says, what are you doing in this car? She doesn't say a word because Jack interrupts and says, I'm gonna drop you off, he's pointing to Tommy. And that's exactly what ends up happening. Tommy says they drove directly to his house and they drop him off. When they get there, Tommy gets out of the front seat, Brittany gets in from the back seat to the front passenger seat right next to Jack and they drive away. However, another thing that Tommy mentioned to detectives was that when they were sitting there doing crack, Jack also made the comment. And I'm sorry, I have to say this out loud, but that he was expecting to get a blow job that night. It was assumed he was gonna be getting it from Lori. So that's a place where you can not only get drugs, but sexual favors. That was just something that was added to the conversation. The next day, Tommy and Jack are together again and they're driving around town. They stop at a gas station and Jack gets out and he starts cleaning his car. He took the gas station's hose, not the one that you pay for to wash your car, but the one that belongs to the gas station and he's just hosing out his entire car. He's hosing down the engine, the undercarriage, it's odd. And the gas station attendant comes out. He confronts Jack and he's like, you cannot be doing that. You can't be using the hose, it doesn't belong to you. That's not what it's for. And Jack snaps back at him. He said, listen, you don't own this station and you shouldn't put your life in jeopardy for $200 a week, mind your own business. Not only that, a few days following the incident, Tommy and Jack are together once again and Tommy spots a missing person sign with Britney's face on it. So he looks over at Jack and he's like, what did you do to that innocent little girl? And Jack said, I did not do anything to her. I dropped her off at her house that night and then he says, don't ever mention her again or I'll have to start taking people out. At this point, detectives are looking for Jack and they locate his vehicle. It's on the side of the road and it's abandoned, nobody's inside. They waited the vehicle, I don't know for how long and finally they see Jack coming toward it and he's carrying a gas can. They didn't know if he had run out of gas or if he planned to torch the entire car to get rid of evidence inside. But they get him in custody. They bring him back to brick township police departments and they book him for murder. They turn back around and they go right back out to find Britney and at this point, it's a recovery search. It's no longer a search for a missing person. It's a recovery effort for her remains. And this is one of those cases where I really want your insight and your opinions and your outlook. And I know there's some people that say we're not qualified to talk about what we think could have happened. But I think by now watching as many cases as we have, researching as much as we have, we can give an educated opinion on what we believe happened in this case because it is not over yet. There is more to come. And if you know me and you watch my videos, I like to go into details. I like to know everything, leaving no stone unturned. I gotta get to the bottom of this and understand as much as I can about why this happened and what happened because right now they haven't found Britney. So they don't even know if this is true. They don't know if the information that they've been given from one criminal about another criminal is just for some other reason as a bargaining chip. But they're going to take it seriously until they know otherwise. And the media and the news articles about this are just coming out about Jack Fuller being involved. People begin to talk. Starting with Britney's own family, Susan Wood, who is Britney's maternal aunt, she's the sister of Deborah. She comes forward saying that Jack, he's a sick, cold, and rotten human being, and nobody ever wanted him around, including Britney. She didn't like him, and she wanted nothing to do with him. Apparently, Jack's own daughter, Cassandra, who we've talked about, also wanted nothing to do with him. A man named Patrick Colletta came forward who grew up a Jack, and he said that he was a person who never had a job, but always seemed to have money. And if you hung out with him, you were bound to get in trouble. He was wild. He would steal dirt bikes. He would run around and do crazy things. But he just never saw him as a violent person. And remember, we talked about that. He had done some things, but according to what we knew about his record, it didn't seem like he had done anything close to what he's being accused of doing now. Remember Barbara Brown? She used to babysit Britney. She also came forward, and she said that Britney was like a mother hen. She would have never willingly or voluntarily been associated with Jack. Yet another woman, Sherry Blavins, came forward, and she said that she had known Jack since they were teenagers, and he was a pig. He would offer drugs for sex, and he was creepy. A bad seed. And she can't tell you how many girls and women he had tried to corner. Even one of Jack's former teachers came forward and said that he was bad since he was a child. In fifth grade, him and another couple of boys were found taking parts of bicycles that were parked at the school. That same teacher, he knew about Cassandra, that she ended up going to the exact same school, and as sweet as pie, as she was, and so nice, he just had to assume that Jack must have strained his life out, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Fine, all this information is coming forward. We know how terrible Jack seems to be. It was endless. So many people that heard about this were coming forward and talking about the past. But what about the present? What happened? Nobody knew where Britney was, and detectives are focusing more than ever. If she was killed, they needed to find her body immediately, not just for clothing. for the family and to recover the remains, but also because they wanted to determine how she died. The longer a body is left out in the elements, the harder it is going to be to decipher what exactly happened. Meanwhile, Jack made his first appearance in court. And Deborah was bawling. She was telling everyone she didn't want the death penalty because it was too good for him. She wanted to see him in jail for the rest of his life and she hoped he would live to 100 so that he would have to suffer every day of his life knowing what he did. The media is going wild. They're digging up all kinds of things. They found a letter that Jack wrote to a judge back in 2000. It's when he was being sentenced for his theft and burly charges. He wrote about his experiences with drugs and how he hoped to overcome his addictions. He stated, "I want to be a productive and positive figure in my community and to help others do the same. And of course, to stay off drugs. I'm not a young man, so to say. And I truly believe I have learned that time is precious as well as valuable." Okay, Jack, because I honestly think these criminals will say just about anything so they don't have to serve the time for their crimes. And meanwhile, the search is as massive as ever. So many people are joining in and offering their services to assist police and authorities. There's helicopters in the sky. There's dogs on the ground. There are police cadets, volunteers, several different police departments putting all of their effort every single day to find Brittany. And on July 22nd, they started to search this marshy wooded area. They had 50 searchers. They had cadaver dogs sniffing all around. They were focused on this stretch of woods near the Jersey Central Power and Light Substation. It sits less than a half mile from this major riverbed. But by 7 o'clock that night, they had a call of quits. And honestly, this must have been hell for Brittany's family because it is just a waiting game. And with no information about why they could even charge Jack without a body, just imagine not knowing all of that information. The next day, a tracking expert even comes out there. And this is really interesting. There's this guy, Tom Brown Jr. Law enforcement asked him to come out for the search. He's 53 years old. He's the author of a ton of these survival training books and he operates this tracking school. So he says that he can get things done fast. If there's something disturbed, he's going to notice it. So he's seen on his four-wheeler going through a trail by a place called Ridge Avenue in Lakewood. I'm going to show you here on the map. There's just a lot of land out here. And one of the reasons why this area was of interest is because earlier on in the investigation, in Lakewood Officer, this is a different town separate from the township. He actually saw Jack leaving this area near her most drive, which is right here close to the Ocean County Garage. Searchers are using that garage as a base for all the operations so they can search in this area. This officer actually asked Jack what he was doing without knowing that Jack had anything to do with anything. And the police officer said that Jack said, "Oh, I'm I might all got out." So officer says, "Well, I'll help you find him." And he's like, "No, no, no, no, no, I don't need any help." This was the first few days after Brittany had gone missing. So they made this the target search area after this Lakewood Officer came forward following Jack's arrest because now the name had been announced. And he recognized him and I can go on and on. I can go from the 23rd to the 24th to the 25th throughout all these days, but they run into one another. It's the same thing every day. Nothing is found. Lots of different people getting involved. The family crying. People in morning and still nobody knows what happened. But then they get a call and they've been getting lots of calls, but this call stood out. A woman calls in and this woman is currently in Pennsylvania, but she's whole police. I think I know where Jack buried Brittany's body. They are shocked. They're like, why in the world would you know that? According to this woman from October to November 2003, Jack held her hostage. She said that she was addicted to drugs at the time and she was on her way to a methadone clinic. She had just been harassed by a group of men and Jack saw her outside standing on the road. He drives up, tries to swoop in and offers to give her a ride. When she gets in the vehicle, he tried to force himself on her and it worked. And then he tried tempting her with drugs in order for her to comply, totally taking advantage of this woman's vulnerable state. That's when he held her hostage and would not let her leave and instead fed her drugs for free every day. But eventually she was able to escape. However, the fact that she had been with him so long, she was able to tell authorities about his behaviors where he would go, what he would do. Jack would keep her in his car and drive around to the same spots. And there was one area in particular in Lakewood where they would go to get high. And one time he was threatening her and he said, this would be the perfect place to bury a body. There's something that this woman said that really made them think this was the area. If that that wasn't significant enough, she said it's very sandy in that area. When she used the word sand to describe the area, that was the same word that Jack used. He said he was digging in the sand. He didn't use the word dirt. He used the word sand. So they felt that this was it. This was the area they needed to pay close attention to. And I'm going to show it to you on the map. This is Bernie's house. This is the high school. This is where Jack's house is and this is the area of interest. The woman said that she would spend a lot of time in this area while they were doing crack. They would even sleep there. And if Jack suspected that anyone was coming near them, he would drive up into these power lines and hide. Meanwhile the prosecutor comes forward and says, we don't even need to find a body to prove a murder has been committed. He talked about how there was a case, a very similar case 10 years before a 15-year-old girl named Nicole Russo. She had disappeared and later her boyfriend was convicted of her killing. Her body was never found. So they're just trying to tell the public we have enough. We don't even need to find Brittany. They were confident they could bring the case against Jack Fuller and still put him behind bars. Especially because when investigators looked into that case where he held that woman hostage in 2003, it turns out he was charged with attempted forced intercourse and he pled guilty. I don't know why that wasn't talked about before in the news articles. I know there was a lot of comments about the fact that nobody thought he had anything violent going on in his past, even Deborah. She said it was probably for the jewelry for drugs, but the fact that he made that comment about getting a blowjob and then showing up at the house where he could have gotten that and drugs with all this information coming forward that he was using drugs to potentially continuously harm a woman. And that he had taken advantage of her and held her hostage. It only makes sense that this would possibly be another one of those crimes, especially if Brittany had resisted. She was looking for a ride to go to her boyfriend's house. She wasn't looking to do favors for a man that everybody knew she didn't even like, but she was desperate that night, so she got into his car and she never came back. Police had just released information about that vehicle. A tan Chevy Cavalier and the public was buzzing with new information. This was the last place Brittany had ever been seen alive. Detectives want to know if anyone saw this car anywhere it shouldn't have been. And that's when the gas station attendant that got yelled up by Jack comes forward and it turns out. Not only did Jack use the hose, he used the vacuum. So the detectives collect the remnants of which Jack sucked up from, you know, the vacuum from his car, and they send it to the crime lab along with samples of what looks like blood on the passenger side of the car. The vacuum container had a bunch of sand and it not dirt, but sand. And when they compared it to the place in question where they were gonna search, it was a match. This area is brutal. It has a ton of these little hills that people usually bring their four-wheelers out. There's brush, there's bushes, woods, creeks. They need all the help that they can get. And there's already like 200 something police cadets that are being trained while helping on this case and a number of cadaver dogs. But then there were two additional dogs brought in. One is Trooper, Brian, Trexler's, K9 partner, Taz, and the other one is from the Department of Corrections. And it's brought out by Joseph Nicholas and Bruce Myers. They were training a new bloodhound named Tilda. And this was the very first time that the dog had been out to one of these type of sites, but it was important to get her trained. Well believe it or not, and you'll probably believe it. There's competition between K9 units. It is so silly. These men are actually getting into arguments with each other, trying to tell one another. They didn't know what they were doing. Oh, you've got it all wrong. And Joe wasn't being taken seriously. Because he wasn't a detective. He was just, you know, Department of Corrections officer. The cadaver dog handlers were kind of showing him away and saying, we don't need a bloodhound. We're looking for a dead body. Our dogs will find it. That's what they're trained to do. But Joe was focusing on the evidence he had about the case, not just his dog. Because your dog is only as good as the information the handler has. And that was his belief that they were not searching the right area. Well, this didn't go over well with the detectives. Luckily, there was one officer, Lieutenant Elliott Morgan, from the Township PD, that allowed Joe to give his two cents. But it didn't stop the complaints from coming in. And after just one day, Joe's supervisor pulls him from that area and tells him you're off the case. Some of the cadets that were in training said they didn't want to follow Joe anymore. They complained that he made them walk into chest high water. But Lieutenant Morgan, he was there that day. And he witnessed this. He didn't see it as a problem. He actually looked over and thought it was incredible. Because while these guys were complaining, Joe was lifting his dog up in the air over his head and waiting through his dream. He wasn't going to stop. It didn't matter. He was going to keep going, but he couldn't because he was told not to come back. Everyone else planned to reconvene the next day to continue the search. And the night of the 27th, a candlelight vigil was held in memory of Bernie Gregory and hundreds of people gathered at the Windward Beach. The vigil lasts 20 minutes with more than 250 people holding candles and crying. And Bernie's sister has read a poem written in Bernie's voice as if she was looking down on them from heaven. One of the lines said, "I am right here in your heart." Everyone's crying. They were carrying gifts. The family had this large banner with Bernie's picture on it in the words, "In our hearts forever." But what nobody knew at the time was that a discovery had already been made earlier that day. The day after Joe was pulled from the case, he used one of his sick days to come back out there on the scene on his own time. And Joe had studied the case for two weeks. He basically profiled Jack. He thought of him as a lazy drug addict who would not make the effort to walk through creeks and brush, in places you need to climb or swim or even use a chainsaw to get through. No. All the officers were pushing to go north away from the sandy area where the power lines were, but Joe believed that Jack would take the path of least resistance through the sand. Joe decides to go his own way, not using his dog to guide him, but using what he gathered about the sand. The woman who Jack held hostage and his gut. He, Bruce Myers and Tilda along with Trooper Brian's dog, Taz stumbled upon what looked to be a disturbed area at the foot of one of the power line towers. So Joe calls Lieutenant Morgan and he tells him, "Listen, I think I've got something." It was four or five power line towers in from Ridge Avenue. Lieutenant Morgan says, "Okay, what is it?" Joe said that he noticed that there was new growth, and it's so hard to see over here. This place is so big. It's so wide. There's so much brush and sand. It just goes on forever and ever. It's like a needle and haystack, but he said that there's some disturbed ground. It looks like there's some new growth, some new weeds after the rain came. They were growing on top of it. Morgan says, "Okay, do not touch anything." And he comes out to the scene. When he gets there, Joe takes a long stick. And he sticks it inside the area in question. And then he pulls it up and he smells it. And that's when he turns to Morgan and he said, "There's a body down there." The process of an unearthing a body is not fast. You don't just start digging it up. There are tiny little pieces of small evidence that you might need. So you have to go little by little, taking just a little bit of dirt and setting aside again and again. And they did this. And finally, they hear someone say, "We've got an arm." It turns out they were about four feet down and Lieutenant Morgan looks below. And that's when he saw the body of a white female, naked, sand from her chest down, something caught his eye. As the sun was shining down into the makeshift grave, he saw something sparkling, a diamond necklace. And when he squinted and he looked closer, he could make out what it said. It said, "Britney, he just looked over at Joe." And he said, "We found her and the tears. They were just welling up in his eyes because it's extremely emotional. You're relieved because you got the job done." But at the same time, you know the harsh realities that that little girl, she's not coming home alive. She's gone. They still had to go through the process of medically identifying the body to confirm it truly was Britney Gregory. All of this information was withheld from the public at that time. Until after the candlelight vigil had been completed. By 7.30 p.m. on July 27th, the body was transported to the Community Medical Center in Tom's River to positively identify the remains and determine how she died. That would take us several days. Now I understand that the public is curious and they want to pay their respects. But after Britney's body was found, it was a day later and people were just climbing over the police tape, literally walking right up to where the body was. I have pictures here. That was worrisome to me because I'm sure you know there could still be evidence in that location. There were officers standing guard there before her body was taken away, but as soon as they transported her to that medical center, the crowd just came in. A lot of people, they were placing stuffed animals at the scene. They were walking several hundred feet to go all the way to the tower, putting teddy bears and flowers and cards. There was one card there and I believe this was written by Cassandra. Jack's daughter and it said, "Britney, I will miss you so much. I will keep the memories we share alive. You're our little angel. I love you, Cassie." The news crews were out there as well. They were trekking all the way down to the site of the shallow grave and taking photos and even interviewing the public and asking them why they were there. One woman whose cousin had been murdered six years before that, she felt like she needed to be close to the area for closure in her own situation, which was totally unrelated to Britney's. Another person said they needed to see where a murderer would callously dump a 16-year-old's body. Anderson and Campbell funeral home donated some of their services for Britney's funeral that was on August 1st and 2nd. The family had to raise money because Britney did not want to be buried. She did not want to be in the ground in a casket. After Britney's body was discovered, Deborah and Brianna were going through photos so they could provide them to the media. And that's when Brianna remembered something from July 4th. They were talking about the fact that Brianna's father or she had a different ad had passed away and Britney said to her, "I never want to be buried or cremated. She wanted to be put into the wall." And she added that her sister was a glamour girl and she deserved to have the funeral that she wanted. This was definitely a lot more expensive for the family but the community was able to get together and raise enough money for Britney's funeral. Britney belonged to the choir, the church choir, so all of the members came out and they struggled but they really tried hard to sing for her service and even Cassandra showed up. And when she was questioned, she talked about the fact that Britney was a beautiful young woman that she considered like a sister. She will always love her and miss her. And she added that Jack Fuller, they had been estranged for a very long time and she had no further comments about him. It wasn't until a year following this in August of 2005 that Jack stood before Superior Court Judge. And that is when the information about the autopsy was finally brought forward. Up until that point, Deborah had been telling the public that Britney died from blunt force trauma to the head and that she died quickly and she wasn't in any pain. However, that's not exactly one of the medical examiners thought about the case and her death. Deborah is correct. The prosecutor did come forward early on following Britney's autopsy and let the public know very limited information and that was the blunt force trauma to Britney's school. There was also blood in the passenger side of Jack's vehicle and it matched Britney. However, at the courthouse, evidence was attempting to be suppressed and this had all to do with the medical examiner and the specific cause of death. It had been ruled a homicide but a forensic pathologist believed she was exfixiated, either due to suffocation or strangulation. This entire time, Jack had been silent. He never once cooperated with the police, never gave them any information about what happened until he made this appearance. His attorney basically asked him yes or no questions in order to give his rendition of events that occurred the night the Britney was killed. Instead of going to trial, he took a deal, he pleaded guilty and said he was responsible for what happened to Britney. And the lawyer said the reason why is because it would be devastating for the family to go through a trial and even more pain. But in actuality, the reason he took responsibility was to shorten his prison sentence as part of a previously negotiated plea agreement. And thanks to that agreement, Jack would only be serving 30 years behind bars. He was literally emotionless. He answered yes or no when his attorney asked in detail what happened the night. I'm not going to go question by question. This is coming to the end of my video. I don't believe his rendition of events at all. He said that he intended to give Britney a ride to her boyfriend's house. After she got into the passenger side of the car, he dropped home off of his house and he proceeded to pull over and start start smoking crack in front of Britney. He says the Britney became "I rate." She was trying to hit him and trying to take the crack pipe out of his hands which enraged him to the point he started to hit Brittany, punching her in the face until she wasn't moving. He said after she stopped moving, he went back to smoking crack. Even though she was laying next to him with her head between the passenger seat and the door choking on her own blood and proceeding to make ergling sounds. He then said, "After he was done smoking crack, he buried Brittany in the remote field." And I think this is absolute bullshit. I'm sorry if you've been saying that word. And so did Deborah. At the sentencing hearing, Deborah sat there just holding this piece of paper that she had written with a statement on it. And she walked through that packed courtroom. She went past Jack and she looked at him and she told the mediator that it took everything inside her not to snap his neck. But she held in that rage. She kept it in check so that she could give her statement. And she addressed that court saying that there are just so many unanswered questions. She said, "Why didn't you help her to breathe? Why did you take her clothes off? Did you take them off before or after you killed her?" She said that she's confronted by these questions every single time she looks down at her hand and she sees the ring that she gave to Brittany for her 16th birthday. A ring that she had to have retrieved from Brittany's body that has shovel marks on it from when Jack buried her baby in a hole. And I have the exact same questions. I don't think for one minute that this man was upset that a child was telling him not to smoke crack. Honestly, I think this was a sexually motivated crime. And I think you can understand why I might believe that with all the evidence. But I always want your thoughts. I want to leave you with a few more things that I just wanted to mention. And I thought we're worth mentioning. One of them really upset me. There was a scholarship fund that was established in Brittany's name. And it was organized to raise money for students who wanted to study either forensic science or get a career in law enforcement. And unfortunately, the fund only raised about $5,000. So that money was given to a couple of students. But unfortunately, because it never generated more money, the scholarship was basically canceled. It doesn't exist from what I could find. And that really hurt me. And this is just one last thing before. And it just, I want to be able to do something greater. I love what I'm doing now. I'm keeping the memories of these victims alive with these stories. But I just wish I could do something bigger one day. So if you have any ideas or connections, please let me know. Comment below. I'll also give you some information in the description box. So please go ahead and reach out to me. I just feel like I want to do something more. So there's that. And then I'll leave you with what happened to Jack. Not that you really care, but he was sentenced to prison for 30 years without the possibility of parole. That is the minimum amount a time a person can serve for murder in the state of New Jersey. He's currently serving a sentence, a northern state prison in Newark, New Jersey. He scheduled to be released July of 2034. That doesn't seem that far away. I want to thank each and every one of you for being here with me, especially in the first hour. I'm always here in the first hour, trying to answer as many comments as I possibly can. I read so many of them. I try to get to all of them. But I think you're so very much for watching my videos and being here to support my channel and to help each and every one of these victim's memories live on. I will see you in my next video. Bye.