Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey listeners, Jessica here. Be sure to check out new
episodes of Undetermined every Tuesday for free wherever you get
your podcasts. For early and ad free listening, check out
Tenderfoot plus on Apple Podcasts. The views and opinions expressed
in this podcast are solely those of the individuals interviewed
(00:24):
and participating in the show, and do not represent those
of Tenderfoot TV and Resonate recordings. All individuals described or
mentioned in the podcast should be considered innocent until found
guilty in a court of law. This podcast contains subject
matter such as violence and graphic descriptions, which may not
(00:45):
be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. I'm
Jessica Noll, an investigative journalist with twenty years of experience.
I've been covering crime stories for a good chunk of
my career, with a particular interest in unsolved and cold cases.
(01:05):
That's because these are cases that are often overlooked and undercovered.
If I can tell the victim's story, shed new light
on it, and give them a voice, maybe that can
help their case. In twenty eighteen, I produced my first
true crime podcast, covering two fifty year old cold cases
(01:27):
in Atlanta. I've gone on to produce several others since,
and at the heart of each and every one of
those stories is the victim. These aren't my stories to tell,
they're their stories. So I want to tell you the
story of Jessica Easterly Darning. She was the kind of
person who one of our friends told me, could make
(01:50):
you feel so special, so loved, and like you were
the most beautiful, most important person in the world to her,
and those who loved her back felt the same way
about Jessica. But in the summer of twenty eighteen, Jessica
vanished from her Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans. Within days,
(02:13):
her body was found just two and a half blocks
from her home.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Her body was in an advanced state of decomposition. Now
her family in advanced stages of grief and disbelief that
something like this could happen.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
She shouldn't be dead right now. My family's devastated.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
They lost a cousin, a sister, a daughter.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Everything seems to be hush hushed.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
The police don't know anything. The neighborhood is very upset
about it, and we would really like some answers as
to what happened to our neighbor.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
While no cause or manner of death has been determined,
Jessica's family and friends are determined to get justice for Jessica.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Ultimately, her case and manner of death were classified as undetermined,
which has left the investigation into her death in limbo,
and because of that, more than three years later, her
case remains unsolved. I wanted to know more about Jessica,
more about her life and about her death, and I
(03:19):
wanted to find out what really happened in the days
leading up to and following August fourteenth, twenty nineteen. The
more I learned, the more convinced I became that her
story was one that I needed to tell, and that's
why I'm here today. But when I first learned about
(03:39):
Jessica's story, I didn't think I would be where I
am right now, behind the microphone telling her story to
the world. So before we dive into Jessica's story, I
want to share with you how we got here, because
a lot has happened over the last two years that's
brought me where I am today. It all started with
(04:01):
my partner, retired Detective Todd Macombas.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
I retired from law enforcement in twenty seventeen, and I
did so to take a job on a sports radio show,
host a comedy podcast, and focus on my career in
stand up. But by November of twenty nineteen, I had
fallen completely in love with true crime podcasts because that's
when I listened to the first season of Culpable, and
(04:29):
I mean I was hooked three minutes in to the
first episode and I binged it from beginning to end. Now,
at that time, I was hosting a podcast called Heartland
Radio for the Pat McAfee Show. And even though Heartland
Radio was a comedy podcast, I decided to throw our
listeners a little curveball and invite Dennis Cooper, the co
(04:49):
creator and host of Culpable, to be a guest on
the show. So a lot of weird, hinky things. You
would think that law enforcement in the scene would think,
you know what, maybe we need to take a little
a layer deeper than maybe just what the two people
that allegedly found the body are saying. And that really
(05:11):
wasn't done initially, right, it was just let's get it
looks like suicide. Us just wrap it up, boys, let's
go get some lunch.
Speaker 6 (05:18):
That's what all indications point to and to not knock
bringing place too much, as once the family gave pressure,
they started to look into things. But you know, as
many other victims families have probably learned, it really hurts
when you don't do it right out the gate.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Dennis's guest spot was a big hit with our crowd,
and then he and I quickly became friends over text
and listen. I got so hooked on true crime podcasting
that I left my job. I just quit and I
went back to my detective roots and started my own
true crime podcast called ten forty one with Todd Macomas.
(05:58):
Then six months later, I get tagged in a tweet
from a woman named Audrey Schmidt. Now Audrey asked me
to bring her, her sister, and her sister's best friend
on ten forty one to talk about the suspicious death
of their sister, Jessica Easterly Dearning. So I did, and
that interview changed my life.
Speaker 7 (06:21):
According to detectives, they can't hand it over from missing
persons to homicide until the coroner calls it specifically a homicide.
So as long as the coroner is calling it undetermined,
just can't do anything. Sorry, sooner or.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
Later somebody's gonna have to do something for your sister,
and it's frustrating, right you guys are you guys are
all warriors and you're out there battling for her. And
I'm sure that Jessica is very proud of each and
every one of you. It's admirable. And any way that
I can help in the future, please don't hesitate to
let me know. Stay in contact and I'll try to
(06:59):
keep up on the case. If I can offer advice
or if I can help you get the word out
of anything, I definitely will do that. And I, as
a former detective, I just have to apologize to you.
This is injustice. It shouldn't be happening. I had interviewed
these three amazing women, let them tell Jessica's tragic story
(07:21):
in one single episode, and then it was on to
the next week's story. But I could not get that
conversation out of my head. I mean, I wanted to
help them find justice for their sister and her friend
so badly, yet I felt completely powerless. My inner detective
(07:42):
was screaming at me, man one episode and done, what
in the hell are you doing? Do something? But what
my following wasn't big enough. My reach wasn't far enough,
and I just didn't have the infrastructure or resources to
cover this story in the way it deserved, let alone
(08:03):
get it to the size of the audience it deserved.
But fortunately I knew someone who did, my buddy Dennis Cooper,
and man, before I knew it, my world would come
full friggin circle.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
As he said, I was wrapping up on Culpable Season one,
and he asked me to be on his comedy podcast,
And of course I'm nervous because I don't like doing
that stuff anyways, and also, why would they want to
talk to me about a true crime podcast. I just
didn't understand that. But I go on there, and Todd
and his co host took really good care of me,
(08:42):
and it ended up being this great experience, which I
did not expect whatsoever going into it. So Todd and
I exchanged information and from that point on we stayed
in touch. I learned that he had a background in
law enforcement and had done some work on some cases
that I was familiar with back in his home state
of Indiana. I figured, who knows, maybe someday we pair
(09:04):
up and make a podcast, or he tells me about
a case that I then feel compelled to make a
podcast about. Like Todd said, he had moved on from
comedy to true crime. And then I believe it was
near the end of twenty twenty that he reaches out
and he starts telling me about this case in New
Orleans that he covered on his show, and he's like, dude,
(09:24):
I cannot stop thinking about this one. So of course
I get sucked in and I start going down all
the same rabbit holes, and it wasn't long before he
connected me with the victim's family. The victim is jessicaate
Easterly Darning and her sisters are Audrey and Amanda, to
(09:44):
super strong women who have basically led the charge on
their own sister's investigation. And I'll just say it's amazing
what they've done. But we connected with them, we hit
it off on a zoom call, and from that point
I just felt like, we need need to take on
this story. The well, like I said, is to make
an impact on this and whether that's finding something new
(10:07):
or getting somebody to talk, or breaking this thing wide
open ourselves. I mean just really put a shit ton
of pressure on NPD to do something with this to
where they can't really do much about the amount of
questions they're receiving now related to this, and that's.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
All I want, And I just want to put enough
pressure on them to where they'll they'll take it seriously.
Speaker 6 (10:30):
God, we didn't know what it was going to be,
but we traveled in New Orleans anyways, and we spent
some significant time there in the field recording, and eventually
we came to this crossroad where we needed to decide
what is the show. So at the time what we
(10:53):
landed on was this would become season two of Culpable.
Obviously that's not what ended up happening. Resonate Recordings was
looking to hire our first producer to work on original shows,
Jessica Noll, an investigative journalist out of Ohio. We were
familiar with her name because being from Kentucky. We listened
to Vault Studios podcast Bargetown, which takes place in Bargstown, Kentucky,
(11:17):
and Jessica was a producer on that show and she
had a big presence in it, working alongside the host.
We knew they'd done a phenomenal job on that show,
and Jessica had twenty plus years of experience, so needless
to say, it was an easy decision. And when she
comes on board, she says, Hey, I have this story
in my hometown and I really think we should do
a podcast on it. And that case was about a
(11:38):
young mother, Britney Stikes, who'd been murdered in Brown County, Ohio,
and we start doing some research and we say, yeah,
let's do it. Well, as I started getting pulled more
and more into that project, I asked Jessica to fill
in and do some work on the project that I
had been working on, that being the Jessica Easterly Darning case.
(11:59):
Long story short, the case in Ohio became a perfect
fit for Culpable, so it ended up becoming season two.
And while Jessica is digging into the Jessica Easterly case,
it's eventually decided that she could use some assistance while
she's on the ground recording and investigating. And immediately I
think of Todd McComas. He's got the background and experience
(12:21):
to help make a difference in a case like this,
he knows the story, he's passionate about it. He brought
it to us no brainer. So, like Todd said, it
did in fact go full circle. And now all of
a sudden, they're going to tag team this new series
of ours. And I say new series because when Jessica
and Todd went to New Orleans, they quickly realized what
(12:44):
this podcast should have been all along.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
One of the first things that captivated me was her
sisters and their tenacity. It not only captured my attention,
it fueled me. It made me realize what I would
do if I ever lost one of my daughters and
couldn't get any answers, no matter what doors I knocked down,
(13:09):
I would go to the ends of the earth. I
would fight with everything inside of me to get the
justice she deserves. And that's exactly how her sisters have been,
especially Audrey. She has had to be Jessica's voice for her,
and so with that, she's had to raise her voice
(13:32):
just a little bit louder each time she's been told no,
until she was heard. Todd and I heard her, and
now we want to give Jessica and her whole family
the voice they so deserve. When Todd and I hit
the ground in the Big Easy, we knew investigating this
(13:52):
case was going to be anything but easy. It's when
we started talking to people about the case, specifically the
police in the corner's office. We knew this case was unique.
It just felt different from any case I've ever covered.
It felt unfinished. Of course, it was unsolved, but it
(14:14):
was more than that. The one word that kept coming
up in our investigation was undetermined. And during a two
am epiphany, sitting in the lobby of our hotel in
the French Quarter, it hit us that is what Jessica's
story is undetermined. It goes beyond unsolved and reaches far
(14:37):
past the simplistic term cold case, because this case wasn't
just cold. It was dusty sitting dormant. No one was
investigating her death all because of that one word in
the coroner's report, and that word continues to haunt her
family and ultimately is kept her keys void of answers
(15:03):
for now. Coming up on undetermined.
Speaker 7 (15:11):
My phone dinged and I was like, it's Justin, but
it's from Jessica's account, and he's saying he doesn't know
where she is, and like, my whole body just went cold.
I don't know how to describe it other than that,
but I just felt a chill all.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Over about right there where that white thing is. It
was down on the ground and I tried to get
down there, and I slid down and my foot hit it,
and I remember just thinking, Oh God, please don't let
my sister be underneath this tart.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
It boggled my mind that there would be less investigation
because her cause of death was undetermined. That doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
If it seemed like some sort of foul play to
three amateurs, I can only imagine how it would look
to someone who does this every single day.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Undetermined is a production of Resonate Recordings and Tenderfoot TV
in conjunction with Cadence thirteen, written and hosted by me
Jessica Nole and produced by Dennis Cooper and Todd McComas,
with additional production by Whitney Bozart. Executive producers are Dennis Cooper,
Mark Minnery, Jacob Bozart, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay. Our
(16:26):
senior producer is John Street. Editing, mixing, mastering and sound
design by Caleb Melcher, Dayton Cole and Pat kick Glider
of the Resonate Recordings team. If you have a podcast
or are looking to start one, check us out at
resonate Recordings dot com. Our theme song and original score
(16:47):
is by Dirt Poor Robbins, with additional scoring by Dayton Cole.
Our cover art is by Station sixteen. Sources used in
this episode include Partland Radio, Tin forty one podcast with
Todd Macoma's and WDSU News. You can follow Undetermined Podcast
on Facebook and on Twitter at undetermined Pod. Show notes
(17:12):
as well as bonus content can be found on our website,
undeterminedpod dot com. If you enjoyed this episode, please take
time to subscribe, rate, and review. Your feedback is greatly
appreciated