March 24, 2023 • 43 mins
There’s a lot about high-school life that is retrospectively ridiculous. Miss, nobody noticed that microscopic zit on the side of your nose. Sir, that’s not a mustache yet and you should stop trying to pretend it is. But the truth is, when you’re that young you really do feel things deeply, and a lot of things matter far more than they really should. Especially where love is concerned. Looking back, you know perfectly well that that 17-year-old romance was never going anywhere, but when you’re right there and living it, it can be all that matters in the world. You might do anything to protect it. Join us for a story of teenage obsession gone horribly wrong.
Sources:
East Bay Express, "Little Miss Murder" by Susan Goldsmith: https://eastbayexpress.com/little-miss-murder-1/
SF Gate: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/LIVERMORE-Wife-killer-gets-life-sentence-2590335.php
Court papers: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1180568.html
Investigation Discovery's "Wicked Attraction," episode "Deadly Rival"
Oxygen's "Killer Couples," episode "Katie Belflower and Mike Simons"
Follow us, campers!
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MERCH! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.
Sources:
East Bay Express, "Little Miss Murder" by Susan Goldsmith: https://eastbayexpress.com/little-miss-murder-1/
SF Gate: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/LIVERMORE-Wife-killer-gets-life-sentence-2590335.php
Court papers: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1180568.html
Investigation Discovery's "Wicked Attraction," episode "Deadly Rival"
Oxygen's "Killer Couples," episode "Katie Belflower and Mike Simons"
Follow us, campers!
Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfire
Facebook: True Crime Campfire
Instagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079
Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfire
Email: truecrimecampfirepod@gmail.com
MERCH! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows, and gather around the true crime camp
fire. We're your camp counselors.I'm Katie and I'm Whitney, and we're
here to tell you a true storythat is way stranger than fiction. Or
roasting murderers and marshmallows around the truecrime camp fire. There's a lot about
(00:23):
high school life that is retrospectively ridiculous. Miss nobody noticed that microscopics it on
the side of your nose. Sir, that's not a mustache yet, and
you should stop trying to pretend itis. But the truth is, when
you're that young, you really dofeel things deeply, and a lot of
things matter far more than they reallyshould, especially where love is concerned.
(00:44):
Looking back, you know perfectly wellthat that seventeen year old romance was probably
never going anywhere. But when you'reright there and living it, it can
be all that matters in the world. You might do anything to protect it.
This is the Boy is Mine theMurder of Jenna Nanettie So. Campers
(01:15):
for this one were in the generalarea of Livermore, California, October sixth,
two thousand and two, in theparking lot of the Mountain House Cafe,
a back roads bar in the hillycountry between Livermore and Tracy, a
car was on fire in the night. A passing motorist saw the flames and
called police and firefighters. Once thefirefighters got the blaze under control, they
(01:37):
were able to tell that, thankfully, there wasn't anybody inside the scorched out
blue Mustang. There was no wayfor them to tell whether the fire had
been started deliberately. Police called theMountain House bartender and they said it had
been such a slow night that theyhad closed early. The parking lot had
been empty. Then the license plateon the Mustang led police to the door
of an elderly lady named Linda Nannetti, and the minute they laid out on
(02:00):
her, the police realized that hervibe didn't exactly scream I drive a Mustang,
and they were right. Although Lindawas the registered owner of the car,
she'd bought it as a gift forher seventeen year old granddaughter, Jenna.
Linda had raised Jenna from the timeshe was tiny, and she still
lived with her, and Linda hadalready been worrying about her even before the
knock at the door at about nineo'clock the night before, Jenna had left
(02:23):
her an upsetting voicemail another girl hadjust attacked her. She said she was
okay now with some friends, butshe said Linda could call her if she
wanted to. But when Linda called, it went straight to Jenna's voicemail.
She never came home. Now herewas this bizarre news about the Mustang burning
to a husk in the parking lotof a country bar. Linda knew how
(02:45):
much her granddaughter loved that car.Would she abandon it in the middle of
bumfunk nowhere for any reason on earth? Hell? No, a Mustang when
you're seventeen years old. Sure itwas twelve years old, but still I
was happy to get my parents shitty, old, used Oldsmobile when I was
seventeen. If I had a sexy, little blue Mustang, I would have
lived in that thing. My carwas Jenna's pride and joy, and it
(03:06):
was the only thing of any realworth that she owned. Jenna's dad,
Jim Nannetti, had also gotten avoicemail from Jenna the night before, and
this one was a lot scarier.This is one of those awful, heartbreaking
what if kind of moments. IfJenna had gotten through to her dad that
night, so much could have beendifferent in this case, but he didn't
hear the message until later. Thevoicemail went like this, Dad, call
(03:28):
me now, I've probably got aconcussion. I just got hit upside the
head with a baseball bat or whateverthe fuck it was. I need your
help call me, poor kid.So obviously authorities and everyone who loved Jenna
were afraid for her safety. Shehad obviously been attacked, her car had
been found abandoned and burning, andnobody knew where she was. But it
didn't take too much probing into theshape of Jenna Nanetti's life to give investigators
(03:53):
an idea of where they might wantto start looking to figure out what happened
to her. Jenna was married too, and separated from a twenty year old
douchebag by the name of Mike Simons. Mike, and if you want to
cast this in your head, justthink Dollar Tree met Damon. Okay,
Mike had already been in trouble withthe law for stealing cars and leading police
(04:14):
on sprightly high speed chases, andhe already had some jail time on the
old CV. So not exactly thekind of husband Linda and Nettie would have
wanted for her granddaughter. Since Jennawas still a juvenile. Remember this girl
is seventeen. Linda had actually hadto give her consent for the marriage to
take place, and she did,which, I mean, look good luck
trying to keep teenagers in love fromdoing whatever the hell they want. I
(04:39):
get that. If Linda had refusedto go along, Jenna and Mike would
have probably just run off together.Jenna had a stubborn streak a mile wide,
and she was determined to find away to stay with Mike. The
two of them had known each otherpretty much forever, but they'd only been
actually dating for a few months beforetying the knot. And as soon as
that knot was tied, Mike movedin with Jenna and her Graham parents.
(05:00):
God, what a treat for everybodyright now. In any city of any
size, you're going to find groupsof I guess you'd call it disaffected young
folks. And this was the crowdMike and Jenna were part of. Kids
who dropped out of high school,were thinking about dropping out, all working
low income jobs, you know,tough kids with tough lives. A lot
of them they hung out at aninternet cafe. Remember this is two thousand
(05:23):
and two, so they were probablylooking at Homestar Runner, you know,
stuff like that. Or they'd goout into the hills to party around campfires,
drinking and smoking and screwing around.Jenna fit that tough kid with a
tough life category pretty well. Herdad had a drinking problem her whole life,
and he'd been in prison multiple timesfor felony d y. Jenna had
(05:44):
a long history of picking him upfrom bars when he was wasted and driving
him home so we wouldn't get introuble again. Poor kid. Oh,
we don't know much about Jenna's momexcept that she split soon after Jenna was
born, leaving Jenna's grandparents to raiseher. I don't think you need a
psych degree to see how this couldcreate a kid who was a little bit
hard edged on the outside, buton the inside just desperate for somebody to
(06:06):
love and take care of her.Yeah, and she thought she'd found that
in Mike Simons. It's easy tosee why the two of them connected.
Like Jenna's, Mike's mom was moreor less out of his life entirely.
His dad was in prison and helived with his aunt. These kids had
a lot in common. Mike haddisappeared from Livermore for a few years after
(06:27):
being sent to juvenile boot camp fortroubled teams. And if you want to
know how well those places work andknocking young people into shape, well you'll
see, yeah, paging doctor Philright him and his wackass ranch. Yeah.
After that, Mike lived in agroup home and got into some trouble
for stealing cars up in Oakland beforedrifting back home to Livermore. He was
(06:49):
homeless for a while, camping ina creek bed and shooting geese with a
bb gun so he could cook themfor dinner, but soon he started on
a series of jobs, slinging buris at Jack in the Box, stocking
shelves at Walmart, and detailing carsat a dealership. One thing that bootcamp
did seem to do was make Mikecompletely obsessed with the military. He was
(07:11):
almost always dressed in green camouflage,army fatigues and a maroon beret. There's
a picture of him in Jenna togetherand it looks like one of those wholesome
my man's finally back from deployment shots. But nope, dude was never in
the military a day in his life. He just liked to play dress up
Lauren and maroon beret' that's like specialforces too, write like airborne special Forces.
I think. So he was reallygetting into some cosplay there, or
(07:34):
you know, stolen valor whatever youwant to call it. Mike had actually
started his enlistment process, but I'mguessing they hadn't gotten to the psych test
yet or the background check. Althoughtechnically a criminal record won't keep you out
of the army, just a significantcriminal record whatever that means. Murder acts
me up. I don't know ifstealing cars counts or not. Okay,
(07:59):
And Mike wasn't exactly mister popularity inhis friend group. He had a habit
of just randomly talking in aave sometimesor African American vernacular English, and everybody
thought that was weird and kind ofracist obviously, I mean, we've all
met people like that. It's toecurling. It's so awkward. And a
couple times he acted like he wasgoing to hit Jenna and he had to
(08:20):
be held back by friends. Realclassy dude, for what it's worth.
Those friends also said that their moneywould have been on Jenna in a fight.
Yes, one guy was like Jennawould have kicked his ass, so
he was probably secretly glad that theyheld him back. But still, you,
Mike, not great dudes that sayhold me back never actually want to
(08:41):
get in fights. They're categorically cowards. But he was a good looking kid,
and when your peer group is stillmostly in high school, that can
count for a lot. Jenna,who was really pretty but self conscious about
her looks, like most teenagers are, felt proud to have him as her
husband said. She sparkled when shewas with him. Now, I know
(09:03):
what all you cynics are out there, thinking, teenage bride, bad boy
husband, This marriage has about asnowman's chance in hell. But look,
Jenna and Mike were happy. Theirrelationship was full of smiles and affections for
like a couple of weeks. Sopat yourselves on the back, cnex,
you're right again. And really,Mike had no business getting married to anybody.
(09:24):
According to true crime author Greg Olsen, Mike's friends said he had two
great loves in his life. Okay, one was booze, preferably paid for
by somebody else, and the otherit was sixteen year old girls. And
he wanted as much of both ashe could get you how he fooled himself
into thinking a life of domestic monogamywould be the right choice for him.
(09:45):
I have no idea. Maybe hejust wanted somewhere free to crash for a
while. But the long and shortof it is, after six whole,
entire weeks of marriage, Mike toldJenna he wanted out Sprisy Lesson's at long
and poor Jenna, bless her heart, was just devastated and she had no
idea this was coming. She wasjust seventeen, She's a high school girl.
She loved this creepy little weasel,so she tried to talk Mike into
(10:07):
staying, but he was gonzo.And this was three months before Jennett disappeared.
By this time, Mike had welland truly moved on. He had
a new girlfriend, another seventeen yearold by the name of Katie Bellflower,
and he was living with her ather mom's house. And I'm just gonna
throw out some more patented TCC parentingadvice from the child free here. Okay,
people, please don't let your teenagedaughter's creepy boyfriend come and live with
(10:31):
you, especially when he's twenty yearsold and a grown as adult. I
mean, the clouds of xe bodyspray alone are going to be suffocating.
And that doesn't even scratch the surfacereally of the potential problems that could arise.
Yeah, there's like a mile widecanyon between forbidding your kid from ever
seeing their love interest again and likerolling out the welcome matt like happy mediums
(10:56):
people, Happy mediums. Yeah,I'm I'm not a fan of Like,
you can't see Brandon ever again,because then you're just gonna get murdered.
You know, She'll figure out Brandonsucks on her own. It's fine,
but just like inviting him to movein, just maybe not Mike's new squeeze.
Katie was an odd little duckling withher glasses and her hair pulled back
(11:16):
into a tight braid. She lookedlike the kind of sit calm cliche of
a high achieving nerd, though thatwasn't anywhere close to the truth. She
actually skipped a lot of school andhad to go to the Del Valley Continuation
High School, which was reserved forkids who were in danger of not graduating.
Jenna had gone there too, althoughthe two of them hadn't really interacted
much. Jenna was lively and open, and she never had any trouble making
(11:37):
friends. But Katie was an outsiderand struck people as weird. And if
you'll watch video of her police interrogation, you're gonna see why. In like
two minutes, her face barely everchanged expression. She's like grumpy cat.
She just literally makes the same faceall the time, and neither did her
voice. Like everything came out inthe same board monotone, like maybe she
(11:58):
was crying for Wednesday Adams, butshe couldn't quite pull it off. She
wasn't off beat, just off sounsurprisingly she wasn't popular in high school.
Now, nine times out of ten, if a kid's unpopular in high school,
it means nothing whatsoever about them,it's just high school being high school.
But for Katie Bellflower, it waspretty much all her own fault.
(12:20):
See. Miss Katie's favorite hobby wasstealing your man. She liked going after
guys who were dating other girls.That alone is going to get you on
a hell of a lot of shitlists. And under Katie's flat affect,
there was a busy little rage cauldronjust bubbling away. She'd start fights with
other girls at school, though asone girl in her class remembered later,
(12:41):
when you got in her face,she'd back right off, so her and
hold me back. Guy, wherea match made in Coward Heaven? I
guess, or help depending on whoyou ask exactly. Now, we couldn't
tell from the sources we saw whetherMike and Katie hooked up while he was
still married to Jenna, But basedon what we know about Katie, I
think it's a pretty safe bet becausethat was the kind of guy she was
(13:03):
specifically attracted to. And it's lessclear why Mike moved on to Katie,
who frankly seems like several steps down. I mean, a guy like Mike
probably wasn't going to stick around regardless, but why Katie? Of course?
I guess if you're an insecure littleman child, a girl with all the
charisma of a wet pile of laundrymight actually be preferable to one who has,
(13:24):
you know, a personality and opinionsand stuff and won't always do what
you want. Mike and Katie weredefinitely together now, though she just found
out she was pregnant with his baby. When you know, Jenna disappeared.
I'm sure those fine, upstanding younggent's gonna stick with her through all her
pregnancy and labor and all that goodstuff. Right, Yeah, we'll find
(13:45):
out in a minute. So thenight Jenna disappeared, she'd gone over to
Katie's house, where Mike was living, and Jenna and Mike talked on the
porch about the possibility of annulling theirmarriage and also about the possibility of reconciling,
which make up your mind, God. Then all of a sudden,
Mike said, Jenna told him shehad to leave. He gave her ten
(14:09):
dollars for gas, and that wasit. She peeled away in her Mustang.
Forty five minutes later, according toMike, Jenna called him and said
she'd been assaulted and was going togo get drunk. So Mike and Katie
went and hung out in a localpark for a couple hours. So obviously
police were suspicious as hell of MikeSimons. Anytime a woman goes missing and
the last person to see her aliveis her estranged husband, that husband's going
(14:33):
to be in the hot seat.Adding in a new girlfriend in a sketchy
pass isn't going to help his caseeither, But so far, there was
no evidence connecting him to Jenna's disappearance. Katie's version of that evening matched Mike's,
although in her version, Mike andJenna had agreed to annul their marriage,
and as soon as that went through, Katie and Mike were going to
get engaged. Search teams combed theland for miles around the Mountain House Cafe
(14:58):
where Jenna's car had been found onfire, but found nothing. But two
weeks later, on October nineteenth,a fisherman in a remote area called Whiskey
Slew, about forty miles away fromLivermore, caught a whiff of something awful
on his way to the river,and in some bushes he found a decomposing
body of a woman. It wasJenna. They ideed her by her fingerprints
(15:18):
on file with the DMV. Thecorner sided the cause of death as too
close range gunshot blasts to the chest, but they couldn't be sure whether there'd
been more shots than that. Thedamp environment she'd been lying in had sped
up decomposition and there had been alot of animal activity, so her body
was in bad shape. Nearby investigatorsrecovered a single shotgun shell, casing there
(15:41):
were no drag marks or any indicationthat Jenna had been bound in any way
for now, investigators thought it waslikely she'd been killed right here, and
it looked like she'd come here voluntarily. Jenna was buried in Livermore at the
end of October. Hundreds of peoplecame, her friends, her family,
former teachers. This girl had matteredto a hell of a lot of people.
(16:06):
Her family played a video tribute toher, with guns n' roses sweet
Child of Mine playing in the background. Oh man, that's so sweet.
Among the mourners were Mike, Katie, and Katie's friend Jeff Hamilton. We
are going to get to that guyin a minute. Now that they knew
for sure she'd been murdered, detectiveslooked even more closely into her relationship with
(16:27):
Mike. They learned that, afterhe'd walked out on their marriage, he
and Jenna would often argue loudly andin public. One of these fights had
ended with Mike yelling I'm going tokill you. Of course, people say
that kind of stuff and argument sometimesnot usually great people on average, But
it doesn't necessarily mean they're actually goingto kill somebody. But if you're a
(16:51):
stranged wife turns up shot to deathsoon after you make that threat, you're
probably not going to get the benefitof the doubt from the cops. New
police interviewed Mike and Katie again.Mike stuck to his original story of the
night of Jenna's disappearance. Mostly Initially, he said that he and Katie had
gone to the park together for hoursafter Jenna left. Now he added a
(17:12):
new detail that Katie's friend Jeff wentwith them, but Katie stuck to the
first draft of the script that itwas just her and Mike at the park,
No Jeff. So what does thismean, Well, it means one
of these two chuckleheads is lying theirass off at least. So who was
this Jeff Hamilton anyway? Well,if we're sticking with fan casting this story,
(17:36):
picture newman from Seinfeld as like atwenty year old Zamboni driver but without
all the charm and Jois de Vie. Jeff was really kind of a sad
sack. He'd never had a girlfriend, barely had any friends at all outside
of Katie. He described his relationshipwith Katie as older brother, younger sister,
which apparently meant he followed her aroundlike a puppy and did whatever she
(17:56):
told him. And as I'm sureAnya y'all out there with actual siblings.
No, that is not how thatdynamic works. My brother can sure as
he'll tell you. Nah, that'swhat dudes who have crushes on girls and
get friend zone describe themselves as.Katie her No, man, she's like
my sister. Like meanwhile, he'sholding back tears exactly. One thing they
(18:18):
had in common, though, isthat they both spoke like they were about
three volumes deep, just flat andbored, like Aubrey Plaza on Xanax,
but like more boring. Yeah,not funny, not funny and not funny
exactly just god knows what they talkedabout. But if you happen to be
in the same room, you'd eitherfall asleep or want to throw yourself out
(18:38):
the window. Both Katie and Jeff. You could set their shoes on fire
and they'd be like, oh,my feet are burning. That is painful
ow ow. In fact, Jeffhad had a crush on Katie for years,
but he'd never done anything about itand had pretty much deliberately self friend
(19:00):
zoned the situation. May say forthat way, girls are scary? What
I say? What did I say? They called it. When detectives interviewed
Jeff he confirmed Mike's version of thenight Jenna disappeared. He'd gone to the
park with Mike and Katie third wheelingat big Time while the two young Leves
chatted and conoodled. Investigators were confidentthat these three were involved in Jenna's murder,
(19:22):
but beyond Jenna's autopsy report in onesolitary shotgun casing, the evidence in
that case was close to zero.And while conspiracies with three young dipshits like
these often fall apart when they runtheir mouths at a party or crack like
an egg in the interrogation room,that didn't happen here, and the investigation
pretty much slowed to a crawl.As police expanded their interviews and chased down
(19:45):
leads. They thought they might beonto something in tracking down a stolen shotgun
that could have been the murder weapon, but it was slow work. Months
passed, but of course time didn'tstand still during those months. By the
middle of February, Katie was fivemonths pregnant, and the jealous rage bubbling
underneath that brain dead exterior was reachinga boiling point. Mike, ever,
(20:06):
classy, had dumped her like radioactivewaste. I know, take a moment
to grieve if you need to.We thought those two crazy kids were going
to make it, and he hada new girlfriend, sixteen year old named
Aspen Lum. Yeah the doors.Aspen was perfect because she was cuter than
Katie. Plus she wasn't five monthspregnant. And this was the best part
(20:27):
for Mikey. She was younger thanKatie. I mean, for God's sake,
Katie was almost eighteen whole years old. Now she'd start getting AARP mail
in a second. You know,she's used up. Aspen was kind of
a troubled kid who'd run away fromhome in the past and who, according
to her mom, doesn't pick nicepeople to hang out with. Yeah,
you're right on the money there,Mom. Aspen thought Katie was her friend,
(20:49):
bless her heart. In fact,some of the sources on this case
indicate that the way Mike and Aspenmet was that Katie invited her to have
a three way with her and MikeI guess spice things up, or maybe
in a desperate attempt to keep Mikeyaround, and then Katie got edged out
of the situation entirely. But I'mnot sure if that's true. It's only
in a couple of the sources,and not necessarily the most in depth ones,
(21:11):
like that story does not pop upin the article Little Miss Murder by
Susan Goldsmith, which is one ofour better sources for this case. So
who knows. But what we doknow is that one night Aspen got a
late night call from Katie inviting herto sneak out of her house and go
out drinking and drive in with Katieand Jeff. An Aspen, poor kid,
was all for it. So attwelve thirty am on March first,
(21:32):
Aspen snuck out and met up withKatie and Jeff and they all drove in
Jeff's car to this place called theAwesome Want Pass. Now, this is
a road that runs up through thehills outside of Livermore and gives these really
spectacular views of the valley, especiallyat night with city lights and everything.
So kids are always going up thereafter dark to talk or smoke weed or
make out or whatever. They hungout for a while drinking some Jack Daniels
(21:53):
that Katie had stolen from her mom. Aspen couldn't take it neat, so
she mixed it with doctor pepper.Katie made sure Aspen drink quite a bit
more than she did, which,okay, Katie, let's add drinking while
pregnant to your long list of shiningqualities. Oh anyway, after a while,
missed that. I missed that.That's a good catch. I missed
(22:15):
that that she was five months pregnantat this point, she's knocked up and
she's taken Jack Daniels. What.Yeah, Oh gosh, I hate her
so bad, and I hate thatI share her name with her her so
hard. Anyway, after a while, at about three am, Jeff went
(22:37):
back to his car and put ona pair of blue surgical gloves. He
stashed a length of rope in hispocket some hockey netting from the ice rink
where he drove the zamboni. Hewent back to join the girls. Moving
up behind Aspen, he started amassage Aspen's neck and shoulders, which I
guess she was fine with at first. As Jeff rubbed Aspen's back, katiely
(23:00):
slipped on her own pair of surgicalgloves, and then she gave Jeff a
subtle hand signal. Jeff whipped outthe rope and wrapped it around Aspen's throat,
pulling hard as Aspen struggled, clawingat Jeff's hands. Katie leaned into
her face and said, I killedJenna and now I'm going to kill you.
Oh my god. She put onehand over Aspen's mouth and held her
(23:22):
nostrils closed with the other. Aspenfell back onto the ground and Katie pounced
on her, holding her down whileJeff kept the rope tight around her neck.
Asden managed to choke out Katie,please stop, you can have him,
but Katie didn't seem to care.They kept right on trying to kill
her. This one on for longminutes. Contrary to how it looks on
(23:44):
TV, it's not easy to stranglesomebody to death. Aspen's vision blurred,
she blacked out, briefly felt likeher eyeballs were going to pop, and
then, like a miracle on thisdark and lonely road, just seconds before
Aspen lum fell into unconsciousness, apair of headlights appeared and lit up the
creepy little scene. Katie and Jefflet go of Aspen. When the approaching
(24:07):
vehicle stopped, headlights still lighting themup. Jeff quickly shoved the rope into
his pocket. Katie hugged Aspen,saying I'm sorry. Don't tell anyone.
Oh the fucking nerve of hugging her. I'm sorry, don't tell anyone,
huh. Yeah, Aspen, justkeep this between you and I. I
definitely won't try it again. Right. It wasn't just any driver who'd happened
(24:32):
upon this scene. It was TimPhillips, a Parks police officer on morning
patrol. He hadn't seen Katie andJeff trying to kill Aspen, but the
scene was weird and one of thegirls was clearly in some kind of distress.
Phillips got out of his cruiser,like, Okay, what's going on
here? Having been nearly strangled todeath, Aspen couldn't talk, and she
(25:18):
was lightheaded and confused from shock andoxygen deprivation, so she said nothing.
As Katie started bullshitting, telling officerPhillips that Aspen had just gotten sick and
she and Jeff were helping her.She pretended to listen to something Aspen said
and said, oh, is itthat time of the month. Yeah.
(25:38):
When Phillips asked them about the surgicalgloves they were wearing, Katie and Jeff
said they'd put them on because theywere worried Aspen was going to throw up,
you know, because we all carrylatex gloves around in case a buddy
has to barf. Nothing weird aboutthat. God. Katie noticed the rope
hanging out of Jeff's pocket and said, do you saw that string? Yeah,
(25:59):
Jeff said, I forgot to takeit out after work. It's definitely
not a rope I was using tostrangle anybody with. I'll tell you that,
how ridiculous. Ha ha ha ha. Now this was obviously fake as
hell and super suspicion. But whenPhillips asked Aspen if she was okay,
she whispered that she was. Shewas terrified. She could barely talk,
and she still wasn't thinking straight,and she was worried that if she caused
(26:22):
a stir, Katie and Jeff wouldkill her, and Officer Phillips sure,
so Phillips got her home phone numberand had a dispatcher call, but there
was no answer, probably because itwas the middle of the night. Katie
promised they'd take Aspens straight back home, which was just a couple of miles
away. Officer Phillips okayed that,and the three of them drove off into
the night. And I'm he's gonnasoft pedal things a little here. I'm
(26:45):
not too sure this was the greatestpiece of police work we've seen. Yeah,
definitely not. No, this wholesituation was shady as shit. Katie
and Jeff were being super weird andeven looking at things in the best possible
light. You've got to clearly undera girl who's intoxicated and not doing great.
Her house is a couple miles away. He should have just driven her
(27:06):
home. It's not like he hadanything else going on at three am in
the middle of nowhere, for God'ssake, but whatever, you know,
he didn't ask me about it.But just two minutes after Jeff and Katie
had driven off, Officer Phillips gotanother call from dispatch. They'd gotten in
touch with Aspen's dad, who wasfrantic and said his daughter wasn't in her
room and he thought she'd run awayagain. Oh right, So Phillips swung
(27:29):
his cruiser around and hauled asked inthe direction that the kids had driven off,
And luckily for both Aspen and OfficerPhillips, Katie and Jeff had been
freaked out enough by this close encounterof the cop kind that they had actually
taken Aspen straight home, just likethey said they would, and dropped her
off. By the time Phillips caughtup with them and pulled them over,
it was just Katie and Jeff inthe car, so he detained them and
his cruiser until he could untangle justwood had been going on, and it
(27:52):
was as they all sat in thecruiser that dispatch came back with another alarming
call. Aspen had just told herparents that Katie and Jeff at try to
kill her, so, probably whilewatching his law enforcement career flash before his
eyes, Phillips waited in his cruiserfor Alamia County Deputies to arrive and a
restless pair of dip shits in herinterview room. Katie stuck to the story
(28:14):
she'd spun for Officer Phillips. Aspenhad gotten sick and she and Jeff were
just, you know, helping.She'd been wearing gloves in case Aspen threw
up. And why was Jeff wearinggloves because Katie said, he doesn't know
Aspen that well and he doesn't knowif she has any diseases or anything.
Uh, girl, what what Jeffputs on surgical gloves whenever he's around somebody
(28:40):
he doesn't know that well? Wellplayed, Katie, way to hold it
together girl. When a detective flatout asked Katie, did you guys just
try to kill her? She deniedit. No, I'm sorry. I
wouldn't try to kill her. Ilove her too much. I care about
her way too much. This ishow she talks. I swear to go.
I'm not making it up. Hertone was just flat and like super
(29:03):
cash, like she was telling somebodywhy she liked Burger King better than McDonald's
or something. Bish. You're ina police interrogation room and you've just been
asked if he tried to murder somebody, what is it going to take to
raise your heart rate electroshock? It'sjust unbelievable. Of course, Katie wasn't
the weak link in this little notso dynamic duo. In his own interview
room, Jeff Hamilton, in thesame kind of casual tone, was cracking
(29:26):
like humpty dumpty. Yes, he'dtried to strangle Aspen. It had been
Katie's idea. She wanted Aspen outof the picture. Surely then Mike would
run back into her arms and bethe stand up husband and father she knew
he could be. Katie, Honey, No, he's a creep. He's
running nowhere except to the bleachers towatch the tenth grade soccer tryouts. Okay,
(29:47):
according to Jeff, when Katie firstasked him to help kill Aspen,
he'd refused, but she kept badgeringhim and badgering him about it until finally
he just caved. Dude, ifyou really had a big brother little sister
relationship with this girl, you'd havetold her she was fucking nuts, because
that's what my brother would tell me. But of course, Jeff's real role
in this relationship was gutless follower,not big brother simp supreme. Katie had
(30:10):
initially wanted to cut Aspen's throat,Jeff said, but they eventually settled on
strangulation instead. Then they were goingto hang her body on a fence post
so people would think Aspen had takenher own life, because you know,
people often hang themselves on fence postswith ice hockey netting miles from anywhere when
they don't have a car. Absolutelyno one would have been suspicious. Obviously.
(30:36):
Yeah, that was ironclad. I'mshocked it didn't work out. When
faced with Jeff's confession, Katie kindof sort of came clean herself. Been
her version of events, the attemptedmurder had been Jeff's idea because he her
big brother, wanted to take careof Katie and eliminate her rival. Now
the detectives knew that Katie Bellflower andJeff Hamilton weren't just connected to the tempted
(31:00):
murder of aspen Lum. They werealso up to their eyebrows and the murder
of Jenna and Neetti. They weren'tMike Simon's alibi for the Knight of Jenna's
death, so of course the detectivesasked them both about Jenna. Jeff,
who seems to have enjoyed the attentionthese very important police detectives were giving him,
kept right on chatting, and whenKatie found out Jeff was still talking,
(31:22):
Katie kept talking too. Was thatthe prisoners elemma, Yeah, that's
what they call it. Mike hadtold Katie and Jeff that Jenna was making
his life miserable. She was holdingup the divorce and he wanted her gone.
He had important teenage girls to hiton, and he had another motive
too. Jenna's grandparents had taken outa one hundred thousand dollars life insurance policy
(31:44):
on Jenna. It was supposed tohelp Jenna pay for college if she chose
to go. Mike, who wasstill Jenna's husband, assumed he'd get the
money if she died. Of course, being the mass of dufis that he
was, he hadn't bothered to check. If he had, he'd have found
out that Jenna's grandparents were the beneficiariesof the policy. Mike exaggerated the value
(32:06):
of the policy to Katie and Jeff. He said that if Jenna were dead,
he'd get six hundred thousand dollars andbuy a new house for him and
Katie to live in, and Jeffcould come stay in the spare room.
This, by the way, wasthe entirety of what Jeff Hamilton stood to
gain from Jenna's death, the chanceto move out of his parents house.
That was enough for him. Mikeand Katie wanted Jeff in on the plan
(32:29):
because he had a little dodgeneon andthey needed somebody to drive them around.
Jeff had never even met Jenna.Just wow wow. The plan was for
Mike to lure Jenna over to Katie'shouse by telling her he wanted to talk
about their marriage and maybe getting backtogether. When Jenna and Mike were talking
on the porch. Katy would comeup behind and hit Jenna in the head
(32:51):
with a baseball bat, knocking herout. Then they'd take her out to
some field in the middle of nowhere, shoot her dead, and hide the
body. Jeff suggested shaving off herhair to the body harder to recognize,
but they never got around to that. Then they'd set Jenna's car on fire
and burn away any fingerprints or bloodevidence, and Jeff would drive them all
home in his knee on. Ofcourse, real life isn't like the movies,
(33:14):
and although Katie hit Jenna pretty damnhard, tearing loose some of her
scalp and making blood rushed down herface, it didn't knock her out.
Jenna ran out into the street andKatie bolted. Mike went back in the
house and got jenna towel, heldit up to Jenna's head, like,
oh, honey, are you okay? Gross. Jenna wanted to go to
(33:34):
a hospital, but Mike had anotheridea. He said he knew where Katie'd
run off to, and the twoof them should go after her and get
revenge. Mike would hold her downwhile Jenna beat her up. Jenna still
wanted to go to the hospital,but Mike kept after her, and she
clearly wasn't thinking very clearly after theblow to the head, and finally she
agreed they'd go after Katie. Jennagot into her Mustang with Mike in the
(33:55):
passenger seat and started driving, followinghis directions. On the way, she
called her grandmother and her dad,but got voicemail both times. Whiskey Slew
was forty minutes away, a wideagricultural plane of fields and creeks. Mike
had been up there shooting a fewtimes, and he'd taken Katy with him
once or twice. Of course,Jenna had no idea that Mike, Katy,
(34:16):
and Jeff had planned all this.Agreed to meet there off a dirt
road. Jeff and Katy got therefirst, and his dodged kneon and pulled
off, waiting for Mike and Jenna. When they got there, Jenna got
out to wait for Katy. Mikewalked over to where the kneon sat hidden,
and Katy handed him a shotgun throughthe window. She'd stolen the gun
(34:37):
from a neighbor months ago. Wedon't know whether she was planning Jenna's death
way back then, or whether shejust thought having a shotgun might be useful
sometime. Both possibilities are creepy ashell. Mike walked back toward Jenna,
shone his flashlight on her, thenput the flashlight down. Jenna had her
back to him. Mike called hername, Hey Jenna. She turned round
(34:58):
to see him aiming the shot gunright at her. Mike shot her in
the chest, then a moment later, shot her again. Jenna fell,
but amazingly, she was a longway from dead. Mike, Please,
don't I still love you, shecried out, trying to push herself backwards
along the ground. Mike said,if I let you go, you're gonna
tell, aren't you. Jenna sworeshe wouldn't tell. All right, Mike
(35:21):
said, if you beg for yourlife, I might let you live us
piece of shit. Jenna begged,bless her, sweetheart, but of course
Mike was lying. He scrambled backto Jeff's car to reload the shotgun.
She's not dead yet, he toldKaty and Jeff. Later, Katie told
the detectives that this touched whatever littleshriveled shred of gristles she tried to pass
(35:43):
off her A heart. I don'tlike when people suffer, even if it's
over a boyfriend. It bothers me. She said, Wow, give her
a Nobel fucking prize. She's bothered, but not bothered enough. Jeff and
Katy followed Mike as he walked backto where Jenna lay bleeding on the ground.
He shot her three more times,then one last time at point blank
(36:07):
range, right over her heart.Jeff crouched down to take Jenna's pulse and
see if she was dead yet,but she suddenly drew in her breath and
he jumped back. The three ofthem all started laughing at that, because
apparently it was funny that Jenna wasstill fighting for her life after being shot
so many times. For a littlewhile, they all just stood around and
waited for Jenna to die. ThenMike and Katy dragged her body into some
(36:30):
bushes, cracking hilarious jokes about howheavy she was. Mike took Jenna's keys
out of her pocket. Then heand Katy drove Jenna's Mustang to the Mountain
House Cafe, with Jeff following inhis car, and there after Katy wiped
down the door handles to get ridof any prince. They torched Jenna's Mustang
with a road flare. On theway back to Livermore in Jeff's car,
(36:51):
they tossed the shotgun and baseball batinto a field. They put their unused
ammunition down a drain near Katy's house. Jeff dropped Mike and Katy at her
house, then went home to hisplace and went to sleep. A week
later, Mike and Katie borrowed Jeff'scar and picked up the shotgun from the
field. They weighed it down witha bag of rocks and threw it into
a canal. So that was thestory from both Katie and Jeff. Mike
(37:15):
was arrested later that same day,and at first he played dumb, repeating
back questions he was asked, andin general just acting totally baffled by the
whole situation. At first, hestuck to his original story that Jenna had
just driven off that night and hehad no idea what happened to her after
that, And every time he wascaught in a lie, he'd change his
story just a little to fit thenew facts in front of him. He
(37:37):
was a practiced liar and manipulator.But it turns out that experienced thomicide detectives
are a scoche harder to sweet talkthan high school girls. They weren't buying
this ship for a hot second,and eventually Mike cracked and mostly confessed,
Yes, he helped plan Jenna's murder. Yes, he had been there when
(37:58):
she died, but it had Jeffwho had pulled the trigger, and Katie
was the one who said everything inmotion. The cops weren't buying that either.
They were certain Mike was both theshooter and the instigator of the murder.
He was the one who had,or at least believed he had the
most to gain, not that you'dknow of from his interview. When the
detectives brought up the life insurance,he was like insurance money, what just
(38:23):
incredulous. You get the impression.He was like a hair away from saying,
what is insurance? Mike at Leeseemed aware of the mountain of shit
that was about to fall on hishead, which wasn't necessarily true for Katie
and Jeff. Toward the end ofhis interview, I share you not,
Jeff says, um, I worktomorrow. I don't know if it's still
(38:47):
okay if I go to work.Yeah, that's a no, Jeffrey,
You're not seeing daylight for decades,doll, baby god Iceland, are just
gonna have to find some other fineyoung fellow to drive the zamboni over there.
And Katie, after spending her firstnight in juvie after her arrest,
told the state prosecutor, you knowwhat, after spending one night in juvenile
(39:08):
hall, I learned my lesson.Did y'all just feel a temperature rise a
few degrees? Or am I suddenlyfilled with a boiling fucking rage? Oh
you learned your lesson, miss Bellflower. Well that's just super Seeing as you're
completely rehabilitated. Now, we'll justgo ahead and let you go home.
(39:31):
Yeah, that's definitely something that's goingto happen. You boy, crazy,
delusional, fucking harpie, go tohell, Katie. Eventually, Mike would
agree to take investigators to the canalwhere he'd tossed the stolen shotgun. Forensic
firearms experts were able to match theweapon to the shell casing they'd recovered from
(39:51):
the scene of Jenna's death. Mike, Katie, and Jeff were all charged
with murder with the aggravating circumstance oflying in wait, which covers ambush kill
and luring someone into danger, andthat made Mike and Jeff eligible for the
death penalty. Katie skated by thatpossible outcome by being a juvenile at the
time of Jenna's murder. Jeff Hamiltonagreed to plead guilty to second degree murder
(40:14):
in exchange for his testimony, andwas sentenced to fifteen years to life,
with seven years on top of thatfor the attempted murder of Aspen Lum.
While awaiting trial, Katie gave birthto her and Mike's daughter, who was
immediately put up for adoption. Eventually, Katie would also plead guilty, getting
twenty five years to life. SoMike Simons was the only one of the
(40:36):
three stooges to actually go to trial, which went about as you'd expect a
case built on three solid confessions togo. Has found guilty of first degree
murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and arson and was sentenced to life
in prison without any chance of parole. No teenage girls to hit on in
there, Mike, have fun,But so poor Jenna. You know,
she had the kind of unfortunate tastein men that bajillions of high school girls
(41:00):
before her, including myself, havehad, and thankfully had the chance to
grow out of Sadly, these threelittle gremlins decided that she'd never get that
chance. I wonder if the murderwould have happened at all if it hadn't
been for the life insurance money.Part of me says no, because without
that there's not much motive for Miketo take a drastic step like murder.
But part of me says, waita second. There wasn't any money involved
(41:22):
in Aspen's case, right, andKatie still tried to have her killed.
So I guess it comes down toa question of who the driving force really
was in Jenna's murder. Was itMike or was it Katie Belleflower. Did
Mike start this off the ball rollingby getting greedy and killing his wife,
sort of putting murder on the tableas a viable option in inspiring Katie to
(41:42):
strike out on her own the nexttime some girl got in the way of
her happiness. Or was Katie inthe driver's seat from the start. It's
hard to say, but I cantell you this. It scares me that
miss Bellflower will get out of prisonwhen she's still young enough to raise hell
if she serves every second of hersentence, which most people don't. She'll
be when she gets out, whichis my age, and I can still
raise hell. Okay, I wouldn'tborn yesterday. I can still raise hell
(42:05):
though. If Jenna were still alivetoday, who knows who she may have
become, what her hobbies and passionsmight be, whether she'd have married,
become a mother, run a marathon, started her own business. Who knows.
Katie Bellflower will have plenty of timeto make a life for herself when
she gets out of prison. Solet's hope she comes out of their very
different person than she went in.So that was a wild one, right,
(42:27):
Campers. You know we'll have anotherone for you next week, but
for now, lock your doors,light your lights, and stay safe until
we get together again around the TrueCrime Campfire. And as always, we
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Thank you so much to schwartzfald.I hope I said that right. If
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(42:49):
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(43:10):
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Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows, and gather around the true crime camp
fire. We're your camp counselors.I'm Katie and I'm Whitney, and we're
here to tell you a true storythat is way stranger than fiction. Or
roasting murderers and marshmallows around the truecrime camp fire. There's a lot about
(00:23):
high school life that is retrospectively ridiculous. Miss nobody noticed that microscopics it on
the side of your nose. Sir, that's not a mustache yet, and
you should stop trying to pretend itis. But the truth is, when
you're that young, you really dofeel things deeply, and a lot of
things matter far more than they reallyshould, especially where love is concerned.
(00:44):
Looking back, you know perfectly wellthat that seventeen year old romance was probably
never going anywhere. But when you'reright there and living it, it can
be all that matters in the world. You might do anything to protect it.
This is the Boy is Mine theMurder of Jenna Nanettie So. Campers
(01:15):
for this one were in the generalarea of Livermore, California, October sixth,
two thousand and two, in theparking lot of the Mountain House Cafe,
a back roads bar in the hillycountry between Livermore and Tracy, a
car was on fire in the night. A passing motorist saw the flames and
called police and firefighters. Once thefirefighters got the blaze under control, they
(01:37):
were able to tell that, thankfully, there wasn't anybody inside the scorched out
blue Mustang. There was no wayfor them to tell whether the fire had
been started deliberately. Police called theMountain House bartender and they said it had
been such a slow night that theyhad closed early. The parking lot had
been empty. Then the license plateon the Mustang led police to the door
of an elderly lady named Linda Nannetti, and the minute they laid out on
(02:00):
her, the police realized that hervibe didn't exactly scream I drive a Mustang,
and they were right. Although Lindawas the registered owner of the car,
she'd bought it as a gift forher seventeen year old granddaughter, Jenna.
Linda had raised Jenna from the timeshe was tiny, and she still
lived with her, and Linda hadalready been worrying about her even before the
knock at the door at about nineo'clock the night before, Jenna had left
(02:23):
her an upsetting voicemail another girl hadjust attacked her. She said she was
okay now with some friends, butshe said Linda could call her if she
wanted to. But when Linda called, it went straight to Jenna's voicemail.
She never came home. Now herewas this bizarre news about the Mustang burning
to a husk in the parking lotof a country bar. Linda knew how
(02:45):
much her granddaughter loved that car.Would she abandon it in the middle of
bumfunk nowhere for any reason on earth? Hell? No, a Mustang when
you're seventeen years old. Sure itwas twelve years old, but still I
was happy to get my parents shitty, old, used Oldsmobile when I was
seventeen. If I had a sexy, little blue Mustang, I would have
lived in that thing. My carwas Jenna's pride and joy, and it
(03:06):
was the only thing of any realworth that she owned. Jenna's dad,
Jim Nannetti, had also gotten avoicemail from Jenna the night before, and
this one was a lot scarier.This is one of those awful, heartbreaking
what if kind of moments. IfJenna had gotten through to her dad that
night, so much could have beendifferent in this case, but he didn't
hear the message until later. Thevoicemail went like this, Dad, call
(03:28):
me now, I've probably got aconcussion. I just got hit upside the
head with a baseball bat or whateverthe fuck it was. I need your
help call me, poor kid.So obviously authorities and everyone who loved Jenna
were afraid for her safety. Shehad obviously been attacked, her car had
been found abandoned and burning, andnobody knew where she was. But it
didn't take too much probing into theshape of Jenna Nanetti's life to give investigators
(03:53):
an idea of where they might wantto start looking to figure out what happened
to her. Jenna was married too, and separated from a twenty year old
douchebag by the name of Mike Simons. Mike, and if you want to
cast this in your head, justthink Dollar Tree met Damon. Okay,
Mike had already been in trouble withthe law for stealing cars and leading police
(04:14):
on sprightly high speed chases, andhe already had some jail time on the
old CV. So not exactly thekind of husband Linda and Nettie would have
wanted for her granddaughter. Since Jennawas still a juvenile. Remember this girl
is seventeen. Linda had actually hadto give her consent for the marriage to
take place, and she did,which, I mean, look good luck
trying to keep teenagers in love fromdoing whatever the hell they want. I
(04:39):
get that. If Linda had refusedto go along, Jenna and Mike would
have probably just run off together.Jenna had a stubborn streak a mile wide,
and she was determined to find away to stay with Mike. The
two of them had known each otherpretty much forever, but they'd only been
actually dating for a few months beforetying the knot. And as soon as
that knot was tied, Mike movedin with Jenna and her Graham parents.
(05:00):
God, what a treat for everybodyright now. In any city of any
size, you're going to find groupsof I guess you'd call it disaffected young
folks. And this was the crowdMike and Jenna were part of. Kids
who dropped out of high school,were thinking about dropping out, all working
low income jobs, you know,tough kids with tough lives. A lot
of them they hung out at aninternet cafe. Remember this is two thousand
(05:23):
and two, so they were probablylooking at Homestar Runner, you know,
stuff like that. Or they'd goout into the hills to party around campfires,
drinking and smoking and screwing around.Jenna fit that tough kid with a
tough life category pretty well. Herdad had a drinking problem her whole life,
and he'd been in prison multiple timesfor felony d y. Jenna had
(05:44):
a long history of picking him upfrom bars when he was wasted and driving
him home so we wouldn't get introuble again. Poor kid. Oh,
we don't know much about Jenna's momexcept that she split soon after Jenna was
born, leaving Jenna's grandparents to raiseher. I don't think you need a
psych degree to see how this couldcreate a kid who was a little bit
hard edged on the outside, buton the inside just desperate for somebody to
(06:06):
love and take care of her.Yeah, and she thought she'd found that
in Mike Simons. It's easy tosee why the two of them connected.
Like Jenna's, Mike's mom was moreor less out of his life entirely.
His dad was in prison and helived with his aunt. These kids had
a lot in common. Mike haddisappeared from Livermore for a few years after
(06:27):
being sent to juvenile boot camp fortroubled teams. And if you want to
know how well those places work andknocking young people into shape, well you'll
see, yeah, paging doctor Philright him and his wackass ranch. Yeah.
After that, Mike lived in agroup home and got into some trouble
for stealing cars up in Oakland beforedrifting back home to Livermore. He was
(06:49):
homeless for a while, camping ina creek bed and shooting geese with a
bb gun so he could cook themfor dinner, but soon he started on
a series of jobs, slinging buris at Jack in the Box, stocking
shelves at Walmart, and detailing carsat a dealership. One thing that bootcamp
did seem to do was make Mikecompletely obsessed with the military. He was
(07:11):
almost always dressed in green camouflage,army fatigues and a maroon beret. There's
a picture of him in Jenna togetherand it looks like one of those wholesome
my man's finally back from deployment shots. But nope, dude was never in
the military a day in his life. He just liked to play dress up
Lauren and maroon beret' that's like specialforces too, write like airborne special Forces.
I think. So he was reallygetting into some cosplay there, or
(07:34):
you know, stolen valor whatever youwant to call it. Mike had actually
started his enlistment process, but I'mguessing they hadn't gotten to the psych test
yet or the background check. Althoughtechnically a criminal record won't keep you out
of the army, just a significantcriminal record whatever that means. Murder acts
me up. I don't know ifstealing cars counts or not. Okay,
(07:59):
And Mike wasn't exactly mister popularity inhis friend group. He had a habit
of just randomly talking in aave sometimesor African American vernacular English, and everybody
thought that was weird and kind ofracist obviously, I mean, we've all
met people like that. It's toecurling. It's so awkward. And a
couple times he acted like he wasgoing to hit Jenna and he had to
(08:20):
be held back by friends. Realclassy dude, for what it's worth.
Those friends also said that their moneywould have been on Jenna in a fight.
Yes, one guy was like Jennawould have kicked his ass, so
he was probably secretly glad that theyheld him back. But still, you,
Mike, not great dudes that sayhold me back never actually want to
(08:41):
get in fights. They're categorically cowards. But he was a good looking kid,
and when your peer group is stillmostly in high school, that can
count for a lot. Jenna,who was really pretty but self conscious about
her looks, like most teenagers are, felt proud to have him as her
husband said. She sparkled when shewas with him. Now, I know
(09:03):
what all you cynics are out there, thinking, teenage bride, bad boy
husband, This marriage has about asnowman's chance in hell. But look,
Jenna and Mike were happy. Theirrelationship was full of smiles and affections for
like a couple of weeks. Sopat yourselves on the back, cnex,
you're right again. And really,Mike had no business getting married to anybody.
(09:24):
According to true crime author Greg Olsen, Mike's friends said he had two
great loves in his life. Okay, one was booze, preferably paid for
by somebody else, and the otherit was sixteen year old girls. And
he wanted as much of both ashe could get you how he fooled himself
into thinking a life of domestic monogamywould be the right choice for him.
(09:45):
I have no idea. Maybe hejust wanted somewhere free to crash for a
while. But the long and shortof it is, after six whole,
entire weeks of marriage, Mike toldJenna he wanted out Sprisy Lesson's at long
and poor Jenna, bless her heart, was just devastated and she had no
idea this was coming. She wasjust seventeen, She's a high school girl.
She loved this creepy little weasel,so she tried to talk Mike into
(10:07):
staying, but he was gonzo.And this was three months before Jennett disappeared.
By this time, Mike had welland truly moved on. He had
a new girlfriend, another seventeen yearold by the name of Katie Bellflower,
and he was living with her ather mom's house. And I'm just gonna
throw out some more patented TCC parentingadvice from the child free here. Okay,
people, please don't let your teenagedaughter's creepy boyfriend come and live with
(10:31):
you, especially when he's twenty yearsold and a grown as adult. I
mean, the clouds of xe bodyspray alone are going to be suffocating.
And that doesn't even scratch the surfacereally of the potential problems that could arise.
Yeah, there's like a mile widecanyon between forbidding your kid from ever
seeing their love interest again and likerolling out the welcome matt like happy mediums
(10:56):
people, Happy mediums. Yeah,I'm I'm not a fan of Like,
you can't see Brandon ever again,because then you're just gonna get murdered.
You know, She'll figure out Brandonsucks on her own. It's fine,
but just like inviting him to movein, just maybe not Mike's new squeeze.
Katie was an odd little duckling withher glasses and her hair pulled back
(11:16):
into a tight braid. She lookedlike the kind of sit calm cliche of
a high achieving nerd, though thatwasn't anywhere close to the truth. She
actually skipped a lot of school andhad to go to the Del Valley Continuation
High School, which was reserved forkids who were in danger of not graduating.
Jenna had gone there too, althoughthe two of them hadn't really interacted
much. Jenna was lively and open, and she never had any trouble making
(11:37):
friends. But Katie was an outsiderand struck people as weird. And if
you'll watch video of her police interrogation, you're gonna see why. In like
two minutes, her face barely everchanged expression. She's like grumpy cat.
She just literally makes the same faceall the time, and neither did her
voice. Like everything came out inthe same board monotone, like maybe she
(11:58):
was crying for Wednesday Adams, butshe couldn't quite pull it off. She
wasn't off beat, just off sounsurprisingly she wasn't popular in high school.
Now, nine times out of ten, if a kid's unpopular in high school,
it means nothing whatsoever about them,it's just high school being high school.
But for Katie Bellflower, it waspretty much all her own fault.
(12:20):
See. Miss Katie's favorite hobby wasstealing your man. She liked going after
guys who were dating other girls.That alone is going to get you on
a hell of a lot of shitlists. And under Katie's flat affect,
there was a busy little rage cauldronjust bubbling away. She'd start fights with
other girls at school, though asone girl in her class remembered later,
(12:41):
when you got in her face,she'd back right off, so her and
hold me back. Guy, wherea match made in Coward Heaven? I
guess, or help depending on whoyou ask exactly. Now, we couldn't
tell from the sources we saw whetherMike and Katie hooked up while he was
still married to Jenna, But basedon what we know about Katie, I
think it's a pretty safe bet becausethat was the kind of guy she was
(13:03):
specifically attracted to. And it's lessclear why Mike moved on to Katie,
who frankly seems like several steps down. I mean, a guy like Mike
probably wasn't going to stick around regardless, but why Katie? Of course?
I guess if you're an insecure littleman child, a girl with all the
charisma of a wet pile of laundrymight actually be preferable to one who has,
(13:24):
you know, a personality and opinionsand stuff and won't always do what
you want. Mike and Katie weredefinitely together now, though she just found
out she was pregnant with his baby. When you know, Jenna disappeared.
I'm sure those fine, upstanding younggent's gonna stick with her through all her
pregnancy and labor and all that goodstuff. Right, Yeah, we'll find
(13:45):
out in a minute. So thenight Jenna disappeared, she'd gone over to
Katie's house, where Mike was living, and Jenna and Mike talked on the
porch about the possibility of annulling theirmarriage and also about the possibility of reconciling,
which make up your mind, God. Then all of a sudden,
Mike said, Jenna told him shehad to leave. He gave her ten
(14:09):
dollars for gas, and that wasit. She peeled away in her Mustang.
Forty five minutes later, according toMike, Jenna called him and said
she'd been assaulted and was going togo get drunk. So Mike and Katie
went and hung out in a localpark for a couple hours. So obviously
police were suspicious as hell of MikeSimons. Anytime a woman goes missing and
the last person to see her aliveis her estranged husband, that husband's going
(14:33):
to be in the hot seat.Adding in a new girlfriend in a sketchy
pass isn't going to help his caseeither, But so far, there was
no evidence connecting him to Jenna's disappearance. Katie's version of that evening matched Mike's,
although in her version, Mike andJenna had agreed to annul their marriage,
and as soon as that went through, Katie and Mike were going to
get engaged. Search teams combed theland for miles around the Mountain House Cafe
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where Jenna's car had been found onfire, but found nothing. But two
weeks later, on October nineteenth,a fisherman in a remote area called Whiskey
Slew, about forty miles away fromLivermore, caught a whiff of something awful
on his way to the river,and in some bushes he found a decomposing
body of a woman. It wasJenna. They ideed her by her fingerprints
(15:18):
on file with the DMV. Thecorner sided the cause of death as too
close range gunshot blasts to the chest, but they couldn't be sure whether there'd
been more shots than that. Thedamp environment she'd been lying in had sped
up decomposition and there had been alot of animal activity, so her body
was in bad shape. Nearby investigatorsrecovered a single shotgun shell, casing there
(15:41):
were no drag marks or any indicationthat Jenna had been bound in any way
for now, investigators thought it waslikely she'd been killed right here, and
it looked like she'd come here voluntarily. Jenna was buried in Livermore at the
end of October. Hundreds of peoplecame, her friends, her family,
former teachers. This girl had matteredto a hell of a lot of people.
(16:06):
Her family played a video tribute toher, with guns n' roses sweet
Child of Mine playing in the background. Oh man, that's so sweet.
Among the mourners were Mike, Katie, and Katie's friend Jeff Hamilton. We
are going to get to that guyin a minute. Now that they knew
for sure she'd been murdered, detectiveslooked even more closely into her relationship with
(16:27):
Mike. They learned that, afterhe'd walked out on their marriage, he
and Jenna would often argue loudly andin public. One of these fights had
ended with Mike yelling I'm going tokill you. Of course, people say
that kind of stuff and argument sometimesnot usually great people on average, But
it doesn't necessarily mean they're actually goingto kill somebody. But if you're a
(16:51):
stranged wife turns up shot to deathsoon after you make that threat, you're
probably not going to get the benefitof the doubt from the cops. New
police interviewed Mike and Katie again.Mike stuck to his original story of the
night of Jenna's disappearance. Mostly Initially, he said that he and Katie had
gone to the park together for hoursafter Jenna left. Now he added a
(17:12):
new detail that Katie's friend Jeff wentwith them, but Katie stuck to the
first draft of the script that itwas just her and Mike at the park,
No Jeff. So what does thismean, Well, it means one
of these two chuckleheads is lying theirass off at least. So who was
this Jeff Hamilton anyway? Well,if we're sticking with fan casting this story,
(17:36):
picture newman from Seinfeld as like atwenty year old Zamboni driver but without
all the charm and Jois de Vie. Jeff was really kind of a sad
sack. He'd never had a girlfriend, barely had any friends at all outside
of Katie. He described his relationshipwith Katie as older brother, younger sister,
which apparently meant he followed her aroundlike a puppy and did whatever she
(17:56):
told him. And as I'm sureAnya y'all out there with actual siblings.
No, that is not how thatdynamic works. My brother can sure as
he'll tell you. Nah, that'swhat dudes who have crushes on girls and
get friend zone describe themselves as.Katie her No, man, she's like
my sister. Like meanwhile, he'sholding back tears exactly. One thing they
(18:18):
had in common, though, isthat they both spoke like they were about
three volumes deep, just flat andbored, like Aubrey Plaza on Xanax,
but like more boring. Yeah,not funny, not funny and not funny
exactly just god knows what they talkedabout. But if you happen to be
in the same room, you'd eitherfall asleep or want to throw yourself out
(18:38):
the window. Both Katie and Jeff. You could set their shoes on fire
and they'd be like, oh,my feet are burning. That is painful
ow ow. In fact, Jeffhad had a crush on Katie for years,
but he'd never done anything about itand had pretty much deliberately self friend
(19:00):
zoned the situation. May say forthat way, girls are scary? What
I say? What did I say? They called it. When detectives interviewed
Jeff he confirmed Mike's version of thenight Jenna disappeared. He'd gone to the
park with Mike and Katie third wheelingat big Time while the two young Leves
chatted and conoodled. Investigators were confidentthat these three were involved in Jenna's murder,
(19:22):
but beyond Jenna's autopsy report in onesolitary shotgun casing, the evidence in
that case was close to zero.And while conspiracies with three young dipshits like
these often fall apart when they runtheir mouths at a party or crack like
an egg in the interrogation room,that didn't happen here, and the investigation
pretty much slowed to a crawl.As police expanded their interviews and chased down
(19:45):
leads. They thought they might beonto something in tracking down a stolen shotgun
that could have been the murder weapon, but it was slow work. Months
passed, but of course time didn'tstand still during those months. By the
middle of February, Katie was fivemonths pregnant, and the jealous rage bubbling
underneath that brain dead exterior was reachinga boiling point. Mike, ever,
(20:06):
classy, had dumped her like radioactivewaste. I know, take a moment
to grieve if you need to.We thought those two crazy kids were going
to make it, and he hada new girlfriend, sixteen year old named
Aspen Lum. Yeah the doors.Aspen was perfect because she was cuter than
Katie. Plus she wasn't five monthspregnant. And this was the best part
(20:27):
for Mikey. She was younger thanKatie. I mean, for God's sake,
Katie was almost eighteen whole years old. Now she'd start getting AARP mail
in a second. You know,she's used up. Aspen was kind of
a troubled kid who'd run away fromhome in the past and who, according
to her mom, doesn't pick nicepeople to hang out with. Yeah,
you're right on the money there,Mom. Aspen thought Katie was her friend,
(20:49):
bless her heart. In fact,some of the sources on this case
indicate that the way Mike and Aspenmet was that Katie invited her to have
a three way with her and MikeI guess spice things up, or maybe
in a desperate attempt to keep Mikeyaround, and then Katie got edged out
of the situation entirely. But I'mnot sure if that's true. It's only
in a couple of the sources,and not necessarily the most in depth ones,
(21:11):
like that story does not pop upin the article Little Miss Murder by
Susan Goldsmith, which is one ofour better sources for this case. So
who knows. But what we doknow is that one night Aspen got a
late night call from Katie inviting herto sneak out of her house and go
out drinking and drive in with Katieand Jeff. An Aspen, poor kid,
was all for it. So attwelve thirty am on March first,
(21:32):
Aspen snuck out and met up withKatie and Jeff and they all drove in
Jeff's car to this place called theAwesome Want Pass. Now, this is
a road that runs up through thehills outside of Livermore and gives these really
spectacular views of the valley, especiallyat night with city lights and everything.
So kids are always going up thereafter dark to talk or smoke weed or
make out or whatever. They hungout for a while drinking some Jack Daniels
(21:53):
that Katie had stolen from her mom. Aspen couldn't take it neat, so
she mixed it with doctor pepper.Katie made sure Aspen drink quite a bit
more than she did, which,okay, Katie, let's add drinking while
pregnant to your long list of shiningqualities. Oh anyway, after a while,
missed that. I missed that.That's a good catch. I missed
(22:15):
that that she was five months pregnantat this point, she's knocked up and
she's taken Jack Daniels. What.Yeah, Oh gosh, I hate her
so bad, and I hate thatI share her name with her her so
hard. Anyway, after a while, at about three am, Jeff went
(22:37):
back to his car and put ona pair of blue surgical gloves. He
stashed a length of rope in hispocket some hockey netting from the ice rink
where he drove the zamboni. Hewent back to join the girls. Moving
up behind Aspen, he started amassage Aspen's neck and shoulders, which I
guess she was fine with at first. As Jeff rubbed Aspen's back, katiely
(23:00):
slipped on her own pair of surgicalgloves, and then she gave Jeff a
subtle hand signal. Jeff whipped outthe rope and wrapped it around Aspen's throat,
pulling hard as Aspen struggled, clawingat Jeff's hands. Katie leaned into
her face and said, I killedJenna and now I'm going to kill you.
Oh my god. She put onehand over Aspen's mouth and held her
(23:22):
nostrils closed with the other. Aspenfell back onto the ground and Katie pounced
on her, holding her down whileJeff kept the rope tight around her neck.
Asden managed to choke out Katie,please stop, you can have him,
but Katie didn't seem to care.They kept right on trying to kill
her. This one on for longminutes. Contrary to how it looks on
(23:44):
TV, it's not easy to stranglesomebody to death. Aspen's vision blurred,
she blacked out, briefly felt likeher eyeballs were going to pop, and
then, like a miracle on thisdark and lonely road, just seconds before
Aspen lum fell into unconsciousness, apair of headlights appeared and lit up the
creepy little scene. Katie and Jefflet go of Aspen. When the approaching
(24:07):
vehicle stopped, headlights still lighting themup. Jeff quickly shoved the rope into
his pocket. Katie hugged Aspen,saying I'm sorry. Don't tell anyone.
Oh the fucking nerve of hugging her. I'm sorry, don't tell anyone,
huh. Yeah, Aspen, justkeep this between you and I. I
definitely won't try it again. Right. It wasn't just any driver who'd happened
(24:32):
upon this scene. It was TimPhillips, a Parks police officer on morning
patrol. He hadn't seen Katie andJeff trying to kill Aspen, but the
scene was weird and one of thegirls was clearly in some kind of distress.
Phillips got out of his cruiser,like, Okay, what's going on
here? Having been nearly strangled todeath, Aspen couldn't talk, and she
(25:18):
was lightheaded and confused from shock andoxygen deprivation, so she said nothing.
As Katie started bullshitting, telling officerPhillips that Aspen had just gotten sick and
she and Jeff were helping her.She pretended to listen to something Aspen said
and said, oh, is itthat time of the month. Yeah.
(25:38):
When Phillips asked them about the surgicalgloves they were wearing, Katie and Jeff
said they'd put them on because theywere worried Aspen was going to throw up,
you know, because we all carrylatex gloves around in case a buddy
has to barf. Nothing weird aboutthat. God. Katie noticed the rope
hanging out of Jeff's pocket and said, do you saw that string? Yeah,
(25:59):
Jeff said, I forgot to takeit out after work. It's definitely
not a rope I was using tostrangle anybody with. I'll tell you that,
how ridiculous. Ha ha ha ha. Now this was obviously fake as
hell and super suspicion. But whenPhillips asked Aspen if she was okay,
she whispered that she was. Shewas terrified. She could barely talk,
and she still wasn't thinking straight,and she was worried that if she caused
(26:22):
a stir, Katie and Jeff wouldkill her, and Officer Phillips sure,
so Phillips got her home phone numberand had a dispatcher call, but there
was no answer, probably because itwas the middle of the night. Katie
promised they'd take Aspens straight back home, which was just a couple of miles
away. Officer Phillips okayed that,and the three of them drove off into
the night. And I'm he's gonnasoft pedal things a little here. I'm
(26:45):
not too sure this was the greatestpiece of police work we've seen. Yeah,
definitely not. No, this wholesituation was shady as shit. Katie
and Jeff were being super weird andeven looking at things in the best possible
light. You've got to clearly undera girl who's intoxicated and not doing great.
Her house is a couple miles away. He should have just driven her
(27:06):
home. It's not like he hadanything else going on at three am in
the middle of nowhere, for God'ssake, but whatever, you know,
he didn't ask me about it.But just two minutes after Jeff and Katie
had driven off, Officer Phillips gotanother call from dispatch. They'd gotten in
touch with Aspen's dad, who wasfrantic and said his daughter wasn't in her
room and he thought she'd run awayagain. Oh right, So Phillips swung
(27:29):
his cruiser around and hauled asked inthe direction that the kids had driven off,
And luckily for both Aspen and OfficerPhillips, Katie and Jeff had been
freaked out enough by this close encounterof the cop kind that they had actually
taken Aspen straight home, just likethey said they would, and dropped her
off. By the time Phillips caughtup with them and pulled them over,
it was just Katie and Jeff inthe car, so he detained them and
his cruiser until he could untangle justwood had been going on, and it
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was as they all sat in thecruiser that dispatch came back with another alarming
call. Aspen had just told herparents that Katie and Jeff at try to
kill her, so, probably whilewatching his law enforcement career flash before his
eyes, Phillips waited in his cruiserfor Alamia County Deputies to arrive and a
restless pair of dip shits in herinterview room. Katie stuck to the story
(28:14):
she'd spun for Officer Phillips. Aspenhad gotten sick and she and Jeff were
just, you know, helping.She'd been wearing gloves in case Aspen threw
up. And why was Jeff wearinggloves because Katie said, he doesn't know
Aspen that well and he doesn't knowif she has any diseases or anything.
Uh, girl, what what Jeffputs on surgical gloves whenever he's around somebody
(28:40):
he doesn't know that well? Wellplayed, Katie, way to hold it
together girl. When a detective flatout asked Katie, did you guys just
try to kill her? She deniedit. No, I'm sorry. I
wouldn't try to kill her. Ilove her too much. I care about
her way too much. This ishow she talks. I swear to go.
I'm not making it up. Hertone was just flat and like super
(29:03):
cash, like she was telling somebodywhy she liked Burger King better than McDonald's
or something. Bish. You're ina police interrogation room and you've just been
asked if he tried to murder somebody, what is it going to take to
raise your heart rate electroshock? It'sjust unbelievable. Of course, Katie wasn't
the weak link in this little notso dynamic duo. In his own interview
room, Jeff Hamilton, in thesame kind of casual tone, was cracking
(29:26):
like humpty dumpty. Yes, he'dtried to strangle Aspen. It had been
Katie's idea. She wanted Aspen outof the picture. Surely then Mike would
run back into her arms and bethe stand up husband and father she knew
he could be. Katie, Honey, No, he's a creep. He's
running nowhere except to the bleachers towatch the tenth grade soccer tryouts. Okay,
(29:47):
according to Jeff, when Katie firstasked him to help kill Aspen,
he'd refused, but she kept badgeringhim and badgering him about it until finally
he just caved. Dude, ifyou really had a big brother little sister
relationship with this girl, you'd havetold her she was fucking nuts, because
that's what my brother would tell me. But of course, Jeff's real role
in this relationship was gutless follower,not big brother simp supreme. Katie had
(30:10):
initially wanted to cut Aspen's throat,Jeff said, but they eventually settled on
strangulation instead. Then they were goingto hang her body on a fence post
so people would think Aspen had takenher own life, because you know,
people often hang themselves on fence postswith ice hockey netting miles from anywhere when
they don't have a car. Absolutelyno one would have been suspicious. Obviously.
(30:36):
Yeah, that was ironclad. I'mshocked it didn't work out. When
faced with Jeff's confession, Katie kindof sort of came clean herself. Been
her version of events, the attemptedmurder had been Jeff's idea because he her
big brother, wanted to take careof Katie and eliminate her rival. Now
the detectives knew that Katie Bellflower andJeff Hamilton weren't just connected to the tempted
(31:00):
murder of aspen Lum. They werealso up to their eyebrows and the murder
of Jenna and Neetti. They weren'tMike Simon's alibi for the Knight of Jenna's
death, so of course the detectivesasked them both about Jenna. Jeff,
who seems to have enjoyed the attentionthese very important police detectives were giving him,
kept right on chatting, and whenKatie found out Jeff was still talking,
(31:22):
Katie kept talking too. Was thatthe prisoners elemma, Yeah, that's
what they call it. Mike hadtold Katie and Jeff that Jenna was making
his life miserable. She was holdingup the divorce and he wanted her gone.
He had important teenage girls to hiton, and he had another motive
too. Jenna's grandparents had taken outa one hundred thousand dollars life insurance policy
(31:44):
on Jenna. It was supposed tohelp Jenna pay for college if she chose
to go. Mike, who wasstill Jenna's husband, assumed he'd get the
money if she died. Of course, being the mass of dufis that he
was, he hadn't bothered to check. If he had, he'd have found
out that Jenna's grandparents were the beneficiariesof the policy. Mike exaggerated the value
(32:06):
of the policy to Katie and Jeff. He said that if Jenna were dead,
he'd get six hundred thousand dollars andbuy a new house for him and
Katie to live in, and Jeffcould come stay in the spare room.
This, by the way, wasthe entirety of what Jeff Hamilton stood to
gain from Jenna's death, the chanceto move out of his parents house.
That was enough for him. Mikeand Katie wanted Jeff in on the plan
(32:29):
because he had a little dodgeneon andthey needed somebody to drive them around.
Jeff had never even met Jenna.Just wow wow. The plan was for
Mike to lure Jenna over to Katie'shouse by telling her he wanted to talk
about their marriage and maybe getting backtogether. When Jenna and Mike were talking
on the porch. Katy would comeup behind and hit Jenna in the head
(32:51):
with a baseball bat, knocking herout. Then they'd take her out to
some field in the middle of nowhere, shoot her dead, and hide the
body. Jeff suggested shaving off herhair to the body harder to recognize,
but they never got around to that. Then they'd set Jenna's car on fire
and burn away any fingerprints or bloodevidence, and Jeff would drive them all
home in his knee on. Ofcourse, real life isn't like the movies,
(33:14):
and although Katie hit Jenna pretty damnhard, tearing loose some of her
scalp and making blood rushed down herface, it didn't knock her out.
Jenna ran out into the street andKatie bolted. Mike went back in the
house and got jenna towel, heldit up to Jenna's head, like,
oh, honey, are you okay? Gross. Jenna wanted to go to
(33:34):
a hospital, but Mike had anotheridea. He said he knew where Katie'd
run off to, and the twoof them should go after her and get
revenge. Mike would hold her downwhile Jenna beat her up. Jenna still
wanted to go to the hospital,but Mike kept after her, and she
clearly wasn't thinking very clearly after theblow to the head, and finally she
agreed they'd go after Katie. Jennagot into her Mustang with Mike in the
(33:55):
passenger seat and started driving, followinghis directions. On the way, she
called her grandmother and her dad,but got voicemail both times. Whiskey Slew
was forty minutes away, a wideagricultural plane of fields and creeks. Mike
had been up there shooting a fewtimes, and he'd taken Katy with him
once or twice. Of course,Jenna had no idea that Mike, Katy,
(34:16):
and Jeff had planned all this.Agreed to meet there off a dirt
road. Jeff and Katy got therefirst, and his dodged kneon and pulled
off, waiting for Mike and Jenna. When they got there, Jenna got
out to wait for Katy. Mikewalked over to where the kneon sat hidden,
and Katy handed him a shotgun throughthe window. She'd stolen the gun
(34:37):
from a neighbor months ago. Wedon't know whether she was planning Jenna's death
way back then, or whether shejust thought having a shotgun might be useful
sometime. Both possibilities are creepy ashell. Mike walked back toward Jenna,
shone his flashlight on her, thenput the flashlight down. Jenna had her
back to him. Mike called hername, Hey Jenna. She turned round
(34:58):
to see him aiming the shot gunright at her. Mike shot her in
the chest, then a moment later, shot her again. Jenna fell,
but amazingly, she was a longway from dead. Mike, Please,
don't I still love you, shecried out, trying to push herself backwards
along the ground. Mike said,if I let you go, you're gonna
tell, aren't you. Jenna sworeshe wouldn't tell. All right, Mike
(35:21):
said, if you beg for yourlife, I might let you live us
piece of shit. Jenna begged,bless her, sweetheart, but of course
Mike was lying. He scrambled backto Jeff's car to reload the shotgun.
She's not dead yet, he toldKaty and Jeff. Later, Katie told
the detectives that this touched whatever littleshriveled shred of gristles she tried to pass
(35:43):
off her A heart. I don'tlike when people suffer, even if it's
over a boyfriend. It bothers me. She said, Wow, give her
a Nobel fucking prize. She's bothered, but not bothered enough. Jeff and
Katy followed Mike as he walked backto where Jenna lay bleeding on the ground.
He shot her three more times,then one last time at point blank
(36:07):
range, right over her heart.Jeff crouched down to take Jenna's pulse and
see if she was dead yet,but she suddenly drew in her breath and
he jumped back. The three ofthem all started laughing at that, because
apparently it was funny that Jenna wasstill fighting for her life after being shot
so many times. For a littlewhile, they all just stood around and
waited for Jenna to die. ThenMike and Katy dragged her body into some
(36:30):
bushes, cracking hilarious jokes about howheavy she was. Mike took Jenna's keys
out of her pocket. Then heand Katy drove Jenna's Mustang to the Mountain
House Cafe, with Jeff following inhis car, and there after Katy wiped
down the door handles to get ridof any prince. They torched Jenna's Mustang
with a road flare. On theway back to Livermore in Jeff's car,
(36:51):
they tossed the shotgun and baseball batinto a field. They put their unused
ammunition down a drain near Katy's house. Jeff dropped Mike and Katy at her
house, then went home to hisplace and went to sleep. A week
later, Mike and Katie borrowed Jeff'scar and picked up the shotgun from the
field. They weighed it down witha bag of rocks and threw it into
a canal. So that was thestory from both Katie and Jeff. Mike
(37:15):
was arrested later that same day,and at first he played dumb, repeating
back questions he was asked, andin general just acting totally baffled by the
whole situation. At first, hestuck to his original story that Jenna had
just driven off that night and hehad no idea what happened to her after
that, And every time he wascaught in a lie, he'd change his
story just a little to fit thenew facts in front of him. He
(37:37):
was a practiced liar and manipulator.But it turns out that experienced thomicide detectives
are a scoche harder to sweet talkthan high school girls. They weren't buying
this ship for a hot second,and eventually Mike cracked and mostly confessed,
Yes, he helped plan Jenna's murder. Yes, he had been there when
(37:58):
she died, but it had Jeffwho had pulled the trigger, and Katie
was the one who said everything inmotion. The cops weren't buying that either.
They were certain Mike was both theshooter and the instigator of the murder.
He was the one who had,or at least believed he had the
most to gain, not that you'dknow of from his interview. When the
detectives brought up the life insurance,he was like insurance money, what just
(38:23):
incredulous. You get the impression.He was like a hair away from saying,
what is insurance? Mike at Leeseemed aware of the mountain of shit
that was about to fall on hishead, which wasn't necessarily true for Katie
and Jeff. Toward the end ofhis interview, I share you not,
Jeff says, um, I worktomorrow. I don't know if it's still
(38:47):
okay if I go to work.Yeah, that's a no, Jeffrey,
You're not seeing daylight for decades,doll, baby god Iceland, are just
gonna have to find some other fineyoung fellow to drive the zamboni over there.
And Katie, after spending her firstnight in juvie after her arrest,
told the state prosecutor, you knowwhat, after spending one night in juvenile
(39:08):
hall, I learned my lesson.Did y'all just feel a temperature rise a
few degrees? Or am I suddenlyfilled with a boiling fucking rage? Oh
you learned your lesson, miss Bellflower. Well that's just super Seeing as you're
completely rehabilitated. Now, we'll justgo ahead and let you go home.
(39:31):
Yeah, that's definitely something that's goingto happen. You boy, crazy,
delusional, fucking harpie, go tohell, Katie. Eventually, Mike would
agree to take investigators to the canalwhere he'd tossed the stolen shotgun. Forensic
firearms experts were able to match theweapon to the shell casing they'd recovered from
(39:51):
the scene of Jenna's death. Mike, Katie, and Jeff were all charged
with murder with the aggravating circumstance oflying in wait, which covers ambush kill
and luring someone into danger, andthat made Mike and Jeff eligible for the
death penalty. Katie skated by thatpossible outcome by being a juvenile at the
time of Jenna's murder. Jeff Hamiltonagreed to plead guilty to second degree murder
(40:14):
in exchange for his testimony, andwas sentenced to fifteen years to life,
with seven years on top of thatfor the attempted murder of Aspen Lum.
While awaiting trial, Katie gave birthto her and Mike's daughter, who was
immediately put up for adoption. Eventually, Katie would also plead guilty, getting
twenty five years to life. SoMike Simons was the only one of the
(40:36):
three stooges to actually go to trial, which went about as you'd expect a
case built on three solid confessions togo. Has found guilty of first degree
murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and arson and was sentenced to life
in prison without any chance of parole. No teenage girls to hit on in
there, Mike, have fun,But so poor Jenna. You know,
she had the kind of unfortunate tastein men that bajillions of high school girls
(41:00):
before her, including myself, havehad, and thankfully had the chance to
grow out of Sadly, these threelittle gremlins decided that she'd never get that
chance. I wonder if the murderwould have happened at all if it hadn't
been for the life insurance money.Part of me says no, because without
that there's not much motive for Miketo take a drastic step like murder.
But part of me says, waita second. There wasn't any money involved
(41:22):
in Aspen's case, right, andKatie still tried to have her killed.
So I guess it comes down toa question of who the driving force really
was in Jenna's murder. Was itMike or was it Katie Belleflower. Did
Mike start this off the ball rollingby getting greedy and killing his wife,
sort of putting murder on the tableas a viable option in inspiring Katie to
(41:42):
strike out on her own the nexttime some girl got in the way of
her happiness. Or was Katie inthe driver's seat from the start. It's
hard to say, but I cantell you this. It scares me that
miss Bellflower will get out of prisonwhen she's still young enough to raise hell
if she serves every second of hersentence, which most people don't. She'll
be when she gets out, whichis my age, and I can still
raise hell. Okay, I wouldn'tborn yesterday. I can still raise hell
(42:05):
though. If Jenna were still alivetoday, who knows who she may have
become, what her hobbies and passionsmight be, whether she'd have married,
become a mother, run a marathon, started her own business. Who knows.
Katie Bellflower will have plenty of timeto make a life for herself when
she gets out of prison. Solet's hope she comes out of their very
different person than she went in.So that was a wild one, right,
(42:27):
Campers. You know we'll have anotherone for you next week, but
for now, lock your doors,light your lights, and stay safe until
we get together again around the TrueCrime Campfire. And as always, we
want to send a grateful shout outto a few of our lovely patrons.
Thank you so much to schwartzfald.I hope I said that right. If
I didn't let me know, Megan, Catherine, soggy pockets awesome? Why
(42:49):
aren't they Saggie though? What areyou keeping in there? Susie or Susio
I'm not sure which let me know? If I said it wrong, Jenny
with an Eye, and Hannah.We appreciate y'all to the moon and back.
And if you're not yet a patron, you are missing out. Patrons
of our show get every episode addfree at least a day early, sometimes
even two, plus an extra episodea month, and once you hit the
(43:10):
five dollars in up categories, youget even more cool stuff a free sticker
at five dollars, a rad enamelpin while supplies last at ten virtual events
with Katie and me. And we'realways looking for new stuff to do for
you, so if you can,come join us at patreon dot com,
slash True Crime Campfire and for greatTCC merch, visit the True Crime Campfire
Store at spreadshirt dot com
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