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This episode contains graphic content that may not be suitable
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for all ages. Listener discretion is advised. If you or
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someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available,
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call or text nine eight eight, or chat with someone
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at nine eight eight lifeline dot org. Those outside of
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the US, reach out to someone at your local crisis
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center or hotline. Please do not suffer in silence. In
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September of nineteen ninety two, a small music and video
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production company in Nashville, Tennessee, placed two classified advertisements in
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a local trade publication called the Trader's Post. The company
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was called the Halsey Company, and they were selling a
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piece of equipment that, in nineteen ninety two was about
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as high end as consumer technology got. It was an
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Apple Macintosh Quadrant fifty computer system, complete with a twenty
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four inch high resolution color monitor. The system was used
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for desktop publishing and videotape editing. The asking price was
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around twenty four thousand dollars or best offer, though the
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final sale price would end up being negotiated to thirty
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one thousand. Let me say that again, thirty one thousand
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dollars in nineteen ninety two money for a computer To
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put that in context, the median household income in the
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United States that year was about thirty thousand dollars. This
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was a machine built for professional grade work, and it
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costs more than most Americans earned in a year. You
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could buy a new car for less. Hell, you could
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put a down payment on a house. Back in nineteen
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ninety two, selling something this expensive meant advertising in trade
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publications and waiting for the phone to ring. There was
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no eBay, no Facebook marketplace, no Craigslist, nothing really with
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buyer ratings and sellar protections and PayPal holding funds in
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escrow until delivery was confirmed. Back then, you just placed
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a classified ad, someone called you, and you arranged to
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meet a stranger to exchange a very expensive piece of
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equipment for a very large check or cash if you
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could get it. The entire transaction was built on trust,
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on the assumption that both parties were who they said
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they were. The Halsey Company put a twenty two year
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old named Jeremy Rolfs in charge of the sale. Jeremy
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was a part time videotape editor for the company and
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a senior at Middle Tennessee State University in Murphysboro, where
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he was majoring in mass communications. He was young and
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bright and a technical prodigy. He managed the student television
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station at MTSU, running nightly newscast and original programming. People
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who knew him described him as a talented super genius
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who kept things running smoothly. He was also engaged to
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another student from MTSU, a twenty two year old English
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major named Heather Offelman. Heather worked at the school's radio station,
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w MOT, and she tutored in the developmental studies writing lab.
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The people who knew her said that she was one
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of the nicest people you could ever meet. Her greatest joy,
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by all accounts, was helping others. She and Jeremy had
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met while working at the student television station. They had
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since fallen in love and gotten engaged. They were planning
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a wedding for the following spring. On October seventh, nineteen
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ninety two, a man called the Halsey Company in response
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to one of the classified ads. He said he was
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a freelance computer programmer and a database consultant. He sounded professional.
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He asked detailed, knowledgeable questions about the system, the kind
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of questions only someone who genuinely understood computers would ask.
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Over the following days, Jeremy met with this man several times,
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first in Nashville for a demonstration of the computer and
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its operating system, and then in Murphysboro to answer additional questions.
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The man was cordial and articulate. He was clearly familiar
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with the technology. Everything about him suggested that he was
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a serious buyer. After some haggling, a price was agreed
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upon thirty one thousand dollars. The man asked that the
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equipment be delivered to his office in Marietta, Georgia, a
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suburb of Atlanta, about two hundred and thirty miles south
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of Nashville. The Halsey Company agreed, and Jeremy was assigned
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to make this delivery. The man he was delivering this
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computer system too, called himself Tom Johnson, but as Jeremy
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would soon learn, that was not his real name. Welcome
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to Unresolved. I'm your host, Michael Wheelan. If this is
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your first time listening to Unresolved, then welcome. If you're
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a repeat listener, then welcome back. Either way, I appreciate
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you clicking on the link and giving the show a listen.
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If you find this episode interesting or well done, please
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make sure to try and support the podcast in some way.
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You can head to patreon dot com slash Unresolved pod,
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where you can help support the show and get access
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to bonus episodes, add free episodes, exclusive podcast and producer credits.
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or family member that might be interested. Do you have
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a coworker or sibling that enjoys true crime or mystery,
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let them know about it. Whatever you do, thank you
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for listening to and supporting Unresolved. Now, without any further ado,
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let's get back into today's story. The original plan was
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for Jeremy to deliver the computer to Tom Johnson's office,
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which Johnson said was located in an industrial park in Marietta, Georgia,
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But shortly before the delivery date, Johnson called and changed
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the arrangement. He said the directions to the industrial park
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were complicated and difficult to follow. He suggested they meet
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at a motel instead, a night's in off of Interstate
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seventy five in Marietta, and go from there. Jeremy did
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not think much of it. He had spent plenty of
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time wandering through industrial parks looking for unmarked addresses. Meeting
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at a motel first seemed reasonable enough. In nineteen ninety two,
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this kind of arrangement did not carry the same red
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flags that it might carry today. If a person said
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they were a freelance computer prob Grammar with an office
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in an industrial park, you either believed them or you didn't.
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And this Tom Johnson had given Jeremy Rolfs no reason
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not to believe him. He had seemed legitimate, pleasant across
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multiple meetings. Because of other work projects, Jeremy planned to
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make the two hundred and thirty mile drive overnight. He
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had been working for roughly thirty hours on another project
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and was exhausted. His fiance, Heather, decided to come along,
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partly because they enjoyed taking trips together and partly because
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she was worried that he would fall asleep at the
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wheel if he went alone. So at one thirty in
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the morning on October twenty fourth, nineteen ninety two, Jeremy
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and Heather loaded the Apple Quadron nine to fifty into
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their car and set off from Murphysboro, Tennessee, for Marietta, Georgia.
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It was a six hour drive. Heather did most of
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the driving while Jeremy tried to rest. Jeremy and Heather
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arrived at the Night's Inn motel in Marietta at approximately
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seven thirty in the morning on October twenty fourth. They
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had driven through the night. They were tired, but they
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were there and the transaction was almost complete. They went
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to room three thirty two, which was registered to Tom Johnson.
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Johnson greeted them and explained that his business partner would
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be arriving shortly with a certified check for the computer.
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He said it would be somewhere between thirty and forty
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five minutes. Jeremy and Heather decided to go get breakfast
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while they waited. There was a Denny's nearby. They left
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the motel and ate breakfast, then returned. About half an
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hour later. Tom Johnson's business partner still hadn't arrived. Johnson
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told them he had spoken to his partner by phone
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and that the partner was on his way and would
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be there shortly. Johnson suggested that they go ahead and
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load the computer into his car while they waited. His
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car was a dark colored Dodge Dynasty with Tennessee license plates.
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Either black cherry or dark brown with a red interior.
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Jeremy and Heather helped him load the equipment. At this point,
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it was approximately eight o'clock in the morning. The three
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of them then returned to the motel room. They made
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small talk for about twenty minutes, mostly discussing the impact
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of computers on society and how they were changing the
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world back then in nineteen ninety two. I bet they
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had no idea. The man that Jeremy and Heather were
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talking to, Tom Johnson, seemed warm and friendly. Throughout their conversation.
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He continued to display his impressive knowledge of computers and
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computing systems. Nothing about his behavior was alarming. After about
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twenty minutes, though, Jeremy told Tom Johnson that if his
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business partner did not arrive soon, they would have to
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cancel the sale. After all, they had driven through the night,
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they were tired, they needed to get back. It was
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at this moment that Tom Johnson's demeanor changed completely. The
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strange man pulled a small caliber handgun and pointed it
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at Jeremy and Heather. He ordered them to pull the
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bedspreads off of the beds and to roll themselves up
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in them. They complied. Johnson had Jeremy turn so that
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he was facing away from Heather. Then Jeremy heard a
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loud buzzing in his ear and the room began to spin.
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Johnson had struck him in the back of the head
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with something. As he would find out, it was a
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claw hammer, still wrapped in its original plastic packaging. Jeremy
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went down but remained conscious. Tom Johnson then turned to
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Heather and struck her with the hammer. Heather began screaming. Jeremy,
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disoriented and bleeding, told Heather to stop screaming, believing that
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if she was quiet, Tom Johnson would just take what
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he wanted and leave. Instead, Tom Johnson came back to
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Jeremy and hit him in the head several more times.
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Then he returned to Heather. Jeremy remained conscious through the
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entire attack. He couldn't move, but he could see, and
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what he saw was Tom Johnson, after he had finished
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with Heather, calmly walking to the motel room counter and
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dusting it to remove fingerprints. This man had just beaten
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two people nearly to death with a hammer, and his
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immediate next step was to methodically wipe down surfaces. This
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was clearly someone who had planned for this exact moment
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and was executing a checklist. As soon as Tom Johnson
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left the room, Jeremy worked to free himself from the bedspread.
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He was covered in blood. He crawled over to Heather
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and told her that he was going to get help,
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that they were going to be all right. What he
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saw when he reached her would haunt him for the
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rest of his life. Jeremy staggered out of the motel room,
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bloodied and barely able to stand. A motel maid saw
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him and called nine one one. Jeremy and Heather were
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both rushed to the hospital. Heather Offelmann was pronounced dead
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just a few hours later, at around twelve thirty in
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the afternoon. She never regained consciousness after the attack. Jeremy
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was released from the hospital three days later, ter on
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October twenty seventh. He survived, but suffered vertigo and partial
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hearing loss as a result of the hammer blows to
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his head. The physical injuries would heal mostly the psychological
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ones never would. The murder weapon was found on the
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floor of room three thirty two, a claw hammer, still
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wrapped in its original plastic packaging, with no fingerprints on it.
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A card identifying the hammer's weight and its skew number.
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The stock keeping unit number assigned by the retailers was
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still attached, but investigators were unable to identify the store
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where it had been purchased. No fingerprints were found anywhere
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in the room. It seems that the man calling himself
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Tom Johnson had been thorough. Investigators would note several unusual
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aspects of the crime. The attacker had allowed himself to
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be seen in the parking lot of a busy motel
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during broad daylight. He had displayed a handgun, but chose
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not to use it as the murder weapon, instead opting
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for a hammer, a more personal, more violent method of
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killing that carried a higher risk of the victim surviving,
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but also a quieter one. He had loaded the computer
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into his car before the attack, in full view of
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anyone who might have been looking it. Had also meticulously
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wiped the room for fingerprints before leaving. The whole thing
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suggested a level of planning that was chilling in its calculation.
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But there was a detail from earlier that morning that
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investigators found deeply troubling. The manager of the nights in
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motel told police about something that had happened approximately an
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hour before the attack. While Jeremy and Heather were at
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the Dennis having breakfast, a woman had come to the
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motel's front do complaining about excessive noise coming from the
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room registered to this Tom Johnson. The front desk clerk
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dismissed it as a domestic dispute and did not investigate. Separately,
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another motel guest reported seeing a man and a woman
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enter Room three thirty two together. Investigators believed that this
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woman may have been an accomplice, someone who is involved
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in the scheme and who may have tried to intervene
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or abort the plan when she realized Tom Johnson intended
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to commit violence. The noise complaint, if it came from her,
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could have been a paniced attempt to get someone to
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come to the room and disrupt whatever was about to happen,
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or it could have been the sound of a confrontation
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between two people who disagreed about how far the plan
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was supposed to go. Either way, the front desk clerk's
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decision to dismiss the complaint as a domestic dispute and
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not investigate may have been a missed opportunity to prevent
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what came next. This woman was never identified. If she
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was an accomplice, she has kept her silence for more
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than three decades now. If she was a bystander or
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an unwilling participant, she may be carrying a burden that
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could help solve a murder. And there was another troubling
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detail that investigators would soon learn. One week before the
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attack on Jeremy and Heather, a man calling himself Tom
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Johnson had made a similar arrangement for the purchase of
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another computer from a different seller. He had also set
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up a meeting, but never showed. Investigators believed that he
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may have been working up the nerve, testing the plan,
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rehearsing the logistics, before backing out at the last moment
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before going through with it. This detail has always struck
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me as one of the most revealing pieces of evidence
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in this entire case. I think it tells us something
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about the psychology of the attacker. This was someone who
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had to build up to it. He had the plan,
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the alias, maybe even the hammer already, and the first
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time he couldn't do it, he drove to wherever the
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meeting was supposed to happen, and he turned around and
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went home. A week later he tried again, and even
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then he had to stall moremultiple times because it seems
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like he couldn't build up the courage to just do it,
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but then eventually he went through with it. To me,
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that suggests a person who was conflicted about what he
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was about to do, but not conflicted enough to stop
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the loss of Heather Uffelman devastated her family, her friends,
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and the MPSU community. She was a senior who was
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just weeks away from graduating with a degree in English.
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She was engaged to be married. She was a twenty
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two year old who, by every account, was orienting her
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entire life around helping other people. She tutored students who
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were struggling with writing. She worked at the campus radio station.
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She drove through the night to keep the person she
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loved most from falling asleep at the wheel. The town
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of Marietta, Georgia, was also shaken by the crime. Local
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newspapers ran headlines about the shocking murder at the night's
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in motel one that many writsidents drove past every day.
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The idea that someone had been beaten to death with
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a hammer in a motel room off the interstate in
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broad daylight while other guests were sleeping or ate breakfast
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just feet away was profoundly unsettling for Jeremy, though. The
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aftermath was awaking nightmare. He had survived the initial attack,
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but he carried the physical and psychological scars of what
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had happened in that motel room. He had been conscious
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for the entire assault. He had heard Heather screaming, He
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had seen what was done to her, and he had
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been unable to stop it. He had told her to
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stop screaming, believing it would make the attacker leave. Instead,
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it hadn't made any difference. He would live with that
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for the rest of his life. On December twentieth, nineteen
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ninety two, less than two months after the attack, Jeremy
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wrote an essay for the Tennesseean newspaper titled When It
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Happens to You. In it, he wrote about the experience
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of becoming a crime victim, about the way people read
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stories like his and assume they'll always happen to someone else.
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He wrote about Heather's greatest joy being the act of
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helping others about a memorial scholarship they had created in
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her name at mtsu'd help students who wanted to go
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to college, but could not afford it. He wrote about
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wanting to be helpless no more. Jeremy and Heather's families
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established the Heather Offfulman Memorial Scholarship at Middle Tennessee State University.
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It would be awarded to students in need of financial aid,
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the kind of people that Heather had spent her young
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life trying to help. The investigation into Heather's murder and
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the assault on Jeremy was aggressive but frustrating. Investigators had
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a surviving victim who could describe the attacker with pretty
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decent detail. As a result, they had a composite sketch
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00:18:57.559 --> 00:19:00.559
put together. They also had a description of the suspects
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car a dark Dodge Dynasty with Tennessee plates. They had
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the skew number from the hammer. They had testimony from
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00:19:07.880 --> 00:19:09.960
the motel desk clerk who had gotten a good look
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at the man who checked in as Tom Johnson. Based
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on Jeremy's recollections and sightings by motel personnel and other guests,
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the man calling himself Tom Johnson appeared to be in
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00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:24.440
his twenties or early thirties. He stood approximately six feet
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tall and weighed between one hundred and sixty and one
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hundred and seventy five pounds. He had sandy brown hair
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and sometimes wore glasses. He had no Southern accent. At
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the time of the attack, he was wearing an expensive
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pair of boots made of either snake or alligator skin.
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Investigators attempted to track the sales of hundreds of Apple
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Quadron nine to fifty computers, trying to find one that
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might have been resold by the killer. They couldn't trace
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any of them to the crime. The computer was never recovered.
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Its CPU serial number F six two one sixty four
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j W six seven one one was circulated to law
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enforcement agencies in computer retailers, but nothing came back. If
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Johnson resold the computer, he did so in a way
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that left no trail. If he kept it, he kept
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it hidden. And if he destroyed it. If thirty one
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thousand dollars worth of equipment was simply discarded, then the
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entire crime was committed for nothing more than the act
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of committing it. That possibility is more disturbing than it
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might initially seem. If the computer was the motive, then
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the attack was a calculated robbery gone to its violent extreme.
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But if the computer was never resold. If the money
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was never realized, then the question shifts. Was the computer
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the real target or was the violence itself? The point?
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Was Tom Johnson a thief who killed to cover his
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tracks or was he something else entirely? The case was
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featured on Unsolved Mysteries in April of nineteen eighty four,
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which generated tips but led no breakthrough. A ten thousand
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dollars reward was offered for information leading to the identification
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and arrest of Tom Johnson, and then in the spring
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of nineteen ninety four, right around the time that Unsolved
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Mystery segment aired, in fact, something happened that made investigators
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00:21:13.039 --> 00:21:15.759
take a very hard look at a man named Thomas E.
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Steeples.
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On the evening of March seventh, nineteen ninety four, about
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00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:34.960
seventeen months after Heather Uffelman's murder, a young married couple
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00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:38.759
walked into a bar called the Stagecoach Lounge in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Their names were Rob and Kelly Phillips. Rob was twenty four,
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Kelly was twenty eight. They were newlywed who had driven
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over two thousand miles from San Diego, California, to Nashville
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in a battered old GMC pickup truck. Rob was an
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aspiring country musician, a Navy veteran who had served aboard
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the aircraft carrier USSU Constellation before deciding to pursue a
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career as a singer guitarist. His wife, Kelly believed in
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him completely. They had arrived in Nashville that afternoon with
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almost no money, running on dreams and fumes. The couple
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00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:17.839
had already been burned once on the road. Before reaching Tennessee.
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They had been scammed by someone who held Rob at
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gunpoint and demanded four thousand dollars, money that a tearful
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Kelly had to have her family wire. Their family's nest
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00:22:28.359 --> 00:22:31.839
egg was gone. They were personally down to their last
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few dollars, but Robin Kelly still trusted people. They still
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believed in their dream. They had come to Nashville to
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make it, and nothing that had happened so far had
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shaken that faith. They checked into an Ocono Lodge motel
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on Murphysborough Road. The sign out front read where the
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stars stay. To Rob, it was a good omen. Kelly
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agreed that evening the Stagecoach Lounge was hosting an open
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mic amateur talent night. Rob took the stage with his
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Yamaha acoustic guitar and performed some country covers. Kelly sat
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at a table in the front row and beamed. This
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was exactly why they had come out to Nashville. This
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was the opening night of their dream. Sitting near Kelly
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was a middle aged man who introduced himself as a
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record producer. He was charming and complimentary about Rob's talents.
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He bought them drinks. Round after round of drinks, He
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talked about getting Rob's studio time, about introducing him to
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the right people in the Nashville music scene. He elicited
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details about where they were staying, what room they were in.
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The man's name was Tom Steeples. He was not a
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record producer. In fact, he was the owner of a
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small computer company. He also had a history that if
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Robin Kelly had known about, it would have sent them
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running from that bar. After about two hours of buttering
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up the young couple, Steeples said good night and told
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them that he would call their room when he had
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more deep detales about studio time. Rob and Kelly went
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back to Room one twelve at the Econo Lodge, elated.
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They had been in Nashville for less than twelve hours,
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and it already seemed like Rob was about to get
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his big break. When the motel chambermaid opened the door
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for her housekeeping round the next morning, Tuesday, March eighth,
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at approximately nine o'clock in the morning, she found a
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scene of absolute horror. Rob and Kelly Phillips were both dead.
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They had been beaten to death with a plunt object.
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Kelly had been sexually assaulted. She had ligature marks on
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her wrist, she had been tied up. The evidence suggested
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00:24:38.759 --> 00:24:41.480
that whoever killed them had forced Kelly to watch as
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he bludgeoned Rob to death before raping her and beating
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her to death as well. The investigation into the Phillips
396
00:24:49.319 --> 00:24:53.119
murder initially moved slowly, but in May nineteen ninety four,
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DNA evidence from the crime scene was matched to one
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00:24:56.960 --> 00:25:01.240
Thomas E. Scheeple's body. Fluid samples taken from Steeples with
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00:25:01.279 --> 00:25:04.680
a search warrant were linked through DNA analysis to evidence
400
00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:08.680
found in the Econo lodge room. By this point, Steeples
401
00:25:08.799 --> 00:25:13.279
was already under investigation for another murder. On October seventeenth,
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00:25:13.400 --> 00:25:17.440
nineteen ninety three, roughly one year after Heather Offelman's murder
403
00:25:17.480 --> 00:25:20.680
and five months before the Phillips killings. A passing driver
404
00:25:20.799 --> 00:25:23.759
had noticed smoke coming from a Nashville bar called The
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00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:26.920
Corral Club at around five o'clock in the morning. When
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00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:30.119
police arrived, they found the bar's owner, forty six year
407
00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:32.960
old Ronnie Bingham, seated on a chair that had been
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00:25:32.960 --> 00:25:36.160
set on fire. The rest of the bar was untouched.
409
00:25:36.519 --> 00:25:39.319
Only Bingham and the chair beneath him were burning. A
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00:25:39.359 --> 00:25:43.599
gas can sat nearby. An autopsy revealed Bingham had been
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shot to death before being set ablaze. A thirty eight
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00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:49.440
caliber bullet was found lodged in the left side of
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his neck. The fire had been set to destroy evidence,
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not to burn down the building. A customer at the
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bar told police that when he had left at around
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00:25:57.640 --> 00:26:01.279
one a m. Only two people remained, Ronnie Bingham and
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00:26:01.440 --> 00:26:04.880
another man he recalled being named Tom. At the scene,
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00:26:05.079 --> 00:26:08.880
police found the business card of Tom Steeples, a detail
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00:26:09.039 --> 00:26:14.359
so brazen it almost defies belief. Investigators determined that Steeples
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00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:17.640
had been trying to sell computer software to Bingham. Some
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00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:21.279
accounts suggest that the two had previously been business partners
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00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:24.880
and that the relationship had soured. Police located a man
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00:26:24.920 --> 00:26:27.839
who said he had sold Tom Steeples a thirty eight
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00:26:27.880 --> 00:26:32.519
caliber handgun approximately one month before Ronnie Bingham's murder. This
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00:26:32.599 --> 00:26:35.519
man had previously fired the gun in his backyard, and
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00:26:35.599 --> 00:26:38.599
a projectile recovered from a tree stump was found to
427
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:41.640
match the ballistics of the bullet that killed Ronnie Bingham.
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00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:45.000
By the summer of nineteen ninety four, Tom Steeples was
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00:26:45.119 --> 00:26:50.000
charged with three murders, Ronnie Bingham, Rob Phillips, and Kelly Phillips.
430
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He was also charged with the rape of Kelly Phillips.
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Nashville Police detective Bill Pridemore Junior summed up the department's
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00:26:58.039 --> 00:27:01.599
assessment of Steeples. He is a cold, the blooded man.
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Steeples had been arrested after a short pursuit during which
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00:27:06.160 --> 00:27:09.680
police found crack cocaine in his car. His drug habit,
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00:27:09.880 --> 00:27:13.720
his gambling debts, and his increasingly reckless behavior all pointed
436
00:27:13.720 --> 00:27:16.359
to a man whose life was spiraling out of control
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00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:19.359
and who seemed to be leaving bodies in his wake.
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This is where investigators looking at the Heather Offfelman case
439
00:27:25.759 --> 00:27:29.359
sat up and started to pay attention the similarities between
440
00:27:29.359 --> 00:27:33.079
the attack on Jeremy Rolf's and Heather Affelman in Marrietta, Georgia,
441
00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:35.960
and the murders of Rob and Kelly Phillips in Nashville,
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00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:40.400
Tennessee were striking. In both cases, a couple was killed
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inside of a motel room. In both cases, the attacker
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00:27:43.759 --> 00:27:47.119
used a blunt object to beat the victims, and in
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00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:50.799
both cases the perpetrator used charm and deception to gain
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00:27:50.839 --> 00:27:54.240
the victim's trust before attacking. And then there were the
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00:27:54.319 --> 00:27:58.240
specifics about Tom Steeples himself. I mean, right off the bat,
448
00:27:58.440 --> 00:28:01.480
his first name was Tom, the same first name used
449
00:28:01.519 --> 00:28:04.839
by the man who called himself Tom Johnson. He owned
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00:28:04.839 --> 00:28:08.359
a computer company in Nashville, the same city where Tom
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00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:11.680
Johnson had answered the classified ad for the Apple Quadron
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00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:16.039
nine fifty. He was knowledgeable about computers. He bore a
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00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:20.039
resemblance to the composite sketch of Tom Johnson. His body
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00:28:20.079 --> 00:28:23.519
structure was similar to the description that Jeremy Rolfs had given.
455
00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:27.599
The car Tom Johnson had been driving had Tennessee license plates.
456
00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:33.119
Steeples was from Tennessee. The pattern of behavior also seemed
457
00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:37.039
eerily consistent. He was a man who operated through deception,
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00:28:37.519 --> 00:28:41.559
presenting himself as something he wasn't. A record producer, a
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00:28:41.599 --> 00:28:45.680
computer consultant, a business man. The real Tom Steeples was
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00:28:45.720 --> 00:28:49.519
a crack addict with a gambling problem, a violent criminal history,
461
00:28:49.599 --> 00:28:53.240
and a growing desperation for money. But this leads us
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00:28:53.279 --> 00:28:56.759
to one of the most frustrating aspects of the entire case.
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00:28:57.400 --> 00:29:02.039
According to reports, investigators did not consider Tom Steeples a
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viable suspect in the heather Offfelman case, primarily because of
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00:29:06.200 --> 00:29:09.079
his age. Tom Johnson had appeared to be in his
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00:29:09.160 --> 00:29:12.720
twenties or early thirties. Tom Steeples, though, was born in
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00:29:12.799 --> 00:29:15.480
nineteen forty four, which would have made him at least
468
00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:18.160
forty seven years old at the time of the Marietta attack,
469
00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:21.799
significantly older than the man Jeremy and the motel staff
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00:29:21.799 --> 00:29:27.359
had described. But age estimation by witnesses is notoriously unreliable,
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00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:31.720
particularly under stressful circumstances or when the observer is young.
472
00:29:32.240 --> 00:29:35.160
A twenty two year old estimating a stranger's age after
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00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:38.400
being awake for thirty plus hours might easily misjudged by
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00:29:38.400 --> 00:29:42.799
ten or fifteen years, and Tom Steeples, based on available photographs,
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00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:46.119
was not a man who looked obviously middle aged. The
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00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:49.519
resemblance to the composite sketch was noted by multiple people
477
00:29:49.519 --> 00:29:54.279
who examined both images. No forensic evidence linked Tom Steeples
478
00:29:54.319 --> 00:29:58.240
to the Heather Uffelman crime scene. Articles from the Tennesseean
479
00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:01.519
in nineteen ninety four state plainly the investigators did not
480
00:30:01.720 --> 00:30:05.640
consider him a suspect. But the absence of forensic evidence
481
00:30:05.839 --> 00:30:08.839
in a case where the attacker meticulously wiped down every
482
00:30:08.839 --> 00:30:11.319
surface in the room before leaving is not the same
483
00:30:11.359 --> 00:30:14.960
as exculpatory evidence. It tells us that the man calling
484
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:19.279
himself Tom Johnson was careful. To understand why so many
485
00:30:19.319 --> 00:30:23.279
people who have followed this case remained unsatisfied with that conclusion,
486
00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:29.640
you need to understand who Tom Steeples was. Thomas E.
487
00:30:29.799 --> 00:30:33.839
Steeples was born in November nineteen forty four in Nashville, Tennessee.
488
00:30:34.559 --> 00:30:37.559
On the surface, he appeared to be a successful businessman,
489
00:30:38.079 --> 00:30:40.920
a married father of two who owned a computer company.
490
00:30:41.440 --> 00:30:45.079
He was articulate and socially adept. He could walk into
491
00:30:45.079 --> 00:30:47.359
a bar and charm a young couple into believing that
492
00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:50.079
he was a record producer, or set across from a
493
00:30:50.079 --> 00:30:54.559
college student, and convincingly discussed database consulting. He was, by
494
00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:58.200
all accounts, a skilled manipulator, a man who could project
495
00:30:58.240 --> 00:31:02.279
whatever version of himself a city situation required, but beneath
496
00:31:02.319 --> 00:31:06.599
that surface was something much darker. Steeples had a documented
497
00:31:06.680 --> 00:31:10.319
history of violence against women, stretching back nearly twenty years,
498
00:31:10.680 --> 00:31:14.200
and a pattern of behavior that in retrospect looks like
499
00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:18.400
a textbook escalation from assault to rape to murder. In
500
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:22.880
nineteen seventy five, Steeples was arrested in Memphis after attacking
501
00:31:22.880 --> 00:31:25.839
a woman and her date. The woman told police that
502
00:31:25.880 --> 00:31:28.359
Steeples beat her and raped her in a van next
503
00:31:28.359 --> 00:31:31.839
to his apartment. For reasons that are not entirely clear,
504
00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:36.200
the charge was reduced from rape to assault. Steeples pleaded
505
00:31:36.240 --> 00:31:38.799
guilty and was sentenced to just one year in jail.
506
00:31:39.279 --> 00:31:42.599
When Steeples's wife, Tilly, filed for divorce in nineteen eighty one,
507
00:31:42.880 --> 00:31:46.319
she made a series of alarming allegations. She said that
508
00:31:46.359 --> 00:31:49.400
her estranged husband had beaten and attempted to rape a
509
00:31:49.400 --> 00:31:52.160
young woman in a makeshift teepee behind the couple's home
510
00:31:52.200 --> 00:31:56.160
in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. When Tilly found him in the act,
511
00:31:56.519 --> 00:31:59.079
she said he beat her and nearly choked her to death.
512
00:32:00.119 --> 00:32:02.960
Did not report the incident to police, saying that she
513
00:32:03.079 --> 00:32:06.319
was afraid of her husband. The young woman apparently felt
514
00:32:06.359 --> 00:32:10.599
the same way. No criminal charges were ever filed. Tilly
515
00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:14.079
also alleged in her divorce petition that Steeples bragged to
516
00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:18.119
her about frequently having sex with prostitutes who gave him
517
00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:22.720
venereal diseases that he then transmitted to Tilly. Steeples was
518
00:32:22.759 --> 00:32:28.039
also battling addictions to alcohol, cocaine, and gambling. These addictions
519
00:32:28.079 --> 00:32:30.799
were expensive, and they appeared to have been a driving
520
00:32:30.839 --> 00:32:35.000
factor behind his escalating criminal behavior. By nineteen ninety two,
521
00:32:35.319 --> 00:32:39.079
Steeples was a man with violent tendencies, a drug habit,
522
00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:43.240
and a desperate need for money. He also knew computers.
523
00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:51.519
On August tenth, nineteen eighty four, while in jail on
524
00:32:51.599 --> 00:32:54.640
drug charges and awaiting trial on the three murder charges,
525
00:32:55.240 --> 00:32:58.799
Tom Steeples was found dead in his cell. The cause
526
00:32:58.839 --> 00:33:02.079
of death was a cop caine induced heart attack. The
527
00:33:02.079 --> 00:33:05.680
circumstances of his death were unusual, to say the least.
528
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:09.839
Investigators determined that the lethal dose of cocaine had been
529
00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:13.759
supplied too Steeples by his ex wife Tilly, the same
530
00:33:13.799 --> 00:33:16.640
woman who had filed for divorce from him three years earlier,
531
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:21.000
who had described his violence and sexual predation in court documents.
532
00:33:21.559 --> 00:33:24.920
Despite the divorce filing, the two were still legally married,
533
00:33:25.319 --> 00:33:28.920
just separated. Tilly had mailed a package to another inmate
534
00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:32.440
at the jail, a man named Michael Evans. The package
535
00:33:32.519 --> 00:33:37.640
contained clothing with crack cocaine concealed inside. Evans provided the
536
00:33:37.720 --> 00:33:42.559
drug to Steeples. Steeples consumed it and died. Tilly had
537
00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:46.680
reportedly told acquaintances beforehand that her jailed husband was going
538
00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:49.440
to commit suicide and that she would collect his five
539
00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:53.160
hundred and eighty thousand dollars life insurance policy. I guess
540
00:33:53.240 --> 00:33:56.400
it was, in the most literal sense, an assisted suicide,
541
00:33:56.960 --> 00:33:59.559
orchestrated by a wife who stood a profit from her
542
00:33:59.640 --> 00:34:03.400
husband death and facilitated through the smuggling of narcotics into
543
00:34:03.400 --> 00:34:07.039
a county jail. But Tilly was eventually sentenced to six
544
00:34:07.119 --> 00:34:10.400
years in prison for her role, and I doubt she
545
00:34:10.480 --> 00:34:14.000
ever got that life insurance money. But with Tom Steeples
546
00:34:14.039 --> 00:34:17.840
now dead, the three murder charges died with him. He
547
00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:22.320
was never tried or convicted. The families of Ronnie Bingham
548
00:34:22.519 --> 00:34:25.280
and Rob and Kelly Phillips were denied the closure of
549
00:34:25.320 --> 00:34:29.880
a courtroom verdict and Steeples was never officially connected to
550
00:34:29.960 --> 00:34:33.679
the attack on Jeremy Rolf's and Heather Offelman. Meanwhile, the
551
00:34:33.800 --> 00:34:37.079
story of Tilly Steeples did not end with her prison
552
00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:41.199
sentence for the assisted suicide. After serving her time, she
553
00:34:41.320 --> 00:34:44.239
was later convicted in a separate fraud scheme that earned
554
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:47.800
her seventy months in federal prison and nine million dollars
555
00:34:47.800 --> 00:34:51.079
in restitution. She used a phony name to help run
556
00:34:51.119 --> 00:34:55.239
a securities company. Her status as a convicted felon apparently
557
00:34:55.280 --> 00:35:03.280
no obstacle. So was Tom Steeples, the man who called
558
00:35:03.320 --> 00:35:07.239
himself Tom Johnson. There are compelling reasons to think that
559
00:35:07.320 --> 00:35:11.480
he might have been. The m was strikingly similar, luring
560
00:35:11.559 --> 00:35:14.719
victims to motel rooms with a ruse, then attacking them
561
00:35:14.760 --> 00:35:18.239
with a blunt object. There was also the computer connection,
562
00:35:18.840 --> 00:35:23.280
the Tennessee connection, the first name, the physical resemblance to
563
00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:27.679
the composite sketch. The timeline Heather's murder in October nineteen
564
00:35:27.719 --> 00:35:31.000
eighty two, Ronnie Bingham's murder in October nineteen eighty three,
565
00:35:31.039 --> 00:35:34.320
than the Phillips murders in March nineteen ninety four suggest
566
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:36.960
an escalating pattern of violence from a man who is
567
00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:41.119
becoming more brazen and more dangerous with each crime. But
568
00:35:41.360 --> 00:35:45.239
there are also significant problems with the theory, the age
569
00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:48.840
discrepancy being the most obvious one. According to all of
570
00:35:48.880 --> 00:35:51.840
the witness reports, Tom Johnson appeared to be in his
571
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:57.000
twenties or early thirties. Tom Steeples was forty seven. Some
572
00:35:57.039 --> 00:36:00.440
people look younger than their age, but looking twenty years
573
00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:04.320
younger is a stretch. Jeremy Rolfs had spent hours with
574
00:36:04.400 --> 00:36:08.280
this man over multiple meetings in Nashville, in Murphy's Borough,
575
00:36:08.400 --> 00:36:12.519
and then in Marietta. He had ample opportunity to observe him,
576
00:36:12.920 --> 00:36:16.360
and while Jeremy wanted to view photos of Tom Steeples,
577
00:36:16.599 --> 00:36:19.840
police apparently did not arrange this, so we don't know
578
00:36:19.880 --> 00:36:24.079
what Jeremy's reaction would have been. No forensic evidence tied
579
00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:28.360
Tom Steeples to the Marrietta crime scene. No physical evidence,
580
00:36:28.639 --> 00:36:32.119
no fingerprints, no DNA, no trace of the stolen computer
581
00:36:32.440 --> 00:36:35.639
ever connected him to the attack. It was reported that
582
00:36:35.679 --> 00:36:39.840
Tom Johnson spoke with no Southern accent. Tom Steeples was
583
00:36:39.880 --> 00:36:43.199
born and raised in Nashville. Now, he very well might
584
00:36:43.239 --> 00:36:45.199
not have had a Southern accent. I don't know that,
585
00:36:45.639 --> 00:36:48.559
but considering he died thirty something years ago. It's kind
586
00:36:48.559 --> 00:36:50.400
of hard to go back and find audio of him.
587
00:36:50.760 --> 00:36:54.039
There is also one more thing that doesn't quite fit.
588
00:36:54.519 --> 00:36:57.599
In the attack on Jeremy and Heather, the assailant used
589
00:36:57.599 --> 00:36:59.639
a gun to control the victims, but a hammer to
590
00:36:59.679 --> 00:37:03.239
attack them. In the Phillips murders, the victims were also
591
00:37:03.320 --> 00:37:07.960
beaten with a blunt object, but Steeples also sexually assaulted
592
00:37:08.039 --> 00:37:12.239
Kelly Phillips and bound with ligatures. The sexual component was
593
00:37:12.280 --> 00:37:15.320
central to that attack. In fact, it appears to have
594
00:37:15.320 --> 00:37:19.880
been the primary motivation. There was no sexual component reported
595
00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:23.119
in the Uffelman attack. A Marietta crime appears to have
596
00:37:23.159 --> 00:37:26.960
been purely motivated by theft. The computer was the target,
597
00:37:27.320 --> 00:37:30.480
not Jeremy or Heather, who it seems was a last
598
00:37:30.519 --> 00:37:34.039
minute addition that Tom Johnson might not have been prepared for.
599
00:37:34.519 --> 00:37:37.800
The Nashville crime appears to have been motivated by predatory
600
00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:41.199
sexual violence, with the ruse of the music career serving
601
00:37:41.239 --> 00:37:43.679
as the bait to get close to the victims. At
602
00:37:43.719 --> 00:37:46.559
the end of the day, these are meaningfully different crimes,
603
00:37:46.719 --> 00:37:50.760
even if they do share some surface similarities. The question
604
00:37:50.920 --> 00:37:55.119
is whether those differences are significant enough to suggest different perpetrators,
605
00:37:55.559 --> 00:37:58.960
or whether they simply reflect a predator adapting his methods
606
00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:03.159
to different circumstanceances in different targets, perhaps one growing more
607
00:38:03.239 --> 00:38:10.079
reckless as the days go by. If Tom Steeples was
608
00:38:10.159 --> 00:38:14.199
not Tom Johnson, then the real killer is still unidentified
609
00:38:14.599 --> 00:38:19.800
and the window for identifying him has narrowed considerably. Jeremy Rolfs,
610
00:38:20.079 --> 00:38:23.719
the only surviving witness who could identify the attacker, did
611
00:38:23.719 --> 00:38:27.360
not live to see this case resolved. After graduating from
612
00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:31.599
Middle Tennessee State University, Jeremy joined the Peace Corps as
613
00:38:31.639 --> 00:38:35.079
a telecommunications advisor to the Ministry of Information for the
614
00:38:35.159 --> 00:38:39.480
Kingdom of Lesotho, a small country entirely surrounded by South Africa.
615
00:38:40.079 --> 00:38:43.679
He wanted to contribute to help people, like Heather would have.
616
00:38:44.239 --> 00:38:47.360
He wanted to apply his telecommunication skills in a place
617
00:38:47.400 --> 00:38:50.000
where they could make a difference. The people who knew
618
00:38:50.039 --> 00:38:52.079
him said that he had always wanted to join the
619
00:38:52.119 --> 00:38:56.119
Peace Corps. Sadly, on March thirty first, nineteen ninety seven,
620
00:38:56.519 --> 00:39:00.519
Jeremy was killed in an automobile accident in Windberg, South Africa.
621
00:39:01.039 --> 00:39:03.199
He was hit head on by a driver who had
622
00:39:03.239 --> 00:39:06.920
apparently fallen asleep at the wheel his mother, Alma, who
623
00:39:06.920 --> 00:39:09.199
had been visiting him, was a passenger in the car.
624
00:39:09.719 --> 00:39:14.360
She was injured but survived. Jeremy Rolfs was twenty seven
625
00:39:14.440 --> 00:39:16.840
years old at the time of his death. In the
626
00:39:16.960 --> 00:39:21.039
years that followed, Jeremy's mother, Alma poured her grief into
627
00:39:21.079 --> 00:39:24.719
poetry and into correspondence with other families who had lost
628
00:39:24.800 --> 00:39:27.559
loved ones in the Peace Corps. Her letters became a
629
00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:32.000
lifeline for other parents navigating the same unimaginable loss. One
630
00:39:32.039 --> 00:39:35.639
woman who corresponded with Almah for years wrote that emptying
631
00:39:35.679 --> 00:39:37.920
their souls to each other in those letters was the
632
00:39:37.960 --> 00:39:39.960
biggest help she had in the early years of her
633
00:39:39.960 --> 00:39:43.480
own grief. They had never met in person, they lived
634
00:39:43.480 --> 00:39:46.559
on opposite coast, but they understood each other in a
635
00:39:46.559 --> 00:39:49.920
way that almost no one else could. Colleagues who had
636
00:39:49.920 --> 00:39:53.679
worked with Jeremy at the MPSU radio station remembered coming
637
00:39:53.719 --> 00:39:56.480
back to his page on the Fallen Peace Corps Volunteer's
638
00:39:56.559 --> 00:40:00.960
Memorial project year after year, reading the story and poems
639
00:40:01.039 --> 00:40:04.320
left in his memory. One person wrote, I just can't
640
00:40:04.360 --> 00:40:06.800
seem to get you off my mind. For some reason,
641
00:40:06.840 --> 00:40:09.440
I've been thinking about you and Heather more and more.
642
00:40:09.840 --> 00:40:12.599
I'm remembering how precious the two of you were together.
643
00:40:13.559 --> 00:40:16.360
The two people who had loved each other most, who
644
00:40:16.360 --> 00:40:19.119
had driven through the night together on a routine delivery,
645
00:40:19.559 --> 00:40:22.159
who had been planning their wedding, who had sat in
646
00:40:22.239 --> 00:40:26.079
a Denny's and Marietta eating breakfast while the stranger prepared
647
00:40:26.119 --> 00:40:29.119
to kill them, were both dead before either of them
648
00:40:29.199 --> 00:40:33.679
turned thirty. One was murdered, the other survived that attack,
649
00:40:34.079 --> 00:40:37.400
dedicated himself to service, and was killed by a sleeping
650
00:40:37.480 --> 00:40:41.079
driver on a South African highway. Five years later, one
651
00:40:41.119 --> 00:40:45.599
of Jeremy's teachers established the Jeremy Rolf's Memorial Scholarship Fund
652
00:40:45.679 --> 00:40:50.519
at MPSU, so now there were two scholarships, one for Heather,
653
00:40:50.760 --> 00:40:54.199
one for Jeremy, created in memory of two young people
654
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:57.840
whose greatest shared trait was their desire to help others.
655
00:41:12.559 --> 00:41:15.239
The attack on Jeremy Rolf's in the murder of Heather
656
00:41:15.320 --> 00:41:19.920
Effelman remains officially unsolved. It is classified as an open
657
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.360
investigation with the Marietta, Georgia Police Department. Over the years,
658
00:41:24.800 --> 00:41:29.159
various true crime podcasts, blogs, and online communities have revisited
659
00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:31.679
the case, and the discussion always comes back to the
660
00:41:31.719 --> 00:41:36.119
same unresolvable question. Was this the work of Tom Steeples
661
00:41:36.400 --> 00:41:41.079
or someone else. Amateur investigators have noted the resemblance between
662
00:41:41.159 --> 00:41:45.280
Tom steeples known photograph and the composite sketch. Others have
663
00:41:45.360 --> 00:41:49.360
pointed to the Dodge dynasty with Tennessee plates, a detail
664
00:41:49.440 --> 00:41:53.639
that could theoretically be cross referenced with vehicle registration records
665
00:41:53.679 --> 00:41:56.920
from the era, though whether such records still exist is
666
00:41:56.960 --> 00:41:59.840
an open question. There are those who believe that Then
667
00:42:00.360 --> 00:42:05.039
died with Jeremy. Some accounts suggest that investigators felt Jeremy
668
00:42:05.119 --> 00:42:08.159
knew more than he was willing to share publicly, that
669
00:42:08.239 --> 00:42:11.360
he was unwilling to fully cooperate for reasons that were
670
00:42:11.400 --> 00:42:14.679
never made clear, whether this was a function of trauma
671
00:42:14.920 --> 00:42:18.199
or distrust toward the police, or of something else. Entirely,
672
00:42:18.599 --> 00:42:21.440
the fact remains that the only person who sat across
673
00:42:21.480 --> 00:42:24.679
from the man calling himself Tom Johnson, who watched him
674
00:42:24.719 --> 00:42:28.280
demonstrate his knowledge of computers, who shook his hand and
675
00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:31.800
loaded equipment into his car and made small talk, That
676
00:42:31.880 --> 00:42:35.320
person is gone. The woman who was seen entering room
677
00:42:35.400 --> 00:42:39.440
three thirty two before Jeremy and Tether arrived, the possible
678
00:42:39.440 --> 00:42:43.920
accomplice whose complaint about noise was dismissed as a domestic dispute.
679
00:42:44.199 --> 00:42:47.960
She was never identified. If she exists, she may hold
680
00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:51.079
answers that no one else can provide. And if Tom
681
00:42:51.159 --> 00:42:54.920
Johnson was not Tom Steeples, then he was a man
682
00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:58.320
in his twenties or early thirties back in nineteen ninety two,
683
00:42:58.639 --> 00:43:01.920
which would put him in his fifties or early sixties today.
684
00:43:02.599 --> 00:43:06.320
He is possibly still alive. If so, he got away
685
00:43:06.360 --> 00:43:09.599
with murdering a twenty two year old woman and nearly
686
00:43:09.679 --> 00:43:12.519
killing her fiance, and he has been living with that
687
00:43:12.639 --> 00:43:16.480
for more than thirty years. The stolen Apple Quadron nine
688
00:43:16.679 --> 00:43:20.119
fifty with serial number F six' two one six' FOUR
689
00:43:20.239 --> 00:43:24.280
j w six seven one was never recovered in nineteen,
690
00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:27.519
ninety two it was state of. The art today it
691
00:43:27.559 --> 00:43:31.000
would be a. Bulky relic if it still exists somewhere
692
00:43:31.159 --> 00:43:34.760
gathering dust in an attic or, storage unit it might
693
00:43:34.880 --> 00:43:37.280
be the last physical link to the man Who. Killed
694
00:43:37.320 --> 00:43:41.159
heatheruffelman there is also the question of whether the filled
695
00:43:41.239 --> 00:43:44.320
transaction from a week before, the attack when a man
696
00:43:44.360 --> 00:43:47.760
Calling Himself tom johnson arranged to buy a different computer
697
00:43:47.840 --> 00:43:51.119
and then never, showed up might. Be Connected if johnson
698
00:43:51.280 --> 00:43:54.519
was a different Person From. Tom steeples this earlier attempt
699
00:43:54.599 --> 00:43:58.400
could represent a, learning curve a first aborted run at
700
00:43:58.440 --> 00:44:01.800
a scheme that he refined and executed the. Following week
701
00:44:02.119 --> 00:44:05.920
the seller from that earlier abandoned transaction may have information
702
00:44:05.960 --> 00:44:09.039
about the buyer that was never fully explored. By investigators
703
00:44:09.559 --> 00:44:13.519
the case has been Covered By, unsolved mysteries multiple true
704
00:44:13.519 --> 00:44:18.079
crime podcasts before, this one and online, investigative communities but
705
00:44:18.199 --> 00:44:21.840
no new forensic breakthroughs have ever. Been announced in the
706
00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:25.840
age of genetic genealogy and COLD case. Dna initiatives it's
707
00:44:25.880 --> 00:44:27.840
worth noting that the hammer found of the scene was
708
00:44:27.880 --> 00:44:31.800
wiped clean of prints and the room was. Similarly sanitized
709
00:44:32.360 --> 00:44:36.079
whether ANY recoverable dna exist in the remaining evidence. Is
710
00:44:36.199 --> 00:44:40.280
Unclear The Marietta police department maintains the case as an.
711
00:44:40.320 --> 00:44:44.079
Open investigation if you have any information about the true
712
00:44:44.119 --> 00:44:47.039
identity of the man who Called Himself, tom johnson you
713
00:44:47.119 --> 00:44:51.079
are encouraged to Contact, The Marietta Georgia police department at
714
00:44:51.320 --> 00:44:55.239
seven seven zero seven nine four five three. Zero zero
715
00:44:55.719 --> 00:44:59.039
until such a time that, justices served the Stories Of
716
00:44:59.079 --> 00:45:37.880
heather Alfeman And jeremy ralfs will. Remain unresolved. Thank you
717
00:45:37.960 --> 00:45:40.920
for listening to this Episode. Of unresolved if any of
718
00:45:40.920 --> 00:45:42.960
you would like to stay in touch with, the podcast
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make sure to look us up on. Social media you
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could find Us At unresolved Pod on instagram Or at
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Unresolved On. Blue sky you can send in any Emails
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to Michael at unresolved dot THAT'S m i c h
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e a L at unresolved. Dot me you can send
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in any voicemails or text to eight three one two
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hundred thirty five. To fifty if you want to help
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dozens of exclusive bonus episodes very similar to, today's story
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where i tackle. Solved, CASES now i would like to
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take a moment and thank the producers of the show
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who support it each month Over. On patreon these amazing
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producer and if you're not interested in doing that or
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just can't at, the MOMENT then i totally. Get it
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please head on Over to Spotify Or apple podcasts or
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wherever you're listening right now and leave the podcast a
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like leaving just preferably, something good as those positive reviews
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help others discover the podcast and they're always. Appreciated anyhow
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that's enough for me until, next, Time everyone please stay
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SAFE and i will talk to, you later
1
00:00:03.720 --> 00:00:07.160
This episode contains graphic content that may not be suitable
2
00:00:07.160 --> 00:00:11.320
for all ages. Listener discretion is advised. If you or
3
00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:15.039
someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available,
4
00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:18.519
call or text nine eight eight, or chat with someone
5
00:00:18.559 --> 00:00:22.039
at nine eight eight lifeline dot org. Those outside of
6
00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:24.839
the US, reach out to someone at your local crisis
7
00:00:24.839 --> 00:00:35.320
center or hotline. Please do not suffer in silence. In
8
00:00:35.399 --> 00:00:38.799
September of nineteen ninety two, a small music and video
9
00:00:38.840 --> 00:00:43.759
production company in Nashville, Tennessee, placed two classified advertisements in
10
00:00:43.799 --> 00:00:48.159
a local trade publication called the Trader's Post. The company
11
00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:50.920
was called the Halsey Company, and they were selling a
12
00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:53.920
piece of equipment that, in nineteen ninety two was about
13
00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:57.799
as high end as consumer technology got. It was an
14
00:00:57.799 --> 00:01:03.200
Apple Macintosh Quadrant fifty computer system, complete with a twenty
15
00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:07.560
four inch high resolution color monitor. The system was used
16
00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:12.000
for desktop publishing and videotape editing. The asking price was
17
00:01:12.079 --> 00:01:16.280
around twenty four thousand dollars or best offer, though the
18
00:01:16.439 --> 00:01:20.159
final sale price would end up being negotiated to thirty
19
00:01:20.200 --> 00:01:25.079
one thousand. Let me say that again, thirty one thousand
20
00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:29.920
dollars in nineteen ninety two money for a computer To
21
00:01:29.959 --> 00:01:32.959
put that in context, the median household income in the
22
00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:36.959
United States that year was about thirty thousand dollars. This
23
00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:40.480
was a machine built for professional grade work, and it
24
00:01:40.599 --> 00:01:43.719
costs more than most Americans earned in a year. You
25
00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:46.760
could buy a new car for less. Hell, you could
26
00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:49.920
put a down payment on a house. Back in nineteen
27
00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:54.120
ninety two, selling something this expensive meant advertising in trade
28
00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:57.359
publications and waiting for the phone to ring. There was
29
00:01:57.400 --> 00:02:01.879
no eBay, no Facebook marketplace, no Craigslist, nothing really with
30
00:02:02.079 --> 00:02:06.000
buyer ratings and sellar protections and PayPal holding funds in
31
00:02:06.159 --> 00:02:09.759
escrow until delivery was confirmed. Back then, you just placed
32
00:02:09.759 --> 00:02:13.400
a classified ad, someone called you, and you arranged to
33
00:02:13.439 --> 00:02:16.360
meet a stranger to exchange a very expensive piece of
34
00:02:16.400 --> 00:02:19.879
equipment for a very large check or cash if you
35
00:02:19.879 --> 00:02:23.479
could get it. The entire transaction was built on trust,
36
00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:27.000
on the assumption that both parties were who they said
37
00:02:27.039 --> 00:02:30.599
they were. The Halsey Company put a twenty two year
38
00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:34.759
old named Jeremy Rolfs in charge of the sale. Jeremy
39
00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:37.319
was a part time videotape editor for the company and
40
00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:41.439
a senior at Middle Tennessee State University in Murphysboro, where
41
00:02:41.479 --> 00:02:45.039
he was majoring in mass communications. He was young and
42
00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:49.960
bright and a technical prodigy. He managed the student television
43
00:02:49.960 --> 00:02:55.240
station at MTSU, running nightly newscast and original programming. People
44
00:02:55.280 --> 00:02:58.240
who knew him described him as a talented super genius
45
00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:01.879
who kept things running smoothly. He was also engaged to
46
00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:05.759
another student from MTSU, a twenty two year old English
47
00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:09.960
major named Heather Offelman. Heather worked at the school's radio station,
48
00:03:10.439 --> 00:03:14.560
w MOT, and she tutored in the developmental studies writing lab.
49
00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:17.000
The people who knew her said that she was one
50
00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:20.400
of the nicest people you could ever meet. Her greatest joy,
51
00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:24.199
by all accounts, was helping others. She and Jeremy had
52
00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:27.800
met while working at the student television station. They had
53
00:03:27.840 --> 00:03:31.360
since fallen in love and gotten engaged. They were planning
54
00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:35.479
a wedding for the following spring. On October seventh, nineteen
55
00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:39.000
ninety two, a man called the Halsey Company in response
56
00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:41.680
to one of the classified ads. He said he was
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00:03:41.719 --> 00:03:46.919
a freelance computer programmer and a database consultant. He sounded professional.
58
00:03:47.560 --> 00:03:51.800
He asked detailed, knowledgeable questions about the system, the kind
59
00:03:51.879 --> 00:03:55.520
of questions only someone who genuinely understood computers would ask.
60
00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:59.680
Over the following days, Jeremy met with this man several times,
61
00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:03.159
first in Nashville for a demonstration of the computer and
62
00:04:03.199 --> 00:04:08.039
its operating system, and then in Murphysboro to answer additional questions.
63
00:04:08.520 --> 00:04:12.439
The man was cordial and articulate. He was clearly familiar
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00:04:12.439 --> 00:04:16.000
with the technology. Everything about him suggested that he was
65
00:04:16.040 --> 00:04:19.639
a serious buyer. After some haggling, a price was agreed
66
00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:23.920
upon thirty one thousand dollars. The man asked that the
67
00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:27.639
equipment be delivered to his office in Marietta, Georgia, a
68
00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:30.920
suburb of Atlanta, about two hundred and thirty miles south
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00:04:30.920 --> 00:04:35.199
of Nashville. The Halsey Company agreed, and Jeremy was assigned
70
00:04:35.279 --> 00:04:38.560
to make this delivery. The man he was delivering this
71
00:04:38.639 --> 00:04:43.040
computer system too, called himself Tom Johnson, but as Jeremy
72
00:04:43.079 --> 00:05:10.160
would soon learn, that was not his real name. Welcome
73
00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:14.519
to Unresolved. I'm your host, Michael Wheelan. If this is
74
00:05:14.519 --> 00:05:18.279
your first time listening to Unresolved, then welcome. If you're
75
00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:22.199
a repeat listener, then welcome back. Either way, I appreciate
76
00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:24.240
you clicking on the link and giving the show a listen.
77
00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:27.920
If you find this episode interesting or well done, please
78
00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:30.439
make sure to try and support the podcast in some way.
79
00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:34.000
You can head to patreon dot com slash Unresolved pod,
80
00:05:34.319 --> 00:05:36.639
where you can help support the show and get access
81
00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:42.120
to bonus episodes, add free episodes, exclusive podcast and producer credits.
82
00:05:42.639 --> 00:05:44.720
If you don't want to go that route, you can
83
00:05:44.759 --> 00:05:47.480
simply leave a five star rating and review on Spotify
84
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or Apple Podcast, or share the show with a friend
85
00:05:50.920 --> 00:05:53.600
or family member that might be interested. Do you have
86
00:05:53.639 --> 00:05:56.920
a coworker or sibling that enjoys true crime or mystery,
87
00:05:57.399 --> 00:06:00.199
let them know about it. Whatever you do, thank you
88
00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:04.399
for listening to and supporting Unresolved. Now, without any further ado,
89
00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:13.920
let's get back into today's story. The original plan was
90
00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:17.600
for Jeremy to deliver the computer to Tom Johnson's office,
91
00:06:17.959 --> 00:06:22.279
which Johnson said was located in an industrial park in Marietta, Georgia,
92
00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:26.519
But shortly before the delivery date, Johnson called and changed
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00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:30.040
the arrangement. He said the directions to the industrial park
94
00:06:30.079 --> 00:06:33.759
were complicated and difficult to follow. He suggested they meet
95
00:06:33.800 --> 00:06:37.160
at a motel instead, a night's in off of Interstate
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00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:41.000
seventy five in Marietta, and go from there. Jeremy did
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00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.680
not think much of it. He had spent plenty of
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00:06:43.720 --> 00:06:48.319
time wandering through industrial parks looking for unmarked addresses. Meeting
99
00:06:48.360 --> 00:06:52.519
at a motel first seemed reasonable enough. In nineteen ninety two,
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00:06:52.639 --> 00:06:55.079
this kind of arrangement did not carry the same red
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00:06:55.120 --> 00:06:58.279
flags that it might carry today. If a person said
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00:06:58.279 --> 00:07:01.160
they were a freelance computer prob Grammar with an office
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00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:04.519
in an industrial park, you either believed them or you didn't.
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00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:08.800
And this Tom Johnson had given Jeremy Rolfs no reason
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00:07:08.839 --> 00:07:12.560
not to believe him. He had seemed legitimate, pleasant across
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00:07:12.639 --> 00:07:16.879
multiple meetings. Because of other work projects, Jeremy planned to
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00:07:16.920 --> 00:07:20.120
make the two hundred and thirty mile drive overnight. He
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00:07:20.160 --> 00:07:23.319
had been working for roughly thirty hours on another project
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00:07:23.399 --> 00:07:27.480
and was exhausted. His fiance, Heather, decided to come along,
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00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:31.800
partly because they enjoyed taking trips together and partly because
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00:07:31.879 --> 00:07:33.759
she was worried that he would fall asleep at the
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00:07:33.800 --> 00:07:36.639
wheel if he went alone. So at one thirty in
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00:07:36.680 --> 00:07:40.279
the morning on October twenty fourth, nineteen ninety two, Jeremy
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00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:43.360
and Heather loaded the Apple Quadron nine to fifty into
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00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:47.160
their car and set off from Murphysboro, Tennessee, for Marietta, Georgia.
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00:07:47.720 --> 00:07:51.000
It was a six hour drive. Heather did most of
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00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:56.480
the driving while Jeremy tried to rest. Jeremy and Heather
118
00:07:56.639 --> 00:07:59.839
arrived at the Night's Inn motel in Marietta at approximately
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00:08:00.079 --> 00:08:03.040
seven thirty in the morning on October twenty fourth. They
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00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:06.199
had driven through the night. They were tired, but they
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00:08:06.199 --> 00:08:10.040
were there and the transaction was almost complete. They went
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to room three thirty two, which was registered to Tom Johnson.
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00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:17.959
Johnson greeted them and explained that his business partner would
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00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.879
be arriving shortly with a certified check for the computer.
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00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:23.920
He said it would be somewhere between thirty and forty
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00:08:23.920 --> 00:08:27.519
five minutes. Jeremy and Heather decided to go get breakfast
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00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:31.319
while they waited. There was a Denny's nearby. They left
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00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:34.360
the motel and ate breakfast, then returned. About half an
129
00:08:34.360 --> 00:08:39.600
hour later. Tom Johnson's business partner still hadn't arrived. Johnson
130
00:08:39.639 --> 00:08:41.639
told them he had spoken to his partner by phone
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00:08:41.639 --> 00:08:43.279
and that the partner was on his way and would
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00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:46.840
be there shortly. Johnson suggested that they go ahead and
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00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:49.840
load the computer into his car while they waited. His
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00:08:49.960 --> 00:08:54.039
car was a dark colored Dodge Dynasty with Tennessee license plates.
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00:08:54.720 --> 00:08:57.720
Either black cherry or dark brown with a red interior.
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00:08:58.279 --> 00:09:01.799
Jeremy and Heather helped him load the equipment. At this point,
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00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:04.720
it was approximately eight o'clock in the morning. The three
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00:09:04.759 --> 00:09:07.600
of them then returned to the motel room. They made
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00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:11.279
small talk for about twenty minutes, mostly discussing the impact
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00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:14.200
of computers on society and how they were changing the
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00:09:14.200 --> 00:09:17.080
world back then in nineteen ninety two. I bet they
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00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:20.799
had no idea. The man that Jeremy and Heather were
143
00:09:20.840 --> 00:09:26.159
talking to, Tom Johnson, seemed warm and friendly. Throughout their conversation.
144
00:09:26.360 --> 00:09:29.639
He continued to display his impressive knowledge of computers and
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00:09:29.720 --> 00:09:34.679
computing systems. Nothing about his behavior was alarming. After about
146
00:09:34.720 --> 00:09:38.440
twenty minutes, though, Jeremy told Tom Johnson that if his
147
00:09:38.559 --> 00:09:41.320
business partner did not arrive soon, they would have to
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00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:44.519
cancel the sale. After all, they had driven through the night,
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00:09:44.799 --> 00:09:48.159
they were tired, they needed to get back. It was
150
00:09:48.200 --> 00:09:54.720
at this moment that Tom Johnson's demeanor changed completely. The
151
00:09:54.799 --> 00:09:58.600
strange man pulled a small caliber handgun and pointed it
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00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:01.440
at Jeremy and Heather. He ordered them to pull the
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00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:03.840
bedspreads off of the beds and to roll themselves up
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00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:08.080
in them. They complied. Johnson had Jeremy turn so that
155
00:10:08.120 --> 00:10:11.840
he was facing away from Heather. Then Jeremy heard a
156
00:10:11.879 --> 00:10:14.720
loud buzzing in his ear and the room began to spin.
157
00:10:15.320 --> 00:10:17.559
Johnson had struck him in the back of the head
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00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:20.600
with something. As he would find out, it was a
159
00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:25.360
claw hammer, still wrapped in its original plastic packaging. Jeremy
160
00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:30.159
went down but remained conscious. Tom Johnson then turned to
161
00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:35.200
Heather and struck her with the hammer. Heather began screaming. Jeremy,
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00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:39.360
disoriented and bleeding, told Heather to stop screaming, believing that
163
00:10:39.399 --> 00:10:42.039
if she was quiet, Tom Johnson would just take what
164
00:10:42.080 --> 00:10:46.039
he wanted and leave. Instead, Tom Johnson came back to
165
00:10:46.159 --> 00:10:48.600
Jeremy and hit him in the head several more times.
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00:10:49.240 --> 00:10:53.080
Then he returned to Heather. Jeremy remained conscious through the
167
00:10:53.279 --> 00:10:57.559
entire attack. He couldn't move, but he could see, and
168
00:10:57.679 --> 00:11:00.799
what he saw was Tom Johnson, after he had finished
169
00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:03.879
with Heather, calmly walking to the motel room counter and
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00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:07.519
dusting it to remove fingerprints. This man had just beaten
171
00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:10.600
two people nearly to death with a hammer, and his
172
00:11:10.679 --> 00:11:14.919
immediate next step was to methodically wipe down surfaces. This
173
00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:17.879
was clearly someone who had planned for this exact moment
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00:11:18.120 --> 00:11:21.480
and was executing a checklist. As soon as Tom Johnson
175
00:11:21.559 --> 00:11:25.120
left the room, Jeremy worked to free himself from the bedspread.
176
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He was covered in blood. He crawled over to Heather
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and told her that he was going to get help,
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that they were going to be all right. What he
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00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:34.399
saw when he reached her would haunt him for the
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00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:38.200
rest of his life. Jeremy staggered out of the motel room,
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bloodied and barely able to stand. A motel maid saw
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00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:45.399
him and called nine one one. Jeremy and Heather were
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00:11:45.440 --> 00:11:49.919
both rushed to the hospital. Heather Offelmann was pronounced dead
184
00:11:50.080 --> 00:11:52.879
just a few hours later, at around twelve thirty in
185
00:11:52.919 --> 00:11:57.799
the afternoon. She never regained consciousness after the attack. Jeremy
186
00:11:57.919 --> 00:12:00.320
was released from the hospital three days later, ter on
187
00:12:00.360 --> 00:12:04.799
October twenty seventh. He survived, but suffered vertigo and partial
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00:12:04.840 --> 00:12:07.120
hearing loss as a result of the hammer blows to
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00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:12.320
his head. The physical injuries would heal mostly the psychological
190
00:12:12.320 --> 00:12:31.519
ones never would. The murder weapon was found on the
191
00:12:31.559 --> 00:12:35.360
floor of room three thirty two, a claw hammer, still
192
00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:39.440
wrapped in its original plastic packaging, with no fingerprints on it.
193
00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:43.399
A card identifying the hammer's weight and its skew number.
194
00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:46.960
The stock keeping unit number assigned by the retailers was
195
00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:50.759
still attached, but investigators were unable to identify the store
196
00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:54.679
where it had been purchased. No fingerprints were found anywhere
197
00:12:54.720 --> 00:12:57.799
in the room. It seems that the man calling himself
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Tom Johnson had been thorough. Investigators would note several unusual
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aspects of the crime. The attacker had allowed himself to
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be seen in the parking lot of a busy motel
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during broad daylight. He had displayed a handgun, but chose
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not to use it as the murder weapon, instead opting
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for a hammer, a more personal, more violent method of
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killing that carried a higher risk of the victim surviving,
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but also a quieter one. He had loaded the computer
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into his car before the attack, in full view of
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anyone who might have been looking it. Had also meticulously
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wiped the room for fingerprints before leaving. The whole thing
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suggested a level of planning that was chilling in its calculation.
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But there was a detail from earlier that morning that
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investigators found deeply troubling. The manager of the nights in
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motel told police about something that had happened approximately an
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hour before the attack. While Jeremy and Heather were at
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the Dennis having breakfast, a woman had come to the
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motel's front do complaining about excessive noise coming from the
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room registered to this Tom Johnson. The front desk clerk
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dismissed it as a domestic dispute and did not investigate. Separately,
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another motel guest reported seeing a man and a woman
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enter Room three thirty two together. Investigators believed that this
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woman may have been an accomplice, someone who is involved
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in the scheme and who may have tried to intervene
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or abort the plan when she realized Tom Johnson intended
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to commit violence. The noise complaint, if it came from her,
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could have been a paniced attempt to get someone to
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come to the room and disrupt whatever was about to happen,
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or it could have been the sound of a confrontation
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between two people who disagreed about how far the plan
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was supposed to go. Either way, the front desk clerk's
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decision to dismiss the complaint as a domestic dispute and
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not investigate may have been a missed opportunity to prevent
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what came next. This woman was never identified. If she
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was an accomplice, she has kept her silence for more
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than three decades now. If she was a bystander or
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an unwilling participant, she may be carrying a burden that
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could help solve a murder. And there was another troubling
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detail that investigators would soon learn. One week before the
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attack on Jeremy and Heather, a man calling himself Tom
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Johnson had made a similar arrangement for the purchase of
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another computer from a different seller. He had also set
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up a meeting, but never showed. Investigators believed that he
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may have been working up the nerve, testing the plan,
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rehearsing the logistics, before backing out at the last moment
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before going through with it. This detail has always struck
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me as one of the most revealing pieces of evidence
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in this entire case. I think it tells us something
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about the psychology of the attacker. This was someone who
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had to build up to it. He had the plan,
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the alias, maybe even the hammer already, and the first
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time he couldn't do it, he drove to wherever the
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meeting was supposed to happen, and he turned around and
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went home. A week later he tried again, and even
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then he had to stall moremultiple times because it seems
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like he couldn't build up the courage to just do it,
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but then eventually he went through with it. To me,
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that suggests a person who was conflicted about what he
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was about to do, but not conflicted enough to stop
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the loss of Heather Uffelman devastated her family, her friends,
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and the MPSU community. She was a senior who was
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just weeks away from graduating with a degree in English.
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She was engaged to be married. She was a twenty
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two year old who, by every account, was orienting her
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entire life around helping other people. She tutored students who
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were struggling with writing. She worked at the campus radio station.
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She drove through the night to keep the person she
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loved most from falling asleep at the wheel. The town
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of Marietta, Georgia, was also shaken by the crime. Local
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newspapers ran headlines about the shocking murder at the night's
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in motel one that many writsidents drove past every day.
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The idea that someone had been beaten to death with
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a hammer in a motel room off the interstate in
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broad daylight while other guests were sleeping or ate breakfast
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just feet away was profoundly unsettling for Jeremy, though. The
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aftermath was awaking nightmare. He had survived the initial attack,
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but he carried the physical and psychological scars of what
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had happened in that motel room. He had been conscious
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for the entire assault. He had heard Heather screaming, He
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had seen what was done to her, and he had
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been unable to stop it. He had told her to
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stop screaming, believing it would make the attacker leave. Instead,
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it hadn't made any difference. He would live with that
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for the rest of his life. On December twentieth, nineteen
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ninety two, less than two months after the attack, Jeremy
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wrote an essay for the Tennesseean newspaper titled When It
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Happens to You. In it, he wrote about the experience
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of becoming a crime victim, about the way people read
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stories like his and assume they'll always happen to someone else.
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He wrote about Heather's greatest joy being the act of
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helping others about a memorial scholarship they had created in
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her name at mtsu'd help students who wanted to go
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to college, but could not afford it. He wrote about
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wanting to be helpless no more. Jeremy and Heather's families
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established the Heather Offfulman Memorial Scholarship at Middle Tennessee State University.
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It would be awarded to students in need of financial aid,
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the kind of people that Heather had spent her young
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life trying to help. The investigation into Heather's murder and
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the assault on Jeremy was aggressive but frustrating. Investigators had
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a surviving victim who could describe the attacker with pretty
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decent detail. As a result, they had a composite sketch
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put together. They also had a description of the suspects
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car a dark Dodge Dynasty with Tennessee plates. They had
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the skew number from the hammer. They had testimony from
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the motel desk clerk who had gotten a good look
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at the man who checked in as Tom Johnson. Based
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on Jeremy's recollections and sightings by motel personnel and other guests,
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the man calling himself Tom Johnson appeared to be in
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his twenties or early thirties. He stood approximately six feet
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tall and weighed between one hundred and sixty and one
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hundred and seventy five pounds. He had sandy brown hair
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and sometimes wore glasses. He had no Southern accent. At
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the time of the attack, he was wearing an expensive
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pair of boots made of either snake or alligator skin.
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Investigators attempted to track the sales of hundreds of Apple
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Quadron nine to fifty computers, trying to find one that
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might have been resold by the killer. They couldn't trace
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any of them to the crime. The computer was never recovered.
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Its CPU serial number F six two one sixty four
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j W six seven one one was circulated to law
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enforcement agencies in computer retailers, but nothing came back. If
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Johnson resold the computer, he did so in a way
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that left no trail. If he kept it, he kept
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it hidden. And if he destroyed it. If thirty one
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thousand dollars worth of equipment was simply discarded, then the
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entire crime was committed for nothing more than the act
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of committing it. That possibility is more disturbing than it
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might initially seem. If the computer was the motive, then
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the attack was a calculated robbery gone to its violent extreme.
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But if the computer was never resold. If the money
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was never realized, then the question shifts. Was the computer
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the real target or was the violence itself? The point?
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Was Tom Johnson a thief who killed to cover his
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tracks or was he something else entirely? The case was
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featured on Unsolved Mysteries in April of nineteen eighty four,
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which generated tips but led no breakthrough. A ten thousand
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dollars reward was offered for information leading to the identification
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and arrest of Tom Johnson, and then in the spring
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of nineteen ninety four, right around the time that Unsolved
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Mystery segment aired, in fact, something happened that made investigators
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take a very hard look at a man named Thomas E.
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Steeples.
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On the evening of March seventh, nineteen ninety four, about
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seventeen months after Heather Uffelman's murder, a young married couple
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walked into a bar called the Stagecoach Lounge in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Their names were Rob and Kelly Phillips. Rob was twenty four,
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Kelly was twenty eight. They were newlywed who had driven
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over two thousand miles from San Diego, California, to Nashville
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in a battered old GMC pickup truck. Rob was an
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aspiring country musician, a Navy veteran who had served aboard
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the aircraft carrier USSU Constellation before deciding to pursue a
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career as a singer guitarist. His wife, Kelly believed in
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him completely. They had arrived in Nashville that afternoon with
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almost no money, running on dreams and fumes. The couple
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had already been burned once on the road. Before reaching Tennessee.
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They had been scammed by someone who held Rob at
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gunpoint and demanded four thousand dollars, money that a tearful
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Kelly had to have her family wire. Their family's nest
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egg was gone. They were personally down to their last
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few dollars, but Robin Kelly still trusted people. They still
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believed in their dream. They had come to Nashville to
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make it, and nothing that had happened so far had
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shaken that faith. They checked into an Ocono Lodge motel
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on Murphysborough Road. The sign out front read where the
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stars stay. To Rob, it was a good omen. Kelly
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agreed that evening the Stagecoach Lounge was hosting an open
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mic amateur talent night. Rob took the stage with his
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Yamaha acoustic guitar and performed some country covers. Kelly sat
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at a table in the front row and beamed. This
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was exactly why they had come out to Nashville. This
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was the opening night of their dream. Sitting near Kelly
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was a middle aged man who introduced himself as a
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record producer. He was charming and complimentary about Rob's talents.
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He bought them drinks. Round after round of drinks, He
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talked about getting Rob's studio time, about introducing him to
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the right people in the Nashville music scene. He elicited
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details about where they were staying, what room they were in.
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The man's name was Tom Steeples. He was not a
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record producer. In fact, he was the owner of a
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small computer company. He also had a history that if
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Robin Kelly had known about, it would have sent them
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running from that bar. After about two hours of buttering
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up the young couple, Steeples said good night and told
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them that he would call their room when he had
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more deep detales about studio time. Rob and Kelly went
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back to Room one twelve at the Econo Lodge, elated.
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They had been in Nashville for less than twelve hours,
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and it already seemed like Rob was about to get
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his big break. When the motel chambermaid opened the door
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for her housekeeping round the next morning, Tuesday, March eighth,
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at approximately nine o'clock in the morning, she found a
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scene of absolute horror. Rob and Kelly Phillips were both dead.
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They had been beaten to death with a plunt object.
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Kelly had been sexually assaulted. She had ligature marks on
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her wrist, she had been tied up. The evidence suggested
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that whoever killed them had forced Kelly to watch as
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he bludgeoned Rob to death before raping her and beating
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her to death as well. The investigation into the Phillips
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murder initially moved slowly, but in May nineteen ninety four,
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DNA evidence from the crime scene was matched to one
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Thomas E. Scheeple's body. Fluid samples taken from Steeples with
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a search warrant were linked through DNA analysis to evidence
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found in the Econo lodge room. By this point, Steeples
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was already under investigation for another murder. On October seventeenth,
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nineteen ninety three, roughly one year after Heather Offelman's murder
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and five months before the Phillips killings. A passing driver
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had noticed smoke coming from a Nashville bar called The
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Corral Club at around five o'clock in the morning. When
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police arrived, they found the bar's owner, forty six year
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old Ronnie Bingham, seated on a chair that had been
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set on fire. The rest of the bar was untouched.
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Only Bingham and the chair beneath him were burning. A
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gas can sat nearby. An autopsy revealed Bingham had been
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shot to death before being set ablaze. A thirty eight
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caliber bullet was found lodged in the left side of
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his neck. The fire had been set to destroy evidence,
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not to burn down the building. A customer at the
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bar told police that when he had left at around
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one a m. Only two people remained, Ronnie Bingham and
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another man he recalled being named Tom. At the scene,
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police found the business card of Tom Steeples, a detail
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so brazen it almost defies belief. Investigators determined that Steeples
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had been trying to sell computer software to Bingham. Some
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accounts suggest that the two had previously been business partners
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and that the relationship had soured. Police located a man
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who said he had sold Tom Steeples a thirty eight
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caliber handgun approximately one month before Ronnie Bingham's murder. This
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man had previously fired the gun in his backyard, and
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a projectile recovered from a tree stump was found to
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match the ballistics of the bullet that killed Ronnie Bingham.
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By the summer of nineteen ninety four, Tom Steeples was
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charged with three murders, Ronnie Bingham, Rob Phillips, and Kelly Phillips.
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He was also charged with the rape of Kelly Phillips.
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Nashville Police detective Bill Pridemore Junior summed up the department's
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assessment of Steeples. He is a cold, the blooded man.
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Steeples had been arrested after a short pursuit during which
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police found crack cocaine in his car. His drug habit,
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his gambling debts, and his increasingly reckless behavior all pointed
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00:27:13.720 --> 00:27:16.359
to a man whose life was spiraling out of control
437
00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:19.359
and who seemed to be leaving bodies in his wake.
438
00:27:21.799 --> 00:27:25.599
This is where investigators looking at the Heather Offfelman case
439
00:27:25.759 --> 00:27:29.359
sat up and started to pay attention the similarities between
440
00:27:29.359 --> 00:27:33.079
the attack on Jeremy Rolf's and Heather Affelman in Marrietta, Georgia,
441
00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:35.960
and the murders of Rob and Kelly Phillips in Nashville,
442
00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:40.400
Tennessee were striking. In both cases, a couple was killed
443
00:27:40.440 --> 00:27:43.680
inside of a motel room. In both cases, the attacker
444
00:27:43.759 --> 00:27:47.119
used a blunt object to beat the victims, and in
445
00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:50.799
both cases the perpetrator used charm and deception to gain
446
00:27:50.839 --> 00:27:54.240
the victim's trust before attacking. And then there were the
447
00:27:54.319 --> 00:27:58.240
specifics about Tom Steeples himself. I mean, right off the bat,
448
00:27:58.440 --> 00:28:01.480
his first name was Tom, the same first name used
449
00:28:01.519 --> 00:28:04.839
by the man who called himself Tom Johnson. He owned
450
00:28:04.839 --> 00:28:08.359
a computer company in Nashville, the same city where Tom
451
00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:11.680
Johnson had answered the classified ad for the Apple Quadron
452
00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:16.039
nine fifty. He was knowledgeable about computers. He bore a
453
00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:20.039
resemblance to the composite sketch of Tom Johnson. His body
454
00:28:20.079 --> 00:28:23.519
structure was similar to the description that Jeremy Rolfs had given.
455
00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:27.599
The car Tom Johnson had been driving had Tennessee license plates.
456
00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:33.119
Steeples was from Tennessee. The pattern of behavior also seemed
457
00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:37.039
eerily consistent. He was a man who operated through deception,
458
00:28:37.519 --> 00:28:41.559
presenting himself as something he wasn't. A record producer, a
459
00:28:41.599 --> 00:28:45.680
computer consultant, a business man. The real Tom Steeples was
460
00:28:45.720 --> 00:28:49.519
a crack addict with a gambling problem, a violent criminal history,
461
00:28:49.599 --> 00:28:53.240
and a growing desperation for money. But this leads us
462
00:28:53.279 --> 00:28:56.759
to one of the most frustrating aspects of the entire case.
463
00:28:57.400 --> 00:29:02.039
According to reports, investigators did not consider Tom Steeples a
464
00:29:02.119 --> 00:29:06.160
viable suspect in the heather Offfelman case, primarily because of
465
00:29:06.200 --> 00:29:09.079
his age. Tom Johnson had appeared to be in his
466
00:29:09.160 --> 00:29:12.720
twenties or early thirties. Tom Steeples, though, was born in
467
00:29:12.799 --> 00:29:15.480
nineteen forty four, which would have made him at least
468
00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:18.160
forty seven years old at the time of the Marietta attack,
469
00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:21.799
significantly older than the man Jeremy and the motel staff
470
00:29:21.799 --> 00:29:27.359
had described. But age estimation by witnesses is notoriously unreliable,
471
00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:31.720
particularly under stressful circumstances or when the observer is young.
472
00:29:32.240 --> 00:29:35.160
A twenty two year old estimating a stranger's age after
473
00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:38.400
being awake for thirty plus hours might easily misjudged by
474
00:29:38.400 --> 00:29:42.799
ten or fifteen years, and Tom Steeples, based on available photographs,
475
00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:46.119
was not a man who looked obviously middle aged. The
476
00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:49.519
resemblance to the composite sketch was noted by multiple people
477
00:29:49.519 --> 00:29:54.279
who examined both images. No forensic evidence linked Tom Steeples
478
00:29:54.319 --> 00:29:58.240
to the Heather Uffelman crime scene. Articles from the Tennesseean
479
00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:01.519
in nineteen ninety four state plainly the investigators did not
480
00:30:01.720 --> 00:30:05.640
consider him a suspect. But the absence of forensic evidence
481
00:30:05.839 --> 00:30:08.839
in a case where the attacker meticulously wiped down every
482
00:30:08.839 --> 00:30:11.319
surface in the room before leaving is not the same
483
00:30:11.359 --> 00:30:14.960
as exculpatory evidence. It tells us that the man calling
484
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:19.279
himself Tom Johnson was careful. To understand why so many
485
00:30:19.319 --> 00:30:23.279
people who have followed this case remained unsatisfied with that conclusion,
486
00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:29.640
you need to understand who Tom Steeples was. Thomas E.
487
00:30:29.799 --> 00:30:33.839
Steeples was born in November nineteen forty four in Nashville, Tennessee.
488
00:30:34.559 --> 00:30:37.559
On the surface, he appeared to be a successful businessman,
489
00:30:38.079 --> 00:30:40.920
a married father of two who owned a computer company.
490
00:30:41.440 --> 00:30:45.079
He was articulate and socially adept. He could walk into
491
00:30:45.079 --> 00:30:47.359
a bar and charm a young couple into believing that
492
00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:50.079
he was a record producer, or set across from a
493
00:30:50.079 --> 00:30:54.559
college student, and convincingly discussed database consulting. He was, by
494
00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:58.200
all accounts, a skilled manipulator, a man who could project
495
00:30:58.240 --> 00:31:02.279
whatever version of himself a city situation required, but beneath
496
00:31:02.319 --> 00:31:06.599
that surface was something much darker. Steeples had a documented
497
00:31:06.680 --> 00:31:10.319
history of violence against women, stretching back nearly twenty years,
498
00:31:10.680 --> 00:31:14.200
and a pattern of behavior that in retrospect looks like
499
00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:18.400
a textbook escalation from assault to rape to murder. In
500
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:22.880
nineteen seventy five, Steeples was arrested in Memphis after attacking
501
00:31:22.880 --> 00:31:25.839
a woman and her date. The woman told police that
502
00:31:25.880 --> 00:31:28.359
Steeples beat her and raped her in a van next
503
00:31:28.359 --> 00:31:31.839
to his apartment. For reasons that are not entirely clear,
504
00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:36.200
the charge was reduced from rape to assault. Steeples pleaded
505
00:31:36.240 --> 00:31:38.799
guilty and was sentenced to just one year in jail.
506
00:31:39.279 --> 00:31:42.599
When Steeples's wife, Tilly, filed for divorce in nineteen eighty one,
507
00:31:42.880 --> 00:31:46.319
she made a series of alarming allegations. She said that
508
00:31:46.359 --> 00:31:49.400
her estranged husband had beaten and attempted to rape a
509
00:31:49.400 --> 00:31:52.160
young woman in a makeshift teepee behind the couple's home
510
00:31:52.200 --> 00:31:56.160
in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. When Tilly found him in the act,
511
00:31:56.519 --> 00:31:59.079
she said he beat her and nearly choked her to death.
512
00:32:00.119 --> 00:32:02.960
Did not report the incident to police, saying that she
513
00:32:03.079 --> 00:32:06.319
was afraid of her husband. The young woman apparently felt
514
00:32:06.359 --> 00:32:10.599
the same way. No criminal charges were ever filed. Tilly
515
00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:14.079
also alleged in her divorce petition that Steeples bragged to
516
00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:18.119
her about frequently having sex with prostitutes who gave him
517
00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:22.720
venereal diseases that he then transmitted to Tilly. Steeples was
518
00:32:22.759 --> 00:32:28.039
also battling addictions to alcohol, cocaine, and gambling. These addictions
519
00:32:28.079 --> 00:32:30.799
were expensive, and they appeared to have been a driving
520
00:32:30.839 --> 00:32:35.000
factor behind his escalating criminal behavior. By nineteen ninety two,
521
00:32:35.319 --> 00:32:39.079
Steeples was a man with violent tendencies, a drug habit,
522
00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:43.240
and a desperate need for money. He also knew computers.
523
00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:51.519
On August tenth, nineteen eighty four, while in jail on
524
00:32:51.599 --> 00:32:54.640
drug charges and awaiting trial on the three murder charges,
525
00:32:55.240 --> 00:32:58.799
Tom Steeples was found dead in his cell. The cause
526
00:32:58.839 --> 00:33:02.079
of death was a cop caine induced heart attack. The
527
00:33:02.079 --> 00:33:05.680
circumstances of his death were unusual, to say the least.
528
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:09.839
Investigators determined that the lethal dose of cocaine had been
529
00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:13.759
supplied too Steeples by his ex wife Tilly, the same
530
00:33:13.799 --> 00:33:16.640
woman who had filed for divorce from him three years earlier,
531
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:21.000
who had described his violence and sexual predation in court documents.
532
00:33:21.559 --> 00:33:24.920
Despite the divorce filing, the two were still legally married,
533
00:33:25.319 --> 00:33:28.920
just separated. Tilly had mailed a package to another inmate
534
00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:32.440
at the jail, a man named Michael Evans. The package
535
00:33:32.519 --> 00:33:37.640
contained clothing with crack cocaine concealed inside. Evans provided the
536
00:33:37.720 --> 00:33:42.559
drug to Steeples. Steeples consumed it and died. Tilly had
537
00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:46.680
reportedly told acquaintances beforehand that her jailed husband was going
538
00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:49.440
to commit suicide and that she would collect his five
539
00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:53.160
hundred and eighty thousand dollars life insurance policy. I guess
540
00:33:53.240 --> 00:33:56.400
it was, in the most literal sense, an assisted suicide,
541
00:33:56.960 --> 00:33:59.559
orchestrated by a wife who stood a profit from her
542
00:33:59.640 --> 00:34:03.400
husband death and facilitated through the smuggling of narcotics into
543
00:34:03.400 --> 00:34:07.039
a county jail. But Tilly was eventually sentenced to six
544
00:34:07.119 --> 00:34:10.400
years in prison for her role, and I doubt she
545
00:34:10.480 --> 00:34:14.000
ever got that life insurance money. But with Tom Steeples
546
00:34:14.039 --> 00:34:17.840
now dead, the three murder charges died with him. He
547
00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:22.320
was never tried or convicted. The families of Ronnie Bingham
548
00:34:22.519 --> 00:34:25.280
and Rob and Kelly Phillips were denied the closure of
549
00:34:25.320 --> 00:34:29.880
a courtroom verdict and Steeples was never officially connected to
550
00:34:29.960 --> 00:34:33.679
the attack on Jeremy Rolf's and Heather Offelman. Meanwhile, the
551
00:34:33.800 --> 00:34:37.079
story of Tilly Steeples did not end with her prison
552
00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:41.199
sentence for the assisted suicide. After serving her time, she
553
00:34:41.320 --> 00:34:44.239
was later convicted in a separate fraud scheme that earned
554
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:47.800
her seventy months in federal prison and nine million dollars
555
00:34:47.800 --> 00:34:51.079
in restitution. She used a phony name to help run
556
00:34:51.119 --> 00:34:55.239
a securities company. Her status as a convicted felon apparently
557
00:34:55.280 --> 00:35:03.280
no obstacle. So was Tom Steeples, the man who called
558
00:35:03.320 --> 00:35:07.239
himself Tom Johnson. There are compelling reasons to think that
559
00:35:07.320 --> 00:35:11.480
he might have been. The m was strikingly similar, luring
560
00:35:11.559 --> 00:35:14.719
victims to motel rooms with a ruse, then attacking them
561
00:35:14.760 --> 00:35:18.239
with a blunt object. There was also the computer connection,
562
00:35:18.840 --> 00:35:23.280
the Tennessee connection, the first name, the physical resemblance to
563
00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:27.679
the composite sketch. The timeline Heather's murder in October nineteen
564
00:35:27.719 --> 00:35:31.000
eighty two, Ronnie Bingham's murder in October nineteen eighty three,
565
00:35:31.039 --> 00:35:34.320
than the Phillips murders in March nineteen ninety four suggest
566
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:36.960
an escalating pattern of violence from a man who is
567
00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:41.119
becoming more brazen and more dangerous with each crime. But
568
00:35:41.360 --> 00:35:45.239
there are also significant problems with the theory, the age
569
00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:48.840
discrepancy being the most obvious one. According to all of
570
00:35:48.880 --> 00:35:51.840
the witness reports, Tom Johnson appeared to be in his
571
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:57.000
twenties or early thirties. Tom Steeples was forty seven. Some
572
00:35:57.039 --> 00:36:00.440
people look younger than their age, but looking twenty years
573
00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:04.320
younger is a stretch. Jeremy Rolfs had spent hours with
574
00:36:04.400 --> 00:36:08.280
this man over multiple meetings in Nashville, in Murphy's Borough,
575
00:36:08.400 --> 00:36:12.519
and then in Marietta. He had ample opportunity to observe him,
576
00:36:12.920 --> 00:36:16.360
and while Jeremy wanted to view photos of Tom Steeples,
577
00:36:16.599 --> 00:36:19.840
police apparently did not arrange this, so we don't know
578
00:36:19.880 --> 00:36:24.079
what Jeremy's reaction would have been. No forensic evidence tied
579
00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:28.360
Tom Steeples to the Marrietta crime scene. No physical evidence,
580
00:36:28.639 --> 00:36:32.119
no fingerprints, no DNA, no trace of the stolen computer
581
00:36:32.440 --> 00:36:35.639
ever connected him to the attack. It was reported that
582
00:36:35.679 --> 00:36:39.840
Tom Johnson spoke with no Southern accent. Tom Steeples was
583
00:36:39.880 --> 00:36:43.199
born and raised in Nashville. Now, he very well might
584
00:36:43.239 --> 00:36:45.199
not have had a Southern accent. I don't know that,
585
00:36:45.639 --> 00:36:48.559
but considering he died thirty something years ago. It's kind
586
00:36:48.559 --> 00:36:50.400
of hard to go back and find audio of him.
587
00:36:50.760 --> 00:36:54.039
There is also one more thing that doesn't quite fit.
588
00:36:54.519 --> 00:36:57.599
In the attack on Jeremy and Heather, the assailant used
589
00:36:57.599 --> 00:36:59.639
a gun to control the victims, but a hammer to
590
00:36:59.679 --> 00:37:03.239
attack them. In the Phillips murders, the victims were also
591
00:37:03.320 --> 00:37:07.960
beaten with a blunt object, but Steeples also sexually assaulted
592
00:37:08.039 --> 00:37:12.239
Kelly Phillips and bound with ligatures. The sexual component was
593
00:37:12.280 --> 00:37:15.320
central to that attack. In fact, it appears to have
594
00:37:15.320 --> 00:37:19.880
been the primary motivation. There was no sexual component reported
595
00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:23.119
in the Uffelman attack. A Marietta crime appears to have
596
00:37:23.159 --> 00:37:26.960
been purely motivated by theft. The computer was the target,
597
00:37:27.320 --> 00:37:30.480
not Jeremy or Heather, who it seems was a last
598
00:37:30.519 --> 00:37:34.039
minute addition that Tom Johnson might not have been prepared for.
599
00:37:34.519 --> 00:37:37.800
The Nashville crime appears to have been motivated by predatory
600
00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:41.199
sexual violence, with the ruse of the music career serving
601
00:37:41.239 --> 00:37:43.679
as the bait to get close to the victims. At
602
00:37:43.719 --> 00:37:46.559
the end of the day, these are meaningfully different crimes,
603
00:37:46.719 --> 00:37:50.760
even if they do share some surface similarities. The question
604
00:37:50.920 --> 00:37:55.119
is whether those differences are significant enough to suggest different perpetrators,
605
00:37:55.559 --> 00:37:58.960
or whether they simply reflect a predator adapting his methods
606
00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:03.159
to different circumstanceances in different targets, perhaps one growing more
607
00:38:03.239 --> 00:38:10.079
reckless as the days go by. If Tom Steeples was
608
00:38:10.159 --> 00:38:14.199
not Tom Johnson, then the real killer is still unidentified
609
00:38:14.599 --> 00:38:19.800
and the window for identifying him has narrowed considerably. Jeremy Rolfs,
610
00:38:20.079 --> 00:38:23.719
the only surviving witness who could identify the attacker, did
611
00:38:23.719 --> 00:38:27.360
not live to see this case resolved. After graduating from
612
00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:31.599
Middle Tennessee State University, Jeremy joined the Peace Corps as
613
00:38:31.639 --> 00:38:35.079
a telecommunications advisor to the Ministry of Information for the
614
00:38:35.159 --> 00:38:39.480
Kingdom of Lesotho, a small country entirely surrounded by South Africa.
615
00:38:40.079 --> 00:38:43.679
He wanted to contribute to help people, like Heather would have.
616
00:38:44.239 --> 00:38:47.360
He wanted to apply his telecommunication skills in a place
617
00:38:47.400 --> 00:38:50.000
where they could make a difference. The people who knew
618
00:38:50.039 --> 00:38:52.079
him said that he had always wanted to join the
619
00:38:52.119 --> 00:38:56.119
Peace Corps. Sadly, on March thirty first, nineteen ninety seven,
620
00:38:56.519 --> 00:39:00.519
Jeremy was killed in an automobile accident in Windberg, South Africa.
621
00:39:01.039 --> 00:39:03.199
He was hit head on by a driver who had
622
00:39:03.239 --> 00:39:06.920
apparently fallen asleep at the wheel his mother, Alma, who
623
00:39:06.920 --> 00:39:09.199
had been visiting him, was a passenger in the car.
624
00:39:09.719 --> 00:39:14.360
She was injured but survived. Jeremy Rolfs was twenty seven
625
00:39:14.440 --> 00:39:16.840
years old at the time of his death. In the
626
00:39:16.960 --> 00:39:21.039
years that followed, Jeremy's mother, Alma poured her grief into
627
00:39:21.079 --> 00:39:24.719
poetry and into correspondence with other families who had lost
628
00:39:24.800 --> 00:39:27.559
loved ones in the Peace Corps. Her letters became a
629
00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:32.000
lifeline for other parents navigating the same unimaginable loss. One
630
00:39:32.039 --> 00:39:35.639
woman who corresponded with Almah for years wrote that emptying
631
00:39:35.679 --> 00:39:37.920
their souls to each other in those letters was the
632
00:39:37.960 --> 00:39:39.960
biggest help she had in the early years of her
633
00:39:39.960 --> 00:39:43.480
own grief. They had never met in person, they lived
634
00:39:43.480 --> 00:39:46.559
on opposite coast, but they understood each other in a
635
00:39:46.559 --> 00:39:49.920
way that almost no one else could. Colleagues who had
636
00:39:49.920 --> 00:39:53.679
worked with Jeremy at the MPSU radio station remembered coming
637
00:39:53.719 --> 00:39:56.480
back to his page on the Fallen Peace Corps Volunteer's
638
00:39:56.559 --> 00:40:00.960
Memorial project year after year, reading the story and poems
639
00:40:01.039 --> 00:40:04.320
left in his memory. One person wrote, I just can't
640
00:40:04.360 --> 00:40:06.800
seem to get you off my mind. For some reason,
641
00:40:06.840 --> 00:40:09.440
I've been thinking about you and Heather more and more.
642
00:40:09.840 --> 00:40:12.599
I'm remembering how precious the two of you were together.
643
00:40:13.559 --> 00:40:16.360
The two people who had loved each other most, who
644
00:40:16.360 --> 00:40:19.119
had driven through the night together on a routine delivery,
645
00:40:19.559 --> 00:40:22.159
who had been planning their wedding, who had sat in
646
00:40:22.239 --> 00:40:26.079
a Denny's and Marietta eating breakfast while the stranger prepared
647
00:40:26.119 --> 00:40:29.119
to kill them, were both dead before either of them
648
00:40:29.199 --> 00:40:33.679
turned thirty. One was murdered, the other survived that attack,
649
00:40:34.079 --> 00:40:37.400
dedicated himself to service, and was killed by a sleeping
650
00:40:37.480 --> 00:40:41.079
driver on a South African highway. Five years later, one
651
00:40:41.119 --> 00:40:45.599
of Jeremy's teachers established the Jeremy Rolf's Memorial Scholarship Fund
652
00:40:45.679 --> 00:40:50.519
at MPSU, so now there were two scholarships, one for Heather,
653
00:40:50.760 --> 00:40:54.199
one for Jeremy, created in memory of two young people
654
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:57.840
whose greatest shared trait was their desire to help others.
655
00:41:12.559 --> 00:41:15.239
The attack on Jeremy Rolf's in the murder of Heather
656
00:41:15.320 --> 00:41:19.920
Effelman remains officially unsolved. It is classified as an open
657
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.360
investigation with the Marietta, Georgia Police Department. Over the years,
658
00:41:24.800 --> 00:41:29.159
various true crime podcasts, blogs, and online communities have revisited
659
00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:31.679
the case, and the discussion always comes back to the
660
00:41:31.719 --> 00:41:36.119
same unresolvable question. Was this the work of Tom Steeples
661
00:41:36.400 --> 00:41:41.079
or someone else. Amateur investigators have noted the resemblance between
662
00:41:41.159 --> 00:41:45.280
Tom steeples known photograph and the composite sketch. Others have
663
00:41:45.360 --> 00:41:49.360
pointed to the Dodge dynasty with Tennessee plates, a detail
664
00:41:49.440 --> 00:41:53.639
that could theoretically be cross referenced with vehicle registration records
665
00:41:53.679 --> 00:41:56.920
from the era, though whether such records still exist is
666
00:41:56.960 --> 00:41:59.840
an open question. There are those who believe that Then
667
00:42:00.360 --> 00:42:05.039
died with Jeremy. Some accounts suggest that investigators felt Jeremy
668
00:42:05.119 --> 00:42:08.159
knew more than he was willing to share publicly, that
669
00:42:08.239 --> 00:42:11.360
he was unwilling to fully cooperate for reasons that were
670
00:42:11.400 --> 00:42:14.679
never made clear, whether this was a function of trauma
671
00:42:14.920 --> 00:42:18.199
or distrust toward the police, or of something else. Entirely,
672
00:42:18.599 --> 00:42:21.440
the fact remains that the only person who sat across
673
00:42:21.480 --> 00:42:24.679
from the man calling himself Tom Johnson, who watched him
674
00:42:24.719 --> 00:42:28.280
demonstrate his knowledge of computers, who shook his hand and
675
00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:31.800
loaded equipment into his car and made small talk, That
676
00:42:31.880 --> 00:42:35.320
person is gone. The woman who was seen entering room
677
00:42:35.400 --> 00:42:39.440
three thirty two before Jeremy and Tether arrived, the possible
678
00:42:39.440 --> 00:42:43.920
accomplice whose complaint about noise was dismissed as a domestic dispute.
679
00:42:44.199 --> 00:42:47.960
She was never identified. If she exists, she may hold
680
00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:51.079
answers that no one else can provide. And if Tom
681
00:42:51.159 --> 00:42:54.920
Johnson was not Tom Steeples, then he was a man
682
00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:58.320
in his twenties or early thirties back in nineteen ninety two,
683
00:42:58.639 --> 00:43:01.920
which would put him in his fifties or early sixties today.
684
00:43:02.599 --> 00:43:06.320
He is possibly still alive. If so, he got away
685
00:43:06.360 --> 00:43:09.599
with murdering a twenty two year old woman and nearly
686
00:43:09.679 --> 00:43:12.519
killing her fiance, and he has been living with that
687
00:43:12.639 --> 00:43:16.480
for more than thirty years. The stolen Apple Quadron nine
688
00:43:16.679 --> 00:43:20.119
fifty with serial number F six' two one six' FOUR
689
00:43:20.239 --> 00:43:24.280
j w six seven one was never recovered in nineteen,
690
00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:27.519
ninety two it was state of. The art today it
691
00:43:27.559 --> 00:43:31.000
would be a. Bulky relic if it still exists somewhere
692
00:43:31.159 --> 00:43:34.760
gathering dust in an attic or, storage unit it might
693
00:43:34.880 --> 00:43:37.280
be the last physical link to the man Who. Killed
694
00:43:37.320 --> 00:43:41.159
heatheruffelman there is also the question of whether the filled
695
00:43:41.239 --> 00:43:44.320
transaction from a week before, the attack when a man
696
00:43:44.360 --> 00:43:47.760
Calling Himself tom johnson arranged to buy a different computer
697
00:43:47.840 --> 00:43:51.119
and then never, showed up might. Be Connected if johnson
698
00:43:51.280 --> 00:43:54.519
was a different Person From. Tom steeples this earlier attempt
699
00:43:54.599 --> 00:43:58.400
could represent a, learning curve a first aborted run at
700
00:43:58.440 --> 00:44:01.800
a scheme that he refined and executed the. Following week
701
00:44:02.119 --> 00:44:05.920
the seller from that earlier abandoned transaction may have information
702
00:44:05.960 --> 00:44:09.039
about the buyer that was never fully explored. By investigators
703
00:44:09.559 --> 00:44:13.519
the case has been Covered By, unsolved mysteries multiple true
704
00:44:13.519 --> 00:44:18.079
crime podcasts before, this one and online, investigative communities but
705
00:44:18.199 --> 00:44:21.840
no new forensic breakthroughs have ever. Been announced in the
706
00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:25.840
age of genetic genealogy and COLD case. Dna initiatives it's
707
00:44:25.880 --> 00:44:27.840
worth noting that the hammer found of the scene was
708
00:44:27.880 --> 00:44:31.800
wiped clean of prints and the room was. Similarly sanitized
709
00:44:32.360 --> 00:44:36.079
whether ANY recoverable dna exist in the remaining evidence. Is
710
00:44:36.199 --> 00:44:40.280
Unclear The Marietta police department maintains the case as an.
711
00:44:40.320 --> 00:44:44.079
Open investigation if you have any information about the true
712
00:44:44.119 --> 00:44:47.039
identity of the man who Called Himself, tom johnson you
713
00:44:47.119 --> 00:44:51.079
are encouraged to Contact, The Marietta Georgia police department at
714
00:44:51.320 --> 00:44:55.239
seven seven zero seven nine four five three. Zero zero
715
00:44:55.719 --> 00:44:59.039
until such a time that, justices served the Stories Of
716
00:44:59.079 --> 00:45:37.880
heather Alfeman And jeremy ralfs will. Remain unresolved. Thank you
717
00:45:37.960 --> 00:45:40.920
for listening to this Episode. Of unresolved if any of
718
00:45:40.920 --> 00:45:42.960
you would like to stay in touch with, the podcast
719
00:45:43.199 --> 00:45:45.480
make sure to look us up on. Social media you
720
00:45:45.519 --> 00:45:48.679
could find Us At unresolved Pod on instagram Or at
721
00:45:48.880 --> 00:45:52.440
Unresolved On. Blue sky you can send in any Emails
722
00:45:52.480 --> 00:45:56.280
to Michael at unresolved dot THAT'S m i c h
723
00:45:56.599 --> 00:46:00.639
e a L at unresolved. Dot me you can send
724
00:46:00.639 --> 00:46:03.480
in any voicemails or text to eight three one two
725
00:46:03.599 --> 00:46:06.159
hundred thirty five. To fifty if you want to help
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00:46:06.199 --> 00:46:09.320
support the show and get access to exclusive bonus content
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that you won't find, anywhere else please head to patreon
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dot Com Slash unresolved pod or click on the link
729
00:46:15.239 --> 00:46:17.880
below in the. Show notes there you can listen to
730
00:46:17.960 --> 00:46:22.039
dozens of exclusive bonus episodes very similar to, today's story
731
00:46:22.159 --> 00:46:25.760
and you can also listen to the Exclusive, podcast RESOLVED
732
00:46:25.840 --> 00:46:28.760
where i tackle. Solved, CASES now i would like to
733
00:46:28.760 --> 00:46:31.119
take a moment and thank the producers of the show
734
00:46:31.280 --> 00:46:34.840
who support it each month Over. On patreon these amazing
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to join that list, of names please head on over
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producer and if you're not interested in doing that or
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00:47:27.280 --> 00:47:29.599
just can't at, the MOMENT then i totally. Get it
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please head on Over to Spotify Or apple podcasts or
748
00:47:33.039 --> 00:47:35.440
wherever you're listening right now and leave the podcast a
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positive rating, and review hopefully something with five stars or two,
750
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like leaving just preferably, something good as those positive reviews
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help others discover the podcast and they're always. Appreciated anyhow
753
00:47:52.440 --> 00:47:55.840
that's enough for me until, next, Time everyone please stay
754
00:47:55.880 --> 00:47:57.840
SAFE and i will talk to, you later