Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi there, everybody, and welcome to 2020 The After Show. I'm Deborah Roberts, and I'm so happy you're with us today. I have to tell you, if you saw 2020's episode this past week, you know it was quite riveting. And if you didn't, you are in for some interesting details.
Chapter 2: What tragic event is central to Jessie's story?
i have to say that as a correspondent but also as a mom there are certain stories that just really stick with me particularly when they involve young people and in this case the story that we are talking about involves a 19 year old college student Jessie Blodgett, who was found murdered. She was a talented musician from Hartford, Wisconsin, a theater person.
And on July 15th, 2013, her mom went into her bedroom in her home and found her daughter cold, blue, not breathing,
obviously she was distraught by that but then once she called 9-1-1 she noticed that she had marks around her neck that appeared to be strangulation she had been killed in her own home this is a story that was just absolutely horrific for this community jesse murdered in her home and the man responsible for the crime was essentially right there hiding in plain sight
Well, today we're going to talk not only about the story and what you may have seen if you saw our 2020 episode, but we're going to also provide some bonus material, some information that you didn't see in our 2020 episode. It was called Her Last Note, and it details the disturbing relationship between Jessie and her killer, which surprised so many people there, the emotional connection.
twists and turns of this story. We're going to take you inside the courtroom. All of that from Stephanie Ramos, the correspondent who was on this story. And I always enjoy talking to you, Steph, because you have not only such insight, but you also bring such passion to these stories and such storytelling. Thank you. And this is like your, what, second or third story with 2020 now? Yes, yes.
This is my second. You're on it. I passed the first test. It's been incredible. I love working with this team. These stories, they take you through these twists and turns. And I also get to meet so many people that are involved with this, that have lived this. And it's an honor to be able to tell their story. Let's start off by talking about you as a mom. I'm a mom.
And this story really kind of gave me goosebumps because, you know... I have kids who are 20s and your kids are younger, but a 19-year-old girl full of promise at home. She's in between semesters at school, Jessie. And tell me about you as a mom when you approach this story. I mean, obviously, we have to try to be distant in a way, but it's very hard, isn't it? Right, it is.
It is hard to compartmentalize, but we have to as journalists.
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Chapter 3: How did Jessie Blodgett's murder impact her community?
But you're absolutely right. Going into this story, you... feel for the family. And you obviously never want and want to envision being in a position like that. But Jessie was this young woman doing all the right things. She had such a promising future.
Like you mentioned, she was a college student and trying to stay busy teaching students piano, giving piano lessons and joining the local theater group. And as a mom, you know, when you think about her mother finding her in her bedroom, I mean, and the 911 call that we heard, Stephanie. It's awful. It's absolutely awful and heartbreaking. You hear Jesse's mother in that 911 call.
You hear her pain. You hear her desperation. And just her trying to help her daughter, but also knowing that she's gone. She's saying that she's gone. And while we were there visiting Hartford, we went to the house. Jessie's family doesn't live there anymore, but the family that does live there now was gracious enough to let us see the room.
And it was, it gives you chills because this is where her mother found her. This is where she lost her baby girl, their only child. It is absolutely heartbreaking. It's very difficult to listen to, but you just, you can feel her pain, especially being a parent. It's never anything that you want to,
envision or or or wish on anybody it's awful unfathomable it's gut-wrenching and and as a mom you have to say this this is horrific obviously you don't want to you know go through anything like this but it is our job to to share this story they jesse's parents they want to keep her memory alive and they They have done so much to do that. And that's why we're there.
We're there to tell that story. And to highlight that. And we're going to talk more about what they did after the fact later. But let's just talk about the community. Okay, Hartford, Wisconsin, I never heard of it before. Small town America, the Midwest. What did you find when you got there in terms of the community and the reaction to such a tragic story? Yeah. Hartford, Wisconsin. Lovely town.
Like you said, small town. We got a chance to visit a lot of the spaces that Jessie would often visit from her theater group. She had been in the production of Fiddler on the Roof. We got to visit the theater and interview folks there and also a coffee shop that she would Frequent, often. After school, she would go there with friends, she would play the piano.
And you really got a sense that this is a tight-knit community. Everybody knows each other. They know what happened to Jesse Blodgett.
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Chapter 4: What details about Jessie's life were revealed in the investigation?
Everybody was shaken when they learned of this. And they're also trying to keep Jesse's memory alive. One of the things that was interesting about the case when we portrayed it on television was that it was unique in how police actually solved the case. Talk to us a little bit about the unique ways that police actually began to sort of put this together. Yes.
So days before Jesse's murder, there had been an attack in a park nearby, just a few miles away. This young woman named Melissa was in the park walking her dog.
she noticed a vehicle had been parked there for for quite some time she didn't think anything of it like you said this was this was a town this was an area even surrounding neighborhoods there they weren't known for crime so melissa's walking her dog through the park she's coming back to her car and she notices the same vehicle that had been parked there when she first arrived she looks
and notices there's a young man sitting in the driver's seat. And she explained to us that he looked at her and then kind of hid back in the car. She starts walking toward her car, still not panicked. She still thinks nothing of it. She thinks nothing of it. She continues to walk to her car, and something kind of tells her, turn around. She feels a presence, and there he was.
There was this young man right behind her holding a knife. This attack happened days before Jesse's murder. And it would prove to be significant, too. The police began to kind of look at this. Now, when they heard from Melissa about what had happened, tell us a little bit about this because there's this van. Police began questioning a guy by the name of Dan Bartelt.
Tell us how he entered the picture. Right. So Melissa's at the park and she is now fighting off this young man. Doesn't know who he is. He's got a knife. She is fighting for her life. Melissa, at this point, has grabbed the knife blade. She's holding that. That's impressive. Impressive. Absolutely impressive. At this point, this young man asks her, can I just go? He's given up.
He's he's figured, OK, this woman is not going to she's not going down. She's fighting for her life. He turns around and he leaves. She grabs the knife. She runs to her car, tosses it in her car and takes off. She's dating a guy at the time. She runs to his parents' house. That's where they call police. And that's when police get involved and start asking her what happened.
And initially police didn't believe her, which is they really thought she was kind of making it up. They couldn't believe that such a violent attack would have taken place in her town. And that she was able to, you know, overpower the guy and grab the knife and all of that. But ultimately, they do start looking. They look at this vehicle, and they are able to track it down.
They're able to figure out who owns this vehicle, and that leads them to Dan Bartelt. So a few weeks before Melissa's attack, a police officer notices this vehicle parked there. at the park, makes a note of the license plate and moves on. Now, when he hears that this young woman, Melissa, has been attacked in that same park. He starts to put those two together.
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Chapter 5: What unique methods did police use to solve Jessie's case?
It's so tragic just to think that he knew her family so well, he knew Jessie so well, was such close friends with her and everybody else. And like we've discussed this, when you're part of a theater group, I'm a theater kid. You're tight. You've got a group that is focused on the arts. You all share this passion. There's a camaraderie there. There's a camaraderie. So here we see Jessie and Dan
they dated in high school briefly but they remained friends and they they wrote music together they sang together they had this this shared talent and so many of jesse's friends shared with us that they they would look at the two of them and say gosh you're so lucky to have each other even as friends now you're so lucky to be able to share in all that you do together together and uh it's it's just really tragic that clearly he was seeing her in a different way yeah
Yeah, which is so, so disturbing. Well, there's more there. So you stay here. Don't go anywhere, which you won't. And don't you go anywhere because when we come back, we're going to share some bonus information, bonus details about this story that you didn't hear about before. More information about Jesse and Dan's relationship and also details from Dan's girlfriend. So don't go anywhere.
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From National Geographic. Now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu. Show me the way. Welcome back to 2020 The After Show. I'm sitting here with Stephanie Ramos talking about our most recent 2020 episode, which was called Her Last Note. It centers around the story of 19-year-old Jessie Blodgett. And by the way, that title sort of touches on the fact that she was an aspiring musician.
She actually taught music lessons to children. And this is something that was just really, really, I think, heartbreaking in this story to talk about this young woman who was full of life, a performer, a who had been on stage. She starred in Fiddler on the Roof, we just talked about, had a couple of performances in that recently under her belt.
And so when police are trying to solve her murder, they're asking around, as they often will do, you know, if it's a married couple, they'll go to the spouse. If it's somebody like this, they'll go to their friends. Oh, absolutely. I mean, they were, investigators were fully aware of who they needed to talk to and that this was, that Jesse's circle of friends were performers. They were actors.
They were musicians. As we mentioned earlier, Dan slipped while being investigated about a completely separate attack. We interviewed one of Jesse's friends who said that the two were just really close, really, really talented. But clearly this young man was troubled. He had this act going, but deep down inside, he was a troubled victim.
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