True Crime Vault: Murderer in the Minivan

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She's just a hard-working girl. She just needs to come home. You start to piece together that something violent happened in this location. She saw this silver minivan. She thought it was kind of weird. What these two individuals were witnessing in that parking lot was the abduction of Jessica Herringa. But that wasn't their only mystery. They're here to solve when a different crime comes into play. Oh my gosh, we can do this. Oh, who can hit a woman and just leave her? For this young mother, on a run, being shot and killed. This was at close range. This was certainly execution style. Here we have two females. One's missing, one's deceased. And one other who lived to tell. And he's just staring at me the entire time. And I'm like, let me out, let me out, let me out. At what point do you realize you're in real trouble and that you could die? This is Muskegon in West Michigan. Just south is a small community of Norton Shores, beach towns on the sunset coast of Lake Michigan. I describe Muskegon as sort of a microcosm of the state of Michigan. We have our urban areas, our suburban areas, and then the eastern part and northern part of our county is more rural. Norton Shores is a nice community on the southern edge of our county. It's one of the most beautiful areas of West Michigan because it's right near Lake Michigan. So that's the big draw is our lakeshore. Just absolutely gorgeous. I have a lot of pride of coming from Muskegon County. I think it's just a really great place to live in and grow up in. But a series of apparently unconnected crimes began to sow fear into this quiet community. It all begins in the final hour of an April night when a young woman named Jessica Haringa simply vanished. Swallowed up, or so it seemed, in a mystery as vast and deep as the big lake itself. ♪ ♪ It's April 26, 2013 in Norton Shores, Michigan. It's April 26, 2013 in Norton Shores, Michigan. At the Exxon station on East Sternberg Road. 25-year-old Jessica Haringa is supposed to be inside closing up. That night I needed gas, so I stopped right here. It's the closest place from my employment. He pulled up to the gas station, noticed the door was open, and looked inside and there was no Jessica Haringa. It's very strange that there's no one here. That's what alerted the police as a customer came in and realized that, there was nobody in the store. Miss Vegan 9-1-1, where's your emergency? Um, I don't know if it's an emergency, I just got to work. I'm at the Exxon gas station on Sternberg Road, and there's nobody here. It's just, it's very suspicious why there's nobody here. There was nobody that would answer, so I looked around the store. And what did you see when you looked around the store? I went into the bathroom, I looked around, there was really no disturbance. Just, nobody there. Okay, so did you yell or anything, or? Yeah, I hollered, "Hey, hey," you know, walked around the building. But I don't see anybody, hon. I walked inside and, "Hey, hey, is anybody here?" I even went inside the cooler and looked inside there and seen nothing abnormal. But in my gut said, "Something's not right." I just thought, "You know, I'm just concerned that nobody's there, or it's just white." ♪ ♪ She has a young son that she's raising, and she was working hard trying to get extra hours at the gas station because of financial problems. And so she was covering anybody who needed a time off, she covered their shifts. And that was her only job. And she was there by herself. The ironic thing is that, you know, she was there by herself. She really wasn't scheduled to work the day that she disappeared. She actually had taken over a shift from somebody. ♪ ♪ Did Jessica ever express concerns about feeling unsafe at work? Never. Never. Not a once. She liked working there. ♪ ♪ So North Shore's police department responded. At the time, the head of detectives was a gentleman by the name of Mike Kasher. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I get a call from our sergeant. It was about a mile, mile and a half away from my house. ♪ ♪ From the crime scene photographs, when you take a first glance, the inside of the store didn't look as though it had been disturbed. ♪ ♪ There didn't look like there had been a big struggle. There was no real crime scene. They find nothing. In fact, that's what's so weird. It's so undisturbed. All the cleaning supplies and things were out, so it appeared that she had been cleaning and finishing up for the night. ♪ ♪ Then they go back into the storeroom, and they find a cash register drawer with all the money, all the cash, all the change still intact. ♪ ♪ It didn't appear that she had just grabbed her stuff and left. Her purse was still there with her ear jacket, cigarettes, lighters. Still there. Inside that purse was a wallet, and it contained the identifying information for Jessica Herringa. ♪ ♪ Within that wallet, there was about $400 in cash, seemingly undisturbed. Her car was still parked out front. ♪ ♪ Whatever happened in this store, robbery was not the intent. ♪ ♪ There was really no explanation as to what happened, to what happened to her. It was almost like she just left, disappeared. ♪ ♪ And now is beginning the investigation into Jessica's disappearance. Police tonight say they have evidence that backs up their theory that a Norton Shores woman was abducted from the gas station where she worked. I'm Juliette Dragus. The news starts in one minute. ♪ ♪ It sounded very odd, you know, that she just disappeared. So we all wondered, what is going on here? ♪ ♪ That location did not have a camera system or anything. No security cameras, and I don't think she should have been working by herself. And I used to talk to her about it and, you know, and ask her about it. And of course, you know, 25 years old, you think you're invincible. My goal was right at the beginning is to establish a timeline because I figured it would help us at some point. So about 10:52, we had a woman who had went in and purchased a cigarette lighter, and that was the last person to see Jessica alive. ♪ ♪ The last sale that was recorded here was at 10:52. You were here at the gas station like 11:07, 11:00. 11:07, 11:08. 11:07, he pulls up. He doesn't see anybody. So sometime between 10:52 and 11:07, we have her missing. And that was the start, if you will, of what turned into be a very public and national cold case. Police continue to search for a missing woman from Norton Shores. The biggest story in all of West Michigan for months and months and months. The first big break is a page out of "Agatha Christie." As they look and they keep looking, they see a drop of blood. Then a woman who worked another shift at the gas station approaches detectives. She and her husband saw this silver minivan back behind the Exxon gas station. She thought that was strange. Played an extremely important role helping to move the initial investigation forward. A drop of blood, a silver minivan, and one more small-caliber clue. The search for Jessica Herringer ricochets in a totally different and dire direction. We are now prepared to reclassify this case as an abduction. ♪♪ We're gonna get right to that Michigan mom who vanished. Search for a young mom who vanished while working the late shift. Vanished without a trace. Jessica Herringer disappeared. a very big deal in her head. How can we help? The media was very involved in this case. This expands beyond the borders of Muskegon County and becomes national news. The nation is looking for Jessica Herengi. ABC's Alex Perez is in Norton Shores, Michigan, with the latest. Good morning, Alex. Good morning, Robin. Overnight, Jessica's family desperately waited for any word from police, but no luck. She was going to get out in 15 minutes. In 15 minutes, that store would have been closed, and she would have been on her way home. Flyers were presented to the community. They were everywhere. Somebody has seen something and doesn't even know how important it is yet. Is there any more flyers? I don't know how many flyers I can get, because I will put them up for you. I'll stick a couple around for you. Let's join together in prayer to call upon you for Jessica's safe return. There were vigils. They passed out flyers. They were on our air very regularly, saying, please, Jessica, come home. If you have her, bring her home. We want you back. The small Norton Shores police force gets reinforcements. Michigan State Police, Muskegon County Sheriff, the FBI, and even the Secret Service. Helicopter searches, police canines were involved in ground searches. A lot of people in our newsroom thought, did she just leave? Is she having personal problems? Could she have just done this because she just had to get away? It doesn't make any sense. She wouldn't take her purse. She wouldn't take her car. She loved her son. Her son, Zevin, meant everything to her. Jessica may have vanished, but not without a trace. And one of the officers said, I think we need to look at something back here. It's kind of weird. And lo and behold, you know, they discover, I think, some very important pieces of evidence. Probably about three or four feet from the back door, we saw probably about half dollar size of a blood spot. Jessica Herringa. It was Jessica Herringa. Herringa's blood. And then next to that was these two little round batteries that appeared to be like watch batteries. There was a small black piece of plastic that had the words Carl Walther written on it. That was later determined to be a cover for a laser sight from a handgun. Detectives determined that battery-powered Walther laser sight is commonly attached to a specific gun. The Walther P-22 semi-automatic pistol. But it also could fit a couple other guns. It could have fit a BB gun, I was told, too, at the same time. So it wasn't like, OK, it's only for this specific gun. Then a woman named Susan Follett, who worked a different shift at the gas station, approaches detectives. She came up to me and she goes, I think I saw something. Which I'm like, OK, what'd you see? She and her husband were out riding motorcycles. And she saw this silver minivan. This happens right around 11 p.m., right in that 15-minute window when Jessica disappeared. The van ducks behind the gas station. It doesn't go out in front where the pumps are. It goes behind the gas station, which at that time of the night, it's kind of weird. It turned off its lights and then parked behind the store. There's no reason for a customer to go back and park their car. Suspecting someone may be stealing, the worker and her husband stop nearby, just watching. They say they only see the driver. He gets out of the minivan. He's doing something. They're not sure what. They see the tailgate of the van go up, as they recall seeing the dome light. Pushes the tailgate down, doesn't go, pops it up and adjusts something. Shuts the tailgate. Gets in the van and drives away. Drives right by them. When the van was leaving, Susan gets a look at the van driver, you know, as good as you can in the dark. It was a male, somewhat heavyset, brownish hair, beard, mustache. And they described the van as being silver in color. I wish they would have at least gone and seen if Jess was okay. I'm sorry. They didn't see Jessica, they didn't think anything. Well, maybe there's nothing to report. But, for the police, what the witnesses say they saw, along with the blood and pieces of a gun, are powerful evidence. When you couple how the witnesses described what was going on behind the gas station with laser sight cover and a spot of blood, you start to piece together that something violent happened in the van. I felt that the van was crucial because it was parked right where those parts were found. Police pull surveillance video from several businesses, shadowy images of that mysterious silver minivan driving by within minutes of Jessica Herringa's disappearance. We're able to. We're able to determine that this van is now going northbound on Grand Haven Road. But that's where the trail of the silver minivan fades to black. Good afternoon. My name is Daniel Shaw. I'm the chief of police for the Norton Shores Police Department. Two days later, police hold a news conference. We are now prepared to reclassify this case as an abduction or a kidnapping under Michigan law. But police don't reveal everything they found. The public. And we have parts of a gun that we didn't disclose to the public. So at this point, our only clue is the white male that I described to you and the silver minivan. Anybody knows anything, call the hotline. That's all I can say. I think I'm done now, man. Who would have a motive to take Jessica Herringa? The investigation now turns to secrets of her love life, including a married man. He asked her to move away and she said no. She was going to stay put. Hour later, she's missing. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you could wake up tomorrow and be better at one thing, what would it be? Maybe you want to be more focused at work or spend less time aimlessly scrolling social media. Maybe you want to save money or eat healthier. Or maybe you just want to have more patience for that family member you just can't stop arguing with. We all have room for improvement in our lives. And when you have a goal you want to work towards, therapy is a great way to start getting better. Better is a feeling that you get to define. 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Jessica is described as a white female, 25 years of age, 5 foot 1 inches tall, approximately 110 pounds, blonde shoulder-length hair, and blue eyes. We love her very much. We miss her. It's the most difficult part. It's just not knowing and not having the answers and not being able to be there for her, you know? I'm sure she's scared and doesn't know what to do. I just hope she knows that we're all looking for her and we're going to find her. the police did i mean they really did rely on the media for help as everyone held out hope that she could be found so they were they released a sketch of a gentleman this is a man that they're looking for a man of interest if you've seen him or he recognized or the silver minivan that was always the prevalent thing looking for that silver minivan due to the fact that there's no signs of a disturbance within the store we tend to believe it is someone either that she knows like an acquaintance or someone that she knows through the store maybe a customer or someone that she has met before she was always trying to make people smile be happy love life sad to think that that great quality was probably a downfall in this situation you know they're here because we have not given up hope for jessica's safe return we're receiving numerous tips from the public which we truly appreciate but we need more and boy did we get a lot of calls and a lot of sightings to our newsroom probably hundreds and people thought they saw her at a campground up north they thought they had seen her at a store officer leach northern shores police department to the jessica harrington case people were saying they saw her in arizona and then they saw her in new jersey and i got somebody in chicago that acts suspicious every tip that was brought in was was taken seriously and investigated yeah there was there was quite a long list of potential suspects during when we were looking at the hearing a case she was abducted someone took her one of the first people they did talk to was her boyfriend and you know because he admitted to them that they did have a rocky relationship i saw her right before she went to work and i talked to her an hour before this happened that she was going to be out early and home quick so i mean obviously we always think to right off the bat maybe there is a problem with the relationship anybody knows anything call the hotline that's all i can say he's the one who called me to tell me that she was missing he's devastated about the whole thing this is the mother of his child they were in love he had asked her to marry him and we think dakota dakota is part of the family dakota is quickly excluded as a suspect detectives turning their attention to other men in jessica's life jessica harringo was pretty she is a pretty blonde people even would say there's a good looking lady who works at that gas station there were other people of interest in her life that would frequent the gas station what we had heard is that she may have had a boyfriend or two in addition to the father of her baby police say jessica was having a relationship with a regular at the gas station a married man his name came up multiple times he was always in the gas station always around and he said that you know they had some type of an intimate type relationship going the week before jessica's disappearance police say the man's wife had come into the gas station to confront jessica she found out about the relationship entered in and tried to make contact with jessica kind of talked with her about it and jessica got upset and told her to get out of the store which she did police say jessica had a tearful talk maybe a breakup with the married man just hours before she vanished an hour before she went missing just an hour beforehand they had emotional his quote was we had an emotional discussion he asked her to go away with him to move away and she said no she was gonna stay put hour later she's missing is there a love triangle or jealous lovers out there that you know got so enraged with jealousy that they went to the extreme to solve that issue i called him a suspect for a good probably year we checked phone records we got search warrants we brought in polygraph twice for him and his wife but ultimately he's innocent and he had no involvement detectives crossed the married man and his wife off their list another dead end it started out as a it looks really really good and it ends up melting right in your hand right down to it all those suspects all those tips to police here but still no jessica weeks months a full year goes by with no word about the missing woman the tips start dwindling so they're not getting as many tips not hearing anything more about the silver minivan there was nothing more investigators could do so we also stopped covering it as 2013 becomes 2014 her case colder than a west michigan winter and then some miles away in another part of muskegon county another young mother not lost found dead minor one where is your emergency we come up to this lady she's laying in the road oh my gosh we could do this who can hit a woman and just leave her could there be a connection we're going to turn on the road that uh becky used to jog or walk on this is an automobile road it was a sunday evening late june 2014 when a couple was driving here along automobile road in muskegon county in the middle of summer six o'clock in the evening suddenly they saw something in the road maybe a deer but soon discovered it was worse much worse minor one where is your emergency it's on automobile road we come up to this lady she's laying in the road i think she was hit by a car she's got a head injury okay we gotta start cpr if she's not if she's not breathing normally i want you to go ahead and start this is dash cam video from the first muskegon county sheriff's deputy arriving on the scene you can see an ems worker rushing in to help the 9-1-1 callers the wife is a nurse and she was trying to see what she could do it started out initially a hit and run she was found on the side of the road she was in running gear so she'd been out for a run oh my gosh we could do this who could hit a woman and just leave her and unfortunately shortly after she was discovered she succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene the woman is rebecca blett she lives just down the road and as a placer in the ambulance police are stunned to find her death was no accident in the back of her head she's got three bullet walls rebecca bletch's case went from a hit and run to a homicide so it was a shooting murder people were crying people upset people were scared people were i was scared i was scared to be in my own yard Rebecca's sister, Jessica, sees a report of a woman killed on Facebook. And then I called her, and she didn't answer. So then I called her again, no answers. So then I called her daughter. She called me and asked if my mom was home. I said, no, I don't know where she's at. I said, where's your dad? She said, he's outside talking to the police. And I knew it was her. Rebecca's daughter, Ellie, says her grandmother told her what happened. My dad was outside, and my grandma was inside. Told me. She used to jog by here all the time. Very nice, friendly girl. Always would say hi, how you doing, whatnot, when she went through. All accounts, she was just a nice person. Everyone just loved Rebecca Blatch. Tell me about your sister. Becky was the oldest of the three of us sisters. Kind of more of a mother to us in times of need. Absolutely great spirit, big laugh, great smile. Always the life of the party. You couldn't help but know that she was there. She walked in a room you knew. Yeah. What was she like as a mom? Very involved. It was very active with Ellie. She loved to go on runs, bike rides, walks through the woods. At the crime scene, police find Rebecca's belongings. cellphones sunglasses earbuds all in a neat pile across the road from her body why was her body on one side of the road and these items in a nice little pile on the opposite side of the road I mean it only seems that someone would have ordered her to take off you know everything that she had had and set it down investigators speculate that after the killer forced Rebecca to put her things down she tried to get away I think when she realized what was happening I think she tried to run there was a trail of casings that went from the middle of the road and then toward her body three different casings I think he he hit her with the first shot and it knocked her down and she tried to crawl away and this is where she made it until he walked over to her and the killer shoots Rebecca three times with a.22 caliber gun investigators recover CCI brand shell casings. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why on a Sunday afternoon that she would be targeted and killed in such a fashion. And the only witnesses are my horses. They absolutely stood at that fence and watched it, I can guarantee you. If they could only talk, they would have got this solved a lot quicker. Jessica Herringa's disappearance and Rebecca Bletch's murder were never really tied together. I mean, people speculated and wondered. Here we have two females that are, one's missing, one's deceased, but there were no real strong ties. I made a call. I always do. He? What kind of description do you have? He just couldn't see how these two. were related. There was no mention of a silver minivan or any minivan of that nature being anywhere in that area at the time that she was shot and killed. There is one possible connection. Firearms experts say that the.22 caliber shell casings found near Rebecca's body may have been fired by a Walther.22 pistol, and that's the same kind of gun possibly involved in Jessica's case. It was explained to us that. The characteristics left by the firing pin of the gun that was used to kill Rebecca Bletch was very similar to what they've seen a Walther.22 would have left. Unconvinced their cases are related, investigators turned their attention to the person closest to Rebecca. They were focused on her husband. They really decided that he must have done it. At any point, did you guys think maybe he did it? No. It never crossed my mind. You guys never thought it was her husband? No. Because he would never do anything like that. He's not like that. It was determined that he didn't have anything to do with this crime. With Kevin Bletch cleared of any involvement in his wife's death, her murder is unsolved. I hate to call it a cold case because we were still actively working on it and we didn't stop. But. We had leads. We had nothing. What happened was an incident that blew the case open. That changed everything. This Yupik and Blueberry farm seems an unlikely place to solve cold cases. The Jessica Herringa disappearance, the.22 caliber killing of Rebecca Bletch. But police say an incident that happened just down the road from here and what these security cameras see puts it all into focus. It jumped out of the car. What kind of car was it? A van. What color was the van? Silver. That was the turning point. 911, where is your emergency? It's come immediately. We have a man that has picked up a girl and he has a gun and he's outside the house. Shoot. Stay on the line with me. Who has a gun? April of 2016. We received a phone call from a woman. She said, "I don't have a gun. I don't have a gun. I don't have a gun. I don't have a gun. I don't have a gun." I don't have a gun. I don't have a gun. I don't have a gun. I don't have a gun. Who has a gun? Hello? Hi, this is 911, OK? Why are you guys coming? Why are you calling me? Yeah, boy, I got some help there. That phone call, that was the turning point. Jessica Haringa vanished in April 2013. Rebecca Bletch shot and killed in June 2014. Try as they might, frustrated detectives in Norton Shores and Muskegon County cannot solve either crime. Two cold cases unsolved for years. No arrests until a scary 911 call after a teenage girl runs for her life on this very road. I had to jump out of a car. I had to run to her house. Who was it? I don't even know him. I was like, please let me out right now. Please let me out. A young teenager by the name of Madison Nygaard finds herself walking home in a rural part of Muskegon County after attending an all-night party. Walk us through what that night was like. What was this party? I had a big old bonfire. And then everyone left and went to a different party. So then I started walking home. Oh, so you were out all night. All night long. All night. It's early in the morning. She's walking along the road. Did you know where you were? No. But I figured, like, I'll be able to figure it out. Did you have a cell phone? I did have a phone, but it was dead. By now, Madison is lost and in tears. Instead of taking the left and going towards town, I took a right and went towards the lake. I'm crying at this point. A silver minivan pulls up. Hey, do you need a ride? The man in the minivan said to her. I was like, no, absolutely not. Can I please just use your phone? And he was like, yeah, just come on and get in. And I was like, OK. So I got in. She got in the car. And he took off. I don't know why she decided to hop in that car. But I think she was just really desperate at that point. So you get in the car. I get in the car. He rolls up the window and locks the doors. I'm still crying. And I feel bad because I think he's a nice guy. So I'm like, I am sorry. Like, I'm not trying to be mean. But please, roll my window back down. The man in the minivan turns off the main road onto more isolated North Green Creek Road, not where Madison wants to go. She didn't know where she was. But she knew enough to where that was definitely the wrong direction. I asked to use his cell phone. And he was like, it's dead. And he's just staring at me. And then that's when he reached under and grabbed his gun. He's now pointing a gun at her. She has two choices, really. One, just submit and hope for the best. Or two, run. As soon as I saw the gun, I was out. And I knocked the door and jumped. So you were in the vehicle and jumped out? Yeah. OK. When she jumped, she jumped right out of her shoes, rolled, got road rash. They found broken fingernails. She was going to get away from this man. You haven't been back over here. No. Madison has moved on. So she has not been back to the scene of her death-defying leap until this moment when she agreed to go back to show us what happened. I remember running completely down this road. Did you look back? I did look back. And that's when he was, like, standing there with his gun aimed at me. And I'm just like, don't kill me. Please don't kill me. Did you say that to him? Yeah. I was like, please do not. Like, I have family. And he was like, it's just a joke. Come back. Come back. It's a joke. Yeah. And I was like, absolutely not. And I just kept running. There were two unspent.22 cartridges lying in the road. I think those two live rounds were because the gun itself jammed. We believe he pulled the trigger. It jammed up. And so you rack it. Get that round out. So you get the next round. Somehow, it jammed up again. Were you assaulted at all? No. OK. But I need to go to hospital. I jump out of his car while I'm moving. OK. Do you want an ambulance? Yeah. She was very lucky. She was very bold to do that. to be able to jump out of a vehicle. I don't know how many people would have done that. It takes a lot of fortitude, and she had had what it took to save herself. Now deputies are on a van hunt, driving up and down country roads, looking for telltale surveillance cameras. When they said they were looking for anyone with video, I thought, they're not going to find anyone with video, especially in that stretch where she was. Police figure, find the silver minivan, solve the Madison Nygaard case. But what detectives never figured on, finding that ordinary minivan would be the key to solving two more cold case mysteries. The detective asked if he could see the video. I said, sure. He wasn't up there four or five minutes. And he says, I see it. He just pulled through the line. When Madison got away, and they were able to connect the dots, were you surprised? I was very shocked that one individual could have been responsible for three women. 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Jessica Herringa's disappearance and Rebecca Bletch's murder. Here we have two females that are one's missing, one's deceased. But how do they connect? And how do they connect to a new victim? They showed the 16-year-old girl and she said, "That's the man who pointed a gun at me who tried to kill me." I'm trying to tell you, all right? I'm an adult. We're not here to have a fishing match with you. I got a couple more things to say. Bells and whistles started going off of holy cats. What have we stumbled upon here? That's a medical diagram on the heart of the heart. I've got a couple more things to say. I've got a fishing match with you. similar to what Madison had described. - And Jeffrey Willis is a name police have heard before. Three years earlier, an Exxon gas station employee, Jessica Herenga, vanished. - At the time, detectives got a tip about a man named Jeffrey Willis who owned a silver van. So they went to talk to him. - And we asked him how long he's owned his van, if he'd ever been to the Exxon gas station, if he knew Jessica Herenga. - And witnesses in that case described seeing a silver minivan, the same type of minivan detectives recognize on surveillance images from Soudini Blueberries. - It turns out Willis was a regular at the Exxon, and when police catch up to him again, this time it's about the alleged kidnapping of 16-year-old Madison. - It's established that you drive a gray van. I want your side of what happened. - And Willis is about to offer up something jaw-dropping, something that takes the detective by surprise. - So you're just saying that I touched her? You think I touched her? ♪♪ - The search for a silver minivan lead to an alleged attempted kidnapping leads police to 46-year-old Jeffrey Willis. After Madison picks him out of a photo lineup, police haul him in for questioning. - I don't want to be shaken up by the cops right now. - When Mr. Willis is getting off of work at 6:30 in the morning, he's being pulled over by a state trooper and then ultimately taken into custody. His van is then secured and taken to a location where it can be searched. - He walks in very relaxed. Sort of matter of fact. - Jeffrey Willis was a worker at a furniture manufacturer in nearby Spring Lake. He worked the overnight shift. - He was well under the radar. He had no criminal history. He was a middle-aged guy, married. - Kind of your normal ordinary person in the community. You're a regular guy next door. - Willis grew up in Michigan, attending high school in Muskegon County. He has a daughter from a previous relationship. Turns out he's also a grandfather. He has no criminal history, but a work history of being a janitor at two local elementary schools back in the '90s. According to school district records, Willis was eventually fired for allegedly using a school computer to look at adult websites. - He appears to want to cooperate. You know, it's like, "Oh man, what's this all about?" And yet he finds the opportunity to make small talk or even flirt a little bit with the female detective. - Familiar? - I do? - Yeah. - I've seen that. - I'm trying to think. I think it's me and a movie star. - While police are questioning, Willis makes a surprising admission. He tells them he was questioned back in 2013 about the unsolved disappearance of Jessica Haringa at the Exxon gas station. - Back in 2013, I told him that we're investigating silver vans and registered owners that are in the area due to the Jessica Haringa investigation. He said he had heard about that and understood. - Receipts show that Willis was actually a regular at the Exxon, and many of his visits happened during Jessica's shifts, including on the very night she disappeared. - Jessica Haringa was the first woman to appear at the Exxon gas station. - Willis was the first woman to appear at the Exxon gas station. - He had actually stopped into the gas station that night and Jessica was working. He recalls seeing her there. He said that he didn't have a relationship with her, didn't talk to her a lot, just had seen her working in the gas station. - Remember, police were talking to many potential suspects, and when they searched it, Willis' van appeared clean. - We asked if we could see it. It was empty, and it smelled of cleaning products. - They asked him about what he was doing that night. - He had an alibi, he was home with his wife, he was at the gas station earlier in the evening, but at that time he was home. - They did a really good job at that point in time of following up and helping establish his relationship or what he had done that night. - I was angry, I was emotional, I was upset about what we might have stopped had we brought him in, sat him down, polygraphed him, and went at him. - They had him right there. He was right under their noses. But if you don't have evidence, how can you arrest him? - They're not to be blamed for not having arrested him initially because they didn't have probable cause initially. It happens often that police speak to suspects in these kinds of cases early in a spree like this, and only come back to a suspect later. - But Madison Nygaard's alleged attempted kidnapping puts Jeffrey Willis back on police's radar. And now they're grilling him about his whereabouts on that morning. - Can you tell us why you were on the road? - Going home? I don't know. - We know that you were at Riverdale. - Okay. - That girl was taking her in that area. - Okay. - At about the same time that you were there. - So you're saying that I took her? You think I took her? - We want to know what happened. - I can't tell you. I don't know. I wasn't there. Didn't you-- listen, you know. I mean, I wasn't there with whatever happened to her. That's what I'm telling you. I might have been there, but I wasn't wherever I was. - Willis's comfortable demeanor changes when detectives tell him they have his minivan on surveillance. We're going to have to wait and see what happens. from the Bursa 380 Willis told police about during his interrogation. - I own a 380, Bursa 380. - Oh, do you own any other guns? - I do not. - Also found in the secret lockbox is a box of.22 caliber CCI brand ammunition. - We recovered the.22 casings from Rebecca Bletch's scene. - The lab was able to conclusively show that the shell casings and bullet fragments collected at the Rebecca Bletch scene were fired from the gun that was recovered from Jeff Willis' van. - So bingo. That's when they started to put everything together, when it all started to add up. - Now, investigators have evidence connecting Jeffrey Willis to both Jessica Haringa's disappearance and Rebecca Bletch's murder. - We get a search warrant and we go back to Ms. Hollis. - During the search of Willis' house, investigators speak to his wife. - She had no idea. She had no idea about anything nefarious that he was involved in. There was nothing that suggested to her that there was anything creepy, weird, or evil going on in Jeff's life. - In the second search warrant on his house, we found a kind of a hard drive that was hidden. - We checked the ductwork and up inside the furnace, cold air return stuck to the wall was a portable hard drive. - In his hard drive, they discovered a file folder. - It was a file folder labeled VIX, V-I-C-S. Inside that folder, there were two subfolders, one containing the initials of Rebecca Bletch, the other containing the initials of Jessica Haringa. - VIX, we automatically assumed stand for victims. - Jessica Lynn Haringa. And then in that folder, it was all these little, like pictures of her, things from the internet, things from the news, anything that he found, he would put in that folder. - The other one was, I think, the file folder. - R.B. Rebecca Bletch. - And in there was all these pictures, - The other one was, I think, the file folder. - Different pictures and different articles of her. - While we were at his home, doing the search warrant there and talking with his wife, we learned about the Bailey Street address, which was his grandfather's home that he had access to. And his grandfather was deceased, so he had pretty much sole access to that property. There was a significant amount of bleach bottles in the basement of this house, to the point where you would really question why somebody would have that many empty bleach bottles in a rundown, abandoned house. - Jeffrey Willis is accused of the attempted abduction of a 16-year-old girl last month and is under investigation in the murder of Rebecca Bletch two years ago and the disappearance of Jessica Herringa. - Willis pleaded not guilty to the attempted abduction of Madison Nygaard. - As they continued to investigate and they arrested Jeffrey Willis, and they found evidence after evidence after evidence. I mean, it did blow the case wide open. - While Willis sits in jail, the investigation continues. Detectives talk to family and friends, trying to figure out who this guy is. - You're asking, who's Jeffrey Willis? Where'd this guy come from? And interviewing friends and relatives and all that kind of stuff. One of the names that came up was Boom. - Well, Kevin Bloom is his cousin. They say they were like brothers. They were very close. - We then went to his house, talked to him about, you know, Jeffrey Willis and how do you know him. - And it was really, if anything, a fact, what we call a fact witness, somebody that was really not of interest to us other than that. - Well, then the information came out, I believe in the news, that we located the gun. - Shortly after that, one of the detectives gets a phone call from Mr. Bloom. Mr. Bloom tells this detective, "Hey, you know, I just wanted to tell you something. I had this really weird dream about handling this particular weapon." - You probably touched it, or you had a dream that you thought you touched it. - You know exactly what happened. - So police are now wondering, is it possible their prime suspect, Jeffrey Willis, had a partner in crime? - 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. 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See terms. - While Willis sits in jail awaiting trial, investigators wanting to learn more about his past track down his cousin and close confidant, a man named Kevin Bloom. - Kevin Bloom, at the time that this was all happening, worked for the Department of Corrections. He was a corrections officer at one of our local prisons here in town. He was talked to just as a witness that might be familiar with Jeff Willis. - We then went to his house, talked to him about you know, Jeffrey Willis, and how do you know him? Well, I haven't seen him in a long time. And we didn't think much about it. It's like, okay. - What's really interesting about this is that shortly after that interview, one of the detectives gets a phone call from Mr. Bloom. Mr. Bloom tells this detective, hey, you know, I just wanted to tell you something. I had this really weird dream about handling this particular weapon. And Jeff being there. - I think I might've touched that gun. You think you might've touched the gun? Yeah, I'm not sure if I touched it or it was in a dream, but I think I touched it. So I'm not sure. And she was played it cool. She goes, oh, okay, well, I'll come over and talk to you about it. - This detective had been around for a while and the red flags just went screaming off in her head. - Basically, the two detectives go, we're not buying this. Would you do a polygraph? - He was interviewed for a long period of time. He had taken a polygraph. He had failed. - But Kevin Bloom continues to talk to police and eventually tells them that his cousin Jeffrey Willis told him that he was the person who abducted and killed Jessica Herringa. - I get a call at about two in the morning at home from the detectives. And they said, you need to get here. He's starting to talk about Herringa and what they did with the body. I was like, this can't be happening. Do I finally have somebody talking? He had told them that he was around Saturday night when he saw Jessica or he saw a body at the grandpa's house. And he believes that he might have seen that she was dead and helped him move the body. - He says, if you don't do this, then she's going to say, I'm going to end up hurting her family. And then I come down and helped him wrap her up. And he carried her into his van. - He's crying. He's emotionally upset. He's saying he didn't kill her, but he was there. - And he states that he was with Jeffrey Willis when he buried her body and that he knew where her body was buried. - I felt confident. I didn't think anybody would be lying about this. - So he talks about getting rid of the body and how they carried her out in a gray sheet out to the van. - I opened the van and I followed them. And then we went here and we put her somewhere in there. - I felt like I finally have a witness to this. I said, well, can you bring me to the body? He said, absolutely, I can do that. I thought, OK, finally, we're going to have really good closure all the way around. - So we go out there, we brought out cadaver dogs from the state police, and everybody's got a shovel and looking, and we're walking up and down and up and down. He goes, I just can't remember. So I went in there and I confronted him. - I thought you would have found her. - No, I did not find her. - Oh, my God. - No. I thought, OK, if I found her, I'd be bringing her home right now. - That's what I'd be doing. - And he stopped, he looks, and he goes, I'm lying. I go, yeah, I know you're lying. I go, let's get to the truth. - So you weren't there at all, at all, nothing. All of this was a lie. - And he goes, no, I'm lying about everything. I wasn't at Jeffrey. I didn't see the body. I didn't move the body. Everything he retracted. - He just said he made it up. - So that doesn't happen very much. It's not that common that somebody makes up a story where it puts themselves directly involved in it. - So he was charged with lying and then accessory after the fact, and he was convicted of both. In those interviews he did with police, he also mentioned Rebecca Bletch. He didn't implicate himself in her murder, and he was never charged in relation to the case. But it did leave Rebecca's sister, Jessica, wondering if maybe he knew more about what happened to her than he'd said. So I went to the jail to talk to him. Who's this? I'm Rebecca Bletch's sister. Hi. He just kept saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Can you tell me anything? All I'm going to say is the police were wrong when they investigated me. And when they questioned me that day, they questioned me so hard. I lied. I made it up. I'm not that kind of person. I didn't know anything about it. All made up. What were you hoping to get from him talking to him in jail? You know more than you're telling us. It. I don't know what I wanted. I just felt I needed to go see him and see what information he would give me. It's time for Jeffrey Willis' day in court. And at the Rebecca Bletch trial, he surprises everybody by taking the stand to testify. We're never told whether a defendant's going to testify. Mr. Willis, you're charged with, in this case, killing Ms. Bletch. Did you, in fact, do that? Nobody does that. That's not normal. What he thought was funny. Nobody was buying that line. Jeffrey Willis has now been charged with the murders of both Jessica Herringa and Rebecca Bletch. He pleads not guilty to both. And his first trial up is the Bletch case. It's not just another murder and it's not just another trial. It was a big stage. There were a lot of people paying attention. There were a lot of people trying to get into the case. The physical evidence was better in the Rebecca Bletch case. Part of the forensic examination of the handgun and athletic-type gloves, we were able to find blood in various locations. And that blood matched the DNA profile of Rebecca Bletch. Prosecutors made a very smart, strategic decision to try Rebecca Bletch's murder case first. There they had a body. They could prove up the facts very clearly for first-degree murder. They called it a stand Kevin Bloom. At the time, the defense was, I didn't do it, I being Jeff Willis, but my cousin did. We knew going into this that because Kevin had his own case going at the time, that he was not going to testify in fear of incriminating himself, and so he took the fifth. Kevin Bloom had an alibi for the Bletch murder, Kevin Bloom had an alibi for the Bletch murder, but he was never charged in connection with that crime in any way. He was a non-player in this. He wasn't a person who was going to impact the outcome for my client one way or the other. When Willis appears in court, he looks like a different man than the one who sat in the interrogation room a year earlier. He looked different. He'd lost a lot of weight, and now he was trimmed and fit. You may call your next witness, Mr. Johnson. We call Jeffrey Willis to the stand. In the Bletch case, we put my client on the stand. The defendant almost never takes the witness stand in a criminal case. To see Jeff Willis get up on the witness stand and try and talk his way out of a conviction is pretty astounding. The penalty for first-degree murder in this state is you spend the rest of your life in prison with no possibility of getting out. Please have a seat and state your name for the record. Jeffrey Thomas Willis. When you have that much on the line, ultimately you leave that call to him. Mr. Willis, you're charged with. In this case, killing Ms. Bletch. I did not. I did not kill Ms. Bletch. I wasn't even there. I was home. Do you have any other recollections about that day in general? Well, I cut the grass that day. Between 4 and, I want to say, 6.30, I was cutting the grass. The problem with it is, once you take the stand, you've got to answer questions, too. And if you have a highly skilled prosecutor, as they did, he's going to have some questions. Some questions that you may not want to have asked. And there's nobody else that can verify that from you. Well, my wife, she was home. By this time, Willis and his wife had divorced. Over three years have passed. His wife doesn't remember. And she doesn't remember whether he was home or not. She has no real independent memory about that particular evening. So, what I'm saying is, if your wife has no recollection of that, the only one that can verify that is you. Yeah, I guess. I remember when he got on the stand. He said, when they asked him about the toolbox in his van, he chuckles, oh, it's kind of a funny story. My grandson would come over on Wednesdays. That toolbox is full of adult toys. And he laughs it off, like, oh, my grandson got into there. So, I put it in the van. That's how it ended in the van. Nobody does that. It's not normal. To laugh it off, like, he's so innocent to that jury. Do you think he was trying to be charming? Yeah. Mm-hmm. A complete debacle on the witness stand. Not charming, not convincing, and not telling the truth. Ultimately, the jury deliberates for about 90 minutes. You have given the signal that you've arrived at a verdict. And they find him guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Rebecca Blatch. With one trial finished, Willis' defense now prepares for the next, the murder of Jessica Herringa. If you read those two trials, the evidence coming in is almost identical in both cases. You try again and see if you can't figure out a different argument that might be more effective this time. I believe you will have information that paints him as an evil person, and that may be your judgment. But you will not have evidence that he killed her. You will not have evidence that he killed her. The victim's body is never discovered. So under those circumstances, we're able to pursue the argument that the person is not deceased. But prosecutors have some powerful evidence, and they tell jurors about those pieces of plastic and batteries from a laser sight found at the Exxon station where Jessica vanished. They explain that the gun recovered from Jeffrey Willis' van was originally sold with a laser sight on it, but when they found it, when the gun was recovered, that laser sight was missing. Usually you can't talk about a defendant's prior alleged bad acts to prove that he did the bad act in this case. But there are exceptions. In this case, the judge allows prosecutors to call Madison Nygaard, the 16-year-old police say Willis attempted to abduct. Not only does she help establish a pattern of behavior on Willis' part, but she is also able to, to link him to that silver minivan. Because she was a minor at the time, she was not shown on camera. Jeffrey Willis pulled up. Did you know Mr. Willis? No. The first time I had to testify, I sat outside and like cried and cried, and I was like, I do not want to do this. I don't want to. I'm going to have to do it. Were you scared? I was still scared, yeah. What did you do? I unlocked the door and jumped out. This child being traumatized. That was a bit of evidence, I think, which locked them into a course that we couldn't turn the ship around. This is Rice. Steven versus Jeffrey Thomas Willis. Top one. Open murder. Guilty of first degree murder. It almost seems unreal. We're looking at a guy that's a potential serial killer that at a minimum has killed two people, was probably in line to kill a third. He never did a trial for your case. Nope. The prosecutor says it's a waste of their time. He's already going away for life. What would you have liked to have seen happen? I think I would've just liked to have the option of things. Yeah, that was kind of like a huge slap in my face. Madison had played a key role up to this point, but he had been convicted of two separate counts of first degree murder. So he's essentially going to die in prison. Ultimately made the decision that there wasn't a need to move forward with the criminal process. And he's going to have to go back to the prosecution. At the sentencing, the victim or her family is allowed to look the defendant in the eye and tell him, this is what you did to my loved one. This is what you did to me. I was looking forward to him being there to hear what I had to say. But Jeffrey Willis had one last sickening surprise in store. About six weeks after Willis is found guilty, of murdering Rebecca Bletch, he sentenced. A standard part of any trial, but this time, it's different. Usually at the sentencing, the victim comes in, or her family, is allowed to look the defendant in the eye, and you get to tell him, this is what you did to my loved one. This is what you've done to her children. Mr. Willis knew that was coming. I get approached by his lawyer, who basically says, hey, my client doesn't want to be present. Donovan. approach. Your Honour, it is the a position of defense that we are hereby requesting that my client be allowed to lead these proceedings at this juncture. - In my 24 years of doing this, this was a first for me. - I desire to be relieved. You don't have to be here. - That was a moment I had waited two years for, you know, to have my chance to look him in the eyes and talk to him and say what I wanted to say. Not only is it my time, but I was looking forward to him being there to hear what I had to say. - The victim's family is sitting there and he looks over at them and he blows a kiss to them. - When he blew the kiss in your direction, shock. I couldn't, I couldn't believe it. Again, he got his way. And got to walk out and not listen to us. - It's one of the lowest points in my career. It was just a horrible thing to do. - Shortly after the sentence, the sheriff came to me and said, "Hey, look, do you think there would be an issue if when we transport Mr. Willis, on that trip, if my guys just played the victim impact statement the entire trip?" I said, "I see no issue with that, go for it." - And he claims that he's not a monster. But his actions speak louder than words. - They played it loud. - She was amazing, inside and out. - She was easy to love. And people wanted to be around her. - And they played it for him over and over again. He didn't stand up there and take it, but he heard it. - Your three names are always connected. You were the reason that they figured all this out. - For a long time, I know everyone would be like, "You're like a hero, you put the, you solved it." And I was like, "I didn't want to be the one to solve it." I didn't like want to go through that. I mean, it feels good that I'm the one that got away, but I wish it didn't happen. - For their part, Jessica Haringa's family didn't support Willis' prosecution and have never believed he's the person responsible for her abduction and murder. - The family still, they still have their Facebook page. They still, you know, help us find Jessica. They still have not acknowledged that Jeffrey Willis had anything to do with her disappearance or her death. They're still holding out hope that she might come home. - So this is a memorial that was set up for Becky after she passed. A friend of the family made the cross. So the plaque says, "A friend of the family made the cross." Becky Bletch, 1977 to 2014. And then it says, "Sister," next to it with a heart and an infinity sign on it. When I'm in the area, I try to stop, share a little moment with her, and let her know I'm thinking of her. And we haven't forgotten her. - And we should point out, tonight, that she's now remembered in a new Michigan law, the Rebecca Bletch Law, which ensures that a defendant is present in the courtroom when a victim impact statement is read. - And as for that silver minivan, which played such a big role in the case, a judge ruled that it could be sent to a scrap yard where it's now been destroyed. - And you can find all new broadcast episodes of 2020, Friday, and Sunday, at WGBH.com. - "Morning Neights at 9:00" on ABC. - "Morning Neights at 9:00" on ABC.