Undetermined - Beginnings (Bonus)

Episode Date: November 29, 2022

In the summer of 2019, 43-year-old Jessica Easterly Durning, was found dead in her New Orleans suburb. Her cause and manner of death were ruled undetermined. Hear how the Resonate team first learned about Jessica’s case and the full circle process that took place that helped this story evolve from a plea from her family asking for help into a full investigation into her death. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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a series of unsolved disappearances, spanning decades. And we've been hearing about a lot of them. I've been following your new season about Ashley lost blood. I'm sure you may have been contacted regarding the name of Alia Heavy Runner. Many of the missing and murdered are indigenous persons.

And we wondered, what factors make this tribal land a place where people just vanish? So we started looking into it. People seem to be very hesitant to come forward because they're scared for their own safety. You don't know if she was trafficked, you don't know if she was murdered. What's even more crazy is that person who ever did it is probably someone we all know here. From Tenderfoot TV, I'm Celicia Stanton, and this is the Vanishing Point, an up and vanish series. Available now, listen for free on Apple podcasts. Hey listeners, Jessica here. Be sure to check out new episodes of Undetermined every Tuesday for free wherever you get your

podcast. For early and ad-free listening, check out Tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals interviewed and participating in the show and do not represent those of Tenderfoot TV and resonate recordings. All individuals described or mentioned in the podcast should be considered innocent until found guilty in a court of law. This podcast contains subject matter such as violence and graphic descriptions, which may not be suitable for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised. I'm Jessica Nol, an investigative journalist with 20 years of experience. I've been covering crime stories for a good chunk of my career, with a particular interest in unsolved and cold cases. That's because these are cases that are often overlooked and undercovered. If I can tell the victim's story, shed new light on it, and give them a voice, maybe that can help their case. In 2018, I produced my first True crime podcast covering two 50-year-old

co-cases in Atlanta. I've gone on to produce several other sins and at the heart of each and every one of those stories is the victim. These aren't my stories to tell. They are their stories. So I want to tell you the story of Jessica Esterly Durning. She was a kind of person who one of our friends told me, could make you feel so special, so loved, and like you were the most beautiful, most important person in the world to her. And those who loved her back felt the same way about Jessica. But in the summer of 2018, Jessica vanished from her late-view neighborhood of New Orleans. Within days, her body was found just two and a half blocks from her home.

Her body was in an advanced state of decomposition, now her family in advanced stages of grief and disbelief that something like this could happen. She shouldn't be dead right now. My family's devastated. They lost a cousin, a sister, a daughter. Everything seems to be hush-hush. The police don't know anything. The neighborhood is very upset about it and we would really like some answers as to what happened to our neighbor. While no cause or manner of death has been determined, Jessica's family and friends are determined to get justice for Jessica.

Ultimately, her case in manner of death were classified as undetermined, which is left the investigation into her death in limbo, and because of that, more than three years later, her case remains unsolved. I wanted to know more about Jessica, more about her life, and about her death, and I wanted to find out what really happened in the days leading up to and following August 14th, 2019. The more I learned, the more convinced I became that her story was one that I needed to tell. And that's why I'm here today. But when I first learned about Jessica's story, I didn't think I would be where I am right now, behind the microphone, telling her story to the world.

So before we dive into Jessica's story, I want to share with you how we got here, because a lot has happened over the last two years that's brought me where I am today. It all started with my partner, Retired Detective Todd McCommas. I retired from law enforcement in 2017, and I did so to take a job on a sports radio show, host a comedy podcast, and focus on my career and stand up. But by November of 2019, I had fallen completely in love with True Crime Podcasts because that's when I listened to the first season of culpable and I mean I was hooked three minutes in to the first episode and I'd binsed it from beginning to end. Now at that time, I was hosting a podcast called Heartland Radio for the Pat McAfee show and even though Heartland Radio was a comedy podcast

I decided to throw our listeners a little curveball and invite Dennis Cooper radio for the Pat McAfee show. And even though Hardland Radio was a comedy podcast, I decided to throw our listeners a little curveball and invite Dennis Cooper, the co-creator and host of Culpable, to be a guest on the show. So a lot of a lot of weird hinky things you would think that law enforcement, while processing the scene would think, you know, maybe we need to take a little a layer deeper than maybe just what the two people that allegedly found the body are saying. And that really wasn't done initially, right? It was just, well, look, look, look, look, look, look,

look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look all indications point to and to not knock reading police too much is once the family gave pressure they started to look into things but you know as many other victim families have probably learned it really hurts when you don't do it right out the gate. Dennis's guest spot was a big hit with our crowd and then he and I quickly became friends over text and listen I got so hooked over text. And listen, I got so hooked on True Crime Podcasting that I left my job. I just quit. And I went back to my detective roots and started my own True Crime Podcast called 1041 with Todd McComis. Then six months later, I get tagged in a tweet from a woman named Audrey Schmidt. Now, Audrey asked me to bring her, her sister, and her sister's best friend on 1041 to talk

about the suspicious death of their sister, Jessica Easterly-Durning. So I did. And that interview changed my life. According to detectives, they can't hand it over for missing persons to homicide until the coroner calls it specifically a homicide. So as long as the coroner is calling it undetermined, just can't do anything. Sorry. Sooner or later, somebody's going to have to do something for your sister.

It's frustrating, right? You guys are. You guys are all warriors and you're out there battling for her and I'm sure that Jessica is very proud of each and every one of you to admirable and any way that I can help in the future please don't hesitate to let me know stay in contact and I'll try to keep up on the case if I can offer advice or if I can help you get the word out of anything I definitely will do do that. And as a former detective, I just have to apologize to you. This is injustice. It shouldn't be happening.

I had interviewed these three amazing women. Let them tell Jessica's tragic story in one single episode, and then it was on to the next week's story. But I could not get that conversation out of my head. I mean, I wanted to help them find justice for their sister and her friend. So badly. Yet I felt completely powerless. My inner detective was screaming at me man, one episode and done, what in the

hell are you doing? Do something. But what? My following wasn't big enough, my reach wasn't far enough and I just didn't have the infrastructure or resources to cover this story in the way it deserved. Let alone get it to the size of the audience it deserved. But fortunately, I knew someone who did. My buddy, Dennis Cooper, and man, before I knew it, my world would come full, friggin' circle. As he said, I was wrapping up on Copable Season 1, and he asked me to be on his comedy

podcast. And of course, I'm nervous because I don't like doing that stuff anyways. And also, why would they want to talk to me about a true crime podcast? I just didn't understand that. But I go on there and Todd and his co-hosts took really good care of me. And it ended up being this great experience which I did not expect whatsoever going into it. So Todd and I exchanged information

and from that point on we stayed in touch. I learned that he had a background in law enforcement and had done some work on some cases that I was familiar with back in his home state of Indiana. I figured who knows, maybe someday we pair up and make a podcast or he tells me about a case that I then feel compelled to make a podcast about. Like Todd said, he had moved on from comedy to true crime,

and then I believe it was near the end of 2020 that he reaches out and he starts telling me about this case in New Orleans, that he covered on his show. And he's like, dude, I cannot stop thinking about this one. So of course I get sucked in and I start going down all the same rabbit holes. And it wasn't long before he connected me with the victim's family. The victim is Jessica Easterly D, and her sisters are Audrey and Amanda, to super strong women who have basically led the charge on their own sister's investigation.

And I'll just say it's amazing what they've done, but we connected with them, we hit it off on a Zoom call, and from that point, I just felt like we needed to take on this story. You go, like I said, is to make an impact on this and whether that's finding something new or getting somebody to talk or breaking this thing wide open ourselves. I mean, just really put a shit ton of pressure on NOPD to do something with this to where they can't really do much about the amount of questions they're receiving now related to this. And that's all I want. And I just want to put enough pressure on them to where they'll take it seriously.

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Point Spets Sportsbook and Casino. We didn't know what it was going to be but we traveled to New Orleans anyways and we spent some significant time there in the field recording and eventually we traveled to New Orleans anyways, and we spent some significant time there in the field recording. And eventually we came to this crossroad where we needed to decide what is this show. So at the time what we landed on was this would become season two of Culpable. Obviously, that's not what ended up happening. Resonate recordings was looking to hire our first producer to work on original shows, Jessica

Null, an investigative journalist out of Ohio. We were familiar with her name because being from Kentucky, we listened to Vault Studios podcast, Barge Town, which takes place in Barge Town, Kentucky, and Jessica was a producer on that show and she had a big presence in it working alongside the host. We knew they'd done a phenomenal job on that show and Jessica had 20 plus years of experience. So, needless to say, it was an easy decision. And when she comes on board, she says,

hey, I have this story in my hometown, and I really think we should do a podcast on it. And that case was about a young mother, Brittany Stikes, who'd been murdered in Brown County, Ohio. And we start doing some research and we say, yeah, let's do it. Well, as I started getting pulled more and more into that project, I asked Jessica to fill in and do some work on the project that I had been working on, that being the Jessica Easterly Durning case. Long story short, the case in

Ohio became a perfect fit for culpable, so it ended up becoming season two. And while Jessica is digging into the Jessica easterly case, it's eventually decided that she could use some assistance while she's on the ground recording and investigating. And immediately, I think of Todd McComis. He's got the background and experience to help make a difference in a case like this, he knows the story, he's passionate about it, he brought it to us. No brainer. So like Todd said, it did in fact go full circle. And now all of a sudden, they're going to tag team this new series of ours. And I say new series because when Jessica and Todd went to New Orleans, they quickly realized what

this podcast should have been all along. One of the first things that captivated me was her sisters and their tenacity. It not only captured my attention, it fueled me. It made me realize what I would do if I ever lost one of my daughters and couldn't get any answers no matter what doors I knock down. I would go to the ends of the earth. I would fight with everything inside of me to get the justice she deserves. And that's exactly how her sisters have been, especially Audrey. She has had to be Jessica's voice for her, and so with that, she's had to raise her voice

just a little bit louder each time she's been told no, until she was heard. Todd and I heard her. And now, we want to give Jessica and her whole family the voice they so deserve. When Todd and I hit the ground in the big easy, we knew investigating this case was going to be anything but easy. It's when we started talking to people about the case. Specifically, the police, the corner's office, we knew this case was unique. It just felt different from any case I've ever covered. It felt unfinished. Of course, it was unsolved, but it was more than that. The one word that kept coming up in our investigation was undetermined.

And during a 2 a.m. epiphany, sitting in the lobby of our hotel in the French Quarter, it hit us. That is what Jessica's story is. Undetermined. It goes beyond unsolved and reaches far past the simplistic term, Colquies. Because this case wasn't just cold, it was dusty, sitting dormant, no one was investigating her death, all because of that one word in the coroner's report,

and that word continues to haunt her family, and ultimately has kept her case void of answers for now. Coming up on Undetermined. I filmed dinged and I was like, it's Justin, but it's from Jessica's account and he's saying he doesn't know where she is. And like my whole body just went cold. I don't know how to describe it other than that.

But I just felt a chill all over. About right there what that white thing is, it was down on the ground, and I tried to get down there, and I slid down, and my foot hit it, and I remember just thinking, oh god, please don't let my sister be underneath this tarp. It bogged on my mind that there would be less investigation because her cause of death was undetarment. That doesn't make sense.

If it seemed like some sort of foul play to three amateurs, I can only imagine how it would look to someone who does this every single day. Undetermined is a production of Resonate Recordings and Tenderfoot TV in conjunction with Caden's 13, written and hosted by me, Jessica Nol, and produced by Dennis Cooper and Todd McComas with additional production by Whitney Bosarth. Executive producers are Dennis Cooper, Mark Minnery, Jacob Bozar, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay. Our senior producer is John Street, editing, mixing, mastering, and sound design by Caleb Milcher, Dayton Cole, and Pat Kicklider of the Resonate

Recordings team. If you have a podcast or are looking to start one, check us out at Resatorcordings.com. Our theme song and original score is by Dirt Poor Robbins with additional scoring by Dayton Cole. Our cover art is by station 16. Sources used in this episode include Heartland Radio, 1041 podcast with Todd McComas and WDSU News. You can follow undetermined podcast on Facebook and on Twitter at undetermined pod.

Show notes as well as bonus content can be found on our website undetermined pod.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please take time to subscribe, rate, and review. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. My heart weight went from zero to 100. I figured the automatic weapons fire outside. A adrenaline rushes through your body and you do what you've been trained to do. He gets maybe 40 feet and he collapses. You better have that pit near stomach. Once you commit, it's game on. We started going down the road and then I hear this. Bravery.

Valor. Determination. These are the stories of our heroes, like you've never heard them before. It felt like somebody had hit me with a baseball bat and a lower back. I opened up my eyes and I looked at him and he was like, I thought you were dead, son. And I was like, I did too. A new podcast from Tenderfoot TV and Telegraph Creative.

I'm Remy Anilake, former Navy SEAL. And this is Downrange. Downrange is available now. Listen for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.