Chapter 1: What events led to Jason Vesper's tragic death?
Hi, everyone. Ashley Flowers here. If you're like me, diving into true crime is about more than just the details of a case. It is also about giving a voice to the victims and understanding the lives behind the headlines. And this is what host Kylie Lowe does each week on her podcast, Dark Down East. Every Thursday, Kylie dives into New England's most gripping mysteries.
uncovering stories in a way you won't hear anywhere else and she digs through archives connects with families and shines a light on the voices that deserve to be heard from cold cases to moments of long-awaited justice dark down east is the perfect blend of investigations and honoring the stories behind them you can find dark down east now wherever you're listening
Our card this week is Jason Vesper, the Ten of Diamonds from Nebraska. The year of 2008 had barely gotten started when 40-year-old Jason Vesper found himself in the middle of a family argument with his wife and teenage son. In the early hours of January 2nd, Jason left the family home in Scottsbluff to go for a short drive and blow off some steam. It was his M.O. when he needed to decompress.
As Jason walked into the dark towards his pickup with snow still lying thick on the ground, no one could have predicted the horror that would unfold over the next few minutes. Jason's last moments were caught almost entirely on surveillance footage, except for a short window in which he was viciously and deliberately murdered.
What exactly transpired between Jason and his killer during that period never captured on film? Why did Jason become a target during a spur of the moment drive? And was the killer, or killers, closer to home than anyone could have imagined? I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck.
911 emergency. Oh my God, what is going on? What happened? I don't want to work. I don't want to go to work. Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, you're going to have to calm down. I cannot understand you. The doctor is bleeding, and he's tracking, and someone's watching. I don't know what happened. Who's bleeding? My... What?
My dad's bleeding in the mouth and nose and I went to go help him and he was like passed out. He's what? He was like passed out. He's off now. Who's passed out? My dad. Is he outside or in the street? He's out. He was in someone's yard. Something happened with his truck. Okay, and who are you? I'm his daughter, Danny Lesper. Okay, is he passed out? How old is he? Does he have an accident?
Okay, and nobody else around in the area? There's no one around in the area?
Danny Vesper was only 14 years old when she made that desperate 911 call on January 2nd, 2008, just after 1 o'clock in the morning. She had just found her father's blue Dodge Dakota pickup truck a few doors down in a neighbor's yard, tires spinning in a foot of snow, with Jason still strapped into the driver's seat, bleeding out.
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Chapter 2: What details do we know about the night of Jason's murder?
As Danny waited for help in the dark, she frantically questioned what could have happened to her dad. Less than 30 minutes ago, Jason had left the family home after an argument between him and his wife, Debbie. The couple had gotten to a heated conversation about their son, Josh, who had left a few hours earlier. Debbie wanted to spend the evening as a family.
Josh wanted to go see his girlfriend. It was like a typical teenager versus parent scenario. And Debbie ended up taking Josh's phone from him during the disagreement. But Jason gave it back to him before Josh ultimately left, which, as you can imagine, only caused more tension between the couple. So Jason decided to take a drive, like he always did when he needed to decompress.
What had started as a casual drive around the neighborhood had left Jason slumped in his pickup, covered in blood, going in and out of consciousness. Dani, who was now waiting on emergency personnel, knew that her dad was running out of time. And I'm sure all she was thinking was how had this happened? Had Jason somehow crashed his vehicle on the way home? Or had something more sinister happened?
The initial call was the patrol officers responded to what they believed was an injury accident with a vehicle crashing or getting stuck in a neighbor's driveway. There was also some information that there was a possible assault involved. Officers arrived and found Jason in his vehicle, pretty much unconscious by the time law enforcement arrived.
It wasn't until EMS responded later and they found that there were multiple stab wounds to his upper body that eventually led to his death.
That was Administrative Sergeant Andrew Soucy of the Scotts Bluff Police Department, who was assigned Jason's case in January of 2026. But back in 2008, when Jason's family heard that he'd been stabbed, they couldn't believe it. How? I mean, he hadn't been planning to go out. He didn't even have any known enemies who were after him.
This was a well-liked family man who worked hard at a local lumber store. Why would anyone want to hurt him? Almost 20 years later, his son Josh still cannot come up with an answer that makes any sense.
My dad as a person growing up, he was a man who lived by his values. He exemplified them in his life every day. And he was one that valued hard work. He was the rock of our family. He was the main breadwinner, the supporter of our family. And so work was very important for him, and he loved what he did, but... He valued his family over everything.
So imagine the shock and devastation Josh felt when the first person investigators became suspicious of was him. On paper, 18-year-old Josh had a motive. Not a great one, in my opinion, but I guess to them, a teenage boy being mad at his dad over not being allowed to see his girlfriend was enough of a motive for murder, or at least enough of a motive to question him about it.
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Chapter 3: What happened during the crucial moments captured on surveillance?
And they would come in and check on me and talk to me and give me water and drinks. And then after a very long period of time of waiting by myself, finally they called me back and wanted to talk to me. I remember going in and sitting down with the investigator and we were kind of going through a lot of the same questions and things that we had talked about at the hospital.
Recovering the story, what had happened that evening. I was very understanding of why they were calling us back in. But then there was this point in the interrogation where The interrogator just kind of flipped from, I would say, a nice guy to very aggressive.
At one point, he kind of flipped the script on me and just kind of started slamming his table on the ground and said, you know, how did it feel? And I said, what do you mean, how did it feel? He did it again. He said, how did it feel when you were jabbing that knife into your father's chest? Knowing that I would never do something like that, there was no way I was gonna let them think that.
I was gonna do whatever I had to do to show them that they're looking the wrong direction.
Josh's quick cooperation convinced investigators fast that they were indeed looking in the wrong direction. Josh's girlfriend Hannah, who is now his wife, confirmed that Josh was with her and her family at the time Jason was found bleeding to death. The rest of the immediate family also had alibis. Both Danny and Debbie were at home together during the time police estimated Jason was killed.
And unlike many of the pre-digital era cases that we cover on this show, there was a lot of technology police could use to piece together where people were and when. In fact, this case is unusual in that nearly every moment of Jason's time after leaving his house is caught on camera, starting from when Jason pulled out of his driveway in his pickup truck at 12.46 a.m.
Just one minute after Jason Vesper pulled out of his driveway, cameras down the road captured him pulling up to a Sitco gas station. The timestamp was 1247 a.m. The image we got from law enforcement is grainy, but you can see Jason walking away from his truck towards the entrance. Then a camera captures him inside.
So when Jason arrives at the gas station, he walks in and he's observed on video footage being on his phone. He had called his son to kind of check in on him to make sure he was fine and to tell him, you know, maybe you find a place to stay for the night until your mother cools down. He was the only customer in the store at that time. Only other person was the store clerk.
She was interviewed and remembers him coming in. He uses the restroom real fast. He went to get a soda, which he remembered because she was cleaning the soda machine at the time and actually sprayed some soda on him. And then he purchased some cigarettes and he left. In total, he was probably only at the gas station for about four minutes.
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