October 21, 2021 • 44 mins
In this episode of the podcast, former federal prosecutor Tad DiBiase talks about the challenges investigating and trying murder cases in court when the victim’s body is missing.
DiBiase has tracked over 500 no-body cases and has written a book and created a website on the topic. He also works as an unpaid consultant to law enforcement agencies on no-body investigations.
In the FindJodi podcast interview, DiBiase shares his insight into several investigative steps taken in Jodi Huisentruit’s case. These steps include the convening of two federal grand juries, two decades apart, and the continued sealing of GPS search warrants obtained by Mason City police in 2017.
DiBiase, who successfully prosecuted a murder case without a body, also reveals what he thinks it will take to finally solve Jodi’s case.
www.nobodycases.com
DiBiase has tracked over 500 no-body cases and has written a book and created a website on the topic. He also works as an unpaid consultant to law enforcement agencies on no-body investigations.
In the FindJodi podcast interview, DiBiase shares his insight into several investigative steps taken in Jodi Huisentruit’s case. These steps include the convening of two federal grand juries, two decades apart, and the continued sealing of GPS search warrants obtained by Mason City police in 2017.
DiBiase, who successfully prosecuted a murder case without a body, also reveals what he thinks it will take to finally solve Jodi’s case.
www.nobodycases.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Before sunrise on a mild summer morningin June nineteen ninety five, a twenty
seven year old television news anchor namedJody husten Trutz 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 fines 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 Fine Jody Podcast.I'm Scott Fuller. When people talk about
Jody whose intruds disappearance in nineteen ninetyfive and it being solved, quote unquote,
what does that really mean? Friendsand family of Jody in the general
public at this point, they saythey'd like to see Jody's case solved from
a standpoint of resolution of having someanswers to what happened to Jody twenty six
(01:19):
years ago. But from a practicalstandpoint, solving Jody's case means prosecuting whoever
took Jody and presumably killed Jody,and to prosecute Jody's case, especially at
this point, so many years later, isn't just a matter of figuring out
who did it, but prosecuting thatperson. This is where law enforcement practicalities
and legal standards come into play.To this point, Jody whose intruts remains
(01:42):
have never been located. And soto solve Jody's case would mean to prosecute
a nobody homicide, put somebody ontrial, and convict them without the benefit
of a body as evidence in thecase. So, for the purposes of
examining that practicality, what solving Jody'scase would really mean today? Caroline Lowe
(02:04):
recently interviewed Tad Tobias. Tad Tobiaswas a federal homicide prosecutor for twelve plus
years. He has consulted or personallyinvestigated on hundreds of murder cases. One
of his specialties is nobody homicides.On this episode of the podcast, Tad
Tobias discusses nobody cases in general,why they're so difficult to get to trial,
(02:25):
and specifically the challenges that law enforcementand prosecutors might face in the Jody
Who's in true case that's coming upnext. Tad, can you tell us
a little bit about your background.We have your book called Nobody Homicide Cases,
which it goes to the kind ofwork you've been doing. Can you
(02:46):
tell us a little bit about yourbackground as a federal prosecutor working on nobody
cases. Sure. So I wasa prosecutor for just over twelve years as
an assistant US attorney in DC,and DC is unique because the District of
Columbia does not have a district attorneylike most locations, and so the federal
(03:07):
prosecutors in DC prosecuted both your kindof standard federal crimes, you know,
public corruption, large scale narcotics case, it was white collar crime, those
types of things. But there's alsoa very large section that prosecutes local crimes,
everything from simple as salts and shopliftingall the way up to homicide.
(03:29):
So it's the only US Attorney's officein the country that acts as a local
prosecutor as well as a federal prosecutor, which is why it's the largest prosecutor's
office in the country. And whenI joined the office, I was always
very interested in becoming a homicide prosecutor. So after about three years in the
office, I was transferred into anhomicide section. And although I went to
(03:54):
different sections in the office, andbecame a supervisor. Several times of my
career was on homicide and trying homicidecases, and in about two thousand and
four, I was given a caseby a colleague of mine that was actually
at the time a missing person's case, and we all believed that was actually
(04:15):
a nobody murder case, which iswhat it turned out to be. So
I started investigating this case with theleague detective and we worked very closely together.
And after doing that case and successfullygetting a conviction in that case in
what was then only the second nobodymurder trial in the history of the District
of Columbia, which is a littlesurprising because DC then and now has a
(04:39):
very high murder rate, but therehad only been one other nobody murder case
that had ever gone to trial inDC, I became very fascinated with this
area of homicide prosecution. So Istarted researching cases and trying to find more
cases, and tried to count howmany cases that were across the country,
and it really grew into really thissort of what I call more than a
(05:01):
hobby, not quite a job.Maybe an obsession is the better word for
it. This fascination with nobody murdercases and collecting the information about how many
cases there are and how these casescan be put together and can be investigated,
prosecuted, and successfully tried. Andso that's really what sort of piqued
(05:21):
my interest was my own case,and from there I've gone on to consult
now across the country. I'm probablyabout forty nobody homicide cases. And then
I also teach classes to police andprosecutors about how to investigate and try these
cases, as well as also speakingto reporters lecturing on the cases. And
(05:45):
then I also wrote a book thatcame out in twenty fourteen that is kind
of a practical guide to how toinvestigate, prosecute, and win these cases.
Just how tough is it to geta conviction without a body? How
key is the body to invest begetting and solving a case. Well,
the body, if you think aboutit, is really the key to a
homicide case because the body typically tellsyou how a murder happened. Was the
(06:10):
person's shot, where they stabbed,where they strangled, where they poisoned.
The body tells you where the murderhappened. If you find the body indoors
in a pool of blood, youknow it's likely that's where the body.
That's where the murder actually happened.If you find it outdoors, you can
get some indications from seeing the seenas to what happened there. And even
if it didn't happen there, thefact that a body was dumped somewhere also
(06:33):
gives you some information. The bodyalso tells you when the murder happened.
You know, there's a big differencebetween a body that was killed an hour
ago in one that was killed sixyears ago. And science has reached a
point where it can be pretty goodat estimating what's called time of death or
interval of death when you have thebody. When you don't have the body,
(06:56):
you don't have any of that verybasic information was this person killed,
Where was this person killed? Whenwas this person killed? And I've likened
it to it's like a hundred meterrace where the murderer starts at about the
sixty meter mark and had that muchof an advantage. And even if you're
you seen bolt trying to chase downsomeone, someone who has a sixty meter
(07:17):
advantage in a hundred meter race isgoing to win every time, no matter
who is running after them. It'sa huge advantage to have secreted the body,
and to not have the ability asa detective or a prosecutor to be
able to have that body. That'swhat makes the investigating and the prosecuting of
those cases so difficult, because youstart off with such a significant handicap as
(07:42):
compared to a regular, run ofthe mill murder case. In a normal
murder case, the only question isdid that guy sitting over there in the
defendant's chair kill this person? Andthen nobody murder case, the first question
(08:07):
you have to answer, as thepolice and the prosecutor is was there even
a murder? Because one of themost common defenses in a nobody murder case,
of course, is we don't evenknow if she's dead, right,
don't We don't know where she is, And that's the first channel that you
have to overcome. And then onceyou've maybe proven beyond a reasonable doubt improven
to the jury that yes, thatwas a murder, then you're already back
(08:30):
at what's normally the only step outof regular murder case, which is did
that guy who's sitting over there inthe defendants chair? Is he the one
who did it? Do you runinto that with in the potential jury pool,
are willing to accept a case,consider a case without a body.
Is that something you have to identify? Yes, absolutely, Caroline. That's
a really important thing that I trainon when talking to police and particularly prosecutors,
(08:54):
is that you must eliminate anyone fromthe jury pool who's thinks even if
the government proves its case beyond areasonable doubt, I'm not going to define
the defending guilty of murder because thegovernment doesn't have a body. You cannot
have that person on your jury.And if it's determined that that's how that
person thinks, the judge has toeliminate that person because it is basic law
(09:20):
that if the government proves its casebeyond a reasonable doubt, a juror must
find the person guilty. And sothere is usually a question that I tell
prosecutors that either they ask if theydo the void dear, which is a
questioning of prospective jurors themselves. Theyeither ask it or get the judge to
ask it, which is that veryquestion. The government proves its case beyond
(09:41):
a reasonable doubt, even though theyhaven't presented you with a body, can
you still find the defending guilty?The answer has to be yes, or
they cannot beyond the jury, Canyou describe the key kind of evidence that
actually helps investigation of a nobody case? What are some of the kind of
things, particularly an older case,What are the things you look for that
can help you solve that minus thebody? What kind of evidence do you
(10:03):
look for that could be helpful?So typically in a nobody case, you
find what I call three quantums ofevidence, or the three legs of a
stool. And in your best case, you're going to have all three of
these legs. In the case thatI tried, that case had all three
of these quantums of evidence. Legnumber one is forensic evidence, and it
(10:24):
can be DNA, it can behair, it could be fingerprints, it
can be a type of non biologicalforensic evidence such as cell tower information or
cell phone records. But some typeof indisputable evidence that the prosecution can point
to and say this evidence says this, and everybody agrees that it says that.
(10:46):
That's kind of the gold standard ofwhat you want to get in a
nobody murder case and is very commonin a nobody murder case. The next
leg of a stool is what Icall confession of friends and family. Whether
the defendant has said to someone else, Hey I did it, or they've
described it, or they've given enoughdamning information. And that friends and family
(11:07):
can be a jailhouse informant. Itcan be a friend, it could be
in an next lover, current lover, any one of those types of people
who then go and tell the police, Hey, this is what the defendant
said to me. And then thelast leg of the school is confession to
the police, because you do still, you know, despite and you sort
of think, why would anyone confessto the police. That's the last person
(11:28):
you want to tell. People dohave guilty consciousness, people do want to
get it off their chest. Andso there often are these confessions to the
police in a strong nobody murder case, like I said, you have all
three of these. In a weakcase, you don't have any of them.
And there are cases that are madewith none of those, but those
are very few and far between.And then you ask specifically about in a
(11:50):
colder case. Well, in thinkingabout you know, these quantums of evidence.
In a colder case, of course, it's going to be much orders
to find the body. And onething I counsel police and prosecutor when I
talk to them is, look,I you know have spent the last probably
close to fifteen years lecturing about howto try it Nobody murder case. But
(12:13):
don't get me wrong, it's alwaysbetter to have the body. So if
you can look for and find thebody, you're always going to be better
off. But in the case,you know, like Jodey's case, now
twenty six years later, you're notlikely to find a body. I don't
care what atmosphere you're in. Maybeif you're in you know, the North
Pole, there's a chance, butbecause of where this murder happened, it
(12:35):
is highly unlikely they're going to find, you know, any evidence of a
body, particularly if the body wasdisposed of out of doors and a body
of water, or buried or abandonedsomewhere, you know, in the middle
of the woods. It's highly unlikely. So that means as police investigate the
case, what I would counsel themis, you don't want to spend a
(12:56):
lot of time looking for the body. It's just not going to be a
good use of your time. Ifit was one year out, two years
out, five years out, theagus would be very different. But here
then you need to focus on morethan the other two legs of the stool.
Confession to friends and family, confessionto police, and then any forensic
evidence that does not rely on findinga body. Now, unfortunately, you
(13:20):
know, back in nineteen ninety five, cell phones and those types of things
were very, very new, Sothere's just not something that you know,
we saw very often. But therestill may be other forensic style evidence that
may exist out there that doesn't relyon biological evidence. Well, Unfortunately,
in Jody's case, police have toldus from the beginning that there was very
(13:41):
little physical evidence. There was onehair found that the scene, we don't
know if it has a route.We're told there's a comprint that may or
may not be connected. It couldhave been Jody's number of friends have touched
the car. And then there's noblood evidence. So something like that,
what would you rely on not likelyto have good physical evidence, or you
still think there might be some goodphysical evidence that's developed over the years.
(14:03):
I mean, it's hard to imaginehow that would develop if you didn't have
that at the beginning. Yeah,and I think that's true. And obviously
I don't know, you know,what the police have. I only know
from you know, like you whatI have read, But it would seem
to me that the focus in thiscase really should not be on physical evidence.
It really has to be on casesthat are older, tend to come
(14:24):
out when someone tells someone something else. That's really what the focus needs to
be. And when you're dealing witha nobody murder case, you really have
kind of two circles that you haveto look around. You have to look
around the victim. Who is aroundin her circle? Who does she know?
You know? I liken it too. When you throw a stone or
(14:45):
a rock in a body of water, the concentric circles, you know,
come out. The further way youget from a person, the less the
defined the circles are. But youhave to go out pretty far, you
know, when you throw a rockin it really sends out rings that are
pretty far and are pretty discernible prettyfar. So number one, you have
to go through the rings in thevictim until you have to go through the
(15:05):
rings of anyone who is a potentialsuspect. And it's really important because what
I have found is in nobody murdercases, people often spend a lot of
time looking at the victim and whoknew the victim, and who was close
to the victim and all of thatwhich is important, but it's also important
to make sure you have covered allof your suspects and what rings are around
(15:28):
them as well. So it couldbe someone in the outer circle of somebody
you've looked at. It might haveinformation absolutely because now twenty six years later,
maybe I was friends with a suspect, but now I'm not. Maybe
I dated the suspect in nineteen ninetyfive, but I don't anymore. Maybe
I was married to someone in nineteenninety five, but I'm not anymore and
(15:50):
that person's locked up. So ironically, sometimes in any cold case, not
just nobody murders, time works inyour factor because people who absolutely wouldn't have
told you anything in nineteen ninety fiveare more likely to tell you things now
because time has passed. As peopleage, they hopefully mature and receive more
(16:11):
wisdom and judgment and understanding about themselvesand how the world works. Sometimes you
find that the passage of time isactually a benefit, because you find people
who didn't want to talk are nowmore willing to talk and discuss things they
didn't want to talk about twenty sixyears ago. Relationships changed for a lot
of people over the years. Absolutely, they do really for all of us,
(16:33):
right, I mean, even ourrelationships with love, the ones change
over time. Hopefully you know,for family and things like that, they
can grow closer, but that's notalways true for everyone. Sometimes these in
close familial relationships you grow apart ifyou start to see that person in a
different light. If you knew someonewho murdered someone, but you were dating
them or married to them, youmight look at them differently twenty years later
(16:56):
when you're no longer married to themand you think, God, what I
think case this person as a monsterand I know what they did. Then
sometimes you find out, you knowthat that that person does know something.
And that's why it's really important forpeople to understand that the police are still
looking at this case and they haven'tyou know, they haven't given up.
(17:18):
There have been two federal grand juriestwenty years apart, that looked into Jodie's
case. One was in nineteen ninetyseven, two years after she was abducted,
the most recent in twenty seventeen.They have focused from what we as
you know, grand jury cases areour secret, but what we understand is
that there were no indictments ever handeddown. The first one, we were
told that a woman who claimed shewas out walking with the main person of
(17:41):
interest. She had talked to theperson of interests ninety minutes after Jodie disappears
she was out walking with him.An hour later, she was called in
for five hours to testify. She'sthe only person we're aware of than Just
in twenty seventeen, there was anotherfederal grand jury, the same person authorities
have been looking at, and thiscase they subpoened him to come back and
(18:02):
from Arizona where he lives now,to Iowa to provide a pom print DNA
swab fingerprints even though he provided printsin the path To get from your perspective
as a federal prosecutor, and againwe're not DC where you do the primary
prosecutions of cases. We're talking Iowa, why would a federal grant, why
would two federal grand juries be calledhim a case from anything you've dealt with,
and just your thoughts on that,Well, first, my assumption is
(18:26):
that they believe they have a federalhook with a kidnapping charge, which is
a federal offense. And you know, state grand juries have different ways that
they are used some states in DC, even those not a state, the
way we used our local grand jurieswas very much as an investigative grand jury.
(18:48):
It was locking in testimony, gettinginformation that people couldn't change at trial,
or if it was change a trial, as a prosecutor, you could
make the person clearly that at trialfor having changed something that they told the
grand jury in secret, and nowwe're being forced to testify it openly.
So my sense is because they havethe federal grand juries work the same way
(19:11):
that we did in DC, becausein DC we had local grand juries and
federal grand juries, and I suspectthe thought is, let's lock in testimony.
Let's get information that we can andlock it in so that if we
ever do go to trial, wehave the ability to have that locked in.
I don't know enough about Iowa grandjuries and how that might work at
a state level. It maybe theycould also do it at a state level,
(19:34):
but the thought is, let's justkeep it federal because kidnapping is a
federal crime. It does appear fromeverything the limited information we have that it
does appear to be that she wasabducted, taken against her will, So
that to me would seem like that'sthe federal hook. How unusual is it
in your experience to have two separatefederal grand juries and we said, two
(19:56):
decades apart the same case. Haveyou run into that? And I definitely
say that's unusual. First of all, because federal nobody murder cases are fairly
rare, because federally murders don't,you know, aren't usually prosecuted by the
federal government, So that in andof itself is fairly rare. And then
to have you know, grand juriesthat far apart, I think is not
(20:19):
unheard of, but it's definitely rare. I mean, that's a long time
ago and seemingly not really that muchdifferent, you know, information, But
again, you always have to cautionthat we don't have all the information that
the police and the prosecutors have,and I'm always hopeful that police and prosecutors
has more information than we have.But at the end of the day,
(20:42):
even though it is a very lowthreshold to indict someone, it is basically
probable cause, which is you can'teven put a percentage down it's maybe thirty
three percent or something like that.Prosecutors at the federal level, which is
what I was guided by, cannotmove forward with a case unless they have
(21:03):
a greater than fifty percent chance ofproving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
So that is a significantly higher thresholdthan it might be to simply indict
someone. They have to be ableto assure you, probably in the case
of this notoriety, all the wayup from the chain of the Department of
Justice to potentially the Attorney General.They have to be able to say,
(21:26):
yes, we have enough evidence thatwe can prove this at fifteen plus point
one percent beyond a reasonable doubt.And that's a tough you know, that's
a tough standard. What you findand most nobody murder cases is the challenge
is getting it to trial. Onceyou're at trial, the conviction rate is
actually significantly higher than a regular murdercase. A regular murder case, the
(21:49):
conviction rate runs about seventy percent.At a nobody murder case, it's about
eighty seven percent, which may seemcounterintuitive because you think why, but so
these cases are hard, and yeteighty seven percent of them end up in
convictions. And that's because in amissing person's case, only the strongest cases
are going to be taken to trial. There are hundreds of thousands of missing
(22:12):
persons cases had never go to trialthat are likely homicide cases, but because
the defense is so obvious that iswas this person he even murdered, we
don't even know that. Prosecutors onlygoing to take a really really strong case
when there's nobody to trial in strongcase having the kind of evidence you talked
(22:33):
about earlier, forensic electronic, maybea confession of kind of two legged things.
Yeah, I'll give you the example. In my career, I tried
twenty homicide cases, one of whichwas the nobody case, and it was
by far the strongest murder case Ihad. I mean, it was kind
of ridiculously strong because we had aconfession to the police, We had a
confession of friends and family, hadreal decent forensic evidence. We had what
(22:59):
we called ear witnesses. That is, not witnesses who saw things, but
witnesses who heard things in the housethe night had happened. So we had
a very good timeline of almost downto the exact day. We had kind
of two days, were sure onwhich day had happened, but it was
around Thanksgiving and we had children witnesses. We had five children witnesses in the
house, all of who overheard atleast something that was damning, and a
(23:22):
few of them saw something that wasdamning, not a murder, but saw
the defended with a murder weapon.That to me is a really really strong
case, whereas most of my othercases did not have all of that quantum
of evidence. Also, in Marchtwenty seventeen, when the second federal grand
jury convened, the Mason City Policesubpoena GPS data for two vehicles connected to
(23:45):
the main person that they've been focusingon since almost from the beginning. The
police chief later said that they didn'tcome up with anything. They have continued
each year to renew of keeping theproblem cause all of the stuff sealed in
court. Just wonder what your takeon something like at and would you keep
it sealed or would it be somethingif it didn't produce evidence, why not
share that with the public. Whatwas their probable cause? What was their
(24:07):
case for going after the data thatthey did not obtain? What I would
say is I can see a reasonfor keeping it sealed because there is probably
information that they have to put intheir probable cause warrant in order to get
that warrant signed off by a prosecutorand then by a judge. That is
probably something that may be only themurderer nows, and I can see why
(24:30):
you might be convinced as an investigativeadvantage not to release that to the public,
because once that's out, if someonewere to come forward and confess,
or someone were to come forward andsay, hey, Tad confessed to me
that he did X, Y,and Z, and this is what he
did to Jody, and this iswhere he put her and all that,
and they have information that corrabor ratesthat witness. That is a very powerful
(24:56):
piece of evidence. It would seemto me it's not illogical to keep it
sealed. Now in this day andage of a kind of citizen detectives both
good and bad, that can alsocause problems because you're not living out all
of the evidence that may actually beto the advantage of the police and the
prosecutors, because you're kind of usinga force multiplier of all these people trying
(25:19):
to solve it. So there's plusesand minuses to it. I would have
to hope that they did that weighingof the pluses and the mines and determined
and we've got to keep it sealedbecause there is some information there that is
significant enough that we don't want itto come out in public. And would
that information point in the direction andyour experience towards the person who they're looking
(25:41):
through CPS data they're seeking versus justfacts about the case. So it would
have to point specifically to the GPSperson, because in order to put a
GPS on a person, you haveto have specific information that leads you to
say, I have probably will causeto believe this person did something. It
(26:02):
would definitely have to be connected tothat person. Does it seem unusual to
have the grand juries so far apartone back and said twenty years earlier,
and then what would prompt another onetwenty years later? Generally a couple of
things. One could be new evidence. They could have found something decided,
oh, this is enough to openup the case again. A second reason
(26:25):
could be one of the benefits ofa grand jury is, as I mentioned
earliers, you are locking in testimony, you're locking in information, and having
a grand jury gives you ability tosubpoena new information. So it could simply
be that they decided, well,this person was spoken to seventeen years ago,
but we didn't, you know,we didn't lock them into the grand
jury. We didn't get the information. Maybe they're getting elderly, we'd like
(26:48):
to lock that information in while wellthey can still you know, they're of
sound minded body and so they mayjust feel it it's important to go ahead
and get that information before, youknow, before they don't have the ability
I need to get it anymore.As you look at it from the outside,
(27:12):
and I know you've just read whatthe public arena about the Jodie case,
any any general impressions about how tougha case like this would be to
move forward In terms of I willsay, I think, you know,
if I do a lot of consulting, and when I consult, I get
the police file, and when Ilook at it, if this were the
only police file, which I suspect, it's not, um, I suspect
(27:36):
there's more information that the public doesnot know about. But if this for
the police file, I would Iwould say, you all have a tough
you have a tough case. You'regonna need something more, which means you're
gonna have to redouble efforts to interviewpeople who knew her back then, to
interview people who knew the suspect backthen, or suspects whoever you know,
(28:00):
people you might think our possibilities,you're really going to have to redouble those
efforts because, like I said veryearly on, the way you're going to
make this case is somebody is goingto tell you something that is my looking
at the evidence. Now, thatis the best way, the most likely
way to proceed. It doesn't meanyou don't get a hail marry and suddenly
(28:21):
we find your body, which wouldbe fantastic, but you have to play
the percentages. And the percentages inthis case are you're going to find out
because someone's going to tell you something. It is I think pretty rare that
people don't talk about it or neversay anything in cases that end up being
successfully prosecuted. There are obviously hundredsof thousands of cases where people are missing
(28:44):
and people didn't say anything. Butif you're going to be one of the
ones who solves the case, you'regoing to want to increase your chances by
talking to people, knowing people thatthe police are still looking at the case,
they haven't forgotten about it, andtrying to figure it out. There's
an additional complication here I think thatmakes this case a little bit different than
(29:04):
a lot of cases, and thatis that she was somewhat I assume a
high profile or at least a knownperson in the community because she was a
TV reporter and she was an attracted, you know, young woman. That
unfortunately kind of enlarges your suspect poolbecause with most people, they're not well
known and there's a small circle ofpeople who who know them, love them,
(29:26):
hate them, want them dead.And when you have someone who might
be you know, somewhat minor celebrityand is certainly in a profession of unfortunately,
as I'm sure you know, canattract stalkers and weirdos and people who
get fixations on people who you know, see I see them about DV,
particularly someone who's you know, ayoung attractive person. It, unfortunately,
(29:48):
I think, increases your suspect poolpretty pretty significantly. You mentioned in your
writings how important it is not tojust be presumably locked into one person.
Can you address that in terms ofmultiple letters? Are multiple people to look
at? Absolutely, it's really important. I mean, most nobody murder cases
are domestic cases. That is,it's a husband killing a wife, boyfriend
(30:11):
killing girlfriend, husband killing ex wife, all of those permutations, parent killing
child. Those are about fifty twopercent of all nobody murder cases, and
in those cases, the suspects areoften very obvious. If a child is
missing absent in the indications that theywere kidnapped by a stranger, which is
(30:33):
exceedingly rare, but it doesn't meanin your specific case that that's what happened.
And that's what I often teach onis you cannot have the blinders on
what happens. As a practical matter, you may not only miss the true
suspect, which is bad, butmore practically, even if you have the
right suspect, ultimately, if youhaven't eliminated other people, when you go
(30:56):
to trial, a skilful defense attorneyis going to be able to say,
well, didn't you get a tipthat this person was involved in and what
did you do to eliminate that person? Why didn't do anything because I knew
my person was this person right here? Well that's going to be a problem
for you at trial. It's veryimportant that you eliminate even people you think
may not be likely suspects, ormaybe likely suspects, but aren't the person
(31:19):
you think did it. You stillhave to eliminate those people, and by
the same token, you have tomake an honest effort to say, is
this someone who you know who couldhave done it? There's certainly many cases
out there where the suspect was thehusband, or the suspect was a boyfriend
and it turned out it wasn't thatperson, it was a stranger or someone
else. And there have been caseswhere a child has gone missing and never
(31:45):
to be found, and that thefather falsely confessed to doing it himself because
he was so distraught over it,and then the true person who did the
murder was discovered, was prosecuted,and ultimately led the police to that person's
to the child body, so weknew for sure it was this person,
(32:05):
it wasn't the father. So youreally, as a detective, cannot have
blinders, and you really have togo into it with an open mind,
even if you certainly can focus onwho your suspects might be. If I
have a dead life, I'm notgoing to say, well, a husband's
just the same as anybody else outthere. Now, your suspect husband's going
to be your main suspect to start, and then you're going to se can
(32:27):
I eliminate this person and there areother people out there at the same time.
How do you get involved in thecase. Do you work with families,
you go directly the police. Canyou kind of walk us through the
process? And I understand you dothis. You're consulting for free. Is
that correct? I do consult forfree. And the way I typically am
involved in the only way I willget involved is if I'm requested to by
(32:50):
the police. So the most commonway is the police reach out directly to
me and ask me to be involved. The second most common way is a
family where we out to me askif I'm interested. Ninety nine percent of
the time I tell them, yes, I'm interested in helping. But then
I tell them you have to contactthe police, and the police have to
contact me. I'm not comfortable contactingthe police out of the blue because I
(33:15):
find police aren't generally recepted to that. And if I was a police officer,
I'd be like, well, who'sthis guy? You know? I
don't know if this guy is callingme asking me that you know, to
help. And so I tell thefamily that once the police agree to have
my assistance, I typically need theentire file. I need complete cooperation.
(33:37):
I have very, very rarely workedon cases where I don't get the entire
police file. I have to havethe entire thing. I have to have
a full cooperation, and you know, I've done forty plus cases and I've
always had full cooperation, with aminor few exceptions where I agree to just
kind of help on more of alimited basis. But I also tell the
family that once I agree to workwork with the police, I will not
(34:00):
speak to them again, that itis not appropriate for me to speak to
them, that all of my conversationswill be the police with the police,
and that even if the police nevermake an arrest or it never goes any
further, I still won't speak tothe family after that that I believe it's
very important for the police to understandI just speak to them once I'm on
(34:22):
the case and I don't have anyallegiance or tie to the family, and
I make sure families are very awareof that. It's it's not to be
mean or uncaring, but I haveto make sure that the police fully understand
that I don't leak, I don'ttalk to the press, I don't talk
to the family about the case,and I will not I've often had podcasters
(34:43):
in the press call and ask aboutcases that I've worked on, where they
haven't known that I've worked on them, and I tell them right away as
long as I can go off therecord, I'll tell you why I can't
speak to you about the case,but you have to agree not to put
that in the story, and thenI'll tell them I actually consulted on this
case, so I can't talk toyou about it. And in terms of
our role at Find Jody, wedo. We're kind of like a clearinghouse
(35:04):
for a lot of information. Wedirect people to the police, but you
may know, many people don't wantto go directly, so they'll come to
us. We put up billboards andone of them says, someone knows something,
is that you The most recent onewe have in Mason City said don't
sit in silence and basically time totalk is now. We have a podcast.
Any other suggestions as sort of citizenjournalist detectives, you would have for
(35:28):
us, things to help the caseand things to avoid in our role at
Find Jody. No, you're absolutelydoing the right thing. I mean,
that is so important to keep hername out there. I mean it is
literally one of the highest profile missingperson cases. I mean there are a
lot of cases out there. Thereare you know, not a ton of
cases that even people who aren't inthis world know about it, and that
(35:51):
is certainly one of one. Youknow, when you first contacted me and
said I'm interested in talking about Jody'scase, I of course knew exactly who
it was, and that is veryimportant. You know, any type of
social media out as the podcasts aresuper popular format. Now true crime in
particular is a very popular format.The one thing I always caution people about
(36:15):
is I do think it's really importantto be very circumspect about putting people's names
out there, putting people out thereas suspects, being very diligent about maintaining
some control of a more comments andthings like that, because there have been
certainly very bad examples, you know, the Boston marathon bombing being the best
(36:35):
example of sort of incredibly bad informationgetting out there and and harming people.
And I do think it's very importantthat podcasters need to have some level of
responsibility about who they talk about andwhat they say and all that, and
making sure that people are citizen detectivesaren't going off on you know, crazy
wildcuse Jason and putting a bunch ofcrazy information out there. But from everything
(37:01):
I've seen from what you all havedone and the information, it's been very
responsibly done. And obviously you havea journalism you know, a deep journalism
background, and I think that makesa big difference to you us really know
what libel and flander are as comparedto most people. And over the years,
the things that have gotten increasingly closedtighter in the vest with the police
(37:22):
department, they're releasing less these daysthan before. Do you think at this
point more should be released? Andone of the things that comes up from
time to time, there was avideo at eighteen twenty minute video of Jody's
birthday party was thrown a couple ofweeks before she disappeared. Some of the
videos showed up on a crime showNetwork show a couple of years ago.
Police have consistently refused to release that. Would you see any value in releasing
(37:45):
that kind of video that shows Jodi, the people at the party, people
at the bar, or just tosee that as something that they should continue
to keep close to the vest.I think it's hard to say in a
vacuum, and I tend to say, you know, to pull lease in
situations like this if you have somethingin there that you think is going to
(38:06):
be something that only the murderer knows, then you certainly want to keep one,
two, three of those in yourpocket because it's very important cooperation.
That said, in this day andage, I do think it's important for
police to use the public as avaluable asset if there is information. And
it certainly would seem to me thata video of a birthday party before she
(38:31):
went missing, obviously that potentially couldprovide some important clues. Maybe they're not
able to identify everybody in that video. Maybe they are, which is great,
but maybe they're not. And ifthey're able to play that, it
certainly increases the chances of people saying, oh, well that's Doug and Matt's
Johnny and blah blah blah. Soin this day and age, if done
(38:54):
right, I do think there isa lot of ability to do that.
Look in the you know, inthe January six cases in in the United
States Capital, you have the sbhondreleasing almost weekly photos of people and videos
of people, and you have thesewebsites where they you know, they call
them January six hunters or whatever.You know, it's almost like Nazi hunters
(39:16):
of old, but they are peoplewho are looking for these people and they
do a great job of finding it. And I do think the world is
different now than it was in nineteenninety five because of the Internet, and
you have to use that to youradvantage unless you have a good reason to
say, I don't want to showthis because it's gonna it's gonna mess up
(39:37):
this aspect of the case. Iget that, but I'd be hard pressed
to see how a birthday party eighteento nineteen minute video of a birthday party
is going to contain eighteen nineteen minutesworth of evidence that only the murderer knows.
It would seem to me there's probablyportions of it, at the very
least you could release, and couldreleasing some of it perhaps help identify someone
(40:00):
who might be at the bar,someone who's at this scene that maybe has
not been identified before. Absolutely,a birthday party at a bar that's also
open to the public, it doesseem unlikely that they would know everybody in
that video, and it does seemmore likely that that's maybe the way to
kind of use you know, crowdsourcingis handled skillfully, is a way to
(40:22):
do it. There's a journalist BillyJensen who's written a book on this who
does it very skillfully in the wayhe uses video clips and things like that
to engender people looking at it andsaying, hey, I do know something
about that. He releases it throughFacebook in the area where the event happened,
(40:43):
which is you know, you cando that. You can figure out
by who has Facebook pages in thisarea. So you know, obviously,
me sitting in DC, I'm notgoing to know anything about a party that
happened in Iowa nineteen ninety five.But if I still live in Iowa all
these years later, I look atthat and I'll say, oh my god,
I do know about that because mybrother went to that party, my
(41:04):
sister went to that party. Andthose I think are the types of things
that can be very valuable in acase like this. And Billy Jensen and
Paul Holes just featured Jody's case afew weeks ago on their Murder Squad and
I I'll have to listen to that. I have finally finished listening to my
favorite murder and I need to startpicking up another podcast, So I'm going
to start listening to Finding Jody.But I started thinking about I really should
(41:28):
listen to a Murder Squad as well, because I'm a big admirer of both
Jensen and Holes and we learn alot from them too. We try to
look at other cases and looking atyour book, you try to get some
ideas of things that resolve that Godanswers anything. How can people read you,
get your book, connect to yourwebsite? Can you share some of
that? Lis? Sure? So, absolutely so. The best way to
(41:50):
reach me is through my email.It's just Tad dot Tobias at gmail dot
com and the last name is bolledd I BI S. And if you
go to my website, which isNobody Murder Cases dot com, it has
my telephone number on there, mycell phone number, and then I have
a pretty active Twitter feed called theNobody Guy on Twitter. Those are really
(42:16):
any one of those ways are areprobably the best, the best way to
reach out to me. If youwant to talk about a case that you
have, a case you're interested in, what I would say is a couple
of things which I always say tofamily members, which is never give up.
(42:37):
It is really important in these casesto understand that it can go on
for a long time. I justspoke to someone who told me about a
case that I think it's forty fiveyears in between missing and now going to
trial. And that's the record.And here it is very important to keep
Jody's case, you know, aliveand keep it in the in the public
(42:59):
domain. And that's the type ofthing that is, I believe, ultimately
to a break in the case.Find Jody as a nonprofit run by volunteers
with a mission of keeping Jody's unsolvedcase in the spotlight. Anyone with information
(43:23):
about Jody's case can reach out tothe Mason City Police Departments. Information can
also be provided to the Iowa Departmentof Criminal Investigations. You can also contact
find Jody anonymously if you prefer don'tsit in silence. The time to talk
is now for the entire finds Jodyteam. I'm Scott Fuller. Thank you
(43:45):
for listening.
Before sunrise on a mild summer morningin June nineteen ninety five, a twenty
seven year old television news anchor namedJody husten Trutz 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 fines 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 Fine Jody Podcast.I'm Scott Fuller. When people talk about
Jody whose intruds disappearance in nineteen ninetyfive and it being solved, quote unquote,
what does that really mean? Friendsand family of Jody in the general
public at this point, they saythey'd like to see Jody's case solved from
a standpoint of resolution of having someanswers to what happened to Jody twenty six
(01:19):
years ago. But from a practicalstandpoint, solving Jody's case means prosecuting whoever
took Jody and presumably killed Jody,and to prosecute Jody's case, especially at
this point, so many years later, isn't just a matter of figuring out
who did it, but prosecuting thatperson. This is where law enforcement practicalities
and legal standards come into play.To this point, Jody whose intruts remains
(01:42):
have never been located. And soto solve Jody's case would mean to prosecute
a nobody homicide, put somebody ontrial, and convict them without the benefit
of a body as evidence in thecase. So, for the purposes of
examining that practicality, what solving Jody'scase would really mean today? Caroline Lowe
(02:04):
recently interviewed Tad Tobias. Tad Tobiaswas a federal homicide prosecutor for twelve plus
years. He has consulted or personallyinvestigated on hundreds of murder cases. One
of his specialties is nobody homicides.On this episode of the podcast, Tad
Tobias discusses nobody cases in general,why they're so difficult to get to trial,
(02:25):
and specifically the challenges that law enforcementand prosecutors might face in the Jody
Who's in true case that's coming upnext. Tad, can you tell us
a little bit about your background.We have your book called Nobody Homicide Cases,
which it goes to the kind ofwork you've been doing. Can you
(02:46):
tell us a little bit about yourbackground as a federal prosecutor working on nobody
cases. Sure. So I wasa prosecutor for just over twelve years as
an assistant US attorney in DC,and DC is unique because the District of
Columbia does not have a district attorneylike most locations, and so the federal
(03:07):
prosecutors in DC prosecuted both your kindof standard federal crimes, you know,
public corruption, large scale narcotics case, it was white collar crime, those
types of things. But there's alsoa very large section that prosecutes local crimes,
everything from simple as salts and shopliftingall the way up to homicide.
(03:29):
So it's the only US Attorney's officein the country that acts as a local
prosecutor as well as a federal prosecutor, which is why it's the largest prosecutor's
office in the country. And whenI joined the office, I was always
very interested in becoming a homicide prosecutor. So after about three years in the
office, I was transferred into anhomicide section. And although I went to
(03:54):
different sections in the office, andbecame a supervisor. Several times of my
career was on homicide and trying homicidecases, and in about two thousand and
four, I was given a caseby a colleague of mine that was actually
at the time a missing person's case, and we all believed that was actually
(04:15):
a nobody murder case, which iswhat it turned out to be. So
I started investigating this case with theleague detective and we worked very closely together.
And after doing that case and successfullygetting a conviction in that case in
what was then only the second nobodymurder trial in the history of the District
of Columbia, which is a littlesurprising because DC then and now has a
(04:39):
very high murder rate, but therehad only been one other nobody murder case
that had ever gone to trial inDC, I became very fascinated with this
area of homicide prosecution. So Istarted researching cases and trying to find more
cases, and tried to count howmany cases that were across the country,
and it really grew into really thissort of what I call more than a
(05:01):
hobby, not quite a job.Maybe an obsession is the better word for
it. This fascination with nobody murdercases and collecting the information about how many
cases there are and how these casescan be put together and can be investigated,
prosecuted, and successfully tried. Andso that's really what sort of piqued
(05:21):
my interest was my own case,and from there I've gone on to consult
now across the country. I'm probablyabout forty nobody homicide cases. And then
I also teach classes to police andprosecutors about how to investigate and try these
cases, as well as also speakingto reporters lecturing on the cases. And
(05:45):
then I also wrote a book thatcame out in twenty fourteen that is kind
of a practical guide to how toinvestigate, prosecute, and win these cases.
Just how tough is it to geta conviction without a body? How
key is the body to invest begetting and solving a case. Well,
the body, if you think aboutit, is really the key to a
homicide case because the body typically tellsyou how a murder happened. Was the
(06:10):
person's shot, where they stabbed,where they strangled, where they poisoned.
The body tells you where the murderhappened. If you find the body indoors
in a pool of blood, youknow it's likely that's where the body.
That's where the murder actually happened.If you find it outdoors, you can
get some indications from seeing the seenas to what happened there. And even
if it didn't happen there, thefact that a body was dumped somewhere also
(06:33):
gives you some information. The bodyalso tells you when the murder happened.
You know, there's a big differencebetween a body that was killed an hour
ago in one that was killed sixyears ago. And science has reached a
point where it can be pretty goodat estimating what's called time of death or
interval of death when you have thebody. When you don't have the body,
(06:56):
you don't have any of that verybasic information was this person killed,
Where was this person killed? Whenwas this person killed? And I've likened
it to it's like a hundred meterrace where the murderer starts at about the
sixty meter mark and had that muchof an advantage. And even if you're
you seen bolt trying to chase downsomeone, someone who has a sixty meter
(07:17):
advantage in a hundred meter race isgoing to win every time, no matter
who is running after them. It'sa huge advantage to have secreted the body,
and to not have the ability asa detective or a prosecutor to be
able to have that body. That'swhat makes the investigating and the prosecuting of
those cases so difficult, because youstart off with such a significant handicap as
(07:42):
compared to a regular, run ofthe mill murder case. In a normal
murder case, the only question isdid that guy sitting over there in the
defendant's chair kill this person? Andthen nobody murder case, the first question
(08:07):
you have to answer, as thepolice and the prosecutor is was there even
a murder? Because one of themost common defenses in a nobody murder case,
of course, is we don't evenknow if she's dead, right,
don't We don't know where she is, And that's the first channel that you
have to overcome. And then onceyou've maybe proven beyond a reasonable doubt improven
to the jury that yes, thatwas a murder, then you're already back
(08:30):
at what's normally the only step outof regular murder case, which is did
that guy who's sitting over there inthe defendants chair? Is he the one
who did it? Do you runinto that with in the potential jury pool,
are willing to accept a case,consider a case without a body.
Is that something you have to identify? Yes, absolutely, Caroline. That's
a really important thing that I trainon when talking to police and particularly prosecutors,
(08:54):
is that you must eliminate anyone fromthe jury pool who's thinks even if
the government proves its case beyond areasonable doubt, I'm not going to define
the defending guilty of murder because thegovernment doesn't have a body. You cannot
have that person on your jury.And if it's determined that that's how that
person thinks, the judge has toeliminate that person because it is basic law
(09:20):
that if the government proves its casebeyond a reasonable doubt, a juror must
find the person guilty. And sothere is usually a question that I tell
prosecutors that either they ask if theydo the void dear, which is a
questioning of prospective jurors themselves. Theyeither ask it or get the judge to
ask it, which is that veryquestion. The government proves its case beyond
(09:41):
a reasonable doubt, even though theyhaven't presented you with a body, can
you still find the defending guilty?The answer has to be yes, or
they cannot beyond the jury, Canyou describe the key kind of evidence that
actually helps investigation of a nobody case? What are some of the kind of
things, particularly an older case,What are the things you look for that
can help you solve that minus thebody? What kind of evidence do you
(10:03):
look for that could be helpful?So typically in a nobody case, you
find what I call three quantums ofevidence, or the three legs of a
stool. And in your best case, you're going to have all three of
these legs. In the case thatI tried, that case had all three
of these quantums of evidence. Legnumber one is forensic evidence, and it
(10:24):
can be DNA, it can behair, it could be fingerprints, it
can be a type of non biologicalforensic evidence such as cell tower information or
cell phone records. But some typeof indisputable evidence that the prosecution can point
to and say this evidence says this, and everybody agrees that it says that.
(10:46):
That's kind of the gold standard ofwhat you want to get in a
nobody murder case and is very commonin a nobody murder case. The next
leg of a stool is what Icall confession of friends and family. Whether
the defendant has said to someone else, Hey I did it, or they've
described it, or they've given enoughdamning information. And that friends and family
(11:07):
can be a jailhouse informant. Itcan be a friend, it could be
in an next lover, current lover, any one of those types of people
who then go and tell the police, Hey, this is what the defendant
said to me. And then thelast leg of the school is confession to
the police, because you do still, you know, despite and you sort
of think, why would anyone confessto the police. That's the last person
(11:28):
you want to tell. People dohave guilty consciousness, people do want to
get it off their chest. Andso there often are these confessions to the
police in a strong nobody murder case, like I said, you have all
three of these. In a weakcase, you don't have any of them.
And there are cases that are madewith none of those, but those
are very few and far between.And then you ask specifically about in a
(11:50):
colder case. Well, in thinkingabout you know, these quantums of evidence.
In a colder case, of course, it's going to be much orders
to find the body. And onething I counsel police and prosecutor when I
talk to them is, look,I you know have spent the last probably
close to fifteen years lecturing about howto try it Nobody murder case. But
(12:13):
don't get me wrong, it's alwaysbetter to have the body. So if
you can look for and find thebody, you're always going to be better
off. But in the case,you know, like Jodey's case, now
twenty six years later, you're notlikely to find a body. I don't
care what atmosphere you're in. Maybeif you're in you know, the North
Pole, there's a chance, butbecause of where this murder happened, it
(12:35):
is highly unlikely they're going to find, you know, any evidence of a
body, particularly if the body wasdisposed of out of doors and a body
of water, or buried or abandonedsomewhere, you know, in the middle
of the woods. It's highly unlikely. So that means as police investigate the
case, what I would counsel themis, you don't want to spend a
(12:56):
lot of time looking for the body. It's just not going to be a
good use of your time. Ifit was one year out, two years
out, five years out, theagus would be very different. But here
then you need to focus on morethan the other two legs of the stool.
Confession to friends and family, confessionto police, and then any forensic
evidence that does not rely on findinga body. Now, unfortunately, you
(13:20):
know, back in nineteen ninety five, cell phones and those types of things
were very, very new, Sothere's just not something that you know,
we saw very often. But therestill may be other forensic style evidence that
may exist out there that doesn't relyon biological evidence. Well, Unfortunately,
in Jody's case, police have toldus from the beginning that there was very
(13:41):
little physical evidence. There was onehair found that the scene, we don't
know if it has a route.We're told there's a comprint that may or
may not be connected. It couldhave been Jody's number of friends have touched
the car. And then there's noblood evidence. So something like that,
what would you rely on not likelyto have good physical evidence, or you
still think there might be some goodphysical evidence that's developed over the years.
(14:03):
I mean, it's hard to imaginehow that would develop if you didn't have
that at the beginning. Yeah,and I think that's true. And obviously
I don't know, you know,what the police have. I only know
from you know, like you whatI have read, But it would seem
to me that the focus in thiscase really should not be on physical evidence.
It really has to be on casesthat are older, tend to come
(14:24):
out when someone tells someone something else. That's really what the focus needs to
be. And when you're dealing witha nobody murder case, you really have
kind of two circles that you haveto look around. You have to look
around the victim. Who is aroundin her circle? Who does she know?
You know? I liken it too. When you throw a stone or
(14:45):
a rock in a body of water, the concentric circles, you know,
come out. The further way youget from a person, the less the
defined the circles are. But youhave to go out pretty far, you
know, when you throw a rockin it really sends out rings that are
pretty far and are pretty discernible prettyfar. So number one, you have
to go through the rings in thevictim until you have to go through the
(15:05):
rings of anyone who is a potentialsuspect. And it's really important because what
I have found is in nobody murdercases, people often spend a lot of
time looking at the victim and whoknew the victim, and who was close
to the victim and all of thatwhich is important, but it's also important
to make sure you have covered allof your suspects and what rings are around
(15:28):
them as well. So it couldbe someone in the outer circle of somebody
you've looked at. It might haveinformation absolutely because now twenty six years later,
maybe I was friends with a suspect, but now I'm not. Maybe
I dated the suspect in nineteen ninetyfive, but I don't anymore. Maybe
I was married to someone in nineteenninety five, but I'm not anymore and
(15:50):
that person's locked up. So ironically, sometimes in any cold case, not
just nobody murders, time works inyour factor because people who absolutely wouldn't have
told you anything in nineteen ninety fiveare more likely to tell you things now
because time has passed. As peopleage, they hopefully mature and receive more
(16:11):
wisdom and judgment and understanding about themselvesand how the world works. Sometimes you
find that the passage of time isactually a benefit, because you find people
who didn't want to talk are nowmore willing to talk and discuss things they
didn't want to talk about twenty sixyears ago. Relationships changed for a lot
of people over the years. Absolutely, they do really for all of us,
(16:33):
right, I mean, even ourrelationships with love, the ones change
over time. Hopefully you know,for family and things like that, they
can grow closer, but that's notalways true for everyone. Sometimes these in
close familial relationships you grow apart ifyou start to see that person in a
different light. If you knew someonewho murdered someone, but you were dating
them or married to them, youmight look at them differently twenty years later
(16:56):
when you're no longer married to themand you think, God, what I
think case this person as a monsterand I know what they did. Then
sometimes you find out, you knowthat that that person does know something.
And that's why it's really important forpeople to understand that the police are still
looking at this case and they haven'tyou know, they haven't given up.
(17:18):
There have been two federal grand juriestwenty years apart, that looked into Jodie's
case. One was in nineteen ninetyseven, two years after she was abducted,
the most recent in twenty seventeen.They have focused from what we as
you know, grand jury cases areour secret, but what we understand is
that there were no indictments ever handeddown. The first one, we were
told that a woman who claimed shewas out walking with the main person of
(17:41):
interest. She had talked to theperson of interests ninety minutes after Jodie disappears
she was out walking with him.An hour later, she was called in
for five hours to testify. She'sthe only person we're aware of than Just
in twenty seventeen, there was anotherfederal grand jury, the same person authorities
have been looking at, and thiscase they subpoened him to come back and
(18:02):
from Arizona where he lives now,to Iowa to provide a pom print DNA
swab fingerprints even though he provided printsin the path To get from your perspective
as a federal prosecutor, and againwe're not DC where you do the primary
prosecutions of cases. We're talking Iowa, why would a federal grant, why
would two federal grand juries be calledhim a case from anything you've dealt with,
and just your thoughts on that,Well, first, my assumption is
(18:26):
that they believe they have a federalhook with a kidnapping charge, which is
a federal offense. And you know, state grand juries have different ways that
they are used some states in DC, even those not a state, the
way we used our local grand jurieswas very much as an investigative grand jury.
(18:48):
It was locking in testimony, gettinginformation that people couldn't change at trial,
or if it was change a trial, as a prosecutor, you could
make the person clearly that at trialfor having changed something that they told the
grand jury in secret, and nowwe're being forced to testify it openly.
So my sense is because they havethe federal grand juries work the same way
(19:11):
that we did in DC, becausein DC we had local grand juries and
federal grand juries, and I suspectthe thought is, let's lock in testimony.
Let's get information that we can andlock it in so that if we
ever do go to trial, wehave the ability to have that locked in.
I don't know enough about Iowa grandjuries and how that might work at
a state level. It maybe theycould also do it at a state level,
(19:34):
but the thought is, let's justkeep it federal because kidnapping is a
federal crime. It does appear fromeverything the limited information we have that it
does appear to be that she wasabducted, taken against her will, So
that to me would seem like that'sthe federal hook. How unusual is it
in your experience to have two separatefederal grand juries and we said, two
(19:56):
decades apart the same case. Haveyou run into that? And I definitely
say that's unusual. First of all, because federal nobody murder cases are fairly
rare, because federally murders don't,you know, aren't usually prosecuted by the
federal government, So that in andof itself is fairly rare. And then
to have you know, grand juriesthat far apart, I think is not
(20:19):
unheard of, but it's definitely rare. I mean, that's a long time
ago and seemingly not really that muchdifferent, you know, information, But
again, you always have to cautionthat we don't have all the information that
the police and the prosecutors have,and I'm always hopeful that police and prosecutors
has more information than we have.But at the end of the day,
(20:42):
even though it is a very lowthreshold to indict someone, it is basically
probable cause, which is you can'teven put a percentage down it's maybe thirty
three percent or something like that.Prosecutors at the federal level, which is
what I was guided by, cannotmove forward with a case unless they have
(21:03):
a greater than fifty percent chance ofproving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
So that is a significantly higher thresholdthan it might be to simply indict
someone. They have to be ableto assure you, probably in the case
of this notoriety, all the wayup from the chain of the Department of
Justice to potentially the Attorney General.They have to be able to say,
(21:26):
yes, we have enough evidence thatwe can prove this at fifteen plus point
one percent beyond a reasonable doubt.And that's a tough you know, that's
a tough standard. What you findand most nobody murder cases is the challenge
is getting it to trial. Onceyou're at trial, the conviction rate is
actually significantly higher than a regular murdercase. A regular murder case, the
(21:49):
conviction rate runs about seventy percent.At a nobody murder case, it's about
eighty seven percent, which may seemcounterintuitive because you think why, but so
these cases are hard, and yeteighty seven percent of them end up in
convictions. And that's because in amissing person's case, only the strongest cases
are going to be taken to trial. There are hundreds of thousands of missing
(22:12):
persons cases had never go to trialthat are likely homicide cases, but because
the defense is so obvious that iswas this person he even murdered, we
don't even know that. Prosecutors onlygoing to take a really really strong case
when there's nobody to trial in strongcase having the kind of evidence you talked
(22:33):
about earlier, forensic electronic, maybea confession of kind of two legged things.
Yeah, I'll give you the example. In my career, I tried
twenty homicide cases, one of whichwas the nobody case, and it was
by far the strongest murder case Ihad. I mean, it was kind
of ridiculously strong because we had aconfession to the police, We had a
confession of friends and family, hadreal decent forensic evidence. We had what
(22:59):
we called ear witnesses. That is, not witnesses who saw things, but
witnesses who heard things in the housethe night had happened. So we had
a very good timeline of almost downto the exact day. We had kind
of two days, were sure onwhich day had happened, but it was
around Thanksgiving and we had children witnesses. We had five children witnesses in the
house, all of who overheard atleast something that was damning, and a
(23:22):
few of them saw something that wasdamning, not a murder, but saw
the defended with a murder weapon.That to me is a really really strong
case, whereas most of my othercases did not have all of that quantum
of evidence. Also, in Marchtwenty seventeen, when the second federal grand
jury convened, the Mason City Policesubpoena GPS data for two vehicles connected to
(23:45):
the main person that they've been focusingon since almost from the beginning. The
police chief later said that they didn'tcome up with anything. They have continued
each year to renew of keeping theproblem cause all of the stuff sealed in
court. Just wonder what your takeon something like at and would you keep
it sealed or would it be somethingif it didn't produce evidence, why not
share that with the public. Whatwas their probable cause? What was their
(24:07):
case for going after the data thatthey did not obtain? What I would
say is I can see a reasonfor keeping it sealed because there is probably
information that they have to put intheir probable cause warrant in order to get
that warrant signed off by a prosecutorand then by a judge. That is
probably something that may be only themurderer nows, and I can see why
(24:30):
you might be convinced as an investigativeadvantage not to release that to the public,
because once that's out, if someonewere to come forward and confess,
or someone were to come forward andsay, hey, Tad confessed to me
that he did X, Y,and Z, and this is what he
did to Jody, and this iswhere he put her and all that,
and they have information that corrabor ratesthat witness. That is a very powerful
(24:56):
piece of evidence. It would seemto me it's not illogical to keep it
sealed. Now in this day andage of a kind of citizen detectives both
good and bad, that can alsocause problems because you're not living out all
of the evidence that may actually beto the advantage of the police and the
prosecutors, because you're kind of usinga force multiplier of all these people trying
(25:19):
to solve it. So there's plusesand minuses to it. I would have
to hope that they did that weighingof the pluses and the mines and determined
and we've got to keep it sealedbecause there is some information there that is
significant enough that we don't want itto come out in public. And would
that information point in the direction andyour experience towards the person who they're looking
(25:41):
through CPS data they're seeking versus justfacts about the case. So it would
have to point specifically to the GPSperson, because in order to put a
GPS on a person, you haveto have specific information that leads you to
say, I have probably will causeto believe this person did something. It
(26:02):
would definitely have to be connected tothat person. Does it seem unusual to
have the grand juries so far apartone back and said twenty years earlier,
and then what would prompt another onetwenty years later? Generally a couple of
things. One could be new evidence. They could have found something decided,
oh, this is enough to openup the case again. A second reason
(26:25):
could be one of the benefits ofa grand jury is, as I mentioned
earliers, you are locking in testimony, you're locking in information, and having
a grand jury gives you ability tosubpoena new information. So it could simply
be that they decided, well,this person was spoken to seventeen years ago,
but we didn't, you know,we didn't lock them into the grand
jury. We didn't get the information. Maybe they're getting elderly, we'd like
(26:48):
to lock that information in while wellthey can still you know, they're of
sound minded body and so they mayjust feel it it's important to go ahead
and get that information before, youknow, before they don't have the ability
I need to get it anymore.As you look at it from the outside,
(27:12):
and I know you've just read whatthe public arena about the Jodie case,
any any general impressions about how tougha case like this would be to
move forward In terms of I willsay, I think, you know,
if I do a lot of consulting, and when I consult, I get
the police file, and when Ilook at it, if this were the
only police file, which I suspect, it's not, um, I suspect
(27:36):
there's more information that the public doesnot know about. But if this for
the police file, I would Iwould say, you all have a tough
you have a tough case. You'regonna need something more, which means you're
gonna have to redouble efforts to interviewpeople who knew her back then, to
interview people who knew the suspect backthen, or suspects whoever you know,
(28:00):
people you might think our possibilities,you're really going to have to redouble those
efforts because, like I said veryearly on, the way you're going to
make this case is somebody is goingto tell you something that is my looking
at the evidence. Now, thatis the best way, the most likely
way to proceed. It doesn't meanyou don't get a hail marry and suddenly
(28:21):
we find your body, which wouldbe fantastic, but you have to play
the percentages. And the percentages inthis case are you're going to find out
because someone's going to tell you something. It is I think pretty rare that
people don't talk about it or neversay anything in cases that end up being
successfully prosecuted. There are obviously hundredsof thousands of cases where people are missing
(28:44):
and people didn't say anything. Butif you're going to be one of the
ones who solves the case, you'regoing to want to increase your chances by
talking to people, knowing people thatthe police are still looking at the case,
they haven't forgotten about it, andtrying to figure it out. There's
an additional complication here I think thatmakes this case a little bit different than
(29:04):
a lot of cases, and thatis that she was somewhat I assume a
high profile or at least a knownperson in the community because she was a
TV reporter and she was an attracted, you know, young woman. That
unfortunately kind of enlarges your suspect poolbecause with most people, they're not well
known and there's a small circle ofpeople who who know them, love them,
(29:26):
hate them, want them dead.And when you have someone who might
be you know, somewhat minor celebrityand is certainly in a profession of unfortunately,
as I'm sure you know, canattract stalkers and weirdos and people who
get fixations on people who you know, see I see them about DV,
particularly someone who's you know, ayoung attractive person. It, unfortunately,
(29:48):
I think, increases your suspect poolpretty pretty significantly. You mentioned in your
writings how important it is not tojust be presumably locked into one person.
Can you address that in terms ofmultiple letters? Are multiple people to look
at? Absolutely, it's really important. I mean, most nobody murder cases
are domestic cases. That is,it's a husband killing a wife, boyfriend
(30:11):
killing girlfriend, husband killing ex wife, all of those permutations, parent killing
child. Those are about fifty twopercent of all nobody murder cases, and
in those cases, the suspects areoften very obvious. If a child is
missing absent in the indications that theywere kidnapped by a stranger, which is
(30:33):
exceedingly rare, but it doesn't meanin your specific case that that's what happened.
And that's what I often teach onis you cannot have the blinders on
what happens. As a practical matter, you may not only miss the true
suspect, which is bad, butmore practically, even if you have the
right suspect, ultimately, if youhaven't eliminated other people, when you go
(30:56):
to trial, a skilful defense attorneyis going to be able to say,
well, didn't you get a tipthat this person was involved in and what
did you do to eliminate that person? Why didn't do anything because I knew
my person was this person right here? Well that's going to be a problem
for you at trial. It's veryimportant that you eliminate even people you think
may not be likely suspects, ormaybe likely suspects, but aren't the person
(31:19):
you think did it. You stillhave to eliminate those people, and by
the same token, you have tomake an honest effort to say, is
this someone who you know who couldhave done it? There's certainly many cases
out there where the suspect was thehusband, or the suspect was a boyfriend
and it turned out it wasn't thatperson, it was a stranger or someone
else. And there have been caseswhere a child has gone missing and never
(31:45):
to be found, and that thefather falsely confessed to doing it himself because
he was so distraught over it,and then the true person who did the
murder was discovered, was prosecuted,and ultimately led the police to that person's
to the child body, so weknew for sure it was this person,
(32:05):
it wasn't the father. So youreally, as a detective, cannot have
blinders, and you really have togo into it with an open mind,
even if you certainly can focus onwho your suspects might be. If I
have a dead life, I'm notgoing to say, well, a husband's
just the same as anybody else outthere. Now, your suspect husband's going
to be your main suspect to start, and then you're going to se can
(32:27):
I eliminate this person and there areother people out there at the same time.
How do you get involved in thecase. Do you work with families,
you go directly the police. Canyou kind of walk us through the
process? And I understand you dothis. You're consulting for free. Is
that correct? I do consult forfree. And the way I typically am
involved in the only way I willget involved is if I'm requested to by
(32:50):
the police. So the most commonway is the police reach out directly to
me and ask me to be involved. The second most common way is a
family where we out to me askif I'm interested. Ninety nine percent of
the time I tell them, yes, I'm interested in helping. But then
I tell them you have to contactthe police, and the police have to
contact me. I'm not comfortable contactingthe police out of the blue because I
(33:15):
find police aren't generally recepted to that. And if I was a police officer,
I'd be like, well, who'sthis guy? You know? I
don't know if this guy is callingme asking me that you know, to
help. And so I tell thefamily that once the police agree to have
my assistance, I typically need theentire file. I need complete cooperation.
(33:37):
I have very, very rarely workedon cases where I don't get the entire
police file. I have to havethe entire thing. I have to have
a full cooperation, and you know, I've done forty plus cases and I've
always had full cooperation, with aminor few exceptions where I agree to just
kind of help on more of alimited basis. But I also tell the
family that once I agree to workwork with the police, I will not
(34:00):
speak to them again, that itis not appropriate for me to speak to
them, that all of my conversationswill be the police with the police,
and that even if the police nevermake an arrest or it never goes any
further, I still won't speak tothe family after that that I believe it's
very important for the police to understandI just speak to them once I'm on
(34:22):
the case and I don't have anyallegiance or tie to the family, and
I make sure families are very awareof that. It's it's not to be
mean or uncaring, but I haveto make sure that the police fully understand
that I don't leak, I don'ttalk to the press, I don't talk
to the family about the case,and I will not I've often had podcasters
(34:43):
in the press call and ask aboutcases that I've worked on, where they
haven't known that I've worked on them, and I tell them right away as
long as I can go off therecord, I'll tell you why I can't
speak to you about the case,but you have to agree not to put
that in the story, and thenI'll tell them I actually consulted on this
case, so I can't talk toyou about it. And in terms of
our role at Find Jody, wedo. We're kind of like a clearinghouse
(35:04):
for a lot of information. Wedirect people to the police, but you
may know, many people don't wantto go directly, so they'll come to
us. We put up billboards andone of them says, someone knows something,
is that you The most recent onewe have in Mason City said don't
sit in silence and basically time totalk is now. We have a podcast.
Any other suggestions as sort of citizenjournalist detectives, you would have for
(35:28):
us, things to help the caseand things to avoid in our role at
Find Jody. No, you're absolutelydoing the right thing. I mean,
that is so important to keep hername out there. I mean it is
literally one of the highest profile missingperson cases. I mean there are a
lot of cases out there. Thereare you know, not a ton of
cases that even people who aren't inthis world know about it, and that
(35:51):
is certainly one of one. Youknow, when you first contacted me and
said I'm interested in talking about Jody'scase, I of course knew exactly who
it was, and that is veryimportant. You know, any type of
social media out as the podcasts aresuper popular format. Now true crime in
particular is a very popular format.The one thing I always caution people about
(36:15):
is I do think it's really importantto be very circumspect about putting people's names
out there, putting people out thereas suspects, being very diligent about maintaining
some control of a more comments andthings like that, because there have been
certainly very bad examples, you know, the Boston marathon bombing being the best
(36:35):
example of sort of incredibly bad informationgetting out there and and harming people.
And I do think it's very importantthat podcasters need to have some level of
responsibility about who they talk about andwhat they say and all that, and
making sure that people are citizen detectivesaren't going off on you know, crazy
wildcuse Jason and putting a bunch ofcrazy information out there. But from everything
(37:01):
I've seen from what you all havedone and the information, it's been very
responsibly done. And obviously you havea journalism you know, a deep journalism
background, and I think that makesa big difference to you us really know
what libel and flander are as comparedto most people. And over the years,
the things that have gotten increasingly closedtighter in the vest with the police
(37:22):
department, they're releasing less these daysthan before. Do you think at this
point more should be released? Andone of the things that comes up from
time to time, there was avideo at eighteen twenty minute video of Jody's
birthday party was thrown a couple ofweeks before she disappeared. Some of the
videos showed up on a crime showNetwork show a couple of years ago.
Police have consistently refused to release that. Would you see any value in releasing
(37:45):
that kind of video that shows Jodi, the people at the party, people
at the bar, or just tosee that as something that they should continue
to keep close to the vest.I think it's hard to say in a
vacuum, and I tend to say, you know, to pull lease in
situations like this if you have somethingin there that you think is going to
(38:06):
be something that only the murderer knows, then you certainly want to keep one,
two, three of those in yourpocket because it's very important cooperation.
That said, in this day andage, I do think it's important for
police to use the public as avaluable asset if there is information. And
it certainly would seem to me thata video of a birthday party before she
(38:31):
went missing, obviously that potentially couldprovide some important clues. Maybe they're not
able to identify everybody in that video. Maybe they are, which is great,
but maybe they're not. And ifthey're able to play that, it
certainly increases the chances of people saying, oh, well that's Doug and Matt's
Johnny and blah blah blah. Soin this day and age, if done
(38:54):
right, I do think there isa lot of ability to do that.
Look in the you know, inthe January six cases in in the United
States Capital, you have the sbhondreleasing almost weekly photos of people and videos
of people, and you have thesewebsites where they you know, they call
them January six hunters or whatever.You know, it's almost like Nazi hunters
(39:16):
of old, but they are peoplewho are looking for these people and they
do a great job of finding it. And I do think the world is
different now than it was in nineteenninety five because of the Internet, and
you have to use that to youradvantage unless you have a good reason to
say, I don't want to showthis because it's gonna it's gonna mess up
(39:37):
this aspect of the case. Iget that, but I'd be hard pressed
to see how a birthday party eighteento nineteen minute video of a birthday party
is going to contain eighteen nineteen minutesworth of evidence that only the murderer knows.
It would seem to me there's probablyportions of it, at the very
least you could release, and couldreleasing some of it perhaps help identify someone
(40:00):
who might be at the bar,someone who's at this scene that maybe has
not been identified before. Absolutely,a birthday party at a bar that's also
open to the public, it doesseem unlikely that they would know everybody in
that video, and it does seemmore likely that that's maybe the way to
kind of use you know, crowdsourcingis handled skillfully, is a way to
(40:22):
do it. There's a journalist BillyJensen who's written a book on this who
does it very skillfully in the wayhe uses video clips and things like that
to engender people looking at it andsaying, hey, I do know something
about that. He releases it throughFacebook in the area where the event happened,
(40:43):
which is you know, you cando that. You can figure out
by who has Facebook pages in thisarea. So you know, obviously,
me sitting in DC, I'm notgoing to know anything about a party that
happened in Iowa nineteen ninety five.But if I still live in Iowa all
these years later, I look atthat and I'll say, oh my god,
I do know about that because mybrother went to that party, my
(41:04):
sister went to that party. Andthose I think are the types of things
that can be very valuable in acase like this. And Billy Jensen and
Paul Holes just featured Jody's case afew weeks ago on their Murder Squad and
I I'll have to listen to that. I have finally finished listening to my
favorite murder and I need to startpicking up another podcast, So I'm going
to start listening to Finding Jody.But I started thinking about I really should
(41:28):
listen to a Murder Squad as well, because I'm a big admirer of both
Jensen and Holes and we learn alot from them too. We try to
look at other cases and looking atyour book, you try to get some
ideas of things that resolve that Godanswers anything. How can people read you,
get your book, connect to yourwebsite? Can you share some of
that? Lis? Sure? So, absolutely so. The best way to
(41:50):
reach me is through my email.It's just Tad dot Tobias at gmail dot
com and the last name is bolledd I BI S. And if you
go to my website, which isNobody Murder Cases dot com, it has
my telephone number on there, mycell phone number, and then I have
a pretty active Twitter feed called theNobody Guy on Twitter. Those are really
(42:16):
any one of those ways are areprobably the best, the best way to
reach out to me. If youwant to talk about a case that you
have, a case you're interested in, what I would say is a couple
of things which I always say tofamily members, which is never give up.
(42:37):
It is really important in these casesto understand that it can go on
for a long time. I justspoke to someone who told me about a
case that I think it's forty fiveyears in between missing and now going to
trial. And that's the record.And here it is very important to keep
Jody's case, you know, aliveand keep it in the in the public
(42:59):
domain. And that's the type ofthing that is, I believe, ultimately
to a break in the case.Find Jody as a nonprofit run by volunteers
with a mission of keeping Jody's unsolvedcase in the spotlight. Anyone with information
(43:23):
about Jody's case can reach out tothe Mason City Police Departments. Information can
also be provided to the Iowa Departmentof Criminal Investigations. You can also contact
find Jody anonymously if you prefer don'tsit in silence. The time to talk
is now for the entire finds Jodyteam. I'm Scott Fuller. Thank you
(43:45):
for listening.
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