Undetermined - Expert Analysis (Bonus)

Episode Date: December 27, 2022

Up to this point, you've heard about multiple interactions with the NOPD regarding this case, including body cam footage with Justin at their home following Jessica's disappearance, and most recently Jessica V.'s experience with the police and the coroner. In this bonus episode, Jessica and Todd discuss the investigation and where it should be at this point with Todd's expertise and insight into protocol and procedure as a former detective with decades of experience. 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 Lawrence Brown. I'm sure you may have been contacted. We're talking about 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 is 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, just a quick note to let you know that this week we're taking a break from our regular release schedule to bring you a special bonus episode. Be sure to tune in next week when we return with episode five. If you missed past episodes, you can binge them, add free on 10terfoot plus. Hey listeners, Jessica here.

Be sure to check out new episodes of undetermined every Tuesday for free 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. Hey everybody, Jessica here.

In this special bonus episode, we're continuing our behind-the-scenes analysis of Jessica Easterly-Durning's case. Now that we're a few episodes in, we're starting to hear more about some of the events that happened before and after Jessica's death. In this episode, we want to provide some insider perspective on what it looks like to investigate a case like this, as well as offer an overview of what we know about how NOPD's investigation has been going up to this point in the podcast. Joining me here to offer an experience perspective on investigations is of course our own former detective

Todd McComas. Hey Todd. Hey Jessica, thanks for having me. So Todd, there's one thing that I want to know right off the bat before we go deep into this investigation. Tell me what it's like to investigate a case like this for a true crime podcast as opposed to what it was like investigating it as a police detective. I really like it. I wondered initially what it was going to be like compared to being a police detective, but what I'm finding is now I get to focus 100% of my energy, time, and effort on just one case, one investigation, right? Now, when you're a police detective, you have a stack of other cases that compete with the one you're trying to devote your efforts to.

And there's all the other things that come with working for a government agency, the bureaucracy of it. You're training the interrupts things all the time that you have to attend, you might have to stop a criminal investigation because they need you to do an applicant background investigation. So all those things I really, really like, I like that we can go so in depth and just focus our efforts in one direction. And something that I have always had to deal with

being a journalist is not having necessarily access to everything that has to do with the case. And so that's kind of different for you and maybe one of the drawbacks in this type of investigation. Oh man, it tries to be bonkers not to have all the tools and resources that I had while I was a police detective. You know, being able to just quickly run someone's driver's record, their criminal history, you know,

just to call another police department and then openly share any information they have on someone that you're looking into. All those things are hampering and they do handcuffs. I said, bit, but again, it's a new challenge also, right? So to have to navigate the challenges of that is stimulating. I find. I also think it forces us to get creative and take our investigation to a different level and then bring it back to the whole storytelling aspect of this, right? You know, focusing on the victim's story. And also I have found as a journalist, we can sometimes get people to talk that may not

want to talk to law enforcement. Those interviews, it's a different dynamic because you're right. It can be scary talking to the police. So we're just talking to people that are potential witnesses or that we know are witnesses or we're just trying to gather that initial round of information. A lot of times we can get them to open up more so than when I walk in with a badge on my belt and a gun on my hip. And I've learned a lot from you in that regard because you've been interviewing

people under these circumstances, your entire career. And I'm really enjoying that aspect as well. And listen, I now compare this to because I like to use my experience, I really get to kick out of using my experience to be able to analyze a police investigation now. So I very much find myself in a position now like Troy Ackman, you know, who used to play in the NFL and now he's going to armchair quarterback instead of quarterback and be an analyst of the game.

Or Tony Romo. Or Tony Romo. Or Tony Romo. I'm an Ackman family, can I say? And you know, I think because when I first started podcasting, there were literally no cops podcasting. Now again, I started in the comedy realm and in the sports realm, but as I started to gravitate back

toward that law enforcement world and eventually into true crime, there were very few cops podcasting if Annie. And now just in a matter of three, four years, it's flooded. The podcast industry is flooded with former forensic experts, lab personnel, police, former prosecutors or current prosecutors. And I'm happy to see it because I know for you, it was initially kind of an investigative journalist thing,

but now that we have people like you and people like me that can mesh together, it's a well-rounded in-depth look into these cases. And I think it's only improving the quality of the podcast in regards to how effective they are with helping these families. Right. Metrolinx and cross links are reminding everyone to be careful, as Eglinton Cross-Town

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Download the app today to see why we're North America's number one sports book. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gamlin Tom called 1866-531-2600 or visit connectcentario.ca. Let's talk a little bit about we just came out of the Jessica V episode. We've heard the body cam footage from the first two episodes. So we have a lot of police interaction with the NOPD so far with characters within this story. So I want to kind of go into a little

bit of depth with you of things that that should have been done from the moment she went missing, from the moment she was found. We had talked a little bit about investigating not just from that moment she was missing, but starting to look back at her life prior to that day she went missing. So, talked to me a little bit about as a detective, how you go into this case from Ground Zero. Okay, so what the listener so far has been able to experience in witness is the initial taking of a missing persons report. That's what the buddy came footage was about. That's what Officer Gantner was doing. What they haven't been privy to yet. And to be honest, we're not privy to because we have not been handed the case file is what happens

after that. So we heard Officer Gettner speak over the phone with Detective One. Detective One at that time was a detective assigned to the missing persons unit. So his job from that point is to do some of the things you just touched on. The main focus is going to be trying to fill in gaps in Jessica's timeline. The officers that initially responded to take the Missing Persons report, they did a good job of filling in the timeline for the most part hours prior day of her disappearance. Now it's the detective's job to go back for the go back weeks, maybe even months, to try to determine if there was a significant change in her life, if there was a significant event

that occurred that could possibly be directly related to why she is now deceased. And one of those things that we already know from the body-camp footage and from Maria herself is there was some turmoil in Jessica's life the day before and leading up to the day she went missing. They have that knowledge. Sure. So now he's going to take an in depth dive or he should take an in depth dive in filling in that timeline. And maybe what led up to the events that Maria touches upon when she relates that information to the police to cause the missing persons report to even occur. So he's going to start with the husband.

Most cases like this do. Most cases like this where you have a missing person under suspicious circumstances. You have some suspicious information or at least concerning information coming in from the initial reporting party, Maria. So now you start with that husband because that's the person for one, as far as you know, was the last person to see her before she went missing. And also he's going

to have the most intimate knowledge of what's happening in her life day to day. So you expect him to immediately touch base that next morning. If that an hour or two after the report is generated and really explore with him, what was going on in the last couple months? Did you see anything, did you get suspicious of anything significant that was going on with her that would cause her to want to leave or could cause someone to have

done something horrible to her. It starts there and then you go to other people that are intimately involved in her life, family, very close friends, all this in attempt to create that timeline. Now, you don't have to rely on people's word either, right? Because we're in the technological age that we are. One of the very first steps you're going to do to help complete that timeline is you're going to send or you should send a preservation request to the service provider of her cellular device as well as probably the husband's anyone else who could be very intimately connected with her in the time period proceeding her disappearance. Stepping away a little bit from the technology side of things, boots on the ground.

I mean, canvassing the neighborhood. You and I, we spoke to people in that neighborhood who had no idea that someone had gone missing. Someone had been found dead. In fact, someone we spoke to didn't know for a year until he saw a flyer up asking for information. He had no idea that in his own neighborhood, what was it a block away from his home, there was a body found. So this is where the detective is going to el, the help of the uniform side of the house. Officers that work that area is going to reach out to them. He's going to say, hey, I'm going to be doing some stuff.

I'm going to be sitting now, preservation requests, all these cellular providers, and then the same thing for, you know, Facebook accounts, social media stuff, because for one, if you ever want to go back to actually view texts from her device in particular, that's going to disappear in the matter of days. That gets purged by the phone company, but if you send that preservation request, the cellular provider will freeze that from happening until they hear back from you.

And you say it's okay to go ahead and purge. So that will always be there in case you need to subpoena it or get a court order or or search warrant for it later. Even if someone were to delete it from the actual device. Yeah, that doesn't matter, right? It's going to be on the server. So two things you'll be able to get some insight on communications she was having preceding her disappearance. If not the content of it, who she was communicating with. You also be able to check for geolocation,

where she physically was in that timeline. So those things are happening, they're gonna tie you down to a desk for a while. So let's reach out now to the uniform side of the house. Officers will work that district and say, I need a thorough canvas right away of that Lakeview neighborhood. Okay, now at this point, she's not found yet.

She's still a missing person. So you really wanna focus heavy onview neighborhood. Okay, now at this point she's not found yet. She's still a missing person. So you really want to focus heavy on that neighborhood. Do houses nearby have cameras on them, blink systems, whatever, and if they find those, then get permission from the homeowner to maybe dump that footage and start to review it. Do we see her walk off? Do we see a car pull up at the intersection near her home and pick her up after she walks off? Any of these things that could be important to help fill in that timeline? And here's something else to keep in mind right when we're looking for maybe eyewitnesses within the neighborhood during this canvas or hopefully some video footage is that we know she left items at her home that a person would normally take with them. She didn't

leave in her own car. She left her wallet, her ID, all these things, her phone, things that a normal person would take with them if they were just going to go run an errand or even if you were going to to go run an errand or even if you were going to run off with the intention of never coming back, you would want to have those things on you. So officers and detectives should not be afraid to use common sense in the absence of evidence yet or to follow their gut. When you're armed with that information, you have to immediately use common sense and think,

well, she left that home on foot. I do want to point out though, we also don't know if she left by foot. What if there's camera footage from a neighbor's house, the covers the front of her house, and another camera from another neighbor's house that covers the rear exit or the side exit and during this time frame you'd never see that door open That could be important, right? We have video of every exit from that house and we never see her leave Would not be important information Because that would contradict Probably what you were told initially when this missing person's report was taken.

I mean, think about this. I worked at a time well before body cams as a detective. So if I wasn't the first person at the scene to take the initial report, which many times I was not, I had to rely on that first responding officers report, which is going to be a summary as best that officer can recall by the time they said down to actually type out that report. Now why would I want to rely on that when I could visually and audibly witness the interaction with the person live? I'm going to hear exactly how it happened. Not only that, because I can see it visually, not only can I hear exactly what the person was reporting, but I can

visually see body language, facial expression, all those nonverbal behaviors that are important when trying to determine if you're getting truthful information from them. So, it's an invaluable tool. And it is standard practice today for detectives to pull that body cam footage and then thoroughly look through it to aid them in their investigation. Just to be fair, we don't know because we don't have access to the case file or any investigative notes from Detective Lone or anyone else with the NOPD. Maybe they did use the body camp footage as part of that investigation. Maybe they did thoroughly canvas the neighborhood albeit not with neighbors we spoke to. But let's talk a little bit about how police have had this case for 10 days and her family

from out of state who comes in to do a search uncovers her body. Okay, so let's think in these terms. Everything that I just talked about, we don't know, obviously, whether or not those were things that were done by Detective Loner. Anyone else for that matter? We just know that these are things that should be done. So everything I just listed off should let the listener know. At this point, this case potentially had a lot of positive things working for it. Now, it's in the hands initially for somewhere between seven and ten days of a missing person's detective.

And the family is not hearing anything back according to them. That leads them to believe the any sort of physical search in the nearby and surrounding area of her home is going to be conducted by police or anyone via police. So, they're organizing their own search. is going to be conducted by police or anyone via police. So they're organizing their own search. They're gonna go scout best locations in that area to form a search party and conduct their own search. That shouldn't have to be done. Not to say that police have time on every missing person's case

to pull in a bunch of bodies and conduct searches everywhere that they can find in the surrounding area of where the person went missing. What they have to do is take a look at the circumstances surrounding that person's disappearance in its totality. Is it suspicious? Does it lead me to believe in my gut and using my common sense that it's likely this person fell victim to foul play of some sort. And then decide from there, okay, I know I can't do this in every case, but this is a case

that I think likely is going to elevate into something much worse. So I'm going to help as much as I can with that. Not that I can pull 30 or 40 cops off the street from what they're doing. We know New Orleans is a very busy city and there's a lot of violent crime there and a lot of things actively to be worked on that you don't want to pull that many people away from being able to respond to. But there are resources within the area of New Orleans in every big city to lead a search and get community involvement. You know, you can use the National Guard.

There are these other private resources that you can access to bring you bodies to search. And all you got to do is help manage it. Enjoy the classic taste of the holidays at Tim's with the new non-alcoholic Bailey's flavored holiday menu. Whether you're hanging holiday lights or driving up to your folks, you can enjoy your tins and Bailey's anytime, anywhere, at participating restaurants in Canada. The best adventures are the ones we share.

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Contact your Land Rover Authorized dealer for details. I didn't understand that people go missing this way. It's a very odd thing. You have no idea what it's like to lose a human being on your watch. Gary DeVore was an A-list screenwriter who disappeared without a trace in 1997. I had the biggest action stars in Hollywood, searching

for my husband. But nobody really knows what happened. We try to find out on Witnessed Fade to Black, available now, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm going to jump ahead a little bit to this encounter that Jessica V had and the letter that she received. I think the episode flushed that out enough, but I do want to talk about the interactions that she had with NOPD and get your take on how they could have used Jessica V as more of a resource than they did.

So a couple of things with Jessica V. Without reiterating all the details of the interaction she had with Justin. We do know that she was concerned enough that she reached out to police. And whoever it was on the police and told her there was not a homicide investigator assigned to this investigation. So they direct her to the coroner's office because from other things that she is telling them, they are concerned that this might be a mental health crisis. So they director the coroner's office because that's the first stage in initiating maybe a 72 hour mental health hold, an involuntary hold of someone for mental health concerns. So she goes there, and despite the lack of professionalism and some of the things that happened protocol wise,

things are done correctly. What I don't like about it was that a copy is made of this letter and then prepares her paperwork and then puts it in an envelope, along with possibly the original letter, seals it up and then gives it back to Jessica V and says, what you need to do now is go hand-deliver this to this office within the police department.

So now she's acting as kind of an employee herself of this process like she's an employee of the city of New Orleans and has to go do this. The reason I don't like that is it's very discouraging for people to bring forward information. It's scary enough to interject yourself into this situation if you're Jessica V. But now that just adds further discouragement of her or anyone else ever wanting to do the right thing and insert them themselves in such a situation. And then she gets to the police department and they do properly what they should to help initiate a 72-hour mental health hold on an individual.

But there are other circumstances involved here. This is wrapped within now, at this point, a death investigation that is considered suspicious, there are suspicious circumstances. The police department knows that. A detective currently assigned to that case knows that. And whether or not this particular person she dealt with has any kind of direct knowledge of this. They are now being informed by Jessica V of the parties.

And after a quick little cat search You would see that this is in place So then you might want to get a hold of the detective that is assigned just case really earning death investigation Right, rather that be a district detective or or whoever has it at that point reach out to them and let them know what's going on So at least they have the chance to decide whether or not Jessica V's intervention now is of use to that investigation. If you decide it is, there are a couple creative outside the box things that are simple to do.

And I have done very similar things in my career. And I've witnessed it done by other people in investigation, similar to this before. And that is simply, I have a person here who had what they deemed as an uncomfortable interaction with the husband of Jessica Easterly Dernie. That's my victim. That person seems very forthcoming in conversation with information about the death of his wife to this person, Jessica V. Maybe I could explore the possibility of using Jessica V as a means of recording conversations either over telephone or in person with Justin Dernie. Now at this

point, we don't know obviously if Justin is considered a suspect or if he is not considered a suspect, but what we know is that there are some suspicious things surrounding her disappearance and her death. So it's possible that they are considering that option or they're not ready to dismiss him as a person of interest or he's suspect yet. So this could be a mechanism to help you get off or on the fence about this with Justin. Decide once and for all if he's someone who should be considered a person of interest or a suspect or not.

Not necessarily information that's going to implicate him, but just additional information that had not been gathered yet from police. Honestly, I will be looking to see if he provides information that contradicts information that he reported to my officers. If so, you know, that's going to be of concern. You know, I just think it's an opportunity. And again, I've done this before in past investigations I was involved with. So it's something that's easily done, and I'm not saying Jessica V would even be willing to do it, but you know, it's worth exploring beyond this 72 hour mental health hold.

We don't know if once she was found, then that investigation was then handed off to another investigator. What we do know is that there was a homicide detective on the scene when her body was discovered. But we don't know from that point on who may have been investigating it. Talk to me a little taught about why it would be so harmful if there was a gap in the investigation while they're waiting on a manner of death. And what I mean by that is we go from missing person to death investigation.

Meanwhile, six months later, her cause and manner of death is ruled as undetermined. Let's explore that. And maybe this is a good way to wrap up this conversation. Let's thoroughly look into just what happens in cases like this. When missing persons report is first made, obviously that immediately gets assigned to a detective within the missing persons unit. If your agency has such a thing, larger agencies do, so let's just stick with protocol at these large agencies.

So it goes immediately to a missing person's detective, and it will stay with that missing person's detective until that person is no longer missing, meaning they are found alive or deceased. In this instance, she's found deceased, but seven or 10 days later. So, at that point, it leaves the hands of the missing person's detective. It gets transferred to a detective at the district level. So, once we know this is a death investigation, you're going to have a homicide detective and a district detective show up when that body's found. And there's a

conversation that takes place both just kind of way I've seen this both are like chomping at the bed you know am I gonna get to work this case or am I gonna get to work this case. Well you'll hope for that because you want detectives to be passionate about solving these cases. So both will be there and then there will be an initial determination of, is this going to most likely be a homicide or not? So if the determination is made, we can't say that this is probably going to be a homicide. So right now we're going to assign a district detective to it. If something changes because of the medical examiner's examination and

it's classified as a homicide, then that district detective will hand it off to the homicide detective. Now, all this I could give a shit less about from an investigation standpoint, because there should be no gaps, as you mentioned, in investigating this case, and everybody should be working it

in the same manner, regardless of the title of the unit that you work with it. So everything the detective lawn is doing would be the same things that the district detective and that the homicide detective would be doing if they were working this from the ground up. So once it's handed off, it should be a seamless transition for the missing persons detective

to hand this off to the district detective The district detective now has all the information they will work in concert with the missing person's detective for a period of time long enough That they feel comfortable. Okay, I am up to speed to where you are I can now take it over and then the missing person's detective is freed up to work. Other missing persons cases. So the district detective has it and picks up where they left off. Hopefully everything that we discussed earlier has already been done. That's the advantage this district detective has. So now his job is to follow up from there.

Okay. Help solidify that timeline. If there are still gaps, I know I've got these preservation requests for all this data from electronic devices and social media accounts. I can now decide if I want to send subpoenas, court orders or search warrants for that stuff and continue to try to find more and more people to talk to. Then when we reach this point in January, where finally a cause and manner of death is listed, each undetermined, then we know it's going to stay with that district detective. It's not going to be handed off to a homicide detective. But the emphasis I want to place on this is let's say it does, at some

point, change to a homicide. And then it must be transferred from the district detective to a homicide detective who gives a shit. It does not change the way you investigate this. And I will say this if within this process at NOPD we find out that there is a gap. The someone at some investigative level is not working it because they're just simply waiting for the right classification or for the right circumstances to present themselves. That will be a shame because that's potentially catastrophic to this investigation. Sure, because we're going from the first 48 to the first six months. And how much of anything then is completely gone and lost. So we just have to hope that's not the case here because there would be irreversible damage. Cause from that. So we have

to hope for the best and that everybody is doing the right things up to this point and that if a handoff must occur, that that happens seamlessly and it does not burden this investigation at all. Well what you and I can tell listeners at this point, we will be talking to the NOPD to find out where their investigation stands. Stay tuned. Thank you for listening to this episode. I want to remind you again that we'll be back next Tuesday with episode 5. Until then. 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 McComlas with additional production by Whitney Bosarth. Executive producers are Dennis Cooper, Mark Minnery, Jacob Bosarth, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay. Our senior producer

is John Street. Editing, mixing, mastering, and sound design by Caleb Melcher, 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 ResonateRecordings.com. Our theme song and original score is by Dirt Porra Robbins with additional scoring by Dayton Cole. Our cover art is by station 16. 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. And finally, if you have any information about this case, call Crime Stoppers at 1-877-903-7867. You can't imagine what it's like until you're actually there. My heart weight went from zero to 100. You're going to go to 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 in your stomach. Once you commit, it's game on. We started going down the road 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 Amalake, former Navy SEAL. And this is DownRange.