A Retired FBI Profiler Discusses Jodi's Case

Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Before sunrise on a mild summer morningin June nineteen ninety five, a twenty
seven year old television news anchor namedJody Housen Troops hurriedly left her apartment in
Mason City, Iowa, headed forwork, but she never arrived, and

(00:26):
her disappearance has never been solved.In two thousand and three, two television
news reporters created finds Jody dot Com, a website dedicated to preserving Jody's memory
and keeping her case alive. Thisis the official Finds Jody podcast. Welcome

(00:56):
back to the Find Jody Podcast.I'm Scott Fuller. What kind of person
would have abducted and likely murdered TVnews anchor Jodi housintrude on the morning of
June twenty seventh, nineteen ninety five. As you know from television and movies,
there's an entire segment of the FBIdedicated to answering questions like that.
The Behavioral Analysis Unit or BAU containsagents who are certified criminal profilers, and

(01:22):
their role is to provide investigators allover the country an additional resource to help
determine who an offender might be.In the abstract, they analyze crime scenes,
victims, and other factors to tryto point police investigators who are working
on these cases in the right directionto search for the identity of uncaught violent
criminals. On this episode of thepodcast, Caroline Low and I spoke with

(01:44):
a retired certified FBI profiler named JuliaCowley who worked at the FBI for twenty
two years and worked at the BAUfrom two thousand nine until her retirement in
twenty twenty one. This is alonger than normal episode of the podcast,
but we think you'll find Julia's insideof Jody's case, even from the outside.

(02:04):
Is someone who did not work onJody's case for the FBI valuable throughout
the episode, and for those ofyou who are procedural true crime listeners like
us, who are fascinated with aprocess of how these crimes are committed and
solved, we hope it will beworth your time. Our conversation with retired
FBI profiler Julia Cowley is coming upnext. Profiling is just based on the

(02:30):
fact that traits and characteristics of anindividual are generally reflected in their repeated patterns
of behavior, and that these traitsand characteristics they remain consistent whether it concerns
like their normal life, their normaleveryday life, or the commission of a

(02:53):
crime. And that's sort of theconcept of profiling. And Caroline, I
know you've heard are our podcast andwe talk about profiling concepts. And you
know, one of the things thatI always bring up as an example is
that I'm early everywhere I go,and to the point where I can inconvenience

(03:15):
other people, I inconvenience myself.I will set three alarm clocks if I
have somewhere I need to be earlymorning because I'm afraid I'm not going to
wake up. And I even havemy husband set one of the alarm clocks
in case I've made a mistake.So, you know, what can you
determine about my personality based on thatrepeated pattern of behavior that I have.

(03:38):
You could, you know, youcould say I'm conscientious. That would be
a nice way where you say,well, maybe you're anxious, you don't
want to miss out on anything,you're control freak. All of these things
so and those are all probably truebased you know, if you ask people
that know me. I mean,my husband once said, you micromanage the
kitchen, So I have to havecontrol over certain things. So if I

(04:03):
were going to go commit a crime, I'm going to be a very organized
individual. I'm going to plan.I'm going to have, you know,
a plan of attack. I'm goingto have my weapons ready. I'm going
to take a weapon to the scene. I'm going to bring it from the
scene. I'm going to wear gloves. I'm going to be prepared. And
so that's how we look at cases. Okay, what in the way that

(04:27):
an offender commits a crime, whatdoes that tell us about that offender and
what are their real personality traits andcharacteristics. And that's the basis of it.
You know, as you can see, it's kind of it's in no
way an exact science, and it'scertainly not as psychological diagnosis. Some of
the personality traits and characteristics maybe inline with certain personality disorders, but our

(04:54):
role is not to diagnose anyone.It's really just to say, this is
the kind of person that you're lookingfor, and in some cases it can
help focus the investigation in the directionof the most probable offender. So that's
the idea behind profiling. And interms of an investigation, I think behavior

(05:19):
often gets overlooked and it's kind ofa last resort. Okay, let's let's
go back and examine the behavior ascarefully as we can. But of course,
in terms of forensics and the investigativework, those are the two most
important things, and then the behavioris kind of the third, the third
most important thing. But understanding thebehavior can really help. It can help

(05:44):
in solving helping to solve the case. It can help provide a better understanding
of the offense, including the motivationof the offender. It can help explain
the victim's selection process and the crimescene dynamics. So and then, of
course, understanding your offender may alsohelp you when you want to do an

(06:06):
interview of that offender. So wouldyou if say, a local agency reached
out to you to give you yourinsight, would you help them and how
they ask questions of a person theymight be interviewing, whether it's the witnesses
or a person of interest. Whatwould you help them on that way?
Oh? Oh, definitely. Thatwas one of the services that we provided

(06:30):
in the behavioral analysis unit. Wherethey do have a suspect and or the
investigation has identified an individual and they'regoing to arrest that individual, so they
want to try to elicit a confession, So how do you approach that person?
And everyone's different, there's no oneway to do an interrogation. So

(06:54):
what are the themes that might workfor a person, you know, and
how to deal with them when they'renot answering your questions or giving you what
you want, like for example,in one particular interview, and this was
not related to Joe DeAngelo not thiscase is a different case, but we

(07:17):
knew that the offender was likely goingto make up maybe perhaps mental health issues
and you know, maybe say theydreamt the crime or something like that,
because based on other interactions that peoplehad had with him, and he'd had
contact with law enforcement on another matter, so we thought, this is likely

(07:42):
something he'll try to throw out there. And I think the the instinct would
be argue with the person about it, and in this case, we thought
that would be detrimental. So wesaid, just let him talk about it,
just go with it, let himtalk about what he's seen, and
if he you know, if thingssound implausible, don't question him on it

(08:05):
and don't get into an argument.And that worked really well. And while
this confession wasn't perfect, he seemedto describe the victims as monsters, not
real people. But what he diddo is when he described what happened with
these monsters, he laid out theperfect sequence of events that only the offender

(08:31):
would have known. He knew whatgun was used, at what time,
he knew how the victims were found, and so that's something only the offender
would know. So it really endedup being a very productive interview by just
letting him, you know, makeit seem like he had some sort of
mental health issue or he was outof touch with reality, but he was

(08:56):
not. And then ultimately they know, they connected forensic evidence, and we're
able to get a conviction. Sothat's like an example of a potential strategy
with an offender. One thing youmentioned one of your colleagues mentioned in your
podcast is that sometimes because you seeso many cases where a small department may

(09:16):
see something that's so unusual, youmight be able to connect the dots or
have see whether there's linkings to anotherone, or have some insight. Can
you kind of share how seeing somany horrific crimes as you have and study
them, how that might help youwith a department that's not used to sing
an unusual case. Yeah, Ithink because the Behavioral Analysis Unit, in
our role, we see so manydifferent types and very unusual cases, and

(09:41):
like you said, Caroline, someof these smaller departments, this will be
the only case that they have likethis in their entire careers in a very
low crime area. But because we'veseen so many and we can provide information
about what helped solve that other crimeand you know, provide them some strategies

(10:05):
that may lead to them solving thecase. And I think it also helps
if you're looking at one case,you say, Okay, I have seen
that before, and this is whatit turned out to be, so you
might want to consider this other potential. Um I guess outcome and you know,

(10:28):
and because sometimes I think people canget really focused on one thing and
maybe don't consider other things. Butif we've seen it in the behavioral analysis
unit, we can say, hey, this is very similar to what you're
saying, and this is what theoutcome was. And so that's also helpful.
You know, having seen so manydifferent types of cases, and you

(10:48):
know, we saw a lot ofreally unusual cases, but we saw a
lot of other cases that they're justthey're I don't want to say regular cases,
but they're typical violent crime cases.But some of these, again,
some of these departments don't have violentcrime like that in the areas in their

(11:13):
territories, so they may never haveseen something like that. And some of
these cases they can just go cold, and it's no fault of the investigators.
It's just in Sometimes it's just theoffender gets lucky, and so just
having another set of eyes look atthese cases can be really helpful. Well,

(11:39):
I think this should be a goodtime if we could talk with you
about Jody's case. And I knowthat you've never had direct access to any
FBI or police files on Jody HoustonTroop's case, but you have studied it
quite a bit. You have followeda lot of news reports, and I
wonder if you could start off byjust giving us some overall impressions from maybe
starting with the scene, what yousee, and walk us through what you

(12:03):
think from where you are it's likelyto have happened. Sure. Yeah,
I appreciate that, Caroline, becauseI haven't looked at the case, and
I have seen media reports, andI have seen what the police department,
the investigators have talked about publicly.So I'm going to try to be really
general when I talk, because Itend to make it a practice that I'm

(12:28):
not going to do an analysis firstand foremost all by myself, without colleagues,
but without knowing exactly what the investigationis and what the investigators know,
because I would miss something. Ifif I had tried to profile of Jody
Angelo without talking to the investigators andjust going off the media, I would

(12:48):
have been wrong. I would havehad a different impression of him. So
so I'm going to just talk generallyand in terms of, you know,
looking at this case and Jody's abduction, a couple of things that I would
want to focus on it. So, Okay, exactly what again what happened
at the crime scene? And thenthat's how I always start. Everybody has

(13:09):
their own process. Okay, whathappened here? And then the next I
want to know is the victimology,you know, where you know it's which
is like a complete picture of acrime victim. And so in terms of
the crime scene itself, I thinkthere's enough information out there that I can
safely say that this was a somewhatof a blitz attack. And you know

(13:39):
she you know, my understanding isher car was very close to the door
she would have exited out of herapartment building, and so someone was there
prepared to grab her very quickly andimmediately and take her. So that's what
I see, based on what hasbeen available to the public, So a

(14:05):
blitz attack. And I see thisas somebody that had a plan in place
already. So the offender knew whathe was going to do with her.
And I'm going to say he becausestatistically it's most likely a male, so
we'll just call him he and hada plan in place, knew what he

(14:31):
was going to do with her,where he was going to take her.
I think that if the person hadn'tplanned to abductor let's say the person had
gone there to try to have aconversation with her and things escalated and then
you know, he felt he hadto take her for some reason, I

(14:56):
think that becomes less plausible because youhave more interaction between them, perhaps more
yelling, more screaming, voices gettingraised, and so more likely that somebody's
going to hear something. And Ido understand that maybe victims heard something,
but it wasn't enough and it wasn'tprolonged enough that anyone got up and they

(15:18):
were you know, looking out thewindow or decided to call the police.
So it's kind of one of thosethings sometimes you think you hear something or
like I think I heard a scream, or I think I, you know,
maybe I heard a gunshot, andbut it wasn't prolonged enough for it
didn't become loud enough that it drewanybody's attention for any length of time.
And then you also have to thinkabout the fact that if this person didn't

(15:41):
go there with a plan to abducther, then you know his car,
you know, it's not parked andreadily available to put her right in the
car. So again that prolongs theinteraction between the offender and Jody, and
again increases the risk that someone's goingto hear something, someone's gonna, you

(16:07):
know, maybe look out their window. And then he's got to get her
in to his vehicle, so he'sgot to grab or open the door.
Again, all this becomes a lotmore prolonged, and it becomes, in
my mind a little less plausible thatthis wasn't planned out in advance. So

(16:27):
that's what I see. I seesomebody who who it formulated a plan,
planned to grab her and did itvery quickly, very effectively and efficiently.
And although Jody was small in stature, to grab somebody, to go grab

(16:47):
another human being, no matter howbig and strong you are, it's that's
really risky and requires a I don'twant to say some one to be brave,
but someone who's confident in their abilityto go grab and control someone and
get them immediately controlled and immediately awayfrom the abduction site. And so the

(17:15):
person is probably very confident in theirphysical abilities. And I would I would
suspect that someone who's capable of doingthat is has likely put their hands on
someone before. So it used tohaving grabbed and perhaps controlled somebody before in

(17:40):
some kind of fashion. And likeyou said, Caroline, I always say
most likely so, but that's that'swhat I see. I see somebody extremely
physically confident in their abilities. Eventhough she was small in stature. It's
still you know, most people whodon't have that mindset couldn't even dream of

(18:07):
like grabbing and putting their hands onsomebody in that way. So this is
you know, this is a hugepart of his personality, I think his
physical confidence in his ability. Soyou don't think it's likely that it could
be somebody who went there to havea conversation or there was a confrontation.

(18:30):
You think this was planned, theabduction was the purpose of being there.
Yep, And as I said,I would say, I most I think
that's most likely the scenario. However, just because it becomes less plausible to
me that this person more people didn'thear things, and there's prolonged and it

(18:53):
just happened so quickly. I mean, she's there one minute and then she's
gone. And yeah, that thatjust seems like the most likely scenario to
me. I don't. So let'ssay we go with the scenario that somebody
went there to confront her and thingsgo wrong, so they grab her,

(19:15):
and so, you know, thenyou're looking at somebody who is impulsive,
slightly more impulsive than somebody who's plannedout, and again you're likely to see
this kind of behavior. And andlet's let's go to her victimology, because

(19:37):
this sort of goes into her victimology. You know what, I don't know
every little detail about her, butwhat I do know is that I would
classify her as a high risk victim. And that was because not because she's
involved in any criminal activity or seemto associate with U. You know,

(20:00):
criminals or people involved in criminal activity. But because of her position as a
you know, in the media,as a newscaster. So and then also
just her lack of security. She'snot very security conscious in at least back

(20:21):
then. I mean, her addresswas listed, so she really becomes high
risk and she has contact with somany people in a way that normal people
you know that aren't in the mediadon't. She's coming into contact with all
these different people who might want todo her harm. So I would classify

(20:45):
her based on those two things asa high risk victim. So and then
you know, in terms of hervictimology, you'd want to look at her
personal life. And I don't knowa lot about her personal life, but
what I would be looking for didshe have risk, Well, she's involved
in relationships that put her at risk, and then I would start to look,

(21:11):
Okay, maybe her risk does comefrom her personal life, but from
from my perspective, her number onerisk was the fact it came from her
position in the media and the factthat she wasn't very security conscious. So
in terms of did someone go thereto try to talk to her and have

(21:33):
a conversation with her, Well,that just goes back to her victimology.
Who would want to do that?And why? So? What was going
on in her personal life and wasshe involved in relationships that were causing her
problems? And is she the typeof person? If she was, would
she be telling people about that?I understand she had kept a diary.

(21:59):
Was she writing out these things inher diary? So you don't really want
to focus on, Okay, inher personal life, not her professional life.
Okay, where is she at risk? And I don't think I know
enough to be able to say,Okay, she was at risk because of
this relationship or that relationship, orshe engaged in this kind of activity.

(22:22):
So I don't think I know enough. But who if somebody went to confront
her, I would think it wassomebody that she had more of a close
personal connection with, and that personwould probably stand out as somebody that she
had concerns with that should have shownup in her diary or conversations with her

(22:45):
friends. Where would you for that? Yeah, I would definitely look for
that, But I would also Imean again, we have to go back
to who was she? You know, did she share this kind of information
with people? Is she the typeof person? And she would if she
had an issue, did she keepit completely to herself or was she open?
And did she have people and friendsand confidence that she would share with

(23:10):
so she you know, if she'snot a person who shares easily, you
might not see it in her diary. She might not have told anybody,
but that goes to her victimology.That's just something you'd want to know if
she had an issue. Did shehave a friend she called immediately? I
know I do so, I mean, I you know, I take the
time if if I'm going through something, I talk to people around me,

(23:32):
and people pretty much know what's goingon with me. But was she that
kind of person? I think that'swhat we have to look at. And
you know, if if she was, then yes, I would expect to
see that that would be in herdiary or she would have told her friends
or family members or people that sheconfided with. This, you know,
this is causing me distress, andthis is upsetting to me, or this

(23:56):
person is bothering me or scared airingme. From the outside looking in,
she seems like a very although umshe you know, comes across it's very
sweet and and innocent. I guessin a way, she you know,

(24:17):
if you look at what she wasdoing with her career and her life,
she was really very independent and Ithink maybe a lot more I don't want
to say savvy, but a lotmore worldly than maybe people give her credit
for. I mean, she was, you know, she she was moved
and took this job and lived aloneand lived a pretty independent life. She

(24:41):
had, engaging in a lot ofdifferent activities. She was an athlete.
I understand she was an avid golfer, so, you know, looks could
be deceiving, but I think shewas a very confident woman. So you
know, it is that's the typeof woman that's gonna put up with a

(25:03):
lot of nonsense in her life,you know. I don't know, but
I don't think so. And shewas looking to move into a bigger market,
and she had like just these wonderfulaspirations to be on you know,
the national news, and so shewas very you know, driven, and

(25:26):
I don't think she would put upwith much or let anyone stand in her
way. She didn't seem that way. But again, I don't know all
her victimology. I don't know whather family would say, but that's sort
of how I look at it.Viewing her from you know, outside,
from the outside, and what shehad done with her life, not so

(25:47):
much how she maybe came across onTV. I mean, you kind of
have to be a certain way whenyou're delivering the nightly news to you know,
you have to be likable and approachable. And this is you know,
you're going into people's homes every night, and they want to feel that they
know you and they're familiar with you. And so she has to have this

(26:11):
persona on TV. But she was, you know, very worldly in some
ways, very independent and very strong. What do you see as the significance

(26:32):
if there is any the fact thatit was a Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning
as she's going to work, Whythen why the location? What things jump
out for you on that well?I mean, I don't know why a
Tuesday morning. It could as wellbe assist the offender. That's just the
day he had available, or thatwas the day he decided that this was
going to happen. I don't know. However, in terms of her vulnerability,

(27:02):
it would seem that would be themost opportune time for someone to confront
her or attack her, because shewas alone, she lived alone, she
was going to work. It wasquiet, it was dark, no one's
most people are not up at thattime, And it sounded like when she

(27:26):
was not at her apartment, shewas very busy, and she had a
contact with a lot of people,community members, her people that she worked
with, her friend, she hada very active social life. She had
just had a lot of friends,and she was very busy. So I
just see this as, in termsof her victimology, the most opportune time

(27:48):
to go and abduct her because she'sat her most vulnerable. That's how I
view it. Why Tuesday worked outfor the offender or that was the day
that he decided that this was goingto happen, I don't know for sure.
I don't know if I can sayit has any significance that I see
other than it, you know,it just the stars aligned that day.

(28:12):
Do you think that's likely the personworked a third shift schedule or anything about
the the abductor that would rerelate tothe day, or or is it more
focused on when Jody was most available, Well, certainly during that time the
offender it was, you know,likely he's not accountable to anyone, so

(28:34):
whether he lived alone or he madean excuse to family member or his place
of employment. I don't know.I mean, it could be he didn't
show up for work that day.You know, I don't really think that
I would know enough to be ableto comment on that specifically, like what

(29:00):
what his shift would have been.But clearly at that time, nobody It's
unlikely that somebody's realizes he's gone.He's probably made some sort of excuse,
or he doesn't live with anybody andhad nowhere to be. Do you think
it's likely he went there before thathe had this was planned, There had

(29:21):
been some stocking or researching Jody tofigure out the patterns, plan to do
it, and decided not to doit on a certain day. I do.
I I would think that it wouldbe really high risk for someone who's
never been to that area or beento her apartment to and the you know

(29:44):
how lucky he was to get herat that very time. So yeah,
I do think it's it's very likelythat the person was familiar with the area,
familiar with her apartment building, youknow, it is it is quite
possible that anyone could figure out herschedule based on the time that she was
on air. Say, okay,she must have to get there pretty early.

(30:07):
Look in the phone book. Here'swhere she lives. I'm going to
go over there and see if Ican catch her, and and they do
it, I mean that could havehappened as well. Is that is likely
to me? No, I thinkit's somebody who had been there before,
had surveilled the area. My understandingis that the apartment door so correct me

(30:33):
if I'm wrong. The apartments areinside, the doors to the apartments are
inside, they're not outside. Correct. So you have like one main entrance,
so and there was not that doorwas not locked. So the offender
could have even have gone in atsome point at any time of day.
I don't I don't know if itwas locked at night or not, but

(30:55):
at any point in time could havegone in and determined exactly her apartment and
where it was located in the building, and he would have been able to
see, Okay, the lights goon at this time, and they go
off at this time. And ifthey had done any kind of surveillance,
it wouldn't really take very long toestablish her patterns, not long at all.

(31:18):
Maybe maybe one time prior would begood enough to establish what her pattern
is because they already would know thatshe's on air. At this time every
day during the week, or theywould know that, so they know she
has to have some sort of pattern, and that's, you know, kind

(31:41):
of what might have elevated her riskis that you could put her at a
place at the same time on certaindays all the time, and she was
always going to be at the stationat this time every day during the week,
and so therefore you can infer thatshe's getting up at the same time.

(32:06):
And it sounds like there was notalways the case. Sometimes she would
run a little late, but nevermissed a day of work despite running late
on occasion. But you know,she's she's very has her her routines,
and that routine may also have elevatedher risk. Were you know, someone
out there looking to harm her?Was the fact that she was running late,

(32:30):
felt she was close to an hourlate for work? Is that significant
in any way? Does it tellyou anything about who would wait that long
since she wasn't leaving at her typicaltime. I guess I could sort of
let me, let me just talkthis through. So someone's there and they,
let's say they've surveiled her before,and I'm just talking kind of hypothetically

(32:50):
because I don't know and I'm kindof talked generally, but they've surveiled her
before and they know she usually leavesan hour earlier. And she's not getting
up and they don't see the lighton and they're waiting. So I mean,
I guess what that tells me isis if somebody is waiting for her

(33:12):
and she's running an hour late,this was a day that they were available
to do this, and they hadthe time frame, you know, because
at some point that person is notgoing to be able to do it.
It's going to get too light,it's going to get too crowded, people
are going to start waking up,and they're going to leave. But this
person probably had it set in theirmind that here's my time frame that I

(33:36):
have, and I have the availabilityto be here and to do this.
So that's more. What that tellsme that they were willing to wait and
they had the ability to wait.If if they had in fact watched her
prior, they would know that shewas running late. But I don't think
I can draw any other significance tothat without even knowing more. And even

(34:00):
if I did know more, I'mnot sure that I could. Okay,
if we could talk a little moreabout the scene, particularly with your forensic
background, There was no blood.Does that tell you anything in terms of
the lack of blood at a scenefor something is a very violent attack.
Also, a lot of Jody's itemswere left behind. The doctor didn't scoop
up anything to take it with him. What does that tell you from your

(34:22):
experience? Well, certainly with thelack of blood, to me, that
just indicates, okay, it happenedquickly and with no significant injuries that would
cause bleeding. And the longer you'rethere and the more that there's a struggle,

(34:43):
the more likely you are to haveinjuries and potential blood left at the
scene. It doesn't mean she wasn'tinjured at all. It just means or
you know, she could have hadan injury in a cut and the blood
just didn't get on anything but heror the offender. So it does tell
me, okay, it happened quickly. It's interesting that all her belongings are

(35:06):
left there because when the police showup, they immediately know something's wrong.
I mean, there's there's no hidingthat something is terribly wrong. It's not
like, oh, you know,maybe she just went off with somebody,
or maybe she disappeared or you know, and you don't know that foul play

(35:30):
has occurred. There was, therewas, it was obvious foul play had
occurred. So that tells me thatthe offender perhaps wasn't concerned that this scene
was viewed as it really was,which was a violent abduction. They didn't
care that police would be notified becausethe offender would have to know that if

(35:55):
she doesn't show up to work,that he's got a short time frame before
somebody realizes something is wrong. Thistells me that perhaps the offender didn't have
a concern that anyone could connect thisto him. He's like, okay,
if they if they see that thisis a violent abduction, I don't have
a known relationship to her, sothey're not going to know it's me,

(36:17):
you know, in cases, andI'll talk generally about staging in cases where
we see staging, which is whencean offender alters the crime scene to make
it look like something that it's not. And the reason that they do this,
well, first I'll give an example, like somebody you know kills their
significant other in the house, andthen they make it look like somebody you

(36:40):
know came into, you know,burglarize the place and it was a burglary
gone bad, and we're confronted,and so that would be an example of
staging. And the reason why anoffender would stage a crime scene is because
it is their perception that if thecrime or the crime scene is viewed as

(37:05):
what it actually is, if it'sleft as and the police know what actually
happened, that they know they willbe prioritized as the number one suspects.
So they feel they have to alterthis scene. And altering the scene requires
that you spend more time at thescene. It's high risk to the offender,
but the offender believes that the risksis worth it. And so what

(37:31):
we don't see is staging. Andyou know, lack of staging doesn't necessarily
mean Okay, this person had norelationship with her or was not known to
her, but it's a consideration tothink of. Okay, the scene was
left as it is, it wasimmediately once the police arrived, it was
immediately identified as a violent abduction.The police were there right away. Everybody

(37:57):
knew there was something wrong, andso the offender, by not spending time,
perhaps just didn't think this would beconnected to him. That that's the
best I can give and I'm talking, and it's just it's a very general
kind of assessment. But just becauseyou don't have staging, that does not
mean that it's not a close personalrelationship. Do you think the offender is

(38:22):
likely to have done a crime likethis before and has done a similar crime
since then? Is that something youwould that jumps out that way to you
In the past, I would sayyeah, probably, But you know,
I've seen I've seen some strange things. And I worked on a case where
a young woman was abducted kind ofsimilar I don't want to say similar circumstances,

(38:45):
but she was abducted from her placeof employment and her body was found
in a wooded area a couple ofmiles and it was found several days later,
and she had been and sexually assaultedand killed. So, when he

(39:06):
was arrested or identified and arrested,and they had DNA DNA in that case,
the police, when the investigators lookedinto his background, he had no
criminal history that either before the homicideor after the homicide. So and they

(39:28):
can't find anything. It really doesappear this might be the only crime he
committed. And this is back innineteen ninety two. And I believe he
was twenty four at the time,but you know, early to mid twenties
when he committed this crime. Soum, you know, in that case,
I would have thought the offender likelywould have had a criminal history,

(39:52):
and that is most likely the casein most violent cases, likeness. But
because I saw that, I'm alwayshesitant to say but um, but so
I just put that out there.Just let's let people know that just because
somebody does something like really horrific,you may not actually have any other related

(40:14):
crimes. I mean, there's thiskind of this myth about people who kill
other people or kill strangers and okay, they can't stop. There's a compulsion
that that's not true. There areseveral cases that you know, the offender
kills once and they don't do itagain, and they haven't done it before.

(40:35):
However, I would think that anindividual who does something like this is
most likely to have some sort ofviolent criminal history before and after. Yes,
that would be the most likely scenarioin my opinion. It's you have
something there and not not necessarily murder, but probably physical abuse of some sort.

(41:01):
I mean, this is a personwho's who's comfortable with putting his hands
on another individual. They're comfortable withthat, So I would expect to see
some sort of history. What aboutthe crime scene itself? Given your forensic
background, we've understand their red heels, their earrings, blow dryers, some
items like that. What value couldyou see forensically today, perhaps of being

(41:25):
tested for something that might lead usto Jody's abductor I'm sure the investigators and
people in the laboratory have evaluated thepossibility of what they can get from these
items in terms of forensic evidence.And you know what I will say is
that as sampling and testing becomes moresensitive, we're more likely to get forensic

(41:58):
evidence, such as in a thatmay be unrelated to the scene. And
not only that, you're you're dealingwith really small samples. So the lab
perhaps this has happened in other caseswhere you hold on because if you if

(42:20):
you test what's left, you consumeit all and then you can never test
it in the future. It's gone. So perhaps there's something there, or
they don't want to use up thesample and they're waiting for technology to advance
until they can. So those aresort of the things that I would be
thinking about in terms of the evidence. I am sure every piece has been

(42:42):
evaluated, and what can we getfrom this And do we want to try
to do that now and take thatrisk or do we want to wait until
maybe there's an advancement and then again, you know, is it will it
be useful in terms of an investigativeleads, because, like I said,
as things become sam we can youknow, start sampling smaller and smaller amounts,

(43:07):
and testing smaller and smaller amounts thatevidence that DNA may not be related.
It's more likely, you know,becomes more likely that it may just
be some contamination of some sort orsomething that is completely unrelated to the crime.

(43:28):
You know, back in the oldday, you had to have a
lot of blood to test for DNAand so you knew this is part of
the crime scene. We don't havethose assurances anymore, and you kind of
have to take that evidence that you'vetested and the results that you get and
put it into the context of theinvestigation and evaluate it that way as opposed

(43:49):
to, Yep, this is definitelyblood and you know there's a bloody fingerprint
here and that so that has tobe the offender. It's not like that
with these smaller samples. But Um, you know, there there is a
possibility there is you know, somethingout there's some DNA that you know could
potentially be tested. But in termsof and I never want to say,

(44:15):
okay, never, it's going tobe impossible, because I saw some impossible
things done. I collected evidence thatI thought they'll never get a DNA a
DNA result off of this piece ofevidence, and sure enough they did.
So, UM, I don't wantto say never, say never, But
um, you know, in termsof how quickly this crime happened, the

(44:37):
likelihood that the offender left a significantamount of DNA or any DNA is is
you know, it's pretty slim.We've we've heard a lot about a partial
pomprint on the car, a hairwe don't know if it has a root,
and also a toilet seat may havebeen left up and it was found
left up in Joey's apartment. Speaka comment on some of your impressions of

(45:00):
how significant with any of those scenesto I mean, again, it would
have to be evaluated in the contextof the case. You like a pom
print, that's great evidence, andbut I don't think you can include well,
let me see, I don't thinkyou can exclude anyone just because their
pom print doesn't match. I don'tthink you can do that because that pom

(45:22):
print could belong to anyone, andso you have to evaluate the actual scene.
So I don't think they can conclusivelysay that pom print is the offender's
pomp print. In terms of tryingto determine if it is related, I
mean, you're you're going to haveto look at you know, is this

(45:45):
a person that should have been thereor could have been there, or you
know, if if they match thatpom print to somebody who you know,
lived you know, one town overwho was a sex offender and that pom
print is on her car, thenhey, that that's a pretty good lead.
So but if you match it toa friend of hers or as you

(46:08):
know, somebody who worked at acar dealership or whatever, you know,
then it becomes less relevant. Yeah, yeah, they could be her killer.
But there's also a good explanation.You have to decide, Okay,
what's the explanation of how how thisgot here? And you know, is
there a plausible reason that somebody couldhave left their pomprint. It's a great

(46:28):
piece of evidence. It can beused to identify a person. But is
it going to you know, excludeor or include, you know, conclusively
a suspect. I don't. Idon't think it can be used in that
manner um. I think it's youknow, it would be one piece of
the puzzle. And and in termsof DNA that again, I never like

(46:54):
to say, oh, it's impossible, because I've seen impossible things happen.
But I am assuming that this printwas dusted and lifted with tape and then
placed on some sort of card.That's how we did it when I was
in the crime lab, That's howwe do it now. Often when we

(47:15):
collect fingerprints, we dust and liftand put the tape on a card.
And so trying to get DNA fromthat would be difficult because you know,
studies have shown that latent print powdermay destroy the biological material there there,
you know, so I think there'sbeen some studies that have shown that.

(47:36):
So in terms of trying to getDNA from the pomp print, I'm not
sure that you know that would evenbe possible. But you'd have to talk
to somebody who's in the lab doingDNA analysis, because that wasn't my expertise.
What about the hair, there's onehair at the scene when we don't
know if it had a root ornot. Well, in terms of testing,

(47:58):
we used to have to have theroot because that's where had the DNA,
but now there can be identifications madewithout the route. So but again,
you have to look at that evidencein context of the investigation and is
there a plausible explanation why why acertain person's hair might be there, if
it's ever linked to somebody, oris it linked to an individual who really

(48:24):
shouldn't have been there. The otherthing is is that you know, when
you're looking at the evidence, ifyou were to say, if you were
to, you know, identify,Okay, this palm print and the hair
belongs to the same individual, that'spretty good. That's when I'd start to
say, okay that this is thismight be related, this could be this

(48:46):
isn't just contamination, or this wasn'tleft and it's unrelated to the crime scene.
That's when you have Okay, ifyou can match the two, Okay,
the palm print and the hair belongsto the same individual, I would
say, oh, you might beonto something there. Um. But again,

(49:06):
you know, hair is so it'sso fragile and it's easy, it's
perishable, it can blow away,and so we do we you know,
I don't know where the hair wasfound, and so it's hard to say
is it related to the actual abductionor was it just something they found on
the ground somewhere close. I'm notreally sure. Um, you know,

(49:30):
if the police believe it's actually relatedor it's just they collected everything that was
in the area and the toilet seatingup. Oh, I'm sorry, I
forgot that one. Okay, significantwould you find that the toilet seat was
up? You need to have thatdocument. You'd have to know for a
fact that's how it was found andnobody else had been in that apartment,

(49:53):
And then I would think, okay, that's that's unusual. Most women who
live alone would not leave a toiletseat up. So you want to make
sure, like in terms of thescene and people going into the scene,
is that really how it was foundit and it was not disturbed. So
I have heard other people talk aboutthis toilet seat, and I will tell

(50:21):
you that I have seen people investigatorsuse the bathroom at crime scenes. I've
seen it. I mean not likeI wasn't in the bathroom, so no,
but people have done that, andit wasn't my practice, and usually
in the teams that I was on, that was not our practice. However,
there have been times where investigators haveused the bathroom. So to say

(50:45):
that that never happens, that isnot true. It does happen. I
have seen it happen in the past, and and so it did that happen,
and then somebody just doesn't know ordoesn't want to admit they use the
bathroom when they were there. Butwhat it's really important and generally when you're
when you're processing a scene, isthat you take really good detailed entry and

(51:13):
entry and exit logs of who goesinto the crime scene and when they go
in and when they exit. Andthat was something we always did meticulously who's
in here and how long are theyin there? And when do they leave,
and so you can eliminate any potentialcontamination of the scene or things like
that, hey, did you youknow, did you use the toilet,

(51:34):
did you put the toilet sif didyou touch this? Because this isn't in
the position that we would expect itto be in. So there needs to
be like a really comprehensive log ofwho enters and exits the crime scene.
So I mean in terms of itbeing I don't know how the scene was
preserved. I don't know who processedit or how many people were in prior

(51:59):
to them saying okay, this isnow a crime scene. No one can
come in. I mean, wejust don't know. And you know,
and I've been at scenes and Iprocessed scenes where there was contamination, and
when we would finish up, we'dyou know, take samples of everyone's boots
in case there were you know,shoe tracks and people needed to be eliminated

(52:22):
and things like that that we woulddo just standards so that we would know,
Okay, this isn't part of thecrime scene. This was one of
the officers that was you know,first on scene. So we'd do stuff
like that just in case. Howsignificant to the investigation or would you think
the fact that Jody made a stalkingreport about eight months before she disappeared,
that somebody in a white truck hadbeen following her something that concerned her enough

(52:46):
to report it to police. Wouldthat be something you would spend much time
on if you were trying to figureout who took Jody. Definitely, yeah,
I think that's significant. I thinkthat that has to be vetted as
thoroughly as possible, and there maynot be enough information for them to have

(53:07):
vetted that out if it's you know, the description is vague, or the
you know, the the vehicle shedescribed is very common, and that that
can make it really difficult. Butyeah, I think that is important,
and it's significant. It becomes becauseshe's a public figure. It's maybe more
common for somebody like her. Ifshe was not a public figure, I

(53:31):
would say that it was probably itwould be more you know, more significant
for someone who was a private citizen, not a public figure. So but
yeah, I think that's important.The other thing that tells us is that
she's aware of her surroundings. Sheknows that there's a problem and she'll report
it. She's like, Okay,this is unusual, this doesn't make me

(53:52):
comfortable. So that tells us.It gives us a little insight into Jody's
mindset. She's certainly not oblivious twopotential issues. I don't really see that
she is someone who's going to makea mountain out of a mole hill.
So this was concerning enough for herto report it. So that just tells
me she's a vigilant person. She'saware of her surroundings. If she's uncomfortable,

(54:15):
she's going to say something that's that'sjust a little insight maybe into her
victimology that I would pick up onbased on her report to the place to
the police about that. If youand your team were back at the VU
and you were assigned to Jody's casetomorrow, what are just walk us through
some of the things you would doand who would you attempt to interview or

(54:37):
reinterview? Would you consider key peoplethat you want interviewed. I realize you
don't interview the people to feel correct, you would want interview or reinterviewed.
The first thing we would do,I mean and again, in my process,
I'd want to make sure I trulyunderstood, you know, the crime
scene itself, and that I hadviewed every photograph that had been taken and

(55:00):
every notation that the crime scene investigatorshad had taken. I'd want to see
all their notes because there might besomething in there that's like, oh,
that's interesting, so that's something.But in terms of really looking at this
case, what I would want isto see would be thorough questionnaires, Like

(55:22):
so thorough victimology done on Jody.And I'm speaking hypothetically. I don't know
that this hasn't been done, soI'm just saying what I would do if
this hadn't been done. I wouldsay, okay, here. So we
had these what we call general Assessmentquestionnaires, and they're about thirty five pages

(55:43):
and they're used. We would usethe questionnaires to sort of get a personality
profile of an individual, whether itwas a victim, whether it was a
suspect, whether it was a witnessthat needed to be interviewed, and wet
they might not be cooperative. Wewant to just have a really good understanding
of that individual. And it's it'sa very thorough questionnaire and it's also very

(56:08):
invasive, so I mean, wewant to know everything about very personal things
and it about the individual. SoI would want those given to people that
were close to Jody, that knewher well and knew her in different aspects
of her life, because we're allkind of different. We're different in our

(56:29):
professional lives, we're different in ourpersonal lives, and so maybe sort of
take a you know, a representationof the different factions of her life and
have some people fill out these questionnairesand that'll help us get a really good
understanding of Jody's personality, how shedeals with conflict, how she deals with

(56:51):
problems, if she had concerns,if you know, put potentially where risks
might be, where she might haverisk in her life. So it's and
those can be very useful, andI think I think oftentimes that's something in
an investigated investigation that gets overlooked becausea lot of times it's not needed.

(57:15):
If you have you have the forensics, and you've got your witnesses and things,
you don't necessarily need to do thisreally comprehensive deep dive into a victim.
But I think that would be reallyinteresting to see, like how would
she deal with a potential relationship thatshe didn't want to be in, or

(57:38):
how would she deal with a relationshipor with somebody who made her uncomfortable in
any way? Would she tells somebody? So those are things that I would
want to know about her, becauseif she's not the type of person that's
going to tell anybody, there maybe somebody in her life that the investigators

(57:59):
can't identify as a risk because shedidn't tell anybody. And so I would
say, yeah, you probably doneed to examine her, you know,
her inner circle or the people shehad contact with a little more closely,
because she wouldn't have necessarily told anybodythat she was uncomfortable or she was having

(58:20):
problems. And the other thing thatI would want to do, I is,
you know, any suspects that theywere to develop, you would do
deep dives on them, like thesame questionnaire. You can apply kind of
the same questions to this person toany potential suspects, and you know,

(58:43):
see, are you know, arethey the type of person that would do
something like this? And I'll justgive an example. So let's say they
you know, let's say they believeor I'm gonna give a hypothetical, not
a real example, Well, theybelieve that this is somebody that is close

(59:04):
to her, and and you presenteda scenario Caroline of well, let's say
somebody wanted to go confront her aboutsomething that happened and things went wrong and
he grabbed her. Well, whatI would want to know about that person
or people in her lives is thathow they react. Are they somebody that

(59:25):
you know, when there's a problemthey react immediately, or is this somebody
who ruminates for a while and thenacts, or are they impulsive? So
I would want to know those thingsabout the person, and you know,
to see how they would behave ina certain situation. And then you know,
as you're kind of going through,you might say, well, you

(59:46):
know, this person seems more likelyto be the type of person that would
react in this way versus this person, And so it kind of helps,
you know, prioritize people, likemaybe you should, you know, focus
on this person as you know,the prioritized suspect until you can rule that

(01:00:07):
person out and then maybe this personnext. But you really want to see
like how these how these people wouldreact. But I don't really it really
just doesn't make sense to me thatsomebody went to confront her. It really
does seem like this was a planneda planned crime. And so if it

(01:00:29):
is someone close to her, Iwould expect that this is the kind of
person who doesn't react immediately when they'reangry or upset. They give they give
it time and they can kind ofhold it, hold off, and then
seek revenge at a later time.And so those are kind of the the

(01:00:52):
characteristics and the behavior you'd want tosee. You know, they're not somebody
who's just going to fly off thehandle and it's over or they're going to
wait and an exact revenge at alater time, and they can kind of
postpone that. So that's what Iwould expect to see. If it was
someone who was maybe known to Jody. Do you leaned toward more of a

(01:01:25):
stranger abduction based on what you describeat the scene or I have to say
again, I don't know what theinvestigators have. However, from my viewpoint,
which isn't in any way intimate inthe investigation, from my viewpoint,
it does appear more to be Andthis is based on where I see her

(01:01:50):
risk level, and of course Idon't know everything about her, her lifestyle,
and and the crime scene dynamics themselvesa crime scene itself. I see
this more of a potential to bethat this is somebody that was an unknown
relationship. You know, that thiswas not a known relationship to other people

(01:02:14):
in including Jody. Jody may haverun into this person before, maybe she
knew who they were, but itwasn't a known close personal relationship that can
be identified. That's that's how Iview it from a very um, you
know, very distant look. Sobut um, you know, I really

(01:02:38):
I can't say really more than thatI'm sure that, you know, if
I were to see the investation,I'd be able to be more conclusive in
my opinion. But even if Iwere to offer opinion, or my team
would offer an opinion, it's morelikely than not. So yeah, I
mean, in terms of it beingsomebody like close to her and or somebody

(01:03:02):
who went to confront her, youwould expect to see some sort of build
up. And again, I don'tknow if this is part of the investigation
and this has all been um,you know, documented and detailed by investigators,
but some sort of escalation. Andyou know, if somebody like let's
say this is somebody wants to havea romantic relationship with with Jody and she

(01:03:29):
doesn't want to be in the romanticrelationship, well you'd expect to see like
kind of a build up, likemaybe some confrontations between them like why you
know, why Jody, why andno, I'm just not interested and phone
calls and you know, repeated potentiallyrepeated phone calls, you know, attempts
to try to get her to beinterested in him, and then and when

(01:03:50):
all else fails, then you know, he resorts to this. But you
would see some sort of escalation andbased on the fact that she reported potentially
being stalked. I just don't reallysee her as a person if somebody's really
starting to get to that level ofmaybe bothering and confronting and harassing her,

(01:04:12):
that she wouldn't say something to somebody. So and perhaps that's a part of
the investigation, but I would thoseare some of the things I would be
looking for. And in escalation inrelationships, her personal relationships that are escalating
and becoming more problematic until this occurs, That's what I would expect to see,

(01:04:39):
or I would be looking for.What do you see the best thing
that find Jody our team can doan the media in general to keep Jody's
case out there. What role doyou see that's perhaps been helpful or not
helpful from your experience moving forward,we're going to be we're talking twenty seven
years June twenty seventh, since JODI'sbeen missing. I do think that putting

(01:05:02):
out as much information as possible here'sthe person you're looking for, you know,
and and it's hard to do whenyou don't when you don't have access
to the files exactly and you haven'treviewed it. But you know, it's

(01:05:24):
just putting out. It can continueto put out as much information as possible
and potential offender characteristics and and seeif anyone recognizes, you know, those
characteristics and people that they know.And I've I think I've heard you say
this, and I have said thismyself. Relationships change, they do,

(01:05:45):
and and you might not necessarily likeI'm going to give an example. So
in the kidnapping case that I mentionedearlier, the offender did not have a
criminal history prior to or after,and a lot of people just described him
as like, oh, he's areally nice guy and no issues, and

(01:06:10):
you know, he didn't really hedidn't really have aspirations to have like a
high powered career or anything like that. But at the time he was arrested,
he was living with a woman andyou know, she didn't really have
any issues with him at all,but he would not engage in sexually.
He didn't want to have sexual relationshipwith her. Let's say somebody, you

(01:06:33):
might not necessarily think that person isa rapist and a killer, but these
are kind of the odd things.And so maybe if you know, if
you if somebody hears that, like, okay, that might be potential characteristic.
I should be looking for and Iknow this person lived in Mason City
during this time, or this persontalked a lot about Jodi or this person,

(01:06:55):
you know, and then you hearsomething like that that is kind of
odd to be in a romantic relationship, and that, you know, the
your male partner doesn't want to haverelationship sexual relationship with you. It's kind
of a red flag, but youmight not recognize it as that. You
know, no one's going to justjump to the conclusion that this is a
violent, you know, rapist killer. You know, you just wouldn't jump

(01:07:19):
to that. But sometimes it's thoselittle details that you think, huh,
you know, maybe, and sometimesall the the investigators need is a name,
you know, just give him aname as somebody. So, I
mean, I put that out there, and I'm not saying that this is
what this offender, you know,what he would be like now or in

(01:07:39):
the past. But you know,things like that, if if you know,
a really you know, good profilewas done on the case, and
maybe you can put out some thingsthey should be looking for, and and
you know, the things that theyshould be looking for might not always be
recognizable as problematic until you kind ofput it into the context. So I

(01:08:00):
hope that makes sense. So,Julia, I just I have a couple
of questions for you. Sure,going off of what you just said,
when you do a suspect behavioral analysis, you're providing it obviously to the law
enforcement agency. Do you ever worrythat you're going to be too right about
certain things or their details so specificthat might I don't know, spook the

(01:08:21):
uncaught offender When you give these recommendations, do you say, we recommend you
might release these points, but keepthese to yourself. Yes, definitely.
There are just certain things that youwouldn't want to tip off the offender,
Like, for example, if yousaid something, well, they most likely

(01:08:41):
have held onto trophies, so youdon't want to put that out there because
you know, although you might wantto say, you know, in the
case of the Golden State killer,like yeah, you know, release everything
at this point, maybe somebody inthe past saw this, They saw this
class ring that was stolen that hadn'tin script on it. So yeah,
I mean, we're we're careful tosay, okay in certain cases and depending

(01:09:04):
on the situation, Okay, youmight want to release this, but you
don't want to release that. Thething that I do get concerned about when
you know, we say okay,release this information is or this you know
you might be looking for this typeof offender. Is that some people just
think, okay, it has tobe that and only that, and they

(01:09:26):
may think, oh, so,so it can't be you know, my
ex boyfriend because he didn't do thatexact thing, or he's not exactly like
that, So you really have tocaveat It's like, you know, these
are what you may have noticed,or maybe this seemed odd to you,
or so you have to be alittle bit careful because people will get just
like, Okay, this person doesn'tfit the exact profile that's been put out,

(01:09:50):
so that that's more of my concernis that people won't they'll think too
narrowly about Yeah, you mentioned thepossibility of this person being an unknown relationship
to Jody and how if it weresomebody closer, you would more expect to
see escalation that would be noticeable toJody obviously, and she would probably confide

(01:10:15):
that escalation to other people. Couldthe same escalation principle apply to somebody who
is that unknown relationship to her,where Jody might only see some of the
symptoms and in that scenario, Whatwould the profile be of this person,
where the people around this person inthe weeks, months, whatever it might
be leading up to the abduction,or there differences in that person's behavior if

(01:10:40):
it's escalating and he's a stranger toher, that others might see that Jody
only might see some of If thatmakes sense. Does that makes sense?
It does make sense. Like whatI think what you're asking is that if
this is somebody who didn't have aclose personal relationship to Jody, more of
an unknown offender, what would betheir escalating patterns and characteristics? What would
his wife see or his coworkers.Yeah, certainly, you know they might

(01:11:05):
see the person talks about Jody oftenand then maybe stops talking about her,
or you know, in the casethat I referenced, the you know,
this offender he had been married atthe time that this young woman was abducted,

(01:11:26):
and they got a divorce. Theywent through a divorce within a year
of the rape and murder, andshe moved away, and she did report
to police. She reported to theactually she reported to the FBI in another
state across the country that her husbandshe thought her husband had killed this young

(01:11:47):
woman because he talked about her.He talked, you know, he was
he had mentioned her, and sobecause she was having marital problems with with
him and he had talked about her, she thought might be responsible. But
nobody believed her because she was analcoholic and had some mental health issues.
Even our own family didn't believe her. And it turned out all these years

(01:12:11):
later and they had a tip earlyon. And to be fair, that
happens a lot, like a lotof you know, estranged wives and girlfriends
will will turn in you know,the their their boyfriends or husbands. But
you know, she she was veryspecific. He talked about that young woman,
so you might you know, thisperson very well, may have talked

(01:12:33):
about Jody to friends, family,even in passing like I really liked the
news or he wanted to watch thenews and seemed maybe a little overly obsessed.
So you might see that. Youmight see unexplained absences during this time.
Why is he gone again? Ifhe if he lived with someone,
you might have to make an excuse. People that worked with the person,

(01:12:57):
you know, did he did hemiss work that day? Did he miss
work other days? And it wasunusual, so you might see things like
that. You know, I wouldthink that, um, you know,
if this is unknown and the personhad this plan to abduct her, he's
going to know where he's going totake her. So he'd have to have
a place that was private and securewhere he could do what he wanted without

(01:13:23):
the risk of getting caught. Sothat's probably something he went and surveilled.
Or maybe it was a place thathe was very familiar with through his employment
or through recreation or you know,other ways. But I would think that
you know, wherever, wherever,you know, her body may have been

(01:13:47):
left or buried. This is thisis an area that's familiar to the offender
and they they'd been there before,so maybe visits to a certain area,
you know, that became more frequentyou know there. You know, oftentimes
there are stressors involved, So thisperson may have had some sort of stressor.

(01:14:15):
Like I mentioned with Jody Angelo,prior to him starting his killings,
he had been fired as a policeofficer from his job and that's when he
escalated to murder. And so perhapsthe offender had something significant, a significant
stressor in their life, maybe theloss of a loved one or individual,

(01:14:38):
or loss of employment or something else. So that those are other things you
might might see a Jody's body notbeing found now after twenty seven years,
aside from the organization, that mightshow him pre planning where to take her
and what to do with her.Is there anything else the lack of a
body tells you possibly about a afile of Jody subductor. I mean,

(01:15:01):
sometimes bodies are just discarded in aremote area and there's no real attempt to
hide them, and sometimes it's justby luck that they're found. And then
there are other times offenders take agreat deal of time to to hide the
bodies. And you know, whenwe talk about you know, profiling concepts,
and we say, okay, ifsomebody takes the time to hide a

(01:15:24):
body, then they must have acloser relationship with that person. And if
a person just discards a body,then they likely don't have as close a
relationship and it might just be haste, you know, and they're not worried
about being connected. And typically that'sthe case. Those those are the scenarios.
But we've seen you know, serialkillers who have targeted people that are

(01:15:47):
not known to them, can't beconnected to them, and they take a
lot of time to hide and burytheir bodies. So you know, I
really don't know. I mean,I would think that at in this case,
if it's a stranger or not aclose personal relationship, this person had

(01:16:08):
a place to take her and hideher so she could couldn't be found.
But it doesn't mean that they spenta lot of time trying to hide her.
It could just be, you know, it's just a remote enough area
that her remains just you know,which just because of you know, the

(01:16:29):
lack of luck that somebody hasn't comeacross her. I really just don't know
it. I'm really just speculating atthis point. Sure, if Jody's risk
in her victimology is because of herjob where she's on TV in front of
half a million potential viewers, obviouslywidens a suspect pool. But would that
manifest itself in any way from herpublic appearances or gift sense of a TV

(01:16:54):
station or did this person try tointeract with Jody in a public setting or
through Do you think that that wouldmake sense? That's hard to say.
I would think that that would bea significant part of the investigation to see
if anyone had had contact with orsent her gifts. I mean, we
you know, when you're a public, public figure, like that. You

(01:17:16):
know, erotomaniacs are out there andoftentimes they do try to interact with somebody,
so certainly that that is a possibility, but you also might have the
person that isn't going to spend thatkind of time, and you know,
maybe what I what I would thinkis that if you had someone who kind

(01:17:43):
of was a rotomaniac and felt maybethey had a relationship with her and were
sending her gifts and things like that, you would see that behavior in other
cases as well. You would seethat this person had gotten fixated on other
people because they often do so.Um, it doesn't mean this person wasn't
fixated on her. It just meansthat they didn't express that in terms of

(01:18:08):
trying to communicate with her. Butif in this case, if if they
did, I would expect to haveseen that in potentially other cases because people
like that do tend to, justlike you, have a fixation and then
you know, sometimes they move onto other fixations. You see that a
lot with stalkers, so I wouldexpect that, Um. You know,

(01:18:33):
maybe you know, a good leadwould potentially be reaching out to all of
you know, the newscasters in thearea and determine Okay, did you ever
have weird interactions? And I'm youknow, I would be surprised if that
wasn't done. But you know,there's there's just so much that they would
have to be doing, Like it'soverwhelming because of the number of potential suspects.

(01:19:00):
It's overwhelming. But yeah, certainlythat's would be a lead is to
try to determine, Okay, hasanyone else in this area or this viewing
area been, you know, beencontacted or received gifts, and had Jody
received gifts or communications from, youknow, maybe a fan that seemed a
little bit too into her. Iwould certainly look at that, but I

(01:19:25):
don't think it's a guarantee. Okay, Yeah, so it'd be worthwhile for
anyone listening. Or would it beif, say, six months before the
abduction, Jody has an appearance atthe Waffle Hut. This is a fictitious
scenario and someone's girlfriend or someone's brother, or someone's roommate or friend is dragged
to this event or knows he's goingto that event. Would that be something

(01:19:47):
that you're describing with this or isit not necessarily inclusive in what happened to
her? Kind of refer back tothis other case. And it's because it
the victims and terms of their ageand I don't want to say randomness,
but just the forceful abduction, itjust seems very similar to me. But

(01:20:09):
this, you know, this offenderwas obsessed with this young woman and had
fantasies of abducting and raping women,and he did not communicate with her.
As far as the investigation, henever had any communication with her or sent
her things or anything. He observedher at her place of employment and sort

(01:20:30):
of became fixated and fantasized about whathe was going to do and then,
you know, the one night hedid do it. So you know,
oftentimes you can become obsessed and nothave any prior communication in terms of letters
and gifts or anything like that.You know, if this victim had survived

(01:20:51):
and you and you said do yourecognize this individual, she would probably say,
yes, I do. He cameinto the store a couple of times
and that might be the you know, their sole interaction, and he became
fixated on her. So that couldjust be the same with Jody. Somebody
Seesar on TV season at a functionand decides this is you know, these

(01:21:15):
are my fantasies. This is whatI want to do, and they act
on it and there's there's no otherinteraction between them. Well, that's helpful
to me. I think that thereare different kinds of fixations and that obsession
will manifest itself in different ways.It doesn't necessarily have to look like one
thing. You know, these scenariosthat we're talking about when we talk about
these these types of offenders are veryfantasy driven and the fantasies are so personal

(01:21:42):
and they're they're varied, and soyou just don't know. I mean,
this person could have just had afantasy I want to kidnap somebody, and
that was their fantasy, and theythought about it and ruminated about it,
and maybe it went further than that. I want to fantasy. You know,
I have a fantasy and I'm goingto take the person and here and
this is what's going to happen.And so to to really understand like that,

(01:22:05):
none of these people, you know, behave exactly like we would expect
them based on movies. I mean, there are certain characteristics they share,
There are certain um, you know, actions that we see that might be
similar in one case to another.But you know, this is This could
very well be just a fantasy basedtype of crime as opposed to you know,

(01:22:29):
a personal cause homicide and personal causehomicide meaning somebody had like a personal
connection with her and had to killher because of that, you know,
something went wrong in that relationship.So if if we're looking at the other
scenario, we're looking at something that'sprobably very fantasy driven versus you know,
personally driven because of you know,a prior known relationship that that wasn't going

(01:22:55):
well. The last thing I wantedto ask you about was where this person
might be from. He obviously livedin the area at the time. Well
did he? I mean, Isay obviously, but because of her risk
in the victimology of her being onTV, I guess I just assume he's
within a ninety mile radius in theviewing area. And then where he might
have left after or did he leave? Is there anything from your insight,

(01:23:18):
from your outside analysis of this casethat you can give us where this guy
was where he might be now,Well, I would kind of go back
to probabilities and I would say he'smost likely from the area, familiar with
the area, and comfortable enough tocommit this type of crime. It's very
high risk crime in the area.And not only you know, because you

(01:23:44):
probably have multiple scenes, but youhave you know, the parking lot,
and then you have wherever he tookher, and maybe even another scene wherever
he may be disposed of her remains. So I think most likely you have
someone who is from the area,familiar with the area, was living in
the area at the time, anda lot of times, you know,

(01:24:10):
you see what we call like postoffense behavior, and somebody because of the
scrutiny of law enforcement or attention tothe case, so they become concerned about
the investigation, they leave the areaunexpectedly and with really no good reason or
some excuse that they make up justto get out of the area. And

(01:24:32):
that might be something that might bringa belt with somebody. That doesn't always
happen, but I kind of feelthat if and when the offender is identified
and arrested and convicted, he's likelylived there and probably even still lives there.

(01:24:54):
It's not one hundred percent, butcan you say what that's based off
of probability? Was because of kindof the small area and the fact that
this was this happened so quickly,and the offender got away very quickly.

(01:25:15):
It was pretty efficient, and sothat just probability wise, he's probably from
there. It's just it's just lesslikely that he traveled from a great distance
and came and got her. Andthen, you know, how do you
control someone when they're in your car, unless unless she was killed right there
at the scene in the parking lot, which I don't think that's the case,

(01:25:39):
that's probably not what happened. Butthen you know, he's got to
take her a great distance away andcontrolling her in a car, So you
know, I would think that hegrabbed her, maybe took her a few
miles away, and um, youknow, again it's kind of this,
it's it's a familiarity with the area. So it's just you know, most

(01:26:01):
likely he's he's just from the area. You kind of have to know your
surroundings to commit a crime like that. And when I talk about probabilities,
it's it's really just that's just mostlikely what happened. But again, it
could be someone who came from agreat distance and and not wasn't familiar with
the area and maybe stumbled upon heror just thought, you know, I'm

(01:26:23):
just going to go here and seeif I can find her. And then
they do. I mean, thatjust becomes less plausible. It doesn't mean
it didn't happen, but it becomesless plausible. And then somebody who's really
familiar with the area, particularly ifthey've never been under investigation or or you
know, felt any concern that theywere a suspect, you know, why
leave why? And you know they'reprobably you know, happy to stay there

(01:26:45):
and live there, and there's noreason for them to leave. So so
I would think that they're they're probablyyou know, and statistically should still be
alive. So they're probably still livingin the area. And that would be
because they'd statistically be Jody's age orclose to Jodie's age. Yeah, I

(01:27:05):
mean, I don't know if Icould really put an age range on it.
I would say that in terms ofthis person, I mean, they're
they're probably I mean the fact thatthey're they're physically confident. I would consider
them to be, you know,a grown adult male and probably at least

(01:27:30):
her age. But it's really it'sreally difficult to put an age range on
an offender. But you know,at least someone who is an adult who
is confident, and that does comewith age. That confidence comes with being
a little bit older. So um, you know, without knowing more,

(01:27:51):
I'm not sure I can just youknow, describe anymore in terms of their
emotional maturity, but probably not superemotionally immature. Probably not, um,
you know, someone who has madeit really far in life in terms of
being successful. So, um,you know, people who do things like

(01:28:16):
this and commit crimes like that tendnot to be super successful because they're fixated.
And again I'm kind of talking thisyou know, maybe the stalker scenario.
They get just too fixated on thingsand they can't really you know,
have a you know, really goodjob. They're too busy thinking and doing

(01:28:39):
other things rather than concentrating on theirtheir work. What I'd just like to
remind everyone is that, um,you know, in terms of you know,
conducting a detailed analysis, it's youcan't really do it unless you see
the actual case file and photographs andreports and talk with the investigators and it's

(01:29:02):
a it's a group process. Soyou know, what we've talked about today
is is very much in general terms, and it's you know, it's not
really as specific. And um,I've tried to apply like what I what
I know and my background to towhat I believe that we can confidently say

(01:29:24):
about the case. But there's justso much unknown and I've heard you both
say that so much, so manytimes. There's just so much that's unknown.
So, um, you know,it's really hard. But um and
that's what I just wanted to remindeverybody, because, um, you know,
it's profiling is in no way inexact science, and it really is

(01:29:46):
only you know, as effective asthe information in the most accurate information you're
provided, and um, you know, it's very collaborative. So I just
want to remind everybody about that.But you know, I really do enjoy
discussing cases and ideas and scenarios andand um, you know with other people.

(01:30:12):
I'm I'm a huge true crime fanand that's why I ended up in
the career I ended up with.So I've really enjoyed the opportunity to come
in and talk about this case becauseit is a case that I have followed
for many years, and so toget to just kind of talk it over
with some people has been really veryinteresting for me as well. So I

(01:30:33):
really appreciate it. Well, thankyou for your time. You came to
the right place to talk. JODI'scase over, that's for sure, because
Carolina and I can do that allday real quickly. Can you talk about
your your podcast in your own wordsand what listeners might get from that?
Oh? Sure? So So mypodcast it's called The Consult, and I

(01:30:53):
do the podcast I hosted and such. But I have my former colleagues Bob
Drew, Susan Costler, and AngelaSercer. I worked with them in the
Behavioral Analysis Unit, and we discusscases that are solved and unsolved cases that
we worked on, and we discussedthe behavior in those cases, the behavior

(01:31:16):
that that is exhibited before, during, and after the commission of the crime.
And it's really obviously really focused heavilyon behavior. And I think I
told you guys this before we startedrecording. It really is for the geekiest
of the true crime fans out there, the most nerty, because we get
into really, you know, detailedthings about the behavior and so but that's

(01:31:42):
what it is, and we callit the Consult. One of my colleagues,
another colleague who's still with the FBI, came up with the name,
and it's sort of this idea thatwhen you know, we would review cases
at the Behavioral Analysis Unit, andwe were ready, we'd sit down with
the investigators and we'd have a consultationand we call them consults. So this

(01:32:03):
is sort of the idea. Andit's really like sitting there with us as
we're talking through things like what itwas really like in the room when we
were talking with people and UM,and it's been it's been really fun to
go back over some cases and tohighlight some cases with UM. You know,
police departments that the cases that itremain unsolved, and we're going to

(01:32:26):
have some detectives on our show totalk about cases that we worked on with
them and what they found useful andwhat they didn't find useful and UM and
the hopefully some day, you know, maybe if if any departments out there
want to set another set of eyesto look at their case. Where where
we do it, we do itfor free, and we are also very

(01:32:51):
cognizant of their investigation and not puttinganything out there or talking about anything that
they wouldn't want us to it.They have complete control over everything, but
it's you know, it's it's aservice that we will provide and it's for
free. And I always tell peopleit's not going to hurt anything. You

(01:33:11):
can, you know, you cantake it or leave it. But it's
again just another set of eyes lookingover a case, and it's it's a
very unbiased review because we're not involvedin everything. We don't you know,
we don't get emotionally attached the waythese investigators do. You know, this
becomes sometimes their lives. So sothat's the idea, and it's called the

(01:33:32):
Consult And we have thirteen episodes out. I thought, oh, we'll try
to do ten, and then wegot to thirteen, and so now I'm
thinking, well, maybe we'll tryto get to twenty because there's a couple
other cases we want to make sureto cover. So I'm never going to
stop now. See, well,at some point we'll stop. But it
was just really just what we wantto try this. We want to,

(01:33:55):
you know, because we've all retiredand we live in different places now,
so this gives us an opportunity tokind of get the band back together and
talk about things. And so we'llsee where where it goes. But um,
you know, we're going to tryto get to twenty episodes and maybe
we'll do a few more. Butthis is our this is a hobby.
I mean, I also have afull time job, and my colleagues are

(01:34:18):
also you know, have family commitmentsand they're also working as well, so
we're not totally retired. So itis quite a time commitment, as you
both know, doing your podcast well, and I've listened to several of their
podcasts. I really recommend number four. I believe it is it's explaining the
work of the behavioral analysis unit.I learned a lot and just it's also

(01:34:42):
very interesting. It's I think thefirst three parts are on the Golden State
killer case, but it's it's areally interesting educational experience, if you will,
well, thank you. That's whatwe try, and we try to
dispel the myths, so the youknow, talk about the process and what
profiling is and what it isn't andwe you try to as well sort of

(01:35:04):
expose these offenders for what they reallyare, you know, truly what they
are and not what they're made outto be by the media and TV and
movies and things like that, Likereally what truly drives them, motivates them,
and what their real personality traits andcharacteristics truly are. So it's kind

(01:35:25):
of like an exposing them. Well, Julia, thanks for lending your expertise
and your experience to Jody's case,if only from the outside, we greatly
appreciate it. It's going to giveus all a lot to think about and
talk about. So thank you verymuch. Thank you for having me Find
Jody. As a nonprofit run byvolunteers with a mission of keeping Jody's unsolved

(01:35:46):
case in the spotlight, anyone withinformation about Jody's case can reach out to
the Mason City Police Departments. Informationcan also be provided to the Iowa Department
of Criminal Investigations. You can alsocontact find Jody anonymously if you prefer don't
sit in silence. The time totalk is now for the entire finds Jodi

(01:36:10):
team, I'm Scott Forward. Thankyou for listening.

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A Retired FBI Profiler Discusses Jodi's Case

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