Stay ConnectedNancy Grace dives deep into the day’s most shocking crimes and asks the tough questions in her new daily podcast – Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Nancy Grace had a perfect conviction record during her decade as a prosecutor and used her TV show to find missing people, fugitives on the run and unseen clues. Now, she will use the power of her huge social media following and the immediacy of the internet to deliver daily bombshells!
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Julia Niswender's roommates are gone for the weekend, but then one stops by the apartment on Monday to pick up some things for class.
She heads out without seeing or talking to Julia. The next day the roommate realizes she hasn't seen or talked to Julia in two days. The bedroom door is locked so she calls security at the apartment complex to check on her roommate. The guard shows up with police, and using a master key to open the door, walks into Julia Niswender's room. It appears as if a home invasion has taken place.
Calling out for Julia and getting no reply, the officer walks toward the bathroom door, finding a pair of white latex gloves on the floor in front of the bathroom door. They are twisted and intertwined with each other.
Opening the bathroom door, officers discover Julia's lifeless, nude body, face down submerged in the bathtub filled with water. Her hands are pulled behind her back, her feet are together, and her cell phone is found underneath her body. Niswender's clothes have been cut off, except for a sleeve, and are left on the bathroom floor.
Niswender's room looks like it has been tossed. Clothes are all over the floor of the room, drawers are left open, contents from a plastic organizer drawer have been dumped on the floor, and the contents of Niswender's purse is dumped out onto her bed.
A black-and-white zebra-striped pillowcase is missing from a pillow, her keys to the apartment are missing from a lanyard, and police note that it looks like a home invasion took place, but wrapped Christmas presents, an iPod, computer, and tv are not taken from the room.
The night her body is found, officers note how her mother is pacing back and forth at the police station, while her stepfather seems stoic as he sits in the lobby.
The first of several red flags that led investigators to take a closer look at Jim Turnquist. Looking at Turnquist, the police ask for his laptop, and he complies, they ask for a polygraph, and he complies twice, and passes twice. Investigators consult with the FBI and are encouraged to take a good look at Turnquist. Turnquist is named a Person of Interest, and he is charged, and not in the death of Julia Niswender, but in child pornography.
There are 300,000 pictures on his laptop, 7 of which lead to charges of child porn. At trial, experts testified the 7 photos are in temp folders and could have been pop-up ads, and you can't even tell the age of the people in the pictures.
Turnquist is acquitted of the child porn charges. The murder case of Julia Niswender turns cold.
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Father flips his car with 1-year-old son on board in police chase. Brother removed from the wedding venue after pushing the bride to the ground.
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April 23, 1993: the owner of Ajax Liquor store, Steve Weltig, is found dead on the floor on the floor of his shop. Investigators say it appears a struggle took place just before Weltig is shot in the head.
Detectives work the case and develop a suspect sketch, but no real evidence leading to a killer is found and the case goes cold. The case is assigned to different investigators over the years. New leads are investigated, and evidence is collected. In 2015, reliable tips led detectives to Loril Harp. Harp's former wife contacted police and told them Loril Harp shot Weltig.
She tells detectives she did not drive her former husband to the liquor store on the day of the murder. She was at home and when Harp came home that morning he immediately took a shower. She tells police her ex-husband tells her he just shot a man in an Arnold liquor store.
A friend and former co-worker of Weltig's also tells Arnold police that Harp told him that he shot Weltig. Harp is brought in for an interview but investigators fail to gather enough evidence to seek charges for the murder.
Twenty-seven years after the murder of Steve Weltig, another set of detectives take over the case. Looking back over the case file, they watch the 2015 interview with Loril Harp. In that interview, detectives leave the room for a few minutes.
During the break, Loril Harp makes a call on his cell phone and what he says lights a fire under the investigation. Loril Harp tells the person on the phone that he is not under arrest, but "I probably will be before I leave here."
The detectives recognize this as a near admission that Loril Harp is expecting something after all these years. Harp is brought back in for a new interview.
Investigators Cpl. Brett Acklermann and Detective Corporal Josh Wineinger spend hours talking to Loril Harp. At 68 years old, Harp is in bad health and needs 24-hour nursing care. During his interview with the detectives, Loril Harp says he did not shoot Steve Weltig multiple times.
Harp admits that he and Weltig got into a fight, and Harp says he hit Weltig a few times and left. Harp claims he went home and took a shower, right away. And the detectives begin talking about cleaning up the blood when Harp is asked if he had a little blood on him, Harp replies "I must have if I shot him."
This phrase is all detectives need.
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Man shoots girlfriend's toddler over accusations of infidelity. Teacher supplies students with swords for duels.
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In 2018, Elizabethton High School student teacher Alex Campbell challenged his students to see if they could figure out if the Redhead murders are sometimes called the Bible Belt Murders.
There were 14 unsolved murders with a similar M.O. Campbell gets help from a former FBI agent teaching the young people about profiling a case. The students of Elizabethton High School start to see a potential pattern emerge in six of the potential murders.
In looking at the background of the murders, they started New Year's Day 1985, the body of a young female with reddish hair was found strangled, wrapped in a blanket, and tossed down an embankment off the southbound side of I-75 near Jellico, Tennessee. Due to decomposition, authorities believe she was killed about 72 hours before her body was found, 10-12 weeks pregnant when she was murdered.
The identification of Tina McKenney Farmer of Indiana helped the investigation move forward quickly. The evidence from the crime scene was tested and a match was found. The DNA matched Jerry Johns, convicted in the 1987 attempted murder of a woman he kidnapped, strangled, and then dumped along I-40.
Linda Schacke met Jerry Johns in a club in West Knoxville, Tennesee. The 36-year-old trucker seems like a nice guy until he pulls a gun, and forces her at gunpoint to drive to a wooded area off the interstate where he rips her shirt and uses part of it to strangle her. Johns then tosses the strangled and bound woman on the inside of a storm drain under I-40.
Like Tina Famer and many others, Linda Schacke has red hair, Unlike the others, Linda Schacke survives the attack. When Jerry Johns was convicted of the attack on Schacke, he was considered a suspect in some homicides, but there was never enough evidence. However, even though Tina Marie McKenney Farmer was positively identified by fingerprint identification, there was DNA left behind in the blanket she was wrapped up in after she was killed. 2019,
DNA evidence identified convicted kidnapper Jerry Leon Johns as the man who killed Tina Marie McKenney Farmer in December 1984. Johns died in prison in 2015. On December 18, 2019, a grand jury in Campbell County, Tennessee, ruled that Johns would have been indicted for murder in Farmer's death if he were still alive.
The students of Elizabethton High School continue to investigate and believe they have developed some strong evidence that shows whoever killed McKenney-Farmer, probably killed Lisa Nichols, Michelle Inman, Elizabeth Lamotte, Tracy Walker, and even a still unidentified Jane Doe in Desoto County.
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Freshman found dead in his dorm at Campbellsville University. You might want to skip your dollar store trip this week.
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The senseless murder of Laken Riley on the campus of the University of Georgia has the nation talking about everything from safety on a college campus to immigration.
Laken Riley didn't know the man who killed her, but she knew she was in a dire situation when they met. Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, allegedly attacked and killed the 22-year-old while she was out for a jog in Athens.
Joseph Scott Morgan will explain how the evidence in the case points to Laken Riley attempting to call 911 and Dave Mack will fill in the blanks on the timeline on this edition of Body Bags.
Transcript Highlights
00:15.71 Joseph Scott Morgan talks about college life
02:39.50 Talk about nursing school, education
05:33.55 Discussion of victim
09:56.27 Talk about timeline
14:03.73 Talk about seeing victim as an object
18:54.67 Discussion of blunt force trauma
22:13.70 Suspect arrives in USA illegally
31:20.86 Talk about apartment search
36:08.59 Discuss How suspect and victim were strangers
40:30.36 First Homicide at UGA in 30 years
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An Illinois mom is killed and two children are seriously injured while parasailing.
A storm blew in, affecting the stability of the boat towing the family. Now, the husband of a 33-year-old woman has filed lawsuits naming multiple parties. A preliminary incident report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission says boat captain Daniel Couch,49, cut the towing cable when the parasail “pegged” in a high gust of wind, threatening to drag his boat.
This resulted in the parasail and the individuals being drug “through and across the surface of the water” and slammed into an abandoned Florida Keys bridge.
Supraja Alaparthi, 33, was dead before another boat captain untangled her and the children from the parasail cables and rushed them to a Marathon restaurant where crews had set up a staging area.
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The parents of a 12-year-old boy think Trails Carolina might be just the place to help their son.
Trails Carolina claims to be a Leader in Wilderness Therapy offering an Adventure Wilderness Program for children who have behavioral and or emotional difficulties. The parents say their boy is transported by two men from New York to Trails Carolina Camp at Lake Toxaway, North Carolina.
Their son arrives at the camp in an agitated state. The 12-year-old is loud and disruptive, but he is assigned to a cabin with other children as well as four adults. In less than 24 hours, the 12-year-old boy from New York is dead. Sheriff Chuck Owenby says an autopsy is being conducted because the death "appeared suspicious" since the boy died at the camp less than 24 hours after he arrived.
A counselor explained to investigators that the boy was required to sleep on the floor inside a sleeping bag. The sleeping bag is inside a small tent called a "BIVY." According to search warrant documents, around midnight the boy started to experience a panic attack.
After the panic attack, a counselor told investigators that the boy was checked on throughout the night starting at 12 a.m., with additional checks on his well-being at 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. At 7:45 a.m., the boy was found dead.
According to the search warrant, when investigators arrived at the scene, CJH was stiff and "cold to the touch." He was lying on his back, his arms were on his chest, and his "knees bent upwards toward the sky."
Also in the search warrant, investigators noted spots of bleeding under the skin, "possible petechiae" in the boy's lips and eyes. This is considered a sign of asphyxiation. The warrant also notes a CPR mask was covering the boy's face and he was not wearing any pants or underwear. His pants and underwear were lying next to his shoulder
Early in the investigation, detectives with the Transylvania County Sheriff's Office attempted to interview other juveniles at Trails Carolina when the boy died. However, camp staff members refused to allow investigators to interview or even see any of the other juveniles.
Trails Carolina says the search warrant contains "misleading statements" saying they won't discuss some details "out of respect for the family and the investigation."
In a statement, Trails Carolina says they did not prevent children from speaking to investigators claiming they asked parents for permission for any children involved to speak with law enforcement and state agencies, and "complied with each parent's preference. as we are required to do." Children were moved to the area to protect them from seeing what was happening, not to avoid investigators.
In response to the recent suspicious death of a 12-year-old at Trails Carolina, North Carolina health officials ordered the removal of all children from the nature therapy program.
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Sex-for-hire turned car-jacking plot ends in murder. Customs agents aren't fooled by smuggler's intimate hiding spot.
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