We Know How Mariah Kletz Died... But Who Killed Her?

there's a killer that brutally beat her little body walking free. The unsolved murder of 16-year-old Mariah Kletz. I said, what do you mean Mariah died? And they don't want me to know. I was frantic. Police just revealed how Mariah died and her family says it was brutal. When we turned and we looked at her laying there, we were not prepared. Her eyes were black. Her skull was disfigured. Off the record, the family says they're being told police have a prime suspect. They tell me, don't let nobody lead you a different way. You know who did it. We know who did it. Some people think Mariah's own father is to blame. So we asked him. People are pointing the finger at you saying you are the reason that Mariah died. I mean, what do you have to say for that? This is Scandal presented by Law and Crime. I'm Sierra Gillespie. It has now been six months since 16-year-old Mariah Kletz was killed. That's missed school dances, summer breaks, holidays, and birthdays. Mariah herself would have been 17 on August 31st. Instead, she's frozen in time at age 16 after she was murdered back in February. Since then, the case has taken twists and turns. It's literally up to the minute. I mean, I finished writing this story. It was almost completely edited when I got a call from police. A major update six months in the making. Did our reporting move the needle, light a fire, and the release of more information? All of that is very possible, and we do have some brand new information. But in the six months since Mariah's murder, there still have been no arrests. Plenty of suspects cleared with alibis, search warrants served, evidence collected, and still no one has been taken into custody or charged with what police are calling homicide. We first reported on this case about six months ago after Mariah's death, and the facts we knew were scarce. Mariah Kletz, a 16-year-old girl out of Bloomington, Illinois, was dead. At the time, we couldn't even label it as a homicide. Today's case is shrouded in mystery. There are so many questions that remain completely unanswered. Police say one family says another, but the bottom line is this. A 16-year-old girl is no longer with us, and that alone is a tragedy. But what really happened to 16-year-old Mariah Kletz? We posted that scandal video on February 16th of this year. The next day, I got a DM. It said, thank you for sharing my niece's story. Now that message was from Mariah's aunt, Haley Nelson. She wrote back again on February 18th saying, we are praying they make an arrest before her celebration. of life on a Friday. When I'm able, I'll share more details. The time to share those details is now. Haley reached back out to me a few weeks ago asking for help. She wrote, hi, thank you for reaching out to our family in the past. We stayed quiet because we wanted to give law enforcement the time and space to investigate. Now, nearly six months later, our 16-year-old Mariah still has no justice. Investigators have told us they have two primary suspects. Promises of arrest coming, but no arrests have been made. We're ready to share Mariah's story because she deserves to be remembered as more than a case. She was deeply loved and her life mattered. If your station is still interested in helping us tell her story and keep attention on her case, we'd be incredibly grateful. Now, this really got me thinking. At the time of my first scandal episode about Mariah, we only knew that she died. We didn't know cause of death, the manner of death, or if anyone was involved at all. So after getting Haley's message, I wanted to verify what new facts we had about Mariah. I wanted to verify what new facts we had about Mariah. I wanted to verify what we had in the case, you know, update myself on the latest info. And that's where I ran into a problem. There was no new info in this case, at least nothing that was being released publicly at the time. And in my experience, that's just not normal six months into an investigation. But I wanted to ask an expert about all this. So I called on retired detective commander Will Svealar. He's host of the YouTube podcast, Big City Crime, Inside the Red Tape. And he worked homicide division for years. Well, there's, it's been my experience that two things are going on. One of two things. One, they're trying to build a case and they don't want to release any information that would tip off the person they're building a case against, or they have nothing. You know, it's one of two things. They're either keeping their cards close to the vest because they're building a case on someone or they don't have a lot. I've been turned down before, but I wanted to try again. So my team reached out to Bloomington PD and the medical examiner. We wanted our hands on the 911 call. The autopsy report and any sort of new information they could give us and nothing. Our freedom of information act request was completely denied. We were told if details of an investigation are made public prematurely, it can compromise the integrity of the process. Suspects or individuals involved may be alerted, potentially destroying evidence or fleeing from law enforcement, making them more difficult to identify or apprehend them. By keeping information confidential, investigators can maintain the element of responsibility. If there's any information that's wrong, they can file a case against someone else. Do you have any explanation for why I can't get those? None. None whatsoever. I mean, I can tell you that sometimes in police investigation, because I dealt with FOIA requests all the time, you could get away with saying ongoing investigation for a while, but after a while, you got to give out the information that's requested. Freedom of Information Act 1974, you have to give out the information. And in those cases, we'd give heavily redacted information out there if it compromises, anything was in there could compromise the investigation. I have no idea why the ME is not releasing their report yet. Their whole report should be done by now. The protocol, we call it the protocol. The protocol is, you know, an autopsy is done and you get a cause and manner pretty much right there if there's an obvious cause and manner of death. The protocol comes out on all the notes where you can read every single thing that happened during that post-mortem examination. That should be done. And I don't understand why that's not being released. Without a 911 call, recording or ME report, I went straight to the next source, the Bloomington Police Department. I made call after call, sent multiple emails asking for some new information. At the very least, I wanted to confirm how Mariah died. I finally got a call back from the PIO who essentially told me what's out there is all that's out there. That's all that we can say right now. And I pressed asking him if there were any suspects or if they could release Mariah's cause of death. He said he couldn't comment. For transparency, I then asked him to send a follow-up email with all the information and he graciously did. Here's what it reads in part. "At this time, we are not releasing any additional information regarding this investigation as it remains an active investigation. For your reference, I have attached the media releases issued thus far related to this case. Should additional information become available for release, we will provide an update." And I'll give you a short rundown on what those releases say. The initial one was posted on February 9th. That's two days after Mariah's death. It says that a 911 call came in at 10:46 a.m. on February 7th. Upon arrival, officers and paramedics located a juvenile female and initiated life-saving efforts. Despite the efforts, the individual was pronounced deceased at the scene by the McLean County Coroner's Office. Pronounced deceased at 11:40 a.m. on February 2nd, 2026 was Mariah Klatz, age 16, of Bloomington, Illinois. Now the release goes on to say it's an active investigation and there's no threat to the public. But notice, no cause or manner of death. Now the second release came out 10 days later with only a bit more information. It reads in part, "This incident is being investigated as a homicide. Preliminary investigation suggests this was an isolated incident and there is no threat to the public. No additional information is being released at this time." But here's the thing. I didn't stop when police put up the red tape. I turned to Mariah's family, who have taken matters into their own hands. After Mariah's death, they visited the trailer where she lived. They snapped this picture, showing a search warrant on her father's refrigerator. And again, I want to note, police have not released this search warrant or made it public. I got this from the family. But this search warrant gives us a major clue for the way Mariah was killed. Now we enhanced the image and here's what we can take from it. The search warrant was issued on February 8th. That's one day after Mariah's death. It gives specifics about what detectives may collect as possible evidence. And this part is straight from the warrant. And if found, sees the following. Writings or other evidence of occupancy. Cellular phone or phones. Tablets, smartwatch or watches or computers. Devices capable of electronic communications. Any items containing red blood-like substances. Clothing. Items capable of inflicting blunt force trauma. Any devices capable of recording audio and or video, including any peripherals needed to allow the device to function. I think she was beat to death. I don't know why they're not saying that. I mean, they're saying it's when you look at the copy of the search warrant that was left at the home that you showed me, you shared with me, it says everything you expect to see in a search warrant, what they're searching for. But an interesting thing that's in it is it says any device or implement that could inflict blunt force trauma. That kind of tells you what what they're they're looking for. And it also tells you the cause of death. The crazy thing is there has been no release, no reclassification by the police that we know of, and no release by DME. of the actual cause and manner of death. And this is, you know, back in February. First of all, something should be back on that search warrant by now. And I just don't understand why they're not giving more information out. Again, neither did I. But I formed a good relationship with the Bloomington Police Department after I've been hounding them for weeks. So I told the PIO, Officer Bryce Jansen, I'd give him notice when the story was going to be posted. On Wednesday, I sent him an email saying my episode was finished, and I said, OK, I have to address the lack of info that police have released. And I did mention I interviewed both sides of the family. Then I told him the video was set to be posted this weekend. He replied on the same day. He wrote, Thank you, Sierra. I appreciate the heads up. I'll be sure to let you know when we have any updates to share. And let me just say, he was not lying. Less than 24 hours after I got that email, I also got a call to my personal phone coming from Bloomington, Illinois. I answered, and it was the PIO, with two major updates. First, Mariah's cause of death has officially been revealed. And second, the Bloomington Police Department wants a complete and raw copy of my interviews, research, and any assets I have for this case. Whoa. So let's start with the biggest news, though. The fact that Mariah's cause of death has been revealed. This is from Officer Jansen's email to me. Attached is a recent update on the Mariah, Kletz homicide investigation. It includes additional preliminary autopsy findings that were released minutes ago. And I had to include that just to show these results were released just minutes before they were sent to me. In fact, I received a call about the autopsy results even before they were made public. Then the police news release states that as of August 6th, 2026, just shy of six months to the day of Mariah's death. The coroner's. Find. Findings have now been released. This is a direct quote from the release. The McLean County coroner's office has released additional preliminary findings. The immediate cause of death has been determined to be subdural hematoma and multiple blunt injuries of the head and neck due to an altercation contributing factors include amphetamine, sertraline, and fluoxetine intoxication. The timeframe from the onset of injuries to death was noted as. As minutes, the manner of death was ruled as homicide. This is huge. This is the first time we have any sort of confirmation on the record that Mariah had multiple blunt injuries, meaning she sustained a beating to the head and neck. Now a subdural hematoma means there was an injury generally to the head. Like it was in this case that causes blood to pool between the outer covering of the brain and the brain's surface. Now I'm not a medical expert, so while I was on. The phone with the Bloomington police officer, I asked what all this meant. How soon after Mariah was physically attacked, did she die? He said it was just minutes. And that brings a lot of questions to the forefront. The place where Mariah's body was found. I mean, how did she get there? Who saw what happened? And again, why have there been no arrests? Both sides of Mariah's family have different beliefs about who may have attacked Mariah or what happened. And that's part two of this new development. The fact that the Bloomington police department wants their hands on our full raw interviews with both sides of the family. I shared those interviews with police, and now I'm going to share them with you. She was a big animal lover. She had the biggest heart. She just wanted to do as much as she could for everybody around her who she loved. That's Mariah's aunt Haley. The one who reached out to me. Here's her Nana, Teresa Nelson. Behind me, like this is a picture of Mariah with a turtle, uh, you know, they cross. Some roads in Florida and you know, she got out, jumped out of the road, you know, out of the car and carried it to the side of the road, you know, so it didn't get ran over. She just, she was that kid. You know what I mean? Just that kid. Mariah was born on August 31st, 2009 to mom, Rachel Wessels and dad, Michael Cletsch. She was a beautiful, young, independent, young woman. She, uh, she did all her stuff herself. You know, she was type of girl that would take her shirt off her back for somebody. You know, she had big, wonderful heart. I reached out to Michael for an interview a few weeks ago and he agreed to sit down and talk with me. Mariah's mom, Rachel, unfortunately passed away in 2021 at age 30. Rachel was never forgotten. She was a part of her life. Everybody loved Rachel. She loved Mariah enough not to have her in that kind of environment that she grew up in. So even though Rachel was. I was an addict and she was fighting demons herself. She loved Mariah enough to know that she couldn't take care of Mariah, which I, I always applauded her for that, you know, cause some kids, the parents keep them in that environment because they don't want to say, Hey, we can't do it. But Rachel loved her enough to take her out of that and to let her be with us. Because of this dynamic, Mariah was raised mostly by her aunt, Crystal, who she called her bonus mom, spending most of her time in Florida. I got, I got incarcerated. And so she stayed with her, her cousins in Florida for the time being. And when I got until I got out of incarceration, which changed my life to the man I am today. Can you tell me what were you charged with or convicted of that you have to serve time? That's fine. I can do some research. It's no comment. No, you're fine. Don't worry about it. That first voice was Lori Hyatt, Mariah's maternal grandmother. She was there for Michael's interview and will pop up a few times in this episode, but they both made it clear. They didn't want to discuss Michael's conviction or incarceration. So I looked it up on my own. He's got a lengthy rap sheet dating back to March, 2005. Honestly, most of the cases are pretty minor. He's got traffic citations, speeding, driving with a suspended license or improper lane usage, and a couple of citations for work. He's got a lot of evidence for dogs running at large, but there are a few charges that stood out to me, including domestic battery, burglary, driving under the influence of both alcohol and drugs separately, criminal trespass to vehicles, resisting or obstructing a peace officer, and unlawful use of weapons. No, Michael made it clear in his interview with me. He's turned his life around and I'm not listing these infractions to belittle or embarrass him, but because they will be something detectives are going to keep a close eye on during Mariah's death. investigation. They absolutely would look at that. They look at the nature of the conviction. They'd also, they'd also look to see if he's in CODIS, which is a DNA database. So if he's been, if he's been inside the penitentiary, he's in CODIS. But in 2025, after years of living with her aunt in Florida, Mariah wanted to make a change. It asked if she could, you know, kind of reunite with her dad. Could she stay up here in Bloomington to get to know him? He had just got back out of prison. She hadn't seen him since then. At that point, Mariah moved into a trailer with her father, Michael, his girlfriend, Caitlin, and their three-year-old daughter. And at first, everything seemed to be going well. Can you describe to me your relationship with Mariah? Because it sounds like she came back to Illinois and you guys just started living together. I mean, what was that like getting to know her? We had an outstanding, she was a daddy's girl. You know, I gave in to her quite a bit. You know, I was, I, I, I personally was too leaner, you know, uh, you know, she, she could walk all over daddy, you know, and, uh, she was my little princess and I gave her everything I possibly could. You know, she, she always was an open-minded young lady. Um, and we started building our relationship back together real good. You know, she was just daddy's girl. She's old. She's always been, since she was a little baby, you know, it was always just me and her always, always. And I extremely miss her very much. Here's Mariah's aunt, Alexis Nelson. I went to the trailer day or two after she died. She had all these goals written on the fridge, her room, not even only for herself goals, but for her whole family at that trailer. There was goals, resolutions for everybody to fulfill by that year. Affirmation. And she only got to make it. Two months into that year and nobody fulfilled none of them goals. This is Mariah's actual handwriting. She wrote, I'm worthy. I'm strong. I attract abundance. I'm confident. Do. Don't say do. I'm humble. Focus on yourself. Get explicit done so you don't have to worry about it later. Mariah's extended family says she was determined to make something of her life and to rebuild the relationship with her dad. And in the beginning, she seemed very excited about it all. But to be a 16 year old girl and you go from having rules, so you have to follow, you got to get up and go to school every day. You've got to be at the dinner table. We go to football games on the weekend. You know, we've got your day is set schedule to it's a routine and to go from that to, hey, I'm going into this environment and I'm 16, nobody's telling me what to do. I can go do whatever I want with whoever I want. I could stay out all night. and nobody's holding me accountable. So she got to more or less run the streets. You know what I'm saying? Not go to school. So at the beginning, she loved it up here, you know, the first months. Because, hey, I'm 16 and nobody's telling me, get up, go to school. Don't do your homework. So at the beginning, it was like, hey, I'm 16, I love it. But then it turned into, hey, maybe rules are a good thing, you know. And I think there at the probably four months before she passed, she realized, hey, I need structure in my life. About 10 months into her life in Bloomington, Mariah's Nana says she just had enough. Her intentions were like that week before she was going to return to Florida. It wasn't what she thought. She wanted to go back home to Florida, you know. But what was Mariah saying? About, you know, wanting to leave or what her life was there, living in the trailer with Michael and Caitlin? I mean, she would always just tell us, you know, that she was unhappy, that it wasn't what she was expecting it to be, that, you know, her dad would continuously break promises. And, you know, she was just in a very down and depressed time. But Mariah would never make it back to Florida. Instead, on February 7th, her family received news that changed their lives forever. All of a sudden, I get it. I get a call from my aunt, and she tells me Mariah died, Trefa. And I said, what do you mean Mariah died? She goes, and they don't want you to know. I was frantic. I looked for the car keys. I tried to move the car. I couldn't. And I called my daughter, Haley, and she pulled up in front of the house. I got in the car. I had a tank top on. It was the middle of winter. I was sick. I had sweatpants on. And I ran out of the house, and we drove to the trailer. We got the call at 11.32, and we got to the trailer, and we almost got all the way up the stairs before the police came pouring out the door saying, this is a crime scene. You've got to get out. When they arrived to the trailer, it was being treated as a crime scene. But there were some notable people missing. The 911 call was at 10.46. My mom called me at 11.28. By the time we got to the trailer, it was 11.32. There was nobody left at the scene when we got there. There was no parents, no other grandparents. There was nobody. It was just us. And here's where my mind really starts racing with questions. Where was Mariah's dad when his family arrived to the scene? Did he find Mariah in need of help? Is he the one who called 911? And there are a lot of questions here, so I started by asking the basics. Can you bring me back to that day in February? I mean, what happened as a reporter? I really haven't gotten. Much from police. All I know is that Mariah passed away. Can you explain what happened? No comment right now. Mariah's father says he's not going to comment on any of it. But according to her Nana and aunts, there have been multiple stories. We heard so many stories like they told us, oh, somebody beat her up. A few days ago. I mean, this came weeks later. She died of a drug overdose. And I said, Mariah, don't do drugs like that. Like, what? They were saying, like, her vape was laced with fentanyl. I mean, these were just the things that, you know, the parents in the home with her were telling us before we actually got to view her body for ourselves. The new coroner's report gives us some insight into what was in Mariah's system at the time of her death. And the spoiler alert is that there were no hard drugs. She was found to have amphetamine, which is otherwise known as Adderall in her system. This is a drug that's used to treat ADHD. She was also found with the SSRI serotonin, which is commonly known as Zoloft. Now, this drug is generally prescribed for people with anxiety or depression. Lastly, Mariah was found with fluoxetine, otherwise known as Prozac, in her system. This is also an SSRI used for anxiety, depression, or even OCD treatment. Now, after this report was released, Mariah was found with a drug called Zoloft. After this report was released, I spoke to her Aunt Haley, and she tells me Mariah was prescribed all of these medications for previous diagnoses. And this is of note, too, because during my interview with Michael, he mentioned casually that Mariah reportedly overdosed while living in Florida. She loved them very much, and some stuff happened down there. You know, I heard she OD'd. I really don't know what happened. And they didn't give me. They didn't give me any detail of really much of what happened down there. But she loved them very much. Was she involved in drugs? No. No. No. I just. I don't know. They didn't give me much detail of what went on down there. You know, it was. She had a lot of free time. She had a lot of free time, you know. And when she came back with Dad, you know, when she came back with me, she just was independent. We put the trailer together that we bought, you know. You know, she was just. She was just a real independent young woman and helpful. With the possibility of a drug overdose now ruled out, here's where the blunt force trauma comes in. I remember. Very vividly, the coroner telling us, Amber, what's your relation? What's your relation to her? Okay, you don't want to see her like this. You just need to see her at the funeral home. You can't see her like this. It's. It will be very traumatic. You know, I guess we just didn't realize how extreme her injuries were. They told us that. We didn't want to have an open casket. They said that no makeup could cover the traumatic that was done to her. So I said I wanted to decide for myself if we were going to have an open casket. But when we walked down, her body was downstairs at the funeral home. And when we got to about the fifth step from the bottom, we turned and you could see her little body laying there. They had her face on cover. And that changed. February 7th changed me and my daughter's lives and it changed Mariah's life. But that fifth step when we turned and we looked at her laying there, we were not prepared. We were in shock that she was black and blue, her skull was. Moved her. She had a cut on her face, a gash. She had gashes all over her face. Her eyes were black. Her forehead was sticking out of her head. Like, we did not. I guess we couldn't comprehend at the time. I mean, whatever you can picture in your head, it was 20 times worse. At this point, it's probably clear that Mariah's family has conflicting views of what happened to her. So we'll start with the inconsistencies that her Nana. Says she was given. We had heard so many stories because her dad had told us there's no marks on her. You know, he just woke up, went to the bathroom and he, you know, he went to check on Mariah and he found her like that. But he told us over and over there were no marks on her. But that was a lie because when we seen her body. She had over 22 marks on her face from, you know, black eyes to gashes to scratches to, you know, her forehead being frayed. And we did go upstairs and talk to the funeral home and we asked them, you know, did any of this come from the autopsy? And they assured us, you know. You could tell the difference between the marks and the autopsy. There was a lot of screaming and crying and Michael and his girlfriend Caitlin came down there with us and they actually stood in a corner. They stood in a corner as we screamed at the top of her lungs, what did you do to her? What did you do to her? I mean. What happened to her? Screams that you'll just never forget, you know, you'll replay that moment over and over in our heads forever. And I know detectives are keeping kind of tight-lipped about everything and without naming names, but have they told you, "Yeah, we agree with you, we think it was this person"? They're the ones that told me, yes, they have, they said this, we know who did it, you know who did it. Don't let somebody tell you something else because when I call them, I say, "Well, what about this? I heard this on the streets, you know, somebody called me up because I'm a nana and I got a text or an email, did you look at this person?" And they tell me, "Don't let nobody lead you a different way, you know who did it, we know who did it." Again, I have to be clear, Michael Klutz has not been charged or even arrested in this case, but there has been some discourse that he may have done something wrong. He may have been involved in Mariah's death, so I asked him about it. One of the things I guess I've been struggling to because the police department, I've reached out to them, the ME, everything that you have said you've done also, and they're just giving me no comment or they won't return my calls or emails, things like that, but I have heard just kind of in the zeitgeist reported that blunt force trauma was involved here. Now, I haven't seen an official cause or manner of death in any way, but. There's no facts that there was a blunt force drop. trauma there's no facts on that i'm gonna let michael finish but first let me remind you this interview was recorded before the cause of death being blunt force trauma was revealed publicly it's just we're at we're the corner we're assuming we're assuming you know but we're assuming the situation now about these kids i just i really don't know they haven't gave me much answers you know and it's just really really rough that you know they're looking at me and caitlin you know and they should be looking at these kids more you know i believe and um that's where i'm at right now you have any more questions about that because mm-hmm yeah sorry i'll just ask one more and then i promise we can be done but you that's something that's i've seen too where people are pointing the finger at you saying you are the reason that mariah died i mean what do you have to say for that it really hurts my feelings because i'm a really really great father and i i extremely feel so upset that these people family and my fiance's family would think that i would hurt anybody you know any kid at that you know because kids love their dad you know i can i can have all the neighbor kids come over you know i'm just uh like a daddy daycare you know kids love me and that's all i got right now mariah's dad and her maternal grandmother laurie hyatt have a different take on what happened i apologize to interrupt but i need to let you know some of these things that have to do with those other children her so-called friends there there's not a lot of facts to pinpoint down to they did it they need to be convicted they need to go to jail um everything has just been kindly kind of piecing itself together over the months so um the you can go ahead and tell her what we believe and you're gonna say it like that i believe this is what happened okay okay i i believe my daughter got onto a party and she she was with this girl that she was a this girl was obsessed with her and and i believe that her and her friends got mariah because mariah didn't want to be with this girl and hurt my baby girl that's that's what i believe what what happened and so and have you talked to investigators and said all of this yes many many times i mean i've got recordings from these kids saying this kid did this you know and but it's all hearsay but it's all hearsay she said you know but i i i've got them on recording though i did my own research and investigations myself you know as a father that's what a parent i believe should do you know if the if the pd or detectives or or not giving me answers so i'm gonna find my own answers you know what i mean um but that's where i'm at right now that's where i'm at right now i've spoken to both sides of the family they both have different stories and they both are telling me different things about the family members and i mean i'm from wisconsin these are illinois people they're my type of people midwestern people everyone i hear i'm like i'm so sorry you're going through this i can't imagine i'm hearing their story and thinking like yeah okay i totally get it but then the other side of the family says an opposite thing so how do you as a detective parse through who's telling the truth in all this well you you listen to what they have to say you follow up with the information they may give you but you follow the evidence all you can do is follow the evidence you can get theories of you can do interviews and get theories of the crime through many different sources but you have to follow the evidence this person says this person did it and this is how they did it if you have evidence that supports that that's one thing but if you don't i mean you listen to it you follow up on it because you have to you have to follow out follow up on all these leads but you have to follow the evidence and it's so hard because in this case i don't have a clue what the evidence is like i could make a hypothesis for what i think they would have collected i mean we saw the search warrants they're like a phone an ipad maybe an apple watch things of the like but at the same time when i'm covering cases usually there's something like for instance the nancy guthrie case we're like okay we have the ring camera video we've got you know there was blood spatter we've got all these little tidbits of information but here in the mariah klutz case i don't know what we have you know was she talking to someone on snapchat was was there blood spatter and i don't know what we have you know was she talking to someone on snapchat was was there blood spatter was there whatever so i guess what sort of evidence do you hypothesize that they're working with well if you look at the search warrant you can see that they asked for just what you said is there a beef on social media they look for all kind of uh you know this thing is we always write computer tablets smartphones smart watches anything that shows location of where the person was or who they're in communication with it's been my experience in blunt force trauma that a lot of the evidence is on the remains so what i mean by that is you're going to do what we call a deluxe on post that means you're going to take fingernail scrapings you're going to take you know you're probably going to do a csa kit i would have i would have requested it um and you're going to see you're going to hope for transfer between the victim and the offender you get a lot of transfer when somebody is beaten to death there's there's there's contact between both so some of the offenders dna or trace evidence could be on the victim so the a ton of the evidence is going to come from the remains of the victim in my opinion for mariah's nana there's still a question of the evidence and how it was collected well did the police do something wrong that why aren't isn't somebody arrested did they not get proper like you like miranda writes you know did they get evidence that i'm not saying they did anything i know that detective ryan i talked to him weekly i know that he eats breathes this you know what i mean i know that he wants justice for i don't know if he's going to the state's attorney and they're turning him away i it none of it makes sense they should have had all the evidence that day of the trailer the search warrant her autopsy i know they wait for phone records uh dna i know that they have got all that stuff back so i'm i'm still here we're going on six months her birthday is next month august 31st is it possible that they know who their person is and they had a hiccup you know they didn't miranda is the person or they collected evidence without a search warrant or something like that is anything like that possible well but if you it's possible sure absolutely i mean it's possible that they had some problems with evidence collection sure no question about it i don't know that they made an arrest and didn't miranda because an arrest would be pretty public you you would know about an arrest um but it very well could be i mean and i know bloomington illinois doesn't have a bunch of murders but they have you know they have good detectives down there that could run an investigation um but yeah i mean you can't you can't rule that out but i just i'm just puzzled by the lack of information and this is going back you know the last thing i read about it was in march i have asked the bloomington police department point blank are there any suspects is michael klitz a suspect and i have been repeatedly told they can't release that information and i understand i mean they have to protect the integrity of the investigation but at the same time those closest to mariah are growing impatient think about this every day it has consumed me because i caught i was calling the police every day and then it went to a few times and i still call detective brian twice a week because i get the same thing you know who did it we know who did it and i said and then why isn't anybody arrested and you know if this is um an isolated instance like the police say that it was why has it took six months for an arrest to be made when there was only four people in that home you know one being mariah dead one a child and two grown adults police won't confirm who was in the trailer at the time mariah died but we do know there were only four people who lived there mariah her three-year-old sister her father michael and his girlfriend caitlin police won't release the 911 call but mariah's aunts believe it was caitlin who made the call according to mariah's dad he's still hoping for police updates i have tried i've reached out to them and they haven't really said much to me you know i mean i've called the corner you know they just ain't giving me no answers and it's been rough with me and especially dad losing his baby girl and what what i've been going through you know and you know and personally you know i need justice justice for my baby um justice or something has to be served you know what i mean and that's where i'm at right now But it's the horror that Mariah's family endured that day back in February that keeps them up at night. And I'm 50 years old and I've never seen anything like this in my life. Nobody should ever see what we saw that day in the basement of the funeral home. It changed us forever. That picture of her laying on the table just replays in my head every day I wake up. You know why everybody else's you know days move forward and you know they continue on with everyday life. Our life has consistent of finding justice for Mariah since the day she's died and it's consumed us. I mean from the phone calls we make to you know everything that we're trying to do to fight for her. Our world has stopped as well. We don't want her to become a cold case because you know we're trying to fight for her. We don't want her to become a cold case because we don't want her to become a cold case because we don't want her to become a cold case because we care about her and we need answers. She needs answers. Will we ever know truly like her last minutes of her life? We hope we can find out. We hope there will be answers. We hope there will be an arrest but at the end of the day she deserves justice and her story deserves to be heard and told and the truth deserves to be known. That's the bottom line here. There's a 16 year old girl who police say was murdered and so far her killer has yet to be brought to justice. If you have any information about the death of Mariah Klutz, please contact the Bloomington Police Department. And that is where today's episode of Scandal leaves us for now. If you like what you saw and you want to see more or connect with me on social media, you can find me on places like Instagram at Sierra Gillespie. Thanks for watching today's episode of Scandal. As always, I'm your host Sierra Gillespie and I'll see you next time. Thank you.