A woman is murdered in her home and the pivotal clue at the crime scene is a bloody footprint her killer left behind. Erin Moriarty reports. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened on June 13, 1993?
But those good times were few and far between. Betty Ekman says she first noticed a change in her eldest daughter when she was a preteen.
She kind of lost her way when she was probably around 12, 13.
Betty says it wasn't until decades later that Jeannie claimed she had been abused by a male relative. Jeannie started running away from home.
I took my life in my own hands many a times to track her down. I could have been killed, but I had my Great Dane and a gun.
Would you sometimes find her?
Oh yeah, when she would come home, she was like a cat on a hot tin roof. She was so antsy, she couldn't stay very long.
As the time passed, she feared her daughter was using drugs and soon learned how Jeannie was making ends meet. And what did your daughter do?
Prostitution. I just hoped and prayed that she would stop.
At one point, it seemed she settled down long enough to get married, but her family says it didn't last long. Soon after, she married again to a man with children, and Jeannie became a stepmom. And they depended on her. She was the only mother they really knew. Even when Jeannie split with their father, she remained in the children's lives.
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Chapter 2: What evidence was found at the crime scene?
He easily volunteered his DNA. He also allowed himself his footprints to be taken. Then his footprints were compared to the bloody footprints in Jeanne's bedroom.
According to a lab report, the footprints were inconclusive and Eswine's DNA was not found inside Jeannie's apartment. The mystery only deepened. Investigators knew from the case file that there were DNA profiles discovered at the crime scene that had never matched to anyone.
Andrea Fea, a forensic scientist with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, performed additional testing on the evidence that was collected back in 1993. And she noticed something unusual about one of the unknown DNA profiles.
That DNA profile repeated itself throughout the crime scene.
It was on the comforter. It was on the blue towel. It was found on the blue washcloth and the red T-shirt. Correct. And on the sink.
Yes. Those were the only areas that we tested that ended up matching each other, essentially.
Investigators then turned to Investigative Genetic Genealogy for answers. The unknown DNA profile was submitted to genealogy websites, including MyHeritage.com.
The forensic genealogist indicated that she had a match, potentially two brothers here in Minnesota.
And one of the brothers was a man named Jerry Westrom.
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Chapter 3: How did investigators identify the killer?
That just doesn't mysteriously show up. He had to be there.
So you think he probably was in that apartment at some point.
You know, you can't run from that evidence. He had to have been there. Don't get there by accident. You don't believe he was there the day that Jeannie Childs was murdered? I don't.
48 Hours legal consultant Julie Rendelman says the evidence in this case does raise questions. According to lab reports, there was other DNA from semen discovered on Jeannie's purple panties that does not match Westrom. Whose DNA it is remains, even today, a mystery.
And that wasn't all. There was DNA from other individuals that did not belong to Jerry Westrom, but clearly belonged to a male source.
Rendelman points to that DNA found in the stairwell, close to bloodstains identified as belonging to Jeannie Childs.
Jerry Westrom's DNA is not in the stairwell, but we know that there's at least one other person whose DNA blood is found in that stairwell.
Remember, that stairwell DNA matched John Eswine. When investigators interviewed him, he couldn't recall how his blood ended up in the stairwell not far from Jeannie Child's apartment on the 21st floor.
His answers were a bit peculiar, I found. And the reason I say that is because He actually describes being there one time. And why does that bother you? So it bothers me because how the heck would he remember when he's interviewed all these years later that he was there but only there once, and the one time he says he was there was years before the murder? It just, it felt a bit convenient.
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Chapter 4: What role did DNA play in solving the case?
Yes.
It comes down and recurves back up. And for a friction ridge examiner, that's pretty exciting.
When she compared E2 to Jerry Westrom's footprints, she followed the curves and finally... And who do you believe left that footprint at the crime scene?
That was Jerry Westrom's left foot.
And you're sure of that?
Positive.
McCarthy agreed with Mark Ulrich. E2, the small area below the left big toe, had been placed there by Jerry Westrom. But she disagreed with Ulrich on the other three footprints.
I went through and did the comparisons that Mark had made identifications with. I didn't agree with him.
She believed those three prints didn't have enough detail.
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